Death Betrays

by J. C. Diem

  Putting my head against the bars, I tested whether there was any possibility that it would be able to fit through them. As I’d already known, the bars were too close together. My head would have to be broken down into pieces right along with the rest of me before I would be able to pass through the barrier.

  Again, as if it had just been waiting for me to form the thought, my body took action. Lefty dropped to the ground first then bits and pieces started falling out of my clothes. My head wobbled on my neck then fell to the ground and shattered like a dropped pumpkin. It didn’t hurt but it was disconcerting to suddenly find myself in so many pieces. Looking through both eyes at the same time was dizzying with them being several feet away from each other.

  With my eyes watching the process as well as they could since they were looking in different directions, I possessed both hands and set them the task of shifting my pieces to the other side of the bars. They worked quickly and efficiently, scooping up the pieces of my head first and depositing them into a small pile. With my eyes now sitting side by side, it was easier to oversee the job.

  Most of my parts remained in my clothing and were dragged through the bars in a shapeless bundle. It seemed Sanderson’s method of reducing me down into a chowder like consistency had ended up working in my favour. I could now break my own body down into small enough pieces that I should be able to fit them just about anywhere.

  When their job was done, Lefty and Righty joined the jumble of flesh and I immediately began to reform. There were no flashes of pain this time, it was a seamless, quick procedure and I was whole again in seconds. I was even still wearing my clothes.

  Shaking my head at just how strange I’d become now, I headed down the hallway and stopped at a recess where a plain white door waited. Pressing my ear up against it, I detected no sounds of human activity coming from the other side. Machinery hummed, making the door quiver slightly and bringing to mind gigantic generators. I tested the handle and was unsurprised to find the door locked. Increasing the pressure, something inside the handle snapped and it became loose in my hand.

  More grey hallways were on the other side. A confusing rabbit warren of intersections spread out beneath the facility. I could sense the vampires a few levels above me. They seemed to be in the same general area, which was a bonus for me. It would be far easier to rescue them if they weren’t spread out over several levels. Now I just needed to find a way to reach them and break them free. Yeah, I’m sure it will be a piece of cake.

  Nearing the source of the humming machinery, I spied a staircase and climbed up to the next floor. Somewhere in the halls nearby, a pair of humans were chatting. I stopped to listen to their conversation, just in case I’d been spotted during my entry. It was also possible that someone had found my tracks and that they were now on the lookout for me.

  “What do you think they’re working on up on the fifty-seventh level?” a hushed male voice asked.

  After a brief hesitation, he was answered. “Personally, I think its aliens.” The response was equally hushed and echoed the thoughts of the clerk who had supplied me with my snow gear.

  “Aliens? You can’t be serious! Aliens don’t really exist.”

  “What do you think is up there then?”

  “It has to be vampires.” The human’s scorn at the idea of aliens would have disappeared in a heartbeat if he had known about my kin’s true origins.

  “Everyone knows most of the vampires have been wiped out. That small group of them in France are the only ones left now.” My eyes widened at his casual statement. “I heard a small Japanese island had been teeming with them. Rumour has it that they had turned hundreds of humans into their willing blood slaves. The Colonel bombed the whole lot of them to smithereens.” I clenched my hands at the satisfaction in his tone and had to brace myself when he continued. “They found the lair beneath that mountain in Romania and cleaned out all of the vermin. Thanks to the creepy blonde French vampire ratting them all out, we’ve hunted down and destroyed pretty much every monster on the planet.”

  “How do we know they were really destroyed?” the first man whispered. “Sure, every government and ruling body agreed they had to be eradicated but what else could they be hiding up on level fifty-seven?”

  Even after being blown to pieces, boxed up and thrown into the sea, I was shocked that the entire world had decided my kind would be better off dead. Obviously, the Americans had kept a few of us around despite the apparent worldwide agreement to terminate our kind. Why were my friends and allies being kept in this underground prison instead of being eradicated along with the rest? While I was inordinately glad at least some of them were still alive, I was beginning to wonder if they would have been better off being blown apart.

  At the next landing, a sign told me I was on level sixty-four. Amazed that I was so deep beneath the ground, I climbed up to level fifty-seven. A warning had been painted in bright red on the door: Restricted Access – Authorized Personnel Only. The door was locked, of course, and I couldn’t just barge inside. I had to think of a way to scout out the area before I could form a plan of action.

  If only there was some way I could see through the door! Frustrated, I sat down on the top step. Minutes passed and I was no closer to a solution. Heaving yet another internal sigh, my inner voice took pity on me. What are the two round things in your head that sit on either side of your nose? It sounded like a rhetorical question but I answered it cautiously anyway. Um, my eyes? Giving me a mental pat on the head, my subconscious helped me out a bit more. What purpose do your eyes serve? This one was easy. They let me see things.

  It took me a few more seconds but I finally got what my subconscious was trying to tell me and swivelled around to face the door. The crack at the bottom was far too narrow for my eye to roll beneath but maybe it didn’t need to roll at all. My right eye popped free at my mental order, amazing me all over again that I could command any of my body parts to detach at will. I placed the orb at the base of the door. A poke of my finger popped it and it became a tiny puddle of jelly. Possessing the watery substance, I made it slither beneath the door to the other side. My vision was blurry in this form and all I could make out was a sea of white.

