In The Blood

Leanne Thompson sat quite still at the bottom of the stairs, her husband's favourite cream shirt held in white-knuckled fists. Her face remained glacial, ice-blue eyes fixed upon the door; it was the only way to keep the raging vortex churning beneath her breastbone imprisoned.

On the wall opposite her hung the glass-fronted clock her parents had bought them as a wedding present. The first of ten trilling chimes startled her somewhat. She had once welcomed the sound but now the piercing shrieks were counting down to a moment of perfect torment. Brian would be home from work soon, and the creature clawing for release against the inner walls of her heart could be released.

The overtime had begun a little over a month ago, bringing starts before the sun was even up and ends long after it had sunk below the horizon. His shifts were twelve hours long at least. The money was rolling in left, right and centre, which numbed the pain of separation a bit, but that's not what she married him for.

Her gaze dropped once again upon the red evidence smudging the garment in her bloodless hands. Leanne's jaw tightened. She blinked fiercely; there would be no more tears shed today.

Steaming with humiliation, Leanne had called the office to talk to her husband the moment she had found the shirt in the wash basket. The reply was abundantly secretarial. He was not there. He had not been there for about a month.

Leanne's confusion had gone up a notch, a moment before the fire lit up in her belly again. Was this some kind of joke? Brian had to be there, he worked there. Had worked there for twenty years! Who was paying their bills, otherwise?

Apologies were followed by firm insistence. Mr Brian Thompson was no longer an employee. His note of resignation had been filed a month ago. They could send her a copy, if she liked.

Leanne slammed down the phone, her mind a whirlwind that threw questions around at dizzying speeds. Where had he been going for the past month? Where was he if he wasn't managing the factory? Where was all the money coming from? Why hadn't he said anything? A dark mouth opened up inside her and took large bites from her insides. Was he doing something illegal? Gambling? Selling drugs? Oh, God, could it get worse than that?

Her eyes fixed upon the suggestive smear, reminding herself what it meant. This was his favourite shirt, the one that made his chest look fuller than it actually was, the one he had worn the day they met. The one he looked his best in. Who had he been with? Who?!

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the gold-plated Rolex on her wrist, continuing the silent countdown to emotional Armageddon. Leanne cursed it as she read the glistening diamond arms, wondering what she had lost to obtain it.

Quarter-past ten. Brian 'finished' at ten, and was hardly fifteen minutes away in that bullet he called a car. A flash of doubt sole across her mind. What crime was he committing? Was he alright?

No, don't get distracted. You hate him, remember? He's the liar, the cheat. He's the one that's not where he is supposed to. Leanne shut off the dread-filled pit deepening within her gut and built a stone wall around her wilting heart.

There was the familiar rattle from the lock on the front door. Leanne's heart thrashed. Excitement that he was home safe? Anticipation of the impending conflict? She wasn't sure. The handle on the inside of the door angled toward the floor. Leanne pressed her feet so firmly to the bare wooden slabs of the hallway the muscles in her legs started to cramp.

The door opened and Brian stepped in, his eyes wide and eyebrows high. Good, she had caught him off-guard. "Oh! Hi, Honey. What's up?" The door closed softly as he entered.

"Nice day at work?" she replied, stiffly, teeth pressing together.

The man's brows gathered at the top of his nose. "Yeah," he said, the word creeping out like a fox. His coat stayed on the wall where he hung it. "Not bad." His eyes travelled from Leanne's face down her arm, to the object stuck in her hand. "You okay, Babe?"

The audacity of the man! How could he just stand there so calmly? Didn't he realise this little game was over? How could he act as if nothing was wrong? Leanne's kettle of fury whistled its limits and a hot surge flushed into her legs, throwing her from the steps and onto her feet.

"And just where is work these days, Brian? You haven't been at the factory for weeks!"

Brian took a step back, surprise at her outburst battling for supremacy against the shock of the magnitude of the accusation. Leanne could almost see the frantic scene behind his eyes as his brain scrabbled for an answer. However, rather than the panicked burst of a hastily conceived excuse she expected, the man's voice was composed, resigned. He looked at the floor somewhat sheepishly, a fool caught in a fool's act, and nodded. "I think you should sit down, Leanne. There's something you should know."

"Oh, I know about it already," Leanne snapped back darkly, refusing to give the man any kind of control.

"You do?"

