The Fifth Clan

by Ryan T. Nelson

  “We’re still sitting in a locked room,” Ghost said.

  I looked over at him, barely containing a heated glare.

  “Do you want me to break your arm again?” I asked him, growling low in my throat. After the first day or so, at a guess, we’d gotten into an argument and I broke his arm in three places during a scuffle.

  “Try it, Leech,” he growled at me, rising to his much greater height. It was difficult to stare down a person that stood nearly half a foot taller than you did. I noticed absently that his face had healed up nicely from the bruising it’d received when we’d been brought to that thrice damned room.

  I glared at him, the desire to rip his throat out growing with every passing second. With a supreme effort of will I pushed away that desire, knowing exactly what was causing it. We hadn’t eaten.

  In the, who-knew-how-many, days we’d been trapped there we’d had no contact with anyone other than each other. And that also meant no one had brought in meat or blood for either of us in all that time either. I was starting to see red everywhere I looked in my thirst.

  “Are they completely insane?”

  “It depends on your definition of insanity. Why do you ask?”

  “They’ve left us in here without food for quite a while at this point. If they’re trying to exhaust us from hunger they’re going about it in entirely the wrong way don’t you think? Starving us will just make us angrier and more vicious when they eventually do let us out.”

  “Maybe that’s what they’re counting on,” Ghost pointed out.

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to guess what the enigmatic wolf was thinking. I hated that the Vasiths' telepathic abilities weren’t more prevalent in my store of abilities. Reading the minds of other vampires or wolves took a lot more focus and power than reading humans mind so it wasn’t worth the effort to even attempt to pick up Ghosts surface thoughts.

  “Ok,” I said after several minutes of silence. “I give up, what’re you talking about?”

  “Well, if we get hungry enough, or vicious enough, they might be hoping we’ll turn on each other in a more permanent fashion than that broken arm you gave me a while ago.”

  I considered that in silence for a few minutes. “I don’t know,” I said, finally. “It’s a good theory but something about it seems a bit off to me. I’d be willing to lay down money it’s something along those lines but it doesn’t sound like Threntü, it’s too straight forward. You know him as well as I do and he never does anything for such simple reasons.”

  Ghost shrugged. “Only thing I could think of so I ran with it.”

  “That you did.”

  He grunted. Apparently he’d grown tired of our games of witty banter. Even I had given up on really trying after the thirtieth attempt to one up each other. I laid back on my metal cot, thinking, not for the first time, that I really wished they had at least put a cushion of some kind on it. The solid metal slab was really starting to kill my back.

  “So now what?” I asked.

  “What’re you asking me for?” he scoffed. “You were the man with the plan, remember?”

  “I seem to remember you insisting that I needed to have a plan or you weren’t going to help me get in here.”

  “Well, we got in, you really needed my help to get your face smashed in and thrown in here. Now what?”

  “Now we get out of here, find Threntü, kill him violently and then we ride off into the sunset.”

  “I forgot my horse.”

  “Ok, we’ll steal a car.”

  “How do we get out of here?”

  “I’m still working on that part,” I admitted.

  “Work faster.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Well?”

  I shrugged. “I got nothing.”

  Ghost sighed and stumped back over to his cot, sitting heavily on the thick metal. It was too strong for us to bend or tear, believe me, we’d tried. I stared blankly up at the metal ceiling. The metal against my bare back was cold, but I barely noticed it wasn't anything other than a pleasantly comfortable temperature. They’d taken my shirt, and Ghosts, but for some reason decided to leave us our pants and shoes and my trench coat. I knew they would have searched and emptied my pockets but out of sheer boredom I began going through the coats numerous pockets anyway.

  A minute later I hit pay dirt.

  “YES!” I bellowed, leaping to my feet, digging frantically in a pocket. Ghost jumped and spun on his cot to face me.

  “What’d you find? Tell me they missed a grenade or something.” Why I would be carrying a grenade I didn't even think to question.

  I grinned like an idiot and held up a small metal object and a glossy plastic pouch like I’d been given the greatest prize ever invented in the history of the known fucking universe.

  Ghosts’ hopeful and expectant look faded to confusion. Then to understanding and rapidly on into irritation. “Are you honestly telling me,” he growled, “that you got so excited because they left your cigarettes and lighter in your coat pocket?”

  I glanced at the items in question, still held triumphantly aloft in one hand. In retrospect it seemed kind of silly to get so excited but I’d been dying for a cigarette for a while and I couldn’t help but be excited. Vampires were no more immune to addiction than humans were and I wanted my nicotine fix.

  “Um… yeah?” I said, timidly, in response to Ghosts question.

  Ghost stood up. I backed away.

  “Now, Ghost,” I said as I backed up. “Come on old friend, you know how I get sometimes.”

  “They won’t need to bring you in front of Threntü for torture or anything,” he said as he advanced, cracking his knuckles menacingly. “I’m going to kill you myself right now!”

  He lunged for me, I ducked and spun under him and he landed against the far wall of our small prison. Turning in midair he planted his booted feet against the wall and sprang off it like a trampoline, launching himself at me again with barely a seconds pause.

