Blood City: Book Two Of The Monster Keeper Series

by Jeff Seats

  Terry—dead and at the hands of his niece—his own blood.

  Craig—Damn it! Craig!—Her knees started to buckle as she saw again, in vivid replay, the moment that she pulled the trigger. They were looking into each other’s eyes, and she knew at that moment he loved her and—and she loved him too. “God damn it, Craig!” She cried out, tears started to come to her eyes. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t I tell myself?

  Reflexively, she imagined the sound of a throat unsympathetically being cleared. It cut through the pity party she was throwing for herself and snapped her back to the real situation that she was facing. No words, but she recognized the unmistakable note of disapproval right away. Master Sergeant Terry had a particular way of making one feel that tiny, personal problems amounted to nothing when it came down to the job at hand. Liz straightened up to almost attention as she knew the master sergeant would approve of. The embedded Master Sergeant Terry in her head was right. Now was no time to lose focus. She may have killed three vampires and possibly mortally wounded Vlad, but this was the heart of their home turf in Portland, and the time of day during which vampires thrived. Right now, she had to get back to her base and make contact with the CSC. The grief would always be there for her to wallow in.

  She gave her pants a quick pat down looking for the car key fob and found it safe and snug in the right-side pocket. Fortunately, she had insisted on driving from the hotel seeing that Craig was exhausted, not having had any rest since before visiting his mother. Oh, God! His mother. Not now. Later. Liz looked around to get her bearings then headed in the direction of the parked car. Her body continued to ache, especially her right wrist. She rotated it a couple of painful times but couldn’t remember injuring it. Must have fallen on it awfully hard when Vlad dropped me.

  The pain intensified when she reached into her pocket for the fob and then was surprised at how weak her hand was, barely able to grasp the door handle and again with another stabbing jolt as she lifted it to pull the door open. Once inside, she realized her mouth was dry as wool. She grabbed a water bottle and took a long swig from it and swished it around before swallowing. And repeated the process a couple more times. Then the back of her tongue began to react to a feeling that welled up from inside her stomach. She knew what was going to happen next from a succession of freshman year parties that all ended up the same way—she threw open the car door and leaned her head outside just as she violently vomited up all the water she had just consumed and some dinner as well. Liz continued retching until nothing remained in her gut. And still, her muscles spasmed for several minutes. People walked by taking no note of something they saw night after night in this part of town— the entertainment district. Finally, she sat back in the car, face clammy, lungs gulping for air but breathing, hurt after straining her stomach muscles from puking. A new bout of wooziness attacked her equilibrium, and she closed her eyes hoping it would pass soon.

  Then she heard a loud banging on the car window.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Slowly she opened one eye. And then she opened the other eye and saw the old homeless guy they had parked near looking at her through the glass, a look of concern clearly visible on his face. He was about to knock on the window one more time, but Liz rolled it down.

  “You okay lady?”

  “Yeah . . . I think so. Thanks.”

  “I been there, and I tell you I know how it feels. Well, you take care now. But if you need help, I’m just over there,” he said, as he jerked his thumb towards the overflowing shopping cart behind him.

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks.” Liz rolled the window up and firmly grabbed the steering wheel. Not knowing what had happened to her, but feeling a calm settle over her body, she depressed the brake and touched the ignition button.

  Ring. Ring. Ring.

  Her cell phone. “Adams,” Liz answered weakly.

  The voice of commander Cole spilled out of the speaker, “Liz! Are you all right? We watched the whole thing.”

  Liz closed her eyes tightly fighting to control her feelings. “Yeah. Great . . ..”

  “Don’t do anything further until help arrives.”

  “No worries there. I gotta get some rest. Feel like crap. Wait. What help? I thought there was no one else that could be spared. You aren’t sending Ellie and Paul? They’re too green. I barely made it out myself.”

  “Not many options. The Action Teams are all tied up for the next several days what with the full moon and all. The lycans are just too hands-on during this time of the month but you’re right those two aren’t ready to be out on their own.” Cole left that hang a bit then added, “I’m sending someone with experience. It’ll have to do.”

