by Steve McHugh
At the end of the room, on top of a raised platform, sat a large leather chair, behind which was a full set of amour. Felicia stood in front of it and clicked her fingers, switching the TV and lights off and replacing their light with torches that had been set around the room. It was an impressive trick. Vampire masters could usually do a little magic. As one, every man and woman stood in silence.
“Today is a great day,” Felicia said, her voice carrying so it sounded as if she were stood right next to me. “Today a new ally has come to us to offer himself to our great brood.”
I wasn’t really sure of how to respond to that, so I waved slightly, drawing a smile from Felicia as everyone turned to look at me.
“This man is Nathan Garrett,” she continued, causing all nineteen heads to snap back toward her. “Let it be known that he is a friend to us all.” She stepped off the platform and walked toward me as her subjects watched her move. She really was stunningly beautiful. A few inches shorter than me, but in three-inch heels she was roughly the same height. Her long billowing skirt had a slit down one side that allowed me to glimpse her slender legs with every step she made. She placed one elegant finger on my chest and brushed her mouth across my neck, allowing me to inhale her. She smelled like passion fruit. I really like passion fruit. I had to remind myself that there were twenty people in the room—and also that she could tear me in half without too many problems. Vampire masters were a level of power that was scary to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. If she’d decided to take me by force, the only way I could have stopped would have ended with one of us dead. And I wouldn’t have put money on me.
“You’re a very handsome man,” Felicia whispered as she walked around me, running her hands over my body. “I like my men rugged, to be men. Have you ever had a vampire take blood from you before?”
“Many times,” I said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
She nodded and grinned. “How many of those did you allow?”
“Two.” Both of them were to help a vampire heal.
“What did you do to those who took your blood without permission?” Felicia had made a full circuit of my body and stood in front of me.
“I turned them to ash.” I had whispered the words, but they appeared to explode around the room so that everyone heard.
“And do you give yourself to me willingly?”
“Yes.” My words were almost a snarl; I had no idea why, but just being near Felicia made me want to tear her clothes off.
“Then come to me.”
She didn’t so much as lead me as I followed without complaint until I was on top of the platform and sitting in the chair. “This won’t hurt,” she said and straddled my lap. Her words were normal to my ears. Whatever magic or power she was using had stopped, although I still wanted her.
My head felt clearer. “Not me it won’t. Last chance to change your mind.”
She kissed me hard on the mouth before breaking away and sinking her teeth into my neck.
Allowing your blood to be taken by a vampire did incredible things to both participants. It created a bond, albeit briefly, whereby just after the bite stopped, you could see into each other’s lives. It was a tiny glimpse into a person, and it was how most vampires gauged whether they wanted to extend that bite into one that would turn the other person. And if the person being bitten wasn’t human, then the vampire gained strength from the blood far in excess of anything they could get from a human.
The bite lasted only a few seconds, but once it broke I saw Felicia as a small girl on a ship to America. I saw her grow up, marry, have children, and then I saw it all taken away by a vampire, who left her alive to use as his own. I saw her kill him, take his brood, and move away from Georgia. Images of her throughout her life flashed through my head—men and women she’d been with, and those she’d killed—until it faded and I sat, exhausted, in the chair.
Felicia had a slightly different experience. She screamed.
It took me a few seconds to realize that she was on the ground thrashing about as whatever memories of mine ripped through her. None of her subjects leapt to help her, most appeared shocked and confused, but some were glancing at me with the intention of blaming me for what was happening to their master.
One of the men, a huge monster of a vampire, stared at me and took a step forward.
“No!” Felicia ordered. “You will stay where you are.”
The man stopped in mid-step and then moved back.
“Are you okay?” I asked. I didn’t bother to offer my hand; no one in a position of power would have accepted it in the circumstance.
She nodded and got back to her feet, using the chair to keep herself steady. “Who are you?”
“I did say you could back out,” I told her and tried to stand up.
Felicia pushed me back into the chair and straddled me once more. “Out, all of you.”
The entirety of the vampires quickly left the room.
“Now, who are you?”
“What did you see?”
“Death and power. I saw you fight that lich. I saw you kill a ghoul with magic. I heard someone call your name. Hellequin.”
“Yeah, I’m Hellequin.”
She kissed me so hard it took my breath away. “You are not real.”
“Yes, I am. I’m just not what the stories say.”
She kissed me again. “I have rarely felt power such as yours. I can feel so much of it locked inside you, but a part of it courses through me. You cannot access it all, can you?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“When you can, when you have full control over what you are, promise me something?”
I wasn’t sure where she was going with her words, but I was beginning to stir as she moved against my lap, making any thoughts that might be rational a good deal more difficult.
She reached down and released me from my jeans, taking the time to stroke me slowly with one hand and move her thong aside with the other. When she was ready, she positioned herself just above my tip. “Promise me that when you have all your power, you won’t use it to conquer all you can see.”
