The Blood In the Beginning (27 page)

‘Stop!' Cold sweat broke out on my forehead and the tips of my fingers tingled. ‘Explain darker desires?'

‘Blood, Ava. You smell it on them?'

‘I've smelled it on you before too.'

He looked away. ‘Mar need blood to survive on land, only a small amount, and transfusion is more than adequate. The
Shen,
they take it far beyond necessity.'

‘How so?'

He thought about it for a moment. ‘Where Landers …'

‘People,' I interrupted.

‘Where
people
immerse in books, film, music, art, the Shen take human blood. From the blood, they pull the memories of their victims and ride them like waves of thought.'

It took a minute to register. ‘As in, for fun?'

‘Entertainment. They're fiercely addicted.' He rubbed his shoulder as if it had a kink. ‘It's not a small thing, the ecstasy of a memory experienced as if it were your own.'

If this is what happened to me, when I drank his blood, I wanted to redefine the term
ecstasy.

Rossi kept talking. ‘They prefer well educated, adventurous “donors”, rich with human knowledge of arts and science, creativity and discourse, full of the lust for life, conflicts, dramas —'

‘Sex?'

‘That too.'

Coeds.

Exactly.

‘So they drink the blood of smart, sexy people to get off?'

‘It's an oversimplification, but yes.'

‘Why not run a blood bank? They seem rich enough for it.'

‘Shen have taken over many profitable corporations, true, but a blood bank would not serve their purpose. The longer the hemoglobin has been out of the living system —'

‘The person.'

He ignored my interruption. ‘— the more the memories fade. Within a few minutes, they're often gone.'

‘So Shen Mar like it hot from the vein?'

‘Adrenaline boosts the images, tapping more dramatic memories. Over millennia, the Shen have developed ways to excite victims for the greatest recall.'

My stomach dropped. ‘So, Poseidon's VIP lounge isn't a floorshow?'

‘Who told you that?'

I let it sink in. I didn't know if I could believe Rossi or not, but if he was right? ‘You, and your Mar friends. Where do you get your kicks, if not from tasting human blood?'

‘We seek our kicks, as you call it, in the eternal memories of the sea. She holds a far greater elation for us.'

I digested these revelations. According to Rossi, Shen Mar lust for the memories of others and have no qualms about draining people to satisfy their needs. Other Mar lust for the millions of years of life memories encrypted in seawater, which is much the same constitution as blood, so that sort of made sense. Could this be true? I guessed if Rossi tossed back the same shot he'd given me the other day, then a race of sea people, at home in the depths, entranced by the fractal geometry of a coral reef, might seem like family. ‘You said you had empirical evidence.'

‘I can prove Mar exist, and you are one.' There was no chink in his confidence. He pointed at the microscope and clipped on a glass slide. ‘This is human blood. Take a look.'

I did. There were perfectly healthy red cells, oxygen rich, and the occasional white cell, clusters of platelets. ‘So?'

‘Watch this.' He pricked his finger, squeezed a drop on a fresh slide, covered it with a paper-thin square of glass and put it under his scope. After a little adjustment, he said, ‘Now compare my blood.'

He leaned back, but not so far I wasn't completely aware of his every contour as I bent to the scope. The hairs on my arms stood out. ‘This can't be right.' I pulled my head up. ‘You'd have to be completely hypoxic. Most of these red cells are dead.' I looked again to confirm. ‘And you should be too.'

‘But you see, I am not.' He removed the slide and took a blood bag from the fridge. With a 1ml syringe, he withdrew a drop, putting a pinhead of blood on the slide with his own. He covered it again and handed it to me. ‘Now look.'

I clipped it onto the stage of my scope and adjusted the lens. ‘This can't be right either.' I moved it around, checking the entire drop. ‘Your blood is mixing with the sample from the blood bag, and … coming back to life. The red cells are plumping up, becoming nicely convex and …' I looked up at him. ‘They're pulling hemoglobin from fresh cells. How?'

‘I told you. Mar need human blood to survive on land. We evolved to oxygenate from seawater, not air, but fresh blood, like the sea, works as well.'

‘Huh?'

