Blood Crimes Book One

Chapter 5

Faces of the perverts and rapists and sociopaths that Jim had killed over the last three years blurred in his mind into something generic, something almost cartoonish. Outside of that first thug who attacked Carol in Newark, it was hard for him to recall any of them. Even the latest one from only several hours before. Their faces just kept fading in and out, never quite coming into focus. He forced himself to concentrate, to try to picture what at least one of them looked like, but couldn’t do it. Whenever he came close, the image would morph into Bluto from those old Popeye cartoons. Giving up, he forced himself to count how many of these predators he had killed since hooking up with Carol. It took a while but he came up with a number-a hundred and ten, plus the two vampires that Serena had sicced on him. Fuck. If this kept up and he lived to a ripe old age he could go down as one of the deadliest serial killers in history, or the most successful vigilante, depending on your point of view. The fact that these were all violent sociopathic thugs, the worst that humanity had to offer, only slightly helped to ease his conscience. No matter how hard he tried convincing himself otherwise, it still came down to that he was robbing them of any chance of redemption. Even though he had to kill them for his survival, he probably wouldn’t be able to do it if they weren’t trying to hurt Carol. Not that he hadn’t killed before becoming a vampire.

Yeah, he had killed more than his share before that…

Shit, maybe even more than since his infection…

His thoughts drifted back to his days during the First Gulf War when he had been a member of a special forces unit that was taking out command and communication bunkers in Western Iraq. This was during the first wave of bombings when the Iraqi Republican Guard were buried deep underground. His team blew their way into those bunkers, tossed down tear gas canisters, then Jim would lead the charge. He was good at what he did and killed most of them himself before the other members of his team could get in on the action. Afterwards they would collect whatever intel they could find and blow up what was left inside. He killed a lot of Iraqis during those first few days, enough to fuck him up good for a long time afterwards.

After his stint in the army, he wandered aimlessly for the next eight years. For a while he took whatever odd jobs came his way; short order cook, bartender, bouncer, fisherman, lumberjack, even a short time as a bodyguard for one of Hollywood’s leading divas, but he couldn’t stay put in any one place for too long. He couldn’t sleep at night and was too antsy during the day to be able to concentrate on anything. After a few months in one place, the pressure inside would get to where he felt like he couldn’t breathe, like he had a knife pressed against his heart. He’d have to move then. After six years of this, he stopped giving a shit altogether. He stopped working and instead started doing smash and grabs, burglaries and purse snatches for his drinking money. Nothing too violent, but still enough too leave him filled with even more self-loathing. A short time later he started worshipping the needle and the release that gave him. The heroin numbed him out and kept him from slicing his wrists each night. For almost a year after that he was in freefall, and by all rights he should’ve ended up dead, contracting AIDS or in prison for a good five to ten year stretch, and if it wasn’t for a chance encounter in Austin, Texas, one of those fates probably would’ve happened.

That day started off worse than most of the others. He had hooked up the night before with another addict, a deathly thin blonde woman about twenty years older than him. He didn’t remember much about her other than how damn hollow her eyes looked, how her lips were so unnaturally pale with this hint of blue tingeing them and hard it was for her to find a vein to tap. When he woke up the next morning she was gone along with his roll of over three grand and his stash. There was nothing in her apartment worth any money. She wasn’t coming back. His cash and junk were long gone. He was just lucky she didn’t take his clothes, and even luckier she didn’t take his army-issued boots. He sat on the floor for a long time holding his head, needing a fix as badly as he ever did. Eventually the stench of garbage got to him and he staggered out of the apartment.

Most of what happened that day was lost to him, but he remembered that night ending up in a diner. He tried to palm a couple of bucks from the counter and that was when a burly tattooed arm went around his shoulder, corralling him.

“Hey, buddy, I think that was left behind for that pretty little waitress over there working her tail off. What do you say you put it back?”

It was said in a soft friendly rumbling tone, and the man saying it was the size of a small grizzly. Long beard, long dirty blonde hair, sunburned face, and wire-rimmed sunglasses that looked like gray coins placed on the eyes of a dead man. The man peered at Jim, who was wearing one of his old military camouflage shirts.

“You in Desert Storm?” he asked.

“Yeah, special forces.”

The man nodded. “Third Armored Division. Spent some time there myself. Why don’t you put that little gal’s tip back and join me and my friends for some dinner. My treat.”

