Death Becomes Her

by Michael Anderle

  Bethany Anne barely cracked her lips, her voice soft, “If this look doesn’t get us in, I’m taking you out back and beating you against a few trees to get my anger out, you feel me, Mr. Lowell?”

  Nathan’s glimmer of good humor wasn’t diminished any at all by her threat. “I believe I will feel it, Ms. Reynolds, I trust that I will. However, if this plan doesn’t work, I’m not sure I’ll be alive to worry about it.”

  “Oh, I’ll make sure you stay alive just so I can get my pound of your flesh back. That shove was fucking hard. My teeth almost went out the back of my head, you prick.” All Bethany Anne got for her verbal tirade was a slightly bigger smile out of Nathan.

  They walked up to the gate. Bethany Anne looked at the gate, stupidly. The twelve foot high metal gates opened in the middle and were bracketed by large concrete columns with the letter ‘P’ in cyrillic on both, topped with large gas lanterns that were lit. The walls then went about fifteen feet each way before just stopping. If she wanted to, she could just walk around the walls, it looked so stupid.

  Except for the traps that probably existed over there.

  Nathan hit the call button on the security post.

  Nothing.

  He hit it again and a guy came on and spoke in Russian.

  Nathan replied in English, “I don’t understand that Russian shit, anyone speak English in there?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I speak English too. What do you want?”

  “I’m Nathan Lowell, and I ran into some people up on the mountain. I want to do a trade.”

  “One moment.”

  One moment became two minutes when another voice, more cultured came on. “Who is this?”

  Bethany Anne kept up the completely pissed off angry countenance going. It wasn’t hard to fake, she was getting impatient already. She figured they might have video so the acting needed to be as real as possible and Nathan had already supplied her with a superior reason to be pissed off.

  “Nathan Lowell.”

  “And you would want what exactly, Mr. Lowell?” Nathan figured he was speaking with Petre.

  “I need to speak with Petre, I have something he wants and in exchange I just want a free pass back to the States.”

  “And where are my partners, Mr. Lowell?”

  “Are you Petre?” Nathan got silence for his answer. Yup, he was talking with a vampire. Weres would get angry, at least most of them would have said something. “They aren’t among the living, I’m afraid. They had a large fight with a werebear over on the mountain. He was protecting two women, I have one with me, the other one was killed with the other pack members.”

  “And what do you have for me, Mr. Lowell?”

  “I have the child that Michael was going to use to create the replacement for Bill, who was destroyed in the United States.”

  “What do I want with her, Mr. Lowell?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t rightly know, Petre, that is vampire family business and not something I need to be privy to.” Nathan wanted to vomit in his mouth. He wasn’t stupid around vampires, but he knew enough about this prick that it galled him to have to even act like he respected him at all.

  “I see, I’m going to open the gate, please be sure that you stay on the path, I don’t want to have to smell your remains after they get blown all over my beautiful trees.” The speaker squelched.

  Nathan grabbed Bethany Anne’s arm and pulled her towards the opening gate. “C’mon you whiny bitch, let’s get my ticket out of this country.”

  “Whiny Bitch?” Bethany Anne kicked him, hard. He started limping and cussing fluently and loudly. He turned like he was going to backhand her, took one look at her eyes and remembered to act disgusted and grabbed her arm again as they walked up to the house.

  The house was pretty large with a three-car garage on the lower right and very little glass showing. Made with a large amount of concrete, it looked pretty modern to his eyes.

  The front door opened as they walked up to it and two guys came out. Both had under-arm holsters, but neither had their hands on their guns.

  The air exiting the house had a putrid scent on it that Bethany Anne hadn’t smelled before.

  That would be a vampire odor.

  That is making me want to gag, really? What an obnoxious odor. Can’t humans smell that?

  Your sense of smell is very sensitive and the air in there has a very strong odor from Petre living there a while. His scent just gets stronger.

  They stopped in front of the two guys. One in a pair of jeans and a sports jacket, the other had on an old members only jacket. Bethany Anne could barely bite her tongue in time before making a scathing fashion choice comment.

  The one with the members only jacket took Bethany Anne’s arm, looking at her disheveled appearance, scuffed up face and stuff in her hair and then back at Nathan. “What?” he said defensively, “She’s a whiny bitch, sue me.” Bethany Anne’s eyes got a little more narrow when hearing that remark.

  That same cultured voice was at the door, “Mr. Lowell, you should take care how you speak about anyone in the family.”

  Nathan looked up at Petre, he was a normal sized guy. About four inches shorter than Nathan and more a lean swimming pool body with wider shoulders and thin waist, than Nathan’s bulked up physique. Black hair cut really short and a designer athletic suit on. He looked a little rumpled, for a vampire. They had probably woken him up.

  “I figured she wasn’t a family member yet, my apologies.”

