“I can get my housekeeper to mail us some guns,” Harry said.

  “That can’t be legal,” Phin opined.

  “She’s not legal, either.”

  “Aren’t you worried about her getting caught? Going to jail or getting deported?”

  “I’ll tell her to wear a mustache as a disguise.”

  “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re fearless, or just really stupid,” Phin said.

  “I’ll also have her mail some heroin to calm your bitch ass down.”

  “Maybe my bitch ass will come over there and give you an enema with my fist.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  “Stop acting like children,” I warned, Mom voice again.

  “He started it,” Phin said.

  “He eats his boogers,” Harry said.

  “He eats other people’s boogers,” Phin countered.

  “He won’t share his boogers,” Harry said.

  I remained the sole adult in the room. We needed to focus, even though men had the habit of cracking jokes when situations required seriousness. Especially men I associated with.

  I sometimes wondered what the common denominator was.

  “Third, we need to talk to some of Blood’s previous victims. See if any of them can provide more details. And we need to be discreet about this, guys. Sam has been through enough. We don’t want to freak her out with this.”

  “Agreed,” Phin said.

  “I’ll do whatever requires the least amount of effort,” Harry offered. “Something I can half-ass.”

  “We could also ask around the hospital,” Phin suggested. “See if anyone has seen or heard anything.”

  “Wouldn’t that alert Blood that we’re here?” Harry asked.

  I frowned. “If Blood is in this hospital, they already know we’re here…”

  BLOOD

  Let me tell you a story.

  A story of Blood.

  Once upon a time, there was a child who didn’t fit the standard neurotypical model of suburban American youth.

  Because they were different.

  Yeah, I ate bugs.

  But I didn’t do it because I liked the taste.

  Or because I liked to kill things.

  I did it for self-preservation.

  I went to a lot of doctors over the years. But not the right sort of doctors.

  They thought I had psychological problems. That I ate small animals because I had a disease called pica, which was an obsession with eating inappropriate things. Or ARFID; avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder.

  But my diet isn’t the real issue.

  Other shrinks thought that I skinned mice and put them in a blender and drank them because I was a sadist, or a psychopath, or got some sexual thrill from it.

  Not true. I felt bad for the mice.

  People, I don’t feel so bad for. Because people are assholes.

  Mice are mice. They don’t have choices.

  And a few select people, like me, don’t have choices either.

  I never needed a psychiatrist. I needed a medical specialist to explain why my insides were drying up. And why the only cure was blood.

  You see, cells have a permeable membrane. This allows molecules to diffuse through the cell wall. Nutrients come in. Waste goes out.

  But if you’re sick like I am, sometimes nutrients can leech out of your cells, and those cells shrivel and die unless the nutrients are replaced.

  Replaced with blood.

  Most people know that blood contains red and white blood cells. Some smarter people also know that blood contains platelets, hormones, plasma, electrolytes, vitamins and minerals, and oxygen. But science still hasn’t discovered every single element contained in human blood. It doesn’t understand why replacing the blood of someone old can make them young again. Or why a transfusion from a psychic could give someone special precognitive powers.

  I drank the blood of a psychic once. Which was sort of weird, because you would have guessed they could have seen it coming.

  For a week afterward, I had visions that came true.

  Scary stuff. I didn’t like it.

  But sometimes we need what we don’t like.

  Blood is a wondrous, magical liquid. I don’t understand why it sustains me. Nourishes me. Prevents me from dying.

  But it does.

  I got some of my blood from the hospital. But I had to be really careful I didn’t get caught.

  As I walked the halls of St. Erasmus at a little after 3 A.M., blending in like I always do, I made sure I attracted no attention.

  A polar bear in the artic. A real life Where’s Waldo.

  You can’t spot me, even if you’re looking closely.

  I knew where the blood was stored. It isn’t hard to steal a pint.

  But the restorative properties of blood begin to decompose and vanish once it is removed from the body, just like the nutrients in vegetables start to fade once they’re picked from the ground.

  Fresh from the source is best.

  So I wandered the ward, aware of the nightshift staff without acknowledging them, finding a room where the occupants were sleeping.

  Three of them.

  I approached the youngest, who looked to be a young teen, or tween. The fewer years you’ve been alive, the less corrupted you are by destructive free radicals and bad life decisions. Elderly blood tastes like sour milk and regret. It lacks the power to rejuvenate.

  The blood of youth is always purer.

  I kept my footsteps silent, my eyes flitting to the older people. Sleeping man. Sleeping woman, lightly snoring. Asian, or maybe Pacific Islander.

  The young person was on her side, curled up in a fetal position. I checked her chart to make sure there were no illnesses, especially illnesses involving the blood. I’m supposed to be helping myself, not hurting myself with someone else’s diseases.

  Then I disconnected the tube from her IV drip and crouched next to her bed, below her body level.

  IVs worked by gravity, feeding fluid into a patient’s vein as long as the patient was lower than the bag.

  I turned her into a reverse IV. My own personal blood bag. The saline in the tube flowed onto the floor beside me, and I watched as her blood took over, pushing out the clear liquid, replacing it with beautiful scarlet.

