“You okay?” I ask.
“They're in there,” she says softly. “I can smell them.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
I'm torn. Part of me thinks that the smart play is to go back, get reinforcements, and then come back. But there is a curiosity burning inside of me. I want to see what we're dealing with. Want to see – with my own eyes – the threat we're facing. Squaring off with something that can take down bears and wolves is – exciting to me. I can feel the adrenaline rushing through me just thinking about it.
It's been so long since I've been tested in battle and there's a part of me that's looking forward to it.
“I know what you're thinking,” Neesa says.
“You do?”
She nods. “Yeah, I can see it in your eyes,” she says. “You're excited about this.”
I chuckle softly. “Maybe a little.”
“You might just be more twisted than I am.”
“That's bullshit,” I say. “I can see that light of excitement in your eyes too.”
We exchange a look and a smile before turning as one and head into the cave. The dirt is soft and masks the sound of our footsteps as we make our way along the darkened corridor. That alien scent is growing stronger with each step we take and I feel a flutter in my stomach as my heart starts to pound a little harder. I draw the daggers from my belt and see that Neesa's already holding hers. Her jaw is set and her eyes are narrowed. She's ready for a fight. My kind of girl.
The scent of these things is saturating the air around us, their stink almost overpowering. The corridor slopes gently downward, and after twenty minutes or so of walking, I'm pretty certain we're deep underground. But up ahead, I can see that the corridor opens up into a large chamber.
Looking over at Neesa, I point toward the opening and she nods, tightening her grip on her blades. As we step to the opening, I feel my eyes open wide at what I see. The floor of the cavern is about fifteen feet down or so. The light is gloomy and dim, but I'm still able to see enough. And what I see churns my stomach and makes my breath catch in my throat.
There are dozens of those creatures curled up on the floor of the cavern. The sound of their breathing is loud and echoes around the stone walls of the cave, making an eerie noise. Everywhere I look, I see pale skin and elongated limbs. They remind me a hell of a lot of that Lord of the Rings character, Gollum.
Sneaking a peek over at Neesa, I can see that she's equally disturbed by what we're seeing. There is absolutely no way we can engage with the creatures in the cave down below us. We're outnumbered badly and even as skilled as we are, we'd be overwhelmed in a heartbeat. It's a fight we would lose.
I look over at her and shake my head. She nods and we start to slowly back away from the mouth of the cavern. But when we turn around, we find ourselves face to face with two of the creatures. They make a high-pitched keening sound and hunker down, ready to launch themselves at us.
Neesa and I move quickly, our bodies flowing as smoothly as water. She steps forward and spins just as the creature lunges at her. Her blades move in a blur, catching the light from the mouth of the cave up ahead. She turns and stands ready to attack again, but the head of the first creature rolls off of its shoulders, hitting the dirt beneath its feet with a wet, meaty thud. A moment later, the body drops, blood pouring out of its neck.
I'm so distracted by Neesa's elegance with the blades that I am almost caught off guard when the second creature comes rushing forward, its high-pitched keening echoing around the cavern. I know we only have moments before this damn thing wakes up the rest of its brood, so I act quickly. As the creature rushes forward in what seems like a blind rage, I simply hold my two blades out at eye level and let its momentum do the work for me.
The creature hits my blades with a solid thump that reverberates down through my arms. But before I – or it – knows it, my dagger is buried up to the hilt in the thing's head, one blade stuck in each eye. It thrashes about for a minute, screeching and wailing, before it stops moving and falls silent.
“Stupid,” I mutter and shake my head.
Behind us, we can hear the creatures in the cavern stirring. The sound of their keening growing louder and louder like a building wave – a wave that will come crashing down and wipe us out in a heartbeat if we don't get moving.
“I'm thinking that we should go,” Neesa says, her eyes fixed on the cavern behind us.
“Probably a good idea.”
Neesa takes off running toward the mouth of the cave as I pull my blades out of the creature's head, letting it fall to the ground like a lifeless sack of potatoes. The keening is growing louder and I know the creatures are swarming up the side of the cavern, moving toward the opening like a colony of cockroaches from hell.
“Jackson, hurry up!” Neesa calls out to me.
I stand still and take one last look at the cavern mouth, a morbid curiosity taking hold of me. But as I see the heads of the creatures cresting the wall, I declare that my curiosity has been satisfied. Looking down at the headless corpse on the ground at my feet, I have a sudden idea. I reach down and grab the head and take off after Neesa.
When I catch up with her, she looks at me and then at the head in my hand. She looks disgusted – not that I blame her.
“You never know,” I say. “It could help.”
“If you say so.”
The sound of the creatures grows louder behind us. They're closing the distance quickly – they're a lot faster than I thought. But we make it to the mouth of the cave and step back out into daylight. We put a little more distance between us and the cave mouth and turn around as we catch our breath.
At the entrance to the cave, dozens of the creatures stop and stand there, staring at us with pure hatred in their eyes. But because there is a line of sunlight separating them from us, they remain in the shadows of the cave.
“Disgusting little buggers, aren't they?” I laugh.
