by Karen Payton
He had never seen anything quite like it. Not since that night in 1964.
As a youth of nineteen, he enjoyed the free love on offer in the 1960’s. But, when the girl was not giving it away, he took it anyway.
It was the height of summer, and he had been lying in the meadow, feeling the earth shake beneath him with the thumping bass of the live music a band was playing on the distant stage. He opened his eyes when a shadow drifted across his closed eyelids and watched the girl lower herself gracefully down onto the grass and rest her chin on a folded knee.
His groin tightened instantly at the glimpse of powder-blue panties.
She hid her face behind a curtain of silky hair and blushed delicately at his approach. He soon discovered the girlfriend she came with had met up with an old flame and, for now, she was alone.
He masked his flush of lust behind a soft voiced stammer and nervous gestures before he pulled her to her feet, begging her to go with him for a walk.
He couldn’t remember what she said, but he remembered smothering her screams when he pushed her down onto the gritty ground in the dank shadowed woodland. She was bra-less beneath the thin cotton dress, and his pleasure spiked when her tight body refused his probing fingers entry.
Fuck, a virgin.
His clamped hand bruised her face when he spread her thighs and buried himself inside her. His own juices lubricating a body locked tight around his in terror, he rammed his lust home until, in his moment of climax, he covered her mouth with his, and plunged roughly inside that too.
He used the panties to wipe the blood from his penis, smiling as he gently straightened her clothes and kissed her sweat soaked temple.
He had been a gentleman, and dropped her off at home afterwards, releasing her from the car to stumble to her door clutching torn clothes together over grazed skin.
He drove away from the house, but the gates at the bottom of the gravel driveway slammed shut at his approach. He opened his mouth to curse, and saw stars as his collar yanked tightly around his throat and he was ripped from the car. The stars imploded as he blacked out.
When he came to again, he was lying on the floor staring at just such a gold-dripping ceiling as the one in Serge’s study, and his throat was so swollen he could not swallow. A man strolled into view, swirling claret in his goblet, but even in a dazed state, the youth knew something was wrong. The sluggish red liquid clung obscenely to the glass.
The man had slick black hair, and there was not one wrinkle on his face. He’s far too young to be the girl’s father. He took heart. Rolling himself up from the floor and putting out a hand to support his weight, the boy recoiled as it sank into a cold wet patch on the carpet. Lifting his hand and looking down at his blood-soaked palm was a brain-numbing moment when, for a bright young man, he was very slow on the uptake.
The man’s gentle laughter drew the youth’s attention. The generous mouthful the well dressed man took from his glass stained his lips bright red and he nodded slowly at the horror spreading over his guest’s face. “Yes, this is your blood.” Jerking his chin towards the soaked carpet, he said conversationally, “And, so is that.”
As the boy stared blindly, the man vanished, blasting a chilled breeze over his bloodstained skin, and the youth finally got it. Clasping a hand over his torn, stinging throat he whispered, “I’m going to die.”
“Oh no.” The words slithered through his head. “Dying is too good for you.”
His nape prickled as a cold sweat held him locked tight.
“You will leave Newbury, of course. In fact, you will leave the county of Royal Berkshire, altogether. And...” The boy suddenly found himself shoved up against a wall, his toes barely brushing the floor as the man’s chalk-white face filled his vision. “If I see your face again, you will die.” The man’s ivory-clad fingers tucked a blood-smudged sheet of notepaper into the boy’s pocket, and he grinned. “I’m giving you a fighting chance, which is more than you gave my daughter.”
“Why?” he croaked.
The father laughed. “Because, I know you will suffer more as an immortal. You are a weak, spineless bastard. You’ll get it wrong, and you will die a painfully slow, dehydrating death.”
Well, I had the last laugh. He was wrong. I’m a fast learner, and almost fifty years later, I’m still here, older and wiser. Although, he still considered Royal Berkshire a no-go area, he had sense enough to know his luck could run out.
