He shook his head. “I’m out of ammo.” He said and edged open the gates that separated the elevator from the loft apartment and crept inside, with one hand back to keep Tank from bolting through the gates. He heard the roll of pulleys and the clank of metal as she pulled the gates closed behind him. His nerves were on edge. An icy chill crawled up his back and he heard a disembodied voice as though it was coming from everywhere at once.
“Who’s this, Maggie? You replace me already?”
He heard Maggie let out a sharp inhale of surprise. He glanced back at her and saw the subtle recognition in her eyes. If the voice hadn’t been specific enough already, there was no doubt she knew who the owner of the voice was.
He returned to scanning the room. The dim light given off by the one small light bulb in the elevator left him at a major disadvantage. Not only did it keep his eyes from adjusting to the darkness, but it illuminated his crouching figure to whoever was lost in the shadows of the apartment. He edged back into the darkness slowly, silently. His back bumped into a wall after he had moved a few feet from the elevator and he could see the layout of the room as the light from the elevator painted a ridge of light along the edges of the furniture throughout the place. He couldn’t see any movement, but some areas were still too dark to see and though flipping the light on would give him an advantage, assuming the intruder’s eyes were adjusted to the darkness, he worried that the light shining through the window would attract more of the things outside like moths to a flame.
He had backed up enough that he was now in the corner of the room. He could feel the fire door that Maggie had told him about at his back, still closed. From his vantage point, he could see the opening to the elevator on the wall to his right. The wall on his left extended all the way to the near side of the room, where three large windows let in a trickle of orange, street light. His eyes adjusted to the light level and everything became visible accept for the two opposite corners of the room. He rose into a half-crouch, eyeing the corner of the room that seemed more likely the intruder was hiding in and advanced slowly.
“I told you I’d be back.” A smiling face stepped from the darkness. His eyes held a preternatural glow, like light reflected off of polished steel. But there was something else, a separation from the humanity that thrived in the eyes of average people. It was a look that he had become all too aware of the past few days.
“Do I know you?”
“No. But she does.” He motioned with a nod towards the elevator. “What’s wrong? I got a feeling you don’t wanna be friends?” He said with a chuckle in his voice and then he moved, fast. So fast, Charlie barely saw it coming. One second he was across the room, the next he had sprinted towards Charlie’s position and vaulted forward with claws and teeth poised to rip and tear.
It was all Charlie could do to parry the attack. Claws dug into his shoulder, but the brunt of the attack had been dodged. Fast! So fast! How was that possible? Was all he had time to think before the man was attacking again. This time, Charlie had no chance of avoiding him. The man tackled him and he felt a chair smash into his back and then scoot out of the way as they crashed to the ground. Tank was barking furiously from the elevator and he could hear Maggie yelling something. Claws ripped into his back but when the man’s head reared back and his mouth opened as though he were about bite, Charlie was able to reach a hand up to grab the man’s head under the chin and force it back. The claws in his back hurt, but at least he knew where the man’s hands were. He was able to snake his other hand up and pressed both his thumbs into the man’s eyes as hard as he could. The man screamed and his leverage faded. Charlie pushed him over and climbed on top. He rained down crushing blow after crushing blow on the man’s face, but he dared not let up. The man seemed to be taking every shot in stride. He felt his knuckles split, but he kept swinging.
Charlie felt a blow to his midsection and flew through the air, landing a few feet away. He saw a large figure rise in front of him and lunge, but just as he would’ve made contact, another larger figure plowed into the man’s side, knocking an audible burst of air from his lungs. Charlie realized quickly that Maggie must’ve let the dog out of the elevator and was grateful. He scrambled to find a weapon of any kind. His scan caught sight of a baseball bat in an umbrella holder near the elevator. A few quick steps to the umbrella holder and he had the bat in his hand. The man threw the dog from him and leapt into the air. He closed the distance between him and Charlie in one gigantic leap, but this time, Charlie was ready. One big Hank Aaron swing and the sickening, meaty thud of wood meeting flesh was only slightly drowned out by the snapping of bones.
