by D. N. Hoxa
As soon as the words left my mouth, Carson stood up and left the room.
“Why are you telling us all this? You said you didn’t remember anything, so as far as you’re concerned, you’ve never helped us before,” Sharps said.
I smiled at myself, shaking my head. “Part guilt, part pity, I guess.”
“Are you going to help us, Hammer?” Sean said. His eyes were wide, desperate. The feeling tasted bitter on my tongue.
“I don’t know how to help you, Sean. I wish I did, but like I said, I remember nothing.” He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “What I can do is tell you everything I know in detail.”
“You know goddamn well that we won’t be able to defend ourselves against them.”
“You’ve done pretty well so far.”
“Because they never wanted to kill us all until now. You said it yourself,” Wyatt said.
“We’ll be fine. We’re not as clueless as you make us sound,” Sharps hissed. “We’ll attack first. We’ll protect ourselves.”
“We’re not as clueless, because he told us everything we know. What have we come up with on our own?” Wyatt said.
“The soundproof vest,” Brady mumbled.
“Yes, and that was his idea! It took us twelve years to fucking make it!” Sean shouted.
“Hey, calm down, will you? Panic is not your friend right now,” I said. If they lost it, it would only make matters worse.
“We’re fucked,” Sean said, and slammed his hands on the table. He then turned to Wyatt. “Call an emergency meeting for tomorrow morning.” Wyatt nodded and stood up to leave.
“How can you not remember?” Sharps whispered, like he was talking more to himself, than to us.
“I gave away my mind to get out of hell,” I said reluctantly. He laughed dryly. “It’s not funny,” I assured him.
“What’s funny is you, coming here after nine years of going AWOL, and telling us that you don’t remember anything. And on top of it all, there’s a war we have no idea how to even fight, yet the only thing that’s stuck in my brain is that you were in hell, and you somehow said fuck you to it, and came back up.”
He laughed harder. I drank my vodka.
“I didn’t come here after nine years. You brought me here. You kidnapped me with that fucking silver blanket,” I hissed. I still remembered how much it had hurt.
Sharps only laughed harder. “Your greatest invention, if you ask me,” Sean said.
Great. Hammer had invented the fucking silver blanket.
“Look, I get that you’re freaked out. I’m freaked out, too.”
“You sure don’t look like it,” Sharps said.
“Just because I’m not laughing hysterically doesn’t mean I’m goddamn calm,” I said. “But you need to focus. You need to prepare.”
“How much time do we have?” Sean asked.
“I think you’ll have a little time. Everything is prepared, as far as I can tell, but they haven’t acted yet, so my guess is…”
Morta. Morta had stolen something from them. Something that had stopped them from acting. That’s why they wanted to find her so badly! I stood up.
“What?” Brady asked.
“Someone stole something from them. Something important. Something they can’t attack without.”
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about it until then. Of course! They had the humans. They had the blood. The vampires, the bombs…but they were stuck. Whatever Morta took from them blocked them.
“What?” Sean said, the same time Sharps said: “Who?”
“I don’t know what. I just know that they’re desperate to get it back. They’ve been keeping me hostage for almost a week now, torturing my vampires to get me to agree to find her for them.”
I actually wanted to smile. It felt good to finally understand something, even if it wasn’t anything big.
“Her?” Brady said.
“Her. A vampire. The vampire who stole from them.”
“Why did they want you to find her?” Sharps asked, his brows narrowed.
“Because I know her. Hammer knew her better than anyone else.”
“Then we have to find her first,” Brady said.
“Let’s not rush into decisions,” Sean said. “Let’s hear the whole story first.”
“I need a drink,” Sharps said, and I reluctantly pushed the vodka bottle towards him. He took a long sip before he returned it.
“I will tell you everything I know, but I need something from you in return.”
“What can we possibly give you that you don’t already have?” Sharps said, smiling like he thought I was joking.
“I need weapons. I need the…the stuff you use. Everything that protects you from vampires.”
“Everything we have was either designed by you, or your idea,” Sean said.
“Yes, but I don’t remember any of them. I don’t know how to make anything, and I need as many weapons as I can get.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going back to Brazil to free the vampires I left there.”
“No.”
We all turned to look at Sharps.
“What do you mean, no?”
“It means no. We already know enough from what you’ve said. We don’t need the details if you don’t want to give them to us,” he said.
“Are you out of your mind?” Sean said to him.
“I made everything you use.” He couldn’t deny those things to me.
“Yes, and you don’t remember making them,” he said.
“You don’t understand. I put them in there. They were tortured because of me. I need to get them out, and I can’t do that without weapons.”
“In that case, I’ll make you a proposition,” Sharps said. “If you agree to help us, we’ll give you every weapon we have. We’ll give you men, too. I will personally come to help you.”
I shook my head. Was he crazy?
“You’ll be dead before you can blink. That place is crawling with vampires.”
“And we’ll be just as good as any of them,” Sharps said.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Why the hell not?” Sean asked. Seemed he liked Sharps’s proposal.
“Because I’m not going to take you there to die.” I had enough on my conscience already.