I would have promised to burn the moon if she’d asked at that point. She moved in circles, never quite lowering herself enough to take me inside her; her breathing quickened and her movements sped up.
“I promise,” I said breathlessly and grabbed her hips, pulling her down onto me in one motion as she turned her face into my neck and cried out in pleasure.
A vampire’s stamina is at the same time a scary and incredible thing. I have no idea how long we sat in that chair, or in various other places in the room, but I would have guessed a few hours. At some point, she’d bitten me again and I’d tasted some of her blood. By the end of our time together, I could still feel her energy coursing through me. I had no need for sleep or food or drink, just her. Repeatedly.
“How the hell do vampires ever get anything done?” I asked as we lay on one of the rugs, our clothes somewhere forgotten.
“Sometimes we don’t,” Felecia said with a sly grin. “You’re going to feel it when that blood of mine wears off.” She rolled off me and stood up, giving me the perfect view of a perfect body. I could have bounced coins off her stomach and ass.
“I’ll manage.”
“So having your blood taken wasn’t such a bad thing?”
“Unexpected,” I said. “Although if I get a car every time I come here, I’m going to need to buy some sort of multistory car park to keep them all in.”
Felicia laughed, bent over, and kissed me on the lips. “What I said before, about the power inside you. I meant it, Nate. Please don’t let it change you. I saw what you’re truly capable of without those marks on your chest.”
“You saw my future?”
“No, just a glimpse of your potential. I saw your past. You are a frighte
ning man, Nathan Garrett. But a damn good fuck.”
I laughed. “Ah, I bet you say that to all the men you bond with and then fuck on the floor.”
She kissed me again. “You should go, I’ve delayed you enough.”
“Did Sky tell you where I was going?”
Felicia shook her head.
“I’m off to Maine. Does your influence extend enough that you’ve heard anything about up there?”
Felicia picked up her top from the floor and turned to look at me. “I can ask around, but I’m not aware of anything.”
It took a while for me to get dressed, mostly because I couldn’t find half of my clothes, but once we were both acceptable, we left the room and made our way back through the cave of cars and upstairs.
“Fucking hell,” Sky said as we walked through the door to the main garage. “You two have been hours.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Sort of lost track of time.”
Warren walked toward me and offered me some keys. “Your car and bags are ready.”
“Nate,” Felicia said. “It’ll be daylight soon, I’ll have to go. Remember, you always have a friend here, and be careful.” She said goodbye to Sky and then left.
“I think you made an impression,” Sky said.
I exhaled. “You have no idea.”
“You off to Maine now?”
“Stratford, yeah. It’s a few hours’ drive.”
“Be careful, and we’ll contact you if we get anything from that safe, or from whoever is working against us.”
“Thanks. Just watch your back, Sky. Something weird is happening here.”
As we walked together over to Sky’s truck, she whispered, “Our people are still sifting through the house. When we find something, and we will, I’ll call and let you know. So, was it worth coming here?”
I couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across my lips. “You’re a fucking genius, Sky. And I will never ever say that again.”
Sky laughed as she climbed up into the driver’s seat of her father’s Range Rover. “You know, you never told me who you think is behind this. What’s the House of Silent Screams?”
“It’s a house that belonged to a group of people that made the Manson’s look rational and normal.”
“And why were you so shocked to see it written on the bathroom wall?”
“Because it doesn’t exist anymore, and it hasn’t for over thirty years.”
CHAPTER 7
Portland, Maine. 1977.
After finding the misericorde dagger in the motel room wall, I packed up all my stuff and switched rooms. I did actually want to get some sleep at some point. Not that I thought there would be a repeat performance; they’d made their point and would have waited for me to make mine. But better to be cautious than dead.
I met up with William outside the motel just before 7 AM. He had two polystyrene cups in his hand and passed me one, which I waved away.
“You don’t like coffee?” he asked; it was clearly something he’d never encountered before.
“No, it’s horrid stuff. Smells nice though.”
William shrugged, downed one cup and crunched it up, throwing the remains into the bin beside him before starting the second cup.
I told the detective about the visitor the night before and his expression soured.
“I promise you, only the captain and I know, and he’s not going to tell anyone.”
“Well, someone figured it out. Let’s get this done as quickly as possible, I don’t want to drag it out.”
The detective drained his second cup of coffee and threw the cup away as a black BMW E12 pulled up beside us. A man wearing a suit opened the passenger door and glanced at us while he walked to the rear door and pulled it open, whereupon an older-looking man stepped out.
William immediately brought himself up to his full height. “Mayor Richards,” he said and offered his hand to the immaculately dressed man.
“Bill,” he said and shook his hand before turning to face me. “You must be Nathan.” He didn’t offer me his hand; he just stared at me, as if trying to figure me out.
“That’s what people tell me,” I said. “I didn’t think anyone other than the detective and his captain knew I was here.”
