Tap, tap… tap, tap.
I sat up, pushing the blankets off me. I was sure I’d heard a noise. Someone or something tapping on the window. I tilted my head to the side and listened intently — nothing. I lay down again and pulled the blankets up to my chin, closing my eyes once more.
Tap, tap… tap, tap.
I knew I’d heard a noise! I slipped out of bed and walked over to the window, almost pressing my nose against the glass. A hand smashed through the window and seized me by the throat. With superhuman strength I was pulled through the broken window. I cried out as the glass razed my flesh, and clawed at the hand clutched around my neck. The man held me above the ground — once again grass — my feet dangling. I struggled to breathe.
He tilted his head from one side to the other, taking in everything about my face.
“If we can’t kill you the traditional way, we just have to get more creative,” he said, laughing.
His hand squeezed around my throat, ever tighter, and I could hear bones groaning from the pressure. I stopped clawing his hand and grasped his wrists. If this was the only way to kill him, so be it — it was him or me. I waited expectantly for the tingling and pain to start in my fingers, but nothing happened. I readjusted my grip — still nothing. Perhaps he needed to bite me for it to work. If I couldn’t encourage him to bite me I was a goner.
In a hoarse voice — barely a whisper — I said, rather insultingly, “Bite me, jackass.”
He laughed, “Tempting as it is, I know better. To kiss you is to sign my own death warrant.”
I dug my fingernails into his hands and he actually flinched. I pressed harder, piercing deeply into the skin, expecting to see blood flow freely from the wounds I’d created — nothing. It was as if this creature was bloodless. I realised then — I should have known — his heart was not pumping blood through his body. He was of the living dead and why would the living dead bleed?
“Die bitch, die,” he laughed.
Bones cracked and my windpipe was being crushed until I could no longer draw breath. I saw silver stars dancing in front of my eyes, then the world went black.
I woke with a start, my hands reaching for my throat to survey the damage. I could feel no broken bones, no pain at all. I walked to the window and stood a good arm’s length from the window pane — the window was intact — and peered into the pre-dawn gloom. I could see the flowers, trees and shrubs swaying gently in the breeze. The garden had not been returned to a grassy area. It had all been a dream, and yet it was so real.
Danny had been gone all night, unless he’d returned briefly while I’d been asleep.
The bath was ready and waiting for me — how does he do that? — and I enjoyed a good soak for almost an hour. When I was dried and dressed I headed to the living area. Danny appeared just as I sat down. If he’d had an encounter with a demon there was nothing to show for it, not a hair out of place, not a speck of dirt or blood on his clothes.
“Did you find your demonic activity?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And what?”
I rolled my eyes. “What happened?”
I was curious to find out what an angel did to a demon when they met.
Danny sat down on the chair opposite me, sighed and ran his hands through his hair. I licked my lips subconsciously before I realised what I was doing
For god’s sake, I thought, he’s an angel. Don’t be thinking about getting down and dirty with him. Why the hell would an angel want to sleep with a slut anyway?
“There was one demon and I destroyed him.”
I pressed on. “How did you do that?”
“Are you sure you want to hear? You might not think kindly of angels once you know.”
I tapped my finger against my lip. “Let me think… if I had to choose between angels and demons… that’s such a tough choice,” I said sarcastically. “Hmm, I’d choose angels. Duh!”
“All right then, if you’re sure.” I nodded for him to continue. “I had to remove his arms, legs and head from his body, burn the pieces with angel fire and scatter the remains over the sea. As long as it’s a body of salt water, it doesn’t really matter, but if it isn’t, within an hour or so of the ashes growing cold, the demon’s essence — it’s certainly no longer a soul — will escape. In the early days, I once carried a demon’s ashes in an urn of salt water until I could make it to the sea. It was a rather busy time.
“My superior claims my skills in locating demons are far too valuable to risk in taking down anything other than lesser demons. As such, there are times when I report activity, wait until reinforcements arrive, and then leave. I don’t enjoy dispatching demons, but sometimes it’s me or them. I don’t relish the idea of being taken down by a demon, so I do what I have to.”
I scrunched my nose. “Sounds gross. Do you have a special knife to dismember them with, you know, like one blessed by the Pope?”
“We use whatever is available or whatever comes to mind. I personally like Samurai swords.” Danny smiled wryly. “I’ve been told I have a flair for the dramatic.”
I tended to agree.
“Maybe one day you can show me how to use it?”
“We’ll see.” Danny shifted in the chair to make himself more comfortable. “How did you sleep?”
“I had the worst nightmare,” I complained. “It seemed so real.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I dreamt I woke up in bed. You weren’t here and there was a noise outside. I went to the window to investigate and a vampire snatched me through the window by my throat. He didn’t bite me — he said he needed to be more creative to kill me. There was nothing I could do, not for lack of trying, but he crushed my throat until I was dead.” I shuddered as I remembered how hard it was to breathe and the cracking noise of the bones in my neck.
“That’s very interesting,” Danny said. “If indeed you can’t kill them unless they’re biting you, then you’re more vulnerable than I thought. Let’s hope it’s not true.”
