by D B Nielsen
The man’s blood filled his senses again, many times more powerful than before.
It was easy disarming the hunter. Almost too easy. There was no sport in it.
Cooper lifted his crossbow, aimed carefully, and shot him in the shoulder.
With a terrified, pained scream, the leader dropped the crucifix he was holding and clutched at the protruding bolt which pierced his flesh, tearing apart the muscle and impaling his shoulder.
More blood flowed. Hot. Tantalizing. Lip-smacking.
It had the dizzying effect of assaulting Cooper’s senses. The human was nothing more than his next meal. Not even much of an enemy. Certainly not a friend or someone he had known from his human past.
The blood mesmerized him solely. There was only this moment. Nothing else existed for him. He knew that these sensations weren’t a mere figment of his imagination. He could hear the blood thrumming in the man’s veins. He could smell its seductive scent. It was calling to him.
Cooper pinned the lead hunter to the ground with his knee as he tore the bolt from the man’s shoulder, disregarding the hunter’s earsplitting cry of pain. His nostrils flared in response, breathing in the hunter’s delicious scent. Standing upright again, Cooper brought the arrow up to his lips and licked the shaft, his tongue darting out to capture the sweet essence in every drop.
“Finger lickin’ good,” he murmured, fleetingly recalling some strange human saying from the past. Returning his bolt to its quiver when it was licked clean, his movements were graceful and elegant, yet economical.
“Motherfucking whoreson,” the hunter spat vehemently at Cooper, coughing up more blood.
Cooper remained unfazed. The hunter’s exposed skin was horribly torn in places, the blood soaking into his clothing and the ground beneath him.
What a terrible waste.
The hunter tried to roll away from the dark eyes gazing upon him pitilessly, attempting to grab the crucifix which remained just out of reach, but Cooper moved forward, holding him to the cold ground with one strong hand. He didn’t even need to apply any pressure.
“Don’t move. You’ll only make this worse.”
Cooper placed his hand on the man’s chest, over the hunter’s heart which beat strongly, though too rapidly, against his palm. It thrilled him. Every new sensation heightened his lust for more human blood. His palm became slick and tacky with the sweat and blood coating the hunter’s skin.
In a last-ditch attempt, the hunter tried to appeal to the humanity in Cooper.
“Please. Remember your calling,” he wheezed, feeling the unbearable pressure where Cooper rested his hand on his chest. It was a vise. “You were one of us. Chosen by God. How can you forsake us now?”
With a clarity of vision, Cooper realized the man was afraid. Afraid to die. Perhaps afraid to face his maker.
“I do not know your god.”
Cooper reached out and grabbed the hunter by the wrists, lifting him into the air. He elongated his razor-sharp incisors until their brilliant whiteness gleamed wickedly in the moonlight. He could kill him now without even trying, since the puny human before him was no match for his superior strength. This pathetic human life now belonged to him.
The human hunter was featherweight in his grasp. He could easily pick him up and shake him like a floppy ragdoll or tear him in pieces. His wrists were as scrawny and breakable as chicken wings. There was no point to the struggle, but Cooper almost wished the hunter was stronger, wanting to watch him put up a fight, some greater form of resistance, as he killed him.
“Dammit, Cooper, gear up. Get your stupid Southern donkey ass moving,” Caleb shouted at him, trying to grab his attention through the noise of the battle.
The hunter thrashed in his arms. His blows were feeble against the solidity of Cooper’s immortal frame.
He did not let the human go. Instead, he fed.
Cooper drank until the hunter’s limp body was drained almost dry. It was a beautiful thing to feel the man’s life slipping away beneath his lips and fingertips.
In an instant, the texture of the world transformed.
His vision and sense of smell were sharper, clearer, more precise. His reflexes quicker, his hearing more acute. He let the blood rage consume him, warming his body until the blood boiled in his veins.
He dropped the hunter’s lifeless body onto the ground.
The nightscape around him changed, and he viewed the raging battle through a spectral, infrared haze. Though perfectly clear to him as a vampire, the world was altered in living colors across a spectrum invisible to humans.
