"Daddy, look at that smoke!"
I glance in the rearview mirror. "Honey, you need to keep your seat belt on."
"But look, Daddy! I bet there's a fire! Can we go see?"
I keep scanning the road for signs of the outskirts of Weir. Nothing yet. "I thought you were hungry, sweet pea."
"It can't be that far away. Maybe we can go help!"
I look off to the side and, sure enough, there's a column of smoke rising above the fields to the north. "Baby, we're almost to Weir. We can stop and get lunch—why are you giggling?"
"You sounded funny, Dad."
"I did?"
Jenny lays a cool hand on my arm. "You said 'we're almost to Weir.' It does sound a bit redundant."
I smile. "It does, doesn't it?"
"Please, Daddy?"
I start looking for a turnoff. "Okay, princess. If we can help, we will. But we won't stop if the fire department's there."
"How come?"
" 'Cause we'd just be in the way, then. And we don't want to look like ghouls."
"What are ghouls, Daddy?"
Jenny loosens her seat belt so she can turn to speak to Kirsten. "Ghouls are—
. . . flesh-eating monsters that skulk around cemeteries and rob graves. . . .
"—people who like to be around when bad things happen to people," Jenny says. "They're not really there to help; they just want to watch other people's suffering and misfortune."
"Like on the news?" my daughter asks.
>The blood is helping.
I chuckle despite the odd distraction. "Yes, honey. Like on the news, sometimes."
Jenny cocks an eyebrow. "Sometimes?" she taunts. And grows transparent.
>He's starting to respond.
A gravel road appears at the periphery of my vision. I slow and begin the turn.
>I don't like this.
The smoke is closer now, rising to veil the sun.
>If he were completely transformed the wound would have merely inconvenienced him.
It's getting darker now. And whispering voices are distracting me.
>If he were completely human it would have killed him.
The van fades away completely and I am swallowed up in a smokey blackness.
I stayed in darkness a very long time.
During that time sensations returned and, with them, came pain. Then, gradually, the pain began to ease. Became discomfort. Gave way to lassitude. Ennui.
Then discomfort returned: pressure, a weight on my chest. Harder to breathe. My throat began to itch, to tingle. To tickle.
I forced my left eye open. A hill rose before me, brown and blurry. I forced my right eye open. The left eye drooped shut with the shift in my attention. The hill resolved itself into furry haunches.
With a tail.
Two tails.
The cat was lying across my chest, its head nuzzling beneath my chin, and now I could feel the rasp of its tongue licking across my neck.
It was a horrifyingly pleasant sensation.
I turned my head to the left and observed the needles in my arm. The tubes to the needles led up to several packets of blood and a couple of packets of nearly clear liquid. The movement of my head disturbed the cat: it stopped its nuzzling, rising up on its hindquarters to regard me with golden eyes. Then it leapt from my chest to the floor and I heard the whispery sound of its paws as it scurried off, across the floor. A moment later there was the sound of a door and footsteps—human footsteps—coming toward me.
Dr. Mooncloud entered my field of vision, followed by a large, bearded and balding black man. "You're awake," she said.
"Brilliant diagnosis, Doctor," was my intended reply. I opened my mouth, but only a strangled wheeze emerged.
"Don't try to talk," she ordered. "Your vocal cords have been damaged." She turned and gestured toward the black man in the white ducks. "This is Dr. Burton."
Burton smiled and nodded as he made a notation on my clipboard. "Pleased to see you awake." His voice was surprisingly soft.
I made my own mental notation that the good doctor had fangs.
Now the Doman and Suki appeared. "He's awake," Pagelovitch observed.
Mooncloud nodded. "A good sign. But he's not out of the woods, yet."
Lupé and Luis Garou arrived. Lupé was using a cane, now, circling the bed while her brother asked: "Is he awake?"
Lupé took my right hand in hers. "You're awake, I see."
I was surprised that I didn't feel more secure, surrounded as I was by all these brilliant diagnosticians.
The Doman was all business and a little curt. "What can he tell us, Doctor?"
"Nothing, yet. His larynx hasn't had time to heal."
"It's been two days, Doctor."
