Called By Blood

Chapter 4

The police came to Helena's door to make sure she was okay. They'd apprehended a man matching the description of her stalker in the neighborhood and he had assaulted two officers and made a getaway. All she did was nod and look concerned.

Alex fighting with police? Why? He had to know she would not press charges against him, even after this morning. In fact, she had meant to call the police and drop charges the night before, but he kept distracting her.

And now he did this. Only drunks and morons assaulted police officers. How could he be so stupid? She didn't know him at all.

The cops said they'd double the watch on her house.

Helena worked out of her home office that day. A stack of applications for funding on her next project sat in front of her, bristling with deadlines, and all she did was beat her pencil on it, beating out a rhythm that said, "Alex Faustin Alex Faustin."

Eventually she got up and cleaned the house. She'd cleaned up the foyer that morning, of course. In the quiet aftermath of that…that…whatever it was…restoring order kept her sane. At first she'd been a mess, sniffling over the broken pictures. The photos themselves were okay, and that was all that really mattered, but the shards of glass upset her. Broken things. Broken things everywhere that needed to be swept up.

What were you thinking?

That was her primary thought all day. Why had she let him in, why wasn't she smarter than that, what did she expect would happen? She felt dirty. The whole house felt dirty. Not on the surface—the casual observer would think her house clean—but she knew it was not. She wanted to wash down every wall, to take a toothbrush to the floor, a dental pick to every crack and crevice. Alex's handprints were on one side of the deck door, hers on the other. She scrubbed them off methodically, cleaning the whole door while she was at it. His card was still in the frame. That she shoved in her pocket.

Alexander Faustin was not tidy. He made huge messes.

Which reminded her, there were wine stains setting on the carpet in front of the fireplace. She marched out there with a bottle of club soda. The freaky, lying bastard. It was almost noon and he hadn't called to apologize. But oh yeah, he must be busy on that call to Brussels. Right.

The whole house smelled like sex. It smelled like him. She stopped scrubbing the carpet to light a bunch of scented candles left over from the holidays. Soon the house smelled like a demented Christmas village.

It didn't matter how he'd looked at her last night, his eyes bottomless, black and searching. Or how he'd touched her face like she was a rare treasure. Something about the man was very wrong. From their first introduction, to his cockamamie "wife by vision quest" story, to their last argument. It was all wrong.

And floating above it all there was the Big Lie. Her gut told her that beyond the surface strangeness he was hiding something from her, something big. This big thing controlled him. Made him leave that morning. He said he loved her, but he'd throw her aside for it anyway. It might be another woman, drugs, mafia, his career as an international spy—whatever it was it could not be good.

He said he'd explain that tonight. Well, he had a lot of explaining to do. Maybe she didn't want to hear it. Maybe it would be best if he just vanished.

It would be best.

If he called, she'd tell him not to come.

Scully circled her legs, whining to go out. Helena followed her into the backyard and lingered there, letting the heat of the sun beat down on her face and shoulders. It was a spectacular, clear blue day. Warm enough to melt snow. Water dripped off the tree branches and poured out the gutters with a cheerful gurgle.

Swiping tears from her eyes, she pulled Alex's card from her jeans pocket. Slowly and deliberately she tore the card into smaller and smaller pieces, then threw them to the breeze. No more drama. She'd promised herself that. She had no use for the likes of Alexander Faustin.

And they hadn't even used condoms.

I am such an idiot.

Oh, shit. I should have kept that card.

Five, six o'clock came and went and he did not come. He did not keep his word. Maybe he had moved on to another "only one" in another town.

Helena ate a pint of ice cream for dinner and drank most of a bottle of wine while she channel surfed in tedious circles.

Around nine, Scully jumped out of her lap and went to look out the sliding doors, her pointy ears on high alert. Helena cupped her hands against the glass to see the balcony in the darkness. He wasn't out there. She went back to the couch.

Scully trotted into the kitchen and back, went downstairs and came back and stood in front of Helena with one paw in the air, her button eyes bright. It was the "I want something" pose.

"As if I'm going to let you out so that you can tangle with some critter in the back yard. I don't think so."

In answer, Scully yipped, trotted to the head of the stairs and yipped some more.

"You peed an hour ago."

But she only barked more and ran up and down the stairs and yipped until Helena hauled her sorry ass off the couch and waddled—she was sore, like he'd predicted—down the stairs to the ground level. She looked out the back door window. Nothing moved in the yard. She had a morbid fear of coyotes eating her dog. Scully whined and danced at her feet.

"Okay, but I'll go out first." Holding her dog back with one foot, she slipped out the door, tripped on something lumpy and fell on it. It groaned. Helena screamed and scrambled to her feet. Scully barked in high, hysterical notes. Alex was lying face down on the ground.

"Alex! Oh my God!" The first thing she thought was that he'd been shot by the police. Flashes of her first aid class came back to her. Check airway, breathing, treat for shock. How? Dang oh dang. He groaned. At least he was breathing.

"Alex? What happened?" She rolled him onto his back and gasped. Even in the dark, she could see his face was a mess: rough, misshapen, wrong. "Don't worry, I'm calling 911."

"No." He caught her wrist, his grip wet and boney. Wrong. Was he burnt? He took several gasping breaths before he could continue. "Don't."

