The room was spinning in the most delightful way.
“He certainly overdid it,” Lorcan laughed.
“I wish I would have known this was a free for all,” Ciaran said. “I was on my best behavior.”
From somewhere in the building came the most frightened scream imaginable. After that came the warbled cries for help. The alarm registered, but I wasn’t in any kind of hurry to leave.
Ciaran was suddenly next to me. He was holding my arm and pulling me from the room while I giggled happily. The three of us moved through the hospital until we found a window that opened up to the outside.
Within moments we were on the roof.
I was lying on my back, looking up at the stars as all that blood coursed through my body. I was being warmed in places that knew only the cold.
I was euphoric, and in love with the stars.
Lorcan and Ciaran were discussing the panic unfolding below us. With our senses, it was almost like we were right there in the room with all the panicked nurses and security personnel.
“They’ll call the police soon,” Lorcan said.
“They already have,” Ciaran said.
“Derry stole some police lights not too long ago,” Lorcan said. “Maybe we should try that again.”
“Did you really?” Ciaran asked.
“I did,” I laughed.
“Well I could do that,” Ciaran said. “That’s easy enough.”
I was still giggly and uninterested in any sort of competition. I only wanted to close my eyes and feel the cool night air on my skin.
A shifting air current told me that Ciaran had vanished. I opened my eyes and looked to Lorcan. Lorcan was watching something over the edge of the roof, and I briefly wondered if I should be paying more attention to my brothers.
Ciaran came back with a friend. He dropped the male police officer right next to me, and I jumped to the far edge of the rooftop. Ciaran laughed at my over-reaction, but Lorcan was simply frozen in wonder.
The police officer stood up and reached for his weapon.
Ciaran snatched it out of his hand.
“Can I see that?” Lorcan asked.
Ciaran tossed him the pistol. The police officer was talking a mile a minute. He wasn’t trying to threaten us. He was simply trying to survive. He knew we weren’t teenagers. Most people realized that rather quickly if they spent too much time near us.
The pistol went off in Lorcan’s hand.
I saw a thin ribbon of red run down the front of Lorcan’s shirt and watched as my brother poked at the hole in his stomach.
Ciaran started laughing.
The police officer started crying, and Ciaran moved to finish him off.
Reluctantly, I stood in Ciaran’s way.
“What’s your problem?” Ciaran asked.
“It’s not good to kill a police officer,” I said. “They really go nuts if you do.”
“They won’t find the body,” Ciaran said. “They’ll only know that an officer vanished after arriving at the hospital.”
“It’s not a good idea,” I said.
“Says the guy that fed off five people already,” Ciaran said angrily.
“That was a mistake on my part,” I admitted. “I shouldn’t have been so greedy.”
Ciaran began pacing back and forth. He wasn’t saying anything, but I could definitely tell that he wanted to.
“We can’t just let him go,” Lorcan added.
The gun went off once more.
Ciaran took the weapon away from Lorcan and tossed it off the side of the roof. The police officer was talking, but his words were all jumbled together.
“He’s going to lose his mind,” Lorcan said.
I looked at the officer. He seemed too emotional to properly confuse, so I didn’t bother trying to look the man in the eye.
“We can’t feed on him,” I said.
Ciaran grabbed the officer by the collar and locked eyes with him. I watched the two of them have a battle of wills, and then the police officer became still.
“Go back to your friends,” Ciaran said. “Tell them that there is no hope in this world. Tell them not to look too hard.”
My brother then ripped the rooftop door open and allowed the police officer to leave our presence. Lorcan had the strangest look on his face as he watched the officer take his leave.
“He was too emotional,” I said.
“I’m used to dealing with emotional people,” Ciaran said.
“If you lock eyes with someone that emotional, you might just break them,” Lorcan said.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” I said. “Did anyone find Bret?”
Ciaran and Lorcan both looked at me.
“I forgot all about, Bret,” Ciaran said.“There was so much to see.”
“I didn’t,” Lorcan said, “but I still didn’t find him.”
“Well this was a colossal waste of time,” I grumbled.
“How are we supposed to play video games without Bret?” Lorcan asked.
“We can find another place to play,” I said.
“I’m going to find another skate park,” Ciaran said. “Does anyone want to come with me?”
“I will,” Lorcan said.
“I’m going to go out and wander a bit,” I said.
My brothers looked at me, and both realized that I was still too full of blood to really be of much use to anyone. In truth, I felt like a bloated mosquito, and I only wanted to sit somewhere while the fresh blood worked a special kind of magic.
We said our goodbyes, and I was off. I flew clumsily through the night, before landing on an empty home not far from the sea. I was lying on the roof, and looking up at the stars when I heard the loveliest singing coming from a house just a few streets over.
Without moving, I stretched out my senses. The young girl’s voice washed over me like a warm wave. She was incredibly talented, and she truly wasn’t even trying. A part of me wanted to visit with her, but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind with all of the blood in my system still making me goofy.
