Thirst No. 1 Read online

  “It’s always nice to hear.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “The South—Florida. I came with a boyfriend for a few days, but he got angry with me.”

  “Why?”

  “I told him I wanted to break up.” I add, “He’s got a nasty temper.” I sip my milk, wishing I could squeeze our waitress’s veins into it, add a little flavor. “What about you? What do you do?”

  “I’m a mad scientist.”

  “Really? What are you mad about?”

  “You mean, what kind of scientist am I?”

  “Yes. And do you work around here?”

  His voice takes on a guarded note, even though he is still quite drunk. “I’m a genetic engineer. I work for the government. They have a lab—in town.”

  I mock him playfully. “Is it a top-secret lab?”

  He sits back and shrugs. “They would like to keep it that way. They don’t feel comfortable unless we’re working outside the reach of mainstream scientists.”

  “Do I detect a note of resentment in your tone?”

  “Not resentment—that’s too strong a word. I love my job. It has provided me opportunities I couldn’t get in the normal business world. I think what you sense is frustration. The opportunities presented in our lab are not being fully exploited. We need people of many disciplines involved, from all over the world.”

  “You would like the lab to be more open?”

  “Precisely. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the need for security.” He pauses. “Especially as of late.”

  “Interesting things are happening?”

  He looks away and chuckles, but there is a note of sorrow in his voice. “Very interesting things.” He turns back to me. “May I ask you a personal question, Lara?”

  “By all means.”

  “How old are you?”

  I flirt. “How old do you think I am?”

  He is genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know. When we were at the table, you seemed about thirty. But now that we’re alone together you seem much younger.”

  I have designed my makeup and dress to appear older. My longish white dress is conservative; I have a strand of pearls around my neck. My lipstick is glossy, overdone. I wear a red scarf to match my red wig.

  “I’m twenty-nine,” I say, which is the age on my new driver’s license and passport. “I appreciate your compliment, however. I take care of myself.” I pause. “How old are you?”

  He laughs, picking up his glass of milk. “Let’s just say my liver would be a lot younger if this was all I drank.”

  “‘Milk does a body good.’”

  He sets the glass down and stares into it. “So do other things.”

  “Andy?”

  He shakes his head. “Just something that’s going on at work. I can’t talk about it. It would bore you anyway.” He changes the subject. “Where did you learn to throw dice like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Come on. You always throw them the same way, resting the number you want to come up on your open palm. How do you do it? I’ve never seen anyone who could control the bounce of the dice.”

  I realize I went too far. He is a smart man, I remind myself. His powers of observation are keen, even when he is intoxicated. Yet, at the same time I don’t mind that he sees something special in me. I have no time to cultivate his interest slowly. I must have him under my thumb by tomorrow night. It is then I plan to rescue Joel.

  I answer his question carefully. “I have had many interesting teachers. Perhaps I could tell you about them sometime.”

  “How about now, tonight?”

  “Tonight? The sun will be up in an hour.”

  “I don’t have to be at work until it goes down.” He reaches across the table and takes my hand. “I like you, Lara. I mean that.” He pauses. “I feel like I’ve met you before.”

  I shake my head, wondering if he senses the similarities between Joel and myself. “We have never met,” I tell him.

  SEVEN

  We go back to his place. He offers me a drink. When I decline, he has one himself—a Scotch on the rocks. The food in his stomach has sobered him up somewhat, but he quickly proceeds to get drunk again. He has a real problem, and now it is my problem as well. Granted, his intoxicated state makes his tongue loose and he tells me far more about his work than he should, although he has yet to mention Joel or vampires. Still, I will need him clear headed to help me. I have no time to repair his wounded psyche. I wonder what makes him drink so much. He lied when he said he didn’t resent his boss. Obviously he hates the general. But I cannot read his mind, probably because he keeps it scrambled with booze. I sense only deep emotional conflicts, coupled with intellectual excitement. He is grateful to be working on Joel, analyzing his blood, and yet it bothers him that he is directly involved in the project. I have no doubt of this.

  We sit on the couch in the living room. He riffles through his mail and then throws it on the floor. “Bills,” he mutters, sipping his drink. “The hardest reality of life, besides death.”

  “The way you gamble, I hope the government pays you well.”

  He snorts softly, staring at the eastern sky, which has begun to brighten. “They don’t pay me what I’m worth, that’s for sure.” He glances at my strand of pearls. “You look like you don’t have to worry about money.”

  “Daddy made millions in oil before he died.” I shrug. “I was his only child.”

  “He left it all to you?”

  “Every last penny.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “It is very nice.” I move closer to him on the sofa, touch his knee. I have an alluring touch. I swear sometimes I could seduce an evangelist’s wife as easily as I could a horny Marine. Sex holds no mystery for me, and I have no scruples. I use my body as easily as any other weapon. I add, “What exactly do you do at your lab?”

  He gestures to his office. “It’s in there.”

  “What’s in there?”

  He takes another swallow of Scotch. “My greatest discovery. I keep a model of it at home to inspire me.” He burps. “But right now a fat raise would inspire me more.”

