“It is time to test one of your pet theories,” I told him. “I want to know how much of what you told me is true. If you lied to me that might actually turn out to your advantage.”
Grabbing the vampire hunter cum vampire by his arm, I dragged him to the front door of the warehouse. The interior bolts slid aside with a grinding noise and a loud clang as I pulled them loose, then I swung the door open wide. With my left hand still on his arm, I propelled my victim out into the night. The partial moon shone brilliantly above, casting pale light on the street outside the warehouse. The heavy rains that had blanketed the city over the past week had ended sometime during the day and the storm clouds had moved on, leaving a clear almost completely unblemished sky. Only half of the deadly satellite was visible that night, but no haze or clouds obscured its light. As my new vampire stood fully exposed, flames engulfed his body. Hot blue and white fire flickered over him and his bare skin began to bubble, blacken and crack. His hair smoked, then shriveled and burned away in a flash of orange and blue light.
I could see steam rise from the burning corpse and I watched it dissipate in the cool night air as the vampire hunter fell to the ground and flailed helplessly against the fiery onslaught. His mouth opened as if to scream, but no sound reached me. He had forgotten to breathe again. Though he struggled, the light bathing his incinerating flesh did not ease. The smell touched my delicate nostrils, sickly-sweet and oddly pleasing.
I watched the impressive display as the hunter writhed in pain and the flames licked at his body. While spectacular in scope, it did not last long. As Victor had predicted it would, the show ended, disappointingly brief. The fire dimmed and extinguished after only a few seconds. The blackened smoking creature that had been Victor Daemon lay absolutely still on the parking lot pavement for a short time, then slowly, agonizingly, the tortured figure pushed itself to its hands and knees. Unable to rise further, the hunter raised his head and glared directly at me.
I was a little disconcerted to see two perfect, undamaged eyes peering at me from the blackened skull. But I smiled at him, and applauded. “Marvelous, Victor. As you promised, damaged but not destroyed. I think I believe you.” I walked forward a few steps and knelt down in front of him. “You need to heal. I will get you some blood.”
He shook his head, weak but emphatic. “No. No blood. I will not drink blood.”
“Victor, I think you may have a very important decision to make. You are a vampire, now. You must decide which is stronger, your desire to survive, or your promise to God to destroy all vampires. I don’t think you can have both.”
“I do not wish to live like this.” He spoke with difficulty, but I understood him well enough. “Kill me. Please. Expose my heart to the light.”
“No, hunter. I’m not going to touch you again. Your blood burned me once. I won’t let you do it to me a second time.”
“That protection is gone. When I turned, the evil in your blood canceled the good in mine.”
I noticed several places along his charred flesh that had cracked, revealing pink tissue beneath. Beads of blood welled up in several of these open fissures. I reached out, hesitantly, and touched a single beaded drop of his blood. It felt warm, but there was no fire in it. No pain.
“You see,” he whispered to me. “All gone. Please. Let me die.”
“Not yet,” I said, rising from my crouch. “I have an opportunity to test out one more of your theories.”
I removed a wooden stake from my back pocket. I pushed the hunter flat onto the pavement with my foot then kicked him over onto his back. In a single smooth motion I raised the stake in my hand, bent forward, and stabbed Victor through the heart. He convulsed once and lay still. I waited several minutes to be sure he would not move again, then I pulled the stake free. His eyes flicked left, focusing again on me.
“Please,” he hissed. “Why are you toying with me? Kill me, damn you.”
His eyes glistened and tears tracked through the black ash that had once been his handsome face. I do not know if pity moved me then, or fear that if I let him live he might one day seek me out and destroy me, but regardless of my motivation, I gave him what he asked for. I drove my bare hand into his chest, punching through the ribcage with my fist. I wrapped my fingers around the cold muscle of his heart and tore it from his body. As soon as the moon’s wan light touched it, a blazing white flame engulfed the organ, reducing it to ash in my hand. The flash of heat and fire came and went so fast I felt no discomfort and suffered no burns.
The vampire hunter lay once again motionless at my feet. And this time, I knew he would remain so.
I returned to the warehouse only long enough to gather the hunter’s belongings. The cross and the bible I left alone, as I feared touching them long enough to place them back in the bag. The wooden and metal stakes, as well as the bottles of holy water I kept, thinking that they might come in handy someday. I had also discovered a beautiful silver dagger among the items concealed in his bag. The blade was polished steel with silver inlays, perhaps eighteen inches long, edged on both sides and honed to a needle sharp tip. The grip was enclosed by a hand guard of flowing silver scrollwork that reached back to the pommel, protecting any hand holding the weapon. I fell in love with it the moment I picked it up. The elaborate metalwork of the handle gave the weapon the appearance of a small sword rather than that of a long dagger.
Before placing it back in the bag, I held the dagger up to the light to admire it. It reminded me a great deal of the blade I had been stabbed with in Indiana. A little more ornate, but similar. Under the lighting, I noticed some additional artwork etched into the blade. There were words written in an unfamiliar language laced through the artwork. I thought I might like to have the words translated someday if I could figure out what language it was. It might give me a clue as to who Victor Daemon actually was, or perhaps who he worked for.
