The Undead Heart

by Tate Jackson

  She screamed for a full minute before she dropped back onto the couch.

  “Is she supposed to be this hot?” Leso asked.

  “Shit!”she gasped after laying her palm on Bev’s forehead. “She’s burning up. Get a bucket of ice water and some towels!” Beck said to no one in particular.

  Within a moment, the bucket was by her side. She soaked the towels in the water and laid them on Bev’s body.

  She asked Potter, “Did I spike a fever like this?”

  “No, not at all. If anything, your temperature dropped a little,” Potter said nervously.

  The ice water brought Bev’s fever down some, and she started panting again. The panting had gone on for two hours when Bev stopped breathing.

  “Do something!” Leso yelled at her.

  She asked Potter, “Should I do CPR?”

  “There’s no point. If the virus is going to take her, you would only be making it harder on her,” Potter advised.

  “There has to be something we can…” Leso was saying when Bev took a deep breath and vomited.

  “Get her on her side before she aspirates,” Potter said.

  Leso rolled her onto her side allowing the vomit to run out of her mouth. It was a full two minutes before she took another breath.

  “I don’t like the way this is going.” Potter said.

  “Neither do I, but it’s too late now. We’ll just have to wait it out,” Beck said.

  Bev’s body was going through hell, and Beck had no way of stopping it. She watched as Bev screamed and thrashed in pain for hours. Bev had been out for seven hours when her heart started to falter. Her heartbeats would slow to almost nothing, and then speed up to triple the normal rate.

  “She’s been unconscious for so long,” Leso said quietly.

  “Don’t give up on her,” Richard said. “She’s not dead yet.”

  “How can her heart survive this kind of punishment?” Leso asked, brushing his fingers down Bev’s chest.

  “Beck’s did,” Potter said. “This is actually part of what she did go through.”

  Leso nodded but wasn’t really paying attention. His focus was only on Bev. An hour later, Bev’s heartbeat and breathing had returned to normal, and her eyes fluttered open.

  “I’m alive?” she asked.

  “Yes, sweetheart, you’re alive,” Leso said, pulling her off of the couch into his arms. His intense relief overshadowed every other emotion in the room.

  Bev asked. “Did it work?”

  “You’ve kept your scent. As for the rest, there’s only one way to find out,” Potter answered, reaching his hand out to her.

  They tested her, and she’d gotten it all except for the hearing and the heightened sense of smell.

  “Her changes are the same as yours,” Potter told Beck.

  “It must be because we’re female.”

  Potter nodded. “I agree.”

  “Well, what do you think?” Beck asked Bev.

  Bev smiled. “I think it’s time to go get Crystal.”

  ***

  They waited until sunset to leave.

  “We’ll take the cars and trucks most of the way. When we’re seven miles out, we’ll park and travel the rest of the way on foot. We’ll move faster that way,” Potter said. “I want to do this in two stages. Patrick and Thomas, when we park I want you to run ahead of us and scout out the house. I’ll give you fifteen minutes to report back.

  If you’re not back on time, we’re coming in, but I’d like to know what we’re rushing into.” Patrick and Thomas nodded. “After they report back and we know what we’re facing, I want us to go in two waves. I want the hunters to go in first, followed by the vampyres. I want us to be in place before they have a chance to sense the rest of you. That should give us the advantage.”

  Bev asked, “Will Beck and I be with the hunters or the vampyres?”

  “You’re not going, Bev,” Leso said.

  “Bullshit, I’m not going! I’m not going to be left behind alone!”

  “You won’t be alone,” Richard said. “You’ll be with Beck.”

  Beck turned her head to look at him. “If she’s going to be with me then she better get her ass in the car, because I am going.”

  “Beck, it would be better if you both stayed…” Richard started to say, but Potter cut him off.

  “They’re both going.”

  “No!” Leso shouted.

  “Listen to me. There’s a possibility that this could be a trick,” Potter explained.