The man screamed in a combination of anger and pain. He rolled and jumped to his feet just in time to receive another swing to the head from Charlie’s bat. Charlie felt the man’s skull give way and swung again into his face and heard more bones snap. The man wasn’t moving anymore. Maggie was breathing heavily in the elevator. He thought he heard her sobbing quietly.
“Is he?..”
“I think so, but I’m not going to take any chances.”
Tank sat on his haunches next to the man with his head lowered menacingly. Charlie grabbed one of the man’s legs and began to drag his lifeless body towards the window. One quick glance revealed a number of the things wandering the street below. He was suddenly glad that he had decided to leave the light off. One of these things was hard enough to kill. He doubted they’d survive if a bunch of them came in an all-out assault.
He slid the window open as quietly as he could. The figures roaming below them paid him no mind. The screen was a little more difficult to keep quiet, but he managed. He hoisted the man’s body out through the window and he fell down to the street below with a wet flop. A bunch of the things ran to investigate the body. A couple of them looked up to the darkened window but Charlie had retreated to the side so he could barely watch and still remain unseen. One by one, the things pounced on the body and began to tear into it with their teeth and hands. It was a gory thing to watch and even Charlie shuddered at the thought of what was happening. He closed the window as quietly as he could and locked it. None of the creatures seemed to notice and he was thankful for that.
He returned to the elevator where Maggie was huddled in the corner, her eyes wet from crying. “Come on out, Maggie. It’s okay.” He opened the elevator and offered his hand. She looked at it as though it were some foreign object she had never seen before. “C’Mon, it’s alright.” He tried to sound soothing. She took his hand timidly and rose to her feet. “Can we lock this elevator out? You know, so no one can use it?” She nodded and handed him her keys. He found the keyhole on the elevator panel and turned it to the off position when he found the right key. His next stop was at the fire door. He made sure it was locked from the inside and then moved to the window to examine the fire escape. He decided that the things shouldn’t be able to reach the fire escape steps and that they were hopefully safe for the moment. He returned to Maggie’s side. She was huddled on the couch with a blanket pulled tightly around her petite frame. Tank was lying on the couch with his huge head in her lap.
“Thank you. For letting Tank out when you did. I’m not sure if I could’ve handled him myself.” He told her.
She simply nodded. He knelt in front of her lost gaze. “That was the ex-boyfriend?” He asked.
She nodded again. “Terrance.” She let out a sigh that sounded as though it had been trapped in her throat for some time. She began to loosen up. Her eyes flicked up to meet his. “I hated him. Why does it hurt to see that happen to him when I hated him so much? I mean, last time he was here, he would’ve killed me if it hadn’t been for Tank.”
“It hurts because you’re human. There’s no shame in that. No one wishes that on someone. Not unless they’ve lost some part of themselves. I was Black Ops for six years before I became a cop. In that job, you kill or you’re dead. You can’t think of the enemy as people. They’re simply something with a gun that wants you dead. When you thin
k of them as people, you hesitate. When you hesitate, you’re dead.”
“How do you cope? How do you keep telling yourself they’re not human?”
“Therapy and liquor. Best remedies around.”
She smiled a little at that. He was glad to lighten the moment as much as he could. “We better get some sleep. I’m not sure how long these things will stay around, but with some daylight, maybe we’ll be able to try and find out what’s going on. I’ll stay up and watch them for a while. You get some sleep.” He tapped her reassuringly on the knee as she nodded agreement. He got up and went to the window.
Looking out, he could see the things still working on Terrance’s body. A few of them appeared to be leaving the area. He couldn’t help but wonder why the ones outside seemed so animalistic, but Terrance could talk and seemed perfectly human, aside from his strength and speed. What are they? Are they even human? He wondered. He hoped the morning would give them some answers.
He looked towards Maggie. She stared into the nothingness of the apartment. She was still hugging Tank whose eyes twitched as he looked around the room. “Sure was a blessing finding you, big guy.” He said to the dog.
