The man chuckled. “Very well. My name is Henry Longo. I specialize in genetic research. I’m also a senior cleric with the Hand of God.”
Nicola stiffened. Many of his American kin had been killed by Hand of God members. Bombings, beheadings, and torture made up their bailiwick. He would die here unless the Conclave could find him quickly, and his stomach soured at the thought of what he might endure before he succumbed.
“For eight years, we’ve been studying your kind. Running tests on your blood, working on a way to end you. Such progress we’ve made. But now, we need a live test subject. You…well, let’s just say your luck is terrible.” Henry lifted a shoulder casually. “Now, I have everything I need.”
“And the girl?”
Henry snorted. “My daughter is so trusting. The perfect bait. Too bad you didn’t use your mind control on her before I shot you. She screamed for hours afterward.”
Nicola launched himself at the silver bars, cursing in his native tongue. He rattled the cage until the silver leached all of the strength from his limbs and he collapsed to the floor, panting. Blood trickled from his wounds. “You…bastard.”
“Save your strength, vampire. You're going to need it.” Henry pulled a tray closer, letting his gaze rove over blades, syringes, and test tubes.
“What are you going to do to me?” Nicola dragged himself back towards the cot, but he couldn’t manage to get off the floor.
“I’m working on a serum to counteract the speed of your healing. I gave you a dose when we brought you in. Why do you think you’re still bleeding after nearly twenty-four hours?”
Henry retrieved a silver tray from a table and slid it through a small slot close to the ground. A gray, gelatinous square sat on the deadly metal, with a few drops of blood dotting the top.
“Eat.”
That was food? Nicola managed to get himself back onto the cot and stretched out his long legs. He might as well get comfortable. “Why? If you’re just going to kill me or try to kill my kind, I see no reason to make things easy for you.”
“If you don’t eat, I’ll just tranq you and force it down your throat. Don’t push me, bloodsucker. You won’t enjoy the consequences.” Henry drew a pistol from a holster strapped to his waist and fired.
A small dart pierced Nicola’s shoulder. With his arms chained, he couldn’t remove the needle. Despite the fear that gripped him, the drug filled his body with a pleasant warmth, and he started to float.
“What’s your name?” Henry asked.
Nicola laughed weakly. “Do you expect me to tell you?”
“Yes, actually. I expect you to tell me all your secrets. After all, I have a very large supply of silver.”
“To use your American vernacular, ‘fuck you.’ I am very old and alone in this world. You have no leverage.” His tongue felt thick in his mouth, but he fought to remain awake. “I have suffered more pain in my long life than you could possibly imagine. So whatever you have planned for me, do your worst. Either I will die at your hand, or I will rip out your throat. But my name and my secrets will never pass my lips.”
Henry stalked out of the room, and Nicola closed his eyes, allowing the drugs to take him. As he let go, he prayed. “Per favore Dio, uccidimi.”
Please, God. Kill me.
2
Snoqualmie Catacombs - July 2018
Pinwheeling her arms as she ran through the halls, thirteen-year-old Evangeline pretended she was racing through the woods, letting the summer breezes ruffle her hair.
Her pink flannel shirt flapped around her thin frame. Two sizes too big and threadbare at the elbows, the hand-me-down at least made her feel like a girl instead of the drab olive green shirts her father always picked out for her.
The air scrubbers kicked in, and cool air whooshed through the hall. Evangeline passed the hydroponic gardens, waving at Cassie’s mom, who waved back with fingers stained green.
Heat pulsed from the incinerator as she rounded the corner, and Evangeline wrinkled her nose. A vague burning scent always lingered around that door. Past the supply room, the weapons locker, and the laundry, she slipped into the empty computer lab. If she finished her daily lessons quickly, she could spend the rest of the day reading. Much Ado About Nothing waited for her on her eReader.
Memorizing Proverbs, studying the history of vampire violence against humans, and basic biology didn’t interest her half as much as Shakespeare.
