by Graham Brown
“My name is Benjamin,” the man said. “I’ve administered a drug that counteracted the sedative. I’ve done so because they’re going to release you today.”
“I guess you’re a doctor, then,” Leroy said.
“I’m a neurosurgeon.”
That didn’t sound good. “Is there something wrong with my brain?”
“Possibly,” the doctor said. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t examined you. Dr. Guidrey is your physician.”
Leroy scrunched up his face. “I don’t understand. What are you doing here, then?”
“What do you remember about the other night?” Benjamin asked.
Leroy had lived in Compton long enough not to trust anyone asking questions. “Are you a cop?”
“No, Mr. Atherton. I told you, I’m a doctor.”
“But not my doctor,” Leroy said suspiciously. “In fact, I ain’t never seen you before, not even walking around.”
Dr. Benjamin exhaled. “We’re getting off on the wrong foot here,” he said. “I’m not a policeman. I’m not a detective. I’m not concerned with anything you may or may not have done before you came through our doors. I only want to know what you remember about the other night, when you were brought into the ER.”
Leroy processed this slowly. He wondered if the strangeness of this conversation had something to do with the medications he was on. Then he realized the strangeness was coming from Dr. Benjamin’s side. “I don’t remember much about that night.”
“You got up from the emergency room table,” Dr. Benjamin said. “You tried to run out. You knocked over a gurney with a patient of mine on it—a twelve-year-old boy named Emmanuel Pollard.”
The moment came rushing back. “I’m sorry,” Leroy said. “I was just trying to get away.”
Dr. Benjamin frowned. “You put your hands on him, Mr. Atherton. You touched his face. Four witnesses saw it. The security camera recorded it.”
“I…I wasn’t myself,” Leroy stammered. “I wasn’t thinkin’ straight. I just…” Leroy almost choked on a wave of emotion. He exhaled to let it out. “He reminded me of my son. Someone killed him six months ago.”
Dr. Benjamin looked down. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
It honestly sounded like the doctor was sorry, Leroy thought. But it also sounded like that wasn’t what Dr. Benjamin wanted to talk about.
“I didn’t mean to hurt that boy,” Leroy insisted.
“You didn’t hurt him,” Dr. Benjamin said. “You couldn’t have. He was already dead.”
“Dead?”
The neurosurgeon nodded. “Brain-dead, anyway. He had a tumor. I tried to remove it. When we opened him up, it was much worse than we thought. His heart stopped three times on the table. The third time, it took five minutes to get the rhythm back. We had to close him up with half the tumor still lodged in his brain. It didn’t matter. No brain functions returned.”
“Oh God,” Leroy whispered, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Benjamin said.
For the third or fourth time, Leroy didn’t follow. “Why?”
“Because he’s in the ICU now,” Dr. Benjamin explained. “He has a long road ahead of him, but somehow, he’s alive.”
For the first time, Leroy smiled.
“He’s talking,” Dr. Benjamin added. “His reflexes are normal. His neurological responses are normal. His symptoms are gone. And so is the tumor that we couldn’t get at.”
Leroy felt a wave of happiness like he’d never felt in his life, except maybe the day his son was born. It seemed like he was dreaming, but it was real. “That’s great” was about all he could say.
“It is,” Benjamin said. “Though, it’s not really possible.”
Leroy tipped the Styrofoam cup up high, trying to get a last drop of water that was clinging to the bottom. “What do you mean it’s not possible? If it happened, doesn’t that make it possible?”
Dr. Benjamin smiled. He stood and took the cup from Leroy, refilling it and handing it back. As Leroy drank down the cool water, the neurosurgeon explained his position.
“I’ve been a doctor for thirty years, Mr. Atherton. I’ve seen a lot of hopeless, inoperable cases. I’ve seen people try anything and everything, from faith healing and herbal concoctions, to experimental drugs, and self-administered electroshock therapy. None if it works. They all want to believe it will, but it doesn’t. When a patient is in his shape, there’s nothing left to do. Tumors do not just disappear overnight. And brain-dead patients do not wake up and start talking.”
