Blood Day

by J. L. Murray

  “What the hell?” he said, staring at the needle taped to his arm. He looked around the room. Dim lights, a machine beeping, the smell of iodine.

  “Don’t move,” said a voice. A scrawny old woman bustled in, pushing a cart with a pitcher atop it. She pulled a table across the bed and poured Dez a glass of ice water and set it in front of him, nodding at it brusquely.

  “Who are you supposed to be? Bloody Nurse Ratched?”

  “You ought to watch your tone,” she said. Her hair was in a bun, but much of it had come out and hung around her face. Her pink sweater had brown streaks all over it. Dez realized it was blood. He reached up and gently touched his neck. It had been bandaged.

  “The girl,” he said. “She Goddamn bit me.”

  “You know her?” said the woman. She suddenly looked shaky, her eyes twitchy.

  “What do you know about her?” said Dez.

  “I know quite a lot,” she said softly, her eyes going soft and unfocused. “I think I made her who she is.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Evelyn,” she said. “Just Evelyn.”

  “Well, Evelyn,” said Dez, picking up the glass of water. “Why do you think you made Sia the way she is?”

  “Because I tortured her,” said Evelyn, her rigid body slouching. She focused on Dez. “It was all very firmly according to regulations.”

  “I know all about those,” said Dez. “I’m the one who brought her here.”

  “Oh,” she said weakly.

  “She’s with him, you know,” said Dez. “That vampire?”

  Evelyn snorted. “Which one?”

  “Joshua Flynn,” said Dez. “The one who wants to kill all the other ones.”

  “Does he?” said Evelyn.

  “We need to get out of here,” said Dez. “If he’s not already here, he’s coming. He loves that girl. I think. If it is possible for them to love.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” said Evelyn. “I owe her.”

  “Who, Sia?”

  “Have you heard her play?” said Evelyn. “You really should. She’s an angel.”

  “You’re crazy, lady,” said Dez, yanking the needle out of his arm, and holding the sheet over it to stop the bleeding. “Bitch tried to kill me.”

  “Don’t call her that.”

  “Why not?” said Dez. “She’s just like them now. You didn’t see her. We have to go. You saved me, so I’m grateful enough to get your ass out of this place.”

  “No,” said Evelyn. “I’m staying.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” said Evelyn, smiling ruefully. “I think I’m supposed to help her.With the children,” said Evelyn. “I know what to do. They need to be free.”

  “What, ” said Dez. “The kids who came up missing? You know where they are?”

  “If I give Sia the children, it will all be worth it. I can die knowing that she’s forgiven me.”

  “Even if she kills you?”

  “Oh, she’s going to kill me,” said Evelyn, with her eyes still closed. She looked peaceful. Dez pulled his shirt away from his body. It was stiff with dried blood. His own, he realized. If the van was still outside, he could make it out. They were far enough out of the city that he’d encounter very few obstacles.

  “I’m going to save the children,” said Evelyn.

  Dez stopped and looked at her.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” he said. “Okay, fine.What’s your plan, then?”

  Evelyn smiled.

  “Goddamn kids,” said Dez. “I better not die.”

  Thirty-Six

  Viv felt heavy, as though filled with stones. She tried to open her eyes, to see where the voices were coming from, but she also wanted to sink down in nothingness and stay there forever. Something had happened, but she couldn’t remember exactly what. Viv could hear a man talking, muffled, as if from another room.

  “If we want to survive, we’re going to need an army.”

  “They’ll have to be strong like her,” said a woman. “Not like these insects that buzz around you.”

  “I know that now,” he said, his voice bitter. “I had no idea that he had the will.”

  “It’s not him, exactly,” said the woman. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Of course it’s him.”

  “It’s not him alone, my love. It’s all of them. Together.”

  “You think it’s the humans who are going to be the end of me.”

  “Of us,” she said. “Not just you. It won’t be the end if we work quickly. If this works, we can focus on the children. We know how to fix them.”