Evangeline set her notebook down next to the keyboard. Her left arm throbbed just above the elbow. A few days ago, she’d asked her father how he could want to kill vampires when the fifth commandment forbade murder. He’d grabbed her so hard, she’d thought the bone might snap.
“They aren’t alive, Eva. They’re not people. Killing them is like killing a cockroach.” Then, he’d slapped her and confined her to her room for the rest of the day.
Things would be different if her mother were still alive.
As she moved the mouse, the screen flickered to life. “C-N-N,” she said quietly. News. Her father encouraged her to read the news on the Hand of God’s site, The Right Way. Why hadn’t she seen this site before?
The headlines drew her in.
Unemployment at Record Lows
Department of Defense Reports Zero Vampire Attacks in 2017
Vampire Conclave Appoints Giancarlo Vescovi as Temporary Cleric
Mistaken Identity in Violent Beheading of Las Vegas Resident
United States Senate Narrowly Rejects Bill to Allow Humans as Vampire Blood Slaves
She clicked on the news stories, enraptured. So many terms confused her, and she took notes, copying down words and phrases like blood slaves, Vampire Conclave, and Cleric.
Once she had a full page of notes, she clicked the search box.
Blood slaves.
Dozens of results filled the screen. Her jaw dropped when she clicked on a site called Wikipedia.
A blood slave is a human who serves as the blood source for a vampire. The United States Senate, made entirely of humans, vetoed a bill on June 27, 2018, to allow humans to serve as paid blood slaves. The bill violates the 1921 treaty signed by the Vampire Conclave protecting the world’s human population.
Links dotted the article, and Evangeline clicked on Vampire Conclave.
The Vampire Conclave is a group of twelve vampires based in Naples, Italy, who rule over the world’s vampire clans. Over the past century, the Conclave has passed numerous laws protecting humans from vampire attack, and their members are generally respected by humans and vampires alike.
She scrolled through the history of the Conclave until she found a section about the Conclave’s members.
In 2005, a senior member of the Conclave, Nicola Angliatti, was traveling through the United States providing council to the vampire police force. Angliatti disappeared two days after leaving Las Vegas, Nevada. He was last heard from in Spokane, Washington. No body was ever discovered, but the Conclave believes that the Hand of God is to blame for his disappearance and alleged death.
A small photo of Nicola Angliatti accompanied the article. Something about it drew her in. She clicked on the picture and started to cry.
Long black hair, a sharp nose, high cheekbones, full lips, and brilliant amethyst eyes. Him. The vampire who tried to help her five years ago. “My name is Nicola. What is yours?”
He’d been so nice, and her father had repaid that kindness with murder.
Evangeline read for hours. Most of the other residents of the catacombs worked during the day. Cassie, the only adult who cared about Evangeline, would be in the infirmary learning from the head nurse, Dane.
Evangeline’s fingers cramped as she scrolled and wrote and read. Pages unfolded before her in neat cursive until she couldn’t write any more. Her eyes burned from staring at the screen, but she’d seen enough. Everything her father had taught her for years had been a lie. Ever since she’d met Nicola, she’d suspected. But now…she had proof.
If only she knew what t
o do with her newfound knowledge. Her father wouldn’t listen to her, and she couldn’t leave—he’d never let her go.
Henry needed her—despite his neglect. All women in the catacombs underwent vitamin treatments and blood tests every month. She’d only asked why once, and he’d told her not to ask any more questions. Jerk.
She had to confront him, but first, she needed to hide her notebook. He’d take it from her if he knew. Empty hallways greeted her as she ran back to the tiny dorm she shared with her father.
A few years ago, he’d erected a privacy screen around her bed, and the corner, along with her small trunk, was the only place she could call her own. Clothes draped over every available surface—she hated folding—and she threw jeans, flannel shirts, and socks onto her bed. Tucking the notebook under her panties, she tossed the rest of her clothes on top.
From under her mattress, she withdrew a folded square of silk. Nicola’s coin rested inside. She ran her fingers over the words carved into the copper. They didn’t make any sense—none of her lessons included foreign languages.