  “Fucking wonderful!” Was all Liz could squeeze out of her mouth.

  She had to will herself to focus on driving the car. The simple motion of shifting into gear was almost too difficult. Liz could not recall the last time she felt as sick and as weak as this. Her head swam, eyesight blurred. Worst case of flu she ever had.

  Then all went black.

  ««« ‡ »»» MIRACULOUSLY, LIZ HAD made it through the call from Cole without throwing up again. That much she could remember. After that, nothing. She had no clue how she made it back to the hotel—whether she drove, took a cab, or sprouted wings and flew. But here she was, spread out on the bed in her room. She felt like shit, needed water, but could not find the energy to move.

  She sensed the presence of another person and opened her eyes to see if anyone was with her. The room was dark, curtains pulled across the window. The only illumination was the daylight sneaking in around the edges of the fabric and through the vertical slit where the two panels came together. It hurt her eyes. The light. It stabbed into her eyeballs with the pain of a whitehot poker. She never had migraines before, but this was how others had described them. First time for everything, she thought.

  The sound of the bathroom faucet being turned on confirmed that there was someone else in the room with her. Craig? No. Craig was dead. She had killed him. Then who?

  “Sit up Agent Adams,” a familiar male voice said. Liz cautiously opened her eyes. A shadow of a man, silhouetted by the glow of the covered window, sat in a chair close to her.

  “You must drink a little of this.” He was holding a glass, but before he handed it to her, he pricked his wrist with the nail of his little finger and dripped some blood into the water. She watched as the red swirled around in the clear liquid like filaments of string or smoke. It reminded her of how Vlad . . .! She bolted upright; reaching for the 9mm she always kept under her pillow when on assignment. The fact that it was there was a good sign, at least she remembered to do one thing right before passing out.

  “Agent, you do not need to fear me. I am trying to help.” She pointed the gun at the intruder. “Tur—Turn on the light.” “But it will hurt.”

  “Do it!”

  The shadow man reached for the base of the lamp on the

  nightstand and switched it on. Liz squinting, eyes in pain, lowered her weapon when she saw the face of Alexei.

  He offered up the red-tinged water, “You must drink this. It will mitigate some of the symptoms you are feeling.”

  She looked at the blood in the water then at Alex. “No. I’m not drinking that.”

  “What you are now feeling will only get worse.”

  “How is your blood going to help me with the flu?”

  “Because you have been infected.”

  “With the flu.” Then another light went on, but in her head this time. “You mean I’ve been bitten? Where!” Liz jumped up and stripped off her coat and ran to the mirror to inspect her neck. Alex stepped next to her. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, but his reflection did not appear beside her. She craned her neck to inspect as much as possible. “I don’t see—”

  “Look at your wrist. There, the right one.”

  She did. But there weren’t any bite marks—just the scratch.

  “Oh shit!”

  �
��Your body is in the process of dying. It is craving blood. Without blood, you will go mad with desire for it. Then you will lash out at the next human you encounter, and your transition will have begun.”

  “Kill me!” She screamed pleading with Alex for help. “I don’t want to become a . . . a . . .,”

  “Monster?”

  “Just kill me.” She went back into the bedroom and picked up her gun. “Shit, I’ll do it myself.” She said wrapping her lips around the barrel and pointing it up to the roof of her mouth.

  “Before you pull the trigger perhaps you will indulge me a moment longer to explain your new, ah, situation. Please?” Alexei asked. His experience with Cindra had sharpened his feelings concerning life and death. And while the contrast between immortals and humans was night and day, he knew there had to be ways of accommodation on both sides of the spectrum, though he was at a loss for how that might happen.

  Liz hesitated, then slowly withdrew the barrel form her open mouth. She looked at him, “Okay, explain.”

