Subspecies: Bloodpact - Chapter Two
I am having an absolute blast working on this, and am stunned I have another chapter to share this soon--don't get spoiled, I'm usually much lazier about updating. :) Next one will likely be a bit, as capturing the Radu/Michelle dynamic is pretty difficult (and I fear I've already botched it, but eh, what can ya do?)
In the meantime, enjoy...
Subspecies: Bloodpact
Chapter 2/? (probably 8)
Author: memoriamvictus
Rating: R
Summary: Radu Vladislas may prove the lesser of two evils when Michelle is forced to attempt to undo the devil's deal Rebecca has made in a bid to save her soul.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Charles Band, Ted Nicolaou, and other wonderful people who have provided me with a great deal of entertainment; I'm just playing around.
Wordcount: 5,615
Begin at the beginning.
Rebecca Morgan stared blearily into the depths of her coffee mug as if she might find the answers she sought hidden in the bro
Rebecca Morgan stared blearily into the depths of her coffee mug as if she might find the answers she sought hidden in the brown liquid, idly twisting the heavy ceramic between her palms. But it wasn’t coffee grounds, it was tea leaves that told the future. Perhaps she should have opted for the Earl Grey instead; after all she had recently gone through, she would not have been a bit surprised had a message been delivered to her via her morning’s dose of caffeine.
She shouldn’t have let Michelle wake up alone.
It was stupid to beat herself up about it, she knew that, but the anchor of guilt that bore her down wasn’t moved by any of her excuses. It had just been one hour, one single hour of one solitary night; Michelle was a big girl, she was fully capable of looking after herself…
…except when she wasn’t. But it wasn’t fair to blame her for any of this. Becky remembered when she’d first called with the news that she was going to get her grant after all; a few months’ field study, a few more months writing the dissertation, and Michelle would have her Ph.D. A real doctor, first one in the family! She had been over the moon with excited glee, and Becky had shared her enthusiasm; she’d always known her baby sister would amount to something. She’d been worried, of course-Michelle had never before left the country, and, glasnost or no, the Eastern Bloc was still unstable; there’d been worrying developments in the Yugoslavian region-but she’d feared cutthroats, kidnappers, even military action. Not… not what Michelle had actually run afoul of.
The very thought still made her head spin. It was crazy. It was absolutely unreal. If anyone else had come to her with such wild tales, she would have laughed them off, perhaps suggested they might want to find a nice therapist to discuss such things with. Even when she’d received that frantic, tearful phone call from Michelle, she’d assumed it was something much more prosaic-drug trafficking, maybe. International jewel thieves. Slavery, even-Michelle had always had a knack for finding herself in bizarre circumstances. Terrifying at the time, but nothing some bail money, sweet-talking, and perhaps a few bribes couldn’t set right; as backwards as some of these second-world countries might be, surely none of their denizens would dare interfere too terribly with an American citizen.
Little did she realize that the kingdom of the dead did not much care what color your passport was.
Tepid coffee slopped onto the soft webbing between her finger and thumb, and she scrabbled for a napkin with a muffled curse. Blotting herself dry, she gritted her teeth, sucking in deep, restorative breaths. She wrapped her hands around the mug once more, squeezing it crushingly tight, willing herself to stop shaking. It didn’t matter anymore. It was over, done with, finis, kaput. It didn’t matter. They were safe. Michelle was merely… following an impulse, or taking some time to herself to think things through. It was a silly, asinine thing for her to have done, but people were entitled to have inappropriate reactions to stressful situations-Michelle moreso than most, given the circumstances.
But the lurking spectre of suicide would not leave her thoughts. Michelle had been terribly unhappy, disgusted with herself and what she’d become. She had seemed to be adjusting, but what if it was merely an act? What if she had merely been in shock?
If she’d really meant to run off and kill herself, she wouldn’t have left a note-at least, not that type of note. Unless she’d been embarrassed-throwing herself away after all they’d gone through to save her, and meant to throw them off the trail so they’d stop looking…
The muffled thump of the shower being turned off distracted her from her grim reverie; she hoisted herself to her feet with a groan, and surveyed the tiny hotel room. Mel would want them to be on their way as soon as he’d dressed, and they carried so few possessions the forgetful abandonment of any would cause a hardship. She busied herself opening drawers and peeking in crannies, seeing if perhaps a stray sock or a comb had escaped her earlier packing.
She was so intent on her task that she must have missed the sound of the bathroom door opening; she was interrupted by the wet slap of feet behind her. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Warm, damp hands descended on her shoulders with a gentle squeeze; sighing, she leaned back into the caress.
“Careful there,” Mel warned her. “I’ll get you soaked.”
An arch remark rose to her lips, but her grinding worry over Michelle’s disappearance soured the humor. Sensing the new tenseness in her neck, Mel moved upwards and began to knead, placing a light kiss on her temple. “Hey,” he repeated. “It’s gonna be okay. This is no big deal; hunting down a typical missing person is what we do best. It’s practically our motto. The U.S. Embassy: we always get our woman!”
“I thought that was the Canadians?”
“Woman, Becky, woman!”
She smiled and leaned forward, allowing him to press on the base of our skull. “I just… I can’t believe she’d do this. This isn’t exactly missing curfew by fifteen minutes.”
Mel gave a sigh of frustrated agreement. “She left a note. It’s not as if she can just say, ‘Hey guys, need to go partake in an arcane ritual, be back later!’ Maybe it’s… instinctual. Who knows? Maybe vampires fly north for the summer.”
“That would make sense,” Becky agreed solemnly. “Longer nights.”
Mel chuckled and clapped her on the shoulders. “That’s the spirit! Now, gimme a minute to get dressed and we can be out the door. Heck, these people might even be able to tell us something about it.”
* * *
“It’s just… the way she wrote it is very strange.”
The drive to Bucharest had been uneventful, save for the townsfolk’s blithe disregard for traffic regulations, and Rebecca had brooded for most of it, lulled into melancholy by the passing scenery. Meadows and low hillocks did nothing to distract her from her internal monologue. Michelle’s note was short and to the point:
I’m so sorry, but there are some things I need to take care of. Please keep up with all the stuff we talked about. I’ll explain when I get back. It’s kind of like Oswego.
I’m so sorry.
I love you, Becky.
“What, the Oswego thing? Isn’t that where you guys grew up?”
“Not quite. There’s more to it than that.”
A corner of Mel’s mouth lifted, though his eyes remained fixed to the road, deftly navigating through traffic. They were nearly at the city now, and the road was as congested as that of any other metropolis. “There always is. Some kind of secret code?”
“I don’t… I’m not sure.” Becky rubbed at her forehead, pushing back her short black bangs. “I just…”
“Wanna talk about it?”
