Vampire Fire

by J. R. Rain

  Anthony didn’t know that. Granted, he didn’t know much about any of this—including what, exactly, he was. Sometimes, his sister told him things—things she’d gleaned from their mother’s mind, or Kingsley’s mind. Sometimes, his mom told him things, too. And there was even the occasional time he overheard things, like when Mommy and Kingsley were talking late into the night. But he hadn’t known his blood was so special.

  “I have been ever watchful for the mark. Sadly, not as common as one would think. But then, lo, our school was fortunate enough to have two in one year! Tammy Moon and Angie Sanderson. Ooh, who would I choose? Turned out, Angie was in my class and walked home alone each day and seemed an easier target. But your mother had a nasty habit of picking up Tammy each day. But I saw you, often waiting in the van, and I saw your mom, too. And her own lack of an aura. Such a weird, glorious family. And I knew you would be coming up in a few years from the elementary school. I could wait, I could wait. Besides, yes, I needed the dust to settle after Angie. And I picked her. Oh, yes. I picked her, and I watched my adopted brothers consume her completely and totally.

  “And then you came up through the system, but you were... so different. Not like the other boys at all. Stronger, faster, scarier. The werewolves were not pleased. This was not what they’d signed up for. You were an unknown, but they were also hungry for more blood. So... damn... hungry. And so, we staged a coup of sorts. The plan today was to have taken your mother as well.”

  Anthony didn’t know what a “coo” was, but he kept listening.

  “After all, they had a bone to pick with her. There was a rumor among them that she was responsible for the deaths of some in their pack, those who were killed in the mountains of Arrowhead a few years ago. The werewolves were confident they could overcome your mother, although her own unusual gifts concerned them. How could she exist easily in the daylight? Surely she was a vampire. But she was an unknown, too. Either way, their hunger had reached a tipping point. They were willing to be reckless. Maybe I was, too. This was all so exciting... and bloody.

  “But then there you were, alone and waiting—and now, here we are, in my warehouse of horror, you could say. You see, when I’m not feeding my boys the marked children, I am feeding them other things. They prefer the living, and so, this warehouse has seen its fair share of lambs and goats and cows. I am a regular customer, you could say, of the local farms. After all, I pay top dollar for their doomed creatures.”

  Anthony was getting tired of hearing his creepy teacher, and wished he had his BB gun. Anthony was always a good shot. He was certain he could nail his teacher through the bars of the cage.

  “I paid top dollar to construct this hovering command center, if you will. From here, I can control the lights. More importantly, I can control the door to the staging room—”

  Anthony had known it was called the staging room. He nearly pumped his fist in the darkness.

  But Matthews was already blabbing on. “Because no one—but no one—wants to be down there when the werewolves are unleashed. It’s terrible to see, even from up here. The power, the speed, the anger. It’s all very supernatural and not of this world. Were they better climbers, I would surely have fallen victim by now. But the dumb brutes never think to look up. And so, I watch them from above, orchestrating their release, the lights, and their food.

  “Which is why I pity you, little boy. I will pity you, even while I’ll watch them devour you, tearing you limb from limb, piece by piece, blood and bones and hair and nails.”

  Anthony had had enough. From a nearby shelf, he spotted a rusted screw. He snatched it, took aim, and launched it as hard as he could from between the dusty rows, up and out, a laser shot if ever he had seen one. He didn’t hit his math teacher, but the explosion of metal against metal shocked the little man into silence.

  And, really, that was all Anthony could ask for. Well, maybe a little more. A small window to shimmy through would work.

  When the little teacher had recovered, Anthony watched him check his watch, then nod—and then push a lever. Anthony was pretty certain his math teacher was an evil genius. Either that, or the man had seen too many Marvel movies.

  A sharp clack of metal against metal echoed through the massive warehouse. Anthony was certain it sounded exactly like a deadbolt sliding open.

