Driven

by Dean Murray

  A stocky, overweight man in a security uniform came around a corner and went for his gun as soon as he saw me, but he was hopelessly slow. I killed him before his weapon had even cleared its holster. A dozen women in pantsuits and skirts went down singly and in pairs, falling as my claws turned them into red ruin.

  A big guy who looked like he'd probably played college football at some point came at me with a heavy metal chair in his hands, but he died as easily as the rest. I killed half a dozen more people in less than two minutes, but it wasn't until I made it to the end of a long hall that I started to run into significant opposition.

  A vampire—he was too quick to be a normal human—came at me with four feet of naked steel gleaming darkly in his hand. I knocked his slash wide and then backhanded him into the wall with enough force to break his neck.

  Two more vampires, females this time, stepped out of what looked like a conference room a second later, probably alerted by the impact as the vampire I'd just killed hit the wall of the room they were in. I slit the throat of the closest female before she even realized how much danger she was in and then was forced backwards to avoid the sword her companion tried to stab me with.

  I spun to one side to avoid her follow-up attack and it was a simple thing to pick up the body of the man and use it as a shield to allow me to get in close enough to finish off the third vampire. I could hear heartbeats inside of the conference room, but the fact that they hadn't come out already to face me indicated that they were either especially dangerous or no threat whatsoever.

  Normally I wouldn't have been able to locate either of them, not through a wall, even a wall that was little more than two thin pieces of sheetrock with some aluminum supports between them, but one of them made a profound mistake. He bumped up against his side of the wall and told me exactly where he was in that instant.

  I spared a fraction of a second to hope that I wasn't about to punch one of the metal supports and then put my claws through the wall. I took my prey through a kidney and then pulled my hand back a split second before it would have been consumed by the sudden firestorm on the other side of the wall. Even so it was scorched and my fur was smoking when I held my hand up to examine it.

  The sprinklers inside of the conference room cut loose instantly, flooding the room with water, but I knew that wouldn't save me if the pyromancer set eyes on me. The most powerful pyromancers didn't need to set you on fire from the outside in, they could cook you from the inside out.

  Most buildings were wired so that if any single fire alarm was tripped it would trigger a full evacuation. The rest of the alarms inside of the building hadn't gone off yet, which was a good sign, but only an idiot would program their fire suppression system to continue to pour out hundreds of gallons of water per minute into the conference room without eventually triggering some kind of building-wide escalation. I didn't have much time left.

  For a moment I was out of ideas and then I saw the huge, metal clock hanging on the wall next to me. It didn't fit my hand very well, but it was heavy and the edges were thin and hard. I pulled it down from the wall, took a deep breath and then spun past the doorway to the conference center, hurling the clock like a giant metal Frisbee in the instant when I was able to see the last vampire inside, just before my momentum carried me safely past.

  I'd moved quickly, but once again it almost hadn't been fast enough. The air had shimmered with heat and the walls had started to smoke for the split second that I'd been in view of my enemy. He'd used his dreadful power and he'd come close to burning me, my skin felt crinkly and tight like I had a bad sunburn, but the sound of his heartbeat had stopped now. I ducked inside the conference room just long enough to confirm that the clock had taken him through the chest, and then headed back down the hall.

  The last man who tried to stop me attacked with the curved sword of a samurai. He was fast, much faster than anyone else who had faced me, and I had a sneaking suspicion that his slender blade would shear my limbs from my body just as easily as the two-handed monstrosities the twins at the hostel had been using.

  His sword equalized the reach advantage I otherwise would have enjoyed, and he moved with quick, economical motions that left no openings in his defenses for me to exploit. His sword licked out half a dozen times and more than half of his attacks landed, albeit for shallow, nonlethal gashes rather than the mortal wounds he'd been aiming for.

  My beast was angry that he'd stood us off for so long, but more importantly, I was getting frustrated. I needed to resolve this now, before he bled me out and made me slow and clumsy. We danced down the hall, him always moving forward, me always moving backwards, for another few seconds before I saw the opportunity I needed.

  Once again his sword slashed at me in a horizontal blur, but instead of retreating I moved forward. Both sets of claws were down at my side and I used them to form a basket that was harder than steel, a basket capable of stopping his strike cold before it could cut me in half.

  It worked, but I'd severely underestimated both the power behind his attack and the leverage disadvantage I was working under. I stopped his blade, but not before it scored a deep gash into my side just above where my floating ribs would have been in human form.

  The vampire lashed out with a kick to my legs, hoping to take advantage of the fact that both of my hands were still tangled up with his blade, but I checked his blow with the talons on my left foot and then leaned forward and bit him at the juncture of his shoulder and neck.

  I was still bleeding from my side as I stumbled down the hall, but it wasn't enough to kill me, at least not quickly. I searched all of the remaining rooms and predictably it was the last one that contained Geoffrey.

  I sheared through the stainless steel lock with my claws and then walked inside the room and saw Ben's savior. He was in a giant cage and his hands were manacled together, but that wasn't what made my beast cut loose with a wave of power that came within a hairsbreadth of shattering my control.

