He looked from the syringes to Amanda, her sneer wide and her eyes full of delight. Behind those horrid orbs was the locked spirit of his wife, screaming to be freed. Did he have the strength to do it? To rip his heart out with the plunge of a syringe? He had begged for her to be returned, anguished over her loss every night for a week, could he really put all that aside and do what he knew in his heart was right?
It would be selfish of him to make her carry on in the hopes of one day finding a cure, selfish to continue the charade for no other reason than he was weak and afraid of being alone.
He had spoken to her, albeit briefly, and she’d been quite clear; she did not want this. Now, he had to find the courage to give her what she wanted.
Good thing she left the Jack Daniels, I’m going to need it.
II
He was holding the syringes in the palm of his hand, the piece of paper with the codes pinched between his fingers as he walked towards the panel on the wall. Amanda was walking with him, eyes glaring with malice as he flipped the cover open and stared at the simple keypad. What did he really expect? Some high-tech hardware and a digital readout welcoming him to the secret underground prison? He was in the basement of a servant’s cottage on a former plantation in East Texas, not in the bowels of the Pentagon or CIA.
He could hear soft pounding noises coming from the nearby wall, but he refused to look and give her the satisfaction of his attention. That thing wasn’t his wife, not yet atleast.
Punching in the code he’d been given, he heard a cycling noise from the vents overhead and knew that gas was pumping into the enclosure. He stood there and counted to ten, not needing to turn and watch his wife act stricken and dramatically fall to her knees in an attempt to gain sympathy. He didn’t know if he could do what Naomi had asked of him and wouldn’t know until the moment was upon him. Killing his wife? He had never laid a hand on her out of malice or anger, and the woman wanted him to jam a needle in her arm and end her life? Seriously?
As he turned to look at the glass enclosure, he was surprised to see Amanda still on her feet, her cheeks pulled in, her fingers clenching as her eyes stared daggers in his direction. She appeared to be holding her breath, making him realize he didn’t even know if vampires needed to breathe, or how long they could go without even if they did? Were they undead or living organisms? He understood the genetic mutation part but hadn’t been told if they continued to be dead after conversion or were amongst the living.
She smirked and wiggled a finger at him. It was an old move, one that she played whenever she was being witty about something, but the hate in her eyes had replaced the usual sparkle and it stirred the disgust within. Her fangs were barred, and her veins were throbbing; the smirk dipping a bit as the hunger swam through her features, making her suddenly appear desperate.
She took in a quick breath and her fist slammed into the glass with frustration. Then her eyes began to cloud over as she waivered, then fell to her knees and finally the floor. He stood there with baited breath, not completely believing that she was out, that this wasn’t just a ploy. How fast did the gas work? How long would it last? Those were details that he should have been furnished, as he knew jack shit about any of this.
“Fuck it,” he muttered, gripping the syringes tightly as he turned and punched the code into the keypad, evacuating the dense cloud into the overhead vents. He glanced at the paper, then punched in the next series of numbers and heard the door lock release. She was still out; he prayed that she stayed that way.
There was nothing for it; he would be nervous if it was five minutes from now or fifty. The only thing to do was open the door and get to it, so he stepped inside and pulled the door shut. Before he could stop himself, he keyed in the code for the next and yanked that open as well. His blood was pumping as he anticipated his imminent death, and only after a few seconds passed and she didn’t move did his pulse begin to slacken and his breathing to even out.
He was on one knee with the needle in his wife’s arm as swiftly as he could manage, his heart thundering in his chest as he emptied its contents, hoping against hope that he was doing it right. How would he know until she woke up? And what if he fucked up and she sank her teeth into his neck before he even had a chance to react?
Sitting on his ass, he set the other needle on the floor at his side and ran his hands across his face, fingers entangling his hair and slightly tugging his scalp as he tried to calm his nerves. If someone had told him that this was where he’d be, sitting next to his vampire wife while he drugged her and waited to see if she was going to kill him or not, he’d have told them to fuck off and get out of his apartment. Yet, here he sat with the love of his life by his side once more; isn’t that exactly what he had wanted? In a roundabout way, he had gotten exactly what he had asked for. It would be rude not to make the most of it.
“Derek?”
He looked down at his wife and wiped a tear from his cheek. “Yeah?”
“Why are you here? You know what I’ve become, you know how dangerous it is to be around me, why are you risking your life like this? I don’t want you to get hurt,” his wife responded.
“If you were in my place, what would you do?” he asked in a low tone. He was unable to hide his weariness; he was too exhausted to try.
She pushed herself up to a sitting position and put a hand on his cheek, “I would let you go. I love you, I do, but I would not wish this kind of life upon you. I would want you to find peace, not live as a monster, violating all that made you the man I cherish. I would want to remember you as you were, not the creature you were turned into.”
