American Blood: A Vampire's Story (4 page)

“Calida?” Ryan asked. “And what happened to the other lepers, the ones that died? Is there any reference to what killed them?”

Siri leaned forward in her chair. “The dead—nearly all of them—were found with bite marks in various places. They were described as being
nihil sanguis
.”

“She had an available food source and she took advantage of it,” Ryan said. “Where exactly are these caves?”

“Unfortunately the Romans were shaken up by this and they completely abandoned the mining of these salts,” Siri replied. “The exact location of the caves is a mystery.”

“But you’re positive it’s her,” Ryan said. “She’s that Calida?”

“They re-marked the survivor by placing the Roman numeral one next to the original colony mark. It signified that she was the one, the only one, left from the original fifty seven members of this colony.”

Ryan walked over to get a closer look through the plexiglas at the female lying face down on the floor. And there, as he intently focused on the sole of her right foot, faint, but still visible, he could see a red mark next to the Roman numeral one.

“My God, it’s her.” Ryan placed his hands on the plexiglas. “To have survived for so long like this.  And she’s the index case of this infection?  Vampirism?”

“There can be no doubt that she’s the first,” Siri said. “There are additional glimpses of her through history. She returned to her family after leaving the colony and remained with them for a short time, but she seems to have disappeared not long after a series of mysterious deaths occurred.”

“She would need blood.”

“Of course she would.  Her need for blood has allowed us to track her over the centuries.”

“It’s amazing that she hasn’t been caught until now,” Ryan said.

“Oh, but she was,” Siri said. “She next makes a brief appearance around 395 A.D. in central Syria where in the early 1920s, archaeologists discovered a crypt with the skeletons of three men in simple stone sarcophagi. Several thin marble tablets written in Palmyrean were found in a small wooden box resting behind a stone wall that had collapsed during the excavation. Its lid was lying on the ground, broken. The tablets were an account of a woman who had been captured but escaped before her execution for the crime of murder. When archaeologists reconstructed the broken lid they discovered two marks had been roughly carved into the wood.”

“The same marks on her foot you’re going to tell me?” Ryan mused. “They captured her, but they had no idea what she really is.”

“It was a close call for her,” Siri acknowledged, “and she had others, but by the thirteenth century she entered eastern Afghanistan and from that point again disappeared until she made it to the New World in the early years of the eighteenth century.”

“But why come here? The feeding would be much easier in Europe with all of the population centers.”

“Well, the plague years were all but over, having burned through Europe and Asia, and the church was once more trying to tighten its grip on the monarchies. Everyone thought the Devil was everywhere, it was really just the church using fear to control the masses.”

Ryan sat down next to Siri and rubbed his neck for a moment. “Just think how many. . . .”

“How many what?”

“How many she’s killed over the centuries starting with that colony and ending two nights ago?

“It would have to be thousands.” Siri clutched her arms to her stomach. “Just think . . . the legends about vampires—the Transylvanian mythos—all of it starts with her.”

“So maybe there’s truth behind these legends,” Ryan said.

“I would guess more than we realize.”

Ryan gathered his thoughts. He had been brought into the agency three years ago as an outside expert to analyze some peculiar data that the agency had obtained. They never told him the source of the data, but they insisted that he provide his expertise. The insistence took the form of large transfers into his bank accounts that was perfectly fine with him. His own research endeavors required capital and university funding wasn’t always easy for him to secure because of what took place during his post doc at MIT over a decade ago. He always knew when a new batch of information would arrive just by monitoring the account activity. And for a year they had kept this strange data flowing to him, along with the money. The more involved he became with the information the greater became his curiosity. The agency had baited the hook and played him like a prized fish.

When the Director finally showed up at his laboratory one day and briefed Ryan on the true source of the data he had been rendered completely silent. He didn’t make any attempt to brush the Director off as a certifiable crackpot. Once the subject of these creatures had been revealed the data immediately made sense.

And Ryan came to a conclusion just as compelling as anything else since his involvement with this project. The Director had brought him in to do one thing, and that was to track and capture this female, who nearly two thousand years ago was a young woman named Calida. He had been used as an asset—he understood this and accepted it now. To the agency that’s what everything—everybody—was reduced to: an asset that was either useful, or needed to be discarded. Of course he resented certain aspects of the agency, but he never rejected any of the money, and he wouldn’t have anyway, even if he had known that the ultimate goal was her capture.

