Anthology of Ichor III: Gears of Damnation (37 page)

A woman in a lab coat heads me off at the cafeteria counter. “You Beatrice Tenaeus?” she asks. She motions for me to follow her. I know where we’re going, but don’t like being in the same room as Dr. Kravera. It wouldn’t be so bad if the technician didn’t close the door behind me.

“
Is there a variation of Henri’s story that you’d like to add?” Kravera asks, handing me the digital copy of the PCR. I scan over the information. Henri’s annoyingly accurate.

“
I can’t confirm the exact numbers,” I say, “but this looks correct. Is he being called into question?”

She shakes her head. “Do you have more tissue sample?”

“
No. I already cleaned the ambulance.”

Kravera hands me a mandated order. Requisition to inoculate city of Winnipeg Police with VS-4: Supposed Servant Mark Venom. I wonder if there’s a patent pending. “They’re getting close.”

“
They?” I ask.

“
The idiots in Ottawa are talking about having us – turned, known, employed vampires start to mark our police officers – that way, another vampire can’t mark them.”

“
They thought about doing it for the army years ago,” I start, but her face looks, pardon the term, grave. “They’re saying inoculations against Kyoli?”

“
Before it mutates. Most people don’t want to have anything to do with vampires, but the truth is that it would reform health care if everyone was either a vampire or marked. Think of Winnipeg as a giant Petri dish.”

“
That’s sick.”

“
It’s a cure,” Kravera said. “This… Kyoli virus, it changes everything. If a virus can kill a vampire, it changes everything.”

“
You can’t tell?”

“
I need more samples to run the appropriate tests,” she said. “Do you understand?”

“
What does this have to do with me?” I ask.

She turns on an old tv – really old, not even 3D technology, and lets me watch Vampire Riots of 2017, three years after there was physical proof of their existence. Prey and predator, only admitting there were predators. Then came the accusations: evil and evolution. Need versus ethics. Redefining, but never defined. “You think they’re going to let me anywhere near the morgue she’s in with my… condition?” She asks. She motions to my reader, and lets me scan more personal information. Vampire – VS Delta Strain. Duration: 3 years, 5 months, 2 days. Level 5 Vampire. “I can get you everything you’ll need.”

I shake my head. “You can access the body without me.”

Kravera shakes her head. “I’ve done my best and I flagged that body for a wait on autopsy. It’s on ice at the Centennial. There’s a lot of red tape until I can get the body, if they let me near her at all and we’re running out of time. You can get in, and take all the samples I need. I’ll have the tests done before they let me near her legally.”

I bob my head, unsure of what to say. She gave herself vampirism to research it. What’s she willing to do to me, to Henri? “How are you going to explain how you figured it out?”

“
My dear, it’s far better than beg forgiveness than ask permission. If you’re worried about being reprimanded on a professional level, I won’t mention your involvement.”

Her interns would be flagged. I’ll be right under the radar. “What do I tell Henri?”

“
Don’t.”

She uploads some information on my ID, tells me to find Henri, calls us both in, thanks Henri, tells him she’s going to need more time for research. “You should wait a few hours before going home,” she tells Henri. “Direct sunlight-”

“
The rookie can drive.”

I’m exhausted. This is supposed to be the time I’m sleeping but I don’t argue. I notice him fumble for his sunglasses and look uncomfortable in the autumn sun. It’s slightly cloudy, but his skin looks red around the cheeks and nose by the time we get to his car. “What did she really say to you?” he asks once I pull onto the street.

“
Huh?”

“
You don’t have to read minds to tell she was hiding something,” Henri says. “What did she tell you?”

“
She asked me to get a few more samples from the vampire for her.”

“
That thing’s probably on liquid nitro, if not being airlifted to Toronto,” Henri said. “Wonder why she’s not reporting it.” He chuckles. “When were you planning on telling me?”

“
I wasn’t sure what to say,” I say. “You want to come with me?”

“
I was hoping Kravera was one of the good ones,” Henri says, sighing. “Bet you it was one of hers.”

