The Progeny

by Shelley Crowley

  “They were Nico’s men. The scientist that cured me. I think he wants me for more testing. Maybe his serum still isn’t working on anyone else. And they-they wanted you so they could test you, too.”

  Varsee’s usual cool, collected demeanour had turned to something a lot more unstable. “But how did they find us?” she asked. “How did they know where we were?” Her eyes suddenly widened. “Who called you?”

  Panic lit Evie’s face and she covered her pocketed phone with her hand. “A friend.”

  “What sort of friend?” asked Alexander, coming up to stand by his sister.

  “I-I don’t know. I don’t really know him. But he helped me and I thought maybe-”

  “Does he have any connection to this Nico person?” asked Varsee.

  “I-I don’t know. He protected me from them but I can’t be sure. It all didn’t make much sense.”

  Varsee stuck out her palm. “Give me your phone.”

  Fear lit Evie’s eyes as they met her Maker’s wild expression. She took her phone from her pocket and placed it in Varsee’s hand. Not taking her eyes off Evie, Varsee threw it onto the ground and smashed it with the heel of her boot. Evie flinched.

  “They must have traced the call,” said Varsee through a clenched jaw. “That’s how they found us.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Evie’s bottom lip started to quiver. Part of Caius wanted to reach out to her but a bigger part was just as furious as Varsee. How had she been so stupid? After everything that had happened with Nico and the two of them and she had almost had them all of carted back to be used as lab rats. Curling his hands into fists by his sides, Caius stayed where he was, a little separated from the others.

  “Go back to the house,” said Varsee. Her voice had gone back to being collected but it now had a vicious intensity that made a shiver crawl up Caius’ spine.

  Evie’s eyebrows furrowed. “But I want to help.”

  “You’ve done enough. Go.”

  “But-”

  “Evie,” Varsee warned, the strength of her voice making Evie retract her reaching hand. “I said go back. Don’t make me command you.”

  With a gulp, she bowed her head in submission. Caius watched her figure blur as she vampire-sprinted back the way they had come, her red hair like a warning flash in the air.

  He turned to his progeny. “I want you to go back, too.”

  Robin’s shoulders slouched. “What? After what I just did by myself?” He gestured to the gore. “And now you’re one down. You need me.”

  Caius sped towards him, pausing in front of him so they were only inches apart. Robin’s dark eyes gazed up at him fearfully and he seemed to shrink back in on himself.

  Caius lowered his voice. “I need you to go back and protect Evie while I’m gone. Those men might come back.”

  A small smile twitched on his lips. “So you do need me?”

  “You’re my progeny, of course I need you.”

  Robin pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, fighting the smile he obviously wanted to show. “Okay,” he said before sprinting off after Evie, making Caius’ hair whip across his face.

  When he turned, Varsee still looked livid. Like a kettle ready to boil over. Alexander had his head bent and the side of his coat pulled out like a wing. “Those fuckers shot a hole through my coat.”

  Varsee sighed and looked around. “We really do need to move these bodies.”

  Alexander dropped his coat and lifted his head in thought. “We could take them with us and dump them near the barn. Make it seem like the Nest did it. Then the officers will cover it up for us.”

  Caius nodded in agreement. “That’s a good idea.”

  They all paused for a moment, evaluating the fourteen mutilated bodies that surrounded them. Finally, Alexander heaved a sigh. “So who’s up for some heavy lifting?”

  The three vampires deposited the bodies around the field along with the rifles. Alexander had picked up one of the fallen guns and felt the weight of it, probably wondering if he should add it to his arsenal but then decided against it. Apparently, he wasn’t too fond of using guns. He liked a more personal approach. Whatever that meant.

  “I would have thought the Nest would have sniffed us out,” said Varsee, swiping sticky blood from her jacket. Hiding all the bodies had taken several trips and every time they disturbed the corpses the smell of fresh blood filled the air. It blackened Caius’ vision at the edges as the hunger stirred inside. His fangs had unsheathed several times, making Alexander smirk when he caught his eye.

