Morbius: The Living Vampire - Blood Ties E-Book

Brendan Daneen

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Morbius the Living Vampire seeks to end his curse of a thirst for blood, and to stop a demonic cult from unleashing hell on Earth.Seeking to cure his rare blood disorder, Dr. Michael Morbius instead cursed himself with an insatiable lust for human blood. While trying to cure his horrific condition, he has become allied with Amanda Saint, whose sister Catherine is one of the leaders of the Demon-Fire Cult. Also known as Poison Lark, Catherine Saint has two goals above all else. She seeks to bring Satan to Earth, thus unleashing the powers of Hell, and to kill Morbius and Amanda. When Morbius and Amanda follow the cult's trail to New York City, they run afoul of an underground fight club that uses monsters as their pawns in the arena. The club captures Morbius and he becomes the star attraction, forced to kill or be killed.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Novels of the Marvel Universe by Titan Books

Title Page

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Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Act One: City of Shadows

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Act Two: Arena of Blood

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Act Three: Dark Fire Rising

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Epilogue

The story continues...

Caged Carnage

A Brief History of Blood Ties

Acknowledgements

About the Author

A NOVEL OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE

BLOOD TIES

NOVELS OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE BY TITAN BOOKS

Ant-Man: Natural Enemy by Jason Starr

Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Dan Abnett

Avengers: Infinity by James A. Moore

Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther? by Jesse J. Holland

Captain America: Dark Designs by Stefan Petrucha

Captain Marvel: Liberation Run by Tess Sharpe

Civil War by Stuart Moore

Deadpool: Paws by Stefan Petrucha

Spider-Man: Forever Young by Stefan Petrucha

Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt by Neil Kleid

Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours Omnibus by Jim Butcher, Keith R.A. DeCandido, and Christopher L. Bennett (forthcoming)

Spider-Man: The Venom Factor Omnibus by Diane Duane

Thanos: Death Sentence by Stuart Moore

Venom: Lethal Protector by James R. Tuck

X-Men: Days of Future Past by Alex Irvine

X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga by Stuart Moore

X-Men: The Mutant Empire Omnibus by Christopher Golden

X-Men & The Avengers: The Gamma Quest Omnibus by Greg Cox

ALSO FROM TITAN AND TITAN BOOKS

Marvel Contest of Champions: The Art of the Battlerealm by Paul Davies

Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Art of the Game by Paul Davies

Obsessed with Marvel by Peter Sanderson and Marc Sumerak

Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover by David Liss

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie by Ramin Zahed

The Art of Iron Man (10th Anniversary Edition) by John Rhett Thomas

The Marvel Vault by Matthew K. Manning, Peter Sanderson, and Roy Thomas

Ant-Man and the Wasp: The Official Movie Special

Avengers: Endgame – The Official Movie Special

Avengers: Infinity War – The Official Movie Special

Black Panther: The Official Movie Companion

Black Panther: The Official Movie Special

Captain Marvel: The Official Movie Special

Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years

Spider-Man: Far From Home – The Official Movie Special

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Official Movie Special

Thor: Ragnarok – The Official Movie Special

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MORBIUS: THE LIVING VAMPIRE – BLOOD TIES

Hardback edition ISBN: 9781789094855

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789095661

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First hardback edition: March 2021

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FOR MARVEL PUBLISHING

Jeff Youngquist, VP Production and Special Projects

Caitlin O’Connell, Assistant Editor, Special Projects

Sven Larsen, VP, Licensed Publishing

David Gabriel, SVP of Sales & Marketing, Publishing

C.B. Cebulski, Editor in Chief

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

© 2021 MARVEL

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

This book is dedicated to Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, the creators of Morbius;and to Don McGregor, Rich Buckler, and Pablo Marcos,the creators of Amanda Saint.

I’m guessing the latter three gentlemen never imagined that a randomsupporting character they created in 1973 would return,co-starring in a novel, forty-seven years later.

PROLOGUE

JOHNNY SWEAT was nervous.

He’d followed instructions. He always followed instructions, at least when there was a payday promised at the end of the job.

