Dark Moonlighting (21 page)

“Who has time to wait for the standard
tests?” Condo countered. “The lab has been backed up all day. It
could be three hours before I get the results back, and this man
needs help now.”

I assured Dr. Condo that I could call in a
favor and get the test results back quickly. He reluctantly agreed
to hold off on his asinine treatment until I returned. Two nurses
helped to hold the patient down while I drew a vial of blood from
his arm. Thankfully the man did not suffer from another muscle
spasm while I was getting the blood sample. I exited the trauma
room but headed towards the nearest bathroom rather than the
laboratory.

The bathroom was quite crowded given the
number of patients who had flooded the emergency room. I had to
wait a few minutes until there was an unoccupied stall. When I got
inside I closed the door and removed the vial of blood from the
pocket of my pants. I carefully poured a single drop onto my
finger. I probably could have downed most of the vial without the
bloodlust kicking in, but I wanted to be on the safe side. I licked
the drop of blood off my finger and nodded in triumph. I flushed
the unused toilet and washed my hands to keep up appearances before
returning to the trauma room.

“Just as I thought,” I said to Dr. Condo.
“He’s got tetanus.”

“Tetanus, of course,” Condo said as he
smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead. “It was staring
me in the face all along. Man, I feel like my I.Q. has dropped
eighty points.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I.Q. can’t go
negative. Can I trust you to perform the standard treatment for
tetanus? I’m going to have one of the nurses call my cell phone if
they see you bringing leeches in here or something.”

“Yes, yes,” Condo dismissed my insult. “Go do
whatever it was that you needed to do.”

I sarcastically thanked him before heading
towards the trauma room’s door.

“Wait,” the incompetent physician said
suspiciously. “How’d you get the blood tested so quickly? Besides,
you can’t diagnose tetanus through a blood panel. There’s no test
accurate enough to identify…”

I ignored his concerns as I walked out the
door. Another stretcher was being wheeled into the second trauma
room. Dr. Berkowitz was attending to the patient, so I felt no need
to lend a hand. I had already been at the hospital far longer than
I had intended. I needed to leave soon in order to make it to the
police station on time. The patient on the stretcher feebly grabbed
my arm as he passed by me. He was pale and very weak, but his eyes
displayed recognition when he saw me. He tried to say something to
me, but his voice was too quiet to be heard over the chaos.
Reluctantly, I followed him into the second trauma room.

“Everything okay, Dr. Whittier?” Dr.
Berkowitz asked as I joined him in the trauma room.

“Yes,” I responded. I watched the trauma team
lift the patient onto the table in the room. “What do you
have?”

“Gangbanger,” Berkowitz responded casually.
“Stabbed in the neck. He lost a lot of blood, but it’s nothing I
can’t handle,” he added.

I nodded my head and moved to the front of
the table. The young victim had his eyes locked on me. I bent down
and had to turn my head so I could hear the patient as he attempted
to whisper into my ear.

“You’re the doctor with the scars,” the young
man murmured. “The man with the messed up face.”

“And you’re the fat street thug,” I said,
assuming his comment had been meant as an insult. “So what?”

“No,” he started to explain. The patient
feebly tried to shake his head. “She told me to give you a message
to answer the message you gave them.”

I leaned closer to the young man so that no
one else could hear the conversation. Dr. Berkowitz was on the
other side of the table inspecting the man’s neck wound. He seemed
focused on his task and unconcerned with the conversation I was
having with the gangbanger.

“Who?” I demanded. “What color was her
hair?”

“Red,” the wounded man responded. “She said
her name was Khloe.”

“What was the message?”

“She said you would probably say that,” the
patient answered. “And that if you did, I should say that I
was
the message.”

I looked over at the wound Dr. Berkowitz was
inspecting, which had clearly been caused by a pair of fangs, and
shook my head in annoyance. “Touché,” I said to myself. I patted
the young man’s shoulder reassuringly. “I understand. You rest up
now. The doctors will get you patched up in no time,” I said as I
started to walk away. As an afterthought I turned back and asked
him, “She didn’t make you drink her blood, right?”