  Anthony swallowed and watched as his third-period math teacher next pulled on what looked like night-vision goggles. Any kid who had ever played Halo would recognize the goggles.

  With that, Matthews flipped another switch—and the lights went out, including the dusty bulb above the torture chair. Or would it be considered the feeding chair? Anthony didn’t know, but either way, he shuddered. The row of offices in the far distance now seemed impossible to find in complete darkness.

  “The beasties don’t like the light, as you can imagine,” said Mr. Matthews from way up high, his voice coming out of the darkness. “Besides, they don’t need it.”

  Anthony was certain he heard the sound of claws against the concrete floor. This time, the sound wasn’t coming from behind a closed door. This time, the sounds were out in the open, and they were coming at him.

  Fast.

  Chapter Thirty

  There were six of us in my minivan. Three Lichtenstein monsters, myself, Allison, and Tammy. Allison was wedged in the back, between the monsters, one of whom was sitting in the foldout seat in the very, very back. I could have been a mad mom in a minivan, bringing her van full of freaks to a Little League practice. Behind us, Sherbet followed, although he kept his siren and flasher silent at my request.

  As I tore down the road, I gave Tammy a mental snapshot of what I had in mind, and she nodded at me from the front seat.

  “I can do it, Mommy,” she said. “I’ve done it before. Or something like it.”

  Admittedly, I was struck that she had called me “Mommy.” A first for her in many years.

  “Good,” I said. “Good.”

  And we drove down, the sun inched closer and closer to the horizon, all while I nearly crawled out of my skin.

  “You okay, Sam?” asked Allison from the back seat.

  “No,” I said. “No, I’m not.”

  ***

  The arrows, Anthony!

  Anthony heard the words clearly, and it spurred him into action, even before he had really thought about what to do. He was now absolutely certain he’d been hearing his dad’s voice these past few months—and now, this time, the voice was as loud as ever.

  Anthony dashed forward through the dark, relieved that he had seen his surroundings in light, even if briefly. Now, relying on memory, he rushed toward where he knew the torture chair sat bolted to the floor—

  He cleared the row of shelving and sensed he was in open space. The chair would be before him, even while his crazy math teacher hung above him, no doubt watching his every move through the night-vision goggles.

  Mom is sooooo going to kick his ass, thought Anthony, as he nearly ran headlong into the chair. Luckily, a zigzagging flare of white light had raced across his vision, briefly illuminating the chair. Anthony saw these zigzagging flares of light sometimes. Now, he wished he could see them more often, because they really did light up the area around them. But this flare came and went quickly.

  In darkness, he dropped to his knees, and felt with his hands until he had discovered three of the four arrows that the devil had pulled out of him. Now he had weapons. And then, he was running again, scrabbling, slipping and falling in his haste, catching himself with his hands. He’d felt the rumbling from the cement, rumbling of many running feet—and heard the clacking of claws.

  Now, as he peered from behind a row of nearby shelves, he saw the glowing amber eyes from across the empty space. No doubt, the creatures were only now realizing their prey had escaped. Anthony doubted the creepy Matthews would say anything. Matthews had made it clear that he preferred to remain anonymously high above, safe from the creatures. Watching like the world’s biggest creep.
<
br />   Anthony knew, from his limited conversations with Kingsley, that werewolves were sort of mindless once transformed. Like true animals. Or true monsters. There was no reasoning with them, or running from them, or fighting them. Or in this case, hiding from them.

  Which is why Anthony had quit breathing altogether. And quit moving, too. He was even certain his heartbeat had stopped, too, if that was possible. But maybe that was just his imagination.

  Anthony watched the amber eyes fill the open space where he had sat shackled, waiting to be feasted upon. As they gathered, Anthony sensed something else, too. A darkness, an evil. It hit him in waves and seemed to fill the massive warehouse.

