We Don't Die

Chapter title: Killing Me Softly
Rating: R
Musical Inspiration: Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones.

One of the most interesting things about Mac’s strain of vampirism was his mouth, and not just because of the retractable fangs, either.

He had a small array of glands inside his mouth that could produce a variety of different chemicals on nothing more than a whim. His ‘feeder glands’ sat where his sinus cavities used to be and produced a combination of an anti-coagulant, an anesthetic, and a cross between a narcotic and an aphrodisiac. When his fangs extended, the ‘feeder serum’ was pumped through a tiny tube in his fangs like a snake’s venom, numbing the pain of his host and keeping the blood from clotting and also producing part of the dreamy feel-good mental state of his host.

His saliva was a different story. It contained an actual coagulant to help the blood clot, as well as more anesthetic, and it also had something else that medical science had so far been unable to replicate and identify, something that made wounds close in mere seconds.

And what was possibly the weirdest part of all, he had a gland at the back of his throat that, when he used it, made his saliva turn into an incredibly slick and long-lasting lubricant. He simply couldn’t wrap his mind around it, that just a few licks in certain areas was enough lube for him to fuck even men to completion. Not that he was complaining, but… it was still so strange.

Whenever he was full of blood, his tongue could be made to swell and grow as though it soaked up the blood like a sponge. It was good for cleaning up his host, for getting those last traces of vampire out of hard-to-reach places. It could also become disturbingly huge, as Mac had learned the first time he’d glanced in a mirror and seen his reflection with a tongue so freakishly large, it had actually scared him.

The science of the actual feeding fell largely into the ‘unreasonable’ category of medicine. If he hadn’t fed in 24 to 36 hours, all of his DNA was his own. He could actually sire children, not that he had any desire to. Reports floated in of cambions; children born half-vampire, born with the thirst and some of the parents’ abilities but still aging and dying like humans. Still vulnerable.

Once he fed, though, any blood samples taken from him matched the DNA of his host, even the female victims. Even his semen samples would show female DNA, but it was extremely hard to produce semen when he was feeding. When Mac reached climax, he fired a shot of his host’s own blood… which went back to the ‘enlarged tongue’ thing. Mac was nothing if not a tidy man, and he liked to be thorough about getting all traces of himself away from his host.

One major bonus was that he was immune to disease. Recent DNA tests on some ‘sex-vampires’—and Mac had been in on one study—reported that some strains of vampires who fed on people with terminal blood diseases like AIDS or HIV were immune to the effects. Even stranger, it was like the vampire body ‘cleaned’ the blood. There were whispers in the scientific community about a study going on to see if vampires could be used as living (so to speak) blood transfusion machines; since the vampire’s DNA temporarily registered as identical to the host, it was being tested on whether a vampire could drain the safest amount of blood possible from a terminally ill patient and then, with the aid of medical equipment, ‘give’ most of the blood back and keep only what was needed for the vampire to survive.

Mac would love for that to be possible. To be saving lives by feeding, and not just leeching a little to prolong his own, would be a dream come true. It would also be the key to his freedom from bagged blood. Honestly, it would be the greatest treatment ever devised: get your life saved and get the fucking of a lifetime in the process. He couldn’t charge money for it, of course. There was his strain of vampirism to consider, and prostitution was illegal in New York regardless of the ‘fringe benefits.’ The thought was one of the few things that made him smile.

Honestly, he hated the terminology. There really was no polite way to describe someone he fed from. To call them ‘hosts’ inferred that he was some kind of a parasite. If they were ‘prey,’ then he was a hunter and a killer, same as if they were a ‘victim.’ He’d heard some of the nastier vampires call the humans ‘snacks’ or ‘cattle,’ as though they were nothing more than walking, breathing sacks of blood for vampiric consumption.

Mac had gotten used to being a vampire a long time ago, but he’d only really started to hate it after he’d become a cop. How could he claim to put rapists away when he was one himself? Sure, the people he ‘raped’ ended up wanting him to come back for more, but it wasn’t the point. He still entered their homes while they were sleeping and ‘dove in,’ and that was illegal and not a little hypocritical for a man with a badge.

Fine. They were ‘hosts,’ and he was a parasite. But if that ‘treatment program’ worked, and if vampires could actually save lives, then he wouldn’t be a parasite anymore. People would be grateful to him for being a bloodsucker, and he wouldn’t have to be so cagey. It wasn’t by choice that many people knew Mac was a vampire.

