Twice Bitten

by Aiden James

  “So, do you think that lecherous old dragon threw the only piece of twenty-first century technology he’s ever held into the Yarlung Tsangpo River, as he threatened to do?” asked Armando, abandoning his twirling game to study her. His expression was thoughtful and sincere…although his main audience of Tyreen, Raquel, and Garvan surely knew better. “Or, do you think he thought better of it, and now spanks his wee little monkey every night to the Library of Licentiousness I created for him? Hmmm, I wonder?”

  That got everyone laughing, including Chanson and myself. It was a nice lighthearted moment, but it also made me wonder about the details behind their final expulsion from China.

  “That’s a subject for some other time, I’m afraid,” said Chanson. “I brought you up to date with the most important details earlier this week, Txema. The more unpleasant things can wait. Besides, Kazikli and Nora have arrived.”

  She looked toward the door, and as I followed her gaze it suddenly flew open. Our last two vampire companions drifted through the doorway, dressed as if going to a Sunday afternoon matinee performance on-Broadway. Nora looked relieved to be inside the plane, but Kazikli looked irritated.

  “I will speak to Racco’s people about leaving the stairs attached, since it is an open invitation to an attack!” he fumed, and then hurriedly pulled the door shut and latched it. “We need to leave now!”

  He motioned to Chanson to ‘hold that thought’ while he stepped over to the cockpit and disappeared inside. A moment later, the jet engines began to rev up and before Kazikli returned to us, the airplane was already moving toward the runway.

  “It’s so good to be here with you, Txema!” said Nora, as she took her seat in front of Chanson’s. She leaned over her seat to get a better look at Alaia, resting peacefully in my lap. “Oh my, look at our little princess! She is so beautiful…so precious!”

  If nothing else, my little girl had a big fan club that I knew would do whatever they could to protect her from harm. That knowledge alone went a long way to making me feel better about things.

  Kazikli rejoined us as Nora sat in her seat. He seemed much more at ease, and when I asked him if everything was okay he smiled.

  “Now it is,” he said. “We needed to leave twelve minutes earlier than scheduled, but I can live with our 7:49 p.m. departure.”

  Like the last time we traveled, I was the only one who had to buckle a seatbelt. Even my baby didn’t need to be tightly secured, since Chanson gently lifted her from my lap and held her in her arms. Nothing short of a bomb blast would loosen her grip.

  As we picked up speed along the runway, I looked out through the window closest to me. I watched the jet pass the runway lights, getting faster and faster. But then I also saw a dozen shadowed forms fighting to keep up. They ran like greyhounds, and at first I thought they might be dogs, until two of the figures stood up and sprinted in vain to catch us.

  I couldn’t help but gasp.

  “Yes, those are Ralu’s warriors from India,” Kazikli advised. “We didn’t think they’d get this far north—especially once the Indian government stepped up their military patrols at night. However, all a human army can do is slow them down…. They can’t kill them with most conventional weapons, since they are still vampires and can regenerate completely, unless staked through the heart, beheaded, or burned alive.”

  “I’ve heard that high quantities of silver can kill any vampire, too,” said Raquel, nonchalantly while paging through the latest Marie Claire magazine. “But it has to be a specific kind of silver not easy to come by.”

  I hadn’t heard of anything ‘official’ before, beyond the staking or beheading methods—and those came directly from Chanson’s mouth. No one ever mentioned burning, but it made sense…at least if the fire was severely hot enough. But, I had always looked at silver as a TV inspired fable…not even the early fiction works about vampires had the undead being easily subdued by silver chains and other silly shit like that.

  “The silver must indeed be unique and pure,” said Kazikli, almost flippantly.

  I got the feeling he was more uncomfortable talking about this means of vampire killing than the other ways. Then he confirmed my suspicion by abruptly changing the subject.