  “They’re probably full after jumping my meal,” grumbled Alexander, kicking a corpse in the leg.

  “Maybe.” Varsee looked down the field. Now the barn was in full view but they were still a safe distance away. “Let’s hope they’re still around. Come on, we’ve wasted enough time as it is.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Varsee sent her brother a glare before pulling out the handgun that she had stuffed down the back of her leather pants. With a swift head gesture, the three of them started their descent to the barn. Now wielding the gun and stalking across the dewy grass with her shoulders arched, Varsee looked incredibly intimidating. So did Alexander striding by her side with his coat blowing back like a cape, spinning his butterfly knife in his hand with ease. Caius withdrew his stake and curled his fingers around it, hoping he hadn’t gotten himself in too deep.

  In the back of his mind there was a nagging voice that told him he should have informed the Court about the Nest when Milah had summoned him but at the time, a Nest full of crazy vampires was the last thing he had been thinking of.

  They waited for a moment outside the huge wooden building before edging their way through the open crack of the back door. Caius’ eyes burned when they met the flickering lights of the fires dotted around the huge hollowed out space inside. The fires were contained in bins. Caius figured they were used for a light source as vampires didn’t need the flames for heat.

  Three figures huddled around the bin nearest to them. Caius followed Varsee’s lead and slipped soundlessly into the shadows behind a beam. He spotted several more figures sat on the hay strewn ground, chewing on each other’s necks and arms. There were two more beside another bin. He wasn’t sure how many there were all together but he knew they were outnumbered greatly. The Nest were chattering amongst themselves, Caius caught bits of conversations. When he looked back, it was only him and Varsee standing against the wall. Alexander was halfway up the beam, skittering soundlessly like a lizard up a wall. Caius watched as he reached the beam overhead and perched in the corner of it, watching the three Nest vampires below. The shadows concealed him perfectly but the vampires still cocked their heads up in his general direction.

  “Smell that?” asked one of them, a male with a gravelly voice.

  One of his companions nodded. “Human.”

  “No,” said another, a woman, “vampire.”

  “Both?”

  The Nest vampires that had been sitting on the floor jumped to attention, their bottomless black eyes searching the darkness. Caius counted eight all together but he was pretty sure there were more he just hadn’t spotted yet. The three vampires under Alexander snapped their heads in Varsee’s and Caius’ direction, ready to advance. Alexander dropped down between them as if falling from the sky, the tail of his coat picking up sawdust as it swished around his ankles.

  The three vampires turned back and looked at him. In the flickering light of the fire, Caius could see the purple veins corded under their eyes, thick and pulsating, and his stomach twisted at the thought that he looked like that when he gave into his hunger. So… inhuman.

  “Hey guys,” said Alexander with a rakish grin. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  All three vampires hissed and snarled, snapping their fangs and clicking their nails together - which Caius noticed had been filed to deadly points.

  One lunged, arms extended to grab Alexander’s throat. But then Alexander ducked, caught the tackling
vampire above his knees and flipped him up and over his back. The vampire thudded to the ground in a cloud of sawdust. Alexander spun, now with a stake in his hand, and drove it into the vampire’s chest. He exploded in a vile burst of sticky red goo, splattering up Alexander’s front and painting his face crimson. While distracted, the female vampire dove for Alexander’s back and burst into goo instantly as an explosion rang in Caius’ ears. He spun to see Varsee holding her smoking handgun before she disappeared in a flash.

  Alexander grinned at the one remaining vampire in his little group, his white fangs almost glowing in contrast to his bloody face. The dark-haired vampire snarled, clicking his nails as he began circling Alexander, ready to leap. But Alexander was faster and had the vampire pinned against his chest from behind in a matter of milliseconds, his head wedged in the crook of his elbow. The vampire snarled and wriggled against him but Alexander lodged his butterfly knife into the side of his neck. The vampire cried, clawing at the arm around his throat. His nails ripped into the thick leather of Alexander’s coat as he dragged the blade sideways. Blood bloomed around the knife and gushed down the vampire’s neck. When he reached the vampire’s Adam’s apple, Alexander dropped the knife. The vampire was gagging on his own blood now as it poured from his mouth and the gruesome open wound across his neck. With a look of manic glee, Alexander dug his fingers into the wound and started yanking upwards, tearing the vampires head from his body before it exploded.

