"A motel? Boy, no one's going to let an eleven-year-old check into a motel? What exactly happened? Where's Riker?"
"I don’t think we need to worry about him or his lawyers anymore. He . . . well, let’s just say he made a deal with the wrong people. It's a long story Grandpa. I'll tell you when you get here. For now let’s just say I've got a friend that's helping me out."
"Alright kid. You take care of yourself you hear? What's the name of the place you'll be staying?"
"It's called,” Jake said, looking across the street. “the Tear Drop Inn."
"Okay son. I'll be there soon. I love you boy."
"I love you too Grandpa. Wait! Grandpa, is Dad okay? Is he back yet."
His Grandpa sighed loudly on the other end of the phone. “As far as I know he’s okay. Listen we’ll talk about it later okay? I promise.” With that said, they hung up. Jake walked back over to Nathan's Jeep. He was leaning against it smoking a cigarette.
"So how’d it go?" He asked dropping the cigarette to the ground and crushing it under his boot.
"I got a hold of my grandpa. Listen, you've already helped me out so much I hate to ask this but I need one more favor."
"Ask away."
"Can you get me a room at the motel across the street? I can pay you back once my grandpa gets here."
"I’ll tell you what; I've got a good friend that owns that place. And he owes me a few. I'll get you the nicest room they have, no charge."
“Are you sure? I know my grandpa would be more than happy to pay.”
“Hell no. I wouldn’t hear of it. What kind of a Christian would I be if I did something like that? No, my buddy Joe will set you up with anything you need. Just call the front desk if you need anything. Anything at all.”
Jake couldn’t argue with that. Twenty minutes later, he had a key in hand and was walking toward room number six. "Thanks Nathan. I really can't thank you enough for everything you've done for me."
"No problem at all, Jake. You just take care of yourself okay?"
"I will and you do the same." Jake said, extending his hand.
Nathan shook it and smiled. "Oh one more thing. If you or any of your hunter friends ever need a safe place to stay, you're always welcome here. Think of this place as a safe haven. Bloodsuckers don't come here. After last night they will especially think twice before crossing our borders again."
"Thank you Nathan. I'll tell the others."
"When you see your old man again don't be so hard on him. It's not easy losing the woman you love."
Jake stared at him amazed. He hadn’t told him any of that. "How did you . . .?” He asked, shaking his head.
"Take care Jake Bishop," he said, climbing into his jeep and giving him a wave.
He knows my name! Who the heck is this guy?
Chapter 15
Jake
July 19, 1995 10:52pm
Jake told Cort almost everything that had happened to him while he was imprisoned in Riker’s mansion/prison. Everything but about the time he had spent talking to Tiberius. Somehow he just felt as though he would be betraying his trust if he did. In the end, it had been the Maker's words that had saved Jake’s life. If he hadn’t stopped Macro on those steps and bought him those precious few seconds of time, Jake never would have made it to the woods.
Jake couldn’t help but wonder what had become of Tiberius. A piece on the news said The Riker Mansion had burned to the ground, but that Riker and his butler had somehow survived. The fire was being blamed on a gas leak. So the question remained, had Tiberius escaped? Or had he burned alive? Deep down Jake had the feeling that his vampire friend was still alive and that they would one day meet again. A bigger mystery still was what to make of Nathan Bishop. Who was he? How did he know so much?
While Jake kept Tiberius a secret, he told Cort everything about Nathan. He was as perplexed as Jake was. As far as he knew, they didn’t have any family in that part of the country. Regardless though, he’d spoken to Billy Williams about it and Billy had made contact with him. It was a refuge the hunters desperately needed. Billy had even talked to Cort of retiring there in the next few years.
Strangely, they had never heard another peep from Riker or his lawyers. Cort, with the help of Ben Morris, managed to get full custody of Jake. Riker didn’t even bother fighting it. He gave up without as much as a word. Jake marveled at how easy it was for him to refer to his grandfather as Riker. He didn’t consider the man as family in any sense of the word. In Jake’s mind, he was just a bitter old man too afraid to die.
