He put the photographs away in the briefcase and took out yet another envelope. He opened it and slid the paperwork across the desk towards her.
“I won’t bore you with the reading of this will,” he said. “But this document leaves everything to you. The villa, the estate in Wellington, even the car.”
He smiled, and pulled a gold-plated ballpoint pen from his breast pocket. “Sign here.”
Tamara blinked; her mind unable to instruct her hand to grasp the pen. She felt numb. Outside the storm lashed the building but beyond the spikes of rain, afternoon sunshine glowed across the rugged peaks of New Zealand’s Southern Alps.
It looked spectacular.
2004 A.D.
GERMANY
Thirty kilometers southwest of Berlin, pine trees filtered the waning light of a cold autumn evening and shadow crept through the forest. Night-time feeders stirred in its wake, and forest animals sought sanctuary amid the undergrowth. Bats rose from slumber in the triangular entrances of old World War Two dugouts. Darkness within the dilapidated constructions stretched deep into caverns unseen by mortal eyes for nearly sixty years. Tunnels meandered beneath the coat of woodland and bunkers nestled in the twisting fingers of tree roots.
Discarded helmets, torn uniforms and remnants of armory were covered in darkness in the deepest tunnel, its aged concrete cracked and uneven. Footsteps echoed along the corridor like the ghostly reverberation of a German soldier long since departed. Feeble light from low wattage bulbs threw a shadow upon the corroded, damp walls. The figure listened to the distant hum of centralized generators providing light and air to the sealed tunnels. He heard the abrasive, angered cries of vampires locked in holding cells further down the corridor.
Cursed bloodsuckers, Trace thought. Don’t they ever shut up?
At the tunnel’s end the wild moans intensified. To his right were the holding cells, clear to his nocturnal vision, and malnourished hands of the captive’s groped moisture-laden air through viewing holes in the doors. Trace couldn’t understand why the supreme commanders insisted the leeches were kept alive. If it were his decision, he would starve the monsters completely and then behead them all.
He turned left and headed for the innermost chamber.
The square room resembled a laboratory instead of the hiding place of German lieutenants during the dying days of Hitler’s war. White-washed walls glowed with the light of a dozen or more computer terminals, and the room churned with the metallic snap of datasheets printing from state-of-the-art machines. The darkened glass of a two-way mirror spanned the far wall and reflected the chamber in its inky skin. Trace didn’t know if the man wearing a white coat was a doctor or a scientist; or if he’d been both during his existence. Max was ugly, scrawny and unkempt in human form, but the centuries-old lycanthrope happened to be a genius.
Max’s subject sat in a decommissioned electric chair, its wrists, ankles and forehead secured by leather straps to the old device. Bruises and lacerations from the pack’s interrogation techniques peppered the hybrid’s body. The half-blood stared blankly at Trace. Dried blood caked the crossbreed’s forehead and flaps of skin hung loosely about its temples. Fragments of skull lay about the cleansed floor of the chamber and thin electrodes crossed the hybrid’s exposed brain in a grid network.
Behind the chair, sporadic images flashed on one of the monitors and solitary words or fragmented sentences stuttered from a basic speaker system beside the terminal.
“Do we have anything?” Trace asked. “Or are we just wasting our time again?”
Max swung his chair around and presented a smile that distorted his face further. “I think we do. This specimen could be one of those we’re looking for.”
“Enlighten me.”
Max chuckled. “All in good time.”
Trace glanced at the monitor. Images cycled on the screen of hybrids socializing and feeding—fiends embroiled in a furtive war fought with tooth and claw. He grimaced at the distorted, transitory frames of pack brothers brutally slain by their mangy cousins. Consumed carcasses of vampires came as freeze-frame sections amid torn remains of mortal humans. Among the jumbled images of devoured corpses and half-blood culture, one face appeared time and again, entangled in erratic visions; and a large mansion house surrounded by woodland and erected upon a huge rise of land with a churning sea beneath it, flashed sporadically on the screen.
