Bloodline by Joel Abernathy

19

Many Years Prior

It was half-past six,and I had made it out of the factory just in time to get to the market before dark. Of course, shopping in the dark would have been preferable to me, but nothing in Boston was ever open that late save for the pubs. I always got strange looks at the market, even more so after the last gruesome incident with Ian’s new machine.

Damnable things. I told Ian they were dangerous, but he insisted it would make everything run more efficiently. Well, that may have been perfectly true, but while I knew next to nothing about those machines, I knew more than I cared to know about humans, and they would always find a way to turn a miracle into a curse.

It had taken me a shameful amount of time to decide to save the boy, or at least, that was how it seemed. That was the strangest thing about being ancient and immortal. A second could feel like a thousand years, and a thousand years like nothing at all. You started to measure life not in dates and hours but in experiences and people, both of which were equally fleeting.

The blood had been enough of a reason to hesitate, even if the risk of exposure wasn’t as high as it was. I could still remember the smell. The robust flavor of youth and vigor. The pained cries that at once activated my sympathy and my predatory instincts.

The look in the boy’s eyes after I’d driven my own arm into the machine to save him haunted me even more than the screams. Even more than the echoes of his blood.

The look in Ian’s eyes was worst of all.

It was the first time he had ever looked at me the way everyone else did: like a monster.

For a moment, I had been absolutely certain he was about to tell me to pack up my things and leave. When we were finally alone that night, I made dinner as usual and we ate most of it in silence. When at last I could take the silence no longer, I spoke. “Ian, I—”

He silenced me with another look I had never seen before in his eyes. Those hard, lined eyes that softened so slightly during those tender moments I lived for. During the brief pockets of time when I actually felt alive.

“We won’t speak of it again.” His voice was firm and left no room for questions. Blunt and succinct as always.

And we never had since. Not once. I very much doubted we ever would.

The market was quiet when I arrived, keeping my head down and my hair over one shoulder as I walked down the various stalls already closing up shop. I could feel the vendors’ eyes on me, and their scandalized whispers were not as quiet as they hoped.

While I was looking over the produce for the night’s supper, I became aware of a presence behind me. I knew it to be Enoch immediately. His scent was strong and masculine, but not unpleasant like most. The doctor was well-groomed, I’d give him that. Handsome as the devil, and he knew it, too. His natural scent was always tinged with one herb or another, and I had eventually realized they were tinctures. For warding off evil, probably. He’d always looked at me strangely, with a keener eye than anyone else in town. Keener than anyone I’d met in centuries, really.

When I turned around, he still hadn’t made his move, and there was a triumphant look in his eye, as if I’d somehow proved something by sensing him there.

“Good evening, Doctor,” I said, struggling to keep my tone pleasant. The Thomases were Bostonian royalty, and to end up on their bad side was not only bad for business, but it dramatically increased the odds one would end up falling prey to a mysterious “accident” while walking the streets alone at night. If I’d been operating solely on my own behalf, I would have happily told the mayor and his pompous son precisely where they could stuff their fortune.

“Marcellus,” Enoch said in his polite yet menacing tone. It was easy to see why he made everyone else in town quake in their boots. The combination of great political power, high education, and physical might was hard for most humans to ignore. I’d never been able to understand quite what Enoch’s preoccupation was with me, but if I had to venture a guess, it was the fact that I was among the only people who didn’t look away from that piercing gaze that demanded to claim all it saw.

To the good folks of Boston proper, Enoch Thomas was a force to be reckoned with, but to me, he was nothing more than a petulant child.

“You’re out quite late,” he remarked, following me as I resumed my shopping. I could sense the waves of irritation rolling off him in response to the fact that I dared to continue with what I was doing rather than stopping for him as all the rest of the world did.

“The factory lets out quite late,” I shot back without looking up, slipping a couple of turnips into my bag. Better get enough for two dinners. The less often I had to come out to this place, the better. The mosquitoes never troubled me, but there were other pests that proved just as irksome.

Enoch gave a snort of derision I knew all too well. “It’s absurd that he lets you work in that reeking place.”

Anger welled up within me, burning hot like acid. He was the first human who’d been capable of stirring such strong emotions in me for as long as I’d been a vampire. It figured they would be negative emotions, too.

It was far from the first time Enoch had made known his disdain for my lowly profession. My relationship with Ian was common if indecent knowledge, just one of those things people only spoke about behind closed doors, and quietly even then. It was tolerated in Boston because we kept our distance in public. Even at the factory, there were no displays of affection, nor would I have expected them. Ian was well-liked enough among the blue-collar workers who frequented the local pubs with him that they were willing to pretend I didn’t exist.

