And they left, climbing on their horses, and leaving me there, lying across the trough, my wife’s drained body limp at my side.
And an unquenchable thirst building from within.
TWO
Detroit, Michigan
Present Day
A quick sniff of the air told me everything I needed to know. He was definitely a he (you never can be sure nowadays), and he most likely worked in some sort of manual labor job based upon the stench of grease and sweat. But a hint of antiperspirant suggested he cared about the ungodly BO. It all pointed to the end of a long day of honest, backbreaking work. And that he was type O-negative.
My favorite.
The object of my pursuit may have been a hardworking, good American, but he also had something I wanted. No, not a late night snack, that I could get anywhere, but according to the email I had received, he knew where Tarkan was. The name Tarkan had been on my lips for almost three hundred years. Three hundred years since he had helped kill the woman I loved.
And made me who, and what, I am today.
A vampire.
Some vampires were born this way. Pure bloods seem to think of themselves as the only true vampires, but with all the interbreeding amongst human concubines over the millennia, were there truly any pure bloods left? There was even some debate as to whether or not there was any such thing as a pure blood. Nobody could remember two vampires successfully breeding, and all children born through a concubine ended up stillborn, the stories of successful births old and difficult to prove. Basically the oldest of us, those at least a thousand years old, claimed to be pure bloods, or at least, purer bloods.
But that was a debate for others who cared about bloodlines far more than I. I’m not even a half-blood. I’m what they call ‘The Turned’. The one who had turned me, however, may actually be one of the few who could call himself a pure blood. He was old. One of the oldest. If the whispers were true, he stalked the land when Jesus did.
The typical vampire was turned in one of several ways. They were a tasty treat rather than a meal, and were tossed aside by the sonofabitch who was just having fun. Sometimes they did it in exchange for some service provided, where the person wanted to lead the immortal life of constant hunger. And in other times, it was done as punishment, one worse than death. A life the victim typically never wanted, and is horrified at what it drives them to do, the hunger always proving too much.
The hunger always wins, the hunger drives you to eat anything and everything, until sated. And once done, the overwhelming rush of energy, an orgasmic rush of power surging through your veins drives you to crave the taste even more. It is an addiction that few have been able to master. Those that have, like myself, live fairly normal lives. But those who don’t, live from one victim to the next, preying on the weak, the lost, the ones who won’t be missed. The homeless, the addicts, the prostitutes, the undesirable of society. And the desperate. Over 100,000 people are missing in the United States alone. How many of those are not missing, but rotting in some landfill somewhere, their final moments terror filled as a vampire fulfilled his bloodlust?
But tonight I was after Tarkan. One of the five who had taken the life of my wife in such a horrible fashion, it fired my nightmares every time I closed my eyes, their revenge on me, for killing one of them while defending my wife all those years ago. I hadn’t known who they were; they were ruffians out to murder, to pillage, to take what little we had, and to take all I had.
My beloved Kristyna.
I would never forget that morning. I could never. One of the curses of being a vampire was eidetic memory. I remembered everything, could forget nothing. It was one curse I could never conquer, only momentarily drown out with alcohol or drugs, but to trade one addiction for another sometimes led to undesirable consequences, some so horrible, I was grateful for the momentary reprieve from total recall.
It was the ultimate revenge. I killed one of them. They killed my beloved, then turned me, so I could remember what they had done to her, for eternity.
As one of them.
And tonight, after almost three hundred years, I was going to feast on one of those who had fed on my wife. Or die myself. Definitely a possibility. But in three hundred years, rather than spend my time feasting on the innocent, spreading fear and terror through an unsophisticated society, I spent my time learning how to control my hunger, learning ways to feed yet avoid the innocent, and to train. To train in every form of combat I could. I knew them all. I had mastered them all.
But my aim today wasn’t to kill. It was to interrogate.
Vampires, no matter their age, always adapted to the age within which they found themselves. They embraced technology, whether it was a brick size cellphone, or social media. They were on Facebook, Twitter, the web. Always anonymous, always under the radar, but sometimes blatantly in public. Just search Facebook for Vampire groups and you’ll find hundreds if not thousands. The vast majority are Twilight loving teenagers or adults who never outgrew their Goth fetish, but a rare few are real. Membership was applied for, and you were asked a question.
Who turned you, and when?
And if you couldn’t answer, you were rejected.
But if you could, you were vetted. Your story was posted. And if confirmed by an existing member, especially the one who turned you, you were admitted.
None of those I was after had ever joined any group I had managed to find, but I was lucky enough that those who had participated in the murder of my beloved, and in my turning, loved to boast, and boast they had. They had told the story everywhere they travelled, for centuries it apparently was one of their favorites. And as a vampire, especially in modern times, you did your boasting to other vampires.
Or your thralls.
Those pathetic souls who followed vampires around like groupies when they discovered the legends were true.
And many of us loved it. Thralls were indeed like rock ’n roll groupies; used as sexual objects, or as gophers to fulfill the wishes of their masters, from manservant, to playing audience to their egos.
All in the hopes of being turned themselves.
