Voice of the Blood.

By Jemiah Jefferson.

Prologue: Hematopoiesis.

All the best tales begin with rain. In reality, this is the end of the story I am about to relate to you, but I begin here, because I'm sitting waiting in the pitch-dark parlor of my old house, bare feet with their long nightmare toes peeking out from beneath an appropriately literary white eyelet nightgown. The rain is picking up outside from a sleepy waltz to a tarantella, and often when it rains like this, my lover John returns to me for the night. My lover-the unfortunately feral and tragically beautiful-may join me here, for he hates being out in the rain in the mulchy graveyards and unwholesome underpasses where he ordinarily stays. I am calling to him without raising my voice. I envision him standing solid before me. I want him to come in to me tonight. I am listening to the rain with all my senses. Synaesthesia is one of my great rewards-I can, if I wish, hear the raindrops hitting leaves outside with my skin, hear the molecules of wet earth opening and sprouting with my nostrils; it seems as though time stops between raindrops distinctly hitting the slate roof tiles in groups of ten or twenty. Moments like this make me insist and insist that we vampires are certainly not undead ghouls; as I sit precisely balanced on my bare tailbone, which rests cool and damp against the wooden slats, sniffing the wet peat of long-dead, long buried Oregonians wafting from a mile away, I feel more alive than any human creature ever felt. I am now so capable that restraining myself is a pleasure. Morality is delicious.

Nonetheless, the sight of my skulking, fey, lupine lover would please me no end. I haven't seen him for weeks. A week to me is a long time; I am mostly solitary and often idle, and my human scientist colleagues interpret my moody demeanor as aloofness. I'm sure they think I'm just some frigid workaholic who never sees any sunlight, one of those ice queens who wears a leather jacket, but still spends the evenings in a cold white laboratory.

My dearest friends are dead or far away. Oh, Ricari-I long for him sometimes-I wish he were simply here to talk to, to tell me sad or freakish tales of his life, but he gave me almost two years of his guidance and companionship, and then slipped off quietly, in darkness of course, leaving behind him only a receipt for a one-way plane ticket to Toronto. He always did prefer his solitude. I think about Lovely's laugh, as he read in Chloe's big bed while drinking ginger tea, and I miss them so much it makes my chest hurt.

John's here, though, in some ways at least. I'm not sure if he made the conscious decision to not be my companion, or whether he's just wandering about compulsively, like a half-wild housecat. I don't know why he became that way, while I became thus; the vampire blood pulsing through what was a human brain can do some weird things to people.

John and I were engaged to be married once, in that other life, that human life, so sane and silicone in comparison with this. It was about a million years ago, or maybe it was only five. I was then, as I am now, Ariane Caroline Dempsey, early twenties, American, of mixed race, molecular biology specialist, lover of plain black T-shirts and violent action films, and prone to sitting bare-assed in the middle of the floor during a rainstorm.

So I've been thinking about everything, reviewing it in my mind; we vampires have the unfortunate trait of having very sharp memories, even of things we'd forgotten when we were humans. We can remember every embarrassment, every disappointment, every shitty little betrayal, as well as the joy of the first bite of fresh persimmon jam, or the sweetness of falling asleep after a night of worrying. Some get extremely testy, some stop caring about anything they've said or done, and some, like me, I guess, just step back and quantify. Thinking about the past gives me something to do while I wait, a back-process in my mind to pass the time, the inexorable time, the excruciating waiting room of being alive.

For all the beings in my extended hemophagic family, the transformation occurred at a particularly touchy time in a person's life, especially for those of us in the twentieth century-that time in one's life where living becomes an effort for the first time. I was not old enough yet to see life as a blessing, as something to be treasured and appreciated as it goes along. Like Ricari, I became long-lived right at the time when it no longer seemed like something to desire. The very young take it in stride, take it for granted in fact, that the immortality that they feel inside is the real thing. After the age of forty or so, some people grasp at it desperately, see it as a grand cure for their failing eyesight, graying temples, and temperamental bowels. All I saw before me was sixty years of degeneration, and the gradual loss of my youthful charms, which weren't that terribly many to begin with.

I'm not unhappy. Quite the opposite. I know myself now to an extent that would have been impossible otherwise, and I like what I know. I just wish it wasn't so hard, you know... So many deaths already and how infinitely many deaths to come?