Sometimes I wondered if it was only because I’d seen more than a few of them as clients before Ian took me in. Perhaps they were afraid my tongue would loosen if theirs wagged too much. There were some benefits to whoring, after all.

I chose to ignore Enoch’s comment and reached into my pocket for a few coins. I wasn’t quite done with my shopping, but I couldn’t take another moment of him. He reached past me before I could pay the old woman behind the cart and placed a silver coin in her palm.

Her eyes widened. “Bless you, Doctor,” she said with a mostly toothless grin before slipping the coin into her brassier.

My anger simmered red hot once more and felt close to searing through my chest. Perhaps Enoch was the fatal escape I had sought so ardently everywhere else because I was absolutely certain I was about to explode into a thousand livid pieces. I couldn’t even argue with the shopkeeper to take my money instead, considering that coin was worth more than twice everything I had in my pocket.

Her greeting was appropriate enough, though. The wicked boy could use all the blessings he could get.

“That was quite unnecessary, Dr. Thomas,” I said, brusquely walking back down the hill. On the one hand, I could count on not being accosted by anyone in Enoch’s presence. On the other hand, was it really preferable to being mugged?

He followed me, of course. Like a lost puppy. “Don’t mention it,” he said, as if I’d thanked him. He kept pace with me easily, as he was considerably taller than I was. The fact that humans assumed I was as weak as my appearance implied had never bothered me. Not until him.

I had never thought the trek back to the small apartment Ian and I shared above the factory to be a long one, but that night, it felt positively Odysseun.

“I heard about the latest accident at the factory,” he remarked, taking great care to emphasize the word. “It seems you came to the rescue again.”

I clenched my jaw. So that was what this was about. At least this time, there hadn’t been any supernatural feats of strength involved. Just an idiot who’d come to work drunk and decided to walk on a freshly mopped floor. He’d cracked his head on the leg of a nearby table, and if I hadn’t come along when I had, the bleeding might well have gotten out of control. Somehow, I doubted he would have been as comforted by my presence if he’d known the willpower it took to resist the siren’s song of his blood.

“You’re the one who patched him up, aren’t you?” I asked, crossing over the grassy hillside just to get home a few seconds sooner. “I’d say all the credit goes to you. I hardly did anything.”

“Even so, wherever trouble is, you do seem to follow.”

I looked back at him without slowing my pace. “I wasn’t aware altruism was a crime in this city.”

“It isn’t,” he answered, as if I was serious. I could never really tell if my sarcasm went over his head or he was just playing oblivious. It seemed entirely plausible no one had spoken a cross word to him in his life. “But it does make one curious.”

“You spend entirely too much time worrying about a foreman’s apprentice,” I said flatly. “I’m sure there are far more important matters that require your intellect, especially with your father’s reelection coming up.”

I’d finally made it to the base of the stairs that led up to the apartment when Enoch grabbed my arm and forced me to face him. My eyes must have reddened slightly with my anger because he stepped back, and for once, the cocky expression on his face faltered. It was only a mild shift, nothing like the one that came over me when I drank. I kept myself starved so my eyes would appear normal enough to the townsfolk, something I could brush off as a strangely specific form of albinism, but Ian had asked me about it once or twice.

Enoch’s shock receded too quickly. “You don’t give yourself nearly enough credit, Marcellus. In fact, I think you’re the most fascinating thing that’s come into this town in ages.”

“Is that so? Then I suppose Boston isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

His lips set into a faint scowl. It was too bad he was such an arrogant prig because he really was a handsome man. And talented, I’d grant him that as well. I just knew better than to think it was care for his patients that motivated his scientific pursuits. Like so many alchemists who’d come before him, he saw them as subjects for his experiments and little more. If he knew he wouldn’t be caught, I doubted his profession’s code of ethics would have restrained him one bit.

“Let’s do away with these coy little games,” he said with a dangerous smile some might have found appealing. I saw it for the threat it was. It wasn’t the first time he’d cornered me in a manner that made it clear he suspected something more than the others. Even more than Ian. Enoch had been getting bolder as of late, but this was the zenith of his insatiable curiosity. “There are such fascinating discussions we might have, if only you’d cease your lying.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Enoch,” I said innocently.

Anger flashed in his gaze. He pushed me up against the wall hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs and cause me to drop my satchel. A beet rolled out onto the grass. For several long seconds, we just stared at each other. I think we were both shocked by what he’d done, but Enoch apologized to no one and I could tell from the glint in his eyes that tonight, his curiosity would not be so easy to dismiss.

He was growing desperate.

