The Daemon Within

by Jeremy Croston

  “I’ll text you what I know.” That he was being helpful was a bit unnerving. “Is the final plan still in motion?”

  Yes, this could all work out nicely. I needed another pawn on the playing board, especially if the king was in trouble. “It is,” I told him. “Three of the four pieces are liberated-” I broke off, feeling a tad sick yet again.

  “Are you okay?”

  I knew he didn’t care. “Yes, just probably had some bad blood in the Australian Outback.” Not that it was any of his business. “Stay where you are. I’ll brief you when I get to America. My daughter needs to be dealt with, permanently.”

  **Rissa**

  It had been two weeks since Liz returned and yet no one would tell me where Gregory was. Call after call was ignored, Reno only answering the last time to tell me to mind my own business. This only irritated me more, Gregory was my business.

  On the same afternoon that Reno brushed me aside, I received a letter from the Ukraine, post marked a few weeks even before Liz returned. It was Gregory’s handwriting on the envelope and it was messaged to me. I ripped it open, eager to see what he had to say, hoping it would tell me where he was.

  What I read only served to break my heart.

  Dearest Rissa,

  I have sent this because I know my end is coming soon. I made a choice between two evils and I know that soon it will come back to be my downfall. Neither option would have led me back to you, I am afraid, and I hate that my goodbye is coming in the form of a letter.

  Rissa, Liz is too full of rage to see clearly. Her bad choices were only half the reason I knew my fate was sealed. But you have the chance to save another. Victor – he is still the good man we always knew him to be. He has fallen in with a powerful and dangerous vampire, one who is manipulating him but also cares for him deeply. It is a complex web weaved, but one that unfortunately I could not stop either. If I know Liz, when she gets back, she will attempt to take him to Alcatraz and do whatever is necessary to get information about a vampire named Izabella. Be the person I could not be. Save Victor.

  Finally, know that I loved you. You became the silver lining to the dark cloud that was my life after my wife, Drusilla died. The time I was able to spend with you made my final days on this Earth so happy and I hope you too can find happiness again.

  Yours,

  Gregory

  Chapter 28

  It was the same routine every day for countless days. A vampire would walk into the cell, inject me with something, and leave a sparse amount of food. It didn’t take the Warg and I long to figure out what the injection was. It was a suppressant, meant to keep me from shifting into the daemonic wolf.

  I’d been moved, shackled to the wall with silver cuffs. I knew what they were playing at; psychological torture. They were hoping the overall loneliness and despair would make me crack. Where ever Liz and her gang were watching from, I got a small amount of enjoyment from knowing disappointment was there each time they checked in. You see, they forgot one very important thing – I was never alone.

  At times when the dark, foreboding interior of Alcatraz would get to me, the Warg pulled me down, to keep me sane. “There is nothing those insects can do. We bide our time and when they lapse in judgment, we strike,” he’d tell me.

  The injection, holy water of all things, kept the Warg at bay. I bet Warren Tucker, where ever he was, was rolling over in his grave with laughter. He created something called holy water in order to purify the world of daemons. Liz condemned him for his behavior and here she was mimicking it years later.

  Something strange happened the next time I received my injection. The moment the vampire (who I could never tell if it was the same person or not as they wore a black mask and concealed all of their body) injected me, I passed out. Never having this reaction before would’ve been a cause for concern, if I was still with it. Instead, I was in some sort of dreamlike state.

  “Hello Victor.”

  Apparently I wasn’t alone either. For some reason, I wasn’t really surprised at the man who was accompanying me being here. “Why if it isn’t the Teacher…” The man who approached smiled gently. “What’re you doing here?”

  He placed a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t remember, but, before you left Sinai, I whispered a small prayer to you.” He was right; I didn’t remember that or even seeing him on the way out. “It was my way of making sure we got to chat one last time before things got too out of hand.”

  “How much of what’s happening do you already know?”

  He tapped the side of his head. “There’s a lot of privileged information kept up here. What matters is going forward – that future has yet to be seen.”

  If he was in the mood to let me in on exactly what he meant, he sure was making me work for it. “So this untold future, I guess I have a part to play, or else you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Victor, a lot has changed over the past few weeks. Pieces of a puzzle never meant to be handled are being collected.” The Eye of the Redeemer started to shine. “One of those pieces is still with you. Is the other with Izabella?”

  “Yeah, I gave it to her when we parted,” I told him. I wasn’t going to apologize for my choice. “It was a way for us to feel connected, even apart.”

  “You love her, I thought as much.” There was no way to tell if that was a good thing or bad thing in his eyes. “Most curious the way things work out, as fate had you connecting with another,” he said more to himself than me. “Still, this must be the plan and the plan is perfect.”

  “I’m lost over here.”

  “I apologize. Sometimes, when something happens I’m not expecting, I can ramble to myself.” He smoothed his shirt out and closed his eyes. “Soon Victor, you will no longer be trapped and will be given a choice. What that choice is, I can’t tell you, but you’ll know when it happens.”

  “I hate when people say stuff like that.”

  He shook his head, amused. “Everyone does. Now, as I was saying,” he continued. “When faced with that choice, all I can say is follow your heart. You’ve done well staying alive against the odds.”