Jim put the money back on the counter. The man introduced himself as Big Daddy Larkin. Three guys and a long-haired slender gal with granny-style sunglasses and a wicked off-balance smile sat at the table, all members of Big Daddy’s rock band. The band’s name was the Walking Wounded and tried for a mix of Southern Rock and heavy metal. Allman Brothers meets AC/DC was the way Big Daddy described it. He played base, the girl, Elise, sang, and the three other guys-all Desert Storm vets also-played instrumentals. Big Daddy explained the name of the band by tapping on his leg and showing Jim that it was a prosthetic. The drummer, Kyle, was missing a hand. Stevie and Danny, who played electric guitar and keyboard, were also each missing a leg. Jim, as he listened, tried hard to keep from shivering.

“You need a fix pretty bad, huh?” Big Daddy observed.

Jim nodded.

“Can’t help you there. We’re mostly drug-free, do a little weed, but not much more than that. Why don’t we get some coffee in you in the meantime.”

Big Daddy signaled the waitress over and had her pour a cup of high octane for Jim. He ordered Jim some scrambled eggs and bacon, along with a stack of pancakes, and had her leave the pot of coffee behind.

“We’ll see if your stomach can hold down some food,” he said with a wink to Jim after the waitress left.

Jim poured a heavy dose of sugar in his coffee and sipped it slowly.

“Fuck, I hope so,” he said.

Elise was sitting next to Jim. She rubbed a small hand gently across his back. Big Daddy considered him thoughtfully.

“Our band manager took off when we were in Dallas last week. We need a new one, and with the theme of our band, I think you’d fit right in. Looking for a job?”

Jim smiled weakly. “I didn’t lose any body parts over there.”

“Maybe not, but you lost something.”

Jim ended up accepting the job. The next three days were hard ones, and he spent most of the time curled up on rubber sheets while he sweated, vomited and crapped out his addiction. He half-remembered Elise being there a lot, wiping off his forehead with a cold compress, cleaning the vomit off his face and feeding him soup and apple juice.

After those three days Jim was shaky but able to stand on his feet. “Damn good thing,” Big Daddy grumbled. “We’ve got a show tonight. About time you got off your ass and pulled your weight.”

His job as band manager turned out to be doing everything except playing on stage. He moved the instruments from the van to the stage and back, booked the club dates and hotels, collected their pay, bought their weed, among dozens of other small chores. The job didn’t pay much but it had more than its share of perks. Elise was cute as hell with a singing voice that brought a lump to his throat. Her and Big Daddy were an item, which was okay with Jim. He just enjoyed her company, and overtime thought of her as a younger sister, and fuck, Big Daddy and the other guys in the band as his brothers. They all shared the same experience of being over there-or in Elise’s case, having her fiancee over there and killed in Dhahran. Each of them had lost a piece of themselves, and more important, had survived what they lost. For whatever it was worth, they saved his life. To say he would’ve taken a bullet for any of them would’ve been an understatement.

Every four or five days Jim would pack them up and they’d travel to the next city and their next club date. The constant moving around was good for him. It kept him from feeling antsy and from having the pressure inside build up too much. He started sleeping better and his nightmares were mostly gone. There were some nights where he’d find himself blissfully out of it for as much as six hours. For the first time in a long time he was relaxing and having fun. His biggest kick came when the band performed a song he wrote and the audience went wild over it, including several panties being thrown onstage. Big Daddy brought him up with the rest of the band to take a bow. After that he worked on more songs with Big Daddy and Elise. It was the best time of his life, and not just because of the music and the sex-crazed groupies and the free lifestyle. Big Daddy and Elise and the rest of the band had become his family in a way that his alcoholic parents and the army never were.

Three and a half years ago they had a club date in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan. A little hole in the wall basement nightclub that could hold maybe a hundred people, and somehow managed to squeeze in twice that amount to hear them. Elise was on fire that night and the band was hitting on all cylinders. Normally it would’ve been one of those magical nights where as band manager Jim would be able to just sit back and enjoy the ride, but he couldn’t concentrate on the music. Not with this wild looking dame standing maybe twenty feet from him. And not with the way she was staring at him. Jesus, she was something, sexy as hell in a matching yellow skintight leather pants and vest that left little to the imagination. Narrow hips and long legs and green eyes that could’ve been lasers the way they pierced through him. He wouldn’t exactly say she was gorgeous-she had this weird cat-like look about her, but every time he’d look over and meet her eyes and catch her thin impish smile, he’d feel himself growing as hard as a brick between his legs. It was embarrassing, and he couldn’t explain it. He tried not to look in her direction. His sixth sense told him to stay the fuck away. He found himself sweating, tensing, praying that she’d keep her distance. A hand touched his shoulder, then the feel of her lips brushing against his ear. It froze him. She whispered her name to him, told him that she had her eye on him for the longest time and that she was completely mesmerized by him. He knew she was mocking him, but her being so close to him left his head pounding.