When there wasn’t anything in it for him? Not so much. That attitude had gotten him in trouble his whole life, but he got by. At least that’s what he had always told himself.

He’d been troubled since he was a kid… emotionally and sometimes even physically abused by a single dad who couldn’t hold down a job and kept searching for happiness at the bottom of any given bottle. Johnny had fled their tiny Midwest town when he was fifteen and had never looked back. New York City looked great on TV and in the movies. All those people and opportunities. He knew he could make something of himself in a place like that.

Or thought so, at least.

His entitled attitude didn’t serve him well, though. He followed orders when he was slinging French fries at a burger joint, but he sometimes did it with a sneer. And one night when his manager told him he had a bad attitude, Johnny rewarded the guy with a right cross to the nose. He was promptly fired and arrested, in that order.

Once he had a criminal record, Johnny could no longer find legitimate work. Which, when he thought about it, was just fine with him. When he took on his first illegitimate job, working as a bagman during a convenience store robbery, he knew he had finally found his calling.

As time passed, he did his best to keep his deep-seated anger in check. It was a little easier when surrounded by other low-level criminals like him. They were all angry.

Johnny started making some money. Not insane amounts, but enough to enjoy life a little bit. Buy a nice steak dinner now and then. Buy a bottle from the top shelf every month or so. Go on a date with a pretty girl. There was almost never a second date.

That’s fine, he would tell himself. I didn’t really like that one anyway.

He did what he had to in order to survive in an increasingly crazy world. Had worked for some of the biggest names in New York City crime. Owlsley. Lincoln. Russo. Even Fisk. Sure, he’d only been a grunt, following instructions—but he did his work to the letter, doing his best not to talk back when his bosses talked down to him. As a result, the work was steady.

Until it wasn’t.

With all the super freaks swinging and flying around the city, the jobs had started to thin out. Steak dinners were replaced with greasy fast food. He could only stare longingly at the top shelf before buying a handful of those airplane-size bottles of booze. And there were no more dates.

He’d let himself go. Hair was longer. Stomach was bigger. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a real shower. His hot water had been shut off weeks ago. So, when Johnny Sweat heard from a friend of a friend about an easy score, his ears perked up. Things had been hard for a while. At this point, Johnny deserved a little “easy.”

The instructions were simple. Weirdly simple, but still…

Go to the Second Avenue subway stop at 72nd Street, at 3 a.m. Head to the front of the platform—the north end. Wait until everyone gets on a train. When there’s no one in sight, walk down the stairs and into the tunnel. Keep going for a quarter mile.

“There aren’t a ton of trains at that time of night but walk fast anyway,” the guy said. “You never know. When you come to the third door on your right—make sure it’s the third one—open it and walk down another long set of stairs. Then wait. Someone will meet you.”

It seemed pretty bizarre, but in the last five years, Johnny had done stranger. Had seen things his father wouldn’t have believed. Gods flying through the air—at least they called them gods. Robots walking through walls. A guy made out of orange rocks—and that was when Johnny wasn’t drinking.

He entered the station, went through the turnstile.

He’d heard stories about the subway tracks. About homeless people who lived underground. Sometimes nine-to-fivers caught glimpses of them on their way to work or home or wherever the hell nine-to-fivers went. He’d never seen any of those tunnel dwellers himself, but he’d heard the rumors. Had heard that some of them could get crazy, could get violent… That some of them were even mutants.

So he brought his favorite knife with him when he headed toward Second Avenue at 2:45 a.m. on a Sunday night… or Monday morning, or whatever the hell it was. He couldn’t afford a gun, but he figured the knife would do just fine. It always had. Johnny knew how to handle a knife, especially this one. It was the only thing he’d stolen from his father when he’d left home all those years ago.

Even so, as Johnny hit the bottom of the stairs and waited for the train to arrive and pick up the few people scattered across the platform, he was nervous.

He’d forgotten his flask on the small table by the door of his run-down, dingy apartment. There wasn’t much left in it, admittedly, but even just a swig right now would have calmed his rattled nerves. He didn’t like this job already. He didn’t even know who he was working for, or what the job was, but he needed the scratch. Bad. He was late on rent… very late… and he hadn’t had a decent meal in a couple of days.

