by Logan Keys
Catherine giggled; having a child was going to be so much fun. As least it would be, if they could stay at least one step ahead of Dracula and his thugs. Marrying Dracula had proven to be the biggest mistake she had ever made.
Growing up in a secluded area, she had not known what an enforcer was, much less what the hunters he commanded were capable of doing. Her grandfather had raised her to be a pilot, and neglected certain portions of her learning.
When he had taken her to get her first ship, she had met Dracula for the first time. She had fallen in love with him shortly after that. It had not taken her long to find out what an enforcer’s job was. It had taken even less time to flee from her marriage bed, and from there she had fled the planet.
Her grandfather had never told her keeping a herd penned was against the law. In fact, he was the one who provided her with her first herd. He had also never told her it was against the law to kill your herd, instead of just taking a portion of their blood. A tear slid down her cheek as she remembered the way her husband and his goons had tracked and killed her grandfather before turning their attention to her.
She remembered draining every drop from every herd animal she had before she had fled the planet. She did not know how long she would be running, and she wanted to make sure she had a supply of blood to last until she found a safe place. She was proud of who her grandfather had raised her to be, and defiant, oh, yes, she was defiant. Food was food and was meant to be eaten—it did not matter if it was sentient or not, no matter what the law said.
She never expected Dracula and his so-called hunters to track her here. Maybe if she had not made the killing spree look as though Dracula had committed the crime, they would have let her go. No use crying over spilled blood, what was done was done. Dracula had found her ship and destroyed it, and she still had not found where he hid his ship. She had searched centuries for the blasted thing. If she could find it, she could flee, leaving him and his bloodthirsty, murdering thugs stranded on this mud ball.
Turning her attention back to the street in front of her, she saw a car pulling up. She loved Uber, and disposable phones, and especially pre-paid credit cards. The way this little planet was developing technology, in another century it could be a wonderful vacation spot. For now, the technology was her friend when it came to staying one step ahead of Dracula. That could change in the future, but she did not live there yet.
For now, she needed to get back to the plane she had chartered to bring her here. She had a child to take care of now. A child—it would take a while for that to sink in.
Hearing her name, she bent down and looked into the car. “Yes, are you my Uber ride?”
The man smiled “Hop in, and let’s get you to the airport.”
As Catherine climbed into the back seat, she inhaled deeply. Yum, she thought as she settled back into the seat. His sugar is high; he will be delicious.
Dracula slammed his palms down on the desk; fury radiated from him and his eyes seemed to be glowing red on a pretty permanent basis now. It was all that she-demon’s fault. The worst mistake he ever made was marrying Catherine. Now he and his hunters, who were some of his closest friends, were stuck on this backwater planet with no way home.
Actually, they could get home; one of them would just have to subvert a few people to the cause. Since the various countries did not seem interested in going back to the moon anytime soon, and still lacked the technology to roam around it anyways, his ship was safe. But he also had no way to get it unless a different country decided to take another visit to the moon, and then he could hitch a ride secretly.
The sentient race on this planet was so barbaric. They killed each other needlessly, for idiotic reasons. They did not even eat each other; they just killed for sport. Well, some of them ate others, which made finding Catherine that much harder.
Talbort came running into the room. “Turn on the news—turn it on. We found her. We just have to get there. Tonight.”
Dracula turned the television on, one of his only concessions to the primitive technology of the planet, and channel surfed for the news.
Just then, Rimier jogged in the room. “I recorded it, come on.”
Dracula followed the two men to the comfort room, as they called it. After a moment, Rimier had the recording backed up and the three men watched as a man, American by the sound, was being carried into a hospital screaming about demons and demon children.
The reporter came back on the screen and began to speak. By the time he was done, Dracula’s mouth was hanging open. “A child? How did she get a child? I did not give her a child. Impossible—she can only have a viable pregnancy with me. It is physically impossible for her to have a child by someone else since she mated me. What? How? This is not possible!”
Rimier shrugged, “Possible or not, you heard the reporter. Just an hour ago, the man ran into the street screaming for help, naked as the day he was born. Clearly he had been held hostage. Police responding to the call reported finding the dead body of a female in the house, but no other people. The female had her throat ripped out, and it looked as though the blood had been licked clean. Bite marks covered her body. The man told police and reporters that a woman the child had called ‘Catherine’ had kidnapped him, and when he came to, he was tied up with a naked female. Shortly after he woke, the woman left, leaving the child alone with him and the female. He reported the child had also called the woman ‘mother,’ and had agreed to not eat all the food at one time. As the day had passed with him and the female begging to be let go, the little girl had laughed and bit them numerous times, licking the blood off each time. The man reported the little girl’s eyes had glowed, and she had fangs. He swore she was a miniature vampire, an evil creature who teased them about freeing them just to bite them instead. He watched her kill the woman in front of him and drink the blood, and then she left the room. He said he spent the next few hours trying to break free, and when he did, he ran for his life. Police did not find a child in the house, vampire or otherwise. Dracula, it has to be Catherine and she somehow has a child. At this point, who cares where she got it from? The town is only two hours away, if that. We have to go, now!”