  “Oberon and Thomas are telling the truth,” Leso said.

  “I don’t doubt that, but that doesn’t mean the vampyres are. They could know exactly where we are and have sent Oberon and Thomas to lead us away from here. I don’t know, and I’m not taking that chance. We all go.”

  Leso relented first, “Fine, but they don’t come in until the situation is under control.”

  “Agreed,” Potter confirmed.

  Oberon asked impetuously, “If you’re done deciding where you’re going to keep the little women, can we go?”

  Potter punched him in the throat, crushing the bones and causing him to gasp for breath.

  “We’re about to put ‘our little women’ in a very dangerous position, because you were stupid enough to leave your woman alone in a hotel room. I’m not happy about putting any of my people in danger over this. This is entirely your fault! I’ve been up for two days, and I’m not in a good mood. So I’m warning you, if you make one more smartass comment, I’m just going to kill you and your brother, and call it a fucking day.”

  “Sorry Lugh,” Oberon said, getting his breath back. “I’m just anxious to get to Crystal,”

  “I understand that. Just don’t let your mouth run away with your head.”

  Turning his back on Oberon, he got back to the business at hand. “When we get to the house, I want all possible exits blocked. I don’t want any of them to get away. Patrick, I want you to cut any phone lines going to the house. Let’s go.”

  Everyone got into the cars and trucks and followed Thomas out of the driveway. When Thomas pulled onto the shoulder of the road a little while later, it was full dark.

  “This is about seven miles out,” he told them.

  Potter looked at all of them. “You all know your jobs, so let’s do this.”

  They watched as Patrick and Thomas disappeared into the night. They were back in less than fifteen minutes.

  “There are eight vampyres in the house. There were no phone lines,” Thomas reported.

  Potter reached into his glove box and pulled out a small black box. “They must have cell phones. They’d need some way to keep in touch with their master.”

  “What’s that?” Beck asked.

  “A signal blocker. It will disrupt any cell phone in a fifty yard radius,” Potter explained, handing the device to Damon. “I’m going to run with the vampyres. We’ll be right behind you.” Damon nodded and vanished into the dark with the rest of the hunters.

  They waited ten seconds before following behind them.

  ***

  The vampyres and hunters crashed through every door and window of the house. All but two vampyres were destroyed in seconds. One vampyre had been kept alive for questioning, and the other one was Crystal. What they’d done to her was sick.

  Twenty silver spikes had been driven through her arms and legs and screwed into the concrete floor she was laying on. She was weak and crazed. Richard knew they’d turned her as soon as Oberon and Thomas had left the house two weeks ago. He would also bet his very last dime that they’d never let her feed.

  “Don’t let her up!” he yelled when he saw Oberon rush over to set her free.

  “She’s hurt,” Oberon said.

  Crystal was hissing and snapping her teeth.

  “She’s hungry,” Potter said. “She needs to feed before you let her up. The thirst has her now.”

  “I’ll go find her something to eat,” Leso said and left.

  In sho
ck, Oberon asked, “What is he going to get her?”

  “What in the hell do you think his going to get her? She’s not exactly in the mood for a salad right now, is she?” Potter said sardonically.

  When the hunters had the vampyre trapped in a chair, Richard pulled a chair over and sat down in front of him. Leso came back inside holding a good size doe with a broken back. He laid the paralyzed deer down with its throat across Crystal’s face, and she fed. When the deer was bled dry, Leso lifted it off of her. She looked around the room until her eyes fell on Oberon.

  “Obie?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes, love. It’s me,” Oberon said as he and Potter and pulled the spikes out of her.

  When Crystal was safely in Oberon’s arms, Richard turned his attention back to the vampyre in front of him. “We have few questions for you.”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” the vampyre spat.

  Dropping the spikes they had pulled out of Crystal onto the table, Potter said, “You may not think you will now, but I have a feeling you’re going to change your mind.”