This gig could change everything.

Finally, the damn train came screeching into the station, the conductor a dark shadow behind smudged glass. The people got on board and, after the train sat there for what seemed like forever, the doors let out their telltale two-note ring and then closed.

The train didn’t move.

“Come on,” Johnny said out loud.

As if in response, the train lurched forward, then picked up speed and headed down the tunnel into the growing shadows until it was gone, its echo reverberating and then fading away entirely.

The subway station was silent.

Johnny looked around. During the entire five years he’d been in the city, he had never been totally alone like this on a train platform. Lights flickered on and off silently overhead. Rats emerged and scurried along the tracks, hunting for discarded food.

Taking a deep breath, Johnny stepped over the small chain that ostensibly kept people from entering the tracks, and walked down the several metal stairs that led into the subway tunnel itself. A cool breeze wafted toward him from the darkness, carrying a smell of garbage and urine that almost made him gag. Suppressing the urge, he trudged forward.

After a few minutes, Johnny stopped and looked back. The subway station wasn’t that far away but its lights already looked dim, as if he was looking at them through gauze. He realized that his eyes were watering from a combination of the smell and fear, and he cursed himself. Then he turned back around and continued walking.

He passed one graffiti-covered door, and then a second a minute or so later. He glanced back again. He could barely see the subway station at all anymore. He fought the urge to bolt, go home and figure out another way to make some money.

And that’s when he noticed it.

Headlights. Heading toward the 72nd Street stop behind him. Squinting, he quickly realized it wasn’t a regular train. It was one of those “Out of Service” cars that blasted through subway stations. And it would be on top of him in no time at all. Even if he wanted to go back to the platform, he’d never make it in time.

Johnny whipped around and sprinted. He had no idea how close that third door would be, but figured he didn’t have much time. He could hear the train rumbling closer behind him, louder than a normal engine. Never a religious man, not even close, he nonetheless prayed out loud for God to save him as his feet pounded the damp and uneven concrete strip that stretched next to the tracks.

The train hurtled closer, its horn blasting repeatedly, its brakes beginning to screech. Its light filled the tunnel, throwing sharp-edged shadows against the ground and walls. The conductor must have noticed a crazy person running along the tracks. Even with the brakes activated, though, there was no way the train could stop in time. Johnny felt the wind from the oncoming train swirl against his back just as he spotted the third door up on the right. He pushed himself harder, moving faster than he thought possible, and threw himself toward the door.

If it was locked, he was a dead man.

Johnny Sweat closed his eyes.

His shoulder hit the metal door.

It slammed open and Johnny fell forward, landing with enough force to knock one of the sneakers right off his foot. The train barreled past, brakes still screeching even though there was no longer a need. The door slammed shut again on its own.

He lay there on his back for several minutes, panting, eyes screwed shut, his chest on fire. Then he turned over and roared vomit all over the metal on which he was lying.

A few long moments passed, the sound of the train receding and then disappearing completely. Johnny caught his breath, swallowed, tried to ignore the terrible taste in his mouth. He suddenly realized how quiet it was. Opening his eyes, he got to his feet and took in his surroundings. Or attempted to.

It was dark in here… wherever he was.

Johnny blinked against the darkness and, after a few moments, his eyes adjusted to the relative gloom. He was standing on a small metal platform with a single bar at waist height, presumably to keep people from falling. If Johnny had moved a little farther forward while he was puking…

Peering over the metal bar, Johnny’s stomach turned as he realized that all he could see from where he was standing was inky blackness. He wasn’t a fan of heights… never had been. He’d worked plenty of rooftop jobs where he’d had to hide his terror, but it was always there, like some kind of childhood monster come to life.

Off to one side, a rusty metal staircase disappeared into the shadows. He glanced over his shoulder at the door through which he’d just come. There was still a chance to walk away from this. To head back to his tiny apartment and figure some other way out, maybe even try to get a legit job again. It had been something he’d been thinking about for a while… Maybe even go home and look up his dad? He’d been having dreams about him lately… realized maybe he even missed him.

