V-Wars

Let me explain something here. I’m not superstitious. I’m even very religious, but I think I get it. According to the news — Go, Yuki! — the genetic stew that causes this change might have caused problems in the past. There’s a few people and a couple of doctors out there who believe that the vampire legends from around the world are maybe an indication that this virus existed before and maybe even affected people in the past. Ever hear of a hopping ghost? Well, as near as I can figure it out, if the legends are accurate and these things existed before — and throwing away all the stuff that our ancestors might have made up to explain the insanity — I am one. Not because my hair went white. Not because I’m a vampire. Not even because I was basically so deep in a coma that I might as well have been dead for three days. Nope. It’s the rigor mortis that did made me decide.



For three days after I get out of the hospital my joints are aching and my legs are sore as hell and I’m too tired to do any stretches and then go to sleep same as I always have and when I woke up the pain was so bad I screamed. Every tendon in my body got stiff while I was sleeping. All of them. My legs, my arms, my back and my hips, all shot to hell in an instant. I couldn’t move without being in agony. You know who helped me out? My little sister, Anna. Unlike me, Anna’s a health nut. She’s into yoga, does the whole Tai Chi thing, eats right and, just to add insult to injury, she’s a straight A student. But it was her that figured out that I needed to stretch, and her that helped me stretch even while I was cursing her out and threatening to kill her a dozen times over.



There are acids that build up in the bodies of athletes. Turns out my body generates a lot of those acids, or something like them. It’s a side effect of my condition. I either stretch every day and a lot, or I get to be crippled. I’ve learned to stretch. A lot.



We’ll get back to that. Let’s talk about the cop, shall we?



— 3 —



The cop started screaming for me to freeze, and I have to admit I might have panicked a little. I tried running away. Hey, it’s what I did when I was younger and it’s what I went to when I saw that gun.



Here’s the thing: I can run very, very fast these days. I was back up on the roof before I knew what was happening, only by the time I got up there the cop had not only started following me, he’d also radioed to everyone else in the building that he was following a suspect. And everyone on the building, too. So those two guys I’d snuck past before? They were heading in my direction and there was nowhere I could hope to go to avoid dealing with at least three armed professionals who wanted to know what the hell I was doing at their crime scene.



Listen, I’m a lot of things, and not all of them are nice. I make my living by dubious methods, and I tend to like the better things in life, so I make my living doing a lot of dubious things for very dubious people. You get me? Good. I don’t like to say some things straight out. What I do not do, however, is kill people. It’s not my thing. I’ve hurt a lot of people in my time and I’ve gone to bed feeling bad about it more than once, but they always mended from what I did. You don’t mend from death, so I don’t deal in it.



Guess what? Guns kill people. I don’t carry one for that reason. The men chasing my narrow ass did not see it the same way. They were looking for a killer with superhuman abilities and between my funky looks and the fact that I’d just sprinted two flights of stairs in something like seven big steps, I was fitting the bill. So I had maybe three choices and all of two seconds to figure out which one it was going to be. Choice number one, I could surrender. I have to say, that really wasn’t an option. Why? Because I had my monster on at the time, and the guys with the guns? They might be the sort who shot the bejesus out of vampires and then worried about whether or not they were guilty. I really couldn’t take that chance, especially since they were looking for a vampire already and that one was a killer. My second choice was I could go through these guys and I didn’t much like that one, either. I’ve done a few unofficial tests. I’m much stronger than I used to be, I’m a lot faster, and I’m pretty damned tough. Under the right circumstances, I can take a beating and get back up without any problem. But I’m not bulletproof, or if I am, I haven’t exactly tested that theory yet.



That left me with one option. I took it. I ran. Right off the side of the building.



Actually, I ran to the edge and then I dropped. And while I was dropping, I let out a few girly screams and clawed at the windowsills and screamed a bit more. Four stories down I caught a window ledge andstopped my fall. About two seconds later I was breaking through the window and not the least bit worried about waking up the inhabitants. I crouched on the windowsill for maybe two seconds, saw that I wasn’t actually going to land on someone and that I hadn’t shredded anyone with the glass from the broken window, and then I ran. The room was dark. I didn’t care. That’s another neat little side effect of my new life. Anna tells me I have “Cat eyes” when I go all monster-face. All I know is I can see just as well in a dark room as I can in a lit one. I made it out of that bedroom and into the hallway and from there I hit the living room and the front door of the apartment. I got very lucky and no one was home.



