by J. C. Diem
It was an invitation for him to elaborate on his story, but he didn’t bite. He simply nodded, expression turning morose. “I’ve been hunting the bloodsuckers who were responsible for their deaths for a long time. I heard they fled to America, so I came here to look for them.”
“I’ve been searching for the ones that killed my family, too,” I said. We shared a more comfortable silence for a moment, joined by our mutual hatred of the walking leeches who had stolen our families away from us.
“How did you survive their attack?” he asked at last.
I grimaced and my hand went to the now missing scars that had been on my throat. “I got lucky and managed to press a cross against the master vamp’s neck,” I replied.
From my peripheral vision, I saw his eyes widen and he stared at me with new appreciation. “He must have been a new master for that to have driven him away.”
“My faith was strong back then,” I said. “It was enough to send him and his minions running.” Meanwhile, my little sister had been lying on the floor next to me, empty eyes staring at the ceiling with her blood splattered all over the place. We’d been regular churchgoers and had all believed in God’s might and vengeance. It hadn’t been enough to save us.
“You no longer have faith?” Connor asked.
Now it was my turn to hesitate before responding. “I still believe in God, but it’s hard to have faith after seeing your family being slaughtered.”
He shuddered and crossed his arms, nodding in agreement. “You’re not wearing a cross now,” he pointed out.
“I lost it during a hunt yesterday,” I explained. The truth was, I was afraid to try to touch a cross. Standing on hallowed ground had been painful and it probably would have been deadly if I hadn’t moved to safety. Wearing a cross might prove to be very bad for my health. If I began to smoke when it came into contact with my skin, my fellow hunters would know there was something very wrong with me.
“I’m sure Raymond and his crew have plenty of spares,” Connor said. I noticed he wasn’t wearing one either, but I didn’t point that out. Not all monster killers had faith. Some just relied on their intelligence, weapons and brawn to get the job done.
I nodded, hoping he would drop the subject. He did and a brooding silence filled the car. The rest of our ride was spent stealing sidelong glances at each other as we tried to decide whether we could trust the person we’d been paired up with.
Chapter Seven
It took us two hours to reach the town where the bloodsuckers had been spotted. A lone hunter was waiting for us in the town’s only diner. He nodded when we entered. Ray and his wife, Jolene, made a beeline for the guy. The rest of us split into pairs to sit at the other tables.
The same age as her husband, Jolene had short brown hair and a scar on her left cheek. While she wasn’t beautiful, she was attractive. A couple of inches shorter than me, she had a solid, muscular build. I’d tried to arm wrestle with her once and she’d beaten me easily. Some of the guys couldn’t best her at the sport, so I hadn’t felt too pathetic at my failure.
A waitress hurried to take everyone’s order, looking harried as she scribbled in her little notebook. I ordered soda and Connor requested tea. He gave me a challenging look when I glanced at him. “Is there a problem?” he asked.
“Not many people in our line of work drink tea,” I replied as diplomatically as possible. Most hunters were hard drinkers. I wasn’t of legal drinking age yet, but even when I did turn twenty-one in a couple of years, I doubted I’d bother. Most alcohol tasted horrible to me. Besides, having a clear head meant I’d stay alive longer.
“Tea is good for you, lass,” my companion said primly, accent thickening slightly.
“Uh, huh. Sure, it is. It’s very manly, too. I hear girls really dig a guy who can chug down a hot mug of tea.”
“You’re making fun of me,” he observed and sat back with his arms crossed. “At least I won’t be hyperactive due to a sugar overload from soda.”
I waved his concern away. “I’m nineteen, not five. The sugar won’t affect me.” Much. I kept that thought to myself. The truth was, I usually was a bit energized after drinking soda.
He studied me as the waitress returned with our orders. I thanked her and sipped my drink. The usual sugar rush seemed far duller than normal. I wondered if she’d accidentally given me a diet soda.
Ray and Jolene quizzed their contact quietly. All three were hunched together and were talking intently. The hunter gestured off to the east and I figured that was where we would shortly be heading. I heard snatches of their conversation, but gave no indication that I was listening. We were sitting too far away for me to have been able to overhear them if I’d still been human.
Some of our team ordered meals that could be eaten quickly just so we wouldn’t be too conspicuous. I scoffed down my fries, reluctantly pausing to offer Connor some. He took a few, tossed them into his mouth and chewed them with far more elegance than I tended to display. Compared to me, he was almost refined, which made me scowl. I was many things, but a lady I would never be.
When the trio finally finished conferring, they stood and headed outside. Ray texted us the location of the nest and we began trickling out of the diner in ones and twos. Connor strode along at my side as we ignored the others and climbed into my car. Well used to the routine, we split up and came at the isolated farmhouse from different angles.
Since it was now the middle of the day, the sun was high overhead when we parked. An old tire swing hung from a gigantic oak tree, gently swaying in a soft breeze. It was too quiet and I could almost feel death’s cold hand reaching out to touch us from the house. The scent of blood hung in the air when I opened my door and climbed out. While the sun felt far hotter than usual, at least I didn’t start smoking. Standing around in full sunlight for longer than a few minutes would probably become a problem for me. It was just one more thing about the new and improved me that I was going to have to try to hide from everyone.
