“You think he’s meeting with someone?” Claude asks.
I shrug because it’s nearly impossible to tell with this information. “The thing is, with technology today, if he was meeting with someone, why not just talk over the phone? Why risk this?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Finn says as he shifts to the right so he can look at me.
The thought of putting Finn in danger immediately makes me put on the brakes. “Or… I could go check it out while you torture Claude. I’ll even get you some fun torture devices if you’d like.”
Finn stares at me, unblinking, unwavering. “No.”
“Finn, it’ll be fun, I promise. And Claude likes it. You like being tortured, right, Claude?”
Claude’s eyes narrow. “Is that why you tortured me our entire childhood? You thought I liked it?”
“I didn’t torture you!”
Claude leans into Finn and smiles fondly at him. “Although… if it’s you, Finn, I don’t think I’d mind too much,” Claude says as he stretches out a hand toward Finn. Instead of Finn cringing away, Finn reaches for him and squeezes his hand.
“Aw, thank you, Claude. I guess I could paddle you a little, if you’d like? But it’d have to be a bare ass,” he says, and I yank his hand away from Claude.
“Are you leaving yet?” I growl at him.
“God, no. Papa Orin said I could stay as long as I want.”
“He was just being kind.”
Finn pushes the screen of the laptop back a little before zooming in. “He’s headed there. It’s clear as hell he’s headed there,” Finn says, making it apparent that he thinks we should also be heading there. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Claude, you’re going to pull your car into the garage in case we’re being watched. Marcus and I will get into the car. I’ll duck down in case someone is watching and Marcus will put on your clothes. You’ll stay hidden as we pretend to be you and head toward… do you live around here?” Finn asks in confusion.
“I originally just showed up for my yearly love-my-brother day, but then you suckered me in with your sweet looks and charming attitude, and now… now, I’m not sure I can leave,” Claude says. “I was looking at houses just the other day.”
“Aw, your brother might move into the city,” Finn says as he beams at me like he thinks any of this is a good idea.
“Go back to stealing Claude’s car and driving it into the river,” I plead.
“I… don’t think I remember that last part. But we could at least check out the area. Maybe we could catch him off guard or catch Miller doing something wrong,” Finn says.
I hate moments like this. Moments where I either have to force him to stay behind and hate me for it or let him go and risk him getting hurt.
“He doesn’t want to kill me. The funny thing is that I’m the safest one out of all of you,” Finn says.
“That is true,” Claude says as he watches us. “And… it’s clear I can’t protect him, so are you going to leave him here with me? I was practically useless. And the man was just waiting for you to leave.”
“What is this?” I ask as I wave between them. “Why do you two now get along and try to annoy me together?”
“He saved my life. There was no choice but to get along with him,” Finn jokes. “I’m going to go get ready.”
“Get your protective gear on too. Claude, can you move the car into the garage?”
“Sure.”
Once everything is situated and Finn can barely bend from protective gear, I look over at Claude. “I need your clothes. At least the top half because I am not wearing those jeans. Can your balls breathe in those jeans?”
“Quite well, actually.” He pulls his hot pink jacket off before looking down at his shimmery undershirt. “These are precious, and you cannot get anything on them, understood?”
“I don’t need the undershirt,” I say as I reach for the godawful jacket.
“What are you going to wear under it, then?” Claude asks, like this is the biggest concern of the evening.
“The T-shirt I currently have on.”
He jerks away from me. “God, no. You can’t do that. That doesn’t match. They’ll instantly know it’s not me!”
I stare at him in disbelief. “They will not! Just give me the jacket.” I take it from him and stuff myself into it since his frame is a little smaller than mine.
“Sexy,” Finn says with a sarcastic smile.
“Shut it and stuff yourself in the back seat of the car,” I order.
He heads off while snickering as Claude smacks my hands away and buttons the jacket. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” he says.
What is he even going on about? “What does that have anything to do with anything?”
