Death Deceives

by J. C. Diem

  Spying a half open window on the second floor, I decided it would be my best way of gaining entry. I’d have to be quick if I wanted to exploit the oversight. My entrance wouldn’t be subtle but at least this side of the building was far less exposed than the front. Four guards, two at each end, watched the entrances of the alley and only occasionally bothered to look behind them. When they did, none tilted their heads back to examine the windows.

  I lacked a handy fire escape to jump from this time so pulled open the door leading to the interior stairwell of the building. Since the humans had either been eaten, kidnapped or evacuated from the area, it was still inside.

  Descending to the third floor, I opened the door leading to the apartments and trotted to the end of the hall. Peering out through the dirty window, I saw that it wasn’t quite lined up with the window across the road. It would have to do. Pushing on the window, at first it didn’t want to move but finally shot upwards with a screech. Startled murmurs came from the two closest soldiers. They clicked their flashlights on and searched the nearby shadows. When their probing didn’t flush out any imps or vampires, they gave up and went back to their posts.

  While they’d been searching, I’d launched myself into the air and landed neatly on the windowsill I’d been aiming for. Carefully brushing aside a set of metal blinds, I and my entourage crept inside what turned out to be an office. From the tiny size of the room, I figured it was a secretary’s lair. The scent of perfume still lingered. Pictures of an attractive brunette posing with what seemed to be friends and family sat on the desk. I pondered briefly whether she’d made it out of the town alive or if she’d ended up in one of the cages in the cavern of doom. For all I knew she’d already been spitted and eaten.

  Two of the imps were huddled near the wall during my brief search. I looked around for the third one didn’t see it anywhere. My four normal shadows were still all accounted for. How strange do things have to get when you start thinking having four shadows is in any way normal? Badly spooked now, I turned in a circle but there were definitely only two black imps present.

  “And now we are two,” one of them said with dark foreboding.

  “Did you see anything?” I asked them.

  The shadow shook its batlike head. “We saw and heard nothing.”

  “It’ll be our turn next,” its clone whined shakily.

  There was nothing I could do about their disappearance so I returned to the task at hand. Maybe they’re disappearing because your body is assimilating the imp blood, my subconscious suggested. It was possible that they were only a temporary manifestation and were fading one by one. I admit I liked this theory better than some unseen, unheard entity somehow disposing of them.

  Walking around armed wouldn’t aid me in gaining allies. Soldiers tended to shoot at something they saw as a threat. It would be sensible to be seen as nonthreatening as possible considering that I preyed on humans for food. Leaving my weapons and backpack beneath the missing secretary’s desk, I hoped the room wouldn’t be searched any time soon. Closing the window to hide my entry point seemed like a smart move. It slid down without a sound.

  So far so good. Now I just need to stumble across the Colonel and try to convince him to team up with me. Stepping out into the hallway, I waited until the imps stepped out after me then closed the door. I detected a large number of humans in one of the rooms nearby. Most were either sleeping or speaking quietly. They were working in shifts and for some of them it was nap time.

  Down the hall and around the corner, I located a large meeting room that had been turned into a makeshift barracks. A window in the door allowed me to examine the soldiers sleeping on thin mattresses on the floor. None were the man I sought so I moved on.

  Three more rooms had been converted into sleeping quarters and none contained the Colonel. Moving to the staircase leading down to the ground floor, I heard humans bustling around down there. The night wouldn’t last forever and I had a lot of explaining to do to the American soldier when we finally met. I contemplated deliberately running into a human so he could direct me to his boss. What’s the worst they could do to me? I’d had so many attempts made on my unlife by now that it didn’t bother me much that the soldiers would undoubtedly also try to kill me. I just hoped I didn’t create a mass panic once my identity was discovered.

  Shrugging inwardly, I took the stairs and pulled the door open. Instead of an open space, I found myself in a rabbit warren of corridors. Footsteps approached then veered off in another direction. More footsteps came from the opposite direction and also stopped short of reaching me. Jeez, what do I have to do to get discovered around here?