“Why don’t you leave that for us to decide?” Brady said.
“You don’t have any idea what you’re even asking!”
“Help us, and we’ll help you,” Sharps said.
“I don’t need your help,” I hissed.
“You do,” he insisted. “You need us to get your friends out. And we need you to help us find the vampire thief.”
“Not again,” I said, covering my face with my hands. Everything was always about chasing Morta Fox.
“It’s a fair deal, Hammer. Think about it. You’ve always helped us. You’ve practically kept us alive all this time. We have weapons, but we have no clue how to best use them against vampires.”
“And you think I can tell you? Have you been listening? I. Don’t. Remember!” I shouted.
“You don’t have to remember anything. You’re a vampire. You can find out from others everything we never can,” Sharps said.
I opened my mouth to tell them that I had no fucking clue about anything and that I hadn’t known about Mohg, or the war, until Morta. But then something else occurred to me.
If I could find Morta and bring her there, she could guide them. She would know what to do. She was the one who’d suspected Mohg in the first place. She got close enough to steal from them and not get caught. She would know exactly how to stop them.
But the question was, would she want to?
“Hammer?” Sean said.
I should’ve just kept my eyes on the bottle, because the desperation I saw in theirs didn’t leave me a choice. I never even had a goddamn chance.
“Okay,” I whispered, against my better judgment.
“Thank you,” Sean said the
next second. “Thank you, Hammer.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” I mumbled. “I’ll tell you everything I know, and when we get my friends out of Brazil, I’ll find Morta.” How I was going to do that was still a big question mark in my head. “She will know exactly what to do. If she agrees to help you.”
“Morta?” Sharps flinched.
“Yes, that’s the vampire who stole the important thing.”
“Sounds good to me,” Brady said.
Sean stood up and offered me his hand as his heart pounded in his chest. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Hammer.”
I shook his warm hand. “Let’s get started.”
XXXV
We went to another room, one with all kinds of computers around. They monitored every corner of the city, and since I’d never seen a working screen before, I wasted time looking at each of them. It was amazing to know that the people on there were really alive and breathing, not thirty steps away from me. It was amazing.
Carson came back, breathing heavily.
“It’s true,” he said. “We found all kinds of weird shit around the walls.”
“Put those out there,” I said, pointing at the screens. “Put cameras everywhere around the wall. You need to monitor the outside more than the inside.”
Carson looked at Sean, and Sean immediately nodded. “Best get to it,” he said to Carson.
“Okay,” Carson said, somewhat surprised, and threw something on the table. Before he turned to leave, the device that looked like a black, plastic baseball bat, beeped.
“What the hell?” Carson whispered and picked it up again. He pressed a small button, and the beeping stopped. He pressed the button again, and it started. Carson looked around us, and his eyes stopped on me. Slowly, he reached out the device towards me, and the beeping became louder.
The next second, Sharps had a gun directed at me. The gun had six silver bullets in it. I rolled my eyes.
“I’m a vampire. Of course it’s going to beep,” I hissed.
“This doesn’t detect vampires. This detects bugs. Location transmitters,” Carson said.
“What are you hiding there, Hammer?” Sharps said. His hand didn’t move a single inch.
“I’m not hiding anything. I just agreed to help you.”
“I’ll ask you again before I’ll shoot you. What are you hiding?”
I moved to his side before the words left his mouth. “First of all, you can’t really shoot me from so close up. I can move much faster than you. Second, I am not hiding anything. You can search me if you want to.”
“Just search him, for God’s sake, Sharps! Drop the fucking gun!” Sean said.
Sharps looked at me like he wanted me to drop dead, but put the gun away, and pulled my arms up. He searched every part of me, and when he found nothing, he took the device from Carson and searched me with it. When it reached my right ankle, the beeping turned to a terrible, undisrupted noise.
“Pull your jeans up,” Sharps ordered, and I did. I didn’t know where the noise was coming from, but he could search as much as he wanted.
His warm fingers felt around my ankle, until they stopped on something. I pushed his hand away and touched my own skin. Underneath it, right next to my ankle, was a tiny ball that moved when I pressed on it.
“Give me a knife,” I said to no one in particular, and Sharps put a small one in my hand. It was silver.
“A normal knife,” I hissed. He’d done it on purpose, but he replaced the silver knife with a normal, smaller one. I cut through my skin, my curiosity overwhelming the pain. The small ball came out, a bit bloodied, and the next second, my skin healed.
“What the hell is this?” I said as I inspected the small thing. I’d never seen anything like it before.
“A tracker.” Sharps took it from my hand. “They’re tracking you!”
“No, no, no…they…” But how the hell did I know? “Oh, shit.”
“Get those damn cameras out there now!” Sean yelled at Carson, and he disappeared immediately.
“You didn’t know this was on you?” Sharps said, his suspicion as big as a mountain.
“Jesus Christ, Sharps,” I said instead of answering.
“What the hell are we going to do now?” Sean whispered.
“Did anybody know that Hammer worked with you guys?”
“No. He would never tell anyone unless he wanted to die,” Sharps said.
