The Vampire Files, Volume Five, page 45
part #11 of The Vampire Files Series
“Seen what?”
“Mr. Fleming?” This from a doctor. He looked—I didn’t want him to look like that.
“Yeah, what’s going on?”
I didn’t want him to say what he said: his words came out in a low sympathetic tone, words that said my friend was dying.
The words washed past. I just stood there. It was someone else doing the listening. Some other guy was going through this, not me.
“Can’t you do anything?” Bobbi asked the doctor.
“We’re doing what we can.”
“But he was fine earlier.”
“I’m afraid septicemia can work very fast. Once an infection’s passed into the bloodstream…” He went on, not pulling punches. The odds were against Escott. Six out of ten people died from blood poisoning, died quick and ugly. I grabbed at the hope that he might get lucky and be among those who threw it off and recovered.
They finally allowed me in to see him.
One look.
I knew he wouldn’t make it.
But I wasn’t a doctor. I could be wrong, desperately wanted to be wrong. I found myself in a chair by the bedside, looking at Escott’s face. His skin had a blue cast; he was sheeted with sweat yet shivering, jaw clenched, his breath coming fast and shallow, eyes sealed shut. He didn’t react when I said his name. I got a whiff of his sweat when I spoke, and that took me back twenty years to some nameless hospital in France where young men who had survived gas and bullets and shelling and disease succumbed to infections just like this one.
The stink was the same, exactly the same. My friends had died then, and my friend was dying now.
I’d put him here. I’d killed him.
Bobbi slipped up next to me. “He’s going to be all right, Jack.”
“They’re gonna do something?” Maybe they had better medicine now. Twenty years was a good long time. Someone must have figured out how to cure this.
She made no answer.
“We just need get his fever down,” said Coldfield, who seemed to be talking to himself. He’d come in to stand on the other side of the bed. His sister was a nurse; he might know more. But all he did was put a damp cloth on Escott’s forehead. “We need some ice in here, that’s all. A little ice.”
The doctor was out in the hall talking to Kroun. I didn’t bother listening. Only one nurse remained; the others had vanished. The old janitor from earlier worked his way slowly past, pushing his mop around an already clean floor.
“Some ice, please?” Coldfield said, his voice mild. He used another cloth to dab at Escott’s face and neck.
The nurse nodded and left, not hurrying, and she should have. If Escott had had any kind of chance, she’d have moved faster.
Eventually she returned with a bowl of ice and a full ice bag. Coldfield took them both and thanked her. She backed off to stand by the door.
It was my fault. I did this.
Coldfield shot me a murderous look, and that was when I realized I’d spoken out loud. “You’re goddamn right on that,” he whispered. “And you know what’s going to happen next.”
Coldfield would kill me.
I didn’t care.
“Stop. Both of you,” said Bobbi. Her fingers dug into my shoulder. She was trying to keep her balance. Tears spilled steadily from her eyes. She couldn’t have been able to see through them.
I got up and made her sit. She gently took Escott’s near hand and bowed over it, bowed until her cheek lay on it, her face turned away from me.
That smell again, the rapid rasp of his breath, his shivering—he wasn’t going to wake up. They wouldn’t even try to wake him. Better that he just slip away in his sleep, that was what they’d say.
The room went blurry.
My hands closed hard on the cold, white-painted iron of the bedstead, and I held tight to keep on my feet. Something was wrong with my knees; I couldn’t feel them or anything else except the nausea slithering in my gut. A knot of it clogged my throat, high enough to choke on, but too low to swallow.
I couldn’t take this. I couldn’t stay here and watch.
But I’d have to. Somehow.
He’d stay for me.
6
AS the night crept by, the nurse periodically checked Escott, making notes on a clipboard for whatever good that would do. Coldfield kept up with the compresses. The doctor came again, but didn’t have anything new to say, just looked tired.
Escott got worse, sinking as we stood by. The sound of his fast, shallow breathing filled the little room. It was the only sound in the world. I hated it, and I didn’t want it to stop.
