Night Blood

Book 1: Elijah Pike Vampire Chronicles

by James M. Thompson

Genres: Horror; Supernatural suspense; Dark Fantasy

Synopsis

A TASTE FOR BLOOD Maine, 1820. Lost in a blizzard, a young woodcutter seeks refuge in an isolated cabin, never suspecting that the recluse who lives there is not what he appears to be—or that the strange-tasting brew he’s offered isn’t tea. Too late, the woodcutter realizes that he is doomed to wander the earth, consumed by a raging thirst that can only be sated with human blood. A THIRST FOR MORE Houston, Present Day. For more than a century, he has hunted for fresh prey to feed his inhuman need. Now, his immortality threatened by a deadly blood disease raging across the globe—and pulsing in his own veins—he brilliantly reinvents himself as a world-renowned doctor, racing against time to find the cure that will save him. A HUNGER FOR DEATH As death shadows the infected doctor, ER Physician Matthew Carter and forensic pathologist Samantha Scott are in their own desperate race to find a vicious serial killer who leaves his victims’ bodies horrifically drained of blood. A killer who is poised to strike again . . . and is closer than they think. “If you read one horror book this year, read this one!” —William W. Johnstone

Release date: January 24, 2017

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 398

Sample

Hunger was an insatiable beast, living within my body gnawing at my guts. Slowly at first, it would course through me, gaining ascendancy until it occupied the center of my being, driving all rational thought from my mind with an undeniable command for blood—blood at any cost.

One night, early in August, the Hunger compelled me to leave my sanctuary, a refitted tramp steamer called the Nightrunner—the only place on earth where I felt completely safe from prying eyes and the unjust judgments of Others, the race of humans. They have never understood my curse, my affliction that causes me at times to violate their most closely held commandment, Thou shalt not kill.

My need, my Hunger was still mild, yet building with every tick of my grandfather clock; its golden pendulum swung back and forth slowly as it had for the two hundred years I had owned it. I wished with all my being I could stop it, and perhaps with that simple action stop the Hunger, but the Hunger was not so easily defeated. And only one thing could appease it.

With a sigh of resignation, as I had more times than I could remember, I got ready for a hunt. Dressed in black Sergio Valente jeans, a navy blue T-shirt, and black Nike tennis shoes, I set an alarm on my door and left, pulling my Mercedes sedan out into Houston traffic.

I timed my departure so the after-work crowd had dispersed, having already arrived at homes with welcoming spouses and children—a pleasure forever denied me. I drove randomly, with no particular destination in mind, but with a need to be around people, to reaffirm in some small way what was left of my humanity.

Soon I came to a large neon sign, blinking in garish pink letters ten feet high, RICK’S PLACE. I smiled to myself, thinking of Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Adolph Menjou. But this wasn’t Casablanca, it was Houston, Texas, and Rick’s Place was what was euphemistically called a gentleman’s club. A place where humans went to stare in sweaty fascination at breasts and buttocks and dream of sexual conquest. My mission was different, though no less urgent.

Rick’s parking lot was almost full of late-model, expensive cars. Perfect. A yuppie hangout. Intent only on their own pleasures, these horny men would never notice an interloper in their midst. I parked my Mercedes at an edge of the nightclub’s parking lot, placed for a quick exit should the need arise.

Entering the nightclub, I looked around, my nostrils dilating at the stench of smoke in a dimly lit room. Standing in the doorway, I extended my senses, searching for possible danger. As I closed my eyes to accentuate my power, smells and noises disappeared. A sea of emotions washed over me, waves crashing and churning against the breakers of my mind. I searched the room mentally, like a shark testing sea currents for any trace of blood. I found only boredom, lust, and hostility; nothing to endanger my quest. Reassured, I mingled with the race to which I was born but no longer belonged.

