Jenn’s face scowled at me as her foot tapped on the marble floor. She gave up, looking away and back at me. “He is a repulsive man, he has not so nice rumors about the way he has treated young women here. But, you can’t do anything Ellie, this is a serious role.”
“I know, I’m sorry. It was the only way I could control myself, was by doing something, instead of nothing. I am sorry.” I understood how much this pretense meant to Yolo. I couldn’t break it.
“Believe it or not, I was worried about how we would impress Sydney. So, you acting out might have been a blessing in disguise,” Jenn said. When she saw my smug expression, she snapped on me. “But never again or I am booting you out.” I nodded my head in agreement.
“Now come along, I have yet to introduce you to Mr. Richard, and show you around.”
We reached the middle of the tunnels, where all of them connected. We walked around the largely built statue a man with a moustache holding a book. Again, my impression of humans was that they were egotistic.
Jenn lead me down the first tunnel on our right. Humans were still walking on the outside of the tunnels, entering through other doors from the circular-like layout. Jenn pointed into the direction across from us. There was one large open entrance, which looked to be a residential area. Beyond it, I could see many rooms all connected to one another. It reminded me much of the Guild, where very little space was available. The rooms continued up four levels. Some people were climbing up ladders to reach the door to their room.
Once the glass tunnel ended, Jenn clicked on the large white button on her left to open the metal sliding doors. There was a huge white marble hallway, where we could walk both right, left, or in front of us.
“Down on the left is where the training, education, meals, bathing, and connection to the residential areas are,” Jenn said. “In front of us is the sector I mostly work in. This is where experimentation and such are. Down on the right is where prisoners are held.” She gave me an even look, which conveyed that they weren’t just any prisoners, they were vampires.
“Can I see it? Before we go to the labs?” I asked. Jenn considered it for a while. She looked around the area and saw that no one was approaching.
“Since you have never seen a real live vampire, Ellie, I will show you. So you know how dangerous they are and don’t get involved,” Jenn said keeping up our pretense. Pretending to be effected by amnesia was a clever plan derived from Yolo. We continued to walk down the hall and into the first set of doors. There was a small glass room which contained two humans in it, similar to the layout of when we first came and were scanned.
“I have come to assess their characteristics and also show this new member their cells,” Jenn said. “She may soon be a part of the sedation rounds.”
“Actually, Jenn,” one of the ladies interrupted. “The member who was supposed to check in and do the rounds hasn’t yet shown up. Would you be able to by chance, sedate four of them? I don’t want to wait too long, just in case it causes alarm,” she said.
“Of course,” Jenn agreed. The woman opened the door and gave Jenn a suitcase. Jenn opened it, and assessed the four syringes, that contained a bright silver liquid. It looked like it was silver, one of the only weapons that truly weakened and exhausted a vampire. The woman handed Jenn a board, which had a list of cell numbers and highlighted the four that were due for their sedation. I wondered, for how long these vampires had been captive.
“We won’t be too long,” Jenn smiled. She led me down the corridor of white walls and bright lights. I noted all the traps and holes that were within the walls. We walked through another two sets of metal doors; I noted they became thicker as they closed behind us. Above us, were tiny holes that I couldn’t decipher what weapon it was; they weren’t thick enough to be darts.
“It is a gassing system, in case they escape,” Jenn said. She waited patiently outside one of the doors. She stepped onto a small platform beside the door; it was so small that only one of her heels could properly fit. “It goes by a weight system. We haven’t been able to reproduce surveillance cameras, so we go by weights,” Jenn said. “When I approach the door and stand on this platform, it relays that weight back to the main room, the sector where we had grabbed these syringes. They can then tell, if we are ready for the door to be opened or not.”
I stared at her for a moment, mixing around the phrase, ‘surveillance camera’ in my head. “What is a surveillance camera?” I asked. Jenn looked at me from the corner of her eye and smiled. It was a Yolo smile.
