Standing Before Monsters (Vorans and Vampires)

by Donald Wigboldy

  They found Shedu and bolted as quickly as they could. Luckily between the silver smoke and the nearby busy streets, the vampires didn’t dare to pursue. The creatures had their casualties despite the brief encounter, but the kasha hunters would need to lick their own wounds before trying again. Arrogance in their superiority, both from tactics and skills, had nearly been their downfall. They were supposed to trick and trap vampires, not the other way around; but as Lam took her mask off forcing her transformation back into human, she felt her wounds and knew that they had just gotten lucky.

  Before they even began the car ride back to the apartment, Shedu helped bandage his team. Lam had felt the shoulder and hit to the leg. A third had clipped her side on the run and didn’t start burning until they were halfway back to the car. The strength of her feline form had to be shelved to blend into the humans still roaming the streets. With the mask removed, the undead spirit made her stomach feel even worse making her sick, but the woman managed to hold it in along with her evening meal.

  Shedu applied a cream that burned nearly making the woman pass out by the third wound, but the bleeding had stopped from all three and improved the healing well beyond that of human. He found five hits on the larger target of Alad. Most were nicks and not direct hits thanks to his body armor unlike her shoulder. It had dug deep with the first hit. A souvenir of their first loss, Lam had placed the star in her purse still clipped to her belt.

  “We moved north to avoid being predictable and to avoid those other vampires that you think hunt other vampires,” Alad stated sounding annoyed. “How did this group become so organized that they could trap us?”

  Lam closed her eyes as she sat in the car and agreed saying, “We’re still relatively new to Chicago and this was our first trip to the north side. How did they manage that?”

  Shedu shook his head as he drove them towards the apartment and answered, “It may not have been meant for us, but they used it to trap us as the threats we are even so.”

  “So we weren’t the targets but just found the same trap, but then who was it made for if not us,” Alad questioned rhetorically.

  With her eyes closed, Lamassu’s sense of smell was still more sensitive than a human’s even trapped in the mundane form. The scent of blood was in the car and it was familiar as her own and Alad’s. With the lingering feel of the dead vampire rebelling inside her guts slowly dying off, the smell made her nauseous. Choking the feeling down, she said, “Barong sent us here to make an impact. Stories made it to him of both vampires and werewolves in the city. How much of that might have been from territory wars? Maybe this group was hoping to catch one of the south side clans and wipe them out. The tactics were sound whether fighting a vampire or a werewolf.

  “No creature could have entered that alley chasing that vampire and escaped going up the buildings quickly, so only the exit remained tenable as an answer. Without Shedu’s distraction and our gas grenades, I doubt that we would have escaped them.”

  “They were well armed also,” Shedu mused rubbing his chin with one hand while steering the car with the other. “It isn’t cheap to buy silver in the amounts to outfit more than a dozen men with swords and throwing weapons. Either they have a wealthy benefactor or they’re finding a way to steal it in large amounts somewhere.”

  “Now what do we do?” Alad asked sounding glum. “We came here expecting to at least thin their numbers. If we keep finding this many working together, we’re going to have to assume there is at least a couple covens to deal with and we’re only three.”

  Shedu frowned. They would heal from their wounds soon enough, but the blow to their confidence would take a lot more to recover. “I’ll call Barong and get some guidance.”

  The remainder of the drive lapsed into silence.

  Standing in the home of Marek’s vampires, the true lair attached to the nightclub, Nick watched as Nicola sat on a bar stool drinking from a chilled glass. Though she often took the little blood she needed directly from his hand in her playful way, it had been a couple days and her drink was laced with a couple drops from the supply they kept in the refrigerator.

  Marek and most of the coven were gathered in the living room going over ideas of how to find the mysterious hunters and the remaining strays from the small army Cyrus had created during the winter. There had been enough activity nearby to worry over a new group of vampires moving into the vacuum the elder’s death had created and worries over another army that could wipe them out had the group on edge.