Johnny shook his head, willing the emotions away. No. This was a good opportunity. The friend who’d told him about it said the pay was good and the work was easy. Johnny spit a wad of phlegm and leftover vomit into the darkness. Then he headed down the stairs.

They seemed to go on forever.

He felt like an idiot, tromping down the metal stairs wearing only one sneaker. His foot was cold, and wet. No telling what he had stepped in. He should’ve opened the door and looked for his other shoe, but the experience with the subway train had freaked him out too much. He didn’t want to risk having his head lopped off while he crawled around looking for a sneaker that had holes in its sole anyway.

So he continued down. Fifteen steps, then a small landing, turn a hundred and eighty degrees, and then another fifteen steps. Over and over again. The railing was rough against his hand, occasionally shifting under his grip where it had almost rusted away. Every now and then he could hear a train rumbling past overhead, but even that noise began to fade into the background after a while.

Finally, twenty—forty?—minutes later, Johnny reached the bottom. He was out of breath, even though he’d kept an even pace. Yep, there was no question about it, he’d let himself go over the last year or so. Too many cigarettes, too much booze. Not enough exercise, except when he was beating someone down on a boss’s orders, or running from the cops.

He stood at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, hands on his knees, bent over and sucking in big breaths of air. After a while he felt his heart stop hammering and resume a reasonable pace.

Johnny stood up, wiped the thin layer of moisture from his forehead, and smiled. “Sweat” wasn’t actually his last name. He’d been born Jonathan Wasberski. But after he’d done a few jobs when he’d first moved to New York, following the incident at the hamburger joint, one of the other goons had mentioned how Johnny never seemed to sweat, no matter how many windows he broke or how many apartments he snuck into—and then out of, hauling bags of stolen goods. After that, all the guys started calling him “Johnny Sweat.”

It was good to have a cool nickname when you were looking for work with some of the top criminal masterminds in the city. And he took pride in the fact that he never sweat. It meant he was always cool and collected… or at least appeared to be.

But now, standing at the bottom of an insanely long set of rusty metal stairs, way beneath the subway, Johnny had finally cracked a sweat. He laughed quietly. At least no one was around to notice and bust his chops about it.

A clanking sound pulled him out of his reverie, causing him to spin around as he searched for the source of the noise. There was light down here, enough to see a few details, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The ceiling was high—so high he couldn’t see it above him—and the walls didn’t seem to be concrete. It looked as if the tunnel had been carved through solid rock.

After a moment, he heard the sound again.

He stepped in its direction.

“Hello…?”

He took several more steps and then realized he was approaching another metal door. He raised a hand to knock, but stopped himself.

“This is stupid,” he whispered.

“You must be Johnny,” a voice intoned from behind him.

Letting out a little cry he whipped around, his stomach dropping, reaching into his pocket for the knife. Standing in front of him was a tall man in a dark red robe. He was bald and had a black-and-gray beard, which was thick but trimmed extremely short.

“Uh… yeah, that’s me,” Johnny replied, swallowing nervously and keeping his hand in his pocket.

“I’m Brother Thaddeus,” the man said, stepping closer. His voice was deep. “Thank you for coming.” Where had this guy even come from? All Johnny had seen were impossibly tall stone walls and this one door. How did he get behind him?

“Sure, my pleasure,” he said, trying to gather his confidence. “I heard you had a job, and I have a little time in my schedule.”

A large, unpleasant smile appeared on the man’s face. “I’m sure,” he responded. A painful moment of silence stretched out. The unnerving smile remained in place while the man’s dark eyes… shimmered?

“So… uh…” Johnny said, struggling to come up with words. “What’s next? What’s… where’s the job?”

“It’s right here,” the man answered. He looked amused by Johnny’s question.

“Huh?” Johnny blurted, looking around. They were surrounded by those high gray walls and the door, and nothing else. He couldn’t even tell where that damn light was coming from. “I don’t get it.”

“Oh, you will.”