“I can put you in an expensive and gorgeous jacket, but I still can’t make you look good,” Claude says like that’s a direct comparison.
I sigh as I grab the keys and get into the car.
“Be safe, both of you. I kind of like you both. Finn, you a little more than Marcus.”
“I like you too, Claude!” Finn says from the back seat.
I ignore them, put a hat on that makes Claude cringe, and open the garage door as he heads into the house to hide from any windows. We also left him to tell Orin what’s going on if he asks, seeing as Orin would probably skin both of us for being reckless.
And then I start driving.
“Doing good back there?” I ask.
“Amazing. You two are similar in more ways than you’d think,” Finn says.
“I need proof,” I grumble.
“Well, you’re both so neat all the time. This floor is spotless!”
I sigh because I really, really don’t think that’s proof.
About halfway there, he climbs into the front seat and opens up my laptop to see if Miller’s car has moved.
“He’s still there. What’s our plan for when we get there?”
“It all depends. If he is there, I really don’t need to take on him and Miller. So I think we should just sit back and watch from a distance to see if anyone else leaves. Just try to get some intel. Maybe proof that Miller is working with him. Pictures if we can.”
“I agree.”
Finn checks his guns again, like the bullets he stole from evidence might have evaporated at some point.
“Are you good?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Are we being dumb going alone?”
He shakes his head, face filled with determination. “I’ve dragged too many people into this. I don’t want anyone else hurt because of me. And you promise that if it gets too much, you’ll back off, right? You have to remember he doesn’t want to hurt me, or he’d already have hurt or killed me.”
I nod even though I think we both know I’d never back off. “Of course.”
When we reach the old grocery store that’d gone out of business when this area turned more into large factories and industries, I park where I can see Miller’s car. We’re back far enough that a quick U-turn would put me right back on the road.
And so we wait. Finn pulls out some binoculars, but they don’t seem to be helping him much in the dark because he keeps fumbling with them.
It’s a good twenty minutes before Finn turns to me. “What if we go inside?”
“Not going to happen.”
“Just vroom vroom, peek?” he suggests.
“You’re going to let me run up there without you?”
“Well… no. But like… you could carry me as you vroom vroom?” He seems to think this is a good suggestion but I think it’s like carrying the sacrifice right up to the sacrificial site. I don’t want to deliver Finn anywhere.
“No. We’re going to—”
I hesitate as I hear someone moving outside the car. “Someone’s on to us.”
“Is it him?”
“Not unless he doesn’t want us to know it’s him. I generally can’t feel him until he’s there,” I say as I
go to start the car before I realize that there are more than I thought. “Well… fuck.”
“What?”
“We’re surrounded. I guess our trick didn’t work too well,” I say. “Shit.”
“Drive?”
One of them slams into the car, tearing the door off before I can decide if it’s safer to try and drive off and risk a car crash or fight them.
As the door is torn off, I lunge through the new opening and snatch onto the vampire that’d been planning to attack. I grab his throat and crush it in my hands before he even manages to reach for me. I turn to the person who is holding Claude’s car door and is apparently deciding to use it as a boomerang aimed at my head. I rush toward him but before I reach him, he’s reeling back from being shot by Finn’s tranq gun.
I suppose the only upside is if they’re working for that monster, they’ll have strict rules not to hurt Finn. A woman grabs onto me, moving quickly which tells me she’s much older than the rest. Her nails rake against my face, cutting into it as blood begins to run, but I’m already healed before she moves in for another attack. I rush her when she pulls back and two more fill her place. As the one man moves in, I grab his wrist, tearing him to me before hooking his neck and driving my knee up with enough force that I hear the bones in his chest crack and shatter. He’s young enough that it’ll take a good moment to heal.
The next one is on me, grabbing onto my neck as I dive my head down, throwing him over my shoulder before stomping down on his throat. I don’t want to kill anyone yet. First, I want to torture them into telling me what I need to know.
