Prey till the End (The Endangered Series Book 3)

by S. L. Eaves

  “I get it.” She looks around nervously. “So I’m here till nightfall?”

  “At which point I can just drive you wherever you want to go. If you don’t mind the blindfold,” I sigh. “I didn't really think this far ahead. But if you work with me here, I don't see why we can't both walk away from this. That being said, I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to stay of the grid and bringing you here could jeopardize that.”

  “So the blinds serve two purposes? To prevent me from determining where we are and protect you from daylight. You aren’t worried I’m going to just flick a switch and raise these blinds?”

  I laugh, “Good luck. I don’t even know how to raise them. It’s all computerized. There’s UV coated windows behind them.” I gesture. “You could break 'em I guess. But I'll warn you it's a bit of a fall.”

  She smiles. “So there goes that idea. I don't know why I figured your kind for living underground. Not crypts necessarily, just not...amongst the living.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “Between the contacts and the tanner...if I passed you on the street I wouldn't have even known. Is that typical? Are many of your kind as assimilated as you are?”

  I start to shake my head, then remember I haven't had an interaction with my kind in years and just offer a shrug.

  “We don't all know one another.”

  That wasn't always the case. At one point we were a pretty tight knit group. There were two main clans left – Marcus' clan (formerly Adrian's); the ones who chose to fight the wolves, and Vega's “clan” of nomadic misfits who were divided between aligning with the wolves and washing their hands of the whole matter.

  Vega is a Pureblood; one of the original demons to walk this earth and one of the beings responsible for creating vampires by mixing their blood with humans. Despite his stature, Vega isn't much for leading. He is mostly a drifter who couldn't be bothered to parent the vampires he'd sired; a deadbeat dad, if you will.

  He couldn't care less about humans being turned into werewolves, even if it did jeopardize our existence. I tend to think he secretly regrets his indifference at the time. But that might just be how I've chosen to see him.

  His indifference also gave way to a minor uprising. One of his descendants, Florian, chose to side with the wolves for a brief stint. A subset of Vega's clan agreed with Florian, believing they could gain blood and weapons through a misguided allegiance. It wasn't long before we made him and his followers regret that decision. Marcus saw to that.

  Marcus was the polar opposite of Vega in many ways. He loved to lead. His thirst for power would become his greatest weakness…well that and his infatuation with Crina. But he wore the role with a dominant presence; smart, cunning, strong and vicious when needed, he was a force to be reckoned with. He transformed every member of his clan into a fierce and calculating combatant. I should know, I fought for him.

  Marcus also loved torturing and killing traitors even more than taking out wolves. He viewed any vampire who opposed his will as a threat to his precious reputation and inflated ego. The ultimate persona of Jekyll and Hyde, he was ruthless when he wanted to be and calm and collected when his clan looked to him for guidance. He played both sides to get ahead. The world was his giant chess board. And if you threatened the king you'd pay the price. I should know, I paid that price.

  And so did he.

  The remaining clan members have since joined together. In fact it was my ill-advised decision to help humans take out a military corporation experimenting on vampires that brought them all together. That would be the simple explanation, but it doesn't clarify why I'm here and not with them residing at a mansion in England. It is for the best. And that’s all anyone needs to know.

  That was seven years ago and I've cut off all contact with my kind. Maybe blending in with society is the trend these days. Maybe we're all running around wearing contacts to hide our grey, pigment-less eyes and tanning lotion to cover our cyanosis. Maybe it has become commonplace for vampires to share the streets with the living.

  This is Los Angeles after all. We all wear masks here. In my case it's to hide what is alive beneath the surface: the demon with an insatiable hunger whose happiest when it’s spilling blood.

  However, the vampire I encountered last night was not wearing any mask at all. While his lack of assimilation didn't alarm me, his contempt towards the living did. As did the two super-humans wielding stakes and crosses.

