The Darkest Colors

by David M. Bachman

  As they both sipped at their coffee and awaited the delivery of their meals, Brenna began to feed her the must-know details of her introduction to life as a vampire – what to do, what to avoid, what was and was not safe to eat, and so forth. The things that should have seemed to be quite minor losses or inconveniences seemed almost impossible for Raina to live without; she loved garlic, almost all of her family heirloom jewelry was silver-based, and she had never been comfortable with online banking and shopping because of identity thieves.

  There was no one else in the diner at that twilight hour, but they still kept their conversation as hushed as possible. Although the populace of Apache Junction was primarily that of elderly retirees and lower-middle-class families, they both thought it best not to publicly discuss the matter of Raina’s Maker … although the thought of it all pressed at her consciousness incessantly with a thousand questions. The last thing they needed was someone with a keen ear or big nose to start the rumor mill about the new bloodspawn of a High Court vampire who had, only hours ago, been slain in front of live national news cameras. The longer they could keep the matter under wraps, the more wisely Raina could plan for the inevitable time at which the nature of her new race would be impossible to conceal.

  It marked the first time that Raina had ever been able to finish an entire breakfast at that diner – two eggs, four pancakes, sausages, toast, and four cups of coffee. Though she was positively stuffed by the meal’s end, Brenna reassured her that in about an hour or so, she would feel as though she were starving again. Her metabolism was in hyper-drive, she explained, and it was pulling from every resource it could for energy and raw tissue-building materials as the viral genetic nature of the vampiric blood in her veins began to take over her body at a cellular level. A fourth of her entire DNA code was being overwritten as she sat there in the diner, still perspiring and somewhat dizzy with a fever that refused to fully break. Her body’s temperature seemed to be completely out of control, as she found herself sweating with a stifling inner heat one moment, and then shivering with the chill of her perspiration in the next. The diner was not excessively lit, yet she still found it necessary to put on the prescription-lens sunglasses she normally wore for driving during broad daylight hours. Her insides seemed to have settled down for the time being, but every muscle in her body still ached and lightly spasmed incessantly.

  With the faint glow of daybreak looming from behind the Superstition Mountains as they paid for their meals and left the diner, Brenna turned to Raina with a tired sigh.

  “I hate to be a spoilsport, but unless you want to see me turn into a baked potato, we’d better get running to your place. I don’t think we have enough time to make it back to Gold Canyon before dawn,” she said. She looked a bit embarrassed as she glanced to Raina from the opposite side of the Lincoln, waiting for the door to be unlocked. “I normally have a better sense of time than this. The last thing you wanna do as a vamp is get caught out at daybreak without any good clothes or sunscreen. Trust me, it’s a mistake you’ll only make once.”

  “It’s okay, you can crash at my…”

  Raina’s words trailed off suddenly after she opened the door of the Town Car and heard the simple electronic ringtone from within her car. She immediately spotted a small, flip-open cell phone laying upon the rear seat. Raina gave her friend a raised eyebrow.

  “Yours?”

  “Nope,” Brenna said, holding up her own phone. “I’ve still got this old piece of shit.”

  “It’s not mine, either,” Raina replied … and then it dawned upon her.

  With sudden urgency, she unlocked the car’s doors, yanked open the rear door, and lunged for Duke Sebastian Fallamhain’s phone as it rang for the fourth time. Upon the touch-sensitive screen, she saw “Unknown” listed as the incoming call. Brenna ducked into the car, glanced at the phone as Raina showed it to her, then gestured for her to answer the call. Reluctantly, somehow feeling as though she was picking up a live hand grenade, Raina tapped the green “talk” button and put the phone to her ear. She remained silent, instead waiting for the other person to speak first.

  A woman’s voice carried over the connection clearly, her voice as thick with emotion as it was with her British accent, “Sebastian? Oh, please … please, love, tell me you’re safe.”

  Immediately, not so much from familiarity as from intuition, Raina knew exactly whom she was hearing on the other end of the call. Her eyes wide and her throat tight, she steeled herself for whatever might transpire.

  “H-hello?” Raina finally answered.

  There was a pause. “Oh, God. Oh … dear God,” her vampiric ancestor breathed, surely in tears. There was another long bout of silence. “Kathleen … I just heard. I saw the news. I was hoping they were mistaken. They’re not showing the video here, but … seeing as you’re answering, then it must not be as bad as they make it to be. Surely, there’s been a mistake. He’s hurt, I know, but … he is alive, isn’t he?”

  “I’m sorry, I … I’m not Kathleen,” Raina confessed shyly.

  “But … well, then who is this? Who are you?” the Grand Duchess demanded. “If you’re with the authorities, then you should identify yourself properly.”

  “This is Raina Delgado.”

  Duvessa hesitated. “Are you with the police?”

  “No.”

  There was a long pause. “How did you get this telephone? What business do you have answering this call?”

  “The Duke left his phone in my car. I never knew it was here until you called.”

  “Then where is Lady Kathleen?”

  Raina hesitated. “I … I think she’s dead.”

  “You think…?”