Ah! A scratching and a scribbling at my back door? I jump up and rush to the kitchen window and gaze out at the plaster birdbath in my backyard, bouncing with raindrops. A white sylph is materializing, indistinct through the veinlike tracery of rain on the windowpane-John, naked, discarding heaps of mud-dark clothes onto my lawn and stepping with great delicacy into the fountain. He tosses his head like a Macedonian prince. So I open the back door for him, and he glides in, half asleep seemingly, his beaded silvery skin icy to the touch. His dark eyes are impossible to read. Heedless, hungry, he touches me through my nightgown, wetting me-look away, won't you?

I'll distract you with pretty stories. I'll tell you with my sharp vampire video-camera memory how I came to see through darkness and John came to possess the four sharp tines that currently, sensually, pierce the skin of my shoulder.

Book One.

Haemostasis.

Chapter One.

So who started it?.

John and I had been quarreling for days, almost nonstop. As soon as we woke up in bed together, I kicked him for stealing the pillows; we fought about whether we wanted sandwiches or leftovers for lunch; we fought about what movie we were going to see at night, and where. It wasn't as though we had such great differences of opinion-the two of us were freakishly similar in tastes. But we seemed to fight as a main form of communication.

It had all started so sweetly between us. He was a new professor at the Northern California Institute of Technology, where I attended graduate school; this Dr. John Thurbis brought an impossible reputation with him-the wunderkind from the gutters of one of England's grimmest cities, Ph.D. at twenty-nine in the near-supernatural field of particle physics. I, innocent of the fate that was shortly to befall me, was on my way to the ChemQuad to attend a lecture of my least-favorite class when I was accosted by a tall, dark-haired stranger with glasses and beautiful skin, who proceeded to rant at me about the stupidity and bureaucracy of the administration. I stood and listened patiently, having heard all of this many times before from students and staff, and I was about to excuse myself and go on my way when he sighed and said, "Well, fuck-all, I need a drink. Want to go have a few stiff vodkas with me?" It was three o'clock in the afternoon, so of course I said yes. There followed a great dinner, inspired sex, and a day and a half spent in bed watching cable TV.

That had been almost two full years earlier. Since then, we'd gotten engaged, put toothbrushes in each other's homes, watched each other's academic reputations blossom. Since I'd earlier made the choice to stay in animal biology and mutational analysis, rather than running off on the genome bandwagon, my star didn't shine out quite as obviously as his, but we were still a formidable scientific force. Once the head of the Physics Department came upon John and me in a restaurant, and made sure to announce to his cronies, "The combined I.Q. of that table approaches four hundred-and they still look cute together."

In September of that year, John had received his dream invitation-to be a guest fellow at Cambridge from mid-December until May. Essentially, that meant he got to eat a lot of Yorkshire puddings, drink a lot of aged port, and argue about unification theory in front of a roaring fire with a lot of overbred graybeards who wouldn't have given John's dad, a Welsh-born cannery worker, the time of day. Being a fool, he couldn't have been more thrilled-and he accepted the invitation before he'd even told me he'd gotten it.

I tried to be mature about it. I was twenty-four, a genius in my own right; I had my grants and my devoted students and my own place to live. I could get along without a lover for a few months. I didn't let it show that I cared one bit, and for some reason, that didn't sit well with John. His indignation didn't sit well with me, and so there we were.

There was a particular Thursday when we'd been fighting so badly that I hadn't slept the night before; my period was due, and my knotted muscles cried for one of John's big-handed back rubs. But there was no way I was going to ask for one, the way he was acting. I hated giving him even an ounce of power. I was also a fool.

I had gone to pick him up for a dinner date, and he baited me by being late. "Our reservations are for eight-thirty," I said through my teeth. "What does that clock over there say?"

John was absentmindedly puttering around his living room, one sock on. He loved playing the Einstein bit, though he was about a quarter century too young to be convincing. "It's fast," he said.

"What does it say, John?"

He glanced up at me from where he crouched over a pile of clothes on the floor. "Ariane, uh, you might want to check your hair. It's... sticking up a bit..."

"What?" I dashed to the bathroom and squinted at myself in the mirror. Of course my hair was sticking up. I had worked for almost half an hour rolling the frizzy dark-red curls into a bun at the top of my head. I fiddled with the combs holding it all together, sighing. My body sang a repetitive song of pain. I fumbled in the medicine cabinet and dry-swallowed two aspirin.

"Are you ready yet? It's almost eight-thirty," John said impatiently.

Dinner was strained. We'd blown our reservation, and the maitre d' took great pleasure in telling us that it would be almost an hour before the next table opened. John winced, but he had to pretend he didn't care, so he led me to the bar and bought me a cocktail.

