The officer assigned to Christine's case called her that evening.
"I'm sorry, but any contact with your family is still out of the question."
Christine pulled the coverlet up to her chin, fought the tears that welled up and threatened to spill over.
"Your father contacted me earlier. He wants to send you some funds Western Union, but I'm afraid that also unsafe at this time. However, if you can tell me what you require these funds for, I'm sure I can – "
"It's nothing," she ground out. "Nothing important."
"Well, if that's the case, I'll let you go. You are sure you have alternate employment figured out after the university dropped you?"
"Yes, of course."
She ended the call, could hear Meg moving around downstairs banging pots and pans around on the postage-sized burner. Dr. Hendrick had texted a few minutes earlier; he was going to have her be his assistant after hours, getting materials prepped for class and stretching and making canvases. In return he'd pay her out of an unspecified accumulation of funds that could be used at the discretion of art faculty while also continuing her studies as an artist.
She'd continue learning, could maybe break into the Seattle art scene eventually.
And the salary was livable.
But livable and pain-free were not a package deal, it would seem. She'd never be able to afford the meds.
As she sat up her back suddenly spasmed, sending her reeling in pain. Wadding the coverlet in her mouth she screamed out her pain and frustration – a freak rainstorm outside sending little bullet-pops of rain against her dormer window. The smell of the rain rose up like rosin dust – like the sweet-smelling mist that came off the bows of the string section as they warmed up in the pit.
She breathed it in and suddenly she was in her theater costumes again, satin gowns and fantastical costumes of lace and damask as she soared above the audience on the music.
God, the music. It was everywhere, in the patter of the rain and the pained beating of her heart – and it was driving her. Even now it was her impetus, the thing that pulled her from her sheets each morning and set her on her path. The invisible hand guiding her.
The tears finally escaped, searing and wet against her burning cheeks. She rode out the pain, her back finally reverting back to its normal dull ache.
Two and a half pills left.
She went for the bedside table drawer, retrieving a plane-sized bottle of whiskey and taking a few swigs. She schemed, dredging up endless possibilities, vague plans to secure her pain meds. Shadowy figures in damp alleys, missing teeth and foul breath, grasping hands and cruel laughter, the restless tap of a gun against a forearm as its owner waited for payment. Payment took on a variety of forms that made Christine shudder, take another shot of hard liquor.
"Chris, you okay up there?" Meg suddenly called.
"Fine. I'm fine."
Meg was making their dinner as Christine descended down the ridiculously narrow staircase, her friend's back art on full display in a flimsy neon tube top with fish-net backing.
"You look peaked," Meg said, throwing her a concerned glance.
"Just tired."
Meg looked dubious but threw a bowl of tomato bisque down at her place and tucked into it, greedily ripping open a bag of saltines. "Don't be shy," she said in between mouthfuls. "Grab a bowl, Chris."
She hadn't planned on eating – she usually lost her appetite after one of her episodes – but it did smell good. Christine moved towards the pot, suddenly hungry, but another back spasm knocked her off her feet, dragging her to the floor in one violent crash.
"Jesus Christ," Meg hissed, dropping down to her friend's side. "God, Chris you can't go on like this!"
"Fine," Christine said, whimpering as another wave tore at her with the ferocity of an animal.
"Not fine!" Meg shrieked back, suddenly ashamed of her wild emotions. "No part of this," she gestured to her best friend's prostrate body, choking back her own sobs, "is okay."
There was nothing either one of them could do. Christine shut her eyes as tightly as she could and Meg kept vigil, a witness to the raw pain. The soup went cold and the rain intensified. Two inches fell by the time Christine could move again – Meg had lit some candles, was flipping through her cards again, frowning at all the ill omens that kept reappearing. She wanted a new deck, a more optimistic set – one that didn't make her want to pitch it straight in the fireplace.
She helped Christine over to the living room couch, tucking her in with some saltines and a glass of water. Prison food, Christine quipped. Meg didn't laugh.
Tracking down the last of the pills in Christine's wallet, she made her take them – all two and a half.
"Your doctor said you could take three at a time," Meg grumbled, making sure her friend swallowed them down.
Christine crashed hard after that, not waking up until the morning light was streaming through the front window, doing its best to slip through the cacks in the curtains. She woke up to a full bottle of pain meds on the coffee table along with a donut and a steaming Styrofoam cup of coffee.
