Zack coughed, blood soaked the sheet that covered his mouth, no more words rang out from him in this moment of panic. Whoever this was, they were not friendly. A pressure began to flood Zack's throat, he was drowning. The blood was filling his other lung and spilling out through his nose and mouth. Zack tried to swallow, but there was too much of it. Zack was dying.
Zack thrashed in one last attempt to free himself, then passed out.
* * * *
There was no dream world, no Salas to explain what was happening this time. Zack was completely unconscious.
* * * *
Zack awoke in a car that had just come to a stop. Before opening his eyes, Zack felt a starched collar on him, and the smell of clean clothing. He had been dressed, Zack opened his eyes. He was in a black car, in a full black suit, with a black tie. To his left was Marin, dressed as he always was.
“Consider this a gift.” Marin said politely.
“For what?” Zack looked around.
“Get out, and follow me.” Marin didn't answer Zack's question at all.
The car's clock read eleven fifty. Zack opened the door to a clear night sky. They were at a mansion. Completely wooded on the outskirts around them and fenced in with a tall brick wall. The large six level house in front of them was grand and lavish. Who ever owned it was wealthy and opulent, they liked to show their power and influence through it. Zack knew where he was, the moment he looked up at the vaulted archway. A single decorated monogrammed 'M' marked the passageway. Zack knew this was the residence of Malio, the four hundred year old vampeal that was going to end his life.
Zack fell faint, leaning against the car's right fender for support. “Marin, I don't know if I can do this.” He was panting.
Marin walked back over to Zack. With a caring expression, he smiled at Zack. “That's the beauty of this Zack. You don't have to do anything.”
Zack's breathing slowed.
“If you'd prefer, I can kill you now and deliver your body to him as my contract suggested. However-” Marin paused. “-I would not enjoy killing you Zack. I would much rather have you walk into that room, greet Malio with a flush face, and return a few hours later to discover what exactly happened in my stead.” Marin was giving Zack a chance at life.
In the same way Salas had predicted, Marin was refusing to kill Zack himself. Letting him have an honest shot at defeating Malio with his bare hands.
Zack cleared his throat and remembered the attack that knocked him out. He unbuttoned his shirt, reached inside, there was no wound, no blood. No damage of any kind that would explain what had happened to him. Zack buttoned the shirt up and straightened his tie.
“What will it be?” Marin readied his hand to pierce Zack's heart, then he raised it up to Zack's chest.
“Marin, how long did you wait for me?” Zack asked.
“Are you ready to choose?” Marin responded with another question.
“Yes, I'll go inside and face him on my own.” Zack poised himself and walked with Marin towards the mansion door.
Marin stepped shoulder to shoulder with Zack until they reached a white door with gold trim. “Two hours.”
“Excuse me?” Zack didn't understand what he meant.
“It was two hours before Grey came down with you in his arms, unconscious and fully dressed.” Marin said as a cold chill rushed over Zack. “Whatever they did to you, know that David does nothing without planning first. He will use every resource, each person, every relationship to gain advantage. He chooses what to be involved in, leaving nothing to chance in his endeavors. Blood is to water with him, as money is to you. There was a clear reason you were at that table three nights ago. He knows how tonight will go, he's betting on it.”
“Then what the hell am I supposed to do? How do I play my part with no lines? When everyone has the script besides me, what do I do then?” Zack pleaded to Marin for answers.
Marin turned to Zack, placed his right hand on Zack's left shoulder and exhaled gently. “Zack, you have no lines, you're part is to enter Malio's domain. Listen to him, and let him tell you why he has done all this. Come morning, you're only role is to be alive when he is not. Live and exit this mansion, that is your single purpose in this play. To stay alive when any lesser man would clearly die.” Marin removed his hand. “Remember, if you see the dawn, know that you will be a changed man.” Marin turned back to the door. “If you can still see at all.”
Marin's words of encouragement were not encouraging. Zack twisted the handle and opened the door. This was it. Zack stepped inside and looked back to tell Marin goodbye. No one was there. There was no sound, no indication that he had left or was ever there outside of their conversation. Zack closed the white door behind him.