Fools.
But some fools are useful fools.
One thrall hopeful claimed he had been turned by Tarkan Antioch.
Someone called BS.
And I had my first lead.
My first lead in decades.
The responder revealed him to be a thrall wannabee he had seen in Detroit with Tarkan, and knew for a fact he hadn’t been turned.
I was on a train to Detroit that same day, today, in fact.
He had been easy to find. Pretty much any database in existence was available to me through contacts. Living for hundreds of years had its advantages. The key was never meeting your contacts over more than a ten year period, and, if possible, having them vouch for you to their replacements when they retired. An old friend in the FBI had run down the name for me and now I was mere yards away from him, having picked up his trail at the home address I was given.
The pig hadn’t even showered after work, merely put on a change of clothes and deodorant, rushing from his apartment with a large bundle under his arm. He was probably too excited about heading to wherever he was going to take the time. My hope was that he was going to meet Tarkan, to lead me to one of those who had taken my beloved Kristyna, who might then, if I were fortunate, lead me to Lazarus, my ultimate goal.
He stepped inside a Laundromat.
Why not stink while doing the laundry?
He wasn’t going to be meeting Tarkan. Disappointed! Now what should I do? Should I wait, stalking him for days before he may finally meet Tarkan? Or confront him now, and scare the information out of him?
My stomach rumbled.
If he wasn’t careful, he just might become the snack I needed to satisfy that hunger.
Sometimes I wondered if my stomach rumbled because it was hungry, or because my body hungered for blood, and my brain interpreted that as a need for food, it simply not w
ired for this life. Over the years I had come to think of it as an infection. I never bothered researching it, for mixed reasons. If it were an infection, then I might become obsessed at finding a cure, and I couldn’t have that before I had fulfilled my goal of killing Lazarus and his men. As well, if I were to find it wasn’t an infection, then that faint bit of hope I held onto would be lost.
And hope was all I had to fight against the hunger.
And the need for revenge.
I looked through the window of the Laundromat. John Pinkerton sat alone in the back, his clothes now in the washer, reading a magazine. There was one other person inside, a young woman, lost in whatever music she had playing on her iPhone and her text messages, apparently oblivious to the world around her.
Some people just beg to be victims.
I opened the door and stepped inside. Pinkerton looked up from his magazine, the girl never even noticed as she texted to friends she probably had never met in person. My eyes fixed on Pinkerton, and I rounded the machines, striding directly toward him, my alligator skin boots clicking on the linoleum. Pinkerton never took his eyes off me, and I could smell the fear oozing off him. I threw my well-worn duster open and placed my hands on my hips.
“John Pinkerton.”
The man, trembling, nodded.
“It’s my understanding you know where Tarkan Antioch is.”
He shook his head.
Suddenly I smiled and sat down beside him, changing my attitude to throw him off his guard. “I think you misunderstand. He’s an old friend of mine, from Hungary, a couple of hundred years ago.”
Pinkerton’s eyes shot open, his eyebrows retreating up his forehead.
“You mean—”
I nodded and lowered my voice. “I’m like him.”
He gulped. I could smell a combination of fear, sweat and Right Guard. “A v-vam—”
I raised my finger, cutting him off. “Never say it.”
His head bobbed like a doll, his lips sealed.
“Now, I understand you know where I might find Tarkan. Him and I used to hang around in Europe, then lost touch over the years.”
He smiled. “I’m seeing him tonight.”
I’m sure my face hid none of the elation I felt at hearing this. “Awesome! Where?”
“He has a sweet little setup in an abandoned factory. Here, I’ve got the address written down.” He fished a piece of paper from his worn and torn wallet, and showed it to me. “Want me to copy it down for you?”
I smiled and tapped my forefinger to my temple. “Perfect memory, remember?”
He blushed slightly, his head bobbing some more, his nervousness and rapid motions making me think of him as a self-aware animal who knows he may become a meal at any moment. He put the paper back in his wallet.
I rose and so did he. “Thank you,” I said, and started to walk away.
“Can I come with you?”
“No.”
“Please?”
It was a pathetic plea, like that from a child asking to go on the rollercoaster one more time as his parents walked away.
“Go home, John. Tonight the adults are going to play.”
I swept by the girl still engrossed in her iPhone and she stopped, jaw dropping, as she stared at me.
Then smiled.
I tipped my cracked and faded black barmah hat, and gave her a wink as I opened the door and strode into the night.
I could smell her too, and it wasn’t bad at all.
But she wasn’t my beloved.
“Is that you, Varga?”
I froze. He had obviously caught my scent. Each was unique, and with perfect memory, we all knew everyone we had ever met after being turned.
“Yes, it is I.”
I cringed. It is I? What year is this?
His laugh echoed through the abandoned factory. He knew who I was. I had tried to stay upwind, but now inside, that was impossible. “Always so dramatic. I remember when we fed on your wife, you were a little Bible thumper.”
“I’ve become much more.”
