The Blood, Book 1: Rubedo

IMPORTANT: This and chapter 2 are both first drafts. Oooold first drafts. I've posted the first chapter of the third draft, which is the latest, so go read that instead. Unless you really want to compare the differences that badly. Thanks for your time, and all the kind words and helpful input on these first drafts.

Chapter 1: Birds

It’s funny how your priorities change when you get older, Nicholas thought as he lay underneath the oak tree in his backyard. When I was a kid I would have done some rather unpleasant things if I had known what I was capable of.

He could hear birds chirping in the neighbors’ yard, probably going to town on the birdbath. Nicholas thought it was strange, since his family had a birdbath of their own, yet birds preferred the one beyond the wooden fence. A fence that was tall enough that even Nicholas, at six feet tall, could not see over it even when he stood on his toes. His parents enjoyed their privacy.

How many weeks am I going to just think about this? he wondered. I mean, I could do nothing, but that would be such a waste. And yet, what are my options?

As if he hadn’t already thought about his choices a million times over. When he was little, the choice would have been simple. But at seventeen, when he had had time to learn and see just how complicated the world really was, his answer seemed just as complicated. And it wasn’t as if he could ask any of his friends for advice. They couldn’t know what he could do. He wouldn’t let them.

Sighing, Nicholas sat up and held his knees close, resting his chin on them. Slowly rocking back and forth, as he always did when he needed to think, he tried to figure out what his best course of action was. He had to solve this dilemma on his own. No encyclopedia or message board could help him with this. Not his friends, not his parents. No one but him.

“Then let’s start from square one,” he whispered to himself, a habit he had developed after years of muttering his thoughts under his breath. Looking around the yard, he tried to find something interesting to test on. Other than the tree, the fence, and the birdbath, the yard was pretty empty, though it was spacious, and the grass was well cared for. The problem was that there was nothing animate besides him, and that was exactly what he needed.

Suddenly, the chirping of the birds became a bit louder. Nicholas watched in awe as three blue jays descended from the sky and landed in the birdbath, twittering and splashing away. It was his lucky day. Maybe fate or God or whatever had decided to help him out.

The only problem was that he was going to have to mess with the bath first, which meant counting on the birds to return after he scared them off. Getting to his feet, he slowly approached the bath, enjoying the feeling of the grass between his toes. Not owning any pets had its perks, chief among them being the freedom to walk around barefoot in one’s own yard without having to watch out for dog crap.

When he was close enough, the birds scattered with a quick flutter. He watched them perch in the branches of the oak tree. Good, they would wait for him to leave. He only needed a few seconds anyway.

Approaching the bath, he wondered how safe it was doing this in public. But of course, no one could see through the fence, or over it for that matter. And his parents were both at work, meaning he was completely alone. Even if someone were to somehow see him, they probably wouldn’t think too much of it.

Digging into his pocket, he drew out a small razor blade, no more than an inch long. Watching the summer sunlight glint off of it, he chuckled to himself.

“I probably look like one of those emo kids about to slit his wrists or something.” But then, the only stereotypically emo thing about him was that his hair never combed right and hung just a bit longer than his mother would have preferred. Other than that, he looked pretty normal, wearing loose jeans and a plain blue t-shirt. Hell, his hair was even dark blonde. Any proper emo would dye it black in a second.

Still, he was going to need some blood for this to work. He wasn’t quite sure how much, but if past experiments had been accurate, just a few drops would do. So, taking a deep breath, he gently sliced the tip of his index finger with the razor.

It stung more than anything else, but it was the kind of sting that hurt much more than it looked like it should. Ignoring it as best he could, he squeezed his finger gingerly, forcing three tiny crimson droplets to drip into the water. He stirred them for a second with his other hand so they disappeared into the water, and then began sucking on the wounded finger, tasting the rusty liquid and wishing his tolerance for pain was higher. But it didn’t matter, because it was done now. Returning to the tree he sat and waited.

