by David Page
Nash laughed. “We are way past the time for favors, Richard. Questor’s board of directors agrees with me. Ironically, it was your involvement with the Department that gave me the ammunition I needed to sway them.”
His dread blossomed into full-blown terror, churning his stomach into a burning pit. He glanced at the door again, desperate for help. Nash looked over his shoulder at the door and back at Richard.
“If you are waiting for your friend Beth to come charging to the rescue, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.”
“What have you done to her?” Richard’s hope sputtered and died.
“Let’s just say, she’s no longer available to assist you during your stay here.” Nash’s eyes narrowed. “You are ours.”
“Do you really plan on killing me in cold blood?” He motioned towards the mercenaries who had stopped several feet away, unable to ignore them any further.
Nash leaned down, opened his bag, and removed a syringe. He held it up between them. “You died a thousand years ago, Richard. You just won’t admit it to yourself.” He turned the syringe over in his hand.
A rising tide of anger burned through him, filling him with rage. “I am a human being, Doctor Nash. You said it yourself when we first met.” He stepped back, moving around the operating table to keep it between himself and the men.
“You know that’s not true.” Nash chopped in the air with his free hand emphasis. “You may have been a human being once, but you aren’t now.” He placed the needle on the surgical cart.
Richard grabbed the edge of the stainless-steel table, shocked anyone could still believe that vampires were the undead. He was a diseased human being, nothing more. “Does it make the prospect of murder easier for you to think of me that way? Do not fool yourself, Doctor; if you kill me, it will be a homicide!” Richard’s mind raced for a way out. He plunged within himself and used his will to beat against the solid surface of the viral shield. Beneath that barrier, his powers raged, trying desperately to escape. Hatred tore through him, impotently begging for vengeance.
“Murder?” Nash paused to ponder his statement. After a moment, he nodded grimly. “It’s not murder to put down a suffering animal. This is a mercy killing, one that will be able to benefit millions of people around the world at the same time.”
“You rationalize it anyway you wish, but it amounts to the same thing.” Richard backed away from the surgical table. “I will not submit to this!”
Nash shook his head sadly. “You always have to do things the hard way, don’t you? Idiot. I didn’t create this situation and neither did Questor.” He slowly rolled up his sleeves. “Your Department brought us here and now we have to do what we have to do.”
“Who is the vampire now, Nash!” Richard spat. He looked at the door beyond the guards and knew he would never reach it.
Nash leaned back down and dug into his bag. He pulled out five quart-sized, empty blood bags and three canvas rolled up straps. “We’re going to need to secure him to the table. If he resists, hurt him, but don’t kill him.” The doctor’s face had gone extremely pale and his hands shook slightly. Richard’s arguments had gotten to the man, but had not swayed him from his course.
The mercenaries grunted and then advanced.
Richard swallowed. There was only one course of action left open to him. He bit down hard, breaking the tooth and activating the signaling device contained within and then leapt onto the surgical table, landing on the other side between two of the men, making it impossible for them to shoot without hitting each other. He ran towards the middle man. This mercenary was ready for him, however. He took aim and squeezed the trigger of his weapon as Richard sprang toward him.
Screaming fire shot through Richard’s legs as two silver bullets tore through his left thigh and one through his right calf. He collapsed in a heap, in front of the middle man, knowing that unlike other bullet wounds, these would be fatal. Despite that, he clawed at the ground with his hands and managed to get halfway up before the man who had shot him pistol whipped him across the face. Richard’s skull erupted in flame and then everything went dark.
***
Richard awoke to find himself prone on the table, his body fastened there by the three tight bands. His skull throbbed where the man had hit him. A sharp pain in his right forearm indicated a new injury. Blood oozed out of a fresh gash there where his tracking device should have been. They had clearly removed it whilst he was unconscious. Nash stood a few feet away next to the surgical cart where the five empty plasma bags lay ready to accept his life’s blood. Behind him, the mercenaries had arrayed themselves to either side. They held their weapons ready, as if Richard could attack from his current predicament. He took some small solace from the fact that even now, they feared him.
“Ah, you’re awake. Good.” Nash stepped closer, a needle in hand. The needle connected via a rubber tube to the first bag. “Congratulations, your second homing device is gone. As of now, you are untraceable.”
“Fantastic.” Richard sneered.
Nash shrugged. “A little too late, I suppose. Still, you can rest easy in the knowledge that you are free of the Department, even if it is only for ten minutes.”
“I am sure that is an easy sentiment from where you are standing, Nash.” Richard tried to spit, but his mouth was suddenly dry. Damn the man’s mockery. If only he could survive the coming night, he would see to it that the good doctor paid for his actions.
“I’m sorry you have such a tragic attitude about this, Richard.” Nash dropped the pretense of a smile and watched him in silence. After a moment, he reached up to wipe the sweat from his bald pate. “Would you like anesthesia?” He took a step forward.
Richard bared his fangs and squirmed like a fish on a hook, knowing that in a few moments the doctor was going to kill him. He pulled his hands against his bonds to no avail.
“Nash, you had better pray to whatever god you worship that I do not somehow get out of this, for if I do, I fully intend to kill you with or without my powers.” He fixed him with a look of such intensity that Nash paused.