  I jumped over him that time. As he passed under me he reached up and wrapped one hand around my ankle.

  “Oh shi-” One solid tug and I smashed face first into the metal floor, putting a fairly good sized dent into it in the process. I carefully pried myself out of the Gabriel shaped imprint I’d left and stood just in time to catch a steel toed boot to the chin. My teeth clacked shut so hard I felt the vibration in my toes.

  “Ok,” I muttered as I felt the telltale warmth flooding my damaged muscles as my body healed itself. “This means war, Puppy.” I leapt to my feet and Ghost and I dashed at each other, fists raised and teeth bared in angry snarls.

  * * * * * *

  “That was low,” Ghost complained some time later. “There was no call for that.”

  “Not my fault you presented too easy a target,” I snickered, lit cigarette dangling from my lips. I felt much better now that I had some nicotine in my system again. “You should know better than to try a high kick like that. I’m half a foot shorter than you and I have no problems hitting below the belt, when the occasion calls for it.” I chuckled again. I couldn’t help it, it was too much fun for me to put down the much larger wolf whenever I got the chance to best him in a fight. And with how starved we were, we were far more prone to fight than usual.

  “Yeah, try it again,” he growled reaching out and slapping the cigarette out of my hand. “Watch me rip your hand off next time you try.”

  “Wanna go again, Lassie?” I growled, rising quickly to my feet. Ghost surged to his feet again and we were just about to go for a second round when something unexpected and unusual happened.

  There was a large metallic crashing sound followed by a solid scraping.

  We looked at each other. Then we looked rapidly around, wondering where the door was going to open and if we could react fast enough to overcome whoever opened it.

  At the last second I looked up only to see the center of the ceiling iris open like the shutter on a camera, seams and lines appearing wher
e before there had been smooth metal. Before I had a chance to react a body was falling through that opening directly into my arms as the iris snapped shut again.

  That’s about when it all flooded in and I finally understood what Threntü was trying to do. Why he was starving us.

  ‘What happens when you starve a Werewolf and a Vampire for days, and then drop a fragile human girl in their laps?’ I thought as I looked down at Rachel, unconscious and cradled protectively in my arms.

  I can tell you right now, nothing good.

  * * * * * *

  “We have to get out of here,” I practically snarled at Ghost, scrabbling frantically at the wall behind me, looking futilely for any way to create an opening we could escape through.

  Ghost growled at me over the screeching of claws on metal. He’d transformed into his wolf shape in order to attempt tearing through the walls with his claws, something he’d avoided doing earlier because we didn’t have any food for him to replenish the lost energy he’d burn through with the transformation.

  Rachel was at the far end of the room, propped awkwardly against the wall as far away from us as we could get her. I’d also wrapped her in my coat in a vain attempt to cover her scent with my own. The smell of her blood was driving us both crazy with hunger and thirst and we needed to get out of there before something horrible happened.

  “There’s no way out,” I gasped, panic beginning to touch at my senses as I saw the small scratches Ghosts claws were creating in the metal. I’d seen Ghost slice through the hood of a Cadillac as if it was a loaf of bread with those claws and he was barely scratching our metal prison. Threntü had built it very well. There was no way for us to break out. Not even the toilet in the corner had yielded any results. After tearing it from the wall the pipe had sealed over a foot in and there was no way to widen that opening either.

  We were trapped. And Rachel was doomed.

  “Why is he doing this to us?” I asked as I finally gave up and slid to the floor against the wall.

  “You said it yourself,” Ghost growled, still transformed. “Threntü never does anything for simple reasons. Think this complicates our stay in here enough to fit his M.O?” he asked, waving with one dinner plate sized hand to indicate the slumped girl on the other side of the room.

  “Sounds about right,” I admitted grudgingly. This was actually just like Threntü. It fit his personality to a tee. He knew I had let Rachel get too close to me. He knew I’d let her in where I hadn’t let anyone in nearly two hundred years. And he was going to make sure to add her destruction to the weight that I already carried.

  Rachels' only choices of leaving this room were in Ghosts stomach, or in a body bag, completely drained of her blood by me.

  Something about it still struck me as unusual. Something didn’t feel right and I felt the strings of memory tugging at my attention.

  16

  Ireland: May 15, 1809

  It’d been a fortnight. Two weeks for the modern reader, since Threntü had visited and I’d watched him raking Ash over the coals for not manipulating me enough for some goal he had in mind for me. Some sort of task he wanted me to perform but think that it was my idea.

  I had no idea what that was and I didn’t like the implications behind it.

  “Ye’ve been quiet, love,” Ash said, sliding over the arm of the chair I’d appropriated into my lap. She wrapped her arms around my neck and planted a firm kiss on my lips. I didn’t respond, and after a minute of nothing she finally stopped and leaned back to look at me. “And that used at get ye ready at tear me clothes off. What’s been bothering ye?” she asked, frowning at me.

  I was suddenly very happy that she wasn’t one of the Vasith. A pure telepath would’ve been able peel my mind like a banana to get the information they wanted.