"Oh, yes!" Her fist lashed out, the shirt it contained drifting sharply along with it. "Is this something to do with where you've been?"

Brian pulled the shirt from in front of his face. He stretched out the collar and noticed the crimson stain. "Ah," he said.

"Yeah, you could say that." Leanne's face drooped a little as the floodgates threatened to open, but a fresh wave of fury barred it shut. A flick of her head sent long blonde hair back. She would not screen her ashen face this time. Brian needed to see the pain he had caused.

"Who is she, Brian? WHO IS SHE? If it is a she!" Her words cracked like lightning as the tension in her throat snapped. Brian remained silent. Seconds stretched into minutes. "This is the part where you tell me it's not lipstick, right?" Sarcasm virtually dripped off every word.

To his credit, Brian did not flinch. In fact, his face remained frighteningly neutral. "No. It's not lipstick."

A snicker tunnelled out of Leanne's nose like some midnight critter going out to hunt. It was mirthless and brittle and sent icicle shards razoring through her core, and it was followed by a choke as the tears pushed against the barriers again. Stronger, this time. Hysteria threatened to ruin her composure, and gritted teeth helped oppose its advances. Even so, her voice remained strangled. "Oh. Yeah, right. Maybe it's tomato sauce? Right? No, you had to paint something at 'work', right? Is it paint?"

"No," Brian said simply. His eyes locked onto those of his wife and for a moment her heart stopped at the chilling matter-of-fact tone. "It's blood."

Leanne swallowed hard, her eyelids fluttering. The angry mob standing at the gates of her reason lowered their pitchforks a little, and white dots bled into the seething scarlet wall she had barricaded her inner self behind. Everything that was up until recently so crystal clear had been given a dark shade of something forbidden and secret, but it was too late to put Pandora back into the box. Leanne's voice was mouse-like. "You expect me to believe that?"

Brian did not move. Did not speak. Just held her with that intense, unblinking gaze, and in doing so certified what he was saying as if carving it into a memorial.

Anger's claws clutched Leanne's face and twisted it viciously. "So, what, then? You cut yourself shaving? Ha, that's a new one."

Brian straightened up. He seemed taller than normal. When he spoke again, there was a confidence to his tone that suggested a long-avoided obstacle had finally been overcome. "It's not my blood."

Leanne knew she should not have reacted the way she did, but she couldn't stop herself. She doubted the banister would provide much of a barrier against Brian, but the cold shiver that snaked over the woman's skin gave her the sudden desire to be away from her husband. Brian did not pursue her to the top of the stairs. He just stayed where he was, in the lobby at the foot of the stairs, his unbroken stare following her movements like a hawk.

"Then whose is it?" The words came out like flitting spirits.

Brian shrugged. "I don't ask names," he replied.

Her feet moved and she was a little closer to the lockable bathroom door. Nice plan, Leanne. Like that will save you! "You killed someone." It was a statement, not a question.

Brian's head shifted slightly to the left, like a shrug but without the shoulders. "I try not to kill them."

Leanne's eyes narrowed, her voice beginning to shake. "Them? What do you mean, them?" Another step expanded the space between the couple.

"The blood, the person it came from, I mean. They were not harmed. Not really. Nobody has been harmed, by me, anyway. It's just a part of what I am now."

"What are you talking about?" Leanne hissed, though she really didn't want to know. It was beginning to feel like an extra-marital affair would be preferential to what was really going on.

Brian's lips pursed, as if he were struggling with some internal debate. She watched his hand move to stroke his smooth chin, and suddenly, strangely, it occurred to the woman that she couldn't remember seeing his shaver in the bathroom for a long time. When his eyes flicked up again Leanne knew her husband had made a decision.

"I am what you would call a vampire."

Something dropped through Leanne's body like a ton of lead, sinking through her feet into the floor and pulling her heart with it. Her body moved as if beset by winter. "That isn't funny, Brian," she spat savagely, horror painting its garish features upon her face.

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

"Stop it!" Leanne was screaming now, her blonde hair falling like dull golden string over puffy eyes that could no longer contain their liquid cargo. "Stop it!" her knuckles paled even further as the thin wooden spindles of the bannister rocked beneath her fury, her fear. "Why are you telling me this?"

Brian's tone did not change. If anything, it became more normal. "Because you need to know."

