Morbius

by Brendan Deneen

  Johnny stood up, wiped the thin layer of moisture from his forehead, and smiled. “Sweat” wasn’t actually his last name. He’d been born Jonathan Wasberski. But after he’d done a few jobs when he’d first moved to New York, following the incident at the hamburger joint, one of the other goons had mentioned how Johnny never seemed to sweat, no matter how many windows he broke or how many apartments he snuck into—and then out of, hauling bags of stolen goods. After that, all the guys started calling him “Johnny Sweat.”

  It was good to have a cool nickname when you were looking for work with some of the top criminal masterminds in the city. And he took pride in the fact that he never sweat. It meant he was always cool and collected… or at least appeared to be.

  But now, standing at the bottom of an insanely long set of rusty metal stairs, way beneath the subway, Johnny had finally cracked a sweat. He laughed quietly. At least no one was around to notice and bust his chops about it.

  A clanking sound pulled him out of his reverie, causing him to spin around as he searched for the source of the noise. There was light down here, enough to see a few details, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The ceiling was high—so high he couldn’t see it above him—and the walls didn’t seem to be concrete. It looked as if the tunnel had been carved through solid rock.

  After a moment, he heard the sound again.

  He stepped in its direction.

  “Hello…?”

  He took several more steps and then realized he was approaching another metal door. He raised a hand to knock, but stopped himself.

  “This is stupid,” he whispered.

  “You must be Johnny,” a voice intoned from behind him.

  Letting out a little cry he whipped around, his stomach dropping, reaching into his pocket for the knife. Standing in front of him was a tall man in a dark red robe. He was bald and had a black-and-gray beard, which was thick but trimmed extremely short.

  “Uh… yeah, that’s me,” Johnny replied, swallowing nervously and keeping his hand in his pocket.

  “I’m Brother Thaddeus,” the man said, stepping closer. His voice was deep. “Thank you for coming.” Where had this guy even come from? All Johnny had seen were impossibly tall stone walls and this one door. How did he get behind him?

  “Sure, my pleasure,” he said, trying to gather his confidence. “I heard you had a job, and I have a little time in my schedule.”

  A large, unpleasant smile appeared on the man’s face. “I’m sure,” he responded. A painful moment of silence stretched out. The unnerving smile remained in place while the man’s dark eyes… shimmered?

  “So… uh…” Johnny said, struggling to come up with words. “What’s next? What’s… where’s the job?”

  “It’s right here,” the man answered. He looked amused by Johnny’s question.

  “Huh?” Johnny blurted, looking around. They were surrounded by those high gray walls and the door, and nothing else. He couldn’t even tell where that damn light was coming from. “I don’t get it.”

  “Oh, you will.”

  Johnny felt a sharp pain in his neck and whirled around, whipping out his knife and slashing. He’d always had good instincts… it was part of what kept him alive while working for the best of the worst, and today was no exception. He slashed someone across the chest and watched as a second man in a red robe crumpled soundlessly, blood pooling out on the floor beneath his prone body.

  “What the hell?” Johnny shouted, staring up at “Brother” Thaddeus, his dripping knife raised. Thaddeus stared down at his companion for a moment, and then back up at Johnny.

  “Impressive…” he murmured, still with that infuriating grin.

  Johnny’s neck began to pulse and he looked down again at the second man. A needle was clutched in his hand. Johnny grabbed his neck, felt how hot it was. His vision began to blur.

  “What’d… what did you do to me?”

  “Good night, Jonathan.”

  Johnny took a step forward, tried to swipe at the man, at that damned grin, but he tripped on his own feet and went down, hard, next to the guy he’d stabbed. He tried to raise his free hand to stop his fall but failed, miserably, and hit the floor face first. He felt the blood flow from his nose, watched through heavy lids as it pooled out, mingling with the other man’s.

  Johnny’s vision went dark.

  And then absolutely black.

  * * *

  JOHNNY SWEAT woke with a gasp.