  A cry caught Caius’ attention and he snapped his head to the side to see a vampire being dragged back into the shadows by a manicured hand around its ankle. Another cry erupted in the darkness before he heard the gushing sound of another body turning into pulp. The red goo ran out into the light in a shimmering puddle. Caius could smell it, thick and pungent in the air. Vampire blood had the coppery smell of human blood but tainted. It was hard to describe. It just smelt dark and wrong.

  Varsee and Alexander continued to massacre the Nest as Caius felt himself drop back against the wall with sudden dizziness. He was transported back in time. Back to when this was a regular occurrence for him. All the blood. All the screams. All the fear. But they had been human. The blood, the screams, the almost tangible fear. All of it was human. And Caius had revelled in it. He’d crushed bodies against him and drank from them until they fell limp before he chased down another. Milah had been by his side, smiling like a beautiful devil as she danced and laughed in the moonlight among the dismembered bodies and burned down homes. And when they felt the sun beginning to rise, they’d fall in bed together- painted from head to toe in blood with the life of the fallen running through their veins- and sleep in each other’s arms only to wake and do it all over again.

  A searing pain in Caius’ left shoulder yanked him violently out of the past and propelled him back into the present. He cried out and grabbled at the vampire at his side that had embedded its fangs into him, tearing through his flesh and muscle. Caius managed to grab a fistful of greasy hair and used his grip to throw the vampire to the ground. His fangs ripped free and the blooming pain made Caius’ vision darken at the edges once more. The vampire spun to push himself back up but Caius stomped on his head with such force that he heard the crack of bones. The vampire fell flat on his stomach but continued clawing at the ground in an attempt to get back up. Before he had a chance, Caius drove his stake between his shoulder blades and the vampire erupted into a bloody mess.

  Screams of pain and rage filled the barn. Caius looked up to see Alexander and Varsee back to back in the centre of the collection of fires, fending off crazed Nest vampires with the skill and ease of trained assassins. At this moment, it was two against five. Caius sprang into the melee wielding his slick stake and drove it through the female vampire that had Varsee by both shoulders. Varsee, coated in a mess of black and red vampire goo, smiled at him as the remains of the vampire rained over them, before spinning around, kneeing an oncoming vampire in the stomach and shooting it straight through the temple.

  Caius readied himself to help take out the remaining three vampires but there seemed to be no need for him. In a matter of seconds, Alexander had driven his butterfly knife through a vampire’s open mouth and into his brain, and staked another one through the chest while his sister kicked and punched the one attached to his leg until he was weak and bloody before shooting him in the face.

  The three of them stood there for a moment with gore dripping from their bodies, before Alexander turned to Caius, his eyes impossibly blue in the darkness. “Finally thought you’d make yourself useful?”

  Caius let the stake fall free from his grip and drop to the ground. He felt spent. Vampires didn’t feel exertion but the release of his inner savage nature seemed to have drained him as he came to terms with what had just happened. “Is it over?”

  Varsee surveyed their surroundings, her blonde hair was black with blood and her ponytail had clumped into a thick sticky rope. “It seems so.”

  Caius retracted his fangs and looked to the gap in the back door they had come from, fearing that the longer he stayed in these conditions, the more he’d start to like it. It felt familiar and nostalgia was creeping up on him like a dark cloud.

  “Damn, you look so hot covered in the blood of our fallen enemies,” Alexander gushed before wrapping his arm around his sister’s waist and tugging her close, pinning her to his chest. A primal growl rumbled deep in Varsee’s throat before she dug her nails into his dank hair and kissed him with bruising passion. Alexander groaned and wrapped his other arm around her. They swayed and rolled against each other in the heat of the kiss, their bodies shimmering in the light of the dancing flames. Suddenly finding himself caught in a very private moment, Caius headed for the door. He listened out for any protests but all he heard was the lustful growls coming from the two lovers behind him. He left them to it and vampire-sprinted his way back to the house.