“Gentlemen, a little help please.” Nash backed up another pace, his eyes widening with fear.
Good. You should fear me, Richard thought.
“I’ve got him.” The biggest of the men grunted, holstered his pistol, and stepped forward. Pressing his hands-on Richard’s shoulders, he pushed down. Given how tightly they had fastened him to the table, it was completely unnecessary. Richard took solace in the fact that he could still frighten them even in his current state.
Tears pooled in his eyes as he realized, without doubt, that the conclusion of his one thousand years of life was at hand. He had failed to solve the mystery of his rise from the grave just as he had failed to learn what had become of his millennia old love. He wondered again if there was a God and if that being, ball of energy, or whatever the hell it was, would stand in judgment of him. Would those friends, family and lovers he had lost be there waiting to greet him? Or would he find those whom he had killed, either in battle or in bloodlust, waiting to cast him down into the flames?
Nash circled the table, his brow furrowed and his eyes grew glassy. “I’m sorry, Richard.” He leaned in and slipped the needle into the vein in Richard’s left forearm.
In a last-ditch effort, Richard reached for his powers again but only managed to bash uselessly against the viral wall. He shook as adrenaline pumped through him. He could survive with far less blood than a mortal man, but he doubted he could last long enough for Frederick and his men to arrive.
His mind flashed to the memory of Colette’s fangs cutting gently into him, but this was different. She had done so lovingly, delicately so as not to harm him, Nash was trying to kill him. His blood hammered in his ears with each beat of his heart. The thick red liquid slowly drained from him as the first bag filled swiftly. Seconds later, Nash sealed it, moved the valve onto the next and opened it. A third and a fourth followed and as his strength ebbed away, he knew that the
re was no cavalry coming to his rescue.
A booming sound echoed in the distance and an alert klaxon sounded.
“This is Jack” A radio on one of the men crackled. “We’ve got a breech. I need you guys now!”
Richard blinked as the man released him. He lacked the strength to struggle now and they knew it. The mercenaries gripped their weapons and the biggest of them turned to Nash.
“Go. I’ll be done in a few minutes.” The doctor waved them away. “I’ll catch up.”
The men nodded and ran out of the room leaving the door open behind them.
A few minutes later, or perhaps seconds, Nash looked down at him and patted his shoulder. “It won’t be long now, Richard.”
“Longer than you think.”
Richard did a double take as Ray appeared behind the doctor and hit him with a right hook.
Nash’s eyes rolled up and he crumpled to the ground, revealing Beth and Ray behind him. Beth gasped and ran forward, grabbed the needle and yanked it from Richard’s arm. The pain had faded now, replaced by a comfortable fuzziness and lack of feeling. Through it, everything seemed suddenly peaceful. Absently, he watched Ray work the straps.
“Hang on, Richard!” Beth squeezed Richard’s hand.
“Ray?” he croaked, unsure if he was hallucinating. It did not make any sense that his friend could be there.
“We’ve got you.” Beth slipped one arm under his head. “You’re going to be fine.” Warmth flowed out of her and into his body as she held him there, cradling him as if he were a child. As she leaned over him, her cross dangled out of her shirt, glittering in the light.
Before Richard could warn them about the impending arrival of the Department, blackness swept over him.
***
“You will recover, Richard.” Colette lay next to him on the mossy ground, her beautiful naked body pressed against him. She rested one hand on his chest and propped herself with the other so she could stare into his eyes. Their tattered clothing lay scattered around them, barely visible in the darkness of the early morning.
“Fine?” He craned his neck to look at her. “I’ve just coupled with a demon.” And he had never felt remotely as good as he did at that moment. It was almost as if he floated above his body on a cushion of air.
She flinched as if struck and Richard instantly felt shame. He brushed the hair out of her face and caressed her cheek with the back of one hand. “I’m sorry. I did not mean that, but so much has happened in such a short span of days I know not what to think. I do know this, however… I am in love with you, whatever you are. If I am damned for this love, then so be it.” It felt good to admit it.
“And I love you, Richard.” Her eyes brightened, catching what little starlight shone through the canopy of trees overhead.
“What do we do now?” Richard was sure of one thing, their love had to be kept secret.
She looked up at the sky and frowned. She sat up, oblivious to her nakedness. “The dawn approaches. The sunlight kills my kind. I must leave.” She gathered up what was left of her dress and put it on. It barely covered her.
“Sunlight?” His gazed at her body admiringly as he pulled himself from the ground.
“Yes, the rays of the sun are deadly to me, as is garlic, holy water, or a wooden stake through the heart.”
“Just as the myths tell us.” Richard found his breeches and tunic and quickly dressed. “Silver too, I suppose?”
She waited until he was clothed and then took his hands in hers. “Yes. It is the price I pay for my strength, speed, and long life.”
“That and having to drink the blood of mortals.” Richard added, bitterly. She, his love, was a killer.
“The wolf hunts for survival, not for political gain. Your friends wanted to kill you simply because of a difference of opinion.” She held his gaze with stern eyes. “And you, Richard, have killed for reasons of politics and survival. I do not need to kill to survive. I can take a small amount of blood from many, rather than draining the life’s blood from a single person.”
