Blood City: Book Two Of The Monster Keeper Series

by Jeff Seats

  “Come on Jack, I won’t bite.” The temptress pulled him with

  her as she went through to door.

  Craig’s heart began to beat faster. He didn’t want to believe his partners, but he felt maybe they were on to something.

  “Wait. Go back a bit to the point where she said she wouldn’t

  bite.”

  The video froze. Rewound. Then moved forward. “Come on

  Jack, I won’t bite.”

  “Pause it.” Craig got closer to the monitor leaning over Liz’s

  back. “Look! Her smile—”

  “Holy shit!” Paul spit out.

  Ellie asked, “Are those the tips of fangs?”

  “That’s what they are.” Liz declared.

  The door closed and the image went black.

  “Paul—”

  “I got it.”

  The time stamp in the corner of the screen clicking off seconds

  was the only indicator the recorded image was moving at all, let

  alone at fast forward. Then a flicker of light became discernible. “Continue at normal speed,” Craig ordered.

  A grainy image, barely visible due to the low light, began to

  materialize. As Terry moved closer to the source, they could see

  he had entered a chamber. Crossing through the entrance was

  like dawn breaking for the light-sensitive camera, and the screen

  burst forth in a bright white before it adjusted to the new light level. The room was lit with an assortment of oil lanterns and candles. While the illumination from the burning wicks provided enough light for the camera to read most of the space, there were still enough dark shadows to hide anything or anyone lurking in the gloomy perimeter. The center of the room was obscured by Naomi who stood in front of Terry blocking the view, but she quickly stepped away from her uncle and knelt,

  revealing Vlad sitting on a decaying, upholstered armchair. The presence of that vampire sent chills down the spines of

  everyone watching. They knew what Vlad was capable of and

  had seen the horrible things he had done. Not one of them believed his presence spelled out a happy outcome for the master

  sergeant.

  The position of the body cam attached to Terry’s jacket meant

  all the visual they were looking at was from his chest’s point

  of view. The camera feed was remarkably stable, suggesting

  Vlad had immobilized Terry. The microphone recorded only

  background sound in the chamber—dripping water, whispers,

  a giggle, heavy breathing. No words were spoken until—Vlad’s

  voice was heard.

  “JR . . . Or is it Jack? Or are you going by Master Sergeant

  these days?” Vlad stroked Naomi’s hair. “I didn’t want to ruin

  the surprise of our reunion, so I didn’t comment on your internal dialogue as you were brought to me. But really, ‘Bend Over

  Here It Comes?’ You military types and the need for such vulgarities. It must make you feel more invincible. Ah, yes I see it

  now. Welcome to my home, Agent Terry.”

  Then he lowered his hand from Naomi’s hair to her cheek and

  caressed it lovingly. “My sweet. I think it only appropriate that

  you get the first serving. After all, your uncle is our guest of

  honor.”

  She smiled. Stood. Then moved in extremely close to Terry

  completely covering the lens of the camera. Cut off from the

  ability to view what was happening, except for brief glimpses

  of Vlad grinning madly at the proceedings, they only had the audio portion of the event to listen to, which was, by itself, a disturbing experience. The seductive words and animalistic noises flowing out of Naomi’s mouth might sound pornographic to anyone who didn’t understand this wasn’t foreplay of a sexual nature, but something more closely associated to a cat toying

  with a mouse before the kill.

  Watching one more person he knew about to die was too

  much for Craig. His breathing became shallow, and he felt

  lightheaded and nauseous. When he stepped back from the

  monitor, Liz understood. “Pause the video please, Paul.” “Everything okay?” Paul asked.

  “Just stop the damned video!” Liz turned around to check

  on Craig. He was taking a swig out of a bottle of water. “You

  good?”

  “Yeah . . . uh, yeah . . . let’s finish this.” And they both turned

  their attention back to the computer screen.

  “Sorry, Paul,” Liz said apologetically. “Please continue.” The video resumed, mostly audio as before, but now it was

  clear “play time” was over for Naomi. If there was an advantage

  to not having the visual of Terry being killed, it was lost due to

  the sickening sounds of her feeding on him, leaving nothing to

  the imagination. And after what each of the viewers had personally witnessed, from the newest recruit to oldest hand, all their

  imaginations were more than sufficient at being able to paint the

  gruesome picture of the Master Sergeant’s death.

  Then Vlad’s self-satisfied voice was heard. “Enough. We

  must save some for the others.”

  With that, Naomi stopped feeding and stepped away from

  her uncle allowing the agents to again see what the camera was

  recording. In horrified silence they watched her move towards

  Vlad. As the view opened up, the vampire was conspicuously

  seated on his throne. The image moved back and forth as though

  the camera was swaying in an unnatural breeze, suggesting that

  Terry was still on his feet, though how after what Naomi had

  done to him was a mystery.