She watched Mel carefully for a moment. Circumstances had thrown them together, and their relationship had deepened with an almost alarming rapidity. She wondered, quite often, whether it was not a result of the trauma and chaos they had been subjected to; if they were merely seeking solace from one another, and it went no deeper than that. But she was no mean judge of character, and he was by all accounts a good, decent man; she wasn’t going to uproot her life to Romania to be with him, but perhaps he truly was worth sharing with.
She sagged back into her seat, squirming at the uncomfortable memories, and decided to get it over with. “Our parents divorced when we were kids-I was seventeen, Michelle was thirteen or fourteen, I forget. Pretty typical story, really. Dad was a traveling salesman, Mom hated being alone, they fought all the time when he was there… so when she caught him having an affair, that was pretty much it.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. But the thing is… our mom was… sick. I’m not sure… I mean, we never really got a diagnosis, she wouldn’t get help for it, but I’m pretty sure it was some form of schizophrenia. She was pretty erratic and, um, got out of control sometimes. You know…”
“I think I understand.”
“It wasn’t that bad… but, well, it was pretty bad. As awful as it sounds, we were pretty happy about the divorce. Our dad got a transfer to the head office in New York City, bought a flat, and got ready to take custody of us both.” Without comment, Mel reached over and took one of her hands; she squeezed back tightly. “But Mom… Mom wasn’t having any of that. It wasn’t even so much about not wanting to give us up, or what was best for us, or being worried about us with Dad, it was more… she just… she didn’t want to lose.
“But it was just out of control at that point. I was older, and I had a pretty good idea of what was going on-however she acted, I knew Mom was sick, she didn’t really mean anything she said. Michelle, though… it was pretty rough on her. She was just a kid, you know? You’ve got enough self-esteem problems and stuff at that age without dealing with that kind of drama. So… I made a deal with Mom: I’d stay in Oswego with her if she let Michelle go with Dad.”
Mel turned to glance at her, and she was pleased and flattered by the surprise and admiration she saw on his face. “Wow. Um, wow. That was… I mean… wow.”
Becky smiled and hid her blush by looking out the side window. “It wasn’t really that big a deal; I was leaving for college the next year anyway, I just had to tough it out a little bit. But-I mean, I really didn’t just feel like dumping another load of family drama on you, that’s just the only reason I can think of she might mention that.”
“You think she just wants you to tough it out for a bit?”
“No. No, I just wonder… if maybe she feels she needs to leave for our good. I just can’t think of why, except-“ A dreadful thought occurred to her. “Maybe she made a deal, so we could go…”
“Whoa, hold on there. I didn’t go back to check its pulse, but there wasn’t much left to take it from. I’m not claiming to be Van Helsing or anything here, but if that thing wasn’t done for, I don’t know what is. And if it isn’t, I think we’ll have to have the army nuke it.”
She sighed once again. “You’re right. I know you’re right. Maybe I’m reading too much into it… or maybe it is some completely different kind of, uh, cultural thing. She has that sculpture. I’m not worried about… that.”
“She’s a good egg,” Mel assured her. “I’m sure she has a good reason for doing what she’s done… but you should give her a spanking when she gets back.”
Since Michelle was inconvenient at the moment, Rebecca contented herself by swatting him, instead.
* * *
“This… is this really it? It looks like…” ….something out of a horror movie, Rebecca wanted to finish; but given that some of the other ghoulish archetypes had turned out to be all too real, she bit it off for fear of cursing it into existence.
It looked like a church. Though nothing like the structures back home, it bore an unmistakable resemblance to the beautiful Orthodox cathedrals she’d seen since arriving. A massive stone colonnade faced the flagstone courtyard, and gnarled, twisted gargoyles leered down at any who might approach. Three high, fluted cupolas topped the building, covered in what were once beautiful, deep red tiles, but they were chipped and filthy now, missing in great hunks. Dirt was ground into the ancient stone anywhere the eye fell; most of the windows were boarded over, giving the building a shuttered, derelict look, and the smaller outbuildings that flanked it seemed ready to collapse at any moment. Yet the rusted, wickedly-tipped gate that yielded egress through the wrought-iron fence bore its name in tortured, Gothic script: The Vitalis Institute.
“Yeah, it’s something, isn’t it?” Mel asked as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “But this kind of thing is pretty common here. Communism, you know; everything must be equal, in accordance with the Ten Year Plan! A lot of the old buildings were demolished in favor of apartment complexes and office high-rises, and the ones that remained the government didn’t really support-too ostentatious and profligate. So, while anywhere else this might be a historical landmark, or even a museum, here it’s a run down slum. They probably got a great price on it.”
“I sure hope so,” Becky muttered as she exited the car. There seemed to be no way to alert those in the building to their presence, but Mel confidently strode forward and unlatched the gate, which swung open with an unexpected silence, and bowed her through with a teasing grin. She mustered a wan smile in return and entered the courtyard; the closeness of the buildings lent her soft loafers an eerie click as she crossed the flagstones.
Mel caught up to her quickly and herded her around the dry, dilapidated fountain in the center and up the low, worn stone stares. She blanched a bit at the heavy iron knocker that adorned the enormous double doors, all too easily imagining that three solid knocks would summon Igor, ready to show them to the Mathter’s laboratory, but Mel shouldered them open without a moment’s hesitation.
The blunt, worn utilitarianism of the front office was almost soothing after the frightening images her mind had conjured up. A few cheap, mismatched metal chairs were scattered about, but the room was dominated by a long, scratched desk, where a stocky, angry-looking woman in a starched white nurse’s cap muttered dolorously over her paperwork. Uncertain of how to proceed-her grasp of the local language remained nonexistent-she glanced up at Mel, but he had already turned to greet the new figure striding busily down the hall.
“I am so happy to see you have come!”
“We’re just as glad to be here.”
“Indeed, Dr. Lazar,” Rebecca added, reaching out a hand to shake.
“Oh, but you must call me Ana!” the tall woman replied as she clasped her hands warmly. “Someone calls me Doctor, I am looking around for a patient to treat, it will never do.” Rebecca couldn’t help but smile in the face of the blonde’s enthusiasm. She had been uncertain about Mel’s insistence that they both visit a local hospital the day following their flight, but had eventually agreed, unable to find the harm in it. Both had received clean bills of health… and the following day, Mel had received a most unexpected offer.
“Ana, then.” Mel grinned broadly, radiating charm with a strength that had to be insincere as he shook her hand in turn. “I mean it, though. We really appreciate you arranging this for us, even if it turns out-“
“Ah ah ah!” Ana cut him off with a raised finger and a mockingly stern expression. Spinning on her heel, she crooked it, gesturing for them to follow as she bustled through the swinging doors leading to the interior of the Institute.
As they paced down the hallway, Rebecca’s unease began to reassert itself. The corridor was gloomy and dim, the soaped over windows along one side only letting in an indistinct gleam of sunlight, just enough to highlight the dust motes dancing in the air. Along the other side were elderly, scarred wooden doors, most of them locked and dark. Various bits of furniture, along with the occasional wheeled cart, were scattered along their path, seemingly abandoned and shoved out of the way. She had not expected scoured, surgical precision from the local hospitals, but the clinic in which they had met Ana was a great deal better than this.