The three of them sat and listened to the unfamiliar wails and roars of the things outside. Cold fear ran rivers up and down their spines. And not even Tank, the most relaxed of the three, would sleep a wink that night.
Chapter 10
Julia woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs and a headache that threatened to rip her skull in two. She groaned and rolled over, pulling the fluffy down comforter up to her chin. The movement sent a bout of pain through her frontal lobe like hundreds of needles jabbing simultaneously at her temples. She rubbed them with her fingers and the pain subsided slightly.
The room was dark, too dark. She opened her eyes and stared into darkness so absolute that for an instant she worried she had lost her vision.
“I thought you might be hungry.” Avery spoke quietly, but in the stillness of the room, it sounded like a rifle shot.
Julia winced and rubbed again at her temples. “Where are we?”
“We are in Sanctuary. You are safe here.”
“Safe?” She chided. “Oh yeah, you’ve got a knack for making a girl feel safe. Dragging her off, locking her in your car, drugging her and taking her to God knows where. Safe.”
“I told you. We are in Sanctuary. Our home.”
“Okay. So we’re in a sanctuary. Lovely.”
“Not a sanctuary. Sanctuary. We are the Seraphim. We are an order of vampires dedicated to the eradication of the virus that dwells inside us.”
“Seraphim, really?” Julia chuckled. “So, you named yourselves after the highest order of angels? Isn’t that a bit presumptuous?”
“Not at all, child. We are making strides to protect and preserve the human race.”
“Yeah, so you can eat us.”
“Nonsense!” She could hear anger in Avery’s voice. “The Seraphim haven’t fed on human blood in over a hundred years.”
“Okay, but you used to.”
“Well.” He paused, the anger seemingly quelled. “Everyone starts somewhere, child. We’re not perfect.”
“Why do you keep calling me that? You can’t be much older than I am.”
“To the contrary, Julia, I am quite a bit older than you. I was born in the South of France in 1755.”
She scoffed. “Yeah, right. 1755. And how did you come to be here, all the way from France?” She asked.
“It’s a long story. But it starts one terrible autumn, when a beast ravaged the forest near my home. It killed and mutilated hundreds of women and children over a two-year period.”
“Were you the beast?” She asked again.
Avery emitted a mirthless laugh. “Shield your eyes. I’m going to turn on a light.”
Julia snapped her hands up quickly, about to protest when she heard a click and the room was illuminated by a small pool of light from the lamp on the bed side table next to her. Hovering next to the bed was a very ominous looking Avery with a devilish grin on his face. In the hard shadows cast from the lamp, the contrast between his dead black eyes and his pale skin was even more stark.
“Tell me, Julia. Do I honestly look like someone capable of butchering hundreds of women and children?” He asked.
Her head still throbbed and the light only made it worse. But she squinted at him through one eye and laughed. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?” For an instant, the look in his eyes went from friendly to positively murderous and for the first time Julia feared she had pressed too much. The icy cold grip of fear ran down her spine and her breath caught in her throat.
But he simply turned and stepped away from her. He clasped his hands behind his back and stood at the edge of shadow. His head bowed, his voice low, he spoke slowly as though the story were as painful today as it was then. “I was nine years old in 1764. That fall, the attacks started. Women and children, mutilated, killed, and partially eaten began to turn up all over the countryside. The people were scared. The carnage went on for months before Lord Graymare petitioned King Louis XV for aid. It was nearly six months before the King responded. After many attempts at destroying the creature, the King sent the royal gun bearer, Francois Antoine, to dispose of the problem. Antoine successfully tracked and killed a giant wolf. It was a fearsome looking thing, I’ll give him that. All black, bright yellow eyes, and easily twice the size of any dog I had ever seen. Antoine had it stuffed and mounted, declared it the Beast of Gevaudan and paraded it through the local villages. Everyone rejoiced. The King, being the great politician that he was, claimed victory over the Beast and washed his hands of it.”