  “Will and I could always head north and try to find out if there is a new nest on the north side. Justin’s old gym used to be up there too, if I didn’t wander off during one his stories and just dream it up,” one of the new additions, Tony, offered. His hand ran through his short, dark hair. Olive skinned, his blue eyes stood out and revealed exceptional intelligence. He had been one of Cyrus’s better finds, an army ranger stolen from one of the bars while on leave. The elder had been smart in creating his army.

  Using beautiful bar hopping vampires like Lenora and Vicki, men with military backgrounds or, like Justin, martial arts were discovered and turned by the elder and his lieutenants. The elder’s power over his minions’ minds was enough to prevent anyone’s morals from resisting his orders. Simply following their orders with little will of their own, dozens of talented fighters had joined the vampire army and nearly destroyed Marek’s clan which had decades’ of experience and training.

  Looking to Nick questioningly, the coven leader actually appeared unsure if sending his newest people north into potential danger was a good idea. For all the contention between the women, since the new girls certainly had opinions of their place in the coven despite only a little over a month in the Lair; the new men got along well especially with the other males. Getting little from the voran, who technically wasn’t a member since he wasn’t a vampire; Marek replied slowly, “I think we need to be a little more cautious in spreading ourselves too thin with these vampire hunters suddenly appearing. Perhaps once Nick tracks them down and finds out their motivations, we can join or run them off. If we’re lucky, they’ll see that we’re here to help the humans by taking out the more dangerous strays we find.”

  Giving a casual shrug, Tony didn’t fight his new leader. While the man had led in the rangers, he was still low man on the vampire totem pole. Twenty four years old with six years in the army, hardly compared with vampires over a hundred years old and he knew it.

  Nick moved to face the ring of chairs facing the television, one of the distractions a vampire used to try and pass the hours of their indefinite lifetime. “One of my contacts is looking at traffic surveillance to try and discover the license plate of the hunters. If he can get that, hopefully the DMV will have the proper address for the driver.

  “Another contact I have mentioned a few jewelry store break ins on the north side a couple weeks ago. It seems that the thieves targeted mostly the silver items and left expensive gold and jewels behind that a normal thief would have most likely started by taking.”

  Jake frowned and queried, “You think the hunters or a new group of vampires are stealing them to make weapons?”

  “That would be my guess,” the voran nodded. “I checked into unusual amounts of silver being stolen or bought legally during the winter. Cyrus must have run some thefts unless he had a supply before outfitting his men. There were too many young vampires with swords to believe they would have brought them into the city from somewhere else.

  “They discovered a cobbled together foundry in those buildings Cyrus took over, so we can assume that one of his lieutenants had been a smith somewhere in his life. Still they needed materials to make them, and steel and silver probably weren’t just bought over the internet.”

  “You’d be surprised what you can find these days, old man,” Lenora quipped holding her cell phone and typing in silver on Amazon. “Do you want silver bullion? I have a couple pages here or ninja swords, if you’d rather.

  “People don�
��t have to buy them from stores or bring them into Chicago themselves. All they need to do is order and pay a little extra for next day shipping,” the blond finished with a shrug bringing a frown to Marek’s face at her impudence.

  “You are a rude child,” the vampire leader scolded her sounding like the old man he truly was.

  Nick raised a hand towards his friend, and replied, “I suppose that is true as well, but they would still need money.”

  Shaking her head, but trying to be a little more polite in her treatment of the voran and his opinion, Lenora retorted, “If they have thieves among them or steal from the victims’ wallets, they could build an account, put in the stolen credit card and even send it to the address of an empty building. All they would need is a day thrall to receive the packages.

  “Before any government types can follow the trail, all they would have to do is move or close up shop before moving somewhere else.” The girl shrugged even as most of the room looked at her in surprise. “What? I was looking at becoming a police officer or going into law before I was bitten. Learning thieves’ tactics and habits was part of some of my criminal law classes.