He followed her to the club manager’s office. Maybe she paid the manager to leave, maybe she asked him politely, or maybe something else had happened, but whatever, the office was empty. Once the door closed she was on him, her legs wrapping around his thighs, her hands ripping his shirt as if it were tissue paper. If he were thinking clearly he’d realize that what she was doing to his shirt was reason enough to bolt the hell out of there, but his blood was pounding too hard in his head for rational thought. He barely even realized it when she worked him out of his jeans. Next they were on the hardwood floor, her nails digging into his shoulders and her tongue probing deep down his throat. His own skin had become so feverish that he only faintly realized how cold to the touch her flesh was. In a way it felt good, her lips like ice as they cooled him. Blindly, he freed her from her leather pants, and then she was on him, pushing him inside of her and bucking like a wild animal, her eyes rolling inwards until only the whites could be seen. She rode him like that until he thought he was going to pass out, all the while her moaning rising to something obscene. Shuddering as if she’d been shot, she collapsed on him but continuing to writhe across his body, her nails clawing at him, her tongue riding up his chest and towards his neck, all the while licking the blood from his scratches.

The touch of her tongue made his skin crawl.

He was in ecstasy.

He was in agony.

She bit him at the base of his neck.

“What the fuck?”

The shock of the bite brought him out of his trance. He tried to push her off him, but her arms held him like steel bands. He couldn’t believe how strong she was. Panic set in, but as hard as he fought, she held him down with ease as if he were only a rag doll. Her teeth sunk deeper into his flesh. It only took minutes before the infection came, then the sickness rolled over him.

Christ, it was bad. His heroin withdrawal was like heaven on earth compared to the sickness. Serena’s posse must’ve carried him out of the club and taken him to her converted hotel in Union Square, at least that’s probably what happened, because he had no memory of it. The only thing he could remember clearly about the next twenty-four hours was the intense agony he went through. It was unlike anything imaginable-as if every fiber of his body was on fire and being pulled apart. How he, or any of the other vampires, survived the infection stage without going insane was beyond him. Only fragments of that time stuck in his consciousness. The swatches that survived in his brain were things from a horror movie. Images fading in and out. Him in wrist and ankle restraints. Being fed blood through a baby bottle. Him greedily sucking on it, his throat so damn dry as if it had been burnt with a flame. The vampire who he would later learn was Metcalf arguing with Serena about him, claiming she had no right to infect anyone without his permission, and her insisting she had every right to her toys. Metcalf appearing with a samurai sword and slicing off the legs of one of her posse, telling her that he needed to maintain the status quo. Those legs that were sliced off continuing to move on their own while Metcalf cut off the vampire’s arms, then carrying away what was left, the whole time the bloody thing screaming like a banshee.

The fever broke. Consciousness seeped in and he became aware of where he was and what was happening to him. God, he hurt. Especially his throat. Fuck, he was hungry.

A familiar woman’s voice, soft and amused, commented, “The butterfly has broken free from its cocoon.”

Blinking, he craned his neck. Serena sat naked on a chaise lounge pleasuring herself. He realized he was naked also, and even in his pain, felt himself growing hard.

She got off the chaise lounge. She noticed his erection and smiled thinly at him.

“The dead has risen from the ashes, I see,” she said in that same sing-song melodic voice he had heard in the club.

He tried to tell her how much his throat hurt, but he couldn’t get anything out other than a rasping sound. She shushed him.

“I know, my pet. You’re so thirsty and your throat hurts so much. Let me take care of everything.”

There was a baby’s bottle sitting on a table nearby filled with a thick congealing red fluid. She brought it to him and placed the nipple in his open mouth. He wanted to be repulsed at the thought of what she was offering, but he drank from that bottle as if his life depended on it. When he was done, he felt better, his throat less raw.

“That was blood,” he croaked out in a low whisper.

“Yes, my pet. How very observant of you.”

“What type?”

“What type do you think?”

At some level he wanted to gag, but at a deeper more fundamental level, all he wanted was to drink more blood. His wrists and ankles were still manacled. As he lay helpless, she crawled on him so that her pubic area pressed against his mouth, then started to fellate him.

He tried not to breathe in that sickly-sweet scent of hers.

He tried hard not to taste her.

