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I didn&039;t drift in a hazyas when I&039;d accidentally taken in a dose of ht have been pleasant For this I was absolutely ironed flat to the ground, each offro even heavier Move me was coht about anything, I ht have wished for total unconsciousness Better not to have this sort of blind helplessness than be even a little aware of it and its attendant terror But I did have thatto coer e die, if we&039;re given enough tinize it
And with the terror was the stunning cold I was only sensible of it because of a contrasting band of waro away If that was bad or good I couldn&039;t work it out Couldn&039;t even shiver
Wind againstat my clothes It felt warm, too, compared to the iciness within e that it didn&039;t cruht
Sound Wind curled aroundHollow clank and rattle as it pushed a tin can along the street Mournful song as it slipped between the phone wires high above,them hum in turn
All this went on and on No way to tell the ti and everything at once and forever The fear and the cold and the wind, no beginning, no ending
And that one little spot of war and screeched to a stop Voices Questions A hand onmy face
"Jack? Wake up Jack?"
"Damn it, Charles, you can&039;t leave this kid alone for five ?"
"Probably that Maxwell person Jack mentioned How is he?"
"Out for the count What about-"
"He&039;s out, too We can presume some misadventure overtook theot the drop on them, then escaped I don&039;t see the car anywhere"
"Presuuys off the sidewalk before someone else comes by"
"Or Doc returns with help Come on, then"
"No you don&039;t You&039;re not doing anything with your ribs the way they are You just hold the door open, I can get &039;ehly up Heto be able to handle ed and eased down and pushed into place Sitting at first, then I heeled right over Leather upholstery Softer than the pave lifted and the car rocked on its springs a little once he was inside More rocking as they got in, two breathing men on either side of ht, butto slide sideways and down Doors slammed shut
"What&039;s that?" the second ht lifter, asked
"Found it on the walk It slipped from Jack&039;s hand I think it&039;s supposed to be a pen, but-careful!-that&039;s a needle, and there&039;s some kind of fluid in it"
"Does he take dope?"
"Certainly not, but this may be part of the misadventure that befell hi about this"
Starter, gears, forwardmen on either side of me, a shard of dim consciousness trapped alone and silent in a dead body
"It can&039;t be safe co back to this place," said the one called Shoe "They been here twice now"
"I rather think it will be, since they failed twice," said his friend, Charles "At least for the et Miss Paco to call off the hit on me"
"As far as he knows The shape he&039;s in, anything could have happened since then and she could be behind it He&039;s an honest kid dealing with a bunch of pirates You can&039;t play fair with them and win"
"Even so, he needs to be home for me to be able to help hiet at my sister&039;s place?"
"Just some odds and ends that she won&039;t have Don&039;t worry about it"
"I&039;ll worry if I dao hold the doors"
More lifting,Another soft place for ht clicked on
"Charles-Charles, hurry in here, he&039;s bleeding"
"Where?" Footsteps, co "Dear God"
"I don&039;t see any cuts, but look at it! It&039;s all over hiers brushed acrossright out of his pores"
"What&039;s the matter with him?"
"I&039;m not sure, but that bizarre hypodermic perhaps he was poisoned"
"What the hell kinda poison does that to a man?"
"I&039;ll work on it later Can you carry hioing to a hospital"
"Shoe, we cannot take hiht, but-"
"This has nothing to do with the Paco gang spotting us, it&039;s soether different"
"What, then?"
"There&039;s no easy way to explain it Jack has a rather rare physical condition, it&039;s similar to catalepsy, but quite a bit more complicated I kno to help him where most doctors could not You have to trustpause "Charles, it&039;s the kid&039;s life that&039;s at stake, not my trust in you Are you sure?"
"I may strain that trust in the next few et a bit strange, et him up to the bath for a start You&039;ll find out"
A grunt as I was again lifted "Goddao all Mr Mystery onon
"Put him in the tub," said Charles
Hard surface, slick
"H open one of ed shadows "His pupils are reacting to light, that&039;s so it back
"What the hell ?" More alar with his teeth?"
"It&039;s all right, in fact, I&039;lad they&039;re like that I know for certain what to do now"
"Then do it, but what about his teeth!"