I thought about calling Vivian Gladwell. Escott hadn’t wanted her to know he was in the hospital. Would he want her here now? Would it help? I couldn’t work it out, couldn’t decide, couldn’t do anything.
Faustine came in. Gordy’s man had gone off, maybe to get her. She’d shed the reporters. I hardly noticed when she hugged me, then moved on to speak to Bobbi. Couldn’t hear what she said, but after a minute the two of them left. Bobbi held herself together until they were in the hall. Soon as she was out of my sight, she broke down sobbing. I went to the door. Bobbi wept and clung hard to Faustine, who slowly took her toward Roland’s room, speaking in Russian. The words didn’t matter; the soft, caring tone in them did.
Kroun was still out there holding up the wall, hat in hand, overcoat draped over one arm. He watched Bobbi, frowning.
“Hitting her pretty hard,” he observed. “Must really like him.”
“They’re close friends, yeah.”
“Friends with a dame. How ’bout that?”
I’d heard him say it before. “It can happen. Like me and Adelle Taylor.”
The mention of her name caused Kroun to crack a brief, pleased smile. When it came to Adelle, he was starstruck. “She’s friends with your pal in there?”
“Yeah. She is. Listen, you don’t have to stay.”
He shrugged. “When you gonna do something?”
I shook my head. “They can’t do anything.”
“Yeah, I got that from the doc. What about you?”
“I can’t—I…what?”
“Give him some blood.”
Must have misheard him. “What?”
“You know what I mean.”
I did. I’d thought of it. A lot. But I couldn’t decide; I just didn’t know what Escott would want. “It might not work. He might not change. It hardly ever—”
Kroun gave me an odd look, then went in the room. The nurse was writing a new entry on the clipboard. He walked around her to the bedside. Coldfield straightened to glare first at him then me.
“He looks like hell,” said Kroun, his attention on Escott. “Why haven’t you done anything yet?” This was directed my way. He dropped his coat and hat on the chair.
“Done what?” Coldfield rumbled.
“He wants me to do an exchange on Charles.” There was only so much I could say with the nurse present. I closed the door to keep things private.
“An exchange?”
“The kind that made me…like I am.”
“Like you?” That shook him. “He knows?” Coldfield straightened to face Kroun.
“Yeah. He’s in the same club.”
“What?”
“Hey!” Kroun hadn’t wanted that news spread.
“What’s it matter?” I said.
Coldfield pointed at Kroun. “He’s like you?”
“That a problem?” Kroun asked.
“I donno yet.”
“An exchange,” I said again with enough emphasis so the meaning was clear. “You know Charles best, what would he want?”
Coldfield visibly fought to focus. He must have gotten details from Escott at some time or other about how vampires are made. I take in blood, let it work through me, then give it back again. After death, Escott might return, but it rarely worked, or there’d be a lot more vampires in the world. He might not come back as I had done. “It would make him like you?”
“It probably won’t work. Long odds, Shoe. Real long. Against.”
It was a lot to take in, a lot to think about. He looked at Escott, then at me.
“What would Charles want?” I asked.
“To live, goddammit! What the hell you waiting for?”
“I can try, but you’ve got to understand that—”
“Cripes,” said Kroun, disgusted. “Stop wasting time and just give him blood before it’s too late.”
The nurse had picked up that something out of the ordinary was afoot. “A transfusion?” she said.
“Yeah, sweetheart, one of those.”
“Let me get the doctor.” She sidled toward the door.
“Ahhh, cripes.” Kroun slipped his suit coat off and unbuttoned one shirt cuff, rolling it up.
“Sir, you can’t just—”
He ignored her. The tumbler with its glass straw was still on the bedside table. He took the straw and snapped it in half, then dumped the leftover water on the floor and put the tumbler back but nearer the edge.
“Sir? What are…stop!” Her voice shot up.
