Blood Secrets

‘Tweezers,’ Amissa asks her surgery assistant while staring into the open stomach of a red headed, female vampire. You wouldn’t think that vampires require surgery, because they heal quicker than any of the other immortals.

It’s due to this fact that she had to drain this vampire of almost all her blood to weaken her enough for the regenerating process to slow down. Imagine trying to do surgery on someone who starts healing while you’re still busy cutting.

Yes, you would not expect a vampire to ever require any medical attention but this lady was the target of a few vampire haters.

It is illegal to just kill a vampire unless your life is threatened. Some human purists do not wait for that opportunity though and sometimes get very creative with the methods they use to get at vampires.

Simona, the vampire patient, is the victim of a spiked drink at the local vampire bar. Someone slipped silver pellets into her blood beverage.

Silver pellets won’t kill vampires but it is extremely painful. This vampire was frantic when she stormed into the hospital about half an hour ago, vomiting blood and shouting vamparic swear words that even the most ruthless of vampires would find offensive. Fortunately, she is calm now and too weak from the blood loss to feel anything.

The pellets won’t work themselves out like a bullet pushes itself out through the wound, since there is no open wound. The silver has burnt itself into the lining of the stomach, which means vomiting won’t force them out. The only other option is cutting open her stomach and removing them.

Some vamps cut the pellets out themselves but it can get very messy. It is also very risky if you don’t know how much blood to drain for the procedure.

Amissa carefully pulls a silver ball from the stomach tissue where it’s been burnt in like a piece of red hot coal and drops it in a little metal bowl. This is not a very pleasant task. The smell of silver burning vampire flesh is nauseating. It smells exactly what you would expect a burning dead person to smell like; the unmistakable stench of death and decay has filled the room. Sarah, the werewolf assistant, is trying very hard not to show her disgust but her eyes are starting to tear. Her canine sense of smell is strong even in human form.

‘When are we done? I am hungry,’ Simona asks while trying to lift her head and look into her stomach.

‘We are almost done. Fortunately you did not swallow many,’ Amissa replies while dropping another pellet. ‘How did you allow this to happen? Stop pouring it into a glass. You are putting yourself at risk.’

‘Yeah, yeah. I can kick my own arse but vampires hardly get harassed anymore. If we find out who did this you can be assured that they are going to be made an example of. This drink spiking bollocks is giving blood bags a bad name. Why risk being poisoned when drinking from a bottle if you can drink fresh animal blood or even better, from the neck of a human?’

Simona’s accent was thick; she was created some time after the bombs dropped and the world was struggling to regain order. Scotland had to strengthen their borders to protect them from refugees that were trying to flee the North rift, while fighting control the new beasts that were flooding into their own lands themselves. Amissa thinks that, judging by Simona’s rough demeanor, she probably killed quite a few people even before she became a vampire.

‘Vampires that are caught feeding on humans get prosecuted and the same goes for humans attacking vampires. Just be careful you do not get punished for making examples of people or feeding on humans.’ She replies and drops the last silver ball into the metal bowl. ‘That is all of them. Now just to burn it shut.’

‘Sarah, hold her stomach shut while I seal it.’

‘This is Craukmonte, doc. No one gives a fuck. Not even the cops, if you pay them enough.’ Simona seems to think for a moment before she continues. ’You just need to know where to go.”

Amissa notices how Simona conveniently avoids answering her on the making examples of humans topic.

She takes a small, edged silver rod from the trolley and drags it across the cut in the stomach, sealing it. The flesh pulls like melting taffy when she takes the silver away.

‘Feeding and being fed on is illegal, Simona. The law states that charm makes it unclear whether permission was actually given. And it is addictive’

She answers and seals the outer layer of skin while Sarah holds it, looking unimpressed.

‘Permission is permission. You know we hardly have to charm. They practically throw themselves at us. Let the people get high from the venom if they want to. I am sure many humans have offered their necks to you.’

Even in her weakened state she manages to laugh mischievously, revealing two extended canines that are instantly recognizable, yet subtle and won’t show when her mouth is closed. ‘Humans are so weak.’