"No! No, I don't believe it!" Leanne felt something crack inside her, and whatever force had been keeping her upright suddenly vanished. Her vision blurred, knees buckling, and there was the sudden sense of falling.

Brian's arms were around her instantly, a blanket of comforting strength and terrible intensity all at once, but Leanne had not registered her husband's movements. One moment he had been down at the bottom of the stairs, and the next he was beside her, holding her against him. His body felt like a slab of stone beneath his clothes, cold, rigid. She tried to push away from him but he was a straightjacket around her, a flesh and bone vice that held her wild thrashing in check and prevented them both from toppling down to the bottom of the stairs in a tangled heap.

It did not take long for exhaustion and acceptance to set in, each as unwanted as the other, to drive out the last of the strength in her limbs. All she could do was hang limply in Brian's arms, head buried upon his increasingly wet chest. Though she tried, she could not conjure any excuse as to why her husband would tell her this if it was not true.

Brian carried his wife into the kitchen, where he plopped her gently upon one of the dining chairs. Leanne's face fell into her arms, her entire frame heaving with dreadful sobs. Brian walked to the liquor cabinet and pulled out a half bottle of Jack Daniels, then went to the fridge for a can of Coke-Cola. He put both drinks next to his distraught wife with a shot glass, then filled it half with one liquid and half with the other.

Leanne lifted her head and looked at the darkness swirling at the centre of the glass. That's what my life has become, she thought. She snatched up the alcohol in trembling haste and downed it in one lest she spill any. The fire of its touch against the back of her throat lessened the scorch of sadness there. Brian's eyes seemed softer now, almost sympathetic, but Leanne wondered if there was any real emotion there. Her husband, for he was still that despite the feeling that the words 'until death us do part' were teasing her. Another JDC slid effortlessly away and a haze settled over her pain-filled mind. Leanne didn't think there was enough drink in the world to heal the raw wound carved out of the ragged lump beating beneath her chest, but she refilled the glass for a third pull all the same.

Leanne did not want to talk, but she could not leave the silence so unfilled. Like a graveyard, she decided. How ironic. The woman's heart began to bleed afresh. "How long have you . . ?" She gulped, stumbling over the clumsy words the situation was forcing upon her.

"I was taken thirty days ago."

"Taken?"

"It's what we call it."

"We?" Leanne asked, eyebrows huddling together as if seeking comfort from one another. "How many of you are there?"

Brian's lips stretched wide, but there was no humour in his smile. "I don't know. Not exactly. I have been told there are hundreds of us belonging to societies that stretch all over the world. Each society is a different 'strain', if you will, with its own strengths and weaknesses."

"Societies? Families, like ours?"

Brian shrugged affirmation. "While humans require two parents to produce offspring, only a single vampire is needed to create a new one."

"How do you know all this?"

"The one who Took me told me."

Leanne nodded and took a deep breath that shuddered in her lungs. It felt like the mineshaft of reason was collapsing around her. All those Anne Rice novels she had read as a kid. All those movies she had seen. Were they created by these societies? Propaganda, or recruitment drives? Leanne spied a box of Kleenex on the kitchen top, and she sluggishly pushed herself away from the table to get it, numb fingers probing inside. Expelling soggy sadness, she asked. "Are you dead, then? Immortal, like in the stories?"

Brian didn't hesitate to answer. "Yes."

She gazed at her husband with swollen eyes. The words pressed up behind her lips and she wasn't strong enough to keep them contained. "I love you." Then she saw it, a dark speck at the corner of her husband's eye. Was it? "Your eye is bleeding," she said, almost disgusted.

Brian wiped a sleeve across his face. "It's a tear." He sounded apologetic. Leanne winced, but said nothing. "There may be nothing inside me now but blood, but somehow the change within me has heightened everything about me. I feel your loss, your hurt. It hurts me, as well." Brian paused. "I love you, too."

Leanne hoped she didn't sound as desperate as she felt. "So, what happens then? I mean, we still love each other, but what does that mean for us? Do we carry on like nothing has happened?"

"It would be too dangerous," Brian stated. "Our society has enemies who would use you to get to me."

"Hostage?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps worse."

Leanne did not want to think what worse could entail. Her gaze fell upon the tissue writhing in her hands as she quietly asked. ""So what happens now? I mean, with us. If you were dead, really dead, buried, I could move on. I could forget you. It would be hard, but . . . I could get over it. But this way I . . . I'd know you're still out there. I know you'd still be-" She couldn't say alive.

