Blood and Silver Ch. Eight

Chapter Eight

Children of Bigotry

It was the entrance that impressed the woman the most about the underground facility she was walking into. The two twelve-inch thick doors, hidden behind a useless bookshelf that could only be opened from the outside, were only a portion of the remarkable features of the facility. As she stepped across the threshold, she had to adjust her eyes to the brilliant cold light.

A massive room, the place was set up like a prison with multiple floors with narrow walkways linings the walls with a reinforced door set in a sort of informality as some rooms were larger than others. Each door she passed, a bloodcurdling, sometimes inhuman, scream could be heard through it. People sitting at desks, outside the doorways, inclined their heads in her direction, occasionally bragging about their progress. While she appreciated hearing what these people had to say, there was only one that she was interested in.

After walking down a few flights of stairs, she stopped at a desk. The man sitting behind it looked up and smiled.

“Good evening, ma’am,” he said brightly. "How was the masque?"

"Eventful," the woman replied.

“I’m assuming you’re here to inspect the subject’s progress?”

“Yes, has it spoken lately?”

“She just keeps praying,” he replied irately. “Over and over again—‘please God, let me die. Let me die. Let me die—’” at the sight of the woman’s glare, he stopped and glanced down.

“When will these people learn that there is no god?” the woman lamented. “Praying to statues, praying to a nonexistent figure that has failed to make himself known to man? I’ll never understand it.”

“We must eradicate it, Doctor,” the man suggested enthusiastically.

The woman chuckled. “Believe me, Balem, I would if I could, but you and I both know that there is a far greater—and more accessible I might add—problem that we should focus our attention on.”

Balem nodded his confirmation. Though small, his slightly blemished face set with beady black eyes and square features were full of a sincerity that had yet to disappoint her. Out of all the people under her employ that she worked with personally, Balem, in his nearly five years of service had proven a faithful and trustworthy servant, not to mention decent in bed.

“How has patient five-o-six-nine-five responded to our treatment?” she asked.

Balem grumbled. “It seems that all the redhead can do is scream and scream her head off with the hopes that it will be heard.”

“Has it shed any light on this ‘magical one’ that she has been whining about?”

“‘Suck my cunt’, ‘Go to hell’, ‘Unchain me and let’s see who hurts who,’ and other vulgarities that I’d rather not repeat.”

The woman sighed. “What is it about this thing? Most of them would have reached their breaking point by now.”

Balem blinked. “Doctor, I don’t understand; it’s already been broken.”

“Has it told us anything of import?”

“No.”

“Then it has not reached its breaking point,” the Doctor said sharply.

Balem glanced down ruefully.

“Don’t fret, Balem,” the Doctor reassured. “It just means that we are going to have to push a little harder. Open the door.”

Balem did as instructed and with the press of a button, the door unlocked with a pneumatic hiss and it slid open. The brightness inside was no better than the light outside. Even though the florescence was necessary for keeping the subjects in submission, it didn’t mean that it was overly bearable for the people working in the facility. But even so, they were working towards a noble cause and the constant discomfort was a necessity. The only rooms that were free of florescence were the accommodations of the workers.

The room she stepped into was a small cell-like room with a high ceiling that was only big enough for a bed—something that it lacked. In one corner, a woman was curled up with her back pressed up against the wall. Her long red hair was in a state of dishevelment from being deprived of shampoo or even a brush. Her naked body was in no better condition. While flawlessly beautiful, it was caked with sweat and dried blood left from wounds that have otherwise healed over at their excessive rate. Her wrists were the worst, being chained up and the skin underneath it being broken and broken again, preventing her from actually enjoying her skin being fully healed for a long period of time.

“Sleep well?” asked the doctor, not unkindly as the door closed behind her.

“Go to hell, bitch,” the woman muttered from beneath her hands.

