Blood Of A Vampire (Negre Clan Book 1)

by Cheri Winters

  These thoughts bring something into very sharp focus for me. The Negre will never stop seeking me, and so as long as I'm near Ivy, she is at risk. They will smell whatever uniqueness it is that I can detect in her. They will take it from her, and utterly destroy her in the process. The only way I can protect her is to claim her. And the way I claim her is to make love to her. I don't have to feed off of her or turn her. I simply need to make love to her.

  Actually, making love to her is not what I really want. I want the two of us to make love together. I want to share that most precious intimacy with her, more than anything. Protecting her from the Negre is merely an added, but vital, benefit.

  It is late, and I am a creature of the night. I do not sleep at night anyways, but now that I have admitted to myself how much I love Ivy, and how important it is for me to protect her, I find myself desperately needing to move around. Any other night, I would go hunt, but tonight, I do not want to take any life, not even one of the animals I have fed on exclusively since the end of the more recent Great War, the one between the vampire clans and the thropes.

  I decide to go out anyways. Even if not to hunt, I just need to move my limbs, to go out and see the beauty of the world that is hidden from the night-weak eyes of the warm. All motorcycles these days are built, by law, so that the headlight must be lit whenever the bike is turned on. I'd modified mine with a switch to shut off the light allowing me to ride without artificially illuminating the road in front of me.

  I ride first to the river overlook where just the night before I'd first kissed Ivy. Then I ride further down the river valley and up the roads that lead out of it, seeking more places I that could bring her, to kiss her again under the pale light of the moon and stars.

  I return home just before dawn. Enough time to sleep off the first hours of daylight before I have to wake for school. This morning when I wake up, there is a certain joy to the routine acting like a human. It’s probably the fact that I have somebody to make myself presentable for. After my long ride the night before, the bike very desperately needs fuel. I leave for school a little early to give myself time to gas up my loyal steed and still catch up with Ivy on her ride in.

  As I pull into position behind her, I notice that she's driving a little more relaxed than the first day I encountered her on the road. I still don't know yet why she is such a fearful driver, something that she hasn't told me quite yet. When we arrive at the school parking lot, I make some excuse for us to hurry into the building. I see Carl, see a dozen conflicting emotions flash across his face. He takes the first step toward us, then stops and turns away. Ivy was right. She's pushed Carl out entirely.

  I take one more look at Carl just before we get to the front door. Something way in the back of my mind tells me I need to talk to him. It's a familiar voice. One that doesn't speak to me much, but when it does, I have learned to always listen. I ignored in once in France, almost cost me my life in an extremely unpleasant manner. I ignored it another time, in the late 30s while I was stalking an elder from the Ahlebri clan. I don't ignore that voice anymore.

  But I also don't even know how to approach Carl right now. "Hey, buddy. Sorry your not-girlfriend dumped you for me. How are you?"

  At least I don't need to listen to the voice right now. It doesn't grab me with an immediate urgency, so I dare wait until the end of the day. I beg off from following Ivy home with an excuse that my parents and I have already made dinner plans for the night, but promise her tomorrow we can have the entire evening together. She says her grandfather will be home then, but not to worry, she can handle him.

  After the final bell rings, I hurry to get to the end of the hallway where Carl's locker is. He swaps out his books and starts to leave the building. I start to follow, rapidly catching up to him. I reach out to touch him, am about to call his name, when the voice shouts, "Watch!"