Leroy blinked. “But he did, right? And you’re sure he’s okay, right?”
Benjamin nodded. “We’ve double- and triple-checked his brain with CT scans. The tumor is gone.”
“So why are you looking at me like that?”
The doctor said nothing. He slipped his hands in his pockets and just stared. Finally, Leroy got it. Or at least he thought he did.
“You think I did something to him?”
Dr. Benjamin hesitated. “No,” he said finally. “But part of me wants to believe you did. Part of me would like to think something of a miracle happened here last night.”
Leroy didn’t know what to say. He smiled. Dr. Benjamin smiled back, yellow teeth under a white mustache.
“Good luck, Mr. Atherton,” Dr. Benjamin said, nodding a polite goodbye. “I’ll tell the nurse you’re ready to be discharged.”
Leroy watched as the doctor made his way to the door. A question formed in his mind. “Where do I go?”
Dr. Benjamin turned.
“After I’m released?” Leroy added.
Now, it was the doctor who seemed confused by the simple question. He offered a simple answer. “Anywhere you want to, Mr. Atherton. Most people go home.”
Leroy looked away. Where does one go when they have no home?
CHAPTER 25
Boston, Massachusetts
DRAKE STARED at the front door of the FBI building in downtown Boston from the backseat of a limo with dark tinted windows. A driver and one of Drake’s drones sat up front.
The FBI’s little intrusion was not his main concern. They could be a problem, but they could be dealt with. Vivian’s deception was another story. It left him angry to a point of fury.
How could she have been so foolish? How, after all these years, had she gone wrong?
Drake had made many mistakes in his time, but Vivian was rapidly becoming one of his biggest. He would have killed her for it, but it would have raised too many flags. Besides, he needed her for the next step in the plan.
The doors to the building opened. One of Drake’s lawyers led Vivian out of the building and down the steps. He brought her to the limo.
“Let her in,” Drake said.
The driver got out of the limo, rounded the car, and opened the door for Vivian. The lawyer gave Drake a quick nod.
“She told them nothing,” he said.
“Good.”
The attorney moved off, but Vivian hesitated at the door, gripped with fear.
Drake sensed that she wanted to run, but he took control of her mind and forced her to climb into the vehicle. A moment later, they were heading toward I-95.
“Where?” Drake demanded.
“Where what?”
Drake turned to her. “Your brood of vipers—where do I find them?”
To Drake’s utter surprise, she tried to close her mind to him. It only stirred the fires of his contempt. He began to force the information from her. Her face contorted as she tried to fight him.
“No!” she said.
Drake slapped her to the floor, picked her up, and then backhanded her across the face. His ring left a cut and an imprint on her cheek, a mark that would now scar her for life.
Vivian kept her mind shut, and Drake forced her against the door. He held her face in his hands and implored her to look at him.
“I gave you everything. I made you a queen, and this is how you repay me?”
“I can’t…live…like this,” she managed.
“You were forbidden to make others. You were forbidden to taste blood. You swore an oath.”
Drake focused all his thoughts on her. “Where is your clan? Tell me!”
Her walls came down. And Drake saw it all: years of deception, a growing army of her own—even love, if it were possible. Of all things he would not allow, that feeling he despised the most.
His rage flared. He grabbed a chain that lay at his side and, with a short snap, lashed her with it. She turned to protect her face as Drake swung the chain again and it bit into her skin. Over and over again, he struck her, like he was lashing a slave or a mutineer on a ship.
Drake was an artist at bringing one to the doorstep of death and then backing off. After a dozen lashes, he stopped. He knew where the line was.
He looked toward the driver’s compartment.
“Take us to Carlisle,” he ordered.
The driver nodded.
