The Undead Heart

by Tate Jackson

  Richard agreed. “Damn right it won’t!”

  She could feel that Declán was completely in control of himself now.

  “Let him go,” she told the boys.

  Seanán balked. “He’ll jump on you again.”

  “No, he won’t. Will you?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am. I just took a twenty minute beating from twin psychos. I can honestly say that I never want to touch you again,” he said sincerely.

  She smiled. “That’s a good thing to know. You may want to steer clear of Bev, though.”

  “Why is that?” he asked as they started back toward the house.

  “You may have caused her to break her arm,” Richard said. “She’s pretty pissed off.”

  “I’m so sorry!” Declán declared. “Leso is going to kill me!”

  Richard laughed. “Leso will probably be more understanding than you would think. He knows how it feels. Bev’s not so nice, though.”

  “Really? I always thought Bev was a sweet woman.”

  “Think what you want, but if she has a fork in her hand when she gets home, you should run,” Richard warned.

  ***

  Leso and Bev pulled into the driveway a few hours later. When Bev got out of the car, she had a cast on her arm.

  “It’s fractured,” Bev told them, flopping into a chair on the porch. “Dr. Kasper said I have to wear this stupid cast for six weeks.”

  “Where’s Declán?” Leso asked.

  Richard replied, “Hiding, if he’s smart.” He told them what Tiarnán and Seanán had done.

  “Good for them! Now I don’t have to kill him,” Bev almost cheered.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I’m going with Keith to get supplies. Do you want me to pick anything up for you? Tampons, maybe?” Bev asked, smiling at Beck.

  It was the middle of May, and Bev had been in an exceptionally good mood since getting her cast removed two days before.

  “Ha, ha, very funny. None for me, thanks.”

  The period she’d had that had caused Bev to get her arm broken had been the last one she’d had, and had only lasted one day. She was hoping there wouldn’t be anymore.

  “However, you can pick up a few gallons of ice cream. Potter’s managed to eat his way through all of what we bought last week.”

  “Sure, any particular flavors?”

  “Any flavors are fine. He eats it so fast that I’m not even sure he tastes it.”

  “Okay. Leso’s asleep. If I’m not back when he wakes up, tell him where I went.”

  “I’ll let him know.”

  “Thanks,” Bev said, and left.

  ***

  It was 6:45 when Bev and Keith left and was already dark outside when Beck had finished making dinner. She and Richard had gotten the boys dirt bikes for their birthday, and they had taken them across the creek where Richard and ‘Uncle Lugh’ were. She was walking around the side of the house, heading toward the path through the woods when she suddenly felt as if she had been dropped in boiling oil, and her skin flash-fried.

  She gasped and opened her mouth to scream, but before the scream could leave her throat, the pain was gone. She could feel the fear and dread come over her and knew that this was what she had dreamt about in Hawaii. She waited, and seconds later, she heard people running down the path in her direction, and hunters came rushing out of the woods.

  “What’s wrong?” she cried out, but just like in her dream, she received no answer.

  She watched as Liam, Declán, Christov, Seanán, Tiarnán, Aohngus, Damon, Richard, Potter, and Gunner ran past her. With the exceptions of Richard and Potter, all of the hunters had their swords on their backs, including Tiarnán and Seanán. She turned to run after them, but Harley and Bruce grabbed her.

  “You can’t go with them, Beck,” Harley told her firmly.

  “Why not?” Harley and Bruce exchanged a worried look. She could feel their fear and anxiety.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked in a strangled whisper.

  “A hunter was killed.” Bruce said.

  “What? Which hunter was killed?” she asked.

  Harley and Bruce just looked at each other, but wouldn’t answer her question. She paced back and forth in the yard for twenty minutes trying to get them to answer her.

  Jenny yelled from the porch. “You better come in and see this.”

  On the way to the house, Bruce whispered to Harley, “It had to be Keith.”

  Beck had heard him and frozen in her tracks. “I thought there weren’t any other vampyres in Clarksville.”

  “There’s not,” Harley said.

  When they got into the house, there was a news update on T.V.: The following recording is very graphic. If you have small children, you should make them leave the room (the anchorman was saying). The video surveillance for the store parking lot started. It showed two people walking across a parking lot.

  You couldn’t make out what they looked like, but she knew it was Bev and Keith. They were putting bags in the back of the truck, when a man stepped up behind them. He pulled a sword and chopped off Keith’s head. Then he grabbed Bev, stuffed her in the trunk of the car that was parked next to the truck, and drove away. Keith had been killed by another hunter, and, just like that, Bev was gone.

  ***

  “What are we going to do?” she cried. Her sister was gone. For all they knew, Bev could be dead by now.

  Saphira tried to calm her. “They’re going to find the hunter that killed Keith and took Bev.”

  All of the vampyres and remaining hunters had gathered in the living room. The T.V. was showing the muted kidnap video over and over, asking the viewers to call the police if they recognized anyone in the recording.

  “How are they going to find them? Hunters don’t have a scent for them to follow!” she cried.

  “No, they don’t, but Bev does, and that’s what they’ll be following,” Jeff said.

