Catalyst: A Red Dog Thriller (The Altered Book 1)

by Blou Bryant

  “Linkin, enough pretty talk, we’re not staying,” said Vasca. “I’ll send you payment. Thanks for your hospitality.”

  “You thank me by sneaking out before dawn?”

  Wyatt looked to the side doors, which were shut. Why had Linkin been waiting at the bottom of the stairs? Vasca had the same question, “What’s your game, Linkin? You weren’t waiting here for nothing, you already knew we were leaving, didn’t you?”

  Linkin smiled, “I did, dear friend. You wondered where my money went? Well, I’ve made some improvements to the house.”

  “Such as installing listening devices?”

  Linkin shrugged, nonplused. “Among other things, yes.”

  Vasca replied, “Then you already know too much.”

  “What do I know? That you’ve got a virus that can alter DNA? That you have a way to make anybody anything they want to be? That you’re walking out of here with millions of dollars’ worth of blood?”

  Esaf said in his gravelly whisper, “You bugged the lab.”

  “Of course I did,” Linkin smirked.

  Esaf stepped forward and growled to Vasca, “We can’t leave him. He knows.”

  Vasca dismissed the idea. “He’s a big mouth, a loser, he’s already told others, I bet. No point in hurting him, the damage is done.”

  Linkin answered, “Insults, always the easy answer for you. Consider, Vasca, if you’d trusted me, it would have gone better.”

  Vasca shook his head. “I don’t think so. Stand aside.”

  “You’re not taking those two with you,” pointing to Hannah and Wyatt, “The others can leave.”

  “Not happening, little man,” answered Vasca. He took out his cell phone and said, “Sandra, Rocky, get the van ready and pull it around front.”

  Linkin giggled as they waited for a reply. None came. “Perhaps they’re tied up at the moment,” he said.

  Wyatt saw that something wasn’t right, Linkin wasn’t the sort to stand up to Vasca, or anyone else, and certainly not alone. Vasca pulled the back of his shirt up, revealing a gun in his belt. His hand settled on the grip, one finger through the trigger guard.

  “No, you won’t hurt me, and you’re not leaving with the golden goose,” the want-to-be vampire said and stepped back. He theatrically pulled a phone from his pocket. Wyatt pushed past Vasca, not knowing what Linkin was doing but certain he didn’t want to find out. He needed to escape, he needed to be gone.

  As he ran forward, Linkin pressed a thumb to the phone and a steel gate slammed down from a recessed part of the ceiling. Wyatt slammed into it hard and fell to the floor. Behind him, he saw a second gate block the staircase and a faint fog roll out of grates in the walls. He struggled to his feet but moments later, light headed, he passed out.

  Chapter 19

  Wyatt came to in a dark and damp room. Pain in his shoulder was the first thing to greet him and only after a minute did he remember slamming into a steel wall. He tried to move and discovered he couldn’t, his arms and legs were securely bound with heavy cords.

  With an effort he opened his eyes. In front of him was a dirt-floored cellar, with small windows that let in enough light through strung up drop cloths to show a room filled with junk, chairs, old tables and tools, hundreds of tools. At the far end, just beyond the reach of the light, four bags hung from the ceiling.

  “Hi handsome,” said a voice behind him. Jessica! Wyatt twisted his head but couldn’t see her.

  “Where are my friends?” he asked, and strained at the ropes but found they wouldn’t budge. Every movement made his shoulder and ankle throb with pain. Taking in the entirety of his situation, he started sweating and his pulse raced so fast that he could feel it beating against the rope that bound his wrists. This wasn’t part of the plan, Joe wouldn’t have sold him out to Jessica, he wouldn’t leave him in a basement as vampire fodder.

  Jessica sauntered past and ran her hand through his hair. “Honey, they’re not friends, they’re a bunch of broke losers, freaks.” She walked to the other side of the room and pushed one bag so that it swung back and forth. As it came into and out of a beam of light, Wyatt saw that it wasn’t a bag, it was Sandra, with blood dripping down her face. The other three were still obscured by the darkness, but by their size, he could tell Hannah and Teri weren’t with them; it had to be Vasca, Rocky, and Esaf.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to calm himself, and then wiggled his hands to test his bonds again, he was more cautious this time, but it was to no avail, every movement increased the pain and resulted in nothing more than the loss of feeling in his feet and hands. “Why?” he asked.