"I'm starving," I said.

"You'll live," John said. He plucked at my hair and the bun collapsed. "Oops... Dreadfully sorry..."

"No, you're fucking not. You have no idea how long that took me. You asshole." I cupped my fallen hair in my hands. I felt like I was going to cry. I felt like an elephant had stepped on my birthday cake.

"Oh, sweetheart. It's only hair. I think you look beautiful with your hair down."

"But that's not the point. I put so much work into it."

He sighed. "Don't get bloody neurotic about it. Be more of a... free spirit."

"This from the man who made us half an hour late because he has to have matching socks..."

We finished our drinks in silence.

The meal was unextraordinary... some kind of chops, soggy vegetables. The pain was crawling inside me like a wicked animal, like a leering gnome armed with stilettoes. John was talking and I wasn't listening to him at all. He finally broke my reverie when he barked, "Where are you?"

"Outside," I said. I pushed my plate away. "I'm really not hungry. I think the aspirin has fucked up my stomach."

John spat out an impatient sigh. "I finally buy you a nice dinner, and you're not even here to eat it. Christ, Ariane. You never talk with me anymore-all you do is bitch. Why don't you just tell me the truth?"

"And what's that?"

"That you don't want me to go."

"Would you stay if I asked you to?" I said.

He lifted his eyebrows a bit. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses he wasn't looking at me as he spoke. "No, I wouldn't."

"Let's just call the whole thing off," I said.

"I don't want to. Jesus."

"I don't want you to stay here anyway," I lied, waving my hand. "You'd just hate me for it. It's a good opportunity-hell, they already say your name in the same breath as Niels Bohr and whoever those other brainiacs were-Tesla or whoever the hell. It's a great thing. John-John needs his tenure. And you haven't even given me a goddamn ring yet."

"Now you're just being stupid." He sighed again, tossing his napkin with a little splash into his plate. "Let's just go, all right?"

"You want a ride home?"

"What do you think?"

I dropped him off in front of his flat without a goodbye. He just unfolded himself from the passenger seat of my Geo and slammed the door behind him. I didn't watch him go.

I went back to the campus, not bothering to change out of my flowery dress and girlie shoes. There was always work to do, and it distracted me from the tattered, illogical puzzle that was my life. A light rain had picked up while John and I were in the restaurant, and the lawns of the campus quads squelched under the heels of my pumps. The warm lights of the library, located in the center of campus, beckoned through the mist that was all that remained of the squall.

I roamed through the library, dazedly selecting bound volumes of all my favorite journals. In the back of the book stacks I glanced around and, sure I wouldn't be seen, hiked up my dress and checked my panties for bloodstains. Nothing so far. I knew it was close-my periods were regular, mercilessly reliable, almost down to the minute. With the amount of pain I was in, I knew it wouldn't be long. I sighed. Time to check out.

One of my lab students was working behind the circulation desk, and she smiled at me. "Hey, Ariane, you're here late, huh? I should think you'd be home asleep by now. Don't you ever take it easy?"

"Not if I can help it."

"You look nice. Hey, d'you see the police cars?"

"No, where?"

She paused in the stamping of the cards to take another bite of her chocolate bar. The smell of it bothered me a little. "Over on the other side of the park, by the bike shop. I think somebody must have broken into the bike shop."

"Or somebody's robbing graves," said the other student library worker, adding a morbid tremolo to his voice.

"What?" asked my student dubiously.

"There's a cemetery over there too," said the young man. I thought I recognized him-a creepy premed who had once stolen the complete skeleton from the lecture hall and returned it dressed like Prince, complete with purple velvet coat and spike-heeled boots. He stole a rectangle of chocolate from the bar.

She smacked his hand. "You're high," said my student.

"Yeah? Wanna make something of it?"

"I'll see you guys later," I mumbled.

I wished I was high. My cramps had been slowly rising in intensity as I strolled through the library, and now, in the grassy center of the BioQuad lawn, it came to a head, a climax of full uterine spasms, and my knees buckled slightly as I entered the main bio building where my lab was located. Then it was all over. I drew my breath. A bubble of warmth swelled between my legs. There was no one around, so I hiked up my skirt again and touched my finger to my vagina-blood, fresh as a stab wound.

Oh, great, I thought. Well, I had some tampons and a washcloth in my offices; I would have to make do for a little while, at least. I didn't want to go back home to find a message from John on my answering machine, demanding an apology or an explanation. Not yet. I let the door to the building swing closed, trailed my hand along the bricks in the stairwell leading to the basement. All was very quiet in the building-I could barely hear someone playing Pink Floyd down the hall, just the faintest echo bouncing along the walls. No one there to bother me.

