Joe Pitt 3 - Half the Blood of Brooklyn (18 page)

I flinch. Blink. Lean in and light my smoke.

He takes the lighter away.

--Are your hands shaking, Joe?

I put the cigarette in my mouth and tuck my hands into my armpits.

--I'm cold.

He feels his own skin.

--Tell me about it. Like an icebox in here.

The Enclave begins pulling viscera from the corpse.

The Count turns his head and whistles.

--Oh, man, that is rude. I mean, who needs to see that shit? Nasty.

He takes a seat on the floor next to me.

--But that's the way they rock it here. One of them dies, doesn't matter what they were
before they went out, they get gutted and nailed to the wall. Some kind of lesson thing.
That's what the guy told me when I asked.

--They'll boil his bones and eat the marrow.

He looks at me.

--No shit?

I pull a hand from my armpit. It's stopped shaking. I take the smoke from my mouth.

--Yeah. That's the deal.

--Whoa. Man. Can't say I'm looking forward to that.

He nudges me with his shoulder.

--Then again, check this out. You know the bones, that's where blood gets made. In the
marrow. Like, by the time we're adults, it's only made in a few places. Your spine,
sternum, pelvis, some little patches in your upper arms and legs. That's where you get
your good old, controversial pluripotential hematopoietic stem cells. Try saying that shit
five times fast. Stem cells manufacture blood cells, determine that they will be blood
cells. So think about this. Drink another Vampyre's blood and get sick as hell. Unless
it's super freshly infected and has been made into anathema. In which case you get high as
hell. So what happens when you eat a dead Vampyre's marrow, man? His stem-cell factories?

He licks his lips.

--I'm guessing you get some weird deep Amazonian Carlos Castaneda shaman fungus high.

He shakes his head.

--I'm not saying I'm gonna be thinking about where that shit came from, but I'm dying to
try me some of that soup.

The Enclave pulls a wad of tumors from Daniel's body.

The Count turns his head again.

--What say we move this conversation?

He stands.

I watch pieces of Daniel hit the floor.

I stand. The Count reaches to help me and I pull away and stumble, but I keep my feet.

He raises his hands.

--As you wish, man. Just trying to help.

I follow him.

He limps on that foot I ruined for him. I limp on the knee Daniel tried to fix for me.

--Wanted to thank you, by the way. I don't remember too much about what went down at my
place. But from what I can put together, probably would have been easiest thing just to
waste me.

He grins.

--'Course, knowing I still hold the purse strings on my trust fund, that was unlikely. I
mean, experience has taught me you can knock me around if it amuses you, but Terry would
be steamed if you ever kacked my ass before he can get his hands on those accounts.

He stops, blinks a few times, takes a couple deep breaths.

--Sorry. Whew. Shit I went through the last twelve hours, wrung me out, man. Going cold
turkey on the anathema. Bleeding the Vyrus dry. That was some extreme shit. I mean, I knew
I was asking for trouble, but damn.

He snaps his head from side to side.

--Whammywhammywhammy! Shit had me on the ropes. Oh, check this out.

Ahead of us two Enclave are sparring.

A whirl of blurred white limbs.

Crack of bone on bone.

The Count makes karate hands and chops the air.

--That's the shit I'm really looking forward to. Getting my kung fu on. I know I'm not the
kind of guy you expect extreme patience and discipline from, but if it means coming out
the other side with moves like these guys, I will meditate until my ass bleeds. I mean,
whoa that shit is badass.

The stairs are close by. I turn and look at them.

The Count comes over.

--Me, I'm a little surprised they can get it up to do that shit. Losing Daniel, way I
gather it, that's like a major setback, yeah?

--I guess.

--Guess nothing, man. You've been hanging out at this place for a few years now, right?

--I come by sometimes.

--Sure. So he was the man. I mean, I only spent a couple hours with the guy while he was
helping me get straight last night, but even I could see he was righteous beyond the ken
of normal men. If you follow.

--I follow.

--So now, the way he laid it out, one of them is always on point, leading the way toward
what he tried to do. Toward the whole transmutation thing they're into.

--Something like that.

