Immortal Coil: A Novel (Immortal Trilogy Book 1)

by McNally, James

  In the distance, sirens blared.

  Antony didn’t hear them. He stared down at David. His preternatural hearing could detect the faint heartbeat coming from David, but it was an elusive thing. The slightest wrong move of David’s head, could stop his heart.

  He could do it. He could give David the everlasting life, but no. He couldn’t risk creating another Bane. He couldn’t make another mistake like that.

  Maggie touched Antony’s arm. “Go,” she said. “It’s over. You can’t be seen here. I will take care of this.”

  Antony looked up. His eyes were red. He needed to feed.

  But David was dying.

  Antony howled and flew from the house as the EMT’s entered through the crushed front door.

  Tears streamed down Maggie’s eyes as she directed the rescue team to David.

  16.

  David lay under a pristine white sheet. The smell of Lysol disinfectant and other antiseptic cleansers permeated the hospital room. Tubes and wires drooped and hung all around David’s still frame. A tube aspirated David and a machine breathed for him. Another machine monitored his heart rate and blood pressure. He sported a neck brace. David had gone into cardiac arrest twice before the doctors were able bring him back to a normal sinus rhythm.

  The family didn’t know who Maggie and David were, or why they had shown up when they did, but the family was grateful for their efforts. The family had just missed being the next victim of what the media was calling the Houseguest Killer. The family didn’t know what had taken place inside the house after they left, but they understood David had risked his life trying to save them and bring the Houseguest Killer to justice.

  David now lay fighting for his life, surrounded by humming pumps; and sucking, gasping machines that had replaced David’s lungs. Maggie cried. She had been crying the whole time since all this happened. She had something important to tell David, and now she didn’t know if she would ever get the chance.

  Sobs overtook her.

  Maggie stayed by David’s side the whole first night. After having fed, Antony and Randal visited David. As Antony stood at the foot of David’s bed and studied the still frame lying there, Maggie turned to Antony with a resigned look that Antony recognized right away. He knew what she was going to say before she spoke.

  “His spinal cord was severed at the C2 Axis, the doctors say. He has no ability to breathe on his own. He never will. He cannot eat on his own. Of course this is all academic since the doctors don’t expect him to ever come out of the coma, or for that matter, live out the week.”

  Antony looked at her but said nothing.

  “Would turning him fix all these conditions?”

  “Yes,” Antony said.

  “Then you have to do it. Turn him and bring him back to us.”

  “I will not curse him to this hellish existence. You know about my failure with Bane. I will not be forced to kill another progeny.”

  “You must know David is nothing like Bane. If you don’t do this, he will die. You’re telling me you will let him die?”

  “Yes,” Antony hissed. “This existence is worse than death, and I will not put this curse on him. I will let him die!”

  Maggie gaped, horrified by his admission.

  Antony had taken an aggressive stance when voicing his cruel decree, but softened as Maggie sank back in her chair, defeated.

  “If I turn him, his love for you will be gone. He will never feel human affection for you again. His only desire will be for the blood. You think you will be okay with that but you will see it for the curse that it is. I will not put that burden on you.”

  “Don’t you dare try to put this on me. If you let him die that’s on you.”

  Antony turned and disappeared in a gust of antiseptic wind. Maggie gaped at the spot where Antony had been standing. She was going to lose David. Tears coursed down her cheeks as she cried soundlessly.

  Randal moved into Maggie’s arms, releasing her from her shock. As she hugged him, Randal looked up into her glistening eyes. “If I could I would,” he said.

  She hugged him and cried harder.

  They stayed with David for the rest of the night, but as morning approached Maggie walked Randal back to the Zephyr. She found Antony preparing the stainless steel compartment for the morning slumber.