A pipe rolled to my right. I spun, crouching, readying myself to spring at my prey, but found nothing. Footsteps clicked to the left, reverberating off the walls. I needed to get higher. I leapt to the catwalk above, grabbing the bottom bar and swinging silently to the metal grating. I quickly scanned the floor below, in a crouch. There he was, on the other side of the assembly line I had just stood behind.
And he had no idea where I was.
I swung my legs over the side of the railing and shoved off, sailing through the air. I grabbed the railing above him, the loose metal rattling, sending a warning to my prey. He looked up as I dropped. His eyes shot open wide, but not with fear. He leapt, hands outstretched, directly at me. I had a split second to react. Reaching forward, almost touching my toes, I kicked back with both feet, flipping to meet him head-on like an Olympic diver. We slammed into each other, grappling for the advantage as we both plunged to the ground. We were matched nearly equally in strength, and if I were to survive this encounter, it would be my training, and a little luck, that would see me prevail.
But I had one disadvantage.
He was fighting to kill me. I was fighting to capture him, then kill him. He had essential information I needed. He knew where the others were. At least I hoped he did.
He got a grip on my neck, his fingers sinking into my flesh. I swung my left arm from the inside and easily broke the grip, but felt the cool feeling of blood flowing down my neck, his nails having done their job. My hand darted out, partially collapsing his wind pipe. He stumbled backward, and drew a large knife from behind his back.
“I’m going to remove that head from your neck.”
My foot darted out, kicking the hand with the knife. His arm swung back, but he retained the grip, laughing. He flipped the knife around so the blade would be toward me, the blade extending along his forearm. Any further kick of the arm would only wound me.
We circled each other, my own knife now shadowing his. As the thrusts and parries continued, I eyed our surroundings. Was there something I could use? Something beyond brute force? Chains hung everywhere, and my mind flashed to the stereotypical ending seen repeatedly in movie after movie, the hero kicking the antagonist, him becoming entangled amongst the chains, and somehow, miraculously, a chain would twist around the neck, suffocating him, or, my favorite, carry them into a fiery furnace.
I kicked, hard. He flew backward and became entangled in a series of long, looping chains behind him. He growled and ripped them from their tracks above, the lengthy chains cascading down from above, rapidly growing piles of links accumulating at his feet. I shrugged. I guess the movies lie. Or didn’t take into account someone who on average could kick Ahnold’s ass in his prime.
The chains continued to pile at his feet, and we both looked at each other. There were a lot of damned chains. I might have laughed if I wasn’t about to kill this bastard.
He sneered, and lifted his foot to free it of the pile surrounding his legs. He stumbled. I leapt forward, knocking him off his feet, grabbing a length of the still falling chain and looped it around his arms twice before he could react. He shook against the chains violently, but I yanked on both ends with all my might, cinching his arms to his sides. I looped it around several more times, standing over him, both ends of the chain wrapped around my forearms, my boot on his chest, the pose reminding me of steering the ox on the fields I used to plow so long ago.
“Give it up, it’s useless.”
He stopped shaking, glaring at me, but resigned to his fate. He knew he was going to die. And he was right. He had feasted on my wife, and he would die. I removed the wood stake tucked into a loop on my leather belt, and pressed it against his chest.
“Where is he?”
He spat at me. “Who?”
“You know who. Lazarus.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know?”
I pressed harder, the stake piercing his skin by half an in
ch. A flash of fear crossed his face, then defiance. “You expect me to believe you don’t know where your master is?” I pressed harder.
He turned even paler, if that were possible. “Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you.”
Slightly harder. “Sure you can.”
He shook his head. “What he’d do to me would be worse than anything you could possibly do.” Suddenly he shoved himself forward, sinking the stake deep into his chest, piercing his heart.
“No!” I screamed, pulling out the stake, but it was too late. His entire body turned a dark grey, frozen as if in time, then slowly crumbled into ash, the chains once encasing him dropped to the floor with a crash, nothing left but his clothes.
I dropped back on my haunches and stared through the roof and at the heavens. “Why?” I needed him alive. I needed to question him.
And I needed revenge.
His death was too easy, too painless, too quick. I wanted him to suffer, I wanted him to suffer like my wife had, to suffer like I have. Yes, I was still suffering. I have never been able to get over her death, my new, perfect memory allowing me to relive every moment, every sound, every smell, every scream of terror, every moan of pain. I would never forget, not until I too was dead.
That day would come, but not before I had achieved the revenge that consumed me. A rage filled me every time I thought of that day, but through the knowledge I was getting closer, it had abated slightly. It was only over the past couple of decades, since the invention of the Internet, that I had been able to make true progress. For almost three hundred years I had searched, moving from town to town, questioning the locals, reading the local papers when they were available, looking for any evidence of unusual deaths, missing people—any clue that they, or others like them, had been there.
And I had learned to control my hunger. It was a hunger that thankfully I had learned how to partially sate almost immediately. I had fed on my cow. The poor beast had screamed in pain, trying to run, but using my increased strength, I had hung on, forcing it to the ground as I fed off its helpless form.
Turned (Zander Vargar Vampire Detective, Book #1) Page 2
