“Oh, wonderful, Fort. I’m glad to see that all that time spent working in food prep has had some use after all.” Horribly, I could see from her face that she was actually sincere in this compliment. She leaned over the bowl, smiling. “That, my brother, is a blood clot. Now, scoop it up and drop it in the garbage.”
Ew, I thought, but I did as she asked, fishing it out with my little colander, and dropping it into the trash. “Um, why are we doing this?”
“Keep mixing, Fort.” I did as she asked, and she nodded, pleased. “Because we are agitating the blood, we are forcing the clots to form. By removing all of the clots, we will be left with a bowl of blood that is minus the clotting factors. In point of fact, we will have a bowl of defibrinated blood, which will remain liquefied and clot free when we put it in the refrigerator.”
As I had many, many times before, I wondered what horrible wrong I had committed in some past life that I’d been born a vampire. Surely a benevolent deity would simply have made me into a dung beetle? I scooped out another few clots, and then stared at my sister. “The refrigerator?”
“Just so.” She glanced down into the trash, where more clots were piling up, and sighed. “Of course it’s so terribly wasteful, to say nothing of the proteins that you lose by removing the clots, but there’s no way to store it otherwise.”
“Why don’t we just use bagged blood, from hospitals? I’m pretty sure that they keep all of this stuff in it.” For a moment I wondered if I was being forced to whisk a bowl of blood out of some bizarre character-building exercise, like the time in Cub Scouts when they gave us cups of cream and made us hand-churn butter.
“Ah, a question Chivalry and I asked ourselves a number of years ago, as it happens. Well, what we discovered is that hospital or research blood has been citrated, meaning that they have added trisodium citrate to it. It has no effect on humans, but we both tried it, and it made us horribly nauseated. Defibrinated blood may mean extra work, but it’s far better than uncontrollable vomiting. Such a process, of course—all this work, and you have to deal with more humans. Ah, it looks like you’ve gotten all the clots. You can stop mixing now.”
I tapped the extra blood off the colander and set it down in Prudence’s sink. My sister was reaching into yet another cabinet, and this time she emerged with one of those tall, thick, 1980s Tupperware rectangles with the removable lid on top and the handy bunghole to pour with. My foster mother, Jill, had used exactly that type of Tupperware to make lemonade from concentrate when I was little, and I watched in a detached kind of horror as my sister unknowingly defiled a small piece of my childhood as she carefully poured the blood from her silver bowl into the Tupperware and pressed the lid securely on.
She looked at her handiwork and gave a little moue. “Fort, I am sorry to say that the taste of blood is most definitely not improved by sitting in the fridge, and this will be rendered utterly undrinkable in two days. And unlike revenge or a fine mint julep, this is not a beverage that is best served cold—you will want to make certain that it is body temperature. Microwaves can be a dance with disaster—I’d suggest sticking to warming it in a saucepan. But when you do, remember that it’s just like warming up milk—too much heat and it’s ruined.” She popped the Tupperware into her fridge.
“Okay, that’s pretty much seared into my memory.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, with zero irony. “Now here are a few more important details—Chivalry drinks one pint of harvested human blood every three days, then roughly a pint and half directly from the vein from his wife every fifteen days. It’s my understanding that his wives watch their diets very closely, take vitamin supplements, and will usually receive a blood transfusion later in the day that Chivalry feeds from them.”
I looked directly at my sister. “And how do you feed?”
She smiled. “I drink directly from the vein every three days.”
“Do you . . .” The thought of those numbers shook me deeply, and my mind raced. “Are you feeding from multiple people?”
“Mother does that with her politicians. She must have a stable of at least a hundred, really. That spreads the impact, since she rarely feeds on the same individual more than once or twice in a single year.” Prudence’s voice became cautionary. “But she’s old, Fort, and her blood is very strong. One tiny sip and a human’s loyalty is hers—you saw for yourself how much of mine it took for Jon. Chivalry would need an entire glass at least, and I’d suggest that you just go straight for a roofie and knock the human out, or ask one of us for help. No, I have no desire to waste the blood and energy to maintain a stable. I’ll feed on our nice Mr. Einarsson every three days as I need, and when his health starts deteriorating, I’ll find a new source.” Still seated on his stool, Jon smiled at the sound of his name.