Raymond gathered us together and we moved into a huddle on the front lawn. I made sure to stand in the shade of the tree. “This is Homer, for anyone who doesn’t know him,” he said, introducing the hunter who had tipped him off. Homer nodded, meeting our eyes one by one. “He saw the vamps lurking around town last night and saw them following a man to his car. He traced the plates and this is the address that came up.” We all examined the house, instinctively knowing the leeches had followed the man back here and that it was already far too late to save him.
“He has a wife and three kids,” Homer warned us. Mutters sounded at that news. It was always heart-wrenching when children were involved.
“Stay in pairs and get ready to move in at my command,” Ray ordered. While hunters tended to be independent and intelligent, it always paid to have someone in charge during a mission. Fewer mistakes would be made if our attacks were coordinated.
Ray gave us our positions and we headed towards the house. Connor and I were to come at the building from the south side, which meant we would have to enter through a window. The house was elevated enough that neither of us could peer in through the windows. Connor bent down and laced his fingers together, making a stirrup for me. I placed my left foot in his hands and he lifted me up more easily than I’d expected. He had an average sized build, but he was stronger than he looked.
The curtains were drawn, but a small gap enabled me to see inside. It would have been too dark for me to see if my eyes hadn’t recently been given an unholy upgrade. “I see a kid,” I whispered. “He’s dead.” The boy lay on his bed, head turned away from me. He was maybe five years old and wore pajamas with cartoon superheroes on it. Blood had sprayed all over the bed and across the wall when he’d been savaged. No one had come to save him in his hour of need, but we would make sure the bloodsuckers didn’t take any more lives.
“Is the window locked?” Connor asked quietly.
I tried it and it slid upwards with a slight screech. We waited tensely for Ray’
s signal, which came in the form of a piercing whistle a few seconds later. I clambered inside and Connor hauled himself in after me, then drew his gun from his holster. It was a Glock, which was a popular choice for hunters. He spared a glance at the drained boy and his expression turned bleak.
We searched the room, checking the closets and under the bed, but we didn’t find any monsters lurking anywhere. Most vampires would sleep through an apocalypse unless their lives were threatened by sunlight or fire. Masters rested far more shallowly, but they were most vulnerable during the day. Some of them could sense us when we got close enough to stab them, so it always paid to be stealthy.
All throughout the house, hunters spread out to search. Connor was new, but he kept to my side and followed my lead without needing to be told what to do. It was almost like he’d done this a thousand times before. We checked the other bedrooms to find another dead child, but no bloodsuckers. The girl was a couple of years older than her brother. She’d died just as horribly as he had.
After a quick, but thorough search, we met up with the others in the kitchen. I’d glanced into the living room on the way past to see the mother, father and their oldest daughter lying on the floor. They’d been mauled by the entire nest going by the dozens of bite marks on their naked bodies.
Vamps didn’t always just feed from their victims. Some used them to satisfy their dark sexual needs as well. Thankfully, I’d been spared that horror. Unfortunately, the poor girl in the living room hadn’t. At a guess, she was maybe twelve years old. Hatred for the beings who had stolen her life and her innocence burned in my gut. Her mother had also been brutalized. She’d died reaching for her husband. His body lay a few feet away from her and her fingers were a few inches short of his.
“The leeches are gone,” Ray said, disappointment heavy in both his voice and expression.
“Did you check the attic?” Homer asked.
Jolene nodded. “Of course. It was the first place we looked.”
“What about the basement?” one of the other hunters queried.
“I couldn’t find a door to a basement,” Ray replied. “They must have left before dawn. They could be holed up anywhere in the area.”
“They’re still here,” I said, seized by an utter certainty. Everyone turned to look at me. Connor’s expression was strangely intense.
“Where, kiddo?” Ray asked with a hint of condescension. “We’ve looked everywhere.”
My gaze strayed downward where I could feel coldness welling up from beneath the ground. “I think there is a basement and we just haven’t found the entrance yet.”
Connor glanced around and his gaze came to rest on the pantry door. “Some people put the entrance to their basements in strange places,” he said and walked over to the door. He pulled it open and pointed at a trapdoor that was set in the floor. “Bingo.”
“Nice work, newbie,” Jolene said and walked over to clap him on the shoulder. “Now move out of the way so the adults can take a look.”
Connor huffed out a sigh, but he followed her order and moved out of the way.
Chapter Eight
Raymond stepped forward and opened the trapdoor. Jolene stood beside him with a shotgun full of silver buckshot aimed at the ladder that led down into darkness. He switched on a flashlight and the bright beam illuminated the space below. “I can’t see anything yet,” he whispered. “The basement seems to run the length of the house.” Quiet mutters met that statement. Vamps were most at home in places like this. If one of them woke, it would rouse the others and then we would be in for a tough fight.
“What’s the plan, honey?” Jolene asked. She was an accomplished hunter, but he was the leader, so she would defer to him.
