And with my participation that meant a new voice. Some might try to curry favors with me to advance their own agendas, and others might try to blackmail, bully or otherwise strong arm me into doing as they wished. With only one child my clan would be weak so I would have to make more. I would have to let Rachel make more so our numbers could act as a further deterrent to the other clans from whatever machinations they may have in motion.
I groaned and rubbed my eyes vigorously.
I did not have the kind of mindset or all this political bullshit. I hadn't even seen the lay of the proverbial land yet and it was already giving me a hell of a migraine.
The city was relatively quiet, so late at night. There were few cars on the road and even fewer pedestrians. It was getting quite cold and most sane humans were at home, in bed and warm, not wandering the freezing night as I was. The night was suddenly far less wonderful to me than my thoughts the night Claus approached me.
It was becoming sinister and foreboding, and that, more than anything pissed me off. The night belonged to me and I would be damned if some asshole puppeteer would take the night from me. The night was my solace and I would reclaim it.
"Are you going to watch me all night or did you actually want to talk? Since you haven't attacked me yet I figured there was some other reason behind this visit?"
"I was wondering how long it would take you to notice."
"I noticed the second you showed up Vera. I've learned from my recent mistakes." She stepped out of the shadows ahead of me and I showed her the gleam of a silver edged knife hidden in my palm. "Fool me once..."
She smiled, lips stretching in a vicious caricature to show extremely white and straight teeth. Her blond hair fell in long curly waves to her waist and her breasts were pushed up and on display by a tight, black corset. Black leather pants encased her legs like a second skin and a decorative stainless steel belt rode low on her hips. Black boots finished off the ensemble with high stiletto heels.
"Going for the fetish look tonight?" I drawled and she laughed, a deep throaty thing that seemed to have a life of its own as it echoed on the empty street.
"No, my pet. I'm just here to talk."
"We have nothing to talk about."
"The Vayun will never let you reach the council."
"What do they have to say about it? Their leader is dead. They have no orders to follow to that effect."
"Unless they are receiving orders from another source?" She stepped toward me, every motion oozing grace and sex rolled off of her in waves that I could feel even from where I stood still twenty feet from her. With each step closer to me though she became more distracting and I firmly kept my eyes on hers, ignoring the pale expanse of exposed flesh spilling from the top of her corset.
"Who could give the Vayun orders that they would even follow?"
Her eyes flickered behind me but I failed to take the bait. I was fairly certain she was trying to get me to take my eyes off of her but I stretched out my senses and the Vasith in me told me there was nothing there to be worried about.
"I don't know, myself. But they have been following orders for years. It took them two years to discover your location but as soon as they did they delivered the information to the council and a week later I was sent to apprehend you."
"I still don't understand that. Why apprehend me? I was leaving the brotherhood alone. I have not sired any children of my own so why come hounding me? There was no reason to do so. The council could have simply left me alone and I would have left them alone."
She shrugged, an action that did some very interesting things to her anatomy, but I exercised every ounce of will that I possessed and kept my eyes firmly north.
"I cannot say what I do not know." Despite working less effectively on the wolves and other vampires my Vasith powers told me enough to know that she was telling the truth there. She honestly didn't know why they had chosen now to bother me with this.
"So if you have no information to impart then why are you here? I'll simply have to ask the council themselves when I see them at the meeting tomorrow afternoon."
"I only came to warn you that the Vayun will do everything they can to keep you from approaching the meeting. It is to go on for three days and they will have large numbers of their clan stationed outside the Hall to intercept you."
"And the rest of the council is ok with them doing this?" I was skeptical and I did nothing to hide the fact.
"The rest of the Council hasn't shown any interest in trying to stop them at the very least." Her eyes flickered a glance over my shoulder again. Something I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't trying so hard to avoid looking at her other assets. A sneaking suspicion began to worm its way into the back of my mind.
"You keep looking behind me," I said as I lit another cigarette. "You're either trying to distract me, because you want to use the opportunity to attack me. Which is honestly unlike you, and we both know that I can tell there's no one behind me."
"True enough," she said with a smirk tugging at her full lips.
"Orrrr," I drew out the word for several seconds. "You're trying to keep my eyes on you so I don't notice something else going on." I spun quickly and looked behind me, leaving my back open to an attack I now knew wouldn't come.
Back the way I had come the sky was lit with an angry orange glow and I could now dimly hear the sound of sirens in the distance. The hotel I had left my friends at was on fire.
"You had better run Gabriel," She called to me as I threw away my cigarette and began sprinting down the sidewalk. "Your little bird might have already had her wings clipped." There was laughter in her voice and I cursed her mentally as my boots pounded the pavement beneath me.
She had kept me distracted long enough already for the real attack. I had never been the target to begin with.
I swear, if I had anything to say about it, I was going to kill that fucking bitch one day very soon.
* * * * * *
By the time I reached the hotel chaos reigned supreme. Fire engines lined the street and emergency personnel ran to and fro in the madness. They shouted back and forth to each other in that thick Scottish brogue that always sounded to me like they were trying to talk around a mouth full of mashed potatoes.