“And did the attacks stop?” Julia asked.
“Yes.” He paused. “For a short time. I was nearly ten years old when we heard rumblings of the Beast’s return. More victims were being found. With no hope of the King sending aid, the people began killing wolves again, but none of the dead wolves stopped the attacks.”
“Then one day, I had killed three rabbits with my bow. My mother was so excited, she kept one for stew and sent me to market to trade the other two for bread and turnips. I was walking through the market when I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder.” He turned to face Julia. “It was Lord Graymare’s manservant, LaFleur.” He said with a sneer. “LaFleur stared down at me with his cold gaze and told me Lord Graymare requested my presence. He had a message he wished me to take to my mother. To a ten-year-old boy, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable summons.”
“I walked to Graymare Manor with LaFleur urging me faster all the way. He took me deep into the heart of the mansion, to a room shrouded mainly in darkness, save for a few torches hanging on the walls. ‘Will this one do, Master Graymare?’ LaFleur asked. I remember because he addressed Graymare as Master, not Lord like the rest of the peasants did, myself included. Graymare was sitting in a big chair, almost throne-like, at the other end of the room. He got up and walked slowly over to me, knelt down and looked me in the face. I swear I could see hellfire behind those eyes. He took a deep breath. I now know he was smelling me. He wanted to be sure we had the same blood type. He wanted to make me a true vampire, not some blood crazed hell dog. He never answered LaFleur. He just lunged at me, biting and clawing at my neck. I felt my throat tear open and the blood leap from me like he had willed it to. My hands were the first thing to go numb, then my legs. Then blackness, nothing.” Avery held his hands up and looked at them as though they were still numb. “And that was the last day I saw the sun.”
Julia was so enrapt in the story, she never noticed her headache was almost gone. “Then what happened? Did they ever catch the Beast?”
“Not exactly.” He resumed after a short pause. “When I woke up as, well,” he looked down at his body in disgust, “this, I was scared, furious, but most of all, I was hungry. Graymare used my hunger against me. He told me my mother could no longer support me. He told me that she didn’t love me and she had planned to kill me but decided to off
er me as a servant to himself instead. I was devastated, angry. Only Graymare offered support. He gave me a place to live. He taught me things, affairs of state, reading, writing, arithmetic. Until Graymare took me in, I had never even seen a book. I learned and grew fast. The virus saw to that. In my first year with Graymare, I grew nearly a foot and a half.”
“Every morning and every night, there was a chalice filled with sweet nectar waiting on my nightstand. The blood nourished me in ways I can’t describe. It was two years before I had the courage to confront my mother. By that time, I was a twelve-year-old walking around in a sixteen-year-olds body. She didn’t recognize me. She screamed at me. Threw me out in the street and called for the authorities. I ran, of course. Heart-broken. Afraid, alone. I knew what Graymare had done. She had loved me. She had never plotted to kill me. He had abducted me and manipulated the simple mind of a child. I ran into the forest and climbed a tree to hide, to cry, to consider my options.”
“It was then that I heard the scream of a young girl. She emerged from a thicket and ran directly underneath the tree I was hiding in. It wasn’t long before three big dogs burst through that same thicket, chasing her. I leapt on top of them and killed two. My body was so strong already that I was able to lift them by their scruffs and smash their heads together like I was cracking a couple of eggs. I caught up to the third one just before it was able to run the girl down. She never looked back. That little girl made it all the way home and lived a long, prosperous life. La Fleur, on the other hand, didn’t.”
“La Fleur?” Julia piped in. “What does he have to do with it?”
“I found him, looking over the corpses of the two dogs I had killed. That’s when I realized the dogs were from Graymare’s kennel. Great big Mastiffs with thick leather collars. La Fleur told me everything. He had been killing for Graymare for some time. He would let the dogs do the killing so it looked like an animal attack, then hang the body from a tree and drain as much blood from it as he could. The very same blood I had been drinking those two years. I hung La Fleur with his own rope.”
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