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Paperback available Spring 2010.

Hemovore

deleted scene: contraband cat blood

Ha ha, I actually agonized over the Hard Rock Cafe's menu to try to figure out what Mark would order. That's how crazy writing can get. I've know plenty of guys with food issues and body issues just as pronounced as the issues normally thought of as women's domain. I have a friend (named Mark, in fact...though this Mark wasn't based on him) who swears his knees are fat.

What I really miss about this scene is that when Mark is thinking about how bad it could have been if someone was really out to get him, it forshadows the part nicely where someone really IS out to get them. And it's not a blood dealer. This was originally chapter three.

The Hard Rock Café wouldn’t have been my first--or even my fiftieth--choice of somewhere to meet up with a blood dealer. But it was busy enough that I didn’t have to worry about being knocked out and left behind the Dumpsters minus the wad of Jonathan’s money and my Tanino Crisci oxfords. And it was located in River North, only a hop, skip and a jump away. It could be worse, I told myself. My evening could have been punctuated by an hour-long drive to Schaumburg.

I was early, so I bided my time at the bar with a burger whose outrageous price was somewhat justified by the fact that it came with three slices of cheese on top, and a basket of fries that were undoubtedly too salty to be good for my blood pressure.

The walls were thick with Rock n’ Roll memorabilia. I’ve never had a soft spot for tchatchkies, and now, in this post-Human Hemovore Virus world, all I could think of was what a bitch it would all be to keep clean.

I had my eye on a guitar pick that had supposedly belonged to Bo Diddley when someone eased up next to me at the bar. It was a woman--which I hadn’t expected. Hispanic, middle-aged, unremarkable. We took stock of each other from the corners of our eyes. I was wearing my charcoal Bill Bauer with a hand-tailored white shirt and a deep red tie that, I’m told, looks pretty damn spiffy with my blond hair.

The compliment had come from my dear friend Larry, who was trying to borrow ten dollars from me at the time. But I take my strokes where I can get them.

Despite the fact that my intimidating height was somewhat mitigated by my professional wardrobe, the woman toyed with a coaster in front of her and didn’t say a word. So I broke the ice with, “I got your email.”

Her eyes flickered in my direction. “You need the cat?”

Thick Spanish accent. One can never tell. I’ve got enough experience to know that accents ebb and flow like the tide, depending on how nervous the speaker might be. And I’d never mistake the presence of an accent for a lack of intelligence. Plenty of people who speak perfectly unaccented English--Mrs. Jeffers, for instance--make Britney Spears sound like a Rhodes Scholar.

“I do. Did you bring a sample?”

“Ees not free.” She shoved something into my thigh, and I took it. Tabasco sauce. Or so the bottle said.

“I might not have stressed the anticoagulant issue enough in my email….”

“Ees good. I use the Norclot. Ees better not to carry around in de medical vials.”

That tiny little Tabasco bottle would be a good four days’ worth of Jonathan-meals, if it turned out to be legit. I’m not sure how many cats it would take to harvest such an amount. I suppose it depended on how humane one wanted to be. “How much?”

“One fifty. Cash.”

That was a lot less than I paid Mrs. Jeffers. My guess was that Senora X didn’t know her cats’ names, and probably tossed them in a Dumpster once she was done with them. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

I flipped open the Tabasco bottle and sniffed. It was definitely not hot sauce.

Old habits die hard, and I’d gotten my cash from the ATM in twenties. The blood dealer slipped off the barstool with a handful of twenties and lost herself in the crowd of tourists who were gawking at a pair of spandex pants that had once hosted David Lee Roth’s package. She hadn’t offered me any change.

I pocketed the tiny bottle, made up some ludicrous story about my tennis elbow acting up to get a bag of ice cubes from the bartender, and took “Route E” back to Varga studio with the bottle of blood, nestled atop the ice-filled bag, riding shotgun.

Jonathan appeared behind me like smoke as I was hanging up my overcoat. “You made contact?”

“You sure know how to make everything sound completely cloak-and-dagger. Yeah, we hooked up. And then I drove around and around, because it would’ve been far too convenient to drive ten blocks and one left turn to get home.”

I handed him the bottle. His brow furrowed slightly--the only hint of an expression I’d seen on him since I came through the door--and he turned and cat-walked down the hall.

“Now what?” I said, before the Gates of Hell had quite shut behind him. “Have you got some kind of under-the-counter blood tester who can check it out for you?” Because it seemed to me that a lab tech on the take would be even more difficult to find than a blood dealer.

Jonathan didn’t deign to answer.

It was well past one and I was supposedly off the clock at Midnight, though I usually stayed until two on weeknights and three on weekends, so I could tell myself it was impossible to stop at a bar on the way home and hypothetically meet someone. A V-negative wouldn’t touch me without a hazmat suit, not when I spent all my time in such close proximity to the virus. And the thought of dating a vampire…oh, who was I kidding, even with access to the safe sex group.

“It is bad.”

Of course he materialized at the exact moment I thought the word sex. He’s uncanny that way. “Bad, how? Clotted? Spoiled? She said she used Norclot on it, but maybe she didn’t have it on ice.”

He shook his head once in a tidy disagreement. “It is not cat.”

Of course, there was no litmus test, no tiny, chemically-treated strip to dip into the blood to ensure it was viable, any more than there was a cadre of lab assistants milling around beyond the Gates. Jonathan had taken a swig. But he’d never come out and say it. He never spoke of drinking blood to me, any more than I would consider reporting my bowel movements to him. And he certainly never let me witness the act.

“This is probably what they sell in the store. Synthetic.”

With a hundred and forty-five dollar markup. Great. “So, it’s not cat, but…could it work? In a pinch?”

“No.”

He was already walking away, but I kept on talking to his back. “But they’re safe, aren’t they? Plenty of people live on synthetics.” And what if Senora X had been out to do more than make a few quick bucks? What if she’d been a card-carrying ACN-listener who’d spiked some real cat blood with arsenic? “If anything ever happened to Mrs. Jeffers….”

“Bovine blood. That is what synthetics are made from. The blood of a prey animal. I cannot….” The Gates swung shut behind him.

“Cannot” what? Drink it?

Well, shit.

____

 

Read the official first chapter of Hemovore at Samhain Publishing

Read the headrush in the library scene here

Read a sexy alternate ending here (Spoiler alert! If you're not keen on spoilers, read the novel first, then come back.)

Buy Hemovore at Samhain Publishing

 

Anthologies with JCP at Amazon.com