Science sometimes worked in strange and chaotic ways. And this ancient predator could only be understood by applying the formidable tools of modern science to her existence. Ryan also knew that science was more often a tool of failure from which only those with enough patience and humility could obtain new insight. He had never felt more humbled in his entire career as a scientist than he did as he looked at the sleeping vampire lying so close that if not for the plexiglas he could walk over and touch once again.

“This isn’t right. This isn’t even wrong.”

—
Wolfgang
Pauli
, Austrian Physicist

R
yan rushed to the facility’s isolation unit. At 5:20 AM an urgent call had came through his room’s intercom with a simple message.

She is awake.

He picked up his pace through the corridors and met up with Siri who had beaten him by a few seconds.

“Has there been any contact with her?”

“No,” Siri replied. “At 5:10 security had just changed for the day shift when she was observed moving around by the surveillance cameras.”

“So we’re the first to go inside?”

“We’re not going to have a repeat of what happened at the other facility. From this point on, at least initially, contact with her will be kept to an absolute minimum.” Siri took hold of Ryan’s arm and yanked him to a stop. “Did you take your pill?”

“Probably should have taken two. I don’t want her playing around inside my mind anymore.”

They arrived at the steel door to the unit and Siri made a quick swipe with her ID. The door opened and they rushed toward the air lock. Ryan’s thoughts were disconnected and he struggled to find an even center. He dreaded confronting her again after their encounter three nights ago. After all she had threatened to eat his brain, which is a serious matter for a scientist, if not everyone. Siri, on the other hand, looked impossibly calm considering the circumstances.

To Ryan’s accelerated time sense the air lock required twice as long to cycle as before. Siri stepped out first and Ryan quickly followed. Two armed guards stood in the middle of the unit’s main observation platform; their assault rifles were pointed at the floor. They saw Ryan and Siri and waved them forward.

“We followed protocol and have secured all personnel outside of the isolation unit,” one of the guards said. “It’s just the four of us.”

“Thank you, William,” Siri said. “We’re going to stay outside the cell for now and use the observation window.”

Ryan continued past the guards and looked through the one-way glass. What he saw confused him. The female sat on the cot with her legs crossed holding the rabbit in her lap. It took him a few seconds to realize the animal was alive. He continued to stare and she looked up at him as if she could see through the one-way mirror. She turned her attention back to the rabbit and continued to stroke its fur. He had witnessed her kill three men and now she cuddled a rabbit intended to be food.

“I don’t know which disturbs me more,” Siri said as she stood next to him. “That she’s holding it like a pet or that she hasn’t killed it.”

“Yet.”

“Exactly.”

“We thought she would behave like a hungry wolf in a cage,” Ryan said. “We’re behind the curve, way behind.”

“It’s not what either of us expected.”

Ryan looked thoughtfully at their subject. “Hmm, right now she looks like a woman holding a rabbit.”

“It’s interesting that she put the patient gown on,” Siri said. “Seems like a normal thing to do for someone in this situation.”

“She didn’t seem very modest when she was floating around in that chamber,” Ryan said. “So why the sudden change in attitude?”

They studied her for another moment.

“When will you have the preliminary genetic work up on her blood and tissue samples?” Siri asked.

“We started on them yesterday and my lab will have results in the next seventy-two hours. With all of the computing power I’ve been given we’re already getting some data, but it’s too strange to even discuss at this point. It all depends on contamination, of course. I’m suspicious of these first samples. She probably had DNA from a dozen individuals in her system.”

Siri looked at him and smiled. “It seems like an impossible puzzle. How are you going to get a more reliable sample of her?”

“We’ll continue with the blood samples, I guess. But I’ll probably want to get some epithelial cells from inside her mouth.”

“But oral epithelial cells usually make poor samples.”

“Yeah, but for comparison they should help me determine the purity of the blood samples.” Ryan shook his head. “The real question is how do you get a sample of the cells lining a vampire’s mouth? Who wants to put their fingers anywhere near a vampire’s mouth?”

“Maybe when she’s sleeping.”