I am of medium height and have a slim build with a face that is in no way unusual. Although I looked no different from many others in the club, I knew I exuded a subtle air of menace the way some animals secrete musk. As I walked to the bar, threading my way through the crowd, people eased out of my way, glancing away as if by not looking at me they somehow avoided what they sensed but did not understand. It had been this way forever, or so it seemed, and was one of the reasons I was destined to be ever alone, even in a crowd. Though I was used to this, it bothered me. Like the mark of Cain, it kept me from even pretending to still be human. At that moment, I would have given my soul, if I still had one, to trade places with any of those poor, pitiful, weak creatures.

At the bar, a man was leaning over an empty stool, talking earnestly to an uninterested prostitute. I squeezed between them and straddled the chair, my back to the bar. The man, evidently too drunk to sense my power, started to protest and went so far as to put his hand on my shoulder. When I turned and glared at him, he reacted as if he had been slapped in the face. He sat there, hunched over, staring at his drink for a moment; then he shook his head as if awakening from a nightmare. With a sudden motion he emptied his beer glass in one convulsive swallow and stumbled from the club, sweat beading his forehead.

I motioned to the bartender, ordered a glass of Martel brandy, then swiveled on my bar stool to watch the stage.

I closed my eyes and concentrated my powers on the area backstage. In my mind’s eye, I could see one of the dancers, Salee Jensen, blotting her face with a soiled towel. The heat in her unair-conditioned dressing room was making her sweat, melting her pancake makeup. She looked over at one of the other girls in a mirror and said, “Jeez, you’d think that prick manager could at least put a fan back here.”

The other dancer paused while putting on her mascara. “At least you’re going out there where there’s air-conditioning to dance.” She leaned back toward the mirror. “Me, I’ve got another hour to sit here and bake before I go on.”

Salee shook her head. “Yeah, sit here and bake, or go out there and suffocate in the smoke.” She dusted more powder on her face, trying to dry her makeup.

Mick Jagger began to scream “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” through huge speakers flanking the stage. Salee looked over her shoulder and shrugged. “Well, it’s time to go to work.” She popped a stick of Juicy Fruit into her mouth and stepped through the curtains.

As she came into view, I opened my eyes to look at her for the first time. She was wearing a gauzy see-through top and a G-string. The beat of the music began to throb as she discarded her top and started to dance. She moved, bumping and grinding and swinging her breasts, all the while chewing her wad of fruity gum.

I stared at her as she danced. My gaze never wavered, not even when the bartender tapped me on the shoulder and set my drink down on the bar. I paid with a twenty-dollar bill. I could sense the barman shiver as our hands brushed, as if he were touching a corpse. I took the brandy and swirled it under my nose, inhaling its musty bouquet.

Staring at Salee, noticing how her pulse throbbed in her throat and how small beads of sweat lined her upper lip, I felt a momentary twinge of disgust for what I was about to do. It had always been this way. There was within me a constant battle being waged. The Hunger forced me to kill in order to live, while the remnants of my humanity cried out that what I was doing was vile and despicable. There was, however, never a doubt as to which of the forces at war within me would emerge victorious.

I focused my thoughts and dampened the voice of what remained of my conscience, letting my lust build as I sipped my drink.

Salee danced with closed eyes, avoiding looking at the men in the audience. I could feel her embarrassment, having to perform like this. Her skin began to turn red and splotchy, as if the very intensity of my gaze were making it burn and itch.

Mick Jagger ceased his howling and Salee stooped to pick up her top, leaving the stage to desultory clapping. A few minutes later she reappeared from behind the curtain, wearing her gauze top and a short skirt covering her G-string. She picked up her tray and started to wait tables, as all the girls did between sets.

As Salee walked by my stool, she shuddered. Putting a hand to her head, she turned. Our eyes met and locked. She began to back away, then stopped and smiled. She walked to me.

“Hi, I didn’t recognize you at first.” After she stared into the pits of my eyes for a moment, she cocked her head to the side. “I also didn’t know you came to places like this.”

I took a drink of my brandy and slowly studied her body, taking my time. “I don’t, usually. I came to see you.”

Although the room was filled with the buzz of conversation, the tinkling of glasses, and the blare of the music, she had no trouble understanding me. It was as if my voice, low, husky, hypnotic, had bypassed her ears and invaded her mind.

