Devil's Dream

by Shayne Silvers

  I lunged with my claws and decapitated him in an instant, using the umbrella to shield my act of murder. Victoria quickly crouched down and covered him in blankets to soak up the blood while I scanned the street and roof of the warehouse, doing my best to conceal her actions with my umbrella. I couldn’t see the rooftop guards from here, so I was betting we were safe. Luckily, the dead vampire was camped beside a large drain on the sidewalk that funneled the now crimson-stained water into the sewers—the underground.

  She tugged out his earbud and then shoved his head under the blankets before briskly arranging the scene so that it looked like he was merely sleeping.

  The whole thing had taken maybe three seconds, and even I couldn’t visually discern that the homeless vampire was now a headless, homeless vampire. Unless I leaned down to get a closer look at the water dripping into the drain—but with the cover of darkness, even that was difficult.

  “We can’t move him, or they might get suspicious,” Victoria explained, tucking the earbud into her opposite ear. As she was making one last adjustment to his coat, she suddenly froze, staring down at his waist. A white card was affixed to his belt by some kind of clasp and extendable string. She quickly snatched it up and straightened to her feet. Then she latched onto my arm, leading me away from the gates we had planned on using. “Our friend just gave us the key to the castle,” she whispered excitedly, nuzzling into my shoulder to continue our ruse of blissful romance.

  Seeing her so violently and effortlessly dispatch the vampire, I wasn’t sure it was much of a ruse anymore. I was pretty sure I had just tripped into a bloody puddle of love.

  I grunted, eyeing the plastic card she was palming. Blood Center of the Empire State, the words on the front said. “Walking in through the front door will bring us face-to-face with a contingent of guards,” I murmured anxiously. “Nothing subtle about that.”

  “Let’s keep moving. I think I saw a side door, and guards often have unrestricted access. Goon privilege.” She dramatically struggled to remain under the umbrella, laughing loudly again. “My hair is getting soaked!” she complained. “Where did you park?”

  “Just around the corner!” I laughed, amazed at her ability to switch personas so rapidly. From swift, efficient murder to complaining about her hair. “Stop whining!”

  She whispered to me under the umbrella. “I don’t think anyone noticed,” she whispered, obviously referring to her newly acquired earbud.

  I nodded. We rounded the corner to see a paint-chipped, dented, unassuming metal door under a small awning. An electronic device was attached to the wall beside the door handle, and it showed a small red light.

  Victoria shot me a look. “No camera above the door. Should we try to sneak past all the guards by the gate or use this door?” she asked, and I could tell she truly wanted my opinion rather than trying to sway me one way or another.

  “Let’s do it. If stealth fails, we’ll resort to swift, merciless slaughter.”

  She flashed her teeth in a hungry grin. “The more you talk, the more I like you, Sorin. I never would have thought I’d be hunting vampires alongside the world’s first vampire.”

  “Everything you hate about vampires happened because of Dracula and his ilk. I was long out of the picture when your dad was killed.”

  She nodded, a flicker of sadness entering her eyes. “I know. I didn’t mean to imply—”

  I pressed my finger over her lips, silencing her. “No.” I felt her lips tug into a smile, but I kept my eyes locked onto hers. “My spawn, Dracula, destroyed your family. He will pay for that. I have a measure of responsibility in his actions and, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Together, we will finally make Dracula pay for his crimes. Starting tonight,” I promised, lowering my finger. “You ready?” I asked, eyeing the card in her hand.

  She let out a breath, her face growing utterly calm. “Do or die.”

  She swiped the card and the electronic lock flashed green. She carefully turned the handle, and the door opened into a dimly lit hallway. We slipped inside like shadows, letting it close softly behind us as I kept my eyes on our new surroundings.

  A sudden crack of thunder shook the building, making us both jump in surprise. The lights flickered and I crouched warily. It looked like both storms had arrived at the same time.

  Victoria pointed at a wooden door off to the side. Utility Room was written across the top. She grinned, tugging me towards it. “I have an idea,” she breathed, opening the door and ushering me inside.