“Never mind. With the lack of your knowledge on the old world, I am surprised your Guild survived for so long,” Jenn murmured.
“We were only educated on certain things, it appears that was not one of them,” I said. I slumped my shoulders inwardly, remembering that my straightened posture was not one of humans.
The door slid open and revealed many glass rooms on either side. The hair on my arms spiked as I cringed within the atmosphere. There were various vampires, one within each cell. Most were sluggishly slumped in the corner of their room. There was no item within the rooms, just hard floor. I was disgusted, yet had no remorse. At the Guild, we used to tie them to chairs before we tortured them.
Jenn scanned through the numbers on her page, and found the first one she had to sedate. She followed the numbers, stopping at the first. I looked into the glass room, where the barbaric creature laid, its left leg twitching.
“You have sabers in here?” I asked, surprised. A small crack was evident on the glass next to the door. She opened the door. Both of us walked in and she closed it behind us.
“That crack was from a previous Saber, someone missed their duty to sedate it and it was a little rough for the next person when it tried to escape.” The creature’s leg continued to twitch, its elongated claws slightly scratched at the cement floor beneath it. Drool poured from its mouth and onto the cement, it was both saliva and blood. Its eyes pinned on us and it growled. But that was the most effort it could extend. Jenn grabbed its deformed arm and injected the first syringe into its arm. The creature’s eyes pinned on me, before glazing over into a white color. Its pants became shallow and near existent.
“How are you able to sedate them, what is in that syringe?” I asked. The saber’s heart rate dropped dramatically. If it weren’t immortal, it would be dead for certain.
“The particles in this syringe make it very difficult and time consuming for the vampire to recover. Although they have unbelievable healing time; there is a lot of silver in this. It thickens the blood stream and takes a long time for the healing properties to remove the silver. By the time the body is close to doing so, we have already injected them with another shot.”
Jenn placed the empty syringe back into the suit case and exited the room. She looked over the numbers, to see who she next had to sedate. I looked at all of the vampires and sabers, which were compacted in tiny rooms. How did they get themselves caught? I could admit that I had satisfaction in killing vampires, but never could I do this. This seemed far more unbearable than death.
“How long do you keep them in here?” I asked, walking closer to one of the vampires whose entire eyes were white. They sat in a corner, frozen and stared at nothing in particular. One of the veins in its neck was a deep blue and bulged out. “Do they ever feed while in here?”
Jenn looked up from her board, and walked across the room to see which one I was looking at. “That one has been here for three years; she is specifically being tested for biodegradation, to see how long her body will last until she decomposes, if she does. She has not been fed once, and will continue to be in that form until it either dies naturally, which is something that won’t happen. But, that is the test subject they wanted to do the trial on, so simply she will be like that forever. Vampires within the wild can become similar to this. If they exhaust themselves or starve, they will go into a coma like status until someone else can hand feed them blood to help recover. Some in here are fed, depending on wha
t they are being tested for.”
I walked over to the next room, which had four large and tall containers. All of which were glazed over in ice. The whole room looked to be chilly inside.
“Those contain four vampires, one within each. It’s only in its fourth form of testing. The first four died. The ice was too intense and created shards within their heart and exploded. The second ones broke out. The third were killed from an insider who lost his mind and tried to kill all the test subjects. He was thrown out into the wild after that, only minutes after I heard his screams myself. Something got to him. And this is now our fourth; they have been frozen for about nine months now. It simply seems they are sleeping. Because of the temperature that reaches beyond something a vampire could usually handle, their brain cells freeze. So they cannot think nor heal, they are sleeping.”
“Can a vampire really be affected by being frozen?” I asked, with myself in mind. I cannot feel temperature anymore, to think that I could freeze; it was not something I had considered.
“Vampires can sustain in any environment, temperature is no issue. However, this is adjusted beyond those temperatures, this is manmade, Ellie. No matter how extreme the world might be now in environment and temperature, this is far more severe,” Jenn said, moving away from the glass. “Ah, Fuck,” she said, looking at the next number she had to seduce.
