39
THE FIXER
Guests were removed from the building as soon as the message reached me. Security was ushering them out and back to the apartments next door. All the household members were confined to the ground floor. No one was to go to the upper floors.
I ran up the stairs, to the middle floor.
Staff huddled by Sidney, deliberating quickly.
This kid was tough. He’d spent much of his life at sea. He could hold his own and survive in the great, unpredictable ocean.
Yet I’d never seen the life drain from his eyes like this.
“Sid.” I grabbed his shoulder. “You’d better have a good reason for this mess,” I hissed.
He couldn’t even look at me, just a blank stare straight into my chest. He’d gone completely mute.
“For God’s sake, boy.” I opened the door. “Did you call a physician?”
“A physician is no longer needed.” Sidney glanced at me through the cracked door, then looked into the room. “I think it is best that you see for yourself before we call anyone for aid.”
He closed it quickly to avoid any prying eyes of guests.
The room looked normal. A bit of dust unsettled from the wind of the door, but otherwise it was still.
A small flutter on the floor, the light trail from the window moved. That is when I saw the shivering.
“Alina?” I said, as softly as I could. “Are you well?”
The closer I got to the window, the hotter it became. The summer heat couldn’t be good for her fever.
I pushed the curtain away, unveiling the mess.
Alina was crouched, red nightgown and bare feet. Her knees hugged to her chest as her hair covered her like a shroud. Her entire body was pressed into as little space as possible against the wall.
Her nails were black, so were the stains on the skirt of her dress.
Along the floor were smears and droplets from what looked like her crawling to her current position. But that wasn’t what made my veins freeze like a river.
There was a form in the bed, tucked under the blankets. The smears covering the edge of the blanket were a testament to the care taken to cover it.
Looking back at Alina wasn’t going to give me answers, not in her current state.
With cautious steps, I stretched out my arm, touching the blanketed form. There was no reaction.
I pulled the silk. The cream revealed strawberry hair, then a creeping stain of black. A hollowed-out throat between pink neckline.
My hand was numb by the time I tucked the blanket back over her.
It was like my body failed. My knees gave out as I gripped the sheets and sat beside the body. No words could be found, neither the will for my mind to rationalize what I just saw. Not anymore than the next image of Alina before me.
All I could do was press my hand to my mouth, counting breaths to calm myself.
Alina’s eyes as black as the spit dripping from her lips. An expression that begged me to tell her that what I just saw wasn’t real, that it was an illusion in her ill state.
Except she would know it wasn’t a mirage if she saw how her skin glowed, her hollowed-out cheeks were filled, and her very essence flushed with life.
I failed her. If anyone was to see it, I should have.
This whole time, I assumed it was a late-form rejection to the turn, to the venom.
We never considered we were feeding her the wrong way.
We were starving her and didn’t know it.
The solution was never human blood.
It was Vipera.