Death Betrays

by J. C. Diem

  I had plenty of time to plot my revenge against Colonel Sanderson as I healed but concern for my friends far outweighed my rage. More specifically, I was worried about Luc. I’d made him a promise and I wasn’t about to let him down. Sanderson had been acting strangely for several days before he had turned on me. I had to assume it wasn’t just me his superiors had ordered him to eradicate but all of our group. My hope was that Kokoro had been sent a warning and my friends and allies had managed to escape from the soldier’s treachery in time. I didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that they were dead. Bleakness at the thought I might never see my friends again tried to overwhelm me but I wouldn’t let it. I couldn’t give up hope before I’d even started to search for them.

  When my skin had finished growing back, I swam towards the surface. It was well after nightfall and the new moon cast weak light on the water. Thrashing around in a full circle, I couldn’t see land anywhere. Picking a direction at random, I began to swim. I was far from elegant in the water but I was fast and indefatigable. Sanderson could have dumped me in the most remote stretch of water that existed and I would still eventually be able to make my way back to land.

  It seemed I hadn’t been tossed in the most remote stretch of water because I spied land after an hour or so of swimming. Checking that I was headed in the right direction frequently, I angled towards the beach. Reaching land at last, I squeezed salt water out of my hair and examined the area. It was a fairly typical beach with a stand of trees only a few metres away.

  I quickly ascertained that I had no idea where I was. It wasn’t as cold as I’d expected it to be but I was still shivering. Having zero body heat meant I was almost always cold. A hot shower would chase away the chill but I had to find civilization for that to become a possibility.

  Intermittent sounds of traffic came from somewhere nearby so civilization couldn’t be too far away. Leaving the beach, I pushed my way through the trees until I closed in on a road. Ignoring the rocks that painfully jabbed my bare feet, I searched for somewhere to hide. A dense bush was thick enough to conceal my white flesh and I hunkered down to wait for a likely target to appear.

  I’d chosen a spot near a sharp bend in the road where cars would have to slow down to navigate it safely. That gave me plenty of time to assess the occupants as they neared. Several cars approached but all held couples, families or women. When a car carrying a lone man appeared, I stepped out onto the road.

  Startled at my sudden naked appearance, the car swerved then lurched to a stop. Throwing the door open, the concerned driver ran towards me. “Are you alright, miss? Are you hurt?” He was speaking Bulgarian so at least I was in the same country that I had last seen my friends in.

  I didn’t bother to answer his questions and instead captured him with a long glance. “Give me your shirt,” I ordered. A goofy smile spread across his face as he complied, revealing an out of shape body and small pot belly. The t-shirt was far too large for me but it was better than walking around naked. Hearing another car coming, I gestured for my temporary slave to climb back into his car. “Take me somewhere private,” I told him after closing the door then turning the heater on full blast. Headlights flared to life behind us but we were already in motion again and were already halfway around the bend.

  My shivers had finally begun to peter out by the time my chauffeur pulled into a driveway a few minutes later. While I was barely warm, he was soaked with sweat from the heat blasting out of the vents. “This is my house,” he told me in mangled English. “It is very private.” His tone was both suggestive and hopeful but he was doomed to disappointment if he thought he was going to get lucky with me. I hadn’t met a human that appealed to me on a sexual level since I had ceased to be one of them. Come to think of it, I’d barely met any humans I’d wanted to sleep with when I had still been one of them.

  My captive kept trying to look at me over his shoulder as he led the way to the front door. He tripped over the top step and pin-wheeled his arms to catch his balance. I grabbed him by the shoulder and righted him before he could crash into the door and knock himself out. Tall, pudgy and pale, he was only in his thirties but his hair was thin and he had fashioned it into a comb over. His shiny scalp shone through the sparse strands of his hair and I wondered why he didn’t just pre-empt nature and shave it all off. Being completely bald was usually far sexier than being in denial and attempting to disguise the fact.