Instead, I allowed her to serenade me.
When the sun finally started to rise, I dug myself safely underneath the house and closed my eyes. The singing had long since stopped, but I was still replaying the notes in my head.
Selma
I’d lost count of how many days I’d been in captivity. They were feeding me less and less. My captors seemed more frustrated to have me among them with each passing day. Whatever my father was planning wasn’t working.
I was in trouble.
Help wasn’t coming.
I needed to do something, but I didn’t have the faintest idea of what that something was. I only knew that I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to be trapped here when they decided a bullet to my head would be easier than dealing with me.
Where was my father?
Why wasn’t he helping me?
The only thought that kept me relatively happy was that my brother wasn’t here with me. I was happy about that. Let the bad things happen to me, but keep my innocent little brother far away from all these horrors.
I knew I was going to die. It was unavoidable. I only hoped that I wouldn’t cry in front of my captors. I wanted to be brave. Self-control was just about all I had left.
Derry
A few days after the hospital incident, I found myself wandering near Bret’s home. I didn’t plan on causing trouble, but I’d certainly be open to the opportunity if anything presented itself.
Lorcan and Ciaran weren’t going to be happy that I came here without them. We tended to be just a bit overprotective with one another.
I was sitting on a nearby rooftop when a vehicle rumbled into position only a few doors away from Bret’s home. The two male occupants of the truck were both uneasy, and that drew me in closer.
The truck was a beat-up white vehicle that had seen better days maybe ten years ago. In the bed of the truck was a heavy tarp. I couldn’t tell what it was coverin
g, but something made me very wary.
“You think we’ll see something?” The passenger asked.
“No,” the driver answered. “I think the neighborhood is too hot. These things aren’t stupid. They’re fierce and dangerous, sometimes they’re even reckless, but they aren’t normally stupid.”
“Not the older ones at least,” the passenger added.
I moved to the top of a tree not ten feet away from the truck. I could smell the gun oil from inside the cab. I knew what I was dealing with. I hadn’t seen them for a while, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind. The only question I had was what to do with them.
I decided to wait.
I sat with the vampire hunters through most of the evening. I listened to their conversations, and I smelled their foul coffee breath. When they finally gave up, I followed them home.
They had a small house on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Obviously, vampire hunting wasn’t the most rewarding of occupations. The house seemed rough around the edges. I counted at least ten individuals arriving to check-in before sunrise. Pleasantries were exchanged, hands were shaken, and some of the vampire hunters were already heading out the door for their day jobs.
Too many vampire hunters.
This would never do.
Already they were doing their best to track us down and anticipate where we’d be. Ciaran would have attacked immediately. He’d have snatched up everyone he could outside the house, and then he would have banged on the walls until morning.
He’d have half of them dead, but the other half would still be here to cause us harm. I had to do something. I had to let the vampire hunters know that they weren’t safe. I had to let them know that hunting us was dangerous business.
A female left the house alone and began walking to her car, which was just up the street. She was young, not young enough for my taste, but I’m guessing she was in her late twenties or early thirties.
I caught up with her as she opened her car door.
She spun around with some kind of blade, but it didn’t help her much. Holding her close to me, I watched her eyes widen with fear. She had no doubts as to what I was.
“I’ve seen you before,” the female muttered as I lifted her into the sky, and savaged her neck.
I came back to the ground in the backyard of the vampire hunters’ home. The victim in my arms was still alive. I made sure of that.
I threw the female through the glass backdoor of the house, and shot up quickly into the air. Immediately the house was buzzing with activity like an angry beehive.
Three of the vampire hunters ranoutside with what seemed to be flame throwers strapped to their backs. Others rushed to stop the female’s bleeding. They weren’t going to be successful. Another youngish female began wailing for the dying girl.
My message to the vampire hunters had been delivered.
I drifted away from their house with a smile on my face.
Selma
My captors were celebrating. My father had paid them what they were asking. I’m not sure how they convinced my father to pay, but they were happy that he did. I myself was a bit shocked. I expected my father to do many things in the face of my kidnapping, but paying them off wasn’t anything I’d seen coming.
Had my captors beaten my father?
Where were the mercenaries?
Where was the FBI?
Where in the hell were the police?
I wanted to go home. I wanted to sleep in my bed. I wanted to stop worrying about my life. I wanted my dad and my little brother. I wanted safety. I wanted security. If I somehow managed to survive, I never planned on leaving my home again.
Eventually, my captors were so drunk that they started speaking loudly of the future. I could hear most of what they said through the thin walls. They planned on leaving the country.
An hour or so later, they started talking about me.
One man volunteered to cut my throat.
Another man said they should shoot me.
A final man voted to release me and honor whatever agreement they made with my father. I should have already been released, but I knew it from the very beginning. These men were never planning on letting me go.