She flushed as I caressed her with my eyes. Her pupils dilated and focused on mine. My irises were black as death, shot through with tiny golden motes that swirled and moved as I stared at her. She moaned softly, and I sensed her lust. I knew when she became wet, as if I had touched her sex.

She swayed, but before she could fall I got up and took her by the arm. From that moment, she was mine. Her destiny was sealed. I laid her tray on a table and escorted her from the club. As we stepped through the door, the manager followed us and grabbed me by my shoulder. He attempted to whirl me around, but he quickly discovered it was like trying to move rock.

“Hey, asshole. She can’t leave yet, her shift’s not over for another four hours.”

I did not break stride as I reached back and took him by the neck with one hand, lifting him up until his feet dangled in the air. I stepped out of the light and into the gloom of the alley as I brought his purpling face close to mine and snarled, “Did you call me an asshole?” I can’t abide rudeness, even in the Others.

The manager’s eyes bulged with fear and pain as he tried to answer, but his voice could not get beyond my iron grip on his throat. I leaned close, listening to his soft gurgles and squeaks. I sighed. “I thought so.” I spread my left hand over the top of his head and slowly squeezed until I heard a crack, then effortlessly tossed his quivering body back into the darkness of the alley. Salee stood alongside me, a vacant look in her eyes.

As we approached my car, I made a discreet wave of my hand and the door opened. I guided her into the passenger seat, then went around to the driver’s side and slid in beside her.

I drove to a secluded stretch of road in a warehouse district of downtown Houston and parked the car. Salee flinched and seemed to come out of her trance as my hand, holding a chilled glass of red wine, appeared in front of her face. My voice was husky, sounding as if my mouth had filled with dust and cobwebs. “I know it’s a sin to chill red wine, but I thought after the heat of the club you would prefer something cold.”

She took the wine, examining me with gimlet eyes as I offered it.

She smiled, tentatively at first, more broadly as I returned her smile. “You are very handsome,” she murmured, lowering her eyes.

“Thank you,” I replied, embarrassed at the ease with which her mind was manipulated. This Hunt was almost too easy, taking some of the pleasure out of the chase.

I poured wine for myself, touching our glasses in a toast, making them ring like church bells at a funeral. She took a small sip, then drank the scarlet liquid down in a single swallow. I stared at the motion of her throat, my Hunger building rapidly now, almost out of control.

Holding her glass out for more, she whispered in a voice hoarse with lust, “When I first met you I didn’t realize how attractive you were. You look different at work.”

The ends of my mouth turned up in an ironic smile, revealing my small, pointed teeth glowing in the gloom surrounding us. “I am different at work.”

I slipped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to me. She peered out the windows at ground fog enveloping the car. I sensed her fear of our isolation in the darkness. It was as if we were alone in the world, encased in billowing swirls of smoke hiding the stars from view.

As she drank, she rested her head on my shoulder, quickly looking up as she caught a whiff of my musk, the scent of my Hunger. Just for a moment, a smell of decay, of moldering flesh, pervaded the car. Her nose wrinkled, but as the alcohol hit her bloodstream and made her slightly giddy, she relaxed.

I squeezed her shoulder with my right arm as I slipped my left hand into the front of her blouse. I pulled it down, exposing her breasts. Her nipples rose and puckered. She leaned forward and buried her face in my neck, nuzzling me with her tongue. I lightly caressed the soft, rounded flesh of her breast, bending my head to take her left nipple in my mouth. As I suckled it, my hand slipped under her skirt and up into her pubic hair.

She became wet and trembled with passion. I continued to suck her breast and stroke her wetness until she moaned and lay back, closing her eyes while spreading her legs. My fingers entered her, just as I grasped her nipple between my front teeth and bit hard enough to draw blood. My senses swam with the heady taste. She didn’t seem to mind. Not now . . . not yet.

She reached out and explored my lap, grasping my penis in her hand. It was huge, turgid, throbbing. A twinge of fear made her hesitate before she ceased to think at all as I eased on top of her.