  Cautiously, I concentrated on the jelly and it reformed into a solid orb again. Holding in a slightly hysterical giggle at the mental picture of my detached eye rolling up down and from side to side, I made it do exactly that as I looked around. As I’d already determined, white was the predominant colour. A long hallway stretched ahead with several intersecting hallways to either side. There were no humans in sight so I slowly began to roll down the hall.

  At the first intersection, I peeked around the corner and saw several doors branching off on either side. Making my way to the first door, I flattened my orb down and slithered inside. If my eye hadn’t been reduced to jelly, I would have had trouble squeezing through the gap. A tight seal around the door meant it was most likely sound proofed. The only reason I could think that sound proofing would be needed would be to muffle screams. Why do I have the feeling that Colonel Sanderson’s days are numbered, I asked myself rhetorically. While my priority was to rescue my remaining kin, thoughts of retribution began to stir.

  Reforming again, my eye examined the room but found little of interest. At first glance, it appeared to be a hospital room. This assessment was based on the narrow metal bed with a thin mattress and wheels so it could be moved. A cart with a couple of monitors on top sat beside the bed. They looked like the sort of monitors that were supposed to measure vital signs. They would be useless to gauge our vital signs because we didn’t have any. About the only thing they would be able to measure about us would be our brain waves.

  The next three rooms were the same but the fourth one was occupied. Staring up at the bed, I could make out twin foot shaped lumps beneath the blankets. A pair of IV stands stood on both sides of the bed. Thick, black ooze was slowly dripping into a half empty bag on one side. Rolling several feet across the floor, I
peered up at the other IV. Bright red blood flowed down the plastic tube towards the patient. It disappeared from my sight and presumably into a vein.

  Back in the stairwell, my body stirred at the implications of what I was seeing. Due to my orb’s small stature, the bed seemed to be as high as a mountain. I rolled over to it and used my dangling optic nerves to climb upwards. It wasn’t an easy journey and I kept sliding down the slick metal leg but I finally made it to the top. Alternately rolling and climbing over the body, I eased up onto the captive’s chest. Multiple bands of thick metal across the legs, waist and chest held the vampire down. His arms had been positioned so his palms were facing upwards and his veins were accessible. His arms had also been strapped down so he couldn’t dislodge the needles that were stuck in both arms.

  Focussing on the patient’s face, at first I didn’t recognize him and thought he was a stranger. His body was small and wasted and his face was wrinkled and aged. For a horrible moment I thought my vision had come true and that it was Geordie strapped to the bed. Then I noticed his hair was black rather than dirty blonde, where it hadn’t turned grey. Looking beyond the unnatural aging and taking in the size of the prone form, I realized it could only be Ishida. The blood that kept his ten thousand year old body young and unalive was slowly being drained out and human blood was replacing it. I was far from an expert but it was obvious even to me that the experiment wasn’t working. Instead of changing him back to a human, it was slowly killing the emperor of the now almost extinct Japanese vampire nation.

  It was still dark outside but Ishida had retreated into unconsciousness. To my knowledge, I was the only vampire who could fall asleep at will when the sun wasn’t up. His coma like state must have been due to the persistent removal of his blood.

  Until I saw the rest of the survivors, I couldn’t work out a rescue plan but I couldn’t leave the kid like this. Inching my way up his arm, I used my optic nerves to pull out the needle that was draining his vampire blood away. I left it beneath the tape holding it in place. Only close observation would give what I had done away.

  Next, I made my way across to his other arm and pulled out the second needle. I dropped it over the side of the bed and bright red blood immediately began to drip to the floor. As soon as a human came to check on Ishida, they would begin the process again but I hoped I’d bought him at least a little more time. Judging his condition, even a few hours of not having his blood drained away might be crucial.

  I knew that at least several of my friends and allies had survived Sanderson’s treachery but now I had to find out who else had made it. My body sitting in the stairwell stirred uneasily at the thought that some of my loved ones might already be beyond saving.

  The colonel’s future balanced on who I would find locked up in these pristine yet cold prison cells. So did the futures of the people who had given him his orders. No force on Earth would be able to save them if I didn’t find Luc and my friends alive somewhere within this secret underground facility.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I found several European and Japanese vampires in the cells near Ishida’s. All had been experimented on in ways that were as disturbing as they were diverse. Sliding beneath yet another door, I only half formed my eye before realizing two humans were in the room.

  Oozing rather than rolling along the floor, I hid behind a stainless steel trolley that presumably held medical equipment. Peering around the corner to make sure I hadn’t been spotted, I tilted my eye upwards and saw a familiar face. My body surged to its feet in the stairwell but I stopped short of bursting through the door and coming to my friend’s rescue. To do so would almost certainly result in his immediate death.

