"Personally, I think bleakness follows you. They have pills for that now days. And next time I remove your head, I'll take your advice and crush it and feed it to the sharks. Now if you'll excuse me, Samael, it's been a long day and I've got things to do." He glared at me with his sinister blood-red eyes, droplets of venom falling from his fangs, unamused with my humor.
"You are weak. I could kill you now," he stated.
"Still over-estimating yourself as usual." I let out a cynical laugh before growing serious. "Leave me in peace. The war is over."
"Fool! The war is just beginning, but it will end once you surrender, leaving me the heir to Earth."
"Surrender? Shouldn't there be a fight before surrender is declared?"
"I was told that you received my gift?" he asked.
"If you're talking about the vial of love potion, then yes. That was truly a gift from the heart—a dead, cold, and black heart."
"You are too kind. I trust it demonstrated my power sufficiently, and you now know that I can take you out, the same way I took your master out so long ago."
"Congratulations. It sounds like you have a very active dating life. Aside from the threats, what is it you want from me?"
"Simple, the potion that has allowed you to live as human," he said.
"No," I stated. Whether or not I had any left wasn't important, I wasn't going to negotiate with the mentally twisted creature.
He reached into his back pant's pocket, withdrew several pictures and threw them at my feet. "Look at those and maybe you will reconsider."
While keeping a close eye on him, I bent down and picked the pictures up. The first showed Ricka and me holding hands in a park in the seventies. No big deal. The second showed Sara and Mitch kissing inside my bedroom. I looked up, trying to wash my face clean of the fact that he had gotten to me.
"I am in every corner of your life," Samael said. "And I was quite amused to see that you are the first god in history to be cheated on. For you, I will be happy to kill her."
"Leave her alone!" I blurted. I looked down and flipped to the next picture. My heart sank. It showed Karen hugging Lori when my daughter had first shown up to Karen's home. The picture appeared to have been taken from the walkway upstairs, probably from right in front of my bedroom door. A cold shiver went through me as I remembered the moisture in the bathtub. The last picture was of Lori in a police station, smiling for the camera.
"My people are with her now," he said. Seething, I stared at him, tensing to lunge, which he sensed. "Don't try it." He pulled the gun out of the holster. The barrel was extremely long for a pistol, and the large bore reminded me of paintball guns I had seen in the store.
"You want what I can't give. At least if I kill you, your insanity dies with you. When you're not there to protect them, I'm certain those working for you will run like mice, knowing I will kill them should they harm anyone I love." I took a step towards him, and he reciprocated with his own step back. I had him where I wanted him. "Your bullets are but gnats to me." I jumped for his throat and he fired.
The hiss of the gun sounded like what I imagined those paintball guns sounded like, but it had a much harder kick than they ever could have. The projectile slammed into my stomach, forcing me back, and an incredible burning sensation washed through my abdomen. I looked down at my ripped open flesh and watched streaks of black crawl outward across my skin. I looked up at him in confusion and then fell to my knees with a pain I could not block.
"As I said: bold, brash, and stupid," he sneered, standing over me. "If the vial didn't persuade you, then perhaps that will. Modern science has developed some wonderful things. In this case, it was a hollow sphere constructed of several layers of graphene. It is a material hard enough to penetrate you, allowing the payload to enter. The payload is my custom-built virus that I have tried to warn you about, hoping you will see the futility of resistance. Apparently your skull is too thick for subtlety, just as Ra's was over a hundred years ago." He held the gun up and admired it. "This makes me stronger than all of you."
I clutched at my belly, suffering pain I didn't know was possible. Clenching my teeth as my vision dimmed, I tried to lash out at him, but only managed to fall face down on the ground.
"The virus acts fast," he continued. "Destroying cells in progression. Lucky for you, it has one serious flaw that I could not work out. It does not replicate and only lives twenty-four hours. If you survive that, then you should be fine…if it does not make it to your brain that is. Sadly, our brains cannot heal themselves."
