Blood Harvest: Two Vampire Novels (32 page)

“No,” Cory said. “I would never.”

The woman stood staring at him for several
moments. Cory wished he could read her expression, but any attempt
was severely hampered by his trouble making even simple eye contact
with her.

“Never?” she finally asked. “So… that’s not
the way you normally act?”

“No. None of us know anything about him or
why he does it.”

“None of us,” she muttered, more to herself
than to him. She cautiously came out of the kitchen nook and
approached him, although she stopped coming closer when he
scrunched up tighter against the wall. “So there are more than one
of you? I mean, more than one…” She paused before she said the last
word, as though she thought he might take it as a slur.
“Vampire?”

He nodded, but that was all he was going to
say about the others. Beyond FancyDancer he didn’t think much one
way or the other for any of the other vampires, but he did feel an
odd sense of brotherhood with them. It was one thing to give away
information about himself, but another completely to tell the
secrets of the others.

Thankfully the woman didn’t pursue that
particular line of questioning. “So you don’t drink from humans,
but you do need blood at least?”

Cory nodded again. Maybe it wasn’t entirely
true that he would never drink from a human. He would never kill
one for their blood and he would never attack one either, but blood
was blood. He would drink from a human if that person offered,
despite the horrible shame he might feel about himself. Briefly he
wondered if that was what the woman had wanted, to offer him
something from herself, even though the jars of blood seemed to
imply otherwise. Despite his shame, the thought appealed to him,
but not purely because of his hunger. It felt like it would be the
kind of intimate moment he couldn’t remember ever having in his
life. And the woman was certainly pretty enough. He didn’t fully
understand why that should matter, but his mind wanted to make that
connection.

“Cow and pig blood?” the woman asked. She
went to the bags still sitting by the door. For once, even though
her path through the room took her close to him, he didn’t shrink
away from her. Instead he was driven by his hunger to pull himself
slightly away from the wall and watch her closely as she pulled out
another of the jars. Even through the closed lid he got a clear
whiff of the thick, coppery scent.

Cory moved closer. It occurred to him that
his huddled, crouched manner might come across to her as weird or
threatening, so he tried to stand. His muscles protested. He felt
truly drained after last night. His body had healed him as best as
it could, but he had to wonder what in him it might have
cannibalized in order to repair the most immediate damage. Looking
down at himself he realized he looked thinner than usual, even to
the point where his already scrawny arm muscles were thin.

The woman continued to hold out the jar, not
moving any closer to him. Cory took several more furtive steps, a
great effort considering he was having trouble even balancing at
the moment. When the woman saw this she moved just a few steps
closer, allowing him to reach out and snatch the jar out of her
hands. Despite his hunger he didn’t want to seem ungrateful or
feral, so he deliberately slowed down as he moved away, sat on the
couch, and then twisted the lid off. He even said a quiet “Thank
you,” although he did it so quietly that he wasn’t sure the woman
had heard.

She took the rest of the bags into the
kitchen nook, her strength apparently back after her short rest,
but she kept an eye on him the whole time. Although Cory wanted to
stick his face in the jar and desperately lap at the thick liquid
inside, he remembered at the last moment that humans had this thing
called “manners,” and if he really wanted to show his appreciation
to this woman he would show them to her. He slowly lifted the jar
and took a sip, fighting the urge to tip the whole thing back and
let the luke-warm juice flow all over his mouth and cheeks. He
didn’t know exactly where this blood had come from—cow or pig or
some mixture of both—but he had never had a chance for either out
on the streets and the rich, smooth flavor was unlike anything he
was used to. Usually it took up to an hour before he really felt
like the blood was nourishing him, especially when all he had to
feed himself were small rats and mice. This, however, hit him right
away. It gave him a tipsy, woozy feeling almost like alcohol, or at
least how he imagined alcohol would be. He’d never had a single
drop while he’d been living under dumpsters, and he couldn’t
remember ever tasting a drop before he had been taking down
underground.

