V-Wars

Gabriel said, “We’ll get to that in a moment. First, here are pictures of the Rhode Island victims.”

These were the worst of all. Six pictures of children. Or, at least Swann thought they were children. They wore the kinds of pajamas or night gowns parents put on children. On toddlers. Three wore diapers. They were in small beds, they each had stuffed toys. But every single one of the six bodies was as withered and desiccated as a mummy. Far more than blood had been taken from them.

If Gabriel hadn’t darted out a hand the pictures would have fallen from Swann’s numb fingers. The Chief of Staff stood and crossed quickly to a sideboard, poured water into a glass and pressed the glass into Swann’s hands.

“I’m sorry to drop all this on you, professor,” said Gabriel. “I really am … but as I’m sure you can understand, we’re all a bit lost here.”

Swann sipped the water, choked and coughed, sipped again and set the glass down.

“You said … you said there were similarities. What did you mean? None of these look the same as what I saw.”

Gabriel removed another sheet from the folder. Swann took it with great reluctance, but this time there were no horrific images. It was a lab report. Much of the information was technical, written in the obscure language of true medical professionals. But one line from the lab technicians summary leapt out.

Saliva from all of the samples provided demonstrates the presence of the I1V1 pathogen.

Swann raised his eyes from the paper to meet the hard eyes of the Chief of Staff.

“The Ice Virus?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said slowly. “Your theory that vampires were — or perhaps are — a genetic branch of the human evolutionary tree is being taken seriously. Our best geneticists are at this very minute studying the DNA samples we’ve collected. They’re trying to knock down your theory that the genetic potential for vampirism, if it exists at all, might reside within junk DNA. But … so far it looks like you might have hit the bull’s-eye with your first shot. The leading theory is that the Ice Virus somehow triggered or activated some dormant genes. The genes that were once responsible for the phenomenon we’ve come to believe is the myth of the vampire. Your theory is being given serious study, professor.”

“Hey, it’s not like I want to be right about this …”

“Professor, I think we can both agree that it would be better for everyone if this is something genetic rather than things that go bump in the night. We can’t very well react or respond to the supernatural, can we?”

“No,” Swann said softly. “But … does that mean that everyone who was infected with the Ice Virus is going to … ?”

“To become a vampire?” said Gabriel. “We had all better pray that this is only a rare occurrence. Very rare. Considering that each of these cases involves multiple murders, the math is deeply frightening. And, by the way, that’s why Homeland is spear-heading this rather than the FBI or local law enforcement.”

“Why? I thought Homeland only dealt with terrorists?”

Gabriel said, “We are dealing with an outbreak of vampirism, Professor Swann. Can you think of a situation more aptly suited to the word ‘terror’?”

Swann could feel the blood drain from his face. He used his fingers to wipe sweat from his eyes. “But … why bring me here? How can I help?”

Gabriel nodded again. “I have scientists and science geeks of every stripe. I have city, state and federal cops, I have the military. What I don’t have is someone who understands what we’re facing. I don’t have a vampire expert.”

“Okay, sure, but everything I know about the subject is from folklore. From legend and myth.”

Gabriel held up the photos of the dead children. “A myth isn’t responsible for this, professor. It may be that we all — every single person on the planet — may have to adjust our thinking about what belongs in fairy stories and what’s out there walking the streets of our cities.”

Swann turned his face away from the pictures.

“Ice Virus,” he murmured.

“Ice Virus,” agreed Gabriel, “though now I think we may have to come up with a new name for it. Perhaps something starting with a V.”

"STALKING ANNA LEI" PT.1

James A. Moore

— 1 —

The rain came down in sheets and made looking at anything even harder than the darkness had already managed. The problem was, I needed to see what was inside the building across the alley from me and between me and that building there were around fifteen cops and enough cars to bring them all to the Stansford Arms Apartments.

Sometimes a vampire can’t catch a break.

The winds were blasting the hell out of the brick wall I was leaning against, and the water was dripping in my ear and half blinding me. I settled my claws for a few more seconds, said a very quick prayer, and then I jumped, hurtling the forty-five feet between buildings and praying very, very hard that I didn’t miss.

Ah, lightning. It’s great stuff for atmosphere, isn’t it? It’s also very bright and the thunder that follows it when it’s close enough to blind you is absolutely deafening. I was reaching for the wet stonewall when the flash went off, and sure enough, I was looking in the right direction got get flashed right and proper.

Claws. Remember that part? Yes, I have claws. They’re a fairly new thing for me, but I have them and they saved me from an embarrassing and messy ending.