It wasn’t until mid July that John finally returned home. He had been waging a war on the vampires and it wasn’t going very well. Almost all of his former friends and allies had lost contact with him. Only Wesley Turner and his group of outlaw bikers remained at his side.
Jake was lying awake in bed late one night, when the familiar sound of his dad’s truck came pulling into the drive. The front door opened and Jake heard his dad and grandpa’s voices carry through the house. Jake crept soundlessly down the hall. Squatting down on the carpet, he peeked around the corner and watched them in the kitchen.
John laid a large green duffel on the floor then sat down at the table. Jake had never seen him look so bad. His once nicely trimmed beard was a rugged, dirty mess. His clothes were dirty and ripped in several places and he looked as though he had lost at least thirty pounds. He looked to be utterly exhausted. Worst of all was a long wicked looking scar running from his eye, down his cheek almost connecting with his mouth.
Cort was clearly furious. “A year! A goddamn year without so much as a word to your son! By God John, I didn’t raise you like that.”
“Give me a break, Pop.” John groaned. “It’s been a really long day.”
“Long day? Long day! You selfish little . . . It’s been a long year for us! Did you know your son was kidnapped a few months back? Did you even care?”
“What! What are you talking about? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine, no thanks to you! Your father in law decided he deserved full custody a little more than we did. So him and his lawyers took Jake to Georgia and nearly got me killed in the process! I had to spend three weeks in jail! Three weeks, John!”
“That miserable old snake!” John said, slamming his fist on the table. “I should have known! I should have known he’d try something like that!”
“Oh it gets a lot worse than that. He was planning to make some deal with the vamps for Jake. I haven’t figured out all the details yet, but one thing is for sure, they want him. They followed him all the way across the Mississippi River, took some heavy losses doing it too. If it weren’t for some crazy, heavily armed hunters that I’ve never heard of before, Jake would be drinking human blood right now as if it were Kool-Aid!”
“That son of a bitch! I’ll kill him, if it’s the last thing I do I will choke the life out of that man with my own two hands.”
“Oh so now you suddenly care?”
“That’s not fair Pop! Jake is my son, of course I care!”
“You could have fooled me.” Cort said, crossing his arms. “What the hell happened to you Johnny?”
“I don’t want to talk about that right now, Pop. I just came to rest up a few days then I’m heading back out.”
“The hell you are!” Cort yelled slamming his fist on the table. “I might be old as dirt, and half your size, but by God you’re not too big for me to whoop your ass! Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do if you take one step towards that door!” Both men grew silent for several long minutes. It was Cort that broke it. “I’ve been hearing some dark things about you, John. Things I’ve been trying to ignore.”
“I’ve had to do what I’ve had to do.” John replied coldly.
“Bullshit. You’ve done a lot more than that. Ben told me son. He told me what you did to that vamp in Corpus.”
“Like I said, I’ve done what I’ve had to. I’m not proud of it.”
“Cutting limbs off of vamps, wai
ting for them to grow back and them cutting them off again and again! Setting them on fire! Torture? Two days of torture?”
“What do you expect me to say Pop? I’m looking for Julia. I get information anyway I can.”
“And that includes working with Bloody Wes Turner? The Slayers?”
“What if I am? At least he’ll give me a hand! No one else will! My so-called friends, Billy, Ben, and Talon, none of them had the guts to do what needed to be done! Anderson? What a joke.” John snorted. “He was gone after one hunt!”
“That’s because they don’t work like that! Not like Turner and his bunch of flunkies! He’s a twisted, sadistic son of a bitch and his men aren’t any better.”
“Everything he learned he learned from you, Pop. And what if he is? That’s what I need right now. What do you care anyway? They’re bloodsuckers! No one hates them more than you do!”