Several of them shouted to me as I ran by at a more human speed but I ignored them, couldn't understand what they were saying anyway, and plunged through the open doors of the hotel and into the flames.
Fire licked at the surface of my leather coat and I ignored it as well as I ignored the cold. I could feel my hair getting singed from the heat but I pushed on. The interior lobby was already engulfed in flames and in the distance I could hear the grunting and crashing of combat.
I ducked to my right, sprinting quickly and as low to the ground as I could, making my way up the stairs to the fifth floor where our rooms were located. Several patrons of the hotel ran past me, screaming in hysterics about monsters and I knew I was on the right track as I turned down a hall, mostly devoid of fire. Just as I reached the door to my and Rachel's room there was a thunderous crash and the door exploded outward in a shower of wood splinters as a large, furred body came flying through. Ghost hit the wall opposite and slumped to the ground in a daze for a moment before climbing to his feet. His grey coat was tattered and smoked at the edges and blood ran freely down the left side of his face from an already closing gash above his eye.
He growled a greeting at me and ran back into the room with me right on his heels. One of the joys of operating at a physically higher speed than humans is that your brain has to operate at a similar speed, otherwise everything becomes a blur.
As such I needed less than a second after I burst into the room to take everything in and formulate a response. Grim was in the south corner of the room, one of the Shadu held in one hand and with the other drawing a wicked looking Kukri from where he'd just embedded it in a Vayuns' wind pipe. Ghost was bearing down on three of the Vasith clan. He crashed into them, bore them across the room,
and out of the east facing window. The last three in the room turned to face me and I was on them.
The one on the left found himself lifted into the air and thrown violently back through the same window Ghost had just broken while the one on the right took two of my throwing knives through his eyes. The third, the one in the center, blocked my charge, grabbed my wrist in a tight grip, swiveled to the side, and threw me over her shoulder.
I flew, without the benefit of my powers, and crashed hard into the wall across the room. I landed hard on my head on the floor and rolled quickly to my feet, just in time to catch the foot aimed at my face.
There was one problem they had overlooked. Based on her actions with throwing me they had orders not to do serious damage. I had no such concerns.
I twisted hard, shattering her ankle and she cried out in pain. I shoved her away and she stumbled back falling to her ass on the floor and before she could muster a defense I drove my knee into her face. Her nose shattered and several teeth were knocked out as blood spurted and she bounced back, her head striking the floor under us.
I reached down, grabbed her head, and twisted as hard as I could. Her head turned all the way around, three-hundred-and-sixty degrees and I dropped her body and stood in search of more opponents.
The only one left was the man with the knives I had thrown sticking out of his eye sockets. I kicked them hard as he stumbled past me, driving them all the way into his brain and he tumbled boneless to the floor, the tips of my knives protruding a half an inch from the back of his skull.
"Grim," I growled. "Where is Rachel?"
23
March 05, 2005: Scotland
"Where is she Grim?"
Grim coughed on some of the smoke and ducked down in search of cleaner air. Smoke was pouring up the stairs and the air was getting hazy with it. I guess smoking for years really did make a difference, I didn't much notice the smoke.
"Next door," he choked out. I ran out the door and into the next room. The smoke hadn't infiltrated here as much but as soon as I entered the room I knew something was terribly wrong. I could hear her breathing, harsh and labored. The stink of sweat and fear filled the room just below the over powering stench of blood.
The room was smaller than the one I had booked for Rachel and I. It was dark, lit only by the flames outside and the street lamps. The bed was in the center against the far wall next to a window. Sprawled across the light cream colored bed spread was a small, dark form, with a spreading dark stain beneath her.
When I leaned over her I realized that I had no memory of crossing the room to her. No memory of whatever thoughts might have gone through my head at that time all I could think as I stood there is what had I been thinking, getting her involved in this? I was no better than the beasts that attacked her in the first place.
I shook that off as best I could and focused on her. She was lying on her left side, curled almost into the fetal position. There were no obvious signs of injury that I could see at first but the moment I rolled her onto her back the signs became glaringly clear. The two inch wide gash in her abdomen, probably caused by the bloody sword lying next to her on the bed, was a pretty clear indication of what had caused the injury.
On the plus side that meant she hadn't been bitten by a wolf. I hadn't seen any wolves in the other room but that made sense since Grim could have ordered them not to attack or to help us and they would have been required to do so. She was already getting pale and based on the amount of blood spread across the bed I could tell she didn't have long if I was going to save her.
"What's the plan Gabe?" I looked up at Ghost looking far more human, and Grim as they entered the room
"I have to save her. She never asked to be dragged into this and I can't just let her die now."
Grim glanced at the wound and grunted.
"That seems a bit extensive for your blood to heal. Are you sure it will work?"