  A flash of zigzagging light. Nothing he hadn’t seen before, but it moved through the room and between the creatures. Okay, now those he hadn’t seen before. Ever. Try as he might to imagine Kingsley a howling werewolf each full moon, nothing came close to seeing the real deal in person. In this case, many real deals.

  Anthony was ill-prepared for just how massive the creatures were, how hulking and damn scary they looked. For the first time all night, Anthony knew real fear. Terrible, gut-clenching, blood-freezing fear that made him want to hide behind the crate and curl into a tight ball and pray and cry and wish like crazy that his mommy was here.

  He did none of that, except to stay where he was, holding his breath, sweating, and fighting now an urge to run somewhere, anywhere. And maybe—just maybe—fighting an urge to pee his pants.

  No dammit. Just no. Please no...

  Except there was nowhere to run. No, that wasn’t true. The beasties had come out from the holding room. There was a door there. A door controlled by that mad freak Matthews, who probably locked it tight again.

  Still, doors could be broken into, couldn’t they? Ripped down. Except that the werewolves hadn’t ripped it down, which meant it had been some strong door. Maybe too strong even for him.

  Another flash of shooting light appeared, and Anthony got another good look at a half-dozen hairy faces—big, wide, hairy faces that looked how he imagined a Bigfoot would look. Except these guys... yes, these guys had snouts? Or were they called muzzles? Anthony wasn’t sure. Unlike his mental image of Bigfoot, these guys had a touch of wolf to their appearance.

  And the sheer size of them... holy moly!

  He was certain they were quite a bit taller than Kingsley—at least when Kingsley was in his human form. They were also wider than Kingsley—which was saying something!—and heavily packed with muscle. And so hairy. The blip of light was gone, and the room was plunged once again in total darkness. No, not total. He could still see their yellow eyes.

  And now, Anthony heard the one thing he didn’t want to hear. Well, that and his own screams of pain. One of them was sniffing the air. And now, the others were following suit. A cacophony of sniffing. How he knew that word, he didn’t know, but he could almost imagine their wide nostrils flaring and inhaling his scent. Then he heard something else.

  Growling. Low, deep, guttural—and it seemed to come from the biggest sets of lungs he’d ever imagined. A tiger’s growl, maybe. Even worse, this wasn’t a full-throated growl. It was the growl before the real growl. The build-up growl.

  These weren’t beasties. These were monsters, and one of them, Anthony was sure, had caught his scent.

  An eardrum-shattering, head-splitting howl erupted from seemingly everywhere at once, assaulting Anthony like a physical wave of hate, anger and aggression.

  Anthony turned and fled.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  It had been hit or miss there for a few minutes, as I fought the last few rays of light—and as my body transitioned from being weird to super weird.

  There were some white-knuckled moments as I gasped and beat the steering wheel and shook my hands and nearly pulled my hair out. What the Lichtenstein monsters thought of me, I didn’t know, but the moment passed, and I was better and stronger than I’d ever been before. Maybe ever. Maybe this really was the strongest I had ever been.

  I didn’t know if the sun affected the Lichtenstein monsters. I did know that different dark masters had different strengths and weaknesses. In the case of the Lichtenstein monsters, I knew they were generally considered to be a lower form of dark master. Dark novices, perhaps. Perhaps the lower down the scale of mastery, the less they were affected by the sun. That is, if they were presently possessed by such entities.

  I turned into The Row, and when I had gotten myself under control, I turned to my daughter, and said, “You’re on, kiddo.”

  “I know, Mommy. I’ve been searching for him this entire time. Geez, give me some credit.”

  I moved slowly along the mostly quiet street lined with concrete tilt-ups and massive warehouses, all lining both sides of the particularly wide street. Perhaps wide enough for big rigs to make U-turns in. We passed canning businesses, distributors, packing companies. If it got shipped out of Southern California, there was a good likelihood it had originated here, at The Row. Then again, it was going on 6:30 p.m., and many businesses were closed and closing, although the shipping industry never really closed. There was still a smattering of forklift activity, pallets being moved and loaded and unloaded, men and women in brightly-colored vests working in unison. And big rigs. My God, the big rigs. They were parked on streets and in loading docks and moving slowly past us, and parked here, there, and everywhere.

