“What kind of conditions?” the gray-bearded man asked with a nervous glance over at me.
“I think it’ll just be easier if we tell everybody at once,” I said.
“Oh, sure thing,” James said with a quick nod.
I also didn’t want to surprise him and make him accidentally run off the road on one of these sharp turns. James handled the Jeep really well, but I didn’t know if that would still be true if I told him that I needed to drink blood from him and some of the other people in town.
When we reached downtown Red House, the gravel parking lot in front of the general store was packed with cars, and they even spilled out in front of the post office, the church, and the other stores all scattered across the downtown. Most of the people had already left their cars and stood in a loose crowd in front of the general store, but when everyone saw James pull up in his Jeep, the rest of the townspeople emptied out of their cars and moved over to join the rest of the crowd.
Apparently, James really had some influence around here, because it looked like just about everybody in town had come to talk to us.
I had told the girls to bring their guns again just to be safe, so that way we would be protected from a surprise attack by the bloodsuckers downriver, or just in case the townspeople decided to turn on their friendly neighborhood vamp. I had my own weapons, too, of course, so when all seven of us hopped out of the Jeep with James, I knew that we looked every bit as intimidating and capable as I wanted us to.
As we made our way up toward the porch of the general store, James walked with us, and the crowd parted naturally around us to let us pass. I recognized Celia and her two kids, plus a couple of other familiar faces from yesterday, and I noticed that most of the people looked more curious than terrified.
I guessed that if they’d been really terrified, they wouldn’t have showed up at all, so I figured that it was a good sign that they were all here and curious to see the vampire who had just saved two of their town’s kids.
When we reached the porch, James and I went up the steps first and turned around to face the crowd together. Then Natalie instructed the girls to fan out like my own personal guard, so Catherine and Neko stood at the bottom of the stairs on either side, Brianna and Erika stood at the top of the steps on either side of James and me, and Natalie and Lily each took one of the corners of the porch, so they could scan the crowd for any signs of disturbance from there.
“I’ll keep this short and sweet,” I called, once everyone quieted down. “By now, I’m sure that you’ve all heard what happened here yesterday, and I’m sure you’re worried that it’ll just happen all over again.”
I waited until I saw enough nods in the crowd to keep going, and then I plunged ahead.
“Then you’ve also probably heard about me by now, too,” I said. “I’m Sam, I’m a vampire, and if you’ll let me, I’d like to stick around and get rid of your bloodsucker problem downriver.”
Everyone started to whisper and talk to each other all at once, so I just let them go on for a few minutes. It would be better for them to get out all their worries now, anyway, but after they had discussed me amongst themselves for a while, I glanced at James so he would quiet them down again.
“Listen up!” the gray-bearded man called through cupped hands, and at the authority in his voice, everyone quickly fell silent again.
I wondered if James might be the mayor of Red House, given the way that people listened to him.
“I vouch for Sam personally,” James announced. “He’s a friend of my niece, and I know she doesn’t give her good opinion to people lightly.”
“That’s true,” Catherine muttered from the bottom of the stairs.
“He single-handedly got all six of these girls out of New York City,” James continued, “and I’m sure you can imagine the hellscape that place is, since it’s bad enough out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“I don’t know if I’d say that it was single-handedly,” I whispered to Erika beside me, “but I appreciate his vote of confidence.”
“Now fate has brought Sam and these girls right here to our doorstep,” James said, “and not only did he save Celia’s kids from those monsters yesterday, but now he has offered to stay here long enough to help us get rid of them once and for all, so we can stay right here in our own homes.”
Celia started to clap in the front of the crowd, but she stopped herself with a nervous smile when no one else did.
“I won’t stay unless you all agree that you want me to,” I said to pick up where James left off. “I can control my hunger, but the only way this will work is if I know that you all trust me, so I can trust you, too.”
“How do you want us to prove that to you, Sam?” Celia asked and then blew a stray silver hair out of her face.
“I need to drink from a few of you,” I said. “That way, you can see that I can be trusted, so our trust can go both ways.”
“I’ll do it,” James said immediately.
“Are you sure?” Catherine asked her uncle.
“I already told you that I love this town,” the gray-bearded man said, “and if this is what it takes to protect it, then of course I’ll do it. Besides, you wouldn’t be with him if you didn’t trust him, and if you trust him, then so do I.”
“That’s a fair point,” Neko said.
“I’ll do it, too,” Celia said and then took a step forward from the crowd. “He saved my kids, after all.”
“Me, too,” a younger woman said beside Celia. “Celia’s my aunt, so if she’s gonna do it, then so am I.”
Two more men volunteered as well, so I figured that was enough to prove that they could trust me. No one else put up any arguments about why I shouldn’t stay, and in fact, most of them seemed more than eager to let me stick around and help. And once they saw me drink from their friends, I had a feeling that more of them would be willing to do the same thing later.
I had the volunteers line up on the stairs, so I thought that I might as well start with James.
