Standing Before Monsters (Vorans and Vampires)

by Donald Wigboldy

  The topic had been shifted surprisingly and Charlotte started to blush. Shaking her head, the pretty brunette replied, “While I enjoyed having sex with Nick the other night, he doesn’t have to take care of me every day.”

  Nicola shook her head at her opposite in response before standing and tugging on a hand of each of them. “Don’t be so afraid of our relationship. If you want to try and have some fun before your brother is up, then you should hurry up and go.

  “We may as well consider him our husband and like those people in Utah, we’re like sister wives, right? So as your new sister, I say get in there and do something you two. You might be putting your lives at risk in a few hours, so you may as well have a reason to keep on living.

  “Besides I had my way with him last night,” the blonde vampire giggled making the other two both embarrassed though for different reasons.

  Prodded along the hallway, the two were suddenly alone in his bedroom. The bed was still unmade since Charlotte hadn’t taken the time to do it yet, besides it was Geni’s day to clean again. Looking at one another and occasionally glancing at the door, the two resembled two teens shoved into a closet at some party where they were supposed to kiss though they were virtually strangers.

  Again Charlotte shook her head refusing Nicola’s ideas. “Seriously Nick, we don’t have to do this just because she says so. You helped me out when I needed you, but I don’t expect you to be with me like that all the time.”

  Cocking his head to the side as if examining the woman’s face in front of him, Nick replied with a slight smile, “Is this the same woman who was going to fight Nicola to win me just a few days ago?”

  The brunette turned bright red and put her hands out waving him off as her eyes closed. “I was about as hormonal as a woman or werewolf can get. I wasn’t in my right mind. You shouldn’t give my delusions any credibility.”

  Moving closer to the woman, he gently lifted her chin getting her to open her eyes and look at him in surprise. He had noticed that she wore the dress shirt he had worn to dinner the night before as if wearing his previously worn clothes had become habit after her ordeal in the bonding process.

  “I don’t regret the other night and I don’t expect us to stop being in love or making love just because the full moon is over now. Nicola’s probably right, even if she did make this more awkward than it needed to be.

  “We’re all in this together now and you don’t have to feel like the one who shouldn’t be loved just because your body wanted to force the situation.” He laughed and added, “In fact, this whole werewolf in heat thing just revealed how we were beginning to feel for each other. To wonder if anything would have happened at some point or not is moot.”

  They moved together for a kiss and Nick found his fingers playing with the upper buttons of the shirt. He wanted her for her. It didn’t matter that Nicola had initiated the moment alone or not.

  While their passion took a little bit to warm up; the couple realized pretty quickly how much they wanted to take advantage of the moment. A kiss led to undressing and more. They found the bed and tried to keep the noise of their passion down, even with Nicola helping by keeping the TV playing in the other room. Werewolf and vampire hearing were too good to hope that someone wouldn’t hear and know that they were making love, but soon it didn’t matter.

  After a time and several tries at their love making, the two moved to the master bath and the shower. Sharing the water, they managed to work in a little more play before they actually managed to wash up. Having a partner to scrub one’s back was new to both of them and quite enjoyable.

  They had dressed after the shower for their upcoming adventure with the kasha. By the time they came out of the bedroom, Nick and Charlotte found the others in the living room. Geni hadn’t arrived yet, but Logan gestured to the end of the couch where Nicola had fallen asleep. Daylight, and probably a concerted effort to not pay attention to the couple in his bedroom, had caused the vampire to succumb to her need for rest.

  Picking up the pretty blond woke her slightly. Her gray eyes opened groggily and she smiled as he carried her. Leaning her head against his shoulder, Nicola whispered, “I love you, Nicky.”

  “I love you too, Nicola,” he replied meaning every word as the man carried one of his two loves into his bedroom.

  He pulled the cover over her body wearing lingerie that had become her favorite attire of late. As Nick stepped back admiring her beauty, the voran wondered how having a romance with someone who could live for eternity could possibly last forever. Of course, a voran was still human and he would die one day. Charlotte was likely to only live a normal human lifespan as well. Compared to her, he was like the vampire; both her elder and likely to live well beyond her death.

  Considering death after making love, a symbol of life; Nick felt a little morbid. People weren’t supposed to think of death when they were young, but who knew what the day could bring. He was as nervous as the girls about joining the kasha. They could be true allies or the engineers of his death if he wasn’t careful; but Nick always tried to be careful.

  The Escape parked a block south of the address given him by the kasha. Exiting the vehicle, Nick looked across to Charlotte. As she had insisted, the werewolf had joined him. Both rear doors let out another werewolf each as well.

  Charlotte had asked Logan before Nick returned from putting the vampire in bed and her brother was quick to join his sister. Her eternal protector after nearly killing her in that first blind rage, Logan wouldn’t let his little sister be in harm’s way without having the opportunity to be a shield and protector to her first.

  That Kate had come wasn’t a complete surprise either; but Logan had urged her to reconsider. He didn’t want a second loved one to fear for, but the woman wouldn’t hear of it. The bonding had only sealed what her heart had felt for years. Kate would die for Logan. The woman want to atone for transferring her curse onto him and that it entailed, but love added to that meant there was no way she would stay home when he was in danger.