  The door closed to reveal a room full of pipes and machines. I frowned.

  “We’re going to kill the power,” she whispered. “No cameras, no lights. They will blame it on the storm. As long as we get another strike of lightning,” she said, opening up a metal panel on the wall. “They will have a generator to keep the refrigerators cool, but it should turn off all unnecessary electronics. If not, it will at least distract them.”

  I nodded. Then I kissed my crucifix, grinning at her. She rolled her eyes and gripped a switch on the panel. Thunder rumbled outside, and I wondered how much longer we had before they grew concerned for their vampire sentry posted on the sidewalk.

  A sudden peal of lightning cracked loud enough to shake the walls, and Victoria slammed the switch down. The lights cut off instantly, as did all the machinery in the room. A few seconds later, a red light flared to life, blinking. “Back-up generator,” she said, nodding satisfactorily. “I’m sure they’ll send someone down to check on the fuse box, so we should get to work.”

  I nodded, casting my senses out to check for heartbeats. My eyes widened and I instantly shoved my hand over Victoria’s mouth as I pressed her up against the wall behind the door.

  A vampire entered the room, muttering unhappily under his breath. “Piece of shit building.” He made his way over to the fuse box and I stared into Victoria’s eyes from only inches away.

  32

  Victoria’s body melded against mine in a perfect fit, the swell of her breasts momentarily distracting me. My hair hung down, casting her in shadow from the blinking red light. She blinked lazily, smirking at my obvious reaction. Her pale eyes gleamed like rubies now.

  I grinned back and then glanced over my shoulder. The vampire was so distracted that he hadn’t even sensed Victoria’s pulse only a pace away. I turned and tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped with a hiss. I gave him enough time to see my face and bare his fangs at me before I grabbed a fistful of his hair, jerked his head back, and sliced my claws across his neck.

  Blood sprayed over my face and I licked my lips hungrily, despite the faint bitterness. “Who’s your father,” I snarled, still holding his head by his hair as his body collapsed to the ground.

  Victoria wasted no time in dragging him by the boots and shoving his body into the corner. “That makes two,” she said, dusting off her hands and unsheathing a pair of wicked black blades.

  I nodded, staring down at the head. “You know, I never really thought about the logistics of lugging around a dozen of these,” I mused.

  She grunted. “Me neither. We’ll just have to pick them up later.”

  I studied her, distantly surprised at how calm she was in the face of such violence. Knowing how to fight and being utterly calm around excessive gore were too intensely different skillsets. Like Nosh, Victoria remained unphased

  She noticed my scrutiny and rolled her eyes. “You won’t find me sobbing in a corner anytime soon, Sorin. When I see what they’ve done to this city and what Dracula has done overseas, I see only a dog that needs to be put down.”

  I nodded my agreement. “Yet you have no problem working alongside me, another vampire.”

  She smirked. “Yeah, but you bring the classiness back. You always extend your arm and show unnecessary courtesies. You have charm.”

  I blinked at her. “So, if one of these vampires held the door open for you, you might not kill them?”

  She rolled her eyes. “A woman likes to be swooned, Sorin. And don’t b
e so absurd. Of course I would kill them. But I would say thank you, first. Like a fucking lady.”

  I laughed, lowering the head. “In my day, men looked out for their loved ones, friends, and family. Men died for them.”

  She nodded, understanding well since she was also an old soul. “I miss those days. When I see them, I see a predator. When I see you…” she trailed off, considering her words, “I see a protector. Having the capacity for violence and being cruel are not mutually exclusive.”

  “Much like how a beautiful woman like you can wear a ballgown one night and blades the next,” I said, jerking my chin at her knives.

  “Precisely.” She nodded primly, tugging on a pair of gloves that smelled of oiled metal. She noticed my attention and wiggled her fingers. “Armored with reinforced titanium and Kevlar.”

