Claws That Catch

by Lee Hayton

  I ran in the gate, jogging straight past Wallace, who had a query written large on his face. Just as I got passed, the gates slammed shut, and the alarm bells sounded throughout the compound.

  “Get down,” Wallace shouted, pulling on my arm as he fell onto his face on the ground. He linked his hands behind his head while I stared down in wonder. What the fuck was going on?

  I hesitated for a split second, long enough for the first burst of gunfire to explode out of the guard towers in each corner of the compound. A bullet whizzed by my ear, so close I could hear the whoosh of air as it passed by. In a second, I turned and bolted toward the main door, just getting in by the skin of my teeth before it slammed shut.

  “It’s probably just a drill,” the supervisor said with a weary look on his face. “I guess nobody took you through the protocol. When the alarms sound, everybody is meant to freeze in place until we get the all clear.”

  Too tired and scared to think about it, I slashed through the man’s carotid artery and stepped back as his blood spurted out in a strong spray. I didn’t have time to listen to expectations. I needed to find Asha, and whoever else had been caught inside at the wrong time.

  I’d trusted the average man for the second time in as many weeks, and once again he’d used me for his own purposes, then discarded me. I could stand there, shaking my head at my own foolishness, or I could try to rescue my friends.

  The distance to the locker room telescoped out to the length of a sports field as I ran toward the door. When I body slammed it open, it only took a single glance to see that nobody was in there. If Asha was still inside, still functional, she’d moved on.

  Where would she go?

  I headed for the lower levels, then changed my mind and veered off toward the newer rooms in the complex. At the first alarm, Asha would no doubt have worked through the same logic I’d just dragged my thoughts. She’d know that the hard drive switch was a ruse and that Dory wasn’t freed.

  The only other place that we’d ever thought she’d be located was in the storage room in this compound. A long shot, sure, but where else would Asha go? It wasn’t as though she could free the vampires single-handedly. That plan had evaporated when the first klaxon horn pierced the air.

  I hadn’t visited the place before, but I followed the signs. Not just the ones hanging above my head, but the brute force that Asha must have used to burst through every blockade standing in her way.

  When I turned the last corner, I saw her standing in the room, a cord connecting from behind her ear to the central computers. She stared at me, eyes wide.

  “I found Dory,” she said. “I’ve nearly finished uploading her.”

  With a nod, I retreated back out of the room to stand guard while the job was finished. After a minute passed, I checked again. “How many others made it through?”

  Asha shook her head. “They were going to come up into the tunnels, but I guess all this would have blocked that off to them. Norman, Percival, and Pounce were going to come in through the main gates, but they’re waiting in the car until they get a signal.”

  Just us. I nodded and went back to my guard duty. When I heard footsteps, I scurried along the hallway to the next set of doors to peer through the high slit window.

  The army had landed.

  A platoon of soldiers were marching through, stopping every couple of yards to open doors and investigate the rooms before continuing on their way. I hurried back to Asha just as she disconnected from the computer bank.

  “You need to find another way out,” I told her, just as a pair of booted feet kicked open the door.

  Asha melted into the next row of computers as I ran to intercept the soldier. “Help me,” I said, holding my empty hands out to either side. “I’m an employee in this facility, but I don’t know where I’m meant to go or what I’m meant to do. I found my supervisor murdered and it’s only my first week on the job.”

  The soldier shoved a rifle barrel into my back and propelled me out of the room. When I tried to lower my hands, he pushed the gun at me so hard that I raised them again. “No funny business,” he barked. “Keep walking until I tell you otherwise.”

  The trip back to my supervisor’s office didn’t take long and another member of the platoon peeled off to examine the bled-out remnants of the man.

  “He’s dead,” the soldier said, as though we all couldn’t tell that by looking. “Looks like an animal got at him.”

  “The vampires haven’t been fed since I’ve been here,” I said. “It looks like one of them might have escaped and helped himself.”

  It didn’t, but I was counting on the soldiers to never have seen an actual vampire attack. A good bet to make, as the gun propelled me forward again until I was outside. “Lay down on the ground and stay there,” the soldier ordered me.

  I tried not to look toward where I’d last seen Wallace, and I did what I was told. I stared straight down at the dirt and waited to see how the rest of the evening would play out.

  Less than an hour later, a soldier ordered me to leave the facility and drop my pass at the gate on my way out. “We’ll expect all employees to return tomorrow and you’ll be interviewed for a position again. This compound is now the temporary jurisdiction of the army and will be managed by the private sector until we can sort this mess out.”

  I slunk out the gates, keeping my eyes peeled for any sight of Norman and Pounce. I guessed that if Percival had come along for the ride, he’d done so in the trunk. A wave drew my attention, and I turned to see Wallace standing nearby.

  “You got out okay, then?” he said, and his voice sounded quite relieved.

  “Yeah. I don’t know why I bolted like that,” I said with a shamefaced grin. “I guess it took me back to a bad place and I just wanted to run inside and hide.”

  “I heard that the boss didn’t make it.” Wallace shifted on his feet, his eyes scanning the slow-moving vehicles that were collecting all the employees. “There must have been some sort of mass-escape from the vampire pits.”

