“Thank you,” Gavin said clenching his fists at his side. “We’ll keep that in mind. Anything else?”
“Just be cautious. Like I said, I’ve had children as well, and sometimes what you want for them is not actually what’s best. Keep that in mind in the coming years. I wish you luck.”
Both of us, now thoroughly annoyed, turned and left, Gavin roughly opening and closing the door without another word.
***
Back in our room we stayed cloistered for two days, barely speaking to each other as we absorbed the impact of what Professor Petros had said. We had given ourselves a full week to search for the answers, but we had found what we were looking for right away. Again we had not been told what we wanted to hear and we were working our way around that, together, yet alone. Gavin got on the phone and tried to arrange for an earlier flight out of Athens and back to Nova Scotia, but everything was booked solid and so we were stuck with our original flight. We had a few days to go and nothing to do but wait them out.
Our thoughts filtered through to each other periodically over the days that we spent there. We felt each other’s anger, pain, and fear. Sometimes it was too much and we willed ourselves into sleep, only to wake to the same terrible reality. The only other thing I could think of besides Ryan was blood. I was becoming blood hungry and likely so was Gavin, at least a little bit. He was lying next to me deep in thought when I finally worked up the nerve to mention it.
“Gavin?” I whispered. He turned his head toward me with a blank expression.
Instead of asking me what I wanted he began to speak, the low level anger and grief apparent in his voice. “I want to kill him, Rachel. I want to see him suffer and die for what he did to you, what he did to us. What he’s subjected Ryan to. I want him dead.”
His hatred for Aries was always lurking just below the surface and I had no doubt that killing him was what he would someday do. “I know. But we both know you can’t do that. We might need him. Ryan might die without him and if it comes right down to it I’d rather see him transform and forget all about us instead of dying. He may not have a human life, or a vampire life, but he’d be alive.”
Gavin swallowed hard, working unsuccessfully to quash his emotions. “He’d be one of them. I hate them so much, Rachel. All of them. They should be dead…each and every one.”
Silence permeated the room once again as Gavin’s eyes drifted blankly to the ceiling once more.
“Let’s hunt,” I said after a time. “We need to feed. We’ll think more clearly.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin here.”
“I do.” Gavin shot me a questioning look. If one thing my time in Halifax had taught me it was how to sniff the dregs of society out of a crowd. Every city had them and Athens was probably no different. “We do what everyone else does when they need a drink. We go to a bar. It’s nearly midnight. Time for the troublemakers to come out and play.”
Gavin nodded slowly and methodically. “Yes,” he said. “I think you’re right. We could both use a drink.”
Chapter six
Seating ourselves at the bar we took in the floor to ceiling display of colorful bottles filled with wine and spirits, backlit on a shelf that served as both functional and a work of art. We ordered each a simple Heineken, choosing not to experiment with the various, albeit beautiful, containers showcased behind the bar and I opened up my distance hearing.
Legal drinking age in Greece is eighteen and from across the room we could see some American teenagers taking full advantage of that. All of them were girls and some looked even younger than they needed to be for entry. They were being hit on by a few men who had swooped in on the group, a few years older and local. Gavin saw me look at them a couple of times while listening in.
“Tale as old as time,” he said, taking a long drag off his beer. “Fucking vultures.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “I’m still figuring that out.”
“Don’t need to listen to his thoughts to know what’s on his mind,” he said, singling out a particularly over aggressive member of the group. A tall muscular man of about twenty five with long black hair was sitting beside one of the girls, whispering in her ear as she reddened slightly. She let out a giggle as he brushed his hand up against her thigh. “He knows exactly what to say. Trust me, scum like that, he’s done it a hundred times.”
I nodded as I listened to him speak. He was indeed whispering words of flattery and charm into the young woman’s ear. Perhaps his intentions were to simply sleep with her, there was no harm in that if she was willing, and she certainly looked like she was, but I needed something more. I needed to find out exactly what he was going to do and if there was any sign of plans other than a night of drunken tourist sex we’d have the perfect excuse to pounce.
After a few moments rummaging through his brain I found some disturbing images. As he whispered to her, his hands now slipping up around her waist I saw him picturing his plans for the rest of the evening. His vision of the girl included pain and suffering and… bloodshed. A person doesn’t do that for the first time on a whim and so I shut my connection to him off and turned back to Gavin. “He’s done worse than what you think he has and he’s getting ready to do it again.”
“Hmm,” Gavin frowned, disgusted. “Well, that didn’t take long.”
I put my beer aside. “Oh honey, it never does.”
“I swear to god if we ever have a daughter she’s never leaving the house.”
“Agreed,” I said. Just then the man nodded in the direction of the exit and the young woman smiled. He stood, taking her hand as she followed and held the door open for her like a true gentleman as they walked out into the street. Unbeknownst to them, Gavin and I were following.
We kept about twenty paces behind, listening to the rhythmic click of the girl’s heels on the walkway as they laughed and flirted, heading for his place. When they arrived we followed them in. It was a tiny little apartment building and the man was so lost in thoughts of what he was about to do that seeing two strange non Greeks enter the building behind him didn’t even register.