Fuck, he wanted to throw her off him.

More than anything, though, he didn’t want her to stop.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine that it was a different woman than Serena on him. He tried to think of his old high school girlfriend, and that he was someplace else entirely. It didn’t work. All he could think about was Serena and that night in the SoHo nightclub. About her biting him and the intense sickness that came afterwards. He knew he had changed. He could feel the difference in his body. He had seen on waking that he had become leaner and more narrow. He could feel that his head had changed shape. In his mind’s eye he could picture what he now looked like. At some level he knew what he had turned into. The word vampire kept bumping through his brain. He didn’t want to think about it. He tried not to think about it… He tried not to want Serena as much as he did…

Christ, he was hungry. Without even realizing it he had bit the inside of her thigh. It took a lot of effort to break the skin, and he just kept biting down harder, and it made her squirm and suck harder on him. Finally he broke the skin. He licked up the drops of blood that formed from her wound. A violent intense spasm wracked his body. For a long moment he couldn’t breathe. His body became so tense he couldn’t move. Then he started gagging.

Serena had rolled off him.

“If it was only that easy,” she said, sighing. “We can’t feed off of infected blood, my pet.”

She waited until he stopped gagging. Then caressing his cheek, asked, “Are you feeling better now?”

Jim nodded, his face contorted into a tight grimace.

“Good. You can bite me all you want. I like it. But if I bleed, don’t lick my blood. It’s not good for you.”

It didn’t take much effort on her part to bring back his erection. And then she was back to what she’d been doing, although with more excitement. Right before he was about to climax, he could feel the violence of her being ripped away from him. He opened his eyes and saw that Metcalf had a grip of her long black hair and was pulling her off the table.

“You son of a bitch!” she swore at him as she tried to pull free. Metcalf let her fall to the floor.

“Me?” Metcalf asked, grinning, although his eyes were as dull as sand. “For Chrissakes, Serena, can’t you even show an ounce of self control? You know full well we have an indoctrination protocol.”

“Asshole,” she spat.

She rubbed her head gingerly before grabbing a robe lying nearby and covering herself.

Metcalf’s eyelids lowered as he turned to her. She noticed it and moved over to the chaise lounge. Avoiding his stare, she told him to get on with his indoctrination.

“Thank you.”

She didn’t bother to respond, instead curled her fingers on her right hand and studied her nails. Metcalf turned his attention to Jim. He sat down on the edge of the table Jim had been manacled to, and pulled a stiletto knife from his belt. He let Jim get a long look at it.

“This is an incredibly sharp knife,” Metcalf said, admiring it. “You’d be amazed at how sharp this really is and what it could cut.”

Even though he knew what the answer was going to be, Jim couldn’t help himself from asking Metcalf what he was going to do with the knife.

“Only a demonstration,” Metcalf said. He looked bored as he ran his thumb along the edge of the blade. “If my skin were like any normal person’s my thumb would’ve been sliced open to the bone. But it’s not. And you’ve probably noticed you’ve changed also, am I correct?”

Without waiting for a response, Metcalf spun around and plunged the blade into Jim’s chest, and kept pushing downwards until the knife was buried. Jim stared dumbly at it. A low creaking noise escaped from him, then his body jerked into spasms. His back arched as if ten thousand volts were being shot through him.

“Right through the heart,” Metcalf said. “Hurts like hell doesn’t it? If you were normal you’d be dead now. But you’re not. And if you want the pain to stop, you’ll figure it out.”

Jim strained frantically against his chains. One of them snapped, and with his hand free, he pulled the knife out of his body.

“You fucking asshole,” he forced through clenched teeth.

Metcalf got a laugh out of that. “Only proving a point, guy,” he said. “My demo takes a hell of a lot less time than trying to convince you about the changes.”

Serena rolled her eyes. “My dear, Metcalf, I think you do this little demonstration of yours because you’re a sadist. No other reason.”

Any amusement Metcalf had been showing dried up quickly. He glanced impatiently at Jim and ordered him to break himself free of his other chains.

“You’ve got ten seconds to get off that table before I repeat my demonstration.”

Jim snapped the chain restraining his other wrist, then broke the chains attached to his ankles. He pushed himself off the table by the time Metcalf had counted to nine, and stood wobbly for a moment before regaining his balance.

“Why aren’t I dead?” he asked. The searing pain that had been slicing through his chest was now more of a dull ache. He found himself able to talk more normally again. “You stabbed me through the heart. What the fuck have I turned into?”

“What do you think?”

