The Hostile Wife

2-3

“We barely have female visitors here in our headquarter, you know. And by barely...” at this point, he lowered his voice to give a dramatic tone to his speech, “... I mean never in the last two centuries! In other words, ever since this building was built!”

Alice was so shocked she spewed the thermometer Doc had put in her mouth right in his face.

Clearly pleased, Gus started gloating. “Well, yeah. We're super, mega, hyper, goddamn careful about who we bring to our headquarter. We call it the Camp. By the way, how come you don't have terror in your eyes and you’re not screaming your lungs out? Do you need me to show you my fangs?”

Yeah, why? It was not that she wasn’t afraid, quite the contrary, but even after all that had happened to her, curiosity was still stronger than fear. She held the blanket Doc had gently put on her shoulders and found herself contemplating whether to tell him the truth or not. She chose honesty because she had nothing to lose.

“Well, as it seems, my survival instinct sucks. Joking aside, the last few hours have been really awful, but you said you would reset my memory, so I'll try to be optimistic and, as long as I can, I'll take advantage of it. I want to know more about all of you.”

Doc looked at her, concerned. “It's not safe to ask too many questions. We're not savages, but the less you know, the better it is for you.”

“Oh no, I didn't mean about yours, how to call it? Military or hierarchical organization? I only meant to ask what it's like to be one of you... A vampire.”

She gulped for the strangeness of what she had said and begged him with her gaze. No man could resist her sweet doe eyes. Gus sat by her side on the stretcher of that very equipped infirmary and started looking at the doctor with the same puppy eyes, wisely adding the touch of class with the pouty lip.

Doc shook his head, laughing. Alice noticed he was a really good looking man, with those noble features and thin, firm lips that, when opened in a lovely smile, showed two nice dimples on his cheeks. His eyes were the lightest, clearest blue she had ever seen. He passed a hand through his thick brown hair, bringing back a stray lock.

“Alright, but promise me that afterwards you'll let me examine you properly. I know you don't have any open wounds but...”

“You know?” she interrupted him, already full of questions. “You have super sense of smell, right?”

He nodded and Gus pretended to sniff around like a truffle dog.

“What other power do you possess?” she asked, excited. “I mean, you have something else, right? Bill... Tom can fly, so I guess you can do that as well.”

She had never been engrossed in the literary world of vampires. However, having two in front of her, in the flesh, it seemed an absurd waste not to grab the chance. If Gina were in her shoes, she would react the same way. Maybe she would just have lowered her neckline.

Doc wrapped the tourniquet around her arm and went looking for a small syringe, to take a sample of her blood. She didn’t overlook the fact that he used a double layer of latex protective gloves.

“We don't call them powers, but Gifts,” he explained, tapping at her vein with his finger. “Excluding Tom, who's kind of exception, all of us have more developed senses, but these are characteristics we were born with. Like speed or strength.”

To give her a more effective explanation, Gus started moving rapidly around the room, stopping at first behind her back, then behind Doc and near the door. “We're like The Flash, only more real. And with more muscles, of course.”

“I can see that. Wow! I'm so jealous right now! But what does it mean you were born? With a real birth? What about the bites, the painful transformation, the Master who grants you eternal life?”

Doc plugged the small hole in her forearm with some cotton soaked in alcohol. “That's all nonsense, created by human fantasy. Humans can be accidentally transformed, but those are rare cases. We are extremely careful about who we allow into our ranks. Not to mention that we're quite jealous of our own blood and, when we decide to give it, there's always a specific reason. Transformation, when official, happens following strict rules, decided long ago by those who govern us. And it's all done in full safety, with doctors, nurses and a lot of drugs, both human and vampiric. We come into the world with birth like humans. We're not mythological creatures, but beings in flesh and blood, even though our heart doesn't beat. We were created a millennium ago, together with humans, angels, demons, werewolves...”

Alice brought her hand to her mouth, astonished by the revelation.

“I see you paled, better not to add anything more. Sometimes I tend to blabber like a doctor,” he ended ironically.

Still, she couldn’t stop asking, her thirst for knowledge was not even close to being satisfied and, despite the initial upset, she was fascinated. So, she convinced them to go on, explaining that, being born in the classic way from two vampire parents, they could inherit the special Gift from one of them or, at most, from some relative.

“For example,” Gus explained, “I can control machinery. Like this.”

He theatrically snapped his fingers and all the electronic devices in the room turned on: the computer, the ultrasound, the emergency lights, the defibrillator and even the coffee machine. Then he said: “Hocus-pocus” and everything stopped working.

“Awesome! So, your father or your mother have this special skill?”

“Not exactly. My parents have been dead for the longest time and Gifts have the ability to evolve, so to speak.”

“To help us adapt to the new levels of civilization,” Doc added. “The more the species evolve, the more Gifts change.”