  I brought the tube to my lips, hands trembling, and let the first delicious drops soak my tongue.

  Bitter. Metallic. Tangy.

  Ecstasy.

  The precious fluid pulsed with her heartbeat, and I encouraged the flow by gently sucking on the tube.

  My insides untensed and unwound, the delicious blood lubricating my dry tissues. I could feel the reverse osmosis happening in millions of my cell walls, revitalizing them, saving me from certain death.

  I was tempted to be greedy. To fill my belly and my body. But taking too much would put me at risk of discovery. If I wanted to remain invisible, I had to be discreet.

  My donor stirred, turning in bed, her eyelids fluttering. For a moment she seemed to look straight at me, and before she closed her eyes again I felt a surge of something.

  Fear? Helplessness?

  Power?

  Feeding on the sleeping was safest, and deeply satisfying. But feeding on someone awake and aware was a whole different sort of thrill.

  Her blood was good. Much better than the blood I’d taken from those older people at my friend’s house.

  But that had been exciting. Maybe I’d even call it arousing.

  I can’t get all my blood at the hospital. Sometimes I have to go out to eat.

  Or out to drink, to be more specific.

  I eat normal stuff. Fast food. Cereal. Waffles. Sandwiches.

  But that isn’t enough. Blood still needs blood.

  Unlike some other people I know.

  While the doctors were a bunch of clueless idiots, I have met a select few who understood me. Accepted me.

  Three people, to be precise.

  Two of them are gone. My friends. Thanks to those newly admitted patients that I’d fed on earlier.

  But one ally is still around. He’s been around for most of my life.

  His name is Flesh.

  Who hasn’t heard of the legendary duo Flesh and Blood?

  You can’t have one without the other. Right?

  We help each other.

  Flesh will get Blood blood. And Blood will get Flesh flesh.

  That may sound complicated, but it isn’t.

  I get my sustenance with a straw.

  Flesh gets his with a fork and knife.

  Two sides of the same coin.

  The four people who were just admitted to St. Erasmus—two men, a woman, and a young girl—two of them have been formally introduced to Blood. Jacqueline Daniels. Harrison McGlade.

  They will all meet Blood again. Soon.

  And so will Jack’s husband, Phineas Troutt, and their daughter, Samantha.

  They were right down the hall. I could even hear them talking.

  So rude. Zero respect for other patients and their much-needed rest.

  If they were any louder they might have awoken the little girl I just sipped.

  Some people think I’m creepy. Scary. A monster.

  But just wait until they meet Flesh again. They certainly didn’t like it the first time…

  I closed my eyes, remembering it like it was yesterday.

  Because it was, literally, yesterday.

  BEGIN FLASHBACK

  The two body bags hung from the ceiling on hooks.

  Made of waxed canvas. Grey. Long. Heavy.

  And inside the body bags…

  People.

  One of them wiggling and whimpering.

  The other, still.

  Hanging there like webbed-up bugs, waiting for the spider to suck their blood.

  I was the spider.

  I touched the nearest one. The screaming woman.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “It will be over soon.”

  “Rita?” she asked.

  “No. Rita’s locked up in the basement. You and your friend are going to nourish her.”

  The woman began to squirm hard in the bag. I took out my rig and uncoiled the tubing.

  “What’s your name?” she eventually asked. As if getting me to talk would stop me from doing what I was about to do.

  “Blood.”

  “Your name is Blood?”

  “I am Blood.”

  “Blood, my name is Jack. Is there someone else in here? In another bag?”

  She doesn’t know. Helpless, and blind.

  “Yes,” I told her.

  “Is he… still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Listen to me, Blood. His name is Harry. Harry McGlade. If you check the Internet, you’ll see he’s a celebrity. Rich and famous.”

  I touched her through the bag, found her hips. Larry had hung her upside down.

  I bet it was scary in there.

  “Would you like to be rich, Blood?” she asked, voice shaking. “We can make you rich.”

  “Blood doesn’t need money.”

  “What is it that Blood needs?”

  I steadied the IV needle. Whenever Larry shared a body bag with me, the donor would always try to talk me out of it. Begging. Bargaining. Crying. Screaming.

  It never worked. There was only one thing they could offer me that I wanted.

  “Please. Please, Blood. Tell me what you need.”

  I clenched her arm. “Blood needs blood.”

  “You’re the Destiny Drac.”

  The nickname made me laugh. “You’ve heard of me. I’m flattered.”

  I stuck the needle into her arm, wiggled it around, searching for her cephalic vein.

  The vein opened for me, like a willing lover.

  I put the other end of the tube to my lips and slurped.

  “Your flesh will nourish Rita.” I smacked my lips. “Your blood will nourish me.”

  Her screaming didn’t disturb my meal.

  Her essence filled my cheeks and belly.

  I shivered with something between joy and relief, and stopped after about a pint, withdrawing the needle.

  “So…” she asked, no doubt trying to sound brave. “How did I taste?”

  I’d moved on to her hanging companion. Limp in the bag. Unconscious.

  “No one has ever asked you that before?”

  “Bitter,” I whispered. “Typical type A.”