  I don't quite touch Carl. I don't need to for the sense to work, I just need to be close for a moment. I see an image of Carl, halfway pupped up, trapped mid-transformation in the throes of death. His throat torn out, limbs broken. I know, because sometimes the sense tells me these things. That this is Carl's fate if he stays near Ivy. He's going to be killed by a vampire. I pull my hand away and stop following. My immediate concern is that I will kill him. I can't understand why, though. I know that he will never have Ivy's heart the way I have it today. He's a thrope, but not only is the Truce in effect, but I've sworn off pelting. The things I did during the Great War between the vampire and werewolves, took me too far from myself. I could not stand the powerful darkness dwelling within me. I cannot imagine any scenario in which I would actually harm Carl. He truly believes that I will bring great harm to Ivy, but that opinion is by no means anything I would kill for. I wonder if perhaps my sense is telling me it would be an act of self-defense. I did see him halfway transformed. But if he were to come at me in wolf form, I would have the time it takes him to change to run from him, get a head start he'd never be able to overcome. No, there is no reason for me to kill him while he pups.

  A few other students run into me while I stand still in the middle of the hallway. One of them is polite enough to say something. The rest look at me, daring to make an issue out of it, if they acknowledge me at all. I go lean up against the wall and do my best to recall the image again. If he remains close to Ivy, great harm will come to him. This I know to be true, for the sense never lies. It will not be me that harms him. This I desperately want to believe.

  I do my best to recall the scene, to see if there is some detail that will give me a clearer idea of the exact threat to Carl. It takes me a moment, and I need to replay the image again, but I catch it for sure the second time. The image showed Carl's limbs broken. Since he was still transforming when he died, his hands had not yet fully changed to paws, just very furry, stubby-fingered hands with long, black nails. The right arm was draped across the chest, so that the paw hand rested over the heart, and the first two fingers were crossed. That posture is the calling card of the Negre clan, and it means that they are not done killing yet, just narrowing in on their prey. The ultimate victim of such a hunt is left in a different position.

  Now the meaning of the image is clear to me. My old clan, which I've disgraced by turning away from their murderous and ruthless ways, and which I have rebelled against by fleeing, is seeking more than just me. I don't know how quickly they will be able to find Stokers Mill – the sense does not tell me to flee now. However, the sense does make it very clear that the more time that Carl spends with Ivy, the more likely they are to use him to get to her. Whatever it is about Ivy that is so unique and attractive to vampires will be sucked out of her, leaving nothing but a joyless, soulless shell behind to linger away, fading imperceptibly across the border between life and death.

  I need to brace myself to feeding Ivy more lies to get her to push Carl even farther away, for his own protection and for hers. I need to start closing up my life here in Stokers Mill and create a new identity in some other small town somewhere.

  The thought of continuing to be dishonest with Ivy pains me horribly. I realize I cannot do it much longer. I promise myself that on prom night, before I claim her, I will tell her the truth about me, everything, and hope beyond all hope that she will still have me. It has to be done, for if Ivy and I are to have any future together, she deserves to know, and needs to know the truth.

  Chapter 8

  Carl Wilson

  I'm furious with Ivy about Ben. I'm furious with Ben just for existing. Anger is never good for my kind. The wolf feeds on anger. It's also a full moon tonight. The wolf always pushes hardest to come out when the moon is full.

  The wolf would actually be very helpful tonight in tracking Ben's movements over the past few days. I have been close enough to him while partially transformed to have his scent. The wolf could follow his trail, tell me when he's been with Ivy, when he's been hunting, when he's been with other zombies.

  It's too dangerous to let the wolf our tonight
, though. I'm running too hot to control it if I let it out. I know that if the wolf runs across Ben, there will be a fight. I worry even more that if I run into a pinkie while the wolf is out, that the hunger will be too much for me to contain.

  There is so little space, even up here in the mountains around Stokers Mill, where I can let the wolf run free and not have to worry about running into anybody. The wolf does not have a compulsion for human prey, but it does find it the most interesting to pursue.

  I lay down and try to force myself to sleep, but that doesn't work. It never works. There is simply no way to will yourself to be tired. I'm still way too agitated, and cutting myself off from any distraction only amplifies the voices of the things that are bothering me the most.

