Blood Type: An Anthology of Vampire SF on the Cutting Edge

by Watts, Peter

  Mezentius released the empty sack. His shoulders straightened, his neck lifted.

  He inflated with life.

  Others were waiting for him outside, a group of three faces more scared than angry. And when the pilot did emerge from the room, someone, a courageous man looking twenty, charged with a steel bar. He lifted it up and swung in the name of death. Mezentius stopped the brutal swing with his hand and pulled the bar away. He dropped it and reached for the young man’s face, shooting his fingers into his mouth and wrapping his thumb around the lower jaw. Just as quickly the pilot pulled. The lower jaw ripped off. Bones broke. Long strips of skin and muscle stretched across the face and down the neck—snapped loose.

  The strands of meat, the tongue that hung limp without a home, the young man’s face reduced to an obscene distortion that terrified the other two yet they could not take their eyes off the staggering and dying victim, as if the atrocity held some hypnotic power. The young man finally collapsed and expired. The two watched the blood spread toward their bare feet.

  “Anyone else?” Mezentius asked. “I hope not. I don’t want to waste anymore blood.”

  They broke apart, running back down the hall and down the stairs.

  Mezentius returned to his room to wait for more vengeance. And it didn’t take long. He could hear them enter the lobby below; hear frantic boots across the ground, the panicked breathing, the passing roar of succulent blood in their veins. He could hear them down there.

  He just ripped his face off. I’ve never seen anything like it. The strength it would take to do that.

  They marched to his door: a pack of four angry wolves led by The Reverend Marku. He was holding a black rifle heavy with slugs guaranteed to kill any living thing in the galaxy. His old finger was tight around the trigger. The hate in his eyes made him appear, well, if not younger, certainly more energetic. The cult may have rejected technology, but obviously they were not all pacifists.

  Mezentius looked at the rifle. “Technology few are prepared to abandon.”

  The Reverend Marku lifted the rifle. “I don’t know who you are, but may God forgive me for what I must do.”

  “Yes, you must. Because—”

  The Reverend fired. It wasn’t loud, more like a deep thud. The rifle discharged a slug into the pilot’s chest. He didn’t fall. Another round. The cold walls should have been warm with fractured flesh and bone, but the pilot did not die. There were two fat holes in his uniform, the edges seared. No blood. His face, as usual, composed.

  The pack of angry wolves was not so composed. They gazed at each other, returned to the pilot who should have been dead. Reverend Marku lowered the rifle, his mouth open. The hate in his eyes burned into a glassy stare. “Have we sinned so much that such an abomination has been delivered to us?”

  “The inner circle,” Mezentius said, “bring them to me. All of them.”

  “What do you want with them?” Reverend Marku demanded.

  “I only wish to speak to you all.”

  “No…”

  Mezentius stepped close and pulled the rifle from The Reverend’s hands. The old man stumbled back and nearly fell but was held by his fellow wolves. The sight of the pilot holding the rifle, this seemingly benign stranger who sought refuge among a colony of religious Luddites, turned him into a portrait of Armageddon.

  The wolves backed away, into the hall.

  “Bring me the inner circle,” the pilot said, holding the rifle to his chest, “or I will kill everyone in this town before the red star returns.” And still he spoke without anger.

  “Tell me what you are, what you want,” Reverend Marku said.

  “Bring me the inner circle and I will explain.”

  The Reverend grudgingly relented. “I’ll do as you ask.”

  “Oh,” Mezentius said. “One more thing. Bring the boy, Arulo.”

  The pack of wolves vanished from the room with their tales tucked. Mezentius listened to them descend the stairs.

  Are we really bringing everyone?

  You heard what he said. He’ll kill us.

  What does he want with Arulo?

  I don’t know.

  What is he? What do you think, Reverend?

  I think, when Huang returns, we leave.

  The Reverend did as he was told, returning with the inner circle. The five looked like sheep entering the tight borders of the room. Arulo was among their shadows, shoulders hunched and head low.