The interior of the mansion was vast. The vaulted ceilings gave out a small echo as Zack walked in. The living room was decorated with sleek black leather couches and tall thin metal dining tables. There were two bars at either end of the living room, one with the standard array of alcoholic drinks on tap, the other with a large refrigerator. Zack deduced that it was for his vampire buddies, or maybe for just himself and a few of his friends. Whatever it was this Malio liked to entertain himself.
The majority of the room was white with red accents and trimming. There were a few golden ribbons hung from the staircase, white rungs with a crimson rail. Zack didn't know where to go. There were three passageways, one under the stairway, and the others to the far sides at either end of the large room.
The faint sound of laughing bellowed from the center door. Zack knew the way, but was hesitant to tread. The laughing continued, it was shrill, young, and unfamiliar. Whoever it was, and whatever they were doing, they were enjoying it. Zack walked through the center door.
On the other side was a large open kitchen with an all stainless steel motif. Granite counters and granite floors adorned the room. White cabinets and black trim decorated the ceiling and the outer edges of the room. The sound was louder but omnipresent. It flooded the room. There was no one in sight. The laughter roared up, it was coming from underneath Zack's feet. In the corner, there was a black door between two of the counter tops. It was a cellar door with no handle.
“What the hell?” Zack tried to open it, and nothing budged. There was a trick to it. Zack looked around for a way to unlock the door. The room was bland, without any clue to what might open the door. Zack took a deep breath. “So I can't even find the way to my own death? That's pathetic.”
As Zack spoke, a silver sparkle caught his right eye. There was something under the cabinet to the right of the cellar door, behind the edge of the lower rim. Zack looked up, the faint ghostly outline of a pair of silver glasses disappeared as his eyes focused to see a hidden push switch. Salas was guiding Zack, helping him to get through this dreadful task. He pressed the button and the cellar doorway unlocked and opened automatically to the left. A foul smell wafted from inside.
The cellar door had steel wire frame steps leading down to a steep thin cat walk. The stairs were suspended with several anchored pipes bolted to the ceiling. Underneath, the cellar did not appear to be a part of the mansion. It was full of stacks of paperwork, old draped machines of unknown purpose were scattered about. Zack could tell he was in the back of a long rectangular room. The effective storage area of what looked like a lab of some kind.
The laughter kicked up, Malio was at the other end of the room.
The smell was putrid, the air fetid. As Zack walked forward, he noticed a wall of ten coolers with clear glass doors. Housing gallons upon gallons of individual pouches of blood. The glass was frosted over on most of the coolers, there were names and dates on each pouch. The same four names repeated over and over again. Zack wasn't able to fully make them out.
Zack held his nose as he proceeded towards the laughter. A row of different tall tanks hid a grotesque sight. Zack's eyes focused on four three foot diameter copper rings welded to separate stands. Each ring contained realistic blood stained mannequins without arms or
legs. There were blood packs hung high next to each of them, it seemed like Malio was feeding the dolls for some reason.
“This is sick. Why do this to dolls?” Zack said out loud without thinking of his situation.
The short figure at the long table stopped laughing. He stood five foot six inches and was dressed in thin, sheer black clothing. His collar was a frilled white ascot. His shirt black silk, his pants Chinese black silk with red and gold roots entangled throughout the pattern. He had deep blue eyes and dark brown hair that he wore short and loose, ruffled in the way a child would have it.
“Dolls you say? They are not dolls.” He said with an evil smile. “But they are my toys.”
The words fell on deaf ears. Zack didn't absorb it at first, the fact that these husks were once living people. Zack examined the closest ring to him. Looking at the skin, the face. There was no skin, no face, lips, nose, or eye lids. The eyes had even been cut out. The teeth had been removed, leaving no evidence of what these people were. A sudden shiver came over Zack, these were “Vampires.”
“Once.” The young man remarked. He turned to Zack. “So you must be Zack. Marin said he'd bring you in alive, but I wasn't sure of it until this moment.”