She was in the first throes of her orgasm when I put the head of my organ against her opening and paused. She opened her eyes to look at my face as I entered her. Suddenly, her moans turned to screams as the flesh of my face began to ripple and change. My bloodless lips drew back over fangs that lengthened and I drooled, even as she watched. My tongue grew and became pointed. In an obscene gesture it began to flick in and out, licking her lips and mouth like an amorous serpent. She shook her head from side to side and tried to scream, but fear had closed her throat and rendered her silent.

My lips, hungry for more of her delicious blood, curled back in a grotesque caricature of a grin, and I thrust my penis forward, ripping into Salee and splitting her open. She reached up and began to scratch at my face, beating me feebly, until I took both her arms in one huge claw and bent them back over her head. Her pain was unbearable, yet I fed on it, becoming even more frenzied as I pushed and pumped and ground myself deeper into her. Now the sounds came and she screamed as never before. I turned my face to one side and opened my mouth wider, panting with anticipation. She continued to scream for some time as, all vestiges of humanity obliterated, I lowered my head and began to feed.

Dr. Matt Carter, associate professor of emergency medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, grinned as he accelerated up a parking ramp of the Methodist Hospital garage. The throaty roar of twin side pipes on his ’65 Corvette convertible was like music to his ears. He’d spent the entire day tuning and setting the ignition system on his classic car until the 327-cubic-inch engine purred like a big jungle cat. All in all, Matt felt it was well worth the skinned knuckles and aching lower back his hours of work had caused.

Harry, a security guard at the parking garage, gave him a thumbs-up, smiling in appreciation at the sight of Matt’s bright red sports car as it passed his booth. Matt waved back. Harry, a stock car racing enthusiast, had told Matt many stories of long-ago days in Houston when famous racers like A. J. Foyt used to race their beat-up, dented stock cars at the Houston Speedway. Matt loved the tales of sweating men pushing a ton and a half of metal to the breaking point, risking life and limb for a few bucks and a cheap plastic trophy. If Matt had another life to live, that’s exactly what he’d do with it.

But in this life, Matt, just shy of his thirtieth birthday, was one of the youngest associate professors at Baylor. He had been on staff only two years when his natural exuberance and love of teaching caused the professor of emergency medicine, John Horine, to appoint him his assistant and to assign him the duty of supervising residents and interns on the emergency service of the Texas Medical Center.

Though Matt loved his profession and was enthusiastic over his appointment to the staff of Baylor College of Medicine, he wasn’t sure he was ready for the responsibility of shaping the careers of other doctors. His father’s salary as a policeman hadn’t been nearly enough to pay for college or medical school tuition. He worked almost full-time while attending both the University of Texas and Baylor College of Medicine. A rigorous schedule of work and study caused both his grades and his social life to suffer. His appearance, though not ugly, wouldn’t be considered handsome by any means, and his short stature—he was only five feet eight inches tall—caused him to be almost painfully shy around women.

Unsure of himself socially, he blossomed when confronted with a clinical situation. He was aggressive and daring in his medical skills, although not in an academic sense. His pragmatic solutions when faced with a medical emergency made him a favorite among medical students and house staff of the medical school. He rarely asked “textbook” questions and was most interested in students’ performance when faced with real living beings in need of emergency care.

Being single, not unattractive, and what some called bashful rather than arrogant, he was also popular with nurses and secretaries. He was known to blush and stammer as if tongue-tied when asked to dinner by wives of his colleagues who fancied themselves matchmakers. In a perverse way, this only made him more attractive in a profession known for its massive egos.

Matt got out of his car and slipped into his white clinic jacket. Leaving his Corvette here meant he would have to walk more than two blocks to get to Ben Taub Hospital, but he wasn’t about to leave his ’Vette in the lot over at Taub . . . it would be gone or stripped before the door closed behind him. Even though this garage was guarded around the clock, and he knew Harry would keep a sharp eye on his baby, he set the alarm.

On the way out of the garage Matt said, “Good night, Harry.”

