Charlie Huston - Every Last Drop

A drop of blood hanging from my eyebrow falls into my eye.

I blink.

And when I open my eye he is in front of me, the bullet meant for him has put a hole in the brick of the alley wall. His hand slaps mine down and away, the gun flying.

But I'm OK with that. That's OK by me. Because I may not have the gun anymore, but I do have the straight razor in my other hand. And he's close enough now for me to use it.

I cut, the blade cleaving the space between us, flaring in the shifting light cast by a TV in one of the windows overhead, arcing at his throat.

And then the razor isn't in my hand.

I flinch, looking for it between Predo's fingers, expecting to feel it across my own neck.

Down the alley, the brief flash of light on the straight razor's blade is echoed in twin blurs of white passing in front of the enforcers, leaving behind matched headless corpses, wavering before the final fall.

— You're in the wrong place to be settling your disputes.

The skeleton wrapped in its white shroud is next to us.

It places the blade of the razor under my chin. -You should know that, Simon.

I don't move, not even to lodge my usual objection to being called by my real name.

Keeping the razor as close to the end of my life as possible, it turns its sunken eyes on Predo.

— You. Your Clan observes treaties and laws. Rules of behavior modeled on the ones those sheep out there follow. To humor you once, we looked at a line you drew on a map. We agreed it would be a very bad idea for any of you to cross that line. And here you are. On the wrong side of your line.

Predo licks his lips. -I am a representative of the Coalition.

The skeleton shakes its head. -You're a policeman outside his jurisdiction. You're where you don't belong.

The skeleton pushes his face close to Predo s. -You're not Enclave.

He lifts the blade, forcing my chin higher. -This one, what he is can be disputed.

The razor folds away from my skin.

The skeleton shows it to Predo. -But you are meat. Ignorant and unclean and in need of purging.

Predo sweats. -Killing me will be considered an act of utmost aggression.

The skeleton coughs laughter. -Yes. And then? Will your Coalition send more of those to threaten us?

It waves a hand at the two headless corpses being loaded into the trunk of the car by another skeleton.

It shakes its head. -Killing you would be a mercy. But there will be none of that for you tonight.

It points at the car. -Go on.

Predo backs away, watching my eye. -A final word, Pitt.

He smooths the length of his tie. -Do you know you've tipped your hand?

I don't move.

Predo stops, hand on the open door of his car. -I still don't know what it is you're after.

He waves an arm, taking in the neighborhood. -But I know where it is.

He drops the arm. -You'll be dead soon.

He gets into the car. -But I'll be certain to find what it is you value so much. Before you die.

The door closes, the engine hums to life, and the car rolls away onto Eighth, not at all burdened by the dead it carries.

I look at the skeleton. -Do I know you?

He offers me the razor. -We've met, Simon.

I take the blade from his desiccated hand. -Yeah, I wasn't sure, you guys all look alike to me.

I drop the razor in my pocket and take out a smoke. -But seeing as you've met me, you maybe know my name's Joe.

The other skeleton joins us. This one, he's less of a skeleton than his boss, but he's on his way. All of them, all Enclave, they're all a bunch of withered tendon and bone held together by bleached skin. No surprise, that's what happens when you spend all your time starving yourself.

The first one shakes his head, looking like the gesture might snap his twig neck. -Your name is what Daniel said your name is. Simon.

I walk a few steps, kick some garbage aside and find my gun. -Daniels dead.

He coughs that laugh of his. -So you say, Simon. So you say.

He points at the mouth of the alley. -You're wanted.

He starts to walk, I follow.

What's the point of running? If they want to, these guys can just pull my legs off and carry me.

Besides, they'll be taking me where I was headed in the first place.

It's not easy, but if you close your eyes, you can remember a time before the Meatpacking District became a vomitorium for clubbers and people with too much fucking money to spend on dinner for two anyplace that doesn't have a six-month waiting list for a reservation. A time when the cobbles here weren't quaint, when they were walked by tranny hookers and teenage hustlers, and cruised by limos looking for rough trade. Course the Enclave settled in their warehouse over here even before that scene. They settled here when those cobbles drained the blood of livestock, and white coats and meat hooks were the only fashion statements being made.

Still, the crowds waiting in line to get into the after-hours joints that are just now opening their doors are full of enough clowned posers that the all-white look the Enclave sport doesn't raise an eyebrow as we cut down Little West Twelfth to the final block before the water. Maybe a few club kids watch as we climb the steps to the loading dock and the door slides open to let us in, but none of them scurry over to find out what the scene inside is like. They know it's not for them. They can read it. The total lack of graffiti on the place, the

silence, that chill that rises from it, the scraps of street rumor that adhere to it.

Bad shit goes down in there.

They know it. They feel it. So they stay in line like good little robots and wait their turn to flash a fake ID at the doorman so they can go inside some carefully padded pleasure dome and pretend they're living on the edge for a few hours.

Inside the Enclave warehouse, it's all edge.

A hundred-odd fanatics, weaning themselves from the blood the Vyrus demands, pushing their metabolisms to the crazed point Amanda Horde described, when memory T cells will stop reminding their own immune systems what not to attack.

The Vyrus, pushed to starvation, jacks their nervous systems. Desperate, it hammers on them to feed. At the edge of death, it empties its hosts of all resources, strengthening them for the kill.

Strong, fast, impervious to pain; blow a limb off one and they'll pick it up to beat you to death with it.

They vibrate with insanity.

That's what the kids on the street feel.

I feel it too. It goes to my guts, the madness in this place. The clattering of

their bones striking one another as they endlessly spar, honing killing skills. The numb and complete silence that falls when they meditate on the Vyrus, focusing their wills to resist its hunger. The whisper of dry lips and tongues when they break their fasts and sip spoonfuls of blood to appease the Vyrus.

The fasting, its not a rejection of the Vyrus1 hunger, its a supplication.

They are not its enemy. They are its acolytes.

Suggest to one of them that the Vyrus is a virus, an earthly thing, and they'll laugh in your face. Or chew it off.

Heresy is something they take pretty seriously around here. And rejecting the Vyrus as a supernatural agency of redemption is about as heretical as it gets for these guys.

All they want, all they starve for, is to be like the Vyrus, to let it gradually feed on them, creep into their bones and tissue, and transform them into something other, something that will stay in this world, while being entirely of another.

Fanatics to the ground, when they've found one who can complete that transformation, and he's taught the others to do the same, they think they'll become immune to sun and all the weapons of this world. And then, like all true believers, they II go out and kill everyone not just like them.