Johnny felt a sharp pain in his neck and whirled around, whipping out his knife and slashing. He’d always had good instincts… it was part of what kept him alive while working for the best of the worst, and today was no exception. He slashed someone across the chest and watched as a second man in a red robe crumpled soundlessly, blood pooling out on the floor beneath his prone body.

“What the hell?” Johnny shouted, staring up at “Brother” Thaddeus, his dripping knife raised. Thaddeus stared down at his companion for a moment, and then back up at Johnny.

“Impressive…” he murmured, still with that infuriating grin.

Johnny’s neck began to pulse and he looked down again at the second man. A needle was clutched in his hand. Johnny grabbed his neck, felt how hot it was. His vision began to blur.

“What’d… what did you do to me?”

“Good night, Jonathan.”

Johnny took a step forward, tried to swipe at the man, at that damned grin, but he tripped on his own feet and went down, hard, next to the guy he’d stabbed. He tried to raise his free hand to stop his fall but failed, miserably, and hit the floor face first. He felt the blood flow from his nose, watched through heavy lids as it pooled out, mingling with the other man’s.

Johnny’s vision went dark.

And then absolutely black.

*   *   *

JOHNNY SWEAT woke with a gasp.

He was still face-down but the stone floor was gone, replaced by packed dirt. He took deep breaths, confused, and then broke into a coughing fit as dust filled his lungs. He dry-heaved for a moment, but there was nothing left in his stomach to expel. Finally, Johnny found enough strength to sit up.

He was in a strange-looking room… wait, it wasn’t even a room. It was oval-shaped and the walls went up about fifteen or twenty feet, topped with incredibly sharp razor wire. Light radiated down but once again, Johnny still couldn’t see the source. Staggering to his feet, he turned in uncertain circles, confused, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Then he heard it. A sound.

Voices. A lot of them. Up in the shadows. Above the…

Arena. He was in some kind of arena.

“Hello?” he said, then he shouted. “Hello!”

The voices went silent.

“Help me!” he screamed.

The voices returned, but they were no longer speaking. It was laughter now. Johnny felt his face flush with anger. When he got out of here, he would find those laughing bastards and show them exactly how he—

A new sound echoed out, and Johnny turned again, trying to figure out where it was coming from. He noticed for the first time that there was an outline along one of the walls… no, two outlines, on opposite sides of each other. He squinted and tried to figure out what they were.

He realized that the outlines were actually slabs of metal, and they were lifting up as he looked back and forth at them, revealing darkness on the other side. They screeched as they moved, making the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Doors. Some kind of makeshift doors.

Maybe a way out.

Johnny hesitated, and then hobbled toward one, shambling on one sneaker and one sock, pushing his aching body forward. The voices above him grew louder, but he did his best to shut them out. He’d make them all pay.

As he approached the opening, a sound made him stop. A low roar came from the darkness, rising in intensity… a sound so primal and rage-fueled that Johnny froze. The chattering voices above him grew even more excited.

Johnny backed up, and then turned for the other opening. If he could only make his way into the shadows, he was sure he could escape. And there were plenty of shadows in this second entrance. Shadows that seemed solid, seemed to be moving.

Johnny stopped again. The shadows were literally moving. How was that possible? He peered into them, trying to understand what he was seeing, when he realized that two huge red eyes were staring back.

He spun in place, looking first at the darkness from which the roar had emanated, and then at the living shadows, over and over again, trying to decide which horror scared him the least. Sweat ran down his face, down the back of his neck.

He didn’t have time to make up his mind.

Two shapes burst forth from the doors simultaneously, one a blur of fangs and claws, the other a slithering mass of blackness, and they reached him at almost exactly the same time.

“Daddy…”

That was all Johnny Sweat had time to whisper. On one side, claws dug into his shoulder, sending bolts of pain down his arm and into his chest, then pierced his leg, while on the other side something wrapped around him and pulled flesh out in great chunks. He didn’t even scream as he was ripped apart, and then discarded as the monsters crashed into each other.

Discarded as if he had never even existed at all.