“I was a boy of eight when you came to this town sixteen years ago,” he said, his voice lowering to a growl, his hands still gripping my shoulders tightly enough to leave the briefest indentations that would likely have bruised if I were human. “You were what, seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Thereabouts,” I answered somberly. “And your point?”

His heart was pounding, both in rage and agitation. I could smell it in his blood. Both qualities would season it so perfectly, and all it would take was one bite into that supple throat...

Get it together, Marcellus. I hadn’t come this close to losing control in centuries, and I wasn’t going to let this brat be the reason I had to leave Boston.

Of course, if he was this close to uncovering my secret, I might not have any other choice. The idea of separating from Ian was too painful to bear, and I knew he would never leave his factory behind. Not even for me. If staying with him meant pacifying Enoch, so be it. It was a price I was willing to pay. I just had to remind myself of that.

“My point is that you haven’t aged a day,” he seethed. “For God’s sake, I look like I could be ten years your senior.”

“I think your imagination is a bit too active, especially for a man of science, Dr. Thomas.”

His grip tightened and so did his clenched jaw. “You test my patience so unnecessarily.” He reached out, caressing the scarred side of my face with the backs of his knuckles. Tenderness was not something that came easily to him, and tolerance of his touch was not something that came easily to me. “If you would just yield to common sense, I could give you the world. Things you’ve never even dreamed of.”

“I’ve seen much of the world, Enoch,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm and devoid of the emotion I knew he hoped to stir within me. And he did, more than I’d like to admit. “This is the only corner of it I particularly care for, and it’s the one place even your father’s money can’t buy.”

He sneered at my words, but I could tell they had hit their mark. The Thomases had been trying to buy the factory from Ian for two, now three generations. The stubborn old coot wouldn’t budge, and it was one of the many reasons I loved him. “We’ll see about that. A word of warning, Marcellus. I get everything I want sooner or later, and it is far better to be a treasure given freely than taken as the spoils of war.”

I tried to push away from him, but he kept enough force on me to make it difficult, trapping my body with his. “I’d rather be collateral damage than the recipient of your kindness, or your ‘treasure’ any day,” I spat.

“Such arrogance,” he murmured, his gaze sweeping over me. The most disturbing thing was that the admiration far exceeded the anger in his eyes. “And to think, you’re wasted on that old fool.”

My head spun with rage. If he didn’t move, I was going to do something we’d both come to regret. Him considerably more than me. “Get the hell off me, Enoch.”

His face lit with delight, confirming a reaction was exactly what he wanted. And he was about to get one he’d never forget. “I’m sure you can push me off if you wish,” he taunted. “In fact, I’m quite certain you can do many things someone of your stature shouldn’t be capable of.”

“If I’m as dangerous as you seem to think, should you really be so brazen?”

His smile told me that response was a mistake. When an evil man smiled, there was reason to be afraid. “My dear Marcellus. Is that a threat?”

“It’s whatever you need it to be to get your filthy hands off me.”

He scoffed, leaning in closer and tipping my chin up. Enoch was the only person who ever looked at me for so long without blinking or turning away. Without focusing on some other part of my face. It unsettled me more than anything ever had. “You protest a bit too much. I know that old clod can’t be satisfying you. Intellectually, or in any other regard,” he said pointedly, his voice lowering to what I assumed he believed to be a sultry tone. To be fair, it might have been to someone who didn’t already loathe him.

It wasn’t the first time Enoch had suggested an interest in me aside from my vampirism—though I doubted even he had come to such a definite conclusion about that—but it was the first time he’d ever been so blatant with his innuendo.

I feigned confusion. “Your father? But I haven’t serviced him in years. Not since I left the profession.”

All the humor drained from his face and turned to icy rage. “That mouth is going to get you in trouble one of these days.” He took my face in his hand, squeezing hard enough to force my jaw open. His malevolent sneer showed his white teeth. “And there are such better uses I can think of for those pretty lips.”

He watched me closely, waiting for a reaction. I was about to give him one when I heard the door open upstairs and Ian bellowed my name into the dusk. “Marcellus!”

Pure spite turned Enoch’s beautiful face ugly. He released me with great reluctance. “You cannot escape me, pet. In the end, there will be only you and I, but go now. Your master calls.”

I knew the words were meant to rile me, but they were just about the only thing he’d said over the last ten minutes that didn’t.

In my thousands of years of accursed existence, I had never loathed another as deeply as I loathed Enoch. Somehow I knew I never would. If the bond that united us had been affection rather than hatred, I might have thought Enoch was my soulmate, for that spark had burned so brightly from the moment we’d met. Even when he was a boy, and so much more so now that he was a man.

Perhaps he was the equivalent. What was the other half of a tainted soul if not something just as wicked?