"I know it's been two days, Stefan," she said. "Considering his stage of transformation, we are doubly lucky that he didn't die immediately and that the blood infusions brought him back."
"But not very far, I see." Elizabeth Bachman was standing in the doorway. "Is he awake?"
I groaned.
"Hush," Mooncloud scolded. "I don't want you doing anything that will interfere with your healing."
"What about a pad?" the Doman asked.
"I'd rather keep the wound uncovered and exposed to the open air."
"Kk," I said, trying to say "cat."
"I meant a pad of paper and a pen or pencil," the Doman said, "so we can ask some questions and he can write the answers."
"You shut up!" Mooncloud said.
Pagelovitch bristled.
"Not you. Him." She pointed at me. "As for the pad, we can try, but I don't want to tire him."
The Doman said something else, but I missed it.
I slipped back into the darkness.
The smoke fills the sky, now, hovering over the farm like an old, mud-spattered shroud. The old farmhouse is still intact though its second story is mostly hidden by thick billows of heavy smoke and flames are starting to show through the windows on the first floor. I look for a place to park the van that won't get us too close and won't get in the way of the fire trucks when they finally do arrive.
"Look, Daddy, there's a man."
I set the parking brake and look around. "Where?"
Kirsten points. "He just went into the barn."
I stumble out of the van and hesitate. The house or the barn, first? And what if no one has called the fire department? There was no sign of nearby neighbors and townsfolk might assume a farmer was merely burning off part of a field.
I turn and toss the keys through the window. "Jenny, drive into town or find the nearest phone and make sure the fire department knows about this!"
Kirsten pouts. "I wanta come with you!"
"No," I gesture, half pointing, half waving. "I want you to stay with your mother—help her!"
I turn and run toward the house.
The barn.
As I hesitate I hear the van start down the road behind me.
Come to the barn.
I turn and run toward the barn. But not as quickly as I was running toward the house.
Then I was walking.
I was walking through the desert at night.
It was cold and I was thirsty.
Two yellow moons hung in the night sky
growing
brighter and brighter
chasing the darkness
away
becoming cat's eyes
that watched intently as I struggled back to consciousness.
The cat merrowed and hopped up on the nightstand to lay across the call button.
Dr. Burton entered the room. "Ah, you're awake."
"Wow," I whispered. "Déjà vu."
"Whispering is fine as long as you don't overdo it."
"What happened?"
"That's what we'd like to ask you. Hold on a moment." While he left the room I had a better opportunity to study my surroundings.
It wasn't so much a room as a cubicle: three of the four walls were tracked curtains, separating my bed from the rest of the infirmary. I checked my left arm. Yep: more tubes and needles bringing me that tick, tick, tick of hemoglobin and plasma. I looked at the cat. "And what do you want?"
It merrowed and began licking a paw while its two tails danced like an animated caduceus.
Burton returned. "The Doman's on his way. How are we doing?" Close up, he looked a bit haggard.
"Well, judging from the way I feel and the way you look, I'd say we're both in trouble."
He smiled. "I've been pulling double duty for the past twenty-four hours."
The Doman came in now. "How is he doing, Gerald?"
Burton gave him a wry look. "Oh, he's definitely feeling better."
"You forgot to observe that I am awake," I said.
"What does that mean?" He addressed the question to Dr. Burton instead of me.
"After-effects of shock and blood loss," was the less than solemn reply.
Lupé limped into the cubicle area. "Hey, you're awake."
"Ah," I sighed, "much better."
"What?"
"Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more!' " I rasped.
" 'Macbeth doth murder sleep,' " the Doman murmured.
"I need to reduce his pain medication," the doctor muttered.
The cat merrowed again.
I looked around the room. "So what happened?"
"We were hoping you could tell us," Pagelovitch said.
Burton leaned in. "What do you remember?"
I told them.
It took a while with many sips of water. I had to stop and rest my throat at the point where I was tossed in the trunk of the other limousine.
"Three nights ago," the Doman said, "the bell was rung at the service entrance at about three o'clock in the morning. Someone had driven that limousine to the kitchen loading dock and left it there with the keys in the ignition and the motor running. You were in the backseat, smelling heavily of blood and garlic. . . ."