I turn back to the woman who moves in now that the others are down. As she nears me, I slide to the right and drive my fist into the bottom of her jaw, snapping her head back. She lets out a roar as she rushes around to the side and grabs for me, a long thin knife slicing into my side. It gives her a range I don’t currently have, since I wasn’t expecting to be flayed open.
The hardest part is that I constantly have to keep half of my attention on Finn. I know he can hold his own, and I know he’s careful, but I also know he’s human. There’s only so much a human can do against a vampire.
So when I see a vampire who’d been hanging back move in toward Finn, I kick the woman back and rush for him.
“Don’t you dare touch him, Miller,” I growl, but as I go to reach for him, the woman moves around the far side of the car and slams Finn into it.
I throw Miller back and lunge for her as Finn fills her with tranqs. The only issue is that it takes some time before they begin to work, so I still have to push her back. A kick to her side drives her down as I move in and catch her before she even falls and break her neck. She’ll heal, but by then, the tranqs will have her down.
“Stay back!”
I turn just in time to see Miller grab Finn. Finn fights against him, but I notice he’s not using his left arm and Miller has his right pinned down.
“I will kill you if you don’t let him go,” I growl as I rush toward him.
I don’t know if it’s fear or stupidity that causes him to take off running with Finn. He rushes in through an unlocked door and disappears inside.
He’s oddly fast. Was he always this fast? He’s not… he’s not him, right? No, he can’t be. He might have been hiding a different side to him, but he’s not that strong.
“Marcus, just leave. You go back to the car and I’ll let Finn go,” Miller says. “I don’t want to hurt him, but if you force me to…”
His voice echoes around the empty building, but I can see him at the far end.
“You can let him go now or I will tear your head from your body,” I growl as I slow to a walk.
Finn stops fighting and looks up at Miller. “I know… I know you didn’t want Perez killed. You and he were really good friends and you guys were close. You had no choice because you know what that man is like,” Finn says, voice steady and calm.
I open my mouth to remind Miller of what I can do, especially when he’s touching my Finn, but Finn looks over at me and shakes his head.
“Miller… he’s a sick man who is controlling. He has so much power. I don’t blame you for having to do what he asked. You had no choice! He’s too powerful. He would have killed you for not listening,” Finn says.
Miller’s face distorts into one filled with pain and devastation. “I didn’t… I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t… Adler killed him… but I know I could have tried to stop him. I… I just knew I didn’t have a choice. He wanted to leave a message to you guys. He wanted to drive you guys back. Just… fuck,” he whispers before pushing Finn toward me.
“Miller,” Finn says as he turns around but doesn’t rush to me. “You have to know who he is.”
“Of course I fucking know who he is!” Miller shouts, almost hysterical as he begins to pace. “I made him!”
“What?” I ask in disbelief. “You’re his maker?”
He stops to look at me. “Not… not like you’re thinking. This was hundreds of years ago, back when I was a human. My wife was ill… she was sickly most of her life and I was afraid she was going to die. I poured myself into research, into creating something that would allow eternal life. I was playing with things that a human should never play with and I created a monster. He was… he was a friend of mine, wounded horribly, so I tried fixing him. But when I tried saving him, I created a monster that had no feeling and no empathy that feasted on the blood of his victims. It was a mistake. I should never have tried it. I knew I was playing God and I am no god. And while he instantly healed, I noticed he was no longer the man I once knew. Then when I came home to find that he’d killed my wife… he killed the woman I’d done all of this in an attempt to save… I knew he had to die. He trusted me or maybe he no longer feared anything. So while he slept, I slit his throat and watched him bleed. But when his skin healed faster than he could bleed out, I was horrified.