  “Weird, eh? I wouldn’t have thought they had the strength.”

  “I guess when they’re desperate, the bastards become even less trustworthy. We should’ve taken more precautions after that one gave you a nibble this morning.”

  I nodded, my hand rising up to touch the sticking plaster on the side of my neck. “I heard they’re reassigning everyone tomorrow. I doubt I’ll have a job, given that I’ve only been here a few days.”

  “Still, worth a try.” Wallace gave a wave to someone over my shoulder, and I turned to see a large man walking toward us. I knew instantly that he was Wallace’s father—the two of them looked identical apart from their age.

  A second later, the truth behind that realization hit. If this was Wallace’s father, then how on Earth could this man be my son?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I stared at the average man, not certain if I wanted to kill him or just smash him into dust. “How long have you known he wasn’t my son?”

  “From the start.” The man tried on a grin for size, but it didn’t fit his lips well, and he soon let it drop. “I’ve known all along. You must’ve already guessed that.”

  I had, but he didn’t need to know that. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him, my mind totaling up all the terrible things that had come into my life as a result of this man. Yet, the first time I was free, I’d gone straight back to him voluntarily.

  What was wrong with me?

  “If you’d tracked the information back a little farther then you would’ve discovered that for yourself, readily enough. The name was given to your son, but he died a long time back. They reuse names in the military, that’s all. If it’s any consolation, your son’s moniker has been passed onto many fine men.” The average man paused for a second, then shrugged. “Or too many men, in any case.”

  I wanted to ask him how long my real son had been dead. What they’d done to him with their experiments and how long they’d kept him alive in pai
n and fear. I didn’t. I couldn’t live with any answer, so it was better not to ask. I could go back to crying over my lost children in the dead of night when I woke up alone.

  “Why did you need us in the pits?” My voice started to climb up the registers, and I had to swallow hard before getting it back under control. “I presume that’s why you set it up, since you always have an ulterior motive. What was it this time? Who needed us there, tampering with their electronics and infiltrating their database?”

  “The Pennyworths. It always leads back to them, my dear. You must know they’re my chief employer.” He tiled his head to one side as he studied me. Under his gaze, I soon felt like an insect under a microscope. “Or perhaps you don’t know. I’ve always credited your group with a modicum of intelligence, but I keep being able to pull the wool over your eyes so easily, I should probably adjust that assessment.”

  As I’d wandered along the road outside the facility, I’d been lucky that Norman and Pounce had spotted me. They’d dragged me into the vehicle before I could manage to get myself run over and then gone searching for Asha, finding her hiding along the perimeter fence, trying to work out how to get through the now-closed gates.

  With the help of some nimble, sure-footed cat strength, Norman and Pounce had maneuvered her safely over. Even though I’d had the drive home to think, my brain was clouded over, barely functioning enough to keep my breathing straight and my heart pumping.

  I’d wanted to curl up into a ball and die.

  Now, the average man gave a short laugh, and Asha ran toward him, arm raised to land a punch that would send him flying. One glance at his security guards stopped her in her tracks. I understood her fear. It was the same emotion that paralyzed us all.

  “Where’s Nika?” she asked, and I felt a start of surprise. The depths of attachment that Asha formed to inappropriate people was just as bad as mine. I crawled back to a boss who scared the shit out of me, and she gravitated to people who would do anything to be paid.

  Even cut off their own finger.

  “She’s safely on her way to the next assignment, no need to waste your time worrying about her.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” Asha continued. “I just wondered if she’d remembered to block up the paths she used to transfer Dory’s information. If the government finds out that her file ended up in the Pennyworths’ hard drive, it mightn’t look good for you.”

  He laughed then, long and hard. “There wasn’t any of Dory’s information. The transfer was to put enough documentation on the facilities computer system that they’ll be in court for a bazillion years. Besides, Nika’s always been good at covering her tracks.”

  “Did you pay her enough that she took off the block on your security guards?”

  For a moment the two of them locked eyes, then he looked away to toss a nervous glance over his shoulder. I don’t think I’d ever seen him do such a human thing before.

  The tiny lapse in concentration was all that Percival needed. I don’t know whether Asha or Norman had primed him for the task, or if it originated in his own head on the spot. All I saw was a flash of his black cape and the blood red of his eyes glowing in anticipation of a feed.

  I stepped back as the average man began to scream. When the crunch of the sinews in his neck sounded, I had to turn and swallow hard to stop from retching. The guards—who weren’t hacked, had never even been touched—stepped forward, then stopped. They didn’t know what to do.

  I transformed my hand into a paw with claws gleaming. When I stepped forward to take care of the nearest guard, I saw Norman mimicking my advancement on the other side. One swipe got through the heavy gear protecting the man’s upper body. The next swipe cut through flesh, muscle, and bone.

  Blood spurted, an arterial spray that hit the walls, the ceiling, then dropped like heavy crimson rain down onto the floor. I wished that the starving vampires could have been here to suck the rich fuel up off the ground, but it sank into the thirsty wood, transforming into a stain. I struck another blow, gutting the man in front of me as he fell to his knees.

