Free Blood Crimes: Book One by Dave Zeltserman Page B

will be justice and you will suffer worse than you’ve made all of us suffer.”
          “That may be true,”
M
etcalf said. “But you know something, I don’t believe I asked for your opinion.”
          
M
etcalf reached into the vampire’s chest and squeezed its heart in his fist. A sick gurgling noise escaped the vampire’s lips and its eyes rolled up into its sockets.
M
etcalf decided to alter his experiment. He took a loose spike and drove it into the vampire’s heart. Unlike the supernatural myth associated with a vampire, a spike through the heart didn’t kill it. The virus would cause the damaged heart to regenerate its tissue as it tried to heal itself. From personal experience
M
etcalf knew the pain would be excruciating. If the spike were removed, the heart would completely regenerate in seconds and be as healthy as before the injury, but with the spike in the way the newly generated tissue would wrap itself around the metal in a fruitless attempt for recovery. No, one spike through the heart wouldn’t kill a vampire, but maybe more than one would. Overtime
M
etcalf would discover how many it took, but he planned to stretch this experiment out and make it last years. He watched while the vampire writhed in agony, its mouth twisting as it tried to scream but in too much pain for any noise to escape. Satisfied that his point had been made to the other “guinea pigs”, he turned to the room and addressed them, asking if any of them had any other comments they’d like to share.
          “Well?”
M
etcalf asked. “
M
ost of you still have your tongues. Come on, if you have anything to say, let’s hear it.”
          All he got back in response were a few soft moans.
          He moved his gaze slowly around the room. Like the “cattle” in the feeding pens, the vampires pinned and chained around the lab looked away from him, none of them willing to meet his eyes.
          “No complaints, huh? That’s good. I like to think I treat my lab rats as humanely as any other scientist. But I am always open—”
          His phone interrupted him. The compound was thirty feet underground, but he had it built with a network of antennas and signal enhancers so that it allowed for cell phone reception. He took out his cell phone and saw that Serena was calling him.
          “
Jim
was in Kansas City four days ago,” Serena said breathlessly.
          
M
etcalf lowered his head into an open hand and rubbed his eyes. Christ, he wasn’t in the mood for this.
          “So?” he asked.
          “So? What do you mean so? We’re only four days behind him! We’re finally going to catch up to him!”
          
M
etcalf rubbed his eyes some more. “Four days is a long time, Serena. He could be half way across the country by now.”
          “Always the eternal optimist, huh? Let’s say he is. It doesn’t matter.
M
y little private eye has a spectacular idea on how to flush him out.”
          
M
etcalf’s patience was quickly eroding. He never liked the idea of having a private detective snooping into their business, but he agreed to let Serena hire one a year ago. He didn’t think anything would ever come of it and at the time it seemed the best way to mollify her.
          “Serena,” he said, trying hard to keep his annoyance in check. “This obsession you have with
Jim
is not healthy, and this whole private eye business—”
          “
M
etcalf, darling, who the fuck are you to talk to me so condescendingly? Fuck you, my darling! Aren’t you the one who’s constantly harping on how we need to keep the virus contained? That we can’t afford as much as a single rogue vampire or we’ll all end up starving to death? Isn’t that the tune you keep singing?”
          “Serena—”
          “Answer me!”
          “Okay, yes, that’s the deal, but Serena, let’s be reasonable.
Jim
isn’t out there