by J. C. Diem
When Luc was finished with his task, several soldiers entered the room. A booted foot came close to stomping on me but I rolled out of the way just in time. All were carrying the prototypes that Sanderson and his men had first loaned to us and had ended up shooting me with. Luc placed his arm over his eyes and made no move to stop the men from retrieving the woman or to escape. She left with a dreamy smile, utterly compliant and unresisting. She’d been hypnotized deeply enough that her nakedness no longer bothered her.
Although it wasn’t his fault, I was still furious with Luc for having sex with the human. After a few moments of reflection, I decided it wasn’t really him I was angry with. Sanderson and his superiors were the source of my rage. We’d helped to save humanity from two beings that had threatened the safety of their world and they were treating us like lab rats. I had personally killed both of the creatures who had tried to take over their world and they had done their best to imprison me for eternity. If I’d known this would be the eventual outcome, I would have been tempted to let the First turn the humans into cattle instead of hunting him down and killing him.
I still didn’t have a plan of action but I wanted Luc to know that I had returned from my watery grave and would try to save him. He was well used to guarding his emotions and I was pretty sure he would be able to hide his surprise when he figured out what was going on.
Climbing up to the thin mattress of the hospital bed, I was aware that cameras had to be watching him. Flattening down into ooze, I inched up to the hand that lay across his stomach.
Luc started when my orb reformed in his palm. He turned his hand and peered down at me through the fingers covering his eyes. In their black depths I read wild hope mixed with self-loathing. He mouthed a word and it took me a moment to figure out what it was. “Ladybug?”
I did my orb version of a nod again and his eyes closed in relief. He didn’t try to stop me as I oozed out of his palm and made my way out of the room again. Only three out of the twenty-eight captives knew I was there and they had no way of helping me to break them free. It was going to be up to me to bust them all loose without anyone knowing what I was up to.
Spotting a pair of scientists leaving one of the cells, I quickly rolled after them and caught up to the pair as they paused at an intersection. After a brief conversation, they parted. Undecided for a moment, I chose one of the men and hurried after him. He pushed open a door and I rolled inside just before it swung shut.
White tiles covered the floor but it wasn’t until I’d snuck up behind the man that I realized we were in a bathroom and he was peeing into a urinal. Flattening myself down, I climbed up his shoe and clung to the back of his white sock. I couldn’t watch every direction at once and I would be spotted sooner or later if I continued to roll up and down the hallways. Hitching a ride seemed to be the smartest way to get around. It also had to be a lot quicker.
I heard a door open on the floor below my body and a speck of my consciousness was drawn back to the stairwell. The door swung shut and a pair of boots began clomping upwards. Reaching the bottom of the stairs that I was seated on, a soldier stared up at me in surprise. Drawing the rest of my consciousness back to my body, my single eye captured him. “Come here,” I instructed him then stood.
He complied with a happy smile and climbed the stairs to join me on the landing. “You are so gorgeous,” he breathed.
“So I’ve been told,” I replied. “Do you have access to that door?” I hiked a thumb over my shoulder. My minion reluctantly shook his head. “Who has access to this level?”
“Scientists, some of the guards, Colonel Sanderson and a few other high ranking officers.”
My eyes narrowed at hearing the colonel’s name. “Is Sanderson here right now?”
Frowning in mild distress at my sharp tone, he shook his head again. “He has been called away for a few days, ma’am. There was some kind of problem in France, or so I’ve heard.”
I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was. Sanderson’s tame vampires were all dead and he had no idea who had killed them. The Comtesse had ratted out every vampire she knew about in an effort to save her own skin. Little did she know that she and her cohorts would be the ones to end up dead and my small band of friends would be the ones to survive. At least they would if I could get them out of this death trap.
“Return to your duties and forget you saw me,” I instructed the meat sack. Nodding, he trudged up the stairs to the next floor. I hoped the dreamy look would leave his face quickly.
Switching my consciousness back to my roaming eye, I blurrily saw that the scientist had moved to a new room. It had a high ceiling, an open floor plan and dozens of work stations lined up side by side. Men and women dressed in white lab coats bustled around, conferring and apparently testing samples. A few soldiers stood around the edges of the room, bored and hiding yawns in a few cases. My fury rose again that they felt no remorse for what they were putting my friends through. These people almost seemed to be bored, as if they were so used to us that we no longer held any mystical appeal.
A door that was being guarded by two slightly more alert men caught my attention. A sign stated that it was a restricted area and only authorized personnel could enter. I hoped I would find something useful behind that door because I hadn’t found anything that would help me to rescue my friends so far.
Waiting until the scientist that I’d hitched a ride with stopped at a work station, I quickly slid to the floor then slowly began oozing towards the restricted door.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Squeezing beneath the door, I stared up at a wall of monitors. Each one displayed an image of my friends and allies in their cells. Luc still lay on his bed with his arm over his face. He’d pulled the sheet up to his chest, probably more to ward off the chill rather than out of modesty’s sake.
