Her head dropped and emotion choked her body. Tears ran tracks over the rain yet to dry on her cheeks.
“What the hell was that?” the driver asked, finally grinding into fifth gear. “Are you okay?”
Deanna stood and nodded. She didn’t want to speak to the man, in spite of the fact he’d just saved her life. She felt drained, legs still at the crest of a long bellow of pained sufferance. Deanna walked down the aisle, ignoring the concerned questions of those who asked after her. Nothing could console her now. She’d lost her parents, ripped apart by a descendant of vampires and werewolves whose bloodlines had been crossed—if something so ridiculous could be believed.
Yet, she found it plausible. As the bus topped the crest of the hill, she reached the rear of the Greyhound and looked beyond its rain-streaked windows. Cain’s transformed figure stood on the shadow-cloaked sidewalk, and then Sands dropped from sight, swallowed by the blackness of the surrounding country.
She slumped into the rear seat, pressed her head against the window, and stared at the ebony landscape. A desire for revenge gnawed at her conscience, a yearning to avenge the brutal slaying of her parents no matter how long it took, or how it was achieved.
Electrical energy caused the landscape to glow for a moment. Rain smacked the windows of the Greyhound with renewed fervor, a forceful rhythm that dragged forth memories of similar storm-lashed nights as she lay in bed at her parent’s house while the musical crescendo carried her to peaceful slumber.
As the bus carved a path through the night, sadness came and Deanna Matthews finally opened her heart and grieved.
2007 A.D
UNKNOWN LOCATION
Late evening blended into night and darkness flooded the room as dusk’s shadows seeped through small ventilation slits in the window frame. A huge bank of security screens embedded into the far wall cast a subtle illumination over the carpeted floor and kept the black abyss at bay. Grainy black and white exterior areas of the spacious property were shown on the bottom reaches of VDU’s: its perimeter walls, garage facility, a summer house built by a small lake at the southern boundary of the grounds, and the main entrance gate. Only nature looked alive on the small screens. Leaves danced on aged oaks within the mansion’s boundary walls, their rhythm orchestrated by an ocean breeze, and sculptured gargoyles lining the building’s parapets appeared to listen intently to the murmured stories of long-dead mariners, their tales retold by nature’s whispered breath. The most important rooms inside the building were displayed above, including a conference chamber, a meeting room, the building’s numerous dining and living areas, a child’s bedroom, and the study.
In the screen displaying the study, the shapes of bookshelves stood against the far wall and a large mahogany desk sat beneath the window, pens in an expensive holder protruding from the furniture like the horns of a crouching beast. She could see her own body as a darkened silhouette amid light thrown down by the VDU’s. On the monitor, the blood surrounding her resembled a gigantic Persian rug.
She cried.
The woman stared at the screen displaying a child’s empty bedroom and mouthed the name of her son.
Her injuries would have killed a mortal human. Countless lacerations crisscrossed her legs, abdomen sliced open. Partially consumed intestines trailed over the study floor like the remains of butchered snakes. Broken ribs distorted a sunken chest, her throat a ragged mess of tissue. Air wheezed through an inch long tear in her windpipe with each inhaled and exhaled breath. Her once beautiful face was coated in blood and disfigured by bruising.
She doubted her body would be able to regenerate itself enough to sustain her. She would bleed to death inside her own home, yet she could think only of the boy who had, no more than an hour previous, been tucked up warm and snug in his bed.
Deep inside her, she knew her husband had dragged the child away and ripped the boy to pieces.
Outside a cold wind whispered through the eaves as if it were the tortured cries of her child pleading for mercy.
Maybe he hadn’t been slain, and her eyes frantically searched the numerous screens, looking for movement. She noticed motion in the mansion, but the source sent shock juddering through her shattered body.
She recognized the lobby’s décor on the screen; an aged grandfather clock in the far corner, a wide staircase edged with a neatly crafted banister, and a polished marble floor reflecting the image of a low-hung chandelier in its skin-like surface. The shapes in the gloom were easy to decipher: five gigantic werewolves inched their way towards the stairwell.