  Once inside, he led me through the tiny, unkempt house directly to his bedroom. His expression was a mixture of lust and longing as he came to a stop. My fangs had already descended in anticipation of a meal. I had a feeling that drool would have been dripping from my fangs if I’d still had saliva. I couldn’t remember ever being this hungry before. Even when I’d first been created my hunger hadn’t been this intense. “Lie down and go to sleep,” I ordered him. Shoulders drooping in disappointment when he realized he wasn’t going to get to jump my bones, he complied reluctantly. He was out the instant his head touched the pillow.

  Lying on his back made it awkward for me to feed. I didn’t want to straddle him, that would have made the feeding far too intimate. Lying down beside him would have been just as bad. I opted to kneel beside the bed and roll him onto his side facing away from me.

  My teeth broke through his skin and sweet, salty blood flooded into my mouth. This time, I didn’t stop when the hole in my stomach was half full. I drank until I was full almost to the point of overflowing. Luckily for my meal, my stomach could only hold so much blood and I didn’t even come close to draining my snack dry. His pulse was a trifle slow when I pressed my fingers against his throat beside the already healing puncture wounds but not alarmingly slow. He would probably be tired for a few days but he would recover quickly enough. Humans were very resilient and that was what made them such a reliable source of food.

  Next, I took a shower then raided his wardrobe for something other than a too large and not very clean t-shirt to wear. I found a pair of sweatpants with holes in the knees that were too small for my meal to squeeze into anymore. I tied the drawstring tight enough for them to stay up then rolled up the bottoms so I wouldn’t trip on the hem. Searching through his dresser, I picked out a clean t-shirt and grey sweater and donned them both. His shoes were far too large for me so there was little point in stealing a pair.

  Picking up the car keys from where my meal had dropped them on his kitchen table, I glanced at a folded over newspaper and did a double take. It had been on the verge of winter when I’d been betrayed by Colonel Sanderson and it was now the middle of spring. That meant I had been in the box for eighteen weeks. The likelihood that my friends would still be where I’d last seen them was minimal. It had been impossible to tell how much time had passed while I’d been imprisoned but I was still shocked that it had been four and a half months. That’s not shock that you’re feeling, my subconscious told me, that’s panic.

  I didn’t want to admit it but my inner voice was right as usual. Anything could have happened to my friends and allies while I had been incapacitated. Even if nothing had happened to them at all, I doubted they would still be waiting for me at the warehouse where I’d seen them last. I hoped that, if they had been safe and sound when they had left the warehouse, they had left me a clue to follow. I didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that I might not find any clues at all.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After one brief stop to ask for directions and two hours of driving, I located the city where I had left my friends. When we’d first arrived in the city we had been hidden in the back of a truck so I hadn’t seen anything to help me orient myself. When I’d left to confront the Second, I hadn’t paid much attention to the layout of the area. I rued my lack of attention now as I drove up and down streets that all looked the same to me. I hoped I would get lucky soon and spy something familiar.

  Finally I did glimpse something that I was sure I’d seen before and pulled over to investigate. The dumpster where Luc had tossed the drunk
that I’d slapped to death was still hunkered in the same spot in the dark alley. There was no smell of rotting corpse oozing from within. I assumed my victim had been located by the police and had been removed from his resting place.

  Orienting myself, I re-traced the steps that I and my beloved had taken several months ago. Minutes later I was standing outside the warehouse and had my face pressed up against a grimy window. Despite the lack of lighting within, my vision was good enough to tell me that it was utterly deserted inside.

  A sturdy chain and padlock had been attached to the door, probably by Sanderson’s men to keep out nosy parkers. Even with my considerable strength, I wasn’t able to break the chain. The door was made of flimsy wood and was nowhere near as durable. A couple of solid kicks created a hole large enough for me to squeeze through.

  The warehouse hadn’t changed much during my absence. The nest some hobos had made in the recent past was still in the corner. I had no doubt destroyed all of the former occupants of the warehouse when I’d purged the spooky castle of fledglings. I was fairly certain new hobos would find the building and make it their own again one day.