The young man shook his head no. It normally
would have been a very bizarre question, but he was too traumatized
to find it strange. I thanked him and, with a new sense of urgency,
left the hospital.

My car was far away from the hospital in a
deserted part of the parking lot. I looked around briefly to make
sure no one was in the area before I crawled into the back. I
changed into my police uniform while I thought about the message
the vampire gang had just sent me. They must have known far more
detail about my life than I had imagined. They knew I worked at the
hospital, and they had done enough surveillance to make sure I
would be there when their victim arrived.

As I drove away, I worried about what the
gangbanger would say to other members of the staff. Would he tell
Dr. Berkowitz that he had been bitten instead of stabbed? Would he
say that the redheaded vampire had told him to give me a message?
There was nothing I could do about it at the time. I found out
later, after calling to check on the patient, that none of my
concerns were justified. He had died of blood loss shortly after I
had left.

Chapter Eleven: A Bite Too Far

Jasmine knew something was wrong that night
when I volunteered to drive our police cruiser. Although we had
taken turns driving early in our partnership, it had quickly become
clear that Jasmine preferred to be in the driver’s seat. I, not
feeling emasculated by the arrangement, usually had no problem
riding shotgun during our patrols. On that day things were
different. I needed to be in control.

My usually sassy partner saw the determined
look in my eyes. She was serious for the entire patrol, never
asking me what was wrong or switching to the ethnically insensitive
voice she loved so much. She worked the radio and directed me to
the appropriate addresses whenever we received a report from the
dispatcher. Those calls, which were typically the highlight of my
night, served only as distractions.

That night my job as a cop was merely a
cover. The uniform I wore was only useful to command the respect of
the people I questioned. When not on an official call, I drove
around to the locations I knew the members of the vampire gang had
visited in the past. I interviewed the homeless people and drug
addicts who frequented the areas. I asked them if they had seen
anyone matching the description of my arch nemesis or his trio of
sluts. I did not mention that I was looking for vampires, but I was
sure I was raising suspicions in the mind of my partner.

There was only an hour left in our shift when
I found her. She was nestled in a dark alley, but my superior
vision picked out her red hair instantly. Her mouth was firmly
planted against the neck of a young man who she had pressed up
against the side of an apartment complex. The tires of our police
cruiser squealed as I slammed on the brakes and made a hard right
turn down the alley.

The redhead pushed away from her victim and
took off running when she saw our squad car. The young man
collapsed onto the ground, blocking the path for our car. Jasmine
and I leapt out of our cruiser.

“Take care of him,” I yelled to Jasmine.

“But…” my partner tried to argue.

I ignored her as I hopped over the young
man’s body and began my pursuit. The redhead had a good head start,
but I began to close the gap as soon as I was out of my partner’s
sight. I was unconcerned with anyone seeing my superhuman speed.
Even though I was running as fast as I could, it was three blocks
before I caught up to her. She looked back once with a terrified
expression on her face before pushing herself to run even faster. I
was so focused on my target that I was not prepared when she
knocked a garbage can over in my path.

I stumbled over the obstacle and landed with
my palms scraping against the sidewalk. Infuriated, I pushed off
the ground and resumed the pursuit. When I had closed the gap to
about five feet, I leapt off the ground and landed on her back. She
shrieked in terror as I slammed her against the sidewalk. Blinding
rage took a hold of me as I grabbed her hair, pulled her head back
and sank my fangs into her neck.

The attack had been meant to cause pain
rather than draw blood. I had intentionally avoided any of her
arteries. Blood infected with the vampire virus, like normal blood,
contains all of the basic elements that I needed to survive.
However, it has a terrible taste that is difficult to describe. It
is similar to trying to drink a milkshake made of a blended pigeon,
plastic and human excrement. I pulled away from her neck
immediately after biting her in anticipation of the horrible taste.
It was this action that saved the girl’s life.