  Naomi sashayed up to Vlad’s side and stopped. She turned

  back to the camera with the look of sated satisfaction, mouth red

  with the blood of her family. She bent down as if to give Vlad a

  kiss, but he flicked his finger up and took a swipe of the blood off

  her lips, licked it, and nodded towards Terry with appreciation.

  Then out of the grainy gloom behind Vlad, Stephanie emerged

  and sidled up to his opposite side and draped herself across his

  shoulders.

  Ellie let out a slight gasp at the site of Steph, the only one from

  the bus to have been turned—aside from the little girl Cindra.

  Vlad dramatically held out his right arm. With a flourish he

  whisked his wrist around, pointing his fingers towards Terry as

  though the action was a command. Terry’s puppet body staggered when the strings of mental bondage were cut. The image wobbled as the master sergeant fought to remain on his feet.

  Then his voice croaked out one word directed towards Naomi. “Why?”

  Abruptly Terry was surrounded by a group of vampires who

  had emerged from the dark niches of the chamber, all flashing

  their fangs eagerly wanting their piece.

  Before the video image became obscured again, they saw a

  clear view of Naomi. A hint of regret in her eyes? She licked

  her lips. Then the picture moved violently catching snippets of

  the ceiling, bloody faces, blackness, the ground. The camera attached to Terry’s coat dutifully recorded him being dismantled. That was the most clinical word applicable—dismantled—

  in reality, the hungry vamps were tearing him apart. And the

  agents watched as hands and mouths frantically grabbed their

  piece of the great vampire hunter, like early man’s ritualized

  eating the killed beast to absorb its strength.

  At some point, the button cam seemed to move up then down

  then swing around as the now dead man’s torso was being
<
br />   tossed about. Paul was sure that he saw one vampire holding

  Terry’s head above his mouth draining blood from the brain, but he said nothing. Didn’t need to. It was a repellent sight he

  knew all had seen.

  In a state of shock, Ellie said quietly, “I . . . I think Commander

  Cole needs to see this.”

  DIRECTLY AFTER TERRY choked out the last words of his life, Liz turned her chair away from the computer screen at the rear

  of the mobile command unit and made for the driver’s seat. “Whoa! What do you think you’re doing?” Craig asked, surprised by her action.

  Liz plopped down in the swivel chair and rotated it towards

  the steering wheel.

  “Going to save him.”

  “Terry’s dead.”

  “No, he’s not. He’s just captured.”

  “Just because you turned away from the screen at the moment

  he was attacked, doesn’t mean that he’s alive. There is nothing

  you can do for him.”

  Liz ignored Craig and looked around the dash. She flipped

  down the sun visor, looked in the console compartment. Craig held up a ring of keys. “Looking for these?” “Give ’em!” Liz violently reached for Craig’s’ hand. “I understand,” he responded as he pulled his hand away

  from her fingers.

  “What? What do YOU understand?”

  “Watching a friend die.”

  Liz was stopped by this response and pulled back her arm.

  She sat for a moment, her breath slowing. Then her shoulders

  sagged in submission, and she lowered her head, resting her

  brow on the top of the wheel. Her back moving in spasms was all Craig needed to know that she was crying. He moved to the seat next to her and softly placed a hand on her shoulder. There was really nothing to be done to alleviate her grief. He had to trust that her core emotional strength would bring her around

  and see now was not the time for sorrow, but for action. “Look. We’re going to go for Vlad, but I need you to be clearminded and focused when we do. It’ll be dangerous enough

  without both of us firmly in control of our wits.”

  After several minutes Liz managed to regulate her anguish

  and sat up straight. A few sniffs, a sleeve wipe across her nose,

  and she appeared to be ready. “Sorry,” Liz apologized—fully

  aware that Craig had lost more than one close friend in the line

  of duty, putting them both down as well.

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” he replied with understanding.

  “It isn’t easy. How could it be?”

  Another sniff, “So . . . what do we do next?”

  “We know what part of the city to start our search. Just don’t

  know where Vlad is hiding under it.”

  “If we can pin point where Terry died it would be a good start.

  Paul and Ellie can help us on that,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah! They can track his body cam.” Craig replied not

  sure if they could actually do that.

  “Hopefully Vlad is still in the same place,” she replied, as she

  moved back to the rear of the van and sat in front of the computers. She got herself situated at the keyboard and hit the Skype

  call button. Ellie and Paul appeared on one monitor. “Liz! You okay?” Ellie looked concerned.

  “As okay as can be expected. We need to know if you can

  track Terry’s movements once he entered the basement bar.” Paul scratched his chin. “Depends upon a couple things. I

  mean, as far as I understand how this system works, we won’t

  be able to distinguish between the surface and the basement or

  any possible subfloors. Also, not sure how far below ground

  the signal can be read. Since we were able to watch his feed . .

  ..” There was a moment’s hesitation recognizing that they had just watched the man die, “I’m assuming he was only one floor down since he entered the tunnels through the basement-level bar of the building. But that is only a guess, since most of what we watched was in the dark. Heck, he may have climbed down a ladder, or the floor might have angled downwards. No way of

  knowing how many lev—”

  “Yes, and?” Craig asked impatiently.

