They all listened as Sylvia began to explain the fortifications she could remember from the dream. A ten-foot-high wall ran around the entire perimeter of the mansion. It had guard towers at the corners of the main building and patrols around the grounds.
“This place is set up like Fort Knox. It’s going to be a challenge short of storming the gates.” Charlie said. “Maybe we need someone to get inside the wall and take out some of their defenses first.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Sylvia added. “Any volunteers?” She asked but her eyes stayed locked onto his.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He replied.
“Good. Then we…”
“I’m going with him.” Julia blurted out.
“Julia, no!” Madeline protested. “I want you here with your sister. We still need to watch over her.”
“Then you stay with her, Mother. Avery and Ledge have been training me for weeks now. You didn’t even know how to fire your machine gun the other day.” Julia paused for just a moment. Then, taking her mother’s hand she stepped in close. “I’ll be alright. I promise. Charlie could use someone to watch his back and he won’t let anything happen to me.”
Reluctantly, Madeline nodded her approval then glared at Charlie. “If anything happens to her…”
“I understand.” He said.
“I’ll go as well.” Ledge said, surprising Charlie. Of the three Seraphim vampires, he was the one Charlie trusted the most. If one of them were going to come with him, he preferred it to be Ledge.
“Alright, but that’s enough. Any more and we might as well call and tell them we’re coming.” Charlie said. “So where is the place?”
“It’s in the Bedford Heights area. I’m not exactly sure, but I can find it when we get close.” Sylvia glanced down at the watch on her wrist. “It should be sunset right about now so let’s gear up and get ready to move out.”
Madeline ordered a dozen hell dogs to remain with her and the rest followed Charlie and the others out into the night air. One crazed, still semi-human hell dog with red eyes and blood on his mind came roaring at the group of hell dogs but he was swarmed and torn to pieces so quickly that Charlie barely noticed. He climbed into the vampire’s truck and Ledge started them on the road towards Kinder’s mansion. Charlie glanced out to see the hell dogs following on either side of the truck. They were one huge mass of blackness littered with sporadically placed yellow eyes. It brought a smile to his face to see how far they’d come. A few days ago he would have thought all of those things were enemies. Now things were different. He wondered if any of the other hell dogs remembered their lives like Sharon did. Any one of those walking outside the truck could be entrepreneurs or doctors. He wondered if they were capable of going back to any version of their lives that used to be. Even as wolves. Probably not. And had things changed for the better or worse? How was anyone supposed to tell which hell dogs were friend and which were foe? Especially, in the heat of battle. They had taken time to give all their hell dogs bright colored arm bands, but was that enough? Then in the swarm of bodies he caught a glimpse of something familiar. He saw a pink bow.
“Stop the truck!” He shouted. Ledge brought it to a screeching halt and all the hell dogs outside the truck stopped, too.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Ledge shouted.
“Just a minute. I’ll be right back.” Charlie hopped out of the truck and ran to where he had seen the bow. “Sharon! Sharon!” He caught up with her a short distance from the truck. “What’s wrong with you? You need to stay with the others. What were you thinking?”
She stood with her eyes on the ground, not meeting his gaze. “You came on purpose. Are you trying to get yourself killed?” She kept her eyes down. “You are.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Listen, if there is any way you can still be with her, we need time to figure out what that looks like. If you run off and get yourself killed, we’ll never know. You need to stay alive for her. You need to.” He tried to bend down to place himself in her field of vision. “Do you understand?”
Sharon looked up at him for the first time and he could see the understanding in her eyes. She nodded.
“Get back to the school and keep an eye on her, okay? We’ve got this.” She put one giant claw on his shoulder, then turned and ran back to the school.
Charlie climbed back into the truck and everyone stared at him.
“You wanna tell us what the hell that was all about?” Avery asked.
“It’s a long story, but I promised not to tell anyone yet. Let’s just say she needs her space, for now.”
