Cold Blood is Thicker

“Are you awake?”

Orri’s eyes opened to see the tacky floral wallpaper of the motel room. He blinked a few times trying to keep his eyes open. It was difficult. He made a small moaning noise in response to whoever was talking to him.

“Are you sore as hell?”

When it was mentioned, Orri tried to move, and when he did, he felt his entire body enveloped in an aching pain. He moaned again and heard a small laugh. He recognised Charlie’s voice and felt a hand on his stomach. Charlie was lying next to him, his arms around Orri’s small body. He was telling the truth when he said he’d be in pain.

“Why are you touching me?” Orri asked bitterly, feeling his head starting to hurt.

Charlie didn’t answer, but he did sit up. Orri didn’t move. “Come on, you’ll feel better once you feed.”

“It feels like the worst hangover ever.” Orri managed to roll over on his back, but even that hurt. He had his eyes open now, but he still didn’t want to move any more. He suddenly realised that Charlie was warm when he felt a chill go through his body. He wasn’t undead after all.

“Aw, what did he do to ya?” Gage was up and bouncing around the room. He was childishly giggling to himself, his smile looking freakish with the two large scars on his cheeks.

“Yeah, what did you do to him?” Cain asked Charlie with an irate tone.

“Nothing,” Charlie snapped back. “I did absolutely nothing more than turn him.”

Orri saw Cain standing above him. Her face was full of concern and also anger. She knelt down beside the bed, touching Orri’s face in a motherly gesture. She pulled at his collar and breathed a small sigh of relief when she saw the small scars of bite marks on his shoulder. She looked up at Charlie with a blank expression. “You’re sincere for once,” she muttered. She went back to Orri and stroked the side of his face with the back of her fingers. “Nice bruise.” She smiled at him, and Orri found himself smiling back at her. He remembered the bar fight from the night before, feeling as if it were many years ago. Orri started sitting up somewhat, still aching. He was dressed in the clothing he wore the night before: blue jeans and a dark red sweater.

Charlie was looking at Cain with disdain. He was silent, but he got up from the bed and walked towards the door, stretching. Gage seemed to leap up and follow him to the door.

“Trust me when I say this,” Cain said softly to Orri. “Don’t trust Charlie.”

Orri was starting to stand up, but Cain’s statement caught him off guard. “Why? I mean, he grabbed me off the street and threw me in a van, why shouldn’t I trust him?”

Cain chuckled to herself. “You two are held together by a blood bond. That means he has a limited amount of power over you.”

“What d’ya mean?”

“Come on.” Cain took Orri’s hand and led him towards the door. They both got their boots and coats on and made their way through the outside hallways after the rest of the vampires. “Charlie is the kind of guy who…” Cain scrunched her face up, looking for words.

“Who, what?” Orri was walking slowly with Cain, but his body ultimately felt better as he started to move.

“Who likes to manipulate people for his own gain.”

“Oh, really? I couldn’t tell at all!”

“Just listen, okay?” Cain’s face went serious. She pushed some of her pink hair behind her ears with a huff. “Tonight, he will be relentlessly cruel to you. He will mock, pressure and humiliate you to get you to kill.”

Orri cocked an eyebrow in contempt.

“Honestly, I think it is good motivation, but just expect it.”

Orri nodded.

“Oh, and expect him to make advances on you at the end of the night.”

“Advances? What kind of advances are you talking about?”

“Well, if you haven’t noticed, he has quite the sexual interest in you.”

“S-sexual interest?” Worried thoughts began to fly through Orri’s head. “But, I mean… I don’t even like guys. I mean, I saw him kiss Gage, but does he actually…?”

“Oh yeah.” Cain was smiling mischievously. “And you wouldn’t believe how often. There is no such thing as a monogamous vampire. Charlie’s a slut, and so are all of us. It’s just natural instinct.”

“But…” Orri started. He wanted to say that he had never been completely interested in sex. It wasn’t just because he was constantly turned down, but he just never thought it was that big a deal. Now that he was a vampire, would it change? “Did he… To you?”

“Hell yeah, and to everyone he turned. To everyone he fucking feeds on.”

Orri shook his head. “I just can’t see it. Sure, he was kinda close this morning, and last night was…”

“What about last night?” Cain’s voice was full of panic. They had now walked past the front office where Charlie seemed to be having a heated argument with the clerk.