They passed an orderly as they progressed down the long corridor, a lanky young man with long, curly black hair tied behind his head, somnolently swiping a mop across the floor. He seemed entirely unaware of them until they drew up beside him, whereupon he flinched violently, practically cowering away from them. Rebecca barely stifled a shiver at the odd behavior. At length, they reached a second set of swinging doors, and Ana stopped, whirling once more to face them. “Now, before you are meeting the Doctor, I want to once again say why I brought you here-so you can look in my eyes and see what I said,” she said to Mel, “and so you can hear me your own self,” she finished to Rebecca. Confused, they both nodded.
“We here too swear the Oath of Hippocrates. I am not a poet, I am a physician, and it is not my place to be telling the tales-I keep your secrets as I swore to do. But you are in my clinic, and you are so worried about the scratchings and the bitings, and yet you are fine! But Melvin tells me that you came from Prejnar. Well, I think, well; perhaps there is something to this!”
At this, Rebecca shot Mel a worried look; he himself seemed a bit concerned. Ana noticed this, and pressed on with renewed earnestness.
“The Doctor, he is a great man. He is my mentor, and a more brilliant physician I have never known. But he is not so much with the patients any more as he is with the research. And he studies… many things. I think, perhaps the two of you should meet him to discuss things. So I get hotel number from admittance paper and call, and, here we all are. But I tell you again: we are healers, we do not harm. Despite me putting myself forward, everything you say will stay within these walls. Maybe it is nothing, and you will go home to tell your family about the pushy nosy woman who took you to meet crazy man. But… maybe not.”
More than a little taken aback by the doctor’s hurried, impassioned speech, Rebecca was not sure what to say. Of course, the woman could not come right out and ask them if they’d been fighting vampires, not and ever expect to be taken seriously, no more than Becky would ever have dreamed of asking for her help with them. Yet the doubletalk, dancing around the issue… it set her on guard for some unknown reason. Nonetheless, she forced herself to smile. “Of course not, Ana. We’re grateful for your help.”
“Truly,” Mel added.
Ana beamed in response, looking back and forth between them. “Okay? Okay!” She turned and shouldered through the doors, reaching back to hold them open for the others, and knocked on another door just a few feet behind them. Without waiting for a response, she twisted the knob and marched in; Rebecca and Mel could do nothing but trail after her.
Ana had led them into an office, which was surprisingly well-appointed, given the dilapidated state of its surroundings. An enormous Persian rug covered the floor, its faded but still distinct colors complementing the thick, heavy curtains that shrouded the windows. The walls were lined with tall bookshelves of dark wood, each crammed full with various texts and scraps of paper; they in turned matched the small desk and the delicate chairs before it at the far end of the room.
“Dr. Nicolescu,” Ana stated with quiet reverence, “I have brought your visitors.”
Becky did not know what she had been expecting, but the man seated behind the desk was most certainly not it. Older-he looked to be in his fifties, perhaps his young sixties-he had the look of a once powerful figure gone soft with age. Not fat, but fleshy; loose jowls hung from a firm jaw, and his fish-belly pale skin sagged beneath full, longish hair that gleamed shoe polish black under the dim light. Thin, round spectacles obscured his eyes, smoked to an impenetrable darkness; as Ana gently urged them towards the desk, Becky wondered if he was blind.
“Ah. It is a pleasure to meet you.” He turned his head in their direction and gave them a sickly smile, but did not rise to greet them. “I am, of course, Ionus Nicolescu.”
“Likewise, doctor. I’m Mel Blair; this is Rebecca Morgan.”
“Thank you for seeing us, doctor.”
“Of course. Please, be seated.” As soon as they were settled, Ana gave a deferential bob and scuttled from the room. Nicolescu lowered his chin, but Becky could not tell if he were truly looking at them. “So! I am given to understand that you have had a most curious adventure.”
“Pardon me, doctor,” Mel replied, “but I’m not entirely clear on why we’re here. What is it, exactly, that you study?”
“I will ask you in turn: were you at the fortress in Prejnar?”
“I’m not sure what this had to do with-“
“So.” That thin, languid smile again; he raised his hands in a placatory gesture. “Since you were able to enter this place freely, I will make this easy for you, at risk of my own reputation. Good visitors, I study vampires.”
Becky slowly released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and Nicolescu turned toward her. “How… how in-depth is your study, doctor?”
“I am a scientist, my dear, not a folklorist. To be easy again: yes, I know that they are real, I know that they are true, and Ana has given me reason to believe that the two of you fear their bites.”
She sagged back in her chair, uncertain whether she was relieved or unnerved anew. The look Mel shot her was disconcerted; even after all this, it seemed bizarre to be discussing things so baldly in this stranger’s tastefully decorated office. Yet if the research Ana had hinted at over the phone really existed, there was no choice but to press on. “Not us, doctor, at least not anymore. My… my sister…” She found herself suddenly on the verge of tears, unable to continue. Vampires and demons and black magic… if she told this strange, smiling man of it, that would make it true, incontrovertible.
Nicolescu’s face drew down into a mask of sympathy, and he leaned forward, extending a hand. Impulsively, she seized it; his grip was limp, cool and clammy, but she found it steadying. Strange as it may be, the man was a doctor; if this could be reduced to no more than a medical problem, it might be easier to come to terms with. And so she found the tale spilling out of her, everything that had happened since receiving that dire phone call, and as much of the events that led up to it as Michelle had told them. When she stumbled, Mel picked up the thread, expanding and adding detail wherever he could. Sooner than seemed possible, they had related the whole sad, sorry story.
The doctor patted her hand reassuringly, and was silent for a moment. “So,” he finally said. “Prince Vladislas has returned. King, now, if what you say is so.”
Becky jerked her gaze up. “You know him?”
“I know… of him. But you said he is dead. Did you return to scatter his ashes? Leave them at a crossroads?”
“No, I… no.” She glance back at Mel, who was shaking his head. “We didn’t see how anything could survive what… happened…”
He patted your hand once more. “And you are most probably correct. But he is a strange and ancient thing; it is hard to imagine him destroyed so simply, no matter how valiant your efforts. Nevertheless, you say he burned; and though you may not have scattered his remnants, wind will accomplish more than enough. As you say, even for one such as he, that seems an impossible situation from which to recover.”
Withdrawing his grasp, he settled back into his seat, clasping his hands before him thoughtfully. “Your sister may have gone to seek his grave. The bond between sire and spawn is very strong, and she is yet so new, with such complications… but nevertheless, I cannot imagine what task may have called her away from her that is not her own. The vampire is not the salmon, called to swim upstream against the current.” His smile returned, but neither of them could bring themselves to share in the humor.
