King's Blood: Vampire Descent (A Serial Novel, Part 4) (3 page)

“
Maybe you’re right. I might have been too trusting. I let my guard down,” I said, as I got up and walked to the glass door.

“
They’re wiping us out,” he said, in a morose tone.

“
The Chinese?” I asked.

“
No, everyone,” he said. “The world.”

“
I guess I missed the memo.”

“
Our time is up, we are headed toward extinction.”

I turned around and looked at him, raising my left eyebrow with skepticism. “Bold words, my friend.”

It’s not that I didn’t believe him, it’s just that such a heavy handed piece of information needed more corroborating evidence than the extraordinary claims of a vampire staring death in the eye.

I walked to the other end of the cube and slid my back down the glass wall. I rested my arms on top of my knees as I raised my head and briefly looked up at the blinding light. “So, now that we know we’re all headed toward the same fate as the dodo, can you at least give me your name?”

The man laid down on the floor. He used his left arm as a fleshy pillow and curled his legs. A small stream of blood ran down his forehead, which came from a gash he had on his scalp. He cleared his throat and revealed his mundane name, “Just call me Jon.”

“
Why are they doing this to you?”

“
That large man keeps coming in here to slice me up every single day—there is pure vengeance in his soul.”

“
Do you know that man?” I asked.

“
Not by name.”

“
His name is Havens Ling,” I said, with a slight chuckle. “Believe it or not, they told me he was a scientist.”

“
I want to destroy him, but I can’t,” he said, wincing in pain. “As soon as I regain my strength and my wounds begin to heal, the door opens and I immediately succumb to weakness.”

“
I’ve noticed that, too. There must be something they’re spraying or putting on us that saps our strength.”

“
When was the last time you had a drop of blood?” Jon asked.

“
A few days ago, why?”

“
I haven’t had a drop of blood in over two weeks. I’m changing. My skin is practically see-through.”

“
I can see...” Jon’s arm looked like a Thai rice paper roll. His veins and capillaries were all clearly visible.

“
I want to bite into everything I see, but I’m always weak—I thought they said if you didn’t feed, you became stronger, like a wild animal,” he said, as he gingerly sat upright.

“
That’s what I heard, but I’ve never put myself in that position, so I can’t confirm if it’s true or not.”

A loud clank echoed through the room as if someone unlocked a bank vault’s door. Jon’s eyes opened wide with panic and his breathing heaved in rapid succession. He huddled up into the corner of the cube. Moments later, Yi’s voice boomed into the glass cube through a small intercom in the center of the ceiling, which I earlier mistook as a breathing hole.

“Jack, have you made friends with Yao Han?”

I didn’t respond.

“I’m sorry your interview didn’t provide anything of value that would have granted you a little bit more freedom.”

“
Please, no more,” moaned Jon.

“
Yi, this is ridiculous. What do you want from us?” I said, my voice trembling with angst.

“
You are providing us with information that could give everyone the gift of immortality.”

I walked up to the glass door and squinted my eyes at the glare of the floodlights, trying to make out where Yi and the rest of the group were.

“How about politely asking us to cooperate?”

“
Would you attempt to cooperate with someone who could tear your neck in half with one bite?” Yi asked.

“
We’re not animals. Especially me. I’ve worked among you and lived among you for longer than you have been alive,” I said, hoping to gain some type of logical breakthrough with Yi.

“
Even the most docile vampire can snap. Look what you tried to do to Rebecca.”

“
Fuck that! I was just trying to escape. You’d have tried to do the same if you were in my position. Look what you’ve done to Jon.” I paused and pounded the glass with my fist. “You are sick, this whole operation is sick! I’ve earned the right to exist, to have rights!”

Jon had his eyes closed in the corner of the cube. His body was beaten to a pulp. His skin was full of open sores, his torso and legs purple and bruised. “Just end my life,” he pleaded in desperation. “Why must you continue to torture me?”

“To see how fast it takes you to heal. We’re not going to kill you, Jon...we know your threshold for pain is higher than that of humans.”

“
I beg to differ,” I quickly added.

A loud shrieking sound of static interference transmitted through the intercom, a familiar voice followed. “Jack, it’s me, Alan.”

“Alan, sure...” I said, sarcastically.

“
Look at yourself, you’re healthy as ever. You’ve healed from our initial experiment of dramatic exposure to the sun. I assure you, you will not end up like Jon. Jon is a wanted criminal, his treatment is punishment for his crimes.”

Jon got up from his cowered position and immediately stood up straight with surprising strength. “Crimes? How am I a criminal? I was abducted from my town in the middle of the night. I was minding my own business!” he yelled at Alan.

Yi interrupted Alan and retorted at Jon through the intercom, “Defiling corpses is a crime. You are sick in the head. Your perversions will no longer torment your fellow villagers.”

“
He’s a vampire in China! You expect him to go after living people?” I said. I quickly turned to Jon who was standing next to me and asked him in a quiet tone, “You haven’t bitten the living against their will, have you?”

Jon shook his head.

“You can’t treat us like monsters, we have rights, dammit!” I yelled emphatically.

“
We cannot continue to let your kind out into the general public until we know what you are all capable of,” Yi said, coughing briefly into the intercom. “This experimentation will let us determine whether or not it is safe to let you live among us.”

“
Look, I have someone who could vouch for me in the States. He’s a very well-respected advocate. He will tell you that I am not dangerous and that my kind just wants rights like every human on Earth,” I said.