  We might be a bunch of stupid fools, always ready to fall for the same trick, but this time, we were out for vengeance and had the strength to take it.

  I plunged the tip of one of my claws into the brain stem of my victim, then checked with Norman, showing him the trick since I’d never had the opportunity to teach him yet. The kid caught on fast, but that could have been the benefit of a hundred years of experience at being a monster.

  When the guards were dispatched, I turned back to Percival who’d drained the average man to the shade of a Scotsman in winter. He pushed the limp body to the floor, then picked up his wrist.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I took two steps toward the vampire before the red glint in his eye caused me to reconsider.

  “He thinks we’re not his equal,” Percival said in a low guttural voice reminiscent of a growl. “Why not let him try being the victim for a hundred years, and we’ll see how he likes it?”

  With his gaze still fixed on me, Percival bit deep into the average man’s wrist, letting out a small pulse from an artery that couldn’t be bothered with much anymore. He then repeated the same wound on his own flesh and pressed the two open cuts together. When his head tipped back, eyes closing half in ecstasy, I guessed that the work to change the average man to a vampire was done.

  “What are we meant to do with him now?” I asked, poking the limp body with one of my toes. “Shelter him from the empire? Set him out on the street to combust with the morning light?”

  The smile that burst onto Asha’s face at that last was enough to make me consider it. Percival was the one who put a halt to the pleasant thought. “He’s going to be our ambassador,” he said.

  “Eh?” Asha turned to stare at the old vampire as though he’d lost his mind. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but there’s no way in hell that this ‘evil-for-hire’ animal is speaking out on my behalf.”

  “That goes double for me,” I said, going to stand beside the cyborg as a gesture of solidarity. I flicked my claws to rid them of the blood still clinging from the guards.

  “But don’t you see?” Percival stared at us in confusion, and I glanced at Norman in case this was some strange vampire thing that he could clue us in on. I don’t know if it was a relief to see that the teenager appeared as dumbfounded as the rest of us.

  “He’s used to dealing with all the powerful folks in the empire. The ones with money. The ones with clout. If he’s just a dirty vampire now, like us—” Percival broke off in puzzlement as he realized that apart from his new convert, he was the only vampire among us.

  “I understand,” Norman said with a nod. “He can speak for us because he has the ears of those in power, and now he’s just as tarnished by his condition as the rest of us.”

  “Fuck that,” I said as another thought occurred to me. “I don’t need that piece of shit speaking on my behalf, no matter who’s listening.”

  “Got a better idea, do you?” Percival sniffed and looked upset that I’d turned down his brilliant idea.

  As a matter of fact, I did. One that allowed us to throw the trash of the average man out on the street to survive however he might while the rest of us got on with a bigger and better plan.

  I was about to embrace Percival’s base idea wholeheartedly.

  Why the hell had I wasted my time and energy trying to find a dead son when I already had a family?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “What the hell is that?” Norman called out in a low voice filled with terror.

  I sighed and tried not to giggle. It had been my hand accidentally brushing against his in the enclosed space, but I desperately wanted to continue the ruse and pretend it was some foreign creature.

  Concentrate. Yes. We were crawling along the sewer tunnels, attempting to find our way into the local morgue. This wasn’t the time for pranks, out of respect for the dead if nothing else.

  “Calm down, it
was just me. Keep your distance, and you can stop worrying.”

  “We should’ve brought a flashlight.”

  “Yeah. ‘Cause no one’s going to investigate a strange light in a morgue at night. They’d just see that and keep right on going.”

  “Right at the moment, I’d rather be caught than have to go through with this.” Norman’s honesty would have been refreshing in a different time and situation. Now, it was just a pain in the ass.

  “I thought you’d be good in this place. You spent most of your life sleeping in a coffin, so I don’t know why you’re so jumpy.”

  “There’s a difference between dead and undead.”

  “Sure is. These guys know how to keep their mouths shut and concentrate on the job at hand.” I shuffled forwards and found a sliver of slightly brighter darkness ahead of me in the tunnel. Bingo. With any luck, that would be a grate that I could lift up with enough force.

  It took a lot more grunting and labor than I would have liked, but in the end, I managed to lift up the drain cover and crawl up over the edge. Norman followed along without protest, a blessing given his earlier reluctance, and after I changed to my human form, I pulled the cover back into place.

  “What are we looking for in a body?” Norman asked, standing close enough that we bumped shoulders.

  A good question, and I didn’t really have a good answer. “Fresh would be good,” I said, “and female. Unless we want to give Dory a gender reassignment.”

  He gave a small chuckle. “Don’t tempt me.”

  In the darkness, I could see two bodies laid out on tables with sheets protecting their modesty. I guessed they were about to be autopsied but after a peek under one sheet, saw that it was actually part way through. Ugh. I could have lived quite nicely not seeing that sight.

  Once I let the sheet drop back into place, I walked across to a wall adorned with the handles to what appeared to be large filing cabinets. I pulled on one, sliding out a tray with a dead body neatly parceled into its confines. This one was suited up in a body bag, and I unzipped it to reveal the neat crisscross of stitches showing that an autopsy had already been performed.