Eyes jumped in her head, flicking between the remaining screens in search of her son. She saw nothing, no one at all.
Where the hell is security? she wondered, anxious for a savior of some kind.
She knew the answer to her question, however. With no sign of the hybrids assigned to protect the great mansion—not even a hint of their remains as darkened shadows within screens on the wall—and with five lycanthropes stealthily ascending the grand staircase, there could only be one explanation to their absence. She wheezed with fear, overwhelmed with hopelessness. She tried to ignore the pain: the burning of her torn throat and agony within lungs filling with blood.
The werewolves had left the majestic entrance hall, and she watched as their shapes edged down a first floor corridor.
She tried to move, desperate to flee the room and search for her boy before the beasts found him. Her brain implored muscles to respond but her ravaged body ignored the plea. Her hand twitched and fingers sank into the blood-soaked carpet. In her mind she had rolled over, struggled to her feet, and staggered down the third floor hallway towards her son’s bedroom. She wished she could summon the energy but her body screamed in agony when she tried to move.
Revealed on the monitors before her the werewolves’ meticulous search had gathered pace. They were on the floor below, climbing the stairs.
Tears itched the wounds on her face.
Had nobody remained from tonight’s counsel?
Had she been betrayed by them all?
The werewolves were now advancing along the third floor passage. She could hear them: above the noise of her failing breath she could discern the deep, resonant panting of hunting lycanthropes.
Within a minute the first werewolf appeared in the study doorway. The beast crouched as it entered, ears pricked high to capture all sounds in the room, and nostrils pulsating as it inhaled odor-rich air. She held her breath but it leaked regardless, bubbling from a destroyed chest. She hoped shadows in the room would hide her but knew it was futile. The werewolf had excellent nocturnal vision and it spotted her the moment its form skulked into the study. The creature released a low growl, a sound tinged with satisfaction.
A second entered, then a third. The fourth werewolf looked disfigured with an oversized torso, its back arching in a large hump. The fifth werewolf remained squatted in the doorway, its back to the room.
They circled her prone body, inspecting her wounds it seemed. At intervals the leader stopped and raised its head, nostrils tasting the air. The animals grunted and made gestures with their heads. One tapped fingers upon its powerful forearm in rhythmical patterns. They were communicating with a type of sign language and it increased her unease. If they were to kill her she wished they would do it soon, if only to end her terror.
The leader issued a loud bark and the lycanthrope who squatted in the doorway coughed a grunt in reply. A minute later the werewolves in the room transformed. Four naked men surrounded her, light from the VDU’s glistening off their sweat-coated skin. For a short while their breathing labored with exhaustion but they quickly recovered whatever strength they had lost in the change.
Panic had overridden her senses and numbness flowed through her veins with her fading blood. She felt vulnerable, more than she had ever experienced in her life. Her heart hammered strongly in her desecrated chest, forcing blood through her shattered body. The room filled with her wheezing breath.
“Hurry,”
the leader said, his voice sounding as though his vocal chords were made with grains of sand. “We don’t want to lose her yet.”
The leader leaned close to her, the pungent aroma of his sweat invading her nostrils. She stared at him. Dark hair stuck wetly to his forehead and stubble coated his solid chin. His eyes still burned with feral rage. A chain hung loosely from his neck and an odd-shaped pendant swung on the links like a mesmerizing pendulum.
She glimpsed the fourth werewolf to her right. A skinny being in human form, he looked gaunt and emaciated, and for a brief moment she wondered how such a scrawny figure could possibly transform into a muscular beast. He shrugged a large rucksack from his back, the straps loose fitting around his shoulders. She realized why the werewolf had looked so disfigured when it had entered the room, and a new bout of fear coursed through her dissipating bloodstream as she watched him remove a scalpel, a hammer and chisel, and a leather pack from the bag. He delved deeper and brought out an oversized electrical razor before pulling a small laptop computer from an inner pocket.
