Not exactly a sequel to Crimson Web, Slaves to the Vein will star a handful of your favorite characters branching out in a far-flung, nail-and-neck biting adventure to rescue the humans! Here’s a little… taste?
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SttV
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SLAVES TO THE VEIN
CHAPTER 1 – Pondweed, Washington, USA
2064?
Preston Redmark–I don’t like to hear his cursed name. Reminds me of the frailty of my own existence, even though he’s long dead. Perhaps especially because he’s dead.
I was created from him, a mental rib made into a whole, a part of him until he killed himself. Now I’m out and on my own. That suits me fine, but still I carry of piece of his fear and weakness, and that’s the cost of being born from a human. But I was born for vengeance and there’s no room for weakness when there’s people who need killing.
Just missed his ex-wife, Wendy, in Preston’s living days. Can’t believe he bought her friend’s story that Wendy wasn’t home that day we went to pay her a visit. She was home; of course she was home. But he didn’t see her reflection in the mirror down the hall when the friend opened the front door. He was always missing little shit like that. I didn’t miss it; I never miss a thing. But at the time, he was in control.
That’s another problem with living in an adult human; it was easier to control him when he was a boy.
Preston’s gone but Wendy’s still there. I remember the bitch’s address, so I’ll finish the job for him. Figure I owe him that much. Figure I owe God a death.
CHAPTER 2 – Izmir, Turkey
His father and brother sat in the kitchen eating their breakfast of olives, tomatoes, cheese, boiled eggs, and bread with honey fresh from the comb. His mother freshened their cups of tea from a small pot as the young man took a stool and a plate. Nothing was said to him so he spoke first.
“I decided.”
“Decided what?” asked Murat, the older brother.
The father answered. “I told your brother to make a choice last night. He’s going to tell us the verdict now. Well?”
Ozgur hesitated, popped an olive in his mouth. “I want to go where I’m surrounded by water.”
“Good,” the father said. “Then you’re staying here. Istanbul has the Black Sea, the Marmara, the Bosphorous. It’s almost an island.”
“No, I want to go to an actual island. In America.”
Mother interjected, “Why don’t you just say it? Hawaii.”
“It’s only four years.”
“Allah Allah,” his mother muttered, glancing at her husband, who shrugged.
“I’ll return every other spring break.”
“Every spring break,” she amended.
Ozgur sighed. He would have to take a part time job to afford a plane ticket home every year. But at least they were letting him go. His father was a highly educated military intelligence contractor, so Ozgur wouldn’t be the first Karagöz to go to college, but he’d be the first to do it in the States.
Now he just had to break the news about his choice of majors–journalism!
CHAPTER 3 – Fort Meade, Maryland, USA
The weathered colonel crossed his long runner’s legs, tugged at his bloused pant leg. He didn’t bother looking at his translator, just told him what to say. His green eyes, he kept locked on the Afghani.
“We’re relocating your family to Turkey. It’s for your own good. You’ll have a better life.” He waited for the translator, who spoke quickly because the colonel didn’t like to wait. “It’s nice there,” he continued. “You’ll like it, I promise. More opportunities for your family, for your sons.” The colonel gestured to one of the sons, the youngest of the two, who sat upright when he realized he was being talking about by the lean American. The boy listened, tried to comprehend the words before the translator interpreted.
“Qahar should do especially well. The boy’s a genius.”
Smoothing his desert camouflaged jacket, the colonel waited for all this to be told to the man and his wife and children. The wife said nothing, minding her place. She pulled Qahar closer and prayed. The man spoke excitedly to the translator, nodding spastically and shaking his hand. He offered his hand to the colonel, who shook it firmly, graciously, though he would wash it thoroughly later before touching his face or any other exposed part of himself.
Qahar stood then and spoke in accented English.
“Where?”
The Air Force officer considered the intention of the question, then responded slowly and directly to the boy, “Where do you want to go, Qahar? We can place your family in Ankara, Trabzon, Antalya, Izmir, even Istanbul though you may not like living in such a large city. It’s very crowded there.”
Qahar did not understand everything said but he got the gist. Besides, he knew what he wanted. “I want to live by water. By ocean.”
The colonel smiled tightly and nodded to his translator, who reviewed the exchange in Pashtun with the head of the family. The Afghani concurred, gripping his boy by the shoulder proudly. It was agreed.
“Okay, put them in Izmir. Not an ocean, per se, but the Aegean Sea will have to do.”
The colonel rose without addendum and exited the low-ceilinged office. Walking with armed guard past dozens of unemployed bearded men, the colonel made his way back to his vehicle, punching a cryptic note to himself into his digital assistant as he strode by the well-manicured gardens of the Afghanistan Ministry of Defense:
Call Karagöz. Keep track of boy.
CHAPTER 4 – New York City, New York, USA
2036
Driver parked the Mercedes and rolled down the window and spat blood out of his mouth, opened the door and spat some more on the pavement. He didn’t want to swallow any of it; there was no telling where it came from.