  They had barely walked up the block towards the abandoned furniture store when two forms moved out of the shadows of a building on the east side. Shedu and Lamassu were dressed casually as if they were simply out on a walk in the neighborhood, only the neighborhood was a bit run down as the economy closed businesses and caused people to become more desperate, especially in areas like this.

  Shedu nodded and greeted Nick, “We’re glad that you came, and I see that you brought extra hands.”

  He sniffed at the air and added, “Werewolves come to help us. I hope our scent doesn’t make you hate us. I’ve never worked with a werewolf before and have no idea if our natural protection against vampires will bother you.”

  Nick changed from the man’s worries to introductions. “This is Charlotte, my girlfriend and her brother, Logan. The other lovely lady is Kate, his girlfriend.”

  Partially bowing, the Indian man answered with, “I am Shedu of the kasha and this is Lamassu. Our associate Alad is closer to the storefront attempting to reconnoiter the building to better prepare our assault.”

  None of the werewolves were sneezing or appeared more annoyed than having to wait as well as being slightly worried over a possible betrayal. Logan managed to ignore any of those worries as he asked, “I have never heard of a kasha, though I suppose other animals might be tied to cursed humans, so why not cats.”

  Lam frowned shaking her head answering him before Shedu could try, “We don’t view it as a curse. Kashas aren’t compelled by the moon to change against our wills and we don’t lose our sanity in a change. We know friend from foe no matter what level of change we are.”

  Inadvertently hurting Logan with her words, the young woman continued having missed his wince, “It is mostly genetic, though I believe some have managed to transfer their gifts onto others not originally on the path. We can turn into our cat forms anywhere from partial transformations to full, though being a panther or lion in an American city would likely
be just as noticeable as partial transformations, since they aren’t common to this land.”

  “We would be believed as escaped zoo animals most likely,” Shedu sniffed in disgust. His eyes were still looking to the north for Alad. The third man’s reconnaissance had been longer than expected.

  Lam added, “Our kind has been living in the shadows for almost as long as man has been around. While we tend to hunt creatures of the night like vampires, our ability to sense evil and powers to draw away evil souls to destroy them could even pertain to humans or werewolves. Our claws can pull out the evil in small amounts or the whole,” she finished swiping her hand towards Kate and Logan as her claws extended.

  His mate was concealed by Logan with a hand of protection as he stepped slightly in front of the other woman. Lam’s eyes blinked in surprise and she stepped back looking apologetic.

  Shedu shook his head at the girl and added, “We can pull away the spirits of evil creatures and it is easiest from the undead. A living creature like you are is much more difficult to remove the spirit from and, of course, we do not sense any true evil from you. It is why I didn’t allow the attack on Nick’s coven, since I didn’t truly feel any evil in them and, though I am unsure just why, they felt more alive, nearly human.”

  Nick looked over Shedu’s shoulder as the third kasha loped along the sidewalk towards them. While they weren’t completely alone on the street, few people were shopping here anymore. Some sat on stoops or overhead on balconies of the apartments overlooking the street enjoying the nice spring weather. Unfortunately moving in on the closed store, especially in daylight had the possibility of being noticed.

  “Something feels wrong,” Alad said straight off. “I smell blood and it smells old. Some even smells rotten like it has been decaying for days. There is a little that is fresher as well, but the smells all make me believe that there has been a big slaughter inside.”

  Shedu frowned and asked aloud, “Did we take too long or somehow reveal that we had found their nest? Maybe the vampires cleared out after killing their stock of victims?”

  Nick closed his eyes drawing on his radar like sense. The feeling of the werewolves and kasha close to him and the gray feeling of dozens of humans inside the buildings and on the walks came to him vividly. Cars passed by with more people inside; and he could have pointed to each even with his eyes closed or walked into the street managing to avoid each vehicle because of those inside. With all that precision, he could feel nothing in certain buildings.

  As a group, the seven of them walked the sidewalk and waited for the light to change to cross. The storefront looked quiet as one would expect. While most of the boards appeared untouched, Nick’s acute vision noted a couple places where plywood was loose or a few boards had been spread to let someone inside through a window.

  Frowning at the lack of lights in his mind, Nick said, “I don’t think anyone is in there, no one alive anyway.”

  The others looked at him questioningly, but no one said anything to dispute his impressions. With the smell of old blood coming from the direction of the building and Alad’s previous report, they would all suspend judgment until they were inside and would remain ready to defend themselves as well.

  Pushing in through the easiest point, they found a piece of plywood which had been separated from the window it protected and the glass was broken out as well. Vampires wouldn’t care about the temperature of their lair so a broken window was nothing to them. Neither cold nor heat could truly bother the undead very much. If they kept humans for food, they had cared little for the conditions they maintained for them as well.

  The front part of the old store was darkened, but the sunlight coming in through the slat boards allowed some vision for the first twenty feet or so. Nick glanced around and thought that this had been a furniture display area near the front. Old couches and chairs, wood furniture for bedrooms and the rest had all been abandoned. The ceiling was high as well and the voran checked high and low just in case.