  “Yeah, nothing like being stuck in a vampire prison, waiting to break free or something.”

  His one hand left my shoulder. “You will not be stuck much longer. The moment you’ve been seeking is almost here.”

  At the word here, my eyes shot open and I was back in Alcatraz. The vampire was gone and the Warg was barking my name over and over again. “What, I’m here,” I answered him.

  “You have been under some spell for hours. Excuse me for wanting your life to continue.”

  Hours? It seemed like only a few minutes. “I was with the Teacher if you must know.”

  He didn’t respond. He didn’t need to, his annoyance spoke volumes. “Well, if you’re not going to talk to me, I’m going to play tic-tac-toe on the wall.”

  Nothing. So I did as I told him I would do, using my nail to barely scratch the stone. I knew it annoyed him, much like he knew his silence annoyed me. About halfway through my third game, the door opened again. That was unusual. Even more unusual was that this time the vampire walking in did nothing to conceal himself. Cristof walked over to me with a purpose.

  He picked up the chair in the corner and sat down beside me. “It is time to come clean, Vic.”

  “Come clean about what? How I’m really enjoying being held against my will by you freaks?”

  Cristof looked very much conflicted. “You know, she once promised me a lot of things, Izabella. What has she promised you?”

  Happiness? Trust? Two way companionship? I doubted those were the answers he was looking for. “She hasn’t promised me anything, except to trust me and to be there when I needed her.”

  “It looks like you could use her help now and she’s not here. Where is she, Vic?” I didn’t know and he didn’t give me a chance to tell him that. “She’s in Australia, killing more council members. Did you know that was her plan? Did she tell you why she was going to
Australia?”

  “You’re lying,” I growled in response. “Going to blame all your problems on the two of us?”

  He leaned back, trying to remain casual, relaxed. “This is not about blame, this is about facts.”

  “How about this fact – you knew she was alive all these years and didn’t tell Liz?” I really hoped she was listening in on this conversation. My information broke the façade of tranquility. “Yeah, I know all about how you and Roderick helped trap her on Neverland.”

  He huffed a few times. The berserker in him was lurking. “You lie sometimes to protect those you care about.” Ahh, a familiar line of reasoning. “And do not attempt to turn this on me – you are the one sitting trial for your crimes.”

  “The crime that you have no proof Isa committed?”

  “Listen to reason!” his voice rising to the occasion. “Two council members are dead, two old and very capable warriors. If it was not her, who was it?”

  “With the way you treat former friends, I can’t imagine you are short on enemies.”

  Seeing that this was going nowhere, he stood up. “I really tried, Vic. Out of our previous friendship and everything you have done for us, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Elizabeth was right.”

  Of course she was. Little Miss Perfect was never wrong in anyone’s eyes. “So that means I get to stay down here, against my will, for all eternity?”

  “No, it means when I get back, I am signing your warrant of execution.”

  Anger flooded into my body. For a brief second, the power of the Warg was on the cusp of breaking free, only to be suppressed by the injection. Cristof looked nervous, then relieved. “I can only take heed in knowing you are not the Victor I once came to know and like.”

  “Yeah, well you better sign Liz’s warrant of execution, too. She murdered Gregory.”

  He slammed the chair over my head, knocking me silly. “I will hear no more of your lies,” he said calmly. It was freaky how his body throbbed with indignation but his tone remained even. “Enjoy your final night alive. And maybe think of writing a letter of confession so we do not have to go to war with your former pack. No more blood needs to be shed.”

  I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. I just sat there and began to think of a way to channel my rage. I could beat the injections – I just knew it.

  Chapter 29

  I didn’t know how many hours I’d spent trying to transform into the Warg, but my resolve was failing. Even the Warg seemed resigned to our intertwined fate. “At least my ending was not to be stuck in the cursed blade for all eternity.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re giving up,” I chided him.

  “As much as I have enjoyed our partnership, I also am old enough to know when someone has been beaten.”

  His honesty took the wind out of my sails. Slumping back down on the cold floor, “If this is the way it ends, man, at least we went out on a good ride, huh?”

  He slumped back down deep. He seemed to want to get lost in an old memory he didn’t want to share with me. I could understand that. I too started to look back on all the cool things I’d been able to accomplish. I doubted many people, even in my own pack, thought that I would’ve achieved some pretty awesome feats.

  When the door opened and the incognito vampire entered, I figured it was time to start counting down until death. As I waited for the injection, I thought for a split second about trying to overpower him/her. The vampire took a few steps closer and before I could make a move, removed their hood. “Rissa?” I exclaimed. Gregory’s girlfriend was standing here in the cell with me. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ll explain later,” she said in her thick British accent. She reached down and undid the shackles. “Come on, Ruud will be here any minute to bring ya to the execution.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice to get a move on it. Even in a weakened state, I was able to muster the juice to keep up with Rissa. “We’re under the main prison, the tourist part of it. These catacombs be pretty dangerous,” she told me. No sooner than she did, her foot slipped on the wet rocky path we found ourselves on. I caught her, luckily enough.