“Let’s hope you’re right,” I said, sighing. “If you are, there’s no reason to panic. Yet.”
“They’re going to come after you,” Sean said. “For all we know, they’re here right now.”
“No, they’re not. They’re not going to risk blowing everything up for me, trust me. If they didn’t know Hammer worked with you, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t think that you guys just captured me.”
“How do you know?” Sharps said.
“I’m not important. All they needed me for was to find Morta. They’re not going to sweat coming after me if they think you guys have me locked up. That’s exactly what they’ll think, because they don’t know I’ve worked with you before.”
It made sense in my head, maybe because I needed it to make sense. The alternative was not something I wanted to think about.
“I don’t know…” Sean whispered, scratching the back of his head.
“If they were going to come after me, they would’ve been here by now.”
“How can we know you’re not lying to us?” Sharps said.
“Because I’m not. I swear to you, I had no idea they’d put that on me.”
It was the best I could give them, and it seemed to be enough.
“We need plan B. If you’re wrong, and they do come after you, what are we going to do?” Sean said.
“If they do come, you’ll let them get me.”
“Are you crazy?” Brady said in disbelief.
“Would you rather more of you died while trying to stop them?” That shut them up pretty quickly. “For now, we plan ahead. If they do come, you let them take me, and they leave.”
“Okay,” Sean said, nodding. “Okay. Sounds good.”
He seemed to be out of breath, and the sound of his heart was filling my head, distracting me.
“Can I have more blood? I don’t want to be a pain, but your hearts,” I said, and flinched. They had no way of knowing what it did to me and my craving, or maybe they did, because Sean nodded at Brady, and Brady left. “The sun is two hours away, so we better get started.”
We sat around the table, and Wyatt came back, too. Brady didn’t take long, and he had with him two glasses of blood. I was going to drink one and leave the other for later, but when I tasted it, there was no stopping me. I drank every last drop as the others looked away.
“Okay,” I said, trying to clear my head. “Mohg has been preparing—”
“Wait, wait, wait. You said Mohg was a good guy,” Sean said.
“Nope. Turns out he isn’t. He’s playing a double-game. Everybody thinks that he’s going to defend you against Chandra—”
“Wait, Chandra? Isn’t she your mate?” Wyatt said.
“Was,” I said. “She was my mate until she disappeared.”
“Vampires sure seem to love to do that,” Sharps whispered, but I ignored him.
“Chandra has the bombs and the plans. Mohg has developed a kind of drug that has the same effect for a vampire as the human blood.”
“Holy shit,” Sean said.
“How the hell is that possible?” said Wyatt.
“I don’t know, but Mohg is working with Chandra.”
“Why would he lie to the other vampires?” Sharps asked.
I gave them the same explanation Dublin had given to me.
“Makes sense,” Sean said.
“Everything is being prepared in Brazil. That’s where they held me,” I said, and shivered at the thought of Penny, Lance, and Tif. They were still locked in there.
“If the bombs and everything else is ther
e, why not just go get them?” Wyatt said.
“If it was that easy, we wouldn’t need to worry at all,” I said, shaking my head. “Mohg has a lot of vampires. A lot.”
“You might not remember this, but we have a lot of men, too,” Sharps said dryly.
“Yes, men.” I didn’t need to explain myself any further.
“So, what’s the plan?” Sean said. “I need a plan. Actions. Like a to-do list. Simple, clean,” he blabbered. “I’ll talk to the other ROs tomorrow morning, and tell them the plan. We’ll need all the help we can get.”
“You really need to calm down,” I said.
“Calm down? How the hell am I going to calm down? Yesterday I couldn’t wait to get you here. Today, I have you here, you don’t remember anything, and you’re telling me fucking vampires are preparing to attack us. How can you expect me to calm down?”
“Because freaking out isn’t going to help you get out of it. I know it’s a lot to take in, but think about it this way: you could’ve still been in the dark about it. At least now you know and you can do something about it.”
He sighed loudly, then chuckled for a second. “Yeah. Yeah, it could’ve been worse,” he said. “It’s just…I wasn’t expecting this.”
“I’ve been expecting this since the day I was born. Did you really think they were going to just leave us be?” Sharps said. “They’re vampires. Top of the food chain. They’re going to come for their prey sooner or later.”
“Hammer’s right, let’s not freak out,” Wyatt said. “Let’s just listen to everything he has to say first, then talk.”
They all nodded and turned to me again.
“The plan is simple. The first thing we’re going to do is go back to Brazil and rescue my friends. After that, we go looking for Morta.”
“What if she refuses to help us?” Sharps said.
“I’m not saying that can’t happen, but we still have to try. I think she’s our best chance.”
“Yeah, but what if she doesn’t?” he insisted.
“Then we figure out another way,” I said, but deep down I knew there was no other way. Who was I going to turn to? Bugz? Dublin? I had no one else.
“But you’re going to help us,” Sean said.
“Yes, I’m going to help you the best way I know how.”
Just as I said the words, I realized how heavy they were. How much responsibility they held. I shivered, and stood up. My nerves were boiling. What the hell had I gotten myself into?
