by Sky Winters
“Help, someone!”
The voice belonged to a man, and as soon as it cried out, a thundering clatter broke out, as though a fight were taking place somewhere upstairs. Withdrawing her gun and turning on her heels, Miranda made a mad dash for the stairs. Reaching them, she ran up as fast as she could, her gun in one hand and the other gripping the wooden railing.
“NYPD!” she called out again, now into the darkness of the upstairs.
Another racket erupted from the direction she was running, followed by the muffling of a screaming voice. Whatever was going on, it was coming from the room at the end of the spacious, darkened hallway.
Miranda walked with slow steps down the hallway, her gun in both hands. She knew that she shouldn’t be doing what she was doing without backup, but she knew that whatever it was going on behind that door, it was likely a matter of life and death.
Closing the distance between her and the door, she braced her shoulder against it. Taking a deep breath, she slammed her weight into the door, bursting it open.
What she saw next was nothing she could have anticipated.
Within the massive, open expanse of the bedroom were two men. One stood behind the other, an arm wrapped around the victim’s chest, holding him in place and while the other arm pulled the victim’s head back by the hair, exposing his neck. The perp’s mouth was clamped onto the neck of the victim, whose face was frozen in a rictus of agony as blood ran down his neck.
Miranda, reacting on instinct, , raised her gun and pointed it at the first man. A look of shock flooded her face.
“NYPD!” she shouted once more. “Drop him, now!”
The perp reacted by pulling his face from the victim’s neck and throwing his gaze at Miranda. Even in the dark of the room she could see that his skin was death-white. He looked at her with an expression more like a wild animal’s than man’s, with frenzied eyes and bared teeth that were streaked with red. He let out a long hiss as he looked at her, blood pouring down his mouth as he regarded Miranda with a murderous stare.
“Stop right where you are!”
The man’s eyes narrowed into scheming slivers. Pushing the other man away, all of his attention was now turned towards Miranda. With slow steps, he walked towards her, his frame backlit by the silver illumination of the moon pouring in through the window behind him.
“Last warning!” she said, fear creeping into her voice.
The man didn’t seem to notice. Or did, and didn’t care. Running his long fingers through his dark, inky hair, he moved closer towards Miranda, his mouth now twisting into a sinister smile.
Miranda knew at that moment that the man wasn’t going to stop. Squinting one eye, she moved her gun until the man’s chest was in her sights. Then, taking a steady breath, she pulled the trigger.
Chapter 3
The shot cracked through the air, and with a thwap, the bullet hit home, connecting with the upper section of the man’s chest. The impact stopped him in his tracks as he looked down at where the bullet hit connected. Miranda, her gun still pointed at the man, watched him look over the gunshot with gaze of detached analysis, as though he were a naturalist who came across a particularly interesting specimen. But he didn’t seem to be in any sort of pain.
He threw his gaze back up to Miranda, who was now regarding the man with horror. His steps now slow and deliberate, he began closing the distance between them.
Miranda fired again, then again, then once more, each shot having no effect, no matter where on the man’s torso it hit. Now he was only a few feet away. Miranda raised the pistol, cocked her head, squinted one eye, and positioned the man’s face directly into her sights. Taking a breath, she squeezed the trigger once more, another pop sounding through the bedroom.
The shot hit its mark, and the man’s head whipped back with the impact, and he stopped in place. But to Miranda’s shock, the man stayed on his feet. She knew a shot like that, right to the head, would be enough to drop anyone regardless of what drugs they might’ve been on. But he didn’t drop. Instead, he brought a hand to his face, which was now lowered and looking down, and appeared to touch his skin with his fingertips. He prodded the area where the bullet hit for a moment.
Then he looked up. There was now a red-ringed hole on his cheek, but other than that, there was no sign he had even been shot, let alone that he was in any way incapacitated.
But the wild-eyed, murderous expression was now gone, replaced by one of frustrated annoyance, the look you’d give to someone who carelessly knocked over a glass of wine.
“The face, darling? The face?” he asked, the tip of his index finger resting in the gunshot. “Do you have any idea how long this will take to heal? And I have a dinner party in Tribeca in an hour!”
He turned from Miranda, who kept the gun trained on the attacker, her eyes now wide with shock and incomprehension at the strange display she was witnessing.
“The shirt I don’t mind; I was planning on changing. But the face?” he said, pacing around the room and gesticulating with wild, dramatic gestures.
“What the fuck are you?” Miranda asked, her voice firm, but edged with creeping fear.
The man whipped around and faced her once again.
“Who am I. Who, am I?” he said, bringing his hands up and touching his chest with the tips of his fingers. Miranda couldn’t help but notice the strange, vaguely-Eastern European accent the man spoke with. “I’m the man who was about to kill you quickly, but is now going to take my sweet time!”
His expression turned from one of effeminate distress to wild-eyed murder, and he raised his hands in the air like a lion about to pounce. Miranda raised her gun once again, and prepared to fire. But she knew that it would do no good, and that this man, whoever he was, would be on her soon, just like his victim.