Focusing back onto Serge as the stale atmosphere in the room began to settle into his chest, the general coughed politely, commanding Serge’s attention once more.
“What have you to lose? If I turn up nothing, you owe me nothing. It is not a difficult decision,” he said mildly.
“Very well,” Serge stared long and hard into the gentle features, missing the glee glittering in the mud-colored eyes. “My guardsmen were searching the woodlands south of London. That should be your focal point.”
“I’ll surprise you, Councilor Serge. Of that, I am sure,” he purred, and with a wave of farewell, he left the house, grateful to fill his lungs with the damp night air.
His latest plan to ascend to power glowed like fire inside his belly, and he set off to begin his own grid search of the woods. Serge was right that the best place to start was to find out why his guardsmen never returned. The old man is hampered by secrecy. He can hardly shout about it when he’s breaking council rules by sending them out. But I have deniability, and walking in the woods is not a crime.
He liked that word. Deniability. It was what his own father had said as he wrote the check to pay off his third rape victim. When he had tried to offer excuses, his father silenced him with an upheld hand, and said, “I don’t want to know. If the police come banging on my door, I want deniability.”
Chapter 24
Just as he and Julian agreed, it was business as usual, and keeping eyes and ears open. Connor completed his surgical list at the hospital for the afternoon, and now his time was his own. He could have laid claim to the penthouse suite of the London Hilton Hotel as his home, when the spoils of London were up for grabs. However, the view from the twenty-seventh floor windows, taking in the majestic vista of Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace, was no longer breathtaking to him. The palace was an empty shell with a moss stained facade. Royal blood had proven to be no better at fighting off the ravaging disease of the pandemic than that of the commoner. It made a mockery of the splendid golden-hued Queen Victoria Memorial gracing the doorstep of the palace, which stood for victory.
In any case, Connor did not have much time to spare, and he headed unerringly towards the bowels of the hospital and his intellectual home; the laboratory.
He left the waxed corridors of the surgical wing behind, slipped through a door marked “Biological Hazard. NO ADMITTANCE”, and glided down the worn stone stairwell, his shoes barely grazing over the gray quartz glittering underfoot.
The airlock doors leading to the specimen laboratory sighed as Connor pushed through them. The thick stagnant air in the stark clinical space never bothered him, but he activated the ventilation system for the sake of his blood samples.
Pulling on a white coat, he scanned the white ceramic-tiled laboratory and pushed back the feeling of disappointment.
Vials of blood, some stored in glass fronted cabinets and more in racks spread out across the ice white counter-tops, glittered ruby-red in the stark lighting. In the ‘human zone’, Connor rearranged the organized clutter, unpacking vials from racks, checking labels, and filing away the test results. It was a never-ending task generated by the unrelenting flow of the blood samples from the farm. Human samples underwent screening; full blood count tests, the status of antibodies and immune systems all regularly checked.
Satisfied he was on-top of the daily chores, Connor walked around the peninsular counter-top into the ‘vampire zone’. He turned his back on the platelet agitators, thawing baths, and the incubator cabinet filled with petri dishes growing dubious looking clusters of cultured
cells.
Leaning back against the workbench and folding his arms, Connor stared at the twelve square yards of whiteboard mounted on the wall, upon which the progression of his thought process on replacing human blood in the vampire diet was carefully written.
The blood stored on this side of the divide was simian, and more than half the test tubes in the cabinets looked empty at first glance. But they were filled with the crystal-clear fluid of the blood substitute he hoped would provide the answer which would liberate both species.
Frowning, he studied the vector diagram illustrating the relationship between the antigens from the human ABO blood group system, and that of chimpanzees and gorillas. It was no surprise they shared characteristics, but isolating the formula which would allow animal blood to pass through the locked gateway of the vampire brainstem and hydrate the gray matter, in the same way human blood did, was like completing a jigsaw puzzle blindfolded... while wearing mittens.