  Mezentius was only inches from them. “Thank you for coming. It’s now time to explain.”

  “Are you the Devil?” Kathryn asked.

  “I’m an assassin.”

  “Assassin,” Reverend Marku said.

  “Yes,” Mezentius said. “I was created to infiltrate the rebellion on Sojakonnas.”

  “What do you mean created?” Kathryn asked.

  “Oh, my Lord,” Reverend Marku whispered.

  “My creators designed an improvement; something more intelligent than the old model. They also designed an assassin that would require human blood to generate the core cell as a way to induce the perpetual killing of rebels.”

  “What they did not expect was my upgraded intelligence giving me an insatiable need for self-determination. And, so, I killed my creator. My god, if you will.”

  “A need for human blood,” Reverend Marku said. “So you do plan to kill us.”

  “Not necessarily. I must feed every seventy-two hours. But that does not require the complete consumption of a human body. I will take a small dosage of blood from a group of you; since, as you might imagine, you are my cattle and I must keep some stock alive if I am to have food. Perhaps I will institute a breeding program that will—”

  “What makes you think we’ll just let you feed on us?” The Reverend growled through yellow gritted teeth. His hands balled into trembling fists.

  Kathryn’s nod was sharp and insolent.

  “Arulo,” Mezentius called to the boy. “Come and stand behind me.”

  The boy did so, gently, and nervously, pushing his way past the inner circle. He glanced at The Reverend, perhaps a look of guilt, and then turned his eyes to the ground.

  “You are the leaders here,” Mezentius continued. “Credincios looks to you for guidance. Without you, they will be in need of a shepherd.”

  The words swirled above the faces as a black mist wet with doom. Mezentius pointed the rifle at them; and before they could shout their horror the rifle discharged a slug into The Reverend Marku’s body with that low thud. Boom. His chest blew open and pieces of flesh and ribcage stung those around him. Kathryn screamed. Boom. The slug struck her face. It shattered into a bloody web of eyes, teeth and skull fragments. The air above their bodies was damp with a red drizzle, like a hellish broth.

  All significant opposition had been neutralized—for now.

  Mezentius stood before the murder careless as the cosmos, this ghostless machine of unnatural origin yet the personification of nature: a force that sought no justification for existence and proceeded with timeless authority in its dominion over the weak now stripped down to arteries, muscle tissue, membranes. The inner mechanisms of organic clocks that stopped ticking when the death bell was struck by a hand built with the very technology they had renounced.

  There was no slow infiltration here, no methodical usurpation of power—only a quick and hostile takeover.

  The remaining three cowered as beaten dogs, old hands hiding weeping faces. Mezentius addressed them with a simple line spoken, as always, with an unassuming tone: “Accept me as your leader, and you will live.”

  They rose slowly, chests heaving with panicked gasps, still keeping their eyes from the massacre. They said nothing at first, but merely shivered. Finally an old man spoke. Petrov. “What…do you want us to do?” The question oozed with suspicion, but Petrov’s eyes, like the other two, gleamed with a blend of fear and reconciliation. Apparently they wanted to live, or, at least, didn’t want to meet their end with such stunning violence.


  “You will convince the others that my arrival was divinely ordained. That the death of The Reverend Marku and Kathryn was God’s punishment for resistance. And the giving of blood to me is no more than a symbolic gesture of the blood sacrificed on the cross.”

  The three passed defeated glances to each other. “Some might refuse to believe,” Petrov said desperately, raising his hands.

  “They have willingly lived in filth because of you. I trust you will be persuasive. But those that do not follow will also be punished by God.”

  Petrov closed his eyes. A hard swallow. “So be it.” The other two acquiesced to their fate with solemn nods. They gathered together and filed out of the room to pursue their charge.

  Mezentius listened, but they did not speak. He turned to the harsh sobs behind him, to the boy cringing from the machine that was now God. “Arulo,” he said, “my offer to you is this: Be my loyal eyes and ears outside this apartment. I cannot be everywhere at once.”

