“I don’t want to.”
“I know,” Renny responded with a knowing smile; they both knew he had no choice.
Chapter 4
I
Usually when he hit accept on a call like this a smile would rise swiftly and his heart would flutter, his anticipation of her presence a welcome respite from the longing he suffered when they were apart. What filled his heart was an alien sensation, something he never would have associated with his wife; dread. As he took the call he did his best to force it down as his wife’s forced smile appeared before him, her eyes searching his face in a cold, calculating way.
It looked like she had taken a shower recently, the bright blue blouse she loved so much revealing her cleavage prominently, the bra she was wearing pushing them far higher than she usually liked. Her blond hair was free of dirt and loose upon her shoulders, her bright blue eyes staring at him with undisguised glee. “Hello lover. Miss me? The offer is still open, I still want you. Just say the word.”
“I miss my wife. I don’t know what the hell you are, but you’re not her,” he remarked, feeling his heart start to grow colder at the sight of that malicious smile.
Her mouth pulled back to reveal two slightly elongated canines and she laughed, “I find that hard to believe, my love. You’ve been with those scumbags long enough to have been filled in. You ready to ditch them yet and come join the dark side? I tell you baby, it’s not as horrible as Yoda makes it sound. It’s wicked fun, letting your hair out and doing whatever you want to whoever you want. You have no idea how much pleasure it can bring you. You’re missing out on something special babe. It also means, if you come with me on this, we don’t have to be apart ever again. Death does not have to be the end.”
“That’s not going to happen, no matter how romantic you make it sound, I will never get pleasure at the suffering of others. You know, I thought I would die when I lost you,” said, his voice lowering, his sorrow easily remembered. “I wished for it. I would have gladly joined you in oblivion. But, after you tried to tear my throat out, I found that I enjoy having a pulse and being amongst the living. I’d rather be alive and missing who you were, then become a bloodsucking murderous fiend and a shadow of all that we were to each other,” he answered, watching her eyes dance as he spoke.
He wasn’t affecting her at all, the corners of her mouth didn’t even twitch. “Well, I tried. So much for honey instead of vinegar,” she snarled, her smile gone, the monster fully revealed; dispelling any doubts he had about the state of his dead wife.
The camera shifted slightly, and he began to see hints of the room she was standing in; it was not their apartment. There was a cabinet just barely visible in the upper right corner; it was full of Kachina Dolls. He knew exactly where she was and the dread he’d been feeling turned into sheer terror. “Amanda, do not harm them.”
In life there was one other person that Amanda had been truly close to, one person she had trusted without reservation; her childhood friend Hailey Smith. The two had been inseparable in life, been Maids of Honor at each other’s weddings, and they were Godparents to Hailey’s two little girls. Nothing in the universe would ever cause Amanda to ever, ever, consider hurting her best friend or her little girls; nothing. If he ever needed a reason to believe this—thing—was not his wife, he had it.
“Oh, it’s much too late for that. Afraid I’ve been at it for a while already. You see, my intended meal was taken away before I got a chance to even take a bite, so I had to improvise and get take out,” she cooed, the screen suddenly flipping to show what was on the other side of the phone.
His heart froze in his chest and his breathing stopped.
“9012 W. Camino Verde,” Speedy whispered to Renny, the man mobilizing instantly and rushing from the room.
“They won’t get here in time,” she purred off-screen; he prayed she was wrong.
Hailey was lying half on and off the couch, her throat ripped open, blood splattered over her nightgown but not the couch; she’d been thrown there after she had bled out. Her husband Joshua was at her side, his neck twisted at an angle that no one could have survived; the human head was not meant to twist two-hundred- and seventy-degrees counter-clockwise.
Sitting on the ground, bound and dressed in matching pink dresses were Jasmine and Mykala, their bodies hitching as they sobbed, their swollen tear-filled eyes staring at the camera with pure unadulterated horror. Their voices were smothered by scarfs that had been bound about their heads and he realized that she had touched on the one thing that would make him come to her; he would not allow those two girls to die just to keep himself safe.
“I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt them,” he begged, fear overriding his sense of self-preservation. “They are your Goddaughters for Christ sakes! Is there nothing left of the woman you were? Are you truly such a vile demon from the depths of hell that you’d harm two innocent little girls you used to love just so you can lure me back to your side?”
“Oh no, you don’t understand,” Amanda’s voice said, the camera shifting slightly as she drew closer to the children, giving him a more disturbing view of their parents and their terrified expressions. “You’re the only reason their parents are dead, the only reason they’re going to die tonight. If you hadn’t taken off, if you had come back home when I told you to, I wouldn’t have had to find another way to bring you back to me. They never would have even known I was alive if you had just come home to your wife.”
The girls started screaming and the picture shifted once more as Amanda turned it back to show her face. “You see, when I failed to kill you tonight. When I failed to sever the bonds that bind, to murder the love that’s holding me back from my full potential, my Master grew furious. I’ve got thirty-six hours to kill you or he’s going to kill me—again. This time for good. I love you baby, but no way am I going back into that void, not if I can help it. You have no idea what it’s like and if you did, you would not wish for it.”