The men, once they realized the gravity of the situation, reacted quickly. Each of the men kept a ‘go bag’ near the door, and it was a matter of moments to grab the bag as they raced outside. Talbort, who enjoyed driving the ground transportation on this planet, raced for the driver’s seat, beating Rimier by seconds. As the men piled in the car, Dracula retrieved the map from the glove box and began to figure the quickest route to the town the child and Catherine were reported to have been seen. The men were soon flying down the highway, each hoping this trip would be one to end the nightmare they had been living since they started chasing Catherine.
Catherine was humming as she boarded the charter plane to take her back to Louisiana. She had been correct in her thinking that the Uber driver, who called himself Thomas Ogden, would make a delicious snack. He talked too much about things she cared nothing about—some book series, and some chick he called BA. As if she cared about things like that. He went on about pitchforks and pixies, and tar and feathers, and some author named Michael. He droned on and on about it, so when they reached the small airstrip she was happy to be able to sink her fangs into his throat and drain the rich blood from his body. Sated, she was looking forward to returning to her temporary home. She had rented a new house on a bayou in a small town in the southern part of the state. As soon as she retrieved Margo, they would set out for their new home. With the last two bodies she had left for Margo to eat, the body count was beginning to get a bit high. Police were talking about a serial killer on the loose.
Of course since they lived in Louisiana, the people blamed voodoo, vampires, werewolves, or any other mythical creature they could come up with for some of the deaths. As the plane taxied down the small runway, Catherine pulled her phone from her pocket to check the news back home before she lost signal. What she read had her gaspi
ng in disbelief, her already pale face losing all color. She had to get home before Margo woke up. If the police had not found Margo yet, that meant Margo was asleep in the hidden room. Catherine had trained her to sleep in the hidden room, and apparently the police had not found it yet, and she hoped they did not find it before she could get there and get her child.
Worry plagued her the entire trip as she all but begged the pilot to hurry and get her back to Louisiana. If anyone hurt her child before she made it home, she would destroy the entire town. Every single human would die if her child was hurt.
She had planned on snacking on the pilot when they landed, but worry for Margo caused her to abandon that idea. The Uber driver would have to hold her for a while. The pilot would never know how close he had been to death. She raced for her convertible as soon as the pilot lowered the ramp. If she’d had a god to worship, she would have prayed for the safety of her child.
A short time later, she stopped the car down the road from the house she had been renting. She had raised the top, and the tinted windows hid her from casual view. As she studied the surroundings, she cursed. She did not know how Dracula and his goons had found her, nor did she know how they had convinced the police to let them in the house, but they were walking out of the house carrying something small. Wrapped up in a blanket or a sheet, she was afraid that what they carried, and was apparently hiding from view, would prove to be a small child—her child.
Leaving Margo alone had been a mistake—possibly a fatal mistake for the child. She had given the child very specific instructions, which the child had apparently not followed. Maybe the child had been too young to be left alone yet; Catherine knew little about raising a child. How was Catherine to know a six year old could not be trusted alone?
Dracula and his thugs would surely kill the child, just as they had killed her grandfather. She was going to have to find a way to rescue her little girl before that happened. Unless—a bolt of terror shot through her—what if they were carrying the body of the child away? They had not hesitated to kill her grandfather, and if they caught her, they would kill her; they were ruthless killers who would stop at nothing. According to the news, Margo had killed a woman. To that brute she had married, all it took was to kill your food and you would get a death sentence. If her child was not dead, she would be soon. With this thought, Catherine went from being the hunted to the hunter. She would track Dracula and his thugs down and kill them, no matter what the cost to her. If her child was alive still, she would rescue her. If she was dead, the streets of this town would run red with blood for letting the men into the house—after she killed Dracula and his two thugs, of course.
As she watched the men slide into the black SUV, she saw the bundle move, as though struggling. The man carrying the bundle almost dropped it before handing it off to the other man in the back of the SUV. It was her child, and she was alive. Joy surged through her, quickly followed by despair. How was she going to get her little girl from the killers in front of her—how long did she have—where were they taking her baby girl? All these thoughts flashed through her mind as she watched the SUV pull away from the curb. She slowly pulled out and began to follow the men from a distance. She toyed with the idea of calling the police to report her child being kidnapped, but quickly discarded the idea. She could not afford for the police to ask her location. Nor, apparently, could she trust her child not to betray her if the police asked questions.
She wished she had put more thought into this child business. She would have done things differently. Fed the child from a glass until she was older. Hidden their nature from the child till the child was old enough to keep secrets. She was keeping secrets at that age; she thought her child would be able to do the same. Apparently she was wrong.