For some reason the door to my office wouldn't open. I struggled with the key for a full minute, my eagerness burning through to impatience, and I let out a stifled curse. Finally I shoved open the door with my shoulder.

My office was dark and filled with a damp wind speckled with rain. I couldn't see a thing for a minute; my hand fumbled for the light switch, but it had no effect. At last I made out some white things on the floor-papers, strewn all about, blown by the wind, and bulkier, oblong forms. They were my pet rats, not moving, their fur pink and wet and matted.

I remember screaming.

That was it.

Then I was lying down on a hard, narrow bed, covered with a wool blanket. I had been in this bed before-it was one of the sleep-lab beds, in which I'd done many nights for the pocket money before I graduated. I wondered why I was there; I hadn't done any sleep-lab experiments for months and months. I was cold and infinitely drowsy.

Before I could wake up completely, I heard someone implore' me, "Don't try to talk, we're taking you to the infirmary."

I couldn't move anyway. I felt myself being half lifted and half rolled, then boxed in with stretcher bars. I wanted to tell them that all this fuss was unnecessary, I was fine, but I couldn't move at all. I felt no pain, just a chill that immobilized me. I opened my eyes. I was being wheeled away down bright corridors. I thought I smelled John-he liked a certain soap. I felt a hot hand against my cheek.

"You're gonna make it, don't worry."

I was confused. I went back to sleep.

When I woke up again, the pain came with consciousness, hand in hand, like death and taxes. I moaned out loud and grabbed for my belly. John was there beside me, and he stroked my forehead and my hand until I relaxed. He wiped a few tears away from my cheek. "You've had a miscarriage," he said in a whisper. He sounded broken. "Your neighbor found you-he heard you scream, and he found you in a pool of blood. Your office is a real mess. The window was broken, your rats are all dead, it's a shambles. I'm just glad you're all right."

"I don't feel all right," I said thickly.

"No, I'm sure you don't. You're on an IV and will be till morning. I'll be here tomorrow to take you home-you have to promise to take it easy for the next week or so-no school."

"I'll get behind," I groaned. The room was spinning as if I'd had far too much to drink-half turn, then stop; the same half turn, then stop, then the same again.

He squeegeed tears away from his own eyes, as if he were ashamed of them and didn't want me to see. Behind his glasses, his eyes were red and swollen, his dense lashes still wet. "Nonsense. You're the smartest girl in school. You'll make it up in no time-I'll bring you your lessons. Dr. Reid already said he'd take over your TA classes until you feel up to coming back. Everything's going to be all right. You just have to relax, OK? I'll come get you between the Astro and Particle lectures."

I looked at him, then turned over my arm, stiff and cold with the metal and plastic tubing hanging out of it, and let all my cells collapse against the rough cotton duck of the hospital sheets. The room was blessedly dim-late night lights were on. "Don't be late," I whispered to him.

That night as I slept, I had nightmares about it. Again and again I came into my office, each time finding something more awful to look at-one rat had had its head ripped off and the trails of flesh spread across the floor like a red feather boa; another was crushed into a white furry bag of liquid, horribly misshapen. Again I saw the lightning strike, illuminating the white papers flying about like some Hitchcock intro, the overturned office chair, the ruined stereo, and-what else?

I was convinced there was something else in the room.

A gynecologist came to visit me when I awakened in the morning. I sat up in bed, drinking a pint of nutritional milk shake, and she sat in a chair opposite me. "How are you feeling, Ariane?" she asked me cheerfully.

"Kind of like someone stepped on me."

She granted that a medically astute smile. "It wasn't really a miscarriage that you suffered," she informed me. "We didn't find any of the hormones associated with pregnancy in your bloodstream."

I didn't say anything, plucking at loose threads in the hospital blanket.

The gyn sighed and went on. "Ariane, you weren't attacked, you weren't raped, were you? You can say so, I won't say anything about it if you don't want-I'm just trying to make a diagnosis."

"I... no," I said truthfully. "I mean, I don't remember. I'm not a repressed-memories kind of person."

"I thought so. I mean, we didn't find any semen traces on you either-just your own blood. The only thing I can think is that you suffered a prolapsed endometrium, for God knows what reason. There's nothing left of your uterine lining now. It seems to be reforming itself normally, which is good. It's a really rare occurrence, and it usually happens after a couple of miscarriages or abortions-"