‘There. Sarah, please bring our patient some blood’, Amissa asks and then turns to Simona, ‘You should feel better once you have had something to drink and some rest. It is almost dawn, you may rest in one of the night rooms.’

Sarah fetches the blood from the re-heater and hands it to Simona.

‘What type is it?’ She asks as she takes the bag and pulls a disgusted face.

‘Pig.’

Simona bites into the bag and empties it quicker than Sarah thought possible. The scar on her abdomen from the surgery disappears slowly.

’Ah, I feel better already. Thanks Doc.”

“Sarah here will take you to your room.”

Sarah helps Simona to her feet and hands the vampire her blood stained shirt. She puts it on and walks to the door where Sarah shows her out.

Amissa disposes of her bloody surgery gloves and washes her hands. She looks up into the mirror. Two piercing turquoise eyes are staring back at her. She tucks a loose strand of pitch black hair that came undone behind a slightly pointed ear.

“I am sure many humans have offered their necks to you.” Yes, many do. But a respected doctor from a well known family cannot be caught on somebody’s neck.

What’s the time? 04:02 am, night shift will be over soon. The vampires need to make it home before dawn.

Amissa walks to the admissions desk. ‘What do we have, Tessa?’

‘A werewolf came in about five minutes after your crazy vampire patient. He had quite a fever and complained of vomiting and diarrhea. Josh suspects CPV2 and has put him in quarantine for now. He has been stabilized. We also have a giant, Miss Thornstone, in room 4 that went into early labor. Doctor Bennet is handling the birth. ’

‘Shit, we do not need a CPV2 outbreak. Tell the Lycan staff not to go near him until the Lycanthropist has examined him. Does Doctor Bennet have help?’

‘Yes, Beth is assisting. It is Beth’s first gigantean birth so naturally the doctor is eager to explain. He reminds me of a mad scientist sometimes.’

Amissa’s cell phone rings. She takes her phone out of her pocket and looks at the screen.

Dr Cole Redmond.

‘Cole,’ She answers, hoping that he doesn’t want her to help him with work.

‘Amissa. Can I see you before you leave? The usual place.’

‘The usual work also I presume?’ she replies, not caring if she sounds annoyed.

‘I know your shift just ended but you know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’

Important to whom?

‘Alright.’

She puts the phone back in her pocket and walks over to the elevator. She gets in, pushes the button to go to the roof and starts moving up and out of the Heterogeneous Ward that was specifically created for all non-humans.

The idea of having a separate ward away from the humans seemed speceist to others but Amissa likes not sharing wards with humans. There are obvious safety reasons for why you cannot have certain species share wards with humans. It seems like lot of things like to eat them. And their attitudes make you want to kill them even when you aren’t hungry.

The elevator opens, Amissa steps out and walks around the corner to where the doctor is standing. Cole Redmond is leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette and looking at the coming sunrise. For a thirty six year old he looks like he is still in his twenties; well built with short, carefully styled, chocolate brown hair and emerald green eyes. The scar on his left eyebrow hints at a more rebellious past.

Amissa always thought that he is one of the better looking humans. The sight of him makes her forget that she was annoyed with him. He takes a last drag of his cigarette and flicks it over the edge of the building.

‘That is a bad habit for a doctor to have.’ She says with a slight smile on her face.

So they tell me,’ he replies with his usual husky voice, and walks over to her with a smile.

‘Can you see what you can pick up in this?’ He hands her a vial filled with blood.

‘What do you suspect?’ She takes the vial and holds it up to the light of the coming sunrise.

‘Tell me what you think.’

She gives him a puzzled look, opens the vial and swallows the contents. She stares into the distance for a moment with an analytical expression on her face.

‘You made me come up here for a pregnancy test?’ she finally replies and can feel herself getting annoyed again.

‘So it is positive then. I am sorry, Amissa. I couldn’t have anybody in the hospital find out about this and I needed fast results. You really have a unique talent. I appreciate your help.’

‘Is it yours?’

‘No, I’m helping out a colleague.’