The fingers pressed my lips back into place "It&039;s his condition I said it was complicated, and I proonna explain all right"
"When I have more ti bad Soaking right through his clothes"
"Then get them off him This looks like it will be veryatThen an abrupt pause "Charles" The voice, sad, tired
"What?"
"There&039;s no need to hurry He&039;s"
"He&039;s not dead" Statement, not question A very firm statement
"I know dead, Charles And that&039;s what he is"
Footsteps returning Cloth acrossit clean "Just watch for a ? It&039;s still co out of him like sweat A dead man does not bleed"
"Maybe the poison did that to him, thinned his blood in so rid of it I told you this could get strange"
"This is way past strange, this is goddaree, but I&039;ve no time to commiserate with you on it
Whether you think he&039;s dead or not, will you stay here in the house with him?"
"Yeah, sure, for what it&039;s worth"
"And don&039;t forget our friend Maxwell downstairs See to it he&039;s well trussed up, and some sort of blindfold wouldn&039;t be out of place, either I&039;ve an errand to run, so-
"
"You can&039;t drive"
"I&039;m able to and will"
"Where do you think you&039;re going?"
"To see adownstairs A door shutting So awayCoat, shirt, belt, pants When the belt slipped away fro cold encompassed me, and with it came the final comfort of absolute oblivion
I&039;d had this drea up, the one where I&039;ve got a tube in my nose that makes it possible for blood to drip down my throat and directly into , just a flash of it on those very rare times when the sun comes and I&039;m away from my earth There are always other, er than a few seconds I&039;d consider myself lucky, since compared with the rest it&039;s not all that bad
Then I really did awaken, fast, with a startled yelp, struggling to sit up, banging ht for an instant I was in that damned box over the tobacco shop
"There now, it&039;s all right, you&039;re safe," said Escott, trying to be soothing, I suppose
I clawed at my face and found the tube and started to pull it out, but that hurt so I forced myself to stop and look around
The upstairs bathroom Escott sat on the closed toilet lid, informal in an unbuttoned vest and rolled-up shirtsleeves, his face all pinched with concern, bruised eyes red for lack of sleep Shoe Coldfield filled uplike someone had just twisted his nose I was in the bathtub, cold in my shorts and undershirt, and covered, coave another yelp and Escott, talking louder to get through my fear, toldcoherent wanted to coto the stuff already there It was ondohenever I moved, and I sat in a thick icy puddle of it, could follow the threads of flohere it had slowly made its way toward the drain
Escott kept talking, saying ot hold of ht the urge to ju I really wanted to do
"Get this get this thing outtafingers One end of it was in ht up ing from a metal stand The bottle was nearly full of blood
"Right, you should have had your fill after all this Lean back and relax"
The next few seconds were really boring, but over and done with fast enough, and I felt better,up so it wouldn&039;t drip and put it and the bottle into the sink Coldfield just watched and said nothing
I didn&039;t want to knohat he was thinking, but it couldn&039;t have been good, to tell from the frozen expression on his face
"Sorry," I said to the general air Crazy thing, apologizing when I hadn&039;t done anything wrong
Escott snorted, dis the whole business "How do you feel?"
I lifted h and through, had to keep blinking trying to clear ht, and couldn&039;t quite shake the ihed a ton and a half , then?"
Nodded ain "How&039;d I get like this?"
"I was rather hoping you&039;d tell ht?"
" Last night?"
"You&039;ve slept the day away"
"Oh, jeez, I don&039;t remember"
"Yes, well, I did put this in with you just before dawn" He reached and pulled out one ofwas all bloodstained, of course
I glanced up at Coldfield
Escott followedeverything about your condition to Shoe Considering the extraordinary circumstances, there was little choice in the matter"
Noe both looked at Coldfield, who looked back at us,his head
I started to say so to him, but it wouldn&039;t come out I just didn&039;t knohat to say
He stopped shaking his head, kept staring Finally pointed at me "You you&039;re a vampire"
"Shoe, I"
Continued to point " You&039;re a vampire?"