“Tell me what the hell I’m looking at.”
“Memories,” Max said with a hint of pride in his voice. “A technique we’ve been using to uncover vampire secrets. It may yet help us terminate the hybrid scum.”
“Forgive my confusion,” Trace said with a hint of sarcasm. “But what do you mean exactly, by ‘memories’.”
“The brain creates memories, and it leaves the long term ones in the area of brain associated with that memory. Facts and events of this hybrid’s life will be stored; memories of its conversations will be held in the primary auditory cortex. The things it’s seen—people, places, other hybrids—should be in the visual association cortex; and so on. This system I have developed is analyzing its memories and displaying them as real-time pictures and sound.”
Max looked pleased with himself. Trace didn’t understand it and nor did he want to. That’s why he commanded a ruthless battalion of lycanthropes while Max hid hundreds of feet below ground conducting experiments.
“Of course,” Max continued, “hundreds of years of memories lends new meaning to the phrase long-term memory.”
Max chuckled at his own humor. If the lycanthrope was right and they could gather significant information from this specimen, then Trace was in no mood for joking.
“How soon until we know if this creature is worthwhile?”
“Patience my friend,” Max said, turning back towards the display units. “There is a lot of data to analyze, it could take time. However, I already suspect this creature is part of the higher chain of hybrid command. It has memories far more detailed than any of the others.”
Trace walked to the large mirror on the wall. Beyond the glass, a battered hybrid wandered aimlessly in the gloom. Half-transformed, it looked like it’d been born with cruel deformities. Max hadn’t bandaged its head before releasing it into the feeding chamber, and Trace watched its bloodstained brain tissue throbbing gently.
“What of this one?” he asked.
“Useless. A mere foot soldier.”
The pack had captured both hybrids in woods near a dugout entrance. They had insisted they were only a scouting team gathering information about the vampire’s Bavarian clan. Trace didn’t believe them; they were too far from their quarry. He’d been glad the patrolling werewolves hadn’t ripped them apart. Captive hybrids were a rarity, and Trace relished the chance to interrogate them. They hadn’t talked; even when Max had chiseled their skulls away they stuck to the same story.
As he watched the abomination amble without direction, Trace turned the pendant in his fingers. Attached to a chain around his neck, the silver bullet still held the crumpled, warped shape it had when he had removed it from his own body four hundred years ago. He toyed with it often when in thought, and kept it as a reminder of how naive the mortal world could be. Those stupid humans could keep all their beliefs about silver and wolfsbane. Death was not easily dealt to immortals.
“Ah, yes,” Max said. “I think we have a breakthrough. This hybrid scum knows a lot, his memory is plentiful. Their secrets will be secrets no longer.”
Trace looked at the unsightly biochemist and smiled.
“I think I’ve found a weakness,” Max said to Trace. He turned his attention back to the computer screens. “Push that red button there, will you.”
Trace pushed a button on the counter by his side and a door slid open within the feeding chamber. Two guards walked in the chamber and stood together, arms folded. Max pressed a button for the intercom.
“Dispose of the hybrid,” he said.
The two figures crouched forward and their hum
an form slid away as if their flesh melted. They skulked through the room and circled the hybrid. A sense of power surged within Trace as he watched his pack brothers prepare to strike. He wished he could shed his feeble human disguise and join them.
The force of their attack felt powerful even beyond the thick two-way mirror.
Trace’s smile widened. This was just the start. There would be many more victories to come.
2006 A.D
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Electricity surged through rolling clouds and forks of lightning illuminated the night sky like violent fault lines splitting the earth. Deanna Matthews could feel rain in the air as she stepped off the Greyhound, a heavy atmosphere carried off the ocean by a strong wind pulling the storm towards shore.
