Suzanne McLeod - The Cold Kiss of Death

Panic bubbled up in my throat again. There was something—

A hand clasped my wrist.

Flinching, I jerked back.

‘Just keep calm, Genevieve.’ The words sounded firm, in control, and I looked up at Joseph, who smiled confidently back, his face slightly distorted behind a clear face-mask. I frowned; the mask meant something, something good. The panic started to recede and my mind started remembering what needed to be done. I took a breath.

‘That’s it, Genevieve. Now I want you to kneel down on the floor.’ He pulled me gently and I slid to my knees. ‘Good.’ He crouched and placed a green plastic bucket between us, his expression grim. ‘Now, I’m going to take some blood, nothing to worry about, so just relax.’ He held up another shunt, its clear tube trailing down to an empty blood bag.

‘S’not quick enough,’ I slurred, ‘need ... knife.’

His eyes lost some of their confidence. The shunt disappeared, then he held a scalpel in front of me. The blade glinted in the mirrors behind him.

I nodded, my heart pounding frantically under my ribs, a fine tremble shivering under my skin. ‘Do it.’ I pushed my arm into the bucket.

He touched the point of the scalpel to the red vein bulging down my inner arm. Watery pink sweat dripped off my chin and splashed onto his gloved hand. I heard him gasp and looked up, catching the nervous expression in his owl-like hazel eyes.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve done this.’ He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

I grabbed the hand holding the knife, felt him start, then I sliced deeply, scoring the vein from my elbow to my wrist. Sharp pain flipped into pleasure that rushed like electricity through my body. My blood welled, thick and viscous like molten tar, and the scent of liquorice and copper and honey filled the air. The urge to cut my skin again, to chase that pleasure, to see more of my blood sparkling bright along my skin was a seductive whisper, calling me, urging—

‘For the love of God!’ Joseph yanked his hand from mine, flinging the scalpel away. It clattered off the mirrors and landed noiselessly on the thick carpet.

Taking a deep breath, I sat back on my heels and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the warm, wet trickle of blood running down my arm. I listened to the faint splash as it fell into the bucket and the slightly fast cadence of his breathing as I waited for my heart to slow back to normal. Venom junkies had been known to die from blood loss once the desperate bliss of spilling their own blood short-circuited their minds.

After a while, I asked, ‘What day is it?’

‘Friday,’ he said quietly.

Damn, last I remembered it was Tuesday morning. I’d lost three days. I opened my eyes. Blood the consistency of runny honey still slopped into the bucket, but it was slowing. I squeezed my arm just below my elbow, pulling the cut apart; the small pain rippled into a promise of pleasure that had me squirming.

Joseph frowned. ‘Why are you doing that?’

‘My blood’s too thick’—an aspect of the venom—‘and if I don’t do this, I won’t lose enough and the venom will throw me back into another blood-flush.’

‘Ah yes.’ He looked down at the bucket, then up at me. ‘You’ve been heading for a blood-flush since yesterday; you’re hypertensive, and your red blood cell count is the highest I’ve ever seen. I was debating whether to bleed you or not before you regained consciousness, but your other injuries haven’t been healing, so I wasn’t sure if it would do more harm than good.’ His frown deepened. ‘I’ve never treated a sidhe before.’

I looked down at my patchy skin. ‘This isn’t bad for a couple of days.’

‘That didn’t happen in a couple of days. Malik gave you his blood as soon as he could. He carries the true Gift, so he healed you to this in about an hour. But there’s been no change since then.’

It was my turn to frown. That didn’t sound right. No pain, no gain ; the words teased at the edge of my mind, nothing to do with exercise—wasn’t there something about fae needing to feel some pain for the magic to kick in with the healing? Then I remembered I’d been floating somewhere golden and warm, riding along with the sunshine, until my subconscious mind reconstituted the Earl and dropped him into my nightmare. ‘You had me stoked up on morphine, didn’t you?’ I asked slowly.

‘Of course, you were in a lot of pain; I didn’t want to see you suffer. Your metabolism works a lot faster than a human’s. I had to up the dose quite a bit before it took effect.’

Was that why I hadn’t healed? Too much morphine?

‘I shouldn’t worry about getting dependant or anything after this short period of use,’ he added. ‘When morphine’s used for pain relief it doesn’t appear to affect the addictive centres of the brain.’

I blinked. ‘I’ve got 3V, Joseph. It negates the effects of any other chemical addictions and it kills off any diseases or infections. ’ If it wasn’t for the obvious side-effects, 3V could keep humans as healthy as the proverbial horse. ‘Or didn’t they teach you that at doctor school?’

‘Sorry, yes, I know.’ He pushed his glasses up with the back of his bandaged wrist. ‘The reassurance stuff is standard spiel; you end up saying it all the time. Everyone gets all concerned about morphine being derived from opium.’ He shrugged tiredly. ‘But 3V only contradicts other infections when in the host; they’re still carried by the blood, and blood transference can still pass them on to someone who doesn’t have 3V.’ He tapped his face-mask. ‘That’s the reason for the get-up.’

‘You haven’t got 3V?’ I stared, surprised. ‘But you said Malik was your master?’

‘I didn’t, not exactly.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘You didn’t look like you were ready for a long explanation. I do a lot of work in Sucker Town—I’m part of the Health Department’s monitoring group—and I’ve seen the effects of 3V and I didn’t want to be infected.’ He indicated my arm dripping blood into the bucket. ‘Malik and I are friends; he would no more go against my wishes than fly to the moon.’

Friends? Wounded vamps don’t have friends, they have automatic survival responses. In other words, they mind-lock the nearest blood supply, sink fangs into it and the venom overdose turbo-charges the red blood cell production while making sure the victim doesn’t get the chance to run away, usually because they’re unconscious and paralysed by a stroke caused by the venom-induced hypertension. Great for the vamp, not much fun for any of his friends .

I looked at the bandages on Joseph’s arms, assessing him. ‘Malik can’t be too hurt, not if you’ve been feeding him.’ I pulled and squeezed my arm again. ‘If he’d gone into bloodlust, you’d be just another blood-slave by now.’ Or dead.

‘Yes, Malik’s explained all that to me.’ He sighed. ‘We’ve worked out a failsafe plan: a tranquilliser gun. If he’s hurt in any way, I shoot first, then ask questions later, once he comes round. The tranquilliser is the same one they use on big cats, like lions and tigers. I’ve been keeping him under the last few days so he’s safe enough to look after.’

Ri-ight! Well, that was certainly one way to deal with an injured vamp. I gave my arm another squeeze. It hurt, no ripples of anticipated pleasure this time. I checked my colour out in the mirror. The red splotches had gone, my skin was its usual warm honey—with the added pink and shiny bits—and my heart thudded a calm tattoo in my chest.

‘I’m about done here,’ I said. ‘You got a spare bandage I can use?’

He didn’t seem to hear, just stared thoughtfully at my blood plopping into the bucket.