Standing Before Monsters (Vorans and Vampires)

by Donald Wigboldy

  “Are you their leader?” Alad asked looking furious, but calm.

  “What are you supposed to be, kitty? Don’t tell me that you are supposed to be a tiger. They are ferocious creatures, though I’ve killed a few in my time as well. They look beautiful, but their pelts weren’t nearly as soft as you would think.

  “While I’ve dealt with real tigers, I have to say none of them smelled as bad as you,” the reaper stated.

  “What is your name?” Nick asked appearing calmer than Alad and completely composed. This wasn’t the first time that he had needed to get information from a stubborn vampire.

  “They call me, Lennart,” he spat at the man’s feet. “I don’t usually bother telling humans since they are my prey, but for you I’ll make an exception.”

  “I am touched,” Nick replied standing back to make the sight lines easier between the two of them. “One vampire thought I was simple prey and that sent me on the course that brings us to here. I am not the prey, though I give my friends a bit of my blood to keep them nearly human. Instead, I am the hunter and you are my quarry.

  “We hunted you while you hunted the vermin in this city. I don’t know how much time you saved us driving the nests to consolidate just to try and fight you, but we appreciate your work. We also appreciated as the last nest whittled your numbers down. I don’t think reapers are very common or we would have seen them before, so I would guess that you are the last of the ones you brought here.”

  “I could lie and say that there are more with me, but we aren’t the last of this type you call reaper. My masters have enough at their disposal and can easily make more. Does that worry you? Does it make you afraid?”

  Nick and the other vampires couldn’t help laugh. Even Alad allowed a chuckle before the voran replied for all of them, “Why should we be afraid? You weren’t that hard to kill or capture. We’ve been doing this for a long time. You were barely more of a challenge.

  “Hell, at least Cyrus put up a good fight. You aren’t half as tough as he was,” he replied playing down the truth of the matter. While Cyrus had an army which had been very powerful, for their numbers, the reapers were certainly more dangerous individually save for the elder vampires in that army.

  Frowning at being so easily dismissed, Lennart stopped talking.

  Nick tried again, “Why were you sent here?”

  “To clean up the mess Cyrus left behind when he failed to take the city,” the reaper replied surprisingly easily. “The elders knew something stopped him and we were sent to find out what that was by cleaning out all the vampires.”

  “Who are these elders or masters? What else do they want with Chicago?”

  Barking another laugh, Lennart retorted with derision, “Like they would tell their weapons their plans. We serve the Consortium. We don’t bother to ask any questions. They tell us where to go, who to kill and we obey.”

  “Where is this Consortium and who is in it?” Alad asked overstepping his bounds.

  Eyes narrowing, Lennart looked at Alad in disdain, “If you were a dog, I could tell you to heel. What does one tell a cat? How about shut up or stuff it?”

  Alad punched the reaper with a right cross. The vampire’s lip was broke open spilling a few drops of blood before it began to heal before the kasha’s eyes. His eyes remained unimpressed by the kasha.

  “Animal,” Lennart simply stated.

  Nick moved in front of the reaper again and said, “It was a valid question.”

  “I have told you enough. Sit here and wait for more to come or run away. I don’t really care.”

  Nick’s face took a deadly look and he asked, “Do you know what these ‘animals’ as you called are?”

  “Werecats or whatever, what do I care what they are called? They will simply be another bump in the way of the Consortium, if they don’t just run and hide. I know how cats think. Scare them and they run. These are probably no better.”

  “They are known as kasha and they have powers that you haven’t seen either then. Alad why don’t you give him a taste, since that is what vampires love so much, tastes.”

  Alad ran his claws over the reaper’s shirt drawing and loosening the bonds of his evil spirit. Lennart gasped and his eyes flicked from black to his true color for a moment.

  “What...?” he exclaimed knowing pain that he had never before experienced.

  Nick moved closer telling him. “Kasha use their claws to draw out evil spirits and destroy them leaving just a husk. Does that sound familiar, reaper?”

  His lips came back together in a smug smile. “I don’t fear death. I have lived long and seen many things. I’ve killed vampires and humans, even a werewolf or two. I can smell one on you as well, so you must know of those. For someone who seems to know little, you have found some things that even I haven’t, little vampire hunter.

  “I have lived centuries. If I die, I have more lifetimes than a human like you can understand.”

  Nick nodded to Alad to swipe his claws against the reaper’s chest drawing a grunt of pain once more. “I am one hundred thirty one years old, vampire. Don’t preach to me of lifetimes. I will get there over the bodies of more of your kind if they keep coming. Those who want to be saved can be saved, but I am surprised that something as evil as you wouldn’t fear death.”

  “Why should I fear it? If there is another side, then I will find it or be reborn anew.”

  “A monster like you I would think would be terrified of death.”

  “I am a predator. If you mean for God to judge me, then does a lion fear death because he kills an antelope or does a human fear death because he kills to eat meat? I am doing what God wants of me then, so I am safe enough by that measure,” he grinned.

  Nick shook his head and replied, “I was taught that we don’t get to heaven through our acts, but without God’s grace an evil spirit should really fear the hell that you’ve brought on yourself.