“Well, the only way we’ll find out is if I have an encounter with a smart vampire. What are the odds of that?”
“Surprisingly good,” Danny replied. “There are more of them than you can imagine.”
“I thought you said the war between the vampires and werewolves kept their respective numbers down.”
“They do, but it doesn’t stop them from creating more of their own kind. If they stopped fighting and worked cooperatively the world could be overrun in a year at most, depending on how quick mortals are to react to the threat. If they joined forces the angels would be hard pressed to provide any aid, as the demons would take advantage of the commotion to be on the offensive.”
“It sounds to me like there’s a delicate balance,” I replied.
“Indeed there is.”
“So, what are we doing today, following that trail again? I promise I’ll be more careful.”
“If you’d like to follow the trail, that’s what we’ll do, but I think I’ll transport us to the other side of the ravine to be safe. We can pick up where we left off.”
I slapped my forehead with my palm. “How stupid of me, how selfish. You’ve been up all night and must be tired. I apologise. We don’t have to go today.”
He laughed. “I don’t need to sleep… Why the beds, you’re wondering?”
I nodded my head. If you didn’t need to sleep why have beds, or bedrooms for that matter.
“I don’t need to sleep, but I can sleep. Sometimes it’s nice to drift off, even if there is nothing for me in my sleep. It’s not something I do often. Generally when I’m back from a kill and need the distraction.”
Danny stood up and stretched.
“I am so, so selfish. Here you are, back from slaying demons, in need of a distraction by way of sleep and I want to drag you out again!” I bowed my head and whispered, “I’m really sorry.”
I felt like a heel. I liked being around Danny and spending time with hi
m. He made me feel good about myself, made me feel like I was worth something, and didn’t place any demands on me.
“No,” he laughed. “I think you’ll provide me with plenty of distraction, forever getting into trouble. I don’t mind changing my patterns — change is good. It stops you from getting too complacent, too stagnant.”
I stood up, smiled and held out my hand. “Well then, let’s go!”
Danny clasped my hand and we walked the few short steps that took us to the other side of the ravine. I immediately noticed an unpleasant smell and wrinkled my nose in disgust.
“You smell it too?” Danny asked.
I nodded and fanned the air in front of my nose. “How could I not smell it?”
Danny shook his head and chuckled. “I keep forgetting you’re not mortal.”
We followed the scent, travelling at my pace. It was embarrassing to think I was slowing him down, but he didn’t seem to mind. When the scent got stronger he grabbed my arm to stop me from walking on.
“Stay here. I’ll scout the area and if it’s safe I’ll call out to you.”
He ran swiftly through the forest, leaping rocks and boulders and jumping across ditches as though they were very small and insignificant obstacles. There was no way I would have been able to keep up with his pace and do all that leaping about. There was no way I’d be able to keep up period!
I heard his voice clearly — as if he were standing next to me — a minute or so later. “It’s okay. Follow my voice.”
I walked in the direction of Danny’s voice as he told me what he’d found — the bodies of a vampire — the one I’d had an encounter with — and a werewolf. I was still a long way off and he’d clearly run out of things to tell me about the scene, as his narration turned to talk about fights between the two age-old enemies he’d witnessed. I stopped listening to what he said and concentrated on following his voice.
The scene that greeted me was one of violence. The brutally ravaged body of a very large wolf — the werewolf — made me dry retch. The stench was horrendous. As well as numerous small wounds covering most of its body, the flesh of its belly had been ripped open — are they claw marks? — and the intestines spilt out onto the ground. Its throat had been slashed and a dried pool of blood lay under its head. Dozens of flies buzzed around the body, taking advantage of a free feed.
The sight of the vampire made my breath catch in my throat and memories flooded back. I remembered exactly what had happened in the glade by the brook and kicked the corpse a couple of times in anger. The flies avoided this body and I wondered why.
“Danny, why aren’t there flies around his body?”
“They don’t like feasting on the flesh of the living dead, just like scavengers. Werewolves, however, are a different matter. They are still flesh and blood, with a living beating heart, until it’s silenced.”
It made sense, I supposed. Even flies seemed to have taste and preferred werewolf to vampires.
“So, why isn’t the wolf in human form? Don’t they change back when they’re killed?”
Danny laughed. “You’ve read too many horror stories. Remind me to give you a lesson on teratology some time.”
“I guess I’ve got a lot to learn.”
Danny tilted his head and stared intently into the forest, listening to a sound I couldn’t hear, his eyes tracking whatever was making the sound.
“Stay here and stay down. We’ve got company. I’ll lead them away.”
Before I could protest he was gone and I was alone, in the middle of a forest — which forest and where I still didn’t know — with two rotting corpses.
Just another typical day, Helena, I told myself.
I huddled up with my back against a tree, to make myself appear as small as possible. If there was something out there, I didn’t want to meet it.
Danny had been gone an awfully long time and I began to fret. As I stood up to stretch my legs something snatched me from behind, by the hair, and I was dragged kicking and screaming into the forest.
