For the Dead Travel Fast
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They were ushered to a receiving room where their blood was drawn by a nurse in a mask—the pungent scent of lemon and garlic wafted from her—which prevented her from catching their scent.
That was how Dr Harris talked of it; like their pheromones were infectious.
The tile floor echoed, and from beyond a couple of swinging doors, they could hear the clanging of pots and industrial dishwashers, people calling to each other. "The kitchens are through there, and the cafeteria on the other side. We eat in shifts," the nurse told them. Walt had disappeared somewhere, but he hadn't left the center, and there was only the nurse as she drew Castle's blood.
"In shifts? Because so many are housed here?" Kate asked, probing carefully.
"No, I should've said we eat as families." The nurse tapped the blood vial and nodded, took the needle from Castle's arm. "Blood families. It could be dangerous, with you newbies walking around, if we ate at the same time."
"Why?" Kate blurted out. She offered her own arm without hesitation, wanting the nurse to keep talking, even if it was through an N95 mask and a pair of clear plastic safety goggles. She'd never seen so much protection just to draw blood. "Why would newly transitioned vampires be a problem mixing with others?"
"If you stick to your own blood family, then your family members don't scent you as fresh meat. There's an element of seduction, especially with mated pairs, but no threat to drain the life from someone."
"Being in a family is protection then," Castle said, nodding. "And anyone not in our blood family might… react poorly."
"Yes, precisely," the nurse answered. If they could've seen her whole face, Kate was sure she'd be beaming. People often had that reaction to him. "Anyway, the receiving room is for intakes, as it's a negative pressure room—"
"We've had some experience with that," Castle said.
Kate breathed through the prick of the needle, forced herself to watch the draw of her blood into the vial. "Intakes, how many do you get at one time?"
"Not that many," the nurse answered. "We like to schedule the transitions ahead of time to prevent this kind of thing. We know then what blood antigens will be present, and we can predict what blood family the newly-transitioned and the transitioner will have."
"Transitioner? You mean me," Kate said.
The nurse lifted her head, glanced between them swiftly, sat back. "You?"
"What?" Kate glanced at the crook of her arm where the vial was about to be filled.
"You're the one who transitioned him?" The nurse grabbed for the vial, slipped it off, replaced it with another. "Is that what you're saying?"
"She did the biting," Castle chuckled. "I'd been shot, we'd both been shot, and she was saving my life."
The nurse checked the chart, craning her neck as she held the vial as it filled. "Well, Dr Harris seems to think you're both newly transitioned. I assumed you'd been attacked. I… she's usually never wrong about this."
"Well, let me clear things up: she's wrong this time," Kate snapped.
The nurse gave her a cool look, even behind the mask and goggles; it was obvious she hadn't taken that well. "Your blood will let us know."
"Well, it might not," Castle hesitated. "Look, Kate's original transition didn't go well, and Evil Twin Doc postulated that she got stuck, arrested development—"
"Evil… twin?" The nurse shook her head and finished drawing Kate's blood, removing the needle and pressing a cotton ball to the crook of Kate's arm. "Dr Harris has a sister; I've heard she's a researcher though, not a practitioner."
"She was doing some practicing," Castle hedged.
"She trapped us in her lair and performed experiments on us," Kate said.
Castle grunted a warning. "She didn't… okay, she did a bit, but we were trying to achieve balance for Kate's lichen levels? Do you know about—"
"Of course," the nurse snorted. "Vampirism isn't a folk myth; it's a medically explainable symbiosis between a lichen and a human. The lichen itself is also a symbiosis: algae and fungus, which feed off each other to produce the chemical reactions which—"
"Yeah, we heard," Kate muttered.
The nurse went quiet, packing away the vials in a cold storage container, and if it weren't for the mask, she'd be scowling. But before she could counter Kate's attitude, Walt opened a door from the kitchens with a large tray and came towards them.
"Breakfast is served!" Walt set the tray down on a table pushed to one side in the room. The smell of sausage and scrambled eggs made Kate's stomach twist, and she heard Castle's growling. "We have blood sausage, of course, some duck stewed in fig sauce, and scrambled eggs. Protein-rich, heme iron-rich, and just what you need before your phases."
"He's the one in phase," Kate said, jabbing her thumb towards Castle. "Not me."
"Not you?" Walt looked between them comically. "But you're the one who smells so…"
Walt blushed and didn't finish that sentence; but Castle stood from the chair with a growl.
"Uh-oh, no, no, none of that," the nurse said hurriedly, catching Castle by the arm and waving a sachet under his nose. Castle jerked back, looking down at the diminutive woman who apparently held something that smelled sour to him. "Okay, he's definitely the one undergoing transition. Kate? Help me get him settled?"
"Castle," she muttered, struggling to her feet as lightheadedness swamped her. "Stop peacocking."
Castle turned to her and caught her by the elbow before she could go down. "I'm not, I'm fine. Stop fainting on me."
"I'm not," she whined. "I'm fine."
The nurse glanced between them but turned her head to the man with their breakfast. "Walt, you okay if I get these samples to Dr Harris?"
"I got 'em. Kate and Rick? Come on over and get some food, it will take the edge off. Then Doc will let us know what blood family you are, and where we can put you up for the night, however many nights it takes."
Castle's grip on her elbow was almost painful. "Do you think she'll know? How many nights it will take. Before we can go home."
Walt didn't have an answer for that.
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