“Night, Dr. Carter,” Harry replied as Matt took off across the lot, hands in pockets, whistling to hide his nervousness over having to cross the medical center in the dark.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad night for walking. Houston in August can be brutal, but there had been showers earlier that took the bite out of summer heat. The evening was cool and moist and the greenery smelled fresh. As he walked across the forty acres of the Houston Medical Center, Matt marveled at the number and sizes of hospitals gathered here. The number of inpatients in these hospitals at any one time probably exceeded the population of more than ninety percent of the cities in Texas.

As he threaded his way along dark, winding sidewalks, Matt glanced up at giant, skeletonlike structures hovering over the buildings. Outlined against the night sky like huge, mutant praying mantises, the construction cranes were symptomatic of the never-ending construction going on at the medical center.

His scrotum tightened and the hair on the back of his neck stirred as he covered the last hundred yards to the Taub. He wanted to run from the darkness of the path to the safety of the lights; that would be unprofessional, not to mention cowardly. His legs didn’t care. They pushed him faster and faster until when he finally reached the hospital entrance he was walking like an Olympic racewalker.

Ben Taub is a charity hospital serving Houston and Harris County. Most of the patients, and people who bring them to the hospital, are poor. Assorted thugs and lowlifes hang around the entrance and parking lot of the hospital.

In spite of his fear, luck was with him and Matt made it to the emergency room without being mugged. He figured that was because it was Friday. Even though it was barely eight-thirty in the evening, ambulances were already having to wait in line to unload their cargos of human bodies torn apart as a result of alcohol and drugs bought with payday checks.

Emergency room staffs are superstitious, he knew, and spread a lot of wives’ tales about things that cause an increase in the damage people do to one another. Some are far-fetched, such as a full moon causing more obstetrical deliveries and lunacy. Others are more scientific, such as the heat during the Dog Days of summer causing more murders, and Fridays having the highest ratio of ER visits. Matt’s father, recently retired from the Houston Police Department after thirty years, told him on more than one occasion that the graph for homicides and violent crimes almost exactly matched the charts for temperature.

Paramedics were unloading an ambulance as Matt climbed the steps to the double doors of the loading dock at the emergency entrance. He leaned back against a wall and watched as medics struggled with a stretcher holding a huge black man who was moaning, cussing everyone around him. There were two IVs going, one in his right arm and another in his right leg. This usually meant the patient had lost a lot of blood—a fact confirmed by a scarlet-stained sheet covering the upper half of his body.

One of the attendants reached over as their stretcher raced through the doors to ring a trauma bell hanging by the entrance.

Like a shot of adrenaline to a failing heart, the tolling of the bell galvanized the ER staff into action. Before paramedics even got their patient on a table in Trauma Room One, the chief surgical resident, head of the trauma team, was at his side peeling back his blood-soaked sheet, examining his wound. The paramedic informed a resident the man had been drinking all afternoon at a local pub, and when he went home he tried to enter through a bedroom window to avoid a scene. His wife thought he was a burglar and unloaded on him with a shotgun, blowing his left arm almost completely off. The bet was even money among officers on the scene, someone said, whether she actually knew it was her husband or really thought he was a burglar.

Matt left his medical bag at the front desk and strolled into the trauma room, trying to stay out of the way and observe how the team functioned, part of his job as associate professor of emergency medicine. Besides his teaching duties, which were relatively minimal, he had the job of periodically visiting three major ERs in the medical center and evaluating and occasionally giving advice to the house staff that manned them. A few of the residents resented someone only a couple of years older giving them advice, but most liked Matt and knew he was only trying to help.

Right then, the team was functioning like a ballet troupe. Every member knew their job.

While the chief surgical resident examined and probed the wound, a nurse attached a blood pressure cuff to the patient’s right leg, well out of the way in case his heart stopped and his chest had to be cracked on the table. Another nurse stripped the patient’s clothes off with a pair of bandage scissors until he was completely naked. A recording nurse was standing in a corner, writing down the medication and lab and X-ray orders the surgical resident was calling out as he examined the wound. Matt listened to see if he missed anything.

“Apparent shotgun wound to left upper extremity, traumatic amputation. Ambulance tourniquet in place, brachial artery severed, but bleeding controlled. Call OR, we’re gonna need a vascular surgeon and team, including heart-lung bypass. Gimme a stat SMA-7, CBC, C and S, type and cross four units whole blood to start. X-ray chest and left shoulder. . .”