I could feel a part of myself curling up inside. How I was continuing to stand here talking with my sister was incredible to me—maybe I was in shock. “How long will he last?” I looked at Jon, trying to wrap my head around the idea that because of what my sister, no, what we had done to him, he was going to die.
“For me to feed on? Perhaps five, six months before he becomes visibly ill. He’ll be receiving regular transfusions, of course, the same arrangement that Chivalry makes, so he won’t dry up of anemia on me. If I stop feeding when the illness becomes obvious, he might live a year before everything falls apart. But since I have no desire at all for some bright young thing at a hospital to think she’s found a new chronic disease, generally it’s a good idea to arrange an accident around that point. Muggings gone wrong, brake failures, house fires.” She was so calm, so flippant. Listening to my sister talk, I was viscerally reminded of who she was, and who I would have to become—that I would have to choose between Prudence’s high body count or Chivalry’s slow murder. While I was absorbed by the echoes of my internal trauma, Prudence was turning to Jon with another of those small, cruel smiles. “Now, you wouldn’t tell a soul about any of this, would you, Jon?”
He thought it over, then asked, “Would you want me to?”
“No, not ever.”
“Oh, okay, then.” It was so easy for him, and he smiled sunnily at her.
“Would you like to come over here on Sunday and feed me again?” Prudence asked.
Jon nodded immediately. “Of course.”
“Excellent,” she praised him.
It was horrible. The whole thing was beyond horrible, a theft of willpower. “He’s like your own zombie, Prudence,” I said hoarsely.
“They’re always like that initially. Given an hour, however, and he’ll be back to normal.” She reached down and traced her finger in one drop of blood that had dripped down during her transfer of the whisked blood into the Tupperware, one tiny little dot of red against the pristine white marble island top, and smiled. “The only thing that will have changed is how he feels about me.” Then she looked at me with those brilliant, and so very, very cold blue eyes. “Have I answered all of your questions, little brother?”
I was already edging toward the door. “Very thoroughly.”
Those blue eyes glinted dangerously. “You will come to me, of course, if you have any follow-ups that you think of later. I do so want to make certain that you are prepared when your transition is completed, and you must remove yourself from Mother’s skirts and obtain your own dinner.”
I muttered something—I had no idea what—but it was enough for Prudence to nod and give me that terrifyingly cheery wave. I pounded down the steps, and was out her door and to the Fiesta as quickly as possible without quite running. My hand was shaking badly enough that it took three tries for me to unlock my door, and how I got myself home without an accident I couldn’t even imagine, since I was running basically in a fugue state of shock, my mind replaying over and over that placid, peaceful look on Jon’s face as he watched his blood flow steadily into that silver bowl.
The apartment was empty, and I went straight to the bathroom, dropping my clothes onto the floor while I
cranked the water on. The ancient pipes started groaning, and I got under the spray without waiting for it to warm up all the way. The water was so cold that it actually hurt, but I ignored it and squeezed a dollop of shampoo into my hand and started scrubbing. I looked down and watched the water circling around our perpetually partially clogged drain. It was all clear, which surprised me. Between my attack on James yesterday and what I had helped Prudence do to Jon in her kitchen today, I felt like the water should’ve been stained red.
I scrubbed until the water was warm, and then kept scrubbing until the upper layer of my oversaturated skin started peeling off under my washcloth. It wasn’t until the water started cooling down on me again that I finally turned the tap off and got out of the shower. I hadn’t brought clean clothes in with me, and looking down at the pile of new clothes puddled on the floor, I knew that I didn’t want to put those back on. I tied the towel around my waist, then wadded up the clothing and carried it with me into my room, tossing it in the corner, behind an old box of DVDs, where I wouldn’t see it.