Spawn. Rebecca could not prevent her lip from curling at the ugliness of the word, no matter how true it might be. Yet the doctor remained silent, seeming to consider his thoughts as the silence stretched on.
When he finally continued to speak, it was halting. Though his English appeared flawless, it seemed as though he had difficulty finding the right words, translating his medical vocabulary. For jargon their surely was; she had trouble following his disjointed lecture, but the word “retrovirus” gained her rapt attention. He slowly outlined what he believed to be the basics of the vampiric condition, biology turned savage at the cellular level; but as he progressed beyond that, discussing his personal experimentation, Becky felt a wild blaze of hope streak through her. “Like Methadone?” she interjected excitedly.
Nicolescu frowned, either in confusion or in irritation at the interruption. His head turned toward Mel, who, after a moment’s thought, offered a few words of Romanian. Nicolescu’s frown deepened, and Mel tried again. “Ah! The opiate?” He actually mimed pressing the plunger of a syringe near his arm, and Mel nodded. Turning back to Rebecca, he responded, “Yes, in a very similar way, though there is of course no weaning. But I have evidence of long-term benefits; not a cure, no, not a cure yet… but I have great hope and belief that it will be, some day.”
“I can hardly… I mean, it’s just so… the idea that Michelle really can get better, even if it’s not right away…” Rebecca was practically speechless. She wanted to leap across the desk to hug and kiss him, demand a few dosages of his wonder-drug to hunt down Michelle with; yet at the same time, she could barely believe that this wasn’t some kind of sick, practical joke, a little local humor at the expense of the Yanks. It was just too unbelievable.
“It is not magic,” the doctor told her sternly. “It is not even very good medicine. But, as you can imagine, this is not a highly trafficked field, and so I do the best I may. It is difficult to find subjects; but I would be delighted with the chance to aid your sister in her… illness. I have reason to believe that, given her, shall we say, youth, she will respond to treatment most adequately. And if not, well, it is a hospital, we have blood to tide her over until we can discover why.”
Mel seemed to follow her train of thought, and was just as dubious. “Forgive me, doctor… this sounds wonderful, but it’s a lot to take in… a few days ago this was all stuff out of storybooks. And I have to ask: just what, exactly, is your interest in this field?”
“Hmm.” The doctor turned his head to regard each of them in their turn. “You are not making me angry, Melvin,” he said, “and I can see you very well, Becky.”
Surprised at both the seeming non-sequitur and the casual use of her diminutive, Rebecca cocked her head. The doctor’s smile broadened, but remained closemouthed, as he leaned back and steepled his fingers. “Forgive me. This is hard.” After a long moment, he slowly levered himself to his feet, rising with a crippled stiffness, and ponderously made his way past them to the nearest window to take hold of the curtain-pull. “I have a most vested interest in this field.”
With a short, sharp yank he drew the curtain aside, allowing the mid-morning sun to stream brightly through the wide, clear windowpanes. He flinched at the movement, but stepped into the patch of sunlight with a wracking, full-body shudder. Once he regained control of himself, he turned to face them. He reached up as if to remove his glasses, but seemed to think better of it, and folded his hands behind his back. Then he grinned, peeling his lips back to reveal the long, yellowed canines.
“Oh my God,” Becky gasped. She scrambled backwards involuntarily, and only succeeded in pushing the chair back a few inches, its legs catching in the pile of the carpeting. Mel leapt to his feet and placed himself between them, but held up a restraining hand to her.
“It is okay. It is good to be scared,” Nicolescu assured them. “As I said, it is hard to do this. But I know no better way to convince you of both my veracity and my dedication. First, to do no harm. I will not patronize you with claims of innocence and harmlessness, but I renounced those ways as soon as I was able to do so… and that was a long, long time ago.”
Becky’s pulsed pounded in her ears, her mouth suddenly dry, and fought down a wild impulse to laugh. Why shouldn’t there by a vampire doctor? Didn’t she know better than anyone that there was at least one vampire anthropologist running around out there? She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a horrified, inappropriate giggle. Repulsion and fright struggled wildly against her desperate grasp on common sense; he hadn’t leaped to attack them, he had been nothing but friendly and helpful, but he was still one of those things.
Mel relaxed fractionally, but seemed at as much of a loss as she was. “I can, uh, see your point, doctor.”
Nicolescu spread his arms in an expansive gesture, sunlight dancing and dappling his lab coat. “You now have me at your mercy. I place myself into your hands, as you have placed your story into mine, as I hope we can together convince your sister to do so. You can expose me. You can seek my lair while I sleep-if you have slaughtered the half-breed Vladislas, I shall prove no challenge for you! But you see me stand before you in the daylight, as even your own Michelle is incapable of doing. I am not a monster, just as she does not wish to be… as I greatly wish to help her not to be.”
That struck a perfect chord with Rebecca, and she suddenly grew cold at the prospect. The thought had not even crossed her mind; she had been so busy trying to think of ways to minimize things, to hide what Michelle was, that it had never occurred to her what might happen if her sister was discovered. She wasn’t a monster, not some ravening thing to be destroyed, but strangers would react with the same revulsion she now felt for the doctor. Totally unfair…but could one afford to offer the benefit of the doubt to a murderous beast? In Michelle’s case, yes, a thousand times yes… and there was no reason the same could not necessarily be said for Dr. Nicolescu.
Mel shot her a quick glance, seeking to gauge her reaction to this new revelation. He saw the dawning acceptance on her face and, with a great sight, slumped and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I-I’m sorry, doctor,” Rebecca said, forcing her voice to remain calm. “I… we just…”
“I understand perfectly. But…may I close drapes and sit down?” he asked plaintively.
“Of course, doctor. I’m very sorry, you’ve been so kind, and we’ve been terribly rude…”
He waved a hand dismissively as he tugged the curtain shut, then hobbled back to his chair. Collapsing into it with a relieved sigh, he withdrew a handkerchief from a desk drawer and blotted at his sweat-dampened brow. “As I said, this is hard to do, in more ways than one. It is not good medicine. I stiffen up, I ache, I swell, I am weakened, I age. But… I can stand in the sun and not burn. I do not crave the blood of my erstwhile peers. I am…” He paused, twirling a finger in the air as he searched for the word. “…a vegetarian.”
Mel and Rebecca exchanged a long, searching look; he then pulled his chair back up and resumed his seat. “I think we can take you at your word, doctor. You’ve been more than forthright.”
Nicolescu nodded acceptance. “In truth, my heart aches with pity for all of you, but for Michelle most of all. I have… some idea of what she might have suffered at the hands of that line. They are-or were, thanks to your noble efforts-unique, fortunately.”
Rebecca’s mouth tightened as the mention of her sister brought the reality of the situation crashing back down upon her. All of the treatments in the world could do Michelle no good until she returned… or until they could find her. “I just wish we could have brought her here with us today,” she said. “I wish we could find her.”
