Thad leaned a little closer, the lure of the story washing away his trepidation. “But if that is true, how did the Hunters overcome the savages?”
Shufah looked long at Jerusa as though considering whether or not the fledgling could handle the answer. “Only the Stewards know for sure. There are stories, though, that when the Hunters were nearly defeated, and the rest of us had gone into hiding, that there came to our aid a group of vampires unlike any known before. They had no fangs, drank no blood, though somehow still fed from others. The sun could not harm them. They were immune to the savage’s bite and they could kill even the mightiest of savages with just a touch of their hands.
“We call them Divine Vampires or Those Who Have Regained the Sun. The Stewards have decried them as myth, swearing that it was their own great wisdom and the power of the Hunters that defeated the savage horde.” Shufah’s eyes seem to peer deeper into Jerusa’s soul. “Tell me, young one, do you believe the Divine are just a myth?”
Jerusa’s skin tingled from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. Her heart raced as though she was running. Her eyes unfocused, blurring her vision. She could sense Thad gawking at her from her peripherals. Down and away, she heard the drug dealer take his last breath as Foster devoured his life’s blood.
The cool spring wind scattered Jerusa’s hair like a flock of frightened birds. Shufah brushed the loose stands away from Jerusa’s face with her fingers.
“Are you saying — ” Jerusa couldn’t finish her question.
But Shufah knew what she was going to ask. “I wish I could say for sure. What was his name?”
“He didn’t know his name,” Jerusa said, as if lost in a dream. “So I called him Silvanus.”
Shufah repeated his name, rolling it across her palate as one does a fine wine.
“I can’t take much more of this,” Thad said, his voice once again pouty. “Vampires, zombies, ghosts and now some sun-walking mythical vampire?” He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “This is not happening. I have to be dreaming.”
“If you cannot trust your eyes and ears,” Shufah said to Thad, “then trust your heart. There are many and more mysteries in this world. The shame is that we are all so self-absorbed that we often don’t see the fantastic, even when it is right before our eyes.”
Foster approached the Jeep, a broad grin spanning his face. His skin was less pale, his irises were no longer haloed in blood, and his lips had regained their normal color. Jerusa could feel the heat emanating from him. He looked at each of them, sensing the awkward silence that had fallen over the group.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Another time, my love,” Shufah said. “Come. Let us go meet the others.”
Foster jumped into the Jeep, skipping the door and instead, leaping high into the air and dropping nimbly in through the open roof. Thad gasped, Jerusa laughed and Shufah gave him a reproving glance laced with a tiny smile.
“Sorry. I just feel so great.”
“Stealth, my dear,” she said. “Restraint. Remember, there are always eyes searching for us.”
“You’re right.”
Thad started the Jeep and left Rock Dove Estates glittering like an oil slick in the moonlight.
Shufah typed the location of the limestone mill where the mangled corpse had been found into her phone’s GPS. Along the way, Foster recounted the experience of his first hunt.
“And when his heart stopped,” Foster said, finishing up his tale, “I bit my tongue and dabbed the puncture wounds with blood.”
Jerusa leaned up between the two bucket seats. “Why’d you do that?”
“Our blood has great healing properties … among other things,” Shufah said. “It’s a highly sought-after commodity.”
Jerusa raised her eyebrows in question, but Shufah flashed a tight-lipped grin that Jerusa took to mean it was a conversation for a later time.
“These days, a vampire cannot leave a corpse with bite marks,” Shufah continued. “It draws too much attention. Some vampires will dismember their victims.” She wrinkled her nose. “Too messy. Others will slash across the puncture wounds. But if you’ll dab a little of your own blood on the puncture wounds while the victim is freshly dead, the holes will heal over. Most times, their death will be chalked up to heart attack or drug overdose. The important thing is to always make sure you drink until their heart stops, or else you run the risk of infecting your victim and bringing the wrath of the Stewards down upon yourself.”