  “It will work,” said the man. “Trust me, Margaret.”

  “When it’s all done, you’ll do the same to me.”

  The man sighed. “I owe you that much, I suppose.”

  Viv could feel something cold on her chest. No, not on her chest. Inside her chest. She tried to scream at the ice she felt there, where no ice should be. She managed to open her mouth, but all that would come was a whisper of a scream, something hollow and quiet and infinitely more horrible. Viv’s eyes sprung open and the first thing she saw was a metal ceiling. A bright light shining on her abdomen. Two people in white coats and surgical masks.

  “No,” Viv said, her voice only a whisper.

  “Hold her still,” said the man. Viv looked at him, the voice familiar. The face was human. But then she remembered Conrad changing right in front of her. Conrad touching her. Conrad showing her…

  Viv screamed then, the sound ear-piercingly shrill and the woman next to Conrad put her hands over her ears. He shouted and she came close to Viv’s face, holding her shoulders gently. Viv couldn’t move, and the hands touching her were warm, so much warmer than Viv. Oh god, she was so cold. Viv’s teeth started to chatter.

  “What’s happening?” Viv managed, as the woman stroked her hair.

  “It’s fine,” she said, and Viv recognized the voice of Margaret Watts. “Just be still and it will be over soon.”

  “Please stop,” said Viv. “I don’t want this.”

  “It’s okay, Dr. White. Everything’s going to change for you now,” said Watts, a smile in her voice. “You’re going to be strong. You’re not going to feel any more. That’s what you wanted.”

  “Yes,” said Viv, “but not like this.”

  “It has to be this way,” she said. “Just relax.”

  Viv looked around the room. The metal ceiling matched the metal walls and metal floor. She couldn’t move her head and she remembered Sia, strapped to a table with metal bands. On the wall, beyond the bright light placed directly above her, Viv squinted to make out a shape. Long in the middle, bulbously crucifix-shaped at the top. The details came into view as Margaret Watts prepared a syringe filled with a dark red fluid. The elongated spine, feet held to the wall with metal, and hands spread out like Christ on the cross. A dark, fathomless hole in the chest where a heart used to be, topped by a slumped, lifeless head.

  Viv’s eyes moved to the subtle glow from a shining box.

  “Oh my god,” she said.

  “It’s not as bright as Mathilde’s,” said Margaret, “but she wasn’t using it. And it will serve you well with the right blood.” She held up the large syringe and gazed lovingly at it.

  “I don’t want to be a monster,” Viv said.

  “You won’t be a monster, my dear. “You’ll be beautifully deadly. Such a pretty face. We’re not going to bottle feed you like all the others. She deserves something fresh, don’t you think, Ambrose? We could give her the reporter. ”

  Conrad glanced up from his work and grunted. “Quite. Two birds with one stone.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want him?” said Watts. “He might be like her.”

  “No, he’s been damaged,” said Conrad, and Viv saw that he held a scalpel covered in blood. Her whole chest was numb, but she could feel him doing something to her.

  “An unfortunate happenstance,” said Margaret. “The Revenants responsible?”


  “They thought they were getting information about the rebel. As if he would tell a human his plans.”

  “Well,” she said, “he did tell one human.”

  He snorted. “She’s not human. She hasn’t been just human in a very long time, I’d wager. Since he claimed her.”

  Margaret looked back at Viv, who was trying to speak, but found her voice was gone. Something was wrong. She felt strange and cold and the edges of her vision were going dark.

  “Oh, my dear. Don’t be afraid. You’re just going to die for a moment. You’ll be back and you’ll be so much changed you won’t recognize yourself. Just relax and close your eyes. When you awaken nothing will hurt and you will have yourself again, no pain or worries.”

  Viv tried to speak, but all that came was a whisper. Margaret leaned her head down to hear. Viv whispered again.

  “He’ll never give you what you want,” she breathed into Margaret’s ear.