  He was still face-down but the stone floor was gone, replaced by packed dirt. He took deep breaths, confused, and then broke into a coughing fit as dust filled his lungs. He dry-heaved for a moment, but there was nothing left in his stomach to expel. Finally, Johnny found enough strength to sit up.

  He was in a strange-looking room… wait, it wasn’t even a room. It was oval-shaped and the walls went up about fifteen or twenty feet, topped with incredibly sharp razor wire. Light radiated down but once again, Johnny still couldn’t see the source. Staggering to his feet, he turned in uncertain circles, confused, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

  Then he heard it. A sound.

  Voices. A lot of them. Up in the shadows. Above the…

  Arena. He was in some kind of arena.

  “Hello?” he said, then he shouted. “Hello!”

  The voices went silent.

  “Help me!” he screamed.

  The voices returned, but they were no longer speaking. It was laughter now. Johnny felt his face flush with anger. When he got out of here, he would find those laughing bastards and show them exactly how he—

  A new sound echoed out, and Johnny turned again, trying to figure out where it was coming from. He noticed for the first time that there was an outline along one of the walls… no, two outlines, on opposite sides of each other. He squinted and tried to figure out what they were.

  He realized that the outlines were actually slabs of metal, and they were lifting up as he looked back and forth at them, revealing darkness on the other side. They screeched as they moved, making the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Doors. Some kind of makeshift doors.

  Maybe a way out.

  Johnny hesitated, and then hobbled toward one, shambling on one sneaker and one sock, pushing his aching body forward. The voices above him grew louder, but he did his best to shut them out. He’d make them all pay.

  As he approached the opening, a sound made him stop. A low roar came from the darkness, rising in intensity… a sound so primal and rage-fueled that Johnny froze. The chattering voices above him grew even more excited.

  Johnny backed up, and then turned for the other opening. If he could only make his way into the shadows, he was sure he could escape. And there were plenty of shadows in this second entrance. Shadows that seemed solid, seemed to be moving.

  Johnny stopped again. The shadows were literally moving. How was that possible? He peered into them, trying to understand what he was seeing, when he realized that two huge red eyes were staring back.

  He spun in place, looking first at the darkness from which the roar had emanated, and then at the living shadows, over and over again, trying to decide which horror scared him the least. Sweat ran down his face, down the back of his neck.

  He didn’t have time to make up his mind.

  Two shapes burst forth from the doors simultaneously, one a blur of fangs and claws, the other a slithering mass of blackness, and they reached him at almost exactly the same time.

  “Daddy…”

  That was all Johnny Sweat had time to whisper. On one side, claws dug into his shoulder, sending bolts of pain down his arm and into his chest, then pierced his leg, while on the other side something wrapped around him and pulled flesh out in great chunks. He didn’t even scream as he was ripped apart, and then discarded as the monsters crashed into each other.

  Discarded as if he had never even existed at all.

  CHAPTER ONE

  MICHAEL MORBIUS was hungry.

  The lig
hts of New York City fought hard against the dark clouds that had stalled overhead, but the incessant rain made it a losing proposition. Morbius was perched atop a four-story building at the corner of Fulton and Gold Streets, watching the occasional person pass by. It was three thirty in the morning, so most of them were drunk or well on their way, or heading home after a long shift at a restaurant or a bar.

  Even from such a height, he could smell their blood.

  It was intoxicating.

  He swallowed his urges down, closed his eyes against temptation. It had been almost two full weeks since he’d drank blood from a living victim, the longest he’d gone since the experiment that had changed his life, since the beginning of his curse.

  Then again, could he call it a curse if it had been self-inflicted?

  Morbius raised his eyes to the steel-gray sky. Let the water fall, let it sting. His mind turned back on itself, returning to the beginning, like it always did, even when he attempted to will it otherwise.