“What is it?” I asked, looking over her shoulder. She stopped at the numbered cell which matched with the one on the list.
“Stay out here. Whatever you see, don’t believe or be influenced by it, he is gifted in illusion,” Jenn said. I looked at the vampire who didn’t seem sedated at all. He looked at his nails while sitting down with one arm perched on his bent knee. He had fiery red hair with a blonde goatee. He was also naked and sat on his clothes.
With a charming smile he looked at us. “Can you imagine my disappointment, after sitting here naked for twelve days and still having no tan,” the vampire said.
“Are you going to play nice today, Lincon?” Jenn asked, still hesitant to enter the room.
“Oh, Darling,” Lincon said, as he rose to stand tall. I looked away at his naked form, his very hard naked form. “I always play nice.”
“When are you going to give up on this game, and escape?” Jenn asked, with hands on hips.
“You think because you are on the other side of that glass, I can’t affect you?” Lincon laughed. Suddenly, I was surrounded by snow and all the rooms that existed, vanished. Snow particles fell from the sky and the sun beamed down on me. It was so cold and yet the burning sun clung to my skin.
“Ellie, don’t be fooled, it’s a trick-” Jenn’s voice vanished. Where she once stood, was now nothing but pillowing snow. Lincon, stood there proud and naked. Determined not to look past his eyes, I stared unimpressed. This was a very extreme gift for him to have. He seemed to not have been sedated. My smell heightened and I could smell blood. Behind me, there were humans drenched with blood, massacred on a forest floor. Sabers tore them apart, enjoying the taste of their flesh. I licked my lips, my fangs tempted to slice through my gum. But it was my Huntress self that saved me, that was instinctually wanting to kill the sabers. I stood there, reconnecting my eyes with his.
“Interesting,” he purred. “You know, within my first encounter with Jenn, I was quickly able to see who she, or should I say, he was. You would be surprised how people react to certain things. It gives away their weakness, or even sometimes, what they might truly be under the surface.”
The field of dead people vanished and then a bustling scene of confusion, burst in front of me. The only thing I could refer it to, was the technology era. I stood in the middle of an intersection, where cars chaotically drove around me. Buildings were high as people walked in steady streams. Cars beeped at me as they drove towards me. I sighed unaffected, if this is an illusion, then my heart will not beat in fear. A car swerved straight for me, still I stared directly into Lincon’s eyes. The car swept through me and the scene around me vanished.
Licon smiled. “I think I like you. Do you know how many of the humans in here I have forced to drop to their knees? It’s rather fun actually. And none of them will report it, because they will look like the insane ones. I am a sedated vampire, how could I possibly be able to use my gift?” He said sarcastically.
“What are you doing in here?” I asked.
“Free buffet obviously. With all my tricks and illusions, I make them sedate me, with only how much of that shit I actually want in my blood stream, sometimes I do it so I can have a bit of a high. Other than that I just feed off of them until I’ve had my fill. They all think they had a daydream and don’t say anything. Everyone is different but you are not human, you have a different feel to you,” Lincon purred. “And everyone reacts to something that they see. It is what always gives them away and answers to me as to what sort of person they are.”
His entire body continued to shift, his face and body, turned into a different person constantly. His features and clothing continuously changed over different centuries. After flicking through twenty-three different forms, which only my Hunter speed could follow, my eyes rested on the slender eye slits of whom I thought to be Pac. I snarled in response, accidently breaking my own façade.
I felt a hand on me and suddenly everything disappeared. Jenn was holding my chest in alarm. My vision had hazed purple and I had ejected my fangs. I refocused myself. I wasn’t able to save Pac, who was part of my Guild Team. I now knew that it wasn’t Pac, but only someone who had looked like him. But it had still sparked that recognition within in me and given Lincon the reaction he was after.