“I don’t care what they are. And Turner didn’t learn torture from me. That boy was bad. He was always bad! We don’t do that John. We’re not like the vamps, we don’t torture. We kill them and we’re done with it. I raised you better than that.”
“Yeah well . . .” John trailed off.
“John you’ve got to stop this. It’s been a year now. You’ve become obsessed.”
“Please Pop, I really can’t do this right now.”
“Then when? I’m sorry son but I’ve kept my mouth shut for too long as it is. Julia’s gone. I know it’s hard but it’s time to deal with it and move on.”
“How do you know how hard it is? You don’t know anything about it!”
“I lost my wife too John.”
John rose up from the table knocking his chair over. “Mom left Pop! She wasn’t carted away by some bloodsucking slime! She took William and left!”
William? Jake thought to himself. That’s the other kid in the pictures! Dad has a brother!
Cort held up his hands trying to calm him. “You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry. You’re right; I don’t know what it’s like. But I do know that this isn’t what Julia would have wanted.”
John also calmed himself and picked up his chair. “Look Pop. I’ve got to get some sleep. Wes has a lead on a nest up in Oklahoma, somewhere near Norman. I’m leaving as soon as I’ve gotten some rest.”
“You’re not going anywhere. Jake needs you John, especially after what happened with Riker. He needs you more than ever.”
“I’m out there because of him Pop! I’m protecting him!”
“Bull. You’re out there because you’re afraid to face him. You can’t stand to look that boy in the eye and tell him his mother’s not coming home!”
John leapt up again this time throwing his chair completely across the room. “Don’t you ever say that! You don’t know that!”
“You want to get mad! Then get mad!” Cort said, throwing his own chair across the room smashing it into a large china cabinet. “But when you’re done throwing a temper tantrum maybe you can grow up, be a man, and be a father to your son! You need to face it son, she’s either dead or one of them. At this point there’s no other option.”
“What if she’s not? A Maker in Reno told me they were holding her hostage! As bait to draw me in! He said she was still alive!”
“Vampire’s lie son. That’s what they do best.”
John’s face grew serious. “When he told me that Wes had cut every limb off his body, stripped his skin down to the bones, and plucked out both of his eyes three times. There was no lying in that bloodsucker. I promise you that.”
“My God, John.” Cort said shaking his head in shame. “What have you turned into?”
John looked away with tears stinging his eyes. “Pop . . . What if it’s true? What if she’s out there being tortured by those . . . those monsters, just to draw me in! I can’t stop Pop. I just can’t. Not until I know for sure.”
Cort stepped around the table and put his arms around his son’s shoulders. “John. Son. You have to let her go.”
“I can’t Pop. I just can’t!” John said, crying. “I love her too damn much! She’s everything to me. It’s my fault this happened.”
“No son. It’s not.” He said, gently. “It’s their fault. They did this. I know you’re hurting. But you’re going about it the wrong way. You’ve cut out everyone that loves you, everyone that cares for you. If you keep going this way, you’re going to get yourself killed and leave this poor boy an orphan. I’m too damn old and too damn tired to raise Jake on my own.”
John lifted his head. “I quit before and look what happened. I can’t stop. Not till we’ve killed every damn one. Not till Jake can grow up without wondering if a monster is going to sneak in through his window.”
Jake leaned against the wall in the hallway and wiped his tears with the front of his shirt.
“I’m not asking you to quit.” Cort said, with tears in his own eyes. “I’m asking you to take a step back. Regroup. You still have friends out there John, friends that are worried about you. Take a year or two off hunting. Let’s regroup, plan and do this together.”
John let out a deep sigh. “I need to see Jake. Is he asleep?”
“No, he’s sitting in the hall listening to us.” Cort said, looking in Jake’s direction.
Jake ducked back into his bedroom and jumped under his covers. John came in a few minutes later. He gently closed the door behind him and sat on the end of the bed.
“Hey big guy.” he said, with a smile. “Man you’ve gotten tall!”
“Hey Dad.” Jake said, squeezing his sheets in his fists.