  I wanted to deny the truth of what I was facing but there was no denying the scent that had permeated every square inch of the room. Geoffrey, the one man who could bring Ben back to me, was a vampire, a parasitic bloodsucker that I couldn't possibly trust no matter what Rachel might say.

  Chapter 7

  Geoffrey

  Imastious' Nassau Operations Center

  Manhattan, New York

  The pain in Geoffrey's head had subsided to something nearly muted enough for him to begin using his mentalist powers again, which meant that it was nearly time for someone to administer another round of drugs to him. Geoffrey had been expecting the door to his room to open for nearly an hour, but when it did finally open, it wasn't another vampire standing in the doorway.

  For a second as the creature entered his room, Geoffrey thought he was being attacked by a werewolf. Every single time Geoffrey had found himself up against a werewolf he'd survived by nothing more than luck and the experiences had left a special kind of scar on his psyche. Most nights he woke from nightmares where werewolves were stalking him and no matter how fast he ran or how well he fought, they always pulled him down.

  The massive beast facing him through the shining steel bars of his cage was so similar in size and shape to a werewolf that for a moment he was positive his nightmares had come true. He'd seen werewolves ferret out nests of vampires before and the werewolves never attacked without a sound advantage, so it was rare that the vampires came out ahead in those confrontations.

  It wasn't until Geoffrey realized that the lights hadn't been flickering that he decided he must be facing something other than a werewolf. The hulking, dark figure stepped across the room and came to a stop before his cage. A second later it tore the door to his cage off of its hinges.

  "You're coming with me, Geoffrey."

  "Who are you?"

  "That's not important. Move or I'll kill you like I killed the rest of the bloodsuckers in this little pocket of hell."

  Geoffrey had figured out long befor
e that there must be substantial soundproofing around his room. He never heard anyone approaching his door with food until after they opened the door and stepped into his room, and his yells and the times he'd banged on his cage hadn't ever resulted in anyone coming to look for him.

  He'd assumed that the soundproofing was because he was in some normal apartment and Imastious hadn't wanted the neighbors to realize anything unusual was going on. He'd never even considered that there might be a permanent, large group of vampires just outside his door.

  Geoffrey filed away the fact that this creature was capable of talking, something no werewolf had ever done, and started towards the door.

  "Down the hall to your right."

  "I don't suppose you'd be willing to take these handcuffs off?"

  "No, keep moving, and don't try any of your mentalist tricks on me either. If I detect you trying to influence me with your ability I'll kill you where you stand."

  Despite the threats, Geoffrey let a few strands of his consciousness drift free of his physical body and searched their immediate area. He was careful to keep his probes well away from his captor, but even so it took only a few seconds to establish that there weren't any living minds anywhere within several dozen feet of them.

  "Stop. Go inside that room."

  Geoffrey complied and found himself inside of what was obviously some kind of surveillance room. There were TV monitors stacked in a large bank in front of the room's single chair and behind was a large piece of equipment that had a shield insignia on it and red lettering that spelled out FastVault Storage.

  "Destroy it."

  "What?"

  The creature's voice was subtly alien, as if its vocal cords hadn't ever been meant to speak English, but Geoffrey could tell that it was getting frustrated.

  "Destroy all of this equipment. I don't want any record of my arrival or our escape to survive."

  Geoffrey poked around for a couple of seconds and then started unplugging different pieces of equipment.

  "I don't know very much about this kind of stuff, but it seems to me like the key is that storage array over there. If we take it then there won't be any record of anything that's happened…unless it's being sent somewhere offsite as well."

  The creature grunted. "I can't control everything; we'll just have to hope for the best. Go ahead and destroy that then."

  Geoffrey shook his head. "I don't think anything less than a very strong magnetic field will make that data irretrievable."

  "Fine, pick it up and let's go, we'll take it with us and throw it in a river somewhere."

  Geoffrey fought the temptation to talk back to his captor and nodded. There was too much he still didn't understand about what was going on, but whatever it was it apparently didn't want him dead. Given the fact that everyone else in the suite of rooms had apparently been killed over the last few minutes, that felt significant.

  His best bet now was to go along and hope that he was able to figure out the score before his usefulness waned. For now he was free of the cage that Imastious had put him in. He might be headed somewhere worse, but it would take time for them to get wherever they were going, and his best chance for escape would come once they were outside with plenty of witnesses around.

  Besides, it was too soon to even guess at the capabilities of this bestial almost-werewolf.

  Picking up the equipment was more difficult than he'd expected it to be, the result of his hands still being restrained and the sheer weight of the hard drives inside of the device. Geoffrey was motioned back out of the surveillance room and complied with the unspoken order. They were several yards further down the corridor before he saw it, his sword, discarded on the floor next to a corpse.

  Geoffrey bent forward, intending on setting the storage device down so that he could pick up his katana, and then froze when the tips of the creature's claws drew tiny dots of blood from his back.

  "Don't even think about picking that up."

