Dead on Arrival (3 page)

It was another hour before the doctor came back to the waiting room with a policewoman.

‘Ruby. I’m sorry. The disappearance of the body seems to be part of a larger incident which the police are investigating. There’s been another –’ he glanced at the policewoman – ‘another case involving a body.’

Ruby jumped up.

‘What happened?’

The policewoman spoke first.

‘It hasn’t been made public. I’m afraid we can’t tell you.’

‘But it’s my brother! You have to!’

The doctor ignored the policewoman.

‘There are some marks on a body. We’ve increased security.’

The doctor and policewoman left her with the nurse again. Ruby felt sick with dread. What type of marks were on the body? She was sure she knew already. If Alistair was in the hospital, alive, he would need blood. It was a blessing if he had bitten only a dead person – so far. She had to find him before it got worse.

She told the nurse she was going to the Food Court, then walked the corridors, thinking and looking. What was Alistair wearing? Not his own clothes, so what? Where would he go? He’d go where he could hide, or where he could find blood.

She knew she should call Florence, their mentor, but still she held back. She didn’t want trouble. Perhaps she could find him on her own. But she had to find him before the police did.

Alistair drifted back towards A&E. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he knew he was being drawn there by the scent of blood. The few mouthfuls he’d taken would not keep him going for long.

He looked through the window of the double doors into the back entrance of A&E. There was a boy on a trolley, with a towel over his leg. Blood seeped through it in places, staining it red. The boy whimpered. But there were too many people near him.

‘Excuse me,’ someone said behind him. Alistair jumped back in alarm. A porter with a trolley wanted to go through the door. Alistair held it open for him, and looked down at two plastic pouches of deep red blood. Of course! Hospitals use blood all the time!

He looked back up the corridor the way the man had come and saw a door swinging. That must be the way to go to find blood.

Ruby’s fingers tightened around the ProVamp capsule in her pocket. She could take it at any time, she didn’t need to let things get too bad.

She was only six hours late with the capsule and already her body needed blood.

The only time she had felt this hunger before was when all this had started in the forest in Hungary, with Ava tied to the tree, when they
first became vampires. She hated to remember it – how she had been completely overwhelmed by her need for blood.

How must Alistair be feeling? He’d not had ProVamp for nearly two days. But now she needed to feel what he felt – she needed that hunger for blood that he had, so that she would behave like him, so that it would lead her where it led him.

She tasted the air. There was something – a tang, a warmth almost – that drew her in one direction. She followed where it pulled her, back towards A&E.

Of course – that’s where people would be bleeding. She hoped Alistair didn’t go on a blood binge in A&E. There would be no explaining that away.

She crossed the waiting room and paused by the vending machine, pretending to decide what to buy, looking around. No one looked like Alistair.

She glanced at the TV screen on the wall. It showed a computer-generated picture of someone who could be Alistair, but in scrubs.

‘Have you seen this man? Call hospital security,’ it said underneath.

Her eyes were drawn to a man with a gash on his arm who had just walked in. The blood glistened. It was the most beautiful colour. She wanted to go over to him, just to be near.

A nurse called him into a side room, but even after he’d gone the scent of blood was left in the air. It was like a glittering snail trail that Ruby
could have followed to the right room.

This was how it worked! This was how a vampire without ProVamp found blood. She realised now she could sense the blood in people around her even if they weren’t bleeding.

An orderly pushed a trolley into the far end of the waiting room, while a young man in scrubs held the door for him. Ruby walked to the door and went through it before it swung shut, the young man hurrying away ahead of her.

Her phone beeped. She took it from her pocket and leaned against a wall, watched the man in scrubs disappear around a corner, and then clicked through to the message.

‘Where are you both?’

It was from Florence, worried that she and Alistair hadn’t checked in with her.

Ruby wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that he was missing now. She had no idea what would happen. Would Ignace launch a full-scale search? Would she be in trouble? She hated the prospect of being in trouble with Ignace. She texted back that Alistair was in hospital but missing.

It was only as she put the phone back in her pocket that she realised. The man in front of her, the man in scrubs who had gone round the corner – he left no scent trail. He didn’t smell of blood. There could be only one reason for that: he was a vampire. He was Alistair.

She ran along the corridor to the corner, but he’d gone. She’d been so close to him! But she
couldn’t track the lack of a scent.