  “You can tell I’m type A by taste?”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes. Should I take a supplement? Maybe I’ll taste better.”

  I found the cephalic vein on her friend. I was that good at it.

  “Grinding Jesus on a skateboard! Who just stabbed me with a goddamn drinking straw?!?”

  “That’s Blood,” Jack said. “He sucks.”

  Everyone is a comedian.

  “No shit. Let me out of this bag, Blood, I’ll give you something to suck.”

  I took a slurp. “Type O.”

  “Really? I use spellcheck. That should get rid of the typos. Heh heh.”

  “And a lot of THC.”

  “This is why Larry drugged us? So we can be human juice boxes?”

  “You are food. For Rita.”

  “What are you? The royal food taster? Making sure we’re not poisonous?”

  “Larry and Blood are friends.” Slurp slurp. “We help each other. Rita eats flesh. She doesn’t like the blood. Blood likes blood.”

  “Where’d you freakos find each other? I bet it was on goddamn craigslist. Was it craigslist?”

  It wasn’t on craigslist. Our little family predated craigslist.

  “You know, it’s been a long day.” Harry McGlade chuckled. “I really feel drained.”

  Abbott and Costello, these two. “You’re making jokes.”

  “You sure I’m a type O? More like B positive. Heh heh.”

  “Aren’t you going to beg for your life?” I asked. “Most people beg.”

  “The only thing I beg for is sex. You want to have sex? Pretty please?”

  That actually made me smile. “No.”

  “I hope you choke on a clot.”

  “Are you upside down, Harry?” Jack asked.

  “I am. I’m worried my head is going to pop, all this blood rushing up from my big dick. You okay?”

  “Broken arm, I think.”

  “Someone kicked your ass, too? I feel like I spent an hour in a cement mixer with a pallet of bricks.”

  “Larry,” I whispered. “He tenderized you.”

  “Hey, Jackie, I think I’m ready to form an opinion about your next-door neighbor. I’m thinking he might be dangerous.”

  I laughed aloud at that, then resumed feeding.

  “That’s right, asshole,” Harry said. “You get a meal and a floor show.”

  “I can taste your elevated histamine levels.”

  “What does it taste like?” Harry asked. “Dr. Pepper?”

  “It tastes like fear.”

  “Does it also taste like herpes? Because you need to head to the store and buy up every lip balm you can find.”

  I was starting to like these people. It was almost a shame what was going to happen to them.

  Almost.

  “What is Larry going to do with us?” Jack asked.

  “Tenderize you again. Then put you in the freezer.”

  “Are you going to come back?”

  “Yes. But not for you. For your children.”

  Harry tensed up, making the flow slow down.

  “I’m going to tell you a secret, Blood. Me and Jackie, we don’t die so easily. We’re going to get out of here. And we’re going to track you down.”

  “And then you’re going to kill me.” I gargled some of Harry’s blood. “How original.”

  “No, Blood. That would be too merciful. Instead, I’m going to befriend you, and then friendship will slowly blossom into something more, something shockingly intense and startlingly beautiful, and after you fall desperately in love with me, we’ll plan a gigantic wedding—we’re talking a page 9 Variety photo spread with all of the Baldwin brothers who aren’t currently in jail—and after a full decade of wedded, marital bliss… I’m going to ass fuck both of your parents and send you the pictures.”

  “You’re not a very nice man,” I whispered and I noticed that someone else had come into the room.

  Not Larry or Rita.

  Someone more dangerous. A good friend of mine. And he picked up the bat resting against the kitchen counter.

  “Did you hear the part about a full decade of marital bliss?” Harry asked.

  I pulled out my needle rig and put it away.

  “Ow!”

  “You okay, Harry?”

  “The suck tube got yanked out. Hey, Blood! Got a Band-Aid?”

  “No. But I have something else.”

  “A blowjob?”

  I smiled at my friend, who stepped up to the plate.

  “A bat,” I told them.

  “Not interested. I’d rather have a—YAAAAAAAA!”

  My friend began to tenderize Harry.

  “Quit it! I’m not a goddamn piñata!”

  THUD!

  “You hit like a baby! A giant, strong-ass baby!”

  THUD!

  “I lied! We’re divorcing after the third year!”

  THUD!

  “I don’t have herpes! I have super herpes! You’re not going to need Valtrex, you’re going to need ten pounds of kryptonite!”

  THUD THUD THUD!

  Harry went quiet.

  “I’m not bad,” Flesh whispered, trying to sound like me when I was crying. “I just do bad things.”

  I looked away. I didn’t like it when he got super-violent.

  “Blood, you’re hurting. I bet you’ve been hurting for a long time,” Jack said.

  “How would you know?” Flesh wailed.

  “You don’t have to be in pain, Blood. You don’t have to suffer.”

  “You don’t know,” Flesh told her, giving me a wink. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know that no one needs to hurt. No one is beyond getting help. I can help you.”

  “How?” Flesh was really laying it on thick.

  “There are ways,” Jack said.

  “What ways?” he asked.

  “Professionals,” she said. “Doctors.”

  “NO! NO DOCTORS!”

  He swung the bat, and kept swinging until Jack stopped moving.