“
Pardon?” I ask.

“
Kravera’s injected herself,” Henri says. “What makes you think she or one of her little colleagues weren’t cooking up something to get rid of vampires?” He’s smiling, but it reminds me of my parents’ dog when he’s growling. “That’s probably it. Test it out in this little city, where no one cares.”

“
Kravera’s a vampire,” I say. “Why would she want to do something to eradicate something she’s dedicated her afterlife for?”

“
Maybe she’s doing it to ensure a willing food supply,” Henri says, and laughs. “You got me.”

“
You gonna be okay to drive home?” I ask as I pull into his usual spot, but Henri’s out of the car, yelling at me to lock it by hand as he drinks with some of the other senior medics who are avoiding divorces. I go to my locker, and am tempted to take the bus instead of bike home, but remind myself that I had a donut today and I’ve yet to be on the treadmill. It’ll be almost the time I wake up by the time I get home. Traffic’s light when you cut across the park but it’s more of a winter wind then one reserved for autumn. I finish hauling my bike up to the condo to remember I was supposed to meet my sister for a fitting three hours ago. She’s left me a nasty message on the phone. I try to give her a buzz, and download the local news as I endure her voice mail. “Don’t be like this, I know you’re there.” I pass out on the futon before my frozen waffles finish toasting. I wake up, drool on my pillow to the sound of the phone message going off. “Tenaeus? Tenaeus, pick up.” One of my supers, Pauline, I think, but it could be Lydia.

“
Tenaeus here,” I mumble, changing the channel from the news to check the time.

“
Tenaeus? Where are you?” It’s Pauline. “Are you alright?”
“I’m tired. Henri kept me after-”

“
You were with Henri this morning, weren’t you?”

“
Yeah. We worked the graveyard shift. Why?”

“
He’s dead.”

My heart races. He was fine a few hours ago. I glance at the clock – 20:03, 04/10/32. I just finished a rotation, so it’s not like I need to be anywhere. “Dead? How?”

“
We were hoping you’d tell us,” she said. “How did he seem to you when you saw him last?”

“
Fine,” I say, my head swimming. “How did he die?”

“
Dropped dead. He’s scheduled for an autopsy. William said you arrived some time in the afternoon. Where were you?”
“Medical building, he went to see Dr. Kravera, about the last patient we had,” I want to tell her everything, but Pauline’s saying something about coming in tomorrow, talking about what happened. She says he was yukking it up with the regulars and he started coughing, excused himself, and Wilko found him face-first in one of the urinals. She recommends I go get tested for Kyoli first thing in the morning, and hangs up before I plead my case.

I feel dizzy. Henri’s not the only one I’m paired with, but it doesn’t make sense. Just a few hours ago, he told me he was dying, but that he was going to be running around after he kicked off. I’ve got a base sampler at home – tells me what bacteria’s running around, but I test negative for Kyoli, positive for a small cold but not enough to boost of my white blood cell count. I’m clean. Kravera, or his doctor, they must have done something…

I put on my cleanest uniform and check the info Kravera uploaded to my ID.

~*~

Henri told me the easiest way to get things done is to pick the individual who hasn’t had their spirit crushed by the machine and get them to do it for you. This was right after he picked me as a partner. I’ve been to the Centennial Morgue lots – used to be a pool, but Winnipeg’s got more dead bodies that need a place to wait for verification then people willing to pay to take a dip, so every violent crime and Kyoli means that it’s about a month’s wait for a funeral.

I roll in, flash my ID. Initial security’s a holographic projection of a brute, the fat guy watching the security cameras would probably have a massive myo-infarc from getting off his chair.

The kid behind the desk must be a prodigy or a relative of one of the doctors; he looks so young. He smiles, scans my ID with his reader and looks at the chart. “The vampire? Good luck on that, Miss Hannah Orden is frozen solid. Just in case; our slayer’s gone to witness the birth of one of her great-grand kids.” Chatty fellow, but it’s Friday night, and we’re both losers hanging out at the morgue. “She left me her vials, just in case.” Ooh, a Taoist slayer. I’ve got nothing against the Catholic variety, but every once in a while I like to hear a different battle cry. “If I unplug the cryo now, she might be thawed by morning.”