With longer steps, he rushed towards Miranda, hitting her with such an impact that the gun flew from her hands and landed on the floor with a skittering thud. Miranda threw up her hands to fight him off, but his strength was so far beyond her own that she could resist for only a brief moment before he had overpowered her. The man’s face was twisted in animalistic rage, and a strange hiss escaped from his mouth, his breath hot on Miranda’s face. She grunted as she struggled in vain against the man, blood and adrenaline rushing through her body. Her muscles strained against his grip, but to no avail- he was simply too strong. The man’s wide-open mouth was in front of her, his rows of white teeth inches from her face as he forced her against the wall.
Then, Miranda noticed something strange as she expended her last reserves of energy- two of the man’s teeth, the ones flanking his front teeth, grew in length in a fingersnap’s time. Where they were flat and short before, now they were long, and ending in razor-sharp points.
But Miranda had only a moment to consider this strange development before the man whipped his head back, and with another sharp hiss, snapped it forward, driving his teeth into the soft flesh of her neck.
Miranda froze in place as the teeth drove into her skin, noticing, despite the chaos of what was happening, that it didn’t seem to hurt all that much. Her vision began to blur, and soft sucking sounds could be heard as though coming from a faraway source as the man did his work on her neck. Miranda felt the life drain from her limbs and her body go slack.
“Artem!” a deep, booming voice called out, cutting through the air and bringing Miranda back to something like attention.
The man stopped, lifted his head, his mouth dripping with fresh blood, and turned around. Focusing her eyes, Miranda aimed her own gaze at the direction of the voice.
In the window, his outline cast in silver from the moon behind him, was a tall, broad-shouldered man. He stepped in from the frame of the shattered window and entered the bedroom, his heavy, black boots crunching the glass underneath his footsteps.
Miranda’s vision was starting to unblur, and she could now make out the face of this new man. Like the other man’s, his hair was coal-black, and his skin pearl-white. Bu
t unlike the other man, his jaw was wide and square, his eyes were narrow and sensual, and his lips were full and long. Even in the grips of crisis, Miranda recognized him as a nearly impossibly-handsome man.
“You goddamned fool,” said the second man. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
The first man adjusted his posture, standing up a little straighter and running a hand with nervous haste through his hair. With the back of his hand, he wiped the blood from his mouth.
“Roman!” the first man said, turning his attention away from Miranda. “I’m just, having a little snack before the, ah, little soiree tonight.”
The second man-- Miranda guessed that “Roman” was his name, though it was a strange name, one that she had never heard before-- stomped towards the first with long, heavy strides. And when he closed the distance, Roman took the first man by his throat and lifted him up.
“That’s a cop,” said Roman, his voice heavy with the same odd accent as the other man’s. “Do you have any idea of the consequences for killing a police officer?”
“I, ah, well, I,” said her assailant, his voice stammered out in choking breaths. “S-sorry!”
Roman held him for another few moments, his gasps and chokes filling the silence of the room. After a time, Roman dropped the man, who collapsed in a heap, catching his breath in desperate gasps.
Then, Roman shot his gaze over to Miranda, who, using the wall as support, was able to climb to her feet. She searched the floor with frantic eyes for her gun, and saw that it was nearly ten feet from where she stood. She knew there was no way she’d get to it in time, and even if she did, it wouldn’t be of any help.
Roman walked over to Miranda, the man’s large, muscular frame filling her vision. Seeing Miranda was having trouble staying on her feet, he moved his arm behind her, helping her stay on her feet by supporting her weight with seemingly the slightest bit of effort. Miranda could feel the solid thickness of his arm against the small of her back.
Her eyes bleary, she looked up into the face of the man who held her. His eyes were twinkling blue, and they seemed to carry and expression of both concern and anger.
“Are you OK?” he asked, his wide, square jaw clenching as he looked over the bite on her neck.
“I…I think I am,” Miranda replied, smacking her drying lips together, her voice weak.
Roman’s face softened in worry as he looked over Miranda. His thick eyebrows knitted, and he seemed to be trying to figure out a plan of action behind his shimmering eyes.
“Listen,” he said, his voice low and grave, “you’ve been bitten, and unless I help you, you’re going to die.”
“W-what?” asked Miranda, having trouble formulating words.
“You’ve had blood taken from you, and the only way you’re going to live is if you take another’s blood. And you’re going to take it from me.”
The strangeness of what Roman was saying was clear to Miranda, even in her addled state.
“I’m going…to take your blood?”
“Yes,” Roman said, “and you’re going to take it now.”
With that, lifted his left hand up, the underside of his wrist inches away from his face. He opened his mouth wide, and to Miranda’s horror, sprouted a pair of razor-sharp fangs, just like the other man. Except instead of putting the fangs into her, he drove them into his own skin. He moaned as he pierced his flesh, and Miranda watched as thick blood formed around Roman’s full lips; they were almost the same shade.
With a gasp of air, he pulled his lips away from his skin. Blood pumped out from the wound, dark and flowing.
“Drink,” he said, holding his wrist towards Miranda. “Drink or you’ll die.”
