Sucks to Suck – Chapter 10

Buzzing. Flickering. The long white lamps filled the room with uncomfortable luminosity and bathed each corner of the morgue in unforgiving even brightness. Her eyes scanned the body on the metallic drawer pulled from the wall, and then went back to the coroner standing there. The corpse had been painted in the subtle palette of exsanguination, while the mortician had been discoloured by fear. Both were shades of pale, but with a rich difference between them. Skye's gloved black hand moved over the body. Male, mid-thirties, slight belly but not entirely out of shape; no doubt had held a sitting job for the better part of the last decade given where the fat had accumulated. She wished she had gotten to the body sooner, there was much more that the scents present on it could’ve revealed before it was washed in ether and any hint of its whereabouts was drowned by the chemical bath. She could see the Y-shaped cut from the autopsy, sewn shut by black stitches, and the tattoo on the left arm. She brought the glove to her mouth and pulled it up with her teeth, to use her thumb and index to feel the insides of the corpse’s hands. No callouses, soft when all things were considered. That didn’t speak much about what he had done in life but allowed her to rule out some things.

“No identification on him,” Skye said, in a tone that wasn’t a question but still compelled a response.

“None, uh… Ma’am.”

She turned her eyes to the short mortician with her thick-framed tortoiseshell glasses and her dishevelled brown hair. The coroner’s kin feared death and any reminder of it; to work in that place was effectively a social exile. A self-imposed one, at that. Had she been rejected by her kin, or had she turned her back on them? Skye tucked her glove into her trench coat's pocket and took a step towards the coroner. She could see that there was something besides fear in the woman’s eyes as she looked upon her. Fascination, she recognized it. Skye spared another look at the bloodless body left on the table, and she frowned at the only visible wounds on the body; a series of puncture wounds that lined perfectly along its throat, in the shape and size expected of a human’s mouth, but with four rounder, deeper perforations. It was the signature of her kin, but its presence there raised more questions than it did answers.

Skye turned back to the enthralled mortal standing now a step away from her, and she closed that distance to be half a step, brushing the woman’s hair aside to expose her neck, and with the back of her gloveless hand, she let her marble white digits dangle across the throbbing vein on the coroner’s neck.

“Tell it to me,” Skye asked with her raspy voice sounding just a breath louder than a whisper.

“T-tell you what?”

“The story we wrote together; tell it to me.”

She felt the woman shiver and Skye reached down to stop caressing her neck, to slide her fingers across the terrified woman’s lab coat, until she held her wrist. She raised it and, as if seeking to show reciprocation, allowed her to caress the pale skin of her neck and chin. Skye felt the warm, soft mortal fingers and they didn’t merely brush as she moved them, but they moved themselves too, seeking to feel her.

“Heart attack, body was reclaimed by family,” she repeated the highlights.

“A grieving mother bawling in tears,” Skye added without any emotional inflexion in her gravelly voice, “took him away. Nothing for anyone to look at until someone comes for it. You’ll know them to have been sent by me when you see the seal.”

“Y-yes, of course… I…”

“Shush… Enough.” Skye released the woman’s wrist but her hand remained on Skye’s face; the tall vampire’s other hand, still gloved, placed a single finger in front of the other woman’s lips. “I know you understand now.”

“Yes, I d-do…”

As her hand remained on Skye’s chin, the vampire nuzzled against the woman’s wrist and she slowly pulled off the sleeves of the lab coat and the sweater underneath, pushing her nose against her skin and inhaling. Chemicals, ether, death. A tragically beautiful bouquet. The woman’s eyes remained fixed on her, unable to look away or run, like a mesmerized field mouse gazing upon the hypnotic patterns of a hungry snake. Skye opened her mouth to kiss the wrist, and then the wet snap echoed across the silent room, over the buzzing of the fluorescent lamps. The sound was so abrupt, the mortician gasped startled, but while she brought a hand to her heart, she didn’t move.

“What do they call you, little mouse?”