“
I just need a few samples.” I show him the order. He grins. I can’t help but wonder where his supervisor is, but some old broad tells him to pipe it down from the room behind him, and I hear a movie from the last century; old flatscreen technology.

“
I can manage this. You can come and make sure it’s legal.” I don’t care, so long as Kravera gets her sample. I wonder if Henri’s really down and out, or if he’s going to just threaten me a lot more come next rotation. The kid suits up, says something about how he’s always had a fascination with the dead, and cryogenics was the obvious choice.

“
So neat to have a vampire here and everything,” he says as we walk down the hall towards the holding rooms. “I mean, normally when they die they’re impaled and left out in the sun. Do you know how cold we have to keep them? Their cellular processes continue even when it’s incredibly cold, and some of them are so slow we have to do it even if it’s obvious they’re gone. I’d like to see one rot, just to see what happens.”

I scan his ID. “You had Kyoli?” I ask.

“
Yup. My uncle says I should be immortal after I’m done contracting all the crap that goes around here.” He unlocks the door by code – probably the same code that’s used throughout the entire building. The room’s freezing; I should have thought ahead and brought a thicker jacket. He doesn’t seem to notice, and the scanner reads him and the florescent lights flicker on.

The metal filing caskets are all pulled out, and there’s bodies everywhere. He screams, backs up, taps his wrist for security, but something knocks us over. I wouldn’t recognize her if it wasn’t for her purple leopard-print skirt.

She kicks me once, and I feel my femur shatter. I try to keep from screaming out in pain, struggle to get up, but I’m pinned under an overturned stretcher. The kid’s screaming, she’s feeding on him, I can only tell because she’s hit an artery and she’s not lapping up all of it.

“
Stop!” I scream, I can’t help it. “He’s infected with-!”

She looks at me. She’s lost all her hair, and she’s still got silver needles in her skin from when they froze her. She looks almost like a cartoon ghoul, with his fresh blood staining her lower face, hands, and running down her shirt. The kid’s in shock, unconscious. I can hear the fire alarm going off, somehow, over the beating of my own heart. Lockdown? Maybe they called the cops. She tosses him aside, and I scan the room. She was feeding off the dead. That doesn’t make sense; they are the dead. Vampires feed off the living. That is, unless we’ve been totally wrong.

“
You tried to save me, before,” she says lowly, crouching, bare toes giving way to hooked claws. She picks the stretcher off of me. “And then your partner drugged me with tainted blood.”

“
Please… please don’t…”

She bends down. I can smell the dead and fresh blood from her mouth. She puts her hand on my broken thigh and digs her claws in. It hurts, but she bares her teeth, and her mouth spreads, lips up and down and they split in half, exposing gums ripe with rows of new teeth and she sinks them into my shoulder. She’s injecting. I black out.

~*~

23:37, 07/10/32; too early. The club’s too loud so I go to the back. It doesn’t take long to spot my target. He’s got fuller, longer hair than me, and has a single tear tattooed under his left eye. Geez.

He’s been around a lot. I don’t know how I can tell. He smells my hair, lingers near my ear. “Bite-virgin?” he asks.

I try to look away, act coy, but I don’t want to turn him off.
He’s not really the type to give up easily, especially when it comes to bite-virgins, or anything with a pulse. “You stand out,” he says. “You can look me in the eyes. I won’t hurt you.”

I look up at him, admiring his features, and remind myself he’s a walking corpse. “I don’t even know why I’m here.” I tell him, though I’m not sure he can hear me over the generic club music. I mumble something about my boyfriend who doesn’t appreciate me, which is true but hardly unique.

He slides into the bench next to me. A couple’s feeding a few booths over, and he wants to do the same.

“
I’m Damien.” I’m so tempted to scan him just to see if he’s legally an Ambrose.

Another vampire, this one looking the part of a scruffy pirate, leans in. “This fool bothering you?”