  He used to have such hope. A brilliant young mind at odds with an imperfect body, but full of idealism regardless. For as long as he could remember, he had suffered from a rare blood disease, had been told by doctor after doctor that there was no cure, but he’d refused to give up. And then came the opportunities: the chance to attend a prestigious college, to find a best friend, and even to fall in love.

  Martine.

  Her face flashed in his mind and he writhed in a response of physical agony. He missed her so much, longed to see her again, to hold her in his arms—but it was impossible. Even if he knew where she was, how could she love a monster like him?

  He’d been so certain that his experiment would work. Electrifying samples of bat’s blood, mutating it in a very precise way. It made sense, worked on paper, worked in the laboratory when he and Emil Nikos conducted their secret, controlled tests. But when they followed through with the experiment, out on the ocean, away from danger—or so they thought—everything changed.

  Michael the human died that day.

  Morbius the living vampire was born.

  It hadn’t been all that long ago but it felt like ages. So much had happened. He had murdered Emil. Had battled other beings with incredible powers. Lost Martine to an organization with otherworldly ties. Had succumbed to an undeniable thirst time and again, draining the blood of innocents, hating himself every time he did. Faced a cult that sought to sacrifice a young woman named Amanda Saint.

  Morbius laughed and opened his eyes. The rain increased, washing down his pale skin in rivulets. He didn’t laugh often, hadn’t even before the experiment, and there was no humor in the bark that came from his thin lips now.

  In an ironic twist, he had targeted Amanda himself, back in San Francisco. Had stalked her through the streets. The memory was still vivid. Her blood smelled so good, so pure. But he hadn’t been the only hunter that night.

  The Demon-Fire cult had set their sights on Amanda, too, and Morbius shocked himself by saving the young woman, and then protecting her from the cult over and over again. He hadn’t understood why he did it, still didn’t, when she represented a meal, with blood so enticing that it made him ache. Yet the two had formed a friendship, if a living vampire was capable of such a thing.

  He felt for Amanda. Like him, she had lost so much. Her mother, who had abandoned their family to join the cult, and who was killed in front of Morbius. A death he still didn’t have the courage to reveal to Amanda. Her father, searching for his wife, lost somewhere in the vastness of America and unaware that the woman he sought was already dead. And Amanda’s sister, Catherine… another member of the cult, who died in battle with Morbius.

  Amanda had no one. Morbius had no one.

  So, they had each other.

  Morbius shook the water from his long black hair. The rain was increasing, so the streets below had grown empty. He was alone.

  Again.

  * * *

  AMANDA SAINT looked around, made sure no one was watching.

  It was 6 a.m. and the hospital was relatively quiet. She’d only been working at St. Gabriel’s for a few weeks, but she’d already figured out the ebb and flow of the place, knew when this particular hallway, the Pathology section, would likely be empty. There was a camera near the ceiling in the far corner, but she knew from talking to Jerry, the overnight security guard, that half of the cameras in the place hadn’t worked in years. No one seemed to care. The hospital continuously struggled for funding, often losing patients to the larger and more modern Downtown Medical just a few blocks away. Only the most desperate of patients ended up at St. Gabe’s.

  Amanda was pretty desperate, too.

  As she slipped into the Blood Issue room, her mind cycled through the last month. It’d been a harrowing series of events, a blur of blood and betrayal. Bad enough when her mother ran off to join a cult, made worse when her father stupidly decided to save her.

  So naïve, she thought. All he accomplished was to leave Amanda and Catherine alone to wonder and worry. She had no idea where the hell he was, or if he was even still alive.

  Catherine had been her rock during that time, older and wiser, and she always seemed to know what to say. Always told Amanda that things were going to work out. That Catherine would take care of everything. It had made the abandonment a bit more bearable.

  Amanda also had Justin. It’d been a random encounter—or so she had thought—shortly before her mother took off. Back when life was still normal.

  They got to talking at a coffee shop, and minutes stretched into hours, their untouched drinks getting cold on a small table. Even when they left, they’d walked around the city, sharing stories about their lives and their dreams and their passions. Amanda had never been in love before, had never even been close, but this certainly seemed to have all the hallmarks of falling, hard and fast.

