Strigoi

by John O'Brien

  “And sunlight? Is that also a myth? Those I encountered were only in the dark.”

  “Sunlight does not destroy us as you might have read in stories, but it does interfere with the absorption of oxygen into our cells. In essence, we suffocate.”

  “So, you can go out into it?” Henderson asks.

  “For short periods of time, yes.”

  “It’s obvious that you use your brain like us. What would a shot to the head do? Wouldn’t that kill, just as it would us?” Henderson questions.

  “Our healing is a separate process. Our brain would regrow over time, the speed of which would rely on the amount of stored energy. So, it would be like any other injury. However, if hit just right, cognitive function would be diminished and healing automatically initiated. During that time, any strigoi would be at a disadvantage.

  “So, you regrow a brain? Complete with memories?” Gonzalez asks.

  “Yes, our memories are locked into our cellular structure.”

  “Damn. Tell me again how our positions aren’t reversed.” Greg comments.

  Vladmir chuckles. “That may or may not be a conversation that comes up among us from time to time. Let me say this, though. A strigoi will consider healing first and foremost, as to do otherwise will leak energy reserves. If low enough, the priority will be to escape, or to feed if the opportunity is there.”

  “Okay, this is a lot to take in, but I think I have it. The best way is to bleed them to draw off energy, thus bringing about a more even playing field, and kill them before they can escape?” Greg says.

  “That is correct.”

  “And beheading, cutting the heart in two, and prolonged exposure to sunlight are the only ways to actually kill a strigoi?” Gonzalez queries.

  “Yes.”

  “By sunlight, do you mean UV rays?” I ask.

  “Manmade UV has no effect on us. It is the miniscule amount of ultraviolet C rays that make it through the atmosphere. Manmade UV-C rays are not strong enough to be a factor,” Vladmir says.

  “Back to the blood supply thing. You mentioned you essentially get yours from donated supplies. What about diseases or impurities that are sometimes found in the supply? Wouldn’t that affect you as well? Meaning, wouldn’t you become diseased?” McCafferty questions.

  “We are able to filter out the impurities,” Vladmir answers.

  “What about nerve agents or poisoning?” I ask.

  Vladmir hesitates.

  “Some may be effective, but we have a rather healthy filtration process and healing will occur. Our bodies will expel any poison before it reaches our cellular structure. You cannot think of our bodies as yours. We are different.”

  “You’re telling me that you’re basically immune to nerve toxins?”

  “No, Mr. Walker. What I am saying is that, if the toxin were strong enough, we would be able to heal while escaping, then filter the toxins out of our bodies, and feed again to regain our strength. In essence, it would only delay matters. Plus, anything that would affect our kind would do worse to yours. As a side note, Mr. Walker, any strigoi worth their while would breathe filtered toxins right back into your face while escaping.”

  It takes me a moment to actually follow this reference. Then, it hits.

  “I get it. Your lungs aren’t just for speaking or expelling carbon dioxide, they are one process through which you expel toxins. Kind of the reverse of ours. If we injected any strigoi with a toxin, it would become airborne, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, seeing how you don’t inhale in the same manner we do, we’d be the only ones affected?”

  “Correct.”

  I wonder at Vladmir’s hesitation. Perhaps he didn’t want us knowing this fact, or it could be that there are some toxins they can’t handle. I don’t know, and his demeanor suggests I won’t get far along this line of questioning. We could carry gas masks, but an airborne toxin could also become contact-based. Plus, fighting fast-moving vampires in full MOPP gear sounds like a losing proposition all around.

  “Sedatives?”

  “Same result. We would filter that out.”

  “Would that filtering drain any of the oxygen resources?”

  “Not by much. It is like your liver filtering poisons out of your body. It is barely noticed.”

  “Considering how your lungs work, that takes gassing out of the equation.”

  Vladmir says nothing in return as I’m mostly thinking aloud.

  “Is your communication only by speech?” Greg asks.

  Fucking good question, I think, kind of ashamed I didn’t think about that.

  “We are able to convey meaning across distances.”

  “Telepathically?”

  “Yes. But it is limited in ways.”

  “How so?”

  “Just know that it is possible, but not in the same way that speech allows.”

  I guess I don’t blame them for holding back, but it’s my view that people who do this have things to hide. If they see some great war on the horizon, then they would keep some of their traits secret. But, they wouldn’t have told us all the shit they have, either. Perhaps some questions just feel overly invasive, too personal. That I can understand.

  “Anyone else?” I ask, looking at the rest of the team members.

  No one speaks.

  “Very well. Thank you for putting up with our questions,” I say.

  “Before you go, I have a gift for you,” Vladmir says, a door opening near the back of the room at the same time.

  A man walks to the table and sets a wooden box on the surface.

  “Thank you, that will be all,” Vladmir says, and the man retreats.

  I open the box to see the interior is lined with thick red felt. Nestled within are seven vials of a deep blue liquid. Vladmir withdraws one, holding it up in the dim lighting.

  “This is an essence of what we are. It isn’t the full-strength serum we use, but something along those lines. Now, if you take this, you aren’t going to feel your best for a couple of days. Similar to a sinus infection and headache. You’ll also be sensitive to bright light while it takes effect.”