It took a few minutes, but the birds eventually decided it was safe to return. Splashing into the bath, they began to frolic and drink, and Nicholas waited. How long it took often varied, usually with the amount of blood he used. More blood sped up the effect, but he could be patient if it saved him any extra pain.

After five minutes of nothing, he began to wonder whether or not he had used enough blood. Maybe the water had diluted it so much that its effect was gone.

“Well, even if I don’t get to test it out again,” he muttered, “at least I’ve figured out that I need more next time.”

But as he said this, it happened. In his head, towards the back of his skull, he felt a small buzzing sensation. Slowly, the feeling creeped through his brain until it was behind his forehead, and that was when he knew he was in control.

It was only one buzz, which meant only one of the birds had been affected. So, looking directly at the blue jays, he thought one simple command.

Fly onto the fence.

Instantly, one of the jays stopped cleaning itself and sprung into the air. In less than two seconds it flew over to the fence and perched upon the tip of one of the planks. Nicholas grinned.

Extending the index finger on his left hand, the one which was not bleeding, he did not make a mental command. Rather, he pictured the bird flying down from the fence and landing on his finger. As soon as he did, the bird copied the exact scene in his head and perched upon his outstretched digit.

Reaching out with his right hand, he noticed that the cut had healed itself. Just like it was supposed to. Softly, he stroked the jay’s feathers, watching its head flicker as it looked around, unafraid of him.

“Time for the last test, little guy.” Closing his eyes, Nicholas focused on the buzz behind his forehead, willing it to disappear. It took a few seconds, but then it was gone.

He opened his eyes just in time to see the jay flap away, twittering in fear and surprise as it returned to its two friends. Smiling, Nicholas fell backwards onto the grass and looked up at the blue sky.

Nothing too different, he thought. This just reaffirms what I already know. I can either will commands, or just picture them. Either way they’re carried out without resistance or disobedience.

Furthermore, the bird’s surprise indicated that either it didn’t retain the feelings of calmness that Nicholas had put in it after the control was broken, or it was simply too primitive a creature to understand what was going on. The problem was that birds could not tell him what being controlled was like. And that was what he needed to know more than anything else.

This had been the first time he had ever used his blood on birds. In the past it had always been bugs, before he had upgraded to neighborhood cats and dogs. The amount of blood needed seemed to directly correlate to the size of the creature being controlled. One drop took care of any insect, but he needed to put ten drops in the food bowl of any cat, and the most he had even used for dogs was thirty drops on a Great Dane that was owned by some old lady living down the street. Thirty drops had been killer for him, and he had been a bit woozy afterwards, although it had surely been from his imagination more than the small loss of blood.

How many drops then, he wondered, would it take to control a human?

Never before had he even attempted it. It wasn’t a question of ethics at all, because all he wanted was to test a few things, chiefly whether or not it was possible. The problem was that, in order to get feedback from a test subject, that person would need to know what he could do. And he couldn’t tell anyone.

He had known what he could do ever since he was fourteen, although that had not been the first time he had done it. Rather, it wasn’t until he was fourteen was he able to put all the pieces together and understand just what his blood could do. What amazing things he was capable of.

On his tenth birthday he had been playing tag in this very yard with one of his friends. His friend was ‘it’, and he had tagged Nicholas a bit too hard. When Nicholas fell he landed on the patio, scraping his knee badly. He mother had cleaned up his knee and taken care of him while his friend apologized at least a hundred times.

Back then they had owned a cat, and it had licked some of his blood off of the patio. Soon after Nicholas had felt the buzzing sensation in his brain for the first time, and he had delighted in the fact that the cat, who had always been aloof and ill-tempered, was quite attentive to him for the rest of the day, letting him pet it and following him everywhere, even purring when he scratched behind its ears. Of course, the following morning, when he tried to pet it and it scratched him, convinced him that nothing was out of the ordinary.

