by J. R. Rain
A van whose back doors swung open...
Chapter Thirteen
We were in my minivan.
“Are you sure you don’t want to rent a motel room or something?” asked Allison.
“Are you propositioning me?” I asked. But as she opened her mouth to protest, I said, “I just need somewhere to lie down, okay? Relax. The front seat is as good a place as any.”
The windows were cracked and we were parked in the considerable shade behind Alicia’s, itself anchoring one corner of a sprawling business complex. The opposite of a cute shopping center, it was an industrial business park, with rows of single-story, cement tilt-ups that sported long rows of gritty buildings. Not a place where one would expect to find North Orange County’s cutest cafe.
We found ourselves wedged between a Dumpster and a roof-access ladder, as a small wind made its way through the van. I considered letting the car idle to run the A/C, until I considered the price of gas.
“I’m fine, Sam,” said Allison, blotting her forehead with the back of her hand. “Let’s just get this going.”
“Something wrong?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I’m just, I dunno, getting a weird feeling.”
My own inner alarm was blissfully quiet. “Are we in danger?”
Allison shook her head. “I don’t think it’s us.”
Allison’s hits came and went, with varying degrees of accuracy and details. This was looking like a vague hit, and we would worry about it later. I had work to do. Or sleep to do. Or whatever the hell it is I do.
I said as much, and she replied with, “And you’re sure this is the person you want to speak with? I mean, you have a whole phonebook of weirdos—myself included—and this is who you want to talk to?”
“It feels right,” I said. “What can I say?”
She shrugged. “Your van is kind of cozy. I never realized how comfortable your seats are—”
“No sleeping for you,” I said.
“I know, I know. I’m just getting comfort—”
“No getting comfortable for you, either. You are to wake me...”
Except, I didn’t know how long I needed to be asleep. I sensed not very long, but I tried to calculate how much time Elizabeth would need. I nodded to myself, shrugged, and said, “You are to wake me in a half hour.”
“And I’m just supposed to, what, sit here and do nothing for a half hour?”
“Yes,” I said. “Or you can practice your spells or something. Just don’t blow up the minivan. Only one of us is immortal, and it’s not you.”
“Very funny, Sam.” She pulled up her feet and sat cross-legged in the passenger seat. She pulled out her cell phone and brought up the timer. “You need, say, a five-minute buffer to fall asleep?”
I shook my head. Already, I was feeling the heaviness come over me.
Until the sun went down, I always wanted to sleep. Falling asleep here, in the minivan, wouldn’t be a problem.
Now, as I nestled deeper into the driver’s seat, I sought out Elizabeth, who I knew was always there, waiting.
***
I didn’t know if she would help, but I suspected she would. I suspected she wanted to be a part of my life, wanted to be needed, rather than relegated to the deepest reaches of my mind.
I had given her clear instructions, rather than a request. I didn’t want to owe her anything. We weren’t bargaining, not now or ever. She could help me or not. If she chose not to, then I would be less inclined to allow her to see the light of day. Simple as that.
Unfortunately for her, I feared what she would do if given too much leeway. I suspected it wouldn’t take much at all for her to overwhelm my defenses, and take me over completely.
I felt myself slipping into the darkness, and, consequently, felt her rising to the surface. I’d learned not too long ago that when I’m comatose—as in sleeping—she is set free. But not in our world, no. Into another dimension. Perhaps even an alternate world.
Disembodied, she was free to roam... and to meet others of her kind, other highly evolved dark masters. It was because of this that I was no longer given access to Allison’s mind. After all, Allison and her fellow witches were waging a secret war against such highly evolved dark masters. It was in everyone’s best interest that I knew as little as possible about Allison’s plans. Because if I knew, Elizabeth knew.
Going to sleep was easy. Heck, I needed only to allow myself to sleep, to give myself permission to slip away. Since I’d gotten my ring that allowed me to walk in daylight, these days, I almost never gave myself permission to sleep during the day. But now, with the windows cracked and a small breeze working its way through the van’s interior, I felt myself slipping away.
Slipping far, far away...
Crazy... ass... shit, I thought, and felt the sleep finally overwhelm me, just as Elizabeth threw open the floodgates, so to speak, and rushed up and out...
Chapter Fourteen
There were five of them, all wearing bandanas, each looking bigger than the next. One was carrying a crossbow.
A crossbow!
The pinging in his ear was loud enough to drive him crazy. Anthony nearly ran, but he didn’t. He was only thirteen—and wasn’t sure what to do, despite his instincts that told him to run.
But he froze, and as the men surrounded him, another set of instincts kicked in.
Instincts that told him to fight.
And fight like hell.
***
As always, I have a very brief glimpse of light.
It is in the far distance, and it wavers and sparkles and seems to emanate love and happiness. But the space between me and it is too vast. It might as well be a million miles away. Trillions of light years away, like a distant, unreachable star. One thing is certain: the light is not meant for me. Not now, not ever.
The light fades, as it always does, and soon, I find myself in complete and total darkness.
Emptiness.
No light, no sound, no people, no sense of up and down. No thought. No personality. No sense of self...