As he put his key in the lock of his apartment door, Gavin and I gave each other a silent nod, falling into our usual hunting routine. We had done this many times, travelling back and forth to Halifax and Dartmouth, finding random criminals and putting them down. We liked to tell ourselves that we were cleaning things up, but honestly, the thrill of the hunt was the real motivation, not any kind of justice. That was just a fringe benefit and a justification. The new leader of the Halifax Vampire Authority, a man named Marcel, had been so grateful to Duncan and I for ridding the city of Christina that we had been granted lifetime hunting privileges and we routinely took advantage. It had taken a few years but the municipality was thriving under its new leadership and they’d even come to a peace agreement with the remaining satyrs who would soon begin collecting their sons, dividing their herd between Point Pleasant Park and Shubie Park in the old city of Dartmouth as the authority felt it wasn’t fair to have so many of them on one side of the bridge.
Moving with speed that couldn’t be seen with the human eye, Gavin grabbed the man, putting his hand over his mouth, restraining him, while I took hold of the young woman. I reached into her mind in a different way, putting her into the trance of a blood influence as my eyes flooded with heat.
“You’re going to leave here. You’re going to walk, calmly, back to the bar. You’ll tell your friends you changed your mind and you want to go back to where you’re staying. You won’t go home with anyone else as long as you’re in Greece. Do you understand?”
The girl gave a slow, sombre nod and I let go of her. Without missing a beat she went back to the door and exited once again. I turned back to Gavin and smiled, he smiled back at me. “You’re so hot when you mess with their minds.”
“Thank you baby,” I said, picking up the key the man had dropped when Gavin had grabbed him. I turned it in the deadbolt and held it open as Gavin maneuvered
him inside, his arms and legs kicking in a futile attempt to get away. The place was in total darkness which was perfect for us, but not so much for the human. When we got inside I took a dishtowel and gagged him with it, tying it behind his head, then found a pair of handcuffs sitting on the coffee table. “Oh gee, lookie here. How lucky. I wonder what these were going to be for?” I grabbed his hands and snapped them closed around his wrists as he gave a muffled cry.
“Oh,” Gavin said, “I see. You want to let him run around a little bit I take it?”
“Uh huh. Can’t have him screaming like a banshee though. I don’t want to force him to stay quiet either. The more he suffers the more fun this will be.
Gavin threw the man down on the floor and he landed with a thud, moaning in pain, sniffling as if crying. His survival instinct rose and the smell of fear filled the small space, the sweat from his body hanging in the air. Gavin came to me, taking me by the waist and gripping me tightly as he pressed his mouth down on mine, pawing at my back. “I love it when you hunt,” he breathed. “Rip the bastard’s throat out, baby. Make him fucking suffer.”
“Oh, I intend to.” Crouching low I caught him in my sight. Ideally a larger area with places the man could hide would have been more fun, but we were lucky to have the space that we did. The man crawled behind the couch and out of sight, hoping against hope that he could stay hidden. “Oh no, I don’t see him anymore,” I said, not without some sarcasm.
“Oh no,” Gavin chuckled. “Maybe we should just leave, if you can’t find him you can’t kill him right?”
“No. Darn and I was so looking forward to it.” This kill was turning out to be more like a macabre game of hide and seek, but it was satisfying nonetheless. Taking three large, quiet, steps to the couch I stood there silently for a moment before giving it a kick. The man startled and whimpered behind it. “Honey, did you hear something?”
“Hmm… maybe. What did it sound like to you?”
“It sounded like an asshole who tortures young unsuspecting little tourist girls hiding behind his butt ugly couch.”
Gavin threw his head back in a laugh, his fangs running out as he did. “That’s funny, because to me it just sounded like dinner.”
“You know honey, I think this moment right here is what being a tourist is all about. Getting to sample the local cuisine. This will be a new thing for me. I’m kind of sick of all that Scottish/French food we eat all the time. I’m in the mood for something a little more…exotic.”
“You have such an open mind.”
“Aww, thank you honey,” I said, blowing him a kiss from across the room. In a far corner I spotted some duct tape. “Oh look,” I said, swooping over and picking up the roll holding it up for Gavin to see. “Party favors.”
“Nice. Can’t let it go to waste can we?”
“Hell no, that would be a crying shame.”
I dove behind the couch picking the man up with one hand and plunking him down on what would soon be his final resting place. Gavin found a candle and lit it, sitting it down on the coffee table in front of us. “I thought he might like to see what’s coming.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said. “I wonder if he ever let any of those girls see what was coming. Or did you just blindfold them so you wouldn’t have to look into their eyes?”
I removed the dishtowel from his mouth, tossing it across the room. “Don’t scream,” I said, “or this will hurt a lot more.”
He winced as Gavin took the roll of duct tape, binding his ankles together. “Vampires?” he whimpered, seeing us both with our fangs hanging out, practically drooling over him. “My grandmother told me of you, but I never believed. I thought it was just the ramblings of a crazy old woman. Now, I see. Are you going to turn me into one of you?”