And as far as the rest of the world was concerned, all the people in Mac’s life were divided into two categories, those that knew and those that didn’t. Those that did were most of the NY Crime Lab, and that was about it. Few people outside of his job knew that he was a vampire.

He wasn’t the only vampire working at the crime lab, either. There was a psychic vampire on Day Shift (she could go out into the sunlight just fine), and a pair of necro-psychics worked as body-haulers on Swing Shift. Mac had been the only leech—a slang term for vampires, and not a polite one—on Graveyard for a long time, until he’d learned that a tech named Chad Willingham had been Turned. Chad was a stereotypical Dracula-type, and Mac finally convinced him, selfishly, to transfer to Graveyard rather than quit his job.

Just so Mac wouldn’t be alone.

Mac was working with some local, tolerant lawmakers on getting some rules laid down about vampirism and supernaturals, but there were so many types and with more appearing each month. It was as if the long-held barrier of isolationism had come crumbling down, and all sorts of supernatural beings had gotten tired of hiding. Not just vampires, but also more kinds of ‘paths than there were names for, some rumors of werewolves and shapeshifters, sightings of occasional ghosts and specters, and even people that claimed to be spawned from actual demons.

Okay, the ‘paths he could deal with. Telepaths that could read thoughts, telekinetics that could move objects with just their minds, pyrokinetics that could manipulate temperature and could draw heat from something to make cold or excite molecules to make more heat and set things on fire. He’d heard of psychepaths that claimed to be able to predict the future, so-called somapaths that could manipulate the processes of the human body and hinder or encourage healing, and even a few tentative ‘tactilepaths’ that could touch an object and tell you where it came from and what the mental state was of the last person that had touched it. There were necropaths, people that claimed to be able to see or hear or touch or talk to the spirits of the dead, or the Dreamwalkers, people that could manipulate their own dreams and even peer into the dreams of others.

He didn’t know what had triggered it; no one did, really, and it all seemed to happen so fast. It was like something out of the X-Men with all these genetic mutations appearing. Conspiracy freaks were all over it and everyone had their own theories. Mac wasn’t one for theories, though, he wanted facts. And until he had facts, he would simply accept that It Happened and he would get on with his life.

He also wanted laws, dammit. Laws on regulating what people were allowed to do and not do with supernatural powers. Telepaths were especially targeted in the whole ‘invasion of privacy’ issue, but they could no more not look into someone else’s mind than a regular person could stop looking at someone’s face to see their facial expressions.

Mac wanted laws that would make it legal to be a vampire, laws that say it was okay to feed (but impose strict punishment for killing). Mostly he wanted laws to regulate the insanely fast-rising rate of humans ‘Turning.’

“Penny for your thoughts.”

Mac’s eyes popped open. He was laying on the cot in the old little niche that had once been Sheldon Hawkes’ place of residence in the morgue. Sheldon had finally gotten his own apartment, of course, and the little hole-in-the-wall had become a sort of quiet place for anyone that didn’t mind sleeping so close to all the bodies.

Mac didn’t mind, of course. And he was grateful for the lower temperatures. They dampened smell and made it harder for the scent of blood to drive him crazy. He was also immune to the cold, but he didn’t share that with most people. He often preferred to sleep here rather than his own apartment, too. The quiet bustle of the Autopsy Theatre was oddly comforting, and being surrounded by coworkers kept Mac honest. With the way he’d been feeling lately, he didn’t trust himself to be home alone, to not open up his own window and hop out for a ‘quick stroll’ across some rooftops.

Mac sat up and looked at Stella, who stood framed in the doorway and was watching him neutrally. He tilted his head from side to side, little cracks sounding out. “How’d you know I was awake?”

Stella gave a little smile. “Your chest was still moving.”

Mac rubbed the back of his neck. He kept ‘breathing’ purely out of habit and to set the mortals’ minds at ease, but it was a conscious effort and he tended to stop respirating while he was asleep. “You need something?”

She shook her head. “Just to talk. I heard about what happened earlier.”

Mac sighed and gazed at the floor. “ I don’t know what came over me, I just… it just happened.”