  Certainly too much activity for anyone to see anyone pulling up with a child, although if I had to ask each and every person, I would.

  Except I didn’t have to ask, did I?

  I had my secret weapon with me—my own daughter—who even now was projecting her thoughts out and touching upon any and all her mind came into contact with. And not just touching upon, but probing and listening. At least, that was the plan. Whether or not she could find someone hidden from her, or unseen, I didn’t know—

  “I can, Mom. If they aren’t too far away.”

  I nodded and breathed and fought the urge to give the van more gas. It seemed that Tammy’s own gifts were growing exponentially. And I knew she could scan thoughts and hold a conversation at the same time. Boy, did I know that.

  As we continued moving down the street, I also somehow resisted the urge to turn into Talos and rip the tops off all the roofs in sight. Casting my own thoughts out did little good, as I could generally only see a few dozen feet around me in any direction, which was barely past the curbs. No, I had to rely solely on my daughter, and maybe on Allison. Maybe my friend could pick up a psychic hit... anything.

  And as we rolled down The Row, with Sherbet trailing behind in his unmarked sedan, and as the sun slid further and further behind the distant horizon, I knew the prospects of finding my son alive slid further and further away, too...

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Anthony ran blindly... and straight into a wooden crate.

  The wood cracked and light exploded in his head, and he rebounded, stumbling. When the light dispersed, he saw that one of the arrows had broken in half. He tossed aside the broken arrow, shoved the remaining two in his back pocket, and did the only thing he could think of. He leaped up onto the wooden crate—a crate he seemed to recall was near a bay of massive, industrial-sized shelving.

  From the wooden crate, he leaped blindly out into space, praying like crazy that he landed on one of the shelves... and not on one of the yellow-eyed monsters coming at him much faster than anything that big had any right to move...

  ***

  We were more than halfway down The Row, passing slow-moving big rigs, and a steady stream of small trucks and cars, as most workers were heading home for the day.

  The sun had set minutes ago—more than enough time for the werewolves to have fully transformed by now... and intent on stalking my son.

  Never had I felt so helpless... and so without hope...

  ***

  Anthony’s memory hadn’t been perfect, but he landed on a wide shelf, and hit his shin on the edge in the process. He yelped
and rolled and felt the entire structure shudder beneath his weight.

  He held his leg and felt the blood flowing from the gash. He had hit the edge hard. He felt in his back pocket. The two arrows were still there. Anthony might have whimpered. But at least he was one shelf above the first of the creatures to arrive.

  Too close, Anthony thought. Just too damn close.

  Anthony’s searching hands found a metal support beam, and now he was climbing as fast he could. He ignored the pain in his leg that was already healing—and was doing his best to ignore the fact that the structure shuddered again and again.

  He was certain that two of the werewolves had leaped onto the shelf just below him.

  ***

  “I hear him, Mommy!”

  “Where, Tammy?”

  “I-I don’t know. But he’s close, Mommy. Just keep driving.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “No, Mommy. He’s scared. He’s running. They’re after him!”

  ***

  Anthony found himself high on the upper shelving unit.

  He knew this thanks to another flash of light that revealed a long, wide, mostly empty shelf. A few pallets were scattered here and there over the surface. He was, he suspected, many dozens of feet off the ground. Far enough up that the yellow eyes below were only tiny pinpricks of hate and anger. Or hunger.

  He was on the edge of the wide shelf. Below was the open area with the feeding chair. Above him, but too far away to reach, would be his creepy math teacher in his swinging, slightly creaking, spruced-up shark cage. No doubt, he was watching him even now. Anthony raised a finger and gave him the bird. From above, Anthony heard a muffled chuckling. Yep, he was watching, all right.