Ledge threw the truck back into gear and started driving again. “Fine for now, I guess. But when this is over, we need to know.”
“Understood.” Charlie replied. “For now, let’s stay focused on what’s ahead.”
They hadn’t been driving for more than twenty minutes when Sylvia had Ledge pull the truck over on the side of the road and they all stepped out. The area was heavily wooded and there was very little to see outside of an intersection of streets a little further down the road.
“This is it?” Charlie whispered.
“We’re close.” Sylvia whispered back. A few hundred yards through those trees and we should be able to see the mansion.”
Sylvia led the way while the hell dogs followed closely behind. Charlie was amazed by how little noise the group of hell dogs made. A major concern when moving a large party through thick woods is the noise giving away your position. Not so, with this crew. The hell dogs moved through the brush as stealthily as, well, wolves.
They came to a small creek that ran parallel to a road. On the other side of that road was a ten-foot-high block wall. “So that’s it?” Charlie asked. Sylvia nodded and pointed to the main entrance of the wall half a block away. There was a large steel gate at the entrance and he could hear at least two guards shuffling around behind it. The click of a lighter and the ghostly façade of a man’s face gave one of the guards away as he lit his cigarette. Charlie looked around for a better vantage point and saw a tall hill nearby. “Julia, Ledge, and I will get up to that hill and see what’s behind the wall. You guys wait here.” He whispered to Sylvia. She nodded and they skulked off towards the hill.
At the top of the hill things were much clearer. He could see two groups of roving guards. Two men stood by the front door of the mansion and the guard towers, which were really only extra rooms positioned at the upper corners of the mansion with good visibility, were dark. That didn’t mean there weren’t snipers sitting in them, though.
“What do you think, Mr. Special Forces?” Julia whispered to him.
“It’s difficult, not impossible. But something else bothers me.” Julia and Ledge waited for him to say more so he went on. “See that guy by the door?” They nodded. “He’s awfully jumpy. Just a moment ago, he nearly drew his weapon when that bush blew in the breeze. And the guards at the gate? One is acting like a cool cucumber, talking and joking, but the other one seems nervous, head darting all over the place and straining to listen. It’s almost like they’re expecting something… or us. It’s almost like it might be a..”
“Trap!” Sylvia screamed at the top of her lungs and the world exploded around her. Hell dogs pounced from all over the woods. Their hell dogs fought back with everything they had. The front gate of the mansion opened and men with guns flooded out and opened fire. “Push towards the front gate!” Sylvia yelled as the shrieks and growls erupted from every direction. She began running towards the gate, cutting down anything that got in her way. She leapt over the creek and burst out into the open street. Drawing her two machine guns from under her jacket, she opened up on the men flooding out from behind the wall. They quickly concentrated their fire on her and she dove to the other side of the street, narrowly avoiding the bullets. A pair of giant clawed hands helped her up and she ran towards the men with the guns once more, firing, reloading, firing.
The men were falling faster now. Charlie, Ledge, and Julia
were storming down the hill with guns blazing. A group of hell dogs followed them through the open front gates. By the time she crossed through the front gate and into the courtyard, they were already pinned down by sniper fire from the upstairs windows. A bullet whizzed by her ear and she ducked behind a thick tree for cover. With a chance to catch her breath she realized she had completely lost track of Avery during the ambush. She made a quick scan of the area but saw no sign of him. Many of the hell dogs were lying in a heap near the entrance, but some of them had gotten through and started a small skirmish at the front door to the mansion.
On the other side of the courtyard, Ledge, Julia, and Charlie were pinned down behind a car. Charlie’s eyes met hers and he nodded. The snipers in the upstairs windows were good shots but undisciplined. They fired wildly at the invading horde and both ran out of bullets at the same time. The pause in gunfire told everyone that they were both reloading. Charlie took that moment to come out from cover and rush the front door. He fired a few rounds into each window to keep the snipers out of sight and she followed the three of them to the doors. The fight had pushed inside the mansion now and they ran in to join the fray.
