by Jamie Ott
By the time the sun started to set, everyone was ready to call it a day. They were messy, smelly, and covered in blood and body parts, but they’d managed to kill all the vampires in the entire 39 floor building.
Starr and the Fleet wanted to stay at the Marriott on 42nd, thinking they’d earned it, but the Army insisted they stay at a Ramada Inn in Queens.
Too tired to argue, they agreed.
After inspecting the neighborhood for vampires, they all took rooms on the second floor; the soldiers on the first.
After hot showers, Starr and the others met down in the Ramada’s tiny restaurant and bar. Emil was already in the kitchen, cooking what he could find.
“You call this meat?” he asked James. “Just terrible! The food here is just terrible.”
James rolled his eyes as he sifted through rotted fruits and veggies, and Sari set to thawing frozen bags he’d found in the freezer.
Starr hated the kitchen and, more than anything, she wanted to hang in the dining room and drink, but she wanted to see Emil.
Emil saw right through her, for he said, “Starr, go ahead and wait in the restaurant. We’ve got everything under control, here.”
As she made her way back to the dining area, she pretended not to notice that both Chanler and Michelle’s eyes were following her.
She laughed inwardly, The wheels have turned.
Alin was behind the bar.
“Starr, aperitif?”
“Yeah, you know it, after today,” she sighed. “How about an orange vodka and seven up.”
“Well, just for the record, you were phenomenal. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, you’re cut out for this. Maybe it will take some time, but one day, we’ll get you,” he said with a smile.
Starr smiled back. Inwardly, Starr was starting to agree; she was cut out for the job.
Today felt really good.
“Godfather, please,” Saul came up and sat next to Starr.
“Where are the soldiers?” asked Alin.
“Oh, they’re outside being sour pusses as usual.”
Despite the state of the kitchen, Emil managed to cook a hearty meal. As usual, Michelle kept Chanler to herself, but, not as usual, was the scowl on his face and the constant fleeting glances out of the corners of his eyes, at Starr.
When Alin, Sari, James and Saul finished, they went to the kitchens to clean and find dessert.
“So, Starr, tell me about yourself: How did you come to be a vampire?”
“It’s a long story, but my friend, Michael, turned me.”
“Oh, yes, Mick’s kid.”
After a moment of silence, he asked, “What kind of childhood did you have?”
“A nice normal one that I wish I could return to,” she smiled, as she sipped her drink. “You?”
“Well, as I said, I grew up in the mountain-ski town called Grindewald. My parents had a café, before they retired, and now my brother, Egon, runs it.”
“Your brother is still alive?”
“Well, ja. How old do you think I am?” he grinned. “I’m twenty –five; I was only turned a few years ago. Before that I was a Swiss Guard ‘vorking’ at the Vatican,” he said. “I think that is partly why I like you; not just because you’re hot and kickass, but you’re the only person I can relate to, at least somewhat. Most of these guys can’t even send simple text messages; they’re worse than my grandparents, haha.”
“My Grandparents aren’t much better, either,” she laughed lightly.
“Speaking of, what is your number?”
“I lost my phone in the fire, but I’m sure we’ll see other again soon enough.”
Inwardly, she hoped….
The guys came back with a couple frozen cakes and dishes. Everyone settled at the bar, even Michelle and Chanler, and had dessert.
Later that evening, Starr went to bed feeling quite satisfied: she was clean, full, and now a bed with a fluffy comforter was waiting for her.
She threw her clothes on the floor, with thoughts, like marbles, of Emil rolling around her mind, and climbed into bed.
She was only down an hour when there was an urgent knock at her door, waking her out of a heavy slumber.
“Just a sec,” she called, as she clumsily put her clothes on.
“Yeah,” she said as she opened the door.
No one was there.
From a few doors over, there was knocking on other doors. She stuck her head out and looked right: Alin was trying to rouse everyone from their rooms.
“Okay, everyone,” said Alin. “We need to get out of here, now.”
“Why?” asked Michelle, attitude boiling under her surface as usual.
“The soldiers are gone. I went around to perform security checks, and then to check on the soldiers, and they’re gone.”
“So, what are you saying?” asked Sari.
“I’m saying that something is not right.”
“Wait,” said Starr, who automatically set to sensing the other rooms. “I hear something in the stairwell; there’s something there. I don’t know what it is.”
“I hear it, too,” said James. “A beeping noise, like a digital clock.”
And then Starr’s eyes met James, whose eyes had widened, wildly.
“OUT, NOW! IT COULD BE A BOMB!” he shouted.
And he ran to the hallway, followed by the others.
Instead of taking the stairs or the elevator, he leapt through the window, fell to the ground and ran across the street.
Starr and the others followed.
A moment later, they stood across the street, looking at each other.
“Are you sure it was a bomb?” asked Alin.
“No,” he sighed. “I guess I’ve seen too many movies.”
But then there was an increase of heat, and a sudden brightness that glared in their faces. They looked back at the building: the first floor was massively alight.