Vivian was smart. She’d hidden the clan a long way out, in a rich community upstate, in a mansion with land and woods surrounding it. No one in that community would have a clue what lived down the road. They did their killing there, but their hunting and dumping in the city.
Thirty minutes into the drive, they pulled onto a newly blacktopped road cutting through a heavily wooded forest. The trees towered high. Even during the daytime, the sunlight rarely made an appearance here. Drake was impressed.
Vivian was broken, slumped on the floor, her clothes soaked with the strange rust-like blood of the Nosferatu. Drake pulled the entry code from her mind with ease. The limo passed through the steel gate, between twelve-foot walls of stone, and onto the driveway. The mansion at the far end loomed like a castle. It looked like it was closed up, as if the owners were away until summer.
Vivian’s deception had been well done. Even Drake had never sensed it. The many times he’d searched her mind, she hadn’t tried to block him or fight it, but somehow, she’d kept this place and her creations to herself. Because she’d given no resistance, he’d never even suspected.
It seemed odd how she could be so carful and carless at the same time. But Drake knew the answer. At first, the occasional victim was enough, but slowly, the addiction grew. Despite her caution, despite her intelligence, she became a slave to the fix, and soon, no amount of reason could keep her from the pursuit of her obsession.
Drake wrapped the chain around her neck and handed her off to his driver. “Bring her in. I want her to watch.”
The drone nodded and pulled her out of the car.
As they entered the house, Drake pulled his sword. “Call them,” he demanded.
Vivian—almost in a coma—did as ordered. But even then, Drake sensed she’d passed along a warning.
“Do you really think that will make a difference?”
He read her mind. Whatever respect she had once held toward him had been replaced by malice and hatred. It didn’t matter. He would do what he had to do and then keep her under lock and key until she was needed again.
If her brood had run, it would have made things difficult, but the attachment they felt to their leader kept them close, foolishly so. Drake stepped forward into the vast living room. A door flew open.
A wiry-looking creature about Drake’s height raced out and swung a blade at him. Drake parried, deflecting it. Another formerly human beast followed, coming up from the basement. He appeared much stronger. Perhaps he was Vivian’s lover. Perhaps they had all been her lovers when life ran through their veins.
The two creatures charged Drake together. Drake kicked the smaller one away and spun. With one great swing of his sword, he cut the larger one in half. The body parts flew toward the wall, bursting into flames in the corner and setting the drapes on fire.
The next wave of attackers followed quickly as a third and fourth denizen of the lair charged and surrounded him. To a human, the fight would have seemed like a blur, but to Drake, these animals moved in slow motion. Child’s play.
He clashed swords with the first, removing its arm, which hit the ground still grasping the weapon. Without hesitation, he ran his sword through the creature’s heart.
Before Drake could pull his sword free, another charged him.
Drake stepped back and disarmed the creature, using a Far Eastern style of martial arts known as Shaolin, taught to him by the original master.
With the attacking creature’s own sword in his hand, Drake impaled the thing multiple times. It was overkill, but it brought a sick feeling of satisfaction. The last strike went through the creature and into a wooden beam behind it. The creature burst into flames, pegged to the wall by the point of its own sword.
Drake scanned the room. The final member of Vivian’s brood remained. It was weak and filled with fear, cowering in the corner of the room. He could feel anger building inside Vivian. She had empathy for this one. She thought of this one as the child of the clan.
“Spare his life,” she said. “Make him your slave, but don’t destroy him.”
Drake turned to her. He’d seen this devotion in clans before. A desperate attempt to feel normal. It never lasted. He was surprised Vivian had given in to its temptation. Then again, she was young. Less than forty years in her shell. She would have seen her own folly had she been on earth as long as him.
By now, the mansion was ablaze, the fires raging all around them. They would have to leave soon.
“I will not kill it,” he said.
She looked relieved.
“The drone will.”
“No!” Vivian shouted.
Drake’s driver let go of Vivian’s chain and marched toward the cornered animal. Vivian let out an inhuman scream.