--And he was way ahead of the pack. He was, like, the best hope they'd have for, like,
forever. Now, man, it's like they are at square one or something. Got to pick up with
whoever's been fasting the longest. What I hear, the dude in second place is way back from
where Daniel was. But here they are, carrying on, doing their thing. And on top of that,
they're getting ready to eat their Dalai Lama's marrow. Telling you, these are some
well-adjusted citizens.

--Count.

--Yeah.

--You're talking a lot.

--Well, I do do that, don't I?

I face him.

--I have something I need to do. So get to the point.

He scratches his head.

--The girl. Right.

He points at the stairs.

--Come on, I'll show you where.

He starts. I don't move. He looks back.

--C'mon, man. Not like it's a secret or anything. Place isn't that huge. There's a sick
girl in the house. Everyone knows it. So come on up.

He leads me up.

--Daniel kind of filled me in. Not that he was gossiping or anything, but he was just
talking. He always spacey like that?

--No. He wasn't.

--Was last night. Don't get me wrong, man was like a fucking magician with me. Like, I
don't know what, like Zoltan the Mind Master or something.

He stops on the stairs and looks into my eyes.

--Dude locked eyes with me, put a hand on me, was like he, man, went into me. Which I know
is just the gayest thing you've ever heard, but that's what it was like. The Vyrus, it was
tearing me apart. Eating me. Was like he told it to chill. Got me to balance with it. And
I did. A-fucking-mazing. Only lasted for a couple seconds maybe. But I was there. This
perfect point where the Vyrus was kind of at its most pure and raging, and I was, I don't
know what, riding it or something. Talk about a high? That is something I
will
feel again.

He moves his eyes from mine.

--After that, he gave me a little blood. Knew I couldn't contain that shit. Vyrus settled.
I mean, I am starving here, but it settled. Best thing? It worked.

He inhales deep, lets it out.

--Like, all my thinking about anathema, and how you hooked me on the bad dose, and the way
thatÉman. The way that felt. Wanting to get out from under that more than anything. And
the reading I was doing for Terry. Learning about regular viruses and shit. I knew there
had to be a way to burn that shit out of your system. I knew it.

He taps my chest.

--And, Joe, I knew you were the guy to turn to.

He starts back up the stairs.

--Not that I thought you'd nurse me through if I asked or anything. I just figured me and
my money are too valuable to lose. Which isn't to say I wasn't ready to die, man. Was I
ever.

We reach the top of the stairs and he puts a hand on the wall and closes his eyes.

--Hang on a sec, man. Still rocked. You see things, Joe. When you dose like that, you see
things. I'm not saying they're real, but you see them.

He opens his eyes.

--I saw shit. All that stuff on the walls and the floor. I mean, that was no act. I started
flippin'. I thought something was coming for me. Started reading Crowley and shit online.
Wicca.com. I mean, lame. But I was scared. Once I stopped feeding. Once I poured out the
last load of anathema Terry sent by, I went somewhere else. I was ready, man. I was ready
to die.

He takes his hand from the wall.

--Then you came. Well, you had to. You and Phil are the only ones who
ever
came over. Phil to drop off blood and anathema. You to tell me how much money Terry
wanted transferred into the Society account. Knew Phil would call you if he found me
first. Only real risk far as that went was if I would drink him.

He makes a face.

--Still can't believe you put some of his blood in me. Nasty.

He bites his lip.

--Anyway, thing is, none of it, none of it was an act. Want you to know that. I definitely
made a play to put you in a position where you had to help me, but none of it was an act.
So. Thank you, I guess.

I don't say anything.

He nods.

--Yeah, fuck me. I know.

He starts down the hall that runs between the cubicles where the Enclave sleep.

--Will say, I never figured I'd end up here. Heard about these guys. But never thought for
a second you'd bring me here. Never had this in mind. Did you know?

--What?

--That they only allow Enclave inside?

I put my hand to the wall, taking some weight off my knee as we go down toward the end of
the hall.

--Never thought about it.

--Just brought me over here. Didn't even know what it meant when they let me inside. Just
random.

--Or something.

--Yeah, think about that.
Or something.
Like, is anything random, right?