She doesn’t ask about the colleague. She doesn’t care. The feeling of relief after he said the baby wasn’t his confuses her.

The doctor reaches into the pocket of his white doctor’s coat and takes out a bag of blood.

‘It has been two months.’ He hands her the bag. ‘Hopefully it doesn’t taste like licking an ashtray.’

She feels that she should tell him to stop giving her his blood. If someone sees him doing this he will be ruined. He might only be a human but he has done a lot for her and she doesn’t want to destroy his career because of it. Something makes her decide against it.

‘Thank you, Cole.’ She takes the bag and puts it into her jacket pocket. She thinks of Simona the vampire.

A respected doctor from a well known family can’t be caught on somebody’s neck. Both of us are risking our reputations with this blood exchange.

‘When did you start smoking again?’

‘About a month ago. Old habits, I suppose. I have to get back, my break is over.’

‘Break? You are working another shift. I am aware of the fact that humans need sleep.’

‘So you do care after all. And here I thought that our relationship was strictly professional.’ Cole tries to hide the smile on his face but fails miserably.

’Nothing that just happened in this rooftop meeting will be considered ‘professional’ to your medical staff.’ She replies and succeeding where Cole failed, she hides a smile and says: ‘Do not work yourself to death; I will have to find my food somewhere else.’

Amissa walks over to the edge of the building and jumps off, falling several stories down, before kicking herself off the side of the building and onto the roof of the shorter one. From there she runs and jumps off the other side of the building, out of Cole’s view.

‘Off course, why take the elevator when you can do that?’ he says to himself while walking over to the elevator doors. He pushes the button and while he waits his thoughts go to the first time he met Amissa, six years ago.

It was about six months after a group human purists killed Inanis Charbonneau, Amissa’s father, and ambassador for human/non-human relations. They did not want a peaceful and working relationship between the two, as Inanis promised.

Even one hundred years after all the other races stepped out of the rifts following the Rupture, the purists still hate them.

The vampires retaliated for the death of Inanis and attacked the group members individually while they were at home with their families. They had taken their time to carefully plan the assault of the members to happen at the same time, leaving no time for warning. Almost the entire group was wiped out and their family members fed on as they watched the murders.

Cole remembers how angry he was at the sight of the traumatized family members, all being treated for blood loss at the hospital. He was angry at the thought of dozens of families now broken because of what happened. The humans started it and that made him even angrier.

The violence that followed between humans and vampires was devastating. The other non-humans were hardly involved at all.

Fortunately Amissa’s older brother, Cyprus, stepped up to the plate and assumed the position of the next ambassador. He managed to gain control and put and end to the war. Cyprus turned the loss of his father into a weapon against the fanatics and succeeded in having new laws passed in an effort to stop the chaos. He formed a new unique police squad that contains humans and non-humans, the Risk Containment Force, or RCF for short. Their sole purpose is to maintain order and eliminate hostile groups. There will always be a few that act out and they seek them out.

The lift finally opens. Cole gets in and pushes the button for the second floor. His thoughts continue to the night he met Amissa, about a week after the retaliation attack from the vampires. Cyprus had just started the process of sorting out the conflict and it wasn’t safe to be on the streets at night.

He was on a break and having a smoke on the roof, the same roof he was on a moment ago. The building has fourty floors so he didn’t think he was at risk.

He could see cars moving past on the streets below the hospital but the night was eerily quiet. Winter was coming and the air was cold. His hand was fiddling with the silver pen his mother had given him for his thirtieth birthday, trying to move it from one finger to the other.

The silence was broken by the sound of two gun shots that made his heart jump. The fright made him drop both his pen and cigarette. He ran to the edge of the building, looked over and saw two male vampires running up the street towards him at an incredible speed. They were being chased by men driving a car with the roof down; leaning from the window areas with guns in their hands, they were screaming what they were going to do to the vampires once they catch them. He looked at the vampires again and in a moment of horror he saw that both vampires were looking right at him. He remembers being both amazed and terrified at the fact that they possibly saw him all the way up there.

