After waking, and the "incident" with Granger, they'd been taken to a classroom within the infirmary facility where an Army scientist conducted an orientation as they sipped blood out of bottles through straws. Alain had to balance two strong and conflicting urges as the scientist spoke. The first was the urge to keep his cool and not flip his lid in front of Reese, Sampson, and Vinnie. The other was the urge to start screaming and not stop. But he sat there, sipped at his bottle, and tried to pretend everything was normal as he reflected on the calming effect of peer pressure.

Maybe it was the shock of seeing Granger "decomissioned," maybe it was the news that they were now undead fiends, but the anger behind the eyeballs was gone. Reese was trying to maintain it, but it was like watching a sleepy kid nodding off in class. If he didn't know anyone was looking at him, the anger would gradually fade as Reese's expression turned to worry, then return with a twitch as Reese seemed to remember he was trying to look tough.

Alain was physically the biggest in the group now that Granger was gone. An inch shorter than Reese's six-foot-two, he outmassed Reese's wiry frame by at least 20 pounds or more, with a physique resembling a young Jack Dempsey. He came by it honestly from hard work at the docks and then practicing Savate with his dad. Savate was a form of French kickboxing and sparring with Alain was his father's way of staying fit and limber. Alain had liked it because, well, how many teenage boys got to kick their father in the head? And get complimented for it?

After a 30-minute lecture on their new status and new powers, the scientist opened the floor up to questions. All four hands shot up. "Beaudreaux," the scientist said, pointing his pencil at Alain.

"Who was that child they cut out of me?"

The scientist's eyebrows rose. "You saw that?"

Alain nodded. "I'd like to interview you later, Beaudreaux," the scientist said, nodding at an associate at the back of the room to ensure a note was made of it. "Best we can tell is that the child was your innocence. It's a part of your soul and it's kept in Hell to anchor your soul there."

Now Alain's eyebrows rose. "So that was real and I was in Hell?"

"Your soul was. Next question... Rinaldi."

"How often do we have to drink blood," Vinnie asked.

"Every three to four days."

"What happens if we don't?"

"We'll have a practical demonstration of that soon."

---

Over the next few days, they learned more about their relationship with blood. Human blood was not only best, but vital. Drinking animal blood or eating meat could stave off the need for it for two or three days at most. Pork was best. The Army scientists suspected it was because pigs were omnivores. There was something about their blood that made it more like human blood than the blood of a carnivore or herbivore. After omnivore blood, herbivore blood was best. And you could find pigs and cows all over the world.

Still, animal blood was, to the best of the Army's knowledge, merely a stopgap measure.

Alain wondered how the Army had any knowledge. Were there other Army vampires before his group? If so, what happened to them? Who was that vampire that turned them and what happened to him? When he asked, he'd get the same response. They'd pass that up through channels and get him an answer as soon as they could.

For the practical demonstration of how long they could go without blood, the four vampires were placed in a locked ward, reinforced to keep them from escaping. The first couple of nights, they felt fine. It was boring. They played cards, listened to the radio, read books and magazines, and got on each other's nerves. On the third night they were mildly nauseated and lethargic. The fourth night, the ache started.

It began in the upper arms and the chest, the kind of muscle ache you might have with a mild flu. It got into your joints too. Their shoulders and elbows hurt, the ache gradually moving into their hands. But it hurt as much to lay still as it did to move. The ache was there, regardless.

Added to that was the craving. It wasn't a mere hunger like an empty stomach triggers. It was in their heads, their chests, their arms, their legs. It was like every part of their bodies had been hollowed out and they could feel the emptiness yearning to be filled. From elbow to wrist and shoulder to elbow, the aching joints felt as if they capped the emptiness on both ends like water-tight doors on a submarine.

Alain got the idea to submerge himself in a bath. They had previously inspected the ward they were in, mainly out of boredom, and found there was a therapy room with a large, round, sunken pool, heated by a pump so it could stay hot for hours. He snuck away and turned it on at its top setting, then stretched, moved, and rubbed his joints, trying to ward away the pain while he waited for it to heat. When the temperature gauge redlined at 105 degrees fahrenheit (on its way to a maximum of 115), he stepped in and sat down on the ridge that ringed the pool, slouching down in his seat to submerge himself to his chin.