"The handkerchief they knocked me out with, it was soaked in garlic oil."
"The others were in the trunk."
"Others?"
He nodded. "Three men and a woman."
"Dead?"
"Yes."
"So who drove?"
"That's what we'd like to know. We'd also like to know who administered your first aid."
"First aid?"
"Somebody cut your throat, Christopher. From ear to ear. Were you completely human, you would have been dead in seconds. Were you undead, the wound would have temporarily inconvenienced you. Instead, you fell somewhere in between. When we found you someone had used duct tape to close your throat."
"Duct tape?"
"Not exactly standard treatment, but effective under the circumstances," Burton said.
"Duct tape?"
"And there was blood on your face and in your mouth."
I reached up and felt the line of scar tissue around my neck.
"But it seemed atypical for even a wound such as yours so we took samples and Dr. Mooncloud's analysis determined that the blood wasn't yours."
"Wasn't mine?"
"Most of it, anyway. Do you remember any of this?"
I shook my head. "Duct tape?"
"Is there anything else you can tell us?"
I nodded and told them the last little bit with the exception of seeing the face of the old man. For some reason my mouth wouldn't work when I got to that part.
"It was a mob hit," the Doman said.
I stared at him.
"The New York enclave has mob ties and they've been moving against some of the other demesnes this past year."
"Mob ties?"
"We were able to ID two of the bodies in the trunk. Hitters from New York."
"Hitters?"
"Apparently, they were under orders to bring you back alive, if possible; put you down if they couldn't."
"Put me down?"
"They nailed Damien before you came out. You were already on our doorstep before Elizabeth knew anything was wrong. So the question is: who took down four members of a New York black bag team and saved your life by closing the wound, giving you fresh blood—apparently from one of the assassins while they were still alive—and left you on our doorstep in time for us to pull you through the rest of the way?"
Now I really wanted to tell them about the old man—but, for some reason, I couldn't.
I reached up and felt my throat again. "Duct tape?"
I slept and when I woke again the cat was sleeping on my stomach and Dr. Burton was standing at the end of my bed, checking my chart. The presence of a cat draped across his patient didn't seem to trouble him in the least.
"Where's Dr. Mooncloud?" I croaked.
"Gone." He closed the clipboard and rehung it on the metal footboard.
"Gone?"
He came around to the side of my bed, slipping the ends of his stethoscope in his ears. "A problem came up and the Doman sent her out of town." He pulled the covers back, disturbing the cat. "Which I doubt he would have done if your life was still in any danger." He slipped the stethoscope's metal bell down inside my hospital gown. "Inhale."
"What kind of problem?" I asked after I exhaled again. "Another retrieval?"
Burton shook his head. "I seriously doubt it." He moved the diaphragm. "Breathe in. Nobody briefed me, but it sounded more like a search and destroy mission. Let it out."
"New York, again?"
"Naw. Breathe in. Another rogue surfaced. Happened a couple of days ago and there's already three people dead. The Doman figures the sooner this one's stopped—breathe out—the better, and we don't dare take time for niceties. Sit up."
He helped me bend forward. There was little pain, now, but I was still as weak as a kitten.
The cat looked at me and merrowed.
"Who else went?"
He slid the diaphragm down my back. "Breathe in. She took Garou and Bachman—which reminds me: she left something for you. Let it out. Now cough." He finished the cursory examination by checking my blood pressure and my temperature. "I'd like another blood sample, but after nearly four days of pumping it back into you, you still don't seem to be able to spare any." He handed me a cup and, as I brought it to my lips, I felt a familiar explosion of saliva flood my mouth.
"It's blood!"
He smiled reassuringly. "Think of it as medicine."
"It's not medicine, it's blood!"
"It's what had kept you alive these past four days and I can't guarantee you a full recovery without it!"
"It's not human blood, is it? I told Dr. Mooncloud—and I told the Doman—that I wouldn't ever drink human blood!"
"Come now, Mr Csejthe; don't you think you're being unnecessarily dramatic? You've already ingested human blood: you wouldn't be here now if you hadn't. And what is the difference if your body absorbs it through a needle in your vein or if you take it orally?"