“This will only hurt for a second,” I said. “It’ll just feel like a quick needle prick, and then I can make the bleeding stop as soon as I’m done.”
I gently grasped his hand and held his arm up to my mouth, and then as I heard the whole crowd give a collective inhale, I sank my teeth into the flesh of his wrist. I heard another gasp from the crowd, but when James didn’t instantly flop down to the floor of the porch, they grew a little calmer, and I was able to focus on the pulse of his artery.
After I swallowed a few small mouthfuls of his blood, I pulled his wrist away from my lips, licked his skin, and then smiled as James saw his skin heal over into two tiny white scars.
As soon as he realized that he had stopped bleeding, he stared at his wrist, looked up at me, and then glanced back down at his skin.
“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” I asked. “Just make sure you eat plenty of food and stay hydrated today, that’s all.”
“Sam, this is gonna sound kind of weird,” James said as he bowed his head to me. “But I just… whatever you need while you’re here, I’m your man, so you can count on me.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, “and I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Seriously,” James said and then finally looked back up. “If you need me to get you anything or drive you anywhere or do anything to help out you or the girls, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll be your right-hand man as long as you’re here, if you want me to be.”
I had wondered what effect it would have on James when I took his blood. The girls were all turned on when I drank from them, so I had been curious how it would make someone else feel. Apparently, at least for James, it made him want to help me in any way he could, and I felt like just now, he had been a breath away from pledging his undying loyalty to me like a knight from some old-ass movie.
After all, I had noticed that he had damn near knelt down in front of me as soon as I finished drinking from him, but he had caught himself at the last sec
ond and just bowed his head instead. I had a feeling that James and I were going to get along just fine.
I nodded at him and then turned to the other humans who had lined up for me.
“Celia, would you like to go next?” I asked.
As I drank from the wrists of Celia and the three other volunteers, the women both turned half a dozen different shades of red, and the other two men straightened their posture and looked ready to tackle any tasks that I threw at them.
I’d have to discuss my theory with the girls later, but so far, it looked like I had just as powerful of an effect on men as I did on women, only it was different. The girls all got turned on, but the men, at least so far, seemed to become almost instantly loyal to me.
I didn’t know if the same thing was true for other bloodsuckers, although what I had seen in the vampocalypse so far didn’t seem to support that theory. Maybe it was something about my blood specifically, or maybe it was just the fact that these people weren’t terrified for their lives when I drank from them. Either way, it would definitely be something that I wanted to think about a little more.
After I finished with all five volunteers, I turned back to face the crowd from the porch of the general store. No one seemed too alarmed or concerned, and in fact, they all looked eager to see whatever I would say or do next.
And my head was practically floating above me. I felt incredibly powerful, almost like I was a god, and I realized that the different types of blood were really having an effect on me.
And it was awesome.
“So, does anybody have a problem with Sam or the girls being here?” James demanded.
Only silence followed, so the gray-bearded man quickly followed up with another question.
“You know we’re a democracy here,” Catherine’s uncle said, “so we’ll put it to a vote. Who votes for Sam to leave town today?”
Still, there was only silence.
“And who votes for Sam to stay and help us against those fuckers downriver?” James demanded.
A hundred hands all shot up into the air, and this time, Celia didn’t stop herself from clapping with enthusiasm.
“Then it’s decided,” James said as he turned toward me and shook my hand.
“I appreciate the trust that you put in me,” I told James and then turned to face the crowd again, “and I’ll do my best to make sure that the bloodsuckers downriver won’t be a problem for you for too much longer.”
“What do you need from us to help you?” James asked.
“So the first thing that I want to do is spy on the vamps downriver,” I said. “We’ll also need to fortify Red House and get supplies, but before we do that, I want to look at the situation down in Black Betsy.”
“What exactly are you looking for?” Celia asked.
“I want to see how many vamps there really are,” I answered. “There might not be as many as we think, or there might be more. I also want to see if it looks like they’re planning to attack or invade again anytime soon, so we can adjust our plans according to that.”
“How many bloodsuckers do you think you can handle?” a man from the crowd called.
“Just as many as I need to,” I said with a smirk.
It wasn’t a real answer, but I also wasn’t about to commit to anything when I had no idea what we were up against. There was still a chance that there would be way too many vamps for us to ever handle, but I didn’t think that would be the most reassuring thing for me to say just now.
But I had to admit that, with all the new blood inside my stomach, I felt like I could take out a hundred vampires easily.
I looked out at the faces of all the men and women of Red House, I suddenly felt like I would figure out a plan to deal with the bloodsuckers from Black Betsy, no matter how many there were or how bad our odds were. Because between the hope on their faces and the children that they all clutched tightly to themselves, there was no way that I could just abandon them now.
I was a goddamn vamp now, so I’d be damned if my strength and speed couldn’t help people when I wanted to.
“So here’s what we’re gonna do,” I said. “Natalie, James, and I will go down to spy on Black Betsy, if you two are okay with that.”