“I knew that this would draw you out. You’ll never be able to just sit there, not knowing if the girls are alive or dead; you’re no coward. You are full of righteousness and a sense of justice, you will not fail me now,” Amanda purred, goosebumps rising on his arms in response. “In two hours, you will meet me at the site of our first date. If you’re late, I won’t be the only thing feeding on Jasmine and Mykala. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he replied softly—defeated.
What was there left to say?
“I’d say come alone, but those imbeciles will never let you out of their sight. That’s fine, bring them along. It’s unbelievable, but I’m still hungry. Two hours, Derek, or they’re dead.”
Click.
“That’s fucked up. Oi’m sorry,” Speedy said, his face sympathetic.
There was no way he could deny the truth now, he had seen too much to just discount out of hand and now people were dead. “She just wants me. I should go alone, no one else needs to die because of me.”
“Told you he was a dumbass,” Naomi’s voice declared from the door leading to the foyer.
How long has she been standing there?
He rolled his eyes and looked her way. She was standing there next to Ezio, Renny, and another guy just out of sight hovering behind them; they were geared and ready to go. “Just think, if I turn into one of those things, you’ll get to put this stupid gringo out of his misery as well. That should cheer you up.”
“As tempting as that sounds, I’m good just killing this bitch,” Naomi remarked, and for the first time, the sound of that term in reference to his wife didn’t make him flinch. “Hey Scalps, we’ll go with el queso here to catch our ratón. You should head to the address Speedy gave us, clean up her mess. We don’t need any more of these fuckers rising from the dead. Speedy, keep ears out, probably not the first time she’s fed tonight, and if anyone gets wind of what we’re doing, try to lead them in another direction. You two ready?” she asked, looking at Ezio and Renny, who nodded swift
ly in response. “Then let’s go hunting.”
Was she really the one in charge? She was surely acting like it. That was almost as scary as what his wife had in store for him—almost. And who the hell was Scalps? Then again, with a name like that, did he really want to know?
II
“Judging by the time it took for us to get here, I think we have at least an hour before we need to leave,” he told the impatient hunters before him. “I just watched my undead wife gloat over the bodies of her best friends, people that she would never once have considered lifting a finger against in life. I’m not going anywhere until you people give me the answers I was promised before I ever stepped a foot in that thing!” His finger was pointing at the Humvee, but none of them turned their heads to see what he was gesturing at, they knew what he was talking about. Instead, they just stood there and stared at him as if he were “having a moment” and needed time to come to his senses; which only served to piss him off even more.
Fuck that shit.
“Unless you have a psychic on the payroll or are very adept at mind-reading, you’re going to need my assistance if you are going to find her. I’m done being left in the dark, never getting anything I ask answered, left to come to my own conclusions while you flaunt your shit and call me names. I’m done until one of you starts talking,” he stated, arms crossed, and his face hardened. In his mind, he saw himself standing there and realized that he did indeed look like a petulant child, but there was nothing to be done about it.
So be it.
“We have other ways to make you talk, Señor,” Renny intoned in a horrible Spanish accent. He was trying to make light of the situation, and any other time he might have been amused, but this was not it.
Naomi, however, looked bored. “Speedy?”
He suddenly realized the thin gangly youth had stepped onto the porch and joined their motley crew, his face displaying a smile too wide for cheeks like his. “You need to head to the Houston Aquarium. 410 Bagby Street,” Speedy provided.
His heart sank. Motherfucker. “How could you possibly—?”
“Data-mined your former wife’s Facebook page,” Speedy grinned, then disappeared back to his Batcave.
“She’s still my wife,” he growled after him. “No matter what she’s done, what’s she’s become—for better or worse.”
“Til death do you part, amico,” Ezio tossed in.
“Great, now he’s calling me names too,” he sighed, shoulders dropping.
Renny stepped forward and grasped him by the shoulder. “Tell you what, I’ll sit in back with you, let Wolfy here take her for a spin for once, and try to answer what I can. You may think we have an hour to kill, but trust me, she’s not going to be standing around waiting for us. We need to get there ahead of time and get into position, otherwise we won’t be able to get the drop on her and she’ll have the upper hand. Those two little girls are counting on us, on you.”
“She’s expecting ya’ll to be there. Doesn’t sound like you’re going to get the drop on her anyways. Doesn’t matter, I’m just the cheese in the mouse trap, isn’t that right?” he countered, motioning to the Humvee. “Might as well get going then.”
“You know, he’s right,” Ezio pointed out as they turned towards the cobblestone path to the driveway. “She is expecting us. Chances are, we are walking straight into an ambush. Don’t exactly feel right walking into it blind.”
“If we called for reinforcements, it would take our backup atleast six hours to get here, even by plane. You know she won’t wait that long. Personally, I wouldn’t care, except there are niñas involved. They might be dead or turned already, I don’t know, but I’m not going to let that perra hurt them if I can help it,” she told the man. “If you’re hackles are up, leave the armor behind, that way you can hulk out if anything untoward happens.”
Hulk out?
“Yeah, on a half-moon. You know how painful that is?” Ezio asked, pulling open the driver door as she headed around the front, while he and Renny headed towards the opening side door and their seats within.