  Caius paused at the gate to the farmhouse and attempted to wipe the blood from his face. Everything looked normal. There seemed to have been no intrusions.

  As he walked up the path, his clothes heavy and sticking to his body, he thought about Evie and her mistake that had almost cost them their lives. He knew he couldn’t stay mad at her for long. It was Evie, after all. He loved her. But he also knew he couldn’t blindly forgive her for what had happened. She’d learn nothing from that.

  He opened the door, leaving a smudged handprint on the handle, and started at the sight of Robin springing up from the sofa brandishing a porcelain Yorkshire Terrier by the head like a weapon. The young vampire froze in a battle stance for a moment before his dark eyes scoped him. “Caius?”

  Caius ran his fingers through his long, wet hair and shoved it out of his face. “Yes, it’s me.”

  Robin exhaled a sigh of relief and dropped back down onto the sofa, placing the porcelain figure on the coffee table. He had clearly showered. He was clean of blood and his dark brown hair curled on his forehead and under his ears. Caius recognised the big grey and blue jumper he was wearing that had a bold geometric print as one of the pieces of clothing he had found hung up in the wardrobe in his room. The light blue jeans he was wearing must have also been from there.

  Robin narrowed his eyes curiously, “Is that-?”

  “Vampire goo? Yes it is.”

  He pulled a face. “Lovely.”

  “Did anyone come in? Where’s Evie?”

  “No. And upstairs. I think she feels pretty guilty about what happened. She just locked herself away.”

  Torn between really needing to wash and wanting to talk to his progeny, Caius paused in the hallway a moment and tugged off his boots before crossing the threshold into the living room. He didn’t want to take any chances and get on Varsee’s bad side by getting blood everywhere. And after seeing her in action, he really needed to play his cards right.

  “So, did you kill them all?”

  Caius nodded. “We think so. Look, about what happened before-”

  “Haven’t I been punished enou
gh? I’ve already missed out on all the fun.”

  Caius shook his head. “I don’t want to punish you. I just want to talk.”

  “What about?”

  Caius scratched his neck in thought, wondering how to start. “First of all, I want to thank you for what you did.”

  Robin’s dark eyes shimmered up at him. “What?”

  Caius half smiled. “You did save us, after all. It just… wasn’t in the way I hoped for.”

  “But I don’t know what else you would have expected me to do.”

  “Compel them, maybe.”

  “Compel them? Oh, you mean the eye thing. Sorry, I completely forgot I could do that now.”

  “I should teach you sometime.”

  Robin smiled.

  “The reason I was so mad was because, well, what did it feel like? Killing those men. How did it make you feel?”

  Robin looked down guiltily and started playing with his cuff. “It felt good.”

  Caius nodded sadly. “See, that’s what I was afraid of. Once you get a taste for it, it’s hard to stop.”

  Robin shook his head vigorously and looked back up. “It didn’t feel good ending those men’s lives. It felt good because I was doing it for you.”

  Caius was stunned to silence. Robin continued, “I didn’t really understand this bond thing we share at first. I thought it made me, like, idolise you and make me think that you could do no wrong. But when you all went off and you told me to stay here, I was pissed. Like, so fucking mad at you. When I punched that wall, I was imagining it was your face.” His tight, angered expression softened. “But then, when I was here waiting for you lot to come back and I felt you inside my head. I could hear you.” He gestured to the back of his head. “When you said you needed me, there was nothing in the world that would have stopped me. I mean, I’m guessing that is to do with the bond, because there aren’t that many people in the world that I care about enough to help. But at that moment I truly realised what you had meant when you were talking me through making me a vampire. I felt like if I didn’t save you, if you died, a part of me would die, too. And I just couldn’t let that happen.” He looked down to the floor, hiding the emotion in his eyes. “That need to tear those men apart wasn’t from some primal part of me that wanted blood on my hands. It was my loyalty to you. I did it all for you.”