  “With the internet, people can use it to try to get away with anything, including murder.”

  Nick and Marek exchanged looks realizing that for all they tried to keep up with the times, they were still fossils in a modern age. The voran nodded and decided, “I can check in with my FBI contacts and see what they might know of that, meanwhile, locally they can check the way typical dumb, old school criminals would act. Things keep changing so I guess double checking into these other ways wouldn’t hurt. Thanks, Lenora,” the voran replied appreciatively.

  Marek looked less gracious and in turn ignored her as he added, “You know of the thefts nearby and the strange choice of loot. Whether someone is getting it from the internet or not, that is still something to follow.”

  Nodding, the voran added, “I’m hoping my detective friend comes up with the three hunters’ address, but my guess is that they had nothing to do with the thefts. Unfortunately that might mean a new clan of vampires is moving in from the north entering the vacuum created with destroying Cyrus’s army.”

  Groans came from most of the older vampires. After dealing with both werewolves and vampires this winter, as well as the deaths of four of their friends; no one wanted to be in another full scale war anytime soon, if ever. Hunting strays was relatively safe and much more preferable to that.

  “We will maintain the regular patrols until we find out more,” Marek decided sounding surer of himself again. “We will never run less than three to a team just for safety. If the hunters are afraid to take on an equal number and we run into them again, hopefully that will deter them. Don’t fight them if possible. If we can get them to dialogue, then maybe we can work together instead of against each other.”

  Lenora spoke up again saying, “Vicki and I could work through the bars like we used to for Cyrus keeping our eyes open for the hunters and any new vampires. We’ve been getting bored just sticking around the Lair anyway.”

  Looking like their leader was ready to veto the idea, Nicola said from the island, “You can send one or two of the boys with them Marek. A simple double date to the eyes of humans and numerical superiority to the hunters as far as we know.”

  Surprised to hear Nicola siding with her, Lenora looked at the elder vampire suspiciously. “That could work too.”

  Marek agreed and said, “We’ll try to work out the numbers and planned bars to check.” Glancing to Nick, he added, “Are you and Nicola going to get in on this?”

  Shaking his head, the voran replied, “With Charlotte messed up, I’m going with for their full moon run. We still don’t know what will happen to her when the new moon rises.”

  Lenora made a face, and complained, “Why do you need to walk the dog? I thought Nicola was your girlfriend.”

  Anger crossed Nick’s face and he would have retorted, but Marek stepped in equally annoyed at the woman’s disrespect of one of their allies, “He doesn’t need to keep arrogant little vampires alive and sane either. Perhaps you would like to see how long you last without his blood? He could just as easily have hunted you down like the rest or killed you in the industrial complex with Cyrus, so I think giving him some respect and remembering that Charlotte is our friend as well might be a smart thing on your part.”

  Looking a bit stung by his rebuke, the blonde tried to apologize but humility couldn’t be drawn to her face completely. “Sorry, Nick.”

  “Well, I don’t want to mess up the patrols for tonight or business in the club,” Nick stated nodding to the blonde accepting her apology none the less.

  Marek stood and shook his hand. “If you want to run with us, just let me know my friend.”

  Gathering Nicola as she walked in her tight blue dress on high heels crossing the floor like a cloud of fog rolling in from the lake, the voran replied, “Nicola and I will try a couple places, but we can’t be as late as normal, since Charlotte has been getting worse as the full moon gets closer. I’ll need to check on her before she goes to bed.”

  The head of the vampires glanced at Nicola and asked in a hushed voice to avoid being heard easily by the others, “How is the werewolf doing?”

  “Charlotte is hanging in there,” Nick admitted knowing that was about all the better he could say regarding her situation. While giving the woman rub downs to get rid of most of her symptoms wasn’t exactly an unpleasant duty, it was certainly making things awkward. Nicola almost seemed to try even harder when they were alone to make him want her, which meant for some amazing quality time as they often referred to it now; but Nick seemed to be the only one that was resolved to fight giving in to Charlotte’s biological needs.