  Margaret’s eyes widened as Viv’s vision grew darker. She looked at the dead Revenant on the wall. Naked, with her breasts hanging on either side of the hole carved in her chest. Viv began to laugh.

  “Why is she laughing?” said Conrad from very far away.

  “Because she’s about to be magnificent,” said Margaret.

  Everything was dark. Viv floated down and she was sure that she would never tire of the silence. No talking, no worries. No people or Revs or blood or death. Just...nothing. Viv let herself fall and felt the dark softness surround her. A memory of her mother floated into her head. Viv as a child, afraid of the dark. Her mother had been alive and soft and warm and made Viv feel safe whenever she was near.

  “Genevieve, don’t be afraid of the night.”

  Viv hugged her tight, tears on her cheeks.

  “I’m not afraid of the night, Mom. I’m afraid of the dark.”

  Her mother had laughed. “There’s magic in the dark. Are you afraid of magic?”

  “No,” she said. “But it doesn’t feel like magic.”

  “Are you sure?” her mother said. And then Viv felt it. A sparkle in the air, in the still darkness, in the night.

  “But there are bad things in the night,” said Viv.

  “There are bad things, yes,” said her mother. “But only because they want to steal our magic.”

  Viv floated and remembered her mother. She remembered how she looked forward to the darkness after that. The way she would touch everything in her path, every shadow, every piece of furniture, every bit of wall, just to make sure she wasn't missing any of the magic. As she felt the darkness envelop her, she could feel magic in the silence. Magic in herself. The dark answered by cradling her, comforting her, by wrapping itself around her until she felt safe again. Viv cried because it was the first time she felt safe since her mother died.

  You’re not going to feel ever again, came Margaret’s words in her head. But then another voice vibrated inside her and all around her.

  “They want to take your magic, Genevieve.”

  “Mom?” Viv said, her head throbbing. Her whole body throbbing.

  “Don’t let them take you, Genevieve. You take them right back.”

  And then the darkness crashed away from her and the light bashed into her senses like a wrecking ball. Viv gasped as she felt the furnace of heat explode inside. She was being lifted like a rag doll by the arms. She felt her head flopping back and she tensed her neck to hold it rigid. She forced her head up and blinked her eyes. She could smell the blood, her own and that of three others. She looked at the dead Rev on the wall and saw every pore on her skin and felt the relief when she died. She turned her head to the two living faces in front of her. Conrad had taken his mask off and she saw him growing brown like a tree as he screamed. The other face was once so beautiful but was now growing old. She could see that Conrad was infatuated with that face once, but Viv knew why she was still here. She was too old to change. She felt her face shift and change, and the pain was exquisite.

  “It was indeed the blood,” said Conrad. “We needed strong blood.”

  “Your blood,” said Margaret Watts. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Yes,” said Conrad. “She certainly is.”

  Viv swung her body to sit with her legs dangling from the table. Everything was warm and wet with blood.

  “Your blood,” said Viv, her voice low like a growl, her words strange around her long teeth. She reached up and touched her face and it was smooth, flat. “It was your blood.”

  “Yes,” said Conrad, and he smiled warmly. Viv saw a tree around him for a moment before it was gone again and she tried not to laugh. She looked at Margaret Watts. Conrad was looking at her too, and the woman seemed to realize all eyes were on her. Viv licked her sharp teeth, letting the point cut her tongue just a little so she could taste her own blood. It was heavier, darker. And the night was full of magic. She could see every vein in Margaret’s body, she could see the goosebumps rise on her skin, she could feel her fear.

  “I know how you die,” said Viv.

  “What?” said Margaret. “How?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” said Viv. She looked at Conrad. “You know it’s coming.”

  Conrad didn’t look surprised.

  “I can stop it,” he said. “I can make an army.”

  “You made an army of weaklings,” said Viv. “You made an army of fools. You took away their exoskeletons and replaced them with fine clothes and money.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Where are the children?” said Viv.

