He’d like to look up Jamie, say hello, maybe get a few clues about how to live as a vampire. She owed him that much, dammit.
#
Greg left his best friend’s house, though it was close to dawn. He knew of a garage nearby he could hide in if he had to. Stuart was right. It was getting hard to find victims. Even the homeless population was wary of strangers these days, almost as if they’d all been told what was stalking them.
He could still break into houses and get what he needed, but the night before last, while doing that very thing, he’d been met by a shotgun blast. It had mostly missed him, though a few pellets had hit him in the arm. That had been painful, and it had taken all day for the little balls to fall out.
Fuck that. The humans couldn’t touch him––and even when they did touch him, he got over it. It had occurred to him last night that if he was going to kill people, there were some beautiful girls he could do stuff to before he killed.
Greg didn’t feel a twinge of guilt at the thought. He didn’t want to hang around Pete, who was wild and uncouth, or Jimmy, who was always being careful. Even Stuart, who’d always been up for anything, was acting like a grumpy shithead.
Who needed them?
He saw sunlight glimmering on the horizon and realized he’d better hurry to the vacant garage.
A car came up behind him and screeched to a halt. He turned around to see two men get out, both of them holding guns.
Shit, that was going to hurt. Still, he almost welcomed the action. He was ready to kill again. The men looked at each other and then, moving almost in sync, holstered their pistols and pulled––of all things––crosses and spray bottles out of their coats.
Whatever, Greg thought. He walked purposefully toward them, in no hurry, wanting to relish the look of horror on their faces when his claws and fangs extended.
But the two men’s expressions didn’t change. They raised their crosses, and suddenly Greg felt paralyzed; he couldn’t manage to take another step forward. One of the men approached, and Greg heard him chanting: “Behold the Cross of the Lord; flee, bands of enemies. We drive you from us, whoever you may be, unclean spirits, all Satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions…”
Greg stopped listening and started trying to retreat, but his legs would barely move. The second man approached from the other side and sprayed Greg with liquid from the bottle he was holding.
It burned like fire, and Greg felt his skin shriveling. He heard a strange snarling sound, like a rabid dog, and realized to his dismay that it was his own voice.
To hell with this! He turned to run, but the sun came over the horizon and washed over him, and it was all too much: burning water and crosses and now the sun.
He stood on the sidewalk and went up in flames, and his last thought was regret that he hadn’t thought of using his powers to get at the pretty girls before it was too late.
#
Jeffers turned to Callendar. “Do we clean up after ourselves?”
They looked down at the charred meat on the concrete. It was turning darker with every moment as the sun continued to rise.
“Nah. The dogs and cats will take care of him. Let’s go.”
They got back in the car, but before Jeffers started it up, he turned abruptly to Callendar. “Something’s wrong here. I doubt they’re having a vampire convention in town, and all these vampires appear to be very unwary––untutored, almost. Like baby vampires. But how is it possible for there to be so many?”
“Remember that case study they taught us at the Academy? About the infestation in Eastern Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century? How a virulent strain popped up where everyone who was bitten Turned?”
“Yeah, but that was never confirmed,” Jeffers objected. “It was probably just a case of mass hysteria.”
“I’m starting to think it actually happened,” Callendar said. “Not only that, but this may be the same strain. Remember the legends of the vampire Michael? Supposedly the oldest vampire alive? Well, his progeny have always seemed the most fertile––and if he hadn’t disappeared, who knows what would have happened?”
“So you’re saying the legendary Michael is behind this?” Jeffers laughed. “Good luck including that in your report! Next thing you know, you’ll be blaming Terrill.”
Callendar fell silent. Most vampire hunters thought Terrill––a vampire who didn’t kill humans––was a myth. But so far, just about every legend Callendar had ever investigated had had its origins in truth.
“I’m calling for backup,” he said finally. There might prove to be an explanation for what they were seeing, and then they’d look like alarmists. But if what he thought was happening was really happening, they’d be remiss not to get help.