She wished she could have heard what the men were saying before they got into the SUV. Her eyesight was amazing compared to the barbaric humans, but her hearing was rather average. She would follow until the men stopped, and she would plan. She needed to come up with a plan if she was going to save her child. She had been running for so long, she felt exposed following her hunters. If she could have heard the conversation between the men, she would have been shocked.
“What exactly are we supposed to do with a child?” Rimier was demanding at that moment.
“Send it home with Mela as soon as she comes for a visit. We can’t raise it here; we don’t have the trauma training to deal with how she has been raised. She looks to be about five, and a carbon copy of Catherine. Somehow she must have gotten someone to clone her, and what you are holding is the result.” Dracula shrugged as he answered Rimier.
“That’s all well and good, but we don’t know when Mela is going to return, and we can’t take care of a child and look for Catherine at the same time.” Talbort gave his thoughts on the situation.
Rimier had unwrapped the child and given her a bottle of blood as soon as they had gotten in the vehicle. The child had quickly drank the blood, cried for mommy, and drifted back to sleep.
“Well, we will have to do the best we can, and hope Mela comes soon. Maybe the child will be the bait to bring Catherine to us, did you think of that?” Dracula shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat as he told the other two his thoughts. He was not at all pleased to have a child to raise, especially one who was obviously a clone of his she-demon mate. He was uncomfortable thinking of using a small child as bait.
But the law was clear on the matter of innocents. If one did not know, one would not die. If Catherine had stuck around just a little longer, she would have found out she was considered innocent until she killed with knowledge. From what they had been able to establish, Catherine had been raised by her grandfather, with no knowledge of their laws. She learned the law shortly after the mating ceremony, when Dracula had been telling her of his job, and his need to be away for a couple of days tracking a rogue down—a rogue who turned out to be her grandfather.
After she learned of the law and the consequences, she had still killed her herd. Any claim she had to innocence died the day her herd died. Dracula did not know if she killed the herd as revenge for the death of her grandfather, or if she killed them believing she was already doomed to die. In any case, as soon as the first herd member died with her knowledge of the law, she was considered guilty and lost any claim to innocence.
“Somehow I don’t see Catherine risking her life for a child. She is too heartless for something as powerful as a mother’s love. No, she won’t come for the child. She will just make another one. She may have several scattered around, for all we know.” Dracula’s bitterness was unmistakable. Silence filled the vehicle as each man thought of the past and the heinous acts Catherine had committed. The men would have been surprised had they been able to see into the convertible following them from a distance away.
Catherine shook her head in disbelief as she followed the men through New Orleans. Of course they were living in New Orleans, what better place to blend in than in the vampire capital of the world? Books had been written about vampires in this town. She had her own house in the city for just such a reason—not that she stayed there much, but it was her go-to place when it came to relaxing. She blended in so well in the southern city that even her kills were not noticeably out of place here. Maybe the men were getting smarter. Last she knew, they lived in Romania or some such country, in a small town called Transylvania, if she remembered correctly.
When the men finally came to a stop, they were no longer in New Orleans at all. They had kept on I-10 through most of the city, bypassing downtown on the I-610, continuing through to a town called Slidell. Slidell was not a town she knew anything about, having only ever passed through on the way to her townhouse on the gulf. She had to watch carefully to make certain she did not get lost; she did not have the best sense of direction.
Once the men had carried her baby girl inside the house—more like a mansion, she thought—she drove just past the house and stopped under some low-hanging, moss-filled trees. She c
ould not see the house very well anymore, so the men could probably not see her either. She pulled out her smart phone and opened up Google Maps. After turning on the location and letting the phone find her, she marked the house on the map. Satisfied she could find it again, she pulled up motels in the area and made her way back to the interstate.
Settling into a room, she planned; she would need a good plan before she stormed the house. If they had not killed her baby girl by now, maybe they would wait a little longer. The good news about the house was that they had picked a place in the country, on a large tract of land. It was possible that a shooting would not be remarked upon, being that far from town—not in this state, anyway. Catherine snorted. Sportsman’s Paradise indeed. Most houses had guns; the state was like a mecca for hunters.
Thinking a moment more, she pulled out her phone again. After a few minutes of searching, she sat back on the bed with a smile. Turns out it was hunting season in the state. Well, she did not need a hunting license for what she was about to hunt. She just needed a few high-powered rifles. Those shooting classes she’d taken out of boredom looked like they were going to pay off for her.
Lying back on the bed, she turned her search to gun stores. It seemed Slidell had a couple of those. She would route them into her phone, and go in search of what she needed.
Suddenly she gave a muffled scream of frustration. She remembered one tiny detail from those classes—a waiting period was required before a person could purchase a gun. Normally she would go in, kill the food running the store, and take what she needed. Unfortunately, she had to be smart about this situation. She could not do anything that would alert the men to her presence in town.