The main foyer was dressed in regal white marble with a double staircase that curved to the upper level on either side of the room. Hell dogs were everywhere. They were wrestling, thrashing, and biting like soldiers making their last stand. It was nearly impossible to tell which hell dogs were theirs and which were Kinder’s aside from the flash of the occasional armband. She saw two men emerging from a room upstairs and opened fire on them splintering the railing and peppering the wall around them with bullets as they fell.
She felt a swat on her back and fell forward as claws raked deep grooves into her flesh. She rolled over and brought up both machine guns only to hear the heart stopping click of the triggers. Not now! She thought. The beast that had attacked her lifted her up by the throat and reached back for the killing blow. She could hardly breathe but she reached into her jacket and pulled out the biggest knife she had, jamming it in between the thing’s ribs. It let out an agonizing howl and threw her to the wall behind her. Her head slammed into a sharp corner and her vision went blurry for a moment. The pain was ravaging her thoughts.
But the beast recovered quickly and charged only to be knocked away by a shoulder thrust from Avery. He emptied his dual revolvers into the hell dog, assuring it was dead and then ran to her side to help her up. “You best be more careful, Mon Cheri. We don’t want to lose you just yet.” He said with a smile.
“I bet you don’t.” She spat back at him.
“Your gratitude knows no bounds, my dear.” He said with a straight face. “You’re welcome.” He turned to face the battle again while she dusted herself off as though they had all the time in the world.
They were now standing by a long hallway that wound around behind the main foyer. It looked as promising as anything so she yelled for the hell dogs to follow and took off down the hallway at a dead sprint. She didn’t get far before she realized Avery was with her as well as a dozen or so of the hell dogs that had heard her order to follow. He grinned at her when she glared over her shoulder.
After a few hundred feet, the din of the battle faded away and the hallway opened up into a great ballroom. She was running towards the doorway at the other end of the room when Ronald Kinder stepped in through the doorway followed by a large contingency of his hell dogs. “Rowan! I was beginning to worry that you might not make it.” He said with an evil grin.
“Rowan?” Avery was caught off guard.
Sylvia turned and thrust her combat knife into Avery’s neck and ripped it out the other side, making sure to slice through the ever-important jugular vein. Blood spurted out and covered the walls. His eyes flew open in pure shock. Too late, the realization set in. The revolvers he had been carrying clattered to the hard marble floor and he fell on his back, hands clutching at his neck. She kicked his guns away and knelt down over him.
“That’s right, Mon Cheri.” Her words filled with contempt. “Rowan Glover. But you can still call me Sylvia if you like.”
Avery’s breath rattled in his throat as he sputtered and coughed, struggling to stay conscious. Blood was seeping between his fingers and his eyes began to roll back in his head. She pried his fingers away from the wound and took a deep swallow from the hole in his neck then pulled away. “You taste delicious, but I’m afraid I can’t stay.” She whispered into his ear.
She stood with a smile on her face and walked to where Kinder waited. “You have the girl?” She asked.
“Of course, my dear.”
“Good, take me to her. The rest of our quarry should be following behind me at any moment.” She turned to the hell dogs. “Bring him.” She motioned towards Avery. “Drag him by the feet.” The hell dogs looked at her, apparently a little surprised at the turn of events. The two closest to Avery’s body looked at each other and seemed to shrug before they each grabbed an ankle and began dragging his body towards Kinder and Rowan.
“Leaving him a trail of bread crumbs to follow?” Kinder asked.
Rowan chuckled. “Well I’d hate for him to get lost in your beautiful abode.” She looked back and saw the dark red streaks of blood on the floor left behind by Avery’s wounds. “At least we won’t have to wait very long.”
He led her down another hallway and turned towards a set of stairs. She grinned at the sound of Avery’s head thumping on every stair as they descended. “You can be sure that she and Cutter will mate? This whole plan will be useless if we can’t get them to produce the child.” Kinder said.
