Disclaimer: Characters belong to Whitley Strieber's novel The Hunger and the MGM/UA film adaptation (Except Isabella Ely – she's mine, all mine!).

New Blood (Pt 3)

She arrived at Sutton Place five minutes early. She felt a strange unsettling feeling of foreboding as she stepped out of the cab and walked up to the front door. The house seemed unnaturally still; as if the air itself had stopped. She presses the doorbell and notices the security camera. She smiles, and then feels stupid, knowing she could be seen.

"Who is it?" a low voice, thick with a French accent, asks through the comm.

"Isabella Ely. I'm here to see Sarah Roberts," Isabella states hurriedly.

A buzzing noise sounds and the front door opens. Miriam stood in the doorway. Her elegant beauty struck Isabella. "You must be Mrs. Blaylock?"

"She's expecting you," Miriam says reservedly and steps aside to let Isabella in.

Cautiously, Isabella stepped into the spacious corridor. Miriam closes the door and begins to walk down the corridor. Not looking at their visitor, she says coolly. "This way."

Isabella had the distinct impression that Mrs. Blaylock didn't appreciate her presence. She followed Miriam along the corridor, down some stairs and along another corridor. They stop outside a brown door and Miriam pushes it open.

Sarah was sat at a workbench, drawing a blood component out of a test tube with a pipette. She looks up on their arrival.

" must be Dr. Ely," Sarah greets, returning the test tube to the rack, she stands and extends her hand.

Isabella shakes it, surprised at the coolness of Sarah's skin.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you," Isabella says.

They exchange a curteous smile and then Sarah turns to Miriam as she feels the familiar Touch of Miriam's mind.

Isabella notices that the pair seem to be having an unspoken conversation, it makes her feel odd, as if they were talking about her.

Abruptly, Miriam says. "I'll leave you to it," and exits.

Alone, Isabella moved towards Sarah, who began preparing a white blood cell slide and fixes it on the microscopes receiving tray. When she finishes, she looks expectantly at Isabella. "I apologise for all this covertness, but this is a delicate matter. As you know, Dr. Ely, I was working on a project in the Gerontology department at Riverside," she pauses. "I'm remarkably close – tantalizingly close to a break-through."

"In?" Isabella presses.

"Immortality."

Isabella sits down numbly in the nearest seat. "What?"

Sarah's eyes were lit from within as she excitedly explains. "In my lab at Riverside we were able to speed-up the internal clock of a rhesus ape – so we concluded that if age can be speeded-up, it can also be slowed down. Then, we had a human case… and we discovered that it's possible for humans to remain youthful for up to two centuries."

Isabella stares at Sarah.

"But I need your help – another pair of hands to make the research go faster and someone with access to Riverside's sealed records."

"So you chose me?" Isabella concluded.

Sarah nods eagerly.

"What's that?" Isabella asks, pointing to the slide on the microscope beside Sarah.

Sarah smiles, she indicates for Isabella to take a look. Isabella stands and moves closer to the redhead, then peers into the microscope at the white blood cell slide and Sarah contains a smirk when Isabella gasps.

She looked at Sarah, startled. "How is that possible?" she exclaims.

"I took a sample of blood from a thirty-something Caucasian woman and mixed it with foreign leukoytes – a eosinophile-like cell."

"But the Pseudopodial activity is high – the cell is thriving."

Sarah nods, feeling very smug.

"Where did you get the eosinophile-like cell?" Isabella asks: her tone is filled with awe, curiosity and confusion.

Sarah smiles; the eosinophile-like cell came from her own blood, from Miriam. "First I need an answer – are you going to help me?"

Isabella doesn't hesitate. "Yes."

If it had been for any other purpose, Miriam was sure she would have killed Dr. Ely by now. For monopolizing all of Sarah's free time and for sharing Sarah's understanding of scientific jargon. Miriam is intelligent and picks-up the general points of their conversation, but she isn't a scientist and so she can't join in all their discussions about research and results.

When Sarah works in the lab, locked away, Miriam plays Corelli and Abaco; Sarah hears the music in her head: Miriam often plays for her.

In bed, Sarah whispers the results over her body, making love and assuring Miriam that they were close to an answer, close to human immortality, closer to her staying with Miriam eternally.

In the daytime, Miriam lets them alone; she takes them the occasional snack and watches Sarah pretend to eat in front of Dr. Ely. But Isabella is so excited by their work that she doesn't notice the small things. Miriam finds this amusing - humans, they're so arrogant, so selfish… she wonders if Dr. Ely would be putting in all this effort if she knew the truth about Sarah and herself. If she knew where the 'foreign leukoytes' came from, would she be so eager to continue the job?

They work continuously, side-by-side, Miriam watches them. She doesn't like the little signs of familiarity growing between them. Finishing each other's sentences. The touch of an elbow to indicate the other should look into the microscope. A nod to indicate results are ready, a jester to indicate another experiment is needed.

Miriam senses the affection in Sarah towards Dr. Ely, but she has no fear; Sarah is dedicated to Miriam and Miriam alone. She feels it. Sarah tells her, using the Touch, when she's not there. Lets her know she's doing this for Miriam, to be with Miriam.

Dr. Ely is more of a concern. Miriam knows that Dr. Ely doesn't trust her. Even after four months. This doesn't bother Miriam; she trusts Sarah's judgement and if Sarah says Dr. Ely can be depended on, then she believes her.

Isabella has been so wrapt up in the work, so blown away by the progress Sarah has made and its implications that she had readily agreed to all of Sarah's requests, including breaking into the Riverside vault and stealing sealed records. She wasn't proud of her actions, but it had to be done.

She's aware that if she's caught, her career will be over, but if she had refused to steal the records – Sarah would have taken it as an act of treachery and refused to let her continue to work on this project – the most exciting and fulfilling project of her life… and then there was also this strange feeling that she gets around Sarah… a craving, and it's insatiable… it keeps intensifying whenever they're close, it's consuming her greedily, and she wants to be consumed. Wants to know everything there is to know about Sarah Roberts.