  The path eventually exited to a cave, one that looked like it would eventually fill with water. “How good of a swimmer are ya, Vic?”

  Son of a bitch, swimming… “I’m not going to make any Olympic teams, but I don’t sink either.”

  “This sea cave will lead us out to the bay. The water’s cold, it’s dark, and there are sharks. If you can make it about a mile, there’s a boat tethered to a buoy waiting for us.”

  Besides the awful part of swimming in the bay, this wasn’t the Rissa I remembered. I wanted to tell her about Gregory; now just wasn’t the time. “It seems you thought of everything.”

  “I had help.” She didn’t elaborate and to be honest, I didn’t care who it was.

  As Rissa started down the slope towards the water, I felt a bit apprehensive. “You’re risking your neck for me. If something happens, don’t worry about me, okay?”

  “Gregory believed in ya and so do I.” And with that, she plunged into the bay waters. With little choice and knowing that Ruud was probably on his way down here as I waited, I quickly walked over to the water and followed.

  Cold was an understatement. The water was like a blast from the Arctic. I started moving my arms and legs as fast as I could to try to keep warm. It didn’t really work. Looking up, we were only ten to fifteen feet below the water’s surface. I saw Rissa reach it pretty easily, the girl was a strong swimmer.

  I labored a bit more than her but finally broke the surface. It was still dark outside, as she warned me, but there was enough moonlight to give me some light. I kept my head low, trying to shield my face as the small breakers beat into me. Rissa was moving and I needed to keep up. Knowing my legs were pretty strong, I did my best to use them over my arms.

  As we swam, I saw something that took my breath away. The unmistakable fin of a shark broke the surface not even ten feet from where I was swimming. A cold feeling entered my gut. In the water, I was not even close to the top of the food chain. If that thing spotted me or was hungry, I’d be fish food before I even knew what hit me. Fear was a great motivator and spurned me forward.

  Rissa reached the boat first. I was still a good five, six minutes behind her and tiring. Even the energy from seeing the shark was starting to wane. Quietly, she called out to me. “Don’t give up – ya can do it, Vic.”

  And I did. Tired, close to hypothermic, she and another set of hands pulled me on to the older model boat rocking in the bay. As I collapsed on to the wooden deck, looking up I saw an angel. “Isa?” I tried to say anyway. I’m sure it came out more as a gasp of air.

  The two lady vampires helped me into a seated position and Rissa wrapped me up on the blankets that were waiting for us. She’d been smart; underneath the disguise I assumed she used to gain access to me was a wet suit. She was shivering but not as bad as I was.

  Isa began rubbing my chest, trying to get the blood pumping. “I ran into this lovely young lady when I reached San Francisco. There’s much more to the story, but let us get to land first.”

  Rissa was already hard at work getting the rope untied off the buoy. When she saw me looking at her, she explained. “My father was a fisherman for years. I know a thing or two about life on the water.”

  “Rissa, dear,” Isa said. “It seems we have company.”

  Speeding off the island where I’d been held were two boats, coming our direction fast. Rissa undid the final rope and ran over to the helm. “I suggest everyone hang on.” She fired up the engine and it roared like the Mustang. This old boat was full of surprises.

  One of the other boats sped out in front of us, cutting us off from the quickest path to land. Rissa turned the wheel hard to the left and took off in a totally different direction. The second boat, in which Ruud was standing tall on, gave chase. Our boat was fast, but his may have been just a tad faster.

  We crossed
under a bridge. “Is that the Golden Gate bridge?” I asked.

  “No and now’s not the time to sight see,” Isa yelled back.

  We continued on, our lead on Ruud’s boat shrinking and the second boat just behind his. Rissa made another turn. “According to the map, this is Grizzly Bay. If we can keep them close, I can lose them just ahead.” She took a bit off the throttle and we slowed down.

  Isa seemed okay with this, but I started to freak out. “I don’t think we needed any help in them catching up to us!”

  Rissa seemed to be waiting for the right moment. As soon as she saw it, she gunned it again and our boat took off, with the two chasers damn close. With a wicked smile, she pointed up ahead to a set of islands pretty close together. “The water’s deep enough in just one of those channels. They don’t know that, but we do.”

  It was at this point I held on. On the speeding boat, sharks and ice cold water didn’t seem so bad. With our crazy British driver steering the way, I could only offer a prayer to the Teacher and hope for the best.

  We shot through the channel between the islands, never hitting any of the natural obstacles in the way. Because the other two boats were so close, they couldn’t react in enough time. The first boat ran into one of those pockets of shallow water and not too long after, the second boat nailed a rock and flipped. Our captain, laughing hysterically, kept going and led us to safety.

  “That’s what I call a jailbreak,” Isa joked.

  Between her and Rissa, there was so much to discuss, but the enjoyment and thrill of the moment needed to be savored. “I thought I was done for.”

  “I’d never let anything happen to you.” She grabbed my hand under the blanket. “And this one, even though she’s quite young, I like her a lot.”

  Even though I couldn’t see her face, it was clear by her reaction the Rissa was either smiling or blushing pretty bad. “Vic saved my life once; it was time for me to return the favor. Besides, it was what Gregory wanted.”