AfterAge (18 page)

"Well," Jo said finally, "you'll probably feel better if you rest anyway." She lifted Beau and guided Louise back to her temporary bedroom, then spread a double thickness of blankets on the rollaway bed and patted it.

Louise nodded groggily. "I'm really tired." Beau was already dozing with his nose tucked between his paws and his belly full of leftover soup, and Louise let herself slide down beside him on the inviting covers. Her eyes closed, then opened briefly as Jo draped yet another blanket over her.

"I'll get more from downstairs," the younger girl said. "It's going to get very cold tonight."

"Sure," Louise agreed. Her voice sounded strange and slurred, as though she'd been drinking.

"You get some sleep," Jo said gently. Louise was already nodding out and barely heard Jo's final words. "You're going to be amazed at what tomorrow brings."

REVELATION 2:16

[I] will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

~ * ~

Dr. Perlman found the videotape of the vampire child's behavior disappointing. It revealed nothing except that this particular creature functioned on little besides instinct: eat and sleep. He discovered no wonderful insights or clues, though he viewed the tape so many times that the rubber eyepiece of his battery-rigged camera felt fused into his skull. Still, he didn't give up until the batteries were starting to lag.

The boy could only be described as a beast. When he'd dragged the vampire back yesterday, Perlman had found it impossible not to wonder who the child had been in his original life. Where were his parents, how old was he, and how had he ended up like this? Had he been a mischievous little boy a year and a half ago, a playground bully, or had the one-night transformation taken him from angel to monster? All those questions were unanswerable; while the boy was frozen in eternal childhood, his skin was wrinkled and gray, bagging where body fat had once been plentiful and stretching elsewhere to give him the awful countenance of a mobile, ancient mummy. One thing Perlman noticed right away, though: the small meal had already caused a marked improvement in the vampire's appearance. While his skin was still in a sorry state, it
had
improved; there weren't nearly as many split places in the creases and the face was already fuller around the cheekbones.

Perlman sat back and rubbed his eye where it had been pressed against the camera viewer in between scribbling notes and staring out the window. He could learn nothing more from the tape; what he required was blood and tissue samples, and for that he needed help.

The first thing the video had revealed was the terrible ease with which his "thin little boy" had torn through the carefully crafted bonds. A tapping made Perlman glance around; Calie stood in the doorway with C.J. behind her, looking as though he'd rather be anywhere else. She smiled, her gaze clear and unwavering, and Perlman's thoughts veered for a moment. He forced them back stolidly, ignoring Calie's warm look. "What can I do for you?"

Her smile grew a little beneath her solemn brown eyes. "We came to do for
you
, Dr. Bill." She glanced at C.J., who was studying the walls with a bored expression, then back at Perlman. "Thought you could use some help in your research or something."

Perlman scrutinized his notes. It was eerie the way they'd shown up at just the right time, as if Calie had known he was ready to move forward. He pushed out of his chair, careful not to bump his injured toe as he had earlier this morning. As a matter of fact, I was thinking just that. I'm ready for a tissue specimen."

"A what?" C.J. asked.

"A tissue specimen. Samples to put under the microscope." The doctor hobbled to a cabinet and began gathering the items he would need: a surgical knife and tongue depressors, rubber gloves, a Petri dish and a couple of clean towels. "I'll probably need a hand with him."

C.J. snorted. "Shit. You're going to need more than a hand when you start cutting. That bloodsucker's going to rock and roll."

"I only need a small sample," Perlman said. "Hardly more than a scratch from the skin surface." He paused, then chose another dish. "Though it would be helpful to get a scraping from one of the mucous membranes."

“From his mouth?" Now even Calie looked doubtful.

"Well, that would be best but probably far too dangerous—"

"You're not kidding!" C.J. interrupted.

"—so I'll settle for one from the nasal cavity."

C.J. threw up his hands. "Big fucking difference, Doc! A whole half inch! I'm sure it'll be happy to lie still while we stick a knife up its nose!"