  “That isn’t going to turn us, is it?” Denton asks.

  “No. It will only grant a limited set of abilities, as much as allowed without fully turning you. You’ll have some of our strength and reaction time, in addition to being able to see in a similar manner to us. It won’t affect your vision in normal lighting, but it will add to it in low light conditions. The thermal wavelength won’t be the same and can be a little disorienting at first, but your brain will adjust. While we see the pulses and the heat of blood coursing through arteries, you won’t. That’s because our sense of that goes beyond mere vision, but is detected more as a hound recognizes smell. As you are aware, thermal sensing depends on the amount of background heat. The warmer the surroundings, the less differential there will be. And, I’ll caution you that it won’t be quite as prominent as if you were using some of your equipment designed for this purpose.”

  “Will this expire over time?”

  “No, these abilities will always be with you.”

  The vials are passed around the table. I hold mine up, knowing that I should be wary about taking a foreign substance on the word of someone I just met. For all I know, there could be explosive nanobots under the control of these covens. Or, they could be in league with whoever has been dropping the special ops teams. A million different reasons not to take it and only one to.

  “How long until this takes effect?” Greg asks.

  “You will begin feeling ill after a few hours, then you will begin to notice the effects. In two days, the sickness will fade as the abilities fully manifest,” Vladmir replies.

  “Why are there seven and not six?” McCafferty asks.

  “For the seventh member of your team. A Ms. Connell.”

  “Okay, makes sense,” Allie responds.

  “Well, you only live once,” Greg says, opening the vial. />
  “You did not just say that, did you?” Gonzalez comments.

  “I did, and I’m proud of it,” Greg responds, tipping the vial back and swallowing the blue liquid. “Sweet, but medicine-y. Kind of between a wine cooler and Nyquil.”

  “Well, he didn’t keel over and die,” Henderson says, opening his and swallowing.

  “Bottoms up,” Denton says.

  I’m still staring at the liquid. I just don’t fucking know. But, half the team has taken it. I don’t know whether to feel hopeful that it might work or trepidation over ingesting something foreign.

  From a fucking vampire, no less. Maybe this is how they capture their prey to turn?

  So many thoughts crowd my limited headspace. My kids, long terms effects, whether this might shorten or lengthen my life. But, the image of fighting those creatures, the feral strigoi, comes to mind. Any advantage will help. I still don’t know how we’re expected to take them down, but several ideas have spawned while speaking with the ones here.

  “Fuck it,” I say, sucking down the liquid.

  The rest follow suit.

  “Thank you all for attending, and for your assistance with this matter,” Vladmir replies. “We would dine with you, but you may not agree with our fare.”

  “Probably not, but thank you anyway.”

  “Rooms have been prepared. If you are hungry, please notify the kitchen and they will prepare anything you request. Rides have been arranged two days hence,” Vladmir says, the rest of the coven leaders rising with him in a flurry of rustling cloaks. “It was a pleasure meeting you. We will not meet again.”

  With that, they walk out of the room, their heels clicking on the hardwood floor until they exit through a far door.

  “Well, that was…interesting,” Gonzalez says.

  “I just met a vampire,” McCafferty mutters, shaking her head.

  “You joined the Army to see the world, right?” Greg comments.

  Allie ignores his joke, continuing to shake her head, and mumbles, “Vampires…huh.”

  I remind myself that the experience McCafferty had wasn’t the same as mine, or some of the others. The doors through which we entered open and we are guided to our rooms.

  The furniture inside the room I’m led to is much what I expected. A large canopy bed with antiques against the wall. There’s even a large hearth, empty and unlit. Sconces set into the walls provide illumination, but the lack of natural lighting feels a little strange. Tired from the long day of traveling and the information crammed in my head, I lie on the plush bed trying my damnedest not to think about being in a castle-like structure where the inhabitants are real vampires. My life has definitely taken a turn toward the surreal.

  Lying here waiting for a vampire to swoop and claim a victim has me on edge. I mean, how could I possibly sleep? And then, somehow, I do.

  Chapter Ten

  Vladmir was right about the headache. For nearly two full days my head ached, at times feeling like it was going to split from the pressure inside, and at others feeling like it was being pressed by a hydraulic vise. There were moments when I seriously contemplated opening my wrists just to escape the constant pain. I changed positions and tried walking, but that brought on the nausea. I asked for something to ease the pain, but was told that it would interfere with the process. I mumbled “I don’t care” but the man backed out of the door and closed it. Nothing I did could alleviate my condition.

  Then, suddenly, it was over. I had been lying on the bed visualizing drilling holes in my head to let the pressure escape when it ended…just like that. One moment ice picks, the next a sudden cessation of pain. I could lose my man card over this, but tears of joy may or may not have leaked out. A feast had been prepared by the time we emerged from our rooms, and I ate ravenously. Everyone had a hollowed look with sunken eyes. Afterward, we were blindfolded and driven to where we again boarded an aircraft and were flown back. True to his word, as we left, we never saw Vladmir or any of the other coven leaders.