Ruby stared down the empty corridor – door after door on either side, all closed, no doubt locked. She walked along, pushing on each door, pausing every time someone came past.

But then the smell of blood burst into her head like an explosion. This was nothing like the scent of a person, or even the clear tang of the blood in A&E. It was staggeringly intense – it made her reel and almost stumble.

She steadied herself against a wall and struggled with the tidal wave of hunger that crashed over her. She inched forward to the door she knew was the right one and pushed on it. It was locked.

‘Alistair?’ she whispered.

There was a tiny noise from inside – a wet noise.

‘Alistair? It’s Ruby.’

She felt the ProVamp in her fingers. She should take it now. No – she should give it to Alistair. Too late, though, surely?

That smell … what was he doing? She hardly dared think about it.
Did he have a person in there?
She was both horrified and fascinated.

Did he have a person in there, and could she share the person?

‘Alistair? Are you in there? Open the door.’

It opened a crack. Ruby’s hand shook as she pushed on it – terrified of finding him in there with a corpse. Or – worse – not a corpse. And yet the taste of blood was driving her insane. She wanted to be in there too, whatever he was doing.

The door swung open. Alistair was huddled on the floor sucking blood from a pouch.
Like those
yoghurt pouches we used to have in our school
lunch-boxes
– the thought flashed through her head. He stared up at her, his eyes gleaming. He looked dazed, beyond all levels of happiness. An empty blood pouch lay on the floor beside him, and a pool of it had spilled onto the floor. Ruby longed to dip her fingers into it, even lick it from the floor.

‘Alistair.’ She held out the ProVamp capsule, hand trembling. He laughed.

‘Why would I want that? This is so much better. Try it.’ He held the pouch out to her.

Ruby was shaking violently now. She shook her head, but she didn’t really mean
No
. She meant
YES
as loud as she could think it. She put the ProVamp into her own mouth and closed her eyes.
She would wait it out. Surely it could only take a minute or two and the capsule would work. She looked around, keeping her eyes off the blood.

They were in a storeroom, with racks of scrubs and boxes piled high in a corner.

‘Where did you get that pouch?’ she asked when the ProVamp kicked in. Alistair waved an arm towards the door.

‘Out there,’ he said. ‘Blood room, next corridor. Do you want to get some?’

Alistair was acting as though he were drunk. He moved slowly, and blood dripped to the floor from the pouch in his hand.

‘You have to get out of here,’ Ruby said. As Alistair stood up, draining the last of the pouch, she
saw that his scrubs were soaked in spilled blood.

‘We need to get your clothes,’ she added.

He smiled stupidly and pulled the jumper from its hiding place.

‘I have this.’

‘OK, it’ll do. Take those off.’ She turned her head away so that he could change – she knew he wouldn’t do it otherwise.

Alistair screwed the scrubs into a ball and dropped them on the floor.

‘Hide those,’ Ruby said, pointing to the empty blood pouches. He dropped them behind the boxes where he’d hidden the jumper.

Ruby opened the door a crack. The corridor
was empty.

‘I’ll go first. I’ll meet you in the Food Court.’

As he stood in front of her, blood ran in stripes down his legs and pooled on the floor, joining that he’d spilled. He just stared at her.

‘What’s the matter with you, Alistair?’ she said. ‘Go to a bathroom and wash that blood off before you go anywhere else. And pull yourself together – you’re acting like a zombie. Is it the blood?’

He grinned at her, but didn’t move.

Please do it right
, she willed him, as she slipped out of the door.

Ruby sat at a table in the Food Court with a black coffee and waited. Where was Alistair? How could it take so long?

She left her cup and walked back towards the storeroom. The corridor was swarming with police and was taped off at both ends. The door of the storeroom where she’d found Alistair was wide open. The blood-soaked scrubs were still lying on the floor. She had a little time, as the police
wouldn’t disturb them until the crime investigation team arrived – Ruby knew that. So they wouldn’t find the blood pouches yet.

A line of bloody footprints led along the corridor, fading until there were just a few drops of blood, and then those stopped, too. It wasn’t a trail to follow – at least, not for a human. She wished she hadn’t taken the proVamp now. She needed still to be able to taste blood, to follow the trail to where Alistair washed it off.

