SURVIVAL

by Karen Payton Holt

  Sebastian grinned and his cheekbone collapsed, dragging down to expose the ice cold glare of his milk-white eyeball. He relived the moment when Rebekah’s collarbone had snapped between his clenched teeth and a shudder of eagerness racked his body. This time, grinding her frame to dust and feeling her skeleton crumble beneath his weight was the climactic feeling he sought.

  He turned the handle and pushed the door open.

  The aromatic plume of warm-blood hit him as he slipped into the room, drowning his mouth in a saliva and venom cocktail. She won’t know I’m here until she’s dying. He anticipated the open-mouthed kiss which would smother Rebekah’s scream and fill her throat with venom, and hunger jerked him into the first step towards her bedside.

  He barely registered the tight grip clamp onto his shoulders until his feet had already left the floor, and, launched into the air, his coat tore as it dragged across the ceiling. He hurtled across the room and slammed upside down into the opposite wall. His dense body filled into the deep crater it punched into the plasterboard before he began to slide downward.

  When his feet hit the floor, Sebastian sprang into a half-somersault, and, twisting in mid-air, swung out a vicious kick, aimed at his unknown foe.

  He was rewarded with a grunt when his boot made contact, and a satisfying crunch of impact shuddered through his femur and into his braced knee. Using the whipping momentum to swing upright, Sebastian drove the heel of his hand towards the jaw of his assailant.

  He grunted when his flexed wrist creaked within a crushing grip. A sharp twisting action wrenched his shoulder, forcing Sebastian into a forward somersault to save it from dislocation, and he landed heavily on his back.

  A boot compressed his throat, and he stared up into the amused face of Julian. A gray stain on his jaw bore Sebastian’s heel print.

  “It’s like fighting a box of frogs,” Julian said with a grim smile. “All that leaping about is very theatrical, don’t you think? We were going to kill you quickly, but, honestly?” Julian looked down into Sebastian’s nervously twitching eye. “We decided to have some fun. After all, you are into playing games, hmmm?”

  Connor strolled into view. “Really, Sebastian, did you think we would leave Rebekah and my daughter unprotected?” He shook his head, his hardened steel gaze locked on to Sebastian’s face. “Tut, tut, tut,” he enunciated.

  Sebastian’s fixed grimace collapsed on one side, and a sound like a hacksaw blade grating over granite filled vampire ears as his detached cheekbone tore through muscle fibers.

  Julian cocked his head. “I see Anthony got one in before he let you pass.”

  The hideous mask shifted again to bare teeth. “He may regret being part of your game this time.”

  Connor jerked his head towards the door and tapped Julian fleetingly on the shoulder. “Go, check on Anthony.”

  Julian’s boot was replaced by Connor’s fist as he gripped Sebastian’s neck in a vise, burrowed the tips of his finger into the firm column of flesh, and yanked him to his feet.

  Julian disappeared into the corridor, and silence flowed like lava to fill the space with hatred.

  Sebastian strained to turn his head, his eye skittering around the room, hunting down the information he wanted. “So, she’s not here?”

  Connor laughed as Sebastian’s good eye clouded with confusion. “Oh, you can smell her, alright.” He jerked Sebastian a foot to the right, allowing him sight of the hospital bed where a cluster of heated terracotta stones cradled a stainless-steel bowl filled with a rust brown liquid.

  “A bowl of warmed blood and some of her sweat-soaked linen. You were so easy.”

  The door-catch clicked as it swung closed, and Julian materialized inside the room with Anthony hanging over his shoulders – the muscles in his broad frame shuddering with convulsions.

  Julian crossed quickly to a gurney pushed back against a wall, and lowered Anthony onto the thin mattress.

  “What the hell-?” Connor cut himself short at Sebastian’s gloating sigh.

  Julian shook his head, and the sound of Anthony’s grinding teeth vibrated through Connor.

  “There’s no obvious cause, but, he’s in a bad way. His pupils are blown. You may have to pronounce him.”

  The tubular-steel frame of the gurney took up the rhythm of Anthony’s convulsions, clattering as his shoulder banged against the plasterboard of the wall.

  “Crush his skull?” Connor glowered.

  Anger arced between the two friends like a static charge.