Without knowing why, I show them the head I'm carrying, holding it up so they can see. The sound of their angry, agonized keening fills the woods around us, sounding like the gates of Hell have been opened and all of the demons have come pouring out.
“Well, this was fun,” I say to Neesa. “We should really do this more often.”
“You really need to work on your dating game,” she says.
“Yeah, I've heard that before.”
Laughing, we turn back and head for the car, hoping somebody has some answers.
Chapter Fifteen
“How sweet,” Mariana says as she walks a circle around the table. “Most men bring flowers and champagne. But you, Jackson, you've really outdone yourself here.”
The head of the creature is sitting in a box on the table in Asher's office. Its eyes are wide open, it's mouth frozen in a perpetual scream. It has two sets of fangs – upper and lower – making it a very unusual vampire. If that, in fact, is what we're looking at.
Asher and Luca are standing off to the side, their eyes fixed on the head in the box. Neither has said a thing since I opened it for them to see – it's as if they're trying to figure out what it is. It's a sentiment I can completely relate to.
“Dr. Floyd believes the two bodies that were found were attacked by vampires,” I say.
“He showed us puncture wounds at all of the major artery points,” Neesa adds.
Mariana looks at the both of us, a bemused little smile on her face. Then she turns her attention back to the box. She surprises me when she straps on a pair of medical gloves, reaches in, takes the head out of the box, and sets it on a glass dish that's sitting on the table.
“Oh, come on, Mariana,” Asher says. “Rose is going to have my ass for that. She's not going to want to use that dish ever again.”
“Oops,” Mariana grins. “Sorry. Don't worry, I'll buy you a new one. This one's tacky anyway.”
Asher rolls his eyes, but can't keep the smile from creeping across his face. Luca just laughs outright and shak
es his head.
“I don't know what you're laughing about,” Asher says. “You're the one who gave it to her.”
Mariana leans down and starts poking and prodding at the head. She gets close to it, examining it like a scientist. The fact that she's digging at it so deeply surprises me – I've always figured Mariana for one of those women who likes to look nice – wearing all of the latest, most fashionable trends in clothing like she is now – and avoid getting her hands dirty. But she's really getting down into it, a look of absolute fascination on her face.
“I think we found Floyd's soul mate,” I whisper to Neesa.
“Maybe,” she says in a quiet voice. “But I've got a feeling she'd give him a run for his money in Scrabble.”
“I can hear you,” Mariana says without looking up.
Asher and Luca share a laugh together and then say something so low, I can't hear. Luca turns and gives me an inscrutable look, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he looks from Neesa back to me again. I shrug my shoulders at him, asking him “what?” with my eyes, but he shakes his head and turns his attention back to Mariana.
A couple of minutes goes by and nobody speaks. Finally, Mariana stands up and strips off the gloves she's wearing and drops them into the box.
“Well, this is fascinating,” Mariana announces. “Absolutely fascinating. Jackson, you've set a new standard – I may start requiring my dates to bring me interesting things like this from now on.”
“Do you know what that – thing – is?” Asher asks.
“I'll need to do a little more research to confirm, of course,” she says. “But I'm reasonably sure that this is a vampire.”
“Vampires haven't been recorded in this area for a century,” I say.
“One hundred and forty-two years, to be exact,” Mariana says.
“Then what's it doing here?” Luca asks.
She shrugs. “Who knows?” she replies. “But, it's here.”
“I always thought vampires were gorgeous and rich, and lived in big, expensive buildings, living some opulent lifestyle,” Neesa says.
Mariana gives her a look and the wide smile she'd give a naive child. “Don't believe everything you see on television, sweetie,” she says. “Certainly, there are those. Just as there are wolf packs that are dirty, grungy, uneducated, hellraising, alcoholic biker types.”
Neesa's eyes narrow. “And bears that are arrogant, condescending assholes,” she spits. “Yeah, I'm familiar with stereotypes and the nuggets of truth in them.”
Mariana cackles with delight and claps her hands. “She's a feisty one,” she crows. “I think you've met your match with this one, Jackson.”
Neesa tenses up beside me, so I unobtrusively put my hand on her arm and give it a gentle squeeze, trying to calm her. After a moment, I feel her start to relax.
“But more to your point,” Mariana continues. “There are the rich and opulent vampires like those you see on television, yes. The pretty people living in their blood soaked ivory towers in the big city. But there are also many subspecies of vampire – like this fellow. Former fellow.”
“It doesn't look like any vampire I've ever heard of,” Asher says, stepping a little closer to the table to inspect it.
“Because, if I'm correct – and let's face it, I'm always correct – this is an ancient race of vampire,” she says. “Subterranean. Very old, very rare, and very scary. They need blood to survive, of course. But they're a more savage species. In addition to blood, they eat the flesh of their victims. Which would seem to account for the condition of the bodies.”
“Subterranean?” Luca asks.
“Yes, dear,” she says, her voice light and airy – and condescending as hell. “That means they live underground.”
Luca rolls his eyes. “You're exceptionally bitchy this morning, Mariana,” he says. “Nobody swipe right on your Tinder profile last night?”