One minute later, the sounds of blasts came from within the building, the ground rumbled heavily, and all seven stories caved inward.
“Wow, they really took the time to do us in,” said Sari. “They even professionally wired it so as to implode, which means they must have set this up days ago.”
“What do we do, now?” asked James.
“Well, it’s just as well they should think we’re dead, and that way we remain anonymous. This is a gift unrealized,” said Starr.
“What about our tour?” Emil wondered.
“Consider it canceled. Now, we go after Lucenzo and Amir,” Alin replied.
Almost Home
Chapter 5
They landed on the bank of Lake George half an hour later. Starr hated telling the Fleet she’d known where Lucenzo was for a while, and had not even bothered telling them or trying to take him out.
Worse, she hated betraying Lily, but what could she do? Lucenzo and Amir had to be stopped, or they would continue their attempts at a world takeover.
It may not have been a perfect world for a vampire, but she couldn’t imagine a world run by Lucenzo and Amir. She wanted the world she knew, the world as it was, now.
Starr especially didn’t want a world policed by the stinking scent of the new species. What would it be like to see them on every street corner, forcing people, like Starr, to do as a dictator commanded?
Over and over, she wondered what she would do with Lily, once she got there?
Turn her?
She was only thirteen.
Well, hopefully, Lucenzo would have been kind enough to entrust the antidote to her, for, even if he didn’t survive, he was extremely loyal to her. And, as long as she had the recipe for the antidote, then Starr would do whatever it took to procure it for her.
Their arrival to the lake further proved that Starr was right: Lucenzo and Amir needed to be taken down, immediately.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Michelle, a look of petrified fear on her face.
Looking up the bank, into the trees, the backs of man
y bodies stood stiff, not turning to look at them, not flinching, or fidgeting, but standing like hundreds of statues in the trees.
“Why don’t they attack us?” asked James.
“Lucenzo controls them, probably the same way that Starr did, back at the U.N.,” Alin answered.
“I don’t want to go in there,” whimpered Michelle.
“We have to,” said Alin, who walked up the bank and into the trees.
She and the others followed.
“Starr,” said Alin. “Walk up front with me, please.”
Standing next to every other tree they passed were the still bodies of vampires, all standing and staring in the same direction, which was toward the cabin where she met Lucenzo, last time, she soon realized.
“My god,” Alin breathed. “There’s got to be thousands in this forest, alone.”
Their white skin gleamed under the rays of light that poked through the leaves of the tall trees.
As she passed them, she looked at their faces, wondering if it were possible to break them from Lucenzo’s control; in other words, relinquish his mental hold on them, perhaps by striking them.
The answer to her question came, a moment later, when there was the sound of something large toppling onto leaves, making loud crunching noises.
They turned back and saw Michelle looking down at a vampire she’d run into. It fell over and laid there like dead weight, and didn’t stir furthermore.
She tried to sense if they were hungry, like she did with the alligator, but it was as if they were pieces of cold cement.
When they approached the cabin, Starr stopped a moment.
“What’s wrong? Why have you stopped?” asked Alin.
Starr’s chest heaved and moisture bespeckled her face.
Alin looked at her and said, “Don’t be frightened, Starr. You’re stronger than they are. I can sense this about you. Even if you can’t fight them all, I don’t think they’d hurt you, anyway, not as long as Lily wants you alive.”
She patted him on the shoulder, sighed and walked up the steps, across the porch and opened the door without knocking.
The room was dark.
Instinctively, her demon came out. She felt her fangs extend, and suddenly her night vision became even clearer.
“No one’s here,” said Alin, whose fangs were bared, and eyes a glowing shade of red.
“Do you smell that?” asked Chanler, with lavender and red iridescent eyes.
Starr inhaled; there was a draft of air flowing into the room.
“It’s coming from the kitchen,” said Emil around a mouthful of fangs, and who was giving off a hazy white aura.
Carefully, they followed the draft to the kitchen, and, carelessly, down into a cellar.
Across the room, the ground door was open.
They intended to continue outside, but then someone shut and barred it. Quickly, they turned to exit back through the kitchen door, but it was shut, too.
“God, we’re so stupid!” yelled Saul. “How could we fall for that?”
“Who cares?” asked Michelle. “Doors can’t keep us!”
“Don’t you think they know that, Michelle?” asked Chanler.
But then things got worse.
“Do you smell that?” asked Sari in a slightly higher voice.
Suddenly, the walls were engulfed in bright orange flames.
A loud wailing noise, like an elephant only worse, came from Michelle.
“Shut up!” yelled Alin, whose demon voice, now, sounded digitally altered, like in a movie. “God, Michelle, I don’t know why we keep you!”
“What do we do?” asked Starr.
“Let me think.”
“Okay, I got an idea. Can you burst the pipes?”
“What?”
“Explode them, the way you blew up the vamps, back at the U.N.?”
She shook her head, “I don’t know.”
“Just try! You’re our only hope; there’s no way we can break through the ceiling before we’re toast,” said James.