  Connor’s head whipped back around, his features hard as granite. “What did you do?”

  Sebastian stared him down.

  Connor’s free hand grabbed a handful of hair, pulling some out by the roots as he yanked Sebastian’s head back. He tightened the stranglehold until the tendons in Sebastian’s neck vibrated in protest. “Killing you here without an audience is easy. And if you don’t tell me what you did to Anthony, then you have two minutes left.” Connor leaned in and hissed, “You want a chance to fight me, prove what a warrior you are? You got it. Marius is granting Serge’s demand for a duel. If you want the glory of taking me down in the arena, tell me what you did to Anthony.”

  Sebastian snorted through gritted teeth. “I’m not stupid. You’ll kill me anyway.”

  “Oh no, you have my word.” Connor’s cold rage coated his skin in a glacial sheen. “Dying here is too good for you, Sebastian. I want the hive to witness your humiliation. I will take you apart, all legal and above board. With permission granted to tear you limb from limb.”

  Sebastian’s eye glinted with fervor as, mockingly, he extended his hand.

  His lip curling in disgust, Connor gripped the hand and shook it once.

  “He’s full of air, like you.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Connor spat as he absorbed Sebastian’s closed expression. “Julian, check the corridors for the weapon.” Connor adjusted his grip, burying his fingertips into Sebastian’s cheeks. “You know, if I put a hole in your face, you’ll find feeding extremely challenging.”

  Moving fast, Julian spun out of the room and back in again as though the door was a turnstile. Holding out the empty syringe, he said, “A full-body dose of muscle relaxant.”

  Shaking his head, Connor replied, “No, you heard the sick bastard. ‘He’s full of air’.” He mimicked the malicious tone as his needle-gray gaze pierced Sebastian’s. “How much air?” he demanded, and the blast of his cold breath crackled.

  “A full barrel,” Sebastian replied with a deliberate indifferent shrug.

  Sebastian’s grin gave Connor’s nails the purchase needed to prise his teeth apart, his nails digging into his cheeks, and, for a moment, every particle in the room hung suspended. Connor’s features became a mask of manic satisfaction as Sebastian’s panicked hiss sliced through the air and the molars on both sides of his jaw dissolved into rubble.

  The sound of crumbling teeth was overlaid by the explosive crack of splintering glass. Julian crushed the syringe in his hand when the gurney screeched, taking up the pounding rhythm of Anthony’s cantering bodyweight, and the tubular framework buckled.

  “Where did you inject him?” Connor glared into Sebastian’s contorted face.

  Sebastian’s throat worked as fragments of teeth scraped down his gullet in a noisy swallow, clearing the way for his words. “Use your imagination, Doctor.”

  “I’m guessing you’re a jugular kind of guy.”

  Sebastian’s grating laugh sprayed a shower of tooth enamel, but Connor grinned as a shadow of irritation darkened Sebastian’s eye before he looked away.

  “So predictable.”

  Connor’s bitter amusement died as Anthony’s convulsions reached a sudden crescendo. Powdered debris rained onto the linoleum floor as his jerking elbow punched a hole in the wall.

  “Let’s get him into theater,” Connor barked as he threw Sebastian at Julian.

  Connor whisked the gurney from the room, using all his strength to hold it
still as Anthony’s shoulders rocked alarmingly.

  The flailing Sebastian ricocheted off Julian’s chest as he brushed the glass fibers from his hands and prepared to touch something disgusting in the same moment. Grabbing Sebastian by the scruff of the neck, from his superior height, Julian yanked hard until Sebastian’s feet barely grazed the floor.

  “I have to say Sebastian, you’re definitely not looking your best at the moment,” Julian whispered, before driving him forward. He used Sebastian’s face as a battering ram to bounce open the door which was swinging back in Connor’s wake.

  Inside the theater, Connor hoisted Anthony onto the operating table and fastened restraining straps across his body.

  Anthony’s skin had a slate-gray cast and his eyes were open, but dull black pupils had swallowed all but a circular thread of his bronze irises.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me, but you’re going to be fine.”

  The theater door banged open to announce Julian’s arrival, and Connor pulled the mantle of surgeon firmly into place.