“Absolutely,” Natalie said.
“Yeah, whatever you need,” James said with a nod. “I know the area, so I should be able to help us get down there via a back way.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” I agreed. “So while we go take a look and assess the situation, I want Catherine to take charge of things here. Look around town, try to figure out ways that we could fortify structures, that kind of thing.”
“You got it, Sam,” Catherine said.
“Oh, and this goes for everybody,” I said. “From now on, don’t go out into the open by yourselves. Have at least one but preferably two other people with you all the time, so you’re less of a target.”
The crowd all nodded and murmured their agreement, so I glanced at the girls.
“The same thing goes for all of you,” I said. “I want you to stick together while I’m gone, okay?”
“Don’t worry,” Brianna said, “I’m definitely not going anywhere unless I’m surrounded by these girls.”
“And their guns,” Erika added. “We’ll be careful, Sam.”
“Just look after yourself and Nat, but we’ll be fine until you get back,” Lily said.
“Of course, we will,” Neko said and then winked at me as if she single-handedly had everything under control.
Well, given the way that I had seen her fight, that might very well be true.
“Celia, can I count on you to show the girls around while I’m gone?” I asked the silver-haired woman. “And if they need to go anywhere, will you take them for me?”
“You bet,” the middle-aged woman replied. “You’re leaving them in good hands.”
“Then if Nat and James are ready, I think we should head on out,” I said. “We can take your Jeep to somewhere past the southern end of town, and then we can go on foot once we start to get a little closer, just so nobody can see us coming.”
“Works for me,” James said as he scratched at his salt-and-pepper beard. “Let’s see what we can find out.”
After I told the rest of the girls goodbye, I left them with Celia and headed back through the crowd with James and Natalie. A number of people that we passed stopped me long enough to shake my hand, and I wondered if this was what it felt like to be a celebrity.
I knew that my women counted on me for survival, but it was strange to think that there might be other people in the world who did, too. Before we got to Red House, I had been fully prepared for Catherine’s uncle to be dead.
I thought that we would find his body inside his cabin, it would be very sad and upsetting, but then we would get back on the road and continue to head out to Colorado, while Catherine mourned the loss of her uncle.
Instead, we had found her uncle still very much alive, along with a hundred other humans who all needed my help if they were going to live to see another sunrise. The apocalypse worked in weird fucking ways, but I couldn’t deny that I was actually a little excited to try to fortify the town and exterminate the bloodsuckers downriver.
It was like a small experiment of what I planned to do whenever we reached the wide open spaces of Colorado. We would set up our own home there. Hell, maybe we’d even set up our own town, and we would do whatever it took to keep it safe from anyone who threatened us.
Once we got back to the Jeep, I let James drive again, since he knew the area so well, but before we started down the winding road, he pulled a paper map out of his glove compartment and handed it to me.
“So Black Betsy is about five miles from here,” James said, “but I figure that we can probably make it down to around Plymouth before we need to abandon the Jeep and go on foot. What do you think?”
Natalie sat between me and James in the front seat, so she leaned over to study the map with me. It looked like just pas
t the town of Plymouth, there was a creek that we could follow down to an overlook of Black Betsy, but I was pretty sure that we’d have to go on foot before we reached Plymouth.
“I think it’s too close,” Natalie said.
“Same,” I agreed. “The vamps have super good hearing, remember? So we don’t want them to even hear the hum of an engine, or they might come and investigate.”
“Shit,” James said. “So maybe we could leave the Jeep at…”
“Is there really a town named Hometown?” Natalie grinned as she looked up from the map.
“Yeah, there is,” Catherine’s uncle laughed. “It’s about three miles from Black Betsy, so we could park there. It just might take us a little longer to walk through the woods from there.”
“Are there any side roads between Hometown and Plymouth?” I asked. “I don’t see any on the map, but are there any unmarked roads?”
“Some dirt and gravel little alleys, yeah,” James replied. “Actually, there is one that we can take a good ways up the mountain, so then we would mostly just have to go downhill through the woods until we get to the creek, and then we can follow that creek down to Black Betsy.”
“That sounds perfect,” I said. “Let’s go with that option, then.”
The road mostly stayed right along the river as we drove south, and even though I had braced myself for whatever we found in Hometown, the streets were goddamn deserted when we drove through it. There were a couple things that looked like they might have once been humans, but they had all been so torn apart that it was impossible to really tell.
“Do you know what happened here?” I asked.
“Not really,” James replied. “I know it’s just a couple miles down the road, but by the time we all came out of hiding, it was too late.”
“What do you mean?” Natalie asked.
“Well, we know just about everybody who lives in Hometown,” the gray-bearded man said, “and a lot of people got relatives down there and all, so when nobody answered their phones or their radios, I went down with a couple other guys to check it out, but, uh…”
Vampire Lord | Book 5 | Vampire Lord 5: Conquering A Bloodthirsty Earth Page 18