“He threw me across the room and fled. I knew he was my monster, that it was my fault I’d created a man like him who was now terrorizing innocent people. But I also knew there was nothing I could do. I fear I began to lose my mind. Instead of letting this fixation dissipate, I let it consume me. And while I knew I couldn’t kill that monster myself, I was sure I could create more monsters to kill him. I thought that maybe the difference was his body going through the transformation that it went through when he was already an adult. So I began to experiment on pregnant women while working as a traveling doctor. It allowed me to move around so he couldn’t find me while I tried my experiment on people without others realizing what I was doing. As I got more confident in my work, I began to see changes—not in them but in what they carried inside them. I failed again and again but that monster haunted my every dream, and I knew I had to stop him before he killed me. That’s when I created what we call now true vampires. They were not as strong, not as ruthless, but they also weren’t emotionless. They had fears and could love. They were nothing like him and I thought that I finally… finally found a way to end him. My plan had been to gather these children and raise them to destroy this monster, but before I could, he—”
I feel a surge of power as I rush forward and grab Finn as the very monster the man is speaking of steps up behind him. I hadn’t even heard him enter the room, and can only watch in shock as he slides his hand through the air, cutting Miller’s head off.
“My god,” the elder vampire says as he slowly looks up at us. All that’s visible are his eyes that are a deep glowing red. “That man was boring! To conclude his godawful story, I turned him and made him work for me. I loved making him serve the very thing he hated most in the world, but even that gets boring after a while. Now, doll, my sweet, sweet doll. Don’t try to fool me or trick me.”
“H-How’d you know we were here?” Finn asks and I can feel his fear spike. I hate the feel of it and it makes me want to do everything to protect him.
“You thought you could trick me into thinking Marcus was his brother? I’m not a fool,” h
e says. “But enough about this. Doll, you’re starting to piss me off so badly. This is your final warning. I’ve tried just loving you from afar. I’ve tried caring for you from afar, but you just won’t listen anymore, and frankly, I’ve had enough of it.”
And that’s the moment the anger, the irritation, all of it crashes down onto me. As the monster moves toward us, I push Finn back and rush into the man.
“Marcus, don’t!” Finn cries, but if I can kill this man, if I can stop this man who’s tried his hardest to ruin Finn’s life, who’s tried to control him and hurt him, I could stop him from ever looking at Finn again.
“Oh? You’re going to fight me, are you? After I’ve gone against everything I should and allowed you to take care of my precious doll? Are you a goddamn idiot?” he growls as he slams into me. He tries to throw me back, but I grab his wrist and drive my body into him. He doesn’t let that slow him as he pulls me toward him.
He’s just so damn fast. How can a man not even half a century older than me be this much stronger and faster? How can whatever Miller did have changed us so much? Made us so different?
As if I’m weightless, he grabs me and throws me, causing my body to slam into the wall before falling to the ground. The moment I hit, he’s there beside me, but I roll out of his reach before ramming my shoulder into him to push him back. I grab his head in my hand and smash it against the wall, but the moment he punches me in the stomach, it drives me back and puts me back on the defensive.
He’s too quick. He’s too fucking quick for me to get anything on him that could kill him. I need a weapon to aid me or something. Finn doesn’t seem to have his gun and I wonder if he lost it when Miller grabbed him. If I could even just get that fucking mask off his face so I can see what he looks like then maybe we could track him down.
I rotate quickly, just as he kicks me in the chest hard enough that I slam back into an old shelving unit, driving it down with my weight. When it hits the ground, it shatters, metal pieces falling everywhere.
He moves in for me as I grab a thin metal support that I aim right at his stomach. Before it can make contact, he steps to the side, pulls the rod down, and drives it into my chest. Pain flares up inside me as he kicks me back down to the ground. The moment I’m down, I push back up but without hesitation, he has me down on the ground again. He kicks the metal piece in deeper as I grab for something else to assist me, but before I can do anything, Finn steps over the top of me as the vampire raises his arm.
How to Elude a Vampire (VRC: Vampire Related Crimes Book 2) Page 24