  There is one thing I can do on nights like this. I do not like to do it, but I am prepared for it. I go down to my basement and strip my clothes off. I fold them neatly and put them in a pile on a stool next to the old canning cellar. It's a windowless burrow carved out of the bedrock of the hillside that always stays cool and slightly damp. Before the days of refrigeration, these cellars were used to store home canned foods, fruits, vegetables, and potatoes. I step into the cellar, and pull the heavy wooden door shut. Inside the cellar is a cage, secured by a combination lock. I have no problem unlocking it in human form, but the wolf's paws are way too clumsy to manipulate the dial, and the wolf's mind is incapable of recalling the digits anyways. Once I'm securely locked in, and I cannot get out unless in human form, I let the wolf off of its leash.

  I wake, curled up into a ball on the floor. The clammy conditions leave me shivering with sore muscles and joints. I remember enough of the night before to be thankful that when the transformation reshapes my body, it heals up even the most superficial injury. Without that added benefit, my arms and fists would be horrible bruised right now, possibly with some of the finger bones broken. This is actually cage number two for me. The first one had bars set far enough apart that I could bite them, and it took many months for the broken teeth to repair themselves, bit by bit, one transformation at a time.

  I am filthy. I and the entire cellar reek of urine, sweat, and rage. I am so stiff getting up and my hands are shaking enough that it takes me much longer than it should to open the combination lock on my cell and get a hot shower started. It is only when I'm finally clean and walk upstairs into strong daylight that I look at a clock and realize it is almost noon. I go to my bedroom to get dressed, and see three tardy calls from the school. I haven't had anything to do with my foster parents for the past few years, pretty much since they realized the Truce was going to hold and there was no longer a pressing need to keep molding me into a zombie slayer. Now that I'm eighteen, the calls simply come to me, and if I can't bring in proof of a doctor's appointment, or a slip from urgent care, it's two days of after school detention for me. Well, Steve owes me a couple days coverage at work for his own detention last week. At least he had a lot more fun earning his than I did.

  I call the school back, give them something about being too sick to come in, and not feeling up to sitting in urgent care for a couple of hours to get a note. Now that I've got the rest of the day free, and assuming Ben is in class, I can do some checking up.

  Grandpa had reluctantly shared the address where Ben lives with his "parents", only under a very strict promise that I would not go there angry. I find the address and take a quick look as I drive past. It's a small home set far back from the highway, right up against the slope of a mountain with some good, large trees around it. Sensible place for a vampire to set up, since it gets shade for a good part of the daylight hours. The problem with places outside of town like this is that there's no place to inconspicuously park nearby if you want to check out the place on foot. It's legal to park anywhere along the particular road where Ben lives, but a lot of these homes are occupied by people that stay home all day and love to watch their neighbors and the happenings on the road. The nearest place I can find to pull in is more than two miles down the road, at a switchback that's got a wide shoulder and a little path down the hill made by generations of high school kids looking for a place to get drunk and get high with a great view. A car parked there in daylight would be a little odd, but nothing far out enough to raise the attention of the police. Like any teenage boy in Stokers Mill, I keep a camouflage jacket in my car all the time. It's always wise to carry extra warm clothes when you live in the mountains, and camo is the favored color of most of the young guys around here. That, a pair of dark jeans, and just a little bit of the wolf, is enough to let me move through the wooded lots to Ben's place pretty quickly and nearly invisibly.

  When I get to his yard, I puzzle out the interior layout by the size and arrangement of windows. It looks like there is one bedroom on the west side of the second floor. There's no way I'm going to climb the wall to look in, so I climb the hillside behind the house to see if I can see in. Of course, being a zombie, he has blackout curtains on his room, and they're drawn.

  I set myself to tracking around the house, as close as I dare in full daylight and knowing that the two pinkies living with Ben don't seem to have jobs. I don't know if they're skilled pinkies there for his protection, or just a couple of dupes that will claim to be his parents in exchange for something from him. Probably free room and board if their cover story is weak enough that Grandpa could see through it with just the barest amount of work. Professionals in the employ of a vampire always have good answers for those kinds of questions.