At first, she didn’t know how to go about doing such a thing, but, then, they told her to concentrate, and they all got really quiet. All she heard was the flames licking. She told her inner demon to help her find water in the walls.
After a moment, she’d located the pipes. Starr saw them, clearly, in her mind, and focused on heating the metal.
Seconds went by; she saw the pipes expand under her concentrated pyrokinesis. Then, suddenly, she felt little trickles of water, but as the others took steps closer to her, Starr began to panic because she knew the fire was closing them in.
She’d felt fear a lot, in the last few weeks, and, once again fear gripped her; a feeling that was hard for vampires to come by.
Her chest tightened, and her skin got extremely warm. She couldn’t do it, and she felt tears run down her face, again.
The panic became even more real, when she saw a flame ignite Chanler’s pant leg, making her scream, and, with her scream, jolted her emotions, making not only the pipe burst, but the entire ceiling split down the middle.
Next thing she knew, the fire was out, but they were up to their middles in water.
Chanler sighed loud and gratefully.
James and Sari ran at the kitchen door and easily kicked it in; Starr and the others followed them out.
“They’re moving!” he said, looking out the window.
Out onto the porch, and true enough, the vampires had begun to recede into the woods.
“Let’s see where they’re going!” shouted Alin urgently.
He leapt off the porch and ran into the trees, followed by Starr and the others.
Quickly, they ran past them, trying to find the lead, that is, the beginning of the herd.
They follow them for a quarter of a mile, at which point, the vampires had begun to assemble themselves into a line, almost like an invisible funnel forced them.
They followed the line, and it led them to a curved road where half a dozen semi trucks were parked. The vampires crawled into their beds and stood face to face in them.
As the first one got full, the line moved to the second and third truck.
“We gotta stop these trucks from leaving,” said Michelle.
“Tell us something we don’t know,” Emil retorted.
“Well, this ought to make things easy,” said Chanler as he pulled his hand gun.
The others followed suit, and they began shooting the vampires in the head, one by one, while Saul went to disable the trucks from under their hoods.
Starr and Alin combined their pyrokinesis and set to burning up the first full truck. Alin could have done it himself, but he wanted Starr to practice controlling it, since she was new at it.
They’d only managed to kill off a few hundred vampires before they were attacked by a dozen people in black outfits with masks to match.
Their attackers flew at them from the sky. Two came at Starr, pointing guns at her.
Starr looked at their weapons and heated them, making them release their grips. Then she ran at them both with a scissor kick, dropping them instantly.
She turned to help Alin, who was getting his head kicked in. Starr dragged the assailant back, with an arm around the neck, and landed an axe kick when he turned around.
They went around to help the others, and it wasn’t long before the Fleet had their attackers bound.
Next, they returned to killing the vampires, but then they started to move away from the trucks.
“What is going on?” asked Emil.
“They’re turning on us,” said Starr.
And though they fought hard, there were simply too many of them.
It wasn’t long before they were surrounded.
“Starr, stop them!” shouted Alin.
“I can’t! Lucenzo’s mind control is stronger than mine!”
Once more, Starr thought it was the end, but then her skin got really warm, and a tingling sensation traveled her every pore, a
lmost as if her blood had come to life and was traveling in her veins.
A familiar sensation came over her.
“Look,” said Chanler, pointing at the large white moon.
She looked up and saw the figure of a woman, highlighted by the moon, flying in their direction.
The figure stopped above them and pushed the vampires back, telekinetically, and then she proceeded to killing them all.
She was strong, probably the most powerful vampire in the world, for she could kill with just her will.
As simple as turning off a light switch, they all dropped dead, one by one.
Once done, she landed on the ground, looking majestic as always, with waist length black hair and eyes glowing like embers.
Credenza was frighteningly beautiful, but her skin was a mask of the person she was, inside, which was cold and deadly. The blood in Starr told her that and, for a moment, she felt like she was Credenza.
“Nice job, protecting my protégé,” she said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
The vampires in masks began to stir. Starr looked to them, but was distracted by a disturbance of the moon’s ray.
From the sky, the light was partly obscured by a row of vampires flying towards them.
They were even more majestic, more god like looking creatures than Credenza. Each one was seven feet or taller with long hair and eyes with flames that danced inside them.
Starr found them hard to look at.
“Where do you think you’re, all, going,” Credenza asked of the vampires, who were trying to escape.
Then, like an invisible hand pulled them, they were yanked back to the ground and pinned there.
“Starr and I will go after Lucenzo and Amir, I hear them up aways,” she said, looking back into the forest, and then her eyes settled on Starr’s. “We need to talk.”
Meeting Again
Chapter 6
Starr didn’t know how to start in her approach to Credenza. For the last few months, and even the last couple days, Starr had a million questions for her, but even more, she always imagined that she’d be strong and defiant; that she’d tell Credenza to back off, and she’d be forced to respect her wishes, but seeing her in that way, with such powerful vampires at her side, she was silenced. It made her realize that she needed to better assess who this person was and how morally righteous or corrupt she was, before standing up for herself.