I sighed, vaguely aware of Ghost wandering the room, for what reason I couldn't say, I wasn't particularly interested or paying attention. "No Grim, I can't use a few drops of my blood to heal this. I need something a little more extreme." I turned my head finally to look at the Old Wolf and he took a step back at the look in my eyes. I can only imagine the murderous rage written across my face at that moment. Unlike the burning anger that I'd exploded with when I destroyed Claus's bar at his hotel room, or when I was attacked in the smoke shop in Oregon. This was an ice cold rage that had me very calm despite the livid epic levels of anger that I felt coursing through my veins.
In the Old Wolfs defense he barely flinched past the initial back step and immediately came forward again. "What do you need from us?"
"We need to get her out of here and we need someplace that she and I won't be bothered for at least twenty four hours. And we have to do it quickly, she doesn't have much time."
Ghost and Grim moved quickly after that. Thankfully the fact that we worked together for so long meant we didn't get in each others way much as we worked. I wrapped Rachel in the comforter from the bed, covering her completely and lifted her into my arms. To my enhanced strength she always felt light but at that moment she seemed even lighter than usual to me.
We said nothing else. Ghost and Grim preceded me from the room and led the way down the stairs. The lower floor was still a mass of flames but we reached the second floor and found a window facing away from the street. There was minimal foot traffic on that side and we leaped to the ground below, landing heavily. Rachel groaned inside her cocoon but quieted as I shifted her gently in my arms and we ran around to the front of the building.
An ambulance stood nearby with the doors gaping open and the driver talking into his radio next to it. Ghost knocked the man out and tossed Grim the keys. I jumped into the back with Rachel and Ghost tossed the unconscious driver in with me before they closed the doors and jumped into the front.
"It'll be ok, Rache," I whispered to her as I unwrapped her from the comforter. I was not exactly looking forward to what would happen next. I had never experienced it myself, but I knew what was coming from my lessons as a fledgling.
Rachel was going to get what she wanted, but probably not in the way she had hoped.
The Brotherhood Council would also likely be less than amused.
The Fifth Clan was about to be born.
24
March 06, 2005: Scotland
In popular literature, movies, games, and even most ancient lore the way a human is turned into a vampire is by a mixture of different methods. Biting someone was always one way that was widely accepted to make someone a vampire. Or a mindless ghoul if the victim was not a virgin before the vampire bit them. Drinking the blood of a Vampire was also considered to work.
In a strange way these methods were correct and missed the mark at the same time.
What needed to happen was for a humans system to be overwhelmed by vampiric blood, carrying the virus that made us Vampires. To do so the victim needed to be largely drained of their blood, nearing the point of death so their body would be weak and more easily overcome by the virus. Feeding from the victim was the simplest way to arrange this.
The vampire would also be severely weakened by having a large amount of their own blood drained in the process of creating their Child, so feeding immediately before hand helped prevent a feral state once the Child was created.
Since Rachel had already lost so much blood feeding from her wasn't an option that I was willing to entertain. But I still needed to feed myself. Therefore the poor ambulance driver became an unfortunate victim. In his unconscious state he was easy prey. I sank my teeth into his wrist, tearing a jagged wound and sucked greedily at the injury, draining much more of his blood than I would in a normal feeding. Not enough to kill the man, but enough that he would likely spend a few days in the hospital.
Ghost pulled the ambulance over when I yelled to him and I bit my tongue, letting several drops of my blood fall into the wound which closed up within seconds before my eye
s and I rolled him out onto the street. Closing the doors Ghost started driving again and I turned my attention back to Rachel.
This was the part that I was least looking forward to. To overwhelm her system she couldn't drink my blood. Drinking it wouldn't help the fact that she had lost a great deal of her own blood. When a patient needs blood in the hospital they don't have them drink it, they put it into their veins directly through a transfusion
The traditional method for creating a vampire was drain the victims’ blood nearly entirely of the blood needed for the victim to remain alive, then slash open both the human and vampires arms, press the wounds together and let their blood mingle for the next twenty four hours.
At the end of that time both would wake changed. The human would be a vampire, young and strong. The vampire would be a Sire, linked indelibly to his progeny and for a brief number of hours he would be weaker than his Child, weary from the arduous task of creating a new vampire.
For humans this was not a way to mix two beings blood together. It just wouldn't work. With a Vampire involved, however, the usual rules don't exactly apply.
In less than a minute I had both our left forearms sliced open and the wounds, with a severed vein for each of us, pressed together. The next reaction wasn't unexpected but it was still an odd feeling. The severed ends of my vein melded to the ends of her vein. The torn flesh in my arm melded to the torn flesh of hers, binding our bodies into one biological unit.
My blood, carrying the vampire virus traveled through her blood stream until it reached her heart. There it was pumped out into her arteries where it would be carried to the rest of her body. Through the roughly sixty-thousand miles of arteries, veins, and capillaries that ran through the average human body.
We would be here for twenty four hours while my blood slowly filtered into her body. Two hearts beating together as one. I felt my eyes growing heavier and eventually drifted off to sleep as the transformation slowly changed us both.
The Fifth Clan Page 16