  I grunted, having no idea what any of it meant. I cocked my head, straining my senses to press outwards through the walls. “We have six threats within a hundred paces,” I said, calculating the auras that indicated vampires. I sensed a few heartbeats and sighed. “Three of them are humans. Beyond the door at the end of the hall.”

  Victoria nodded, opening the door. “Let’s go head hunting.”

  I tossed the head atop the dead vampire’s body and followed her, idly wondering what she intended to do to the human guards. What I wanted to do to them. Part of me wanted to eradicate everyone here, but there was a chance some of them had no idea who they truly worked for.

  There was also the chance that they knew exactly who they worked for and were hoping to earn the chance to rise above their humanity and become vampires themselves.

  I followed Victoria down the hall, choosing to play it by ear. She waited by the door, staring at me, obviously wondering if anyone was immediately on the other side.

  “We are clear. The closest is a little more than ten paces away.”

  She rolled her eyes. “No one says pace anymore, old man,” she teased. “A pace is about three feet,” she said, taking three toe-to-heel steps to demonstrate. “Three foot-lengths—feet—is approximately one yard or one meter.”

  “Yes, little girl,” I muttered dryly. “They are thirty foot-lengths away. Ten yards or maybe meters.”

  She grinned, turning back to the door. “I’ll go left, you go right. In three, two, one!”

  She opened the door and slipped inside a dim, red-lit room, hugging the wall. I followed, letting the door silently close behind me. Three guards sat at a table in the center of a large open space, playing cards. A row of glass-doored, metal boxes as tall as a man were stocked with shelves of blood bags. Victoria had told me about them—the refrigerators that kept the blood cool. White light glowed from within, illuminating the card players in a pale glow. They didn’t notice our entrance.

  I spotted a vampire staring down at his phone near the wall on my right. I crept up behind him, noticing another vampire just ahead of him who was writing on a pad of paper as he counted inventory of the last refrigerator in the row. I glanced back to see Victoria creeping up behind the last vampire who was reading some paperwork at a desk, unaware of her presence. He was probably numb to the sense of heartbeats nearby, subconsciously dismissing them as the human guards.

  I waited for her to get right behind him and glance my way. Then I gave her a brief nod and she stabbed him through the chest with a wooden stake from over his shoulder. She simultaneously slapped a gloved hand over his mouth, preventing him from making a sound. I suddenly realized why she’d wanted the armored gloves—so the vampire couldn’t bite her fingers off.

  I instantly spun to my own victim and shoved my hand into his back. My claws stabbed straight through his heart and out his chest. I cradled his body, guiding it to the ground, and extracted my arm, still clutching his heart. I tipped it back like a water skin, taking a quick drink of his heart blood before dropping the organ. Knowing the other vampire would sense the sudden scent any moment, I shot towards him in a blur, covering ten paces—yards or meters—in a single second as I tapped into my powers. I snapped his neck right as his shoulders began to stiffen in recognition of the fresh blood in the room. I let my momentum carry us past the pale glow of the refrigerators and sliced his head off.

  I waited, listening intently to see if the guards at the card table had noticed anything. They laughed raucously at their game, oblivious to the three murders of the most adept warriors in the room—their only hope of salvation.

  I stared down at the head in my hands and peered around the corner. No matter how we approached, one of the guards would spot us. It was surprising that they hadn’t noticed their overlords dropping in their peripheral vision, but the white light from the refrigerators was likely destroying their ability to clearly see the perimeter of the darkened room—much like sitting by a campfire ruined your ability to accurately observe the woods around you. Which was why sentries were always posted far away from the campfire.

  And the dim red emergency lights played tricks on the eyes. Even to me it was mildly disorienting. I tapped my earbud, murmuring to Victoria, “I’m going to toss a head on their table. Get ready to move, little girl.”

  “What?” Victoria hissed back in a breathless, frantic whisper.

  I gave her two seconds and then I lobbed the vampire’s head up into the air, hoping my aim was true. It slammed down into the center of the table, knocking down all their drinks, plastic chips, and a pile of cards.