“Ah, well. As to that… I may have a few ideas, if I am correct in my assumptions. Tell me more of this Bloodstone that you mentioned.” Dr. Nicolescu’s smile returned, broader than ever before, gleaming ferally beneath his inscrutable sunglasses
In the meantime, enjoy...
Subspecies: Bloodpact
Chapter 2/? (probably 8)
Author: memoriamvictus
Rating: R
Summary: Radu Vladislas may prove the lesser of two evils when Michelle is forced to attempt to undo the devil's deal Rebecca has made in a bid to save her soul.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Charles Band, Ted Nicolaou, and other wonderful people who have provided me with a great deal of entertainment; I'm just playing around.
Wordcount: 5,615
Begin at the beginning.
Rebecca Morgan stared blearily into the depths of her coffee mug as if she might find the answers she sought hidden in the bro
Rebecca Morgan stared blearily into the depths of her coffee mug as if she might find the answers she sought hidden in the brown liquid, idly twisting the heavy ceramic between her palms. But it wasn’t coffee grounds, it was tea leaves that told the future. Perhaps she should have opted for the Earl Grey instead; after all she had recently gone through, she would not have been a bit surprised had a message been delivered to her via her morning’s dose of caffeine.
She shouldn’t have let Michelle wake up alone.
It was stupid to beat herself up about it, she knew that, but the anchor of guilt that bore her down wasn’t moved by any of her excuses. It had just been one hour, one single hour of one solitary night; Michelle was a big girl, she was fully capable of looking after herself…
…except when she wasn’t. But it wasn’t fair to blame her for any of this. Becky remembered when she’d first called with the news that she was going to get her grant after all; a few months’ field study, a few more months writing the dissertation, and Michelle would have her Ph.D. A real doctor, first one in the family! She had been over the moon with excited glee, and Becky had shared her enthusiasm; she’d always known her baby sister would amount to something. She’d been worried, of course-Michelle had never before left the country, and, glasnost or no, the Eastern Bloc was still unstable; there’d been worrying developments in the Yugoslavian region-but she’d feared cutthroats, kidnappers, even military action. Not… not what Michelle had actually run afoul of.
The very thought still made her head spin. It was crazy. It was absolutely unreal. If anyone else had come to her with such wild tales, she would have laughed them off, perhaps suggested they might want to find a nice therapist to discuss such things with. Even when she’d received that frantic, tearful phone call from Michelle, she’d assumed it was something much more prosaic-drug trafficking, maybe. International jewel thieves. Slavery, even-Michelle had always had a knack for finding herself in bizarre circumstances. Terrifying at the time, but nothing some bail money, sweet-talking, and perhaps a few bribes couldn’t set right; as backwards as some of these second-world countries might be, surely none of their denizens would dare interfere too terribly with an American citizen.
Little did she realize that the kingdom of the dead did not much care what color your passport was.
Tepid coffee slopped onto the soft webbing between her finger and thumb, and she scrabbled for a napkin with a muffled curse. Blotting herself dry, she gritted her teeth, sucking in deep, restorative breaths. She wrapped her hands around the mug once more, squeezing it crushingly tight, willing herself to stop shaking. It didn’t matter anymore. It was over, done with, finis, kaput. It didn’t matter. They were safe. Michelle was merely… following an impulse, or taking some time to herself to think things through. It was a silly, asinine thing for her to have done, but people were entitled to have inappropriate reactions to stressful situations-Michelle moreso than most, given the circumstances.
But the lurking spectre of suicide would not leave her thoughts. Michelle had been terribly unhappy, disgusted with herself and what she’d become. She had seemed to be adjusting, but what if it was merely an act? What if she had merely been in shock?
If she’d really meant to run off and kill herself, she wouldn’t have left a note-at least, not that type of note. Unless she’d been embarrassed-throwing herself away after all they’d gone through to save her, and meant to throw them off the trail so they’d stop looking…
The muffled thump of the shower being turned off distracted her from her grim reverie; she hoisted herself to her feet with a groan, and surveyed the tiny hotel room. Mel would want them to be on their way as soon as he’d dressed, and they carried so few possessions the forgetful abandonment of any would cause a hardship. She busied herself opening drawers and peeking in crannies, seeing if perhaps a stray sock or a comb had escaped her earlier packing.
She was so intent on her task that she must have missed the sound of the bathroom door opening; she was interrupted by the wet slap of feet behind her. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Warm, damp hands descended on her shoulders with a gentle squeeze; sighing, she leaned back into the caress.
“Careful there,” Mel warned her. “I’ll get you soaked.”
An arch remark rose to her lips, but her grinding worry over Michelle’s disappearance soured the humor. Sensing the new tenseness in her neck, Mel moved upwards and began to knead, placing a light kiss on her temple. “Hey,” he repeated. “It’s gonna be okay. This is no big deal; hunting down a typical missing person is what we do best. It’s practically our motto. The U.S. Embassy: we always get our woman!”
“I thought that was the Canadians?”
“Woman, Becky, woman!”
She smiled and leaned forward, allowing him to press on the base of our skull. “I just… I can’t believe she’d do this. This isn’t exactly missing curfew by fifteen minutes.”
Mel gave a sigh of frustrated agreement. “She left a note. It’s not as if she can just say, ‘Hey guys, need to go partake in an arcane ritual, be back later!’ Maybe it’s… instinctual. Who knows? Maybe vampires fly north for the summer.”
“That would make sense,” Becky agreed solemnly. “Longer nights.”
Mel chuckled and clapped her on the shoulders. “That’s the spirit! Now, gimme a minute to get dressed and we can be out the door. Heck, these people might even be able to tell us something about it.”
* * *
“It’s just… the way she wrote it is very strange.”
The drive to Bucharest had been uneventful, save for the townsfolk’s blithe disregard for traffic regulations, and Rebecca had brooded for most of it, lulled into melancholy by the passing scenery. Meadows and low hillocks did nothing to distract her from her internal monologue. Michelle’s note was short and to the point:
I’m so sorry, but there are some things I need to take care of. Please keep up with all the stuff we talked about. I’ll explain when I get back. It’s kind of like Oswego.
I’m so sorry.
I love you, Becky.
“What, the Oswego thing? Isn’t that where you guys grew up?”
“Not quite. There’s more to it than that.”
A corner of Mel’s mouth lifted, though his eyes remained fixed to the road, deftly navigating through traffic. They were nearly at the city now, and the road was as congested as that of any other metropolis. “There always is. Some kind of secret code?”
“I don’t… I’m not sure.” Becky rubbed at her forehead, pushing back her short black bangs. “I just…”
“Wanna talk about it?”
She watched Mel carefully for a moment. Circumstances had thrown them together, and their relationship had deepened with an almost alarming rapidity. She wondered, quite often, whether it was not a result of the trauma and chaos they had been subjected to; if they were merely seeking solace from one another, and it went no deeper than that. But she was no mean judge of character, and he was by all accounts a good, decent man; she wasn’t going to uproot her life to Romania to be with him, but perhaps he truly was worth sharing with.
