“She’s got another guy on the side.” He made a dry little laugh. “Or maybe I’m the guy on the side.”
“Kristen is cheating on you,” Jerusa blurted out. “With who?”
“Some guy. Doesn’t matter. That’s why I broke it off.”
Jerusa felt sudden shame over her enjoyment of this news. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Look, don’t say anything, okay? I’m kind of embarrassed about it.”
“I won’t.”
“So,” Thad said after they had driven a while in silence, “since you know something personal about me, I want to know something personal about you.”
“Like what?”
“Where’d you get that scar on your chest?”
Jerusa broke out in a cold sweat. She started to cross her arms over her chest, but forced them back down into her lap. She started to ask him how he knew about her scar — when had he seen it — but what did it matter now?
“I was born with a bad heart,” she said, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. “I won’t go into details, but I’ve almost died a few times. A couple of years ago, I had a heart transplant, and that’s where I got the scar.”
Thad nodded his head, an impressed little look etched on his face. “That’s awesome. Are you all better now?”
“For the most part,” she said. “I can’t really do anything too strenuous, and I have to take medicine to keep my body from rejecting the heart, but other than that, I’m doing great.”
“Nice,” Thad said. “You should get a t-shirt that says ‘I Cheated Death and I Have the Boss Scar to Prove It.’”
Jerusa couldn’t contain her smile. All at once, she couldn’t remember just why she had wasted so much time being ashamed of her scar. Thad was right. It was a badge, a symbol, of all that she had come through. Tears welled in her eyes and she wiped them away before they could drop. Thad’s face tightened, his brow furrowed.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re fine. What you said was nice. You must think I’m an emotional wreck.”
Thad shook his head. “No more than the rest of us.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you want to go somewhere? Maybe get something to eat?”
Jerusa’s head felt as if it detached and was floating dangerously close to the open roof of the Jeep. Did Thad Campbell just ask her out? She banished the thought from her mind. It was no more than a kind gesture among new friends.
She wanted to say yes, maybe more than she wanted her next breath, but she’d thrown enough caution to the wind for today. Better to quit while she was ahead. “No, I better not.”
“We can go see a movie, if you prefer that.”
“Maybe some other time.” The words tasted bitter on Jerusa’s tongue. “I should probably be getting home.”
Disappointment brewed in Thad’s eyes and Jerusa had the urge to slap herself. He sat silent the rest of the drive, never looking away from the road.
As they pulled into Jerusa’s driveway, a gasp escaped her lips. The PT Cruiser was parked in the driveway. Her mother stood on the front porch, her hands on her hips and her eyes so fierce that Jerusa wouldn’t have been surprised if beams of fire erupted from both.
Chapter Four
They were still searching for him, but those on foot couldn’t keep up with him on this steep terrain, and the rocky overhangs hid him from those riding in the sky.
The altitude thinned the air, but this didn’t hinder him. The cold night air lay upon his naked body like a film of ice, causing him to shiver. Even though he realized that he could survive far colder temperatures, he still wished he had taken some of the clothes from the four he had fed upon in the compound.
A sick feeling settled in his stomach at the thought of those poor souls. He hadn’t wanted to kill them, even though they had certainly wanted to kill him. Their hearts had been full of dreadful things — dark imaginations that he couldn’t quite understand. Still, he felt terrible remorse at taking their lives. He had fled from their corpses in such a hurry that he hadn’t even considered taking some clothing for himself.
A sickle moon, bone-white, drifted into the sky, visible from the crag in which he was perched.
They were getting closer. He could hear them scurrying around like rats on the rocks above him. They had been on the hunt ever since he had stepped out of the compound into the resplendent sunlight, but now that night had fallen, they were getting desperate.
He had absorbed a great cache of knowledge from the four he had fed upon. These people, who called themselves the Light Bearers, were masquerading as a part of the military, but beneath that façade was a clandestine group with a hidden agenda. He had gathered much information from them, but none had the answers to the deep mysteries, like whom — or more so, what — he was. He didn’t even have a name.
What a terrible way to be born into this world.
A scree of rubble rattled down the side of the cliff fifty feet to his right. Tight-woven black cords spilled over the side, and three men in body armor and night vision goggles repelled into view.
“Target acquired,” one man called into a radio attached to his shoulder.
The men, each positioned lower on their rope than the one behind him, raised their weapons, painting his skin with glowing red dots. In the distance, the helicopter’s engine powered up as it rushed toward his hiding spot. The men fired their weapons, discharging high velocity tranquilizer darts.
He leapt across the open void of the chasm, spanning the twenty feet as though it were inches. The darts clattered and ricocheted off of the stone face of the mountain.
He moved along the nearly vertical mountain face, clinging to the stone like a spider, leapt back across the void, and crawled around a bend of rock, taking him out of the gunmen’s line of sight. He scrambled up the side and pulled himself atop a small plateau.
He was tired of this chase, of the icy mountain air. He didn’t want to kill anyone else, but sooner or later, they would force his hand. If only he could get some distance between him and his hunters. He could outrun the men on foot easily enough, but what of the helicopter? He possessed unmatched speed, but he did not believe he could best the machine’s endurance.