Vampires’ bodies ran cold when they were hungry, but before him the scene was lit up like New Year’s Eve. Humans and vampires now held a similar body temperature, but Cooper recognized the subtle differences between them—and the not-so subtle siren call of human blood that spelled fresh, fast food.
But Cooper’s immediate cravings had been instantly relieved by feasting on the hunter, and he now desired to spill the blood of his enemies as the blood rage he inherited from Kayne ran hot within him.
A fever rose within him. He clenched his jaw as a red veil of rage descended upon him. He tried to swallow the anger, but it was like an unquenchable thirst, impossible to suppress. His blood continued to boil. All rational thought had long since vanished.
From a hundred different positions, the vampires attacked their human foe. Their supernatural speed seemingly allowed them to be everywhere at once, showing no mercy. Cooper gazed across the distance with its sea of corpses. Streams of blood flowed into the Mara River, which ran red. The smell of death and defeat hung in the air.
He looked down into the glassy eyes of their leader at his feet. He felt no remorse. Instead, unmoved by death, the hunter’s lifeless body stirred an inborn hatred of humans, and after removing a bolt from his quiver, Cooper raised his crossbow. He took aim and released the bolt. It found its mark along the arced flight path with a deadly accuracy. Another hunter fell.
He forgot the rest of the vampires and focused on the humans. They fell like flies. Cooper repeated the actions. Cock the bow. Load the bow. Aim. Shoot. Repeat.
When he’d used up the bolts, he collected them from the dead or barely alive bodies. With his blood thrumming in his ears and his extraordinary vision, he had no need for the optical scope. He kept each target aligned in his sights almost by magic.
He could hear his comrades feasting on the dying humans, tearing into them with their super-sharp teeth. Some of them called to him to partake. He ignored them.
The boiling of his blood reached a fever pitch as if he would be consumed in flames. The burning sensation along the back of his throat, tracking down to his heart, attacked every nerve ending along the way, radiating throughout his entire frame. Intuitively, he knew of only one form of relief.
Blood called for more blood.
He could hear the pathetic cries of human suffering surrounding him, and when he looked up again, the bodies at his feet had multiplied tenfold. Some were still alive, writhing in agony, gasping their last breaths.
All that mattered to him was the uncontrolled blood rage. A madness seized him. He would have continued in his blood rage until the end of time.
But for Caleb.
“Sorry, son, this is going to hurt like a bitch,” the beefy Malum said from behind.
Cooper felt the flames licking at him then. Real flames. Darkness ate at the periphery of his vision. He whirled to see Caleb aiming a flamethrower at him.
“Stop.”
He took a step forward, pushing against the force of the blaze. And another. He could feel his flesh sizzling, the flames searing the hair and skin on his chest and arms. The fire was scorching hot. The darkness was rapidly closing in.
He took one more step, reaching out to Caleb, and saw his own reflection in Caleb’s obsidian eyes. He was in hell.
“Don’t feel too bad, kid, it happens to us all,” Caleb consoled the younger Malum.
They were lying back a
gainst the mountainside, covered in red-ochre dirt and blood, gazing up at the night sky with its low-hanging clouds and the scattering of stars playing peek-a-boo.
By the time Cooper had awakened, the blood rage had diminished to a dull, angry ache—one that would remain with him eternally, as it did with all their kind. His flesh had already healed over, so there were no lasting effects that could be seen from Caleb’s attempted flambé, though the truly lasting scars would never show up physically.
“It’s the blood rage. Hard to control.” Caleb watched the young, raw recruit with his knowing look, the one that spoke volumes, the one that said he saw every weakness and vulnerable point. “We’re all cursed with it, even Aislinn, a genetic inheritance from Kayne.”
Cooper stiffened. “Aislinn also?”
Caleb smiled, rueful. “Shit, yeah, her too. She channels it into a cold revenge. That’s the way it sometimes works.”
Caleb explained that the blood rage could run hot or cold, depending on the vampire, but it was ever-present. Kayne’s legacy to his descendants was a blood rage that, given any opportunity, would slip its leash and flare up, savage and uncontrollable. For Cooper, it was worse. He was newly turned, so the blood rage combined with his hormones, which were running riot like any pubescent vampire, turned a feeding frenzy into a kind of blood lust or madness.