“F-Felicia…”

“I’m Skye,” the vampire said, “and it has been my pleasure.”

The fangs sunk into Felicia’s wrist and she squealed in pain. Her cry echoed around the morgue, bouncing off the metallic wall where drawers holding deadly remains were and the tables where the dead were ritually cut, measured, and evaluated, while the morticians recited their death lamentations to a recorder. And then Felicia’s cry was muffled by herself, closing her mouth. She squeezed her thighs and the hand on her chest grabbed at her own lab coat as she squirmed. When her mouth parted again, she moaned. And Skye tasted the transition of pain to pleasure as the warm blood flowed from her wrist and into her tongue, feeding her not just Felicia’s vitality, but her warmth, her fascination. And soon, her devotion.

Skye pulled away from the wound, licking the last few droplets of blood pooling over the skin before she performed the sealing. Holding her tongue against the wound, she felt the ferrous taste of blood and the trembling on the skin as it sealed closed. When she pulled free from Felicia’s wrist, the woman seemed like she could collapse, so Skye placed her hand beneath her neck and held her, to gently carry her half a step over to the chair with small wheels by the desk.

“You will need rest come the morrow,” Skye informed her.

“I… What…”

Felicia raised her wrist and adjusted her glasses, reluctant to accept that there was no visible wound there. Skye used her thumb to wipe the blood from her lips and delicately cleared the padding with a soft kiss.

“Do not be consumed by worry, you’ll mend like your skin did,” Skye promised before capturing Felicia’s head in her hands. “But make no mistake… You’re no longer your own woman.”

“I’m… Not…?”

Skye's lips curled only slightly, showing a small hint of a smile. Felicia might have no way to know how rare that sight was, but she was still riding the afterglow of the Kiss, and her body likely felt limp as if she had just experienced the littlest of deaths. She looked with eyes full of expectation towards Skye, hanging on her silence and wanting – no, aching – for her next word.

“Mine.”

There was no dispute to the statement, only a sigh of acknowledgement and bliss from Felicia. Skye pulled the sharp stiletto knife from the deep pocket of her trench coat. She could use her fangs for that purpose, but she had rituals, and she was fond of them. The long, spike-like triangular blade ended in an intimidatingly sharp point, which she held in front of Felicia’s eyes, before pressing the padding of her own thumb into the blade. Skye’s blood welled into a single drop and she sheathed the blade, to hold that drop in front of Felicia’s face. The coroner’s mouth opened slightly, expecting what was to happen next. Her body was fresh from the Kiss, it knew what to do even if Felicia herself didn’t.

“Say it,” Skye demanded.

“Yours,” Felicia obeyed, and how could she not?

Skye rewarded her pet by soothing the hunger she had inside her now, that new appetite which went unnamed but ought to be growing inside her since the fangs broke her skin. She placed her bloody thumb into the woman’s mouth and watch her lips seal around it and felt the suction, before her neck pulsed with the swallowing motion and Skye pulled her digit free, to seal the wound with her tongue as she had done with Felicia’s.

And then the blood kicked in. Felicia’s thighs squeezed again and her hands went to the seat of the chair, to grip tight around it as she tossed her head back. Her hips bucked slightly and she bit her own lips, as her whole body contracted and then relaxed. She was breathing fast out of her nose, and when she opened her eyes and turned to Skye, her pupils were dilated and her eyes moved in twitchy, fast motions.

“I… I…” Her attempts to formulate coherent speech were brave but futile.

“An ephemeral bliss, I fear. But one of many, as long as you remain mine.”

Felicia nodded, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. Not all mortals took so fast or so intensely to the Bond. She wondered if Felicia’s solitude made her so predisposed that there wasn’t a slight hint of resistance. Or perhaps there never was? Perhaps she would’ve followed Skye’s commands without the blood? Well, pointless to wonder about it after the fact, and she had a hunt to finish.

