Possibly Sam

Chapter 4

Joel Silver and Warner Brothers own Moonlight. I don't. Unless they say 'stop', I'm going to use Mick any way I see fit. Don't worry; I won't abuse him.

If you want luxury, travel with Josef on his private jet. We had two stewardesses for the two of us. We'd been flying for a couple of hours. The sun was still in the sky. Our shades were drawn, but we felt it. The air in the cabin was cool; vampire comfortable, and we were able to catch a few hours of sleep.

Josef woke up and gave me a shake. My eyes snapped open. "Sun's down. Time for breakfast," he said.

"I'm not hungry," I said, yawning. "I can wait."

He didn't believe me. "Maybe you're not desperate, but you've got to be hungry. You've fed on humans recently - in the desert with Beth and on the reservation with Sam. Don't tell me you don't remember how it's done."

"I can wait until we get to the house. You said you had your nurse stock up. It won't be that much longer."

"I don't like to insist," he said, but I felt the undertone. He could pull rank on me. He brought me back to the Vampire Nation. He re-turned me, which made him my second 'sire', which meant I owed him my obedience. Even if not for our strange relationship, with age comes power. He was over 400 and I was a lad of 85. Josef habitually complained about my reticence to feed properly since I gave it up. Except in extraordinary circumstances, and the instances he'd mentioned were, I only drank fresh for revenge. The last time was not very long ago. I gloried in letting the monster out then, because for once, I could drink until I couldn't hold any more. I wanted to kill.

"So don't," I said. With all this talk about feeding, I was beginning to get hungry. If he insisted, I'd probably have to go along with it.

He lifted his chin and I nearly heard the words, there will be other times. To tell the truth, since Josef changed me back, I was no longer that opposed to feeding fresh. It was more a matter of habit, and with a Freshie, it felt the tiniest bit like I would be cheating on Beth. Foolish thought. Josef called the hostesses over. "You, Darla, stay here with me. Patricia, please bring over a bag of blood for my friend."

"Of course, Josef," Patricia smiled warmly to him, but then looked me up and down. I felt a tinge of disappointment from her. She opened my tray and left us. A moment later, she was back with the plastic bag along with a cut-glass tumbler. "Would you like me to pour for you, sir?" she asked.

"I'll do it," I said. She gave me a professional smile and walked back to the crew section behind the curtain where she probably bundled up in her quilt. I'm sure Josef paid our hostesses well for double duty. I opened the bag and poured myself a cup.

Josef threw me a look of weary disgust. "You insulted a member of my flight team. You really need the practice if you're going to make it work between you and Beth. The first time you make love, you don't want to drain her."

"Thank you for reminding me of what I think about daily. I just don't have your control," I admitted.

"All the more reason to begin again while I'm here to guide you."

I'm sure my jaw went rigid at that. "I'm 85 years old, not two days old."

"If you don't want to get any better at it, never mind then. Watch if you need pointers on how it's done." Damn him, I thought. He already had Darla on his lap. Josef doesn't waste time when he's hungry, but he's always courteous to a willing Freshie. Darla wasn't going to complain, but Patricia might be our only functioning hostess before the plane landed.

I tilted my glass and took a sip of my blood. I wasn't going to allow Josef to get to me, but I didn't look away either. Her hair was already pinned back. He brought Darla into an intimate embrace, and sniffed at her delectable neck, tracing her blood vessels with his finger. Darla tilted her head and closed her eyes, ready and willing for Josef to pleasure her. The blood loss she was about to undergo did not concern her. She was practiced at both her jobs, and Josef was an accomplished drinker in more ways than one.

Josef struck, attaching his mouth to her artery like a leech, not a word Josef would have chosen. Darla gasped at the initial sting, then moaned as he enthralled her into the pleasure his own release gave him. If the process were too painful, no Freshie would return for a second encounter with one of us. There was a time that I was good at that. None of my donors who lived through one of my feedings complained, but I'll never forget the times I got carried away. Josef had tried to console me then. "They're only human," he would say. "There's plenty more." I took another sip of blood from my glass. At least no one died to keep me alive this time.

When he was done, Josef pressed his tongue against Darla's wounds to stop the flow of her blood. When he was satisfied, he drew away to look her over. He pulled her close once again to clean her neck, licking his lips to savor every drop of the precious liquid. "You're fine," he whispered.

She smiled lazily and repeated his words. "I'm fine."

"You loved it."

"You know I did."

"That's my good girl." He picked her up, on arm supporting her legs, one under her shoulders, her head leaning against his chest. He carried her to her lounge in the crew section and settled her down with a comforter. He pulled something from the galley refrigerator and brought it over to her. I heard him whisper again. "Rest, my dear, and drink this." He handed her a box of orange juice with a straw. In my day, people squeezed their own orange juice and drank it out of glasses. Leave it to Josef to have the latest food technology for his Freshies. He waited while she finished it, handed her a bag of salt pretzels, and then returned to me.

"How do you manage to get bags of blood through security, Josef?" I asked. "Bribes?"

"I could have done that once, but these days, we have to show respect for America's security. I live here. I had my staff get the FCC to authorize bringing aboard several units of special purified blood for transfer to a very sick woman in New York. This is A Negative, Sarah's type. No one would think of interfering with such a humanitarian cause."

"Thank you for thinking of me and my needs."

"You have a handicap no sensible vampire would inflict on himself. You look for the worst you might do instead of the best. You'll never convince me Darla didn't enjoy what I did to her. If I cater to your ridiculous ways, it's because you have your uses."

I poured and tipped back the last of my blood and finished it. Patricia came to get my glass and either wash it or sterilize it. "My ridiculous ways? Is that why you agreed to come to New York to see if Sam can do something for you and Sarah?"

"I don't expect anything will come of it, but if there's a chance in a million, I couldn't pass it up. Maybe I came because I want to prove to you that reviving Sarah, or even listening to her, is a pipe dream, a lost cause."

"If you believed that, you wouldn't be here." Josef had the grace to look down and give me a helpless shrug. "Francis might have some ideas about it too. Sam mentioned he was a doctor in one of his former lives, in ancient Egypt."

Skepticism flowed off Josef. I crossed my arms and turned away from him to watch the gray clouds float past my window, and the brightly shining stars between them. We were going into an unknown situation. I counted on Sam to see us through it, in one way or the other.