  “It’s all over the local news. Countess Wilhelmina … killed the two vampires that were with the Duke before she, ah … defeated him,” she told her as gently as she could manage. It was the first time she’d ever had to tell a stranger of a loved one’s death.

  There was a very long pause, and Raina had to glance at the cell phone’s display window to verify that the call had not been disconnected. At last, hearing her voice break slightly with sorrow, Duvessa spoke. “I see, then. So … Raina Delgado … how do you … how did you come into possession of Sebastian’s telephone?”

  “Like I said, he left it in my car after he … he hired me to draw his blood.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see. Of course, then,” the Grand Duchess finally said with recognition after another pause, sniffing back her emotions and clearly trying to sound more composed. “So you … you are The Phlebotomist, then…?”

  Great, here we go again with the superhero title, Raina thought to herself. Settling into a more comfortable position in the rear seat, she answered, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And I understand that you were successful in drawing his blood. Correct?” She was regaining clarity and professionalism in her voice with every passing second. Her courage was admirable.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did he mention any detail as to why he approached you for this task?”

  She hesitated. “Well … sort of.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “He hinted around about it,” Raina admitted, “but I didn’t really figure out exactly what he was up to until about an hour and a half ago. He left a note for me.”

  “I see. So, shall I assume that you are in possession of his blood?”

  “Umm … sort of.”

  Duvessa audibly let out a frustrated sigh. “Please, dear, don’t be vague. I haven’t the patience for it. Do you or do you not have in your possession a vial of Duke Sebastian Fallamhain’s blood?”

  Raina squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, removing her sunglasses to wipe the sweat from her face. “Not … in my possession, exactly. More like … it’s inside of me.”

  “Oh, God,” she gasped, “you didn’t! You … oh, how dare you! You drank it?”

  “No! Ma’am, I swear to you, I did not drink it!” Raina protested, shrinking down fearfully in her s
eat. It dimly occurred to her how odd it was that she was feeling threatened by a vampire that was thousands of miles away from her.

  Raina had been staring at her opened box of phlebotomy supplies upon the floor as she spoke with the Grand Duchess. Her underwear was still there on the floor, twisted around and turned inside-out and exactly where she had left it the night before. She kicked it underneath the back of the driver’s seat, knowing all too well that putting it out of sight would do nothing to put it out of her own mind.

  She bent over and picked up her plastic sharps container, glanced inside, and immediately saw a single used syringe inside. Her means of exposure had been theoretical up until that point, but this confirmed it beyond a doubt as factual. She never used syringes without a winged collection device attached to it, and she had never needed to do so (outside of the hospital) for at least two months. Additionally, she never used a straight needle attachment on the end of a syringe for blood draws, although she had nevertheless kept several such large-gauge needles on hand … but only for use in transferring blood from a syringe into several smaller tubes.

  “Please explain yourself, Ms. Delgado. I demand to know precisely what has happened here.”

  Although it was normally a taboo of safety to do so, she carefully reached into the container with two fingers and withdrew the syringe, holding it up for Brenna to see. Her friend stared at the item with wide eyes of surprise – had she not believed until that moment?

  “Duke Sebastian … your consort,” Raina began, daring to allow a small measure of bitterness into her words, “knocked me out with a cloth soaked in something like chloroform, and then he … well, he…”

  “Out with it, already! You’re testing my patience.”

  Raina took a deep breath and sighed, “He raped me and then injected me with his own blood.”

  The Grand Duchess seemed to consider that for a moment. “Ms. Delgado, if you intend to blackmail me or hold his blood for ransom, the least you can do is be honest with me about your intentions.”

  “I am being honest!” she protested. “Look, I drew a tube and a half of blood from the Duke. I gave them to him after I drew them, and at one point he asked me for a syringe that he could use for giving an injection. At the time, he wouldn’t say who or what he was planning on shooting up. Then he knocked me out, transferred the blood from the tubes into that syringe, injected it all into my right arm, and then raped me. That, or maybe he raped me first and then injected me. I don’t know. I was kinda unconscious at the time, so…”

  “Bollocks! You’re speaking rubbish. He did no such thing.”

  “Oh, he most certainly did,” she replied rather haughtily. She hesitated, then shrugged as she went on to add, “Y’know, up until this point, I’ve been reluctant to go to the authorities with this because he insisted that I keep my meeting with him a secret. But if you want me to go to the hospital and have them check me…”

  “Sebastian would never … he…” There was a long pause. Raina heard her draw a slow breath, then let it out in a heavy sigh. “What exactly do you believe that he did to you? Precisely, and in exact detail, what are you attempting to claim that my Sebastian did to you?”

  Suddenly, her urge to vent upon the Grand Duchess for her consort’s deeds evaporated. Still frustrated, she told her, “Y’know what? Really, it doesn’t matter. What do you care? I’m speaking rubbish, remember?”

  “Do not test me, young lady,” Duvessa warned her sternly. She paused, then spoke with less vehemence. “Just … please, tell me. If you intend to convince me of your sincerity, then I need to know exactly what he did … in detail.”