  “Why aren’t all the vampyres and hunters out looking for her?” she questioned hotly.

  “Since we don’t know what’s going on, Richard wanted some of the hunters to stay and guard the house and… the vampyres couldn’t go,” Heidi explained.

  “Why couldn’t the vampyres have gone with them?”

  Daryl answered. “The hunter they’re tracking would have sensed them.”

  “How did they know a hunter had died?”

  “We can feel it,” Bane said.

  “Does it feel like your skin is burning?”

  Aohngus nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what it feels like.”

  “I felt it, too.”

  ***

  They’d been tracking Bev’s scent all night. The scent was strong enough to tell them that she was still alive. If the hunter had hurt her at all, if she had so much as a scratch, he would make sure that the hunter’s death would be an excruciatingly painful one.

  He could only imagine what Beck and Leso were going through. If it had been Beck that had been taken, he would be deranged. He wondered briefly how they were controlling Leso, but didn’t have much time to dwell on it.

  The hunters had removed their weapons and hid them behind a dumpster down the street from the parking lot where Keith had been killed, and Bev had been taken. Keith’s head had been chopped off, and eight men with swords on their backs would most likely have drawn unwanted attention.

  They’d known that Keith had been killed, but had not known Bev had been taken. They had not found that out until they had run past some houses that had their televisions on and heard the news updates.

  When they reached the parking lot where it had happened, they found it full of detectives, crime scene units, and police officers. The outside of the crime scene tape was surrounded by onlookers.

  They blended in with the crowd and walked around the perimeter searching for the direction from which the hunter had left.

  “Found it,” Potter said quietly, but all the hunters heard him and joined him at the far end of the store parking l
ot. “They went that way,” he continued, pointing down a side street.

  “He’s probably on the interstate by now,” Damon said.

  Potter nodded. “Maybe, but he can only go as fast as his car.”

  “Get your weapons,” Richard told the hunters. From where they were standing, they could see Keith’s body laying in the parking lot. “He has about a fifteen minute head start,” he continued, watching as the crime scene officers walked around Keith’s body taking pictures.

  “As long as he’s traveling by car, we can catch him,” Potter said. “I don’t understand why a hunter would have done this,” Richard said. “It doesn’t make sense. Why kill another hunter and kidnap a human?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m betting that he doesn’t know about us either. He wouldn’t have done this if he had known that other hunters would be chasing him down.”

  “We need to find out why he did this,” Richard said. “We have to keep the other hunters from killing him before we get some answers.”

  “I can do that, but you’ll have to control your boys,” Potter smiled.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  ***

  “Leso, stop it!” Harley yelled.

  When Leso woke up, Jenny had told him what happened to Bev, and he was fighting with Bruce, Harley, Darian, and Jeff. He was trying to get past them and get out of the house.

  “Get out of my way! I have to go! I have to help her!” he roared.

  Harley ducked under the fist Leso was swinging at his head. “You can’t, damn it! None of us can go, and stop trying to hit me!”

  “She needs me!” he screamed, trying to push past Darian.

  Bruce grabbed Leso by the neck. “What Bev needs is for you to calm down. If you go after her, the hunter that took her is going to sense you. We don’t know what he’ll do to her if that happens.”

  “Bev is my sister. I’m worried too, but Richard, Potter, and eight others have gone after her. There’s nothing else for us to do but wait,” Beck said calmly as possible, taking Leso’s hand and pulling him over to the couch with her. “Just sit down and wait with me.”

  He sat on the couch with her and held her hand. She could feel the panic pulsing through him. She understood. She felt the same way.

  “Why didn’t all of you go after her?” Leso asked desperately.

  Darian said, “Because we don’t know what’s going on, so we thought it best if some of us stayed here, just in case.”

  “How do we even know that she’s still alive?” he whimpered.

  Harley tried to be delicate. “We don’t, but we can’t think that way until we know differently. We just have to believe that she’s still alive.”

  “She’s alive. I think we would feel it if she wasn’t,” Beck said, squeezing Leso’s hand.

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I really do,” she said, and he nodded knowing that she was telling the truth.

  After that, she became lost in her own thoughts. She really did believe that she would know if Bev had been killed. They had lived in each other’s pockets their whole lives. Bev was the only person she’d ever been close to until she met Richard. Bev was the only real family that she’d ever had.

  She’d loved her Grandmother, but had rarely gotten to see her. Bev was the one that had always been there for her. She’d been the only one that she had ever trusted before now. So, yes, she believed she would know if Bev was dead. But she also knew that just because you believed something, didn’t necessarily make it true.

  She was scared to death, but Harley was right. They couldn’t think that way. So, she held Leso’s hand, sat quietly, and did something she had not done in years…she prayed. She prayed that Bev would come home safe, but she also prayed for Richard, Potter, and the twins. They were out chasing a hunter who had no problem killing one of his own, and kidnapping an innocent human, and she couldn’t help them. So, she waited, and she prayed.