And here I wait silently...
Drifting and existing...
***
They surrounded him before Anthony had had time to understand what was happening, and certainly before he’d had time to run.
Somewhere, not very far away, he heard a girl scream. Then, another girl. And further away, deeper in the near-empty school, he heard a man shout, too. He recognized the man. It was the school principal. And now, Anthony heard running, too. Clumsy running. The principal was a big man.
The teacher on duty, the strict English teacher that Anthony had never really liked, rushed up to the first of the hooded men—Anthony would forever be grateful for her bravery. She’d barely gotten a word out when one of them swiped at her, raking a huge hand over her wrinkly face, sending the elderly, brave woman spinning backward. She landed in a heap on the hot cement.
Anthony started to run to her aid, but another masked man stepped before him, cutting him off. For the first time in a long, long time, Anthony felt fear. Then again, he reasoned, five masked men and a crossbow could do that to you. Especially five giant men.
Anthony wasn’t very good at seeing auras, not the way his mom described them. But Anthony could see the faintest hints of them around most people. No, not around Mommy or Kingsley, but most people sported some sort of unearthly light around their bodies.
But not these five guys. Nope. They were aura-less, which meant they were like Mommy or Kingsley. They were immortal—
Wait. The fifth guy, huddled just inside the van’s open back door, had an aura. He was also much smaller than the others. He was, Anthony was certain, human. Or mortal. Or whatever. He wasn’t sure what the difference was.
Either way, the man sported a greenish aura—a color Anthony rarely saw these days. His math teacher sported a similar aura. His math teacher was also about the same size...
The five men cautiously circled Anthony. Very, very cautiously.
They know about me, he thought. They know what I am. But how? Who are they?
His mom had told him that his own aura was special, that it boasted a silver serpent that others could see. Had Anthony been fully like his mom—a true vampire—they wouldn’t see it. But Anthony wasn’t fully like his mom. He was sort of an in-between. He had the best of both worlds, she always told him. Unfortunately, that meant his own aura wasn’t masked. That he was, as she had put it to him once, a beacon to those who might want to do him harm.
But who were these men? How had they found him?
But before he could try to puzzle it out, something flashed and Anthony instinctively spun. An arrow from the crossbow skidded off the cement behind him, clanging loudly against the chain-link fence behind him.
And now, Anthony was moving, sprinting forward, running low to the ground, going first for the man with the crossbow—just as the man reached back and pulled free another arrow...
***
I am dead, and I am alive...
Vast and contained...
Everywhere and nowhere...
Full and empty...
I am the space between stars...
I am the stars...
***
Anthony didn’t know much about crossbows, other than what he’d seen in video games and TV shows. But he knew how bows and arrows worked and there was no way he was going to give the guy time to nock another arrow.
The shooter seemed aware that his time had run out, and swung the weapon around on a back sling. Instead, he brandished the crossbow arrow like a knife. A silver-tipped knife. He knew his mother had a big problem with silver, although Anthony had never seemed bothered by the metal. But these others—these massive, hooded men—seemed to think otherwise. Either way, Anthony wasn’t taking any chances. Besides, a crossbow arrow would hurt like hell, no matter what.
The silver-tipped arrow came up.
Anthony knew that the best defense against knife-fighting—or, in this case, silver-tipped arrow fighting—was speed, and he had a lot of speed in him. Thanks to a trainer Jacky had brought in not too long ago—a trainer his mother didn’t know about—Anthony had been taught hand-to-hand fighting. The man, Anthony would later learn, had trained Navy SEALs. Anthony also worked out with the gym’s kickboxing instructor, a man with a third-degree black belt in tae kwon do. A man whose skills Anthony had quickly surpassed.
Behind the hood, the attacker’s eyes widened with anticipation—eyes that had an oddly yellow hue around the iris. Eyes that looked very much like Kingsley’s eyes. This man, though massive, was still clearly smaller than his mother’s boyfriend, by many inches, in fact.
“Speed and displacement.” He heard the trainer’s voice again in his head. Anthony had not needed years of training. He often needed weeks, sometimes days or even hours. Hand-to-hand knife fighting had come naturally to him. Easily, in fact.
The arrow flashed. The man lunged, and Anthony slipped to the side. Now, the silver tip came up from the man’s hip, in a motion that would have plunged it deep into Anthony’s stomach.
Speed and displacement...
Anthony’s arm swung down, forearm meeting forearm. The pain of bone hitting bone was ignored. The man was much bigger, and probably stronger, and Anthony had never fought for his life, but his training was true, and his instincts were truer still.
He knew that merely blocking the pointed weapon wouldn’t be enough. He knew the attacker would also fight like a cornered wildcat.
Or a cornered hellhound...
A wolf, perhaps.
Almost immediately, the blocked arm swung up—and now, Anthony was really moving.
Speed and displacement...
The speed part was easy. Most people, with correct training, could block the initial knife thrust. It was the second and third thrust that usually did them in.