  As Maggie helped Randal into the sleeping chamber, it occurred to her that this compartment fit Antony and Randal comfortably but there was absolutely no possible way it could hold another adult male. There was no place for David to sleep as a vampire. This caused more tears to flow. Antony climbed in beside Randal without acknowledging Maggie and closed the lid. She heard the click of the lock and Antony was down for the morning. The possibility that David would be dead when he rose again was very probable.

  Maggie returned to David’s side.

  David received many visitors on the last day of his life. The family he had saved brought flowers and good wishes. The police came by to check on David’s condition and to ask Maggie a few final questions, and to wrap up the loose ends. Maggie told them what she could, made up some stuff to fill in the gaps for whatever she couldn’t tell them, and managed to placate their curiosity enough to send them away without raising any red flags or further inquiries. Maggie believed the taller of the two investigators seemed to suspect Maggie wasn’t being completely truthful, but he didn’t linger. He left satisfied that they had learned all the facts that pertained to the investigation. Possibly he believed that whatever Maggie was hiding was not relevant to the case at hand. In any case, they did not plan to return and she was happy for that small victory.

  What Maggie was hiding: that Randal, the survivor of a previous attack by the Houseguest Killer; and that the group traveling in the Zephyr was actually hunting the killer, needed to stay out of the investigation.

  Maggie slept.

  Night came.

  Antony and Randal did not come to visit when she expected them to. Maggie held David’s cold hand and tried to warm it. His lips were pale and dry. The machine monitoring his vitals blinked and beeped indifferently as it breathed for its patient. Seconds before it began to happen, Maggie had the vision of David’s heart monitor flat lining, and the nurses and technicians entering the room, disconnecting the wires then began their resuscitation attempt. Her vision ended before she could see the outcome of their latest effort. Maggie was jolted out of the vision as David’s code blue alarm brought a swarm of nurses and doctors in to flutter and scurry around his bed. Maggie left the room to allow them to do their work.

  Maggie heard someone say: “We lost him.” Then she heard another voice say, “Okay, I’m going to call it.”

  Maggie looked at the time. It was 10 minutes till sunrise.

  Maggie thought she was going to be sick. She turned to look for something in which to throw up. The vomit caught in her throat, however. As she turned, she felt a hot breeze brush by her and the crackling sound of air being parted with supersonic speed. When she turned around, the doctors and nurses and technicians were standing around an empty bed.

  She was as confused as they were…what had just happened?

  17.

  Of course it only took a second of confusion for her to realize what had happened. Maggie left the confused and panicked hospital personnel standing around the empty bed without offering any explanation. She raced through the hospital to the parking lot where the Zephyr waited. She stormed into the Zephyr, and found Antony straddling David. Antony finished draining David then turned his head to look at Maggie. She saw tears gleaming in his red eyes, making it seem as though he were crying tears of blood.

  Antony and Randal hadn’t been by to see David because they had been spending the remainder of their night building a new compartment. Actually, Antony determined it would be more spatially prudent to create a smaller compartment for Randal, while David and Antony would share the larger compartment. Also, Antony did not want David waking in darkness alone. Even for a vampire this could be distre
ssing.

  In the end, Antony realized he didn’t want David to die. He positioned David in the compartment under the table. He helped Randal into the new compartment which was a four-and-a-half-foot box made of 3-inch stainless steel built into the floor inside the cabinet under the sink. Randal stood 4’ 2 inches and fit snuggly into the new compartment. Antony climbed into the compartment with David, and before closing the lid, Maggie said: “Thank you.”

  “I will see you tonight,” Antony said and closed the lid.

  Maggie drove the Zephyr away from the hospital. She spent the day finding a campground where the Zephyr could be stored in relative seclusion. The fact that she was the last human in the group was not lost on her. This fact bore down on her most immensely as the loneliness hit her. She napped, then woke and worked out a viable list of prey. There was now a need for seven targets. She hadn’t realized how daunting this task was when David shared the responsibility. But by nightfall, she had the unlucky prey planned out.