And then, one day at school his freshman year, he had been taking care of a hamster as part of a biology project. Attempting to refill the water bottle, he had cut open his palm on a broken piece of metal, and blood had spilled into the hamster’s food tray. Before he could change it, the hamster had already taken to his food and devoured half of it.

In seconds the buzz from four years prior had returned, and when he angrily shouted at the hamster to piss off and die, it had promptly forced its head in between the bars of its hamster wheel and twisted, breaking its own neck right in front of him.

Needless to say, he got an F on the project.

But the strange incident had reminded him of the cat’s odd behavior at his tenth birthday party, and he had run home immediately, reopening the wound, which had oddly healed itself in less than an hour, and putting it in the cat’s food. After it had eaten, the cat had obeyed every single command he issued it, spoke and thought.

Now, three years later, Nicholas was no closer to figuring out the answers to his biggest questions: Why did his blood let him control living creatures, could humans be controlled just like animals, and what the hell exactly was he going to do with this power?

“Become a super hero, right?” he grumbled, looking up at the clouds through the leaves of the oak tree. “Look out evil, here comes ‘Blood Boy’! Hope I look good in tights.”

That had been his first thought, but he had ruled it out pretty quickly. Being a vigilante was dangerous work, and he was still completely unsure of the limits of his power. Besides, he lived in a suburb. What kind of evil plots was he supposed to foil in a suburb?

Just as easily he could become a super villain, but that wasn’t a very good prospect either. Perhaps even more dangerous than being a vigilante, and he wasn’t so sure he had the guts to become a career criminal. Evil pays, but what did he need money for? Besides college, but that was already taken care of thanks to working his ass off for four years straight and studying like crazy for the SAT.

He could feel his cell phone vibrating in his pocket. Drawing it out, he yawned, even though it was only three in the afternoon, and answered.

“Hello?”

“Nick, is that you?” asked the voice of his mother.

“Yeah Mom, it’s me. It’s my cell phone, why wouldn’t it be me?”

“Sorry, force of habit. Hey, um, is your dad home yet?”

Nicholas looked over at the sliding glass doors to the house, but didn’t see his father anywhere in the kitchen.

“If he is, he snuck in like a ninja.”

“Oh,” his mother said. “Well, in that case, don’t worry about it. Do we need anything from the supermarket?”

“Uh…bread. And cheese. And salsa. And while you’re at it, you might as well get everything else too. God knows we can afford it.”

His mother chuckled, and he did too, but only to humor her.

“Alright then, I will. Bye honey.”

“Bye Mom.” Hanging up, he slid his phone back into his jeans and sighed. The crack about their yearly income had come off as appreciative, but he had meant for it to be sarcastic. They weren’t rich by any means, but they sure as hell weren’t hurting either. Unfortunately, he resented this fact, as he had lost a lot of his friends over his parents’ many promotions. Both of them being well-to-do business persons, they had risen in the ranks of their company quickly, and each year since his ninth birthday Nicholas had found that his presents had been getting more and more expensive, which was great at first.

The problem was that this town didn’t exactly have its fair share of well-to-do businesspersons. A fact that the town’s residents were very aware of, so much so that when one family suddenly began to prosper, they all turned against it. Nicholas’ family had not escaped this unfortunate fact, and pretty soon no one would let their children come to his house to play, or vice versa. Rumors of snobbery and elitism quickly spread, so that anyone who missed out on the initial shunning was quick to get in on the game.

He still managed to get along with most people at school, but even there he found problems. His interests were decidedly different from those of his peers. Many of them loved sports, drawing, writing, music, or anything vaguely productive or creative. Nicholas’ greatest pastime was thinking.

And thinking about something doesn’t necessarily get it done.

“Thousands of years ago, thinking was all I would need,” he mused, scratching away the loose bark on the tree trunk. “I would have been called a great philosopher, right up there with Plato and Aristotle.”