I tried to get up, tried to speak, tried anything, but the torture in my gut was spreading like an all-consuming wildfire. I lay helpless at his feet, moaning in agony.
"Give me the potion, and I will let you keep some. I will even go as far as allowing you to live as a human with your family. To consider my offer, I have arranged for you to spend some time in a secure location from where I expect an answer from you soon. Cross me, then those you love die, and a bullet with a lethal dose of virus will find your skull."
A breeze whipped up that quickly turned into a gale-force wind, and then bright light from above danced around us. I felt certain that this was my unique death experience.
"Goodbye for now, Michael," he said.
With my head resting sideways in the cool grass, I watched his feet leave the ground. Behind where he had stood, I saw the flashing lights of several police cars descend on the dirt road that ran through the cemetery. They came to an abrupt halt in front of my mausoleum. Doors opened and a large group rushed to encircle me. Their guns were drawn and their mouths moved as if shouting, but I couldn't hear anymore. I closed my eyes and faded away.
Chapter 17
"Mike, can you hear me? Mike?" The voice sounded familiar, but I ignored it. I wanted to sleep, and if possible, to die.
"There is nothing we can do," another voice said. "We can't even get an IV into his damn arm."
I faded out, slipping into a dream. There was a beautiful woman standing naked in a cold rain. Next to her was a German soldier; no, it was Samael dressed as a soldier. He held a gun to her head. Tears streamed from her eyes as she begged him for her life. She turned to me, and pleaded for me to save her. Elizabeth. I held a small child in my arms. Our child. I offered the soldier everything I had to release my love. He smiled. His finger tightened on the trigger. I lunged forward, holding the child away from harm in one arm, my other reaching out for the bastard's neck. I was too late. Her head exploded. The child screamed.
"No!" I yelled, bolting upright and opening my eyes in terror. I looked left and right, seeking a soldier to kill, but I only saw a woman jump up from the chair next to the bed.
"Mike! It's okay! You're okay. It's me, Karen."
"Elizabeth?" I asked. No, that's not right. Where am I?
"It's Karen. You're in a hospital, Mike."
"Hungry."
"Shit! He's got fangs!"
"What the hell? Look at his eyes!" Standing at the foot of the bed were two men. One was dressed as a doctor, wearing a white lab coat, and the other wore business attire minus the jacket. There was a holstered pistol secured snugly to his hip. Both were staring at me wide-eyed.
"Just a second," the woman said to me, and then turned to the doctor. "Now is the time you can get fluids into him, like I told you. Can you stop gawking and go get the blood?"
Flustered, the doctor left the room, leaving the other man to stare alone. The woman refocused her attention on me, bent down, and stroked my forehead. She was so familiar, but not Elizabeth. I smelled that my venom coursed through her veins, and because of that, I assumed it was okay to feed on her. With one hand, I pulled her head down, as if to say something in her ear, and lifted my own head until my fangs touched her neck. She jumped back.
"Mike! Blood is coming. I need all of mine to get us through this." She had a look of concern. "You don't remember, do you?" I sank back into the pillow.
"Everything is foggy. I think I was hurt. How is it
possible that I was hurt?"
"When the police found you, they said another man was standing over you, and then he flew away. Try to remember."
I looked at my bandaged stomach and recalled the intense pain of something sharp and searing hot. What was it? It couldn't have been a torch. Some kind of laser maybe? An image popped into my head of veins rapidly turning black, weaving a dark spider web across my abdomen.
"Some kind of poison," I said. "No, not poison…a disease."
"But who could do such a thing to you?" she asked.
I thought hard, but only one word came to mind. "Satan," I said flatly.
The door opened and the doctor walked in pushing a cart. He came to the edge of the bed, reeking of intense fear. His hand shook as he picked up a unit of blood and held it out to me. I admired his bravery, confronted with such a creature as I.