The bathroom was just a few doors down on the left. Ruby dipped under the police tape and ran, hand over her mouth as though she would vomit.

‘Stop!’ shouted a policeman, running towards her.

‘I’m going to be sick,’ she shouted and pushed through the door. The policeman didn’t follow,
but waited outside.

One of the two cubicles was locked.

‘Alistair?’ she whispered. There was no answer. The sink was spattered with blood. She washed it away.

‘Alistair, it’s Ruby.’ She crouched down and looked under the door. No feet. She went into the other cubicle and climbed onto the toilet so that she could look over the divider. Empty – but the window was open.

She went back into the corridor, mumbled thanks to the policeman and went back under the tape. He didn’t move to stop her. And then she ran to the main door of the hospital and out, along the front and round the end of the building. She stumbled over scrubby grass, then past parked
ambulances and bushes to where she thought the windows of the toilets should be.

‘Alistair!’ she called quietly. ‘I’m here. Quick – you have to get out of here.’

Nothing. She called again, poked at the bushes, called a third time. And then she turned and saw the policeman.

‘What’s going on here?’

Ruby didn’t know what to do.

‘I’m looking for my brother.’

‘Your brother? Isn’t he the missing – body? Come on, love. Back into the hospital. Your brother isn’t going to be out here. I’ll get someone to see to you.’

‘No – I don’t want to go back. I need to walk on
my own. Just for a bit.’

‘He’s dead, you know. He’s not going to be out here.’

‘No. You’re right. I was just – just hoping. Yes, please take me back inside.’ She had to get the policeman away from where Alistair must be. Now she’d have to keep playing this crazy-with-grief card. She wished she’d been more careful.

‘Yes,’ she said loudly, in case Alistair was listening. ‘Yes, officer, I’ll come with you. Obviously there’s no one here.’

Alistair waited in the bushes until Ruby and the policeman had left. He shivered. He didn’t know the way home and he had nowhere to go.
He could run away. He imagined living out in the open, trying to find people to bite. Or he could go back inside. At least Ruby was inside.

After a few minutes, he crept out and wandered around until he found the main doors and walked in. There were police and security guards
everywhere
. They were on him in seconds, before he knew it, and bundled him into a room. Ruby was there. She ran over and hugged him.

‘I told you he wasn’t dead!’ she cried. ‘I could just feel he wasn’t.’

The doctors wanted to examine Alistair.

‘No! Don’t touch me!’ he shouted, raising his arms against them. Ruby held her breath; she knew the trouble it would cause if they discovered his low heartbeat and nearly undetectable breathing.

‘He can refuse treatment,’ she said. ‘That’s his right.’

They offered him food, which he didn’t want. A nurse washed the dried blood from his legs, and Ruby was glad that she did as if they tested it they would find it wasn’t his. That would not be good.

‘We have some questions for you, too,’ a
policeman
said. ‘How did you get out of the morgue? And did you see a young man in green scrubs?’

Ruby squeezed Alistair’s hand in warning.

‘I saw lots of people in scrubs,’ he said. ‘The hospital is full of them. Why?’

‘It’s someone else we’re looking for,’ the policeman said.

‘Was he dead too?’

‘No. We want to question him. We can show you a picture …’

‘No!’ Ruby said quickly. ‘Not now. He needs to rest.’ She knew if they looked at the picture they would realise Alistair was the man in scrubs.

The door opened and another doctor came in. She had short dark hair. She looked confident as she smiled at them.

‘I’m Dr Karen Carew. You must be Ruby? We have a shared friend – Dr Ignace Guillotin. He suggested you might be more comfortable if I examined you, Alistair. Would that be all right?’

Alistair looked at Ruby; she nodded. A vampire doctor. She could tell by the smell of her – by the lack of smell – as well as by the reference to Ignace. Everything was going to be all right.

The policeman carried on.

‘There was another body that was harmed. And a patient was hurt and a nurse was found unconscious. It’s quite a coincidence, one body rising from the dead and another being mutilated on the same day …’

‘That really is a coincidence,’ Dr Carew said firmly. ‘My patient needs time to recover. You will be able to question him later, I’m sure.’

The policeman looked annoyed, but he shrugged and shook hands with Alistair.

‘Welcome back to the land of the living.’