  ***

  They followed Bev’s scent up I-24 into Kentucky. It was Sunday night, and there was almost no traffic on the interstate. They’d only had to run off the side of the road under the cover of trees a few times to bypass cars doing the 65 mph speed limit. They’d passed the Oak Grove exit and were almost into Hopkinsville when they spotted the car they were looking for.

  “Aunt Bev is in that car,” Tiarnán said with certainty, pointing at the old ’84 Cutlass. They could all hear Bev pounding on the inside of the trunk lid.

  “There are two of them.” Potter said.

  “Hang back,” Richard said.

  They dropped their speed down to the speed limit, keeping the car in view but staying well out of sight.

  “How do you want to do this?” Damon asked. “We obviously can’t flip the car with Bev in the trunk.”

  “We can’t just grab it, either,” Seanán said. “That would send Aunt Bev crashing into the trunk wall.”

  “What I need four of you to do is pick up the car without slowing it down. Then, I can rip off the trunk lid and get Bev out without hurting her. After she’s out, get the car off the road, and out of sight,” Potter instructed.

  Richard said, “I can get her out.”

  “No, I need you to stay with the car. When that car stops and they realize who we are, they’re going to hit the ground running. I need you to stay with them and make sure that those hunters don’t get away, and that our hunters don’t kill them before we can question them.”

  It wasn’t the best plan, but it was the best plan they had time to come up with.

  Richard relented. “Fine, but be very careful. Nothing can go wrong after we get the car off the ground. If you drop her while we’re running 65 mph, it will kill her.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to drop her,” Potter assured him. “Damon, Gunner, Tiarnán, and Seanán…I want you to lift the car about two feet off the road. Remember, don’t slow down until Bev is clear of the car. Ready? Go!”

  He kept pace with the hunters as they ran up to the sides of the car. The hunter driving the car spotted them and tried to speed up, but it was too late. Potter jumped on the bumper of the car as soon as it was lifted off the ground, punched through the trunk lid, and ripped it off the car. Richard’s stomach clenched as he watched Potter grab Bev from the trunk and do a back-flip off of the back of the car with her.

  “Got her!” Potter yelled to them.

  “Don’t let them out of the car!” Richard shouted as he watched the car doors push open. Damon and Gunner slammed the doors closed.

  Tiarnán asked, “Should we throw it, Pop?”

  “No. Just get it off the road and out of sight.”

  They ran the car off the side of the road and into the copse of the trees. Richard reached under the car and tore the rear-wheel axel off before the hunters dropped it to the ground.

  “Get out of the car,” Richard ordered after they had the car surrounded. The car doors opened, and two men slowly got out.

  “Be easy, brothers,” the driver said.

  The passenger added, “We bear no arms.”

  “That’s your mistake,” Tiarnán said, drawing his sword.

  “Tiarnán, no!”

  “They took Aunt Bev, Pop!”

  Seanán added, “And killed Keith.”

  “I know they did, but I would like to know why they did it before we kill them,” he explained to his sons.

  Tiarnán sheathed his sword, but didn’t look happy about it.

  “You are all hunters,” the driver stated.

  Stepping through the trees with Bev, Potter said, “And you are Oberon, and I believe you are Thomas.”

  “Aunt Bev, you’re okay!” the twins said, rushing over and hugging her.

  “Thanks to you.”

  Surprised, Oberon said in a weak voice, “Lugh.”

  Both Oberon and Thomas dropped to one knee in front of Potter, bowing their heads to him.

  “Lugh, I am sorry. I did not know that the woman was yours,” Oberon sa
id without raising his head.

  “She is my sister-in-law, wife to my brother, a brother that I can only imagine is terrified right now. Now that we’re all here, why don’t you tell me why you killed my hunter and kidnapped my family?”

  “I did neither of those things,” Thomas said.

  Damon almost bit his head off, “Nor did you prevent it!”

  What was going on? Why were these hunters bowed down to Potter?

  “Stand up and explain yourselves!” Potter demanded.

  Oberon said, “The vampyres have my wife.”

  “What vampyres?” Richard asked.

  “I don’t know who they are. We were traveling through Ohio when we found them, or rather, they found us. We had stopped for the night at a hotel and were settling in when Thomas and I sensed the vampyres. We left my wife in the hotel room while we went out to hunt them,” Oberon explained.

  Richard was shocked. “You sensed vampyres, and you just left your wife in a hotel room alone?”

  “I didn’t think she would be in any danger. We were in a large city. The chances of her being a victim were slim,” Oberon continued.

  Gunner snickered. “How do you feel about those chances now?”

  Oberon ignored him and continued, “We circled the city for miles, following the vampyres. They led us right back to our hotel. When I ran into the room, I found my wife missing, the stink of vampyres in the room, and a phone number on the bedside table.

  “When I called the number, I was told to meet them in Lexington, Kentucky. When we got there, they had my wife tied up in a corner of the house they’re still staying in. They said I had to find a woman.

  “They told me what she looked like, and that she would be with a hunter or a vampyre. I was to get the girl and bring her to them. I had two weeks. If I did it, they would return my wife unharmed. If I can’t do it, they will turn her into a vampyre. I had to try.”

  “When is your two weeks up?” Richard asked.