Blood Ties (NaNoWriMo 2015)

Sixty-Three

I looked around, knowing it would be useless to try and sit up. I was still strapped down. I licked my lips, which were dry like paper. "Where's Damon?"

"Still on that are we?" joked the doctor, as he undid my restraints. The material made soft, whooshing noises as he freed them. "Mr. Lockwood is alright, injured but he will be alright."

"When can I see him?" I asked, sitting up, muscles aching from the how tight the straps had been.

The doctor smiled. "After you've eaten, you have to be starving." He reached into a drawer, metal tracks spinning. I'd never heard anything quite like it before and I wondered if that was part of the vampire hearing. He pulled out an IV bag of blood. At the sight, I waited for shock and revulsion but it didn't come, my empty stomach lurched and twisted with hunger.

"Here," he said, taking the bag and handing it to me.

I didn't even take a breath to say "thank you". I felt four needle-like pains in my mouth and sunk my fangs into the plastic and began eating. I expected that I might gag at the taste, for despite my new species, my human instinct still remained. Blood was not food, it was something that was supposed to stay inside you. When the thick liquid touched my tongue, I found out that I had been wrong.

It didn't taste bad, in fact it was sweet and salty. Not a terrible taste by any means but I did now see why vampires took to mixing it with other things. This had to get old after a while. Before I knew it, the bag was empty and my stomach was full. I felt some stickiness on the corners of my mouth and grabbed a Kleenex off the nightstand and began dabbing at the mess.

"Thanks," I muttered, standing up surprised and delighted to find my stance was firm. Not weakened at all. Perhaps it was a vampire thing. Laying strapped down for three days straight would have left me with weak limbs as a human and made it hard to walk. My vampire body however, did not seem to have this problem.

"What's the last thing you remember?" asked the doctor, his voice curious and catious. Perhaps he thought I'd still try to bite his face off.

"I bit Damon," I said. "That's the last thing I can remember," I remembered all of my interaction with Ife (Zalam, whatever) but opted not to mention it. That could be my secret for the time being.The doctor had caramel-colored skin but I saw him go a bit pale. "What?" I asked. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said quickly and I narrowed my eyes. That response was way too fast. He was hiding something.

"Liar," I said flatly. "Whatever you need to tell me just tell me. Or better yet," I reconsidered. "Tell me where Doc is, he's my usual caretaker you know." I smiled ruefully, how many jokes was he going to crack about my Change?

The man's face turned ashen. "Doc is dead."

I'd heard his words but they made no sense. "Excuse me?" He had to have it wrong. Doc couldn't be dead. Doc had nothing to do with any of this, he was just a doctor, a very good doctor and a never-ending stream of vampire puns. Why would anyone want to harm him?

"We don't know all the details yet," he confessed. "We the our investigators have been able to gather is that while he was out and about the hotel he came upon Richard and Keith speaking. Of what matters we do not know, but it must have been something he wasn't supposed to hear. He was staked, we found his body shortly after we captured Keith Lockwood, he confessed that and other crimes."

Keith. The name was a knife to my silent heart. I'd noticed that now, the absence of my heartbeat. That was going to take some getting used to. Keith had been the mole.

He'd been the one who'd messed with the evidence during the aftermath of the sniper, he was the one who'd let the knife-wielder in. The one who killed Doc in cold blood. The one who threw Damon out into a freaking sunlight courtyard to burn him alive. I slammed my hand onto the nightstand furious and instantly heard the sound of wood breaking apart.