The Strain: Another Season
Episode 6

Captives
Chapter Two

Sweeting Clinic, Manhattan Present Day
Dr Sweeting's Office

Setrakian and Sandra sit side-by-side facing the cardiologist over a desk.

'Good news, Mr Setrakian,' Dr Sweeting smiles. 'You have atrial fibrillation - which can be readily treated by a procedure known as transcatheter radiofrequency ablation. The success rate is extremely high and the risk of complications low.' He pauses for the gratitude and relief he usually experiences at this announcement.

The response is muted and the patient and his…friend sit patiently, waiting for the rest of the verdict. He continues. 'Basically, we pass a catheter into the affected atrium via a blood vessel in your groin, here…'

He points to a diagram on the wall and Sandra and Setrakian avoid each other's gaze uneasily.

'…Then we basically microwave the tiny area of cells that are conducting the extra impulses and the heart can begin beating normally again. This is a good diagnosis, sir.'

'How long will it take?' asks Setrakian.

'How soon can it be done?' asks Sandra.

'We can begin six hours after you last ate, it will take two to four hours and you can go home the next day,' smiles the doctor.

'What could have caused it?' asks Setrakian slowly.

'It is very common in a man of your age,' replies Sweeting. 'Although, I must say you're in remarkable shape otherwise, considering your years.'

Setrakian grunts. 'I have angina too, doctor,' he says. 'Could the two be connected?'

'Yes,' he confirms. 'Angina is caused by narrowing or blockage in one or more of your coronary arteries, preventing the heart muscle getting all the blood it needs. Over time this could also damage your mitral valve, here…' more diagram pointing, '…which leads to an enlargement of your atrial chamber, in turn damaging one area of the heart muscle and causing it to conduct the chaotic rhythm you feel during a fibrillation episode.'

Setrakian nods as if he expected this.

'If you like, we can carry out an angiogram first and see if this is the case.' continues the doctor. 'If it is, we can correct it with a coronary angioplasty there and then. This is also a safe and effective procedure but you would need to return at a later date for the ablation.

'I want them done at the same time,' says Setrakian.

'Professor!' protests Sandra.

'I really wouldn't advise it sir,' says Sweeting.

'I insist,' says Setrakian doggedly, as much to Sandra as to the doctor.

'Is it possible?' asks Sandra.

'Yes, but it increases the risks and recovery time.'

'It's settled then,' says Setrakian standing up. 'See you in a couple of hours.'

Cath lab, Sweeting clinic, Later that day

Setrakian is sitting in the prep area, wearing a hospital smock. He's uncomfortable, tucking it in underneath him as far as possible. Sandra returns from the corridor, smiling in that reassuring way that only makes the recipient more anxious.

While the nurse expertly places a line, Sandra whispers, 'I've sent more supplies and equipment to our friends, along with strict instructions of how to deal with any trapped vermin.'

The nurse leaves and Sandra becomes more explicit. 'It won't be able to see or hear its captors or locate itself. I've sent caging materials and told Fet not to let Cornelia out of his sight. So I can stay with you.'

'I don't want you watching this,' says Setrakian firmly.

'God, no,' recoils Sandra. 'I don't want to watch either. I don't think they'll let me in anyway – it's a sterile procedure.'

The nurse returns. 'Time to shave you, Mr Setrakian,' she says briskly.

'I'll be there when you wake up,' says Sandra with a squeeze of his twisted fingers.

Later that day

Setrakian lies unconscious, webbed in wires and tubes. Sandra has been as good as her word. She sits patiently by his bedside. When he murmurs, 'Miriam,' and opens his eyes, he focuses on blue-green rather than chocolate brown.

'Both procedures were successful,' she says. 'You can go home tomorrow.'

After a while, he struggles upright.

'But not before,' she adds sternly. 'I shall be on guard throughout the night.

'Your circadian rhythms were disturbed during your time in Berlin,' states Setrakian.

Sandra smiles grimly. 'And vamp-lag is much harder to shake than jet lag. I don't sleep much at all, nowadays.'