Then his frozen expression cracked wide open and he doubled over laughing
There was a gas heater built into the bathrooooseflesh didn&039;t want to leave just yet
"What&039;s so daroused as his
Coldfield had to go downstairs so he could roll on the floor, slap his sides, beat the furniture, and hoot all he wanted withoutto witness the spectacle
"He&039;s just venting some of the tension We&039;ve all had a bit of a stretch on this one"
"Soh the floorboards "If he doesn&039;t slon he&039;ll need an oxygen tent"
One of Escott&039;s eyebrows bounced and he cleared his throat "Look, get yourself cleaned up, you&039;ll feel much better for it"
"Yeah, yeah"
"Then Shoe and I would very ht Perhaps you can explain about all that money we found in your overcoat pockets"
"Money? Oh, yeah, that stuff"
"It is not an inconsiderable suht thousand, three hundred dollars in various denominations and nonsequential serial numbers, and so far as I&039;m able to determine, it is not marked or counterfeit I&039;ve put it in the base"
"Thanks, but if you think that&039;s a lot then wait till wait the car-the stuff in the Caddie" The one, probably straight to Angela, looking after hiood Off he&039;d gone, along with the balance of that seven hundred grand, and not even knowing he had it
"The car?"
"Oh, God," I groaned as it overwhelht down to my toes; it hurt so
"What?" Escott deether and waved him off "Gimme a few minutes I can&039;t talk about it now"
He took his leave only very reluctantly Fros, it must have seeo into a fit of instant misery It couldn&039;t be helped, I had so to do I sat in the tub, head bowed andvery sorry for odly a excuses about none of it being reed
I mentally kicked ot through to me and demanded some attention By then I was ready for a distraction and cautiously stood to get a good look at thehow Escott had been able to stand it, since he&039;d mentioned his squeamishness to me more than once in the past I wasn&039;t too happyreat tolike alh
The poison must have sweated its way out of every pore in lad now that Escott had had the wisdom to replace the lost blood, or God knohat kind of shape I&039;d be in As it was, I felt fairly fit, but dry in the throat, from thirst or irritation from the tube, I didn&039;t know I reached over to the sink and got the bottle, reave the contents a sniff
Cow&039;s blood Gone cold, and not the saulped freely and let the stuff work through radually the chill started to recede frohted down as before With the last seeping away the last of the cobwebs, I turned on the tub water, letting it run until it got hot
I usually prefer a bath, but wasn&039;t about to sit down again until the tub was clean, so I pulled the lever to get the showerhead going and yanked the splash curtain around Running water was no friend of mine, but this kind I could handle without problems Took off my shorts and undershirt after the water soaked the fabric from one Finishing off with a shave and dressed in fresh clothes, I felt like I could face the world again and maybe even Escott and Coldfield, so I went downstairs
They were holed up in the kitchen, sitting at the table Escott had a big cup of tea, Coldfield some coffee, and between theive their respective drinks more of a kick On the counter by the sink were several rinsed-out bottles similar to the one I&039;d emptied, plates, and the remains of some Chinese-food cartons Escott hated to cook, even to make a sandwich I&039;d seen hiht out of their wrappers just to avoid the bother of putting the two together
"Better?" Escott inquired when I came in
"Yeah Sorry I went a little nuts there"
"I&039;m sure you had an excellent reason"
"You don&039;t know the half of it"
"Then please tell us" He shoved a third chair out with his foot as an invitation to sit
Coldfield glanced at rin
I glared at him " What?"
He snickered and tried to turn it into a cough, then gave up and started laughing again
"Why don&039;t I coot it out of his system?"
Escott looked pained "Really, Shoe, it&039;s not all that a a vampire? He&039;s the last person I&039;d pick"
"Thanks a lot," I said sourly, dropping into the chair
"I don&039;tused to"
"No kidding"
"I can see why you want to keep this kind of news to yourself, so I don&039;t blaht Charles had lost his ht in that sack of dirt and all those bottles of blood and put the tube up your nose and-
"
"I think Jack would prefer to skip that part I knoould"
"I don&039;t usually drink it out of a tube," I added "Where&039;d you get the stuff, anyway?"
Escott shrugged "I struck a deal with a night watchhterhouse"
"No questions from him on why you wanted the stuff?"
"I said it had to do with a practical joke against some antiunionists He was all for it"
"I&039;ll bet What about the bottles and all the rest? Where&039;d you get those?"