“What do we do about Robert?” Jeffers asked.
“Robert?” Callendar echoed. “Nothing happened with Robert. Unless you want to write a report that proves we’re idiots and incompetents and violated every nondisclosure rule that exists.”
Jeffers shook his head. “I don’t suppose it matters. He’s dying anyway. Do you think he’ll stay quiet?”
“I’ll ask him to. I’m pretty sure he’ll agree.”
“I sure hated to let that vampire get away,” Jeffers said regretfully. “No matter what, next time I see her, I’m taking her down. I’ll bet you anything she’s the Maker of all these vampires.”
“Right. Well, the daylight’s a-wasting. Let’s get to looking.”
#
Stuart heard a commotion just as he was getting ready to bed down for the day. He opened the curtain a couple of inches and stepped back a few feet, out of the sunlight.
He watched Greg go up in flames. The two men in black put the crucifixes into holsters on their belts, the spray bottles back into their coat pockets. That’s the FBI or someone like it, Stuart thought. It made sense: if there were vampires, there would be vampire slayers.
He saw the two agents coming up his front walk and backed into the shadows. They pounded on the door. After a while, they went away, and then he heard them talking to the neighbors: the Hansons, who were a bunch of snoops.
“No, we haven’t seen Jim and Mary for a couple days now,” he heard Mrs. Hanson say. “I’ve seen Stuart come and go a few times, though.”
The FBI guys didn’t respond, and for a minute Stuart was afraid they’d come back and bust in his door. But they moved on to the next house.
Stuart didn’t sleep that day, and as soon as it was dark enough, he headed out the back door and into the woods behind the house.
Those two agents would pay for what they had done to Greg.
Chapter 21
The stray dog Jamie had caught the previous day had been on its last legs. Since then, no other animal had been as slow or unwary; the wild animals could smell her coming, and the domesticated animals were being kept inside.
She found the carcass of a dead rock chuck and, gagging at the putrid odor, consumed the rancid animal. The decaying meat closed her wounds, but she was far from whole. Where the red rash of the burns wasn’t showing, her skin had an unhealthy pallor. Her hair wasn’t growing back. Apparently, the limited amount of flesh she had consumed was being diverted to the major wounds while the rest of the damage remained unrepaired.
There was one animal she could count on to be easy prey. It was slow and stupid, unwary and numerous, and always available.
Until now.
Much as she tried, Jamie couldn’t find any lone humans. Even the homeless were seeking strength in numbers, congregating in camps.
She needed blood. She was becoming weaker with every passing minute.
What would she have done if she had found a vulnerable human? She wasn’t sure. Until now, she’d tried to consume only those who deserved it, but as her hunger grew, she might consume anything or anyone.
Jamie was hiding out in her cave when she heard a cat caterwauling.
She emerged into the gloomy afternoon light. It hurt but was en
durable. The sound was coming from the woods, about a quarter of a mile away.
The yowling grew more intense as she approached, and she stumbled into a clearing, where she saw a boy of about fourteen or fifteen swinging a cat around by its hind legs. The cat was trying desperately to fight the centrifugal force, to claw and bite the kid. Finally, one of its claws caught the boy’s arm and he shrieked.
“Fuck you!” he shouted, and with the full force of his swing, he smacked the cat into the trunk of a tree. The animal gave a short, high screech and fell to the ground, unmoving.
Jamie didn’t stop to think. All the pain, anger, and hunger of the last day gave her speed and strength she didn’t know she had until she used it. The boy didn’t even realize she was there before she was on him. They fell to the ground with Jamie on top, her fangs already ripping out his throat.
“What’s this?” she heard a voice say.
She got up, though she wanted keep on draining and eating the little monster. Two adolescent-looking vampires entered the clearing, and she recognized them as Stuart’s friends, Jimmy and Pete.
As they approached, she backed away. “He’s mine,” she growled.