'I seem to get by on much less myself, the last decade or so,' he muses.

There's a long silence.

'Professor,' says Sandra. 'Why didn't you stay and help Corey search for me?'

He sighs.

'It's not an accusation,' she corrects. 'I know you had a good reason. I'd just like to know what it was.'

'I did join him to start with,' he says. 'I was his guide and I warned him that you would return to turn your loved one. My hope dwindled as the days went past with no sign of you, and then I started to feel these irregular heartbeats. I put it down to anxiety and pushed onwards but one day I collapsed and was taken to hospital. When I was able to discharge myself, I couldn't find Corey anywhere. I reported you missing and left my contact details at your hotel but I'd given you both up as lost. I am sorry.'

Sandra shushes him and kisses the hand she's holding. 'There's nothing to apologise for, Professor,' she says. 'If you hadn't taught me all about strigoi, I wouldn't be alive today and neither would Cornelia.'

Fet's place, Red Hook, Brooklyn Next day

Sandra brings Setrakian home to a warm welcome. That is to say, the old man is welcomed but she is not.

She settles him in bed and ensures he'll be looked after and prevented from getting up until the following day. Then she returns to the shopfront area downstairs.

It has been transformed, creating a laboratory on one side and a gym on the other. Fet's is bursting at the seams and they will need to relocate before any further recruiting can be attempted. Someone has built a vampire cage and Fet has caught an occupant. The vampire is a young adult of indeterminate sex. Dressed in jeans and a thick jumper, the creature's height and slender build can't pinpoint the gender that was so important to it in life and is so irrelevant now. The face doesn't help either as it is encased in a full-face helmet, the visor blacked out.

Sandra approaches the bound and shackled strigoi and demands Dutch leave the room and the creature's helmet be removed.

Dutch complains but does leave, although she doesn't go far and listens out of sight.

Fet is unsure, but obeys. There is thick wadding blindfolding it and blocking its hearing.

It's stinger flicks out to taste Sandra's scent and it lunges towards her, against its restraints. She arms herself with a sword, nods at Fet and says, 'Stay behind it and take the blindfold off.' Fet balks but Sandra fixes him with the Dutch-eyed stare and he complies.

Sandra deftly evades the shrieking vampire's stinger and darts in to put out first one eye and then the other with the silver blade. She is clearly enjoying the creature's pain far too much.

Nora and Eph have stopped what they were doing and watch with disgust.

'Miss Edwards,' says Nora, reproachfully. 'Gabriel Bolivar turned my mother and I had to release her myself…'

'Oh, I'm sorry,' says Sandra but it's mechanical, not empathic.

'…and I wouldn't hesitate to kill him myself,' Nora continues. 'In fact, I'd seek it. But I have no desire to delay killing the Master purely so I can torture Bolivar. Why do you?'

Sandra has replaced the helmet on the strigoi but left the visor up. She nods for Fet to re-cage the beast and she puts her white gloves on.

Then she replies. 'Perhaps you acknowledge that Bolivar was an instrument of the Master rather than a Chosen with a will of his own. Blood, please.'

Eph passes her a pack labelled NM and a syringe. 'There's something else behind your hate,' he says.

Sandra doesn't respond and tempts the vampire with the blood. She catches the stinger just beneath the bifurcation and, this time blank-faced, she massages the shaft in such a way that the two men suddenly feel the need to be behind waist-high furniture.

'Did you have to do that to him?' taunts Eph sarcastically, obviously not really thinking that she did.

'They can't be pleasured like this,' says Sandra coldly.

'So you've tried?' asks Eph, incredulous.

Sandra doesn't answer but pulls the stinger out to its full extent and walks it towards Eph who cowers away from it. She squeezes some "saliva" and worms from one fang into a beaker. The strigoi is going berserk but she maintains her stony-faced grip.

'I'm neutering it for you,' she explains. 'But I need to know which channel is in and which is out.'

She pins the tip onto a cutting board and slices the "out" fang off with her sword. Then, freeing it a little, she takes a thin silver rod from a pocket and wrestles it down inside the "out" channel, wiggling it around to burn as much of the lumenal lining as she can.