I stared back at him.
"I'll tell you the only real, the only important difference. Your new metabolic structure is able to absorb and utilize it more efficiently when you drink it."
I started to open my mouth, but he walked out of the room. He returned a moment later, saying: "Spare me your superstitious religious dogmas. If you're a Christian, here." He handed me a paperback Bible. "Read the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. The drinking of blood is at the very heart of the Christian religion."
I could have argued the true use and interpretation of that particular ritual, but I was exhausted.
"Look," he picked up the cup and pushing it into my free hand, "this was contributed willingly. No one died, no one suffered, nothing was taken against anyone's will. This is the pure will of nature, its elixir of life. Think of it as a gift."
In the end it was not his words but my thirst and the craving of my weakened body that convinced me to drink.
"Get some rest now." He took the empty cup from my trembling hand.
"You said Lupé had left something for me," I said as he started to leave.
"What? Oh! Not Ms. Garou. . . ." He opened the drawer in the nightstand and produced a small, wrapped box with an envelope attached. "This is from Ms. Bachman." He pulled the curtains closed as he exited the cubicle.
The cat shifted its position and turned to watch me as I opened the envelope. For a moment I flashed on the note I'd found in my room just hours—no—days ago, now. But the letter inside was in different handwriting with a different message:
Dear Chris,
I am terribly sorry about what has happened. Even though Damien was technically responsible for security that night, I feel that I should have been out there when it happened. Can you ever forgive me?
I tried to donate some of my blood for your recovery but old "Dr. Moony" is still on her kick about not letting you have any nasty ol' vampire blood.
The Doman is sending us out on a mission that should take somewhere between three to six days so I won't be there to help you with any "therapy" (hint, hint). But I have arranged for some special "get well" medicine while I'm gone. The initiation is inevitable so relax and enjoy it! (I certainly would!)
I also got you something that you really need. If it doesn't fit we'll do a new set of molds when I get back. Gotta go, now. Get well soon, and welcome to the family.
Love,
Liz—
P.S. Don't forget what I told you about knowing who your friends are. . . .
The cat was staring at me intently as I refolded the letter and stuffed it back into the envelope. "Parentheses," I said. "Hint, hint," I said. "Well, at least she doesn't dot her i's with little hearts or happy faces."
The cat merrowed.
I tore the wrapping paper off the box and opened it. I pulled Bachman's gift out of the cotton batting and held it up to examine it.
"Well, I'll be damned!" Under the circumstances, I probably was anyway.
Bachman had taken my dental molds and had someone—someone very good, I had to admit—make a partial plate to match my upper teeth in front. It was designed to fit over my real teeth like a movie appliance—the kind that actors wear when their parts call for a different dental effect from their own.
I could tell that, even with my limited knowledge of the craft, someone had created an artistic masterpiece: up close, the detail was incredibly lifelike and realistic. They looked just like my teeth—except that the two canines or "eye-teeth" were three-quarters of an inch long, slightly curved . . .
. . . and very, very pointed.
The cat got up and walked up my chest for a closer look.
"You want to see? Okay." I checked the appliance thoroughly: it was clean. I eased it up and over my upper, front teeth.
It was a perfect fit. There was a small tube of dental fixative in the box but the appliance fit so well, I didn't seem to need any kind of adhesive.
"What do you think?" I asked the cat. Surprisingly, there was no difficulty or discomfort in talking beyond my already sore throat.
The cat merrowed approvingly.
As I turned to lay the box and envelope on the nightstand I remembered the Bible that now lay in my lap. I hesitated, feeling fatigue drag at my eyelids with leaden curtain-pulls, but curiosity won out for the moment.
I opened it to the fourth gospel and began skimming the sixth chapter. I found the reference beginning with the fifty-third verse:
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you
.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up in the resurrection of the just at the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
This is that bread which came down from heaven; not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead; he that eateth of this bread shall live forever.
I closed the Bible slowly and pressed the control to lower the upper half of the bed, again. I was tired and confused—
"Oh thyit!"
And I had just bitten my tongue with my new teeth.