The Doctor sighed. “If you had not added that extra word, it would have been a poetic response.” She walked over to the wall left of the doorway and pulled a lever. Immediately the chains that bound the woman’s wrists began to move upward, lifting her. Once she was suspended above the ground with her feet dangling in the air, the doctor released the lever. She pressed her hand against the wall next to the lever and, after scanning her handprint, a tray full of several tools came out like a drawer.

“What does the witch doctor have for me today?” the vampire asked.

The Doctor’s brow furrowed. Seemingly in a blur, she selected a blade from the tray and slashed at the woman’s cheek. The blade was sharp enough that it went straight through.

The vampire screamed in pain as the bloodied halves of her cheek dangled loosely from her face. She brandished her bloodied incisors as the skin tried to heal, but without the skin being held together, it was going to stay in its present condition. “You know," she began, her speech slurred, "most high-end women like you get upset at being called a bitch, or a cunt, or a slut, but not you. Oh, no, xenophobes like you who hate all things supernatural can’t stand the thought that you yourself might be thought of as one of them.”

The Doctor slashed her again, this time at her breast, followed by another scream. “My family is marked by generations of the purist and noblest of humans; I will not let you degrade it.”

“Careful, doc,” the vampire cautioned with a singsong voice, “If you’re a history buff, you should know that about seventy to eighty years ago, the Nazis had a similar mindset when they tried to exterminate the Jews and fight for world domination."

The Doctor smirked. “Point taken, but be that as it may, your kind has faced hostility—if not more so—for just as long as Jews have. And which do you think has found more success?”

“And yet there are more vampires, sorcerers, sorceresses, werewolves, even ghosts than your or I know about!” shouted the pet in comeback. “Face it, you devil’s whore, you can’t get rid of the supernatural any more than you can get rid of even the slightest belief in God!”

The Doctor stared at her unblinkingly for a long moment. Eventually, she let loose her anger and slashed yet again, this time not stopping with just one. She slashed and slashed and listened delightfully to the screams. When at last she was out of breath, the sight of the redheaded vampire could have made any humanitarian cringe, if not vomit.

The vampire’s skin was lacerated in several places in jagged crisscrossing slashes that someone could have played tic-tac-toe on the unharmed skin. In some places, where the slashes were very deep, if widened just a little, bone could have been seen. Some of her toenails were at risk of falling off as the skin around it, if it were a human’s, would have been irreparable. The skin would have been in the process of healing itself, but the blade that was used was obsidian, something the Doctor knew to be extremely harmful to the skin of vampires.

At this point, the vampire wasn’t even screaming; her pain was just turning into bloody smiles. “Have you had your fun yet, witch?” as much pain as she was clearly in, it was obvious that she was not breaking that easily.

The Doctor smiled as she set the obsidian blade down on the tray. “Oh, I haven’t even begun to have fun yet; I was just letting off some steam there.” She sat down on a chair next to the door and hooked one leg over the other. “So let’s start off simple: what is this ‘Sanguimagus’ that I’ve heard so many of your inmates mentioning?”

“You’d really like to know?” asked the vampire.

The Doctor raised her eyebrows expectantly.

“All right, I’ll tell you,” the Doctor tensed up a little. “The Sanguimagus is a very, very rare creature.”

The Doctor cocked her head. “I know that much, but what is it and where can I find it?”

“Ah, two questions, well I’ll answer the latter of those two first because, quite simply it is easier than explaining what a Sanguimagus is.”

“Where can I find it?”

“It’s where you can find just about anything in this world.”

“And where is that?”

“Google,” replied the vampire, laughing despite her pain. “All you have to do is google it. And then you can send a thank you card to Larry Page and Sergey Brin.”

The Doctor could have sworn she heard laughing coming from outside the door, which only increased her temper. She got up and grabbed the obsidian blade and jammed it as hard as she could into the vampire’s public region. “You want to play games, five-o-six-nine-five? Then let’s play.”

The vampire hissed. “Do your worst, Van Helsing.”