Jerusa tried to catch Thad’s eyes in the rearview mirror, to give him a reassuring smile, but he was staring forward, his white-knuckled hands gripping the steering wheel tight. What was he feeling? Did he fear what the Stewards might do to him? Did he hate her for bringing this upon him? Jerusa wished that he would look at her, even if it was to curse her. He had slipped back into his reclusive silence, hiding his thoughts behind a mask with a perpetual frown and lost eyes.
A lump of guilt swelled within her. All this time, Jerusa had been swimming in her fascination of Shufah, and to a lesser extent, the other vampires. She had been so enthralled with her new form and all of its strengths that she hardly noticed that those around her were suffering. Her mother, Alicia, even Thad, with his inexhaustible smiles and good humor — all seemed brutalized by the events of the past couple of days. They were getting ready to march into battle against a vicious and deadly creature. If they failed, innocent lives would be lost. Even if they succeeded there was no guarantee that the Stewards would give them a pardon. Despite all of that, she sat bouncing around in her seat like a giddy girl on a road trip.
Man, she wished Thad would just look at her. Even just a glance. She wanted to reach out and take his hand, but what if he shrugged away in disgust? He was still human. Did he see her as a monster?
She opened her mouth with the intention of apologizing to Thad. To tell him she was so sorry she had brought him into this. She wanted him to know that it would be all right, even if she didn’t believe it herself. He would survive this. She would sacrifice her own life in order to ensure it.
Thad brought the Jeep to a screeching halt, the tires chattering along the asphalt before Jerusa could turn her thoughts into words. Standing in the middle of the road, bathed knee-deep in a ground mist set aglow by the headlights, were Suhail and Taos.
The vampires were both bent at the waist, panting like they were out of breath. Their wide eyes shone in the headlight beams like a pair of spooked animals. Their clothes were wrinkled and ripped, caked with dirt and leaves.
A chill ran through Jerusa’s body, though she was unsure why.
A noise of something large rushing through the distant underbrush caught the attention of all of them, except for Thad, whose human ears couldn’t detect the distant sound. The thing in the woods moved at great speed, snapping small trees in its path, making no attempt at stealth.
Suhail and Taos, their faces twisted in terror, rushed the Jeep, leapt through the air, and latched on to the roll bar on either side.
“Drive,” Suhail screamed at Thad.
“Hurry, you idiot,” Taos added.
Thad was frozen in place, petrified with fear. Foster snatched him out of the driver seat as though he were no more than a pillow and tossed him in the backseat while taking Thad’s place. Foster slammed on the gas and the Jeep lurched forward.
A dark figure exploded from the trees, leapt the span of the shoulder in an effortless bound, and landed in the center of the road where, moments earlier, the Jeep had been sitting.
His face was painted red by the taillights. His lips were curled back in a fixed snarl. His shirt was stained black with dried blood, and in the dwindling light, Jerusa could see the regenerated flesh where Silvanus’s fist had punched through his chest. He straightened his stance and bellowed a guttural roar into the night sky before exploding down the road after the Jeep.
Foster pressed the Jeep to its limit, but still Kole gained on them.
Chapter Seventeen
Foster jerked the steering wheel side to side as he maneuvered the curvy road. He had the Jeep’s speed up to sixty miles per hour and it was all he could do to keep the rubber tires on the asphalt. The Jeep’s inertia sent it drifting first onto the right shoulder, then onto the left. Twice, they just missed sideswiping a large tree.
Jerusa watched out the back in horror as Kole drew closer. His arms and legs pumped with engine-like precision. Once he slipped on some sand in the road, lost his footing and tumbled head over heels for a dozen feet or so before correcting himself and continuing on, unfazed.
Where the road curved, Kole cut a direct path through the woods, leaping from the ground and soaring from tree to tree like a rabid ape. His speed was as awe-inspiring as it was terrifying. Jerusa had very little experience with her own speed, and had only witnessed the others moving in short bursts. Seeing Kole careen toward them over the distance they had covered caused a quake of repulsion to ripple through her soul. Nothing natural moved like that.