“Then quit your belly-achin’,” she told him.
Renny set a lance in an arc against the door jamb, then looked his way as the engine roared to life, signaling their imminent departure. “I get the situation you’ve been tossed in and I know you’re playing catch up here. There’s been a lot thrown at you with very little in the way of explanations. For that, I apologize.”
“¡Dios mío! We don’t need to apologize for nothin’,” Naomi snarked, giving the man a dirty look. “If it weren’t for us, his dead ass would be cooling down in a morgue somewhere. Has he said gracias? No. So él puede comerme.”
“I’d apologize for her,” Renny said, nodding towards the front of the Humvee, his head rocking as the vehicle backed up, turned, and shifted into drive. “But that’s a full-time job and they don’t pay me enough. Gonna just have to take what she says with a grain of salt.”
“No, she’s right,” he admitted. “The instant I saw Amanda standing there in my bedroom doorway, my mind felt like it had been taken over. That all my will had been sapped away. She could have done whatever she wanted to me and I never would have moaned in protest over any of it. I felt her hunger, even though I tried to deny it later, mentally block it out as just a figment of my imagination. I knew something was wrong, but she’s my wife and I love her. I accepted my fate. I would be dead if that bocaza up there hadn’t scared her off.”
Ezio cracked up. “Bocaza. I’ve got to remember that one. You’re right, she is a loudmouth.”
“Fuck you,” Naomi snapped.
“It’s all good, mia amica. Own that shit,” Ezio told the scowling woman and her head disappeared from view; he had found a way to finally shut her up.
After a few seconds of silence, Renny began looking at him expectantly, so he summoned up his courage and asked the most pressing question plaguing his mind. “How do you know for sure that she’s a—?”
“Vampire?” Renny asked with a smile. “I’m curious as to how else you would explain all that’s happened since you woke up today? Try me, there’s pretty much nothing you could ask that I haven’t had offered up by others in your situation.”
“Being buried alive made her experience a psychotic break,” he stated; it was the first thing that came to mind. Although, Invasion of the Body Snatchers wasn’t far down the list at this point either.
“Did you ever see a movie called Buried?” Renny inquired, an eyebrow raised. “No? Ryan Reynolds?”
“Deadpool?” he asked for clarification. He didn’t know all the movies the man had done; these days that would be near impossible as movies were released on a scale far greater than decades past.
Renny nodded and made a dismissive gesture. “Guess it doesn’t matter, you’d know if you’d seen it. Basically, he gets buried in a coffin and is held for ransom. Gets left with a flashlight, a cellphone, and a lighter. Now, he was only buried a couple of feet underground, but the amount of dirt weighing down upon him in that crappy wooden box proved to be too much for him to bust his way out. So, you’re suggesting your one-hundred-and-twenty-pound wife clawed her way through six feet of dirt after breaking through that gorgeous pine casket you buried her in? Does that sound more plausible than what we’re suggesting?”
“Buried is a movie, not real life.”
“Physics are the same,” Renny responded. “That’s not even considering the fact that she lay in a morgue for three days, got taken care of at the funeral home, then allowed herself to be buried alive in the first place. A week goes by from being found to being put in the ground and she only wakes up after the dirt gets thrown on top of her? Next?”
“God,” he shot back, angered at how easily his first idea had been dismissed and deciding to play dirty. “I prayed for a week straight that she be brought back to me and here she is. And what do I do? I set her up to be butchered; that’s how I repay God for his miracle.”
“Never met Him, don’t kno
w if He exists, but it would be an odd choice of miracles given that she’s on a killing spree. More likely the work of Lucifer rather than God, wouldn’t you think? And that’s a man I would not want to owe a favor to. Tell me, did you make a wish while holding a monkey’s paw?”
“Excuse me?”
“A monkey’s paw? A Zoltar machine? Or maybe a lamp that needed a bit of buffing?” Renny continued. “Did you meet a demon in a suit at a crossroads and sign over your soul in exchange for her resurrection? Did you throw her over your shoulder and carry her up into the mountains, bury her in a Pet Sematary?”
“Now you’re just making fun of me.”
“No, he’s not,” Ezio tossed in for good measure. “Shit’s real. Seen a djinn myself, not the friendliest of creatures. Though, haven’t heard of the Pet Sematary thing. Was that recent?”
He paused as he stared at the white-armored driver for a second, then turned to look at Renny. “You guys are full of shit.”
“I can see why you’d say that, but you’re wrong. You know, folktales and other stories handed down through the generations can hide a kernel of truth of what truly was, and not just be a fantasy tale turned into a cartoon for a child’s amusement,” Renny explained. “You don’t have to believe that Jesus was the Son of God to know that the man did actually exist. He wasn’t a made-up savior, but a historical figure documented in non-religious texts of the period. As Man has become more enlightened, we like to think we know all there is about our physical world, but we turn away from the knowledge that we once knew, from the tales that were meant as warnings not theme parks. There are worlds beyond this one, and sometimes they intersect in ways your mind will never fathom or truly understand. I’ve been at this for eight years, and still I get surprised now and then.”
The Legacy Series (Book 1): Legacy [Sanguis] Page 6