  Even with a bit of the wolf out, I can't smell any hint of Ben in the back yard. Not surprising, since he does not need to make a transformation to truly use his strengths, so does not need to have hidden approaches or entrances. He is able to just walk out his front door and drive away.

  I know that a smart vampire is always careful to never feed hear his home. Still, I do sniff around the mountainside behind his house for a long time, seeking out the scent of something large and dead, or just his zombie stench. I find none, but I also know he is smart. He will not make it easy for somebody to find him.

  I take a slightly different route back to my car, to cover more of the ground near Ben's house. As I come up to the miniature dump of empty beer bottles and cans, I pull the wolf back, and wait a moment to adapt to my changed senses before taking the trail up to my car.

  Just as I get to it, I smell something I do not like at all. It is very clearly vampire, but I'm not sure if it's Ben or not. I'm already fully transformed back, so I'm not good at distinguishing individuals anymore, and I'm also working from a brief memory of being up in his face several days ago. The scent is very close to Ben's, but I can neither confirm nor deny that it is actually him.

  The way the zombie reek lingers in the air around my car says that the vampire was there for at least a couple of minutes, and not too long ago. It's possible that it saw me during my little break and ran off then.

  I examine my car very carefully. It hasn't been obviously broken into, but there are ways to get into a car that don't leave much of a trace. No damage to it. Looking at the gravel shoulder around it, whoever it was had a very light step. I know that Ben fits that description.

  I check the time. I can drive to school and get there before the final bell. I cannot think of any reason to believe that Ben would be near enough to his house just now to have discovered I was in the area, find my car parked here, and then get back to school to act as if he'd been there all day. Ivy certainly would think it's odd for him to just show up in the last ten minutes of class, and would not act normally toward him.

  So off to school it is. Where Ben's motorcycle is nowhere to be found in the parking lot, and Ivy walks out of school with just Kate and Rachel. Which makes Ben my best suspect for the zombie that was sniffing around my car.

  I still can't figure out how Ben knew that I was checking up on him and where I'd parked. While I'm wondering about this, Rachel sees my car and quietly signals for me to wait up. She bids farewell to Ivy and Kate and heads over to hop
into my passenger seat. "Hey Graylock.” I can tell she's upset about something, and using that nickname out of force of habit, and not to tweak at me.

  "What gives?" I ask.

  "Ivy is beside herself with joy right now."

  "How is this bad?"

  "Ben asked her to prom."

  "I assume she accepted?"

  "Of course," Rachel says. "Ever since they first kissed she's been completely smitten kitten with him."

  I try to bite my tongue, but the question jumps out before I can stop it. "Just a kiss?"

  Rachel looks at me, trying to figure out how to answer that. I’m pretty sure she thinks it's just male jealousy talking. There's much more to it than that, though. More things I know about zombies. I really want to tell her it's not what she thinks it is, but there's no way I’d be able to back that up. I can't even think of a convincing lie for why I’d want to know.

  Still, she answers, "Yes. It's just that so far. She's a careful girl, and it sounds like he's at least treating her well and not pushing her or anything."

  "Thank you for telling me. About both things." I am able to relax a bit, knowing he hasn't claimed her yet. That means he probably isn't feeding on her either.

  Rachel is still clearly trying to figure out why she's telling me things and how I'm reacting to the knowledge. Sure, I'm relieved to hear Ivy hasn't been claimed, but I think that shows in a different way than she’d expect me to feel hearing that some other guy isn't sleeping with the girl I want.

  "Carl. I know things have gone sour with you and Ivy. And I really respect that you've backed off since she's asked you to."

  "She actually friend-dumped me," I say.

  "I know. I'm trying to be, I don't know, polite or something. Just, hear me out, ok?"

  "Ok."

  "The thing is, I feel really, really guilty for asking you this, but maybe now that she's pushed you out of her life, you have less to lose than Kate or I do."