"I think we can do it," Calie said. "He'll have to be retied first, of course." C.J. rolled his eyes. "And we'll still have to hold him. But as long as there's three of us, we should be able to keep anyone from going under."

"Going under?" The doctor stepped into the hallway with the other two. "What do you mean?"

C.J. sighed in exasperation, dipped his fingers into a vest pocket, and pulled out a battered cigarette butt. "
Hypnotized
, Doc." He glanced at Calie and gave a hard shake of his head, his black hair swinging wildly. "I can't believe he trapped that thing by himself and lived to talk about it. What a crock."

"Actually"—Perlman limped behind them down the stairs—"I
had
thought about 'going under.' I had no intention of trying this alone."

"God bless you," C.J. muttered as he came up with a match as they descended to basement level and Perlman pulled a flashlight from the top of a fire extinguisher box. He snapped it on, but its beam was a disappointing puddle of light; while it was daytime, Perlman couldn't rid himself of the paranoia that the sleeping child had woke and was now waiting, ready to leap from shadows that deepened with every step. Finally they stood at the steel door that led to the bomb shelter. Anything but pleased, C.J. bent and gathered the coil of rope and another roll of the silver duct tape Perlman had placed beside the entrance, then looked at Calie and the older man.

"Ready?"

They nodded. Calie seemed as calm as ever, and though C.J.'s callused hands were shaking, Perlman suspected it was more from adrenaline than nerves. Personally, he was having trouble swallowing around the pretzel-sized knot of fear in his throat; even his breathing had escalated to just ahead of hyperventilation, and he forced himself to inhale and hold it for the count of three. The child vampire's nearly successful hold on him was a nightmare memory that he was afraid would lunge when the door was opened; to put him further on edge, the door screeched like a crypt entrance from a stupid old horror movie as Calie yanked on it and C.J. stood ready with the crossbow.

Nothing sprang from the blackness beyond the door and Perlman’s breath escaped in a rush, but neither of his companions noticed. He wondered if C.J. was disappointed and thought it would have made the kid happier to kill the childbeast and be done with it.

"You have another light?" Calie asked. "We're going to need more."

Perlman cleared his throat and his voice came out raspy. "Yes," he croaked. "High-powered." He gave his own flashlight to Calie and handed another to C.J., then clipped a small battery pack to his belt and held up a black-case spotlight connected to it by a coiled cord. "So I can see what I'm doing."

C.J. hit the flashlight's ON switch, then played its bright beam down the stairs. The backwash made his face dark and chiseled, like an ancient Mexican god with deep, glittering jewels for eyes. "Let's do it."

Bill stepped forward but Calie pushed past and was halfway down before he could protest. "Wait—“

C.J. followed Calie like a magnet, weapon up and ready. "Come on, you're bringing up the rear."

Perlman clambered down, half hopping, using his hands to keep his graceless body and the equipment in his pockets from bouncing against the walls. At the stairwell's bottom, Calie had already freed two of the three bars and was waiting for him before removing the third. C.J. stood by with the crossbow, a complicated thing of strings and metal loaded with a thin arrow tipped by a deadly, four-sided razor head. For the first time, Perlman saw C.J.'s crossbow as a real weapon which could kill as effectively as a firearm, or literally pin a target in place. He was suddenly very grateful for C.J.'s presence.

Calie didn’t hesitate; as Bill took the bottom step she yanked out the final bar and leaned it against the wall in a smooth, swift motion. An instant later she grabbed the handle and pulled the metal door wide.

The three stood, frozen. Beyond the pathetically dim circles cast by the flashlights, something stirred in a darkness thick with the smell of decay. "Your light, Dr. Bill," Calie said urgently. "Turn on your light!"