'That's what Eichhorst has in store for him, isn't it?' says Fet.

'Maybe eventually,' says Sandra. She's enjoying the vampire's suffering again.

She cauterises this wound with the silver blade and returns the stinger to the board. The "in" fang is removed with a scalpel and she pours the blood over it.

'Blood helps them heal,' she explains. 'If this channel is occluded, it won't be able to drink and it'll be of no use to you.'

'It'll die?' asks Nora.

'No, it'll "cave",' says Sandra. 'Starve, shrivel and weaken but not die.'

'Is that in Eichhorst's future, too?' says Dutch disgustedly, making her mother drop the stinger and whip round. 'Cornelia,' cries Sandra, embarrassed.

The strigoi sucks its mutilated stinger back into its mouth, as if cradling an injured limb.

Neeva pops her head round the door and, with her eyes shut against the horrors, yells, 'Food is ready!'

Dutch folds her arms, revolted and turns away. The others leave the lab/gym and Sandra is left alone. She pockets something from Nora's bench before joining them.

During the meal, Nora and Eph discuss their puzzling findings from the examination of the strigoi blood. They are so enthused that they finish each other's sentences.

'Once the worms were sifted out, we found the blood was sterile – the virus is only in the worms…'

'…And it's chock full of what appeared to be platelets and leucocytes…'

'…Mostly lymphocytes like natural killer cells and cytotoxic T-cells...'

'…Which makes them very resistant to superinfection with other pathogens...'

'…But there are no erythrocytes…'

'…Which is why we think they need human blood – for the oxyhaemoglobin…

'…Hence the predilection for arterial feeding sites…'

'…There were no eosinophils…'

'…So no hypersensitivity reaction…'

'…And hardly any basophils…'

'…To mount an inflammatory response…'

'Once we analyse the saliva that you…harvested, we can see if that's similar,' says Nora.

'I bet it's not,' says Eph. 'I bet it's chemically and cytologically distinct. More like an anti-coagulant. It must be to allow for total exsanguinations…'

'…So there can't be any platelets in the saliva either.'

'If I understood any of that,' says Dutch. 'I'd probably be disgusted. But how are you getting on with the weapon?'

'Well, the silver emulsion is 100% lethal on its own,' says Nora. 'You don't really need all the other stuff.'

'So, for another weapon, we mixed all the antivirals together with Fenbendazole…' says Eph.

'That's the antiparasitic,' explains Nora.

'…And a touch of the silver emulsion,' says Eph. 'You don't need much.'

'But it didn't work,' says Fet, raining on the parade.

'Well, it did kill the worms in vitro, but very slowly,' says Eph. 'In vivo a vampire would almost certainly be able to adapt to it…' His voice trails off but no one notices.

Sandra is suddenly interested. 'But it would still damage them, yes?' she asks. 'Cause pain without killing them outright.'

'You're NOT having any,' says Nora firmly. 'It's for wholesale destruction not one-on-one sadism.'

'For God's sake, Mum,' says Dutch, exasperated. 'What is your deal?'

'We're going to titrate the ratios and optimise the kill rate,' says Nora, trying to change the subject.

'And we'll have two new chemical weapons,' says Fet. 'I'm going to cannibalise a bug bomb and make a grenade, for an area effect, like the Z-man said. And the other can be loaded into water pistols, like Neeva used on me.'

Once Neeva has served everyone, she puts a bowl on a tray "for the invalid" as she puts it. Sandra stands up and takes it from her. As she carries it upstairs the tension eases noticeably but Eph is still silent – probably pondering the sub-lethal concoction.

Setrakian's bedroom

Sandra puts the tray down and perches on his bed.

'How are you doing, Professor?'

Before he can reply, she continues. 'I've got some pain medication here.'

She removes a 1 ml syringe from her pocket and, removing the needle, she squirts the contents into Setrakian's protesting mouth.

He struggles but, old and sick, he's no match for her. She quietens him with an Eichhorstian smile and a finger on his lips until he swallows.