“I’ll take my leave now. Make sure no one else sees this body, and if any like it appears again, warn me first.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Skye’s footsteps made no sound even in the quiet space of the morgue as she walked away, her boots touching the ground without effect. All one could hear was Felicia’s laboured breathing and the buzzing of the flickering lights above. And as Skye felt the mortal blood coursing through her veins, she took a more purposeful step, and the world around her suddenly seemed to grow darker, and the colours inverted. If Felicia's eyes were still on her, she would’ve seen her disappear into thin air, but in truth, Skye was still there, just behind the curtain. The morgue’s door opened and closed seemingly on its own as she left, and began to walk across the green and white corridors of the hospital underground.

She had an informant in every major hospital in the city. How could she not when she worked for the Prince? A loyal Sheriff should have ears and eyes everywhere. When she heard about the exsanguinated cadaver, she felt a knot in her swan neck. The presence of a body could prove that Ronan was right, and if Ronan was right, the throne of Seattle would rest on shifting sands. She could go back to her Prince immediately with it, but if she did, she would be just like any other enforcer, eager for praise and short of results. No, she would not disturb her sovereign; not until she had proper answers. And she had one more clue to check out. Fortunately, in that very hospital as well.

An inconsistency in the registry of a blood drive, between the number of bags collected and the number of bags stored. A clerical error perhaps. Or spillage. There were many reasons why that might not warrant closer scrutiny, but one very compelling reason why it may.

The bloodless body had been found in the neighbourhood of that hospital, and that couldn’t be a coincidence. Skye had lived too long and seen too much to believe in coincidences like that. Fortunately, her informant had more than just the discrepancy in numbers. He had a name of a janitor working at the hospital, which would regularly slip a few bills into the pocket of blood drive workers and nurses. And that was who Skye needed to see next.

Walking unseen consumed her energy, and she would not linger in that form for long, so she made it out of the hospital through one of the service exits, and moved around the tarp-covered area where emergency vehicles could circulate, to bring patients into the emergency room towards the back. At the late hour, there was no one but an old security guard patrolling the outside, and slipping out of her concealment, she was still able to move past him undetected, thanks to her second gift. Her feet would touch the ground, but the only sound she made was the fluttering of her trench coat behind her, and that was easily drowned by the city. Walking past the two large vehicle entrances, she spotted a small staff-only door, right before the ramp leading back into the streets, and she knew that was the right place. Pushing it open she found herself in a corridor, the walls covered in tiles of pale green-teal on their lower half, and white above it. The lights there were bright and unpleasant, and they flickered too just like in the morgue. She listened to the buzzing, there were other sounds caught in her sharp senses, distant voices coming from the room to her right, seemingly from some device or another given the shrill and flat quality to them. And from the door immediately in front, she heard footsteps and babbles of a dozen people. She inhaled the scent of cleaning chemicals, fatigues, human sweat and cheap processed food. And then the door to her right opened, and a man walked out of it, holding a steaming aberration that reminded her of gyro, though a far cry from it. He was wearing a dark knit wool cap to hold his curly brown hair and an open black hoodie over the green fatigues of the janitorial uniform. She couldn’t read the nametag from there but she didn’t need to do it to know that was who she was looking for.

Skye walked slowly, and even without suppressing the sound of her footsteps, she still walked silently, her boots barely audible as they touched the floor. A few of her bloodline would eschew the proper ways of stealth and rely solely on the gifts of blood, and those didn’t live long. Skye, however, had survived much, and she knew of the fickle nature of such gifts. An overused knife got its blade dulled. And she wanted her edges razor sharp.

The young man entered the maintenance closet to her left and by the time her long legs got her there, she pushed the door open slowly, to find him sitting down on an upside-down cleaning bucket, his phone leaning on a plastic support to serve as a screen as it began to display some loud animation with an upbeat music playing. He took a bite of his hideously deformed gyro, and the smell of beef, processed sauces and spices filled the small room quickly. But she could still smell him, the human, underneath it all. She allowed the door to close behind her, and as the janitor continued unaware of her presence, she moved her hand to the lock. There were no locks to close it from the inside, but on the shelves, she spotted a black and yellow striped wedge designed to hold doors open across the hospital when needed. Fortunately, it could be used for the opposite purpose too. She dropped it on the floor, the noise alerting him to her presence but she ignored his surprised reaction to use the heel of her boot to shove the wedge under the door. Nobody would be able to open the closet door from the outside now.