  “Oh, she isn’t, if she was then I would have had to kill you. You realize that we can’t have disrespect in the family, right?” There was a dangerous glint of humor in Petre’s eyes. Like he was saying the right words, but found them loathsome to say out loud without a sardonic smile at the same time give the lie to his comment.

  “My apologies, again, can I go now?”

  “No, not yet Mr. Lowell, please come and enjoy my hospitality while I find out the full story on what happened with my associates. We will need to go back and find them for a proper funeral, of course.”

  Nathan didn’t let anything show on his face, but that wasn’t something they had considered right away. He hoped Bethany Anne would just go all spastic on them and they could get this over with. He wanted a real bed to go collapse in and die for a couple of days. Preferably with a certain someone as company – if he could figure out how to get rid of her uncle. Maybe if he put steaks down he would gorge and go hibernate for a week.

  They were walked into the house and passed an office and kitchen. There was another room that seemed to be ready for painting as they had a large paint tarp on the floor. Petre had stopped in the kitchen while the guy with Bethany Anne had taken her to the room with the tarp.

  “Well, at least I figure I will need your information, Mr. Lowell. I doubt Ms. Reynolds will be able to provide me much in the way of directions.” Petre had reached over the bar as Nathan was walking past him.

  Suddenly he heard a room-thundering boom as Bethany Anne was thrown to the floor, a hole in her back and blood splattering on the wall in front of her. She fell to the floor, unmoving.

  Nathan jumped to the side and twisted, looking back at Petre, who was lowering his weapon to the ground with a twinkle in his eye. He looked over Nathan with an eyebrow raised, “Vampire politics, you understand, right Nathan?”

  Gott Verdammt vampires, especially the psychotic ones!

  Both of the pack guys had come back over to Nathan with a gleam in their eyes that had taken a darker turn. Their animals seemed to be pretty close to coming out.

  “Now, Mr. Lowell, why don’t we discuss where my associates can find their pack mates?”

  A small movement could be heard back in the other room, both pack members turned around and stared, as did Petre, when Bethany Anne stood up and turned around. There was a huge gaping red hole through her torso that could be seen through. Her eyes had turned red again, like they had been when Nathan had first encountered her out on the mountain.

&nbs
p; There didn’t seem to be any intelligence behind those eyes. Nathan started thinking about how the hell he could get out of there without getting noticed by Bethany Anne when he noticed Petre lift the gun. Without thinking, he jumped to hit Petre’s arm to knock off his aim. The gun fired once into the bar before Petre back-handed Nathan into a wall five feet away.

  Nathan hit the wall and landed on his knees, coughing, working to get his breath back, anger in his eyes. He couldn’t stop his mouth. “Petre, you hit like a girl.”

  But there was no Petre to hear him. Nathan looked over where Bethany Anne was and she had been attacked by both of the pack goons, members only guy had his left arm ripped off, screaming in pain on the floor to the left of Bethany Anne, while the better dressed guy was struggling with the significantly smaller woman’s arms while she was casually chewing on his neck, blood spraying her face and neck, soaking both of them. The hole in her chest was closing in front of him. She dropped the listless guy on the floor and knelt by the other thug who was slowing down and looked to be going into shock. His healing ability was helping to stop the bleeding on his stump. Bethany Anne snapped her fingers in front of his eyes to get his attention.

  His eyes, frightened, looked up at her as she took a finger across his bleeding arm socket and licked it off in her mouth right in front of him.

  “Where is the bolt hole?” All she got was a guy shaking his head, no, spasmodically.

  “Where is he going?” Her voice was silk over steel, her gaze looking into his soul.

  “Downstairs, he lives downstairs. Left through the kitchen and then behind the mirror at the end of hall.”

  “Good, I hope you yell when you get there.”

  The guy looked confused. “Where? Where am I going?”

  Bethany Anne’s hand slapped his head, causing blood to explode all over the wall, the rest of the head, with his unseeing eyes rebounded off the wall and landed on the other side of the room. “To hell.”

  She stood up, looked around, looked at Nathan and told him to check out the rest of the house. Then she calmly walked around him and headed down the hall after Petre.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Brasov, Romania

  Ecaterina heard her uncle’s roaring and figured that Petre was trying to get out through his exit. They were prepared if he tried to come out during the day, However, she was hoping that he stayed over by her uncle. She was determined to pull her weight, she didn’t appreciate anything this Petre had done to her and her family, not to mention her new friends.

  As the noise continued, she took that to be a good sign. If Uncle Alexi was battling the vampire, he wouldn’t come her way.

  That was what she was thinking when the noise stopped.

  She wasn’t strong enough to fight a vampire, she wasn’t quick enough. Hopefully, all of her years tracking and working in the wild had prepared her for this situation. She decided to get ready and set the final bait.

  They had found her exit easily enough. It wasn’t hidden too well, as it was behind a small pile of detritus. This was a throw away exit. Only there to hopefully capture the attention of a backup group, keeping their focus away from the better prepared second exit. She would have never been able to find the main exit on her own, it was hidden too well.

