Enduring Service

by Regina Morris

  The van pulled onto the interstate and headed south towards Mohler Street. Raymond glanced over to Ben, who was using his ability to read Julian’s aura. Unfortunately, Ben couldn’t control a vampire’s moods, just read them.

  “She’s terrified of her own brother?” Ben asked.

  A sneer appeared on Julian’s face. “The man is a menace.” He glared over to Raymond, his eyes defiant.

  “You really believe that, don’t you,” Ben said.

  Raymond listened to how Ben had phrased the question. Ben could read a person’s aura, human or vampire. If the man were lying, Ben would know. The line of questioning told Raymond that Julian told the truth — the truth as he knew it.

  “Why do you think my sister is afraid of me?” Raymond asked.

  “Other than your abusive demeanor and mind fucking abilities?” he started. “I’d say that would be plenty, but also because you put your own selfish needs above her needs. All she ever did was idolize you as a child and your greed wouldn’t allow her to find happiness without you.”

  Sterling sped down the interstate, weaving his car throughout the light traffic and running red lights. “We’ll be at the mall in about twenty minutes, Dad.”

  Julian’s eyes darted over to Sterling. “The half–breed.” Looking again at Raymond, he said, “Your son. I should have realized when I first saw him, but then again, we assumed he died a long time ago.”

  “Oh, someone’s going to die!” Sterling growled from behind the wheel.

  “Enough,” Raymond chided.

  “Like father, like son.” Julian took a deep breath. “Trudy was right about you.”

  There was too much information to take in. Raymond didn’t even know anyone by that name. “Trudy?”

  Julian shook his head. “Of course you don’t remember my cousin. She’s was probably just a blip on your radar.” When Raymond shook his head, Julian continued. “You were engaged to her. She’s Charles’ sister. You demanded more of a dowry to marry her, which consisted well over half of the family estate. Your demands impinged on Charles’ inheritance and what he could bring to his marriage with Sulie — but you didn’t care. The family would have refused by that fact alone, but when they found you had soiled your bed with some human slut… that was more than enough to end the engagement. Sulie broke the engagement even though they loved each other so very much and…”

  Raymond’s laughter interrupted. “Seriously?” He looked over to Ben.

  “It’s the truth as he knows it,” Ben said.

  “Your little story is nothing but fiction, Julian. I don’t know who told you those lies, but I don’t even know who your cousin is. The Council never granted me an arranged marriage since they feared I might inherit my father’s mind abilities. Besides, no vampire family would take a risk in signing up their daughter to a vampire who could possibly control them.”

  “Liar,” Julian accused. “Sulie was granted an arranged marriage. She stood the same risks of inheritance as you did.”

  “Charles’ family agreed to lay claim to Sulie and wait until her Jahrling Year. They pursued her.” Raymond’s face then hardened. “And if you refer to my late human wife as a slut again, I’ll pull your other shoulder from its socket.”

  As Julian looked away, Sterling interrupted. “We’ll be there soon. Mohler Street is in the old shopping district. It’s been abandoned for years.”

  “Both Sulie and Dixon are inside,” Raymond said as he looked at Julian.

  “Must be pretty old. No blueprints of the restaurant exist online. No building permits for that area on file.” Ben tapped more buttons on his cell phone but just shook his head.

  Alex sat crooked from the front passenger seat so she could halfway face the back of the van. She reached over to grab Ben’s phone. She studied the image. “I remember this place. Many of the stores were going out of business several years ago. I think Vinos was the only one making money,” she said, handing the phone back to Ben.

  “What kind of stores were at the mall,” Ben asked.

  “Clothing, shoes, a perfume place… not much to go on. No gun store, no camping gear or anything like that. I doubt anything would be left. Typically homeless people will move into such buildings, especially during the colder months, and they help themselves to whatever is left,” Alex answered.