  The boy looked at him with eyes wet with tears. “Why me?”

  “I told you that I trust you. If you agree, perhaps you will live long enough to leave this planet to seek nice things. Keep watch over the inner circle and help them to round up the others for my feeding. Preferably after dark when my night vision and thermal sensors are most effective. Are you with me?”

  The boy looked at the bodies and quickly took his eyes away. He bit his bottom lip, his breathing dropped to a smooth pace.

  ~

  It had been nearly two months since the flying death machine landed outside the ruins of Issiz Varos, and high above, another ship was preparing its arrival. The Amaziah’s plunge was steady through the red haze, the shuttle’s chrome body shaped as a missile and the wings long and swept. Inside the shadows of the cockpit lit only by soft greens and blues from the console holograms, Huang tried to contact the inner circle and alert them to his coming. There was only silence to reply. He was preparing for another transmission when he saw the dark arrowhead outside the ruins, the white skulls on his screen. It scared him. The Frontier Defense Force was here. The unholy might of the Trans-Global Commission had sent one of its death machines and for a moment the old man saw himself flying right back into the sky. But to where? Back to Feng Station? You could barter there, purchase illegal goods, but its distended population was a collective serpent dripping with venomous corruption. It was no place to live.

  The Amaziah landed only a few yards from the death machine, a vertical landing that ignited a wall of gray dust that slowly rose and fell. Huang tried a final time to contact the inner circle, but the signal was still dead. He sat still and quiet, watching the screen. Credincios was his home, his family, and he had to find out. Behind him, deep in the cargo belly, crates of nutrient bars and hydration tablets waited to be carried. The ramp dropped from the shuttle’s side with a sluggish growl, Huang climbed down in his green flight suit and nervously walked through a mild breeze. A pistol hung from his waist and he almost reached for it when the lone figure appeared from the ruins. Small, short, a child. Huang stopped and waited for the little one who walked with a deliberate stride, the hood draped over his head.

  The child reached Huang but did not pull the hood away. The old man could see the face within it, however. The chin was lifted, the lips scowling. The scar.

  “Arulo,” Huang said. “What’s happened?”

  “You have the supplies?” Arulo asked. The assertive tone fit the face. In a word: arrogant.

  Huang kept his worries silent. He knew Arulo. The kid was a little obstinate, sure, but never smug. The old man gestured to the death machine. “Why is the FDF here?”

  “Come on,” Arulo said, “there’s somebody you need to meet.”

  “Who?”

  “God has sent us a messenger. He wants to meet you. Now.”

  Huang blinked and turned his face to The Amaziah to give it a regretful glance.

  He followed the boy.

  Jason Duke is a freelance writer born and raised in the deserts of Southern California. He currently resides among the steep cliffs within the San Bernardino Mountains where he writes to feed his demons.

  UNPERISHED

  S. R. Algernon

  “Almost finished.” The orderly spoke with an accent I assumed to be Romanian.

  I watched the column of blood shoot from my vein, curl around twice within the plastic tubing, and fill the one-pint bag. The sense of obligation bothered me more than the sting of the needle. The sight reminded me of something Mark Foyle said to me two months earlier on the day he offered me the job at Woodcross.

  “The Woodcross Institute may have its quirks, but what’s the alternative? Pushing those grad school studies? Where do you think your career will be a year from now if you don’t find your way into a lab?”

  I could have summed it up in one word. Finished.

  “Will sting a bit when I pull out needle,” added the orderly.

  “I know,” I said, “just like it will sting three months from—Ow!”

  “Take juice.” He swiped my ID card through the scanner. “Take cookie on your way out.”

  “La revedere,” I muttered.

  As I walked to the lab, past Woodcross Manor, I felt a chill that was more than winter weather. The 18th century mansion and its shuttered windows embodied the questions we all had about our patron. We knew better than to ask them, not even to ourselves. As Foyle had told me on my first day: Why worry? The checks cash either way.

