I creep across the carpet, blood already soaking deep into the fibers.
"Mercurio?"
He isn't moving. There's too much blood. He looks like he was hit by a truck.
Maybe two trucks. I reach down towards his neck to feel for a pulse.
"Merc-"
He groans like a wounded animal.
"Mercurio?"
"Yeah. Yeah..." He coughs up blood he shouldn't have left and props himself up on an arm, groaning low. He sees me for the first time.
"Oh Christ, it's you. You're LaCroix's new greenhorn?" He groans again. "Ten million people in this city and the one who shows up when I got air whistling through my insides is the fucking Merchant of Menace. I got either the best luck in LA or the worst."
I don't know how he's even alive, let alone talking, but I know he's not going to last.
"Let me call the ambulance, we can-"
"No way, I got a record out east, no fucking cops."
I know a lot of small time criminals need to run from the law but I was under the impression all criminals enjoyed being able to live.
"You're going to die."
"If I'm not already dead I'll be... oh shit..."
"Is that my rib? My goddamn rib is poking through my side?"
I kneel down to get a better look at the damage. He wasn't exaggerating. I decide to not to ask how the fuck he's still moving and concentrate on the why.
"What the hell happened?"
"Cocksuckers beat me rotten. Left me for a stiff. I had to crawl to my car, crawl my ass up here... Vamp blood's only thing holding me together." He holds back a scream while he tries to push his rib back in. "Shit.
Shit, they got the money, they got the Astrolite..."
"Wait, Vamp blood?"
"Shit, that's right. You're straight off the bus." Another groan. "Never thought I'd be the one teachin' you anything. Once a month I get fed vampire blood. It makes me stronger, faster than a normal human. Lets me heal like nobody's business." He winces. "I think I took too much of a beating though, it ain't working right no more."
"Okay." I shake my head to try and clear it. "Your supplier double crossed you and now they've got everything we need for whatever girlscout bullshit LaCroix wants me to pull?"
"That's about the size of it, yeah. Small time sons of bitches live in a dump down by the beach. Four or five of them. One that's got the explosives is Dennis. Got my money too, that prick. You gotta... you gotta get it back from 'em. Maybe reason with 'em, maybe break in, I dunno. God, I wanna kill 'em. Just do whatever you people do. I blew it, I know."
"Are you sure you're going to be alright?"
"If you could... Christ, something just started leaking... I need something for the pain. Anything."
"Alright, I'll see what I can do. I'll be back with your money and your bomb."
I turn to leave and he stops me.
"Hey, about the deal... I mean it. LaCroix finds out I screwed up like this, I'm dead. I'm beggin' ya. I heard about Sarhani, about your company, you don't say anything, I can help you out."
"Don't worry."
I leave Santa Monica Suits on two broken stiletto heels and a dress that looks like it belongs on a zombie. There weren't any spare clothes in the apartment and I probably wouldn't have touched them if there were. Mercurio would need something along the lines of a horse tranquilizer to make a dent in the pain he was in. I glance down the street.
Well son of a bitch.
I walk through the front doors, turning a few heads for reasons I'm not quite used to. I walk up to the receptionist and she closes her eyes in frustration.
"We're
swamped with patients and
severely understaffed.
Please take a seat with the others, the physician will see you when he can."
"It's okay, I just need to pick up some belongings for a friend."
Her mood changes noticeably when she finds out I'm not going to be draining anymore resources.
"Oh. Fine, you can go in. Patient belongings are in the second door on your right."
It feels a little... odd, snooping around a hospital. Especially snooping around a hospital with the vague intent to steal some kind of painkiller.
It'd be more helpful if they labeled their rooms with something like "Drug Storage" or "Security Center." Better take a gamble. Might at least run across some morphine.
I don't find any morphine.
Her insides are almost ready to spill out through a gash in her stomach. She's crying. More of a whimper than a cry. Scared, in pain. The table she's lying on is the only thing stopping her intestines from dumping out onto the ground. I've seen a lot of those injuries before. A lot of them even worse. A lot of the victim's even younger. Most of them done with my merchandise. It numbs you, after awhile. I didn't feel anything then and I don't feel anything now.
But... there's a part of me that still feels like it shouldn't be that way. That maybe there're already too many vampires who don't feel anything when they look at a young girl about to die. That maybe there's too many people like that, too. That maybe, If I don't ever care, I could lose something I didn't know I had.
For the first time twenty six years, I listen to that part.
I find the nearest doctor I can. He isn't happy to see me.
"What are you doing here? Get back in the waiting room and wait for your turn. I'm only physician here on staff, I can‘t treat everyone at once."
“There’s a girl back there with her stomach-”
“
I have a man with a bullet in his skull. Get back to your friend, try to keep her conscious. Dr. Lexton will be here in twenty minutes.”
He turns back to the man on the table. I leave and close the door. I head back to the room with the girl.
...
She won't last another five. Let alone twenty. I don't think...
Once a month I get fed vampire blood. It makes me stronger, faster than a normal human. Lets me heal like nobody's business.
Maybe...
And that's the rest of what was supposed to be last night's update. Here we've reached our first bit of spectator influence, where you play the voices of conscience and judgment in our heroine's skull. Feed the strange girl our blood, and she'll live. Refrain, and she'll die. Beyond that, I offer no insight as to the consequences of your actions!