Foster took a hard right around a tight curve and the Jeep drifted into the left lane. The blaze of blinding headlights and the roar of a startled horn filled the night. Foster cursed aloud, allowing the Jeep to fall into the left shoulder of the road and barely avoiding a head-on collision with a gray Ford pickup truck.
Jerusa watched the terror-stricken face of the driver as the truck sailed by. The driver gripped the wheel with both hands, gave a hard jerk to the left, overcorrected, and sent the truck skidding off the opposite side of the road, nose diving into the ditch.
The Jeep, not built for high-speed off-road maneuvering, began to rock back and forth like a boat caught in a storm. The tires chattered as they struggled to find a grip on the soft earth and loose gravel of the shoulder. Foster slammed on the brakes and attempted to steady the Jeep, but by then, the passenger-side wheels had left the ground. Suhail and Taos leapt high into the air and landed gracefully in the middle of the road.
“Out,” Shufah screamed before firing upward through the open roof.
Foster relinquished the wheel, gripped the top of the windshield with both hands and propelled himself up into the night. Jerusa started to follow, but halted when she realized Thad had no means of escape.
Thad sat with his feet stuffed under the seat before him, pressing back as hard as his legs could push. He held the top of the seat before him with his left hand, while gripping his seatbelt’s shoulder strap at his neck with the right.
Jerusa reached over, grabbed Thad’s seatbelt at the buckle, and wrenched back with all her strength. The male and female ends of the buckle uncoupled with the sound of twisting metal, and the belt slid away from Thad’s chest. She snatched Thad around the waist, mindful not to crush him with her new strength, grabbed the roll bar with her free hand, and pulled the two of them out of the open side, which was now facing up. The Jeep gave way to physics and fell into a crunching cartwheel that spread glass and debris for over a hundred yards, finally coming to rest at the bottom of a steep hill against a copse of birch trees.
Jerusa had been so concerned about saving Thad from the crash that she had once again misjudged her own strength. When she had leapt from the Jeep with Thad’s near two hundred-pound frame clutched to her side, she never imagined that she could raise the two of them much over the vehicle. Now, however, she looked down from a height of twenty-five feet, soaring at a trajectory that sent them over the road and into the trees of the opposite bank.
Jerusa realized that these events were happening much faster than she perceived them, and that her brain processed the information with such unfettered efficiency that everything seemed to have shifted into slow motion.
Had she been alone, she could have easily turned over in midair and landed safely on her feet. But she had Thad to worry about. Jerusa shifted her weight, pointing her back toward the ground to shield him from the impact. She hugged him, pinning his arms at his sides so that he wouldn’t be tempted to reach out to break their fall. At the speed they were traveling, his bones would shatter like glass.
They fell into the trees, the thick branches reaching out to slow their decent. Each blow caused Jerusa to cry out, though, to be honest, it didn’t hurt as much as she had expected. She kept her body positioned so that she took the full impact of the ground to her back. They slid a ways through the leaves and moss and scrub bushes, and somehow managed not to tangle into a knot of arms and legs.
The dull fire in Jerusa’s back vanished as her wounds rapidly healed. She lay looking up at the few stars visible through the canopy as Thad panted against her chest. He put his hands on the ground as though unsure if it would be there, then pushed himself up and stared down at her.
A blush filled his cheeks as he realized he was on top of her, but he didn’t move. And she didn’t want him to, either.
“How did you do that?” His hair was tussled and covered in bits of leaves. A fine layer of beard stubble dusted his face, making him look more man than boy. He smiled and it seemed brighter to her than any moon she had ever seen drift through the sky.
“I don’t know. It all just seems like second nature to me now.”
Thad reached over and brushed the hair from her face. “That was incredible. Thank you.”
“So does this mean you still want to take me to prom?” Such a stupid question. What did a pointless high school dance matter after all they had been through? Still, they might all be dead soon, and truth be told, she wanted to go to that pointless dance with him.