  “Under circumstances such as yours, in which a human is scratched, there can be a transference of infectious material, a toxin, much like a virus, that begins the process of turning mortal into immortal. The transformation is much slower than being bitten and exceedingly painful. More often than not, the person infected in such a manner is unaware of her predicament, and nothing is done. Throughout days, weeks, vampiric urges begin to manifest and, if left unattended, the cravings become uncontrollable, and the infected human turns into a raving, killing animal.”

  “Really? That helps. Thanks for the explanation,” Liz said dryly, raising the gun back to her mouth.

  “Let me finish.” Alexie said placing his hand on the gun and gently directing the barrel towards the floor.

  “Okay, continue.”

  “The infection can be allowed to run its course. This usually leads to a messy death. It can be redirected towards turning the contaminated into a vampire, though a weak, undisciplined one. Or, if caught early enough, the transition and its effects can be put into something like, what you might call, stasis, a type of suspended animation. You can remain as you are right now, indefinitely.”

  “Indefinitely?”

  “Yes. Well, almost. Eventually, death will come to you at some point, but not until after you have outlived those you know unless you are the victim of an accident or violence. Otherwise, you remain human . . . relatively.”

  “How?”

  “You have to drink the Nostrum, an ancient potion of water mixed with blood, created by a medieval monk, as I have given to you, but not exactly. I dripped only a tiny amount of my blood into regular tap water just to revive you. Nothing more. Vampire blood will only turn you depending upon the amount consumed and how long you have been drinking it.”

  “Great,” Liz said sarcastically. “So what other kind of blood is there to save me?” Then the truth began to dawn on her. “Oh, wait . . . No. No!”

  “You need human blood. The amount will vary depending upon how you feel, but let us say, as a start, a ten percent solution each day. Then as your body adjusts the amount of blood can be cut in half. You may eventually discover that as little as a few drops in a glass of water may be all that you will require on any given day.”

  “That’s a lot of blood.”

  “And you have a very virulent infection.”

  Liz kept a firm grip on the gun but let it rest on her lap trying to process this information about how her life had suddenly changed. “And this special water?”

  “Holy water, along with a crushed clove or two of garlic, aconite, also known as wolfsbane, and a hint of a couple of other ingredients. It may surprise you to know that I do not carry a supply of any of these elements on my person,” he smiled hesitantly.

  For a moment her dire situation dissolved, and she blurted out a snort of a laugh at Alex’s joke. “So, where, how?”

  “There are people here, in Portland. They . . . assist immortals during the day. One I trust, is, at this moment, shopping for the crucial ingredients. One of your CSC blood banks is in Old Town conveniently close to the Downtown Chapel and a Chinese herbalist shop. Commander Cole has smoothed the way with both the attending nurse and the pastor. The herbs only cost a few pennies. Until my ‘assistant’ returns, you must drink this,” he held up the glass of water with his blood in it. “Then rest.”

  “A familiar?”

  “Yes.”

  “Terry’s niece was one.”

  “At first, but it appears that Vladimir turned her to ensnare Master Sergeant Terry.”

  “Why kill Terry?”

  “I believe my brother decided his best protection was to eliminate your best hunters. In his time with the CSC, the master sergeant had proven to be a tactical equal to Vladimir. Their chess games took on epic proportions. Vladimir couldn’t afford to let Terry continue to live and challenge his plans. Checkmate.”

  Liz remained on the edge of the bed fingering the gun, feeling grounded by the coolness of the black metal. There was too much for her mind to digest. Too much new information was being presented. It was like her first day on the job when she was sent with Craig into Vamp Town. She had no idea what she had signed up for then, and now—now she had to make a snap decision concerning her life based on . . . alchemy?

  “The commander described to me what had happened,” Alexei said almost apologetically. “I am aggrieved by Agent Wright’s passing.”

  Liz considered Alex’s words. “And Cindra? How come this potion didn’t work for her?”

  “She had been bitten, but more important, she was too far along into transition. I . . . I am sorry. I thought I could help her through the process and into acceptance of her new life. But her human nature was too strong. She defeated vampirism. If you could bottle her desire to live and love and go outside and feel the warmth of the sun, then you would have a powerful vaccine.”