“Holy shit,” Lincon mused. He sat back down against the wall and looked at me very intently. “What are you?”
“Calm,” Jenn said. “Don’t worry about this, I slipped too.” The vision of my Huntress eyes disappeared, alongside the haze of their purple. With my fangs no longer revealed, I looked at Lincon angrily. This was only a game to him.
“Alright love, you seem pissed off now. Let me guess, you’re in love with an Asian boy, and you are all protective of him. Wait, could it even get better, is he human?” Lincon toyed. “That Romeo/ Juliet shit gets me every time.”
“I could rip you to shreds if we weren’t within these walls,” I hissed. He only laughed.
“Please, quit the tough girl act. I am fascinated by you. Let me just say, the day you leave here, I will follow you. You’ve grabbed my attention, it seems like fun. Do you know how long it has been since I’ve had fun?! Alright Jenn, give us a hit,” Lincon said. He talked at such a speed that it was hard for me to consume his words. He walked over to the door and opened it himself. He held out his arm to her.
I couldn’t believe that of all the vampires within here to trick the humans, it was someone so loony. The other vampires were so easily trapped and stuck within these walls for a lifetime. But this one particular vampire was beyond measure. Jenn began to inject the silver, until only a small portion was injected. She seemed to space out for a bit and her hand cramped, she dropped the needle. Lincon, was obviously doing something to her.
“That’ll be enough love,” Lincon said with a painful grunt. He stumbled over to sit back on his leather jacket. “It hurts like a bitch, but that should give me a buzz for a few hours.”
“I wish you wouldn’t play those games on me every time,” Jenn hissed.
“Well I can’t trust you sister,” Lincon said with a slur. “You sedate every other vampire within these walls without issue. I doubt, if I told you to stop nicely, you would actually do so. Now rack off and let me sleep.”
Jenn picked up the needle and sprayed the rest of its contents on the floor. She emptied it only tiny droplets at a time, so it wasn’t evidence on the floor. Lincon clicked his fingers at me.
` “New girl, come back and see me. I think we have a lot we can discuss. You will need me soon you know,” he said with confidence, before he began to laugh and the drugs and silver were inevitably a
ffecting him.
“Stay away from that head case, Ellie,” Jenn said, ushering for me to continue doing the rounds with her. We continued to do so, all other vampires lacked in the expression of life. It seems that the only one capable of ever escaping- was Lincon.
J enn continued to watch me over her shoulder. I continued to reassure her I was alright and sane. A trick as small as Lincon’s, would not be my undoing. After sedating the last two vampires who slightly shuffled and appeared to make a pathetic attempt to fight back, we walked back towards the entrance of this prison. There were so many traps and holes within the walls. Jenn informed me that if a vampire had escaped its room, the weight scheme and a scan system would trigger various traps and weapons. It appeared that even if their own human was taken down in the process, they did not care. I had no sympathy for the vampires, but I was disgusted in the state that they were left in. As a Hunter, we contained and tortured a few, but never preserved them. It was always, kill on site.
Jenn returned the suitcase with empty syringes inside, and signed off on the four that she had seduced. Apparently Lincon was of no issue, because he liked to pretend and play dead.
Jenn led me through the tunnels and towards the sector where she worked. Like the other entrance, this too was exclusive and only certain members could enter. I wondered if everyone within the compound even knew to what extent the experiments were taken to. They were hesitant to allow me to enter, but Jenn insisted that I was now her personal assistant. Hesitantly, they let me through.
“Mr. Richard is the person in charge. Although he dabbles in all departments and overlooks them, he is also the leading scientist here and orchestrates most of the experiments,” Jenn said as she led me down cemented stairs.
“Remember when we enter, you must keep it together. What you will see down here isn’t nice. You can’t react to the people you meet down here either, Ellie. Whitney’s brother is within this department.”
Token Vampire (Token Huntress Book 2) Page 11