  Raymond moved towards a locked trunk in the back of the van. He pulled out a key from his pocket and opened it. The trunk contained guns, silver tipped bullets, daggers, Silver Bolt Launchers (SBLs) and a special weapon invented by Ben years ago, a silver whip. The leather–bound whip allowed vampires to touch it, but when you whipped it into the air, the leather pealed back revealing the silver dipped strands of leather. The silver was strategically dipped onto the leather so it would bend and wrap around objects just as a regular leather whip would do.

  Putting on a glove from the box, he handed another silver chain to Ben. “Secure his feet.”

  Julian kicked at Ben as he approached with the chain, but Ben held him down.

  “You need to ask yourself something, Julian,” Raymond said. “I read your memories when I held you down. You were a child, younger than Sulie at the time of her engagement and your memories are those of a child. You mostly remember what you were told because you were not an adult and privy to much of what was going on at the time. If Sulie loved Charles so much, why is she being held against her will at the restaurant?”

  The reply was quick, almost defiant. “She broke the engagement. She had to because you forced her to do so. He tied her up so he could undo your brainwashing.”

  A chuckle escaped Raymond’s mouth. “You have that backwards. Charles broke the engagement because he couldn’t stand Sulie’s attachment to her half–breed nephew. And I don’t think caging her up is a great way to make up for lost time.” He looked over to Julian. “I read from you that you cared about Sulie. She was like a big sister to you for a while.” When Julian nodded, Raymond said, “Since she’s been locked up, have you even bothered to ask her if she’s afraid of me? If she’s been happy all these years without Charles? Look around you. This is her family, not you. We love her. You were told what you needed to hear because you were a child missing your new best friend.”

  “My family wouldn’t lie to me,” he said, shaking his head.

  Ben finished the shackling. “Dude, you don’t really believe that.”

  “Of course I do.”

  Ben shook his head. “I can read your aura and can see when you lie. You’re lying to yourself about your family.”

  Julian looked away and for the first time Raymond studied the man’s profile. That’s when he realized who Trudy was. He reached in his pocket and held out his cell phone. He scrolled through the pictures and showed the midwife’s picture to Julian. “Is this Trudy?”

  He barely glanced at the picture and nodded.

  “I do not know this woman. I only met her once, when she…”, Raymond finally put two and two together. “When she murdered my wife.”

  The car skidded to a stop. Raymond looked up towards his son, ignoring the stares of the other team members. “Keep driving.”

  Julian glanced at the picture once more and shook his head. “Trudy isn’t like that.”

  “Dude,” Ben said. “You’re lying to yourself again.” Ben noticed Raymond hand him a bandana from the trunk and he used it to gag the vampire.

  Raymond pulled out a box from the top of the truck and handed out ear buds to the team. “Sterling will be the remote team. He’ll stay in the van just outside of visual distance and give us feedback as we need it. He’ll also be online if we need anything.”

  “I’ll stay in the car again,” Sterling huffed. Then, in a happier tone, he added, “I’ll look after Julian for us.”

  “You’re part human,” Raymond said. “You’ll stay in the car where it’s safer and you will leave Julian alone. We may need him in exchange for Sulie.” Just then, Raymond felt a strong mental pattern from Julian, so he reached
over and touched the vamp’s hand. Raymond’s eyes saddened by what he read. He didn’t care that Julian didn’t believe his family valued his life enough to trade for him. What saddened Raymond was the option for trading him for Sulie wouldn’t exist.

  “Sterling,” Raymond continued. “I need you as the coordinator for the mission, but be armed and ready to run in at a second’s notice.”

  “Fine,” Sterling said.

  Each team member selected their weapons, as well as gloves from the box that held the ear buds. They would need those to touch the silver whips and silver tipped bullets.

  One by one, the daggers were stored in boots and inside pockets, the whips strapped onto their backs, and the guns were loaded. They each put on their ear buds and tested the devices out.

  “Team A will be me and Ben. Alex and William—when he gets here—will be Team B. Once we get to the building, Team A will enter the main entrance to the restaurant; Team B will enter from the mall entrance on the opposite side. Each of you will carry several syringes of blood. Hopefully you won’t need them to heal; they’ll be needed to feed Sulie. I’m sure she’ll need every drop we can give her. Sterling will have bagged blood with him in the van.”

