by Resca Rojas
“Lillian, what happened? Please, talk to me.”
“He thought that this was his room. I could smell his alcoholic breath the moment that I opened the door. I thought that it was you so I didn’t bother to cheek first before opening the door. Something inside of him set him off the moment that he saw me,” she paused to collect herself, “I think…” she stopped again. “I think that he was going to rape me if I didn’t stop him.”
Klayton felt compassion for her and stayed quiet. Then, his instincts reminded him of the problem in which they were all in right now.
“Lillian. Look at me.” He pleaded. She lifted up her head to look at him.“What you did was necessary. It’s going to be okay. If I was here I would have done worse things to him, but right now? We have to go.”
She leaned forward and kissed him and then wrapped her arms around him.
“I will keep you safe. I promise. Don’t you worry- “
Someone kicked open the door. It was Nero, and behind him was Alessandra and Marianne.
“No one-liners, and I am not telling you my plans out loud to give you enough time to catch me by surprise and beat me. I’m going to just straight up kill you for what you did to my boy.”
Klayton turned to him. “Who?” He then stood up and looked at him. “Why are you here?”
Neither Klayton nor Lillian saw when Nero ran towards him. A second ago, Nero was by the door, and now, he was choking Klayton after slamming him against the wall with one hand. “You killed one of ours. Someone that was guaranteed a place next to me. But not only that, he was my cousin. His last initiation test was tonight, and you killed him.”
“His initiation test was to kill my friend? Guess he failed and I don’t regret it.”
Nero punched him with his free hand. “You killed him?”
“He cried. I almost felt bad when I tore his heart out.” Klayton instigated him while blood was dripping from his mouth from the previous punch.
“Where the hell is Theo?” Alessandra exclaimed. Her boyfriend was supposed to have killed them and she feared the worse now.
“Did you meet another vampire?” Nero asked.
“Ironically, he died in a funeral home.” He smiled as blood dripped out of his nose.
Alessandra gasped and then cried. The love of her life was now dead. “Kill him. Please.”
“Who the hell are you? You killed two vampires, but you are a wolf hanging out with a vampire?” Nero looked at Lillian and when he looked back at Klayton, he noticed that his shirt’s sleeve was covering a tattoo. The only letters that he was able to make out were
V A H
He lifted up the sleeve and read the whole word:
K O R D O V A H
“Oh. I always wondered what the Kordovah brothers would look like. I thought that you would have been a bigger threat. Angel of Death my ass.” Klayton stayed quiet.
Nero punched him again and then let him fall to the floor. “You don’t take less than five hundred thousand for a contract. That’s what I’ve heard. So, why the hell are you in this motel?”
Marianne looked at her smart phone. She had received a message from someone. “Nero, we have to go. Luka’s mansion has been hit. Multiple casualties. Vampires and humans have been killed. A prospect hid under the dead bodies until they left and now he is reaching out to me. Two guys he said. One a werewolf, the other he was not so sure.”
“What?!” He forgot about Klayton, and then walked closer to her. “How long ago was this?”
“I’m not sure. I just got the message. Should not have been more than an hour ago.”
“Who would have the balls to attack us and declare war?”
Klayton laughed. “Well, this is awkward.” Nero turned around to look at him. “My brother had just told me earlier that he was going to hit one of your guy’s base.”
“God damn it. You two are a pain in the ass.”
“When we were kids, our mom was killed by one of you guys. We are not stopping until we find him.”
“People are dead because of you!” Marianne yelled.
“And the world will be safer because of it.”
Alessandra got closer. “Wait, you actually think you’re better than us? Why?”
Nero’s veins in his forehead had begun to show as they throbbed violently. His eyes turned angry and his nails grew long. He growled, “You’re dead-”
In a second, Klayton transformed with his skin turning light grey, his hair covering his body, as his muscles and bones enlarged.
Klayton launched at him straight as if he was a guided missile and speared him. Not wasting a second as he was now on top of Nero, he began to scratch and claw his chest, face, and then switched to punching him repeatedly.
Marianne ran quickly and jumped on Klayton. She bit his neck and the werewolf screamed in pain. It gave Nero enough time to gather his senses and sat up. He pierced his teeth into Klayton’s chest.
While all the violent commotion was happening, Alessandra was distracted as Lillian picked up the pocket knife that was on the nightstand, and she then stabbed Alessandra on the neck.
Alessandra yelled and slapped Lillian away, throwing her against the wall. Lillian suffered a concussion and blacked out.
12
The last thing Lillian remembered was being on the ground, looking across the room as Marianne had Klayton pinned down while Nero kept punching him nonstop.
As she tried to get herself up from the bed, the ropes that were around her wrists and tied to the bed frame pulled her down. She had a sock covering her mouth.
Alessandra was in front of her, recording with her smartphone.
“I’m going to enjoy this. Everyone is gone, and it’s just you and me.” She moved to the side of the bed, “Going to enjoy killing your sweet ass.”
