Page 206 of White Wolf

“That bad, huh?”

“Pretty bad.”

They walked down to the cold storage room, where the dead waited in their metal drawers.

“I’ve got his autopsy scheduled for later today,” Harvey said as she found the right drawer and slid it open at waist-level, revealing the sheet-draped body. “This couldn’t have waited?”

“No, sorry.”

“Hmm. It’s alright. I was about to fall asleep in my” – she lifted the sheet, and Jamie Anderson, pale and bruised-looking, opened his eyes – “coff -eeee!” The last turned into a shriek, followed by an angry, terrified shout of, “Stop doing that, you assholes!”

~*~

Lanny rustled up some scrubs from a linen closet somewhere, and Sasha bought coffee and a sandwich at the cafeteria – in the upstairs, non-dead part of the hospital. In a small, out of the way, deserted waiting room, Jamie Anderson held the sandwich in one hand, coffee in the other, and looked between the three of them.

“Um,” he said.

“Yeah. ‘Um’ about sums it about,” Lanny said.

Jamie took a big breath that jacked his narrow shoulders up to his ears and let it out slowly. “Okay. So. I’m not dead.”

“Definitely not.” Trina smiled at him, and it was genuine. She’d been a little afraid that being turned changed a person irrevocably. Maybe Chad had been a nice guy, and the change had morphed him into someone callous and violent.

But to her immense relief, Jamie had awakened scared, confused, but polite and gentle. He was a slender, almost-physically delicate boy, saying “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir,” ducking his head in deference and reaching to nudge at glasses that were no longer there. Trina found that she liked him immediately. He was shy, and nervous, and very cute, cheeks flushed from nerves and fright. Nothing about him was monstrous.

“What do you remember?” she asked him.

He frowned and shook his head, looked down at his feet. And then pulled back, clearly marveling. “I can see,” he said, awed. “How…” Shook his head again and looked back up at her. “I could tell someone was following me.” He sighed and looked disappointed in himself. “Maybe I shoulda, I dunno, called 9-1-1 or something. But I didn’t want to be, you know…” He scowled down at his hands. “I know I’m small, and yeah, okay, maybe I’m not all muscly and macho.” Covert glance toward Lanny. “But I wanted to think that maybe I could look out for myself. Not be the wimp who had to call the cops because he thought he heard footsteps. And I was only a block from home.”

“Anybody can get jumped,” Lanny said, “doesn’t matter how big or how strong. Beefed up gym rats get stabbed and mugged, same as everybody else.”

“Yeah, well.” Jamie shrugged. “I got inside my building and thought that was it. The door was locked, no big deal. But then.” He shivered and chafed his hands together. “I was taking my shoes off and somebody knocked on my door. Jessica was out for the night, but she forgets stuff all the time, comes back to get it. I thought it was probably her, and I just opened the door.”

He winced. “It’s fuzzy after that. I invited this stranger in, but I don’t know why. I let him take me into the living room and sit down on the couch. Let him all up in my personal space, even though I’m not into guys like that. I just.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t me. And everything was all warm and good and I just didn’t care. And then my neck hurt.” He touched it now, reflexively, fingers skating over the healing bruise there, the little scabs where Chad’s fangs had punched through the skin. In some ways, the way the bite healed was the biggest proof that he was in fact alive; dead skin didn’t knit itself back together.

“Vampires,” Sasha started, and Jamie jerked hard, turning an incredulous look on him. “Can charm their, um, their victims. Some are better at it than others. You couldn’t have said no if you wanted to.”

Jamie looked at him, then at Trina, then at Lanny, blinking, blank-faced. “I’m sorry.Vampires?”

Trina gave him a sympathetic wince. “I know it sounds crazy.”

“It sounds fucked up,” Lanny said.

Sasha said, “But it’s true. And you are one now.”

“Oh my God.” Jamie looked like he tried to bury his head in his hands, then realized they were full. “Is this some kind of sick joke? Or are you guys having some kind of, I dunno,TwilightLARP that gotwayout of hand?” He looked almost as hopeful as he did terrified. “Is this a gang initiation? Am I–”

“No,” Sasha said, leaning forward in his chair, expression sympathetic. “It’s very real. Here: listen.” He gave one of his low, rumbling, obviously-not-human growls.

“Shit!” Jamie leapt to his feet, coffee slopping out of his hand and splattering across the tile. He dropped his sandwich and backed away from them, toward the wall.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Trina said, getting slowly to her feet. She held a hand toward him, empty, soft, non-threatening. “It’s not a trick, and we’re not a gang or nerds.”

Lanny snorted. “You’re kind of a nerd, honey.”

“Shut up. Jamie, it’s okay. I promise. I know it sounds beyond crazy, but it’s true. Let Sasha explain it to you, okay?”

His gaze moved from her, to Sasha, and back again. He breathed in little gasps, chest hitching under the too-big scrub top.

---