She sagged back into her seat, squirming at the uncomfortable memories, and decided to get it over with. “Our parents divorced when we were kids-I was seventeen, Michelle was thirteen or fourteen, I forget. Pretty typical story, really. Dad was a traveling salesman, Mom hated being alone, they fought all the time when he was there… so when she caught him having an affair, that was pretty much it.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. But the thing is… our mom was… sick. I’m not sure… I mean, we never really got a diagnosis, she wouldn’t get help for it, but I’m pretty sure it was some form of schizophrenia. She was pretty erratic and, um, got out of control sometimes. You know…”
“I think I understand.”
“It wasn’t that bad… but, well, it was pretty bad. As awful as it sounds, we were pretty happy about the divorce. Our dad got a transfer to the head office in New York City, bought a flat, and got ready to take custody of us both.” Without comment, Mel reached over and took one of her hands; she squeezed back tightly. “But Mom… Mom wasn’t having any of that. It wasn’t even so much about not wanting to give us up, or what was best for us, or being worried about us with Dad, it was more… she just… she didn’t want to lose.
“But it was just out of control at that point. I was older, and I had a pretty good idea of what was going on-however she acted, I knew Mom was sick, she didn’t really mean anything she said. Michelle, though… it was pretty rough on her. She was just a kid, you know? You’ve got enough self-esteem problems and stuff at that age without dealing with that kind of drama. So… I made a deal with Mom: I’d stay in Oswego with her if she let Michelle go with Dad.”
Mel turned to glance at her, and she was pleased and flattered by the surprise and admiration she saw on his face. “Wow. Um, wow. That was… I mean… wow.”
Becky smiled and hid her blush by looking out the side window. “It wasn’t really that big a deal; I was leaving for college the next year anyway, I just had to tough it out a little bit. But-I mean, I really didn’t just feel like dumping another load of family drama on you, that’s just the only reason I can think of she might mention that.”
“You think she just wants you to tough it out for a bit?”
“No. No, I just wonder… if maybe she feels she needs to leave for our good. I just can’t think of why, except-“ A dreadful thought occurred to her. “Maybe she made a deal, so we could go…”
“Whoa, hold on there. I didn’t go back to check its pulse, but there wasn’t much left to take it from. I’m not claiming to be Van Helsing or anything here, but if that thing wasn’t done for, I don’t know what is. And if it isn’t, I think we’ll have to have the army nuke it.”
She sighed once again. “You’re right. I know you’re right. Maybe I’m reading too much into it… or maybe it is some completely different kind of, uh, cultural thing. She has that sculpture. I’m not worried about… that.”
“She’s a good egg,” Mel assured her. “I’m sure she has a good reason for doing what she’s done… but you should give her a spanking when she gets back.”
Since Michelle was inconvenient at the moment, Rebecca contented herself by swatting him, instead.
* * *
“This… is this really it? It looks like…” ….something out of a horror movie, Rebecca wanted to finish; but given that some of the other ghoulish archetypes had turned out to be all too real, she bit it off for fear of cursing it into existence.
It looked like a church. Though nothing like the structures back home, it bore an unmistakable resemblance to the beautiful Orthodox cathedrals she’d seen since arriving. A massive stone colonnade faced the flagstone courtyard, and gnarled, twisted gargoyles leered down at any who might approach. Three high, fluted cupolas topped the building, covered in what were once beautiful, deep red tiles, but they were chipped and filthy now, missing in great hunks. Dirt was ground into the ancient stone anywhere the eye fell; most of the windows were boarded over, giving the building a shuttered, derelict look, and the smaller outbuildings that flanked it seemed ready to collapse at any moment. Yet the rusted, wickedly-tipped gate that yielded egress through the wrought-iron fence bore its name in tortured, Gothic script: The Vitalis Institute.
“Yeah, it’s something, isn’t it?” Mel asked as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “But this kind of thing is pretty common here. Communism, you know; everything must be equal, in accordance with the Ten Year Plan! A lot of the old buildings were demolished in favor of apartment complexes and office high-rises, and the ones that remained the government didn’t really support-too ostentatious and profligate. So, while anywhere else this might be a historical landmark, or even a museum, here it’s a run down slum. They probably got a great price on it.”
“I sure hope so,” Becky muttered as she exited the car. There seemed to be no way to alert those in the building to their presence, but Mel confidently strode forward and unlatched the gate, which swung open with an unexpected silence, and bowed her through with a teasing grin. She mustered a wan smile in return and entered the courtyard; the closeness of the buildings lent her soft loafers an eerie click as she crossed the flagstones.
Mel caught up to her quickly and herded her around the dry, dilapidated fountain in the center and up the low, worn stone stares. She blanched a bit at the heavy iron knocker that adorned the enormous double doors, all too easily imagining that three solid knocks would summon Igor, ready to show them to the Mathter’s laboratory, but Mel shouldered them open without a moment’s hesitation.
The blunt, worn utilitarianism of the front office was almost soothing after the frightening images her mind had conjured up. A few cheap, mismatched metal chairs were scattered about, but the room was dominated by a long, scratched desk, where a stocky, angry-looking woman in a starched white nurse’s cap muttered dolorously over her paperwork. Uncertain of how to proceed-her grasp of the local language remained nonexistent-she glanced up at Mel, but he had already turned to greet the new figure striding busily down the hall.
“I am so happy to see you have come!”
“We’re just as glad to be here.”
“Indeed, Dr. Lazar,” Rebecca added, reaching out a hand to shake.
“Oh, but you must call me Ana!” the tall woman replied as she clasped her hands warmly. “Someone calls me Doctor, I am looking around for a patient to treat, it will never do.” Rebecca couldn’t help but smile in the face of the blonde’s enthusiasm. She had been uncertain about Mel’s insistence that they both visit a local hospital the day following their flight, but had eventually agreed, unable to find the harm in it. Both had received clean bills of health… and the following day, Mel had received a most unexpected offer.
“Ana, then.” Mel grinned broadly, radiating charm with a strength that had to be insincere as he shook her hand in turn. “I mean it, though. We really appreciate you arranging this for us, even if it turns out-“
“Ah ah ah!” Ana cut him off with a raised finger and a mockingly stern expression. Spinning on her heel, she crooked it, gesturing for them to follow as she bustled through the swinging doors leading to the interior of the Institute.
As they paced down the hallway, Rebecca’s unease began to reassert itself. The corridor was gloomy and dim, the soaped over windows along one side only letting in an indistinct gleam of sunlight, just enough to highlight the dust motes dancing in the air. Along the other side were elderly, scarred wooden doors, most of them locked and dark. Various bits of furniture, along with the occasional wheeled cart, were scattered along their path, seemingly abandoned and shoved out of the way. She had not expected scoured, surgical precision from the local hospitals, but the clinic in which they had met Ana was a great deal better than this.