The carpet around her thickened, its fibers sticking wetly to her skin. She cooled rapidly, her terrified heart pumping blood from her body.
“We need to calm her,” the leader said, his tone sharp, directed at the skinny werewolf.
He dug into the rucksack once more and retrieved a large syringe. Without hesitation or time for sterilization or gentleness, the scrawny lycanthrope rammed the thick needle into her neck and pushed hard on the plunger.
It developed like a growing sense of satisfaction. She still felt pain, her lungs burning, the edges of savage wounds pulsating with an angry fire, and terror remained in her essence to tear through her mind. Her heartbeat slowed, its pump decelerating so much she feared it would stop altogether. The warm touch her blood had given her exposed skin as it flowed from her body ceased, and only the bubbling of breath escaping her throat and chest remained. She had not been aware she’d been clawing at the carpet until she could no longer move her fingers. Paralysis enveloped her with the sensation of an iron blanket draped around her but awareness remained sharp and terrifyingly real.
“Ok, she’s stable,” the gaunt werewolf said.
“Good. Let’s be quick.”
The other two lycanthropes tore the room apart, searching for something in the bookshelves and large mahogany desk. That became irrelevant once the scrawny werewolf powered up the shaver and sheared her head as if she were a sheep. He was brutal, tearing follicles from her scalp before tossing the clumps aside. The werewolf dropped the shaver back in the bag and scooped up the scalpel. His bony hand slid under the nape of her neck and raised her head from the soiled carpet before he rammed the small blade into her skin.
Pain shot through her body as electrical pulses contorted every muscle and nerve-ending. The scream eager to burst free remained within, trapped by the total paralysis encasing her body. Without precision the gaunt werewolf forced the scalpel’s blade fully around her cranium’s circumference, before he pushed it upwards towards the crown. He sliced her flesh, prizing it unceremoniously from her skull. Once satisfied he had worked enough free, he dug under the loose skin with his fingers and tore the rest of her scalp clear. She heard it flop wetly to the floor as he tossed it aside.
Once every minute it seemed, her heart offered a strained beat. Her muscles were limp; relaxed and peaceful. Her breathing became deep and controlled as it would be had she been fast asleep, yet her body cried in pain and fear. She screamed inside with a forlorn longing to hold her child.
He let her head drop to the floor, grasped the hammer and chisel, and then went to work on her skull like a stonemason removing stonework.
“Careful,” the leader whispered. “We don’t want to damage the brain.”
She glanced at him, her vision blurred by tears of horror. The leader looked at her and smiled. It looked warm and caring, but she knew it merely served to hide his disgust and loathing of her species.
The gaunt werewolf worked with diminished haste but was no less violent.
Time stood still for her: a period of horrific distress during which the two werewolves finished their search as their leader ran his fingers across her body without the care of a lover but with the malice of a demon, scratching and pinching at her brutal wounds. The scrawny creature chiseled chunks of bone from her head to expose her brain for whatever reason they had, while all she could do was stare at the wall-mounted VDU’s searching for the movement of a boy she felt sure she would never see again.
Throughout it all she continued to cry.
She watched with a growing weight of despondency as the werewolf set his tools aside, unzipped the computer bag, and pulled a laptop from within. He flipped open the lid and turned the machine on. Searching inside the small pouch he had retrieved from the rucksack earlier, he took out four black leads, untangled them, and then connected them to the back of the computer. He quickly typed the password and the screen flashed to life displaying a dark background with a small number of icons to the left hand side. Confusion pounded a rhythmical duet with a headache in her exposed brain.
The thin werewolf started a Windows program and the display revealed a blank screen with the words Ready for download flashing in its centre.
She no longer searched the monitors on the wall, her attention fixed to the computer screen about two feet from her face.
The lycanthrope gathered the leads together, separated the first one, and then placed it on her brain.
She did not scream, her voice could not escape, and because of her silence she heard tissue sizzling under the heated electrode as it fused with her mind. She flinched, her body jerking in an involuntary motion.
