Blood Crimes Page 3

  “I thought you were going to take me riding last night,” she said, not bothering to hide the hurt in her voice.

  “Later this week maybe.”

  Every Tuesday night he made it a habit to take her to the main house for sex, and he’d been hinting for a few months now that he’d take her riding soon. He had given her a tour weeks ago of his private lab so he knew she wouldn’t try escaping—she understood full well what the cost would be if she tried and was unsuccessful. Still, though, it was always a balance. He needed to give the staff occasional respites from the compound to keep them from going stir-crazy, or worse, to keep them from getting desperate enough to try breaking out, but on the other hand he couldn’t afford even a single rogue vampire on the outside. The mathematics of it were staggering. One vampire infecting the population would lead to a disaster of momentous proportions. If not carefully controlled by someone like Metcalf, the disease would spread exponentially and would eventually leave the ever-growing population of vampires with no livestock to feed from. His methods might be cruel but they were necessary.

  “I really want to go riding with you,” she said with a half-pout. She looked up to meet his dead pale eyes and smiled in the well-practiced way she would with any other john. “I’ll make it worth your while tomorrow night if you take me.”

  “What? You’ve been holding out on me?”

  “No, I wouldn’t say that, but I’m sure I could come up with something creative if you gave me the proper incentive.”

  “We’ll see,” he said, his voice turning gruff. “How’s the milking? Any of them dried up?”

  “I’m still getting pints out of all them. This one’s been a stubborn fucker, though. It took me five minutes to find a vein.”

  Metcalf looked down at the livestock. The near-ghost must’ve been a vagrant before he’d been picked up. His face was now as thin as a railroad spike, his beard sparse, his cheeks hollowed out and his eyes small as they remained buried within dark circles of ruined, grayish flesh. There wasn’t much left of him, another week or two of milking at the most. Metcalf scanned the glass walls separating the cattle pens from the milking area and spotted several other livestock who looked like they were going to need replacing soon. He felt no emotion about it—to him they really were never anything more than livestock to feed off of and dispose. Whatever empathy a normal human being was born with had always been missing from his makeup. That part of him hadn’t changed because of the infection. He knew Vanessa was the same—that was really the thing about her that he had felt instantly attracted to even if he didn’t understand it at the time, and it was why he’d been feeling more of a bond with her. It was also why she was the only member of the staff that he still had assigned to milking. The compassion that the other vampires showed the livestock made him sick. Because of this growing bond he’d been considering moving her to the main house permanently. It seemed to make sense, and besides, she was far better at sex than the other female vampires. Even before he brought her back to the compound, he’d been gradually losing interest in the others. Their constant sadness was becoming a real turn-off.

  “We’re going to need to restock some of them soon,” Vanessa said. She hesitated for a moment, then somewhat boldly asked, “Maybe I can go with you?”

  He nodded. These disposables were so damn plentiful in LA—picking them up was like shopping for a carton of eggs at the supermarket. So, why not.

  “It’s an idea,” he agreed.

  That brightened her up. The pint bag had filled. She pulled the needle from the livestock’s arm. His face screwed up for a moment as if he were going to start bawling, but he controlled himself and instead rubbed his arm as he walked lifelessly back to his pen. Vanessa handed the pint bag to Metcalf. He made it a habit of having a freshly drawn pint when he entered the compound each morning. The sweetness of the blood—at least to his taste—seemed to degrade quickly, usually within minutes of being taken. He squeezed the blood into his mouth as if it were a pouch of wine. During the course of the day he would consume another six pints, and while it would leave him craving more, it would provide him the energy he needed. What he wouldn’t give to be able to eat a steak instead. Or a rack of ribs. Or a pint of ale. Jesus, just the thought of a warm pint of Guiness made his mouth water. But for the time being this was what he was stuck with.

  “Do you want another pint?” Vanessa asked eagerly. “I still have a dozen more to milk. If you’d like to wait…”

  He shook his head. “Not right now.”

  “But you will take me riding later?”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  “And when you pick out more livestock?”

  “You’ll come along.” He looked away from her. “I’m thinking of other changes. Maybe moving you into the main house permanently.”

  Her face flushed a light pink with the news. Without a word she crouched so that she was nearly sitting on her heels, then undid the zipper of his chinos and pleasured him with her lips and tongue. The fact that the livestock might’ve been watching was of no consequence to her, nor for him. The fact that she looked at them the same as he did excited him. When she was done she wiped her mouth and asked him whether she could move to the house that night.

  “Let me think about it.” He fingered his scar as he considered her. “You’re still going to be assigned to the milking.”

  “That’s okay. I kind of like it.”

  “And you know what will happen if you cause any problems?”

  “I won’t cause any problems.”

  His eyes held steady on hers.

  “I have a spot in my lab reserved for you if needed,” he said.

  “I know that.”