They passed an orderly as they progressed down the long corridor, a lanky young man with long, curly black hair tied behind his head, somnolently swiping a mop across the floor. He seemed entirely unaware of them until they drew up beside him, whereupon he flinched violently, practically cowering away from them. Rebecca barely stifled a shiver at the odd behavior. At length, they reached a second set of swinging doors, and Ana stopped, whirling once more to face them. “Now, before you are meeting the Doctor, I want to once again say why I brought you here-so you can look in my eyes and see what I said,” she said to Mel, “and so you can hear me your own self,” she finished to Rebecca. Confused, they both nodded.
“We here too swear the Oath of Hippocrates. I am not a poet, I am a physician, and it is not my place to be telling the tales-I keep your secrets as I swore to do. But you are in my clinic, and you are so worried about the scratchings and the bitings, and yet you are fine! But Melvin tells me that you came from Prejnar. Well, I think, well; perhaps there is something to this!”
At this, Rebecca shot Mel a worried look; he himself seemed a bit concerned. Ana noticed this, and pressed on with renewed earnestness.
“The Doctor, he is a great man. He is my mentor, and a more brilliant physician I have never known. But he is not so much with the patients any more as he is with the research. And he studies… many things. I think, perhaps the two of you should meet him to discuss things. So I get hotel number from admittance paper and call, and, here we all are. But I tell you again: we are healers, we do not harm. Despite me putting myself forward, everything you say will stay within these walls. Maybe it is nothing, and you will go home to tell your family about the pushy nosy woman who took you to meet crazy man. But… maybe not.”
More than a little taken aback by the doctor’s hurried, impassioned speech, Rebecca was not sure what to say. Of course, the woman could not come right out and ask them if they’d been fighting vampires, not and ever expect to be taken seriously, no more than Becky would ever have dreamed of asking for her help with them. Yet the doubletalk, dancing around the issue… it set her on guard for some unknown reason. Nonetheless, she forced herself to smile. “Of course not, Ana. We’re grateful for your help.”
“Truly,” Mel added.
Ana beamed in response, looking back and forth between them. “Okay? Okay!” She turned and shouldered through the doors, reaching back to hold them open for the others, and knocked on another door just a few feet behind them. Without waiting for a response, she twisted the knob and marched in; Rebecca and Mel could do nothing but trail after her.
Ana had led them into an office, which was surprisingly well-appointed, given the dilapidated state of its surroundings. An enormous Persian rug covered the floor, its faded but still distinct colors complementing the thick, heavy curtains that shrouded the windows. The walls were lined with tall bookshelves of dark wood, each crammed full with various texts and scraps of paper; they in turned matched the small desk and the delicate chairs before it at the far end of the room.
“Dr. Nicolescu,” Ana stated with quiet reverence, “I have brought your visitors.”
Becky did not know what she had been expecting, but the man seated behind the desk was most certainly not it. Older-he looked to be in his fifties, perhaps his young sixties-he had the look of a once powerful figure gone soft with age. Not fat, but fleshy; loose jowls hung from a firm jaw, and his fish-belly pale skin sagged beneath full, longish hair that gleamed shoe polish black under the dim light. Thin, round spectacles obscured his eyes, smoked to an impenetrable darkness; as Ana gently urged them towards the desk, Becky wondered if he was blind.
“Ah. It is a pleasure to meet you.” He turned his head in their direction and gave them a sickly smile, but did not rise to greet them. “I am, of course, Ionus Nicolescu.”
“Likewise, doctor. I’m Mel Blair; this is Rebecca Morgan.”
“Thank you for seeing us, doctor.”
“Of course. Please, be seated.” As soon as they were settled, Ana gave a deferential bob and scuttled from the room. Nicolescu lowered his chin, but Becky could not tell if he were truly looking at them. “So! I am given to understand that you have had a most curious adventure.”
“Pardon me, doctor,” Mel replied, “but I’m not entirely clear on why we’re here. What is it, exactly, that you study?”
“I will ask you in turn: were you at the fortress in Prejnar?”
“I’m not sure what this had to do with-“
“So.” That thin, languid smile again; he raised his hands in a placatory gesture. “Since you were able to enter this place freely, I will make this easy for you, at risk of my own reputation. Good visitors, I study vampires.”
Becky slowly released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and Nicolescu turned toward her. “How… how in-depth is your study, doctor?”
“I am a scientist, my dear, not a folklorist. To be easy again: yes, I know that they are real, I know that they are true, and Ana has given me reason to believe that the two of you fear their bites.”
She sagged back in her chair, uncertain whether she was relieved or unnerved anew. The look Mel shot her was disconcerted; even after all this, it seemed bizarre to be discussing things so baldly in this stranger’s tastefully decorated office. Yet if the research Ana had hinted at over the phone really existed, there was no choice but to press on. “Not us, doctor, at least not anymore. My… my sister…” She found herself suddenly on the verge of tears, unable to continue. Vampires and demons and black magic… if she told this strange, smiling man of it, that would make it true, incontrovertible.
Nicolescu’s face drew down into a mask of sympathy, and he leaned forward, extending a hand. Impulsively, she seized it; his grip was limp, cool and clammy, but she found it steadying. Strange as it may be, the man was a doctor; if this could be reduced to no more than a medical problem, it might be easier to come to terms with. And so she found the tale spilling out of her, everything that had happened since receiving that dire phone call, and as much of the events that led up to it as Michelle had told them. When she stumbled, Mel picked up the thread, expanding and adding detail wherever he could. Sooner than seemed possible, they had related the whole sad, sorry story.
The doctor patted her hand reassuringly, and was silent for a moment. “So,” he finally said. “Prince Vladislas has returned. King, now, if what you say is so.”
Becky jerked her gaze up. “You know him?”
“I know… of him. But you said he is dead. Did you return to scatter his ashes? Leave them at a crossroads?”
“No, I… no.” She glance back at Mel, who was shaking his head. “We didn’t see how anything could survive what… happened…”
He patted your hand once more. “And you are most probably correct. But he is a strange and ancient thing; it is hard to imagine him destroyed so simply, no matter how valiant your efforts. Nevertheless, you say he burned; and though you may not have scattered his remnants, wind will accomplish more than enough. As you say, even for one such as he, that seems an impossible situation from which to recover.”
Withdrawing his grasp, he settled back into his seat, clasping his hands before him thoughtfully. “Your sister may have gone to seek his grave. The bond between sire and spawn is very strong, and she is yet so new, with such complications… but nevertheless, I cannot imagine what task may have called her away from her that is not her own. The vampire is not the salmon, called to swim upstream against the current.” His smile returned, but neither of them could bring themselves to share in the humor.
Spawn. Rebecca could not prevent her lip from curling at the ugliness of the word, no matter how true it might be. Yet the doctor remained silent, seeming to consider his thoughts as the silence stretched on.