  “Why, that’s such a middle-class question. Instead, ask, why not?” she said in a lilting voice that sounded no different than as if she’d asked a question in history class. She wandered back, her hips swaying, an exaggerated and deliberate motion. “Honey, I’ve missed you,” she said, sat down on his lap, pressed her lips onto his neck and gave him a little kiss followed by a nibble and a bite. “Yum. Dirty, but still, yum.”

  Her hair brushed against his face and he could smell her cloying perfume as she nuzzled up against his chest. He flexed his legs and tried to push her off despite his immobilization. She didn’t move an inch.

  “Don’t push me away. Do I make you uncomfortable, Wy-Wy?” she asked with a giggle.

  The awful truth was that she did, and even now, there was something alluring about her complete lack of morals, her willingness to do whatever she wanted. It was the freedom of the rich and beautiful, he told himself, that most people are attracted to.

  “No, you make me somewhat nauseous,” he lied.

  Jessica moved her lips along his cheek and then grabbed his face hard in both hands and kissed him deeply. After a pause and a deep breath, she leaned back, held one arm all the way out and slapped him hard across the face. “Don’t be an ass,” she said, piqued. She traced a finger down his chest and said, “This can be easy or it can be hard, it’s your choice how you want it. Don’t forget, you’re mine now, I can do whatever I want with you.”

  “How am I yours?”

  “I’ve paid for you, Wy-Wy. The vampires get to keep a lot of money and enough of your rich, special blood to make them happy, and in return I get the rest of you. You’re mine.”

  “And what do you want with me?”

  “Don’t be dumb, you took something from me,” she replied, happy again. “You got in the way when you shouldn’t have. I want what’s mine, what I worked for. You know this wasn’t easy, you can’t imagine the effort I put into planning this. I’m going to be in big trouble with Daddy.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, playing for time. I’ve made a grave mistake in using Joe, he thought to himself. He sold me out.

  Jessica didn’t reply at first, content to just stare him down. When he didn’t respond, she sighed and said, “You want to do this the hard way?” and wandered across the room, picking up a long length of pipe before she reached his friends. “Who will it be?”

  “What?” asked Wyatt, not understanding.

  “I’ll make it clear. Who should I beat with this pipe until you tell me what I want?” She walked back to the four bags, pulled the pipe back and hit one of the three that wasn’t Sandra.

  Wyatt heard an ‘oomph’ that sounded like Rocky. It was, he discovered as the big man said in his deep baritone, “Little girl, you call that a beating? I’ve had worse in the sack.”

  Jessica hit him again, and he laughed again. Even in the faint light, it was clear to Wyatt that pushing her buttons was working. Jessica spat on him and walked away. “I’ll leave you for the others, we’ll see how you like it while they practice being vampires on you.”

  Rocky wiggled a little but wasn’t able to free himself. “We’ll see if they like the taste. I’ve been marinating in some pretty heavy juice for the last twenty years.”

  “Whatever,” she said and walked to the right side of the room and stood next to a chair Wyatt hadn’t not
iced. There was a small body in it, and a shape at its foot. “I’d beat your girlfriend, but she’s beyond that now.” She gave the shape a kick. It didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

  He realized that it must be Hannah, “What did you do to her? I’ll kill you if you’ve hurt her.”

  “Always with the death threats. It’d be more frightening if you weren’t all tied up.” Jessica pulled on a cord and a light over her head came on, illuminating at least one part of the room while filling the rest with long shadows.

  At her feet was Hannah, limp and unmoving, her skin white where it wasn’t covered in dried and dark red blood. In the chair next to her was Teri, tied up like he was, awake but not struggling.

  “I didn’t touch your girlfriend,” said Jessica, “that was the little dress-up vampires. They tell me the gas that got everyone else didn’t affect her. When they opened the doors, the rest of you were out cold, but she was still standing there in the fog, unaffected.”