  Turning left, I rounded the corner and almost ran into a soldier. Preoccupied by the clipboard in his hands, he only noticed I was standing in front of him when he was right on top of me. Halting, he looked up and his mouth turned into a circle of surprise. His eyes moved behind me and saw the two hulking shadows flanking me like a pair of bodyguards. Hitching in a breath to scream, he dropped the clipboard and fumbled for the gun at his hip.

  Before he could unleash his scream of terror, I grabbed him by the chin and redirected his gaze. Our eyes met and the fright washed out of him, leaving a goofy smile in place of his former alarm.

  “Take me to Colonel Sanderson,” I commanded him before he could begin telling me how wonderful I was.

  My hypnotized guide kept trying to stare at me as he led the way. This resulted in him tripping over his feet and sprawling to the ground. He didn’t land quietly and a pair of soldiers came running to help him up.

  Uh oh, I had time to think before they lifted the guy to his feet. Both saw me and my strange entourage at roughly the same time and instantly recognized me. Before they could scream for assistance, I made them mine. Now I had three men in my thrall. “Where is Colonel Sanderson?” I asked the original soldier.

  “He’s in the meeting room, ma’am.”

  I hid a snigger at being called ma’am. Being an Aussie, I usually only heard the term on TV or movies. “How many other people are in the meeting room with him?”

  “No one at the moment, ma’am,” one of my latest conquests rushed to reply.

  “The Colonel requested some time alone to plan, ma’am,” the third guy said earnestly.

  “You’re so gorgeous,” my first captive said with a resurgence of his goofy smile.

  “Yeah, I know,” was my absent reply. “Let’s go, boys. Take me to your leader.” As soon as I said it, I felt like an alien invader. In a way, I kind of was.

  During our relatively short journey, we encountered several more soldiers. By the time we reached the door to the meeting room, I had eight men surrounding me. All were staring at me worshipfully. “How pathetic. Humans have no willpower,” sniffed one of my imp guardians. The other snorted its agreement.

  The door to the room was closed but not locked. Opening it a crack, I searched it quickly. Apart from the tall, thin, blonde guy standing with his back to me, the room was empty of people. A large, rectangular table with a dozen battered wooden seats took up most of the space. Maps were spread out on it and the American leader was staring at one intently.

  While I entered the room silently, my entourage of humans scuffed their feet, bumped into each other and generally made a racket. The Colonel straightened and spun around. The hand hovering over his gun hesitated then dropped to his side when he saw who had interrupted him.

  Seeing him in the flesh rather than on TV, I could tell how tired he was. The stress of his job had cut grooves into his forehead. “This is an unexpected surprise,” he said calmly, taking in his mesmerized soldiers. His gaze flickered when he spied the black silhouettes. He recognized them as being imps and groped for his gun again.

  “Don’t bother, they’re just shadows. They can’t hurt you.” Of course, that went both ways. No amount of gunfire would harm my rapidly dwindling number of companions.

  “How? What? Who?” The Colonel was searching for coherent questions to as
k me but couldn’t quite wrap his brain around what he was seeing. He made a valiant effort and gathered himself. “We’ve been searching for you.”

  “Now you’ve found me.” I could tell that he didn’t appreciate my attempt at humour. “We need to talk,” I said then had a sinking feeling when his eyes flicked over my shoulder.

  “I am more interested in putting an end to you than in speaking with you,” he replied and gave me a small, hard smile.

  Feet scuffed the floor behind me and a cold metal object was pressed up against the back of my head. Another soldier must have followed the rest of us to the meeting room and had just pulled his gun on me. “I wouldn’t do that if I were-” Before I could finish my warning, the soldier pulled the trigger.

  My skin, bone, flesh and brains splattered the floor. Staggering forward a step, I placed a hand over the gigantic hole where my forehead used to be as everything went blank for a few seconds. Then my freaky healing powers kicked in and my body repaired itself.

