– What’s that mean?

– Means everyone knows Terry is talking to faces from over the bridge. Those bridge-and-tunnel types start coming into the Society, Bird’s gonna have to find turf for them somewhere.

– Where you hear that?

He grins.

– Seriously, man, you think Bird could move his action that close to Pike Street, and me and the boys wouldn’t know what’s what?

– Even if it’s so, I only look after Society business.

He takes a drag.

– Joe, we go back?

It’s a stupid question.

We go back to the night I peeled him off the sidewalk after the Chinatown Wall had shredded his gang and left him broken. Some asshole cut his vein and bled him and then bled into him. Thought it’d be cute to leave him breathing. See if the Vyrus would take root and keep him alive. Alive or the next best thing, anyway. Lameass probably figured if Christian died it’d be no harm, no foul. If he lived he’d freak out, be torn up over what happened to his boys and do himself. Go out colorful. Didn’t figure I’d make the scene, do the right thing and clean up the mess before any cops or civilians got involved and found Christian still kicking.

I could have bled him out. Could have tumbled him into the East River, just another floater for the patrol boats to fish out. But there was a time someone could have made the same call on me, so I figured I was due to pay that one off. Figured I’d get him on his feet, give him the score on the Vyrus and let him make his own call.

Well I gave him the score. Filled him in on how the Vyrus was cultivating him. How it’d keep him sharp and strong and fast and pretty goddamn youthful for that matter, as long as he kept it fed.

He asked the obvious questions.

I gave the only answers.

Blood. Human. As much as possible.

Then I gave him some. And he liked it. Hell, we all like it. Just some can’t stand the thought that we like it. And what we have to do to get it.