“I’m sorry about what happened with your grandfather. He’s a very sad and lonely old man Jake.”
“Yeah well . . .” Jake trailed off. “He’s a lot more than that.”
“Look kid, I know things have been hard.”
“You don’t know anything!” Jake yelled, unable to hold it back any longer, tears stinging his eyes. “You don’t care about me! I was stuck in that house for over a month. A month! I prayed every single night that you would come save me, to get me out of that prison! But you didn’t. You didn’t even know I was gone until tonight!”
“I’m sorry Jake. You have no idea how bad I feel about it.”
“I don’t think you feel bad at all. I honestly don’t think you care anymore.”
“Jake, please don’t say that. You have no idea of the things I’ve done for you.”
“You aren’t here! I know that much. You think you’ve had it hard? You think you’re the only one hurting? You may have lost your wife. I lost both of my parents!”
John hung his head in his hands. “I didn’t want this for you. I tried to get away from all of this to protect you and your mom. But it backfired in my face. I got too comfortable. Relaxed too much. I should have been ready. I should have been prepared.” Tears streamed down his face.
Jake could see he was utterly lost. Nathan’s words echoed in his head. When you see your old man again don’t be so hard on him. It’s not easy losing the woman you love. Jake got up out of bed and wrapped his arms around his father and the two cried together.
“I’m sorry Jake. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you. It’s just . . . I don’t think I can live without her.”
“It’s okay Dad. It’s okay.” Jake comforted him.
“I’ve killed dozens of them Jake. Done things I never dreamed I would do, just looking for one shred of information that would lead me to her. Every time I thought I was close I ran into another dead end.”
“Come back Dad. Please . . .” Jake pleaded.
“I can’t Jake. She needs me.”
“Mom’s dead!” Jake screamed pulling away from him. “I’ve dealt with it why can’t you?” He had never said, it aloud before, had never even let himself think it. But he knew as he said, it, it was the truth. He had to let her go. John had to let her go. “Mom wouldn’t have wanted this Dad. She wouldn’t want you to kill yourself for her. She would want us to be happy. Together. I’ve had to grieve for
her alone for a year. For both of you!”
John grew quiet for a long time. After several minutes of sitting in silence he finally spoke. “You’re a smart boy Jake. You remind me a lot of your mom. She’d be so proud of you. You know that don’t you?” He patted Jake on his leg then wiped his eyes. “I’ll stop. But this isn’t something we can run away from. You know that don’t you?”
“I know Dad.”
“This isn’t the life I wanted for you. But we’re stuck with it. They won’t stop coming. Not ever. What happened at Riker’s was proof of that. If they don’t get me, they’ll get you. If they don’t get you they will get your children or grandchildren. Our family has been fighting them for what seems like forever.”
“What can we do Dad?”
“All I can do is promise that I’ll never leave you alone again. I’ll always be there for you. All we can do now is try and survive. But at least we’ll be together.”
“What if I don’t want to just survive? What if I want to kill every single one of them?”
“Then I’ll help you do just that son.”
Author's Note:
I’d really like to take the time to thank you for reading my book. This has been a real pleasure to write. Honestly, I can’t tell you how many times I just wanted to toss this thing out the window, but alas the threat of divorce from my loving wife kept me from it. Seriously though, I hope you enjoyed Jake’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. He’s developed from so much more than that young kid I’d envisioned storming into a farmhouse trying to make his family proud. I plan on writing MANY more books based in this universe, tying up Jake’s tale and possibly delving more into Tiberius or Nathan’s history.
I’d like to take the time to thank those that helped me trudge through the late nights, long days, and countless days of editing.
First and foremost I have to thank my wonderful wife Natasha. Thank you baby for your counsel, encouragement, and kind and sometimes much needed harsh words. Not to mention your hours of editing. None of this would have ever made it onto paper without your support. You are my rock in this world. The single greatest thing that ever happened to me, was meeting you.
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