off, running down the hall. By then, what was left of the first one was debatable.
I looked to the girl. She watched the burning vampire, the light of his fire glittering in her eyes.
“Anna?” I asked again. She made no response for or against the name. “Look—” I began. I was pretty sure the apartment wouldn’t go up in flames, but she couldn’t stay chained here. I gestured with my free hand so she could watch me put the bottles back in my pocket. And then I reached out with my bruised hand, not for her, but for the pipe that she was chained to.
She lunged forward like a feral cat and bit my outstretched hand. I felt her grind her teeth together, scissoring through my flesh, one fang hitting bone. I screamed and fell to my knees. She stood above me, my blood smeared across her face, teeth latched into the crotch of my hand.
Chapter Six
I thought I might pass out from the pain. My vision was narrowing, and my breath came in gulps. My free hand found the full cologne bottle in my pocket—I could give her what I’d given them. Then I felt the photo I’d brought beside it. I had one choice, before she bit off my thumb.
“Stop!” I said, with the voice of nursing command, the voice that made it through even the densest skulls and thickest stupors.
“Anna!” I shouted, and I showed her the picture, the half-dollar-sized photo that may or may not have had her in it.
The chewing lessened. Slowly, almost regretfully, she unfastened her bite from my hand with a sickening pop.
“Thanks.” I took a moment to breathe, and stumbled to stand up, to get farther from the temptation of the floor. I was riding adrenaline and endorphins now, and maybe narcotic vampire saliva too. I’d get through, but for how long? I looked at my mangled hand like it was someone else’s, wound my scarf around it, and shoved it in my pocket. I needed to finish what I’d come to do.
The dwindling embers of the vampire behind us gave me enough light to work by. I popped the camera off its tripod, ejected its media, and tossed it onto the vampire’s dying flame. It went up in bitter smoke, and I pocketed the camera before turning to reach for the ridiculously ancient plumbing. Anna’d been too short and light to pull down the pole she was chained to herself, but I was healthy and tall—I reached for it with my unharmed hand and hauled down with all my weight.
The pipe crumbled in my hands. Flakes of rust showered down and some foul, puslike substance oozed out from its upper end. Anna saw the free end appear and ran for it, unlooping her chains and running away at full speed. She leaped over the embers of the first vampire’s corpse, off into the night.
Was that saving her? Did I rescue her, or set her loose? My pocket was heavy with the warm weight of my own blood. I fumbled for my cell phone, hit the history key, and redialed up a cab.
The same cabbie picked me up, despite his promise to the contrary. Funny how cash will do that to people.
“It was you or an ambulance,” I explained as I got inside. I didn’t think he could see the blood, as it was dark and my coat was black, but I would have bet all my remaining cash that he could smell it.
“This shit is why we do not come down here,” he said. He started driving uptown. I slumped against the passenger side window.
“Take me to County.”
“What?” He spared a glance at me. “I’m taking you to Providence General.”
“No, take me to my hospital.”
“County’s a shithole,” he said. I didn’t have the strength to argue, and besides, he was right.
I dialed Jake next, my brother. He picked up on the third ring.
“I knew you’d come around, Sissy—”
“Jake—you gotta meet me at County.”
There was a pause. I could almost hear him making up excuses. “It’s late.” The truth was he’d lose his bed at the shelter for the night if he left.
“You can crash at my place for a few days.” I flexed my bleeding hand, unwisely. Pain lanced up my arm and I hissed into the receiver. “I need someone to watch Minnie. Take a cab over, right now, I’ll pay.”
“You sure?” An unfamiliar worry tinged his voice.
“Yeah. Just hurry, okay?”
He’d already hung up.
I fought to stay awake as the cab flew along. We passed the exit for Providence, another freeway, up toward the nicer part of town. But my cabbie stayed the course, going south, until a blue HOSPITAL sign glowed outside the window, the cab’s headlights making its silver right-turn arrow into a shining command.
He pulled into the emergency drop-off, and came around to open the door for me. “Glad you lived, kid.”
“Me too.” I staggered up, standing on the curb in the cold. I paid him, then he was gone.
Only the fact that I was already standing kept me up. There were other people outside this late, well-bundled smokers leaning on IV poles, security officers making a perimeter sweep. I was safe in the umbrella of the drop- off’s light—safe from everything but my own stupidity. I could feel cold in my hand now, and I didn’t know if it was from the outside or internal. The narcotic effects of vampire spit were definitely wearing off. I stared up at the oddly clear sky, watching the barely waning full moon sail overhead, when I heard a double honk.
“Sissy!” Jake hollered, from the window of a cab.
I walked over as he got out. His pupils were wide and as he gestured I noticed his hands were spastic. My flaky Jakey, coming to the rescue. I’d have gone off on him, only it seems we’d both made bad choices recently. And really, the fact that he’d had his phone on him
“Ten thirty-five!”
“Sissy?” Jake asked. He was closer now; I hadn’t seen him leave the cab—I’d been staring at the cab’s fuzzy snake-eye dice instead—but now Jake was standing beside me. “Sissy, what happened?”
“Ten thirty-five!”
With my good hand, I turned over my keys and the cash I had left. Hopefully it was enough, I couldn’t do math right now. “Watch my cat. You can eat all my food. Whatever you do, do not let Minnie out.”
Jake nodded. After a second thought, or maybe a fourth, I handed him the small video camera. “Pawn this too.”
He nodded again, and walked back to the cab. Before he got in, he turned toward me, eyes wide and bright. “Sissy—what happened?”
“Don’t ask,” I said, and turned toward County. There was a pause, then I heard the cab door open and close solidly behind me.
I didn’t walk toward the emergency department’s doors, though they automatically slid open as I passed. I went for the County’s true doors, to the lobby that smelled like piss and diluted bleach in turns. I waved my badge at the guards and went into the depths of the hospital, up corridors and down stairwells, into an elevator that sank into the earth without seeming to move until it dinged and coughed me free. The final set of doors swung outward toward me, like welcoming arms, like one-way valves, like cilia moving mucus. Like mental impairment due to shock due to blood loss, I’d bet. I stumbled forward.
Meaty saw me first, as I held up my mutilated hand in response to his/her/its raised eyebrow.
“Room three. Now.”
Chapter Seven
