by RJ Blain
“I’m not sure I want to move it, seeing your adverse reaction to it.”
“Well, despite that being a more stable form of the stuff, it’s pretty damned toxic.”
“Where do you want me to put it?”
I pointed at the drain. “Next to that so if it continues to leak, it leaks into the toxic waste reservoir beneath the floor. There’s some magic down there that keeps the toxins below where they belongs. Don’t knock it over. I’d rather not die today if avoidable.”
“How toxic is pretty damned toxic?”
“All they would have had to do to kill him is hold him near the vat without protections and wait a few minutes for the fumes to do him in.”
“How uncouth.”
“They use it to preserve dead bodies.”
“I’ll be most careful with it. Do stand back. I wouldn’t want my new sacrifice to prematurely expire on me. It’s really rare I get to have such fun at my awakening.”
If staying in a freezer for decades couldn’t kill him, what could? I retreated up the stairwell, which should have had the best ventilation in the entire basement. However, someone had turned the fans off, and when I checked the switches, I discovered they were in the proper position.
Someone had turned the ventilation system off from upstairs. That led me to believe the arrogant asshole moving the drum had the right idea, and that Director Hammel meant to kill me, too.
It made sense. Nobody would miss me.
Well, shit.
I really wanted to get some honey rocks and write the whole week off. Without the gift card, I had some chocolate pudding and a few dollars to tide me over until my next pay in a few days. I would enjoy the chocolate pudding, especially as I had a new jug of milk in my fridge. Unfortunately, according to my bank account, I couldn’t afford the honey rocks until I was paid, and by then, I’d do the responsible thing and make sure I had enough staples to get me through to my next check.
Living paycheck to paycheck sucked.
“I’ve moved it. What now, Miss Nash?”
“Good question,” I muttered, returning to the preparation room. “They turned off the ventilation system.”
“I don’t understand what that means. Please explain.”
“It means that if we spill that drum or there are more fumes, I’ll die. I’ll suffocate. They turned off the air flow into the basement. Unless they open the door or turn on the elevator to let me out, I’m screwed. And by screwed, I mean I will be the next corpse down here.”
“Are you always so pessimistic?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. If you pull that corpse out so we can get a better look at him, I’ll just die a little faster, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.” I sat on the bottom step and stretched out my legs, as hugging my knees and crying wasn’t a great way to go and would deplete the oxygen in the basement faster. “I hope Old Man McGregor scares the piss out of those assholes upstairs. That would serve them right. I didn’t even do anything wrong this time.”
“Fear makes men do reprehensible things. They fear for their lives and would spend yours to preserve theirs. They’re right to fear me, but they should fear you more.”
“Me? Did you hit your head climbing out of the freezer?” There was no way anyone could possibly fear me. The only thing that needed to fear me was my pack of pudding the instant I got home, because I was going to whip it into shape and eat the whole damned thing in one sitting. “That’s nuts. I’m unrated. I have no known magic, but I have too much magic to classify as a vanilla human. Don’t ask me what that means, because I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but the machine they use goes beep-beep-beep near me, which means magic, but nobody has figured out what my trick is.”
“I can come up with a few interesting and plausible theories in but a few minutes. I do have the advantage of many long years listening to the inane prattle of those simpletons. I’ll share my wisdom with you for a price. In that, nothing has changed. Nothing is for free. What say you? I promise an extended life and servitude to me won’t be terribly heinous. I’ll even put a conclusion date for your servitude should you bargain with me well enough. Most importantly, I’ll uphold my end of our bargain first, ensuring you leave here alive.”
Ugh. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to hate the bastard or spend the last minutes of my life stripping him out of his clothes. The thought of servitude of any sort disgusted me, although I also realized I did Director Hammel’s bidding, which amounted to the same thing. I regarded him, tilting my head to the side. “How do I know you’re not lying to me?”
“I’d be foolish to lie to you. You’re no use to me dead. I’ll be generous and only require your sacrifice for a year. That will give me plenty of time to secure your company as mine for however long I please. It’s a fair deal. A year of your time for a secret and your life. The alternate is one I dislike, as it would involve your death.”
Death came to everyone. My first few days at the funeral home had disturbed me, but once I’d gotten a chance to look death in the eyes, I hadn’t found it all that frightening. Death wasn’t anything more than a doorway, one I could peek through every time one of the corpses got up and decided to have a chat with me.
“Your offer might have worked if I feared death. I don’t.”
“Do you care to put that to the test? There’s a vampire in the other room who would appreciate a new chance at life. He wouldn’t need all of your blood, just a hefty amount of it. If you speak the truth, you’ll survive.” Eoghan stepped to me, staring down his nose with a raised brow. “You’re such an interesting woman.”
“If the vampire drains me dry, doesn’t that mean you lose your new sacrifice? That sounds to me like you’d just be losing, unless you want a date with the vampire.”
“Hardly.”
“If I die, you lose,” I pointed out.
“I only lose if you die. If you’re telling the truth, you won’t. I think you’re telling the truth, so you won’t die. Not today.”