Reluctantly, I placed it back in Victor’s travel bag.
I removed my cell phone from my pocket and dialed an out of town number. A voice answered after only a few rings. “Hello?”
“Niven, I have a very important question for you,” I said without introduction.
“Ah, hello David.”
David was the name by which he knew me. It was as good as any name and I had not bothered to correct it. Besides, it had been so long since I had told anyone my real name that I sometimes forgot I had one. Only one person still used my real name, and I desperately wished that she would just forget it.
“Do you remember what I told those two? About how killing a vampire would kill any vampires made from his blood?” I did not bother to clarify which ‘two’ I was referring to. Niven understood immediately who I was talking about.
“I do. Quite the inventive story you made up, especially under the circumstances. I was very impressed by your ingenuity.”
“Except I didn’t make it up,” I told him. “I thought it was true. Although right now I’m not so sure. That’s why I have to ask you, can you kill a vampire without killing his entire bloodline?”
“Well, I should certainly hope so,” said Niven. I could almost hear him trying to hold back laughter. “You see, I killed the vampire that created me. I burned him and scattered his ashes less than a year after he turned me.”
“That’s what I needed to know. Thanks, Niven.”
“You really didn’t know that?” he asked. “I thought you were just being creative and trying to buy us time. I’m sorry I didn’t fix that misconception before.”
“Not your fault. I should have asked before now. By the way, wooden stakes work great for paralyzing vampires, but they don’t kill them.”
Niven thanked me for the information, told me to call anytime I wanted to talk, and disconnected.
I hung up my phone, kicking myself for having been so stupid. Although, now that I knew better, some things were definitely going to change in my relationship with Andi.
I dialed one more phone number, calling Jack this time. After the
requisite greeting, I told him, “I need a cleanup at the warehouse. I won’t be there when you show up.”
I hung up and slipped the phone back into my pocket. I shouldered Victor’s pack and walked back outside, into the clear night air. As I exited the building, I took one last look at the burned corpse of the vampire hunter where it lay in the street.
“Thank you, Vic,” I said as I walked past. “You’ve been a big help.”
CHAPTER 21
Five more months crawled by. The rain and cold disappeared, replaced by warmer windy nights. I spent the time planning and waiting for the inevitable call that came every spring. With nothing better to do, I took advantage of the time to practice my ability to manipulate the darkflesh. The vampire hunter had given me the key when he said that darkflesh responded to the will of the person but was restricted by the bones and flesh of the body. Now instead of trying to make my teeth grow into fangs, I focused on shaping the darkflesh around my teeth to create the look I wanted.
With experimentation, I learned the knack for manipulating several different parts of my body. I even figured out how to make my hair longer and grow a beard in minutes. With practice I discovered how to change the appearance of my face, though I had not yet mastered the ability to mimic someone else. I knew with practice and determination, however, I could do it.
I spent the time productively, but I chaffed at having to wait. I wanted to be able to find Andi immediately, to go to her and confront her on my terms. But until she called out to me, I had no way of effectively finding her. Even if I went to the house she called me to each year, I knew she would not be there. Intuitively, I knew that she only used that location when she planned to meet with me. In desperation, I searched my mind for my end of the mental link that apparently bound us together, but I found nothing. She apparently could track me without effort when she chose, but her mind in return was invisible to me. I was forced to concede that I was on her schedule.
At last, it came.
Her call reached me one evening as I stood in the bathroom enjoying the bliss of a particularly hot shower. As the blistering hot water poured down my body, lending me its warmth, the familiar hateful tug touched my mind and pulled me toward the east. This time, I did not fight it. I stepped from the shower, toweled dry, and dressed at a leisurely but steady pace. Grabbing a small suitcase that I had packed a couple of weeks previously, I left the small rental house where I had been staying and climbed into my ten year-old silver Honda where it waited for me in the driveway.
I wasted no time. On this occasion, I journeyed to our meeting point willingly; even eagerly.
Because each previous meeting had been in the same location, I anticipated where I would be called. I had obtained some rental property only about a two-hour drive away, so when the call did come I could reach my destination that same night. I was correct in my assumptions, and a short drive later I was sitting in my car, parked on an empty residential street, only moments away from seeing Andi. I stepped out of the vehicle and let the door slam, not even bothering to try to be quiet. Andi knew I was there just as surely as I knew she was inside the house. I could feel her presence like a tickle in the middle of my shoulder blades that I could not reach.
As I stood on the porch of the two-story Victorian home for what I hoped would be the last time, I drew in a deep breath and exhaled it slowly in a ritualistically calming gesture. The white walls of the house glowed faintly under the moonlight. The color of the exterior had not changed, but I could smell fresh paint around me. I took this as a good sign. I viewed the new paint as a symbol of change, of a new understanding between me and my demanding creator. I waited expectantly on the darkened porch, knowing from experience knocking would be pointless. Andi knew I was waiting, and she would open the door when she was ready. Not one moment sooner.