  “They’re safe,” said Conrad.

  “Nothing’s safe,” said Viv. “And her?”

  Conrad shook his head. “She’s too old. I can’t change her. It will kill her.”

  “Better that she die now, ” said Viv. She looked at Margaret, who flattened herself against the wall. “Who else?” said Viv. “Who else can you change?”

  “Only the children,” said Conrad.

  “Then that’s where we’re going,” said Viv. She smiled. “After I eat.”

  “No!” said Margaret. “Ambrose, stop her! You promised me. I loved you, ever since I was a girl. You promised you’d make me the same as you.”

  “I lied,” said Conrad, looking away.

  “You love her still, even as she ages,” said Viv.

  “Take her,” said Conrad. “Take her now.”

  “You said I wouldn’t feel,” said Viv.

  “Do you?”

  “Not yet,” said Viv. “But you do. Will I? Will I feel it when I’m not so young?”

  “Time will tell,” said Conrad. But Viv knew he was lying. She could see it in herself. Once she was broken, even magic couldn’t fix it. Even magic wasn’t enough to fill up the cracks. She pulled Margaret away from the locked door she was frantically trying to open. Viv was indeed beautifully terrifying, and Margaret now knew what that meant. Viv saw it in her eyes, and behind her eyes, in her mind.

  “I told you not to turn me into a monster,” said Viv.

  The blood tasted like honey.

  Thirty-Seven

  Sia walked into the hospital with Joshua Flynn at her side. She turned the handle of a door marked “A.” It opened easily, unlocked.

  “They’re coming,” said Joshua, looking behind him. “From everywhere.”

  “Who?” said Sia.

  “Conrad’s followers. And…others.”

  “What others?”

  “Humans,” he said. “From the city. Can you hear them? So much blood, so much hate.”

  “How did they know?”

  “The journalist,” he said. “They’re looking for him. They have been searching for him for days. They know how to kill the Revs now—”

  “Kill us,” said Sia.

  “Yes. But they won’t touch us.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because we are fast,” he said. He trailed a finger down Sia’s cheek. “And we are beautiful. They will only be looking for ugliness.”

  “M
ike Novak tried to save me,” she said. “But they took him.”

  “I owe him much,” said Joshua.

  “Then perhaps we won’t kill him,” said Sia.

  “Perhaps,” said Joshua. “If that’s what he wants.”

  “My daughter is here, Joshua. Conrad told me.”

  “He’s a liar.”

  “Not about this.”

  “Am I going to lose you, Sia?” he said, and there was such grief in his voice that Sia reached for him. “We should go now, before you get hurt again.”

  “I am already hurt,” she said.

  “There are things that hurt more than pain, Sia.”

  She smiled sadly at him. “I know, my love.”

  His face was suddenly very close to hers. She breathed him in, the heat of him.

  “You cannot be a mother and a monster, Sia,” he whispered.

  “I don’t want to be a mother,” said Sia. “I just need to save her. She is a part of me, and they will pay for ever daring to touch her.”

  “So it’s revenge.”

  “I’ll save her, Joshua,” said Sia. “I will make her safe. I’ll kill as many of them as I have to. As many as it takes until she’s safe. I’ll do for her what I could never do before.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Protect her,” said Sia.

  “You protected her as much as you could,” he said.

  “I’m not weak anymore,” she said.

  “You never have been weak,” he said. “You don’t have to prove your strength. We could go away now. We could leave this place. I could keep you safe.”

  “I don’t want to be safe,” said Sia. “I want to kill everyone who ever touched me, Joshua. Everyone who ever touched her. I want to make them pay for what they’ve done. I want them to fear me.”

  He smiled. “I understand. By the time the sun comes up they will scream your name. My Sia.”

  “And they will die begging for mercy,” she said. “Stay with me, Joshua. Until the end.”

  He nodded, closing his eyes.

  “Of course.”