  At the back wall, the lighting was much worse, but their sense of smell found the first of a couple dead vampires. Taking a flashlight from Charlotte’s back pack, one of the few they had brought along since Nick and Logan would do their best to keep the women behind them out of harm’s way. It wasn’t just being chivalrous, Nick was highly trained and Logan’s strength was paired with speed making him quite lethal as well. As werewolves, Kate and Charlotte could fight well enough, but they weren’t experts and would just cover them as the second line. A backpack could be dropped by them, so they were the ones with the gear like flash lights on their backs.

  Seeing the desiccated corpse of the first vampire; Nick, who had seen a lot in his time, was ready to be sick. Like a raisin left in the sun, the vampire’s skin had pulled in on its bones. In places, muscles had been torn free and removed. Its abdomen had been nearly hollowed out as if animals had eaten through, though such carnage seemed nearly impossible and precise.

  There was also a smell that Nick couldn’t identify along with the rest.

  “What is that smell?” the voran asked even as Charlotte and Kate backed away trying to get their breath in a room filled with the smell of death.

  Shedu pulled his shirt over his nose and said, “I think this is the work of reapers.”

  The second body was closer to a door torn from all but its bottom hinge. Hanging askew, the door was still half opened into the next room. Darker than the previous area, there were no windows, a perfect place for vampires to gather and the smell of blood everywhere told him that they had. Six more similarly drained vampire corpses with various levels of flesh removed were found here. A stairway leading both upstairs and down into a basement was discovered here also.

  Despite the smell, Nick tried to sense any living or undead things within the building or nearby. Though he felt nothing above, the voran thought he sensed something very faint below them.

  “I don’t sense anything above us, but I think there may be a survivor below. I only sense a faint impression so they are either weak or have found a way deep enough to mask their aura fractionally. Maybe Logan and Kate can join Alad upstairs. I don’t think that there is anything to fear here by day, unless someone calls the police on us.”

  Shedu nodded to Alad and the man started to move towards the stairs leading up. Nick added, “Whoever returns first should start using silver to get rid of the evidence. We don’t need civilians wandering in and discovering a horror show or reporting them to the police.”

  They all nodded. A brief discussion about using his silver sword or the silver nitrate spray ended with him leaving the blade buried in the chest of a corpse which began to burn away with the touch. He would retrieve it soon enough and still had his aura blades to kill vampires with should the voran need to fight.

  Taking the lead as Shedu and Lam used their masks to stop repressing their cat forms and powers, the voran used his flashlight as he descended the stairs into the basement. Darkness remained a constant and the smell of blood. Scattered within the basement, both the corpses of vampires and their human victims could be found. It was a killing room, but the original killers had found their end there as well.

  Nick tried to sense the essence of the single vampire remaining alive and found that it seemed to be below them still. The search for another way out commenced. A backdoor was broken and may have been the initial break in point of the reapers. With all the blood, Nick and the other hunters were still unsure of how many had made it into the nest to kill the vampires. The initial guess of a dozen inhabitants had been low in fact. Just from the sweep of the first floor and those in the basement, the dead vampires numbered sixteen. Adding eight to their total and a dozen dead humans, they found similar means of execution with both species. As Shedu had warned him, a reaper didn’t discriminate between victims, though their preference was for other vampires.

  A thin trail of blood disappeared under a mass of wicker furniture. The quality of the chairs was poor and much of it had bee
n destroyed. Whether the reapers had cared to be thorough or not, this trail seemed to have been unnoticed and the voran had simply gotten lucky in catching it. With the other’s help, Nick pulled away the furniture to find a large metal grate pulled aside from an opening four by five. While not huge by any means, the shaft dropped almost twenty feet into darkness. Few things could survive such a fall without injury and less could use the opening to return. A vampire might be one of them.

  Nick was the only one with the ability to slow his fall among them. From science fiction, the voran could most closely call it telekinesis though it was limited to his body and lessening the pull of gravity on him. Using his power, the voran went first to scout ahead. The others would have to risk the drop, which was easy enough for either race, but returning they would have to scale their way back up. If it was a dead end, there was no point making them go through the effort.

  Landing in complete darkness that not even vampires or werewolves’ eyesight could have navigated, Nick panned the flashlight around looking at his surroundings. Though attached to the sewers and with their scent, he had to guess that this was some form of hidden room. Like something left over from the depression era and the mafia wars, he wondered if this was similar to the tomb they had once excavated expecting to find hidden mafia treasures back in the eighties. It had ended as a joke for the reporter’s career, but in spite of finding nothing important, the odds were that it had simply been abandoned as opposed to being used for a tomb or vault.

  This room held a similar feel and it looked like there might be enough room leading in and out that someone desperate might have used the sewers to escape the killing rooms above him. Using his radar, the voran sensed the weak presence and it was inside of the room. There was blood here, though in smaller amounts than above. He guessed that some of it had flowed into the shaft from the basement as it functioned as a drain as well.