  Geoffrey swallowed a couple of times. "It's my sword. I know you won't believe me when I say that I don't want to use it on you, but I don't. I just don't want it left here. It's the only link I have to my past."

  "I never expected sentiment from a bloodsucking parasite like you."

  Geoffrey turned around with fire in his eyes. "Stop. You can kill me if you'd like, but don't lump me in with the rest of these pieces of garbage. I am what I am, I don't have a choice about that, but it has been months since I killed someone while feeding."

  "You expect me to believe that you're a vampire with a heart?"

  "Right now I don't care what you believe, but you will treat me like a person or we'll fight to the death right here and now."

  "You would lose."

  "Probably, but it doesn't matter much whether I die right now or die once we get wherever you're taking me, I'll be dead either way. Honestly I didn't expect to ever get out of that cage, so as things stand right now I'm much better off than I ever imagined I might be."

  "Fine. Keep walking. I'll grab your weapon, and I'll get the sheath too."

  Geoffrey picked the storage device back up and started slowly down the hall. There was an odd feeling, like an unseen breeze tracing the back of his neck, and then a familiar set of sounds as his beloved katana was picked up and sheathed.

  The two of them were nearly to the front door before Geoffrey realized that the steps following him sounded different, lighter and less harsh. Geoffrey turned around and saw one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen anywhere.

  Previously Melody and Venice had always set the bar when it came to his personal standard of beauty, but as disloyal as it felt to both of their memories, this girl was every bit as beautiful and in some ways even surpassed them. Geoffrey got vague impressions of dark brown hair, similar to Melody's rather than Venice's platinum blond, and the exquisite moderately-curved body of a swimsuit model, but it was the eyes that captured him.

  Geoffrey knew that blue eyes were always striking when they appeared along with dark hair and dark skin, but this was more than just that. This girl had an exotic slant to her eyes that he'd never seen anywhere else before and the effect was enchanting in a way that he hadn't known was possible.

  "What are you looking at?"

  "I didn't know that you could shift forms. I guess it makes sense otherwise you wouldn't be able to conceal your true nature for more than fifteen seconds, but I never even considered the possibility."

  "Yeah, whatever. Put that thing down and find me some shoes."

  Geoffrey looked around. "Where exactly do you expect me to find shoes in here?"

  "Take them off of one of the dead women. One of them is bound to be my size. Look for a women's seven and find some kind of coat for yourself while you're at it. It's cold out there and we have a long walk back to the hotel."

  "I'm not going to loot the dead."

  "Yes, you are. I killed all of them to get you out of here. I did my part and now you're going to do yours. Besides, I'm the one with the sword, not you. And don't even think of trying to grab a weapon from one of the corpses. I'll be half a step behind you and if you even look like you're going for a weapon I'll slice you into multiple pieces."

  The girl held up the sword to punctuate her threat. Geoffrey wanted to attack her, but despite the blood trickling down her side he was pretty sure that she was plenty fast enough to kill him with his sword before he'd be able to close with her. He needed a distraction.

  "You already know my name; it would only be polite to introduce yourself."

  Geoffrey reevaluated the balance of power between them. The girl was starting to look pale, she must have lost more blood even than he'd realized. If he could keep her talking for a few more minutes and if their destination was far enough away, there was a good chance that she'd pass out before they even arrived.

  She obviously wanted to bite his head off, but she swallowed down at least a portion of her rage. "My name is Jasmin, and if you don't get a move on we're both as good as dead.
More vampires could be gathering on the other side of that door even as we speak."

  Geoffrey shook his head. "There isn't anyone else out there yet, I'd be able to sense them."

  The point of her sword drooped slightly, and Geoffrey moved up his timetable by a few minutes. She probably wasn't going to make it out onto the street before collapsing. Geoffrey considered stalling some more, but he didn't want to push her too hard. Instead he set down the storage device and started towards the nearest batch of corpses.

  Jasmin pivoted in place, keeping the point of her sword aimed at him until a phone resting on the table next to her started ringing. She picked it up and answered it without taking her eyes off of him.

  "Yeah, I survived. Are you just calling with more bad news?"

  A look of confusion crossed her face and then she tossed the phone in Geoffrey's direction.

  "She wants to talk to you."

  The handcuffs around his wrist nearly made him miss the phone, but he snagged it out of the air at the last second and held it up to his ear.

  "Hello, who am I talking to?"

  "Hi, Geoffrey. You don't know me, but my name is Rachel and you're going to listen to me very carefully. I know that you're thinking about getting away from Jasmin right now. You figure that you can wait just a little longer until she's lost a bit more blood and then you can kill her and make your escape."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  The lie came out as a reflex, while Geoffrey looked around the room in an effort to figure out which camera Rachel was using to monitor him. Rachel laughed.

  "Yes, you do, but you're not going to hurt Jasmin."

  "I'm not? Is this the part where you tell me that if anything happens to her you'll hunt me down and kill me?"

  "Nope, this is the part where I tell you that you're going to help her. You're going to do everything in your power to keep Jasmin alive and get her back to the address I'll be texting you in a couple of minutes."