"Thank you," I said, taking the bag. I held off the urge to smash it into my mouth and suck it down, plastic and all.
"Drink," the woman said.
"Do not be frightened," I told my audience, who appeared as children to me, similar to when I had first arrived to the planet.
I brought the bag to my lips, punctured it with my fangs, and drained it. The room stayed silent, filled with disturbed awe. I handed the empty back and took another. As I fed, the aching from my wounds subsided and returning memories trickled in. Samael's virus was a game changer. For the first time in my life, I had confronted mortality, and I didn't like it. Somehow, I had to eliminate him so that the threat of his virus wouldn't hang over my head for eternity—or for however long he decided to let me live.
Within a few minutes, the doctor's cart was full of empty blood bags, with each bag having done its part in restoring my memory.
"Karen," I said, reaching a hand out to her.
"You remember?" she asked.
"Yes. Where's Lori?"
"Her mom picked her up from the police station. She's fine."
"Good." I looked at the man in the suit. "Who are you?"
"Special Agent Blackwell, FBI." He walked to the bedside opposite of Karen and the doctor. "I was handling the investigation of you wiping out corporate servers, but that has almost become a side issue in light of incidents since then. Mr. Spencer, your antics have made you a national security concern. You can fly, and several people claim you appear indestructible. While you were unconscious, we even tried a scalpel on your skin. It broke. You are also charged with assault, auto theft, and suspected of murdering your boss, but from what I've seen, I don't understand why you would use a gun to kill him. You seem more than capable of killing someone with your bare hands."
"I didn't kill him," I said.
"Have you seen his wife?" Just as I suspected, they wanted to pin abduction on me, too.
"Yes. I saw her, but she is not who you think she is. She's similar to me. I walked into a set-up that appeared to go bad. When Jack started talking, she killed him and then fled."
"Interesting. We've informed law enforcement nationwide to be on the look out for her."
"She's younger now. She can change her appearance. I doubt you'll ever find her."
For a moment, he looked at me as if I were crazy, but quickly recovered a confident and unreadable face honed through years of dealing with lunatics. When he spoke, his voice was equally confident. "Leave that to us. As for you, I don't know what you are, but you appear to be a vampire, if that's possible. Care to enlighten me?"
"I'm much more than that." I reached under my hospital gown to the irritating bandages covering my abdomen and pulled them off. The black streaks were gone, but to my dismay, several small scars crisscrossed my belly. I hoped they would heal in time.
"Incredible," the doctor said, coming closer for a look, seeming more impressed than I was. "It was black; necrotic just an hour ago."
"How long have I been here?" I asked.
"Since yesterday," Karen said. "You've been out the whole time."
"The virus must have hit its twenty-four-hour lifespan as Samael said it would."
"Samael?" the agent asked. "Who's that?"
"Someone only I can deal with. If you all will excuse me, I have a lot to figure out. I need to go." I lifted off the white sheet that covered my lower body and tried to swing my legs over the edge of the bed, but something held them firm. I looked down and saw a leg cuff around an ankle with the chain leading down to the other cuff, secured firmly to a leg of the bed.
"I'm afraid, Mr. Spencer, that you are under arrest. We have to sort through this," Blackwell said, almost apologetically.
"I have a deep respect for your law," I replied, "And I will be happy to let you sort through this, but I will be a free man as you do it. Not so much for my benefit, but for your protection." I pulled my leg, snapping the chain. Agent Blackwell reeled back and withdrew his gun, but as his hands came up, he found them empty. I had snatched the weapon away so fast that his body didn't have time to react.
"You don't want to do this!" he yelled.
"No, you don't want to do this," I responded. I dropped the ammunition clip out of the pistol and pulled the slide back. A chambered round popped out and bounced to the floor. Sitting back down on the edge of the bed, I put the gun next to me, brought my leg up, and ripped the shackle off. The doctor ran out of the room, while Karen watched in silence.