“So, what am I supposed to do now?”
“Learn to live with it,” Caleb stated, stretching his arms up to cushion his head as he stared up at the stars. “It’s not exactly the prize at the bottom of the cereal box you were expecting, is it? Sucks big time, but that’s the way it is. Vampirism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’m certain Aislinn did warn you. She’s not big on turning humans into our kind. She has her reasons.”
Cooper just looked at him, exhaling slowly. There was still a little anger in his eyes, but they had returned to their normal hazel. He was silent a moment.
“I don’t think I can do puberty all over again. How long does it last?”
“A couple hundred years or so. But think of it this way. There’s no excessive hair growth, no sweaty armpits, no spots, and your voice doesn’t break.”
Easy for Caleb to say, since his voice almost broke when asking the question, “What about wet dreams?”
“That, kid, is something I can’t promise you. You’re going to be acting like an oversexed teenager, a real horndog. You’ll want to hump everything in sight and then some.”
Great. Just frigging great.
Caleb must have caught sight of his woeful expression because he quickly clarified. “Hang on. There is an upside. You’ll have so much stamina, you’ll fuck like a champion, like fucking is an Olympic sport. Like you’re the fucking world champion of fucking. Take my word for it.”
Well, that sounded okay with him.
“Just a word of advice. Avoid Varya.” Caleb chortled boisterously. “She’s been trolling you ever since you got turned. Plus, she bites.”
Cooper winced. “She bites?”
“Hard. Or so I’ve been told by Benjamin. She’s definitely American Horror Story.” Not being one for many words, Caleb seemed to be warming to his subject. “Now Lark, she’s more True Blood, if you know what I mean.”
“Not really.”
Caleb winked slyly. “Good. Keep it that way.”
“And Aislinn? Is she like Twilight or something?” Cooper asked curiously, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible, but his interest in the daughter of Kayne was obvious.
“Bite your tongue! Aislinn’s no Bella. Is she sullen? Obnoxious? A damsel in distress? Needs a man to validate her existence? Does that sound like our Aislinn to you?” Caleb’s expression grew reflective, even as his voice became stern. “Hell, no. But forget Aislinn. You’re never going to tap that.”
“Why not?” Cooper asked in a pained voice.
“Because it’s never going to happen. I’ll even place a bet on it.”
“You’ll place a bet on anything.”
“True that. But mark my words, you have as much chance with Aislinn as eight billion sinners have entering the Pearly Gates of Etherean.”
“Geez, thanks.”
Caleb either deliberately or unwittingly overlooked his sarcasm, replying instead, “You’re welcome.”
Chapter 24
Caleb’s pep talks only went a little way to make Cooper feel less of a monster. He was horrified by his lack of self-control but still couldn’t muster the remorse he thought he should feel. It was such a human emotion, and it seemed eons ago since he was truly human.
He had been seized by the allure of blood, held in a hypnotic fascination that he could only fully comprehend once it was over. It should have horrified him to recall how he had simply stood by and watched the human hunters die. Instead, he felt relieved that it was all over. He had merely observed their suffering, feeling nothing at all for them but a removed, clinical interest in the kill.
He now understood Caleb’s reasoning. The real purpose of boot camp was finally clear to him.
It was necessary to rid the recruits of the last of their humanity. Those still retaining vestiges were the most vulnerable to predators and hunters as it would prevent them from recognizing that humans and other immortals could never be friends with vampires, particularly those chosen by the church as hunters.
This had been a bitter pill to swallow at first. It had been particularly difficult for Cooper who had been one of them, loyally serving the church and his God.
Had it only been six months since they’d left London? It seemed more like one hundred years. For so long, he felt as if he was marooned in a lifeless desert. It was always quiet, too quiet. But he had found some consolation here in Kenya with Caleb.