“David, I presume?”

His eyes went wide with fear and something else. Fascination as well? If it was so, it was much less flattering than the one found in Felicia’s eyes. Maybe it was just awe. She knew she could be a formidable sight. Skye took three steps and, given her height, that was enough to close the gap between them.

“Answer,” she demanded, dryly.

“Y-yeah… I’m Dave. Who… Who are you?”

“That’s immaterial for our purpose here tonight,” she said.

His eyes darted to his phone, still playing his loud animation, and she grabbed the device. She had the basic knowledge of how to operate those, and so she locked it and placed it back on the shelf, but far away enough that this David couldn’t reach it without going through her, something she could tell he would not dare do.

“H-hey, that’s my phone…”

“I reckoned as much. You shan’t be needing it for the next few minutes.”

‘Dave’ seemed to dislike her practical approach, sighing and shaking his head. She wasn’t sure what about his reaction to her did not sit right, but she had learned to trust her instincts and they were telling her there was something amiss about it. She just couldn’t put her alabaster finger on it. He stood up and took another bite of his food, chewing it slowly before swallowing and then asking in a calmer voice than she expected:

“Fine, what do you want, mysterious lady?”

“I will accept that title,” she said with no emotional inflexion, “are you the one that deals in blood?”

“Deals in blood? Like, if I’m a hitman? No, ma’am.”

He was quickly growing relaxed from the initial fright of her presence, and that wasn’t necessarily good. Fear made questioning happen quicker, but she wasn’t going to intimidate him unless it became necessary, she reckoned.

“I believe you jest, and I assure you my purpose here has no room for humour.”

“I mean, I was only sorta kidding. How do I know you’re not a cop? Are you wearing a wire?”

The question was a fair one. After all, his activity would be illegal by the law of the land too, and she knew the police to use tactics such as passing as a customer to arrest criminals. She shook her head slowly.

“I am not one of them,”

“I know, I know.” Dave smiled, nearly laughing. “I mean, obviously, vampires can’t be cops… I don’t think, at least.”

Skye wasn’t used to being caught on her backfoot but Dave’s casual usage of the word vampire there was full of certainty and empty of terror. Not only was he aware of her kin, but sufficiently comfortable around it. That was odd, but not unexplainable. She assumed that the one buying blood from Dave and making corpses had hidden their identity and reasons from their suppliers, but perhaps not. Perhaps they had enthralled Dave with a bond of blood, like she had done with Felicia, thus revealing themselves. She couldn’t decide if the idea of turning a blood supplier into one’s thrall was a smart decision or not.

“Oh, yeah…” Dave said, seeming to notice her lack of reaction and understanding her surprise, even if no expression had shown on her face, “I know about, uh… You guys.”

“I see, that saves us time,” Skye declared simply and took another step closer.

Dave retreated back, and she felt her control over the situation returning. She leaned forward towards his neck, and as he tried to squirm away, her hands grasped roughly at his hair through the knit wool hat, pulling on it to force him to bare his throat. She pressed her nose against the side of his neck and inhaled deeply. Cigarettes, sweat, soap from a shower hours before, the greasy scent of frequent fast-food consumption, the hormonal after-smell of someone in their late teens, eighteen or nineteen, she reckoned. But no scent of another Kin’s blood in his veins. She would smell it through his skin if there was. He wasn’t a thrall. Then… Just a feeding bag? No, she’d smell that too.

“Ouch! That hurts…”

“It’s supposed to.”

Skye retreated from his neck and released him. The more she learned about it, the more questions she had, and fewer answers. That had to change, soon.

“How many buyers do you have?”