Kokoro was still ignoring the scientist who sat a few feet away from her with a clipboard in his hand. I couldn’t see his face but from the way his head was moving, I figured he was still asking her questions. The seer lifted her head and stared directly at me through the camera lens. I could almost hear her urging me to free them before the Americans decided to put an end to their experiments.
Three uniformed men sat at a table to the right. All had numerous medals pinned to their chests. I assumed these were the ‘high ranking officers’ the soldier I had hypnotized in the stairwell had mentioned.
Another pair of soldiers sat at a console. They watched the monitors, presumably scanning for signs of trouble. Dawn was only a few moments away and most of the men in the room were flagging. It had to be tough for them being on night shift and having to sleep through the day but I had no sympathy for these torturers. Their discomfort paled in comparison to the agony they were inflicting on their captives.
The instant the sun came up, every vampire on the monitors succumbed to the slumber that reduced them to death. Even Aventius closed his eyes and became limp inside his tank. It was the only way they could escape from the horror that their lives had become. Sagging in his manacles, Geordie looked closer to twelve instead of fifteen. He resembled a frightened kid who was being picked on by much larger bullies. A stab of sorrow for all that he had endured went through me. The rage I felt was far stronger and was harder to control. A faint orange glow lit the carpet in front of my orb. Stamping down on my anger, the glow quickly faded.
When the men around the table stood, I figured it was time for a shift change. I flattened my eye and slid it out of the way before I could be stepped on. As the old batch left the room, a fresh group of men entered and sat either at the console or at the table. Over the next couple of hours, none of them left the room. They had their own private bathroom and mini kitchen so there was no need for them to step outside.
Watching the monitors, I noticed the scientists and soldiers pausing each time they were about to enter one of the cells. One of the men sitting at the console would push a button and the door to the cell would pop open.
I need to get a look at the console, I decided. Keeping the table in my peripheral vision, I snuck over to the console operator on the left and reduced my eye to jelly. The climb up his leg was long and slow but remaining unnoticed was more important than speed. Reaching his arm, I climbed up to his shoulder and reformed. Perched just beside his neck, he couldn’t see me out of the corner of his eye and I was hidden from the other men in the room. There was little chance anyone would enter the door behind me and spot me. I had a feeling only dire circumstances would make the door open before the next shift change. By the time any of the humans realized their circumstances had turned dire, my friends would hopefully be free.
At first the console was a confusing array of buttons. After watching the two men in action for a while, I figured out which buttons opened the doors and which ones opened the manacles. After they’d been prodded with guns to make sure they really were dead to the world, several of my kin were released from their bonds. Each one fell to the floor and lay there without moving.
A plan began to form as the sun marched through the sky high above. I would only have one shot at freeing my kin. I had to hope that they would figure out what was going on quickly enough to be able to help me release the rest of the survivors.
Taking over everyone in the control room would be crucial but I would have to wait for the next shift to arrive before putting my plan into action. It wasn’t much fun watching my friends and allies being manipulated like mannequins while they slept. A small team of nurses bustled into each room, washing and changing my kin under the watchful eyes of soldiers. They spent a few moments too long washing Luc before sliding a pair of drawstring pants up to his hips.
Their faces went wooden when they entered Geordie’s cell. They washed him as best as they could with a dozen metal bars sticking out of his thin body. Gregor’s wound had mostly healed but they dabbed around the edges as if they were worried it would hurt him. Apparently they still knew little about us even after almost five months of experimentation. They didn’t realize yet that we didn’t feel pain when we were in our unanimated states. When we woke up, we felt every injury that hadn’t yet healed.
Igor’s hairy torso was free of electrodes now. They scrubbed him and I was careful to look away when they changed his pants. Some things just didn’t need to be seen. While I couldn’t close my detached eye, I could at least avert my gaze.
Aventius was left to float in the tank and no one even bothered to enter his room. They probably just checked him every few days to take notes and to make sure barnacles hadn’t begun to form on his flesh.
Kokoro, and the other remaining female vampires, were surrounded by the nurses when their gowns were changed, giving them at least some privacy. It was the only sign of humanity the humans had shown towards their prisoners so far.
Poor Ishida was sponged clean and grim looks were exchanged by the women. His withered body was enough to make anyone with a heart feel pity. One of the nurses noticed the dropped IV tube and earned a few points in my favour by surreptitiously kicking it beneath the bed. Another saw that the second needle had been pulled out. She looked around to make sure the soldiers weren’t watching and made a small adjustment. At first I thought she had inserted the needle back beneath his skin. At her guilty expression, it was more likely she had just settled the needle under the tape more securely. Maybe not everyone was happy about the treatment my friends were receiving after all. Luckily for the nurses, neither of the soldiers watching the monitors was paying close attention. After spending twelve hours a day watching the screens with nothing untoward happening, they had grown complacent.
By the time my friends and allies woke for the night and the shift changed again, I had formulated a plan. Step one was to capture every soldier in the control room. To accomplish that without being discovered, I would have to catch them when they were alone.