  Alexie took the gun from Liz and set it on the dresser away from her immediate reach and again offered her the bloodtinged water.

  She looked at it and accepted the glass. Touching the rim to her lips, Liz felt the urge to retch rise again.

  ALEXEI LOOKED DOWN at his brother. Vladimir didn’t appear to be so invincible now. Sitting in the chair, undoubtedly, some sort of stage prop Vladimir used to project his image of unstoppable dominance. Alexei shook his head and mused. Ever since his brother had brushed shoulders with Anton Chekhov at some party in Moscow, he considered himself to be quite the thespian.

  After helping Agent Adams past her crisis point, Alexei knew it was time to find and confront Vladimir. He had a rough notion of where he might be secreted. Back in 1890 after fleeing New York and Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt’s vampire hunters, Vladimir had retreated to a little back-water city on the far side of the continent referred to as Stump Town. Portland, Oregon. It had gained the nickname because of all the stumps left after cutting down the trees to build the place. Vladimir liked dark and dank recesses from which to work and the young town’s ever-growing maze of below-grade passages provided the sine qua non—essential ingredient. He most assuredly was somewhere under Portland.

  Before leaving Liz, Alexei made her drink as much of the Nostrum as she could hold. Her condition required that she consume the better part of a unit of blood mixed with several quarts’ holy water for a first-time dosage. As her life progressed, the blood-to-water ratio required to maintain equilibrium would be refined. For the next couple of weeks, however, she would be downing far more human blood than she would like, while her body adjusted to its new reality.

  The potion made Liz gag. The thought of ingesting human blood was antithetical to all she believed was right. Consuming human blood was regarded as cannibalism—one of the foremost taboos for mortals. Without the other ingredients that made the concoction taste extremely bitter, she may not have been able to tell if there was blood in the holy water—the coppery flavor could always be thought of as one of the many minerals found in any muni
cipal water supply—if her eyes were closed. Along with the queasy effects of consuming the Nostrum came the strong urge to sleep, which her body desperately required to heal. But before she became lost in dreamland, Alexei had her recount how to find the entrance to Vladimir’s lair. Of course, his gentle touch on her mind helped immensely in learning what he needed to know.

  With the setting sun, Alexei’s familiar called Uber to take his master directly to the Shanghai Tunnel Bar entrance. From there, Liz’s memories, combined with the shared genetics of brotherhood, served as a homing beacon enabling Alexei to navigate the tangled web of passages and chambers under the city leading to this room where his brother sat, slumped over on the dilapidated chair. Ragged breathing told enough of the story. But drainage from the chest laceration was the real indicator of Vladimir’s precarious condition.

  If his brother hadn’t been on the verge of death, Alexei would have laughed at an image that popped into his mind. A vampire Santa Clause, red-stained white beard, on an ornately carved wood, gilt, throne, hungrily calling out to the elf at the door. “Send in the next one,” as he wiped the red blood off his lips from the last hapless child, empty husks of little bodies in snowsuits scattered on the floor around him. But this was no time for idle amusement.

  Bullets and blades containing silver have been standard vampire-killing tools for hundreds of years. But wooden stakes fashioned as spikes, rods, spears, and knives have been in use since before the invention of gunpowder and forged metals. Effective vampire-killing stakes have always been made from a variety of hardwoods commonly found throughout Europe—oak, hawthorn, rowan, mountain ash, holly, juniper, and linden. Individually, any of these hardwoods created quite potent tools for killing the undead. But after years of experimentation, it had been found that laminating several of these woods together added a lethal layer to these weapons with many being fashioned into the shape of a cross for added measure.

  It was with such a carved implement that Vladimir had been wounded. It took minimal deductive reasoning to figure this out. A portion of the cross-shaped knife handle protruded from his brother’s chest, the remainder buried deep into his gut, and with each depleted breath, Alexei could see his brother inching closer to death.