I didn’t want to think about how my brother had bought the clothes for me, because I didn’t want to think about Chivalry at all right now. I didn’t want to think about the decisions he had made, and what I suddenly understood about them now. I didn’t want to imagine Chivalry with a bleeding bowl, finding people to siphon his pints out of. I didn’t want to think of my brother bent over Bhumika’s arm twice a month, his teeth piercing her dusky skin, feeding even though it meant that he was killing her just a little at a time.
I didn’t want to wonder whether at some point, maybe on one of their initial dates, or maybe even earlier, when he was first interested in her, my brother had mixed his blood with a little wine and handed it to Bhumika and watched her drink it down. Bhumika had told me once that Chivalry had told her everything about who he was, what he was, and that she had made her decision to be with him with the full knowledge that it would lead to her death. But now I remembered Jon Einarsson’s face, how willing and eager he had been to do anything Prudence wanted him to. And I couldn’t stop myself from wondering whether Bhumika’s decision had been real.
I pulled on sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, running on autopilot. My mind was running numbers. Chivalry’s wives died slowly before him, while Prudence killed fast. My mother fed from more than a hundred, but how much did she shorten the lives of her victims with that bi-yearly bite? Numbers rolled through my head as I sank down onto my bed. I’d been delighted when I’d finished my last required math classes, never feeling like I had any particular aptitude for the subject, but now equations were putting themselves together in my brain with horrifying ease.
If Chivalry fed from his wife twice each month, how many bites were enough to kill healthy women in the prime of their lives? How many times would Prudence feed from Jon in the kitchen before she felt that he was a liability to be disposed of? My brain, suddenly my most unhelpful organ, conjured a picture for me of Bhumika, the last time I’d seen her—tucked into bed, surrounded by IV drips, attended by home hospice nurses. And my brother, looking so pained—had he looked like that when he had leaned down to bite her arm and feed? Had he removed her IV, or just bitten in a different spot to avoid disturbing it? Had she looked at him with that terrifying passivity that Jon had shown, even as each new bite rushed death forward?
Would that be me? A hundred, fifty, thirty, ten years from now? One year from now? Or would I be standing in Prudence’s kitchen, where her newest victim, caught for me, would be asked if he minded at all if Prudence’s baby brother took a drink?
I could hear Jon’s voice so clearly. “Well, that doesn’t sound too bad.”
There was a ringing sound, my phone. I hit the button to ignore the call. It started ringing again, though, and I hit ignore a second time. The third time, I threw my phone against my wall, and that stopped the ringing.
I heard Dan come home, and he must’ve seen my car in the lot, because he called a hello. I didn’t say anything, and I heard him walk into his own room and close the door. The light from the window dimmed, then finally died altogether, but I didn’t bother to turn on my bedside light. I just sat in the dark and thought.
I thought about math, and numbers, and whether I could be brave.
My clock was behind me, so I didn’t know what time it was when my bedroom door opened and Suzume walked in. But I wasn’t surprised. Her floppy fleece hat and her green parka were tucked under her arm, and as she dropped them onto the floor and shoved the door closed with a lazy swipe of her foot, I realized that I’d been waiting for her.
“You weren’t answering my calls,” she said. She looked thoughtfully over to the mangled wreckage of my phone, lying in a small pile of abused electronics and drywall chunks. “I guess now I know why.”
There was no need to answer that. I looked up at her face, which was clearer to me than it should’ve been in the darkness of the room. Her dark eyes were cautious, probing, but not afraid. I wished with all my heart that I could’ve been born a fox.
“Suze,” I said as she walked closer. “If your living meant that other people would die . . . how many people would you be willing to kill? For you to keep living?”
She stopped, one of her feet still half lifted. I’d seen her do that as a fox many times—freezing, then holding still with perfect balance as she used her long, sensitive ears, her nose, or those bright eyes to locate the source of whatever had disturbed her perfect understanding of her surroundings. A moment passed; then her head tilted slightly to one side.