Oozing beneath the bathroom door, I waited for my first victim to arrive. Without a watch, I had no way to accurately judge how long I waited. My body in the stairwell sent another soldier on his way when he happened across me. I was peckish but leaving bite marks in his neck probably wasn’t a good idea. At least some of the employees believed vampires were being kept on level fifty-seven. Leaving such a clear sign that one was roaming free would be idiotic. I might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer sometimes but I wasn’t stupid.
At last, the bathroom door opened and my first victim entered. I’d stationed myself beside the basin to wait. As a small puddle of goo on the bench, I fuzzily watched the man go about his business. When he stepped over to the basin to wash his hands, I reformed my orb again. Starting when he noticed my eye, the soldier did what I’d hoped he would do and picked it up. In seconds, he was mine. One down, four to go.
More time passed and the soldier dreamily stared at my eye without moving and barely even blinking. It was frustrating having no way to order him to do my bidding. I would just have to wait for someone to come and investigate his absence.
The door eventually opened as one of the other men came to check on his colleague. His face came into view over the first man’s shoulder and he also became mine. Only one of the high ranking soldiers would be left at the table now and he was my next target.
Rolling off my minion’s palm, I dropped to the bench and both men’s eyes followed me. I dropped to the floor and they turned to keep me in view. Neither made any move to follow me as I rolled through the open door. The third soldier wearing a chest full of medals was sitting at the table, engrossed in a newspaper. He didn’t notice my eye climbing up his leg then oozing across the table top. I reformed my eye on the middle of the page he was reading and he became as mesmerized as the other two.
Rolling to the far side of the table, I dropped to the floor and hurried across the carpet to the closest soldier watching the monitors. Time was weighing on me. While I’d been waiting for my first victim to arrive in the bathroom, the experiments had begun on my kin. Igor flailed as an electrical shock surged through him. He was probably wondering what the hell was taking me so long to break him free.
On the other monitors, the rest of my friends were also suffering. Gregor was shot through the chest by the same soldier. Thankfully, the bullet lodged on the right side of his chest so there was no danger of his heart being hit. He gritted his teeth, refusing to scream for the scientists who calmly took their notes. Kokoro stared at the camera, silently pleading with me to hurry. Geordie’s mouth opened in a shriek as a scientist yanked out one of the metal rods out of his stomach. The other man leaned in, fascinated to see the wound slowly attempting to close. The teen’s face twisted and I knew he was dry sobbing in pain, humiliation and terror. Luc prowled his cell, fists clenching and unclenching. I knew he would be ready to act when the time came. No one brought him a fresh victim to feed his blood and flesh hungers on. In his current mood, it was probably wisest for them to leave him alone.
The console operator was so focussed on watching the monitors that he didn’t see my eye reforming beside his hand. I had to nudge him to get his attention. One short glance was all it took for him to become my slave. I quickly rolled across the console, drawing the attention of the other soldier who was watching the monitors. He fell beneath my spell and I was finally ready to act.
Most of the monitors showed the insides of the cells but several were dedicated to watching the hallways. My eye had been too small for the soldiers to see it rolling around the hallways on the screens but my body would have been spotted instantly. Now that I was in control of the room, I could see exactly where every scientist and soldier was and could act accordingly.
I’d tried to memorize which buttons controlled the cell doors and manacles and hoped I wouldn’t screw this up. Choosing a button, I rolled over to it and waited for the scientists to cease torturing their captive. Using the optic nerves as springs, I propelled my orb into the air and it landed squarely on the button.
When the manacles holding his wrists and ankles snapped open, Igo
r reacted instantly. Grinning fiercely, he pounced on the closest scientist. His fangs descended and he bit into the horrified man’s throat. I wasn’t sure if it was instinct or a deliberate act when he shielded himself with his victim as he fed. His eyes were locked on the second scientist, who posed no threat to him at the moment. The human was too busy screaming and covering his face with his hands. In his urge to block out the sight of seeing his colleague being savaged, he had forgotten the gun at his side.
Blood continued to spurt from a severed jugular when the Russian dropped his meal to the ground. Treating vampires like test animals hadn’t been a very well thought out plan by the humans. Starving them had been even more stupid. Every single one of them, minus Luc, would be ravenous. Worse, they would be colossally annoyed at the treatment they had received. Put the two together and a lot of humans were about to die.
Turning to run, the second scientist uselessly pounded on the door. I couldn’t hear him but he was probably screaming for help. He could scream all he wanted to, the rooms were soundproofed and no one else in the complex would be able to hear him either. Igor didn’t bother to feed from the second man, he put an end to the scientist’s terror by placing his hands on his head and wrenching it in a semicircle. The man’s head canted at an awkward angle when his body was dropped to the ground. Igor gave the camera the thumbs up then stood near the door, ready for action.
Reading my mind, Kokoro was ready when I released her manacles. Her pet scientist had carefully avoided being hypnotized by her sightless eyes. They became impossible to evade when she grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him in close. Losing the will to resist her, he became pliant in her hands. The seer fed far more daintily than Igor had. She then surprised me by punching her fist into the man’s chest and pulling out his heart. She squeezed it to pulp, dropped it to the floor then calmly bent to wipe her gory hand on his coat. Clearly, there would be no mercy for the humans from the few remaining Japanese warriors.