  “Nothing,” I snapped. I stood up abruptly dumping her off my lap onto the floor. “I’m goin’ for a walk,” I grumbled, stalking angrily from the inn common room. I nodded to Ghost on my way out where he sat at a table near the back of the room playing dice with a couple of roughly dressed men that had wandered into the Inn that night. He made to get up and I waved him back down. I wouldn’t need his help, and I didn’t need any conversation at the moment. I would talk to him later.

  At the moment I needed nothing more than peace and quiet and a chance to be alone so I could think. In the two weeks that had passed Ash had barely let me out of her sight. She was already occupying my bed so that made it impossible to be alone at night either. My only choice was to stalk away in anger, which I was rather good at, so I did.

  I made my way out to the woods again, almost unseeing as my feet traced a path unaware of any input from my mind. Without realizing it I found myself approaching the small clearing where Ash and the puppeteer that pulled my strings had met.

  As I walked up He was sitting there waiting for me. I could hear my teeth grinding as I saw him.

  “What do you want?” I snarled at him, resisting the urge to lunge for his throat. It was a close thing though.

  “Is that any way to greet me, your benefactor/”

  “You call turning me into an outcast, a freak amongst freaks, being of benefit to me?” I snapped at him.

  “I call choosing you to be a leader, a veritable god, of benefit to you,” he said, arrogantly. He was so smug and full of himself in that moment I wondered how I ever felt he’d been a father figure attempting to help me with the station chosen for me. He really was the puppet master, and I was getting dangerously close to cutting the strings.

  My left hand rested easily, naturally on the hilt of the Katana sheathed at my waist. It was an unusual weapon to wear in that part of the world but after the events in Japan I would always find myself partial to the Orient and more specifically the weapons of the Era. In a hundred years, I would still prefer the use of a Katana over a knife or gun unless circumstances required otherwise.

  I couldn’t tell if Threntü was even aware of the threat I was idly making by resting my hand there. Even if he didn’t, I knew he was fast enough, and powerful enough to counter anything I might try. My only hope was the one weapon in my arsenal that he knew nothing about. That nobody knew about. But it wasn’t the time to reveal that ability. Not yet.

  “What is it you want Ash to ‘work on me’ about?” I asked, quoting Ash’s line from two weeks before. “You’ve got plans for me that involve pulling my strings and manipulating me and I want to know what those plans are.” I growled.

  Threntü slowly rose to his feet. He paced around the clearing, moving back and forth as calmly as if he were simply out for an afternoon stroll. He infuriated me sometimes.

  Okay, all the time to be honest.

  “Why haven’t you ever turned a human?” he asked suddenly.

  I blinked, the full torrent of rage I’d built up coming to an abrupt halt and becoming replaced entirely by confusion. He always did that. He knew just how to get me completely off balance and feeling as if I was at the center of an interrogation when I was trying to grill him for information.

  “Wha-?”

  “Why is it,” he went on. “That you, who are in a rage at me over creating you, a unique being, have not taken it upon yourself to make more like you? So you won’t be alone anymore.”

  “I don’t want to curse anyone else with this life.”

  “So you will selflessly doom yourself to loneliness and torment out of your desire not to bring damnation down upon anyone else?”

  “And you do not believe in the tenants of love? Of finding one to spend eternity with? You are, for all intents and purposes, immortal you realize that?”

  “Of course I know that. And I know Virith was said to have had a spouse but how am I supposed to know if I’ll ever find someone I’d be willing to spend the rest of eternity with?”

  “Then you would turn someone, if you found someone you think you won’t get tired of?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I sputtered, instantly feeling on the defensive again. I hat
ed it when he did that. And he did it a lot.

  “But that is the implication, is it not?”

  “Not at all.”

  “If that is what helps you to sleep at night you may continue to lie to yourself, child,” he said, a smug grin making its home on his lips. Oh how I wanted to smack the grin right off his face. With any luck I could take his face off of his skull at the same time.

  Bitter?

  Moi?

  You’re damned fucking straight I was bitter. And I still am so get off your fucking high horse so I can kick your a-

  Sorry. Continuing on.

  At the time I didn’t say anything else to him. What could I say? There was nothing to be done in the face of his infuriatingly calm exterior.

  I snarled in impotent rage, knowing I couldn’t attack him so I turned on my heel to stalk off when he spoke again, a quiet whisper that I would have missed if it wasn’t for my enhanced hearing.

  “I just came to tell you, you Gabriel, that you should know you aren’t the only unique vampire in existence anymore. I have a… protégé, of sorts. Good breeding I must say and rather exceptionally powerful.”

  I kept walking, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I had heard him. He already knew anyway so why give him anything else to gloat about.

  “Keep that in mind in the future. Should you ever feel the need to start your own family.”

  * * * * * *

  ????????

  "Son of a bitch," I breathed so quietly I'm sure that even Ghost would have had difficulty hearing it if he hadn't been standing so close to me. "That self-righteous, manipulative, son of a fucking bitch."

  "Gabriel," Ghost interrupted. "It's really difficult to keep track of your internal musings when they're, you know, internal. It would help if you would bring this startling revelation of yours into the light."