"You have to find someone else to love and get on with your life."

Leanne's voice was barely audible as she raised her head and looked at her husband. She had always put his pale complexion down to overworking, but now she thought different. Now she knew he was dead. "I don't think I can do that," she managed to say.

"There is another option," Brian began, his words carefully measured as if filling a small pot with volatile liquid.

Leanne shook her head. "Go on."

Brian stepped forward swiftly, hands flat upon the kitchen top. Leanne could tell something had just changed in his attitude but failed to attribute a description to it. He was eager now, as if on the offensive for something he wanted. Brian continued. "You could be with me, like me."

Revulsion writhed like a hundred snakes beneath her skin. Suddenly, the first choice didn't seem so impossible. "Become a . . . a vampire? Drink blood? I don't know about that . . . "

As if sensing the change in Leanne's mood, Brian stepped back, palms out toward her. She appreciated the gesture. He was giving her space. He was good at that. He always considered how she felt about things. It was what she loved most about him

"I know it must be difficult for you, and you don't have to make your mind up straight away. Look, how about I leave you to think about it for a while? I can come back in a couple of hours and we can discuss it further. Bottom line is you have to decide if you want to be with me, or without me."

Leanne nodded. Brian came over to her, gave her a tight hug and a kiss on her forehead, then said goodbye. The next second the front door clicked shut. The man had moved so fast her eyes had not been able to follow him.

So, was her husband really a vampire? Was that even possible? He had moved upstairs to grab her quick enough, but she had to admit she had been in such a state she could easily have missed the few seconds it would have taken him to charge up the stairs to her side. He had left just as swiftly, too. Could she rationalise that so easily? Was it all a ploy to fool her into ignoring the fact that he was having an affair? She could not discount the idea, but what about work? He was going out before dawn, and coming back way after the sun had set. Coincidence? Leanne's mind was all over the place. It hurt to think.

She sighed and plucked the last of the tissues from the box. There was another box in the cupboard, and she went to get it on her way into the front room. Perhaps some television would calm her ragged nerves. Then she remembered the bourbon on the table. That would definitely help, especially now the Coke was gone. Leanne went back into the kitchen to get it and froze, her heart a frantic bird in a cage of bone. The kitchen window hadn't been open before, but now it was and Brian was standing in front of it.

Why had he come back? Had it been two hours already? "I need more time. I haven't decided yet."

Brian became instantly alert, knees bending him into an almost animalistic crouch. His arms curled out like claws and his dark eyes flashed around the kitchen.

"Then I'm too late."

"What?" Leanne's pulse sped up, her breaths quick and short. This was not the way she had expected their second meeting to go.

Brian strode over to her, urgency an affliction of his body. "You're in danger, Leanne. We have to get out of here."

Brian's hand wrapped about her arm instantly, fingers like steel bars. With a mind still reeling with what she had been told, Leanne was not prepared to go anywhere. A nimble twist let her slip away from her husband's keen grasp and she skittered around to put the kitchen table between them.

"What are you talking about, Brian? I just told you I haven't decided yet."

"We need to leave before he comes back!"

"Before who comes back?"

Brian's eyes moved slightly, the mind behind them working at lightning speed. His face seemed torn between thoughts, as if he did not want to say too much but knew that he must. "The man that was here earlier. It wasn't your husband. It was a dopple-ganger. I'm Brian."

Leanne had suffered when she thought her husband was having an affair, her heart lurching like a dying swan. Then Brian had shown up, claiming to be some damnable creature of the night. Now, here was another Brian saying the same thing, but that it was different? Leanne's already-fragile mind was beginning to weaken further. If this was all a ruse to throw her off the scent of his fooling around behind her back it was a good one, although somehow she doubted how anyone could make up something so convoluted. There was something about all of this that was dark and entirely unwholesome.

Leanne swallowed, keeping her wits despite the alcohol fog creeping in. Failing legs took her staggering backwards, until the kitchen worktop bumped the bottom of her spine. "What?" The word was a ghost of sound.

The new Brian drew cautiously closer, a huntsman afraid the deer would bolt. "The other man," he said. "What did he tell you?"

Leanne shook her head, clearing the cobwebs somewhat. Things were going from strange to downright bizarre. "Something about being a vampire, that there are societies of them. That they have some kind of fight going on, enemies."