The simian connection was an obvious one to explore, after all, the Rhesus system was the result of experiments which showed that rabbits, when immunized with Rhesus monkey red cells, produce an antibody which also bonds with the red blood cells of many humans.
Even before the pandemic, during his time performing surgery in field hospitals, Connor’s clinical curiosity led to him reading the Lancet articles on the results of early trials in the use of perfluorochemicals in the treatment of battlefield injuries. The particles of the blood substitutes were barely 1/40th the diameter of a human blood cell. They could carry oxygen to blood-starved tissue using the crushed capillaries along which blood cells could no longer pass.
Opening the door to the walk-in refrigerator, Connor pulled out a tray of test tubes filled with simian blood and set it on the counter. He dipped a pipette into a glass jar and filled it with the clear liquid of perfluorocarbon particles suspended in water, and added twelve drops of the solution to each test tube. Connor hoped that when emulsified with primate blood, these minuscule molecules would be capable of finding a way in to hydrate vampire brain tissue.
“It’s worth a shot.”
Connor crossed the lab, zeroed in on the orbital vortexer sitting on the polished granite counter, and transferred the test tubes into the Perspex holding box, clipping each glass vessel into an uptight position.
The shrieking lament of the warning siren penetrated into his basement domain as a mere whisper vibrating through the bricks and mortar. But it pierced Connor’s concentration like a red-hot needle and he froze.
“The farm.”
The emergency siren meant only one thing, a human was about to die.
Connor’s chin jerked up, and, experiments forgotten, he shed the doctor’s whites, grabbed his great coat and disappeared out of the door. He mounted the stairs in an effortless flourish and took the shortest route out of the hospital, emerging into the dull afternoon sunshine. His face stung for a moment until, yanking his collar up and burying his face behind the shield of thick fabric, he automatically sidestepped into the shade.
The siren’s scream was unrelenting, reverberating inside his skull as he headed west out of London. Passing by Julian’s Richmond home, shadow-hopping instinctively, he covered the miles to the human farm complex at the vampire rate of Lord-knows-how-many miles per second.
“Supervisor Matthew better have a cast-iron excuse for this one,” he muttered at the waiting guard who opened the gate in the perimeter fence and cleared out of his way.
Connor wasted no time in getting to the last siphoning shed in the row, which housed the human surgical wing and medical ward. He shoved through the door and strode along the corridors, welcoming the sting of antiseptic inside his nose which sharpened his concentration. Bursting through a third set of doors, he came face to face with Supervisor Matthew.
“Well?” Connor barked, “And shut that damn noise off. I’m here now.”
“It’s a gynecological bleed. We’ve moved her into an operating theater. You’ll need to scrub in.”
“Shit,” said Connor, bursting into movement.
Stripping his coat from his shoulders while he moved, he barged through the door into the sluice room, stopped at the steel sink, and scrubbed ferociously at his hands. He stabbed his arms into the sterile gown held out by an attending vampire, and pushed his hands into latex gloves. In a continuous flow of movement, he backed out of the room and into the anteroom where three sets of theater doors faced him.
At the doorway of operating theater number two a clutch of vampire interns jittered from one foot to the other in disconcerted uncontrolled movements. Their shocked expressions were locked in place by the grip of their molded plastic masks, and the black beads of their pupils sparkled in the light when they all turned to look at Connor.
Connor was relieved to see Anthony, his surgical assistant, already there, standing with his back to the closed door. His sturdy physique made an effective barrier, guarding Doctor Connor’s domain, but his stiff face was paler than its usual shade of chalk-white, belying the stress he labored under. He croaked, “She’s bleeding out.”
Connor frowned and nodded tersely, “We’d better get in there, then.”
He quickly scanned the nervous faces crowding the space between him and the doors.
“Just you, Anthony, and get them out of here.”
He surged forward, bowled the interns aside, and entered his theater.
Stepping over the threshold was like walking into a room filled with water. The thick sweet sticky odor of blood flooded into his lungs. A harsh bark of anger cleared the smell from his sinuses and flipped the twinge of hunger over into cold rage.