But wasn’t that what he had been doing for the last three years? Thinking about his power, and what he was going to do with it? In three years, he hadn’t thought of one damn thing to do. Even if he came up with something productive and practical, he couldn’t do it without knowing the full extent of what his blood was capable of.

And to know that, he needed a willing human test subject.

“Where the hell am I going to get one of those?” he mumbled.

He had had enough of his yard. Getting to his feet, he began to head inside, when he heard the sound of creaking wood and something hitting the ground behind him. Turning, he was met with a sight which he could only describe as interesting.

Someone had vaulted over the fence and landed in his yard. A girl to be precise. Except she hadn’t landed properly, so now she was lying flat on her face and groaning in pain.

“Uh…what are you doing in my yard?” Nicholas asked.

Instantly she looked up at him, her painful grimace dissolving into some kind of fear.

“Oh shit,” she said, her green eyes wide with panic as she looked around the yard desperately.

“Are you okay?” Nicholas asked, trying to figure out what the chances of some girl randomly dropping into his yard were, especially one as good looking as her, and dressed only in a black tank top and miniskirt. Pretty damn low.

Despite his concern, she was clearly too distressed to care about him. Stumbling to her feet, which Nicholas noticed were bare, she began to run to his house, but he jumped in front of her, spreading his arms and blocking her path.

“Hey, I asked if you were okay!” he said, a bit irritated that he was being ignored. Her lip curled in frustration, but her eyes were still scared.

“Yeah, I’m fine, now move out of my way!”

She tried to push past him, but he stood his ground. Suddenly, he heard the sound of knocking coming from inside the house. Were his parents home?

“Oh no, now you’ve done it!” The girl backed off, her eyes darting around the yard frantically.

“It’s obvious someone’s chasing you,” Nicholas said calmly. “So, if you’ll just calm down and keep quiet, I’ll tell whoever it is that I didn’t see you. Promise.”

Her eyes snapped over to him, and he could see for the first time that she hadn’t slept in awhile, her eyes wide and twitching, the skin beneath them dark. He also saw that her long black hair was messy and wild. This girl had been running from someone for awhile.

“You aren’t going to help me when you see who’s after me.” It was a pretty blunt statement, but Nicholas could sense the plea hidden beneath it. He didn’t really know how he felt about it, but the knocks on his front door grew louder, and the chiming doorbell joined in.

“I’m coming!” he shouted, running inside his house, through the kitchen, and into the living room. Undoing the deadbolt and the lock, he swung the door open.

And found himself face to face with a police officer.

“Excuse me young man, but we need your help.”

“…uh…with what, officer?”

She was being followed by cops? Suddenly his promise seemed pretty hollow.

“We’re looking for someone, and we know she was hiding out in this neighborhood.” The cop reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph of none other than the girl Nicholas had been trying to calm down not a minute ago.

“Who is she, officer?” Nicholas asked, taking the picture to study it a bit. She looked much better off in this picture, her hair straight and her eyes, though still unsettlingly wide, alert.

“I can’t exactly tell you that,” the officer said, looking past Nicholas into the house. “Let’s just say that she needs to be caught, the sooner the better. Have you seen her?”

For a moment, Nicholas eye’s shifted back to the direction of the yard, his mind racing. Should he turn her in? If she was running from the police, she probably deserved to be caught. Then again, there was the off-chance that she had been framed for whatever she did, or was perhaps confused for someone else. But that couldn’t be, that picture was definitely her. What reason did he have to not snitch on her?

He could think of one.

“No, I haven’t seen her. She’s pretty cute, I think I’d remember.” Nicholas looked into the cop’s eyes to see if he was buying it. Unfortunately, Nicholas had never had much practice lying, as he rarely did anything that required covering up. Unless he was a natural, that girl was screwed.

“Well…” the officer said, and Nicholas knew the cop believe him. But the way he didn’t follow that word up was worrisome.

“I’ll call the cops if I see her,” Nicholas lied, hoping the officer would get it and leave. “I go outside a lot, so there’s a good chance I might spot her if she’s still around.”