She loved rainy nights, more so if she were in bed listening to the gentle rhythm of rain skipping across glass—the way she’d always done for as long as she could remember. Storm-lashed nights and peppered windows still comforted her, even at the age of twenty-six. Her stomach knotted in anticipation. She hadn’t seen Mum or Dad for five years and hoped the storm would come. It would be like old times: listening to the downpour drain itself, wrapped in the embrace of secure family memories.
The Greyhound pulled away from the station for destinations further up the coast. Deanna set her suitcase on the sidewalk and turned from the black undulating sea. The town of Sands sparkled with lights, resting before slumber drifted through its households. She didn’t miss the township: leaving had been the best decision she’d made. She wished she could erase the memories of her life in Sands and concentrate instead on where it now headed. Dad wouldn’t leave town however, ensuring the place remained connected with her.
She turned back towards the ocean, its mass appearing to blend with heavy clouds in the rumbling storm. Deanna pulled her mobile from her handbag and dialed Mom’s number. Dad could come and get her; she didn’t fancy walking six blocks in torrential rain. After four rings, the answer machine collected the call and she left a brief message—‘Hi, Mom, I’m at the bus stop, starting to walk along Ocean View past the gas station, get Dad to pick me up before the rain starts’—cleared the call, and then considered ringing for a cab. If Sands were the same as it had always been, she could walk home faster than it would take the taxi to reach the bus stop.
Thunder growled from the horizon.
She picked up her suitcase, slung the handbag over her shoulder, and headed into town. The sea’s gentle rush as it stroked the sand became hidden behind houses built with splendid views of the ocean, and soon all she heard was the melody of her heels on asphalt.
Traffic dwindled as she walked into town’s southern district. She crossed the street when she saw prostitutes on the corner and kept a watchful eye on darkened doorways for the shadow-clad forms of junkies or pimps. Unease rippled through her as she edged along the street. Nothing but bored youths cruising past and dirty old men trying to find a quick fuck. She cursed herself for not phoning sooner and getting Dad to meet her at the stop. Three blocks from their house, apprehension pulled harder at her heart as she rounded the corner.
Wayne’s Gas Station looked as rundown as it had when she had left Sands five years ago. Paint peeled from window frames and graffiti decorated its walls. The windows were shielded by wire mesh and even in the glow from the forecourt lights she could see rust patches covering the metal. Shadow shrouded the side of the building housing the public toilets; a gloomy, depressing corner used by junkies and prostitutes. No cars sat idly by old looking pumps. The building’s exterior didn’t surprise her at all. Wayne Markov, the owner, was a man unwilling to part with his cash, even if it meant improving facilities for his customers.
As she neared the premises she saw the attendant sat behind the till reading a magazine. She recognized the man and a groan of displeasure escaped her. She understood, however: the gas station hadn’t changed, why should the staff?
Deanna rummaged through her purse for her mobile, stopped and looked about her. She couldn’t see anyone near the gas station but given the area’s notoriety she decided it best to make the call from inside the building.
A surprised expression unfolded upon Josh Ikin’s face as he looked up when the doorbell chimed and Deanna walked in. She had changed a lot, the look on Josh’s face told her as much. Friends were scarce when she’d lived in Sands; school had not been kind to the young girl who loved rain and harbored dreams of seeing the world and establishing a thriving business. Her classmates joked, they poked fun at her hair—short and unstylish—and ridiculed the clothes she wore as belonging to her father, or their fathers, or anyone else who they thought of as dull and old-fashioned. She’d been flat-chested until late in school life, glad her nickname ‘Pigeon’ had finally been obscured by a growing bust. She only had one serious relationship and it had ended abruptly. She had a new life now—a career, new friends, her own house and identity. Not a life involving a man, but with her track record in relationships she’d be better off without them. Animals were more reliable than men and that, Deanna Matthews knew, was a fact.
She had left her old appearance behind, shut inside her school locker with the rest of her memories. The storm-charged air had blown hair about her face, tresses tickling her skin. She had it long now, draped over firm shoulders that gave way to a shapely figure; no longer a reflection of the outsider from years gone by, and Deanna felt more powerful for it.
