years since I’ve fed. Shall I drain you now, or wait for your blood to freeze, then chew you up like a popsicle?”
I had used up a month’s worth of fear on the way here, and I had nothing but anger and impatience left. I reached into my bag for the shock-gun. The lightning bolt normally required a path of ionized air, which wouldn’t work here, but direct contact with the barrel should conduct the charge into his body. The gun’s insulation would hopefully prevent it from frying me as well.
The vampire yanked me closer, seized the bag with his other hand, and tossed it behind him. Canisters of frozen blood tumbled loose, bouncing soundlessly off the walls. So much for that plan. His reaction suggested he could probably read minds as well as project, and I had no defense against telepathy anymore, dammit.
What else did I know about him? He could dissolve into mist and didn’t need a spacesuit. Or clothes of any kind. That narrowed down the list of possible species, but not enough to figure out how to fight him. The oversaturated market in vampire fiction had led to countless new book-born species of vampire, each with their own customized—and far too short—list of vulnerabilities.
I kicked him in the face, but he didn’t release my leg. His claws pressed harder. Hunger hadn’t robbed him of his strength, which made sense. If you were going to leave a guard in space for years at a time, you’d want someone who could take out an intruder after four years of hibernation.
I grabbed for the fire extinguisher and slammed it against the side of his head.
He smiled. The tip of his tongue poked between his teeth like a swollen blue slug emerging from a cave of yellow bone.
I tried the fire extinguisher again, this time bringing it down on the back of his hand. I bruised my own leg, but his fingers loosened enough for me to pull free.
Four years since he last fed. Four years of starvation, surrounded by blood. What had he done to earn such a punishment, and how did they stop him from gorging himself on bloodsicles? I could feel his hunger pressing into my mind. There was no way he had voluntarily refrained from sampling the merchandise.
I threw the extinguisher at his face and snatched one of the blood canisters. I tried to unscrew the lid, but the gloves of my suit made it difficult, and then he was on me. We flew against a wall hard enough to crack the glass. I hoped it was the glass. It might have been my shoulder.
“Too late, Porter.”
He wrenched his jaw open and brought his fangs toward my neck. I could see his thoughts, his eagerness to bite through my suit and into my neck, to rip me open and gorge himself.
I wedged the metal canister into his mouth. It barely fit, popping into place behind his fangs with what I’m sure would have been a gruesome scraping sound. He jerked back. For a moment he reminded me of a dog with a metal bone. He let go of me and reached for the canister.
I grabbed the top of his head with both hands and slammed my knee into his jaw. Fear and desperation gave me strength, and I felt his fangs punch through the side of the tube.
His mental agony was like a blowtorch to my senses, searing my eyes and forcing acid into my throat. The flesh of his cheeks and jaw eroded like a crumbling sand sculpture. The pattern of dissolution would have probably given me another clue to his species, had I cared enough to watch.
I dragged myself away. Whatever they had added to the blood to turn it toxic, it worked quickly. It would need to be something that could be easily filtered out later. Silver, maybe?You could probably rig up a way to separate out the silver using electrolysis.
The broken tube tumbled past me. Blood sprayed from the holes like morbid little geysers, boiling away in the vacuum.
When I looked back, nothing remained but a slightly pitted skeleton drifting in a slowly expanding cloud of gray dust.
I brought the skeleton out with me. The idea of leaving his bones trapped
I had used up a month’s worth of fear on the way here, and I had nothing but anger and impatience left. I reached into my bag for the shock-gun. The lightning bolt normally required a path of ionized air, which wouldn’t work here, but direct contact with the barrel should conduct the charge into his body. The gun’s insulation would hopefully prevent it from frying me as well.
The vampire yanked me closer, seized the bag with his other hand, and tossed it behind him. Canisters of frozen blood tumbled loose, bouncing soundlessly off the walls. So much for that plan. His reaction suggested he could probably read minds as well as project, and I had no defense against telepathy anymore, dammit.
What else did I know about him? He could dissolve into mist and didn’t need a spacesuit. Or clothes of any kind. That narrowed down the list of possible species, but not enough to figure out how to fight him. The oversaturated market in vampire fiction had led to countless new book-born species of vampire, each with their own customized—and far too short—list of vulnerabilities.
I kicked him in the face, but he didn’t release my leg. His claws pressed harder. Hunger hadn’t robbed him of his strength, which made sense. If you were going to leave a guard in space for years at a time, you’d want someone who could take out an intruder after four years of hibernation.
I grabbed for the fire extinguisher and slammed it against the side of his head.
He smiled. The tip of his tongue poked between his teeth like a swollen blue slug emerging from a cave of yellow bone.
I tried the fire extinguisher again, this time bringing it down on the back of his hand. I bruised my own leg, but his fingers loosened enough for me to pull free.
Four years since he last fed. Four years of starvation, surrounded by blood. What had he done to earn such a punishment, and how did they stop him from gorging himself on bloodsicles? I could feel his hunger pressing into my mind. There was no way he had voluntarily refrained from sampling the merchandise.
I threw the extinguisher at his face and snatched one of the blood canisters. I tried to unscrew the lid, but the gloves of my suit made it difficult, and then he was on me. We flew against a wall hard enough to crack the glass. I hoped it was the glass. It might have been my shoulder.
“Too late, Porter.”
He wrenched his jaw open and brought his fangs toward my neck. I could see his thoughts, his eagerness to bite through my suit and into my neck, to rip me open and gorge himself.
I wedged the metal canister into his mouth. It barely fit, popping into place behind his fangs with what I’m sure would have been a gruesome scraping sound. He jerked back. For a moment he reminded me of a dog with a metal bone. He let go of me and reached for the canister.
I grabbed the top of his head with both hands and slammed my knee into his jaw. Fear and desperation gave me strength, and I felt his fangs punch through the side of the tube.
His mental agony was like a blowtorch to my senses, searing my eyes and forcing acid into my throat. The flesh of his cheeks and jaw eroded like a crumbling sand sculpture. The pattern of dissolution would have probably given me another clue to his species, had I cared enough to watch.
I dragged myself away. Whatever they had added to the blood to turn it toxic, it worked quickly. It would need to be something that could be easily filtered out later. Silver, maybe?You could probably rig up a way to separate out the silver using electrolysis.
The broken tube tumbled past me. Blood sprayed from the holes like morbid little geysers, boiling away in the vacuum.
When I looked back, nothing remained but a slightly pitted skeleton drifting in a slowly expanding cloud of gray dust.
I brought the skeleton out with me. The idea of leaving his bones trapped
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