  Even though I know what’s in his office, I walk over and have a peep at the two models of the DNA, the human one and the vampiric molecule. “What are they?” I ask.

  He is enjoying his drink too much to get up. “Have you heard of DNA?”

  “Yes, of course. I graduated from college.”

  “What school did you go to?”

  “Florida State.” I return to my place on the couch, closer to him than before. “I graduated with honors.”

  “What was your major?”

  “English lit, but I took several biology classes. I know that DNA is a double helix molecule that encodes all the information necessary for life to exist.” I pause. “Are those models of human DNA?”

  He sets his drink down. “One of them is.”

  “What’s the other one?”

  He stretches and yawns. “A project my partners and I have been working on for the last month.”

  My blood turns cold. It was in the last month that Eddie began to produce his horde of vampiric gangbangers. Andy has been able to duplicate Arturo’s visions of vampire DNA because he has been analyzing the molecules for a while, long before Joel was captured. That can only mean one of Eddie’s offspring escaped my slaughter.

  “I don’t know. I destroyed your silly gang.”

  “You’re not sure of that.”

  “Now I am sure. You see, I can tell when someone lies. It’s one of those great gifts I possess that you don’t. There is only you left, and we both know it.”

  “What of it? I can make more whenever I feel the need.”

  Eddie admitted that there were no others. He couldn’t have tricked me, yet perhaps he himself was tricked. Maybe one of his offspring had made another vampire and didn’t tell him. It’s the only explanation. That vampire must have been caught by the government and taken to the d
esert compound. I wonder if the mystery vampire is still in the place. My rescue effort has just been complicated.

  I have to wonder if I’m already too late. Andy has—at the least—an outline of the DNA code of the vampire. How long will it be before he and his partners are able to create more bloodsuckers? The only thing that gives me hope is that the general struck me as a man who keeps everything under wraps, until it is time to make his move. Andy has said as much about him. Everything connected to vampires is still probably locked up in the compound.

  In response to Andy’s comment, I force a chuckle. Boy, do I force it. “Are you making a modern Frankenstein monster?” I ask, kidding, but not kidding.

  My question hits a nerve, for obvious reasons, and Andy sits quietly for a moment, staring at his drink as if it were a crystal ball.

  “We are playing a high-stakes game,” he admits. “Altering the DNA code of any species is like rolling the dice. You can win and you can lose.”

  “But it must be exciting to be playing such a game?”

  He sighs. “We have the wrong pit boss in charge.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “What’s his name?”

  “General Havor. He’s a hard ass—I don’t think his mother gave him a first name. At least I don’t know it. We call him ‘General’ or ‘Sir.’ He believes in order, performance, sacrifice, discipline, power.” Andy shakes his head. “He definitely doesn’t create an environment for free thinking and loving cooperation.”

  I am the understanding girlfriend. “You should quit then.”

  Andy flashes an amused, bitter grin. “If I quit now I’d be walking away from one of the greatest discoveries of modern time. Plus I need the job. I need the money.”

  I caress his hair. My voice is soft and seductive. “You need to relax, Andy, and not think of this stupid general. Tell you what—when you get off work tomorrow, come straight to my suite. I’m staying at the Mirage, Room Two-One-Three-Four. We can play the tables and have another late dinner together.”

  Gently he takes my hand. His eyes momentarily come into focus, and I see his intellect again, feel his warmth. He is a good man, working in a bad place.

  “Do you have to go now?” he asks sadly.

  I lean over and kiss him on the cheek. “Yes. But we’ll see each other tomorrow.” I sit back and wink. “We’ll have fun.”

  He is pleased. “You know what I like about you, Lara?”

  “What?”

  “You have a good heart. I feel I can trust you.”

  I nod. “You can trust me, Andy. You really can.”

  EIGHT

  One of the saddest stories told in modern literature, to me at least, is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Because in a sense I am that monster. Knowingly or unknowingly, to much of history, I am the inspiration of nightmares. I am the primeval fear, something dead come to life, or better yet—and more accurate—something that refuses to die. Yet I consider myself more human than Shelley’s creation, more humane than Arturo’s offspring. I am a monster, but I can also love deeply. Yet even my love for Arturo could not spare him from plunging us into a nightmare from which there seemed to be no waking.

  His secret of transformation was very simple, and profound beyond belief. It is fashionable among New Age adherents to use crystals to develop higher states of consciousness. What most of these people do not know is that a crystal is merely an amplifier, and that it has to be used very carefully. Whatever is present in the aura of the person, in the psychic field, gets magnified. Hate can be boosted as easily as compassion. In fact, cruel emotions expand more easily when given the chance. Arturo had an intuitive sense of the proper crystal to use with each person. Indeed, on most people he refused to use crystals at all. Few, he said, were ready for such high vibrations. How tragic it was that when he had a vial of my blood in his hand, his intuition deserted him. It is a pity his special genius did not leave him as well. It took a genius to take us as far as he did.

  A mad one.