  Moving Anthony’s head as quickly as the jerking tendons in his neck allowed, Connor located the wound in the carotid artery where an ice-white pockmark punctured his flesh. He picked up a syringe of muscle relaxant, diluted it with saline and inserted it into the soft space under the tight jaw and injected a small amount until the sinews in Anthony’s neck slackened.

  “Here, Julian.” Connor tossed the remainder of the dose across the room to where Julian held Sebastian. “If he twitches, jab him with that.”

  Connor turned back and took a quick inventory of the tray of surgical instruments.

  He inserted a catheter into the pockmark, and fed the transparent thread of plastic tubing into the carotid artery until three inches had disappeared. His commentary was for Julian’s benefit, and he hoped, for Anthony’s, too. “I’m just going to try and draw off some blood.” Connor attached a syringe barrel and eased the plunger back until he felt the resistance as he created a vacuum. “There is no blood yet. That’s good, Anthony. This is the air I’m pulling out.”

  Julian grunted his approval as he asked, “He’s going to be okay?”

  “Maybe,” Connor said carefully. “Okay, we have blood.”

  The thick, brown paste of dead, congealed blood snaked into the catheter tube. Connor paused, and checked Anthony’s pupils. “Damn, one is still dilated. There’s an air pocket in there.” Connor muttered, “I need you here, Julian. Knock the bastard out.”

  Sebastian hit the floor face first as Julian buried the needle in the base of his neck and shot the plunger home. “Thought you’d never ask,” he said as, stepping over the sprawled vampire, he arrived at Connor’s side.

  Connor spanned his hands over Anthony’s cranium, sliding his fingers slowly across his forehead and around the skull until he cradled the back of his neck. Closing his eyes, he absorbed the sluggish electrical activity. He pressed his fingertips into the area behind the ears and grunted. “The air pocket is compressing the cerebellum. That explains the seizures.”

  Julian’s brow rose in inquiry.

  “It’s the area of the hindbrain which controls coordination, balance, and muscle tone.” Connor frowned. “I don’t want to drill into his skull, old bone is brittle and it might crumble, so we’ll go in through the ear canal.”

  Connor crossed to the blood storage cabinet and pulled out an I.V. bag left over from the preparations for Rebekah’s operation. Stabbing a needle into it, he filled a syringe and injected fresh blood into the flesh around Anthony’s ear, like a surgeon performing a Botox treatment.

  “What are you doing?” asked Julian.

  “Hydrating the tissue, so I can reattach the ear.”

  “Reattach the what? No, don’t tell me.” Julian snapped his jaw shut.

  Connor laughed. “I’m getting soft in my old age. Usually, the ear would end up in the garbage.” Massaging the site with his thumb, he laid the needle down and looked into Julian’s reluctant face. “Here we go. All you need to do is hold his head over to the side. Are you ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be,” grumbled Julian as he placed his hands where Connor indicated and locked his muscles in place. His smoothed features smothered his expression of dread.

  Connor worked fast, slicing a scalpel blade around the back of the ear. He pulled the stiff cartilage forward and rested it on Anthony’s cheek. Lifting the tacky edge of the small disc of the eardrum with surgical tweezers, he exposed the chambers of the inner ear. He fed a small-gauge catheter tube into the space and, with a gentle screwing motion, advanced it through the tissue of the ear canal. Connor wore a path through the fragile bones and into Anthony’s skull until he could feed the catheter into the space where the temporal lobe rested above the cerebellum.

  “Okay, here we go.” Connor grunted with satisfaction as the tube again filled with air before the greasy, brown stain of blood extruded in. He moved to look into Anthony’s eye, watching as the pupil shrunk and readjusted to match the other.

  “Hello, Anthony. Back in the room, hmm?” Connor grinned when Anthony reached out a hand and tugged on his coat. “Hold still, buddy. I have to put you back together. Don’t want to spoil those boyish good looks.”

  Reversing the process, Connor used tweezers to reassemble the puzzle pieces of bone and replaced the eardrum. He finally turned the cartilage of the ear over, pressed it back into place, and manipulated the surrounding skin until the edges of the incision aligned. Stitching porcelain was not going to work, so he applied a line of glue.

  Nodding to Julian, Connor stepped back and dropped the glue tube onto the tray.