He took another sip, much longer and deeper
this time, and as he felt some manner of strength returning to his
muscles he went back to carefully watching the woman. She put the
rest of the jars in the fridge without even bothering to take them
out of the bags, and then turned back to stare at him. The mutual
staring contest continued uninterrupted for well over a minute
until he had finished off all but the coating of blood that covered
the inside of the jar. When he set the empty down on the couch next
to him she finally approached him, moving slowly as though she
expected him to try backing away again. This time he stayed still.
He figured she’d earned that much from him.

“Do you have a name?” the woman asked.

“Meateater,” Cory said. At no point did he
even consider telling her his real name. Meateater was good enough
for all the other vampires, it would be good enough for her. The
name Cory was his and his alone.

If she thought the name was strange she made
no sign of it. “I’m Lynn,” she said. She sat down on the opposite
side of the couch from him and offered her hand. He stared at it
for a while, unsure whether or not he should shake it. Then he
remembered that this was the very hand that had been inside his
stomach cavity last night removing the bullet. Suddenly just
touching it with his own didn’t seem so invasive.

He gave her a quick, weak shake before he
pulled his hand back and hid it under his leg. As far as he could
remember that was the first time he had touched anyone else since
before the cages, not counting all the involuntary touches last
night. Even that brief touch was exhilarating, though. Her flesh
had been so warm to the touch. For a moment he almost thought he
had memories of the time before, pleasant memories, memories he
actually wanted to have back rather than burying them like so many
others. But that mere suggestion of a touch was not enough to bring
anything back, and he had to wonder if a longer touch next time
might do more. If there was a next time, that was. He still had an
urge to run right on out of here, although it was nowhere near as
strong as it had been earlier.

“Lynn,” he repeated back, mostly because he
didn’t know what else to say. Such a simple word, yet pretty.

“Are you alone?” Lynn asked. Cory blinked at
her. He wasn’t quite sure what she could mean. Obviously he wasn’t,
even if he wanted to be. She was sitting right next to him.

“I mean,” she said as she saw his confusion,
“you said there were others. Are they going to be looking for
you?”

Cory shook his head.

“Do you know who those guys were last night?”
she asked.

Cory shrugged.

“Well you have to know something,” she said.
For the first time she sounded impatient, although she hid it well
as she continued. “They tried to kill you. I have to know if
they’re going to try again. I’ve heard rumors about a gang.”

He nodded. “A gang. Yes. I heard that too.
There was a tag on the building.”

“They say there’s creatures out there, but
most of us don’t believe them. I guess they’re actually right.”

A small part of him wanted to protest the
word “creatures,” although he knew that was right. Even more so,
though, there was another word that caught his attention. “Us?”

She kept on talking, although he thought he
noticed a minute flicker of her eyes away from him. “If they were
part of the Dusters, though, I don’t know why they were around
here.”

“Dusters?”

“I don’t know if that’s what they call
themselves. But they go around saying they’re going to be staking
vampires and watching them turn to dust, so, yeah. Dusters.”

“That’s not how it works,” Cory said.

“So you wouldn’t turn to dust if you were
killed with a stake?” she asked.

Cory thought back to what he had seen in the
cave, the way that woman had ripped out the guards’ hearts, the way
they had dissolved into stinking black goop afterward. He had no
idea if that was what would happen to any vampire or if it was just
the product of the strange pulsing mass installed into each of the
guards’ heads to turn them from normal captive vampire to mindless
slave of the thing behind the door. But he certainly didn’t want to
have to dwell on any of those details longer than he absolutely
needed to.

“Stake wouldn’t do it,” Cory said. “Remove
the heart, cut off the head maybe. Don’t know for sure.”

“How can you not know for sure?”