The officer scratched his head, and for a moment it looked like Nicholas was in the clear.

“All the same, you wouldn’t mind if I looked around a bit, would you?”

“…No, go ahead.”

Refusing would make it dead obvious that he was hiding the girl. He had no choice, so he stepped aside and let the cop inside. Closing the door, the only thing he could think of was that the cop absolutely could not find that girl. The gears had begun turning in his head the moment he had seen her flop down onto his grass, and now he was too far into this plan to back out of it. His only hope was to alter it a bit.

“Would you like something to drink?” Nicholas offered. The officer gave a thumbs-up, before disappearing down a hallway to snoop. Nicholas couldn’t believe his luck. Any smart cop would politely refuse any drink, since it could always be spiked with something. At least, Nicholas knew he would have refused.

In the kitchen, Nicholas looked through the sliding doors for the girl, but didn’t see her anywhere. It was entirely likely that she had hopped the fence again and was gone. Even so, Nicholas grabbed a glass from the cabinet and popped open the fridge. Sitting right on the top shelf was a half-empty jug of red Kool-Aid.

“Perfect.”

Taking the jug and closing the fridge, he got some ice from the freezer, and poured the Kool-Aid into the glass. Then, running random and pointless calculations through his head, he pulled out his razor and sliced open his palm.

Wincing, he let the blood run out freely into the glass, and was pleased that he could barely see it in the red drink. He probably didn’t need this much: past experiments had proven that the amount of blood needed was decreased dramatically if it was mixed with water. But Kool-Aid was a bit different from H2O, so he spared no expenses. Besides, the cut would heal itself quickly anyway.

Once he had put in as much as he dared, he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his hand, then reached for the sugar bowl. He put two spoons of sugar in the Kool-Aid and mixed it all in with the blood, figuring that the drink tasting a bit too sugary was better than it tasting a bit too bloody.

Certain the blood was now unnoticeable, Nicholas picked up the glass and turned to find the officer.

Which wasn’t hard, since the officer was standing right behind him.

“Oh, uh…hey.” Nicholas saw that the cop was staring at the bloody rag around his palm.

“What happened to you?” he asked, one of his eyebrows rising in suspicion.

“I…I cut myself just now. It’s not bad or anything, I’ll be fine.”

“Making Kool-Aid?” the officer said sarcastically, even as he took the glass and gulped down all of it. His nerves wracked with anticipation, Nicholas realized that a million things could go wrong. What if his blood didn’t let him control humans, but killed them? A dead cop in his house, and that girl would be the least of his troubles.

Grimacing, the cop handed the drink back to him.

“Too sweet,” he said, before turning and sliding open the door to the yard. Setting the glass down, Nicholas followed behind him, trying to figure out where the girl was, assuming she was even still there.

It didn’t take him long to find her. Looking up, he saw her legs dangling from the branches of the oak tree, just before she pulled them up into the leaves and disappeared. Still, if the cop decided to study the tree just a bit, he would find her pretty quickly. Nicholas waited for his brain to begin buzzing, but it wasn’t happening.

If his luck was off, he hadn’t used enough blood. Worst case scenario, the blood didn’t affect humans at all.

Great, he thought, a super power that only works on animals. Now I can be as lame as Aquaman.

And then there it was: slight at first, but then stronger, that strangely pleasurable buzz.

“Officer,” Nicholas said, unable to stop the grin spreading across his face, “that girl isn’t here. You should look elsewhere.”

Immediately the officer turned to him, his expression not confused or suspicious, but serious. Understanding. Obedient.

“Alright then, kid. If you say so, I believe you.”

The officer began to leave, but Nicholas wasn’t yet satisfied.

Before you go, Nicholas thought, I want you to know that that girl actually is here. She’s in the branches of that tree. Look up at her, but say nothing.

Shrugging, the officer looked directly up at the girl, and Nicholas delighted in his own whirring thoughts.