  I was already a blur of lethal speed—an arrow of death—as the head rolled into one of their laps and all three men jumped up with cries of alarm. “What the f—”

  I punched the man in the jaw, knocking him out cold before he could finish his sentence. I was already spinning to confront the other two when I saw them standing stiffly upright and shaking violently. That’s when I noticed the crackling sound from behind them. The sound cut off and the men dropped like sacks of potatoes, whimpering helplessly as their bodies continued to spasm and twitch.

  Victoria stood behind them with strange devices over her gloved hands, reminding me of brass knuckles—only black and not made of metal. She glanced sharply about the room, making sure my earlier assessment had been right and that there weren’t more guards or vampires. She let out a breath, locking eyes with me. They gleamed like fresh blood in the red light, and I suddenly wanted nothing more than to kiss her.

  Or for her to beg me to sink my fangs into her sweet, delicate neck as she writhed beneath—

  I cut off the thought, blinking away the sudden visual image.

  She cocked her head curiously, sensing that something significant had just crossed my mind. I waved off her concern. “What are those?” I asked, staring at the devices over her gloves. They looked to have tiny prongs on the end, not even as long as my fingernail.

  She pressed down on something with her thumb and sudden arcs of lightning crackled to life between the two prongs. I jumped back a step, hissing. She laughed, releasing her thumb, and the lightning instantly cut off. “Modified stun-gun. One million volts of electricity,” she said, beaming.

  “You have lightning on your fists?” I asked incredulously.

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  I stared down at the men. They weren’t unconscious, but they were whimpering in agony. Victoria calmly stunned them again and I watched as their bodies locked rigid.

  I leaned down, sniffing them. “They’ve been bitten,” I growled. “Blood donors. They know exactly what they’re doing and who they’re working for,” I said darkly, wondering what I was going to do about it.

  Victoria saved me the effort and slammed a blade down into both of their hearts simultaneously. They let out rattling groans before their bodies went limp. She calmly looked up at me. Then she glanced past to the unconscious man, arching an eyebrow.

  I nodded back. “I’m feeling thirsty, what with keeping you safe this whole time. If you’ll excuse me a moment, my lady.” I bowed formally.

  She scoffed, rolling her eyes. I made my way over to the la
st guard, verifying that he was equally corrupted. That wasn’t necessarily a crime in my eyes, but with the vampires he worked for, guarding a blood bank and knowing full-well that it was for vampires rather than humans was good enough reason for me to end his existence.

  I propped him up and sank my fangs into his neck for a quick drink. It was concerning how rapidly my powers drained after even the slightest use. I had come into the building feeling incredible—relative to my recent power fluctuations. Yet now I felt tired again. Weaker.

  Closing the distance between me and the last vampire had been harder than it should have been. I could tell that my body was having to work much harder to do things I had once taken for granted. And expending a lot more energy to do so. Natalie’s blood should have kept me going all night long.

  The guard’s blood hit my tongue and I sighed, drinking it down, relishing the sensation of it coursing through my body. I stared at Victoria as I feasted, feeling slightly self-conscious, but she was merely smiling at me encouragingly.

  She began counting with her fingers before opening her mouth. “We only need seven more—”

  The door behind her opened to reveal a short man in a long white coat. He gasped in surprise to see me drinking from the guard’s neck. Then he noticed the other dead bodies and gagged. He dropped the pad of paper in his hand and spun, attempting to run back out the door, but he slipped or tripped, headbutting the door handle instead.

  Victoria had jumped to her feet at the sound and was already running towards him. The man sobbed in terror, his nose oozing blood from headbutting the door, as he finally managed to yank the door open and stumble through. I released my fangs, snarling. He could ruin everything!

  Just then, a door opened behind me and I heard a muttered curse. Two blasts of gunfire erupted, slamming into my back.

  33

  I rolled clear of a third and fourth blast, groaning as I fought to ignore the fire burning through my abdomen. I sprang back towards my vampire attacker, pinning him to the wall beside the door he had just used, my claw impaled through his chest.