My Kingdom Come Book 1: The Saints We See (Complete)

Chapter 27: Bloodslave

664 standard years after the signing of the Alliance

Valenna handed Murray the carefully altered form. She wiped her sweaty palms on her designer jeans.

Murray took the form and typed some information into his computer. "They upped the numbers again?"

"Yeah. They got a grant to expand the coolers further." Valenna swallowed. "It's been amazing."

"Well, it doesn't seem to have cut down your workload at all. You still have to come in every week!" He chuckled.

"Yeah." Valenna laughed weakly. She couldn't tell if he was suspicious or not. Her senses were dulling the more blood she drank.

Murray opened the file drawer in his desk. It seemed to slide back forever, Murray's arm stretching further and further back. Valenna blinked and his arm was normal sized again. One moment he was slipping the paper into a folder in the drawer and the next moment he was holding a full cooler out to her. She blinked again.

"Are you okay, Valenna?" Murray asked in concern.

"Yeah, yeah, I just didn't sleep well last night. My...my grandmother just passed."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that." The expression on his face was puzzled. Or was it sympathetic? Valenna couldn't tell. She smiled weakly and turned to leave.

"Will you be coming back for the other cooler?"

"Oh." Valenna laughed half heartedly. She could have taken them both at once, but she'd already started leaving. "Yeah, I'll be right back." She carried the cooler out to the parking lot. She opened the back door to the van and dropped the cooler inside. She opened the cooler and stared at the plump bags of blood inside. Instead of feeling excited she just felt tired. She shut the cooler and went back inside for the other cooler.

* * *

Valenna unlocked her apartment door, went inside and shut the door behind her. It stank badly. She stared at the five extra coolers of blood waiting for her in the living room. The thirst in her body drove her forward. She stumbled to the old beat up lazy boy sitting in the middle of the floor and sank into it. She had made her full delivery to Lord Karek, she deserved to enjoy herself now.

She opened the first cooler and began to drink. She emptied bag after bag, tossing the empties into the growing pile on the floor around her chair. A pile she had started weeks ago and never bothered to clean up.

Before she could finish her third cooler of blood, she began to vomit. She stumbled to the kitchen and vomited blood into the sink until her stomach was empty. She sank to the floor and began to sob.

Drinking human blood was no longer the decedent pleasure it had once been. She couldn't get that warm buzz from it anymore. She always vomited before she could swallow down enough, no matter how fast, or how slowly she drank it. And drinking blood no longer quenched her thirst, only that buzz, the high would satisfy her.

Valenna became aware she was laying in a sticky puddle of vomited blood. I'm so fucking pathetic. I should die. She thought vehemently. Then a thought occurred to her. Maybe what she needed was fresh blood. Blood straight from the source. She sat up and wiped her cheek on her sleeve.

Excitment began to rise in her heart. She grinned. She hadn't felt excited in a long time. She staggered to her feet and smoothed her hair down. Where could she find fresh blood at this time of night?

She went out and began wandering the streets. She finally came upon a man sleeping in a gully that ran behind some bushes. She grinned and began to creep down to where he was. She was clumsier than usual. She slipped and knocked some rocks down the gully. The man startled awake. He pulled a gun out from under his the ragged blanket he was laying on and pointed it at her.