  “Now tell us of the Consortium and maybe we’ll give you time to change your outcome in the end, unlike our friend that you killed over there.”

  Lennart laughed again, “She wasn’t much of a friend. She begged me to spare her life and sold yours out. The girl said she didn’t care what happened to you as long as she might live. I spared you the traitor in your midst.”

  Marek decreed, “Lenora chose her own path, whether that would have made us kill her later or not was yet to come. You robbed us of finding a better way for her.”

  In spite of Marek’s words, they sounded cold, not just because of his hatred for the reaper, but because the coven leader probably figured that eventually Lenora would have chosen the wrong path and ended up on someone’s sword.

  “If you do not feed off of humans, then she was breaking your trust. We happened upon her feeding on a human male in the alley. Two other vampires were inside the club and still are, I would guess, hiding from us.”

  “Not everyone is a fighter and they weren’t ready for you on their own,” Nick stated. “You attacked and hunted fledglings. We are the ones who have been hunting down the ones who fall through the cracks before they spread the disease. We have destroyed nests like you have, but to remove the cancer of vampires.

  “Now tell us what your Consortium plans to do, so maybe we can find a way to spare you and you can atone for all the death that you have spread.”

  Laughing hysterically, Lennart shook his head and replied, “You can just wait and find out. Spare me or not, I told you that I don’t care.”

  Nick stood up straight and shrugged before nodding to Alad and Lamassu.

  Both of the kasha bent over the cocky looking reaper kneeling in his chains. He wanted to appear invincible as if the chains holding him were by his design and could be broken at any moment. An elder vampire as old as Cyrus might have that ability; but the reaper was much younger and Nick knew that he was bluffing.

  Each kasha plunged their claws into a shoulder loosening his spirit as their nails drew black blood. They touched his chest together r
unning their claws down to his abdomen as he cried out in pain. His eyes lost their blackness and gained fear of his end. Blue eyes looked at the voran on the edge of pleading, but he closed them trying to resist their power over his spirit.

  In a minute it was over. The kasha had their revenge on another who had caused Shedu’s death. Nick didn’t think either of them looked any happier despite dealing the final ending to two of the remaining reapers. That was the problem with getting revenge. The benefits were a hollow shell and did little for the soul and pain there.

  Marek used his sword to split the husk in half setting the remains on fire. Jake did the same for Lenora’s empty shell as well. With the two turned to dust with the other reapers, it only left the human in the alley to cover up.

  Nicola gathered up Vicki and Justin, who upon hearing that Lenora was dead were shaken up understandably.

  “I can’t believe that they killed her,” Vicki said in shock.

  Marek had other business to decide in relation to these two, but he would handle it in private at the Lair.

  Looking at the time on his phone, Nick looked at Nicola and shook his head. Almost 1 AM, the man half laughed, “I hope Charlotte’s alright with the girls.”

  Nicola smiled wearily as she replied, “I’m sure that a grown werewolf can deal with a college age voran and human with an undersize teenage vampire.”

  Texting that they were on the way back to the Lair, Nick received an immediate text saying to hurry. “I don’t know, but she looks ready to have some help,” he laughed at the pretty, blonde vampire in her torn red dress.

  The girl looked down seeing the tears and frowned, “Darn it. I liked this dress too.”

  Chapter 31- And in Other News

  Charlotte had survived her hours of baby sitting reasonably in tact. Lena and Geni had left about an hour before Nick’s return leaving just Sami in the werewolf woman’s care. Still the teenager wanted to dance, and to check out the bar, which had been emphatically told was forbidden to her by Nick.

  He doubted the girl wanted to get drunk but was simply curious and being a vampire seemed to make one a bit more impetuous. It was hard to follow rules when you were undead apparently.

  “Come on, Nick, just one drink,” Sami said sweetly holding up one finger with her hand as she smiled with her big green eyes trying to wear him down. She put her hands together and added, “Please, Nick.”

  Tapping her forehead with his forefinger, he replied, “Not tonight. It’s getting late and we need to get Charlotte home to sleep.”

  She looked defeated and pouted making him pull her in under his arm to walk out of the club, which was emptying steadily save for the die hard party goers.

  Charlotte asked as they drove away in the car, “What happened?”

  Sami sat next to her looking eager for a good story as well.

  “We finished off the reapers,” Nicola stated sounding tired in spite of it being the middle of the night and nowhere near her bedtime.

  “They were working under the same people as Cyrus. The reapers are the clean up crew for his failure and destroyed every nest that they could find trying to figure out who destroyed Cyrus’s army.”

  Charlotte nodded and replied, “Then they probably reported what happened at the nest.”

  “Their leader wasn’t there that night, but we took care of him and the two that escaped us,” Nick said. “How much they knew aside from being caught by another wave of vampires before they could finish off the nest, we don’t know; but their leader said they work for some elder vampires in something called the Consortium.”

  “Great more vampires that want to come here to kill us,” Charlotte retorted sitting back in her seat looking unhappy with the news.

  “We’ll just keep alert as always,” Nicola replied reaching over to put her hand on his leg as he drove.