The bigger boy, Pete, laughed. “Oh? Thing is, lady, we’re hungry. Everyone in this town is hiding, and they’ve got their shotguns out, and damn, here’s a meal just waiting to be consumed. So we’re just gonna have to take him from you. Sorry.”
Jamie eyed them and knew that even with her superior experience, she couldn’t defeat them both.
“Tell you what, lady,” Pete said, “since you seem to be one of us, we’ll let you live. As a courtesy.”
“I can help you,” she said. “I’m older than you. I can teach you things.”
Pete stared at her, then started laughing again. “Riiight. Looks like you’re doing such a good job for yourself.”
Jimmy sidled up to him and whispered in his ear. Pete’s eyes grew wide. “You’re right, that’s her! What the hell happened to you, girl? You look like shit!”
“Can I just have a bite?” she pleaded, eyes fixed on her kill.
“Nope. All ours.” He went over to the cat and kicked it toward her. “You can have that, though.”
Jamie took the carcass of the unfortunate animal and retreated back into the cave. The cat was more skin and bones than meat, and barely paid for the energy she had just expended.
She ventured into town as night fell, sticking to the alleys and vacant lots. Even so, she had to pass some bars, and the disgusted looks the men and women gave her before they turned away made her look into windows to try to catch a glimpse of herself.
She grimaced and snorted. As if there would be a reflection. Once she’d become vampire, she’d had to use human reactions as her mirrors, and most often, she had seen appreciation or desire. Now she had to try to imagine how she looked: barefoot, with a tangled mass of unevenly shorn hair, wearing a dirty bathrobe with nothing but a nightie underneath, her skin covered with red and white blotches.
So much for the idea of making her way in the world with her feminine looks and wiles.
Instead, Jamie made her way to the thrift store that Billy had shown her. The first thing she needed to do was get shoes and a coat, maybe a hat. For once, she was feeling the cold and damp of the coast.
The clerk was the same guy who had been so kind to her and given her clothes before. He glanced at her and quickly looked away, concealing his revulsion.
“I have no money,” she said. “If you’ll give me some shoes and a coat, I’ll pay you later.”
The clerk gave her a stilted smile. “Ma’am, take anything you need, and don’t worry about paying. That’s why we’re here. In fact, let me help you…”
He came out from behind the counter and walked over to a table that was heaped with coats. He plucked one out as if he knew exactly what he was looking for and draped it over her shoulders.
Jamie started crying.
“Ma’am, do you need help?” the clerk asked gently. “Do you need to see a doctor?”
“No,” Jamie said, hiding her face in the clean-smelling cloth of the coat. “But thank you anyway.”
“I’m not supposed to do this, but we have an outbuilding with running water that I can let you use,” he said. “You can wash up a little, if you want. The water is cold, but it’s clean.”
She let him lead her out the back and over to the outbuilding. It was bare concrete, with a showerhead at one end and a toilet at the other. She locked the door, turned on the water, and stepped underneath it. It was freezing. She shivered and thought about getting out, but as she saw the darkness of the water sluicing off her skin, she realized how dirty she was.
Jamie took a long, cold shower. She left her bathrobe and nightie in the corner and put on the coat.
There was a stack of clothes on the picnic table between the main building and the outbuilding. She started to get dressed, finding the right size shoes among several the clerk had laid out, along with a wool cap to cover her hair. She felt almost human––with all the aches and pains that implied––as she walked through the thrift shop’s back door.
The clerk lit up upon seeing her. “There you are!” he exclaimed. “Are you hungry?”
She was hungry enough to eat him, but she didn’t tell him that. He was holding out a plate of vegetables and fruits. She couldn’t tell him that he might as well be offering her a plate of wood or rocks.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Aren’t you the same girl who came in with Billy the other day?” Jamie nodded. He seemed to be struggling to find something to say other than “What the hell happened to you?”
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Marc,” he said. “With a C.”