The confidence in his voice annoyed me. “What the hell? If I get anywhere near that vampire after he’s been put back together and warmed up, he’ll definitely kill me. He’ll kill anyone unfortunate enough to get too close. It won’t even be his fault. At that stage of revival, he’ll be incoherent and unable to even attempt to behave like a human. We hear that lecture every time an inspector comes to visit.”
“It’s simple. For me, that is. If you test this and live, I am right, and you’ll be mine. Of course, as I have no interest in slaves, you’ll retain your free will. It’s absolutely no fun for either one of us if you’re a docile beauty with no fire in your eyes or steel in your spine. You’d be far less interesting if you are reduced to a puppet. No, I appreciate a challenge, and I will enjoy earning your cooperation. You could just agree to a year in exchange for your life and the knowledge of why I believe they may fear you. It’s a good deal for you. Waking that vampire does have its benefits, however.”
“You realize after that blood sucker kills me, he’ll go after you, right?”
“I’m sure he’ll try. Frenzied vampires are hardly sane. They’ve never been sane. I’d like to know what’s so special about him that they preserved him rather than give him his final death. If you truly welcome your death, the vampire will calm before he kills you. I win. If you’re just another human claiming you’d prefer death over servitude, he’ll try to drain you dry. I will prevent him from doing that because it will make him more dangerous.”
I frowned, as for my plan to work, the vampire needed to actually kill me. “That’s not fair. If the vampire kills me, and he will, you should leave me to my death, as is proper. No turning me, either—or having him turn me. If things are as you say, which sounds like utter nonsense to me, and he does release me before I die, without interference from you, you win.”
“No. There is no victory for you in that wager. Either I win, or you die.”
Was the man daft? I stared at him. “And?”
&nb
sp; Eoghan’s eyes narrowed, and his expression turned thoughtful. “Very well. Should you live, while you will promise to work in my benefit and favor while retaining your free will, you can ask any boon of me you wish, with a few exceptions. I will not free you from my service, nor will I kill you. I will always be honest should I be unable to grant your boon, and I will tell you why I cannot. You may verify that through any means you wish, magical or mundane. Then, in either case, you have a victory of sorts. But I will not waste your death while also putting others at risk. Frenzied vampires must be approached with care, and I want him alive, which means you cannot die. Should he take you to the brink of death, I will consider it your victory. Name what you desire should it be your victory.”
No matter how I looked at it, I faced death. I’d thought about putting an end to everything before, and while I’d contemplated escaping a world that cared nothing for me, I had always clung to tenacious life. Before, death had seemed empty and meaningless.
No one, not even an arrogant asshole like Eoghan Olin, deserved imprisonment in a freezer. Perhaps there was a good reason to fear vampires, but the one locked away in the funeral home’s basement deserved either life or death, not the limbo hanging between the two.
Death didn’t seem so empty or meaningless when another life shone at the end of the tunnel.
I regarded the egotistical man, tilting my head to the side. “It seems obvious to me. You get to serve me for a while. I’ll take a year, since that was your initial offer, and I prefer the whole free will thing, too. But mostly, I’ll have you do things like wash my dishes because they’re a pain in the ass. Will that suffice?”
Eoghan smiled. “I accept your terms.”
“I hope that vampire isn’t too dangerous for you to handle, Mr. Arrogant Asshole.”
“Call me Eoghan, please. I’ll even accept a sir or you can address me as Olin if you snarl it in your most disapproving tone.” Eoghan stared in the direction of the refrigerator room. “As for the vampire, he’s old enough to survive dismemberment, but he’s young enough he can’t raise himself without aid. He’s no older than eighty years, I suppose. Perhaps one of the first vampires of this emergence? The first ones are always more durable than the rest, and they could survive through such abuse the first night of their unlife. Is he dangerous? Yes. All vampires are dangerous, even the newborns. Will releasing him do irreparable damage to me? He would have to be much older to be a concern to me. Will he be a threat to others? There have always been far more dangerous beings in this world, and humans are one of them. Humans have always been dangerous, reckless beings.”
“Good. After he’s finished draining me dry, I hope he kills those backstabbing assholes upstairs.”
“You’re not dead yet, Miss Nash. If you mean to do this, take some care. Don’t present your wrist or throat. Offer the fleshier part of your arm below your elbow. That is easier to heal later, and it will give him a chance to find his feet after he consumes some of your blood. I am a man of my word, and I do swear I will observe you while you awaken the vampire. I will not interrupt his feeding, nor will I permit him to turn you. But I trust your word is good, too. Should you live, you will give me your loyalty, and I will give you the single, conditional boon we discussed, where I will grant you anything I can outside of your death and freedom.”
“Yes. I accept those terms.”
“Then our bargain is made. What are you truly made of, Miss Nash? I suppose we shall find out soon enough, won’t we?”
Eoghan brought the vampire out of the freezer, and with an intent expression, he bandaged and stitched the man’s body back together. “I will not permit ignorance to influence our wager, and I will hold you to none of it should you change your mind after what I tell you. When he feeds, it will be the worst pain you’ll have ever experienced in your life. He will take you to death’s door, and he will hold you there. You’ll scream—or you’ll try to. You won’t have the strength to for long. After three or four deep drinks, your body will react and do its best to conserve your life. Screaming wastes precious oxygen. Your body will understand your death comes swiftly and without mercy.”