  “We’ve kept our travel plans secret in order to prevent the enemy from mapping your progress, Txema,” he said, looking over his shoulder at me and at Chanson. “You’re probably unaware, but there are Ralu converts everywhere. Most have come from the ongoing war between his army and the human nations of the world. In November when we thought your Relance de sang would halt Ralu’s growth, his army was still under seven thousand souls. That number is now over thirty-two thousand, and growing by the day. We expect his Chupacabra army to double in size by the end of this year.”

  “Sixty-four thousand vampires?” I was incredulous. “No wonder everyone is aligning themselves with Ralu… And as far as ‘human nations’ you’re including the United States and other powerful western countries besides India that are at war against these vampires, correct?”

  “Yes, your homeland is involved in an extensive effort to rid the earth of these vile miscreants,” he replied, sounding even more uncomfortable. He traded glances with Chanson and then with Nora before continuing. “Txema, you have been out of contact with the Western world for almost six months. Every civilized country across the globe is presently under siege by Ralu’s growing coalition of vicious vampires, and he has put us all in grave danger of extinction. Everyone in power agrees with me now that his stated goal of complete equality with us is a bunch of bull. He’ll never be satisfied until he completely annihilates us in his bid to take over the entire world—every human being included, as well.”

  “How can we stop him?”

  I barely mumbled the question, since things were far worse outside my isolated personal space than I realized. I suddenly worried about my family in Richmond—how were they dealing with this? For that matter, how were my friends from college—including my former boyfriend, Peter Worley—handling this shit?

  “By keeping you and your daughter alive,” he said, after releasing a long sigh. “That will go a long way to keeping him off balance. Also, and this is tied to the first thing, we will need to stay ahead of Ralu’s advances. Right now he is guessing where we might travel to….”

  He looked off into space for a moment, and started to smile—wide enough to reveal the tips from his double fangs.

  “I have a great idea where to go after our next stop. For your protection and ours, Txema, I won’t be able to tell you anything about it,” he said. “Ralu seems to have direct access to your thoughts, as we do. The only way we can avoid him correctly anticipating yours and our location, and next moves, is to leave you out of the planning discussions and teach you how to reroute your thoughts.”

  He laughed, and I’m sure his humor was inspired by the befuddled expression upon my face.

  “Trust me, dear,” he said, and then paused to look at everyone as he scanned the entire cabin. “Actually, I believe each of us can show you little tricks to cloak your thoughts. In fact, the very best vampires at doing this sort of thing happen to be sitting close to you now.”

  I tried to picture this cloaking process, and some memories started to come to me. These memories involved my paternal grandmother. Grandma Terese actively practiced thought shifting techniques with me as a kid, and taught me how to think of two to three things at once and shuffle the key mental images and thoughts into my mind’s ‘background’ while leaving the decoy subject in the foreground. At the time, I was a young adolescent, and she told me this would help protect me from the wiles of older, more cunning guys that only wanted to get inside my panties.

  I became quite adept at recognizing subtle signs of deceit while carrying on seemingly casual conversations with the opposite sex. I wondered now if this ‘training’ was more designed to protect me from creatures that could readily see inside any human’s mind, like these vampires. After all, Grandma Terese wasn’t a
t all surprised that vampires had saved me from certain death in Tennessee when I called her from Racco’s yacht on the way to France.

  “That’s exactly what we’re talking about,” said Chanson, her eyes taking on an almost gold tint while she studied me intently. “I think those skills handed down through the ages to Terese will serve us quite well, Txema! So grab a magazine, and we’ll practice.”

  She motioned to the table beside us that included a variety of publications. Most were in French, but it hardly mattered since Chanson and Kazikli advised that pictures were the only thing we needed. Specifically, we needed pictures of places in the world.

  “Here’s one that should do,” said Kazikli, pointing to a National Geographic and an article about Budapest, Hungary. “I can’t think of a better decoy, can you, Chanson?”

  “No, I can’t…as long as that’s not where we’re going.” She smiled coyly and handed the magazine to me. “Let’s get started!”

  “Now this sounds like some real fun for a change!” enthused Tyreen. She picked up one of the magazines near her and stood up to join us, pausing to wait for Raquel to come with her. “It’s about frigging time, ain’t it?”