CHAPTER ONE

MICHAEL MORBIUS was hungry.

The lights of New York City fought hard against the dark clouds that had stalled overhead, but the incessant rain made it a losing proposition. Morbius was perched atop a four-story building at the corner of Fulton and Gold Streets, watching the occasional person pass by. It was three thirty in the morning, so most of them were drunk or well on their way, or heading home after a long shift at a restaurant or a bar.

Even from such a height, he could smell their blood.

It was intoxicating.

He swallowed his urges down, closed his eyes against temptation. It had been almost two full weeks since he’d drank blood from a living victim, the longest he’d gone since the experiment that had changed his life, since the beginning of his curse.

Then again, could he call it a curse if it had been self-inflicted?

Morbius raised his eyes to the steel-gray sky. Let the water fall, let it sting. His mind turned back on itself, returning to the beginning, like it always did, even when he attempted to will it otherwise.

He used to have such hope. A brilliant young mind at odds with an imperfect body, but full of idealism regardless. For as long as he could remember, he had suffered from a rare blood disease, had been told by doctor after doctor that there was no cure, but he’d refused to give up. And then came the opportunities: the chance to attend a prestigious college, to find a best friend, and even to fall in love.

Martine.

Her face flashed in his mind and he writhed in a response of physical agony. He missed her so much, longed to see her again, to hold her in his arms—but it was impossible. Even if he knew where she was, how could she love a monster like him?

He’d been so certain that his experiment would work. Electrifying samples of bat’s blood, mutating it in a very precise way. It made sense, worked on paper, worked in the laboratory when he and Emil Nikos conducted their secret, controlled tests. But when they followed through with the experiment, out on the ocean, away from danger—or so they thought—everything changed.

Michael the human died that day.

Morbius the living vampire was born.

It hadn’t been all that long ago but it felt like ages. So much had happened. He had murdered Emil. Had battled other beings with incredible powers. Lost Martine to an organization with otherworldly ties. Had succumbed to an undeniable thirst time and again, draining the blood of innocents, hating himself every time he did. Faced a cult that sought to sacrifice a young woman named Amanda Saint.

Morbius laughed and opened his eyes. The rain increased, washing down his pale skin in rivulets. He didn’t laugh often, hadn’t even before the experiment, and there was no humor in the bark that came from his thin lips now.

In an ironic twist, he had targeted Amanda himself, back in San Francisco. Had stalked her through the streets. The memory was still vivid. Her blood smelled so good, so pure. But he hadn’t been the only hunter that night.

The Demon-Fire cult had set their sights on Amanda, too, and Morbius shocked himself by saving the young woman, and then protecting her from the cult over and over again. He hadn’t understood why he did it, still didn’t, when she represented a meal, with blood so enticing that it made him ache. Yet the two had formed a friendship, if a living vampire was capable of such a thing.

He felt for Amanda. Like him, she had lost so much. Her mother, who had abandoned their family to join the cult, and who was killed in front of Morbius. A death he still didn’t have the courage to reveal to Amanda. Her father, searching for his wife, lost somewhere in the vastness of America and unaware that the woman he sought was already dead. And Amanda’s sister, Catherine… another member of the cult, who died in battle with Morbius.

Amanda had no one. Morbius had no one.

So, they had each other.

Morbius shook the water from his long black hair. The rain was increasing, so the streets below had grown empty. He was alone.

Again.

*   *   *

AMANDA SAINT looked around, made sure no one was watching.

It was 6 a.m. and the hospital was relatively quiet. She’d only been working at St. Gabriel’s for a few weeks, but she’d already figured out the ebb and flow of the place, knew when this particular hallway, the Pathology section, would likely be empty. There was a camera near the ceiling in the far corner, but she knew from talking to Jerry, the overnight security guard, that half of the cameras in the place hadn’t worked in years. No one seemed to care. The hospital continuously struggled for funding, often losing patients to the larger and more modern Downtown Medical just a few blocks away. Only the most desperate of patients ended up at St. Gabe’s.

Amanda was pretty desperate, too.