“And you must be Malio.” Zack said while the feeling sank in.
“Malio Signante to be exact.” Malio's voice became high and pompous. He was proud of his name. “Yes, these were once vampires. All productive, and all nonthreatening, generally nice people.”
Zack could see no signs of life from them. Their arms were amputated at the shoulder, the bone completely healed over. The legs were cut at the hips, removed along with the genitalia. There was no clothing on them, no indication of respect. Their tendons and muscles had been dissected and surgically removed, leaving them with no way to fight back or resist in any way. Metal wires suspended them, attached to what remained of the nubs that were once arms and legs. Areas of blistered skin shown through dead layers of blood, caked over old and unhealed multiple injuries.
A timer rang next to the body Zack was staring at.
“You'll have to excuse me, it's timed.” Malio said as he picked up a small scalpel from his desk.
Malio raised the small knife to the left eye socket of the person in the first ring. He cut in, and Zack threw up. Malio sliced off the portion of the eye lid that was regenerating, then continued to the other one. He proceeded to carve and score out every line, every injury. Malio was smiling as he did it. Laughing to his own sick melody in his mind. He enjoyed this work, he liked mutilating these already torn shells that were once people.
Zack couldn't hold back the vomit. The smell was unbearable.
“What's the matter Zack? I would have thought you might have already seen all this. You are a psychic after all.” Malio prompted an answer from Zack.
Zack wiped his mouth. “I haven't seen any of this. It doesn't work like that.”
“I see, I'm kind of the same way. When you're first told that psychic gifts exist, you think reading minds and telling futures. But no one tells you that there are a lot more varieties than that out there. I'm one of the useless ones. That's why I want your gift. The power to see the daydreams of other people, the power to enter their minds.” Malio said with a fiendish grin, while he kept working on slicing up the vampire in the ring. “Once I have your gift, I can actually finish the ritual of Redgold.”
Zack knew that term. “So you're trying to become a full vampire? You want to be one of them that bad? You're willing to kill one of them for it”
“Of course I do and of course I am. They have all the power in the world in their hands, in their glorious bodies.” Malio gestured to each of the four rings. “Look at them, fifty, a hundred each, a century and a half. A vampeal would have never been able to survive that long. Our weak bodies don't have that level of vitality.”
“But vampires burn in the sunlight.” Zack coughed, wiping his mouth again. “They are frail in the wrong time of day. Why would you want that?” Zack argued.
“No, Zack. In the same way, the ability to which you can live through pain that no human can ever endure, they are the same to us. The same blood that heals us, revives them. It rejuvenates them, resurrects them. We are resilient, they are nearly perpetual.” Malio smiled as he cut a piece of the chin off the face of the tormented person within the first ring. “In the same way we feel more of the world, we are awakened to it. They are ever more so. We are children before them in all forms. Powerless against the weakest, hopeless against the most mediocre of them. All the strength we could ever wield is futile in their-.” Malio stopped.
“In their what?” Zack asked.
“Except for our gifts. Gifts know no boundaries and that irritates them. It scorns them to hunt and kill us. It makes their own gifts appear muted, second hand in the body of a vampeal. But you and I are different.” Malio ranted.
Zack shied away in disgust to what Malio was doing. “I can agree on that.”
“Through Redgold made from our brothers and sisters, we can obtain what they can't.” Malio laughed vindictively.
“And what is that?” Zack dared to ask, trying to prolong the conversation.
“You don't know? How could you come here and not know? Surely you would have realized it by now?” Malio squinted his eyes at Zack.
“I'm not the best at getting things the first time around.” Zack admitted.
Malio stabbed the scalpel in the vampire's left shoulder. “We can procure multiple gifts equal to theirs and without limit. We can become stronger than them.” Blood slowly poured down the vampire's shoulder and onto the floor.
“You're talking about combining vampiric gifts?” Zack raised his voice against Malio. “You want to kill other vampeals to add them to your sick little collection?”