He sighed, like I was a slow learner.
In the sea, we breathe water into our lungs and draw oxygen from it there, but on land, we've lost the ability to breathe air — no O
₂
exchange in the lungs. If we walk under the sun, we survive by extracting O
₂
from human blood, which enriches our own for hours, sometimes days.

I knew I was hearing him telepathically but it didn't faze me at this point. ‘And you think I am one of you?'

‘If you give me a drop of your blood, I will prove it.'

I thought about that for a moment. My desire to see him eat his words outweighed the fear of having my DNA fall into the wrong hands. I held my finger up, in a rude way, but snatched it back before he could touch it. I pricked myself, making my own smear, gently placing the cover slip of glass over the live blood. I'd done it on test subjects enough times. It wasn't like I didn't know how. I handed him the slide. ‘Knock yourself out.'

He took it and turned the knobs, scanning for a few moments. His forehead creased.

‘Yes?' I didn't repress the chuckle.

Rossi unclipped the slide, held it to the light and clipped it back to the stage. He sounded less sure as he continued. ‘When did you last take blood?'

‘You have my file at the hospital.'

‘I mean since then.'

I scrunched my face. ‘Nothing since then. It's not like I had another hemorrhage or anything. Well, I did have a bit of a bash-up or two, but nothing major.'

‘This can't be right.'

‘Maybe I should have asked my birth mother about my weird blood, when I had the chance.'
She seemed pretty knowledgeable about my origins.

‘What did you say?'

‘Birth mother. Didn't I mention? She's alive and well, living on Willoughby Avenue, East New LA.'

His eyes came off the scope and hit me like a shot. Damn, he could turn fierce without warning. I pegged him as a Scorpio rising, to go with the Capricorn sun, but it didn't seem like the right time to ask.

I leaned back, continuing the sarcasm. It beat feeling the emotions that threatened to come up. ‘Unfortunately, I don't have a blood sample from Mum. She was too busy running from me at the speed of light.'
And screaming into my head about my father, the rapist monster, who, by the way, I resemble more than a smidgen.

‘Impossible,' he whispered.

I don't think I'd ever heard a more alluring voice than Rossi's. Too bad it wasn't saying something more supportive while I spilled my guts. ‘Not impossible at all. She moved fast, for her weight. Bit chubby though. I don't think we share the same metabolism, or fitness goals.'

‘That was not your mother, Ava! She has to be a foster mother. No other explanation.'

And, back to crazy town, though it would be a relief in a way, if Adel Fletcher was an early, but awful, foster carer. Maybe she adopted me, and then had second thoughts.
Before going insane and trying to drown me.
I mean, what a crap reunion to have with the actual birth mother. But no, I'd been inside her head, seen what she'd seen. I faced him square on. ‘She recognised me. Said I looked just like
him
. It wasn't an act.' I pushed limp hair out of my face with my free hand. ‘I saw it all, in my head.' Admitting it aloud made my eyes well, something I did not want to do in front of this man.
Mar.
Whatever.

Rossi didn't move. ‘She said you resembled whom?' he whispered.

‘Do I have to repeat it?' My voice dropped into a growl. ‘The man who raped my mother, nine months before I was born. He looked like me; I look like him.'
Then she called me her demon spawn.
‘You should have been there. It was quite the mother-daughter catch up.'

Rossi went slack.

I seriously thought he might faint. ‘You alright? You're not looking so good.' His reaction wasn't doing anything for my confidence.

He ran his hands through his hair.

‘I don't know what's tripped you out. This makes more sense than your “other species” theory, and I don't care how off the charts my blood is. With my luck, I inherited the dodgy gene from Dad, someone I'll probably never find.'

‘Ava!' Pretty sure he wasn't listening to my babble. ‘If you haven't had human blood since the transfusion, how do you explain this?' He moved so I could check the slide.

‘I really wish you would stop saying
human
like it didn't include me.' I gazed down the scope, the halogen light shrinking my pupils. The sample teemed with live blood cells rushing off to nowhere under the glass. ‘How do I explain it? Easy. Red cells, reticulocytes, neutrophils, platelets.' I moved the stage a fraction. ‘Lymphocytes.'

‘What are they doing?'