If only he could get somewhere warm. Somewhere green and alive. Somewhere he might find another like himself.
He closed his eyes, no more than an extended blink, and when he looked again, the world around him had changed.
The mountain no longer rested beneath his feet. Instead, he stood upon the cool, mossy earth. Tall trees, with springtime buds, swayed in the gentle breeze as though they were trying to dust away the stars. And before him stood a young woman with a look of terror distorting her beautiful face.
She stood in the deep shadows of the trees, her pale skin as radiant as the moon. She seemed such an unlikely presence in this forest that, at first, he wasn’t sure if she was a phantom of his imagination or not.
“Hello.” He didn’t get a chance to say anything else. The woman turned and darted off through the trees faster than a frightened rabbit. He wanted to go after her, to assure her that he meant her no harm, but he understood what it was like to be chased, so he decided to let her go.
She had been such a strange creature, though. He still wasn’t sure she had been real.
He moved about the forest, wandering without purpose, until almost dawn when he caught the sound of movement in the distance. It was footsteps, subtle, light and precise. For a moment, he thought it might be the strange woman, but then he realized there were actually two people walking in perfect unison. They were headed right for him.
Had the Light Bearers found him? Impossible. There was no way for them to know where he was. He didn’t even know where he was.
Still, he preferred not to be discovered. Using his unique gift of travel, he vanished from the ground and reappeared in a branch thirty feet off of the ground. The footsteps continued. He could hear the sound of their breathing, but it was much to
o slow and methodical to be human.
Two men passed beneath the tree, pausing for just a moment, as if they sensed something amiss.
Both men were dressed in expensive clothes and shoes, and though he had only been in this world a short time, even he knew those were not the kind of clothing you would wear to hike through the forest.
He couldn’t see much of them from his hiding spot, except that one man was of average height with a crop of dark hair and that the other looked like a giant with long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail.
He tried to touch their minds as he had done with his captors in the mountain fortress and found he couldn’t. After a moment, they continued on their way.
He followed behind them, using his unique gift, tracking them by their faint scent and miniscule noises.
The men soon came to a set of railroad tracks, abandoned from the look of the growth between the large wooded ties. The moonlight washed over them causing their flawless alabaster skin to glow. They searched the darkness seeing much more than any human could. For a moment, he thought they had spotted him hiding in the treetops, but then they turned their attention, sniffed the air like prowling wolves, caught the scent they had been hunting for, and moved off down the tracks.
He knew what they were following. It was the smell of fire. It was the sound of men conversing and of hearts throbbing with life.
Two men and a woman sat around a bonfire burning in the midst of the abandoned train tracks. Their clothes were caked with dirt and they smelled of alcohol and urine. The trio sat close together on the ground, singing a bawdy tune as they passed a bottle of wine. When the song was finished, they broke into a slurred round of laughter, which died in their throats when the pair of well-dressed men with pale skin stepped into the circle of firelight.
The two male transients rose to their feet. It was clear that they did not appreciate the intrusion. The woman drew her knees to her chest and clutched the wine bottle as though it were a frightened child.
The older of the two transients — a man with stringy gray hair and a grime-caked beard — wagged his finger at the handsome visitors. “Who are you?” he asked in a drunken slur. “Cops? We ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong. This’s public property.”
The two intruders circled around the transients, each going in opposite directions along the outer edge of the firelight.
“Why so hostile?” asked the dark haired man. “I am Kole and this is Taos.”
“What do you want?” asked the younger of the two male transients. His tattoo-covered arms trembled at his sides. He seemed aware, at least on a subconscious level, of what was circling them.
“Just to join your party,” Taos, the blond giant, said. “All we desire is to sing, drink and be merry.” He turned his head to the sky and sang out in a deep rolling tenor, the volume booming to a level well above the capabilities of any human.
“You’re frightening our new friends,” Kole said to Taos.
Taos smiled, showcasing a set of short, dangerous-looking fangs. “My apologies. I have forgotten myself.” He placed his arm over his eyes as if weeping. “Shall I cast myself upon the fire?”
“Behave or I shall set you ablaze myself,” Kole said, though the anger in his voice seemed mocking.
The male transients spun in place, trying their best, but failing, to keep their backs away from the handsome intruders. The woman dropped her head to her knees and sobbed like a child.
“You’re upsetting Rhoda,” the younger male man said in a quivering voice.
“Well, we don’t want that,” Kole said. He stood across the fire from the three, but in a movement too fast for the humans to follow, he darted over to stand at Rhoda’s feet.
The men recoiled from Kole with a simultaneous shout, but made no attempt to flee.
Kole reached down and lifted Rhoda’s chin so that their eyes met. “How about a dance?”
Rhoda’s eyes widened into great orbs and her lip quivered a bit. The blood drained from her face to the point that she took on a gray pallor. Kole extended his hand to her. Rhoda reached out without hesitation and took it.
Kole pulled Rhoda to her feet, leaned in like he meant to kiss her, but before their lips touched, he turned her head and placed his mouth upon her neck.
Rhoda cried out either in pain or pleasure. Her eyes rolled about as if she was dizzy and a long, low moan fell from her lips.
