Red Hook: 19

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Seth stood over Shane. "Hey, open your eyes." Shane didn't comply immediately, so he slapped her across the face. The blow was not powerful enough to break bones this time, though her forehead scraped against the strap.

"Is this especially bad?" Seth asked.

"I'm not dead yet," Shane gasped.

"Oh, give it up, princess. You don't die. We've established that pretty decisively. But there is no need for you to be totally miserable."

"There is a huge ass needle poking out of my stomach," she stated, matter-of-factly. "I'm hardly thrilled."

"That is called a trocar. It is in one of your veins and attached to a suction hose. I think so, at least. It was tricky, since they aren't intended for people who are still alive. Trocars need to be two inches up from and to inches to the right of your navel. My lovely mistress got that wrong the first time, she didn't understand it was right from her perspective and not yours. So sorry."

"Fine, there is a huge ass trocar-" she began.

"Actually, that is an average sized one. Even a bit on the puny side, I think. We aren't exactly experts at this yet."

That "yet" frightened Shane more than anything else she had heard so far.

"There is an average-to-small sized trocar sticking out of my stomach. There are a half dozen needles - no, I don't care if they have a special name - in my neck, arms, and legs. I have felt better."

"But worse too, right?" he persisted.

She was tight-lipped.

"You have felt worse then. Good. Can I get you anything?"

"You could let me go."

Seth laughed and Shane hated the echo of it. "No, we're keeping you. You are just about the best toy ever. Thing are going to change for us, all thanks to you."

He traced the suction hose that lead out of her stomach. The light was dim, but she could tell it continually drained her blood. She felt woozy the more she thought about the details of it, so she tried not to. She was cattle to them, a renewable food source. She focused her will on closing the wound in her stomach, pushing the needle out, but only succeeded in making it hurt more.

"So, who made who?" Shane asked when she noticed Seth sitting in the corner. He wasn't merely checking on her, he was guarding and would not be leaving. She fractionally preferred Seth to Ash, but it was like preferring a scourging to flaying.

"Excuse me?"

"Did Ashlei make you a vampire? Is that why you follow her?"

Seth laughed and again there was that echo. Wherever she was being kept was cavernous. The air felt cool and dry, smelling faintly of mildew. She must be in a basement of some sort, she figured. Given that they hadn't driven long, that gave her something to go on. Where in Red Hook would there be a huge basement? She struggled for something, some minute connection, but nothing would come. She was faintly aware that this haziness of thinking was unusual for her.

"I was a vampire years before my mistress. She was turned by my former mistress, Katrina, who made the fatal error of underestimating Ash's ingenuity."

"You don't care that Ash killed your girlfriend?" she asked, but only idly. She needed to gauge exactly how evil Seth could be to see if there was any mercy in him that she could exploit.

"Why should I mind? One woman is as good as another and Ash looks younger. When I was alive, I loved young women. In fact…" and he went on, describing acts of lust that were disgustingly graphic, but only because they were so human. Shane cringed inwardly, knowing that she, too, fit the category of immortal young woman with the added benefit that she would enjoy none of the pain he could inflict.

She had him talking and, she thought, she might be able to persuade him to divulge something useful to her, if nothing heartening. "Do you ever miss being human? Being able to be with women like me?" She kept her voice steady through all this, revolted at herself for using her limited sex appeal here but finding no other bait available to her.

"Oh, I could have had you if I wanted you. You aren't exactly in the position to refuse me and I did notice that no one has attempted this before. From what Ash tells me, your boyfriend is passably good in bed. I haven't had a virgin in a decade, but they are such a pain in the ass to train to respond properly."

I mustn't be sick, Shane thought. He knows I'm a virgin and that implies… oh god, I don't want to think what that implies. The fact was, Shane wasn't sure why she was still a virgin. She had ample chances with Eliot and a tacit understanding that, when she lost her innocence, it would be to him. She just hadn't gotten around to it yet, despite several dozen nights spent in his arms in a dearth of clothing. She would give it to him, as soon as she got out of this, intact and safe. In the back of her mind, she wondered if her virginity could restore as well as teeth.

Dryden could not persuade his companions to care enough to drive him to Roselyn's apartment. All that interested them was getting the machine back. "Why do you guys care about some stupid machine? You can make another one, right?"

"That's not the point. The Betsy should not be in just anyone's hands, especially not the hands of those who have it. They are the last ones who should be using it," Jo explained.

"But why?"

Wick interrupted. "What you do not understand is vast, dead thing. Joachim preserves a balance. Without his machine, the balance is disturbed for a short period until he creates another one. Even this disturbance could ripple out, meaning the needless deaths of dozens, maybe hundreds. Perhaps the creation of more dead things like yourself as our customers seek their needs elsewhere. This can be handled and the new ones can be… eliminated once everything is restored. The machine must be used conservatively, carefully. We cannot have them juicing half the population of this town, as that is certain to disrupt the balance. I would wager that your lover's roommate was the first to meet such an end. She won't be the last."

Jo nodded and said, "Being a vampire isn't cloaks and fangs anymore. This is a modern age, an age of machines. Back in the day, one person's death could nourish maybe two or three vampires, depending on the breed and the corpulence of the meal. Now, with The Betsy, one body feeds dozens. Vampire, zombies, and assorted others. It is efficient and clean. No mess, no bodies to be found, no new competition. It is commerce, not murder."

Dryden said he understood, but it was only because he didn't care. Roselyn was alive and safe, but proving this was the only goal on which he could focus. After begging and wheedling, Wick directed Dryden out to the car, where he had a cell phone in the glove compartment.

He ran out and dialed her home number, then hung up. What would he say to her? How could he explain this? "Hey, honey, glad to hear you aren't dead. I am though. Yeah, kind of sucks. Hey, could you pick me up now? Thanks, I love you too."

The actual conversation wasn't much different, though Roselyn seemed oddly sedate about his new status as a creature of darkness. She probably just assumed he was joking around about being a vampire, he thought. That pretty well explained it. All she asked was that he wait for her a few streets over, an order he complied with by not actually thinking about it.

He sat in front of the appointed house and dreamed of how good kissing her would feel with his heightened senses.

The phone ringing startled them. At first, they only stared at one another, as though daring one of the others to pick up the receiver. Finally, Eliot broke the tension. "It's your phone, Roselyn. Answer it."

"Right, of course. My phone," but she didn't stop looking at Noah and he didn't stop looking at her. Eliot felt irrationally like the third wheel on a date.

She was taciturn, saying only the bare minimum to communicate. Eliot didn't think Noah noticed it, but he hadn't been in an adjoining room as Roselyn fairly drooled into the receiver while talking to her boyfriend. She was many things, but succinct was never among them.

The two men looked on expectantly as she hung up. She quickly gave in and said, "Dryden. My boyfriend. He needs us to get him."

Noah did not look convinced. "Don't we have more important issues at hand than ferrying around your boyfriend?"

Using only her urgent eyes, Roselyn begged Eliot to intervene. "No, she's right. We need all the backup we can get and if anyone knows about vampires - present company excluded - it's Dryden."

They returned to Noah's beaten car and, to Eliot's surprise, Roselyn piled into the back seat with him.

"Where to?" Noah asked.

Roselyn gave him the address and he coughed. "Strange place to be," but he said nothing more about it.

Noah turned the engine and the car growled to life. As it did, Roselyn leaned into Eliot and, her full lips only a fraction of an inch from his ear, whispered what else Dryden had told her. "Don't let Noah know, please."