“Do you want to die, Fort?” she asked, cutting to the heart of my question. Her voice was soft, and so very carefully neutral.
“I should,” I whispered, and my voice broke along with that icy fog that had protected me until now, and everything inside me hurt so badly that it made what had happened to me physically when my body had rejected James’s body seem like a picnic. “I should be saying that my life isn’t worth someone else’s. I mean, if we’re sitting in an ethics class, that’s what I should be willing to do, right? If I die, all those people down the line over the next five or six hundred years . . .” I knew that number, because I’d thought through it for hours, and I’d run the numbers inside my brain for Prudence’s method and for Chivalry’s, and those numbers felt branded across my soul. “All those people who would die early because of me would live. . . .”
Suzume sank slowly into a crouch, as gracefully as a ballerina into a plié. Her face was right next to mine. “But.”
I hated myself. The answer was so clear, so undeniable, and I was craven and foul and rotten, and I said, “But I don’t want to die,” and I shuddered with the truth of it.
She watched me through mirrored eyes for a long moment, then leaned in, bridging the inches between our faces. Her dark hair fell around our faces in a curtain as she pressed her mouth against mine, not gently or deeply, but a hard press of lips. Nothing offered, nothing being coaxed, this kiss was a demand, and a promise. It went on for a long minute; then she pulled back. Her face was unreadable, but there was nothing unclear or unfeeling in what she said next. “I don’t want you to die either, Fort.”
I had no words, and just watched, my mouth still feeling the imprint of that stamp of ownership as she sank completely down, kneeling on my ratty secondhand rug. The long line of her side was pressed against my left leg, and she slid one hand up the leg of my sweatpants to rest against the back of my calf. My skin was so cold compared to the furnace of her body, and I could feel that heat spreading into my flesh.
“Now tell me what you learned,” she said, and her hand squeezed my leg ever so slightly. Looking in her eyes, I suddenly knew that she would hold me here until I told her, even if the walls of this apartment building fell down around us.
So I did. About attacking James, about helping my sister feed from Jon, about the numbers and the corrosion and death that my bite would bring, and what the unavoidable future in front of me was. During the entire recital,
Suze never interrupted me, simply stayed where she was, kneeling at my feet in the dark and listening.
When I was done, silence hung between us. Then she moved her head to the side, just a little, so that her cheek was now resting against my knee as she looked at me.
“Your sister didn’t say that feeding from the same human each time was required.” No lawyer looking for loopholes could’ve sounded more focused than she did.
“No, but,” and then I paused, seeing what she had pointed out with a brain that had been shaken loose of the terror that had clung to me. “Oh.” I looked down at her, and my hands slid onto her shoulders as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “You’re right. Prudence and Chivalry use the same source for convenience—Chivalry tries harder to maintain his wives’ long-term health by supplementing with stored blood, but he’s still biting them over and over. There’s nothing physiological to prevent me from biting a different human each time, to spread out and minimize the effects.” My mind raced now, thinking about how that could happen. My blood couldn’t entrance a human or steal their loyalty like my siblings’ blood could, and from Prudence’s inference, it would be decades at least before I gained that ability. But coaxing wasn’t my only option, and I only had to feed from a human two or three times each month. Providence was a big city—a bi-monthly mugging, perhaps, but one in which I stole the blood I needed rather than money? Something like chloroform, maybe, to disable my victim, prevent them from remembering my bite? Or maybe—
Suze’s laughter interrupted my thoughts, and I looked down at her. She was smiling widely up at me. “See?” she asked. “Now you’re figuring a way around it.”
I leaned closer, and pressed my forehead against hers, pressing my eyes shut to prevent myself from the ignominy of tears. “Thank you, Suze,” I said, my heart laid bare in front of her. She’d saved me—not just from the possibility of death, but from the worse one, of making the choice to live no matter what the cost.
Tainted Blood: A Generation V Novel Page 23