Page 21 of Taste of Death

“Fuck.” I let my forehead touch the wall, letting out an exasperated breath before pressing the button to answer. “Did you tell him I’m unavailable?”

“I did, and he insisted on waiting for as long as it took. He made vague threats about coming over unannounced if you didn’t get back to him.”

My eyes closed and I breathed out more curses in English and Vampiric. “Fine. I’ll be right up.”

I let my forehead linger on the wall for another beat before peeling off my nitrile gloves and dropping them in the hazardous waste bin. Without looking back at the monster, I left the cell room and entered the small clean room that acted as a buffer between the basement and the rest of the house.

I spent several minutes scrubbing my hands and the scratches on my arm. Like a human, I’d have to clean it well several times daily to avoid an infected wound. But I’d been scratched and clawed so many times at this point, I knew I was immune to becoming the same as that creature. Apparently I was the only one. And that was the big fucking mystery at the core of all these experiments and tests.

Everyone in my clan, all of my bloodline except for me, had either died or becomethat.

It started slowly. The first case happened probably before I was born, nearly three hundred years ago. Some of my earliest memories were of an adult uncle and cousins expressing a craving for flesh, not just blood. They attacked human staff at first, and then fellow vampires. When they could no longer be reasoned with, they were locked up. And they slowly became just like the creature in my basement.

One by one, over the course of a couple centuries, Rathka’s Order succumbed to what most called Rathka’s Curse. The illness was unexplainable and unstoppable, taking adult males, females, and children. Mostly from my clan, but a few others fell to it as well.

Until there was just me.

Well, and the expectation of finding the cure and restoring Rathka’s Order to its former glory. I didn’t earn advanced degrees in microbiology, bacteriology, and immunology just for the fun of it.

After washing my arm thoroughly, I patted it dry, applied an ointment, and then a bandage. It would be a week or longer before the skin was like new again, unless I took blood from an especially strong source.

My thoughts turned to my recent brusang visitor, Amy. She seemed to like my blood. Would she ever return the favor?

I dismissed the thought just as quickly as it came. Blood ‘til Dawn forbade us from ever having contact again, and I wasn’t about to piss off the ruling clan any more than they already were. Besides, Amy had been so skittish about feeding that she couldn’t even take it from my wrist. She definitely wouldn’t react well to my taking from her.

Her presence here, brief as it was, had been a welcome shake-up to the monotony of my life. Her curiosity and the calm, steadying force of a new heartbeat in my senses made that day pass far too quickly. But I had to accept that small stretch of time for what it was—an anomaly. An outlier.

Her time here would be a fond memory to cherish, considering I had precious few of those.

I finished cleaning up, placed the baggie with my used scraper in the mini fridge to examine later, then punched in the door code to enter the main house.

I dreaded every step up to my office, and still arrived there too quickly, the red light on my desk phone blinking ominously.

Sinking into my chair, I pressed the button defeatedly and brought the phone to my ear. “Baros. Good to hear from you.”

“Novak, hello.” If the head of Carpe Noctem knew I was lying through my teeth, he wouldn't give it away. “It’s been a while, so I wanted to touch base. Maybe revisit your thoughts on the offer I proposed.”

“Ah, right.” My molars ground against each other. “It slipped my mind, I’m afraid. I’ve been tied up with… you know, trying to keep a handle on things.”

“Of course, I understand. All the more reason to produce an heir,” Baros said smoothly. “It’s impossible to establish a strong clan with one person. You need offspring. My daughter is free this evening, actually. Why don’t you come by for a drink and some darakt? You can sample her blood as well.”

My throat and stomach tightened. “I’m afraid I can’t. I have a… ”

“Listen.” Baros’s tone grew hushed. “It’s not just my daughter I’m offering. There’re signs that our benevolent ruling clan is losing its grip.”

I frowned. “Blood ‘til Dawn?”

“That name should be a curse,” Baros spat. “But yes, they’re weakening. The time to start planning is now.”

“Planning?”

“Yes! To regain our seat as ruling clan.” He sounded so excited, I could almost hear the spit flying from his mouth. “But I can’t do it alone. And if you play your cards right,” he added, “I wouldn’t be opposed to Carpe Noctem and Rathka’s Order as joint-ruling clans.”

The idea was completely absurd, but seeing that my clan was considered on the verge of extinction, it was also intriguing enough that I wanted to hear more.

I didn’t like Baros as a person, nor did I like his father when he was the head of Carpe Noctem. But our clans had been allied in one way or another since their inception during the war with the werewolves. When my clan members began succumbing to Rathka’s Curse, Carpe Noctem was one of the few clans to seek healers across Shyftworld. At least publicly, they had sympathy for my suffering kin. Everyone else, Blood ‘til Dawn included, believed my clan deserved to be wiped out.

And if I took a good, hard look at the facts, I might even agree with them.

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