  Patrescu’s helicopter flew overhead, on its way to the Manor’s rooftop helipad. The sound of the rotors reminded me of the fluttering of mechanical wings.

  ~

  Back at the lab, my colleague, Dr. Lucinda Carroll, was hunched over one of the lab tables. We were working on a new blood substitute—or, rather, Lucy worked on it while I busied myself with autoclaving, preparing tissue samples, and filling the trays of pipette tips while I brought myself up to speed on the project. My stomach jumped a bit when I saw the scalpel in her hand and the remains of a rat beneath it. We had been having a little problem with corpses recently. Or, I should say, a problem with little corpses.

  “Another autopsy,” I whispered, careful not to startle her. I stood by the island of lab stations and sinks in the center of the room and glanced at the dry erase board on the wall. Under the heading RAT RACE, in red marker, were three magnets shaped like mice. Each one represented a different test subject, and its place between the 0 WEEK line and the 4 WEEK finish line showed how close we were to popping open the little bottle of champagne in the break room fridge. Yesterday, there had been four mice up on the board.

  “Subject 21,” said Lucy. “Some sort of hemorrhage. There’s vascular damage, but I can’t figure out what’s causing it. Maybe it’s an autoimmune response, but Subject 17 was immunosuppressed and it had the same problem. We’ll just have to hope one of the others pulls through. We’re down to our last rat.”

  “You shouldn’t be working so hard,” I said. “Not today. Get some rest. Get something to eat. You’re not going to bring it back from the dead, you know.”

  “Quit it,” said Lucy. “You promised.”

  I told Lucy I wouldn’t joke about Dr. Patrescu anymore. After the cracks I made when the blood drive e-mail went around, Lucy didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day. Can you blame me, though? After all, Dr. Patrescu really did vant to suck our blood.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” I said. “Do you think I want to make you mad when you have a scalpel in your hand?”

  “It’s all right. I’m just worried about the dinner, I guess.”

  The dinner was a quarterly event at Woodcross Manor. Dr. Patrescu flew in from Bucharest to see the latest breakthroughs, welcome the new arrivals, and invite us all to Woodcross Manor.

  “How about this?” I said. “Let me clean up here. Just once, let yourself go home before sundown. We’ll both have better luck after a good night’s sleep.”

  “All right.” Lucy tossed her gloves a
nd headed for the restroom to wash up. “See you in the morning.”

  I waited until I heard the door click shut behind her before I flipped open the log book. Twenty-two rats, I thought. All the controls, both saline and sham injection, survived. All the experimental subjects died within two or three days of injection.

  I put another mouse magnet on the dry-erase board and made a neat entry in the log book.

  03/30 6:55 PM SUBJRCT 23 1 ml BLOOD SUBSTITUTE S

  I took our last remaining rat from the home cage, injected a milliliter of the solution into its femoral artery, and left it in one of the empty observation cages. Then, I labeled the bottle BLOOD SUB S and put it in the lab fridge next to the other bottles of clear liquid that were Lucy’s failed attempts.

  If RAT 23 survived, just like all the controls, we could go back to the drawing board. If it died, I would have discovered something else about whatever was killing the rats: it was smart enough to read the log books.

  If we had a saboteur, the rats weren’t the only ones in danger.

  ~

  Subject 23 was still alive the next evening, when Lucy and I climbed the stone steps to Woodcross Manor, Patrescu’s guards, now squeezed into tuxedos, opened the double wooden doors for us. Foyle waited in the foyer, shook our hands as we entered, and waved us on toward the banquet hall before turning his attention to another group of Woodcross Fellows who were coming up the path.

  “This is your first time, right?” said Lucy.

  “Yes. It’s very… orange in here.” The combination of candles and weak incandescent bulbs struck me as soon as I walked through the door. The air smelled of dust and wood. As we walked through the foyer, the parlor and a series of crumbling rooms, I looked down the passageways that ran off to my left and right. Patrescu only visits a few times a year, I thought. This place must have rooms nobody has seen for decades. I wondered what secrets it hid.