  We all slept during the return flight, our bodies exhausted. Landing hours later, we had recovered for the most part, although I still felt somewhat stretched out and weak. I had expected to feel some kind of change, especially with regards to the vision enhancements, but I didn’t notice anything. I half wondered if this hadn’t, in fact, done the opposite of what we were told.

  It wasn’t until we strolled into the interior of the resort that I actually noticed any difference. Instead of the gloom of the room before the lights were switched on, it seemed as bright as if they already were. I remembered Vladmir mentioning that the vision aspect was adaptive and that we wouldn’t notice any changes in bright lighting. We played with it some in the back rooms with the lights off. The light enhancements dulled the colors a little, but we could easily see in the darkest of rooms. Thermally, there was a hint of body outlines showing up. Anything with a significant variation in heat from its surroundings was highlighted. Vladmir had mentioned that they could sense heartbeats, but I didn’t notice anything along those lines. The adaptations we encountered were purely physical.

  Lynn met us and started a round of questions. We had recorded everything, so I just handed her that, along with the blue vial.

  “Here, this is for you. You’re in for a fun time. Make sure you have a couple of free days.”

  * * * * * *

  This moment of planning had been creeping up in the back of my mind for some time, always in the background to remind me that I was on a collision course with it. I was constantly wrestling toward a solution, but hadn’t been able to find one. And that worried me more than anything. I had always been able to find a way through tough situations, as if the path had been drawn with a highlighter. Sitting around the table with the rest of Red Team, I didn’t feel any closer to an answer than I did upon finding out our true job. I endlessly replayed the discussion with Vladmir, hoping to find a weakness we could exploit with brutal ruthlessness. But, if anything, it seems to have turned the task from fucking difficult to damn near impossible.

  My trepidation rose with Cyrus sitting at the table with us. In my experience, when the wing or division commander is sitting at a squad meeting, things aren’t going well.

  “All right, let’s begin with the basics. Do we know how many we’ll be dealing with and where they’re heading?” I ask, turning to Lynn, who had barely recovered from her ordeal with the essence.

  “As near as we can tell from the mutilations, there may be as many as twenty,” Lynn answers.

  She hits a key on a laptop opened in front of her and a map is projected onto an overhead screen. Circles indicate reported mutilations with approximated dates, one circle around the town where I encountered them. The marked rings show a steady progression toward a moderate-sized town.

  “You can see here their general path with a projected timetable. It’s clear that we don’t have much time before they arrive at the city,” Lynn briefs.

  “Didn’t Vladmir say they would avoid large populations?” Greg queries.

  “Not exactly. He said they would most likely stay on the outskirts, but that isn’t confirmed. They didn’t exactly stay out of the village Jack and his team were at,” Lynn responds.

  “That was a small village, though, not a larger town,” I state.

  “True, but who can say what they’ll do. They may treat the city like a large buffet, and we can’t afford for this to go public. We can hold down rumors from small villages, but a whole city…” Lynn says.

  “Okay, we have an approximate time table in front of us. What we don’t have is an effective way to deal with them. We aren’t able to just find them in the jungle via thermal scans and rain down fire from the Spooky. Now, I’m assuming these strigoi have been dealt with in the past, so let’s begin there. Lynn?”

  “As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been a pack this size since ancient times. And by that, I mean axes and swords. Either this one has been hidden for an extended period of time or several packs have m
erged. Normally, they were taken down with firepower, but we haven’t seen any rogues for a long time. I don’t see how those tactics will work here,” Lynn replies.

  “Okay, that’s easy. If there are more, then we call on more resources. We go in with additional teams. You know, joint venture, camaraderie, and all that. If there are more in the pack, it just makes sense to have more firepower to deal with them. That has to be a better solution than just the six of us going in,” I comment.

  “Yeah, about that. This is the part where I throw confetti in the air and yell surprise,” Cyrus interjects.

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  “No, Jack, you aren’t,” Cyrus states.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, we’re it, aren’t we?” I say.

  “I’m afraid so. The Organization has been undergoing a transition with regards to personnel and rebuilding efforts. While some are being vetted to fill out other teams, our active assets have retired or been lost without replacement,” Cyrus mentions. “And, I’m not being completely honest with that statement either, although I’m not lying when I say we’re rebuilding. We took a hit not that long ago from an outside entity. We’re still in the process of tracking that to the end, but we lost a lot of data. Thankfully, not much made its way out of the Organization, but we lost a tremendous amount of knowledge.”

  Lynn’s jaw drops, her expression bewildered. From her look, she had no idea we were it. That kind of brings a whole new perspective to matters.

  “Then, unretire those who are lolling about with umbrellas in their drinks. Their service is needed and all of that,” I reply.

  Cyrus just shakes his head. “Not possible, I’m afraid.”

  “Any chance those being vetted can be trained in time?”

  “I’m sorry, Jack. It takes time, and from what I’m seeing, that’s exactly what we don’t have,” Cyrus says.

  “So, a team of six—pardon me, seven,” I say, looking at Lynn. “Is that all that we have standing between those vampires and that town?”

  Cyrus nods. “It’s all we have period…for the time being.”