Chapter Forty-Four – Faith
At least they didn’t pull me by my hair down the meatpacking facility’s wide halls. Or even shove me. Instead, the Renfields who met us out in the parking lot pulled me from the trunk and carried me bodily into the building and out to an unused portion of the complex. They held me up and over their heads, five obscenely strong workers. One for each leg, one for each arm, and one for my body, her hands pressed firmly on my butt as she kept my body up.
The smell of fresh meat and organs hung in the air, a smell I was more than familiar with from my past few months in the county morgue. Under the right circumstances, it would have been almost comforting. But, as I was carried, held in place despite my kicks and punches, down the washed and bleached hallways, past the eerily silent workers butchering livestock and setting the skins aside, I was as far from comforted as any person could ever get.
“Why are you doing this?” I gasped as I struggled against the workers holding me fast. “Why are you doing this, Tanchovsky?”
“Because I made a promise,” he said, without even bothering to look back at me as he continued to glide soundlessly along the concrete floor. His previously beautiful, well-tailored suit was dingy, ragged. Embers from the basement fire had burned holes in nearly every inch of the beautiful piece of clothing, and blood stained the whole shredded left sleeve. “And I keep my promises.”
“Like you kept the one to Sam that nothing would happen to me?”
“Let me rephrase my statement, then. I keep all my threats. Is that better?”
“Whatever,” I said, dismissing him. “You’re just like all the rest of the men out there, anyways. Sam might be a werewolf, but at least he never tried to hurt me. You’re just a bastard.”
He did look back this time, his eyes flashing a brilliant reddish-orange. “I am what I am, Ms. Riley. Nothing more, nothing less. Soon, though, you’ll be much more than you are now. Much, much more.”
“So I can do what? Live here with you? Think we’re going to have some happy little family, just the two of us?”
“Two?” Tanchovsky asked with a little chuckle. “Unfortunately, you’ll have to learn to share. And, no, you won’t be here with me. Normally I wouldn’t do it this way, but once I force my blood into your own, you’ll need to live at your own home for a matter of time.”
I laughed. “Really? Veronica’s going to love that.”
“Veronica?” he asked. “Oh yes, your little roommate. Sorry, only room for one on this little trip. You’ll need to kill her when we’re finished here.”
My mouth dropped open, and I was, for once, at a loss for words.
“Don’t worry,” he continued, his voice as dry and brittle as the century-old documents we’d found upstairs in his house, “you’ll be glad to do it. This process certainly drains its participants, and you’ll be hungrier than you’ve ever been in your life. I promise.”
“I’ll never kill Veronica, you asshole. She’s my friend!”
“Well, you really don’t have a choice, Faith.”
We passed through a doorway that measured at least ten feet in width, and the temperature, already chilly to begin with, felt like it dropped another twenty degrees. All the halls we’d passed through had been concrete, but this one was lined in metal, the way restaurant walk-in refrigerators were designed.
The Renfields, like a fluid machine, put me back on my feet, and I took in my surroundings.
Against the back wall was a simple folding chair pressed back against the metal. The floor beneath it was tiled beige, and seemed to slope down into the middle. In the center, a giant drain like you would find at the bottom of any commercial area where everything needed to be scrubbed on a regular basis, had been set into the floor. The morgue had the same thing in the examination room, and I’d spent many an hour sloughing blood down the drain after a thorough mopping, pushing and guiding it down with a squeegee.
It had taken a little while to get used to it. But, like most things you’re exposed to without having any real choice, eventually I was able to handle it without vomiting in the sink, like I had when Shook had first brought in the skinned pig.
Dr. Lawrence, of course, had been understanding. He was a good boss, when it was all said and done. Before the…change.
“Is that how you got these people to be here?” I asked as we stood there. Off in the distance, a steady drip of water fell. A splat, splat, splat as the water dropped rhythmically onto the tiled floor. “Forced them in, too?”
“These people are the sons and daughters of the ones who came before them. It’s a tradition in Garrison to come join the Ironside family, now, and work for life.”
I wrapped my arms around my chest, hugging myself tightly as the cold began to burrow its way into my bones. “What about Dr. Lawrence, then?” I asked quietly.
“Oh, the doctor was a little different. I showed up at his house the night the pig arrived at the morgue, and showed him what power my blood could give him, how it could heal his aching bones and tired muscles. He drank willingly, but didn’t realize the full cost of the power I was willing to give. He even remembered me from a night out in a nearby field when I'd been unable to make it back here for dinner.”
“A devil’s bargain, then,” I said, hugging myself more tightly. “Why’s it so cold in here?”
“The damned USDA,” he growled as his eyes flashed red. “Think working with me is a devil’s bargain? Try working with government regulators.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, Tanchovsky. Do you at least have a jacket, or something? I’d hate to freeze to death before I’m forced to live forever.” I paused. “You know what? On second thought, I guess I don’t need a coat. Maybe I'll luck out and get hypothermia.”