Pleasure surged through me as the sweet taste
of human blood hit my tongue. It was only a few drops, but the
excitement of the chase had left me in a susceptible position. I
groaned as I looked down at the young girl, who was crying in fear
beneath me. I focused on the wound I had opened up in her neck.
While I had not punctured her carotid artery, there was still a
decent stream of blood trickling out of the holes. I forced myself
to close my eyes, and I balled my fists so tightly that my
fingernails cut into the palms of my hands. At that moment, nothing
else in the world mattered to me. Every fiber of me being screamed
at me to latch onto the girl’s neck, drain her of her blood and
relish in her slow death. It was thirty seconds before the
bloodlust started to fade. Another thirty seconds passed before I
trusted myself to move. I opened my eyes, rolled to the left and
backed up until I was resting against the side of a nearby
building. In near catatonia, I watched the girl as she continued to
lie on her stomach and weep.

“Well, he’s drunker than The Chief is after
breakfast,” Jasmine yelled at me as she jogged towards us. “I
called for a bus just to be on the safe side, but it doesn’t look
like he’s injured. Aside from the nasty little hickey she gave
him,” Jasmine added. She cocked her head in bewilderment as she got
close enough to see the scene more clearly. “What happened? Are you
okay… is she?”

I stared down at my latest victim without
responding. Jasmine ran to the girl and kneeled down to inspect
her. She noticed the wound in the girl’s neck and, ignoring
procedure, pressed her unprotected hand against it.

Jasmine turned towards me with a look of
horror. “What happened?” she asked again.

I just shook my head. I pressed the palms of
my hands over my eyes to wipe up the tears that were forming. My
body started to shiver as the realization of how close I had just
come to taking an innocent life hit me.

The young girl recovered from the trauma much
quicker than I did. “He bit me!” she moaned between sobs. “He bit
me!”

Jasmine had spent ten minutes calming the
girl down and convincing her not to press charges. The redhead had
reluctantly agreed, citing her desire that her parents should not
find out she had broken curfew to get drunk and make out with her
boyfriend. Unfortunately, a small crowd had formed in response to
the sound of the girl’s cries of distress. Within minutes the
bizarre story of police brutality was floating around various
social networking websites.

I had mostly recovered from my stupor by the
time the girl left by herself. Jasmine helped me to my feet as the
small crowd began to taunt me. We were in a poor neighborhood, and
the type of people willing to come out of their homes at three in
the morning were not typically known for their civility.

“Rodney King! Rodney King!” the crowd began
to heckle.

“I think it’s time to go,” Jasmine whispered
in my ear.

I agreed, and we made a hasty retreat from
the area. Some of the members of the crowd followed and taunted us
for half a block before breaking off. It was quiet when we made it
back to our police cruiser. I did not hesitate to crawl into the
passenger’s seat. Jasmine started the car, and we headed back to
the police station in silence.

“You’re not going to ask?” I questioned after
a few minutes of quiet.

Jasmine looked straight ahead, pretending
that the road required her complete attention. “No,” she said
simply.

“I just attacked a teenage girl,” I snorted.
“I expect at least a little guilt trip from you.”

“You look plenty guilty without help from
me,” she responded softly. “You can tell me when you’re ready.”

We sat awkwardly for the rest of the car ride
in complete silence. After she parked at the police station, we
both sat motionless for a moment. I stared at the door of the
precinct knowing exactly what was ahead of me. In fact, I was
surprised that The Chief was not waiting in the parking lot for me.
Reluctantly, I opened the police cruiser’s door.

“Nick,” Jasmine said as she grabbed my arm.
There were tears welling in her eyes. “You’re a good man.”

I pulled away from her grip, exited the car
and slammed the door shut. “No,” I said to her. “No, I’m not.”

The rest of my colleagues were far less
sympathetic than Jasmine. Work came to a screeching halt when I
entered the police station. Silence fell as my fellow officers
turned to gawk at me. The fear and confusion in their eyes was a
familiar sight. I had experienced it many, many times over the
course of my life as a vampire. I did my best to ignore the looks
as I started down the hallway.