“Yeah? You want to stick a swab in the mouth of a sleeping vampire? What if she wakes up while you’re doing it?” Ryan began to pace. “How are we going to do this, any of this, unless we can get her to cooperate, and why would she? We’re nothing but food to her. Do you ever ask something that you might eat for its cooperation?”

“You have a point,” Siri replied. “But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask her. The worst she can do is ignore us or say no.”

“That’s not the worst she can do.”

“Vampire or not, don’t you think she’ll need time to adjust to everything?”

“Sounds reasonable,” Ryan agreed. “She’s just had her freedom taken away and that must have an effect on her. Maybe it’s something we can use.”

Ryan turned his attention back to the female. She didn’t appear to be in need of any adjusting. She seemed to possess the serene patience that comes with great confidence.

“Look, it’s your show,” Ryan said. “I’m here for my knowledge of molecular biology and skills as an experimentalist. I’m not an expert in prisoner behavior, let alone vampire psychology.”

“And I thought you’d want to go in right away,” Siri said.

“Why do you think that?”

“She made an impression on you . . . earlier, I would say.”

“It’s a useful predatory mechanism if nothing else.”

“Don’t forget she’s had almost two thousand years to perfect it.”

“I’ll keep it mind.”

“I like you, Ryan. You have your own little mechanisms to fall back on. We all do.” Siri briefly fussed with her clinic jacket. “If this was your show what would you do?”

“We can just stay out here and let her
adjust
to her situation in isolation, or . . . we could go inside and see how she’ll react.”

“That simple?”

“Like you said, the worst she can do is ignore us. Let’s give her the chance.”

“We’ve reached the same conclusion using different reasoning.” Siri motioned to William who came over and entered a code on the keypad outside the door to the cell. The door opened and Ryan led Siri into the cell. Once they were both inside the door closed and the locking mechanism made a loud, audible click. Ryan didn’t notice—he had his eyes intently fixed on the female, but she never looked up. She continued to stroke the rabbit and Ryan could hear her whispering soft cooing sounds to the animal.

A long and awkward silence passed. Ryan noticed that the odor of disinfectants still hung in the air, but not as strongly as earlier. He could also see they were being ignored. Siri gave him a slight shrug, went over to one of the chairs on their side of the barrier, and absently fussed with her clinic jacket for a moment trying to fill time. The female continued to ignore them.

“We do not want to harm you,” Siri said with deliberate calm.

The female remained silent.

“We also don’t want you to harm us, do you understand?”

They waited for the female to give some indication that she might respond, but she instead turned her back on them.

Ryan gestured at Siri who again shrugged and with practiced dignity sat down and opened up a notebook she was carrying.

Ryan rubbed his chin for a moment then walked over to a chair next to Siri. He clumsily sat down. The chair slid a few inches on the concrete floor and gave off a loud squeal.

Siri stared at him without any expression as if waiting for the sound to fade. After a moment she took a deep breath, crossed her legs, and leaned back in her chair. “What should we call you?” she asked. “Is your name still Calida?”

The female gently placed the rabbit down on the cot. Her silence continued, but she turned and looked at them.

“My name is Siri and this is Ryan, who you’ve already . . . um met. We would like to talk to you . . . will you talk to us?”

The female raised her chin; her eyes purposely moved back and forth between the two scientists. She then allowed her legs to slide off the cot until her feet just touched the floor.

“We know Calida is your name,” Siri said.

The female looked intently at Siri, but still didn’t say anything.

“We’ve seen the mark on your foot,” Ryan added.

The female now appeared amused and crossed her ankles. “I know,” she said, her voice pleasantly melodic. “You’ve seen all of me.” And she looked at Ryan for a long moment.

“You were in bad shape, do you remember?” Ryan asked.

“Why am I alive?”

“That wasn’t my decision. Do you understand?”

“I don’t know.”

“Aren’t you at least grateful to be—”

“Calida,” she said, cutting Ryan off. “You were able to find that out? That hasn’t been my name for a long time.”

She had a faint accent that Ryan initially thought was Greek, but now he wasn’t quite sure.

“Is that what you would like us to call you?” Siri asked, again.

She now looked at Siri and her lips formed a faint smile. “Do you know what Calida means?”