Gus kept on at full throttle. “My father had a passion for mechanics and spent hours inventing, designing and operating objects that would have made Leonardo da Vinci jealous. But technology evolved and today, in the twenty-first century, I can control machines from up to two hundred yards away and I could ask the computer in my workstation to recover the footage the boss asked from here, if I wanted to.”

Alice looked at him, suspicious “So, why don't you?”

“Because I’ve already done it, while you were yelling at him. Who do you think you're talking to, honey?”

Hearing that nickname again paused her enthusiasm.

“Bill... I mean Tom, or whatever he is, also used that nickname, so I would be grateful if you could avoid it. Or I'd risk transforming into a poison spitting dragon again and, for today, I don't have the energy for that.”

Gus gave her a friendly push with his shoulder, which almost made her fall off the bed.

“Let me tell you, you were not so bad as a dragon. For sure I've never witnessed a more hilarious episode. It was about time someone told Tom about that stick in his a...”

“Gus! Don't boost her.”

“Come on, you know it as well. Sometimes Tom is unbearably arrogant. And don't tell me you liked the way he treated her! We might be vampires, but we're still gentlemen.”

Doc, who had started studying her slightly bruised knees, got up and threw the gloves in a bin, next to a locker full of vials and medicines.

“Of course, I don't approve it, but we rarely understand why Tom acts the way he does. Now I need to take a break from this little chat because Alice needs to freshen up a bit.”

“Oh my God,” she shouted, horrified. “Don't tell me I stink!”

The handsome doctor reassured her that it was only because she had so much of Tom's blood on her that he couldn’t see her wounds. He pointed at the folding screen, ordered Gus to go for a walk. He obeyed, sighing so much that Alice couldn’t hold back her laughter.

“Oh, so you do breathe?”

“Nope, but the sigh made sense there. Maybe later I can show you how I faint!”

“Deal. See you later, Electro man,” she joked, saying goodbye.

He opened his eyes wide and smiled. “Doc, I like her a lot. Can we keep her?”

Doc shut the door in his face unceremoniously. “Where are the gags, when you need one?” he murmured, pretending to be angered.

Getting undressed required quite some time because, as she was standing in front of the mirror, behind the screen, Alice looked at her reflection for a long time and was dismayed by her own appearance. The coat, stained with blood and vomit, was only good for trash. Her dress, which costed her almost two months' paychecks, was also dirty and ripped in several spots. Her hair was all puffed up on the top, limp on the bottom and, after Tom's flying service, was also tangled. Traces of mascara were streaking her cheeks, her eyes were swollen, red just like her bare feet, while here and there she could spot traces of already dried blood. And, in all of this, Tom was right: her bra was broken.

Thinking about him deeply upset her. She was not able to decode his intentions and, even though she didn’t want to admit it, she had to accept the possibility that never seeing him ever again was the best solution. She would rather not think about his kisses, his caresses and his desire, because they all seemed so real and, more than anything, mutual.

He had lied to her about everything, why not about that?

Doc's voice interrupted that string of sad thoughts. He handed her a green gown to wear and some cleaning napkins.

“I'll take you to a guest room, so you’ll be able to take a shower. In the meantime, I'll try to find some clean clothes.”

“Thanks. Indeed, mine are ruined. Can I also ask for a hot coffee? I still can taste this sugary flavor and it won't go away.”

“I'll get right on it. That's what the machine is here for, I love coffee. Do you think you have wounds in your mouth?”

Alice moved her tongue over teeth and gums. “I don't think so, but Tom was bleeding a lot, and I was trying to help him...”

Remembering the shooting all of a sudden made her startle. Her hands began shaking and she held them between her legs to keep them still.

“If it can help you calm down, I don't think that you ingested Tom's blood, in no way whatsoever. If you did that, by now you'd be healed and you’d feel great. Plus, Tom never willingly gave his blood to a...”

“A nobody like me?” she finished the sentence, trying not to cry.

“To no one, Alice, trust me. Tom is... complicated, and very secretive. As I was telling you, offering our blood is a rare and not random event. I can positively say that, for someone like him, it would mean creating a bond, even if, by itself, blood is not enough. But let's not worry about this right now. Better care for the wounds you suffered in the car accident.”

Doc was right, she had to think about herself first. She cleaned her face, quickly undressed and, full of rage, threw everything on the floor. She wore the long and large green gown and, holding it as tight as she could, she followed him, glad to accept his arm and the hot and steaming cup of coffee.

Alice spent at least half an hour basking in the shower.

The warm water was pouring fast over her body, cleaning it of every leftover trace of the fragrant jasmine soap she used. She usually liked shower gel better, but touching the solid bar of soap in her hands and rubbing it everywhere, restored some of her lucidity. She was a little bruised on her arms and legs, but didn’t have any alarming wounds. Even her knees, which she believed to be badly scraped, were actually fine. She must have been wrong when she saw them bloody. Only her neck and chest were a little sore, but nothing that couldn’t be cured with a few aspirins, a hot beverage and a good rest.