As she slipped into the Blood Issue room, her mind cycled through the last month. It’d been a harrowing series of events, a blur of blood and betrayal. Bad enough when her mother ran off to join a cult, made worse when her father stupidly decided to save her.

So naïve, she thought. All he accomplished was to leave Amanda and Catherine alone to wonder and worry. She had no idea where the hell he was, or if he was even still alive.

Catherine had been her rock during that time, older and wiser, and she always seemed to know what to say. Always told Amanda that things were going to work out. That Catherine would take care of everything. It had made the abandonment a bit more bearable.

Amanda also had Justin. It’d been a random encounter—or so she had thought—shortly before her mother took off. Back when life was still normal.

They got to talking at a coffee shop, and minutes stretched into hours, their untouched drinks getting cold on a small table. Even when they left, they’d walked around the city, sharing stories about their lives and their dreams and their passions. Amanda had never been in love before, had never even been close, but this certainly seemed to have all the hallmarks of falling, hard and fast.

If she could have frozen time, Amanda would have done it then. Her parents, still at home and seemingly in love, if sometimes distant. An older sister who watched her back, and a thoughtful man who focused on her, who didn’t rush her to do anything before she was ready. Everything was perfect.

Only, it wasn’t.

Catherine and Justin had betrayed her, one after the other. They were both part of the same cult that had ensnared Amanda’s mother. Hell, her own sister had been ready to sacrifice her to a demonic creature. Arachne.

Amanda shook her head to clear the memory of that giant spider as she closed the door behind her. It was too much to even think about sometimes. It didn’t seem real. If it hadn’t been for Morbius…

She smiled ruefully at the thought of Michael.

She had befriended a vampire. A living vampire, he was always quick to point out. Had almost been his victim, but when she’d been attacked by the cult, something had changed. And now they were…

Friends?

She didn’t know what they were, but she cared about him. Which was evidenced by the fact that she was currently skulking around in a shadowy storage room in a run-down hospital, ready to steal a few more packets of cold, preserved blood.

She reached the refrigerator that held the containers and squatted down, looking at the sleeves of red liquid through the glass door. Michael told her repeatedly that he didn’t care what kind of blood she brought home, but she knew he secretly preferred AB-negative.

Opening the glass door, she extracted a couple of packets, making sure there was enough left behind that no one would notice the theft. St. Gabriel’s records programs were as bad as their security. She felt guilty about it—did every time she stole blood from the hospital—but she knew she was actually saving lives by doing so. Michael had managed to keep from murdering anyone for a couple of weeks now, and the blood Amanda stole had been the reason why.

She couldn’t imagine the thirst that drove him.

Quickly placing one packet into each of the two pockets of her scrubs, she moved toward the door, then froze. There were voices in the hallway. She struggled to keep her breath even, to control her heart, which had already increased its beating. She didn’t know what the authorities did to people who stole blood, but she didn’t want to find out.

A pair of doctors walked past the door, visible through the little window, but didn’t even glance in. Then they disappeared from view.

Amanda let out the breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. Laughed at herself. Everyone was so wrapped up in their own worlds. They had no idea that one of the new custodians was trying to keep a vampire… a living vampire… from killing again.

*   *   *

LIZ GREEN sipped at her coffee as the vampire slipped in through the window.

She had to stop herself from physically recoiling as he glanced from side to side. His huge bloodshot eyes landed on her, and went wide. He was ugly, there was no way around it, with his alabaster skin and long stringy black hair and sharp teeth. Yet she also had to admit to herself that there was something undeniably compelling about him, a magnetism that was hard to dismiss.

Still, Liz was terrified every time she was in his presence.

Slowly placing the coffee mug on the table, she felt sweat break out along the back of her neck, and forced a smile.

“Morning,” she said.

He grunted a response, then strode past her and into her cramped extra room where he and Amanda had been sleeping. There were two mattresses on the floor, but Liz didn’t ask any questions. It was none of her business what happened in there, even if Amanda had said repeatedly that she and her new bloodsucking companion were just friends.