“It is easy to say that when you haven’t gone through the loss like I have. When you have experienced the pain of having your heart ripped from your chest, leaving you an empty shell with no purpose to go on living, come back to me then and say you’d put me out of my misery if I was suddenly returned to you. I don’t believe you would stop fighting for every moment, for any miniscule chance there might be at a cure. You’d lock me in a basement and wait as long as you could until making that terrible decision. The only saving grace I have is that you won’t have to ever go through this; that falls on me.”
“Baby, you have to let me go. Please,” she whispered, her hot breath on his cheek as she leaned closer in. “I have felt this bitch within me, trying to pry her way to freedom, this drug you gave me just barely keeping her at bay. It’s intoxicating, the strength and power she brings with her, the blood lust when satiated like an intense orgasm that goes on and on until the last drop of blood is consumed. I am losing myself and before long, there will be nothing left to save.”
“You don’t know that,” he returned, finally turning his head and looking into her eyes, unable to help the tears as the slowly slid down his cheek. “They’ve got this far, haven’t they? It obviously works, even if only temporarily. Maybe they’ll find a cure soon and make it permanent.”
“Even if they could, it’ll be too late. Either I am going to die here of starvation or one of those new friends of yours will put a bullet in me. I would rather it be you than them. Let me die in your arms as the woman I am, the woman that loves you, not a monster trying to tear your throat out,” she croaked, a sob hitching in her chest.
He placed his forehead against hers, their love overflowing and embracing one another through such a simple touch. “Don’t ask this of me. You know how much I love you. Losing you broke me. I can’t do that again.”
“You have to.”
They sat there for a few minutes, their tears flowing as their foreheads pushed against one another, their hands softly intertwining and squeezing. He knew that she was right, but his heart refused to listen to reason. It was naïve to think that there would be a happy ending to this situation. He had no knowledge or experience to back that up, no clue to who was working on what or how far they’d come. Maybe this was truly it and once this drug wore off, he would never talk to her or hold her again, unless it was to die in the arms of a vampi
re.
“You know what you have to do.”
“That doesn’t mean I can do it. What you ask would be difficult with any human being I was responsible for, but you? My wife? There’s no fucking way!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you’d be able to do it either. Maybe it’s best to let you turn back, let you drink my blood, turn me into one of these things as well. Then we’ll never have to be apart again.”
She slapped him—hard. “Don’t you ever say that again.”
His brain felt like it had slammed into the side of his skull and there were lights dancing across his field of vision. “Ow!”
“You want to honor what we are? Prove that you love me? Live. Live through all of this and go on with your life. Find love again, start a family, make something of yourself and create a life worth living. Die an old man and when you enter the afterlife, I will be there waiting for you. But if you don’t kill me, if you allow me to continue to be this thing, I may end up as one of the damned, confined to hell for all eternity.”
“You don’t believe in any of that, and you know I don’t either,” he replied weakly.
She put a hand on his chin and lifted his eyes back to her own. “I didn’t believe in vampires either, yet here we are. If this is true, that may be as well. How would we know for sure? Are you willing to take the chance that you are wrong?”
“I don’t—,” he trailed off, unable to come to terms with it.
“Yes, you do.”
He looked at his phone; he was running out of time. Where the hell had it all gone?
“Honey.”
He turned his head away.
“Babe.”
Grinding his teeth, his hands tensed and squeezed her fingers tightly.
“She is getting closer to getting free. If you’re going to do it, do it now, otherwise get the fuck out of here,” she growled.
His hand reached out and snatched up the syringe, his finger rolling it as he thought through his options. He could leave, give it a few days, she wouldn’t die right away. If nothing changed, if there was truly no way to save her, he could come back in here and finish it then. Maybe after he had some time to think things through, he’d be able to make a better-informed decision. But then, he would not be able to turn her back, he’d be dosing and killing the monster, never getting to see his wife again.
“Derek, do it,” she groaned, her hands clenching the life from his fingers, her strength making it nearly unbearable as his hands began to scream.
With one motion, he flipped off the cap on the end of the syringe and plunged the needle into her leg, then pushed its contents into her already spasming body.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her body jerking violently.
Sobbing, he gripped her tightly against his chest, repeatedly telling her how much he loved her, his heart breaking all over again.
The spasms grew worse and she nearly broke free, her screams so painfully loud that his hearing was damned near stripped away from him, her feet kicking the floor so hard that they left slight dents in the tile surface.
“I love you!” she wailed.
Then she was gone.
Blood had flowed out of her eyes, her mouth, her ears, and he felt a pool of it beneath his thighs as well. Her death mask had returned, and her open eyes were staring at him with compassion and sympathy; something he could not stand to look at. His fingers closed her eyelids and he placed his head against hers once more, weeping loudly and openly.
“I didn’t think you had it in you,” a woman’s voice stated, giving him a start.
“Fuck you.”
“It had to be done, you had no choice. If you hadn’t been able to go through with it, I was going to have to do it myself. Either way, she’d be dead. This way, atleast, she got to die in your arms rather than those of the monster that created her,” Naomi said after a few moments of silence.
“Just leave me alone,” he croaked, his voice nearly gone.
“Would that I could, but we have a situation and it’s all hands-on deck.”
“Piss off.”
