Token Vampire (Token Huntress Book 2)

by Kia Carrington-Russell

  I tried to contain my distaste. It would be hard for me to keep my calm when locating him. But I had to report this to Tythian. This was his right and kill. I could not take that revenge away from him and this was my bargaining chip. If I could find out the identity of Whitney’s brother, then Tythian would take us to the human camp near our Guild where I could possibly find closure for Dillian and Julia. “I will be fine,” I insisted. I had to be I had to make sure I learnt as much as I could and found a safe haven for them. I had to.

  After walking down various stairs that continued to spiral, we finally stood on solid ground. A loud scream rolled over my spine. I cringed at the mechanical noises that came from that direction. It sounded as if someone were sawing against bone. I refocused myself. No matter what I saw, I had to contain myself.

  Jenn continued walking, unfazed by the noises. There were four distinct rooms and a part of me didn’t want to be curious as to what were behind each door. Another howl of a scream echoed through the hall, it was the furthest room on the right. Was that a vampire being tortured, or another human being tested on?

  Jenn stopped at the first door on the left and opened it. There were three beds, and a lot of glass tubes which were filed in boxes on wide shelves beside me. Two people were lying on their beds. One was being injected with something into their arm. The man pulled an odd face of discomfort, before telling the man in the white coat that he was feeling okay. It smelt wrong in here, the very atmosphere smelt mutilated. I cringed at standing in this very room. A very dashing young man who was administrating the syringe, peeled back his white mask and looked at Jenn and me.

  “Miss. Cadolwadt, what brings you and your guest to our ring of the department?” He asked with a smile. He sat on a chair which had wheels beneath it. He grabbed another syringe and flicked at it, to make sure it bubbled. He then moved on to the next man sitting down. “It will be fine,” he reassured. He injected the man, who gave the same uncomfortable grimace.

  “We were looking for Mr. Richard, actually,” Jenn said, seeming unfazed by the obvious human experiment that was happening. “I am certain he was in his office. He was here earlier.” A presence from outside, interfered with my calmness. I recognized this disgusting smell. I inhaled deeply, remaining calm. I am a Token Huntress, nothing will break me, I affirmed to myself.

  Mr. Taine walked in. He recognized me with an expression of disgust. He walked past me and said nothing.

  “Any changes to report, Charlie?” Mr. Taine asked the young man with blonde hair.

  “No. The first admission went well. So I sped the process up on the second. We should let them rest for a time however, and have them report in a few days. I would consider-”

  Mr. Taine cut him off and now fixated on both of us. “Any particular reason why you are interfering with my progress with your new friend?” Mr. Taine asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He was a man who I imagined to keep quiet about our previous meeting. One thing I had learnt about humans was that they were very egotistic and I was certain he wouldn’t want others to know that he was man handled by a woman this morning.

  “Can I please have some water,” the first man who had been administered asked, with a raspy voice.

  “Of course,” Charlie said and offered him a glass of water. Yelling poured from the staircase. I recognized the scent and voice to be Sydney’s. The woman who permitted us through continued to warn Sydney that he was not allowed within the department, without being escorted.

  Sydney flung the door open and summarized the two men. He walked up to Mr. Taine, slamming his elbow into his throat and pinning him against the bench.

  “I told you that you couldn’t administer them without my consent!” He growled.

  “Sydney its fine, we told them it was okay,” the first man said, his voice rasped. I looked at him, his face had begun to melt above his eyebrow and his lip began to dip on one side. “Can I please have some more water, I am so thirsty?”

  “Of course,” Charlie calmly said. He stood up and walked over to a small red button and pressed it in. The man noticed this and looked up mortified.

  “I feel fine; you don’t have to do that!” He said loudly and scared.

  The other man jumped from his bedding and hid behind us, mortified. “Please don’t let that happen to me!”