  “She put up quite a fight, the vampires told me. Girl gingers are always crazy. Funny, cause ginger guys are wimps. Anyhow, they beat her bad, and I was told that some of them got out of hand at the sight of blood.” She kicked Hannah again. “They chewed on her a bit, I hear. I think she’s dead. Hasn’t moved in hours.”

  If he hadn’t been tied up, he would have killed her with his bare hands. “What do you want,” he asked, his voice cold no matter the heat that burned inside him. Whatever he’d felt for this monster evaporated, her beautiful visage peeled back to reveal her true nature to him. He didn’t need to count or tap out the moments, he was ready. This woman would die.

  Jessica didn’t appear to notice the shift in his attitude. “Honey, tell me what’s inside you and how I use it. Or the little girl here,” she said, and poked Teri with the pipe, “joins Hannah on the floor. If you tell me, I’ll make sure she sees a doctor. Does that sound like a fair deal?”

  “You’d hurt a little girl to get access to a virus, not even you are that evil, are you? There’s no way you’d do that,” he said, but that wasn’t true, she’d shown she had no qualms about hurting people. His bravado gone, he gave in, “Fine, don’t hurt her, what do you want?”

  “I want it. I want the virus and I want you to tell me how to use it.”

  “But, why?” he asked, not that it mattered, he didn’t know how it worked. “Are you sick?”

  “No, of course not. I’m very healthy, but I do want to be prettier. I want my eyes to be bluer. I want my hair to be shinier, I want to have something nobody else in the world has. You can make me special, Wyatt, more special than I already am.”

  For this, people were dying? He looked over at Hannah, her body limp and pale, and, according to Jessica, dead. One glance at Teri, her little body tied to a chair, led him to decide that he didn’t have a choice. He gave in. “I’ll do whatever you want, if you let me go to Hannah.”

  “Why?”

  “I can heal her. You’re right, I’m infected with the real V32.”

  Jessica made a ‘psh’ sound. “I know that already, your freakish scientist found that out last night. I had the results sent to me. Tell me how it works and I’ll let you heal the girl.”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “It’s too late for lies now, Wyatt. One more lie and I smash the little girlfriend’s fingers.”

  He said, “Please, don’t hurt her, I’ll tell you, anything, everything you need to know.”

  Jessica smiled with satisfaction. “Then, do it. Tell me.”

  “I don’t know, it just happens. I touch someone and they get infected too. Not everybody, though.” He struggled with his bonds, and tried again to break free, but managed only to move the chair a few inches and give his wrists rope burn. “Please, it’s the truth, I don’t have any idea how to control it. It just happened.”

  Jessica rubbed the pipe against Teri’s cheek. “I’m almost inclined to believe you. Almost.”

  “It happened with Hannah,” he said, throwing facts into the breach, with a prayer they’d be enough to make the psychopath believe him and leave little Teri alone. “She was shot by Ford at Mennar. The next night, I got a fever and touched her wound and she healed, almost instantly.”

  Jessica stared at him for what seemed an eternity and said, “Can you do it to me?”

  “I don’t think so, you touched me earlier, and nothing happened. A few people have, and they’ve not changed either. I can’t make it happen. Jessica, please don’t hurt Teri.”

  “Why do you care? She’s a freak, look at her, all ugly and strange, it makes me sick just to have to see her.”

  I know, thought Wyatt, I felt the same, but I overcame that. “She’s a child.”

  “So? She’ll grow older, be a pain in the ass teenager, then a sad adult and finally waste away for many years. In the end, she’ll be dust like everyone else. Except me, that is, once you’ve worked your magic.”

  “So, give me a chance,” he said, playing to her complete dispassion for anything that didn’t involve her. “You’ve got me now.”

  Jessica dropped the pipe next to Hannah and walked over to him and sat down on his lap again. “That’s the right attitude. Do what I want, and I’ll treat you well,” she said with another wet kiss on his cheek.

  If I’m useful to you, you will, he thought. And the day that I’m not useful, or interesting or entertaining enough, then I’m gone. He kept silent and tried not to recoil from her as she leaned in and licked his neck. God, she was a freak.