While he was rattling off orders, a lab tech stuck an eighteen-gauge needle in the patient’s right femoral artery, at the groin, and withdrew six tubes of blood to run the tests the resident was ordering. Another tech wheeled in a portable X-ray unit and was loading cassettes with film for studies the doctor wanted.

A second-year medical student was attaching metal clips to a protruding end of the brachial artery, the big one that supplied the entire arm, and various nerve fibers he could find in the shredded meat of the stump of the arm. Another student, probably third year, was poking and probing and listening to various other parts of the man’s body, looking for other injuries. It wasn’t unheard of for a patient to come in with an obvious major trauma and have it fixed, only to die from another hidden injury that was missed in the excitement.

The people of Trauma Team One swarmed over the body like worker ants in a disturbed ant bed, each with his specific job to do. Voices cried out orders for medicine and tests, observations of vital signs and blood pressure and the normal findings.

The med student called out his findings as he examined the patient. “Heart regular sinus rhythm, no murmurs, gallops, or rubs . . . lungs clear, abdomen soft, bowel sounds active.” From the cacophony of sound, all the members of the team managed to hear only what they needed to do their jobs, bringing order out of seeming chaos.

The entire process, from the time the bell rang until the patient was on the way to the operating room, took less than ten minutes. As the elevator doors closed behind the gurney with the patient on it, the team went from fast-forward to slow motion and seemed to wilt like flowers in the summer sun as their adrenaline ceased to flow. They stood in various poses, the resident leaning against a wall with one hand, rubbing his face with the other, the nurses walking slowly toward the big coffee urn in the staff room down the hall, the medical students jabbering to each other excitedly about the gory mess the shotgun had made of the man’s arm.

Matt walked to the center of the hall and stood there, slowly clapping his hands, a big smile on his face.

Jeff Strickland, the surgery resident, looked up, smiling tiredly in recognition. “Hey, Dr. Carter. What’s happening?”

The nurses looked once over their shoulders, waved and said, “Hi, Dr. Matt,” then continued toward the lifeblood of the ER staff—coffee.

The medical students became hushed and tried to look professional and grown up, managing only to look younger than they could imagine. “Good evening, Dr. Carter,” they said almost in unison.

Matt waved and walked toward Strickland. He put his arm around the exhausted resident’s shoulders and guided him toward the coffeepot. “Looked good in there, Jeff.”

“Thanks, Matt. The team is really starting to come together.”

“Looks like about”—Matt glanced at his watch—“nine minutes, forty-five seconds. Not bad, not bad at all.”

Strickland shook his head, eyes on the floor as he walked. “We could do better. The X-ray tech is a little slow, and the students always get faster after a couple a weeks on the service.”

Matt could feel the tightness in his shoulders. “How long you been on?” he asked.

“What time is it?”

“Eight forty-two P.M.”

Strickland thought for a minute, then smiled ironically. “What day, Thursday or Friday?”

Matt laughed. “Friday.”

“Then it’s goin’ on thirty-three hours.”

Matt shook his shoulder. “Hey, no problem then, you’re on the downslope.”

The surgical residents worked thirty-six hours on, twelve hours off one week, and thirty-six on, eight off the alternate week. Strickland only had three more hours to go until he was off duty for twelve whole hours. In that time, he would reacquaint himself with his wife, tell his kids hello, then try to sleep before his next thirty-six-hour shift.

As the two doctors entered the small break room where the coffee was kept, it looked like a haven for insomniacs. The entire staff of the ER wore surgical scrub suits to work. Scrubs looked like pajamas, V-necked cotton one-piece tops and baggy, string-belted pants dyed a solid sky-blue color. The nurses’ hairdos were limp and straggly and the men all had two-day beard growths and dark shadows under their eyes. Looking at the bedraggled crew, Matt was reminded of our medical forefathers’ wisdom in decreeing that no one over the age of twenty-five could enter medical sc. . .