Standing still took every ounce of self-control I possessed. I wanted to pace, to run and scream. If my body still lived, I know adrenaline would have filled my blood stream leaving me shaking with pent up energy and excitement. But I remained motionless, utterly still and calm in all outward appearance, though I was a raving lunatic inside.
After what felt like an eternity – though in fact was only a few minutes – the door swung open, inviting me in to the shadows. I stepped forward without hesitation. I wanted this confrontation to begin. I wanted it! My eyes adapted instantly to the gloom and I saw Andi’s pale form moving toward me. She looked beautiful as always. A loose, red silk blouse topped a pair of jeans cut off at the knees. The blouse was unbuttoned far enough down to show off the soft curves of her breasts and display a teardrop shaped ruby pendant that hung suspended between them. I also noticed that she was barefoot. The lack of shoes added to her allure for me, giving her a look of youthful abandon.
She reached out to me and smiled in anticipation. I wanted to open my arms and bare my throat. I wanted to let her have anything she wanted if it meant I could be close to her once more. I found myself at that moment unable to hate her, and so I hated myself instead for displaying such weakness. She was using me and would soon discard me, I reminded myself. She would feed from me and, when sated, throw me aside until she was ready to do it again. She was a parasite and I was her unwilling host.
I repeated this litany in my head until anger at being used so callously slowly bubbled up and warred with my confusing desire to submit to her.
She moved closer, confident in her hold over me, but before her hands touched me I reached under my shirt to the concealed sheath inside my pants’ waistband. I gripped the handle of the ornate silver dagger I had stolen from the vampire hunter and pulled the blade free. Pale moonlight entering the house from the open front door caused the bared metal of the weapon to flash bright white as I stabbed forward into Andi’s waiting chest.
Andi stepped back and slapped at the knife. The impact was like trying to catch a hundred mile per hour fastball in my hand without a glove. I felt several small bones in my fingers break from the contact and the silver blade was sent flying from my hand. I heard a small chuff as the dagger embedded itself point-first into the drywall of the hallway to my left, but I didn’t have time to look at it, much less try to grab it as Andi’s hand closed around my throat.
I was lifted up off of my feet and forced to tiptoe backwards as Andi closed the front door. Perhaps she was concerned a passing neighbor might happen by and notice her eviscerating her boyfriend, so the first order of business was eliminate potential witnesses. The moment the door closed I was slammed to the floor flat on my back. My head bounced off of the hardwood with enough impact to leave me dizzy and nauseated. Andi dropped to her knees beside me, never releasing her hold on my neck.
“What did you think you were doing?” she growled. “Are you trying to kill us both? Have you finally turned suicidal?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Even if my brains could stop swimming long enough to allow coherent thought, her hand on my windpipe was cinched like a vise, allowing nothing in or out. I grabbed at her wrist ineffectually, trying to pry her off of me. I was a child trying to wrest free of an adult. An angry adult, with murder in mind.
“You know how this works,” she continued. “If you are tired of our arrangement, just say so and I’ll rip your head off and throw it in the garbage.”
The fog in my head finally began to clear. Just in time to die, I thought. It wasn’t supposed to go this way. I was supposed to put the knife in her chest, gloat about how I had finally defeated her, and then tear her heart out of her body. I was supposed to win this time. I was supposed to kill Andi, not die at her hands.
But did I really think it could be that easy? My entire plan had been to try to move fast enough to bury a knife in her chest. I was fast, yes, but I knew damn well that Andi was still faster. Still stronger. I should have been smarter than this. Any confrontation between us on equal footing would always end with Andi coming out on top. Now it was too late. I had shown her my intentions when the knife came out and there was n
othing left for her to do but kill me.
Even as I berated myself for my stupidity, a new thought occurred to me. A memory actually. Andi had just threatened to rip my head off. She hadn’t said she was going to kill me, she had said she would take off my head. Victor had claimed losing my head would not kill me; not outright anyway. Did Andi know that? She didn’t know moonlight couldn’t kill a new vampire, or that a vampire could safely destroy its creator. Andi apparently did not know many things. Things I was slowly figuring out.
I realized there was one other thing I had learned that Andi didn’t know.
I placed my uninjured left hand against Andi’s stomach. The pressure around my throat increased and I knew I didn’t have much time before the bones in my neck began to break under the assault. I focused my scattered thoughts and let the nails of my fingers grow long and sharp. Before she could react to the new threat, I drove my hand forward, cutting deep and fast into her torso. I felt my razor-edged fingers cut fast and deep through her flesh and organs until they touched the hard round surface of her backbone. I grasped her spine like the handle of a life preserver and held on.
I did not have the strength to break her back or do any real damage to her skeleton, but the soft tissue damage I created caused Andi to scream and leap backwards away from me. My grip on her backbone pulled me along as she tried to get away and she inadvertently hauled me to my feet.
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