  Chapter 20

  Jessica turned off the lights and left to “find out what was taking the one-armed-man so long to complete a deal with the idiot Vampires” and left Wyatt alone in the dark. He knew that he might be in the middle of a mental breakdown, probably because he felt trapped. At that thought, he giggled.

  “Oh God, my head,” said Vasca. “What happened, and what are you laughing at?”

  Wyatt didn’t reply out loud at first and thought, for the first time in his life he really, truly, was trapped. He wondered what his therapist would say about that. Dr. Kranson said to change perspective when he felt suffocated, and not to surrender to the thoughts that assumed the worst of every situation.

  OK, let’s review, he thought to himself, I’m tied up, in a basement, captured by wannabe vampires and about to be sold to a pair of psychopaths. Oh ya, and my bike gang friends are hung upside down like sides of beef.

  What the Doctor never considered was that monsters actually existed. “Let it go,” she’d say. Uh-huh. Wyatt pulled himself out of his thoughts and replied to Vasca, “I’m laughing at nothing, everything. As for what happened, well, we were knocked out, tied up and are about to be sold to Jessica. Hannah’s the only one not tied up and she may be dead. I’m all out of good ideas, do you have any?”

  “Take stock. Can you get free? I’m tied tight. Teri, are you all right?” he asked, worry clear in his voice.

  She responded with two clicks, Wyatt assumed that meant she was ok. He didn’t think he’d be able to get free but tried again, flexing his wrists in an attempt to stretch the rope that bound him. It was tight, and he quickly figured out that wouldn’t be able to break free. The chair, however, was wood. Perhaps he could smash it against the floor, like he’d seen in movies so many times.

  He bounced as best he could by flexing his muscles and pushed himself one way and then another. After a few pushes, he got the hang of it and rocked it back and forth, in the hope that he could break it under him if he knocked it over. It only moved inches at first, but he tightened his core and pushed it harder and harder towards the tipping point like the swing he’d used the night.

  As it came close to the edge, he gave one last push and finally it hit the peak and then kept ongoing and he fell backwards, hard. His hands were tied behind the chair and they hit first, pushed hard into the ground by his weight.

  The fingers of his left hand were driven into the cut that still hadn’t healed and sent waves of pain through his body. T
his only worsened as his head hit the ground a fraction of a second later and the back of his skull felt as if he’d split it open. The only thing that hadn’t been hurt was the chair which remained happily strapped to him and very unbroken.

  In the dark, Rocky said, “Doesn’t sound like anything but you broke. Chairs don’t shatter as easy as you might think.”

  As he tried to ignore the pain, Wyatt replied, “I noticed.”

  “Useful to know if you want to beat someone with one.”

  I have to keep him as a friend, thought Wyatt. “I suppose. Not as good if you want to smash yourself free.”

  “The second thud, that your head?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hurt?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Vasca said, “Enough chatter. We have little time. Rock, are you tight? I can’t move.”

  “I’ve tried, boss, no way I’m getting out of this. Sandra could, she’s got knives hidden everywhere, but she’s out cold. She doesn’t look good.”

  “What happened to you two?” asked Vasca.

  “Two of them snuck up on us when we were sitting outside the barn, talkin. I saw someone hit Sandra with a bat, knocked her right out, then just as I was about to get up and help, another one of em did the same to me, I figure. Can’t remember right, but I feel it in the back of my head now.”

  “Nothing much to hurt there.”

  “Nope, not nothin I’ve not already wrecked, boss.”

  A click interrupted the conversation. Teri! She clicked another time, and the light came on over her, she was free, her ropes on the floor next to her. Perhaps one of the Vampires had assumed someone so small and weak wasn’t a threat and hadn’t bothered to put the same effort they’d put into the others.

  Vasca laughed with joy. “Teri, come over here and reach into Sandra’s sleeve, she’ll have a knife. Get it for me.” The group watched as she walked over and retrieved a small blade. Vasca rocked himself back and forth and pushed his hands out at her. She cut the rope, gave him the knife and seconds later, he was free and fell to the dirt floor.