  “Max, it’s me,” the other man said. “I feel fine, I swear.” His voice seemed more of a whimper and plea. He tried to sit up from his bed, but part of him slumped back. “Syd, you gotta’ believe me. I feel fine.” The man began to choke hysterically. Blood began to pour from his nose as he looked at us all wide eyed. “It’s just itchy here,” he panicked, as if not noticing the blood that continued to stream from his body. He began clawing his chest, where underneath I could see blue bruising and what looked like something squirming beneath his chest.

  “Get everyone out,” Sydney said slamming Mr. Taine one more time. Mr. Taine was not affected by the man’s condition at all, and proceeded out. I continued to watch the effects that this admission had on this man. Was this the same that they had given Whitney? Was this how they were experimented on? I heard footsteps marching above and pooling down the spiral staircase.

  Sydney ushered everyone out, so he was closest to the man.

  “I am sorry,” Sydney said. He pulled out his sword from his sheath.

  “It’s inside of me,” the man snarled. I could sense the change within him.

  “Ellie, come out,” Jenn said and grabbed my elbow. Everyone else had left the room. Sydney lined his sword with the man’s chest. But, as quickly as a switch flicking over, the man snapped. He was no longer human; I could sense that within him, his consciousness was gone. These were the same sensations and presence of a saber.

  Sydney plunged his sword towards him, but the man, no not man, saber slapped it away and against the wall. He lunged for Sydney and pinned him against the counter. Sydney plunged a dagger into the man’s brain. But it was beyond that, this was no longer a man. I could sense the change. I pulled my elbow away from Jenn and closed the door behind me. The group of warriors they had called would never make it in time, not before he had ripped Sydney apart.

  The saber lunged for me. I skidded under the first bed and lifted it within human might, still trying to contain my fake profile. The saber fixated on the others outside. I used the distraction as my tool. I lifted and pinned the bed against it, trapping it for a moment. I could sense Sydney busily working behind me. The saber tried to break the bed apart and twist on me. Before I had to fake weakness and let the saber escape, Sydney jumped over the other bed and pierced his sword through its chest. The tip of the sword went through the saber’s back and tipped into the glass door.

  I looked out to where the group of five men in leather were, watching as blood sprayed everywhere. Sydney took his sword out, and the saber began to decompose. I looked over my shoulder at Sydney who had blood all over his face and down his chest from when the saber had first pinned him. He gave me a firm nod of appreciation and tapped my shoulder that I could now let go of the bed.

  “Thank you,” he said sternly. He grabbed the bed and ripped it away. He opened the door and stepped over the corpse of the saber.

  “He was one of my best!” He snarled at Mr. Taine, who stared at the corpse, his eyebrows raised as if it disappointed him. I looked at the other man, who watched what was once his friend mortified. Jenn held out her hand to him.

  “You will be okay. Come on, I will take you to somewhere you can be alone for a while,” she said.

  “He needs to be put into containment.” A new figure approached us. An older man with grey rasp hair and a honey voice said.

  “Mr. Richard, I hadn’t known that it would progress this quickly. If you might look at our previous results, you will see-” Mr. Taine began pleading his case, but was quickly cut off.

  “You have killed this man, do you have no remorse. Two injections within a day of each other, are you an utter idiot?!” The man sho
uted. “You are not to experiment any longer until I give permission, you have disappointed me.”

  “But please sir,” Mr. Taine continued.

  “Get out!” He yelled. All others were silent at his command. So, this was the man who was in charge of the human compound. He crouched to Max’s eye level, the man who had also been experimented on.

  “We will put you in there for two days, just to make sure you don’t react in the same manner. If it goes well you can go back to your family. If you were being pressured by him into taking another admission so soon, you should have come to me. I am sorry it had to be this way,” Mr. Richard said.

  “But sir, I feel fine. If I could just rest in my home for a bit, I think it will be okay,” Max said reassuringly, pleadingly.

  “Take him to the containment,” Mr. Richard enforced his power and commanded the soldiers.

  “No, please, I swear I didn’t do anything wrong!” Max began yelling as he was dragged away. Few people had now opened their doors from the other sectors to watch in spectacle as to what had happened.