"Yes, that's all true. We have enemies, and you just met one."

Leanne's thoughts suddenly centred upon the top drawer next to the cooker, and edged away toward it. If she could get there maybe she could protect herself. Something bad was about to happen. No, not bad. Terrible. The new Brian watched her shifting progress with something approaching intrigue. Could vampires read your mind? Did he know what she was planning? If it was the real Brian he would know what she was doing, what she was going for, but would he stop her to protect himself or let her get it so she could protect herself when the other Brian returned?

"Why should I believe you?"

"Why should you believe him?" Because he got here first?" The second Brian looked edgy, almost afraid. His words certainly had the impression of it. "Look, you have to trust me. We've only just figured out their motives and I've been sent to get you. You're in terrible danger! He's taken my form - it's one of their many abilities - and he will not leave without you. They'll kill you first."

"Why would he do that?" She had to stall, keep him talking.

"You have something they want." Brian's tone changed immediately. "Well, it's something we all want." Brian began to circumnavigate the table, but maintained a respectable distance.

Leanne's heart pounded like a heavy metal drummer. The drawer was only two paces away now. "What could vampires possibly want from me?"

"Remember you used to give blood? You have a rare blood type, correct?"

Leanne nodded, only half listening. One step now.

"It's not just rare, Leanne. It's unique."

Leanne stopped moving, the drawer handle reassuring in her palm. "Nonsense," she said, her throat closing. "The hospital staff would have told me."

"You think a doctor knows more about blood than a vampire?" It was almost funny. "Look, we need you on our side, Leanne. That's why I was Taken. To encourage you to come on board. We need the strength your blood can bring to our people. Without it, the bad guys win."

"I thought all vampires were bad guys." Leanne almost chuckled. This was a crazy conversation. Can I just wake up now, please? "You're asking me to join you?"

"Yes! Now, let's go before-"

"Don't listen to him!"

Leanne physically jumped at the voice. Brian - the first one returned, or a third just arrived? - stood at the kitchen door glaring at his twin, who gave a throaty snarl in response. Both Brians pulled back their lips to reveal glinting, sharp teeth. Not teeth, Leanne decided. Fangs. Long incisors that a dog would have been put down for. Blood shot through her veins at incredible speed. Had life stopped being so simple, or had she died and gone to Hell? She was between a pair of vampires that looked like her husband, apparently ready and equipped to tear each other's throats out.

Brian's hand - the Brian that had come through the window - stretched out toward her. "Come on, Leanne. I'll take you away from here."

The first Brian surged forward. "No! Don't listen to him! He's trying to confuse you."

Both Brians snarled, guttural and inhuman sounds that assaulted the eardrums. Leanne blinked as the two men collided, screaming like demonic cats and gouging long red lines into each other's flesh. One of the Brian's went down, but as the other moved to take the advantage the other sank instantly into the ground, only to reappear back on his feet on the other side of the kitchen.

Leanne turned quickly, the drawer flashing open. The pistol came out a moment later, a heavy black instrument that gave her flashes of power and fear in equal measures. She levelled the weapon first at one Brian, then the other, but neither gave Leanne even a passing look, their focus fixed firmly upon their nemesis.

Would the gun actually cause these things any harm? Didn't you need silver bullets, or was that something else? Leanne's mind sank into numbness. Again, she regarded the two Brians. Only one would emerge the victor from this fight, and she was the prize.

Maybe neither of these were Brian. Maybe they both were. A lot of weird things had happened recently, and Leanne was in no condition to organise facts or decipher reality from fiction.

Had her real husband been killed by one of these things and they had just taken his likeness in order to further their own agenda? She didn't know. She couldn't know. There was no reason to trust either of them. What would happen if one of them killed the other? She was only human, and was likely powerless to defend herself against a vampire. And what if their claim was true, that her blood was valuable to them?

A roar shook her from her thoughts and the two Brians met viciously once again, arms blurring with bloody intensity, fingers as talons and mouths hungry for blood.

It would not end tonight. This madness would be forever hers if she allowed either of these monsters to take her into their embrace. Her eyes strayed to the gun stretched impotent before her, trembling in her hand, and her soul flexed as a solution presented itself.

The barrel of the pistol was a cold, hard hole against her temple, and the din of supernatural battle drowned out her thundering heartbeat.

But not for long.