Thad let his forehead drift down to hers. “Of course, assuming we both survive that long,” he said, picking the thought from her mind.
The sound of twisting metal and terrified screams filled the night. Jerusa pushed Thad off of her and jumped to her feet.
“What was that?” Thad backed away in no certain direction, scanning the shadow-drenched forest with wide eyes.
Jerusa’s enhanced hearing caught much more than just the door of the pickup truck being torn open or the man within calling out in fear. She heard it all.
“Kole has the man in the truck.” She turned, grabbed Thad by the arm, and pulled him in the opposite direction. “Come on. We have to find the others.”
Alicia appeared in front of her, luminous as a lily in the moonlight, and beckoned for Jerusa to follow her. The ghost darted around, skipping from place to place as she often did. She seemed to be aware that Jerusa could see every tree, rock, hill, or hole in her path even though the forest was near pitch black.
After a few minutes, Jerusa caught the subtle sound of fast, nimble feet rushing to meet them. Foster and Shufah emerged from the shadows, silent as the lingering dead. Without a word, Foster grabbed up Thad, placing him on his back, piggyback-style, and motioned for Jerusa to follow.
Shufah led the way. They ran through the forest at incredible speed and Jerusa was thrilled to find she could keep up, could actually go faster if she so desired. There was danger looming somewhere in the shadows behind them, she understood this, even so, she couldn’t help but let a tiny laugh escape her. She had never felt so free, physically and spiritually. She wanted to spring into the air, latch onto the massive trunk of a tree and climb it to the highest bough. She wanted to run faster, pressing her body until it ached, until the entire world dissolved into a blur. She wanted to explore the deepest and most dangerous jungles, search for cities long ago forgotten, touch the uppermost peaks of mountains, sail treacherous seas. And, strangest of all, Jerusa wanted to turn and face the savage Kole, to meet him in battle with nothing but her hands and fangs, and rend him to pieces.
Legends and myths had long ago dubbed vampires as the undead, but in her mind, nothing could be further from the truth. Jerusa didn’t feel dead. She was more alive now than she had ever been in her old life. If anything, humans were the true undead. Jerusa was revived, rejuvenated, resurrected.
A sobering realization dropped into Jerusa’s mind, shattering the romantic image of her new p
owers like a brick dropped upon a glass table. The laugh died in her throat, the smile wilted on her face.
Nothing in this world came without consequence. Every act, every decision, no matter how large or small bore a price tag. Jerusa understood this better than most. She could see the spirits of the lingering dead, a talent that many longed to possess. But the truth was that this ‘gift’, more times than not, felt like a burden.
Jerusa had spent most of her childhood waiting out the night, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, attempting to hide from the strange visitors that entered her room. She learned long ago that it was best not to speak of this to her mother, or anyone else. Her ‘gift’ had caused her many lonely days. Even after Alicia had appeared and chased away the other spirits, even when she had confided her hidden talent to Foster, she still felt like the odd one in the crowd.
She had always placed the blame of being shunned by the group on a misunderstanding of her poor health. She had used the scar upon her chest as a scapegoat. It wasn’t that at all. They had sensed the difference in her, and it had brought about a subconscious reviling, even in Jerusa’s own mother.
How much more of an outcast to the human race was she now? Jerusa looked human, could act human, but sooner or later, they would sniff her out, see her for a fraud, and banish her all over again.
Jerusa tried to take hope in that at least she wasn’t alone. Even if the human race ostracized her, she could still turn to other vampires. She wanted to believe that. That the other vampires would accept her, but she could still see spirits — though Alicia had been the only ghost she had seen since her change. According to Shufah, when a medium became a vampire, always before, the gift of sight was lost. Once again, Jerusa was different. And vampires, like humans, didn’t seem to appreciate much variety … at least not her kind. Hadn’t Shufah warned her to keep any special talents hidden? Hadn’t Foster looked upon her with pity once she had confessed before the others?
Heart of the Dead: Vampire Superheroes (Perpetual Creatures Book 1) Page 16