“And what of Terrence and the others?”
Colette looked down. “The thought of losing you, the thought of those men killing you caused me to lose some of my control. I could not allow any harm to come to you, Richard. I love you.”
Richard wondered what would happen if she ever lost control with him, however he could not refute her statement. He would kill to protect her. A wolf howled in the distance. He glanced at Colette as if she had somehow caused it to happen. Her hair somehow appeared combed as if her inhuman nature helped her appear perfect at all times. And she was perfect. She smiled at him revealing her straight teeth. Her blood red lips called to him, demanding to be kissed.
“Richard.” She waved in front of his eyes. “Forgive me, I sometimes forget about the glamour my state has on men.”
He blinked, fighting against the pull of her. “What then are we to do, Colette?” He wondered if he would ever see her again.
“You must return to your people and feign ignorance as to how Terrence lost his men and broke his wrist.” She squeezed his hands gently. “You must go on with your life as you would.”
“I must see you.” The thought of a single night without her caused him to feel sick.
She smiled again. “Meet me at my hut as much as time allows.” She glanced up at the sky nervously. “I must go now. We will talk of the future again, my love.” She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him. “I will meet you here when the time is right.”
A tingling sensation flowed into him filling him with desire, with love and then it and she were gone. Richard stood alone in the forest.
“Stay with me, Richard.” Her voice carried on the wind.
23
“Stay with me, Richard.” Beth’s voice was a whisper.
Darkness surrounded him, but for a single point of light far in the distance. It was from there that her voice called to him. He did not seem to possess a body, but he found that if he focused on the light, it grew larger. He gathered his will around him and concentrated on the brightness. It continued to grow.
“Come on, wake up.” Beth’s voice drew closer, but he couldn’t find her. “We’ve gotten the bullets out. Your body should be able to heal itself now.”
“Too late…” Richard managed. “Too much…” His movement ceased and he hung in the balance, half way from the darkness that lurked beneath him and the bright world above.
“Too much blood, he’s lost too much blood!” Beth's tone was frantic. “I’m going to have to try something else.”
“Are you crazy? That could kill you!” Ray’s disembodied voice insisted.
“We can’t let him die!”
“He’s going to die tomorrow anyway!”
“We don’t know that. Get out of my way!” Beth yelled.
“All right, all right,” Ray relented.
A warm sensation flooded over Richard, filling him with instant strength and a thirst born of desperation. He drank it in, wanting and needing more for his very survival. Time distorted and he caught flashes of conversation.
“Does it hurt?” Ray sounded a little closer now.
“No! It feels…good… so good….” Beth gasped.
“Beth?”
A small detached part of Richard’s brain wondered what his friend was doing there. Another part of him tried to figure out why he could not see them, but as the life flowed back into him he lost all concern for anything. He floated in the dark warmth and wished to never leave.
“Oh God!” Beth cried out.
“Get off her!” Ray barked.
Rough hands seized Richard, yanking him away from the warmth. The brightness grew larger, the voices closer and the hunger and pain deeper. He lifted his impossibly heavy eyelids and took in his surroundings. He found himself lying on the ground near the table. Nash lay several feet away next to the over turned cart, a lump forming on his head where someone had hit him. His eyes were closed, but his chest still rose an
d fell. His surgical tools lay scattered around him. His two guards lay around him where they had fallen. Blood pooled around them from obvious gunshot wounds. Beyond them, Ray knelt next to Beth on the dirt floor. He held a small hand towel against her bleeding wrist.
“Ray?” Richard blinked pushing himself up into a sitting position.
“It’s me.” He continued to help Beth.
Beth drew Richard’s attention, pushing away his questions. He could see that something had changed. She had sacrificed a piece of herself and allowed him to drink from her veins. Her pupils had dilated and she seemed to be looking straight into his soul… if he had one. The iron taste of her blood still intoxicated him, filling him with a dizzying need for more. He licked his lips, savoring the freshness. Her blood was ever so sweet.
She opened her eyes and looked at him with longing and despair.
“Richard that was…” she paused to catch her breath. “Wonderful and terrible.” She reached for him.
“Focus, Richard,” Ray ordered. He released Beth’s arm allowing her to tend her own wound and stood. He pulled a blood bar from his pocket and stepped in front of him. “Here.”
Richard hissed and clenched his fists, intent on tearing his friend to pieces for coming between him and his prey.
“Snap out of it!” Ray slapped him hard across the face.
Richard stared at the bar for an instant and then shook his head, trying to clear the bloodlust that gripped him. He snatched it away, tore off the wrapper and devoured it whole. It took the edge off, albeit slightly.
“Can you stand?” Ray asked.
Richard nodded. “I believe so. Her blood has healed me.” His legs shook slightly but he regained his footing. He paused as if seeing Ray for the first time. “Why are you here?”
Ray pulled his coat back to reveal a small silver shield attached to his belt.
“You’re a police officer.”
“I’m a detective with Seattle PD. I’ve been investigating the disappearance of six vampires.” Ray straightened.