  “Amen, sister!” said Raquel, who grabbed a few more magazines to further help out.

  Chanson motioned for the guys to come join us, and an instant later all seven vampires were gathered around me. Then she and Kazikli began their lesson plan…a painstaking process that lasted for most of the nine-hour flight to our initial destination.

  Ralu and his insatiable desire to conquer the vampire world were my biggest worries at the time. While shuffling a variety of images in my head, I focused most on a continual prayer in the background…a simple one, really.

  That Ralu’s army wasn’t waiting for us when we landed.

  Chapter 13

  When we began our long journey, which in effect was a desperate ‘seat of the pants’ escape from danger, I doubt any of us outside of Kazikli had an inkling we’d end up traveling for nearly twenty hours in darkness. The first part of our trip accounted for nearly nine hours of that travel time. We arrived in Frankfurt at what would’ve been 4:43 a.m. in Nepal. However, it was just after midnight in Germany.

  “Wake up, Txema…have you ever seen absolutely nothing in a big city before?”

  “What?”

  Armando stood above my head, as I had reclined my seat to better sleep. The irritated look I saw on Chanson’s face told me this interruption of a pleasant dream of frolicking through fields of endless tulips with Garvan wasn’t her idea.

  “If you look out the window, you’ll see only a few bright city lights and absolutely no traffic,” he said, sounding almost tipsy. At the moment he carried a half full glass of plasma. I would’ve bet whatever money I had left in my First Bank of Knoxville savings account that it was spiked with liquor, as I detected something like vodka on his breath. “Go ahead and look….see?”

  Drunk or not, he was right…at least looking at the area past the tarmac. Of course, at the time I didn’t know where we were. Only that it was dark outside and I was extremely tired.

  “The buildings look like we’re in Europe some place.” I looked away to check on Alaia, who had been resting next to me. She opened her eyes for a brief moment and then let out a slight yawn and went back to sleep. My angel.

  “Very good!” he said, and then his mirthful expression turned serious…serious as a guy lit up from blood poisoning can be. “There’s nobody out there because they have a curfew, and the buildings are dark so that vampires will know there are no people around to eat!”

  “Where in the hell—”

  “We’re in Frankfurt, Germany, Txema,” said Chanson, sounding perturbed. I readily understood her ire was directed at Armando and not at me. “There’s an eight o’clock curfew throughout Europe, on account of Ralu’s vampires. We’ll be staying on the plane while it refuels. It’s the safest place to be. But, in case something unexpected comes up, Garvan and Tyreen are guarding the main exits. Raquel is in the back of the plane guarding the rear emergency exit….”

  She didn’t finish. A triple knock resounded from outside the door next to the cockpit. Looking out the window I didn’t see a ladder, so unless someone had risen by jetpack twenty feet into the air our caller was of supernatural origin. When the knocks repeated, Chanson and Garvan bore their fangs in preparation for a nasty confrontation.

  “Who’s out there!” Garvan called out gruffly next to the door.

  “What? …Do you really expect a Nosferatu fucker to reply in coherent terms, unless it’s Ralu himself?” said a familiar thick German accent from the door’s other side.

  “Franz? What in the hell are you doing here??”

  This time Chanson voiced the question to our mysterious visitor.

  “It’s our Franz?” I sat up straight while being careful not to disturb Alaia. “Do you think it’s really him?”

  Garvan took a stronger stance as he considered my question. Chanson moved cautiously to the door with her eyes closed, as if determined to use her third eye to help her see outside the plane.

  “Well, I’m trying to make sure no one eats Racco’s fuel crew since the local union won’t pay the airport’s security staff overtime to keep an eye out for trouble,” he replied to Chanson’s question. “Goddamned ugly bastard vampires!”

  He laughed heartily, and I knew without any doubt that the guy on the other end was in fact my on again/off again guardian, Franz Blutliebhaber. Kazikli and Nora joined us from the cockpit.

