She had the urge to tell Bev not to do it, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Bev had made her decision just like she had made hers, and she wouldn’t try to stop her. They’d talked about it before, so Bev understood that she could die. There wasn’t any new information she could give her. She went into the bedroom to grab the needle from the drawer it was in.
“Are you sure she should do this?” Richard asked from behind her, causing her to jump.
“Not at all, but she’s sure about it and that’s all that matters.”
“How does Leso feel about it?” he asked.
“Happily terrified.”
“Maybe you should tell her to wait, to think about it for a few days.”
“I can’t do that. She’s right. Being here as a human is dangerous. Look what happened to her tonight by going on a simple shopping trip. There could be a flock of crazy vampyres descending on us at any time, and what would we do with her then? Hide her? She wouldn’t leave Leso. She’ll be safer if she’s like us.”
“She should let Leso bit her then. It would be safer than this.”
“She doesn’t want to be a vampyre, Richard.”
“This is just crazy.”
“I know, but it’s what she wants. Come on. They’re waiting.”
He took her hand and walked with her downstairs.
***
Everyone was in the living room, and she had drawn the syringe full of Potter’s blood. She was going to use half on Bev and save the rest just in case Oberon’s wife needed it.
She asked Bev, “Are you really sure about this? Once I inject this blood into you, there’s no going back, you know?”
“I know and yes, I’m sure. Just do it.”
“Give it to me,” Potter said, holding his hand out for the syringe. “It’s my blood, I’ll do it.”
She knew he didn’t want her to feel guilty if something went wrong and Bev died. In truth, she was grateful. She handed him the syringe of blood.
He stuck the needle into Bev’s arm. “Hold on tight, love. It could be a bumpy ride,” he said and pushed the plunger, sending his blood coursing through Bev’s veins.
Bev was out almost immediately.
“How long will this take?” Leso asked.
He was sitting on the floor next to the couch Bev was laying on, holding her hand.
“With me it was about an hour. With Richard it was a lot longer. It may be different for everyone,” Beck explained.
“It is. When we drank the drink our creator gave us, we all blacked out. Some of the hunters were unconscious for over eight hours before they woke up,” Potter said.
Bev started to pant lightly. “Is that normal?” Leso asked.
Potter nodded. “Beck did it.”
“Richard was different. He didn’t do it, but I’m sure that was just because he wasn’t human.”
She could feel how intently Oberon was watching. She didn’t blame him. His wife might have to go through this process as well.
Bev went into a coughing fit.
“That didn’t happen to you,” Potter said once the coughing had stopped.
A few minutes later, just as they had started to relax a little, Bev’s back arched and she screamed.
“What’s wrong with her?!” Leso asked, terrified.
Potter yelled over Bev’s screams, “I don’t know. Beck didn’t do that either!”
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 shock, 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,” Ober
on 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.”
The Undead Heart (#1 in the Blood Thirst Series) Page 41