“This is the one. Her scent was all over him. We have to hurry before that cursed angel comes back.”
A second vampire bound my wrists, ankles and knees, then taped my mouth to stop me from screaming out for help again. The vampire that had caught me picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder before running, as fast as Danny had run, deeper into the forest.
He had a firm grip on my legs. I couldn’t kick out, but I hit him on his back as hard as I could, over and over again with my closed fists. The vampire didn’t even flinch. I may as well have been tickling him with a feather for all the good it did!
Shortly after, we stopped, and I was dropped to the ground. Five more vampires joined us. They discussed which direction they should take and it was agreed they’d separate and meet up again at another location. A different vampire picked me up and when everyone took off in different directions it dawned on me that they were trying to make it as hard as possible for Danny to find me, and upside down as I was, I could feel the blood drain from my face.
My scent trail ended where the vampire had bound me, before I’d been carried like a sack of potatoes. Danny would be forced to follow that vampire’s scent. When he got here, he’d realise I’d been dropped to the ground, several of them had met, and I’d been carried off again, presumably by my original captor. If Danny chose his trail they’d have plenty of time to whisk me away to the place of their choice.
There was nothing I could do now but bide my time, stall them as long as possible when we reached our destination, and hope that Danny found me before it was too late.
It felt to me that the vamp had been running for hours. My body was being constantly jostled and I had aches in places I’d never had aches before. When at last he slowed to a walk I knew we must be nearing our destination. I heard other footsteps approach and felt hands lifting me down to the ground. My bindings were cut. I rubbed my wrists, trying to improve the circulation and getting the blood to flow again. I gasped as the tape was torn from my mouth, and took three breaths in and out in quick succession.
“Get moving,” my captor said, pushing me roughly in the back.
I stumbled and landed on my knees. He aided me to my feet by pulling me up by the hair.
“Don’t hurt her Levi… not yet,” a feminine voice purred.
He chuckled, “There’ll be plenty left for you, my pretty one.”
I walked, of my own volition, into the viper’s nest. And what a nest it was! Well, nest probably wasn’t the correct word. Somehow the vampires had managed to interweave the branches of the surrounding trees into walls and a roof, making it look like an inverted nest. Such was its clever construction that the entrance could only be seen if you approached it from a certain angle. From the outside the shelter was disguised by outer branches that grew thickly along the tree trunks, the trees themselves seeming to grow so close together they touched. Close inspection would reveal it for what it really was, but from a distance — on the ground or in the air — it would pass for a densely packed clump of trees.
“This is the one,” someone asked, sceptically, “the one who killed Kragen?”
“Yes, Drake,” Levi replied. “Her scent was all over him.”
“And what shall we do with her, my friends?” Drake asked of the small crowd.
I did a quick head count. Fourteen foul, blood-sucking monsters.
“Kill her!” someone yelled.
“Torture her first, make her suffer,” the pretty one replied.
“Hunt her,” another said. “Let’s make sport of it.”
“Enough!” Drake yelled. “Well my dear, it appears a few of my friends here are out for revenge. Kragen was well liked and it appears you’ve upset them by killing him.”
The stench in the small enclosed area assailed my nostrils, and when the vampires spoke the air was filled with a variety of sickly-sweet scents, all different. I tried as much as possible to breathe through my mouth.
“We led th
e angel on a merry chase,” one of my captors said. “He’s on the other side of the range, hundreds of kilometres away. I say hunt, torture, kill.”
There were murmurs of agreement among the vampires and Drake held up his hand to quiet them.
“It appears my friends have made their decision, regardless of what I say. Personally I’d like to question you further. You’re not mortal, that is clear, but you’re not an angel either. So what are you, and why are you in the company of an angel?”
I looked Drake in the eye and kept my mouth closed. If I was to be hunted it would mean they’d have to set me free, and there was a possibility, slim though it was, I could escape.
“Ah! I see you won’t willingly share your secrets with me. A pity.” He held my chin in one hand. “Perhaps I could have done more to help if you’d been cooperative.” He let his hand drop and turned to the small group. “Well my friends, a hunt it is!”
There was clapping and cheering, and another five vampires joined the group, bringing their numbers to nineteen. How the hell was I going to beat the odds against nineteen vampires!
8. Taste for Evil
Drake turned his attention back to me. “To make it more sporting, we’ll give you a head start. Say an hour?”
There was hissing as the other vampires disapproved of the amount of time I was to be granted to run from them.
Drake shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I tried to make it more sporting. Half an hour then, but as she’s at a disadvantage, you,” he pointed to all the vampires in the shelter, “will follow in groups of two, five minutes apart.”
When the hissing turned into angry cries he stomped his foot on the ground and the earth trembled at the sheer force of it. The vampires quietened down.
“Those are the terms of the hunt. Anyone who doesn’t play by my rules will be answerable to me!” Drake’s voice rang with authority. “If you feel you cannot abide by the rules stay here. Am I making myself clear?”
Some murmured and others nodded, though it appeared Drake had made his point. He turned to me apologetically. I wondered if not all vampires were blood-sucking monsters.
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