Josh didn’t look any different from when Deanna had last seen him. Long dark hair bunched in an unkempt mop on his head, strands hanging in clumps towards his slanted shoulders. The man looked as skinny as always, his overalls appearing to hang off him. Deanna suspected if his shoulders drooped any more, the garment could slip away completely. His mouth widened in surprise and he placed the magazine on the counter. Deanna glanced at its open pages: a double-page spread of a young model in police uniform bent over a desk with the non-police issue skirt dragged up her back and her red, silk thong pulled to one side.
“Still reading the intellectual stuff then, Josh?”
“Deanna Matthews. Jesus Christ. What are you doing back here?”
“Holiday. And I’m only in here because I need to make a phone call.”
Josh moved from behind the counter, eyes never leaving Deanna’s face. She tried not to look at the protrusion in the front of his grey overalls and the damp patch like a signal for his arousal.
“How long’s it been?” he asked.
“Five years. Good to see nothing changes.”
He shifted weight between his feet and looked at his shoes. “Yeah, well, I’ll be running this place someday.”
“Mm, you gotta have goals I suppose.”
Deanna looked about the garage’s shop—small aisles stacked with packaged foods and cartons of drink, a magazine rack along the far wall adorned with sports, motoring and adult magazines—limited and basic, just the way Wayne liked it.
“Alex still works here.” Josh’s smile spread across his gaunt face.
Her heart stuttered and she felt herself redden. She didn’t know why Alex Rice still affected her. It had hardly been the most breathtaking six months, but as the quiet kid with the crazed family had been the one to take her virginity, she guessed there’d always be a small part of her heart unfortunately devoted to him.
She ignored Josh’s comment. “Like I said, I need to make a phone call.”
“Okay,” he said but didn’t move.
Deanna walked down an aisle with packets of chips and cookies on one side and canned vegetables and soups on the other, and made her way to the magazine rack. She dialed the number for Mom’s again and waited. Josh stood behind her, looking over her shoulder. His breath flowed over her neck, tainted with the aroma of over-chewed strawberry gum. She wore a waist length leather jacket and could imagine his eyes following the curve of her jeans across her buttocks. The image of his erection pushing the material of his overalls floated into her mind. She shuddered and pushed the thought awa
y.
The answer machine cut in again but she didn’t leave a message this time. Besides, they may have already got her previous message and Dad could have driven past the station while she tried to avoid Josh. She flipped the mobile closed and headed for the door.
“How long you staying?”
“In Sands?”
He nodded, standing before her at the door causing her to stop.
“Don’t know, I think maybe a week or two. I got a month’s holiday but I don’t really wanna spend it here.”
Josh looked out the window of the shop’s façade to the empty forecourt and diminishing lights beyond. “What’s wrong with it?”
Unbelievable. Only four months younger than her, Josh seemed content to spend his life in the town where he grew up. No ambition, no career and no desire to experience life beyond what he already knew. She guessed Alex Rice felt the same as Josh; why would he still be living in Sands? Getting out of that relationship had been a smart move.
“So what do you do?” he asked.
“In England?”
“Yeah, what’s your job? I know you went away to study, but what do you do?”
“I’m a vet.”
“Really?” He sounded genuinely impressed. “What, like on dogs and stuff?”
“For now, but I’d really like to get into horses.”
Deanna stopped herself. She knew Josh would tell Alex the moment they met, tomorrow maybe when they changed shifts. Or maybe Josh would phone Alex as soon as she left the garage. Maybe she shouldn’t talk about herself too much. She certainly didn’t want Alex Rice knowing her business.
“Get into horses?” Josh said, a smile pulling at the unshaven skin on his cheeks. “What, you mean like—” he made a gesture with his hand as if inserting it into the back-end of a horse.
“You’re a wanker, Josh. But you knew that already didn’t you?”
BLOODLINES -- Blood War Trilogy: Book I Page 10