"The police, all that, doesn't matter now." It was shock. He was hurt so bad he didn't even know he was hurt. "Alex, you need medical attention."

"No. Inside."

Helena bit her lip. Even his voice was strange, his words slurred. She decided to take him inside, then call 911.

Making a terrible pained noise, he came up on all fours. She tried to help him to his feet, but he hissed at her. So she just opened the door and let him crawl inside.

"Baze…ment," he wheezed.

She opened another door and watched, open-mouthed, as he half tumbled, half slithered down the basement steps. At the foot of the stairs, he curled into a fetal position and went still. She flicked on the bright overhead lights. What she saw made her wretch. Wine and ice cream came up her throat and she spewed over the stair railing, choking on bittersweet bile.

Every inch of his face was bubbled and peeling and shining with sweat or pus.

And he had no hair.

"Oh God. Oh God. I'll be right back." She was calling the ambulance. Now.

He put out an imploring hand. "Call Ma." Red and intense, his eyes burned in his skull-like face, completely sane and demanding her cooperation. He fumbled for his phone and pushed it toward her across the concrete floor. "Hel…call."

It stopped only a few inches from his horrible, blackened fingertips. Numb with horror, she drifted the rest of the way down the stairs and picked up the phone. Her knees shook so hard she had to sit down beside him. First she'd call his mother, then 911, no matter what he said. In the contacts menu she found the entry "MA".

Someone picked up before she even heard a ring. "Sasha?" said a woman with a smoky voice.

Who was Sasha? "Mrs. Faustin? My name is Helena MacAllister…"

"You have my boy safe? He's with you now? He lives?"

"Y…yes…but he's been hurt and he won't let me call for help."

The woman muttered something in Russian, or what she assumed was Russian. "No, you do not call for help. Your hospitals are not for our kind. They wouldn't know what to do with him, then in the morning, poof!"

Our kind? What, were they Christian Scientists?

"Mrs. Faustin, I don't want to alarm you but he's very ill and needs help."

"Ill?" The woman made a spitting noise. "He is fried crispy like bacon, no? All there is to do for him is for you to feed him, then let him rest, then feed him again. Bring others to feed if you can, the more the better."

"Feed him what?"

That question set off a whole barrage of Russian invective. A man's voice asked a question in the background and Mrs. Faustin exchanged some rapid-fire comments with him, all in Russian, before she came back. "He's not told you."

"Told me what?"

"Have you not made with the nookie yet?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"And he takes little of your blood and you like very much?"

"What?"

"Girlie—Yelena—future daughter of my heart—give him your blood to make him well. I beg you this as his mother."

Maybe this was a nightmare. Maybe she'd wake up pretty soon. That would be nice. "I don't understand you, Mrs. Faustin."

"Help is coming to you, but you must help now. Open your veins. Send your blood down his throat."

"What kind of crazy—? What good would that do?"

"Everything. We are vampire."

Mrs. Faustin pronounced vampire like vham-peer. She went on, something about species variation, superstition and hemophilia, but Helena's mind locked on vampire. He was so desperate to get out of the house before six. Before sunrise. And his refusal to see her before five. Sunset. But no. That was absurd. If Alex was a vampire, Scully was a werewolf.

Mrs. Faustin rattled on. She was crazy. Like her son. It was time to call an ambulance. She could only look at Alex's seared face out of the corner of her eye. Otherwise she'd throw up again. Now her furtive glances told her he had gone still as death.

Worried, she touched his shoulder. He screamed in pain, flopped away from her and screamed again.

Mrs. Faustin shouted, "What are you doing to my boy? Feed him!"

"I'm not going to do that."

"You can and you will. If you do not, I will come out there and flay you alive and then you will know the meaning of suffering. I will rip out your liver. I will lay the curse of the House Faustin—"

There was a clatter and another voice came on the phone. It reminded her of Alex's, but was deeper and rougher. It made no introductions, just began to give instruction. "This you will do or my son will die, and none of us want that. Yes, Helena? Find the sharpest blade in the house, a razor blade, perhaps, and sterilize it with flame or alcohol…" He went on, his voice inherently soothing. Helena's mind became clear and calm and she did as she was told.

Kneeling beside Alex, she poked at her left wrist with an X-Acto blade. It hurt. A lot. And it didn't bleed. Wincing through her tears, she made a proper cut across a blue vein. This time the blood welled up and she turned her wrist over and sent the drops down to Alex's lips. His tongue stretched out and caught the drops like he was catching snowflakes. She brought her wrist over his mouth, carefully, because his lips were purple and blistered, and he suckled at it instinctively, half conscious. It didn't hurt.

He was a vampire. A vampire.

Even with the truth sucking on her wrist it didn't make any sense at all. She looked at the X-Acto knife on the ground. It didn't make sense that she'd been brave enough to cut herself either. None of this made sense. How'd he get so burned, anyway?

Suddenly he grabbed hold of her wrist with both hands and tore into her flesh like a pit bull. It hurt, but the adrenalin shot through her too—fight or flight like she'd never experienced. She fought for her life, silently, desperately, kicking at his ruined flesh, trying to pull away from his vice-like jaws. But it made no difference. With amazing strength he flipped her on her back, threw himself over her body and began to suck in earnest. The edges of her vision clouded black as the blood left her body. The room went dark, but her hearing worked until the end. The last sound she heard was the wet, slurping sound of him eating her alive.