Blood Pact

sudden vision of an old Hammer film, where Dracula brought his pair of hungry brides a child to feed on.

    Oh, lord, not that.

    Given an opportunity to feed, he wouldn't be able to stop the Hunger. The child would die. He'd killed many times over the centuries; sometimes because he had to, sometimes only because he could. But never an innocent. Never a child.

    The dragging stopped.

    When the lid opens . . . Henry made himself as ready as he was able. But the lid remained closed and a moment later, muscles trembling, he sagged back against the padded bottom.

    "If I call her in the morning, she'll have had time to think it over and she'll realize that I'm serious.”

    Although he could still smell nothing but abomination, Henry recognized the voice. It belonged to the pale young woman with the empty eyes.

    "She's a reasonable person and I'm sure that as a scientist she'll come to see my position.”

    The young woman was crazy. Henry, who had touched her mind, had no doubt about that. But she was also on the outside of the box, capable of releasing him, and crazy or not, she was, at this moment, the only game in town. Ignoring the pain, he squirmed around until his mouth pressed up against the dented surface of the air vents and pitched his voice to carry, keeping his tone as matter-of-fact as he could.

    "Excuse me? Would you mind opening the lid?”

    For a very little while, he thought normalcy might have worked where an attempt at coercion or charm would've found no reaction. He caught a trace of her scent threaded through the stink of perverted death, not, he thanked God, enough to pull the Hunger out of his control, he heard her hands at the latch, then he heard her reply.

    "Yes, I would mind actually, because I didn't have time today to take any tissue samples.”

    "If all you want are tissue samples, let me out and I'll stay around so you can take them." Henry swallowed, his throat working around the fear. Just let me out!

    "Well, actually, I'm not very good at biopsies on living subjects. I think I'll wait until tomorrow.”

    Not very good at biopsies on living subjects? What the hell was she talking about? "But I'll still be alive!”

    "Not exactly." She sounded as though she were pointing out something so obvious that she couldn't understand why he even brought it up.

    He heard her move away. "Wait!”

    "What is it now? I have a lot on my mind tonight.”

    "Look, do you know what I am?" All things considered, she had to know.

    "Yes. You're a vampire.”

    "Do you know what that means?”

    "Yes. You have fascinating leukocytes.”

    "What?" He couldn't stop himself from asking.

    "Leukocytes. White blood cells. And your hemoglobin has amazing potential as well.”

    Much more of this and I'll be as crazy as she is. "If you know what I am, you know what I can give you.” His voice reverberated inside the box; ageless, powerful. "Let me out and I can give you eternal life. You'll never grow old. You'll never die.”

    "No, thank you. I'm working on something else at the moment.”

    And he heard her move away.

    "Wait!" He forced himself to lie quiet and listen, but all he could hear was the pounding of his own heart and Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry the VIII, four-hundred-and-fifty-year-old vampire, became suddenly just Henry Fitzroy.

    "DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE!”

    "You know," Catherine said, pulling the heavy steel door closed behind her. "I hadn't realized he'd be so noisy. Good thing we put him in here." She slid a lock through the eye of the security bar and snapped it shut. "Dr. Burke will never be able to hear him.”

    Number nine stared at the door. The "Warning: High Voltage" meant nothing to him, but he remembered being locked in the box.
    In the same box. He hadn't liked it.

    Slowly, the two fingers on his right hand that were still working, closed around the security bar.

    Already halfway across the room, Catherine turned at the noise as the lock jumped but held. "What is it? What's wrong?”

    Without releasing the bar, he carefully turned to face her. He hadn't liked being locked in the box.

    "You think I should have let him out?" She came back to his side, shaking her head. "You don't understand. If I can isolate the factors that result in his continuous cell regeneration, I can integrate them into a bacterium that will actually repair you." Taking hold of his wrist, she very gently pulled his hand from the door and smiled up at him. "You can stay with me