I stood and faced the agent. "What do you know about the one who attacked me last night?" I asked, observing his eyes and throbbing neck closely.
"Nothing," he said.
"He has a lot of people working for him, including law enforcement. Are you working for him, Agent Blackwell?" His eyes darted, his neck pulsed, and I sniffed.
"No," he responded. I took a second to collect data from my senses and process it. He was being truthful.
"I believe you," I said, after what must have seemed an eternity to him. "And I need your help. The one who put me here is called Samael. Humans in the past knew of him as a dark archangel who fell to Earth. He first appeared as the one that tempted the human Eve, and ever since, he has been a disease to humanity. He has wanted to rule the world from day one. I have stopped him before, and I must stop him now. Will you help?"
Blackwell looked confused and not convinced, but finally, he spoke. "I could get into a lot of trouble, but from what I've seen of your abilities, there's truth in what you say. Yes, I will do what I can as long as it doesn't involve breaking the law."
"Thank you for going out on a limb. It's a smart decision," I reassured. I could tell he struggled with doubt, and perhaps intended on reneging later, but I was willing to chance it. "I have to assume, for safety's sake, that everyone involved in the investigation may be on Samael's payroll. Is there anyone higher up that you think we could trust?"
He considered for a moment, and then said, "We should take this to the SAC."
"SAC?" I asked.
"Special-Agent-in-Charge," Karen chimed in. We both turned to her. "Umm…I met him. He was in my house when I got home, which scared the shit out of me. He told me he had a warrant, but never produced it. Instead he sidetracked to helping me get to the hospital to see you."
"Ma'am, the SAC would never serve a warrant on his own," Blackwell said. "He rarely steps out of the office even, unless a politician is involved."
"Well, it was an Agent Richards and he said that he was the Special-Agent-in-Charge," Karen rebutted.
"That is the SAC's name," Blackwell confirmed.
"He's working for Samael," I said.
"Impossible," the agent responded.
"Samael had unlimited funds, and everyone has their price. Would you take some pictures and keep someone informed of people's movement for a hundred million, Agent?"
"Well…"
"That's the kind of money we're talking."
"What should we do?" Karen asked.
"If I do anything, he said that he would kill you and Lori, and then me with his viral invention. Shit!" I rubbed my forehead and tried to think. It was obvious th
at I could not sacrifice the world for two women that were special to me, but of course, I wanted to save them, too. I knew that Samael would watch what happened to me, and if he got suspicious, he would lash out. How can I lull him into a sense of security? An idea popped into my head.
"I've got it!" I exclaimed. "Agent Blackwell, you have to take me in."
"That's what I intended on doing in the first place," he said, more confused than ever.
"I know, I know. I think it's what Samael intended, also. He mentioned that he wanted me in a secure place. I'll go peacefully on one condition."
"What?"
"You get Karen and my daughter someplace safe, and don't tell anyone where that is. After that, there will be a jailbreak."
"What about your wife?" Karen asked.
"She can't know. She'd crack in a heartbeat if she did. You'll have to get to Lori at school."
"That's sort of…no, not sort of; it is abduction, and even if it is for a good cause, it's still illegal. I could lose my job and end up in jail," Blackwell said with a sour face.
I looked him hard in the eyes. "I promise you that the FBI will not exist soon if we don't do this. There will be no job left to lose, no laws around to obey. There will be nothing left of the United States. You are not abducting, you are protecting. Please help."
He considered things for a moment and then said, "On the way back to town, we'll need to stop and get a few things."
"Thank you," I said. "The gold coins with me yesterday, I'll need them."
"I'm sorry, but those went into evidence. There's no way I can get them without raising suspicion."
I sighed, disappointed, and looked at Karen. She walked over and placed a hand on my shoulder. "From what you say, money is the last thing we should worry about right now. I can loan you a few bucks for the cause. Tell me, will this Samael really bring about the end of the world?"
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