I found a spot that was thick with cells. It was a mini-battleground. I sat up straighter. ‘Yeah. Seen this before. It's my fatal flaw — red blood cells sucking the daylights out of each other.'

‘No …'

I glanced up at him. ‘Um, yeah. My reticulocytes are attracting oxygen, drawing it in from the hemoglobin-rich erythrocytes.' I frowned. ‘It's not unlike your dead blood mixed with human blood.' That would need some research.

‘No,' he whispered this time.

Was he impaired? ‘Yes. This is oxygen exchange from the lungs, and a bad case of auto-immune disease. Kinda nixes the “I'm Mar” theory, doesn't it? Since I have functional lungs?' I scanned a bit more. ‘Don't need “human” blood to survive, unless the flaw kicks in too heavy. Then a transfusion stabilises it.' I sighed. It was only a temporary fix. ‘Proves my point though, wouldn't you say?'

I lifted my head from the scope.

‘Rossi?'

I caught the door click shut. ‘Hey! I was having a conversation here.' I looked down the scope again. Some red cells were fat and healthy, others were dying, shrinking like dried-up husks. Neutrophils were coming in to clean them up. A normal day in the life of Sykes and her weird blood disorder. As I studied the slide, the boat began to vibrate. I felt it from the floor, up the stool and to the bench top. ‘Rossi?' My head snapped up. The gentle lapping against the hull shifted into a forward driving momentum.

The stool fell over as I leapt off my perch and ran to the door. It was locked. I pounded the seamless carbon steel. ‘Let me out, you lunatic.'

‘In a moment.' His voice came from above. ‘We have to tell Teern.'

‘So open the door and we'll call him.' I pulled my phone from my back pocket, pointing it in a few different directions, ready to ring Rourke. Hell, I'd reach out to Flanagan if I had to. No reception.

‘We have to meet Teern in deep water.'

‘Hell no!'

‘It won't take long.'

Boy, was he not listening. ‘I don't sail on the water!'

‘Ava, what are you worried about? It's the sea. What could be more safe.'

I thought of the oceanic hallucinations I'd experienced, and the attempted swimming lessons that had given me nightmares throughout my childhood, not to mention my own mother's infanticide visions. ‘We have different ideas of safety.'

They weren't hallucinations, Ava. That was my life story, from human to Mar. I realise now it must have been very confusing for you. I am sorry.

He sounded sincere, but, no. ‘No! And stay out of my head.'

‘You need to meet Teern. He needs to know you exist.' Rossi's voice was on the other side of the door. ‘You can't tell me you're afraid of the water. I refuse to believe it.'

This man had no freaking clue.

‘Ava, if you open your mind to Teern, an hour from now all your questions will be answered.
And mine too.
You'll know your origins, your people. You can't say no to that.' His footsteps retreated.

‘Rossi! I'll charge you with kidnapping. It's a felony. Your career is over.' My pounding fists punctuated every word. ‘Let me out.'

Within minutes, the engine cut out, pulleys squeaked and the speed picked up. I guessed we were under sail. I searched for a weapon and found a butcher's knife in the kitchen. Gripping it in one hand, I returned to the door. Silent as a cat, I waited.

* * *

Ava, put the knife down.

He has x-ray vision?

The door opened and Rossi stepped back. I raised the knife and charged. He grabbed both my wrists, faster than possible. I leaned back to headbutt him, managing only to slam his chest. Tall guy.

‘Ava, calm down.'

‘Let me go.'

He did, and I bolted out to the deck …

I don't know where I expected to be, but finding myself under all that sail, surrounded by dark-blue water, stopped me dead. I turned toward shore. Two figures stood on the breakwater. I couldn't make them out from this distance, but I bet they were my tails, Mark and Samuel. The sun rode west, lowering toward the horizon, late afternoon. The sky was still a smoggy brown, but where a bit of light cut through the clouds, it was amazing. I enjoyed it for all of two seconds, then the fear rolled back in. I planted myself on a bench seat and kept a tight grip on the edge. Rossi came and sat opposite. ‘Can I have the knife before someone gets hurt?'

It was my turn to fix him in a blazing stare. ‘Is this how you operate? You make a choice without my consent?'