  “What’s your name?” Richard asked.

  The vampyre spit blood on him. “Piss off!”

  Richard wiped the blood from his cheek, and then calmly picked up one of the spikes and drove it into the vampyres thigh. The vampyre screamed in pain.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it? Imagine how Crystal must have felt being spiked to the floor for two weeks. Now, let’s start again. What’s your name?”

  The vampyre gasped, “Tony, my name is Tony.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tony. Now why did you bite this lovely young woman?”

  Tony said nothing.

  “Allow me,” Jeremy said.

  He spun and kicked Tony in the head, breaking his neck. Tony screamed again.

  “You must have a low pain threshold,” Jeremy said with a grin. “I suggest that you just answer the questions. It’s only going to get worse from here.”

  “Never mind that question. Why is Elderson looking for the female you seek?” Richard asked.

  Tony didn’t speak until Potter picked up another spike.

  “No, wait! He seeks her for revenge on an enemy.”

  “How did he know that she would be here in this time?” Richard pondered, more to himself than to anyone else.

  Tony answered, “I couldn’t say.”

  “He’s lying,” Beck and Leso said in unison.

  Beck pinched Leso’s arm, and then poked him in the ribs. “You owe me a Coke.”

  Potter drove another spike through Tony’s shoulder. “I have 18 more to go,” he said when the screaming stopped.

  “How did he know?” Richard asked again.

  “Two of the females in the enemy’s clan were overheard talking about it on the street by a woman that wanted to be a vampyre. She traded the information in exchange for being bitten. She told him that the woman was a time traveler and had returned to the year 2009. I thought it was bullshit, but Elderson believed her,” Tony explained.

  “The woman was right,” Beck said. “I’m right here.”

  “So, now that woman is a vampyre?” Bev asked.

  “No,” Tony said. “After he got the information he wanted from her, he killed her.”

  The vampyres and hunters all looked at Oberon and Thomas as if to say without words ‘told you so’. Oberon looked at Thomas in shame, and then at his feet.

  “Where is Elderson now?” Richard asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tony said desperately. “I swear I don’t know.”

  Richard looked at Beck and she nodded. “Fine. How many are in his clan?”

  “I can’t tell you that. He’ll kill me.” Tony said.

  Potter used one of the silver spikes to nail Tony’s testicles to the chair. “Wrong answer.”

  The screaming was a lot louder and lasted a lot longer this time.

  “What’s wrong with you?!” Tony roared. “Are you demented?!”

  Potter shook his head. “No, I just don’t like you. So, you better hope your next answer make me happier.”

  Richard asked again, “How many?”

  “You killed six of us, so there’s forty-six left,” Tony answered.

  “Forty-five, we’re done with you,” Richard said. “Oberon, would like you do the honors?”

  “It would be my pleasure,” Oberon snarled.

  “No! Don’t kill me!” Tony pleaded. “Please! I don’t…” Oberon swung his sword, and Tony’s head tumbled to the floor.

  “He bit me, Obie,” Crystal cried. “I’m a vampyre now.”

  “I know,” Oberon said, and wrapped his arms around her. ‘Don’t think about it now.”

  “Are the hunters going to kill me now?” she asked, terror rising in her voice.

  “No, love,” Oberon assured her. “They won’t hurt you. They came to help you.”

  The holes that the silver spikes had made in her body were already healing. By the time they got home, they would be gone completely.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Potter said.

  “Should we get rid of the bodies?” Jenny asked.

  “Fuck ‘em,” Potter said. “Let Elderson clean up his own bodies.”

  They left the dead vampyres behind and went home.

  ***

  Two days later, as they sat at the picnic tables in the yard, Potter said, “It won’t be much longer before they find us.”

  “How long do you think we have?” Crystal asked. As it turned out, she was Oberon’s true mate after all, and she’d taken easily to being a hunter. She was a pretty woman at 5’5” tall, with long brown hair and blue eyes.