  The conversation lapsed into silence as they drove. With the news of the Consortium, there was little more to say. Nick would see if he could find anything on the internet that might have leaked, but he doubted that there would be much to find. Vampires were pretty good at covering their trails and few were stupid enough to Facebook about themselves, if any.

  A vampire kept to the night and darkness. Secrecy was their best defense and many were hundreds of years old. Only the fledglings and newly turned might be stupid enough to go public about their new lives, and if that happened someone from the darkness would make sure that they were silenced and labeled crackpots by society. People claiming to be vampires would turn out to be Goth kids or so the newspapers and other reports would say. Kids that had gone astray with their weird culture, they would hypothesize, and the world would write them off to go on as usual. It was how they had managed to survive and coexist with humans, their food source for so long.

  Nick sat on the couch in the living room alone for the first time in months. No werewolves or vampires were around as the television played while the voran checked his laptop analyzing stocks to trade and sell. While the market had been unpredictable for a couple years, more recently it had become easier to gauge. The voran had lost some money along the way since the crash, but overall he still had managed to rebound and had enough safe investments that he wouldn’t be hurting for money even with the extra mouths to feed anytime soon. The occasional freelance article would help as well, even though he had been trying to adjust to a more online presence than he might like.

  Charlotte had been getting sick more often over the last week and decided to visit her brother down at the clinic. She could have him check her over to see what it was. So far no one else in contact with the woman had shown any signs of whatever she had, but then again most of the people she was in contact with the most were other werewolves, vampires and a voran. Only Geni saw her regularly while she worked to clean up his apartment or hang out with Lena now that they were on summer break.

  Left alone, Nick wondered about this Consortium threat the reaper had made. He had no reason not to believe him, since the creature had little reason to lie as he faced his death. It had been a threat not an attempt to save his life, which usually meant it was more likely true than someone just trying to tell him what he wanted to hear.

  The ping of the elevator outside in the hall wouldn’t have been heard by any of his neighbors, but Nick heard it. He had also felt Charlotte in the elevator, but was surprised that Logan was with her as well. When she entered the door, it was unlocked. As secure as the building was, the long time resident had little worries of the wrong people ever getting in let alone up to his floor.

  The dark haired woman looked at him with those strange blue eyes which were beautiful but still hard to see when he remembered first meeting her with brown eyes. Her face looked to be a mix of emotions and he couldn’t even begin to read them all. Worry, happiness, confusion, joy, fear, she was a mix of contradicting looks.

  “Hey, Logan, I didn’t expect you today. How’s Kate doing?”

  The big blonde haired man still wore a button up shirt though his tie was likely left in the car. He was a doctor and had to look professional even when a white coat often was the only thing making patients believe he was a doctor. Of course, Logan knew what he was doing and exuded confidence since he had been an ER doctor in his past.

  His eyes looked a little uncomfortable as well, but he answered easily enough, “Kate is good. She’s working right now and our paychecks are looking big enough that soon we can buy a car to get yours back to you.”

  Waving the last part off, Nick said, “Don’t worry about it. Furnish the place and make it your home before you worry about spending large amounts on cars. I have three and don’t always remember to make sure to drive all of them enough anyway. It’s one less chore to do.”

  Taking a seat, the big man shrugged, “We appreciate it.”

  His eyes went to Charlotte who still stood nervously. Drawing more attention because of her nervous energy making the woman pace now, Nick asked, “Did he figure out why you’ve been sick?”


  Logan hid a smile behind his hands as he looked up at his sister.

  “Um, yes, and it wasn’t what I thought it might be. I mean, I kind of saw the signs, but being in heat (I still hate calling it that),” she complained as the woman hit a tangent. “Being in heat, I wasn’t sure what was reset. The wolf took over in some ways and the full moons seemed to turn me even more upside down. I hadn’t been able to figure out what was going on anymore.”

  She paused and continued to pace. “We worried that you couldn’t reset my body when it was out of control, but you did. We did! I mean, making love with you...” Her eyes glanced to her brother realizing she didn’t want to talk about her love life in front of him. “Anyway, then we worried, would the new moon cause more problems, but it didn’t. Well nothing unusual happened to my body, and I didn’t need to change right away because of the moon. Well, it didn’t force a change immediately, but that could have been the clouds and weather. That can change how we react on a full moon as you know. Well maybe you don’t know, but it does.”

  He had never heard the woman go on like this. Being someone training to become a lawyer, public speaking wasn’t much of a problem for Charlotte and she had never seemed unable to talk to him. There had always been an easy rapport between them even before the strangeness of the full moon brought them together.

  Logan looked ready to push his sister impatiently. “Just tell him already. I promised to let you do it your way, but your way is killing me, Charlotte.”

  “Shut up,” she complained looking at him like the little sister she was and being frustrated by her big brother. “I’m getting to it. It isn’t easy to just say things like this.”

  Taking a deep breath, the dark haired beauty stopped pacing to look at him with those magical blue eyes and tried to conclude her rambling tangent, which was obviously being used to give her time to get the courage to say whatever it was she needed to say. Nick was beginning to have a strong feeling that what was wrong wasn’t exactly something that was truly wrong.