Per il popolo di Dio. She’d doodled those words often over the years, always tossing the pages into the incinerator before her father could see them. Squeezing the coin as hard as she could, she thought about the vampire. I’m so sorry.
The door opened as she shoved the coin back under her mattress.
“Eva? What are you doing?” Henry peered around the screen, his eyes narrowing at her mess.
Her cheeks flushed, and she stared down at her feet, scuffing her toe against the concrete floor. “Cleaning up.”
“Your definition of clean needs some work. Have you finished your lessons for today?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She shouldn’t say anything. Her father’s stare held something dark and dangerous today. Except…he’d killed Nicola.
“Because I spent the afternoon reading CNN and Wikipedia! You lied to me!”
Grabbing her by the arm, he pulled her out into the main room. “What did you read?”
“I read all about the Vampire Conclave! About the treaty that prohibits vampires from feeding on humans. About Nicola Angliatti. You killed him.”
The solid crack of his palm against her cheek brought tears to her eyes. Pain blossomed, hot and stinging, and she stumbled back. “Daddy, why?”
“Because you’re an ungrateful little know-it-all who needs to learn to respect her elders. Where did I go wrong with you? Your mother would be ashamed to call you her daughter.” He grabbed the back of her neck and steered her towards her bed until her shins banged into the metal frame.
“Daddy, you’re hurting me.” She hated the tremor in her voice. Babies cried. Not thirteen-year-old girls. But when he threw her down on her back, she couldn’t help sobbing.
“Wikipedia and CNN are run by vampires. They spread lies throughout the world. Tell me how you saw them. Now.” He didn’t yell, but that made his anger more terrifying. When he yelled, he didn’t hit her. She ducked her head under her arms and whimpered. “Now, Eva Marie. If you don’t tell me, you won’t see the outside of this room for a month.”
“One of the computers had CNN open. I didn’t know what it was.”
“Our firewalls prohibit those sites because they are dangerous. If you ever even try to access those sites again, and I find out, you will forfeit all outdoor privileges and you’ll be cleaning toilets all day. Do you understand?”
No, no, no. She couldn’t lose her topside privileges. Her only freedom came when Leonard and Adam brought her outside to teach her to fish and hunt. She loved shooting her bow, and they promised to help her catch her first salmon this year. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I understand. No more Wikipedia or CNN,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“You’re going to stay in this room for the next three days. I’ll have your meals delivered. No talking to anyone, no eReader, and your corner better be spotless by tomorrow. I’m going to inspect everything. Hospital corners, everything folded neatly and put away, and you’re going to memorize all of Proverbs, Chapter Thirty, Verses One through Twenty before bed tonight.”
Henry turned sharply on his heel and stalked out of the door, securing the lock behind him. Evangeline fled after him, trying her code on the lock. The red light and loud buzz denied her the freedom she desperately craved. Her father controlled everything in the catacombs, and suddenly, all her teenaged bravado fell away, buried under the pain in her cheek, her shins, and her heart.
“I hate you. You’re a monster!”
She screamed at the door for ten minutes, but no one in the hall could possibly hear her. The soundproofing in the walls insulated her from all help—and all hope.
By the time her father returned that evening, her cheek had swollen so much her left eye didn’t want to open fully, and she’d cried so many tears that her right hadn’t fared much better. Hungry, tired, and afraid, she sat meekly on her bed while her father tested her on Proverbs, and then pulled out a small, leather-bound medical kit.
She bit her lip to stop herself from crying again while he mixed a vial of reddish-brown liquid into a glass of orange juice. “Drink this.”
The metallic scent made her stomach turn. “Do I have to?”
“Eva Marie, you will do what you’re told, and you will not backtalk. Drink. Now.”
She gulped down the disgusting juice and obediently held out her arm. She knew the routine well. Drink, give blood, and then she’d fall into a strange and fitful sleep, punctuated with weird and confusing dreams. For years, she’d begged him to stop, but all of the women in the catacombs were required to participate in his research, even though he’d never told her exactly what he hoped to find out.