  Whirling around, I stared into the soldier’s eyes and he became my instant slave. “The other human is getting away,” one of the imps informed me.

  Hearing a door open behind me, I realized what the imp meant. The Colonel was fast for a guy in his late forties but not anywhere near as fast as me. Moving with unnatural speed, I popped up in front of him. Unable to stop his momentum, he bounced off me and hit the floor.

  Scrambling back, he shielded his eyes with a hand to stop me from beguiling him and tried to control his panic. “What do you want?” he asked me with quiet desperation.

  “I just want to talk, Colonel,” I said as soothingly as possible considering he probably thought I was there to eat him. “I promise I won’t bedazzle you if you don’t try to shoot me.”

  Looking up cautiously, the Colonel took a peek at my face. “Where are you from? You don’t sound Russian,” he said in confusion.

  “I’m Australian. My name is Natalie.” I didn’t offer him my hand to shake and he didn’t seem inclined to offer his own.

  He stood shakily, brushing off his pants and absently checking his gun was still in place. “What is it you want to talk about?” His attention wandered from me to the imps then to the four shadows overlapping each other then back to me again. I appreciated the fact that he had a lot to take in but I had a job to do. The more time we wasted talking, the more humans would end up either dead or converted.

  The group of soldiers I’d enthralled had followed us and stood in a silent, goofily smiling mob. “Before we talk, what do you want me to do with this lot?” I asked, pointing behind him.

  Looking over his shoulder, the Colonel shook his head in weary bemusement. “Just tell them to go about their usual duties,” he suggested.

  “All of you,” I addressed the crowd, “return to your normal jobs.” While they didn’t snap completely out of their dazed states, they were far more alert after a few seconds. What I didn’t anticipate was that they took me literally. One by one, they all pulled their guns on me.

  Seizing the opportunity to do away with me, Sanderson shouted an order. “Shoot her!”

  Almost as one, his men opened fire. My head disintegrated under the barrage of bullets and my lights went out.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Waking up from a horrible nightmare where my head had been blown off, I snuggled into my cold, concrete mattress. Hang on, my mattress isn’t usually cold or made of concrete! The thought was eerily familiar, as if I’d had this dream before or one very much like it.

  Opening my eyes, I found myself lying on the floor of a tiny cell. One of the imps was hunkered down next to me. It gave me a look that I couldn’t read because of its blank black face but I sensed that it was frightened. After a quick glance around, I knew why. Apart from my other four ‘normal’ shadows, it was now all alone.

  “I don’t suppose you saw what happened this time?” I asked it with little hope of a positive answer.

  Shaking its head in the negative, it stood when I did. “I only noticed that he was gone after the soldiers threw you into the cell.”

  My new quarters weren’t very welcoming. White paint on the floor, walls and ceiling gave it an almost clinical atmosphere. Apart from a small cot, basin and a toilet, the cell was bare. The walls were made of thick concrete and the door was made of metal equally dense. A window set at head height in the door was made of several layers of either glass or tough plastic. Through it, I saw a cell directly opposite mine.

  By pressing my face up against the window, I could see more cells down both sides of a hallway. The hallway was also painted a shiny white. From the cracks in the concrete and slight rust in the doors, this place looked to be several decades old. Maybe it’s an old war shelter. My subconscious responded to my thought with its usual sarcasm. War shelters don’t usually come equipped with prison cells. I wasn’t sure how the deepest part of my mind could know something that I didn’t. Maybe it paid more attention than I did.

  Taking a seat on the cot, my scrambled memory finally put itself to rights. My meeting with Colonel Sanderson had gone even worse than I’d expected and now I was his prisoner. It would be nice if, just for once, the people I wanted to ally myself with didn’t try to kill me as soon as we met. I was used to making a terrible impression but I just wished I could figure out how to counteract my natural ability to alienate people.

  Sending out my senses, I came up empty. I had no idea where I was but I could tell I was somewhere beneath the earth. It was cool and the smell of soil lurked behind the walls.