“
Who? Can we have his name?” asked Yi.

“
I can’t tell you until I have some reassurance and freedom.”

“
Give me his name, Jack.”

“
No...”

“
Fine, Alan will instruct you on what to do next, we’ll just keep mining your laptop until we find out who he is.”

Guangzhou was not done digging up more information about my life. I suddenly became fearful of Ted and Holly’s safety and also worried that my correspondence with Samuel was possibly going to be exposed. Looking back, I should have kept my mouth shut. Yi did not want to be flexible with my attempts at cooperation, which led me to believe that there was more at stake for him and his organization than just keeping us out of general public and finding out more about us for the benefit of humans. Maybe Jon was correct, maybe there was a final solution in the works for our kind.

“Jack, would you please bite Jon’s neck?” politely asked Alan.

Jon closed his eyes and slouched in the corner of the cube, he bowed his head behind his knees in surrender.

“You’re kidding me, right?” I asked.

“
We need to see what the effects of a vampire biting another vampire are,” added Alan.

“
And if I refuse?”

Alan refused to give an answer. I faintly heard him ask Yi to address my question. Alan was too much of a coward to humanize me with a proper answer. Yi cleared his throat and said, “Jack, we don’t like threatening our test subjects around here. We are conducting experiments of value—you know, for the advancement of science.”

“Science my ass...” I snarked.

“
Fine, some people need negative reinforcement in order to comply with simple demands. Above you, there is another automated door that lets in sunlight; if you don’t bite Jon, you will receive copious amounts of light.”

I looked at Jon as he sat in the corner shivering and trembling with terror and pain. If he received sunlight, he probably wouldn’t survive another day. If I did bite him, I would be facing consequences that I had only heard of in theory.

I’d never bitten another vampire, nor been bitten by one. They say that the probability of becoming feral increases in the vampire doing the biting, while the vampire on the receiving end of the bite develops extreme paranoia, becomes isolated, and eventually resorts to suicide to mitigate the psychological impact of such an event. Getting bitten by your own kind is the deepest form of humiliation among our kind. Whatever decision I made, the prospect of Jon’s survivability did not look so good.

“
We need a response, Jack,” Yi commanded.

“
Fine,” I said. “I will do as you say.”

I leaned down and grabbed Jon from the throat with my right hand. His starved and bloodied body weighed very little as I lifted his limp body from the ground..

“Open your eyes,” I demanded.

Jon slowly opened his eyelids, revealing the eyes of a man who was no longer among the living. Without making a sound, I mouthed the words
bite me
straight into his eyes. He shook his head. I stared angrily into his eyes and mouthed my request again. As I leaned in closer to Jon’s neck, he opened his mouth and stabbed the left side of my neck with the swift-like reflexes of a king cobra’s strike. I immediately let go of Jon’s throat, staggering to the floor, while Jon remained attached to my neck.

“
Separate the two, now,” yelled Yi, into the intercom.

The floodlights vanished and the entire room the glass cube was in became illuminated with a sterile, fluorescent light. Havens Ling and two guards in black riot gear made their way into the cube. Havens grabbed Jon by his head, and placed one of his massive hands over Jon’s jowls, and squeezed them. Jon’s locked jaws opened wide, giving way to Havens’s ridiculous strength. Havens grabbed Jon by the throat and dragged him away from the glass cube. Jon’s face, neck, and chest were covered in my blood, a renewed energy seemed to fill his eyes, but I couldn’t determine whether it was due to sheer panic or energy gained from biting me. The two guards stood over me with shotguns as blood from my neck drizzled to the floor below.

Yi walked into the cube along with Alan. “Why did you let him bite you?” he asked, angrily.

“
To fuck up your plans,” I said, as I panted heavily on all fours.

“
Take him to isolation, now. Let this fucker bleed to death,” Yi dictated, his face twisted with anger and disgust.

Chapter Three

“Oh Jackie...
ooooooh
Jackie...
wakey, wakey
, the blood is flaky,” said a familiar voice.

“
Flaky?” I asked, as I woke up to Milton’s voice. Milton looked like a dapper 10–year-old boy; he had on a nice black suit and tie, his hair perfectly mussed. Other than his kimchee-laden breath, he also smelled rather pleasant with his choice of cologne.

“
It’s flaking off your shirt. Look...” Milton said, as he used his teeth-trimmed fingernails to flick off dried blood matter from my scrubs. “He took a tremendous bite out of you didn’t he? There is more than just blood on your shirt,
ewwww
...”

I immediately grabbed at my neck. The wound was nearly gone. Just a raised bump in its place.

“Where am I?” I asked, lifting my upper chest and head from the cold, concrete slab.

“
Don’t really know. It’s kind of cramped, to be honest.”

Flaked pieces of cheap plaster were strewn around the walls of the room. It had a temporary holding cell feel to it, with just a slab of raised concrete in the center.

“You need to get a hold of Holly and Ted for me,” I begged Milton.

“
Who’s Holly?” asked Milton.

“
She’s a good friend and she’s staying at the L’Dino, in the middle of Hong King,” I said, as I stood up in the empty dark cell. “They have my laptop and they might go after her to make me cooperate.”

“
I’m just a dream,” Milton said, as he shrugged his shoulders.

“
You’re not just dream, you know why?”

“
Why?” he asked, with a jester’s smile.

“
You knew about Havens. You knew about his tattoo. You knew about the other vampire.”