Stella clicked her tongue and moved across the alcove to sit on the bed next to her friend. “It’s obvious what happened, Mac. You’re an incubus. You’re a vampire with an actual, physical dependency on sex, and you deliberately haven’t been laid in, well, a decade. And there was fresh blood and a girl that’s been hitting on you. Instinct took over.”

He sighed again; he never should have told her that. “And this dead blood I’ve been drinking, Stella, I honestly don’t know how much longer I can last on it.” He stared at the wall, his hands clenching his knees. “Yes, it’s getting blood into my system, but it feels like I’m still starving to death. Slowly.”

She gave him an encouraging smile. “Well, maybe you need to go out and meet some people.”

He threw her a Look. “And say what? ‘Hi, I’m an incubus and I need to drink your blood while I’m at it, want to come back to my place?’” He gave a bitter laugh.

Stella spread her hands. “Hey, the people in this city? You never know.”

Mac snorted. “I can’t even have a regular partner, anyway. Even if I’m careful and drink just enough to feel somewhat satisfied for a day or so, I still take so much that I’d only feel safe feeding from them maybe once a week.” At first, anyway, Mac thought to himself, but I don’t know if I can go through that again.

She gave a mischievous grin. “Mac, you have any idea how many Goth girls in this city would dream of being ravished by a vampire like you?”

He couldn’t help laughing at that one. “And all the Goth boys, too,” he mused absently, and he almost missed her flick an eyebrow. “Oh, you didn’t know… I’m… not exactly picky, in that respect.” Less than picky, actually. For some reason he preferred men to women. Men didn’t tend to rupture his eardrums by screaming when he nailed them through the mattress.

She cocked her head. “No, I don’t guess you would be. Picky, I mean. You’re Mac Taylor, Mr. Equal-Opportunity.”

Mac decided to leave that one alone. “And besides, the Goth kids are a little disturbing. The last time I tried one of them, he fawned all over me like I was some sort of dark, personal god of his. He wanted to worship me just for feeding from him.”

Stella rubbed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I think most people would consider it a dream come true, to be what you are. Nobody ever stops to think about what it’s like to have standards anymore.”

Mac nodded morosely. “I keep thinking that if I just stay on the bagged blood and keep to myself, it’s like I’ll start to wean myself and I won’t have the need anymore. It’s just not like that, Stella, it’s like you trying to wean off food by eating only water and bread crusts.”

Stella eyed him. “Mac, you’re going to have to do it sooner or later. You’ve just admitted that staying celibate is going to kill you.”

Mac snorted. “It’s hard to get a date when your standards of physical attractiveness start to change like mine. You see someone that’s physically fit, I see someone with a good heart rate and large veins.”

She shook her head. “Mac, you just need to get laid. Say it.”

He sighed. “I need to get laid.”

“There ya go.” She patted him on the shoulder. “It’s the way you are. I have to eat food and breathe all kinds of nasty toxins and be vulnerable to age and disease. All you have to do is screw somebody and give them your own special hickey.”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Mac couldn’t stop the fangy grin he gave his friend. “Want to go out for a bite to drink?”

She rolled her eyes. “You have no game.”

Mac put on a sullen look as he retracted his fangs. “Hey, give a man points for effort.”

She smiled tolerantly at him, and then the smile faded. “Ya know, Mac, I’ve always wondered…” She deliberately kept her voice light and casual. “Why did you Turn?”

Mac thought about it for a while and finally hung his head in shame. He really didn’t want to go into it—long and disturbing and really quite painful story and it hadn’t really been his choice anyway—so he settled for “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She gave him another pat on the shoulder and stood. “Come on, the sun’s gone down enough for you to be out and about. Go ahead and wake up. I’m going to go out for a bite to eat, and I’ll meet you in your office at the start of the shift.”

Mac nodded and waited until she’d left before he stood and slung his overnight bag over his shoulder. He’d grab a shower in the locker rooms and then go on his evening run, and then come back and shower again and grab a blood bag from the morgue before heading up to his office.

People wondered why he didn’t go home. Well, other than the reasons already mentioned, Mac didn’t really see the point. He liked to keep to himself, and he could do that just as easily on the roof of the building or in this little niche as he could at his apartment. He dropped by maybe once every few days for fresh clothes or just for a change in surroundings, or maybe to play a little guitar. To have all that space to himself just seemed a little excessive sometimes. Besides, all he did was work, anyway.


Author's note: Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!