“Not my flavor of kink,” she returned.
His anger began to rise. “My wife is dead and you crack jokes?”
“Your wife truly died eight days ago and now there are others in danger, innocent people that did not ask for any of this; people we need to save. So, kiss her goodbye and let’s go. It’s time to get to work,” Naomi stated, her hand falling upon his shoulder.
III
“You said there was a situation?” he asked after he’d gone up and put his gear back on.
They were standing in Speedy’s den, most of the damaged tech already replaced, the hacker fast at work as if nothing had ever happened. He didn’t know how the youth did it. If a slimy monster had tried to suck the life out of him, he would probably be curled up in a ball waiting for the day to finally come to a close.
“Show him,” Naomi told Speedy, who’s trembling fingers reached for his mouse and brought up a browser window on the monitor closest to them. “This was uploaded onto the dark web thirty minutes ago. It’s already gone viral.”
She moved aside so he could get a better look at the monitor, a webpage with a video link had been maximized and the clicker hit the large play button in the center, his stomach sinking in anticipation of what was to come.
A smooth white mask filled the picture, the eyes the only visible facial feature, the malice held within the bright blue eyes so clear it might as well have been a window pane he was looking through. A black cowl hugged the sides of the mask, preventing a view of what lay beyond the fiend glaring menacingly in his direction. “I told you what would happen should you ignore my request. What follows is on you.”
The image shifted to that of a couple on their knees, hands bound behind their backs, their mouths unbound and begging for their lives. Their eyes were fixed on something off camera, and although he hadn’t seen Mario for better than thirty years, he still saw the resemblance to the boy he’d once known.
“I don’t know who you are talking about!” Mario blurted in a panic. “Whatever you want, use me. Let my wife go, I beg you!”
The dark-skinned Latina at his side was openly weeping, her eyes wide, her lips pressed tightly as she let her husband do the talking.
“Your memories are irrelevant, your life means nothing, but your death will serve a greater purpose. You are the first of many and will give testimony for what is to come. And trust me, he knows exactly who you are,” the gravelly voice said again, making a shiver run up his spine.
The screen blurred, the frame rate too slow to give a clear picture, but the gargling sounds that erupted made it obvious that something devastating had just taken place.
An instant later the blur was gone, leaving two headless corpses hovering on their knees, blood cascading down their torsos in a sick display of gore. Mario’s head was lying in his wife’s lap, his mouth still working but no voice emitting as his eyes found the camera. The dead man’s irises focused slightly, then swiftly expanded and became lifeless.
“You have one hour to return what you’ve taken, or another will be found to help persuade you, maybe a little bit closer to home this time,” the voice growled, the mask filling the video screen once more before cutting off.
“Those poor people,” he managed, trying his best not to throw up. He hardly remembered the guy, hadn’t spoken to him since grade school, but no one deserved to die like that. Another group of innocents had died because of him; would this ever end?
Chapter 10
I
“I thought you sent someone to protect them,” he muttered, unable to turn his eyes from the screen. They had been warned who would be targeted, where the vampire would strike, how had they not prevented it from happening?
“We still haven’t heard from Scalps,” Naomi remarked. “That video has over thirty-thousand hits and has transitioned from the dark web to primetime. A news cast is promoting it as breaking news for their
morning show. There is no containing it now. London is not going to be happy.”
“Isn’t there a rule against this sort of thing?” he suddenly asked, looking to Speedy and then her.
Naomi’s mouth pulled into a sneer. “Against what?”
“Providing proof of their existence? Won’t other vampires step in, try to stop this asshole from exposing them to the world?” he pushed, his hand waving at the computer monitor.
Speedy laughed, “proof? Waaat proof? In de age av digital recreashun, so'tiz seen as nathin' but a computer graphic grotesque, not proof av de supernatural. An' naw, thar's naw secret council av vampires lookin' oyt for de gran' av their race. Naw royal family in Italy dat 'ill cum callin' ter shut 'imself up.”
“So they don’t care if they get outed?” he returned, wondering why they hadn’t been exposed to the world by now if that were the case. If they had a devil-may-care attitude about it, they should have been caught on camera long before now.
“Who would believe it even if a genuine video did show up? It would debated and ridiculed; no one would take it for what it was,” Naomi returned. “And all of this is besides the point. Two more are dead and unless we hand the phone back over, he’ll go on killing his way through Houston until there’s no one left or we’re all dead. So, either we track him down and dispatch his ass, or we give into his demands and hand it over.”
“And if he did actually want my wife?” he countered.
“Well, that’s off the table. You took care of that already,” Naomi smiled.
That he did. The memory of it was still fresh, and he had been doing his best not to think on it, but her comment brought it all back home and he winced.
“Sorry,” Naomi said.
He couldn’t tell if she meant it. “So, what do you want to do?”
“How you coming on the hack? Any closer to breaking into it?”
Speedy looked up at her, then back at his screen and shrugged.
“Then we’re not giving it back. We figure out where he’ll be next and wait for him to show up,” Naomi told him.
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