He stops again, turns and faces me, the last door beyond him.

Her scent in the air.

--Like, how about this? You dose me on anathema. I mean, hook me on the bad dose. And I see
things. And I can't take it. And I, just on instinct and whatever I've learned from what
I've been reading, I try to burn it out by starving the Vyrus. And you bring me here. And
I
happen
to be Enclave. Daniel looks at me and knows. Which is part of what being him was all
about, I guess. And he lays the whammy on me. And I trance out. And he brings me back. And
here I am. Up and about. And, like, I was up almost right away. And he was impressed. I
mean, they were all impressed. The dose I was on, the way I went head-to-head with it, the
way Daniel got me to do that dance with the Vyrus and then I just snapped to, turns out
that's some heavy shit. I mean, Joe, it's not just that you brought me here. I got
potential.
Real potential. How's that for
or something
?

I push him to the side and walk.

--Fuck do I care.

I walk into the room and she's there. On a mat on the floor, a thin blanket over her, face
sweaty, shivering. An Enclave seated at her feet, one hand holding her toes, whispering.

The Count comes in behind me.

--Tell you, Joe, I can see it. Even all fucked up as she is, I can see what you got there.

I walk over to her and kneel on the floor and run a hand over her head and come away with
sweat and hair.

I touch my pockets. I don't have a blade. Only Rebbe Moishe's Defender.

The Count crouches at my back.

--A girl like that, what's a man to do? How can you have a girl like that and not try
everything to save her?

Her eyes open. She looks at me. She smiles. A hand comes out from under the blanket and
touches the candy necklace and her lips move and she's asking me a question but can't
speak past the hole in her throat.

Am I pretty?

I nod.

Her eyes close again.

I put my fingers at the clog of scab and new flesh that has grown over the wound in my
neck.

A girl like this, how can I not try everything to save her? How can I keep myself from
trying every last cruel and desperate trick to keep her with me?

Simple.

I can't.

I tear open the wound in my neck and lean close and place it against her mouth and the
Count grabs me and pulls me away and my hand goes to the Defender and the Enclave has it
and I am across the room and more Enclave are there between me and Evie and I try to go
through them and I cannot.

The Count leans over her and mops at her mouth with the cuff of his white shirt.

--Hey, man, what's up, you trying to kill the girl? I mean, dude, imagine if her throat
wasn't swollen shut. She'd be spewing foam all over the place right now.

I try to get to her.

They stop me again.

The Count stretches his arms, hands pushed out at me.

--Joe, man, cool it. You're gonna get all fucked up by these guys if you don't cool it. I
can only do so much here. Sure I got potential. But potential only gets you a little ways.
You got to deliver if you want your shit to stick.

He opens his shirt.

--Now, I know Daniel told you the girl's like you, but he just meant that she's Enclave. Or
Enclave potential, I guess. Enclave enough to get in here. That doesn't mean
you
can infect her. That takes a special touch.

He peels his shirt from his skinny torso.

--Check it. The Vyrus changes when it comes into us. That's what Daniel said. That's common
sense. That's why one Vampyre's blood can infect some people, but kills most others.

An Enclave hands him a short silver tube, one end cut on a bias and honed to a point.

--Thanks. But then, it reasons, some can't infect
anyone.
And some, they can infect
lots
of others. Like carriers. Daniel, he was a carrier. Know what he did? Part of what made
him who he was? This is so cool, he told me about this last night, right up here. He
infected new Enclave.

He sits down next to Evie.

--Like, if they saw the potential in someone out there, they brought them here. No
questions asked. No choice. And Daniel bled into them. And it didn't always work. Mostly
it didn't, but it worked more than for most Vampyres. Or infecteds. Or whatever you like.

He's handed a small hammer.

--So we're talking, me and him. He's impressed with the way I handled that shit last night.
He's also whacked as hell, you saw him at the end there. Who knows where he was on the
inside? But he wanted to talk. Lots of things. Mostly Enclave, but wanted to talk about
music too. All kinds of stuff. Women. Kept asking about how high the hemlines are this
year. Trippy. And I told him about my girls. Remember my girls?