  “Don’t worry, Raymond. We have plenty of blood for when we find Sulie,” Alex mentioned. “It’s been days since her abduction. We have to assume she has not eaten. If she has not been injured and bled out, her age is probably sixty or so.”

  Ben shook his head. “She’s probably aged a few decades past sixty by now. I’m guessing late eighties.”

  Raymond agreed. He also knew how much his sister hated aging and didn’t want her to suffer any more than she had. Raymond asked Alex to pass out the vials of cord blood she had retrieved from the lab. There were six total.

  “The cord blood goes with each of you,” Raymond said. “Do not consume the baby blood until we arrive at our destination.”

  The team stared at one another. “We have to use this blood,” Raymond said. “Our enemy is consuming it. They will be stronger and faster because of it. We need to level the playing field.”

  “Julian here wasn’t any stronger,” Ben retorted.

  Raymond smirked at Julian all tied up and now quiet. “Julian’s been a pawn his entire life. I doubt his family gave him any of the good stuff.” Raymond didn’t need his special abilities for this one. Judging by Julian’s furrowed brow and his look of deep thought, Raymond had guessed right.

  “Our first priority is to save Sulie,” Raymond said. “Priority two is to kill that bitch Trudy, and anyone else who has had a hand in all of this.”

  As Sterling parked the car a safe distance from the restaurant, tensions remained high. No one wanted to guess how old Sulie might be if she had been injured, and no one raised the question as to whether it was too late or not to save her.

  Chapter Thirty

  Sulie lay on the bed and took stock of her situation. Dixon was captured. He was hurt and bleeding, and he already had anemia. She was on lockdown and aging. How could she save him? The video Charles had shown her of Dixon could have been recorded anywhere. It would be stupid to assume Dixon was being held anywhere near her prison, but she still allowed her mind to entertain the idea. If she could escape Charles, she may be able to find Dixon. Of course, if she killed Charles, she may take away the only person who knew where Dixon was being held.

  So. Save Dixon, then kill Charles.

  She didn’t care about the order, just as long as both got done.

  And she didn’t want to forget that bitch Trudy. How dare she brutally feed from Dixon’s neck? Sulie closed her eyes and told herself not to cry. Crying would not solve anything. Killing Trudy by violent means… that was what was called for.

  Sulie had to focus. She still had her makeshift weapons. If she could only get the door unlocked, she could kill Charles and escape. Of course, she would need his thumbprint for the more modern biolock, so maybe not kill Charles, just lock him in this cell and sever his hand. Make him suffer just as she was forced to do so.

  The click of the outer lock pulled her from her delightful visions. There had been no glass of blood in a while. Perhaps this was her guardian making another donation. Her body ached, and she felt frail. She needed to feed.

  The heavy footsteps told her the visitor wore boots, not Italian sling–backs. She counted off the steps. All hope of another glass of blood was dashed when Charles came into view.

  “Baby doll,” he said. His lustful, blackened eyes traveled down her body. “Good news. The Vampire Council granted our marriage.”

  The words cut deeply into her heart. She was now his wife. Sulie held her breath. Everything took so much time to get done in this modern world. Everything — even installing cable television takes hours, if not days, for an appointment. How the hell did the marriage get approved in such a short time? She wasn’t sure she believed him, so she eyed him questioningly.

  “It helps to have friends and relatives on the Council.”

  Sulie watched as he pressed his thumb to the panel and opened the lock. She needed that thumb. Of course, first she needed a sharp blade, but had nothing of the sort. Knowing she had to bide her time, she didn’t bother to rush the door to tear out his throat. Just as long as Dixon survived, it didn’t matter what happened to her.

  Charles slowly approached her and she realized he had a leather bag with him. Thinking it wasn’t a good sign, she stood up from the bed and walked cautiously to the back wall where two stakes were hidden. She felt her fangs lengthen and knew her eyes had blackened in preparation for a fight.