Alessandra placed the smartphone on the nightstand after making sure that it was directly filming Lillian. She then picked up the knife that was used on her.
She ran the tip of the blade down Lillian’s thigh and then lightly sliced her skin, making her winced in pain.
Alessandra smiled, and then licked the blood clean from Lillian’s skin with her tongue. Lillian then groaned in agony as Alessandra did the same thing to her other leg. “I’m going to take my time with you. After being alive for all these years, I became well acquainted with the human body. I’m going to hurt you without letting you pass out, and by the time I am done with you, you’re going to wish that I had killed you sooner.”
Alessandra placed the edge of the blade against Lillian’s neck, and then began to slowly cut her skin. The vampire stopped due to a loud and thunderous knock.
“I’m busy,” she felt Lillian struggling to spit the sock out to yell for help, so Alessandra covered Lillian’s mouth and said to her, “Don’t even think about it, or the person outside will have to die because of you. Understand?!”
Lillian nodded.
A knock on the door again, this time, with an added bonus, “I have a champagne bottle for you.”
It’s a freaking motel;. she thought. God damn it. I better just be done with this. “Okay, okay. I’m coming, hold on!.”
Alessandra stood up and stormed to the door. When she opened it, she came face to face with the barrel of a sawed off shotgun.
“Go to Hell.” Ethan then pulled the trigger and blew a hole thru Alessandra’s face. Her body felt back on the floor inside the room.
Ethan entered the room with Amber right behind him. They then dragged the body inside, and closed the door. He had a small machete on his other hand, and with it, he decapitated the vampire. He wiped the blood off the blade with a towel that was on the ground and then walked towards Lillian who was staring at him.
He removed the sock and then cut the ropes with his blade. “Hey, it’s okay. We are with Klayton. You are going be okay.”
“No,” her voice was sad as she felt that it was her fault for not being strong enough to help him, “they must have taken him. She stood up, walked to t
he dresser, grabbed a pair of jeans and socks, her shoes from the floor, and then got dressed.
“We are going to save him. Together.” Amber said.
“Yes,” Lillian smiled, “He has been taking care of my ass for the last two days. It’s time for me to return the favor.”
Lillian went to Alessandra’s corpse and took out a couple of bills from her pocket and placed it in hers. She then searched the other pocket and grabbed the smartphone that was in it. She pressed the home button and saw that it needed a fingerprint to unlock.
“You going to cut her finger off to keep using it to track them down?” Ethan asked.
“God, no.” Lillian got on her knees in front of Alessandra and picked up her finger to unlock the smartphone. Then, after getting on the smartphone’s settings, she changed the password and made it so that none was required to use it.
“That’s smart.” Ethan noted.
Lillian went thru the text messages. “Okay, looks like her vampire friend actually texted her where they are going to be taking Klayton. Let me look up the address and we can head over there.” Lillian said with urgency.
13
Klayton had his eyes covered with a blindfold. His hands and feet were handcuffed and he was sitting down on a chair. He tried to break free, only to realized that they had buried knives all over his body, causing excruciating pain, rendering him powerless and unable to escape.
He winced in pain. “Hey, guys? What’s the safe word?”
A vampire gave him a strong right hook, and it made Klayton bite his lip. He spat blood. “Okay, no safe words I guess.” The vampire punched his gut.
They removed his blindfold. He looked at his surroundings. It was four vampires. Nero, the leader of the group, Marianne who was more loyal and faithful to Nero than Kayla, Brian, a strong tactical brute, and Dustin, the guy who had punched him.
Klayton was shirtless. Nero walked towards him and with a knife, he gently touched his tattoo that said Kordovah.
“Like I said, I have heard of you two. The werewolf brothers. Killing vampires and everyone that you are hired to kill. But then, no one heard anything about you or your brother for the last two years.”
“We want Garrett. We don’t care about anyone else.” Klayton said.
The Elite punched him on his jaw, and Klayton cut his own lip with his teeth. He spat blood to the floor.
Nero decided to punch him again in the same location, hoping that maybe he could break his jaw, but when he swung to punch him in the mouth, Klayton caught the fist with his teeth, and then bit off Nero’s index finger. Klayton then swallowed the finger so as to not let Nero reattach it.
The Elite cried in pain and ordered his men to kill Klayton as he walked out of the room, with Marianne following him to tend to his wounds.
Brian went towards Klayton, and as he got close enough, Klayton kicked his knee caps, making the vampire fall on his knees in front of him.
Klayton placed his legs on top of Brian’s shoulders, gripped his head tight, and spun to the side, falling onto the floor while cracking the vampires neck.
Dustin jumped on top of Klayton who was still on the floor, but Klayton moved quickly and wrapped his legs around the vampire, putting him into a submission move.
The vampire tried to free himself by using his claws to scratch Klayton’s chest and face.
Klayton put the chain of his handcuffed in front of the vampires neck, and began to push forward.
The vampire struggled before running out of air. Klayton then cracked the vampire’s neck to confirm the kill, and then he pushed him aside.