  “Why is Franz outside?” Kazikli eyed Chanson curiously. “Let him in so we can continue our flight!”

  “He’s taking care of the little people,” slurred Armando. “The good men and women who are putting the tiger back in our tank!”

  Tyreen snickered, and even Raquel in the back of the plane let out a delighted yelp. Drunk or not, there were plenty of verbal alms for the perpetual comic.

  Kazikli moved up to the door and released the latch. Even though I knew it was Franz, I still held my breath until his powerfully built frame entered the plane.

  “Well, hello, everyone!” He nodded to all of the vampires before settling his gaze upon me. “Now that…that is interesting. You’re the first non-Asian girl I’ve ever seen wear a tricivara, Txema.”

  “Well, does it look okay on me?” I suddenly felt self-conscious, where before that moment I’d pretty much forgotten how I was the only one not dressed in western fashion. Even Franz wore a business suit sans a tie. “I’m supposed to change into something more in line with everyone else…just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet.”

  “You look ravishing!” he said, and came over to me. He reached down to give me a warm hug. When Franz saw my baby girl, who was soundly asleep, he let out a slight gasp.“She’s beyond gorgeous!” he enthused. “May I hold her?”

  “She’s sleeping you big oaf!” said Raquel, suddenly appearing in our midst. “The child will still be there for you to hold in a few hours. In the meantime, you can hold me!”

  She added a seductive wink and slid up against his chest. I would’ve guessed that vampire males had more willpower to resist such antics as compared to the warm-blooded variety. But not this one. Franz went for the bait and as soon as he wrapped his strong arms around Raquel, she latched her fangs into his neck.

  I suppose that’s foreplay in a sense. But with an ancient ‘old fashioned’ vampire in our presence, all it took was a stern ‘Ah-hem!’ from Kazikli and Raquel’s little love tap of our newly arrived hunk was over.

  “Sorry, boss,” said Franz, after he straightened his suit coat and shirt. “It’s been awhile since we’ve seen each other.”

  “Understood, my son,” he said, wearing a knowing smile. “Perhaps you two can share a casket later on, and catch up on old times, eh?”

  Kazikli chuckled while Franz’s face flushed a bit. Meanwhile, Nora motioned for our newcomer to take her seat, so he and Kazikli could catch up on important business onc
e our trip to wherever resumed. Nora took an empty seat near mine, where she could continue to keep a loving eye on Alaia.

  “I’m sure you would love to know where we’re going, Txema, but again you’ll have to wait until after we’ve arrived to learn that information,” said Kazikli, as he sat down with Franz. “Since this next one will be in an area where we hope to stay a day or two, you won’t be allowed to look outside until after we’ve landed.”

  He motioned for Chanson to close the blinds on all the windows within my range of vision.

  “It’s okay…I understand that it’s for the best if I don’t have any clue as to where we are,” I agreed, while looking around the cabin for something better to pass the time with, other than a science or fashion magazine. “Can you at least tell me how long it will be before we arrive at the next destination?”

  “It will be almost as long a trip as this one was…maybe even half an hour longer,” he said, grimacing slightly—perhaps in response to the ‘you’ve got to be fucking kidding me?’ look upon my face. “If you like, we can administer a sleep aid to help pass the time. Regardless, you’ll likely experience some jet lag. But at least you’ll be spared the sleep deprivation that all of us vampires will soon experience.”

  “He’s right about that,” said Chanson, wearing a grimace worse than his. “The longest I’ve gone without sleep is eighteen hours, and it wasn’t a good experience. This time it’s even worse…it will be at least twenty hours before any of us can escape the night’s pull.”

  “It could be an ugly scene for the guys and me and Tyreen,” added Raquel. “Except for Kazikli and Nora—they’ve gone without sleep for more than twenty-four hours before.”

  “Kazikli and I will keep an eye on everyone, to make sure we all come through with flying colors!” said Nora, smiling compassionately at everyone. “And, if we all falter, including me, Kazikli has brought along an elixir to tap us out.”