Malio stopped smiling. He stepped up to Zack, standing a full three inches shorter than him. “You think what I'm doing is wrong? You think my work is flawed? That I'm defective somehow?”
“Of course you are, you sick fu-” Zack's throat was clasped shut.
Malio had an iron grip on Zack's neck. He wouldn't let him finish that sentence. Malio's hand was unnerving, he was far stronger than Zack had anticipated. Malio turned to the knife embedded in the ringed vampire. “You shouldn't have said that, Zack. Now we can't talk, and I do so much enjoy talking to other people. All I get to talk to are my toys here and they rarely ever are moved by what I say anymore.” The scalpel shook and freed itself, hovering in mid air next to Malio's face, it shot into Zack's left upper arm. Malio leaned in and shouted at the ringed vampire. “I'll cut out your intestines next, you bastard!” Malio calmly turned back to Zack. “See, they never respond anymore. I was even generous enough to leave their inner ears intact so they could hear what I was doing to them.” Malio turned to the ringed vampires again and yelled. “You stolid pieces of shit!”
Zack could tell Malio was honestly insane. He could feel his head swelling, with Malio's fingers tightening as the pressure built. Things were not going well.
“Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you.” Malio said politely.
Zack squirmed.
Malio's voice dropped. “Yet.” Malio took a hold of Zack's left hand. “We have to play before I can let you die.”
All sounds seemed to drop away as Malio stopped speaking. Zack didn't know if it was because of being choked, but everything slipped away from him in that moment. Everything except for one loud, penetrating snap. Malio had twisted Zack's middle finger and shattered the bone.
“This is for the profanity.” Malio stated with intensity.
Zack couldn't scream, but wasn't passing out ether. There was no air reaching his lungs, he didn't understand it. Not until he remembered something Kyli had said. 'It takes a lot to kill one of us.'
“This is for thinking that my toys were dolls.” Malio snapped Zack's index finger at the base.
Zack flinched, the autonomic anesthetic wasn't kicking in this time.
Malio saw the
confusion in Zack's eyes, that something wasn't going to plan. “Oh, I get it. You've never come up against someone that can mute the healing ability of others? This is for not being open minded!” Malio snapped Zack's little finger.
Zack's body shook. Malio was lifting him up in mid air, a good several inches off the ground with no effort at all.
“And this is, well, for the hell of it.” Malio broke Zack's left thumb.
Zack writhed. Blood was pouring down from his left arm, with the scalpel still embedded into the bone.
“Well, that takes care of your hand. Now we only have the rest of your body to break and I can start killing you, Zack.” Malio chuckled. He was taking great pleasure in this.
Malio let go of Zack. He fell with a sharp thud to the metal grating of the underground space. Zack coughed, catching his breath trying not to lean on his broken left hand. Zack's throat was sore, nearly forced shut and aching. Zack heaved and threw up again.
“Sorry, decaying flesh and blood is an acquired smell.” Malio walked up to Zack and knelt down to the right of him. “It's always hard facing an unknown. Sometimes all the power you've cultivated can be dismissed by a single gift.” Malio pulled the scalpel slowly from Zack's arm.
Zack didn't resist, glad to be free if it.
“And that's not even the most powerful gift I've taken. There were a few instances where I even found gifts that were so fun, I didn't want to pass them up. Like the simple ability to raise the adrenaline in another person's body. So many small applications can be derived from something like that.” Malio looked over Zack carefully to see exactly how he was feeling.
Zack remembered what Kyli said about letting Malio talk and rant. Even though Malio had broken his hand and cut his arm, Zack had to keep him talking. “Like what? What can you do?”
“This.” Malio extended his right hand and placed it over Zack's heart.
Zack's pulse began to race, his eyes dilated. Time appeared to slow, but the pain seemed more intense. Malio was making him experience what was happening to him in a whole new way. Zack likened it to riding a bull down a steep roller coaster in hell. His heart wanted to bust out of his chest and the small cut in his arm was now bleeding profusely.
Demon Vampire (The Redgold Series) Page 44