Miranda’s mouth clamped onto Roman’s skin, her animal sense of self-preservation overcoming her human fear. Immediately, her mouth filled with Roman’s blood. But where human blood had a tangy, coppery taste, Roman’s blood was different. It was rich and thick, almost creamy. She brought his blood into her in greedy gulps, feeling it splash like milk against her stomach, her energy and mental clarity restoring by the moment. She was now keenly aware of the feeling of her lips on the cool skin of Roman. He gasped as she drank him, but did nothing, letting her swallow her fill.
After a few more moments, he pulled his wrist away. Miranda’s eyes moved towards the wound, and to her surprise, it seemed be healing by the second.
But then, Miranda’s knees began to fail her, and she felt her back slide down along the wall. Out of the window she could see the flashing lights of approaching police cars against the back of the building behind them.
Roman noted this as well, wiping the blood from his wrist with a handkerchief.
“It looks like your friends have finally arrived,” he said, walking over to the first man and grabbing him by the back of his collar, as though he were a puppy behind lifted by the scruff of his neck. “You’ll be fine. You’ll need to rest. Just let my blood do its work.”
Miranda felt her eyelids grow heavy as Roman’s voice began to muffle.
“Be glad I showed up when I did.”
The form of Roman holding the first man, and dragging him to the window before leaping out of it and into the night was the last thing Miranda noticed before unconsciousness finally took hold of her and pulled her into its murky depths.
Chapter 4
When Miranda awoke, she could tell, even though the bleariness, that she was in a hospital bed. The stark whites and baby blues around her, coupled with the sterile smell of antiseptic in the air tipped her off right away. And the bulky figure to her right couldn’t have been anyone else but Michael. She blinked hard, each open-and-shut-and-open of her eyes washing another layer of film from her vision. After a few seconds, the form of Michael came into clearer view, his mustachioed face in an expression of worry that made his middle-age wrinkles even more visible.
“There she is,” he said, his face softening as he watched Miranda regain consciousness.
“Oh, thank God it’s you, Mike,” she said, her voice straining through a yawn. “I was thinking St. Peter made one too many trips to Dunkin’ Donuts.”
“Nice to see that bitch brain of yours is still working just fine,” he said, a small smile on his lips. “How you feelin’?”
“Fine,” Miranda said, sitting up in the bed and looking down at the blue hospital gown she was wearing. “But is all this necessary?”
“Hey, kiddo- we found you unconscious ten feet away from a dead body with blood pourin’ out of your neck; try and forgive us if we didn’t think you’d be fine with a band-aid and a kiss to make it all better.”
At that, the memories of what happened before came flooding back: the man drinking the blood of the other, the second man coming in through the window as if flying, the sharp pain of the teeth in her neck. Thinking of the last part, her hand shot to her neck, where she felt a large bandage where the man bit her.
“Hey, slow down there,” said Michael, extending his hand towards her.
“It’s fine,” said Miranda, ripping off the bandage. “You got a phone on you?”
Michael nodded and handed her his phone. She pulled up the camera and flipped the image, then angled it so she could see the gauze on her neck. She lifted it up, and took a look and what was underneath. Sure enough, there were small puncture marks, now healing over with dark red scabs.
“What the fuck happened?” asked Michael, looking over the wounds.
“I got bit.”
“Bit? By what, a homeless guy or somethin’? Geez, kid, you could have rabies!”
“No, by the murderer.”
Michael’s brown eyes widened has he took the phone back.
“He was still there?”
“Yeah,” said Miranda, feeling the rough circles with her fingertips. “Fancy-looking guy. He was on the neck of the vic, like he was with me. The only difference was I couldn’t do anything about it, unlike the guy who saved me.”
“Wait a minute,” said Michael, stepping b
ack, closing his eyes, and backing a “back up” gesture with his hands. “Someone sa-“
But before he could finish, a booming voice cut through the air of the hospital.
“Walker!” called out the voice. It was gruff and hot with anger.
The form of Lieutenant Peterson stepped into Miranda’s vision. His face was bright red with anger, or frustration.
“Lieutenant,” said Miranda, her voice regaining strength.
Peterson looked Miranda up and down with a quick glance, as though inspecting a car for dents after a teenager brought it home from a long night out.
Lieutenant Rick Peterson had been Miranda’s superior since she joined the detective’s ranks. Though he could be a little on the brusque side, he kept a close and careful watch over those under his command. And with Miranda being as young and green as she was, she often found him giving her the kind of treatment that a parent might give towards their high-potential but under-achieving kid.
“You OK?” he said, his body seeming to be tense, like a coil wound up.
“Aside from this little love bite, yeah,” said Miranda, turning her head so Peterson could see her bandages.
“Good,” he responded. “So now that we’ve determined you’re fine, you want to tell me what the fuck you were doing walking into a scene like that alone? No backup?”
He placed his hands on his hips after finishing, his middle-aged, but lean, frame bending toward her in a scolding position.
“You make detective and right away you start thinking you’re hot shit,” he said, shaking his head and running a hand over his silver crew cut. “You’re lucky you’re not dead.”
“Yeah, kiddo,” added Michael, his voice laden with the typical fatherly concern. “I like to keep my partners around for more than a few months, as a general rule.”
Miranda held her hands up in a mock gesture of surrendering.