  Anthony swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. Cradling his neck where the tendons remained half asleep, he smiled sheepishly. “Please, tell me you got the bastard.” Anthony’s slack vocal chords slurred the words, but concern was written clearly on his face.

  Connor jerked his head to indicate the pile of dishevelled fabric and tumble of limbs in the corner of the room. “Yes, we got him. And, better yet, you get to watch him die in the arena, in-?”

  “One hour, at the Royal Albert Hall,” said Julian.

  “The duel is to take place at the Royal Albert?” Connor’s brows climbed in surprise. “You’re not afraid we’ll trash the place? This is a fight to the death, Julian.”

  Julian jerked his head towards where Sebastian lay. “But the acoustics are so good, and I want to hear every breath of his pain when he dies.”

  Connor thought of the impressively large acoustic discs which hung from the concertina-styled steel ceiling of the Hall. Viewed from below, they reminded him of haemoglobin cells floating in suspension. He grinned. Funny, how we are all obsessed with blood.

  “But, you’re right. The Hall has always held a special place in my heart,” said Julian thoughtfully.

  Queen Victoria had declared it open in 1871, and, okay, Julian was long dead by then, but being able to witness her reign in its entirety, and the abiding love she had for her prince, Albert, had given him some hope for mankind. “It seems fitting. The place commemorates one of the greatest loves in British history. This duel is about nothing, if not love.”

  “I think Wembley Arena would fit the bill better,” said Anthony. “I fought there many times in my boxing career. Though, I can’t vouch for the acoustics.” His brown gaze filled with the gold-tinted glitter of nostalgia. “My ears were ringing most of the time. You know, becoming a vampire turned out to be the best cure there is for tinnitus.” Anthony’s face softened in a wistful smile.

  Laying a hand on Anthony’s shoulder, Connor said, “I don’t know if you’ll have perfect hearing in that ear, but you should get some of it back. I did as little damage as I could.”

  “I’m alive,” Anthony slurred, “I’ll settle for that.”

  Looking as if he was giving it serious thought, Connor said, “So, you’d recommend Wembley Arena?” His eyes were alight with amusement when he heard an irritated cough and turned to mee
t Julian’s ‘for goodness’ sake’ expression.

  Suppressing a grin, Connor said, “The Royal Albert Hall it is then.”

  He moved swiftly across the room to nudge Sebastian with his boot. Rolling him onto his back, Connor scanned the relaxed features. Sinking to his haunches, resting his loose wrists on his knees, he said in a conversational tone, “Hello, Sebastian, I know you can hear me. One hour from now, you will regain your body function in the Albert Hall, dressed for the duel.” Connor flicked the flap of Sebastian’s tattered coat collar. “Or should I say ‘undressed’ for the duel.” The taste of anticipation vibrated his vocal chords and lowered his voice to a feral growl. “May the best man, win.”

  “Will he be ready in an hour?” Anthony speculated.

  “The relaxant was diluted. He’ll be ready,” grinned Julian.

  Connor sprang back to his feet as the sound of fabric brushing over fast-moving hard, smooth bodies filled his ears with a cluster of wraithlike whispers. He pinpointed the sound, staring at the precise spot on the wall as if his gaze penetrated bricks and plaster. Without turning his head, he said, “The guardsmen are here.”

  The door rattled in its frame, and Julian turned to face it as a tall vampire burst into the room.

  “Captain Gerrard.” Julian nodded briskly.

  Gerrard quickly masked his surprise at the prone figure of Sebastian, and settled startling blue eyes on Julian. “Principal Julian.” He bowed at the waist and snapped back to straight. “Juror Marius ordered us to escort the combatants to the arena.”

  “Efficient, as always.” Julian inclined his head. “Has Juror Marius also selected the guardsmen from Captain Laurence’s elite squad? The four marksmen required on point during the duel?”

  “Yes, sir. They are already in place.”

  Julian waved an arm to indicate Sebastian. “The challenger will need transporting. I will accompany Doctor Connor myself.”

  Captain Gerrard’s deadpan expression was commendable. Connor liked the man instantly as the twitch of his lip was ironed out with a dose of starch and the quicksilver glint of amusement in his eyes was immediately doused by shadow. This is Captain Laurence’s successor? Let’s hope the hatchet has been buried.