Half under his breath, Jim muttered the V word.

That brought a grim smile from Metcalf. “For your information, that’s a dirty word around here, but no, not in the classic supernatural sense. Thanks to Serena, though, you have been infected with a virus that mimics some of those legends.” He glared at Serena, his mouth shrinking to a small slit. Serena appeared not to notice. She had picked up a file and was nonchalantly sharpening her blood-red painted nails. Metcalf’s eyes dulled as he turned back to Jim. “That’s it for questions. Put some clothes on and follow me so we can finish your indoctrination. I don’t have all fucking day.”

The knife wound had already scabbed over. Only a scar the size of a quarter had been left behind. A pair of khaki draw-string pants and a matching color tee shirt were folded next to the table. Jim slipped them both on. They were several sizes smaller than his normal size, and they hung loosely on him. Metcalf waited impatiently. Serena looked up from her nails to eye the way he looked in the clothes, and licked her lips.

“Where the fuck am I?” Jim asked.

“The place you’re going to spend the rest of your life. Just shut up and follow me.”

The windows in the room had been painted black, as they were in the hallway Metcalf led Jim through. From the layout, the art deco decorations and the antique elevator that they stepped into, Jim’s thought was that this was a converted turn-of-the-century hotel. He had to guess they were still in Manhattan. With the windows darkened and only artificial light filtering through the hallway and rooms, he had no sense of time. It could be midnight or noon for all he knew. He couldn’t shake this image in his head that they were in a large coffin.

Metcalf had them get out at the basement level, and before too long they were stepping into hell. Emaciated men and women sat in cages, each looking withdrawn and defeated. The scene could’ve been snapshots from a Nazi concentration camp. Jim felt a sickening horror as he looked from face to face. None of the captives were able to meet his eyes. Metcalf casually explained that these were the cattle pens.

“What the fuck do you mean by that?”

Metcalf raised an eyebrow at his tone. “I’m giving you this one warning,” he said. “In a few minutes I’ll be making it clear to you what will happen if you raise your voice to me again.” He waved a hand toward the cages. “And before you act all high and mighty, didn’t you think about where the blood came from that Serena fed you earlier?”

Jim shook his head.

“Bullshit.”

“No. There’s no way I could’ve imagined something like this.”

“What did you expect then? That we turn on our faucets and blood pours out instead of tap water? Sorry, guy, it doesn’t work that way. But I’ll tell you what. If you’re so offended by this, you don’t have to drink the blood we milk for you. You can starve if you want-”

“I don’t get it. Why human blood?”

Metcalf smiled cruelly. “You want to try eating something else, you name it, sport. Steak, pizza, chocolate, anything you want, and I’ll get it for you. We’ll see how well you do with it. But all that’s besides the point. This isn’t why I brought you down here.”

Metcalf continued to the opposite end of the room where he unlocked a door and beckoned Jim to join him, a grim smile showing as Jim approached.

“This is my private lab. If you’re smart this will be the only time you get a chance to see it.”

Metcalf turned on the overhead lights. The inside of the lab was a chamber of horrors. What at first looked like grotesque armless mannequins cut off at the waist turned out to be living beings. Some were chained to the walls, others had spikes driven through their shoulder pinning them to tables. A few were sliced open as if they were in the midst of being dissected, but even these were still alive. They all seemed to be in agony.

“I use this lab to study the limits of our infection,” Metcalf said, his lips pursed with amusement as he observed Jim’s reaction to the room and its inhabitants. “It serves other purposes as you can probably guess. There’s one thing in particular here that I’d like to show you.”

He brought Jim to an empty area at a lab table between two of the dissection experiments. Jim caught the eye of one of the partially dissected vampires. It mewled softly to him before looking away.

“Any idea what this is for?” Metcalf asked.

Jim couldn’t keep himself from nodding.

“Yeah? Let’s hear it.”

Jim started to answer him, closed his mouth.

“Superstitious, huh?” Metcalf asked. “You’re afraid to say it? Okay, I’ll say it for you. This spot’s reserved for the next resident here who pisses me off.”

“It looked to me like Serena was doing a good job of that.”

A glaze fell over Metcalf’s eyes. “She has her privileges, but you sure as fuck don’t. If I were you I’d watch my mouth. Understand?”

Something about the way Metcalf was staring at him told Jim he was seconds away from being made one of his experiments. As shaky as he was feeling he knew he’d have no chance against this vampire. Maybe if he was feeling stronger and had a knife, he’d have a shot, but not now.