The drone dispatched the childlike creature to the next world, but as it did so, an enormous sword emerged from the smoke and flames. It pierced the drone’s chest and lifted him upward. He too burst into flames as a monster of a being emerged from the smoke.
It stepped through the flames. At six foot seven and three hundred and forty pounds, it was a beast made of pure muscle, a goliath. In its human state, this huge menace would have been considered a freak show. Changed into a Nosferatu, it became a very dangerous creature.
The animal let out a battle cry, flinging the burning shape of the driver aside like a rag doll.
In its presence, Vivian found the courage to speak. “I’ll see you in hell, Drakos.”
With that, Drake heard her order the animal to kill him.
The giant advanced, but Drake did not move or raise his sword; he lowered it down until the tip hit the floor. The creature’s advance began to slow. Finally, it stopped.
By now, flames had spread throughout the room, paint was boiling off the walls in places, and the smoke was so thick it was nearly impossible to see.
Drake concentrated on the giant. The huge sword dropped from its hand. Slowly, it began to kneel in front of its new master.
Vivian was in shock. “I command you!” she shouted. “I made you to kill him!”
The hulking figure strained as if trying to move, but neither its will nor Vivian’s, or even both of them combined, were enough to break Drake’s hold on her champion.
And then, with one swift cut, Drake took off its head.
As the latest eruption of flames billowed, Vivian collapsed to the floor. Drake turned and picked her up. He’d dealt with the problem, and no evidence would remain. More important, perhaps, Vivian would carry the scars of this lesson. She would never challenge him again.
With that in mind and his belief that the time of the angel was near, Drake carried her through the building. He stepped out the front doors, with the fire silhouetting his shape as if he had just emerged from the gates of hell itself.
CHAPTER 26
CHRISTIAN PADDLED back through the swamp in the deep hours of the night. Nocturnal birds seemed to flee their perches as he passed, cawing in the dark, warning others to stay away. Here and there, he saw glowing eyes reflecting
the moonlight. Alligators watching him pass.
Some watched as if in a trance; others waited and then thrashed through the water to flee. One trailed along behind him, as if in formation. But even this one kept its distance.
The animals of this world were skittish in the presence of the Fallen. They recognized the Nosferatu as something different, something more—or perhaps less—than the living.
Christian turned to look at his escort. The alligator reduced its pace, drifting back, and then, with a powerful swipe of its tail, it turned and shot off into the dark water, heading back into the heart of the great swamp. He wondered if it was something Elsa had sent along to watch over his exit from the swamp.
Turning his eyes forward, Christian saw a lantern on the old Cajun’s dock. Drawn to the yellow light, moths and other insects flickered. The old Cajun stood ten feet away, out of the swirling madness.
Christian bumped the dock and climbed out of the canoe. As he stepped onto the planks, the insects vanished into the night.
“You didn’t have to wait up,” Christian said.
“Couldn’t sleep,” the old man said. “Saw you in da dream world. Had to see you back here myself.”
The Cajun looked past him out into the swamp and then toward the lantern where the swarming bugs had been a minute before. Christian could see that the old man had an idea something was wrong.
“You not from dis place, are you?” he said.
Christian thought of where this might go. “I was once.”
The Cajun stepped back. “Please don’t be hurtin’ me, dark man. I done helped you. I let you go see da witch. I won’t tell anyone. I won’t talk about tonight.”
“You have nothing to fear from me,” Christian said. “Or from her. She’s not a witch. She’s just an old woman with a gift.”
“What kind of gift?” he asked.
Christian thought long and hard. Elsa had many gifts, but one above all else. “Kindness,” he said. “And love.”
The old Cajun picked up the lantern, accidentally putting it out. In the pitch-dark of the moonless night, it became impossible to see. But then light began to spread across the dock, light from above. Soon there was a glow across the water, lighting up the whole swamp and the broad trunks of the trees, filling the canopy with light.