Taos walked over and tapped Kole on the shoulder. “May I cut in?”
Kole regarded him with contempt and kept his mouth upon Rhoda’s neck.
“There are three of them,” Taos said. “Did we not agree to split one?”
Kole released Rhoda and the woman staggered into Taos’s arms. Two small puncture wounds stood out on the pale flesh of her neck, but no blood escaped them.
Kole turned toward the firelight, and even from the trees, the change Rhoda’s blood worked in him was visible. His skin was no longer pale but flushed hot and pink. And though his eyes glowed as if lit from within, he looked almost human.
Taos took Rhoda in his arms without any of the grace or finesse that Kole had, instead crushing her to his chest and bit her neck with a leonine hunger. Rhoda gave one last raspy groan, her eyes turned to great marbles of glass, and her body went limp in his arms.
Taos released her throat with a gasp and stood with his head back, still swooning with pleasure. Droplets of blood covered his perfect white teeth, especially his fangs, but not a drop had been spilled or wasted. He tossed Rhoda’s lifeless body onto the campfire without even so much as a wince of effort.
The younger man issued a choked scream, which startled the older man into action. The older man pushed off of the younger, nearly knocking him to the ground, and took off at a run down the deserted tracks. The younger man jumped to his feet and followed.
Kole leapt over the fire with dazzling speed, catching the younger man by the back of his neck before he could get out of the circle of firelight.
Despite the man’s struggles, Kole drew him in close, forced his flailing arms down with his free hand, and bit into his neck. He issued the same guttural moan that Rhoda had, and within a few moments, he was dead.
Kole pitched him on the fire atop Rhoda.
Taos moved in front of the older man with preternatural speed, appearing as if from nowhere. The older man screamed, turned and started back toward the fire. Taos laughed, clapped his hands, and then darted around in front of the man again. The man tried to circle around Taos, but he caught him by his long gray beard and pulled him off of his feet. The man hit the ground with a groan, crawled along the tracks, blinded by his tears, yelping like a beaten dog as Taos followed along, kicking at him with the toe of his expensive shoe.
“I said make it fast, Taos,” Kole said with a hiss.
Taos looked from his prey to Kole and bared his fangs in a derisive smile. “Why do you deny me the pleasure of the hunt?”
“Far be it from me to deny you your nature,” Kole said in a firm yet understanding voice. “But this is neither the time nor the place. Let us feed and move on.”
Taos rolled his icy blue eyes and sighed. He grabbed the older man by his shirt, lifting him off of the ground. The fabric tore but held. The man struggled against Taos’s iron grip, stretched his feet downward, searching for the ground. Taos forced the man to look at his face, to behold his unearthly eyes, to search his sharp white fangs, and inhaled as if the man’s fear were a savory scent. Then he plunged his face into the man’s neck and the pair shuddered together.
When Taos finished feeding, he tossed the man’s body on top of the others. Small tongues of fire dance about the clothes of the corpses, but lacked the strength to consume the bodies.
“Come now,” Kole said. “Let’s finish this and be on our way.”
Taos raised an eyebrow. “What has you so nervous?”
“I’m not sure,” Kole said. “I only know I do not wish to linger.”
Taos positioned himself across the pile o
f corpses from Kole. Both men closed their eyes and extended their hands toward the fire. The air between the men shimmered, a little at first, but more as the seconds passed. The corpses began to blacken, to smoke. Then, with a great whoosh, the bodies were engulfed in a roaring conflagration. The fire burned with such intensity, that within minutes, all that remained of the three derelicts and their campfire was a small pile of fine black ash.
“How long must we hide away in this place?” Taos asked, toeing the ashes like a sulking child. “I want to return to the city where I can hunt proper.”
“Shufah’s pet, this Foster Reynolds should be ready any day now,” Kole said. “Once we judge him, we can go.”
The pair moved on and the nameless man followed at a good distance.
As the stars began to fade and the silhouettes of the trees were once again visible against the canopy above, Kole and Taos took refuge from the sun in a cave concealed by a deadfall several hundred yards off of the train tracks.
The nameless man stood near the entrance of the cave until the purple sky was swallowed in blue brilliance and golden sunlight washed over his naked form.
Kole and Taos were similar to him in many ways, but different in many others. They were faster and stronger than humans and could conjure fire with their minds, but the pair had fled into the cave to escape the sunlight while he stood bathing in its warmth. Kole and Taos had fed upon the humans, much in the way he had fed upon the four in the compound, except for one large difference. Kole and Taos had drunk the blood of their victims.
The nameless man’s head swam with questions. He considered climbing into the cave to ask Kole and Taos, but he doubted either would have much to say to him.
Chapter Five
Jerusa walked with her head down. The closer she drew to school, the more she felt like turning and running home. Her feet no longer felt like they touched the ground. Her palms were sweating and her mouth had gone cotton-dry.
She wondered how long it had taken Thad to spread the tale of her crazy mother. Not that Debra Phoenix didn’t deserve a little ridicule for the way she had screamed at Thad. All for giving Jerusa a ride home.
Heart of the Dead: Vampire Superheroes (Perpetual Creatures Book 1) Page 3