Alain's sighs brought the others running. There was room for them all in the tub and they all stripped off, nearly jumping in. "It pains me to say this," Reese sighed among a chorus of sighs, "but you're a goddamn genius, Beaudreaux."

"And it pains me to thank you, Reese," Alain said.

"Hey," Vinnie piped up. "One of you touched me with your toe. Don't none of you faggots get any ideas. Next toe that touches me, I'm gonna break off and eat." Almost as one, Alain, Reese, and Sampson stretched out their legs and touched Vinnie with their toes.

Later in the evening, Vinnie briefly had the idea of breaking up the furniture and burning it under the heating unit to get the water even hotter. He dropped it when Alain reminded him they had no matches, all the furniture was metal so they couldn't stake each other, and even if Vinnie could do it, that meant he'd have to get out of the tub.

The fifth night the ache had spread. It was in their knees and backs, in the heels and balls of their feet. When their clothes rubbed their skin, it set off a cascade of pins and needles. It was like having your whole body fall asleep. And their stomachs ached like they were having their innocence ripped out all over again.

The vampires alternated between soaking in the tub and moaning, clawing at the door and demonstrating their creativity at cursing, and getting in shoving matches with each other when one complained about the other's moaning or cursing. After sunrise, the pain dissipated and they slept again.

On the sixth night, they felt better when they rose. Strong, pain free, it was like the last couple of days never happened. Then Vinnie had to say something and ruin it. "Those guys were full of shit," he said, doing some toe touches, his back to the wall. On the next toe touch, he froze and toppled forward in an almost slapstick somersault, ending up laid out flat on his back, twitching and blinking, a pained squeak escaping his mouth.

Sampson pointed and laughed just before following his finger forward to lay on his stomach, his laughing grin now a rictus with drool running out, twitching, blinking and squeaking just like Vinnie.

Reese and Alain both rushed for their beds. Reese pitched forward, his chin hitting the bedframe with a clunk before he fell down on his back next to the foot of the bed. Alain leapt for his bed, twisting in the air, hoping to land on his back and at least freeze like that. He froze just before he landed, too consumed with a fiery pain to care that he'd overestimated, bounced off the bed, hit the floor and rolled under the next bed in the row.

The ache was but a pleasant memory in comparison to the cramps they were suffering. They couldn't curl up, couldn't moan, couldn't muster the control to drag themselves to the tubs. They just lay where they fell, barely able to move, twitching and squeaking. If the catatonia broke, it was merely so a wave of convulsive cramps could wash over them. If they got a break between the catatonic cramps and the convulsive cramps, every muscle would feel so fatigued they were sure they couldn't move it. Each one of them thought they were going to die and they were all hoping that death would get there fast.

A half hour later, blood came through a slot in the bottom of the door in four tin cups on a tray. The tin cups had been warmed enough that the scent of blood bloomed up from them and filled the infirmary room. The smell alone relieved the cramps and fatigue enough to let them roll onto their stomachs and crawl toward it. Each took a cup and curled around it, taking their first sip of warm blood.

Everyone's reached the point where they had to pee so bad, they thought they would wet their pants if they didn't reach a bathroom in five minutes. Fifteen minutes later, with a few escaped drops wetting their underwear, they finally got to a toilet, and the feeling of relief was one of the best things they had ever felt in the history of feeling things.

Add to that a hot shower, your first cup of coffee in the morning following a rough night, and the first gasp of breath right after an uncontrollable belly laugh. That was how the blood felt. They didn't have to wait for it to course down into their stomachs and then be distributed out through their veins. The first touch on their tongues was all they needed for their muscles to relax, their joints to unstiffen, their empty voids to begin filling. And as they drank, it just got better.

They weren't so much blood suckers as blood junkies, and that bothered Alain... a lot.