He angled the glass over Jim Kent's face again, trying to hold it still-and saw the tremulous blur that was Jim's reflection. As though his body were in the throes of something furious, his being vibrating too hard and too fast to be visibly rendered.

Yet to the naked eye he lay still and serene.

Eph handed it to Nora, who shared his astonishment, and his fear. "So this means...he's turning into a thing...a thing like Captain Redfern."

Setrakian said, "Following normal infection, they can complete their transformation and activate to feeding after just one day and night. It takes seven nights for one to fully turn, for the disease to consume the body and reshape it to its own end-its new parasitic state. Then about thirty nights to total maturity."

Nora said, "Total maturity?"

The old man said, "Pray we don't see that phase." He gestured toward Jim. "The arteries of the human neck offer the quickest access point, though the femoral artery is another direct route into our blood supply."

The neck breach was so neat it was not visible at the moment. Eph said, "Why blood?"

"Oxygen, iron, and many other nutrients."

"Oxygen?" asked Nora.

Setrakian nodded. "Their host bodies change. Part of the turning is that the circulatory and digestive systems merge, becoming one. Similar to insects. Their own blood substance lacks the iron-and-oxygen combination that accounts for the red color of human blood. Their product turns white."

"And the organs," Eph said. "Redfern's looked almost like cancers."

"The body system is being consumed and transformed. The virus takes over. They no longer breathe. They respire, merely as a vestigial reflex, but they don't oxygenate anymore. The unneeded lungs eventually shrivel and are readapted."

Eph said, "Redfern, when he attacked, exhibited a highly developed growth in his mouth. Like a well-developed muscular stinger underneath the tongue."

Setrakian nodded as though agreeing with Eph about the weather. "It engorges as they feed. Their flesh flushes almost crimson, their eyeballs, their cuticles. This stinger, as you call it, is in fact a reconversion, a repurposing of the old pharynx, trachea, and lung sacs with the newly developed flesh. Something like the sleeve of a jacket being reversed. The vampire can expel this organ from its own chest cavity, shooting out well over four and up to even six feet. If you anatomize a mature victim, you would find a muscular tissue, a sack that propels this for feeding. All they require is the regular ingestion of pure human blood. They are maybe like diabetics in that way. I don't know. You are the doctor."

"I thought I was," mumbled Eph. "Until now."

Nora said, "I thought vampires drank virgin blood. They hypnotize...they turn into bats..."

Setrakian said, "They are much romanticized. But the truth is more...how should I say?"

"Perverse," said Eph.

"Disgusting," said Nora.

"No," said Setrakian. "Banal. Did you find the ammonia?"

Eph nodded.

"They have a very compact digestive system," Setrakian continued. "No room for storing the food. Any undigested plasma and any other residues have to be expelled to make room for incoming nourishment. Much like a tick-excreting as it feeds."

Suddenly the temperature inside the bay changed. Setrakian's voice dropped to an icy whisper.

"Strigoi," he hissed. "Here."

Eph looked at Jim. Jim's eyes were open, his pupils dark, the sclera around them turning grayish orange, almost like an uncertain sky at dusk. He was staring at the ceiling.

Eph felt a spike of fear. Setrakian stiffened, his gnarled hand poised near the wolf's-head handle of his walking stick-ready to strike. Eph felt the electricity of his intent, and was shocked by the deep, ancient hatred he saw in the old man's eyes.

"Professor..." said Jim, on a slight groan escaping from his lips.

Then his eyelids fell closed again, Jim lapsing back into a REM-like trance.

Eph turned to the old man. "How did he...know you?"

"He doesn't," said Setrakian, still on alert, poised to strike. "He is like a drone now, becoming part of a hive. A body of many parts but one single will." He looked at Eph. "This thing must be destroyed."

"What?" said Eph. "No."

"He is no longer your friend," said Setrakian. "He is your enemy."

"Even if that is true-he is still my patient."

"This man is not ill. He has moved into a realm beyond illness. In a matter of hours, no part of him will remain. Apart from all that-it is supremely dangerous, keeping him here. As with the pilot, you will be placing the people in this building at great risk."

"What if...what if he doesn't get blood?"

"Without nourishment, he will begin caving. After forty-eight hours without feeding, his body will begin to fail, his system cannibalizing his body's human muscle and fat cells, slowly and painfully consuming itself. Until only the vampiric systems prevail."

Eph was shaking his head, hard. "What I need to do is formulate some protocol for treatment. If this disease is caused by a virus, I need to work toward finding a cure."

Setrakian said, "There is only one cure. Death. Destruction of the body. A merciful death."

Eph said, "We're not veterinarians here. We can't just put down people who are too ill to survive."

"You did so with the pilot."

Eph stuttered, "That was different. He attacked Nora and Jim-he attacked me."

"Your philosophy of self-defense, if truly applied, absolutely holds in this situation."

"So would a philosophy of genocide."

"And if that is their goal-total subjugation of the human race-what is your answer?"

Eph didn't want to get tangled up in abstractions here. He was looking at a colleague. A friend.

Setrakian saw that he was not going to change their minds here, not just yet. "Take me to the pilot's remains, then. Perhaps I can convince you."

No one spoke on the elevator ride down to the basement. There, instead of finding the locked morgue room, they found the door open and the police and the hospital administrator huddling around it.

Eph went up to them. "What do you think you're doing...?"

He saw that the doorjamb was scratched, the metal door frame dented and jimmied, the lock broken from the outside.

The administrator hadn't opened the door. Someone else had broken in.

Eph quickly looked inside.

The table was bare. Redfern's body was gone.

Tags: Guillermo Del Toro The Strain Trilogy Horror
Source: readsnovelonline.net