The passenger opened his door and stepped out, cash blowing decadently out from the dark interior. A few hundred dollar bills floated near his well-heeled feet before sticking in a pool of leaked motor oil. The passenger glanced over at his Rolex then to his driver, who was wiping his chin.
“You coming?”
#
Bleak Fork was a refuge unlike any other; it not only hid monsters, it kept them well fed. An eatery of sorts, and a bar, for those with traditional appetites, like Driver, who sat down at a red velvet booth and waited for the waitress. Just as someone came to take his order, his cell rang, but it was a Nobody. He didn’t pick up.
“I’ll have a Caesar salad, water, no ice. And a margarita on the rocks.”
“Shaken, not stirred,” the waitress joked.
“I said a margarita, not a martini.”
“We don’t get a lot of cocktail orders in here. You want salt?”
“Who gives a shit?” he said. “However the guy makes it.”
#
The passenger came over with two shots of blood, offering one to Driver.
“I’m good,” said Driver, who was once called Ray. He raised his margarita. The passenger, who was once called nothing but now went by Njira, shrugged.
“More for me.”
#
“I want,” the bearded man said, stopping to hack up a clump of red phlegm, “I want to know who your supplier is.”
Driver said nothing, just sipped his drink–his fourth, we know, because the waitress has failed to clear the empties.
Njira sat beside him passively in the booth, closer than perhaps a human would like, but Njira felt no aversion to proximity and didn’t care what his aide thought about it. Together, they stared at their client, presenting him with a unified front. “Not your business,” Njira said with his heavy Near Eastern accent. “Buy or don’t, but don’t waste time.”
The man pulled at his beard, several wiry tufts coming loose. These he blew on the table, some landing and sticking to Driver’s salad plate.
“Glad I was done eating that,” Driver said.
“You see that shit?” the client asked.
Driver looked at his boss, who nodded.
“I think we’re done, Mister Braid.” Together, they scooted out from the plush booth, Braid motioning frantically with his withering hands.
“Wait, wait!”
Njira sat perched on the seat’s edge, allowing time for the man to make his last remarks.
“We need more juice. A lot more,” Braid admitted. ”We want to go to the source.”
“Why?” Driver asked, standing and rearing back his broad shoulders. ”We’ve always filled your quantities.”
“There’s been a new migration and we have almost four hundred new refugees. We’ve all been trying to ration, but look at the results.” He motioned to the clumps of black hair on the table. ”We can’t afford to keep going through a middle man. We want to buy direct, that’s all.”
“And cut us out of the loop?” Driver asked. “Why should we do that?”
“Out of mercy, man. We’ve got to manage our funds better, and we need a larger, wholesale discount for the volume we’re now ready to buy in. Nothing to do with you, we’ve just have got to avoid any unnecessary fees.”
“Fair,” Njira said, standing. “Avoid our fees completely.” He walked out, leaving Driver to pay the bill. The client glowered after him.
“You men are heartless. What difference is it to you now? Now you are losing us as clients anyhow. Please, for the love of God, tell me your source. Your boss doesn’t need to know.”
“The source is right out there,” Driver said, staring the man in the eyes as he beckoned to the exit. ”Walking on the streets. All of them, any of them. The fluids come from random passerby and we don’t have anyone else that we go to.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’ve said it,” Driver said, walking to the bar. “You just don’t want to hear it. Look, there are no giant warehouses, no factories. No synthetic product. You’re getting–what you were getting–is taken live.”
The client leaned back, massaging his temples, his face haggard with revulsion and denial. ”That isn’t true.”
“It is. Live product. That’s why the prices are so high. Can I get a shot of Patron?” he asked the bartender, before turning back to Braid. “There never was a middleman.”
“But if you’re using real blood…”
“Then what? You don’t want it anymore?”
The man shook his head. “No. No, we have to have it. Maybe deep down, I knew it, I knew it wasn’t synth.”
“Of course you did.”
“But, we thought maybe it was from animals.”
Driver smiled. “It is. Just not the kind that live on farms. If you’d been living on cow blood, or pig blood, you’d all be dead long ago. Now–” He downed his shot of premium tequila. “Excuse me. My master doesn’t like to wait.”
#
Back in the car, Njira asked, “You told him?”
“Only that we weren’t the middlemen, that we tapped the product ourselves.”
Njira said nothing but watched his aid with glassy green eyes.
“He knew what it was already. They all know, they aren’t naive. Only maybe they thought it was coming from a bank or something.”
“Blood banks in a five state radius are…”
“Bone dry,” Driver finished, turning the wheel and blowing through a stop light. “That’s why he’ll be calling soon enough.”
Njira gazed out the window sullenly. “Don’t interrupt me again.”
–Stay honed in for more bites of SttV; ’til then, Have a V-8!
Yours ’til the other side,
Fast Eddie
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