The stones were rough, not smooth, and that helped, too. But mostly it was the claws that cut into the mortar between the stones that stopped me from dropping several stores and landing on either a squad car or a couple of cops. I’m pretty sure I called for my mother, or just possibly for God. I’m not too proud to admit I wanted to wet myself, not that anyone would have noticed in the downpour.

A few more moments of muttered curses and I was on the roof of the building. There was nowhere to hide from the rain, but at least there were a couple of air conditioning units up there to help me duck the cops I hadn’t expected to be on the lookout. I guess when it comes to the murder of a prominent political figure’s son, nothing gets overlooked. There were two uniforms up there, both of them looking as wet and unhappy as I felt. Getting past them wasn’t very hard. I’m stealthy these days. You know, when I’m not almost falling to my death.

The stairwell was a different story. There were no officers to see, but there was definitely nowhere to hide, so I had to move as quickly as I could while trying to stay quiet.

I made it a whole two flights down before the first uniform saw me. He was looking at something in the corner of the narrow landing between flights, his flashlight lighting the area a good deal more than anything around it. You know how spies always look cool in black, in all those action flicks? Turns out they wear it for a reason. The pants were black, the shirt was black, my waterproof duster was black — and soaked through, thanks — but the buckles on my boots? Those were silver and shiny. He saw them as I was coming down the stairs and the next thing I know, he’s shining the light in my face.

A second after that, he was screaming. In his defense, I’ve seen what I look like when I’m working. I’d have screamed too.

Did I mention that I’m a vampire? I am. Only I’m not even sure if that’s the proper term here.

Whatever the case, he had his service pistol aimed at my face before he’d finished screaming.

I looked down the barrel of that pistol and I screamed, too

— 2 —

A little bit of background information might be necessary. Look, it’s my story and I’ll tell it the way I want. I’ll get back to the action, but I guess as some point I have to tell you why I was out in the middle of a massive storm and what would make me want to go and take on a small army of Chicago’s Finest.

By now you’ve heard all about the vampires, right? I mean, about Michael Fayne, the doctors working on him and how there are other people who are coming down with the same sort of problem? Well, I’m one of them. My name is John Lei. I was born and raised in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I’m fourth generation American, but that’s where I was born. I’m not pure Chinese, I’m not pure anything, but I am a mutt and very proud of it. Got some Caucasian somewhere along the way, according to my grandfather, but I also have Korean, Japanese and, of course, Chinese in my background. Why do I bring that up? Because apparently what happens to you when you get hit by the V-Virus — that’s Vampire Virus. Somebody actually tried to make “Vampirus” into the go-to word, but it didn’t work. You know how Yuki Nitobe is kind of like the reporter authority on what’s happening? Yeah. The guy that came up with Vampirus isn’t. If you want to come up with a catch phrase and it doesn’t work? Let it go. It might save your career — anyway, what happens to you when you catch the virus is apparently affected by your genetic history. Junk DNA, who knew it would have ethnic attitude? Well, if there is any good, old-fashioned European in my family, it wasn’t enough to let me get all romantically handsome or even all sparkly in the daylight.

Anyways … .

I’m minding my own business, doing a little work for one of the locals at home and before I can actually finish — let’s just say I was debt collecting and leave it at that, shall we? — before I can finish collecting, I dropped like a stone. If I hadn’t had a couple of friends along for the ride, I might have not made if back from that particular trip. Tommy and Rio have been my buddies since we were in the fifth grade. They called the ambulance and then made sure the paramedics knew where to find me before they ran back to report everything to our employers.

Me? I wound up in the hospital with a fever that broke records — in excess of one hundred and fifteen degrees — and then I wound up in a coma for three days. I don’t remember a single bit of that. I was too busy having some mighty strange dreams. Maybe we’ll get to those another time.

I recovered from the fever. That’s the important thing, right? I got better. There were a few changes, of course, but I’m getting used to them. First big change was the color of my hair. I point this out because even after generations in the US there are a lot of superstitious people in Chinatown. Why is that important? Because when I got out of the hospital every hair on my body was white as snow. Not gray, not a little faded, white. Lot of people looked at it and maybe thought I was making a statement, like when I was fifteen and dyed my hair bright red (And THAT particular adventure ended with my father shaving my head.). Not this time. I just have white hair. Most everybody seemed fine with that, but a couple of the older neighbors took one look at me and got the hell off the street. Turns out having your hair go white is a sign of evil for some people. Me? I had no idea. I do now.