  Sticking with her half-truth, she said, “Well, for starters, he apparently fed on blood from my inner thigh.”

  “Apparently…?”

  “Look, the son of a bitch took off my thong, went down on me, sliced me, and sucked on my thigh so hard that he gave me one hell of a hickey.”

  Another pause. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not especially familiar with your modern American terms, Ms. Delgado. I speak English, not … jive.”

  “Jive?” Raina echoed. In any other situation, she would have found that hilarious.

  “Well, whatever it is that you Yanks call it these days. Please, just speak to me in plain English if you can, because I literally could not understand half of what you just said.”

  “What part?”

  “He went down on you…?”

  “He … y’know … ate me.”

  “You mean he actually consumed your flesh?”

  Raina rolled her eyes. “C’mon, you’re how old and you don’t know what oral sex is?”

  “Yes, of course I do! You needn’t talk down to me as if I were a child,” the Grand Duchess snapped mildly. “I am not overly familiar with modern American slang.”

  “Sorry. But … well, he did that … and he left a mark on my inner thigh.”

  “A bite?”

  “A scratch,” she confirmed, “but probably from one of his fangs, or something else sharp. And he left a hickey there … you know, a bruise, from trying to suck blood from the scratch he made.” She paused. “I guess it was his idea of foreplay … before … y’know … before he … had his way with me.”

  Raina struggled to reign in her emotions yet again, biting hard upon her lower lip. Out of simple curiosity and a need to distract herself, she removed the tray from the tackle box of supplies, looking to see what else had been used. Laid carefully underneath her plastic bag of cotton balls was the complete folded bundle of gold-clipped money that she had observed in the Duke’s possession, earlier – payment delivered as promised. And considering that the “services” rendered had included more than mere phlebotomy, Raina felt even worse. He had forced her to be his whore. Whether she had wanted it or not, he had paid her for sex. Her breakfast began to creep upward to the back of her throat at that thought.

  She squeezed her temples hard for a moment, fighting off her nausea as the Grand Duchess replied only with a long period of silence. Swallowing hard, Raina picked up the money and held it up for her friend to see. Brenna’s eyes grew even wider as she handed it off to her. Brenna almost immediately took the money from the clip and began to count it. Apparently, Brenna wasn’t making the same mental connection as her – it was just a fat stack of cash to her – and she seemed utterly perplexed by the look of misery on Raina’s face.

  “As much as I am loathe to admit to it,” Duvessa finally said, “I suppose that does sound typical of Sebastian. Or rather, I suppose I should say that it was something that he did. It was one of his more unsavory guilty pleasures. It’s something for which I have previously disciplined him.”

  “What, knocking chicks out, injecting them with blood and…”

  “Raping the innocent! Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear,” the Grand Duchess interrupted frustratedly. “It is one thing to do so to another bloodline, but to partake of the sins of the Old Ways is something that I have forbidden for decades. I have tried to instill in my bloodline the importance of living harmoniously with humans, but … unfortunately, I was a fool to place my faith in Sebastian’s sense of restraint. As much as I loved him, he was weak. And being that he apparently believed that his death was imminent, he saw no consequence in having his way with you. It seems that he simply could not control his own urges, even when I stressed the grave importance of his task.”

  “His task?” Raina parroted. “You mean you told him to do this to me?”

  Again, there was a pause. She wasn’t sure if it was a communication delay from the signal traveling halfway around the world and back, or if her words had once again struck a nerve. Given Duvessa’s indignant tone that followed, she assumed it was the latter.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! I most certainly did not instruct him to rape anyone,” she said immediately. “I ordered him to select a bloodspawn and bestow the Communion of Blood upon them. Your name came up a time or two in other discussions, but I had been given no prio
r indication that he had been specifically referring to you when he informed me that he had selected a candidate. I had hoped that he would have exercised better judgment than this.”

  Raina tried not to be bothered by the subtle insult. Apparently, the Grand Duchess did not feel that she was worthy of being a part of her bloodline. She was, after all, just a random stranger that the Duke had found attractive. Apparently, Sebastian had been in such a rush to complete his mission that he hadn’t cared to be picky enough about his bloodspawn of choice to suit his Maker’s preferences. It was disappointing, but she tried not to feel personally offended by the implication. These were aristocratic snobs with whom she was dealing, after all. Their standards had little or nothing to do with fairness, only their own selfish motivations.

  “You have my sincerest apologies for what has happened, Raina Delgado, and for my rudeness in addressing you,” the Grand Duchess told her. “I can assure you that I will do everything within my power to compensate you for my bloodspawn’s indiscretion, and to assuage your suffering.”

  “I’m not going to sue you, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “No. I do not believe in buying a person’s forgiveness, as it seems to be the custom in today’s world. By compensation, Ms. Delgado, I mean just that. I will do what I can to make up for my consort’s offenses against you,” she said very politely. “As I suppose I am now obligated to assume my consort’s personal responsibilities, my greater concern at this time is ensuring that you are kept safe. Have you experienced the first symptoms of your Change, yet?”