  He zipped up and told her to finish her milking, that they’d talk more later. He watched as Vanessa took another of the livestock—a teenage girl whom Metcalf vaguely remembered picking up months earlier while she was hitchhiking. The girl now looked haggard and had aged well beyond her years. She would need replacing soon also. Metcalf watched for a minute as Vanessa probed several times for a vein within the teenage girl’s withered arm before hitting pay dirt. Once the blood was draining into the plastic bag, he left to check on more of the staff.

  Juliet and Maritza were working in the kitchen preparing oatmeal for the livestock. Juliet had been a pert blonde with a slender athletic body before her infection, Maritza a dark-haired illegal whom Metcalf had found living out of a back seat of a rusted-out Dodge Polaris. Both of them had since let their hair go white with seemingly no interest in dyeing it. In both cases their tits had shrunk up even smaller than Vanessa’s. With Juliet, the infection had narrowed her body to the point where she looked more like a teenage boy than a woman, and her arms had become almost like gristle. Before her infection, Maritza could’ve passed for Eva Longoria’s younger sister. Now she looked like an old woman. Metcalf didn’t like the fact that neither of them were even making a pretense of keeping up their appearance, and was thinking that if this continued their roles within the compound were going to be changing quickly. If they were complaining now with their saunas and swimming pools and large-screen home theatres, just wait. They didn’t have an inkling what hell really was.

  Juliet heard him approaching and gave him a slow disapproving look. Maritza didn’t bother acknowledging his presence. Making a face, Juliet said, “If we gave them some meat occasionally, maybe they wouldn’t get so anemic so fast. Maybe they’d be able to last longer.”

  Metcalf forced a smile.

  “Fuck that. If I can’t eat steak, neither can they.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “Your suggestion is noted. Okay?”

  Juliet’s brow furrowed, her eyes turning to hard angry slits.

  “I’m just trying to be practical,” she said. “They need more iron in their diet. It doesn’t have to be steak. We could feed them liver.”

  Metcalf stared coldly at her. Without being aware of it he was clenching and unclenching his hands, the annoyanc
e building up in him. Months earlier he had given in and started buying them bushels of apples because Juliet claimed they needed the extra vitamins. He figured he’d be magnanimous—if he were willing to feed his horses that, then okay, he’d feed the livestock the same. Oats and apples, a few carrots. But this was fucking ridiculous. Maybe before being infected he wasn’t a big fan of liver, but he’d cut off his right hand now to be able to enjoy a plate of it with some bacon and onions.

  “What would be the point of having them last longer?” he asked, his tone artificially flat and even-keeled. “Would that be doing them any favors?”

  Juliet’s mouth closed as she tried to think of an argument. Maritza stood quietly stirring the oatmeal, her eyes cast down and staring into nothingness. Metcalf noted how she pretty much had the same look about her as the livestock.

  “I need to get outside,” Juliet muttered at last. “It’s been over four months…”

  Metcalf saw nothing but a flash of red. He’d been hearing hints of her grumblings for a while now—and not just hers but others too—and this was the final straw. The red flashing inside his brain blew up into something raging. Deaf and dumb to her, he grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her off her feet. Maritza started to cross herself but caught herself midway. She stared back into the pot and continued to blindly stir the oatmeal as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening. In his mind’s eye, Metcalf spat fire as he dragged Juliet out of the kitchen area and into the vampires’ housing quarters.

  “This isn’t fucking enough for you!” he roared, waving a hand at the Olympic-size swimming pool and three Jacuzzis that he dragged her past. She pleaded with him to stop but he didn’t hear her over the inferno burning inside him. He dragged her along the Italian marble tiles as if she were nothing but a bed sheet.

  “Everything I bought you fucking ingrates is top of the line!” he continued to roar as he dragged her through the gaming area which had a simulated golf course, two racquetball courts, ping-pong tables and pool tables. Several of the vampires were watching the movie Sideways on one of the large-screen home theatres and looked over with a mix of curiosity and alarm. None of them bothered to get involved. They knew better than to try to calm Metcalf down.

  “There are people spending a grand a day to stay at spas not as nice as what I built for you fucking ingrates, but nothing’s ever enough, is it?”

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean anything—”

  “Shut up! You’re so fucking anxious to go outside, well fuck you, I’m taking you outside!”

  He bent her arms behind her back and dumped her on his shoulders, carrying her as if she were a sack of grain. Moving fast, he ran through the compound and then out the titanium security door. Juliet was wailing, trying to fight back, but in the position she was in all she could do was kick harmlessly. Metcalf raced up the stairs with her on his shoulders, and with the adrenaline pounding within him, lifted the concrete slab as if it were cardboard. With her still on his back, he sprinted through the barn, then dumped her outside. She had little protection other than a tee shirt and shorts, and the sunlight hit her hard. Within seconds she was writhing on the ground desperately trying to shield her face from the sun. Metcalf ripped off the little clothing she had on and that left her shrieking. Every time she tried to get to her feet, Metcalf kicked her back to the ground. After ten minutes of that she quit fighting and lay curled up in a fetal position, her thin leathery body wracked with sobs. Metcalf slowly calmed down and became aware of where he was and what he was doing. He realized that there was a remote chance someone driving by with a pair of binoculars could spot them. While it was highly unlikely it wasn’t worth taking the risk. He flung Juliet over his shoulder and carried her into the barn and back to the compound. Vanessa was still milking the livestock and raised an eyebrow as he brushed past her. Whatever she said Metcalf didn’t hear. He carried Juliet into the kitchen area and dumped her by Maritza’s feet.