  “Where do we go from here?” Hailey's tone turns serious. “You want answers and I want to get out of here alive, so—”

  Standing, I point over my shoulder at the kitchen. There's a fresh pizza box sitting on the counter.

  “You can start there if you want. I ordered it while you were in the shower. As you can imagine I don't keep food here. And if you want reassurance of my motives, check the fridge. I'm not hurting for blood.”

  She stands slowly, holding her side. I cross to the bathroom to retrieve her bloody clothes. The sooner every trace of her blood is out of this apartment the better.

  The closet in the hallway that connects the living room to the bedroom houses a washer and dryer. She could make a run for it while I'm preoccupied, but somehow I know she won't. Maybe she knows that if she does she won't make it out of the building. I feel Hailey looking over my shoulder as I stuff the clothes into the washer. When I turn she's smiling at me over a slice of pizza.

  “A vampire doing laundry. That’s not something you see every day.”

  “Oh I suppose you just expect us to smell as dead as we are? I’ll have you know I’m cleaner than most humans,” I joke, pouring in detergent.

  “And tanner. You have an impressive stash of tanning lotion in the bathroom.”

  “Well, the natural way isn’t really an option.”

  I start the wash and return to the couch, she grabs another slice then joins me in the living room.

  “I'm waiting for you to ask me what I am.”

  “You’re alive. What you are is lucky. I'm less concerned with how you recovered from a fatal laceration in a matter of hours than I am with why you're using this ability against vampires.”

  “Fair enough.” She inhales, as she gathers her thoughts “A vampire killed my husband about a year ago. He - Eric - was out with some friends. It began as an ordinary guy’s night out. Bar hopping, nightclubs. No big deal. Then I got a call from his friend around two a.m. asking if Eric had come home. They'd lost track of him after assuming he went to the john. But a half hour later there was still no sign of him. They left the bar, circled the block, but couldn’t find him. Apparently Eric was pretty wasted so they figured he’d puked, was embarrassed and just bounced without telling anyone.

  “But it wasn't like Eric to just bail. He'd at least have texted one of them. His friends kept insisting he must've called a cab, Uber or something. Or opted for fresh air and decided to walk it. People don’t walk in L.A. and they were a good ten miles from our apartment so that option wasn’t likely. But drunk logic prevailing he may have thought it doable, especially if he wanted bushes to puke in.

  “His cell just rang and rang. He never showed. His friends gave up, too, though they were all pretty drunk and useless at the time. Around dawn I went out searching for him. It turned out he never got very far. I found his body in an alley about a block from the bar propped up against some trash cans. His body was drained of blood. I could see a pair of bite marks on his neck.

  “I slit his throat so the cops wouldn’t see the bite. Not that it explained the blood loss… the cops didn't look into it too hard though. I didn't want them to. I knew I'd do better on my own. As expected, they did the bare minimum: questioned the bar staff, examined camera footage, that sort of thing. No one witnessed anything. No cameras captured him. In the end, they concluded it was a botched mugging and that the mugger - or muggers - had moved the body which rationalized the missing blood. They were quick to close the file.

  “For the past year, I’ve been trying to find the vampi
re that did it. If you search online forums you can find chatter about vampire attacks. It’s mostly written off as fiction, as silly urban legend type stuff, but if you run some of the talk against news stories or against calls coming through a police scanner, every now and then you get a hit.”

  I recall the times I spent tracking down the black box dealer, trying to stop vampires from using the devices to attack people. Police scanners came in handy.

  “You didn't want the cops to find the bite marks – is this because you knew what had done it?”

  “Yes. I'd encountered vampires previously. It ties back to why I'm a little 'off' for a human. I've known about your kind for the better part of a decade. I've just never had a reason to hunt them before.”

  “There is a lot of vampire activity in this city?”

  “No offense, but the way I view it any at all qualifies as a lot. Seems like you would know that more than me.”

  “Let’s assume that before last night I hadn’t encountered another vampire for years.”