“How is that worse than starving to death, suffocating on chemical fumes, or however else someone can die down here? That’s what I get to look forward to.” I pointed at the drum containing the body. “That’s probably going to kill me before anything else.”
“If only killing me were so simple. It’s not. If you’re truly unafraid of death, wake him. Later, don’t complain that you suffered through the pains of hell being foolish.”
Well, I couldn’t argue with him. Only a fool would deliberately bring a vampire back to life. I walked across the room and retrieved a scalpel from the instrument drawer, perched on the edge of the examination table, and nicked my arm halfway between my wrist and elbow. Several drops of blood welled up and streamed over my skin. I pressed the wound to the vampire’s mouth and waited.
It took a few moments, but the vampire’s throat contracted when he swallowed, and steam rose from his chilled body.
“It begins,” Eoghan warned. “Prepare yourself.”
“I think I’m a little beyond that stage, Captain Obvious. I was prep—”
The vampire’s fangs tore into my arm, and steel-strong hands snatched my wrist and elbow to hold me in place. According to movies and rumor, vampires bit and sucked. The reality was a far more agonizing thing, and a great deal more brutal.
He chewed on me, tearing at my skin to release more of my blood so it was easier for him to swallow. Some thought of pain as an ever-strengthening inferno, but lightning jolted through me, zapping to my shoulder, striking with the fury of a tempest.
My chest tightened, and my heart stuttered.
The truth of Eoghan’s words stabbed to my bones. I opened my mouth, but my voice betrayed me. A gasp slipped between my lips, but my scream failed to make it beyond my throat. The first time my heart skipped several beats, I recognized the truth. If I let him, the vampire truly would bleed me dry. His teeth tore at my arm again, deeper.
A line separated the living from the dead, and I straddled it. The pain convinced me I still lived, but a cool quiet lurked just beyond my reach. If I stretched for it, I could claim it and make it my own. No longer would I drift, a victim of greed and as listless as any ghost. I knew all about ghosts, although I’d forgotten about them.
They had kept me company as a child, watching over me when I had had no one else. When I refused to believe in ghosts out of fear of my parents’ wrath, they’d kept their distance, although I’d remained aware of them still. That had been a boundary, too, one that allowed me to please my parents and indulged their dislike of magic, true to their vanilla roots.
Maybe if they had snorted some pixie dust, I wouldn’t have thought restoring a vampire to life by letting him chew my arm off was a good idea. No, I still would have cut my arm and woken him.
Some said there was always hope, but I couldn’t see it. I could barely afford a place to sleep, I couldn’t always afford food to eat, and I got the occasional pack of smokes, but in everything that actually mattered, I had nothing but dead ends.
I had a dead-end job, a dead-end education, and dead-end friendships, which all led to the same place, a dead-end life. Why couldn’t I choose when I hit the dead end?
This way, I made my life and my death worth something, although I hoped the vampire would hurry up and finish his work. The rending agony in my arm dulled, but a sharper throb in my chest promised my heart would give out soon enough.
Closing my eyes, I waited. I drifted over the line between life and death, straining for the cool and calm place beyond my reach. My traitorous heart refused to stop beating.
I supposed Eoghan had been right. Either the vampire had lost interest in bleeding me dry or there was something to his claim. How could I be robbed of even death?
Life was truly a cruel, unfair mistress.
The agony ebbed to a tolerable dull throb, which matched
my faltering heartbeat. Sounds filtered in one by one, but a scream captured my attention. Eoghan snarled at the noise he loathed, and the ruckus ended with a gurgle. A body thumped to the floor. Something dripped, and the harsh stench of the embalming fluids burned my nose. My lungs stung, and my chest tightened further.
Some fool had likely killed us all knocking over the formaldehyde.
Another scream broke the quiet, and Eoghan snarled a curse. “Why must they always scream? Maybe if you hadn’t attempted to sacrifice an unwilling to me, maybe I wouldn’t have bothered waking your vampire. You deserve your fate. Had you brought me a willing sacrifice, things would be different right now. No matter. Willing or not, she belongs to me now. It’s a pity you won’t learn from this mistake.”
Eoghan needed to stop talking to corpses. It never accomplished anything, although I had taken up talking to the less lively residents a time or two out of boredom. After hundreds of years on ice, I couldn’t really blame him for talking to anyone—or anything—that might listen to him.
Warm arms lifted me, and cold, clawed hands wrapped around my limp wrist.
“This place is tainted,” a voice rasped.
“That it is. Should we find that director, rip his throat out. Drain him if you like, although he might turn your stomach,” Eoghan ordered.
I took that to mean the vampire lived. Huh. I’d actually lost, although winning wasn’t much different from losing, and losing had benefits if I tilted my head to the side and squinted. I couldn’t open my eyes or otherwise move, much to my disgust.
The cold hands released me, and the world once again fell silent.