His bleak gray gaze raked over the limp, pale girl lying on his operating table. He ground his teeth as the implication of the river of blood staining her bulging abdomen and thighs in the luster of macabre crimson hit home.
“Gynecological bleed? It’s a fucking bloodbath.”
His shoulders hunched with regret, Connor crossed the room and reached for the scalpel to finish the butchery she had started. He heard Anthony enter the theater.
“I can’t suture this mess up. It’s too late to do anything other than lengthen the incision and deliver the baby,” he said grimly, shooting a glance over his shoulder.
Connor’s penetrating glance became a driving, spiraling turn when a growl tore from Anthony’s throat and he dragged his plastic mask away to unveil a bloodlust-crazed stare.
Pinning his surgical assistant to the wall by the neck, it took all of Connor’s self-control not to crush Anthony’s windpipe as he battled his own demon, anger, borne of useless frustration. Another life lies wasted on my table. Dammit.
He lifted Anthony bodily. Scuffing his feet across the floor, he threw him against the operating room doors. Anthony’s colliding weight swung open an aperture that swallowed him as he fell out of the room and sprawled on the floor outside.
Watching the door swing shut again, Connor forced his words through clenched teeth. “Get out and stay out.” I’m going to have to do this alone.
Turning swiftly back into the room, Connor picked up the blade once more. The human girl’s head hung limply. He stared down at the relaxed muscles clinging to her bone structure; the raw ingredients which needed human emotions to give them meaning. To say she looked dead was simplistic, but truth often is. Connor’s features settled into a stillness which became every bit as eerie.
Her ruptured swollen abdomen oozed her life out onto the floor. He picked up a blunt edged C-section scalpel and sawed through the uterine wall. All he thought about was saving the baby.
“Dammit, how did she do this?” he rasped as he plunged his hands into a basin of boiling water, taking their temperature from icy to human warm.
The smell of her blood coated his throat, and even though hunger sliced a burning path through his gut, he slipped his hands inside her belly. Grimly, he lifted the wrinkled, red body from her and laid it in the cradle of the infant resuscitation table. He automatically wen
t through the actions needed to bring a parent joy, or thicken their joy to grief. In this case, it matters only to the dead; the council members will shrug and move on, and she can’t even do that.
His touch was sure, even when faced with the minute musculature and the fragile bones which were a delicate honeycombed masterpiece of nature. He inserted a bare inch of the finest catheter, using suction to clear the tubes, and then massaged the tiny chest. Resignation settled inside him as he tried to warm the baby’s limbs, rubbing the waxy, reddened skin. Nothing.
First-hand proof that the human breeding program was failing miserably slapped him in the face, and for the third time, all his brain could offer was, “Dammit.” Two girls had reached their third trimester, and the council had been tentatively hopeful. Eclampsia took one, and now, this.
Connor wiped blood-soaked hands down his green surgical gown. Being sterile no longer matters, it’s too late. The baby and the girl were both dead.
It was not the first time he realized that, in some, becoming a vampire eradicated empathy. Connor had never been sure if it was jealousy that humans had something they still yearned for, or the contempt of the suddenly superior. Either way, it doesn’t make for the caring bedside manners needed to reassure an expectant mother. Connor grinned wryly. As if we could ever fool them. But, this was a clear case of vampire complacency in believing the girl accepted her own and her baby’s fate. But how the Hell did she get hold of a knife.
The blue tinge of cyanosis enhanced her skin with a disconcerting ethereal beauty, dressing her features in lilac-tinted lace. Her expression was peaceful. “Well, you won,” Connor whispered as he passed his fingers over her face, gently pressing her eyelids closed.
Connor’s throat slammed shut. The lure of congealing blood was no less potent, and just a lick would course through him like a shot of heroin, but he thought of Rebekah, his warm, pliant, beautiful Rebekah, and walked away, seeking refuge in the welcome burn of anger.