  The wooden door started to creak open, with successive pushes to get the old leaves and dirt off of it as it opened.

  Petre was hiding under a very heavy dark cloak. Coming out of the hole and turning around to see if anyone was there, he quickly saw Ecaterina, in plain sight and was struck dumb, he moved towards her.

  Seconds later, Bethany Anne heard Petre’s high, painful scream. She had found the entrance to the underground tunnels and was quickly walking through them keeping her left hand against the wall. She was barely able to judge any distance in the dank, dark tunnel. Shortly after she heard the screaming, she found the tunnel that took her in that direction.

  Only taking a few seconds at her enhanced speed with better light, she hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight, she finished the last one hundred or so yards. The end of the tunnel was considerably brighter since the trap door at the end wasn’t properly shut.

  It didn’t hurt she could hear Petre’s cussing and then a loud, meaty whack and a body hitting the ground.

  Not knowing what she would find, she practically threw the trap door off in a shower of splinters and came out of the tunnel, only to find Petre, slumped on the ground with his foot in a bear trap and Ecaterina slowly buttoning her shirt up. It was obvious she had no bra on and didn’t look like one was necessary.

  Looking at Bethany Anne, Ecaterina finished the last button on her shirt and bent over to pick up a large, metal cross. “What? Father always said use right bait. He never looked down.”

  Bethany Anne busted out laughing as Alexi came running through the trees calling out her name.

  Shaking her head, she reached down and easily pried apart the bear trap. Petre was a mess inside his robe and clothes, blood all over his broken left leg. She found a holstered .45 while patting him down. She took it out, considered whether he had enough damage and casually shot him in the other leg and then put the gun behind her waistband after setting the safety.

  Petre didn’t even make a sound as she grabbed him and threw him back into the tunnel, landing with a thud. If she was lucky, she just broke his damn neck. She told Alexi to hold the fort for a few minutes, they would call if everything was good with Nathan.

  She jumped down into the tunnel, noticed an old light switch and clicked it on. Very dim red lights went on about every fifty feet back towards the house. Enough for a vampire to see easily. Grabbing Petre’s foot, she started walking down the pathway. She stayed alert in case he should wake up, otherwise, she didn’t care if he hit more rocks on the way back to the house, in fact, she steered with purpose and hit Petre’s head on two large rocks on the side of the tunnel.

  She had read somewhere about how to live a purpose-driven life. She figured she just had a purpose-driven moment and could work up from there.

  Brasov, Romania

  When she got back to the house with Petre, she noticed that his bullet wound was healed enough to stop bleeding and it looked like his leg was getting better. The swelling on his head wound was going down.

  Looking around the office as she came out of the tunnels, the door was hidden behind a bookcase. She cut him ten demerits for lack of evil lair exit originality. Seeing a cricket bat signed by the Romanian cricket team on a wall display, she grabbed it and went back to where Petre was starting to move his head on the floor. She calmly palmed the bat in her right hand and slammed it down on Petre’s forehead. He stopped moving.

  She looked at the bat. It now had a little dent where it connected with his head and some of the signatures were smeared. She decided she liked this bat. She grabbed Petre’s left leg with her unencumbered hand and dragged him back through the house and dropped him off in the room with the tarp where he shot her.

  Poetic justice, she thought.

  By the time she finished dropping Petre, Nathan was coming back downstairs with two laptops in his hands. She gave him a raised eyebrow.

  Nathan quickly asked his most pressing concern, “Is Ecaterina, or Alex… Are they OK?”

  “Yes, you would be proud of our Ecaterina, she trapped Petre coming out of the exit she was responsible for after he couldn’t get past Alexi’s door. He literally never looked for the bear trap that caught his foot.”

  Nathan stood there, a puzzled expression on his face, “Bear trap? Wouldn’t he have been paying attention? Those aren’t easy to hide.”

  “Not when he was staring at her bare tits. I’m sure he never noticed anything above her neck or below her navel. I heard the screams and by the time I found the end of the tunnel, I heard her hit him with what I found out to be an old rusted iron cross. By the time I got out, she was already buttoning up her shirt and picking up the cross again. You should have been there.”

 
Nathan’s face was classic guy, slack jawed with a thousand yard stare. She snapped her fingers in front of him. “What did you find out, what’s with the laptops?”

  Coming around, Nathan answered. “Found them in a safe in his bedroom. Idiot never changed the safe’s original combination from the manufacturer. I figure to put them into a clean room and see what we can get off them.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, nothing. These two dead guys can’t provide anything, either.”

  “We will get it out of Petre as soon as I let him wake up.”

  “Let him?”

  “I found a cricket bat, I’m still pissed at getting shot, that shit hurt.”

  “Yeah, I was able to see right through you, why didn’t that take you out?” Nathan was pretty sure he didn’t know of any vampire stories where that wouldn’t have hurt the vampire, especially such a young vampire, significantly more. She shouldn’t have been able to stand up certainly.