When he finally continued to speak, it was halting. Though his English appeared flawless, it seemed as though he had difficulty finding the right words, translating his medical vocabulary. For jargon their surely was; she had trouble following his disjointed lecture, but the word “retrovirus” gained her rapt attention. He slowly outlined what he believed to be the basics of the vampiric condition, biology turned savage at the cellular level; but as he progressed beyond that, discussing his personal experimentation, Becky felt a wild blaze of hope streak through her. “Like Methadone?” she interjected excitedly.
Nicolescu frowned, either in confusion or in irritation at the interruption. His head turned toward Mel, who, after a moment’s thought, offered a few words of Romanian. Nicolescu’s frown deepened, and Mel tried again. “Ah! The opiate?” He actually mimed pressing the plunger of a syringe near his arm, and Mel nodded. Turning back to Rebecca, he responded, “Yes, in a very similar way, though there is of course no weaning. But I have evidence of long-term benefits; not a cure, no, not a cure yet… but I have great hope and belief that it will be, some day.”
“I can hardly… I mean, it’s just so… the idea that Michelle really can get better, even if it’s not right away…” Rebecca was practically speechless. She wanted to leap across the desk to hug and kiss him, demand a few dosages of his wonder-drug to hunt down Michelle with; yet at the same time, she could barely believe that this wasn’t some kind of sick, practical joke, a little local humor at the expense of the Yanks. It was just too unbelievable.
“It is not magic,” the doctor told her sternly. “It is not even very good medicine. But, as you can imagine, this is not a highly trafficked field, and so I do the best I may. It is difficult to find subjects; but I would be delighted with the chance to aid your sister in her… illness. I have reason to believe that, given her, shall we say, youth, she will respond to treatment most adequately. And if not, well, it is a hospital, we have blood to tide her over until we can discover why.”
Mel seemed to follow her train of thought, and was just as dubious. “Forgive me, doctor… this sounds wonderful, but it’s a lot to take in… a few days ago this was all stuff out of storybooks. And I have to ask: just what, exactly, is your interest in this field?”
“Hmm.” The doctor turned his head to regard each of them in their turn. “You are not making me angry, Melvin,” he said, “and I can see you very well, Becky.”
Surprised at both the seeming non-sequitur and the casual use of her diminutive, Rebecca cocked her head. The doctor’s smile broadened, but remained closemouthed, as he leaned back and steepled his fingers. “Forgive me. This is hard.” After a long moment, he slowly levered himself to his feet, rising with a crippled stiffness, and ponderously made his way past them to the nearest window to take hold of the curtain-pull. “I have a most vested interest in this field.”
With a short, sharp yank he drew the curtain aside, allowing the mid-morning sun to stream brightly through the wide, clear windowpanes. He flinched at the movement, but stepped into the patch of sunlight with a wracking, full-body shudder. Once he regained control of himself, he turned to face them. He reached up as if to remove his glasses, but seemed to think better of it, and folded his hands behind his back. Then he grinned, peeling his lips back to reveal the long, yellowed canines.
“Oh my God,” Becky gasped. She scrambled backwards involuntarily, and only succeeded in pushing the chair back a few inches, its legs catching in the pile of the carpeting. Mel leapt to his feet and placed himself between them, but held up a restraining hand to her.
“It is okay. It is good to be scared,” Nicolescu assured them. “As I said, it is hard to do this. But I know no better way to convince you of both my veracity and my dedication. First, to do no harm. I will not patronize you with claims of innocence and harmlessness, but I renounced those ways as soon as I was able to do so… and that was a long, long time ago.”
Becky’s pulsed pounded in her ears, her mouth suddenly dry, and fought down a wild impulse to laugh. Why shouldn’t there by a vampire doctor? Didn’t she know better than anyone that there was at least one vampire anthropologist running around out there? She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a horrified, inappropriate giggle. Repulsion and fright struggled wildly against her desperate grasp on common sense; he hadn’t leaped to attack them, he had been nothing but friendly and helpful, but he was still one of those things.
Mel relaxed fractionally, but seemed at as much of a loss as she was. “I can, uh, see your point, doctor.”
Nicolescu spread his arms in an expansive gesture, sunlight dancing and dappling his lab coat. “You now have me at your mercy. I place myself into your hands, as you have placed your story into mine, as I hope we can together convince your sister to do so. You can expose me. You can seek my lair while I sleep-if you have slaughtered the half-breed Vladislas, I shall prove no challenge for you! But you see me stand before you in the daylight, as even your own Michelle is incapable of doing. I am not a monster, just as she does not wish to be… as I greatly wish to help her not to be.”
That struck a perfect chord with Rebecca, and she suddenly grew cold at the prospect. The thought had not even crossed her mind; she had been so busy trying to think of ways to minimize things, to hide what Michelle was, that it had never occurred to her what might happen if her sister was discovered. She wasn’t a monster, not some ravening thing to be destroyed, but strangers would react with the same revulsion she now felt for the doctor. Totally unfair…but could one afford to offer the benefit of the doubt to a murderous beast? In Michelle’s case, yes, a thousand times yes… and there was no reason the same could not necessarily be said for Dr. Nicolescu.
Mel shot her a quick glance, seeking to gauge her reaction to this new revelation. He saw the dawning acceptance on her face and, with a great sight, slumped and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I-I’m sorry, doctor,” Rebecca said, forcing her voice to remain calm. “I… we just…”
“I understand perfectly. But…may I close drapes and sit down?” he asked plaintively.
“Of course, doctor. I’m very sorry, you’ve been so kind, and we’ve been terribly rude…”
He waved a hand dismissively as he tugged the curtain shut, then hobbled back to his chair. Collapsing into it with a relieved sigh, he withdrew a handkerchief from a desk drawer and blotted at his sweat-dampened brow. “As I said, this is hard to do, in more ways than one. It is not good medicine. I stiffen up, I ache, I swell, I am weakened, I age. But… I can stand in the sun and not burn. I do not crave the blood of my erstwhile peers. I am…” He paused, twirling a finger in the air as he searched for the word. “…a vegetarian.”
Mel and Rebecca exchanged a long, searching look; he then pulled his chair back up and resumed his seat. “I think we can take you at your word, doctor. You’ve been more than forthright.”
Nicolescu nodded acceptance. “In truth, my heart aches with pity for all of you, but for Michelle most of all. I have… some idea of what she might have suffered at the hands of that line. They are-or were, thanks to your noble efforts-unique, fortunately.”
Rebecca’s mouth tightened as the mention of her sister brought the reality of the situation crashing back down upon her. All of the treatments in the world could do Michelle no good until she returned… or until they could find her. “I just wish we could have brought her here with us today,” she said. “I wish we could find her.”
“Ah, well. As to that… I may have a few ideas, if I am correct in my assumptions. Tell me more of this Bloodstone that you mentioned.” Dr. Nicolescu’s smile returned, broader than ever before, gleaming ferally beneath his inscrutable sunglasses