Cory had a brief, almost funny image of the
guards forcing the blood of another vampire down a new captive’s
throat and then, as the fangs slowly started to grow over the next
days and weeks, handing them a little manual on how exactly to be a
blood-drinking monster. But that never happened. No one had ever
told him or any of the others what was going on or how to deal with
their new existence, unless he counted Pig’s rather unhelpful talk.
They weren’t expected to need to know. They were expected to grow
where they had been planted and then be harvested when the time was
right. No one ever bothered to tell the apple how to be an
apple.

“I just don’t,” he said.

“But what about the bullet,” Lynn asked.
“Could that have killed you?”

“I think so,” Cory said. “It takes years
before a vampire is really…” He trailed off, not wanting to say the
word. He was afraid she would take it as a positive thing about his
existence, and he didn’t want to give her the wrong idea. Not being
able to die might generally be a good thing, but there was no way
he could explain why he thought otherwise. That would require him
to talk about the cave and the cages and the door at the end, the
one that you only ever went through when the guards judged that you
were well and truly invulnerable. The people who went through
couldn’t die, and yet they never left. Cory had been given plenty
of hints about their fate from Pig, but he had forced himself not
to put those clues together. He didn’t want to think now about the
fate he had nearly escaped. Or the fate he might one day be forced
to return to if the combination was still down there somewhere,
just waiting for a time to send guards back up for him and all the
others.

“What, immortal?” Lynn asked anyway. “You are
immortal, right?”

Cory shook his head. He wasn’t entirely sure
if that was supposed to be a denial or an attempt to avoid the
question. Either way, Lynn looked skeptical. He couldn’t quite tell
what she was thinking, but then he wasn’t good at reading people in
general. It was usually just simpler to assume they were out to get
you. But in this case he wanted to give her the benefit of the
doubt.

“So garlic and silver can hurt you, I saw
that last night,” she said. Cory found that slightly surprising. It
would have been obvious once she’d removed the bullet that it was
silver, but for her to know about the garlic there would have
needed to be enough on the bullet that she would have still been
able to smell it over the metallic scent of his blood when she’d
pulled it from him. That would have been one extremely strong dose.
No wonder it had been so incredibly painful.

“Is there anything else?” Lynn asked. “What
about crosses? Holy water?”

“No crosses,” Cory said. “Don’t think I’ve
ever touched holy water, so don’t know.”

“Jesus,” she said. “I can’t believe this is
really happening. Everything everyone’s been talking about is true.
And you’re actually in my apartment.”

Although no one would ever accuse Cory of
being a spectacular conversationalist, he at least saw his opening
to push the talk away from him and on to her. There was a lot more
he would need to know before he could begin to trust her.

“So you really live here?” he asked. “It
doesn’t look… um, good.”

“I do squat, if that’s what you mean,” she
said. “I figure I have that right, after all the shit the universe
has given me in my life.”

“But I mean, uh, I don’t remember a lot from
when you brought me in last night but it doesn’t seem safe.” To his
amusement he realized he had probably said more now to Lynn than he
had said to any other person since the escape. Even more to his
amusement he realized this was the first in a long time that he’d
actually been amused. He tried to suppress the emotion just in case
it screwed with his wits when he needed them the most, but for the
moment he had trouble maintaining any feel of urgency about
that.

“There was a fire several months ago,” Lynn
said. “The
Reporter
says there’s an investigation into the
owner maybe trying to burn it down for the insurance. They’d just
tear it down except somehow this pile of bricks counts as a
historic landmark. So the place is in limbo until all the legal
types can get their asses straight. Perfect place to live rent free
like I deserve.”

Despite the moments of levity he’d felt
moments earlier Cory drew into himself as he realized what he
needed to ask next. “Is there anyone else living here?”

“There’s a drunk that occasionally tries to
sleep in one of the places downstairs. I can usually get rid of him
by banging on the pipes and moaning like a ghost. Someone did die
in the fire so the dumbass actually seems to believe it. So no,
there’s no one else here right now.” She tilted her head and looked
at him quizzically. “Are you scared someone else here might try to
hurt you?”