“We can’t burn the house after so many people saw us all at the diner,” he said. Our arrival had been noticed and the town was small. The local sheriff would probably assume we’d had something to do with it if the house burned down. Our license plates weren’t registered in our real names, but it was always our goal to remain unnoticed as much as possible. “Stay in pairs,” he ordered. “Go in quietly and machete the hell out of anything that’s down there.”
Connor looked at me questioningly and I nodded at him that he could do the honors. My temporary partner would take point and I would cover him. He pulled a long machete from his backpack, as did a few of the others until one person in each pair held a chopping weapon. My Ruger was loaded with enough silver bullets to slow down even a master vamp.
One by one, we descended into the basement. I clicked on a flashlight and the beam lit up the area as Connor and I split off from the others. We had to walk around concrete pillars as we made our way into the darkness. Cardboard boxes, junk and other items were piled up haphazardly, forcing us to detour around them.
Connor unerringly led us directly towards the area that felt the coldest to me. He slowed down when my flashlight picked out some more boxes and he spotted a pair of boots. We circled around, following the feet up a pair of legs to an unmoving torso. Unnaturally pale, the vampire lay on his back with his hands laced together on his chest. It was a classic horror movie pose if I’d ever seen one. All that was missing was a coffin for him to lie in.
I heard a machete whistling through the air, then the thud of it hitting a body as the first minion was decapitated. Connor cursed quietly when the vamp we were closing in on opened his eyes. “He’s the master,” he muttered, but I’d already figured that out. The master let out an enraged bellow as another of his lackeys was slain. It was enough to rouse the rest of them from their deep slumber.
Turning his disturbingly empty eyes on us, he squinted against the brightness of my flashlight. Forest green, the orbs came to rest on me and he seemed puzzled. “Why have you turned on your own kind?” he asked in a thick foreign accent.
Connor barely spared me a glance before he swung his machete at the master. Moving with shocking speed, the bloodsucker rolled aside and leaped to his feet. I pulled the trigger, keeping my light trained on him. He rocked back when my bullet entered his brain through his forehead. The bullet was expelled and he shook off the wound that was slowly closing. He was clearly old and powerful. The look he gave me promised retribution and I gulped.
I did my best to keep the flashlight on him as Connor bravely swung the machete again. He was no match for the monster’s speed or agility. The master caught hold of his arm, wrenched the machete away and tossed him aside. I heard the weapon and Connor hit the ground, but I was too busy firing my gun at the crazed bloodsucker to worry about my temporary partner.
Although my bullets hit him every time, the master didn’t slow down. His minions were being slaughtered and he seemed to blame me personally for the attack. “You are one of us, yet you have banded together with humans,” he said. I could hear him even over the barrage of gunfire that came from all around us.
My gun clicked empty and I slipped it back into its holster and reached over my shoulder for a stake. A couple of them were poking out of the top of my backpack, waiting to be used. “I’m nothing like you,” I refuted.
“Liar,” he said, blank green eyes boring into mine. “I can feel the vampirism in you, just as you can feel it in me.” His gaze captured me and I felt an insidious need to listen to him. “Join me,” he said cajolingly. “Leave your old human life behind and embrace your darkness.”
He held his hand out and a small part of me was tempted to take it. I gasped when someone came rushing out of the darkness. Connor’s face came into view as he slammed into the vampire’s back. His upper lip was pulled back in a snarl as he rammed a stake through the master’s heart.
Black blood burst from the vampire’s mouth. I backed away as the monster crumpled to his knees. Proving how strong he was, he reached behind him and tried to grasp hold of the stake to pull it out. Connor retrieved his fallen machete and expertly beheaded the creature before he could pull the sharpened piece of wood free.
The moment the master turned to ash, his remaining
two lackeys shrieked in grief and loss. One tore at her face with long, ragged fingernails. The other ran straight at the brick wall and knocked himself out. Ray and his crew quickly dispatched them. As always happened when the undead met true death, their bodies broke down to dust.
Connor took a rag out of his backpack and wiped the gore from his blade. My hands shook as I reloaded my gun. I could feel his stare on me and I hoped he hadn’t heard the strange conversation I’d had with the vampire. Coldness settled inside my chest that I hadn’t just felt the bloodsuckers, but the master had felt me as well. No matter how much I wanted to deny it, I was infected with the same disease that they were. The only difference between us was that I’d managed to keep my soul.
“Was anyone injured?” Raymond called out. We gathered around and reported in that we were all alive and well. Connor had been sent tumbling across the floor, but he apparently hadn’t been hurt.
“I wish all missions could go that easily,” Homer said. He was grinning happily, as were most of the team. “We barely got a scratch this time.”
“How did you know they were still here?” Jolene asked me.
I shrugged as nonchalantly as possible. “It was just a hunch.” We all got them from time to time, so no one found my claim to be peculiar.
“Who killed the master?” Ray asked.
Connor fielded that one. “We did.”
“He was old,” I added. “At least a few hundred years, going by his speech. He had an accent that I didn’t recognize.”
That seemed to bother Ray and Jolene. “We need to speak to the other leaders,” Jolene said. “They need to know about this.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“We could be mistaken, but it seems like vamps are migrating here from all over the world,” Ray said uneasily.
“I heard it isn’t just leeches,” one of the female hunters said. “Other things have been turning up here, too.”