  David woke to darkness with a start. He reached out and touched the cold steel box in which he lay, he moved his hand along the cold steel wall until his fingers found a face lying near. His fingers continued to grope in the dark until they found a mouth with sharp teeth. David froze.

  “Good morning,” Antony said and expelled David’s fingers from his mouth. Antony reached across David’s chest to unbolt the lock. The lid opened and light flooded into the compartment. David adjusted to the glare, and with his new heightened senses heard the breathing from a source of food nearby. He heard the rustle of clothes, as well as an enticing heartbeat in the prey’s chest. He could smell the blood. The drive to feed took over and David flew from the compartment, landing on the source of the heartbeat. He worried at the neck near the carotid which was where the smell of blood was strongest, but his flat teeth were not effective. The form beneath David thrashed and screamed. David bit into the flesh with the jaw strength of a jaguar and tore a gaping hole in the throat. The soothing rapturous flow of blood filled his mouth and he gulped down the delicious flood. When the blood slowed and the heart stopped, David sat up and looked at what he had done.

  Blood covered the man David had just drained. The blood dripped onto the floor and puddled around the body. The man was bare to the waist and his hands were zip tied behind his back.

  Maggie entered the Zephyr just as David stood. He wiped at the blood on his chin with the back of his hand. He watched her with red and bleary eyes. She ran to him and hugged him without fear, ignoring the blood soaked hospital gown he still wore from the night before.

  “Thank you,” she whispered to no one in particular.

  David hugged her for several long minutes then pulled away and looked into her face. His red eyes were once again that beautiful shade of blue with flecks of green.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to her.

  “Sorry for what?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” David looked around, confused. He glanced at the blood he had gotten on her blouse when they hugged. “For making such an awful mess, I guess.”

  She laughed. “As long as you clean that up, what do I care?” She examined her bloody clothes. “I guess we can’t expect much from a fledgling vampire.”

  “That was not a graceful display,” Antony said. David turned to him.

  David smiled and hugged him.

  “You gave me the gift. Thank you. I know you did not make that decision lightly.” David’s voice grew thick with emotion. He held Antony’s gaze for a long time.

  “I have told you,” Antony said at last. “What we are is hardly a gift.”

  David laughed.

  Randal had awakened before David and Antony, and was the first to greet Maggie that night. Randal fed on a pedophile, which had been drugged and slumped over on the sofa. He had been out destroying the body when David woke, but now returned. Randal stood in the doorway and stared at the newly made vampire.

  “Just what we need,” Randal said. “Another mouth to feed around here.”

  David smiled. “I’m happy to see you, too. Finished your meal already?”

  “Dead and buried,” Randal said. “What can I say? I’m an early riser.”

  “You removed the head?” Antony asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Antony glanced over Maggie’s notes. He and David picked out which prey they wished to hunt. When they had their prey picked out, and knew where to find them, Antony told David to leave the Zephyr using his new speed. With a smile, David agreed. In a flash of movement that was too fast for Maggie to see, David moved to the door…

  …but slammed into it and bounced off.

  Maggie laughed but covered her mouth, embarrassed. “Sorry, but that was so funny I almost peed!”

  “What did I do wrong?” he asked Antony.

  It was Randal who answered.

  “You forgot that you can move your hands as fast as your legs. Use that speed to open the door.”

  “Very well stated,” Antony said. “He is absolutely correct. Your entire body is capable of moving at the speed of sound. It is this that causes the crackling sound as you move. It is a telltale sign that someone near you is moving with a vampire’s ability.”

  Maggie nodded, it was the sound reminiscent of those sparkling fireworks with a crackling effect as they dropped.

  “There will be time enough for learning,” Antony said. “I will show you more another time. We will be driving back to the house in Philadelphia after finishing up with our hunt. We must leave here and think about how to proceed with the destruction of the enemy. We will return when we have a plan of action. We are too well known here at the present time. We will return when the events of the past few days are not so fresh in the minds of the people here.”