When the door shut behind Morbius, Liz let out a small laugh at her own fear and took another sip of coffee. Sure, she lived in a city full of super heroes and monsters and mutants, but it was still pretty damn surreal to be sleeping one room over from a modern-day Dracula.

She stared out the window of her two-bedroom apartment and took another sip. As her mind drifted, she absentmindedly played with a strand of her long, dark hair, most of which was pulled back into a tight ponytail. Liz and Amanda had been close when they were young, almost inseparable, really. They’d been two socially awkward teens in a small school, and had clung to each other the way outcasts at that age often do. During those years, they forged a quintessential bond—at least it felt that way—and vowed to always stay in touch. To always remain best friends.

But then graduation had happened, and the unraveling of that bond. Amanda and her family moved across the country. The two of them would sometimes see each other at holidays, and laugh that their lives had gotten so crazy, promised that they would be better, but then the time between communication would grow longer and longer, until it was like they had never known each other at all.

Liz had regretted the death of their friendship, found herself thinking about Amanda much of the time, but her life was such that she hadn’t been able to dwell on it. She’d become busy bartending most nights and auditioning for off-off-off-Broadway plays and bad student films during the day.

She’d come close to being “discovered” once, had been approached one night after a play she’d directed and starred in. A guy in a nice suit carrying a business card emblazoned with an agency name she recognized, the kind of company that represented major stars. He’d told her to call him, which she did three days later… didn’t want to seem too desperate.

But she never heard back. Maybe she had waited too long. She eventually convinced herself that she had definitely waited too long. Liz called a couple more times, but it didn’t matter. He’d clearly forgotten about her, or had never been all that serious about connecting with her in the first place. Since then, the jobs had been sporadic at best, and she wondered what the hell she was even doing with her life.

Then there was her dad.

He’d helped her out so much over the years, lending her money when she needed it, but now he was sick. Really sick, and the medicine he needed was expensive. He was a proud man, too proud, but she knew he was in trouble. He’d lost so much weight in recent weeks, and his skin was so thin, like paper. She told him he should move in with her, that she was between roommates and had extra space, could help take care of him, but he refused and scoffed at her concern. He was fine, he insisted. Just going through a bad spell. The medicine would work, and then he could get back to hunting for a job.

Tears appeared in her eyes. Liz wiped them away and laughed at herself. She had an audition in a few hours, and didn’t want to look puffy or depressed. It didn’t take much for a casting director to move on to the actor behind you.

As Liz headed to the sink, the apartment door opened and Amanda trudged in, wearing her hospital scrubs. Liz smiled. Even though things were weird—to say the least—with Amanda and Morbius staying there, it was still a thrill every day for Liz to see her best friend.

Or whatever they were now.

“Hey,” she said and a smile crossed Amanda’s face, too, even though she looked exhausted.

“Hey there,” Amanda replied, walking over to the table and slumping down into the seat Liz had just been occupying. “Is that coffee? It smells—”

Before Amanda could finish her sentence, Liz placed a steaming cup in front of her friend. Amanda’s entire body appeared to relax as she leaned over the aromatic steam.

“Oh my god,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Liz replied, mussing her estranged friend’s hair, something she used to do back in high school. Amanda smiled and then took a long sip of the coffee, her eyes shut in apparent ecstasy. Liz sat down across from her and just watched her for a minute. She’d missed this.

“Is he…?” Amanda said, her eyes still closed, nodding toward the small room with the closed door.

“Yeah,” Liz answered. “Came in a few minutes before you.”

“Hm.” Amanda opened her eyes and put the coffee down on the table. “I wonder if he…”

The two women stared at each other for a long moment.

“Attacked someone, murdered them, and drank their blood?” Liz finished for her in a monotone voice. Silence hung heavy for a minute and then the two women burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny!” Amanda blurted.

“I know it isn’t,” Liz answered, and the two continued to laugh until it finally died down. Amanda chugged the rest of her coffee. It was still hot, and she waved her hand around her throat, as if that would help.

“Whoah,” Liz said, her eyes wide.

“Ha, yeah, guess I needed the caffeine. It was a long night. Hell, it’s been a long month.”