“Well, apparently I’m important enough to be told these things,” Mayor Richards said. “Galahad himself sent you here; the old king would not have sent an outsider to deal with the problem.”
“Maybe that’s why he’s the old king,” I said as Bill’s mouth dropped open in shock.
The mayor forced a smile and nodded slightly. “You should be careful here, Mister Garrett, the people you’re after are dangerous. I would hate to have to explain to Galahad how you didn’t complete your mission.”
I noticed that the man who had opened the car door for the mayor had his hand resting on top of a pistol. I wondered how far the mayor was going to push it before he just allowed his man to use the gun. I really didn’t want to have to kill a mayor and his bodyguard within twenty-four hours of arriving. It’s terribly bad form to do such a thing.
“Thanks for your concern,” I said with a smile of my own. “I’m sure I can find those responsible and bring them to justice before long. Galahad will be happy to hear the warm welcome your lovely town has offered me during my stay.”
The mayor straightened his blue silk tie. “Yes, of course. I’m sure the king would be more than happy to hear how you’ve been treated. I look forward to telling him how your visit went.” He nodded to Bill and then got back in his car. The bodyguard closed the door, and once he was also in the car, it drove off.
“You don’t want to piss him off,” Bill said.
“Bill or William?” I asked, ignoring his comment. I’d pissed off people in bigger positions of power than some mayor of a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. In fact, some people would say that pissing off people in power is almost a hobby of mine. “What do you prefer?”
“Bill,” he said. “I mean it though, pissing off the mayor isn’t a smart move. Word is he’s friends with some powerful people.”
“I guess we know where the leak came from. Maybe some of those friends of his aren’t too keen on me being here.”
“I’m telling you the captain didn’t sell you out.”
“Oh, I have no doubt. I’d guess someone who works for Galahad told him. Though I have no idea why at the moment. Hopefully we can get this finished before I have to find out.”
The mayor’s unscheduled visit had clearly left a mark on Bill, as he barely spoke while we went to the nearest clothing shop and picked me up some hiking boots and a few bits I would need. We dropped everything off at my motel room, and then he drove me over to the city morgue to see the most recent body.
We parked outside the front door of the small building and walked inside to be greeted by a middle-aged man with a bald head, scraggly dark beard, and a faded tattoo on one forearm.
“It’s military,” he said to me. “Got it a very long time ago just after Germany. You’re probably too young to even remember WW2.”
“You’d be surprised, Doctor.…”
“Pierce,” he said and shook my hand. “Harold Pierce. I’m the coroner for this town. We don’t normally get a lot of deaths, so it’s usually quiet.”
“Nathan Garrett,” I said.
The doctor led through a reception area, where a young woman and man sat behind a desk talking; the man wore a security guard uniform. He was older than the woman, who couldn’t have been much more than thirty, whereas the man must have hit fifty a few years previous. Neither of them looked up at us as we walked past.
“You’re not squeamish, are you?” he asked as we scrubbed our hands and arms.
I shook my head. “Not yet, no. How bad are these bodies?”
“You’ll see.”
The doctor
took us through a set of double doors and into an examination room. There was a body with a sheet over it in the center. Doctor Pierce folded back the sheet, exposing the battered and bruised face of a young man. The body had clearly been examined already and then stitched back up.
“Someone beat him to death,” Doctor Pierce said. “I’ve already carried out the autopsy, but Bill said you’d want to see the body firsthand.”
“Thanks. So what does the autopsy say?” I asked.
“I’ll do it in layman’s terms, for Bill’s sake; some of these words are quite long.”
“Piss off, doc,” Bill said, and the mood in the room lightened slightly.
“Layman’s terms are fine,” I said, pulling the sheet down further to find more bruising around the clavicle, sternum, and ribs. “What the hell was he beaten with? These marks on his chest aren’t from a fist.”
“You know your injuries,” Doctor Pierce said, sounding slightly impressed. “It was something steel…we found shards of the metal imbedded in his—along with the other victims—flesh. He also has cuts and burns all over his legs and genitals. I’ve seen that type of torture before, in Germany. A man talks pretty fast when you start putting out cigarettes on his cock. And apart from his wounds, he hadn’t eaten much prior to his death; in fact, it had been a few days since his last meal. There were no alcohol or drugs in his system.” He picked up the arm beside him and showed me the victim’s wrist. “It wasn’t tied up recently, but at some point someone had been. These marks are from struggling. They’re all over the other wrist too. It’s the same for all four victims.”
“So they tortured and killed these people for kicks, or revenge, or because they wanted something from them,” I said more to myself than to anyone in the room. “Anything out of the ordinary, something weird in all four bodies?”
“No, unfortunately not. However, apart from the severe beatings and torture, all three of them do share a common wound.” Doctor Pierce motioned for Bill to help him roll the body onto his side, showing me the gaping hole, about the size of my closed fist, on the back of his shoulder. “There’s an identical one in the other man and the older of the two women we found.”