  “Charlie, you too are in the wrong here,” Mr. Richard said.

  “Yes sir,” Charlie admitted.

  “Come and see me in my office in half an hour, leave for now. I will decide what to do with you,” Mr. Richard instructed.

  “Yes sir,” he said and walked off.

  “I want this cleaned up!” Mr. Richard said to the onlookers who now hid, regarding the deformed half human, half saber body. So this was the experiments they did.

  “You two follow me,” Mr. Richard said to the both of us. “I have some issues to discuss with you Jenn.”

  “Of course sir,” Jenn said as if nothing had happened. Leaving distance between us and Mr. Richard, Jenn whispered so only I could hear her words.

  “From the information I have gathered, Charlie is Whitney’s older brother.” The significance of that one sentence left me thirsting for a slaughter. We walked up the stairs and followed Mr. Richard. I had to plead to my darker self to calm, to not give chase, no matter how infuriated I was. This was not my kill, this was Tythian’s claim.

  T he woman who tried to stop Sydney began apologizing to Mr. Richard. He raised his hand not wanting to hear their excuses.

  “Sydney had no access to those rooms today, without being escorted by Mr. Taine, himself. However, in this instance it was for the better. I don’t know how many of the scientists down there would have been slaughtered, before the concealment team got there.” Mr. Richard said to both Jenn and I, as we walked behind him. He gave me a side glance, looking over me with calculation. “It was reported to me, that Sydney was aided by you, and you are?”

  “This is Ellie, I found her near my compound. It appears she is suffering from amnesia. However we have found that she is good with a crossbow, a sword, and it would appear that her reflexes are very sharp and could contribute to Sydney’s aid within the squad,” Jenn said swimmingly. We continued to walk down the narrow white corridors. The air within the whole compound smelt richly clean. It irritated my sensitive nose. Before reaching the intersection which lead to the different areas of the institute, Mr. Richard walked to one of the doors and stood in front of it rummaging through his numerous keys. He switched the light on as we walked in. In comparison to the rest of the compound, this room smelt of dust and old books. In front of us was a large wooden desk, which had papers sprawled over it everywhere. Mugs which had been emptied and smelt like the rarity of coffee beans. The whole room was surrounded by book cases and sample tubbing’s which were separately labelled.

  “Please take a seat,” he said, offering the two seats, which had piles of books on them. Jenn picked them off and slumped the pile onto the desk. For a leader, he was very unorganized. I followed suit as Mr. Richard sat down in front of us.

  “I suppose it makes it hard to ask about you, if you don’t know who you are,” Mr. Richard began. “But I take Jenn’s advisement seriously. If she thinks you should be pushed towards the military sector, then we can organize something. However, I am not imprudent to Sydney’s wishes and team that is already solidly built. So, if he has no use for you, then we will need to find another department for you to be of use to.”

  “I completely understand,” I said.

  “Perhaps we should organize for her to be an all-rounder,” Jenn said crossing her legs over. “She has already done a round with me this morning administrating our subjects.”

  Mr. Richard raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That is a confidential section.”

  “I am aware, but she had no recollection of what a vampire nor saber was. It was rather odd to hear of someone not understanding the world, and fear we live as humans,” Jenn said. “I trust her entirely and would rather have her as a personal assistant than fighting, however I cannot deny her skill.”

  “A personal assistant, you say?” Mr. Richard mused. “Well then perhaps she can be exactly that until Sydney makes up his mind as to whether he wants her a part of his team or not.”

  There was a heavy silence. I tried to contain the irritation of being locked into another small white room, which had no window or even perception that there was an outside world. They seemed to avoid the sun just as much as vampires did. This entire compound felt as if it were a prison.

  “Sir, about today; what do you intend to do with Mr. Taine? I must admit upon meeting Ellie he acted in a disturbing manner. I fear he might be withholding too much stress, and his overall mentality is becoming a bit distorted.” Mr. Richard sighed.

  “You know I’ve been waiting for you to come back. While you were gone for the four days, we came across something. I need you to help me contain them, with your expertise in engineering; I need you to create me something that will keep them locked inside.”