"What—oh!" He was too terrified to feel stupid as his fingers fumbled to find the switch. Light, unbelievably bright and piercing, flooded the small room, bringing into sharp black and white the cracked concrete surrounding them. The child vampire was lying against the wall a few feet away, in the same position in which the physician had last seen him on the tape. In places his gray, filth-streaked skin was nearly indistinguishable from the mottled pattern left by the dismantled shelving.

It definitely looks better
, Perlman realized instantly.
Healthier
. Fascinated, he studied the creature from where he stood, noting that the gray tint was not as pronounced, the skin, though still loose and hanging, not as flaccid. The scalp hair was thicker, the face fuller—

Daddy!
A child's sweet voice cut through his thoughts.
You came back—I knew you would!

Perlman blinked as his gaze found and locked with that of the child's through transparent eyelids. He tried to pull away but it felt as though he were dragging his eyes over coarse, sticky sandpaper.

This is not my son!
Perlman could almost see the thought as a physical thing in his mind, cold and indisputable—a given, a fact, something he
knew
was inarguable—

Yet his feet still moved him forward.

Without warning the memories returned, bubbling from some long-plugged well within him: the pleasant smell of baby powder, the velvety feel of tiny arms, feathery hair tickling his cheek next to the infant's gurgling laugh and toothless smile.

"
No
—"

Perlman thought he heard someone talking, then felt a sharp tug on his head; he dismissed it as insignificant. If there was even the remotest chance that this child was his son, perhaps gone through some accelerated growth because of the change, wasn't he responsible for the boy? Shouldn't he do anything to give comfort—

Pain, then agony, clearing Perlman's mind like the sweep of a chalk eraser and literally dropping him to one knee; when his vision cleared he realized he was a scant two feet from the childbeast. He didn't remember crossing the distance, but Calie was crouched beside him with one hand hooked around his elbow, and her face was twisted with a mix of fear, anguish, and sympathy. His foot felt as though he had shoved it into an incinerator and Perlman hissed through his teeth, then cursed as he tried to stand. Floating beneath the swells of pain was a stinging in his scalp that generally added to his misery.

"You all right?"

Surprised, Perlman nodded up at C.J. The teen's face seemed naked for a second, vulnerable and afraid, then it slipped back to its hard, unreadable mask.

"What happened?" Perlman glanced furtively at the vampire and his mouth fell open when he realized that one of his companions had covered its eyes with duct tape.

"You went under," Calie explained. "You didn't hear me or even notice when I started yanking on your hair." She looked ashamed. "I'm sorry, but I had to stomp on your toe to make you come back. I hope it doesn't hurt too badly."

"Only a little," he lied, but she didn't look convinced. "I'll be fine. Really." He struggled with his legs and the injured foot until he was kneeling at the vampire's side, then began pulling out his equipment. "Let's get this over with."

"The man finally has something good to say." C.J. set the crossbow carefully against the wall and took a stance at the head of the child on the floor. "What's first?"

Perlman forced himself to think through the mist of pain as he studied the child critically. "I think we'll do the tissue sample last. How much can he do while he's sleeping? Shouldn't we tie him up?"

"He's getting smarter," C.J. told Calie as he held up the rope and twisted slipknots around the vampire's arms and legs that would only tighten in a struggle. The length of gray rope nearly vanished against the boy's dull skin. When C.J. started to cover the mouth with duct tape, the doctor stopped him.

“I want to get the mucus sample from his mouth," he said.

"Great." C.J. looked disgusted. "Just ask him to say
ahhhh
."

"Let's not make this harder than it has to be," Calie admonished, then looked at the doctor. "Okay, then. What now?"

Perlman sucked in a breath, then jabbed a hand toward the vampire's face, swiping his fingers below the nostrils just out of touching range. As he had suspected, the child could smell fresh blood even in sleep; as his hand pulled away, the vampire's mouth stretched in a parody of a yawn, revealing a blackened maw ringed with jagged yellow and brown teeth from which strands of rancid saliva dripped. A second later the mouth closed.