Two vials of blood later, he pressed a bandage to her elbow. His eyes softened slightly. “I’m sorry I had to punish you, sweetheart. But those vampire bastards are dangerous, and I don’t want you to get hurt. Do you believe me?”
The room started to spin around her. His words slurred and echoed in her ears. “Yes, Daddy.”
He helped her lie down and covered her with a scratchy blanket. “Tomorrow, you’ll help save the world,” he muttered, almost to himself. She wanted to know how, but the lure of sleep pulled her under, and she let go.
Henry watched his sleeping daughter all night. The bruise on her cheek disappeared before dawn, though she cried out often, torturous nightmares and fevers wracking her small body. After Marie’s death, he’d tried to bond with his little girl, but he didn’t understand kids and didn’t think he ever would. The shit with the vampire had destroyed what little relationship they’d had left. Now…he just needed to keep her alive to help him develop the serum.
Wiping her brow one final time, he rose and coded himself out of the dorm, locking her inside. Sick or not, she had to serve out her punishment. He walked quickly down the long hallway and punched his twelve-digit code into the glowing keypad outside the door to his lab.
The hum of the carbon dioxide scrubbers kept him company on his way, and long, narrow ventilation shafts carried limited fresh air through the half-mile of earth between the surface and the catacombs. He marveled at the technology that kept them all alive and said a short prayer of thanks that God had led him to this path.
The scents of formaldehyde, antiseptic, and blood filled Henry’s nose as he strode towards the testing bay. Jake met him with clipboard in hand.
“Any luck?” Henry asked.
“No. The burns healed within twenty minutes. Blood loss was minimal. We sliced the femoral artery in two and he still only bled for about forty-five seconds. For all the success we had with batch 300, batch 301 failed miserably.” Jake ran a hand through his thinning black hair. “He’s back in his cell now and he’s pissed. Five years, and all we’ve learned from him is how to swear effectively in Italian.”
“We have nothing but time, Jake. He’s not going anywhere. I’ll grab Gary. Get the blood samples an
d meet me in the micro lab.”
Minutes later, the three men gathered around an LCD screen, looking at red blood cells magnified ten thousand times. “No denaturing whatsoever,” Gary grumbled. The epidemiologist swore under his breath and pushed his rolling chair away from the counter. “We’re not even making a dent.”
Henry frowned at the blond-haired, blue-eyed doctor. At thirty-five, his young face belied his brilliance. “Vitamin K levels are steady?”
“Yes.” Gary tapped the touch screen to bring up a bar graph. “Batch 245 showed the only marked decrease of Vitamin K, but his body has enough in reserve that the serum would take at least a week to have any effect whatsoever.”
“Fine.” Henry started to pace the room. “So we go back to Batch 245 and keep working. What about his saliva? Any idea how the mind-control works?”
“No.” Gary shook his head. “That’s proving difficult. The chemical signature of his saliva is different than ours, but months of study and we’re still nowhere.”
“I told you to torture the answers out of him. What the hell have you been doing for a week while I’ve been gone?” Henry had spent the past few days topside, meeting with Bishop Inverness and providing updates on his successes—and failures.
“We’ve used electroshock for hours, and still he refuses to speak. His mind is too strong. We really need to capture a young one. If you’d let us use her…” Gary looked at Henry.
“No. You’re not touching her. No one touches her,” Henry growled. “We’re done here. Get back to work.”
Henry stalked back into the testing bay and stared at the silver cell in the corner of the room. He would kill the thing inside if it was the last thing he ever did. But not now. Not yet. “Soon,” he murmured to himself. “Soon.”
If she had to endure another minute of “house arrest,” she was going to go insane. For five days, she’d paced the small room while her father had been at work. Because she knew he’d never let her out if she didn’t try to act sorry, she studied the lessons Henry insisted she memorize and endured hours of writing “I will not disobey. Daddy protects all of us from vampires.”
Secrets in Blood Page 3