The remaining three electrodes were added and the stench of smoldering brain matter floated to her nostrils.
When the werewolf attached the last device, images fizzed onto the screen, their clarity distorted as if she were viewing a video phone connection across a bad satellite link.
Download commencing flashed three times on the screen, and then disappeared. The gaunt werewolf sat back on his legs and picked up a notepad and pen. The two other werewolves in the room moved through the murk to gain a better view. The leader stopped teasing her wounds and instead stroked her tearstained cheek. They were enthralled and had all settled down to watch.
Through the dense growth of agony swelling like a cancer eating her soul, wonderment edged into her emotions: a congenial feeling containing distant childhood memories.
Damp stonework surrounded her, its grayness turned a subtle black by limited external lighting in the room. She held a twisted branch in her hand, and she used its tip to trace aged joints around the large stones as she skipped around the room while singing her favorite nursery rhyme.
So long ago, she could no longer remember the words, but hearing herself sing the melody, the way a mortal child would in the playground, sent more memories flooding into her mind.
The high, basic room resembled an elongated tower, and an elevated window in one wall allowed beams of sunlight to span the enclosure. As she skipped around the room, the sight of an unmade bed flashed onto the display then disappeared. She stopped skipping as a bolt slid in its holding beyond the solitary door and a moment later it swung in on rusted hinges. A man entered the room, clad in black, his pale face handsome even when distorted by a wide smile. He held a book in his outstretched hands.
The werewolf stopped stroking her face and muttered: “Jesus fucking Christ.”
The scrawny lycanthrope’s bony hand scribbled notes on the pad with added urgency.
She heard an audible gasp from one of the others behind her.
She was certain, in spite of the drug given earlier, her heart rate increased, just as it had four hundred years ago the last time she had seen the man. A daughter’s love would never fade.
In the computer window, the man sank to one knee, his arms still extended. “Jennifer,” he said, “a hug for your father?”
“Daddy!�
� she heard herself squeal, her delighted yelp distorted by the titanium speakers built into the computer, and the image on the screen jostled as she ran into her father’s embrace.
Sadness seeped into her emotions. She missed the secure hold of a father figure at that moment more than at any other time in her life. Her sorrow multiplied with the certainty she could no longer offer sanctuary to her own child.
The gigantic werewolf beside her tenderly stroked her cheek once more as he leaned in close. His breath warmed her face and the pungent aroma of sweat and dirt invaded her nostrils.
“Tell me, Jennifer,” the werewolf whispered. “If Markus fathered a stinking hybrid, why was he not slain with the others?”
Her gaze left the computer screen and Jennifer searched for truth in the werewolf’s eyes. Could her father still be alive? All these years, all these centuries she had told herself the man was dead, beheaded along with the rest who had crossed the bloodlines. Yet if this mangy lycanthrope could be believed, her father was still breathing. Maybe it had been why she’d kept the identity of her father a secret, in case he’d been able to escape: in case she could one day reach out and hold him again. Hope and love circled in Jennifer’s damaged body, somehow able to dampen, if only a little, the savage grip of pain.
The werewolf nodded, his pendant swinging like a hypnotist’s prop. “I’m not lying, your father lives to this day. Markus rules the coven.”
“Unbelievable,” the skinny werewolf said to himself, his voice sharp. “This is better than I could ever have imagined.”
How, or why, her father let her escape, Jennifer could not remember. She knew if she’d remained with him, then she, and Markus himself, would have been killed. She hoped he had released her to not only save himself, but to give her a life she otherwise would not have had. Whatever the reason, she remembered the scene shimmering on the computer screen before her: an immense castle silhouetted by a sinking sun, its thin towers stretching to the heavens. Even when the rain had begun to fall, she had remained transfixed. The woods in which she stood protected her from the downpour, but tears wet her face as she gazed at a darkened figure watching from one of the windows. The image disappeared from the monitor, and the same sadness that had overwhelmed her four hundred years ago besieged her again.
BLOODLINES -- Blood War Trilogy: Book I Page 13