As he was trying to get up, Marianne had returned, and was charging at him. With his adrenaline pumping, Klayton broke the chains, quickly removed enough knives from his legs and arms to ease up the pain, and then transformed into a werewolf.
Marianne stopped.
Klayton already had thought of ten different ways of killing her, but stopped as well. He transformed back to his human form in front of her.
He was now naked as his transformation had destroyed his clothes. “Why are you not attacking me?”
“Not worth it. He ditched me and used me as a distraction while he bailed out.”
Klayton covered his crotch with his hands. “I’m going to kill him.”
“I know. Let me help you.”
“How is this not a trap?” She remained quiet and Klayton felt her sadness. Her breathing and heartbeats had moved along with her words, convincing him that she was telling the truth.
“Do you know where he is going?”
“The nearest safe house is an hour away from here. He wanted us to torture you and then meet him there. He’s probably hiding the money there and getting ready to travel back to our base.”
“Can you call him? Convince him that you killed me?”
“Yeah.”
Klayton sliced one of the vampire’s arm and dripped the blood all over his face. He laid on the floor and Marianne took a convincing picture of him as proof of his death.
She sent it to Nero and then called him. He sounded surprised at first, but then praised her, lying to her that he always knew that she was capable of killing a lycan.
After confirming her theory that he was in a safe house, she said goodbye and hung up.
“Now what?” She said.
“Eventually he will find out that I am alive, one way or another. So, I’m going to go kill him.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“He knows who I am now, and he’s the type of guy to go after my brother and everyone that we love, right?”
Her silence was a resounding yes to all that he had just said.
“That man is the definition of a grudge.”
“Right.”
Klayton looked at her for a moment. Her beauty finally being seen by him for the first time. It made him wonder why anyone would mistreat her like Nero has.
“My brother and I are looking for the vampire that killed our mom. You want to help us take all these bastards down?”
Marianne nodded.
“Crap. Do you know where my phone is?”
“Nero probably took it.”
“It’s fine. He won’t be able to unlock it.”
“He used your finger while you were unconscious.”
Klayton became furious, but spoke with a soft tone. “May I use your phone?”
She handed her phone to him. Klayton called his brother. “Hey big brother, heard you cause a commotion at a base.”
“Klay?! Are you okay? Ethan called. Him and Amber were looking for you.”
“Yeah, I am fine- wait. Do you know where they are now?”
“Last I heard, they were heading towards an abandoned neighborhood.”
Marianne could hear the conversation, and she nodded, letting Klayton know, Yes. That is where we are.
“Okay, we’ll wait for them, regroup, and go after Nero.”
“No. We have to go after Kayla.”
Klayton did not bother to argue with his brother to say that he was closer to Nero. “Understood.” He said.
“It’s been far too long. Let’ regroup.” His brother said.
14
Nero was currently staying in a private hotel named The Escape, which was unable to be detected by the human eye, due to a spell that a warlock has cast on it. The building was managed by a vampire named Bartholomew, who had created it as a gateway and asylum for vampires.
After the war was over between the werewolves fifty years ago, they were now welcomed to The Escape. It was a neutral establishment, where no being was allowed to cause harm.
Its main purpose was to act as a place to rest, and also served as a business model where vampires and werewolves could pay to have an escort to kill, feed on, or have intercourse with.
Only a few places like this existed, and not everyone in the supernatural community was pleased with its existence, but the Celestial Elders have ruled it as a necessity to control a creature’s urges and to
prevent anyone from revealing to the world about the supernatural .
It had been three days since had left Oakhaven, and he was almost at full strength. Nero was only wearing a pair of long black sweats as he had just finished a set of crunches and was now doing pushups, when a woman, wearing nothing but a towel to cover her naked body, exited the bathroom and entered the room. Her name was Mila, and Nero had paid to keep him company for his whole stay.
“It’s been three days, and I feel like I can now say that you’re the first person to not feed on me the second that I walk into the room.” She turned a desk chair to face Nero, and then sat on it. She looked at the man who had, for the first time in years, truly made her feel alive.
He stared back at her as he finished doing his pushups and stood up. “And I don’t want you to leave my sight.” He walked to her and kissed her lips.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Who is it?”
“Sir, I have a delivery for you.”
He walked to the door and opened it. In front of him, was a man in his late twenties, carrying a package. “This just arrived for you, sir.”
“Why don’t you set it by the sofa.”
Nero let the man inside who then placed the package on the bed. He then turned, handing Nero a piece of paper for him to sign as a confirmation that he received the package.
Mila was looking at the delivery man. “Are you going to tip him?”
“No.” He said as he handed the man his clipboard back.
“I thought to at first, but he keeps lusting after you.”
This took the man by surprise. “Sir, with all due respect- “
“Leave.” He handed him the paper form, and then the man left.
Nero opened the box and handed the item that was inside to Mila; a soft brown teddy bear. “I have been doing a lot of shitty things these last fifty years, and I don’t know, something happened to me last night where I realized that, even with immortality, I haven’t really done anything good with my life.”
