“So you just keep this one caged like this?” I said, examining the creature behind the bars. “He can’t just, you know, go all poof and mist his way out of there?”
Brandon shook his head. “We were wondering the same thing when the problem first arose. We weren’t sure how we were going to contain any of them. I had Nicholas working on a new containment system immediately, but apparently we don’t need one in the later stages of their transformation. Whatever’s happened to them, they seem to have lost some of their abilities. They can’t change form.”
“Well,” I said, tapping the bars, “I still think you may need a better containment system. After all, I wasn’t attacking myself in your forest.” I turned back to the cage. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, it was easier to examine this one than when I had been out in the forest fighting them. The skin looked like raw meat and the teeth stuck out of its mouth at more severe angles than I had thought, all of them yellowed with age and coated with blood and bits of something I didn’t want to figure out. “Ugly little thing, isn’t it?”
Aidan blurred into action as he rushed toward me. I braced for an impact, but Brandon headed him off, slamming into him.
“What the hell?” Aidan cried out.
“Easy,” Brandon said. He turned to me while keeping Aidan at bay, holding him by the back of his hoodie. “Please bear in mind… all of these creatures were once part of my family, our family. Some of us are more sensitive than others about the issue.”
“Sorry,” I said, looking at Aidan.
Aidan relaxed and Brandon let go of him.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said. “I guess I’m just sensitive, too, since they tried to eviscerate me.”
“Let’s just all take it easy,” Connor suggested. “We’re all a little wound tight, given everything that’s going on.”
I looked back in the cage. The creature had stopped its predatory pacing and was watching us. I stepped back toward it.
“So this is Patient Zero, eh?”
“As far as we can tell,” Aidan said, starting to lose some of the anger in his voice. “Perry went missing a while back, then suddenly showed up again one day.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Perry… the vampire?”
Brandon held up a hand, his face a bit sad as he spoke. “He was at another one of my Saturday night Beverly Hills, 90210 viewing parties. Was a big fan of Luke Perry. Hence, Perry.”
I wanted to laugh, but given the gravity of Perry’s situation these days, I couldn’t.
“So what happened to him?” Connor asked, moving closer to examine the creature.
Aidan shook his head. “He looked normal a few months ago, but he wasn’t quite the same vampire when he suddenly reappeared. He wasn’t really all that coherent about where he’d been, either. Kept on raving about ‘the box’ and not much else. Eventually, he stopped being able to change between his human and vampiric form. Eventually his vampiric state started to mutate, and then it degenerated into what you see before you. By then, the outbreak started showing up in others.”
“Outbreak?” I said. “Like a virus.” Allorah had mentioned viral aspects to her research when she laid all those file folders on me the other night. I wondered if I’d get extra credit with her if I claimed my near death here tonight as lab hours.
Aidan nodded.
“Don’t your people heal things like that?” I asked. “Isn’t that one of the perks of being undead?”
“It is normally… a perk, as you say,” Brandon said, “but whatever this is, it isn’t a normal virus by any stretch. Think of it as the vampire form of a virus… unique, undying.”
Connor snapped his fingers at the creature, trying to get its attention, but it was ignoring him.
“Don’t get too excited, Simon,” he said, “but I think our friend here has a crush on you.”
It was true. No matter what was going on in the room, the creature kept its focus on me. Unlike the other ones I had encountered, this one was docile in comparison, content to stare at only me.
“No offense,” I said, “but Perry’s creeping me out a little.”
Despite wanting to flee, I stepped up closer to the cage. I examined its face, then had an idea I might know why it was looking at me the way it was.
“Do I… know you?” I asked the creature.
The creature’s breath quickened, the sound of wet rasping breaking its silence. It started moving around its cage, bobbing up and down.
I looked over at Brandon, who was standing there staring in fascination.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to agitate him.”
Connor put his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think he’s agitated, kid,” he said, pointing at it with his other hand. “I think he’s… nodding.”
I stepped right up to the bars, my concern for safety overwhelmed by my curiosity.
“Is that it?” I asked. “I know you?”
The creature lunged toward the bars, wrapping its talons around them mere inches from my hands. I could see it trying to concentrate, to make its movements more precise. It took in a deep gasp of breath and let it out as it attempted a more human form of nodding this time.
“How?” I asked. “Where?”
There was frustration in the creature’s eyes, but it held tight to the bars and stared into my face. I watched it for any signs of recognizable communication. After several minutes of struggling, it managed to get its lips around its tangle of teeth. The creature struggled like a little kid trying to make his first word.
“B-b… box,” it said. The effort must have taken a lot out of the creature because when it was done speaking the single word, it lowered its head.
“What does that mean?” Connor said.
Aidan sighed. “It means… box. That’s all he says now.”
“I don’t know what it means,” I said to the creature, but it appeared defeated now, still hanging its head as it labored for breath after raspy breath.
“Well, think, kid,” Connor said.
I turned on him. “I am,” I said, snapping with testiness in my voice. “That’s all I’ve been doing since you went on your somewhat-permanent mental vacation last month. I’ve been the one who’s had to keep it mentally together because you decided to check out.”
“Whoa,” Connor said. “Easy.”
“I’ll take it easy when I know why everyone seems to wants me dead.”
Connor held up his hands in surrender. “It was a simple question.”
Aidan stepped forward. “Can the mortals calm down a bit? The two of you getting your blood up is making me thirsty.”
That stopped both Connor and me in our discussion. We both turned to Connor’s brother.
“Mostly kidding there, guys,” Aidan said. “But seriously… I think my brother just wants to know how many vampires you knew before stepping into the Gibson-Case Center?”
“I didn’t know any vampires!” I said.
The four of us fell silent as Connor and I tried to calm ourselves. I was starting to feel better, when I noticed Connor looking at me funny.
“Well, that’s not entirely true, now, is it, kid?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I didn’t know any vampires.”
“What about the report you filed about your ex-girlfriend?”
“Who?” I said. “Mina? She’s not a vampire. She’s just a wannabe fan girl of them. It’s why she chose the stupid name.”
“Do I have to remind you where you saw her last?” Connor asked.
I thought back. “The last time I saw Mina, she and Jane had been beating the hell out of each other.”
Aidan gave a little laugh. “Is your girlfriend an ultimate fighter?”
“No,” I said, giving him a look. “They were in this subterranean area of the Guggenheim. This recently thwarted cultist named Cyrus Mandalay had set up this insane art show there full of exhibits meant to torture all his old foes through paranormal means.”