This is amazing! It does work on humans! Not only verbal commands, but he obeys my thoughts as well. It’s so perfect!

“That’s enough officer,” Nicholas said, satisfied. “I told you she’s not here.”

And, as though he had not even seen the girl, the cop turned and left. Nicholas followed him all the way through the house until he was out the front door and in his police car. Then, Nicholas terminated the buzz.

The officer did not even blink, just drove off like nothing had happened. Nicholas could draw all sorts of conclusions from that, but he was too happy at the moment with just the fact that humans were now within his control.

Returning to the yard, he looked up at the tree and shouted into the leaves.

“You can come down now!”

After a few seconds of rustling leaves, the girl dropped into sight, this time landing perfectly on her feet.

“That was close,” she said, brushing a few leaves off of herself. She quickly realized that Nicholas was staring at her.

“I told you I’d get rid of them,” he said.

The corners of her lips upturned ever so slightly, but her wide eyed stare seemed to amplify the small gesture into a genuine smile.

“Thanks. Sorry, I just figured most people would freak out and rat me out once they knew I was running from the police.” She suddenly looked down at her feet, her expression becoming difficult to read. “Anyway, I better get going.”

“Hold on a second,” Nicholas said, the pieces of the puzzle fitting together oh so nicely in his head, “if you need a place to stay, you can stay here for a while.”

Her smile returned, even bigger than before, but it quickly was replaced by suspicion.

“Well that’s just a bit too nice of you,” she observed. “What’s the catch?”

“I just need you to do a few things for me, that’s all. You’re perfect for what I have in mind.”

“I’m not having sex with you.”

An odd silence followed, and Nicholas suddenly became aware of the buzzing bees over in his mother’s tiny flower garden.

“That…wasn’t what I had in mind,” Nicholas said bluntly. The girl’s eyes widened even further, if that were possible.

“Okay then, whatever it is, we have a deal!”

She extended her hand, and Nicholas shook it, although now his thoughts were preoccupied with something else.

She’ll make the deal without knowing what it is, as long as it doesn’t involve sex? What’s so wrong with me? Am I that ugly?

“You can stop shaking my hand now,” the girl advised. Embarrassed, Nicholas let go and slid his hand back into his pocket. He had already discarded the bloody rag back in the kitchen after the officer had left, his palm fully healed.

“Anyway,” Nicholas said, thinking about the perfect way to make his proposal, “my parents aren’t home yet, so follow me inside, and I’ll tell you what I need.”

The girl nodded, and then suddenly blurted out, “My name’s Eileen.”

“Well Eileen, my name is Nicholas. Nice to meet you.”

Heading inside, Nicholas quickly rounded the corner to the living room, and ascended the stairs leading up to his room, Eileen right behind him.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“My room,” Nicholas replied.

“I told you no sex. That includes everything sex related, like blowjobs and-”

“You know,” Nicholas interrupted, stopping halfway up the steps and looking back at her, “you’re the only person saying a damn thing about sex.”

“Um…well, what else am I supposed to think?”

God, she thinks about sex more than most guys I know.

“Never mind, just forget it.” Continuing up the steps, Nicholas expected her to remain silent, but she had another thing to say, although it was a bit more warranted this time.

“What exactly are we doing if it’s not sex then?”

Nicholas smiled to himself, the endless possibilities multiplying even as he thought about them.

“I just want to run a few…uh, experiments.”

If that creeped her out, she said nothing about it. Nicholas didn’t really care. He was far too excited to get started.

She was perfect. She didn’t know anyone in his family, had no reason to tell his secret, and what was more, she owed him. They had never met before, and so had no relationship of any kind.

Well, one of the reasons Freud’s theories were debunked was because he tested his own daughter.

Tests.

They would have to be basic at first, but if all went well, and depending on how long he could convince his parents to let her stay, he could perhaps unlock every last secret that lay within his veins.

It was time to get started.