King's Blood: Vampire Descent (A Serial Novel, Part 4) (2 page)

“
Hmm...okay...” I said, calmly. “A primatologist, huh? Am I monkey?”

“
Well, biologically speaking, we’re all primates, so yes, we’re all kind of monkeys...well...apes, to be exact.”

“
I was joking. You know, I’m just too trusting. You’d think someone with my lifespan would have learned by now.”

Rebecca flashed another uncomfortable smile.

“Well, now I feel like an idiot for not researching both of you a little more thoroughly. I shouldn’t have trusted the written words of another man.”

“
Jack, I wouldn’t feel bad. These aren’t our real names either. You wouldn’t have found anything about us on the web.” Rebecca pressed the button on the top of the ballpoint pen and cleared her throat, “Let’s move on, shall we?” She then asked in a clinical tone, “Is
Jack King
really your name?” .

“
So far it is,” I responded.

Rebecca made a quick note on her yellow pad, making sure she didn’t make eye contact with me. It was obvious she was still mildly uncomfortable.

“Rebecca?” I asked.

“
Yes?” she said, still avoiding eye contact.

“
Can you please cover me with a sheet or something?”

“
Sure.” Rebecca got up and grabbed a bed sheet from a set of cabinets that were behind me. She unfolded the sheet and placed it over my naked body with gracefulness and care.

“
Thank you,” I said.

She grabbed the notepad she had left on her seat and proceeded to sit back down. She exhaled deeply and continued her questions, “How old are you?”

“Very old,” I said. My curtness agitated her, as she huffed a burst of air to get a strand of hair away from her face.

“
Jack, please. This is extremely difficult. Please work with me, and I promise I will do everything in my power to make sure you aren’t in this position for long.”

I closed my eyes and said, “I’m 145 years old and I have forgotten my true name.”

“
You don’t remember your real name...how can you not remember your own name?” she asked.

I continued to keep my eyes closed. “Every time I try to recall my name, I just see the blurry patterns of my parents’ faces...a field or a meadow...a stream? I don’t know...I don’t really remember my childhood—honest.”

“Interesting,” Rebecca said, as she continued to scribble on the notepad.

“
How can you work with these people?” I asked.

Rebecca squirmed in her seat, her eyes opened wide and she lightly shook her head, “I’m sorry. I didn’t sign up for this...I mean...I didn’t know they were going to make it so painful for you.”

“
Why did they cut my arm open?”

“
Alan...he wanted to see how your circulation worked...look, I’m sorry. I told them to sedate you...he didn’t want to.”

“
These people are sociopaths...”

“
Can we continue with the interview, please?” she asked, abruptly cutting me off. I rolled my head and faced the ceiling again. I had no other options, I had to continue working with Rebecca.

“
Where were you born?”

“
I don’t remember...it was in the States...that’s all I know.”

“
Do you not remember because it was such a long time ago, or do you just choose not to remember your early past?”

“
Honestly, everything just blends together after a while. I try to remember...I really do. Certain events trigger memories, I just haven’t found the right event that triggers memories of my childhood.”

Unfortunately, everything I had told Rebecca was true. I wish I could’ve told her more about my origins. I felt tempted to lie about my past but it might have slowed down whatever it was they were after or convoluted my situation even more.

“How often do you think about blood?”

“
I still have cravings, but I have control over them.”

“
Control? How do you go about having control?”

“
I have been a vampire for two human lifetimes. I wouldn’t have survived this long if all I wanted to do was to bite into every neck I saw.”

“
Good point,” Rebecca said, as she adjusted her frames and rested the tip of the pen on her upper lip. “Do you crave blood right now?”

“
Yeah, kinda.”

“
Could you elaborate?”

“
Well, for example, your neck. I could actually see the blood moving in your artery. Humans can’t. You have a magnificent current, a beautifully healthy, wondrous, sensual current, one that is ideal in replenishing even the most needy and starved vampire. If I wasn’t strapped to this table, you’d be my prey in less time that it takes a fly’s wings to flutter. You wouldn’t even know what hit you. All you would feel is this warm, airy fluid flowing down your neck, soaking every last fiber of that nice shirt you put on today.”

Rebecca pulled on her collar a bit. She stared at the lower half of my body, which was covered in a sheet. I began to bulge a little due to the questions and answers that helped me visualize a proper, carnal feeding. “Did I excite you?” I asked, playfully.

“No. You’ve kind of scared me, actually,” she said, raising her eyebrows in an uncomfortably spastic manner.

“
It’s a fine line between fear and arousal, you know?”

“
That’s sick and twisted, and you know that.”

“
Excitement is the common denominator, human behavior can be predictable, too,” I said, with an exaggerated smile, playfully revealing my fangs.

Rebecca began to slightly huff. My misogynistic side imagined it as arousal. However, in reality, she was probably scared. Fuck it, she deserved a little panic and fear. The bitch and all her cohorts had betrayed me and put me one step closer to death. I swear if I escaped, I’d burn this whole place down. I’d tear into every one these assholes’ necks and squeeze every ounce of blood from their soon-to-be listless bodies. I was not going to end up like that man in the glass cube in the corner of the room, fighting for every remaining second of his life. As soon I became free of these shackles, I’d muster every last bit of energy I had and entertain myself with a buffet of villainy.

“Are you going to work with me?” asked Rebecca.

“
For what? So I can end up like that poor bastard across the room?”