  David improved greatly on his second and third targets that night, spilling very little blood. He used a razor instead of his teeth to open the artery, and learned to time his throat muscles to spasm with the pulse of the prey’s heartbeat. Blood poured down his gullet as if the prey and the vampire were one being. He also learned to control the flood of memories that pounded through his mind as he drank. Confusing at first, David remembered Antony explaining how drinking the blood produced memory transference from prey to vampire. It was all very exhilarating.

  David chose to drive the Zephyr back to Philadelphia. Maggie rode in the passenger seat. He caught her smiling at him several times.

  “You’re looking again,” David said, catching her out of the corner of his eye.

  “Can I help it if I’m ecstatic that you are back and better than ever? I agonized over your broken body for days before Antony finally came to his senses and took you. I watched you die again and again until I was sure that the next time you died, you would not be revived.”

  Then Maggie stopped talking and stared out at the lonely night, looking into the far distance of the past; seeing something there that she would never get back.

  “Maggie, what’s wrong?”

  She looked back at him.

  “I’ve got something to tell you, David. I didn’t think I would get a chance to tell you, but— “

  “What is it?”

  Maggie’s fingernail suddenly became very interesting. She couldn’t stop looking at it. Her bottom lip quivered as she worried at the small bit of flesh that grew over the bottom of the cuticle. Her eyes glistened with the threat of tears.

  “Please tell me what’s on your mind. You’re worrying me.”

  “I just feel so lonely. I miss your presence during the day. We used to have such great times during the day. As I plan the nightly events, I think about you and how we used to work so well together. I’m the only human in the group. I’m the odd girl out.”

  “Do you want me to change you? I probably could you know— “

  “No!” Maggie screamed and clutched her stomach protectively.

  “I was just kidding. I would never do anything against your will.” David was concerned. He never wanted her to w
orry that he would ever hurt her in any way.

  “I know.”

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  “No.”

  “I would never hurt you. You know that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “God, Maggie if you think I would do anything to hurt you— “

  Then she was blurting it out: she just couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I’m pregnant, David.” She said. “I’m pregnant with your baby!”

  The Zephyr screeched to a shuttering halt, and listed to the right edge of the road. Outside a cloud of dust swirled past the windows. David stared at Maggie with his eyes glazed over and a smile forming on his lips. Shaking from the excitement, David reached out and took Maggie’s hands in his. He pulled her into a hug.

  A baby! David thought. The vampire and mortal woman were having a baby. What a strange and different family dynamic this was turning out to be.

  David drove back to their home in Philadelphia wrapped in a fog of joy and pride that allowed no room for negative thoughts. He gave the monster they were hunting no thought at all until the initial shock of the news had begun to subside.

  18.

  The vampire raged at what he saw as nothing less than a betrayal. Why would another vampire care who he chose as prey? How pretentious this other vampire was. The killer vampire’s rage intensified, and his madness sharpened his rage until it was a diamond-tipped drill bit; a weapon which he pointed at the one who had stolen his pet. Not only was his pet stolen, but he had to settle for hobos and schizophrenics. Useless trash that barely even knew what was happening to them. How bland they had tasted. At least he had killed the pathetic human male that had been in his path during his escape; and if there had been time, he would have drained the troublesome fool as well. For that matter, why would a mere human travel with a vampire? How did the other vampire control the urge to feed on his human pet? And the worst betrayal of all: the human knew what they were. No human should ever know vampires exist. The human had even meant to help fight against him. It was all so preposterous. Besides, what did that other vampire have against him, anyway? They had never crossed paths, and to his knowledge he had never stolen prey from that other vampire. The other should have left well enough alone. How often had he, the father of the roped boy, inadvertently stumbled upon another vampire’s domain? Too often to count, he surmised. He had moved carefully through the hunting grounds of other vampires during his century or more of roaming the land. Never had he had the audacity to come between another vampire and their prey. The one who had taken his pet had crossed that line, and would have to be taught the error of his ways.