“Marc-with-a-C, you are a saint.”
He blushed and tried to wave off the compliment. “No, no. I’ve been there, is all. Been all the way down…”
“You’re still a saint,” she said. Not only that, she thought. You probably saved someone’s life tonight.
She’d been hungry enough to eat a human, any human, even an innocent––maybe even him––but now her resolve had returned. She would follow Terrill’s example, not Horsham’s. She wasn’t as strong as Terrill––she couldn’t ignore the hunger completely––but she wouldn’t kill innocents.
Marc grabbed a couple of big black garbage bags and filled them with more clothing, some blankets, a pillow, and a few other sundry items that he said would make her life easier. Jamie didn’t refuse. She thanked him again and left, though she sensed his blood mere inches away.
She was as hungry and weak as ever, but her determination had returned. She’d find a way to get through this. Within a block of the thrift store, she’d grown tired from carrying all the stuff Marc had given her. There was a shopping cart in a vacant lot next to the street, and she put the two garbage bags in it and wheeled the clunky cart onto the sidewalk.
Always knew I’d end up as a bag lady, Jamie thought.
With sudden clarity, she realized she needed to return to the hideaway and rest. As soon as she could, she’d venture out and try to find some flesh. Whether she had to break into a butcher shop or kill an animal, something would come along.
As soon as she entered the enclosure, she could tell that others had been there. And they had left a mess, as if they had been searching for something. She felt guilty even though it wasn’t her fault and tried to straighten up the place.
As the day wore on, Jamie’s weakness increased, but so did her resolve.
As soon as it grew dark, she scooted out of the hideaway and started walking toward the downtown area, where––except for a few bars and restaurants––most businesses were closed. As she walked by the bars, she tried to gauge people’s reactions to her. They were mixed; no one looked away in disgust, but no one whistled at her, either.
She forced open the door of a small bookstore and stole the fifty dollars in the register. Then she made her way to the nearby Burger King, where she we
nt to the back door, knocked, and asked the girl who opened it for some raw hamburger patties.
The pimply-faced teen stared at her as if she didn’t understand.
“Give me three raw patties and I’ll give you fifty bucks,” Jamie repeated.
The girl closed the door. Jamie was afraid she was calling the police, or at least the manager. She got ready to run toward the tangle of bushes that grew alongside that stretch of highway.
The door opened a crack and the girl put out her hand, palm up. Jamie placed the fifty dollars there. The door slammed again, then opened a minute later. A paper bag was extended.
Jamie took the bag and walked away. The beach was only a few hundred yards away, and she managed to hold back her ravenous hunger until she was sheltered out of sight behind some rocks.
There were five patties, quarter pounders at that. Blessing the pimply-faced girl, Jamie took a tentative bite out of one, then consumed the rest of the patty in one gulp. She devoured all five before her taste buds could even get a message to her brain about what she was eating. They were the best things she’d ever eaten––not counting the time she’d consumed Richard, her old abusive boyfriend, in Bend.
She could almost feel the burns disappearing from her skin. She lay back in the sand and let the healing begin.
Chapter 22
The wet, drizzly weather in London made Terrill and Sylvie feel right at home. Instead of the prison cells they’d half expected, they were put up in a luxurious suite in a hotel at the center of the city.
“We are invested all throughout England,” Fitzsimmons said. The portly vampire was their genial host, though it seemed he couldn’t help but pepper his conversations with little reminders about how he was in control. “We Old World vampires were a little slow to make the transition to the New World, but we have our hooks pretty deep in the EU.”
This was all for Sylvie’s benefit. Terrill was a far older vampire than Fitzsimmons. Strangely, Terrill couldn’t remember the other vampire at all, which was unusual, because he knew most of the vampires who had influence. Time was the best accumulator of money and power, but their host was one of those rare young vampires who had amassed both.
The Vampire Evolution Trilogy (Book 2): Rule of Vampire Page 10