The pen and notebook in Rebecca’s hands began to tremble as soon as she noticed how enraged I was becoming as the questioning dragged along. The whites of my eyes began to redden. The muscle fibers in my arm and legs began to twitch to an orchestra of huffs, puffs, grunts and groans. I began sweating, my skin began to exhibit an oily sheen seen in the bodies of athletes during the peak of their performances. I angrily yanked my wrists and ankles away from the metallic table. I managed to break the iron twine that held down my left ankle, the cuff still encircled around my ankle, blood dripping from the sliced wound that was created out of the rawest form of survival instinct—self-mutilation for self-preservation.

Rebecca immediately got up and yelled toward the doorway, “Alan...Yi, we need sedation stat!”

Havens sprinted into the room ahead of the group. The small tables with medical supplies that rested in front of my table, flew through the air as Havens swiped at them with minimal effort. Within seconds of his entrance, he had pushed Rebecca out of the way and grabbed at my throat with his left hand, which I then immediately bit into. Havens’s roar echoed and reverberated throughout the cavernous room. He immediately began punching me squarely onto my forehead. I began kneeing Havens’s ribs with my freed leg.

I heard Yi yelling at Havens, “Let him go, we still need him healthy!”

Alan went up to Havens and began tugging at his torso, hoping to stop him from his assault. I noticed  Alan letting go of Havens for a second or two and opening up a vial of a red powdery substance. He emptied it all over me and the area around my table. The severe chest pain that I felt as soon as I entered the underground compound came back, like a ton of bricks landing squarely onto my sternum. My eyes began to burn, my muscles weakened immediately as I eased my jaws away from Havens’s hand. Havens laid into me with one last punch before I slipped into a semi-comatose state.

“Here, inject him with this,” Yi stated, as a female medical practitioner with a face mask hovered over my face, tapping a syringe.

I felt a small prick, my eyelids softened and I began to feel drowsy. Havens favored his left hand while giving me a bitter scowl. Rebecca looked completely stunned. Yi, Alan, and the rest of the staff just stood there, giving me cold, clinical stares. I closed my eyes one more time and slipped once again, into nothingness.

Chapter Two

A diseased wheeze with a bloody gurgle woke me up from my drug-induced slumber. My eyes opened to a ghastly and pathetic creature huddled in the corner of the glass cube. I was in the immediate vicinity with the vampire who was on the receiving end of Havens’s sadistic barbarism just moments before I was sedated once again. I slowly stood up and looked around the twenty-by-twenty cube, hoping to spot any hint of an exit. A single door was the only escape to the large concrete room on the outside. I looked to the tortured man and asked, “Are you well enough to help me bash this door down?”

The man carefully lifted his head. He grimaced, clutching his stomach before answering me. “I’ve tried, there’s no way out,” he mumbled, with a slight Chinese accent.

I paced the small space back and forth, desperately trying to come up with an exit strategy. There were floodlights up above the cube which obscured any visibility beyond fifty feet toward the other end of the room, deepening the feeling of isolation.

I adjusted the string on my waistline that kept my scrubs from falling down. It was a welcome inconvenience since it meant I was no longer nude. I crouched so I could converse with the man and attempt to console him; if he were human, he’d already be dead; his injuries were the worst I’d had ever seen on a semi-conscious being.

“What’s your name?” I asked, staring into the man’s defeated eyes. He was clearly hesitant in answering my question, probably due to mistrust, pain, or both. I broke the brief silence, “My name is Jack...you’ll heal yourself in no time. I know, because I’m like you.”

He gazed up at me and muttered, “You’re not like me.”

“How so? We share the same teeth, don’t we? We’re vampires,” I said.

“
You look too clean,” he said, while coughing up bloody sputum.

I hooked my lip with my finger, revealing my fangs to the man. “See?”

“I know you’re a vampire,” he said, letting out another wheezy cough. “But you’re a
Tonghua.”

“
A what?”

“
A
Tonghua
: someone who is undead on the inside and someone trying to be among the living on the outside.”

“
What do you mean? I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

“
Look at your fingernails, they’re perfectly manicured. Your hair looks expensively cut. Your skin looks moist—almost human.”

“
I take care of myself, nothing wrong with that.”

“
You refuse to live with your own kind,” he said.

“
How do you know? Plus, I can’t find my own kind. They’re all underground, away from civilization.”

He pulled his lips back in pain, he then let out a small, labored chuckle.

“It’s not funny. I’m always longing for the company of those who are like me.”

“
Is this how you ended up here? By searching for your kind?” he said, with sarcasm.

“
Not exactly. My job put me in this position.”

“
Your job?” he asked, as his voice grew more coarse.

I paused and didn’t say a word. He was right, I ended up in this torture chamber because I was too trusting of mortals.

“You have a job? Like a nine-to-five job?”

“
Well, more like 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., but yeah...a job,” I said.

“
How have you managed to conceal yourself all this time?”

“
Well for one, I don’t live in a country where every time you take a piss, someone’s watching you.”

“
Are you sure about that?” He paused. “American, right?”

“
Yeah.”

“
You’re so naïve,” he said, as his chuckles mixed in with his wheezing like a defective leaf blower.

It was getting more difficult trying to prove the man wrong. I kept trying to come up with excuses that would counter his assumptions that I was not as free as I thought I was. He slowly made me realize that I was playing the game of vampires versus mortals all along, but all I did differently was stave off the inevitable a little longer than most: Being imprisoned for who I was…
what I was.