She gives him the finger and laughs. “I honestly don't know what Olivia sees in you,” she says. “She's most definitely trading down in this deal.”
“Well, look there,” Luca replies. “We can finally agree on something.”
The banter between them is amusing, I have to admit. They are very different than the old school Clan Chiefs – like Adyn, and Asher's father. Even Luca's father. Men like them were a bit aloof. Reserved. Some called them cold or unfeeling. They set themselves apart from the rank and file a bit. Not necessarily because they thought they were better, but because they felt they needed to maintain an objective distance to allow them to rule better. More fairly.
And as I think about it – contrasting it with the Clan leadership I see before me now – I start to understand where my own personality started to form. I was still young when I entered Adyn's service. When I began to train to be his Moq'apo. I spent most of my formative years with him – and apparently, took on some of his personality traits in the process.
Not that it really means anything, but it's an interesting insight into myself that I didn't have before.
“Focus, children,” Asher says. “These vampires –”
“The C'latha,” Mariana says. “They're called the C'latha.”
“Great, whatever,” Asher replies. “How many are there and what are they doing here?”
Mariana shrugs. “They're nomadic,” she says. “They can pop up anywhere. They travel in nests, but the exact number just depends.”
Luca turns to us. “How many did you two see?”
I exchange a quick glance with Neesa. “We didn't stop to take an accurate head count,” I say. “But off hand, I'd say there were a couple dozen.”
“At least,” Neesa says. “I'd say that's a conservative estimate.”
The three of them exchange glances and low whistles. There's a tense silence in the office as we all stare at the severed head on the plate in front of us.
“So, not to ask the obvious,” Neesa asks. “But how do we kill these things? I've never dealt with vampires before, so my practical knowledge is a bit – lacking.”
Mariana looks at her and I'm on the verge of pre-emptively telling her to shut up, figuring some insult or condescending remark is about to come flying out of her mouth. But she surprises me.
“Well, beheading works – obviously,” she says. “And according to the lore I've read, you can use fire. Fire works very nicely. Efficiently. Silver slows them down some, but won't kill them.”
“Garlic?” Asher says. “Holy water? Crosses? Stakes through the heart?”
“Myths, for the most part,” Mariana says. “Legends created in a Hollywood studio.”
“What about sunlight?” Neesa asks.
I think back to the creatures standing at the mouth of the cave, unwilling to cross into the sunlight to get to us. I share that experience with Mariana and she gives me a thoughtful nod and I can see the wheels spinning in her mind.
“The lore is a little sketchy,” she says. “But from various scraps I've cobbled together, my understanding is that sunlight won't kill them outright. It apparently hurts like hell and will wound them. But it won't straight up kill them. They won't just turn to a pile of ash if they happen to come into contact with sunlight.”
Luca looks over at her, clearly impressed. “Look at you go, Mariana,” he says. “Who knew you had such smarts.”
She shrugs. “I'm a lot more than just a pretty face and a great set of tits,” she says.
“Well, who knew?” Luca says and laughs.
“Anybody with more than two functioning brain cells,” she chirps back.
“Oh, so I guess that rules out anybody you date,” Luca says.
She shrugs. “Dumb men have their uses,” she replies. “Except for you. I still haven't found a use for you yet.”
Neesa and I exchange a look as they continue to taunt one another. This is so far outside the realm of what I'm used to. And judging by the look on her face, it is for her too. We're used to our leaders being stoic. Serious. Not laughing, joking, and play
ing grabass with one another.
It's just another reinforcement of the idea in my mind that the world is changing and I'm having a really difficult time keeping up. But as I look at Neesa, stare into her eyes, I finally feel like maybe somebody understands where I'm at. That maybe somebody else is in that same boat with me.
Where we go from here and what we do with it though, is another discussion entirely.
“Okay,” Asher says, his voice firm, trying to get this back under control. “Now that we know what these things are, we need to figure out how we're going to kill them.”
“Is it possible they'll just move on?” Neesa asks. “They're nomadic, right?”
Mariana nods, her face growing serious. “That's correct,” she says. “But they'll usually stay in one place for a while. At least until their food source begins to dwindle.”
“Wonderful,” Luca says.
There's a dark, foreboding energy hovering over the room as we all ponder what this means. And how to combat it. These vampires will not be easy to kill. Neesa and I were lucky back in that tunnel. That, and we have both had intense training – which is much more than can be said for the rank and file bears and wolves. Not to mention the fact that the wolves aren't going to be much help to us anyway.
“We've dealt with worse than this before,” Asher says, his voice confident. “We've weathered a lot of storms and have come out the other side just fine. This will be no different.”
“Do you have a plan?” Luca asks.
Asher gives him a lopsided grin. “No, I was actually hoping one of you clowns did.”
“I might have an idea,” I say.
All eyes turn to me expectantly. “Go on,” Asher says.
“It's going to take some help,” I say. “And provisions.”
Asher nods. “Whatever you need, we can make it happen.”
“Mariana, you said fire can kill these things, yes?”
Mated to a Bear (Legends of Black Salmon Falls Book 3) Page 10