Kroun let out a few ripe words as he swiped the jagged end of the straw hard across his exposed wrist. Blood suddenly flooded out. He held his wrist over the glass to catch the flow.
We stood rooted—me, Coldfield, and the nurse—too shocked to move or speak while Kroun freely bled.
He grimaced and cursed some more and finally grabbed up a discarded compress. Shaking it open he wrapped it tight on the cut. The bloodsmell hit me hard.
“Gabe…?”
“Not now.” Kroun tapped Escott’s face with the back of his hand. “Hey. Hey, pal. Wake up. Come on!” He hit harder, once, twice, and Escott’s eyelids fluttered. He made a protesting moan. He wasn’t awake, but could respond a little. Kroun held the glass to Escott’s lips and tilted it.
The nurse screamed and surged forward. I caught her and kept her back. I didn’t see what good this might do, but Kroun seemed to know his business.
“Come on…drink up, pal,” he murmured. “That’s it.”
Some of the blood trickled down one side of Escott’s mouth. The rest made it in past his clenched teeth.
Coldfield gaped at me, out of his depth. I shook my head.
The nurse got to be too much of a struggling handful, so I swung her toward the door. She pushed it violently open and kept going, shouting for help.
“Gabe?”
“He got most of it,” said Kroun, putting the glass on the table. “Didn’t choke.” He went into the washroom. He twisted the sink spigot and carefully undid the cloth, holding his cut under the stream of water. “Damn, that stings.”
He’d heal quick enough, but Escott…
Bobbi rushed in. “Jack?” She froze, seeing the blood that smeared Escott’s face and pillow. “My God, what are you DOING?”
The doctor, arriving with what seemed like half the hospital, asked the same thing and almost as loudly. While he checked Escott, he also instructed several heavyweight orderlies to escort us from the building. Things might have devolved to a fight, but Kroun caught the doctor’s eye for a moment. I was too busy to hear, but the eviction was abruptly canceled, and the orderlies and everyone else were kicked out of the room instead. Confused, they hung close, peering in with other bystanders attracted by the commotion.
I shut the door on them, leaving me, Bobbi, Coldfield, and Kroun inside with the oblivious, hypnotically whammied doctor.
Kroun sat the man down and told him to take a catnap. Things fell quiet except for the fast, labored saw of Escott’s breathing. He was fully out again.
Bobbi started up. “What did you do to Charles?” She’d aimed both barrels in my direction.
“It was me,” Kroun muttered. “Just trying to help.” His bleeding had stopped, leaving a hell of a red welt on his wrist. He frowned at it.
She put that together with the blood on Escott. “How? How does that help?”
He didn’t answer, just shook his sleeve down, buttoning the cuff.
I stumbled out with a half-assed account of what he’d done.
Bobbi looked at Escott, then at us. “Will it help him?”
Kroun shrugged. “Maybe. Left it late. Have to wait and see.”
“Jack, will this turn Charles into—”
“I don’t know. Gabe?”
He shrugged again, pulled on his coat, buttoned it, checked his handkerchief. If he started fiddling with it again, I’d knock his block off.
“C’mon…talk to us. How did you know to do that? I never heard of it.”
“Well, it’s a big world, you learn something new every day.”
“Not something like this!”
“Hey! Sickroom! Pipe down!” Hat on, he slung his overcoat over his good arm and started for the door.
“You gotta talk, dammit.”
He paused, back to us, head half-turned, considering. Then, “No. I don’t.”
He went out.
“Son of a bitch,” rumbled Coldfield. “The son of a bitch is crazy as a bedbug.”
“You’re all crazy,” said Bobbi. She went to Escott, found a clean, damp cloth, and dabbed at the blood. It took her a while; her tears were back.
I went to her, but she didn’t want to be held.
Someone ventured to open the door. It was Faustine.
“Things go-ink how?” she asked, gently easing inside. A damn good question. “Bob-beee, poor da’link. You let me help, yesss?”
“I’ll be all right, I need to stay.”