  If she could have frozen time, Amanda would have done it then. Her parents, still at home and seemingly in love, if sometimes distant. An older sister who watched her back, and a thoughtful man who focused on her, who didn’t rush her to do anything before she was ready. Everything was perfect.

  Only, it wasn’t.

  Catherine and Justin had betrayed her, one after the other. They were both part of the same cult that had ensnared Amanda’s mother. Hell, her own sister had been ready to sacrifice her to a demonic creature. Arachne.

  Amanda shook her head to clear the memory of that giant spider as she closed the door behind her. It was too much to even think about sometimes. It didn’t seem real. If it hadn’t been for Morbius…

  She smiled ruefully at the thought of Michael.

  She had befriended a vampire. A living vampire, he was always quick to point out. Had almost been his victim, but when she’d been attacked by the cult, something had changed. And now they were…

  Friends?

  She didn’t know what they were, but she cared about him. Which was evidenced by the fact that she was currently skulking around in a shadowy storage room in a run-down hospital, ready to steal a few more packets of cold, preserved blood.

  She reached the refrigerator that held the containers and squatted down, looking at the sleeves of red liquid through the glass door. Michael told her repeatedly that he didn’t care what kind of blood she brought home, but she knew he secretly preferred AB-negative.

  Opening the glass door, she extracted a couple of packets, making sure there was enough left behind that no one would notice the theft. St. Gabriel’s records programs were as bad as their security. She felt guilty about it—did every time she stole blood from the hospital—but she knew she was actually saving lives by doing so. Michael had managed to keep from murdering anyone for a couple of weeks now, and the blood Amanda stole had been the reason why.

  She couldn’t imagine the thirst that drove him.

  Quickly placing one packet into each of the two pockets of her scrubs, she moved toward the door, then froze. There were voices in the hallway. She struggled to keep her breath even, to con
trol her heart, which had already increased its beating. She didn’t know what the authorities did to people who stole blood, but she didn’t want to find out.

  A pair of doctors walked past the door, visible through the little window, but didn’t even glance in. Then they disappeared from view.

  Amanda let out the breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. Laughed at herself. Everyone was so wrapped up in their own worlds. They had no idea that one of the new custodians was trying to keep a vampire… a living vampire… from killing again.

  * * *

  LIZ GREEN sipped at her coffee as the vampire slipped in through the window.

  She had to stop herself from physically recoiling as he glanced from side to side. His huge bloodshot eyes landed on her, and went wide. He was ugly, there was no way around it, with his alabaster skin and long stringy black hair and sharp teeth. Yet she also had to admit to herself that there was something undeniably compelling about him, a magnetism that was hard to dismiss.

  Still, Liz was terrified every time she was in his presence.

  Slowly placing the coffee mug on the table, she felt sweat break out along the back of her neck, and forced a smile.

  “Morning,” she said.

  He grunted a response, then strode past her and into her cramped extra room where he and Amanda had been sleeping. There were two mattresses on the floor, but Liz didn’t ask any questions. It was none of her business what happened in there, even if Amanda had said repeatedly that she and her new bloodsucking companion were just friends.

  When the door shut behind Morbius, Liz let out a small laugh at her own fear and took another sip of coffee. Sure, she lived in a city full of super heroes and monsters and mutants, but it was still pretty damn surreal to be sleeping one room over from a modern-day Dracula.

  She stared out the window of her two-bedroom apartment and took another sip. As her mind drifted, she absentmindedly played with a strand of her long, dark hair, most of which was pulled back into a tight ponytail. Liz and Amanda had been close when they were young, almost inseparable, really. They’d been two socially awkward teens in a small school, and had clung to each other the way outcasts at that age often do. During those years, they forged a quintessential bond—at least it felt that way—and vowed to always stay in touch. To always remain best friends.