“Yeah,” Jim said, his eyes shifting downwards and away from Metcalf.

“So what did you learn here?”

“Don’t piss you off.”

Metcalf nodded. “Congratulations. You pass your indoctrination and get to walk out of this room. Not all of our new recruits can say that. Now get the fuck out so I can get to work.” He sniffed and glanced sideways at Jim as he was leaving. “I’m sure Serena will fill you in on the rest of our rules, but before that don’t try to do something stupid like leave this building. You do, we’ll hunt you down and I’ll make you one of my very special projects.”

During the next five months Jim played along. At first he refused the blood being offered him, and to the amusement of the other vampires accepted Metcalf’s offer for other food-first trying fresh fruit and vegetables, then fish, and finally cow’s blood, and each time paying a heavy price, the reaction being the same as when he had tried licking up drops of Serena’s blood. After several days of this he was left near crazed with hunger and drank what Serena brought to him. He tried hard not to think about where it came from. Instead he did what he had to during those five months to survive, including putting on an act of complete submissiveness. The reality was his survival instincts had kicked into full drive. It was like he was back in Iraq, moving silently among the enemy and gathering whatever intelligence he could. During that time he avoided Metcalf as much as possible-not that it was that difficult given how that psycho son of a bitch spent most of his waking hours playing in his lab.

He had been right about the building being a converted hotel, and also about it’s location-it turned out to be in the heart of Union Square. After a month of being cooped up inside of this glorified tomb, Serena took him clubbing with her and her posse. By this point he had become more than just her sex toy. While she was still engaging in orgies with her posse, she was spending her nights alone with Jim, confiding secrets, and at times even appearing vulnerable. He knew this special treatment didn’t play well with the other members of her inner circle, especially Zach, and he was careful when he was alone with them. When they went out clubbing, Serena spent less time eyeing other men, and mostly focused on Jim, whispering in his ear and rubbing her body against his. His own feelings towards her were a mix of hate and lust. As much as he was disgusted by her, she could make him hard simply by looking at him. Sex with her was always a thrill ride, and he kept his true feelings about her hidden.

After five months he was satisfied with the intelligence he collected, and when he had his next opportunity to escape, he took it. Like every night when they went out clubbing, Serena and her posse doped themselves up first with heroin, and that night they snorted extra lines and were more lethargic than usual. At the club, Zach was brooding over some imagined slight, which attracted Serena’s attention enough for Jim to slip away. He left through a back door and kept running until he was out of Manhattan and crossing over the Queensboro bridge into Long Island City. The first night he spent in a condemned tenement building. He could hear the rats squealing as they fled. After that night he found a studio apartment off of Queens Boulevard to rent. The place was a dump, but it didn’t matter. The cockroaches and other pests emptied out of it within seconds of him showing up. Besides, he didn’t expect to be there long.

During his time in the vampire hotel, or tomb, as he had come to think of the place, he had worked out some initial plans of how he was going to free the “cattle” being held in the basement, and destroy Serena, Metcalf, and the other vampires living there. He knew that while it was difficult to kill an infected person, it was possible. With enough explosive force he would be able to blow off their limbs, and then cut off their heads as they lay helpless. The plan he worked out was basically a suicide mission, which was okay with him as long as it left the other vampires dead. Hell, he always thought he left Iraq with one last mission left in him. The only piece of intel that he was missing that bothered him was the source of the infection. He never was able to identify whether the virus started with Serena, Metcalf, or a third party, and he would’ve liked to have known that when he was done the virus had been fully eradicated. But he was going to have to leave this one loose end.

He had taken twenty grand from Serena the night he went on the run. As far as Serena was concerned money was of no object and that twenty grand was nothing but loose change to her. One of the residents of the tomb was a billionaire founder of a dot-com company whom she had infected so she could make him transfer all of his assets to her. Now that he was in Queens, Jim was using most of the twenty grand to purchase explosives, but it didn’t go nearly as far as he had hoped. He needed more money to carry out his plan, and he started searching out drug dealers to rob. They were easy. He didn’t kill them, but he roughed them up and took their money.