  “Days, maybe weeks, but I would guess no more than that,” Potter said.

  “I personally wish that he would come on so we can get it over with,” Isiah said.

  “I agree,” Gavin concurred. “For someone so hell bent on revenge, he sure is dragging his feet.”

  “That would be the coward in him, but he’ll have to make a move now. When his clan finds out about the seven we killed, he’ll have to act,” Jeremy said. “If he doesn’t, then they’ll know he’s a coward and turn on him, and his dreams of revenge will die with him. He won’t let that happen.”

  Richard said, “I could just turn myself over to him.”

  “We’ve been over this before. It wouldn’t do any good. He’s not going to stop until he has Beck. You know that,” Potter reiterated.

  “We could all get killed,” Beck said.

  “Then it’s like Lugh said. It will be a good day to die,” Damon said. “We’ll be ready for him, whenever he comes.”

  They watched as the twins came around the house, followed closely by Bailey and Blaze. She was terrified she was going to lose them in the battle. She didn’t want them to fight, but knew she couldn’t take that away from them. First and foremost, they were hunters. They were proud of that and they were two of the best fighters they had.

  All of the hunters were good, but the twins were among the best. They would need all of their fighters if they were going to stand a chance in hell of winning against Elderson larger clan. They seemed unconcerned about the coming fight as they played fetch with their dogs. The bloodhounds had shown an uncanny ability to track the boys. They could find the boys when the hunters and vampyres could not. They’d turned out to be good dogs. She hoped they didn’t lose their masters.

  Keith’s death had been headline news. His body and possessions being stolen from the morgue hadn’t even been mentioned. Potter and Damon had retrieved them the night before. They’d buried him behind the house, under a big tree, with his sword thrust into the ground to serve as his headstone. She wondered how many swords would join his before this was over.

  Chapter Twenty

  One week to the day later, two hunters marched down the driveway with a human woman wearing a makeshift blindfold.

  “What’s all this about?” Beck asked. “Who is this woman?”

  Séamus said, “She says she has a messag
e for Richard.”

  “Okay. Why is she blindfolded?”

  “She’s a familiar,” Christov said.

  “And?” Beck questioned.

  “And everything she hears, sees, or smells; her master does, too.”

  “Oh.” Beck said, and then yelled, “Richard!”

  He jumped over the house and landed beside her. “What’s up?” he asked, his eyes on the woman.

  “We seem to have been granted a visit from Elderson’s familiar,” Séamus said.

  “A familiar? I haven’t seen one of those in over 100 years,” Richard said, a little surprised.

  Beck asked, “Should we talk to it?”

  “I am not an ‘it’. My name is Pauline. Can I remove the blindfold now?”

  “I don’t think so,” Richard answered.

  Pauline said, “I have to deliver a message to Richard.”

  “You don’t need to see me to do that.”

  “You are not Richard. Richard is a vampyre. You are not.”

  “She can sense vampyres?” Beck asked

  “She can. She can hear, smell, sense, and see as well as a vampyre, but she doesn’t have the speed, strength, or life span. She is still human,” Richard explained to Beck.

  “How do you become a familiar?”

  “This nasty bitch drank his blood!” Christov spat in disgust.

  “You actually did this?” Beck asked, repulsed.

  “It’s only until I give Richard the message,” Pauline explained “Then he’s going to change me.”

  “Why wait?” Richard asked.

  “If I was a vampyre, then the vampyres here would’ve sensed me.”

  “So? You were coming here to talk anyway. What difference would it have made if we sensed you coming?” Richard asked.

  Beck could feel Pauline’s emotions churning with confusion.

  “Can I please take the blindfold off?” Pauline begged, now scared.

  “In a minute,” Richard told her. Then, he turned to the hunters. “Go get me Potter.”

  The hunters left Pauline alone with her and Richard.

  “What in the hell possessed you to drink that monster’s blood?” Beck asked Pauline.