With displacement, one’s body was no longer in one’s attacker’s line of sight. And now, Anthony was moving to the side, catching hold of the attacker’s upthrust forearm, a thrust that would have driven the blade deep into Anthony’s neck.
But Anthony was already pulling the man’s arm behind him and away. A quick jerk freed the arrow from the man’s grasp, and from the man who cried out. What Anthony did next was the only thing he could think of, the only thing he had been trained to do. He lowered his bent elbow straight down to the back of the man’s arm, breaking his attacker’s own elbow instantly in a thunderous explosion of shattering bone.
The man screamed and crumpled to a knee, and Anthony gave him a roundhouse, open-hand palm blow that should knock the guy out cold and possibly rupture the eardrum.
Whether it did or not, Anthony didn’t know. Once the man went down, hands grabbed his shoulders, and Anthony, in turn, grabbed the hand and twisted as hard as he could. Fingers and wrists snapped. And now, Anthony was on his feet, turning and facing his attackers. Three were left, he knew, including his math teacher.
His math teacher!
A man who seemed to show an interest in Anthony. A man who, after class, often asked Anthony a lot of questions. Too many questions. Questions about his mom. Questions about his sister. Questions about where he lived.
I’m an idiot, Anthony thought. An idiot.
Another hooded giant swung a backhand at Anthony, a blow that would have surely laid out any man, let alone a thirteen-year-old boy. Anthony raised his forearm, blocking the blow—and was not prepared for the sheer force of it or the weight behind it. Anthony’s tumble quickly turned into a controlled roll, and soon he was on his feet again, driving a fist as hard as he could into the side of the lunging man’s head. It was a blow that would have TKO’d anyone in the sparring ring, but the huge man only staggered and shook his head.
Anthony was certain he’d broken his right hand on the man’s thick skull... if the stabbing pain in his knuckles was any indication. Yes, he healed fast, but not that fast. For now, his right hand was useless to him.
Holding it against his side, he sidestepped another lunging masked figure, knocking the swinging hand away with his one good hand. Anthony swung a wild reverse kick that mostly landed. Okay, landed a lot. He looked back and saw the man skidding on the pavement... on his face.
Another came at him, flashing something in his hand. Another silver arrow. Anthony ducked under the first swipe, and blocked the nearly instantaneous second swipe. Anthony dropped and swept his leg around, taking the man’s feet out from under him.
He had just stood and was about to turn and face his remaining attackers when an explosion of light appeared in his head, and he found himself spinning and stumbling. The biggest of the men, who appeared to have been waiting for the perfect opening, had blindsided him with two heaving fists. Anthony saw him coming again out of the corner of his eye, an eye that was awash in blood. Anthony, holding his damaged face, kicked out as hard as he could, and caught the advancing man in the gut, who stumbled back. Anthony couldn’t clear his head. Never had he been hit so hard before. More blood spilled, he felt dizzy and sick. Just as he turned to face a man coming from his right side, someone from behind him plunged something deep into his shoulder.
Chapter Fifteen
I heard, as if from a very, very far distance away, the words, “C’mon, Sam. Wake up.”
Variations of said words continued to reach me from out of the darkness. Now, the words were followed by shaking—and the emptiness I knew coalesced into a focused consciousness, and soon, that same consciousness focused again within my 5’3” body that was presently lying back in the minivan’s front seat.
“There you are! Geez, took long enough!”
It took me a full thirty seconds to remember where I was, and why I was waking up next to Allison in my van. She tried to help, no doubt seeing the confusion on my face, but her words, spoken too fast for my sluggish brain, did little to help.
And then, it all came rushing back to me. I was here for a purpose, and that purpose was to get an audience with none other
than Dracula himself.
“Shush,” I said to Allison, reaching a finger out and pushing it against her flapping lips. “Please. Give me a minute.”
“Fine way to treat your friend who just sat—”
“Allison...”
“Okay, fine.”
She harrumphed and sat next to me, folding her arms under her chest. Her seatbelt was still on, I noted. Her phone was in her lap. I was willing to bet she had spent the entire time texting her friends and clients.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes and willed my brain and body back into service. Although I was out for only thirty minutes, it might as well have been an eternity.
I had died, I thought again, perhaps for the thousandth time in my life. I had died and there was nothing out there for me. Nothing at all.
As Allison took my hand to comfort me, I sought out Elizabeth. She had been given an assignment from me, and hopefully, from her own sojourn, would yield the help I needed. She had been eager to help. No surprise there.
Now, as I waited in the minivan with Allison, a mental image took shape in my mind. An image of a structure I knew all too well. A castle, in fact.
I turned to Allison just as she was turning to me—no doubt, she had seen the same structure in my thoughts. “I gotta go,” I said.
“Wait! What about me? The van?”
“Stay here,” I said.
“And wait again?”
I smiled at her. “Thank you for everything, sweetie. I appreciate it more than you know.”
She smiled, too, but she didn’t like being left behind.
I summoned the single flame, and saw within it a courtyard I was familiar with. A big, open courtyard that I knew would be safe to leap to.
Now, I was moving toward the flame...
And then, I was gone.
Chapter Sixteen