“I’m well aware of what’s at stake, Ronald. He has been gifted. If they won’t procreate on their own, I should be able to exert enough influence over him to make them.” She smiled.
Kinder led her to his room and opened the small cell he was keeping Maggie in. “Here she is.” He said with a flourish and a smile.
“Excellent.” She stared into the face of a scared young woman huddled on a small cot in the corner of the room, holding her knees to her chest. “Hm.” She said. “I was expecting more.” Rowan was unimpressed. “Bring her.” She motioned for two of the hell dogs to grab the woman.
“Wait. Bring her where?” Kinder asked. “We need to wait for Cutter.”
“Ronald, my dear. You are a fool.” She thrust her hand into his abdomen and clawed up into his chest cavity until her entire forearm was buried up to the elbow and she could feel his beating heart in her hand. He let out a thin yell as air evacuated his lungs. His eyes showed the signs of pure agony as she squeezed and released, squeezed and released. He fumbled with her arm, trying to pry it from his chest but his hands grew more and more slippery with his own blood and his grip became weaker by the moment. “What? Didn’t see this coming, did you?” She asked him. “Love will do strange things to men, I know. Get them to believe things they wouldn’t otherwise believe. Get them to ignore warning signs they wouldn’t normally ignore. Don’t feel bad, Ronald. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last. I always get what I want.” He was beginning to panic and clawing at her arm, his eyes growing wider as she tightened her grip slowly around his heart like a constrictor around a rodent.
“The best part is that you had the Original Blood all along, Ronald. The whole time!” She threw her head back and laughed. “Really? You had no idea? I admit, I didn’t either. Not at first, that is. Until I realized how much I wanted to rip Charlie’s throat out and drain him dry. But she didn’t smell good, did she? Her blood repulsed you, right?” She reached in and kissed him lightly on the lips. “My dear, sweet, Ronald. Do you really think Original Blood would stay so well hidden if it smelled tantalizing to every vampire that came within a hundred feet of it?” She gripped his heart and ripped her arm from his chest, bringing the heart with it. His limp body fell to the ground. “Go ahead.” She said to the hell dogs and they pounced on his body with unbelievable ferocity, tearing and ripping the flesh from three-hundred-year-old bones.
Chapter 35
All around him, the battle raged. Hell dogs were charging him from all angles. He kept firing and reloading and he was burning through his ammo fast. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Sylvia, Avery, and a large number of their hell dogs take off down some hallway. That’s par for the course! He thought. “Where the hell are they going?” He yelled to Ledge.
“I don’t know but we should probably follow!” He yelled back as he gave a mighty shove to a hell dog corpse that had fallen into his arms.
Charlie fired his last few rounds with the M-16 and threw it to the ground. No sense holding onto something you were out of ammunition for. A few feet away, Julia screamed as a hell dog bit down on her arm. It cut her scream short when it grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the ground. She fired her pistol into its midsection but it still reached back with its other clawed hand to swing at her. Charlie slipped his machete from its sheath and swung just in time to hack the thing’s hand off. Instead of tearing her open, it merely bludgeoned her with its bloody stump and threw her against the wall. She keeled over holding her stomach but appeared none the worse for wear otherwise. Charlie slammed the machete into its side and the blade stuck between its ribs. It punched Charlie in the face with the bloody stump, showering him in a jet of blood that poured into his mouth and eyes. Instinctively he swallowed and felt the adrenalin rush surge into his limbs. He charged the thing and lifted it up off of the ground, slamming it into the wall behind. He ripped the machete from its side and swung at its arms and legs, its neck. He was enraged. He could feel the hatred and anger pouring from his body while he hacked and hacked away at the hell dog. The blood flew, the heavy blade of the machete ripping through flesh and bone. When he stopped he was panting and all was silent.
Original Blood Page 36