  Using the magnets and copper sheets, in his secret geometric arrangements, the vibrations from whatever Arturo placed over the person were transmitted into the aura. For example, when he placed a clear quartz crystal above my head, a deep peaceful state settled in my mind. Yet if he used a similar crystal with young Ralphe, the boy would become irritated. Ralphe had too much going on in his mind and was not ready for crystals. Arturo understood that. He was an alchemist in the truest sense of the word. He could transform what could not be changed. Souls as well as bodies.

  Arturo did not believe the body created the mind. He felt it was the other way around, and I believe he was correct. When he altered an aura, he changed the person’s physiology as well. He just needed the proper materials, he said, to change anything. A flawed human into a glorious god. A sterile vampire into a loving mother.

  It was, in the end, the chance to become human again that caused me to give him my blood. To hold my daughter in my hands again—what ecstasy! I was seduced by ancient griefs. Yaksha had made me pay dearly for my immortality, with the loss of Rama and Lalita. Arturo promised to give me back half of what had been stolen. It had been over four thousand years. Half seemed better than nothing. As I let my blood drip into a gold communion chalice for Arturo, I prayed to Krishna to bless it.

  “I am not breaking my vow to you,” I whispered, not believing my own words. “I am just trying to break this curse.”

  I did not know, as I prayed to my God, that Arturo was also praying to his. To allow him to convert human and vampiric blood into the saving fluid of Jesus Christ. Genius may make a person a fanatic, I don’t know. But I do know that a fanatic will never listen to anything other than his own dreams. Arturo was soft and kind, warm and loving. Yet he was convinced he had a great destiny. Hitler thought the same. Both wanted something nature had never granted—the perfect being. And I, the ancient monster, just wanted a child. Arturo and I—we should never have met.

  But perhaps our meeting was destined.

  My blood looked so dark in the chalice.

  The sacredness of the chalice did nothing to dispel my gloom.

  Arturo wanted to place my blood above the head of select humans. To merge the vibration of my immortal pattern into that of a mortal. If he changed the aura, he said, the body would be transformed. He, of all people, should have known how potent my blood was. He had stared deep into my eyes. He should have known my will would not bend easily to the will of another.

  “You will not put the blood in their veins?” I asked as I handed him the chalice. He shook his head.

  “Never,” he promised. “Your God and my God are the same. Your vow will remain unbroken.”

  “I’m not fooling myself,” I said quietly. “I have broken a portion of it.” I moved close to him. “I do this for you.”

  He touched me then—he rarely did, before that night. It was hard for him to feel my flesh and not burn. “You do this for yourself as well,” he said.

  I loved to stare deeply into his eyes. “That is true. But as I do this—for you as well as for myself—you must do likewise.”

  He wanted to draw back but he only came closer. “What do you mean?”

  I kissed him then, for the first time, on the cheek. “You have to break your vow. You have to make love to me.”

  His eyes were round. “I can’t. My life is dedicated to Christ.”

  I did not smile. His words were not funny, but tragic. The seed of all that was to follow was hidden inside them. But I did not see that then, at least not clearly. I just wanted him so badly. I kissed him again, on the lips.

  “You believe my blood will lead you to Christ,” I said. “I do not know about that. But I do know where I can take you.” I set down the bloody chalice and my arms went around him, the wings of the vampire swallowing its prey. “Pretend I am your God, Arturo, at least for tonight. I will make it easy for you.”

  There was one last ingredient in Arturo’s technique that I did not witness during my first sess
ion. While I was lying on the floor with all the paraphernalia around me, he had set a mirror above the crystals. This mirror was coordinated with an external mirror, which allowed moonlight to shine through the crystals. It was actually the light, altered by its passage through the quartz medium, that set in motion the higher vibration in the aura that altered the body. Arturo never focused the sun directly through the crystals, saying it would be much too powerful. Of course, Arturo understood that the light of the moon was identical to the light of the sun, only softened by cosmic reflection.

  Arturo made with his own hands a crystal vial to hold my blood.

  His first experiment was with a local child who had been retarded since birth. The boy lived on the streets and existed on the scraps of food tossed to him by strangers. It was my desire that Arturo first work on someone who couldn’t turn him over to the Inquisition. Still, Arturo was taking a big risk experimenting on anyone. The Church would have burned him at the stake. How I hated its self-righteous dogma, its hypocrisy. Arturo never knew how many inquisitors I killed—a small detail that I forgot to mention in my confession to him.

  I remember well how gently Arturo spoke to the child to get him to relax on the copper sheet. Normally the boy was filthy, but I had given him a bath before the beginning of the experiment. He was naturally distrustful of others, having been abused so many times during his life. But he liked us—I had been feeding him off and on and Arturo had a way with children. Soon enough, he was lying on the copper and breathing comfortably. The reflected moonlight, peering through the dark vial of my blood, cast a haunting red hue over the room. It reminded me of the end of twilight, of the time just before night falls.

  “Something is happening,” Arturo whispered as we watched the boy’s breathing accelerate. For twenty minutes the child was in a state of hyperventilation, twitching and shaking. We would have stopped the process if the boy’s face hadn’t looked calm. Plus, we were watching history being made, maybe a miracle.

  Finally the boy lay still. Arturo diverted the reflected moonlight and helped the boy to sit up. There was a new strangeness to his eyes—they were bright. He hugged me.