“Turn you?” Gavin said laughing again. “You’re not worthy of that.” Gavin reached over, placing his fingers under my chin and tilting my head up to meet his eyes. “You see this one here? Now this is a soul worthy of a turning. When you turn someone you bond with them forever, and she and I, we’re bonded, we’re one. I am hers and she is mine, for eternity.”
We looked at each other for a long moment, our darkened eyes connecting, our minds becoming one as the kill was about to happen. “I couldn’t imagine being bonded to the likes of you,” he said turning back to the man. “You don’t deserve to be anything but dead.”
I felt the blood hunger stab me from the inside just then and I reached down, taking a handful of our victim’s dark hair and entangling it in my fingers. “I can’t hold off any longer.”
Tears began to fall down his cheeks and he spoke, tripping over his words. “Oh god, please! I’ll do anything. I’ll…”
He didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence before I struck, piercing his neck and biting out a chunk of flesh. Opening my jaw as wide as possible I latched onto the fatal wound and swallowed as hard and fast as the blood came. It was bliss. The man had been terrified and I drank in his sweetened blood, seasoned by the fear. I sucked and swallowed, tasting and feeding as if it was the first time. I always enjoyed the kill, but this night it was particularly sweet. Perhaps it was the danger of being in a different unknown place but something about it was truly euphoric. The blood filled my stomach, satisfying a deep and primal hunger that I hadn’t even known I’d possessed until I’d began to ingest the crimson liquid.
I had no thoughts for Ryan or the professor or Aries, or Gavin until I’d finished. When I was done I realized I hadn’t even offered Gavin a tiny bit, and now it was all gone. I turned to him to apologize realizing what I’d done. I’d been so hungry I had totally forgotten him.
Before I had a chance to speak he pounced over the body and grabbed me with one smooth turn, getting me on my back. We were splayed over the corpse but it didn’t seem to matter. “I…fucking…love you,” he growled, tearing at my clothes. “And I’m gonna fuck you, right here, right now.”
I growled back and soon we were in the throes of heated lovemaking. It was so intense that the windows in the small space steamed up and our dead friend quickly began to reek as if his body had been decomposing in the place for weeks. Gavin bit my neck and sucked deep and hard, then suddenly stopped, licking the wound closed. I thought it strange but didn’t say anything, continuing to enjoy everything else he was doing.
Soon thereafter we both climaxed, long and hard, and then lay on the couch in each other’s arms. Gavin kicked the body away and it landed with a heavy thud on the floor. He put his feet up and we stayed in silence, breathing in the air that was saturated with heat and sweat and death.
“Sorry I didn’t save you any. I don’t know what came over me. I got so hungry all of a sudden. You can feed from me now if you want.”
“No honey, I’m good…great actually. I can hold off on eating until we get back tomorrow.”
“You sure?”
“Oh yeah. And by the way…first,” he said smiling wide, and stroking my hair.
“What?”
“I was first,” he said.
“Um…I think we both finished up at the same time just now. What do you mean you were first?”
“I was first to know,” he said nuzzling my ear.
“First to know what?”
Reaching down he patted my stomach, rubbing it lovingly in a circle. “You’re pregnant, Mama.”
I reached down placing my hand over his as we both cupped my belly protectively. “You’re sure?” I could already feel the tears stinging my eyes.
“I’m positive. When you’re pregnant your blood tastes a certain way. Rachel, I’m so happy,” he said, placing his cheek against mine.
I was happy too, beyond happy in fact. I was ecstatic. “Me too,” I said. At the same time there was another emotion lurking just beneath the surface, nagging at the joy. Gavin must have either sensed it or caught a speck of my thoughts.
He held me tightly. “Don’t be scared,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”
He meant it. “I know,” I said. But it wasn’t Gavin I was worried about. It was me.
Chapter seven
Ryan bounded up to us after not having seen us for a week, knocking my purse to the floor with excitement. He hugged me so tight that had I been human I was sure he’d have injured me. He was small but incredibly strong. After he was done with me he moved on to his dad, who scooped him up, tossing him in the air slightly as he lifted him for a hug.
Alexander and Leiv came out of the living room to greet us as well. Gavin’s parents had watched Ryan for half the time and Alexander had come down for the remaining days.
“Everything go ok?” Leiv pushed his longish brown hair out of his eyes as he came up to me for a hug. I liked Leiv. He was sweet and kind and I knew he truly loved Alex. I couldn’t help but reading his thoughts just to make sure. Alexander was like a child to us in a way because he had been with us when he was new and so vulnerable. We had given him all the guidance we could and he knew that our home was his home, and he was welcome to come back to it anytime he liked.
“He was an angel,” said Leiv. “He’s so quiet. He spent most of the last few days drawing with Alex, and I’ve been writing a lot. It’s been so peaceful.”
Ryan was a loud little boy unless he was drawing with Uncle Alex so I wasn’t surprised to hear this.
Alexander hugged me too and I took an extra-long moment with him. He seemed a little worried however. What’s wrong? I asked him telepathically.
The Vampires of Soldiers Cove: Progeny Page 5