Faustine looked hard at the doctor, who was still out for the count. “Zen I find coffee. Yesss?”
No one turned her down. She swept out. I heard her dealing with the crowd in the hall, telling them to leave, all was well, all was fine. I recognized the nurse’s voice raised in challenge, but Faustine wouldn’t let her by and kept asking about coffee.
HOURS of hell later I went looking for Kroun.
He was in a dark waiting room at the far end of the hall, feet up, nose in a magazine. The glowing spill from the corridor was more than enough for our kind to read by, but it looked odd. I turned the light on.
He squinted. “Ow. Too bright.”
“Too bad.”
“How’s your friend?”
It was hard to speak. Almost too hard. I had to swallow, and my mouth was cotton dry. “His…his fever’s down. He’s breathing better.”
“That’s good.”
“Is he going to need a second dose?”
“Nope.” Kroun turned a page.
“The doctor woke up.”
“He remember much?”
“Not a lot.”
“That’s good, too.”
“He checked Charles out, took a blood sample, did some other stuff. The infection’s…Charles seems to be throwing it off. The doc said it’s a goddamn miracle.”
Kroun shrugged. “Maybe it is. Thanks for telling your big friend about me. Next time use a megaphone.”
“He had to know.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Coldfield won’t say anything. Who’d believe him?”
“That’s not the point—”
“Where’d you learn that angle on the blood? Who told you?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He continued to read.
“The hell it does. The one who made me didn’t know, and neither did the one who made her. Who did your initiation?”
“Drop it, kid.”
Was he ashamed? Granted, such things could get embarrassing. “You don’t have to go into detail.”
“I’m not going into it at all.”
“Where’d you meet her? When?”
“You deaf? I’m not—”
“Or was it a man?”
That netted me a beaut of a “what the hell did you just say?” expression.
It lasted about two seconds.
I blinked at dark green linoleum, disoriented. I was facedown on the floor with no understanding of how I’d gotten there. My jaw hurt and hurt bad. I tried moving it, and some dim insight—along with a sudden burst of agony and the taste of my own blood—told me it was broken. Shattered maybe. In several places. The rest of me wanted to vanish, and I didn’t fight the urge.
When I resumed solidity, everything was in working order again, though I still drew a blank on what had happened. I found my feet, taking it slow.
Kroun sat in his chair as before, but leaning forward, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand. They were raw and red. His expression was calm. “Are you anywhere near the point of backing off, or do you want your face rearranged more permanently?”
I stared at him, wiping leftover blood from my mouth with the back of one hand.
“Well?”
“I’m thinking.”
He snorted and picked the magazine up from the floor. “And the man said I was crazy. I heard him.” He flipped pages filled with pictures about hunting and fishing. “I need to get out of this town.”
“Thought you still had business.”
“I do. Tomorrow night. Till then, I got nothing else.”
“No need to hang around here.”
“Some babysitter you are. Forget about Michael and Broder already?”
“You could say.”
“Word of warning: don’t. Mike looks nice, but he isn’t. Broder looks dangerous, and he is.”
I’d figured that out already; Kroun just wanted a change of subject. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Smart boy. I’ll need a ride tomorrow night.”
“No problem.” I could guess that it had to do with those cigars. It seemed a good idea to not try any more questions. I’d goaded him enough for one night. “Lemme tie things up here then we’ll go. Thank you.”
“Mm?”
“Thanks for what you did for Charles. I owe you.”
He grunted again and found a page to read.
BOBBI looked up when I came in. She smiled—a small, sleepy one—but my world tilted another notch back toward its proper place once more. I could deal with anything so long as she smiled like that.
“Faustine’s left?” I asked.
“She’s bunking in Roland’s room,” she said. “If there’s more excitement she doesn’t want to miss it. You got more waiting in the wings?”
“Not that I know of.”
I checked Escott over again for the umpteenth time, looking for changes. His heartbeat was strong and steady, no longer racing fit to tear itself apart.
