I
just keep losing my temper in public places. It usually ends in all
sorts of trouble, like destruction of public property, threatening
behaviour, indecent exposure. Cops and judges like to attribute
that sort of thing to a lack of control and think it can be fixed
with learned talk.”
Roberts
laughed so hard he nearly lost his towel. “Indecent exposure. I
didn’t hear that story. I hope it’s a good one.”
“Female ghoul.
Thought I was coming on to her.”
Wiping a tear
from the corner of his eye, Roberts settled himself down. “Where
was Merce while you were romancing the ghoul?”
I glared at
him. “In about the same position you are now. Picking herself up
from an amusement induced fit.”
Roberts got
up, modestly clutching the towel to his groin. He patted me on the
shoulder as he went past. “And you say she’s not human. I’m going
to find something in your closet I would be seen dead in, then
you’re driving me home.” His chortling echoed around the room after
he left.
There was
nothing much else of interest on the TV. I turned it off before the
inhumanly wide and bright smiles of the breakfast crew could blind
me. Stomach rumbling, I went to the kitchen and began the great
quest for nutrition. Even Indiana Jones would have found it tough
going. In my dozy state, I opened the cupboard that hid the blood
fridge instead of the one that upon occasion had cereal.
Crap. Roberts
put Mercy to bed, but I bet he didn’t think to feed her first. I
grabbed out a couple of bags, one O positive and one A positive.
Both were just over their expiry date, but that didn’t bother Mercy
and it was the easiest way to keep her supplied with food. The Red
Cross didn’t take back stock from the laboratories that performed
blood banking and I had a couple of contacts still in the game who
smuggled me out the stock about to expire.
Bags of blood
in hand, I went to see Mercy.
Her room was
in the middle of the house. On the original plans, the room was
supposed to be a home cinema. I’d opted out of that and turned it
into a haven from sunlight for the vampire.
I’d reinforced
the walls with steel bars as thick as my wrist and partitioned off
the front of the room with more bars. Yeah, I kept her in a cage,
but it was the best-outfitted cage you’ve ever seen. A double bed,
a La-Z-Boy, a little plasma screen and DVD player, bookshelf with
all sorts of books (mostly unread), a shower and a closet for the
scraps of material she and various names-on-labels generously
called clothes. She lived better than me. I didn’t have a
plasma.
Mercy wasn’t
snuggled up in bed like all good and not-so-good vampires should
have been. She was pacing back and forth, dragging in heaps of air
like a pearl diver getting ready for a long descent. Her shoulders
rolled and her hands opened and clenched spasmodically. In the dim
light cast from the open door behind me, her eyes flashed silver.
Her pink tongue flicked over her fangs.
Behold the
hungry vampire. A tiger caged and repressed. My nasty kitten.
It was after
dawn and she was awake and very alert. Not a good sign. She should
have been flaked out, unable to be roused with anything smaller
than an A-bomb. But she was awake and prowling. My guts clenched
and I felt like puking.
She spun
toward me, hurling herself at the bars between us. Practice kept me
from flinching. I just waited out her attack, hating the way she
snarled at me, the way she thrust her arms through the bars,
fingers curled into claws driving for my throat. Her psychic power
hit me full on. Unlike last night, I didn’t have an open connection
to her to force it back on herself. But while I felt it, and winced
as it battered at my already sore head, it didn’t do much more than
make my ears ring.
The attack was
a long one, and I suffered through watching every moment of it. She
threw herself at the bars, tore at them till her hands bled, till
she ripped nails right out of her fingers. Bones broke on
just keep losing my temper in public places. It usually ends in all
sorts of trouble, like destruction of public property, threatening
behaviour, indecent exposure. Cops and judges like to attribute
that sort of thing to a lack of control and think it can be fixed
with learned talk.”
Roberts
laughed so hard he nearly lost his towel. “Indecent exposure. I
didn’t hear that story. I hope it’s a good one.”
“Female ghoul.
Thought I was coming on to her.”
Wiping a tear
from the corner of his eye, Roberts settled himself down. “Where
was Merce while you were romancing the ghoul?”
I glared at
him. “In about the same position you are now. Picking herself up
from an amusement induced fit.”
Roberts got
up, modestly clutching the towel to his groin. He patted me on the
shoulder as he went past. “And you say she’s not human. I’m going
to find something in your closet I would be seen dead in, then
you’re driving me home.” His chortling echoed around the room after
he left.
There was
nothing much else of interest on the TV. I turned it off before the
inhumanly wide and bright smiles of the breakfast crew could blind
me. Stomach rumbling, I went to the kitchen and began the great
quest for nutrition. Even Indiana Jones would have found it tough
going. In my dozy state, I opened the cupboard that hid the blood
fridge instead of the one that upon occasion had cereal.
Crap. Roberts
put Mercy to bed, but I bet he didn’t think to feed her first. I
grabbed out a couple of bags, one O positive and one A positive.
Both were just over their expiry date, but that didn’t bother Mercy
and it was the easiest way to keep her supplied with food. The Red
Cross didn’t take back stock from the laboratories that performed
blood banking and I had a couple of contacts still in the game who
smuggled me out the stock about to expire.
Bags of blood
in hand, I went to see Mercy.
Her room was
in the middle of the house. On the original plans, the room was
supposed to be a home cinema. I’d opted out of that and turned it
into a haven from sunlight for the vampire.
I’d reinforced
the walls with steel bars as thick as my wrist and partitioned off
the front of the room with more bars. Yeah, I kept her in a cage,
but it was the best-outfitted cage you’ve ever seen. A double bed,
a La-Z-Boy, a little plasma screen and DVD player, bookshelf with
all sorts of books (mostly unread), a shower and a closet for the
scraps of material she and various names-on-labels generously
called clothes. She lived better than me. I didn’t have a
plasma.
Mercy wasn’t
snuggled up in bed like all good and not-so-good vampires should
have been. She was pacing back and forth, dragging in heaps of air
like a pearl diver getting ready for a long descent. Her shoulders
rolled and her hands opened and clenched spasmodically. In the dim
light cast from the open door behind me, her eyes flashed silver.
Her pink tongue flicked over her fangs.
Behold the
hungry vampire. A tiger caged and repressed. My nasty kitten.
It was after
dawn and she was awake and very alert. Not a good sign. She should
have been flaked out, unable to be roused with anything smaller
than an A-bomb. But she was awake and prowling. My guts clenched
and I felt like puking.
She spun
toward me, hurling herself at the bars between us. Practice kept me
from flinching. I just waited out her attack, hating the way she
snarled at me, the way she thrust her arms through the bars,
fingers curled into claws driving for my throat. Her psychic power
hit me full on. Unlike last night, I didn’t have an open connection
to her to force it back on herself. But while I felt it, and winced
as it battered at my already sore head, it didn’t do much more than
make my ears ring.
The attack was
a long one, and I suffered through watching every moment of it. She
threw herself at the bars, tore at them till her hands bled, till
she ripped nails right out of her fingers. Bones broke on
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