  “Them, sir?” Jenn asked cautiously.

  “On the outskirts of our compound, Sydney and his team found two Hunters. Because they were already manufactured and products of manipulation with vampire blood; Mr. Taine wanted to study them a little further. The results were more receptive than what we had imagined.”

  “You tested on them?” Jenn interrupted, boldly.

  “Well yes, I never had the intentions to; I wanted them to aid Sydney. But the two had a particular attitude that enforced me to believe they were a danger to the compound. So I granted Mr. Taine permission, to see if he could make progress. All our human subjects thus far have not been receptive of the testing. Some have lasted longer than others, but no real result. They were our breaking point. Their body which is already receptive and engineered to vampire blood, took it well. We have been successful in our first creation. We have created something greater than the Hunters, themselves. We could have them right at our disposal to use. But it seems it has a side effect. They can’t be sedated, every time one of the members try to inject them, they can propel the syringe away. They’ve killed four of ours already. It’s resulted in us having to gas them every few hours, but their healing rate is phenomenal. We need to create a new way to contain them for now; we can’t continue using our gas resources.

  “Max and Troy, what were they injected with?” Jenn asked. Her expression was lifeless. I questioned what Yolo might have really been thinking.

  “We were able to take samples of the Hunter’s blood and inject them with that as a bi-product. The results within the first few hours went swimmingly, they were significantly faster, stronger, heightened senses- everything. I told Mr. Taine, to wait for a few days until next dosage so we could gather results. But as you can now see, these are the consequences of him acting out of accordance.”

  I sat there, as if not registering any of the terms or conversation. After all, I had to act as if I hadn’t ever seen a Hunter before.

  “May I see them? The Hunters, I have never seen one before,” I said daringly. Mr. Richard gave me an indecisive expression. I could sense Jenn also looked at me with discomfort. Perhaps, I was pushing my boundaries too much. But I wanted to see the Hunters. I neede
d to see what they had done to them. This was meant to be a safe place for Dillian and Julia, not a place where they would be experimented on. I needed to see the aftermath.

  “They no longer look to be what they use to be, dear. The Hunters are now ‘special’,” Mr. Richard began to explain.

  “If you don’t mind her being with me while I have a look at their current enclosure, I would be interested to assess it now. I will put aside my scheduling and current project to focus on this one,” Jenn offered.

  “Ah of course, that would suit very nicely. If you don’t mind her being introduced so freshly to her seemingly scary new world, I can permit it. Yes, I think we will make her your personal assistant until Sydney has made up his mind,” Mr. Richard mused. I was alarmed by the care free nature that was installed into their leaders mind. The things they discussed and were doing were inhumane. As a Huntress, I had slaughtered and tortured many. But, I would never dare to experiment in such a way, even if the resources were in front of me. It was a sick and twisted thought process, when they thought this was how they gained strength. Was this why the humans were so easily over powered in the technology era? They fought against one another in their own wars and struggle for power. Ignoring the vampires, which were closing in. It was why their very world was taken out from beneath them. I was educated, that they were experimenting on humans and vampires alike all those years ago. Three hundred years and generations later with limited resources, they still found the means to do such disgusting things. Was this how the humans mind was built? Were they born with such darkness and corruptness?

  Mr. Richard walked us back into the four laboratory rooms. Two women now scrubbed with wet cloths, the pool of blood. Drag marks of the saber’s corpse had not yet been cleaned. What had they done with his body? The drag marks led towards the very door we followed Mr. Richard too. Beside the second room, next to Mr. Taine’s, there was another door. Mr. Richard used another key to open it. The thickness to this door, I noted as he slid it open, indicated that it was in defense against vampires. It was clean cut silver, I avoided touching it as best I could. More stairs spiraled down. The further we walked down, the dimmer the lights became. We were consumed in darkness, where only few lights enabled us to see. I continued to pretend to fumble for the railing as we walked down, like a clumsy human would.