Page 33

Chapter Thirty-One

CARMINE

Doctor Watanabe looks like a human man in his twenties. He meets me in the hospital cafeteria after one in the morning, when the hallways are near empty. I scent his thin Ibis blood before I see him, but the humans around us obviously can’t see or smell death on either of us.

“You know, I’ve never scanned a real live king before. Actually, never met one. Do you go by sire or your highness or something?”

“Carmine is fine.”

“Nazario says you have a unique issue.” He pushes buttons and a door clicks open. “And I’m like, tell me or this is off. So he told me and boy-oh-boy.” He looks me up and down as if what he sees disproves what he says. “A literal stake?”

Vampires are picking up this century’s mannerisms like gum on their shoes.

“Yes.”

“All the way through?”

“Yes. Missed my spine though. Whoever did it had a very dominant right hand.”

“Wow, okay. Go on ahead.”

I step into the room, which is beige on top of beige. There’s a bookshelf of brightly colored toys and an iron lung on the other side of a pane of glass.

“I couldn’t get an open machine. Hope you’re not claustrophobic.” He chuckles at a joke I don’t get. “Sorry, anyway. We’re doing a full body MRI tonight. Should take about forty-five minutes.” He pats the bench. “Get on up. Take off your shoes.”

The paper crinkles when I sit on it. I toe my shoes off as Watanabe pecks at what looks like a phone the size of a magazine. I open my shirt when he asks, and he examines the stub that’s left of the stake, front and back, muttering, wowing, and tapping on his handheld screen.

“What’s in that room?” I point at a row of tinted windows with a bank of glowing screens behind it.

“The pictures come through to there.” Poke, poke. “You get the special Raven King deal. We’ll check out your pics right after. No waiting. Nazario said you were five hundred and change?”

“Sired in 1527.”

“Corvus? Second gen?”

“I was made by Manod.”

“That must have been a brain fuck.”

“The brain was the least of it.”

“I bet.” He chuckles. “Fifty-year stasis?”

“Yes.”

“Human age?”

“Thirty-one, more or less.”

He taps and swipes at his screen. “Male?”

“Obviously.”

“Not always. Last feed?”

“Two days ago.”

“Top up or a full feed?”

“Full.”

“I remember the full feeds. Good stuff.”

He’s describing something normal, easy, generally worthwhile.

What Luna and I did was more than a full feed.

It was fulfilling. Extraordinary. Satisfying in a way that sucks the color and dimension from every other feed I’ve had in my life.

Her pleasure was my pleasure, and as angry as I was at her, I gave her every bit of myself and came away with more than the sum total of us both.

“What’s stopping you now?” I ask.

“If you ever have to dispose of a body in New York City, just move. It’s easier.” He tucks his pad under his arm. “Remove any metal. Jewelry. Belt buckle. The stake looked all wood to me.”

“All wood.” I take off my belt and give it to him.

“What about the ring?”

“It’s rock. Lava rock.”

“That has iron in it.” He holds out his hand. When I don’t give him what he wants, he adds, “Lava rock has magnetic properties.”

“ Scusa? ”

“This machine has electromagnetic fields that’ll turn that ring into a bullet. It might not kill you, but it’ll fuck up the equipment. That’s why there’s no metal near the magnets.” He holds out his palm. “Come on.”

“It doesn’t come off.” I pull on it to prove my point and it slides right off my finger. I’m so stunned that I don’t move when he plucks it away and drops it in my left shoe.

“Put these in your ears.” He gives me two foam capsules. “Earplugs. It gets loud in there. We have bionic hearing and… okay, trust me. Just stuff those babies in.”

Watanabe guides me into the iron lung room. The plugs make the world whoosh.

He pats the paper on a slab that sticks out from the tube.

“Lie back, please. Get comfy.” His voice sounds as if it’s coming through a wall.

I do as he asks, closing my eyes against the bright ceiling lights.

“So, you’re going to slide back into this chamber. Keep as still as you can. Try not to freak out.”

Freak out? Why would I freak out?

He disappears, and I slide into the tube.

Most of us sleep in enclosed, underground spaces. Except for the tunnels under Naples, which became a hunting ground when I was young, I cannot. Deeper tunnels hide deeper secrets.

Breathe . This is a five-hundred-year-old trauma under the streets of Rome. This machine is on the tenth floor of a New York City high rise.

The noises start. I jolt at the first bang. Are they sledgehammering the outside of this tube? Then the hums and buzzing, like a nest of hornets. It’s louder than I expected, but it was expected. I shut it out until I feel a vibration in my chest.

My eyes fly open, and I shout, “Fuck!”

The banging and humming stop.

“You okay?” Watanabe’s voice fills the tube.

“What the fuck?”

“What… oh, wait. I see it. Are you sure there’s no metal in that stake?”

“Solid wood.”

“We have some movement. It’s not enough to send the thing flying out of you. Can you hold still or are we done?”

I’m here. I might as well finish. “Keep going.”

“We’ll grind through, but I’m cutting it short. Brain and as much chest as I can get. Hold still.”

The noises start again. I stay still while the stake vibrates hard enough to fly out of my chest.