  Shirtless and wearing only a pair of white drawstring pants, Igor’s hairy chest was covered in electrodes. More were stuck to his face and arms. He’d been chained to the wall with his arms outstretched horizontally, almost as if his captors were mimicking crucifixion. Without ears, I couldn’t hear the Russian scream but his body thrashed and his face contorted as electricity surged through him.

  Gesturing with a hand that held a pen, one of the white coated scientists instructed his colleague to turn the machine off. Igor sagged and hung from the manacles that were cutting into his wrists and ankles. I wasn’t sure what alerted him to my presence but he lifted his head slightly and focussed on my eye. Astonished shock made him stiffen but the humans didn’t notice. They were too busy taking notes and adjusting their machine, presumably to administer a higher dose of electrical shock next time.

  “Natalie?” Igor mouthed. I rolled my eye backwards and forwards in the orb’s version of a nod. My grizzled friend grinned savagely before dropping his head again and feigning defeat. I didn’t want to leave him but there was little I could do just yet.

  Kokoro was three rooms down and had also been chained to the wall. Her hospital gown was white but it was nowhere near as elegant as the kimonos she usually wore. A scientist sat on a stool a few feet away, asking her questions. The seer ignored him completely. It was a reaction he seemed to be used to. Her blind white eyes zeroed in on me as soon as I reformed. A tiny smile settled on her otherwise expressionless face. She didn’t appear to have been harmed recently but God only knew what the scientists had done to her during her captivity. Although she couldn’t actually see me, she nodded to indicate she was aware of my presence.

  Aventius was my next find. His room was different to the other cells. It was devoid of beds, monitors and wall shackles. Instead, it was dominated by a long tank. The tank was full of clear fluid. He’d been immersed for so long that his skin was completely shrivelled. He floated on his side, staring at the door with utter desolation. The black bags beneath his eyes were bigger and darker and his cheeks were even more hollow now. None of the captives looked like they were being fed regularly. Starving them would undoubtedly help to keep them docile. Thankfully, he was wearing swimming trunks. Neither of us would ever be able to forget it if I had seen him naked. Not that he was even aware that I was observing him at the moment.

  I came across Geordie next and my orb went still in shock when I saw what had been done to him. Chained to the wall like most of the others had been, his form of torture was worse than the rest. Over a dozen thick metal bars had been inserted into his body. They stuck out of his legs, abdomen, torso and arms. He looked like a vampire version of a voodoo doll. His young face was drawn with pain that wouldn’t end until the rods were removed. I oozed back beneath the door before he could spot me. Knowing the teen, he would be unable to contain his reaction once he realized I was there to save him. I felt sick with rage but forced myself to contain it. I couldn’t afford to lose my cool and I had to think more clearly than I ever had before. The last thing I needed was for orange light to start blazing from my roving eye and lighting up the hallway.

  Gregor was a few doors down from the teen. He looked strange without his usual natty tweed suit. He was also naked from the waist up but was far less hairy than Igor. His body rippled with muscles I hadn’t realized he’d possessed. I was puzzled to see a thick sheet of metal bolted to the wall behind him.

  Two scientists were conferring while a soldier stood to the side. The soldier’s hand toyed with the pistol that sat in a holster on his hip. The scientists ceased their discussion and one of them pointed at Gregor. At the order I couldn’t hear, the soldier pulled his weapon, aimed and fired. My friend jerked when the bullet tore into his abdomen but his lips stubbornly remained closed. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of reacting to their torture. The spent cartridge fell to the ground to mingle with the others that had already been fired. I counted ten and my rage flared up again.

  I left the room so I wouldn’t have to witness any further torture and risk losing my control. I’d counted a total of twenty-seven vampires in captivity so far and worry gnawed at me when I realized there was only one hallway left to be searched.

  The first few rooms I examined were bigger than the others. They lacked manacle
s on the walls and held the usual plain hospital bed and monitoring equipment. My worry increased with each room that I searched that turned out to be empty.

  Reaching the end of the hall, there was only one room left to search. My dead heart was doing its best to try to lodge itself in my throat. Oozing beneath the door, I reformed my eye slowly.

  In the stairwell, my hands covered my face as if it could block out the sight that was before my detached orb. I had found Luc and he was intact but his torture was a different variety to the others. Naked and perfect of face and form, my beloved studied an equally naked human woman. Crying and trying to cover herself with her hands, she cowered against a wall. Luc shook his head, presumably in response to a command coming from a set of speakers that I could see but couldn’t hear. He shook his head again then winced at what I assumed was a threat. Finally, he nodded in acquiescence.

  Shaking in terror, the woman tried to run but had nowhere to go. They were both locked in the cell but only one of them would really suffer the coming torture. Her fright would shortly melt away and she would become happy, even if it was a false happiness. My one true love caught her, pulled her hands away from her face and stared into her eyes. All the terror ran out of her and she became helplessly mesmerized.

  Luc’s fangs descended and he bit gently into her throat. Her hands went around his waist and she pressed herself against him, offering him her body. With an expression of profound regret, my beloved drew her over to the bed and complied with the scientist’s demands. Well aware of his usual passion, I could see he was just going through the motions as he sated himself on the human. Turning my eye away so I didn’t have to witness the entire act, I waited for it to be over.