  “We won’t be able to map out any passages or rooms, the signal will just tell us he was somewhere inside the footprint of the

  building or near it, say if he were in a tunnel under the street.

  Now, if we had an accurate layout of the interior of the building

  and the tunnels, then we could pinpoint—”

  “Got it,” Ellie interrupted. “Sorry, had to let him ramble so

  I could do the real work.” A satellite image of the building appeared on the van’s second screen. “If you do a minute to minute

  review of his GPS signal, a line can be drawn by connecting the

  red dots you see from the time he entered the building, walked

  through it presumably down into the basement, then under another building, under a street and stops in the middle of a parking lot.”

  “Looks like a Family Circus cartoon where Jeffy wanders all

  around the neighborhood to get home using the least direct

  path,” Craig said aloud absentmindedly.

  Liz looked at him. “What the hell you are talking about?” “Family Circus? Oh, never mind.” Sounding more the man

  in charge he continued. “Now we know where, we’ll take the

  second rental. This van will be too hard to park.”

  They didn’t get away from the hotel until early afternoon—after a quick bite and transferring a few toys they would need from

  the armory into the trunk of the Corolla. There wasn’t much in

  the way of a plan. Craig knew this hunt would differ from any

  he had been on. Seeking a vampire nest in the heart of a city

  had the potential of going wrong in so many ways. They knew

  they wanted to make their insertion during the daylight hours

  —at least the sun would keep the vampires from escaping above ground and mixing with the public—they hoped. But they were flying by the seats of their pants on this and did not fully under

  stand how this would turn out and how messy it could be. The drive into town wasn’t as bad as expected. The stretch of

  the interstate between the airport and the city was known to get

  very congested, but it was still early, with the only real problem

  coming where it forked giving the option of going either north

  or south on Interstate 5. Neither of them had actually driven

  into Portland, and this is where things got a bit dicey. Craig

  said his map app recommended taking the south fork and exit

  over a bridge into downtown, take an easy right turn and, bam,

  there was their location—while the GPS in the car told Liz the

  north fork, exiting near the Convention Center, and going past

  the arena was the correct route, which she took. She was the

  driver, after all.

  Immediately after exiting the freeway they found themselves

  caught in a messed-up maze of traffic lights and intersections

  where light rail tracks, buses, and trolleys all intersected with

  autos, pedestrians, and bicyclists going in a multitude of different directions. As luck would have it, all the mass transit options had arrived just as they entered the area, vomiting forth

  their passengers.

  “I wonder what route Terry used to come into town? I bet it

  was my way,” Craig prodded.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Liz replied as she drummed her fingers on

  the steering wheel watching the traffic light cycle to red again. “Bet we could find out.” He brought his phone up pr
etending

  to dial Paul at HQ.

  Liz shot Craig a stabbing stare that actually scared him, so he

  put the phone back in his pocket.

  After a break in the congestion, they were able to proceed over

  the river and turned left into Old Town. From there the GPS

  guided them straight to the Shanghai Tunnel Bar. Luckily it was

  past lunch, and the parking in the area had freed up; allowing

  them to find a spot only a block away.

  Liz parked, they got out of the car and went to the trunk to

  gear up. There were plenty of people still on the sidewalks, and

  the looks the agents got varied between curiosity to concern as

  they first donned tactical vests, then silver chainmail neck collars and wrist guards. A rough hacking cough came from behind. They turned, and Craig partially lifted his .357 out of the

  trunk at the ready, but what they saw was an old toothless dude

  sitting on a folding stool next to an overloaded shopping cart.

  He coughed again.

  “Must be one hell of a party you two are going to. That stuff

  silver you putting on?”

  Not responding to the comment, they returned to the task at

  hand. Craig strapped on his belt with holster and spare rounds.

  Liz did the same with her 9mm and a silver alloy tactical knife.” “Had me a couple o’ them in Nam.” The wino hacked out.

  “Knife wasn’t as pretty, and the gun was a .45.”

  Craig lifted an HK MP5 out of the trunk and swung it around

  towards the voice as he put the sling around his shoulder in an

  intimidating fashion just to scare the guy and maybe get him to

  shut up.

  “Whoa. Calm down!” Hack. “Just tryin’ to be friendly.” Liz placed a calming hand on Craig’s back just before she

  pulled out a Mossberg 500 shotgun and loaded it. Pushing as

  many of the silver pellet-filled cartridges into the chamber as it

  would allow.

  “That scatter-gun would have been handy down in the tunnels too,” the wino hacked out, then turned and spit. “Ready?” Craig asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Then let’s get to it.” As Craig closed the trunk, he turned to

  the street guy. “And don’t think of breaking into that car.” He

  pulled back on the charging handle of the HK and let it snap

  back into place for emphasis.

  “Whatever you say, General,” the wino said, giving Craig a