They ran up to the building, leaped onto the side and started climbing up at such a rate that he knew it would not take long for them to reach the top. The men in the car started shooting at them again. They obviously didn’t care about the fact that they were shooting at a hospital building.

He rushed to the elevator and frantically started pushing the call button. He knew that it would not get there in time so he ran around the corner and stood there with his back against the wall.

They were probably looking for an easy feed to gain strength for the fight they were going to have with those idiots in the car. He didn’t want to die like that.

There was a sound. It was them. They had reached the top and he was sure that they knew where he was. His heart was beating like a steam engine.

He stood there listening for what felt like an eternity and wondered why they haven’t killed him already.

‘Leave him.’

It was a woman’s voice. But those were two males. He was sure of it. When he looked around the corner he saw the two vampires standing there looking up at the roof of the building that houses the elevator.

From the light by the elevator he could see that the one vampire looked like a middle aged man and the other like a man in his twenties. Cole knew that there was no way of telling which was the older vampire though. Both were dressed in black and wearing leather jackets.

‘You have no authority, Amissa,’ the older looking one replied. ‘Your father is dead and your brother can’t even control that bitch human of his.’ Both of the vampires laughed, and then the other one added:

‘You don’t look too good either. Is there nobody to feed you now that your daddy is gone?’

They laughed again but were interrupted when Amissa screamed and jumped off the roof, landing on top of one of the younger looking one.

She was slashing at his neck and chest with her nails. Cole was amazed at how strong her nails were. The other vampire rushed to Amissa and tried to grab her by her arm in an attempt to pull her off but she got up and countered in a turning motion, seizing him by his arm and throwing him several feet away.

The vampire that was on the floor used the opportunity to push himself up and punched Amissa in the face so hard that she fell to the ground. He went for a second punch but she caught his right wrist, used her other hand to strike at his elbow with such force that it snapped inward, exposing a sharp piece of splintered bone. He cried out in pain, lost his footing and fell to the side next to her.

The middle aged one launched himself at her. Amissa was still holding onto the other’s broken elbow and pointed it upwards, driving it into the chest and heart of the vampire as he landed on her. He turned grey in color and his body went limp.

The remaining vampire immediately rolled over and onto the dead body which was still on top of her, his arm still wedged inside. He started punching at Amissa face with his left arm, then he grabbed her throat and started choking her.

Cole could see her struggling from underneath the body, her arms to the sides of her desperately grabbing at nothing. He also noticed that the young looking vampire’s face had almost completely healed from the gashes Amissa gave him.

He had to do something. He ran towards the vampire and dove into him with all his strength, knocking him off her and falling a few feet away. The vampire’s arm got separated from the dead body in the tumble.

He was about to get up when the Amissa leaped at him and jabbed something silver into his heart. He also turned grey.

Cole got up. Amissa was lying there motionless.

He looked at the silver thing that killed the vampire. It was his pen. He pulled it out of the body, wiped it on the vampire’s clothes and put it in his pocket.

He looked at Amissa and could see by the movement of her chest that she was breathing. Cole moved closer and as he did she opened her eyes.

‘Why did you help me?’ he asked.

She just looked at him and said nothing. Even with a cut lip and swollen eye he could see that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her eyes made his heart sink into his stomach.

‘Why are you not healing? That vampire started healing almost immediately after you attacked him.’

‘I am weak. I have not fed.’

‘So you need to drink blood before you can heal?’

‘Yes.’

He felt overwhelmed. He couldn’t leave her there. Someone would have found her and driven a stake through her heart. Giving her his blood was not an option either. Even if he did trust her enough to drink from him and not kill him, which he didn’t, they would have found traces of vampire saliva in his blood his career would have been over.

Cole wondered if he could somehow sneak her into the underground parking lot and into his car.

‘You need to come with me,’ he said.

The elevator stops at the second floor and Cole steps out. Every time he thinks back of the night he met Amissa he wonders how long she was on the roof of that little elevator building before she attacked those vampires. Was she there before he heard those first two gun shots? Did she watch him playing with his pen and notice where he dropped it? It is something he has never asked her in the six years that he has known her since.

*