  “I took a look around while your head was growing back,” the last remaining imp said. “There are a dozen cells just like this one down here.”

  “You mean you can move outside the cell? How?”

  Holding up a clawed hand in demonstration, it made the appendages stretch out for several feet. They grew thinner and thinner until they touched the ceiling.

  “Did you see anything useful?” I asked it.

  Shrinking the hand back to its normal size, the imp shadow shrugged. “There is an ascended vampire at the far end of the hallway. I spoke to his master for some time. He is anxious to resume his journey to meet our Father and is angry that he is being detained. He plans to rip apart any humans that he comes into contact with once he escapes.”

  Since the vamp hadn’t escaped yet, I thought the humans were probably safe enough. It was a relief to know that I’d been jailed along with the very possessed vampire I’d come to retrieve. Now I wouldn’t have to waste time searching for him. It was also good to know the vamp was still intact. The scientists would want to study their find and perform all kinds of experiments on him. They’d also want to perform the same experiments on me. I didn’t think we were still in the police station. I believed we had been moved to another, even more secure location. “Did the soldiers move me far from the police headquarters?”

  “You mean from the small white building?” I nodded and the silhouette pondered. “You were put into a truck and driven for several blocks.”

  “Did the soldiers try to kill you?” Knowing humans, I’d bet they hadn’t been able to resist the attempt despite my warning to the Colonel that it would be useless.

  Chuckling, the imp nodded. “They used guns, knives and even fire.”

  From the untouched state of my coat and leather suit, they hadn’t tried any of the above on me. Checking my watch, I saw I’d been out of it long enough for the sun to have risen some time ago. I wasn’t surprised that it had taken me so long to regenerate. Blood, bone and brains would have been splattered everywhere when the soldiers had opened fire on me. My head hadn’t just been severed, it had been completely shattered. I’d had to regrow myself from the neck up. Just like when the sun had boiled me down to a skeleton, full renewal of my cells took time. At least my memory had also come back. I hated waking up to rediscover that I wasn’t human anymore and automatically assuming I was some kind of zombie.

  Since I detected no sound or movement coming f
rom my possessed kin, I guessed he must be less than three hundred years old. Not even his ascended shadow could keep him awake while the sun was up. I wondered if the soldiers would be surprised when they discovered that I was awake. If you think they aren’t spying on you right now, then you’re even dumber than you look, my snide subconscious told me.

  As always, my subconscious was right. I found the camera high up in a corner of the room and was glad I no longer needed to go to the bathroom. Knowing people were watching me, I doubted I could have peed even if I’d been busting to go.

  One of the watchers almost certainly had to be Colonel Sanderson. I wondered what he had planned for me. Since I’d been captured on film twice, he knew I was dangerous. Unfortunately, he didn’t know I was only dangerous to the creatures we both hunted.

  I hadn’t had the chance to make my pitch for partnership to him earlier but I might as well make it now. It was the reason I had tracked him down after all. I just hoped the camera was also equipped with a microphone so he could hear me.

  Standing, I stared directly up at the miniscule camera. “I would like to speak to Colonel Sanderson. If he’s not there, please go and get him. I’ll give you five minutes.”

  Taking a seat again, I counted down on my watch until the time was up. Then I stood and addressed the camera again. “As you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m a vampire. So is the person down the hall from me.” I pointed in the direction the imp had indicated the vamp to be in. “Unlike me, he’s been tainted and will soon be turned into one of the ‘unknown entities’ that are killing and kidnapping the humans.” I hoped they were paying attention and wouldn’t just write me off as a lunatic.

  “The ‘unknown entities’, or imps as I like to call them, have a leader and my job is to kill him. Once he’s dead, no new imps will be made and humanity will be saved. I can’t do this alone. I need your guns and your help to take them down.” Checking my watch, I gave the silent watchers an ultimatum. “I’ll give you ten minutes to decide whether you want to be sensible and become my ally or if you want to be stupid and become my enemy.”