Out the front door I took a few seconds to look around and then I went straight for the stairs again. There wasn’t really an option. I had to get to the fifth floor, which was three down from where I was, and Ihad to check out the scene below. Once I was there I wouldn’t have to wait around for long. I knew what I was looking for and if I found it, I could get gone a minute or so later. I hit the stairs running and I didn’t stop. And I maybe could have, but if I had, the cop that I was running into would have had the time to draw and fire on me.



I’d be lying if I said everything slowed down. I’ve heard people say that it happens, but it never has for me. I started moving and the cop on the stairs had enough time to see that I was coming before I hit him in the chest and moved on past. I didn’t look back to check on him, but I heard him hit the wall and bounce. Around to the landing and I didn’t have time to really do the human thing, so I caught some wall and ran along it for a couple of seconds. Then I was down to the next flight and bounding down the stairs. The door to the stair well was just opening. I slammed it shut as hard as I could, which meant I saw the metal frame bend a bit and felt the steel door buckle. No cops from the sixth floor, but thanks for playing.



On the fifth floor everything got messy. There was no choice about it, that was where the crime scene was, and that was where I needed to be. That also meant that most of the police were already there, and even with the alarm called and back up demanded, most of them weren’t moving. They had a crime scene to watch, right? I’m running through the door from the stairs and all I can think to myself is that I’m handling this the wrong way. Vampires are new on the scene.



No one has really decided what’s to be done about this “epidemic,” and here I am making it worse for any decisions, because I’m tainting a crime scene. I’m screwing up whatever evidence there is, and in the process, I’m probably leaving all sorts of evidence about myself, because I’m too fucking stupid to wear gloves. I have a record, okay? I’m not exactly a saint. And the troubles I’m making for vampire kind? I have no doubt they’ll come back to haunt me.



But I don’t exactly have a choice, do I? See, the monster that’s out there killing people? I’ve been chasing it since San Francisco, hunting the damned thing down, because it took my sister from me and no one in the world means more to me than Anna.



— 4 —



Not long after I fell sick and came home, I discovered the unpleasant truth about my condition. Oh, I’d heard all about the vampires by then, but there were only a few of them when I got sick, and by the time I got out of the hospital no one was even considering the word “epidemic.” Well, not true. Maggie Ruiz was. I only know that because she called my house and asked if she could speak to me. She found out about my case exactly too late to stop me from leaving the hospital. She was perfectly willing to pay for me to come see her, or, barring that, she was willing to come see me. I told her I’d think about it. I thought she was off her rocker.



Then the hunger hit me. Listen, I still eat food. I like food. I would even go so far as to say that Big Mac is one of my favorite friends and I love him even more when he brings his cousin, Large Fries along to visit. But the hunger doesn’t have anything to do with food. I know, because I tried feeding myself for two days, desperate to stop that painful emptiness inside of me. I ate like it was Thanksgiving and it never touched the hunger. I’ve never been addicted to anything. I don’t even smoke cigarettes and everyone I know smokes cigarettes. Seriously. But all I can say is I guess the hunger is like withdrawal symptoms from some of the heavy stuff. I was shaking, I was sweating, I was having trouble seeing straight.



I guess maybe it was instinct that let me survive. I guess maybe instinct has kept a lot of vampires alive, only in my case, I guess maybe I was luckier than a lot of them. I didn’t go for blood. A lot of vampires apparently do. Some go for meat, some go for blood. I went for something less substantial. Call it what you want. I prefer to call it life force. I went for the energy inside instead of the wet, juicy stuff. Sound weird? I’ll try to explain. I was having cravings, only I didn’t know what they were for. Like I said, food wasn’t doing it. I was getting close to trying my luck with one of the other vices, crank or coke or even something worse because I was feeling as low as I ever have and the doctors said there was nothing wrong with me. No fever, no nothing. I was just feeling that ravenous hunger and it wasn’t leaving me alone.



And it was Anna to the rescue. She came into my room and looked at me for a moment, her face as calm as ever, and worried her lower lip before she nodded to herself and left again. By that point I was having trouble doing anything at all. Seriously. It was bad, and I was sweating and shivering and clawing at the sheets. And yes, I tore my bed linens to shreds because I didn’t see the claws that came out of my fingers and even if I had, I wasn’t in a state of mind to notice.