Tucking his hands beneath his head, he stared up at the night sky, lying alongside his drill sergeant in silence, with the kind of wonder and awe he had only truly experienced as a child. The effect of the velvet night and of the low-hanging clouds on the mountains was like a soft, chiffon blanket comfortingly draping the landscape. Night drew attention to the craggy facets of the mountains that were often cloaked in the daylight.
The floating clouds shrouding the mountains ushered in a sense of nostalgia for Texas and the wild beauty of its mountain valleys.
Suddenly, he was homesick, longing for the small town of Tyler. Funny how he’d felt stifled there. It was always too small, a tired old town long before he was born, famous in his mind for its roses and Stanley’s pit barbeque.
He didn’t miss his past, his friends, nor his fellow hunters whom he’d come to trust and rely on during combat. Hell, he didn’t even miss the memory of his parents, their faces obscure behind a red veil of rage.
He missed steakburgers. And smoky baby back ribs. And chili dogs and fries.
Though he didn’t have to breathe, Cooper inhaled the dewy night air.
Overcast, misty nights were like certain smells. They carried him back to other times he’d experienced in another life—from thoughts of nights spent training at the academy, walking home along illuminated playing fields, and downing boilermakers in the local bar. So many differences between his life then and now.
Initially, it had led to a bittersweet sadness of the difficulties that had beset him back then and the precious things that had since been lost. But he no longer felt that way.
He stared up at the night sky spread before him—its beauty making him frustrated that humans failed to appreciate such ordinary, yet majestic scenes. What would it cost them to look up for a moment at the brilliant constellations which sparkled above their heads?
No, he didn’t regret losing his humanness. As a vampire, he’d become more observant.
He now appreciated how the savannah came to life at night. The nocturnal animals prowled the plains, hunting. It reminded him of the wildlife refuge back home. Like black panthers, the vampires hunted in the dead of night. While the nocturnal predators stalked antelope, deer, and pigs by stealthy movements in the tall
grass, Caleb taught his recruits how to also hunt by taking advantage of their surroundings. Hidden in the trees, they would be virtually invisible to humans, disguised by the darkness, blending with the leaves until they attacked their prey with a deadly pounce.
His only regret was that Aislinn hadn’t been there to share any of it with him.
Aislinn sighed. As always, Caleb’s story ran off in all directions like sprayed cockroaches scattering across a kitchen floor.
“Kenya. Broken crossbow. Maasai warriors. Can we stick to just the facts?” Aislinn said pointedly.
Caleb looked slightly offended. “The facts? If that’s the case, then I need another drink.”
“Is it that bad?” she asked in puzzlement.
“Worse. I think we pissed off your brother.”
“Julius?”
“No, Marduk.”
“How in the world could you possibly have done that?”
“We may have killed his high priestess, burned down his temple, and accidentally doused the sacred fire.”
“You didn’t. Please, tell me you didn’t.” Aislinn’s eyes flashed obsidian as she covered her face with her hand.
Caleb ran one large hand over his bald head, as if massaging a chronic headache. “Well, actually—”
On the southern tip of Kenya, closer to the Tanzanian border, was one of the great, undiscovered archaeological wonders of the ancient world. A large, underground temple dedicated to the eldest of the sons of Kayne, the first Primus, was shrouded in eternal mystery in the cool, dark recesses of the Earth. Marduk was worshipped like the Pharaohs of old, a living demigod. His priestesses maintained his temple and were constrained by their positions as guardians of the sacred fire, a symbol of everlasting power stretching back to the rebirth of Marduk and the great, blinding light he had seen in the sky as an omen of Kayne’s sublime authority. It was believed that so long as the sacred flame was kept burning, then the first of the vampire race from ancient Babylonia and their entire civilization would endure.
It was the duty of the six priestesses to tend this fire daily. If the sacred fire burned low, this heralded portents of imminent doom for the vampires and their military campaigns against the human hunters and the other species. Allowing the sacred fire to die down would lead to the priestess responsible being taken to a circular, stone room where manacles and shackles suspended from the walls. There, the offender would be stripped, chained, and beaten severely by the high priestess until the stones themselves would seemingly bleed. Finally, she would be placed in a solar cell to burn to her death.