He had blueprints for the hotel, and was close to having what he needed when one night while wiring up bombs, the door to his studio apartment was kicked in and standing outside were two vampires. They were thicker and darker than the other vampires he had seen, but he knew from the shape of their heads that they were infected. He didn’t recognize them, but he didn’t know all of the residents of the tomb. It was also possible Serena infected them to send after him-she had no qualms about infecting people to get what she needed. Jim would later learn from the newspapers that that was what happened-that these two were Mafia hit men who were missing for ten days before showing up at his studio apartment. They were both carrying big-ass pistols that Jim would later learn from the papers were Magnum. 357s. Without a word they lifted their guns and started firing at him, hitting him pointblank in the chest with bullets that he’d also later learn from the papers were armor piercing. The force of the bullets blew him out of his seat and against the wall. One of the bullets must have ricocheted off his chest and hit a stick of dynamite. The room exploded into flames and he was blown through the wall and sent into the street. More explosions followed. A searing heat rolled over him. As he lay on his back he saw the building collapse onto itself.

His whole body ached, but he was still in one piece. People started to pour out of the buildings nearby. Jim used the ensuing panic to search through the rubble. He found one of hit men with his legs blown off at the knees. The vampire had been blinded by the smoke and dust, and was trying to stagger away on his stumps. Jim used a piece of metal as a makeshift sword. The first swing went a few inches into the vampire’s neck. It took a half dozen more swings before he had the head mostly cut off. Before he could pull his makeshift sword loose, he was tackled from behind and found himself rolling among the rubble with the other hit man.

“I got nothin’ against you, buddy,” the vampire grunted as it struggled to point the barrel of gun at Jim’s mouth. “I’m just doing a job, so do me a favor and fucking die already.”

He had pressed the barrel against Jim’s neck, but either he was out of bullets or the gun had jammed because nothing happened when he pulled the trigger. He started to give the gun a pissed off look, but before he could do much else, Jim had flipped him over. While they had been rolling around Jim found one of his hand grenades. He pinched the hit man’s nostrils shut. When the vampire opened his mouth to breath, Jim shoved the grenade in, pulled the pin, counted, then rolled off.

The blast knocked him over. It also took off enough of the vampire’s head to kill it. Sirens were approaching. Jim got up and ran before anyone could stop him. Hours later he was in Newark, and a few days later he found Carol. After that his plans changed.

Carol had the TV set on. The motor lodge offered fourteen cable channels, along with pay per view porn. She couldn’t find MTV, and after flipping through the channels several times and finding nothing of interest, she left it on a religious program. It didn’t matter what was on, she just wanted the background noise, anything to block out the squealing of bedsprings from the neighboring room.

After her first few weeks together with Jim, he bought her a lady’s handgun, a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 caliber revolver. It was funny that it was considered a lady’s handgun since it still had enough firepower to stop a two hundred and fifty pound NFL linebacker in his tracks. It wasn’t pink, and it didn’t have little hearts decorating it, but Carol figured it was because the gun could fit in her purse and only weighed twenty ounces. Whenever she helped Jim lure a predator to feed on, he always insisted that she bring her gun along in case he lost track of her. She now had the gun laying on the bed and stared transfixed at it for what seemed like an eternity, all the while an evangelical preacher from the TV rambled on about how Jesus suffered each day for their sins and if the good people listening could only dig deep into their hearts, and even deeper into their wallets, the lord’s pain could be eased. A hardness froze Carol’s face. Earlier she had cracked open the cylinder and dumped the bullets onto the bed sheet.

Almost from the beginning she’d been wanting Jim to infect her so they could go through this together. Wasn’t that what true love was all about-to share everything each other went through, the good and the bad? He refused to, though, saying that their life together always on the move was difficult enough; that at least if Carol were uninfected she’d be able to drive during the day and run the other errands they needed. She didn’t buy his explanation. They could move from city to city just as easily at night. She knew he was trying to protect her from what he was going through, but as far she was concerned, that wasn’t good enough. She wanted him to share his pain with her. If they were really each other’s soul mates, there shouldn’t be anything between them.

She picked up the revolver. For something that only weighed twenty ounces, it felt heavy in her hand. She slid a bullet into one of the chambers, then spun the cylinder.

If Jim came back and found her dying, he would have to infect her to save her life. No matter all the things that he’d said to the contrary, he would have to save her.

Carol, he’d tell her in that tired voice of his he’d fall into whenever they had this argument, you don’t know what you’re asking me. This is not something I could ever let you go through. Fuck, I can’t think of a worse curse to wish on anyone, let alone something that I would ever inflict on someone I loved with all my heart. Please, let it drop, it’s never going to happen.

Bullshit. If he really loved her as much as he claimed he did, how could he ever let her leave him?

She pushed the muzzle of the gun against her belly, felt the coldness of the steel. There were five chambers. Four empty, one with a. 38 caliber bullet. A twenty percent chance. Her muscles tensed as she squeezed the trigger. An empty click, nothing else.