  Nicola added, “We manage to keep her symptoms from getting too out of hand, but time between treatments keeps shrinking. If the full moon doesn’t fix or reset her cycles, Nick might have to sleep with her.”

  Looking pained at her blunt report, Nick met Marek’s eyes which revealed his amusement and the vampire replied, “Some would say that isn’t a bad plan. The werewolf is beautiful. While I am more into blondes and redheads, if she wasn’t a werewolf...”

  Red headed Audrey appeared beside him as if called to listen to Marek’s wandering eye, “She’d probably neuter you for trying, if I didn’t first.”

  Recoiling in surprise, the elder vampire quickly recovered and put his arm around the shoulders of Audrey extra lovingly as he tried to dig himself out of the hole he had dug for himself, “As I was saying, I do prefer redheads. I was just remarking that for those who like that look, she is a beautiful woman.”

  Staring at him looking unconvinced, Audrey quickly looked at Nick and added to the man, “Nicola seems resigned to share you with Charlotte. I suppose if it were life and death, I might permit Marek to be with another woman someday; but he better not plan on it any time soon.

  “You on the other hand, Nicholas, seem determined to not sleep with the wolf.”

  Nick could feel heat in his cheeks and could guess that he was a bit red from yet another frank speaking vampire. Age or being undead seemed to loosen their tongues that way, though his old age had not made him the same way. Still he answered as frankly as he could make himself admit, “I didn’t join Nicola on a whim. You know me. When I commit to someone, it is forever.”

  Shaking their heads at him collectively, the vampires seemed less convinced. Audrey spoke the thoughts of the group he had a feeling as she said, “Human rules of monogamy can’t be held as absolute. Even they have societies and other examples of a man with multiple wives. Nicola may be my best friend, but we’ve shared Marek off and on though she’s preferred other men since we met. Still, we’re vampires and can live forever. We can’t reproduce that way. Having children means turning others with our blood and their deaths.

  “A commitment of monogamy because of children or worries of children are moot. Don’t you think?”

  Unconvinced, N
ick simply replied, “If the full moon fixes Charlotte, I think it would be better to avoid that treacherous slope of thinking, Audrey; but thanks for your opinion anyway.”

  He wasn’t trying to be rude, but the idea still went against the thinking he had been raised to believe.

  After escaping the lair, Nicola’s occasional questioning looks as he drove, made the man realize that he might be the only one that couldn’t see being with Charlotte as anything but a betrayal. Trying not to sigh each time he thought that way, the voran turned the car north towards the first of the bars they would canvas looking for hunters and vampires.

  Chapter 12- Peace Talks

  “You look preoccupied,” Detective Tucker said sitting in the booth across from the voran. The diner they had chosen for the meeting had a fifties feel to it with some older music playing in the background.

  For Nick, the music wasn’t old, it was just music. He had lived through those years, so they were his past; but they were memories easily recalled despite the passing of decades. It was a simpler time though it had its problems like every decade seemed to have. The world changed. The technology and dreams about the future changed, but in the end it was all much the same for the voran.

  “It’s a full moon tonight,” the voran stated cryptically. His mind was on Charlotte and her condition. What he might have to do despite Nicola’s blessing still weighed heavily on him, but the man pulled his mind back to why he was here. “So did you manage to discover anything?”

  Pushing a manila envelope across the table for Nick to look at as the waitress came to take their order, the detective ordered coffee and a burger since it was nearly noon. The voran opened the envelope finding pictures of the car from the front. In Illinois, the vehicles had plates on both the front and back. It played to his favor as he could clearly make out the plate, which the detective had blown up for him.

  Among the handful of pictures, two sheets of paper drew Nick’s attention. “You found them?”