  That was pretty close to the truth. Avoiding vampires wasn’t typically all that hard to do since there are so few of us to begin with. Or at least so I thought.

  “Really?” She raises her eyebrows skeptically.

  “It may surprise you, but I'm not much of a vampire fan. Though I was never really much of a people person either. I have a sordid history with both humans and vampires. I don't tend to harbor more resentment for one species than the other.”

  “So it's not enraging you that I'm hunting vampires down?”

  I shake my head. “I'm more curious than anything else. This is new territory for me. But I appreciate your candidness. And I'm sorry for your loss. You clearly have a pretty good reason. Now if you're killing vampires simply for what they are and not for what they've done, then yes, we are going to have a problem. But, no, I get it. I'd want vengeance too.”

  I’d sought it for Catch, the vampire who’d turned me. We had a complicated relationship and you could say it wasn’t till I’d lost him that I realized I’d forgiven him. Avenging his death was my sole motivation for a time.

  “Okay. Well since you’re curious and it looks like we’ve got all day, I'll continue.” She sets down a half-eaten slice of pizza. “For the first ten months I only came across one actual vampire. While I was unable to confirm he was the one that killed Eric, his hunting patterns made him a likely candidate. I found him with a human outside a club and drove a stake through his heart. Man if the folklore about wooden stakes didn't hold up I would be dead for sure.” She laughs, shaking her head. “After that, I didn’t stop. It was a rush. For the first time I was truly able to utilize the abilities I'd gained for something positive. It gave me a new sense of purpose.

  “Lately the clubs have been swarming with them. I’ve killed two others in the past month alone. Last night would have been three. Either someone started making them - that’s how vampirism spreads right? – Or more have moved into the area. The clubs I've been watching have recently seen a flurry of vampire activity.”

  “Or they’ve been here the whole time and they’ve become more brazen,” I ponder aloud.

  “Also a possibility. The one that killed Eric didn't turn him. Thankfully.” She picks up her pizza and shrugs apologetically. “No offense.”

  If her hunch is right and there's a vampire turning others, it could be very bad for everyone involved. It's not how we operate.

  “That’s assuming the activity is what changed and not your hunting skills. And the guy you were with, how did he factor into your vigilante mission?”

  “I like to think I've improved, sure, but it's the vampires that have been more active. They are biting first. It's how we know where to look.” Her tone is mildly defensive. “The guy you killed, his name was Will and he was a friend.”

  She pauses. I go to the kitchen and take a bottle of vodka from the freezer. I return with a pair of rocks glasses and pour us both a drink.

  “For Will.” I take a swig. I can tell by her expression she doesn’t know what to make of the gesture, but in my mind it’s sincerer than me apologizing for something I’d do again in a heartbeat.

  “And the vampire I killed, what did he do to get your attention?”

  “He’s been using a club downtown as his food source. It’s usually what your kind does. Late night spots packed with people. Most of which aren’t sober enough to spell their own names. Probably akin to an all-you-can-eat buffet to your kind.”

  No argument there.

  She continues, “Problem is what to do with the bodies. The vampire last night had taken to leaving them on rooftops of neighboring buildings. We’d been staking out the club and tonight we witnessed him dragging a corpse across a roof. We pursued. You know the rest.”

  “Yeah, I kinda wish I didn’t. In all likelihood if I hadn't your friend would still be alive and you wouldn’t know I existed.”

  “Maybe…or we'd both be dead and the vampire would've had himself a big night. Can’t change what happened. I am grateful for the help. I have to admit once I saw you, I thought we were both fucked. Two metas against two vampires wasn't going to end well for us.”

  “Metas?”

  “Oh. That slipped out… It’s a term we use to describe our mutated genes. I prefer it over mutant. You see I’m human, but a little off. My eyes have a weird black and orange thing going on. I am abnormally strong. My reflexes are sick. It's one of the perks. And then there's the healing thing… I recover from injuries fast. Has to do with cell regeneration. A surface scratch will disappear in minutes. I think I’m aging slower too…” Her voice trails off and I can tell she’s disclosed more than she planned.

