Dave Zeltserman - Blood Crimes Book One

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.