They were only mustering their courage. Perhaps they hadn’t ever hurt a girl before. Perhaps they’d never hurt anyone…yet.
Derry
I woke up in the basement of an old office building. It wasn’t the best place I’d ever found for my day time rest, but it served its purpose well enough. The room smelled of moldy old books and paper, but a few floors above me, I could smell living blood, and I could hear people moving around as they gathered their belongings.
I had to wait at least an hour before the building was cleared, and I could leave my hiding place. To say that I wasn’t in the best of moods would have been an understatement. I was hungry.
Lorcan and Ciaran arrived as I exited the building. I met the two of them in the nearest alleyway. Neither of them looked very happy to see me.
“You attacked vampire hunters,” Lorcan said.
“I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity,” I said.
“You were in that neighborhood hoping that they’d show up,” Ciaran said.
“That’s probably true,” I admitted.
“You should have waited,” Ciaran said. “You could have gotten yourself destroyed.”
“They never even knew I was there until it was too late,” I said.
“That’s not always the case with vampire hunters, though,” Ciaran said. “They’re clever, and they know what they’re dealing with. We don’t go after vampire hunters alone. That’s always been our rule.”
My brothers were rightfully angry.
I had screwed up.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I only wanted to scare them.”
“Did you?” Lorcan asked.
“Definitely,” I answered. “Half of them will probably retire in the next week or so, and the rest will leave town in search of prey not so dangerous."
“I would have wiped out all of them,” Ciaran laughed. “All you did was piss them off.”
“I did a bit more than piss them off,” I laughed.
“You only took one of them,” Ciaran said. “That’s nothing. Why attack one of them, when you could have waited for all of them to leave the house?”
I looked at Ciaran.
Ciaran looked at me.
“Fuck off,” I said.
Lorcan started laughing, and then he hugged me.
“You need to be more careful,” Lorcan advised. “You need to be much more careful.”
“I’m wondering if we should leave,” Ciaran said. “Maybe there’s too much trouble here. I’ve been sloppy as well. Too many mistakes are being made.”
“Yes,” Lorcan said. “We should all be more careful.”
“I’ll be more careful after I feed,” I said. “I’m really hungry, and truth be told, we came to California to enjoy ourselves.”
A few hours later found the three of us at the Griffith Observatory looking out over the city. A group of girls were on the scenic trails below us despite the late hour. I had been lazily tracking them with my senses as I spent time with my brothers. I hadn’t yet decided if I wanted to take one of them or not.
“Los Angeles is rather beautiful with all the lights,” Lorcan observed.
“It’s not as pretty as Nevada,” I said.
“I like it,” Ciaran said. “It’s been too long since we were last here.
In the distance, a bright beam of fiery light blazed up into the sky. The three of us turned immediately to stare at its brightness, but not a single human noticed.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“That’s a summoning spell,” Ciaran answered. “There are witches nearby.”
“Are you positive?” I asked.
Vampires and witches didn’t get along. For our safety, it was best to remove any sort of magical threat from wherever we stayed.
“I’m lookin
g at black magic,” Ciaran answered. “Black magic normally comes from some type of witch.”
“What are they trying to summon?” I asked as my appetite grew substantially.
“Probably either a powerful ghost or a demon of some type,” Ciaran answered.
“Why are we seeing the beacon then?” I asked.
“There are potentially numerous explanations for that,” Lorcan said.
“He’s right,” Ciaran said. “We need to go investigate this immediately. For all we know, it might have something to do with your attack on the vampire hunters.”
“Oh, please,” I said. “Vampire hunters don’t use magic.”
“Vampire hunters use whatever they can get their hands on if it’ll mean killing vampires,” Ciaran laughed.
“We need to investigate,” Lorcan said. “We also need to be extremely careful.”
The three of us split up and made out way towards the powerful beam of blazing light. I was fully into my mist form as I approached, but once I got close enough, I solidified and touched the ground.
I was three houses away from the beacon.
I could sense spirits all around me. Yet none of them were powerful enough to matter. The beacon was coming from the backyard of a large mansion-style home. I could sense multiple male presences inside the house, including one child.
Outside the house, I saw a single man standing before the beacon, which turned out to be nothing more than a ceremonial looking urn placed inside a fire pit. The single man was blonde, handsome, well dressed, and well-groomed.
He was also terrified.
The man was no witch. He wasn’t a warlock either for that matter. He was a regular individual that happened to have a special link to the spirit world. I liked the smell of his expensive cologne, but I didn’t like the kitten being held in the metal wire cage at his feet.
A bit of movement on the opposite side of the yard informed me that my brothers had arrived. I was curious. The man was attempting to contact the spirit world, and he had a nice little sacrifice waiting for whoever answered.
Ciaran was about to attack. I could sense him just waiting for the right moment, and I didn’t want that. I was bored. I wanted adventure. What could a ghost or demon give this man that we couldn’t?
The Forgotten: A Vampire Story Page 5