Oh, fuck.

She almost vomited the shots of tequila and greasy burger and fries from before. Somehow she kept it all down.

If he really loved her he would save her. No matter what else, he would have to save her. If the situation were reversed, she wouldn’t think twice. She spun the cylinder again, hearing the metallic clicks. Again, she pushed the muzzle hard against her bare belly. The preacher was rambling on about how Christ loved all of them. She started laughing. It sounded like something that could’ve been coming out of a wounded animal.

Christ loved her, huh? What about Jim? Did he love her enough? Could he let her die?

Her face hardened with resolve. If he could then she didn’t want to fucking live.

Calmly, her hand steady, she squeezed the trigger. Another empty click. This time, though, everything in her stomach came rushing up, and she made a dash for the bathroom. It all came out quickly, easily. Minutes afterwards, her stomach empty and swollen, she gargled with mouthwash, then stood at the bathroom sink splashing cold water over her face. She avoided looking at her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t want to see what she looked like, but could imagine her eyes rimmed with red and her skin waxy and unnaturally pale. Headlights from outside flashed through the room, then died. Carol grabbed one of the threadbare towels from a rusted metal bar and wiped her face dry. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and broke out giggling at how drawn and tired she looked. She was out of the bathroom and still giggling when Jim opened the motel room door. Their eyes locked for a moment, then she stumbled forward and buried her face in his chest and held him as tight as she could and tried to hide that she was now sobbing.

He put an arm around her thin shoulders and ran a hand through her hair.

“Are you crying or laughing?” he asked in a soft whisper.

“A little of both. Oh fuck, I’m glad you’re back.”

She buried her face deeper into his chest and started laughing more than she was sobbing. Jim lifted her chin upwards and kissed her gently on the mouth. As he pulled away, he gave her a wary look.

“Why is your gun on the bed?” he asked.

“No good reason… just for protection.” She paused, wiping a hand across her eyes. “I thought I heard someone at the door earlier. I probably imagined it. You know, we are in a pretty shitty neighborhood.”

He glanced sideways at the bed, asked her why she had taken four of the bullets out.

“What? Oh, nothing too mysterious. I was cleaning the gun, that’s all. I just finished when you came back and was reloading.”

She knew he didn’t buy her story. In the three years they’d been together, he had always been the one to clean the gun. Before he could ask her any more questions about the bullets, she took hold of his right hand and brought it to her lips and kissed it. It was like kissing ice, but it didn’t matter to her.

“What if some creep had broken in here?” she asked. “What if you came back here and found me dying?”

“Please, Carol…”

“No. Tell me. What would you do?”

He broke free of her and walked over to the bed to collect the loose bullets. He turned away unable to meet her stare.

“Now’s not a good time to talk about this.” He took the drug dealer’s money roll out of his pocket and tossed it on the night table next to the bed. “I had a good night. Over nine grand.”

“Jim, you have to tell me. What would you do?”

He still couldn’t look at her. “What I had to,” he said.

Her legs gave out from under her. It was as if someone had gashed her Achilles heel and her strength bled out instead of blood. Jim rushed over to her before she fell and carried her to the bed.

“Are you okay?” he asked, a worried frown creasing his face.

“Please, Hon, tell me you would save me.”

A sadness filled Jim’s pale grays. Carol’s own eyes were liquid. He nodded. “I would save you,” he said.

Carol pulled him close, kissing him hard on the mouth, her tongue slipping in to touch his. He pulled back as gently as he could.

“Let me wash off the grime from the street first,” he said.

She shook her head. She wasn’t going to let go. He accepted that and let her pull him back to her. Before he knew it they were melting into each other. There was so much passion in her it damn near broke his heart. She was like a narcotic to him, and he let himself get swallowed up by it. At that moment the universe was only the two of them. Barely even aware of it, she was guiding him inside of her. It just seemed like the most natural thing in the world, and as much as he hated to break the spell, he pulled away to put protection on. Then they were back together, his head swimming in the narcotic haze she induced, and her small slender body so feverish that it almost warmed his own body up to a temperature just above that of a corpse.

He didn’t lie to her before. If it ever came down to it, he would save her. Even if it meant losing her-which nothing in the world could be more painful for him-he would save her from ever being infected.

He tried hard not to think about why she removed those bullets and left a single one in a chamber. Christ, he didn’t want to picture what she was doing alone with that gun, or worse, what she thought she needed him to prove.

He closed his eyes and let himself be swallowed up by her heat. There was so much of it.