  Several suspicious blotches on the ground caught my eye. I recognized the traces of vampire ooze and smudges of ash that probably meant the prototypes had been used to kill them. I counted over a dozen dried up puddles that had once been my kin. The rest had either managed to escape from the soldiers or they had been taken elsewhere.

  Concentrating hard, I sent my senses out as far as they could go and came up empty. Dread had taken up residence in my chest right about where my unbeating heart lay. Kokoro’s vision had foretold death and darkness for us all. I had been trapped in darkness for months, did that mean the rest of my friends had been visited with death?

  The cement floor was cold beneath my bare feet so I retreated to the car and turned the heater on. “Now what do I do?” I asked myself and no immediate answer sprang to mind. As I’d feared, no clues had been left behind. That wasn’t a surprise since my friends had left under duress.

  After one minute of silence stretched into several, my subconscious heaved a sigh and came to the rescue again. I hated to admit it, but I would be lost without my inner voice. Have you really not managed to figure out who really betrayed you yet? I was confused by the question since the answer was obviously Colonel Sanderson. Think back to when he started acting suspiciously, my inner voice instructed me. I did so and a picture of the battle in the sewers beneath the town in Africa formed. The colonel had been talking to someone that he really shouldn’t have had anything to talk to about. Straining my memory, I pictured long blonde hair, a tight red dress and a superior sneer.

  “It all started when he had that private conversation with Anna-Eve,” I said to my subconscious. That’s right, it responded. What happened a couple of nights after they had their little chat? I didn’t have to think about the answer to that question. “Her servant blew me to bits.” Right again. My subconscious gave me the mental equivalent of a pat on the head. She showed him the most effective way to take you down. “Why would she do that?” I knew the Europeans weren’t my greatest fans but I was bewildered why they would be in cahoots with the American soldiers.

  It was strange to be having a conversation with myself but it helped me to work my way through this conundrum. Who is Anna-Eve’s master? My subconscious sounded rather sly as it asked me that question. “The praying mantis,” I said slowly. What did the Comtesse promise you the last time you spoke to her? “She promised me that she’d make sure everyone I cared about was taken from me.” What else did she say to you? My answer came slowly and with great anguish. “That if she couldn’t have Luc then no one could.”

  Putting my hands over my face as the reality of the full betrayal finally crashed down on me, I had no tears to shed for my one true love. My tears had been stolen from me right along with my mortality.

  Finally tiring of my dry sobs, my subconscious roused itself again. You don’t know for sure that they’re dead, it pointed out. But we both know who you can question to find out exactly what has happened to your friends.

  Grasping my inner voice’s hint, I dropped my hands. Orange light bathed the interior of the car. It seemed that any strong emotion could now trigger the imp blood that had spread through my body.

  It was going to be a long drive to France and the sooner I got moving, the sooner I’d be able to question the praying mantis. We had unfinished business and it was long past time to put an end to it. I only hoped I would find her in the Court mansion and not have to search the whole of Europe to find her.

  An hour or so into my journey, bright red and blue lights flashing in my rear view mirror made me check how fast I was going. I’d been doing twenty over the limit and now the police were pulling me over. Their siren sounded, just in case I’d somehow missed the flashing lights. Pulling over, I wound down the window and waited for the cop to appear.

  Instead of a single police officer, there were two. One stayed inside their cruiser, checking the license plate of my stolen vehicle. The other approached my car slowly. His hand hovered over his gun but he wasn’t quite ready to pull it. Reaching my window, he cautiously bent down. “Can I see your license…” His words petered out when our eyes met. Swaying towards the car, his expression turned dreamy.

  Opening the glove box, I pulled out a piece of paper. “Pretend to check my license,” I told him and handed the scrap to him. He glanced down at it then handed it back. “Go back to your car, act normal and tell your partner that everything is fine.”