  “You weren’t born like this?”

  She seems surprised I picked up on that.

  “No, I wasn’t. It's a pretty wild story. In college I signed up for a clinical trial. You know how some research facilities offer compensation to participants? This one pharma company was offering a thousand dollars for a few weeks of tests. I needed cash bad, so I signed up not really knowing what I was in for. It involved a lot of medical procedures. Not just a 'try this new skin cream or pill' scenario, but more like getting hooked up to all kinds of machines and this one mystery drug.

  “It was administered through a series of shots and it made us all very sick. First, I should say they were really selective on the candidates they chose.” She shakes her head. “Man I was so excited when I qualified for it.” She shoots me a weary smile. “If I only knew. So yeah, long story short, the drug didn't work the way its developers were hoping. And I got some wild side effects from it.”

  “What happened to the company that did this? Sounds like grounds for a law suit if you ask me.”

  “Well they went out of business, closed their doors awhile back. No one left to sue. Before that, the other candidates and I would go in regularly for checkups. They continued to monitor us, making sure we didn’t end up with some sort of weird side effects – weirder than we have – or a terminal illness as a result. And they paid us a couple grand a month for our silence. Probably should've held out for more, but I was broke and scared.

  “Besides, they made us sign so many documents; they could have killed us and our families wouldn’t have had a case. Hell, I'm pretty sure they did kill a few.”

  “Wow. Damn. I’m sorry about that, really.”

  “The way I see it, things could have been much, much worse.”

  “True, you could have ended up a werewolf,” I joke, thinking it sounds like something S&D Pharma would have done back in the day.

  I realize as I say it that it sounds exactly like something S&D did do and in reading her wide eyes it occurs to me she gets the werewolf reference.

  “Hold up, was it S&D Pharma that did this to you?”

  She nods slowly, eying me curiously.

  Well shit. Go figure.

  “When? I mean they went bust…had to be nearly a decade ago by now.”

  “Eight years. Yeah
, the owners died in an explosion at one of their facilities.”

  Their Los Angeles facility. My apartment’s only about fifteen minutes from where it occurred.

  “Seemed pretty karmic, if you ask me,” she continues, while I try hard not to look shocked.

  “Yeah, I uh- caught it on the news,” I mumble into my drink. I am unsure if I can play ignorant on this one, the werewolf joke ousted me. But somehow 'Yeah I killed them' doesn't seem like an appropriate response either.

  “I enrolled in their program about a decade ago, when I was nineteen. I was still undergoing treatments when they went under. But it’s not like I need to take regular medication or anything. Whatever they did to me seems to have maintained its hold on its own.”

  “And how many of you, of these metas, are there?”

  “Will and I were the only ones left, to my knowledge. There were a couple others still alive at the time S&D folded, but they didn't live much longer. The medication affected us all very differently. I mean they did some genetic screening, but still…it was a bit of a fluke that Will and I ended up having the same reaction.”

  Digesting this, I nod and pour some more vodka.

  “You mentioned knowing about my kind and you didn't blink at the word 'werewolf.'“ She knows where I'm going with this, but she waits for me to ask, “Did you encounter any during your time at S&D?”

  It occurs to me that she has a lot of the same abilities as a wolf. She doesn’t transform and she is clearly human. I’d sense if she had lycan in her, but it could be that she was part of a test group for the pseudo vaccine.

  “I did. In person. Most fell more into the meta category, some sort of wolf-human hybrid. Though I guess any level of variant qualified them as a werewolf, right? If you're wondering how deranged I must be to see a person transform into a wolf and still return for shots, all I can say in my defense is that I was a year or so into the treatments by that point and I was more scared what would happen to me if I missed a treatment.