  “She finishes her shift or she becomes one of my private projects. Make it both of you. Understand?”

  Maritza nodded, her face blanching to the same shade of white as her hair. She kneeled down and sprinkled water into the other vampire’s face to revive her. Juliet started to mutter gibberish, her eyes fluttering weakly, her mouth a gaping hole. Metcalf watched disinterestedly. From his own experimentation he knew how painful unprotected exposure to the sun could be, but he also knew it caused no lasting damage. At one time he had taken several of his experiments to a remote area of the Mojave Desert where he chained them spread eagle between cactuses. While Metcalf spent twelve hours shielded by a tent, his experiments were left to wither under the full exposure of the desert sun. Over those twelve hours they all dried up like prunes, but feeding them an ounce of blood restored them back to their previous state. Throughout the twelve hours they howled as if their skin were being peeled off, but they survived it.

  If it had been any of the other vampires than Juliet giving him lip, he would’ve made them one of his private experiments. In her case, he’d give her this warning. She was well-liked among the other vampires, and it would cause more problems than it was worth if he acted too hastily with her. Besides, it never hurts to occasionally show one’s benevolent side.

  “I was in a good mood before she started her shit,” Metcalf complained peevishly.

  “She was out of line,” Maritza agreed under her breath.

  The bitch was humoring him. He stood silently tracing the outline of his scar before deciding to let it slide. The morning had been eventful enough.

  “The next time I see you I want you to be a brunette again,” he told her. “You tell her she better damn well be a blonde. And I want to see makeup on both of you. For both your sakes I’d better start seeing some effort.”

  She nodded, stone-faced.

  “And for Chrissakes, just give her some blood,” he said, not bothering to hide his disgust. He left her and headed to the research lab that was located past the housing quarters. A corridor had been built that ran past the kitchen to the lab so he didn’t have to cut through the housing quarters, which was just as well. He wasn’t up to any more bullshit.

  He stopped outside the lab, collected himself, and when he felt like he could breathe normally again, entered. The scientists that he had cherry picked over the past two years were all at work, either bent over research equipment or studying simulation results on their computer screens. These included several of the leading AIDS researchers in the country, along with top immunologists and experts in bioengineering and computer modeling. Metcalf had bought them all of the equipment they’d asked for. All of it state of the art, all of it damn expensive. After two years of them working sixteen-hour days they were still no closer to understanding the vampire virus than when they started—which was a source of constant irritation to Metcalf. He damn well wanted results, and if not an outright cure for the virus at least a way to mutate it so that an infected person could eat normal food and not be affected so severely by sunlight. Was that so fucking much to ask for?

  Dr. George Chabot led the team. In his previous life he had been a Nobel Prize-winning immunologist. Before becoming infected he was a good-natured roly-poly man in his early fifties who wore thick soda bottle-type glasses and had long sideburns that blended into an old-fashioned style of whiskers—almost as if he were a playing a doctor in a 1950’s Three Stooges short. Like all other vampires he had since lost his body fat. He was now a stick figure compared to what he had been. Also, consistent with the virus his facial hair had fallen out and his skin was now smooth, although in his case his complexion had a waxy unnatural quality to it. The infection did nothing to improve his eyesight and he still wore the same soda bottle glasses as before. With his changed appearance he gave the impression of a turtle that had been removed from its shell.

  Metcalf walked behind Dr. Chabot, who continued to sit hunched over a computer screen, trying hard to pretend he didn’t notice his visitor. Tremors shook through Chabo
t’s body, and after a minute of this he gave an act of looking startled.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Chabot said.

  Metcalf didn’t bother responding. His eyes narrowed as he squinted at the scientific data Chabot had been studying.

  “I thought I heard a commotion earlier?” Chabot asked.

  Again, Metcalf didn’t bother to answer his lead scientist. Chabot and the other scientists, as well as the rest of his staff, probably already knew about his incident with Juliet. They were like old women the way they spread gossip. Chabot in particular had to be nervous. For months he’d been dropping hints how he’d like to spend a few hours on the outside so he could visit his wife and children.

  “Any progress yet?” Metcalf asked dryly.

  “It’s only been three days since you asked me that last.”

  “I’m asking again.”

  Chabot shrugged. “This virus…it’s unlike anything ever seen before. It defies scientific explanation.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  Chabot shrugged again, his neck disappearing. “We’re working as diligently as we can.”

  “Again, not good enough.”

  “What can I tell you. This virus…the effect it has on the skeletal structure and muscle tissue…its regenerative properties…this is a whole new area for us. At the moment we’re only children groping stupidly in the dark.”