  Ambling back to his cruiser, he climbed inside and had a short conversation with his partner. Whatever he’d said mustn’t have been very convincing because the passenger door opened and the other officer climbed out. Short and slightly chubby, the female officer pulled her gun and stalked towards me, shouting orders. “Get out of the vehicle and put your hands on your head!” Rolling my eyes at being delayed, I did as instructed. “Show me some ID!” she barked, coming to a stop a few feet away. She flicked a glance at my clothes, noted I had no pockets to hold any form of identification in then met my gaze.

  Our eyes locked and her fright turned to puzzlement. To my surprise, her expression turned blank and she dropped her hands to her sides. Holy shit, I just hypnotized her! She wasn’t wearing a look of adoration but she had definitely lost her will and ability to think. Judging her size, I gave a mental shrug and decided not to waste the opportunity to upgrade my clothes. “Take off your pants and shoes,” I instructed her.

  Putting her gun away, the cop complied without complaint. She handed over a sturdy pair of black shoes that were roughly my size and pants that were several sizes too big. At least they were the right length. “Go back to your car. When you snap out of it, tell your partner you were hit on the head and don’t remember what happened.”

  As she followed my orders, I changed, tossed the sweatpants onto the back seat then took off. This time I kept to the speed limit to avoid being pulled over again. Even my subconscious didn’t have a theory for why I could now bamboozle women as well as members of the opposite sex. It seemed that every time something catastrophic happened to me, I received a new power. This one could certainly come in handy.

  Stealing new cars several times over the next few nights, I tried to curb my impatience and increasing worry. Nearly five months had passed since I’d been separated from my team so there was really no need to rush towards the Court mansion blindly. Yet something told me to hurry anyway and my speed continually crept up over the limit.

  Finally, I was back in France again. Parking a safe distance away from the mansion, I moved in closer on foot. Even from a distance, I could see that a drastic change had taken place. Instead of vampire guards patrolling the grounds, the property was now being guarded by humans.

  Crouched down low between a pair of shrubs, I noted the camouflage uniforms the men were wearing. On closer inspection, I realized they were soldiers rather than mere guards. It was close to dawn
and I only had enough time to examine the mansion briefly. The sounds of merriment I’d heard the first couple of times I’d been to the grounds were greatly reduced and held a touch of hysteria. Their gaiety sounded forced, as if they were putting on a show for the humans. If it was supposed to put the meat sacks at ease, it wasn’t working. Heads turned uneasily and grips tightened on guns each time a torrent of high pitched laughter rang out.

  Busting inside the mansion without a plan in place would most likely result in disaster. Being so close to my quarry, I itched to get my hands around the Comtesse’s throat and start squeezing until her head popped off but I forced myself to walk away instead. I hadn’t expected to find humans standing guard and needed to think my way through this new development.

  Returning to my car, I headed to the only other place I knew in the area. Passing through the familiar sleepy little village, I headed for the safe house where I’d stayed a couple of times before.

  Igor’s black car was absent from the garage as I pulled inside. The cold feeling in my gut intensified. If my friends had managed to escape from Colonel Sanderson, this was where they would have headed. That meant Igor’s car was still probably in the tiny airport in Kazakhstan and my kin were either dead or had been imprisoned.

  At a glance, the house seemed to be deserted but I’d fallen for that ruse the last time I’d been here. The front door was unlocked so I entered and closed the door. I waited to be attacked but no one shot me with a crossbow bolt, staked me through the heart or threw an axe at me this time. The house truly was deserted.

  Locking the door, I headed upstairs and took a shower. Dawn light enveloped the house by the time I had dried off. I felt a pang of sadness as I searched Geordie’s room for spare clothing. I was out of luck and he hadn’t even left a ratty pair of shoes behind. As annoying as the teen could be at times, I still missed him. He had the ability to lighten my mood when things were dark. All I had for companionship now was my inner voice and it was rarely comforting or a particularly good companion.