  “You will do as I say, dear wife, or I will have your Johnny killed.” He tilted his head back to the bed. “Lay down.”

  Deflated, she took a deep breath and walked back to the bed, never taking her eyes off of him. She watched as he took a pair of gloves out of the bag and put them on. Next out of the bag came chains that she figured were, at the minimum, silver plated.

  Sulie sat further back on the bed. She didn’t smell any blood from the bag, so she assumed there was to be no dinner and a movie first.

  “Hands,” he ordered. “Put your hands up to the corners at the head of the bed. Your feet to the bottom corners.”

  Sulie stared at him. She knew she had been in worse spots than this. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of any right now. Her heart raced with fear and she knew he could hear it. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how scared she felt, so she lifted her chin defiantly. “What? No honeymoon?”

  Charles let out a chuckle. “Once you’re at your base Jahrling age, we’ll only need a few minutes, baby doll.”

  Her stomach turned. She couldn’t allow him to tie her up. That was hostage 101 training. Negotiate. Reason. Have the captor see you as a person. She looked up at him with the saddest puppy eyes she could muster. “I am hungry, Charles. So how about dinner first? We could talk and catch up.”

  He grabbed one of her hands and shackled it. “There will be nothing to eat until you are secure.” The silver singed her skin until he adjusted her sleeve under it. “Don’t need you aging any more. Looks like you only have a couple of years left right now.”

  She knew her time was limited. He didn’t need to remind her how old she had become.

  Her arm was forced upward as he strung the chain behind the headboard and collected her other hand to fasten. Her shoulders ached, but at least she would have blood soon. She could live through the humiliation of being raped; she could escape before any baby was born. She had to.

  When he moved to her legs, she kicked at his arms. All her actions did was cause him to twist her ankles once he had snared them. Pain ripped through her body and she medically read her condition. Twisted left foot, broken big toe on the right foot, arthritis in her shoulders, 30% muscle loss in her body, fading vision… she decided to stop there. The list seemed too long.

  It seemed useless to continue the fight. Nothing could come of it in her aged condition. Within moments, her l
egs were chained too.

  Once she was secured, Charles walked to the small table in the corner of the room and placed the key out of reach. Sulie then noticed Charles looked down at his watch.

  “Where’s the blood?” Sulie asked as she felt her time slipping away.

  He moved towards her. “You’re in for a treat. Cord blood.”

  She licked her lips, her tongue brushing up against her fangs. She didn’t care if it was cord blood or not, just so she’d have it soon. “You store cord blood here?” she asked, looking out the cell door.

  “Some, but it never stays here for long. I’m waiting for a fresh shipment to be delivered,” he said as he pulled out his phone. “Trudy will go over the details with you later. We keep most of the blood in warehouses.” He held the phone up and moved around the room. His frustration grew as he walked closer to the barred windows and still didn’t have reception.

  “No bars?” Sulie joked. “Who are you calling?”

  “Thanks to our business here, Julian is now doing collections. He should have been back with another supply of blood by now.” Charles gritted his teeth as he stared at his phone. “No reception, no messages,” he snapped. “Julian is more useless than Millard was!” He stormed out the cell and locked the door behind him. Sulie heard him as he walked to an outer door opposite of where he had entered. She didn’t even know another door existed at the other end of the hallway. By the sound of the door clicking shut, it too locked when closed.

  Evidently the phone worked better out of the cellar. She could hear Charles screaming into the phone asking for updates from Julian. But soon his voice faded as he moved out of earshot.

  Now alone, chained, starved, and broken… Sulie cried.

  Chapter Thirty–One

  In one hand Dixon held his dagger, and in the other the syringe of death from his old desk at the White House. He slowly made his way toward the doors separating the dining room from the kitchen and peered through the tiny circular window. He saw no vampires in the empty kitchen, but that also meant no Sulie either. He pushed open the door and stepped in, cautious to make as little noise as possible.