“O-only one…” Dave said, rubbing his scalp through the cap, and now looking properly scared of the situation he was in; that would make things move faster.

“Describe them.”

“What? I can’t give away my clients like that… That’s blood-dealer one-oh-one.”

“You believe I’m here to play games, David?”

“It’s Dave, okay? Nobody calls me David except my mom…”

“Dave,” Skye said, her raspy voice almost whispering, letting his name roll through the gravelly tone of her feminine but deep and smooth voice for a long second, “I would rather not hurt you, but I will if I must.”

His expression shifted from uncomfortable arousal at how she called him, to fear at the words that followed it, and in that confused headspace, he shook his head and then pursed his lips. She could taste his struggle. He was brave, but he wasn’t strong, so he was reckoning how far bravery could take him. And he would soon conclude, she knew, that it would delay things, but the end result would be the same, no matter how long he held out. He would break in the end, and as such, why go through the pain? Finally, he seemed to have arrived there, sighing in defeat and with a very sad tone he said:

“It’s a girl… Or woman… I don’t know how old she is really but she looks a little older than me at most,” he admitted, “black hair, very pale, though not as much as… Well, you… Hair is… Kind of a wolf cut with bangs, shoulder length, this height, I think. Always wearing oversized, baggy clothes so I don’t know more.”

The girl seemed to be of medium height or shorter, just a few inches shorter than Dave if his estimation was correct, and Skye committed the other details to memory. Raven hair cut like a wolf’s mane, with fringes.

“Eyes?”

“Blue.”

He didn’t need time to remember, which was rare. Few mortals memorized that, but blue was good. Blue wasn’t a common eye colour. She could use that.

“Did she give you a name?”

He paused and then shook his head. Poor thing, if he had not paused, Skye would be totally willing to believe him. It wouldn’t be absurd to think someone buying illegal blood would conceal their identity, and maybe she still did, this girl. But she gave him a name, true or false, and he was now refusing to share.

“We are almost done, Dave. Think, and decide wisely if you want to perish on the hill of a name when you’ve given me everything else.”

“I… She trusts me.”

“Does she?”

“Yes, of c-course she does… I don’t want to violate that trust.”

“It’s unfortunate because you will, won’t you?”

Dave swallowed dry and nodded, pathetically, defeated. Heartbroken with himself perhaps. She didn’t even have to bring out the knife.

“Marion. Her name is Marion.”

Skye's lips curled again, another rare smile, before she reached back, to return Dave’s phone to him. He had seen past the Veil and lived that long with the secret, she had no reason to kill him over it. And she preferred only producing the strictly necessary number of bodies. There was only one concern, but she was sure she could handle that.

“I shall leave you to your affairs now, Dave. But do not think of calling this Marion, and warn her about me. Rest assured, I will find out if you do alert her, and the consequences will be unpleasant.”

He swallowed dry again and simply nodded. She let him finish his now cold meal and walked out of the hospital. This time she cloaked herself and took the door at the end of the corridor as she left the maintenance closet, to walk right across the hospital and out of the front door, entirely unseen. It wasn’t until she was standing on the sidewalk in front of it that she dropped her concealment and pulled her own phone from her pocket. Her other glove removed by fingers as she pulled the black card from the chest pocket of her coat. A quick dial and she waited.

The line didn’t produce the usual dial tone, instead, it made a single beep, and then there was a strange digital shrill. Only then she heard the elongated beep that announced it was ringing, and a male voice picked up.

“Go for Houston,” it said simply.

“Houston; this is Skye. We spoke earlier.”

A brief pause, she could almost hear him sigh.

“I believe we did, yes.”

“The solo you had in your custody briefly, London…”

“What about her?”

Skye felt the cold city wind blowing across her face, and a few droplets of water carried with it touched her cheeks. Rain, coming soon. But something more brewing there, like the seeds of a storm. Maybe the Prince was right, and there was a storm brewing. But the Principality wouldn’t be caught divided when it arrived, not if she had any say in it.

“Describe her,” she demanded.