There was a note waiting for her.
Just two lines on a ripped sheet of yellow notepad paper.
Take your three pills a day, dumbass. Or face the consequences.
Love Meg
She stared at the note, wondering with dread how in the hell Meg had managed the miracle sitting in front of her in the orange pharmaceutical tube.
SEATTLE HERALD
Reports of drug and gang related violence continue to escalate city-wide. Residents are warned not to go out between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. unless absolutely necessary.
Washington state's Vampira representative neither confirms nor denies any link between Vampira gangs and the recent uptick in homicides despite multiple blood-drained bodies recovered by authorities.
"Guess I'm screwed then," Christine mumbled, skimming the remainder of the article on her phone before pausing to stretch and yawn deeply, surveying the work she had left to do in the classroom.
So far everything was right on schedule. She'd gotten the student stations ready including all the supplies they'd need for today's lesson and Dr. Hendrick would be in at 6 a.m. to give her a one-on-one lesson for two hours.
She'd been doing this for over a month now and she was finally adjusting to her new graveyard shift, arriving around eleven at night and leaving about 8 in the morning – could be better, but at last she was getting paid and learning something too. Having the campus to herself in the evenings was nicer than anticipated; there was no one around to bug her, and the diner in the student union across the lawn from the art building was open all night so she could take her meal break over there with some warm food.
The best part she'd discovered two weeks in: the classroom had great acoustics.
She sang while she worked, everything from The Lady of the Night aria from Mozart's Magic Flute to Disenchanted by My Chemical Romance. Christine's father had introduced her classical compositions with his job in the orchestra while her mother had worked in a recording studio in Chicago for alternative and hard rock artists; after picking Christine up from school, she'd almost always play demo CDs on the car ride home.
When she died, Christine had locked herself in her room for three days, her stereo pumping out the heaviest metal music she could find to block out the voices in her head.
"Don't let Carlotta hear you sing like that," Dr. Hendrick said as he came in that morning, walking in as Christine finished singing a Broadway hit. "She'll dragoon you into trying out for the musical theater group."
Christine laughed nervously. "I don't really understand why."
"You aren't too familiar with Vampira, are you?" Dr. Hendrick said, giving her a curious look.
"They aren't any in the Southwest really, where I'm from originally." The lie was so easy that Christine felt a pang of discomfort once she said it – it wasn't long ago that she never had a reason to be deceitful. "All I know is they don't like the sun much."
Dr Hendrick chuckled. "Vampira adore beauty," he said, loosening the lids of the paint jars he was going to pull from for their lesson. "Whether it's a beautiful face, a beautiful painting, or a beautiful voice," he finished, giving her a meaningful look. "They pride themselves on cultivating talent, wherever they might find it, and giving it a pedestal to shine on. It doesn't hurt that many of the Vampira are well-connected and wealthy – makes it that much easier to promote their human muses."
"Well then she should help me become a famous artist," Christine muttered, prepping her workstation and wetting the canvas.
"Oh, but singing, the gift of music – that Christine, is their holy deity. They see it as the pinnacle of human achievement. And it's something that eludes them. You see, their vocal cords are damaged irrevocably when they become Vampira, not badly enough to affect their speech, but it makes it impossible for them to sing. And that is why they are so fanatical about humans that can sing."
Christine nods thoughtfully, continuing to soak her canvas with a long sweeping strokes of her broad-fanned brush.
They delve into watercolors that morning, creating dusky seascapes from photographs Dr. Hendrick's wife took on one of the trips down the coast. It's a challenging new technique and Christine loses herself in the difficult task of creating layers of color that then assume the shape of sky meeting water. Their time is almost up when a violent crash rattles the half-open window. Christine's head bolts up in time to see a massive, dark body plummet out of sight followed by the croaking complaint of a raven.
"Ouch," she says, walking over to the window, half expecting to see it sitting stunned on the grass below, but it's already taken flight again, making a strange clicking noise as is circles a few times and takes off towards the heart of the city. Christine used to be fascinated by crows and ravens; they are highly intelligent birds – strange that this one had flown into the window which already had bird-shaped stickers on it to deter mid-flight accidents like the one that had just occurred.
When she turned back around, all the color had drained from Dr. Hendrick's face.
"I think that's it for today," he said before Christine could ask if anything was amiss. Hastily he moved towards his desk, suddenly rifling through drawers. "See you tomorrow Christine."