“Why are you so paranoid about last night?”

“Oh, it’s just… Foks was the last one he turned two years ago. When he did it, he… I can’t tell you that, it’s too long a story. But did he do anything else besides drink your blood, then let you drink his?”

“He didn’t do anything else.”

“You drank from his tongue?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Just some advice for later tonight?”

“Please.”

“Without a doubt, he will fuck you. I can guarantee you he will. Just go with it. Your natural vampire slut instinct will kick in, and nothing will matter.”

Orri gave Cain an almost disgusted look.

“And you won’t be able to say no. It’ll be the best thing on Earth for a short while, but maybe after a few years, you’ll hate him like I do.” Cain gave Orri’s hand a quick squeeze and smiled at him sweetly before catching up to Foks and giving him a hug from behind. They were all in the parking lot, walking slowly towards the van. Charlie was out of the office now with a small smudge of blood under his bottom lip. He didn’t look happy.

“Fucking asshole wanted to charge me for two nights,” he muttered as he got to the van. Allison was already in the driver’s seat, and everyone else was piling into the van.

“Where to next, Charlie?” she asked. She was sitting cross-legged, looking over her shoulder. Her bright red hair hung in her face as her eyes looked impatiently at Charlie.

Once everyone was inside, Charlie shut the van door. “I’d say we head South. We need to find some roadside truck stop or something to teach this boy to feed.”

Orri was sitting across from Charlie on the floor of the van. “You know, I’m not a boy.”

Charlie clucked his tongue passively. “Really? How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-three.”

Charlie nodded. “What I figured.”

“Well, how old are you?”

“How old am I?” Charlie smiled wickedly and Orri heard snickers all around him. “Well, let’s put it this way…” Charlie looked up for a moment, trailing off. He smirked to himself, reminiscing on the past. “Have you ever heard of Jesse James?”

“Of course I have.”

Charlie just smiled. “I used to be a part of the James-Younger gang after a robbery in Texas. I wasn’t with them for very long, because one night I was picked off by another gang who turned out to be vampires.”

Orri gave him an impressed look. He would not have guessed he was that old, but seeing as he was forever young, it was possible. “What happened after that?”

“I went my own way when the Great War started. Well, that’s because the entire gang was annihilated. It takes a lot to kill a vampire, but they were killed. Some had been impaled on fence posts, and some were just blown apart in the explosion.”

“So, vampires can die?”

“Oh yeah, we can die, but not as easily as humans. We’re a bit tougher. For instance, we do not contract diseases, and we do not age. We could live forever if nothing happens to us.”

“What about a stake through the heart?”

Gage spoke up. “That’ll kill anything.”

“Yes,” Charlie interrupted. “A stake through the heart will kill you, just like anything else through your heart would.”

“What about holy water? Crosses?”

“Bullshit, all of it. They’ve been blessed, but that doesn’t do anything to us. Religion is supernatural, and we aren’t supernatural in any way.”

Orri nodded. “Garlic?”

“Actually, that’s funny. It will produce a mild allergic reaction because of some natural chemical…”

“Alicin,” Foks said suddenly. He looked over nervously to Charlie. “I figured that one out, remember?”

Charlie nodded. “Yeah, you did. Anyway, the rest of it is pretty much crap. We have reflections, we don’t turn into bats... But the sun…” Charlie paused, looking thoughtful for a moment. “The sun will kill you. I’ve seen it before. Not even a minute you’re out there and you burn to a crisp. It’s the UV rays. That means even those stupid fucking daylight lamps can fry you.”

Orri nodded. Time passed by slowly as Allison kept driving down the winter road. She said she knew of a stop at the side of the highway that was supposedly full of tough truckers, prostitutes and bikers. Though she was the quietest next to Foks, she seemed to have a thirst for danger. As they were driving along, Orri noticed that his eyeteeth were starting to get sharper. He hadn’t noticed when he had gotten up that night. The soreness in his body wasn’t as strong as it was, but he could still feel it.

“We’re here,” Allison said, breaking the silence. Getting out of the van, Orri pulled his coat tighter around his body. They had parked at the side of the road where there was a small, shoddy restaurant with about three motorcycles and two pickup trucks parked outside.

“Badass Heaven,” Charlie mumbled and then grinned. “Not for long.”