Mortal Lock (16 page)

Twenty-four hours passed before the nondescript man returned. “It’s a trade,” he said, speaking through the bars of the cage.

“Trade?” Darnetra snarled. “You tricked me.”

“Yes. And, by now, you know you can’t get out. The others of your pack, they can’t move the cage. Or they won’t, I don’t know which. They haven’t even tried to come for you. So I know you’re not a tribe. Each one is only for itself.”

“Why did you—?”

“You have to feed to live,” the man went on, as if she had not spoken. “But I don’t know how long you can go between kills. So that’s not the threat.”

The man came closer to the front of the cage. “This isn’t either,” he said, pulling a sharpened wooden stake from inside his coat. Darnetra shrank back against the far wall of bars.

“This is the trade,” the man said. “The people whose blood you’ve been feeding on, the ones I brought you, they all had AIDS. Full-blown AIDS. I got them right out of the hospital’s terminal ward. A couple of them were only hours from death when you took them.

“But their blood didn’t kill you. Any of you. I don’t have the time to find out if it eventually would. I’m betting it would not.
There’s something about the way you process blood that makes you immune. Or kills the virus. Either way is just as good.

“I don’t know much about it, and I don’t have the time to learn. So what we’re going to do is this: you are going to swap your blood with a human. A human who is HIV-positive. I don’t know what will happen. Maybe your blood will cure her. Maybe it will turn her into … what you are. Maybe it will kill her. But it’s her only chance, so there is no choice. Any fight is better than surrendering. And when you are surrounded, anyone you attack is an enemy.”

“But what about me?” Darnetra said. “I would be getting human blood. I can’t—”

“You probably can,” the man said. “I’ve been asking a lot of questions, and I think I know, now. You feed off the blood of humans; you should be able to
live
off it, too.”

“I don’t want—”

“You vampires can’t be born, right? If you mate, you can’t make a vampire baby. So you were something else, once. Before you got taken. Maybe the human blood will turn you back into that.”

“Into what? A human dying of AIDS? I won’t—”

“It’s not your choice,” the man said. “I can’t bring a whole hospital down here. Even if I could, it wouldn’t be … clean enough. So you have to come with me. Or die right here.”

“Die?” she sneered, disdainfully. “Even without food, I can last for—”

“Only a few more hours,” the man interrupted. “Then I pull another lever, and the sunlight comes right in. You’re just under a subway grate. Only that plate above you blocks the light.

“So what you’re going to do is this: You’re going to turn around, and back toward me. You’re going to put your wrists through that slot in the bars,” he said. “For these”—holding up a pair of handcuffs. “Then I’m going to open the cage, and you’re going to come
out. If you try to bite, I’ll put this stake in your heart before you can take a breath.”

Darnetra watched, silent except for her eyes.

“Then you’re going to climb into this,” the man said, showing her a black Kevlar body bag. “You can’t bite through it. I’ll carry you, while it’s still dark. When you wake up, you’ll be indoors. No sunlight.”

“What if I don’t cooperate?” she spat at this … whatever he was. “What good are your threats, then? You can kill me, but I’m no good to you dead.”

“The next one will be,” the man said. “Or the one after that. See, like I said, there’s one thing I found out about you vampires. You’re not a tribe. You don’t care about anyone except your own selves. So I’ll just get the old lady to bring me some more, until I find one who will take the chance.”

“I …”

“You have nothing to bargain with, except your blood. If you want to test me, just wait a few more hours. By then, the sun will be up.”

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” one nurse whispered to another.

Darnetra and Dawn lay on separate tables, connected by a complicated network of tubing, all monitored by vital-signs gauges.

“Why not, girl?” the other nurse said. “These damn interns, they’ve been doing secret plastic surgery down here for years. Making an off-the-books fortune at it, too. What’s wrong with us getting a taste?”

“But look at her. She’s not even … human.”

“Way I heard it, neither was the guy who brought her in here. But he’s paying for the party. I don’t know what he thinks he’s buying
for all the money he spent, but he just bought
me
a new car, honey.”

The overhead lights flickered briefly. The fluids started to move in the tubes.

Invisible in the shadows, the nondescript man waited.

for Champion Joe Lansdale

Pig was my friend, so I didn’t have any choice. I don’t mean I ran with him, or even that he could claim my crew. But I was in his house a lot, and there’s no keeping something like that a secret around here.

His mother treated me better than I thought mothers ever did. Any mothers. I ate the food she made. Food she cooked, I’m saying. I even slept over more than a few times. Times when I couldn’t stay where I lived.

I don’t know why I’m making this sound better than it was. The truth is, once I got too big for my mother to have around when she brought a man home, that was the end. She said I made them uncomfortable, even though I stayed out of sight and never said a word. The first time one actually got up and left without … Ah, it doesn’t matter. My mother told me how it was going to be from then on out. She made it real clear. In case I was deaf and blind, I guess. Or maybe she just figured me for stupid—she’d said
that
enough.