“I do,” Siri replied and her voice had more emotion than usual.

The female stared at the floor for several seconds and sighed. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“There’s a great deal we want to learn from you,” Siri replied. “We don’t want to hurt you. Maybe we can help you, if you let us.”

“There’s only one way you can help me,” she said, without any malice. “But then you all ready know how you can help me.”

She stood up, made her hair into a large ponytail that she flipped to one side, and walked along the barrier to the feeding apparatus. Ryan’s muscles tensed as his mind flashed an image of her rolling the van. She paused for a moment, her face betraying an innocent confusion, but without any warning she began to laugh.

“What is this for?” she asked. “In case I don’t eat the poor rabbit?”

“This is as new for us as it is for you,” Ryan said.

“No need to get defensive. I’m only asking what is it for.”

“I’m not being defensive.”

The female turned away from the machine and looked at the rabbit which had jumped off the cot and now sat in the middle of the cell’s floor. She went over to the animal, bent down, and picked it up.

“Is this what you want me to do?” she asked. “Take its blood while you watch?” She pressed the rabbit against her neck and cheek.

“Do you like rabbits?” Siri asked.

“Don’t worry little one,” the female said. “I never feed during the day.” And she walked along the plexiglas and carefully placed the rabbit back into the pass through.

“We can leave if you need to be alone.”

“If I need to be alone . . . to eat?” She turned toward Siri. “No, I’m really not that shy with my food. Still, it doesn’t matter. I can’t eat during the day. It makes me sick.”

“We didn’t know that,” Ryan said. “How do you know it’s day time?”

She shrugged. “I can’t tell you how. I just always know where the sun is. Does that surprise you?”

“Everything about you is a surprise.”

“How sweet.” She again looked at Siri, “Is he always this sweet?”

“We don’t want to do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable,” Siri said.

“Is that why I’m in here?”

“The barrier is for your safety as well as ours,” Siri replied.

“You place me in a cage and expect me to perform little tricks for you.” And she gestured at the rabbit. “You think I’m a monster and you’re right, but so are you. At least I don’t play with what I catch. Just think . . . a vampire who is more humane than a human.”

“Humane? You and the male killed five men, I was there.”

“I’ve killed many men.”

“And that’s the problem.”

“I only kill for food. Those men of yours were trying to kill me.”

“They only wanted to capture you.”

“By shooting their guns at me?”

“They didn’t have a choice—you didn’t give them a choice.”

“We seldom have our own real choices, man or vampire,” she said. “At least not when it’s most important to our life.”

She stared directly at Ryan and he discovered for the first time that her eyes were a startling fusion of deep lapis and liquid mercury.

“Those men had families. They didn’t deserve to die like that,” Siri said.

“So I don’t have as much right to live as any of you?” She walked back to the cot and sat down. “At least that hasn’t changed over the years. I can always count on that.” And she smiled at him, her lips slightly apart.

“We’re trying to understand you,” Ryan said.

“And I understand a lot about men,” she replied. “Men hold no surprises for me.”

“Okay,” Ryan said. “But won’t you allow us to learn about why this happened to you?”

“Why does it matter?”

“That is why we healed you and brought you here,” Siri said.

“To this cage? Sorry, but I’m not going to thank you.”

“Will you cooperate with us?” Ryan asked.

She looked at Ryan and squinted. “You’re risking your lives with me. I can’t help what I am . . . especially once the sun goes down.”

“We understand the risks of having you here,” Ryan said.

She again stood up, turned toward Ryan, and walked up to the barrier. Her eyes locked with his and her pupils gave off a faint, pink glow.

Ryan felt a presence touch his mind.

“No, you can never understand.” Her voice became soft and silky. “The night will come when I’ll look into your eyes and love you like you’ve never known. And as I take your life it will hurt and you’ll struggle. You’ll be helpless in my arms as I slowly feed until there’s nothing left for your fading heart to pump between my lips.”

Ryan swallowed then expelled the air he had been holding in.

She reached out and placed both hands on the plexiglas. “How does that make you feel?” she asked and offered an innocent smile from which she gave a naughty giggle.

Ryan blinked and shook his head. He had serious doubts on the effectiveness of the THC pills.