But nobody ever called me out of my name behind being seen with Pig. My name, it wasn’t one I put on myself. I don’t know exactly when people started calling me Viper, but it stuck. That’s a joke—if you don’t get it, you live somewhere else.

I earned that name. Move on me, and your next meal was going to be the steel-in-the stomach special.

One more year and they’d stop giving me ninety days in juvie. Or probation and all that counseling crap. I’d be old enough for the state pen. That’s where they all said I was going anyway.

My destiny, like.

I didn’t care about that. But I was glad I was so good with a blade. Plenty of bad guys who made their name behind being shooters didn’t last long behind bars. You don’t get to carry a Tec-9 in there, but you can always get your hands on a spike. Specially if you had a crew waiting on you.

If it wasn’t too bad out, I had plenty of other places to spend the night. Our clubhouse was one. I don’t mean some cute little shack guys built out in the woods, with a “No Girls Allowed” sign. Our clubhouse was a filthy basement … and it stayed filthy. Not because we wanted it that way—although some of the guys probably wouldn’t have cared—but it didn’t have lights or running water, so what could we do?

Girls were definitely allowed. Any girl who came down those steps knew what was waiting on her. And what came after that. It didn’t stop them. Some of them, anyway.

The building was going to get torn down one day. Most of it was already gone. But around here, we didn’t think about things like that.

Tomorrow things.

A number on a building, that might matter if you were looking for some house. But we all knew where we were going, so who gave a rat’s ass?

And once they put a number on your back, everyone would have the same address. In the winter, even trying to sleep under a pile of old rugs, the place was just too … ah, it was impossible. Bone-eating cold and junkies, too. They only came around when it was way below freezing. They weren’t afraid of anything we might do to them; they were past that. What scared them was the thought of anyone grabbing their stuff before they could fire up their pipes. Hardcore crackheads, they’re not scared of nothing. Nothing except losing the rock they just scored.

I could see how Pig got the way he was. If my mother fed me like that, I’d probably weigh three hundred pounds, too.

Pig’s mother, she’d make you eat. No matter how much you chowed down, she’d ask you fifty times if you had enough.

Pig didn’t have a father around. Most of us don’t. Some of us knew a name our mothers told us. Some actually knew a man who they could point to—even had his name on their birth certificate. But nobody had one like on TV. You know, one that lived with them and all.

A father like that, a guy who had a job, took care of his family, that was just crazy. Nobody who had all that would ever stay where we did. Everything was rotting wood and broken concrete. A place where you could have your application in for the projects your whole life, but they’d never call your name.

I don’t know how they’d do that, anyway. Nobody had telephones. Not in their houses, I mean. Everybody had a cell. You didn’t have a cell, how could you do business?

Pig lived on the far edge of our turf, just a couple of blocks away from a real nice neighborhood. One with little houses with lawns and all.

All those houses had burglar bars. And nasty dogs inside those bars, in case someone from where we lived wanted to visit.

We didn’t need that stuff—kids from those neighborhoods never wanted to visit us. Or maybe they did. I couldn’t read their minds. But if I was them, I knew I wouldn’t. I guess that was as close as I could ever get to thinking like they did.

I remember the first time I came to Pig’s house, how he kept telling me it would be okay. Every step we walked, it seemed he had to keep telling me that.

It was so cold that even the corner boys were inside someplace. Night, it would be different. No matter how cold, sellers would have to be there for the buyers. Didn’t matter if was dope or pussy.
You sign up for that gig, you better show up. I got plenty of offers, but I never took those jobs. I had plans for myself. Big plans. After I did my first bit, I mean. For what I wanted, you have to prove in, first. Show you can do time the right way. Come in alone, and stand up once you get there, put in some work. I’ve seen whores out in weather that kept the cop cars inside their garages. I knew why that was. I saw the way my mother acted, anytime she could get a man to come home with her.

That first time, Pig’s mother must have seen us coming—she had the door open before we even got to it.

“Mom, this is Viper. He’s my friend.”

Any other mother, you bring home a guy named Viper, she’s gonna ask a lot of questions. Pig’s mother didn’t ask a single one. Just put another plate out like I was going to be there for dinner. Or supper, or whatever they called it—I remember it was around four in the afternoon.

That night, she said I’d have to share a room with Pig. That’s when I found out his real name was Alexander. I put up a little fuss, but she said there was a spare bed, and plenty of blankets.

I never expected she’d do any more than let me sleep in the basement. That would have been fine with me—you don’t cop an attitude when someone does you a solid.

In the morning, she gave me fresh clothes. I don’t mean she washed mine; I’d slept in what I’d been wearing.

“These were my late husband’s,” she said. “Alexander’s father. He was about your size. Maybe a little bigger, but I’m sure they’ll fit.”

There was a winter coat that fit pretty good, too.