Blood Heavy (Blood Heavy Series)

by S. L. J. Shortt

  “Decompose?!” the three humans cried simultaneously.

  “We’re undead, remember? that basically means reanimated corpses – we’re like zombies, except with intelligence and good social skills. Blood keeps us going, if we don’t get it our bodies start to breakdown, just as they would if we were normal dead people. Without it we rot like a full-body dose of gangrene. But we’re awake, able to feel it, it takes months...it’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to a vampire. Imagine it...having to sit there and watch your own flesh decay, your own limbs fall off and being able to do anything about it. For us, it’s the worst possible punishment we could receive, and then there’s still Hell to look forward to afterwards.”

  It was obvious that this potential fate scared her more than anything else.

  “Jesus...” Jerry gasped without meaning to.

  “No, he doesn’t seem to want to help us,” Claire said with a hint of sadness in her voice. “That’s why I’m glad that you will...”

  Suddenly, he understood. For creatures like her, monsters who were clinging to their humanity, despair was a constant feeling. She didn’t believe there was any redemption or salvation possible for her. That’s why vampires truly feared death; it was the prospect of a never-ending Hell in the afterlife. “So”, said Joe, jerking Jerry back to the present, “what’s with this ‘invite’ thing? I mean, how come you can’t just walk in?” He asked.

  “Nobody knows for sure, but the main theories suggest that someone put a curse on the species back when vampires first started to appear. It was a way of giving humans some protection against us. But that was a long time ago and the information has since been lost. That’s why there’s no counter-curse, or way of breaking the spell,” Claire said. “Unless, of course, your blood can take that away as well…”

  That was a worrying idea, and it made Jerry ask the question that had been lurking in the back of his mind since the start of their conversation.

  “Why is my blood like this? Why is it different?”

  “We don’t know,” she answered simply. “We’ve been hitting the books hard since we found out it was you, but we can find no precedent for this. There is the obvious fact that virgin blood is stronger than average, but it has never made a vampire immune to sunlight. Not even for a second.”

  Jerry actually blushed. In the current cultural climate virginity was being lost earlier and earlier, yet he was close to eighteen and hadn’t managed to get past second base.

  “There is something in your blood that has never existed before and we need to figure out what it is.” Claire continued.

  “But I was in the hospital. The docs never found anything.”

  “Maybe it’s not something that science can find...yet. We have other sources though.”

  “Like what, magic?”

  “Sophinia’s got a lot of friends, humans and non-humans. You remember those cops that came to speak with you at the hospital? They were our people.”

  “You’re shittin’ me!” Jerry blurted.

  “We need help from law enforcement to cover things up. They don’t argue with the money that she gives them, besides...there are no laws that apply to the paranormal. We don’t have senators or congressmen in our pockets, or anything, but we do have ties to the local law. We’re hardly in the White House.”

  “So, Dick Cheney’s human then?” Goose asked humorously.

  “Well, we’re still checking on that.”

  Jerry nodded, thinking, ‘fair enough’. “Okay...last question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How many people have you killed?”.

  Claire looked away, shame shadowing her face. She truly did despise being what she was.

  “Too many...” she sighed.

  An awkward silence overtook the kitchen and Goose shifted uncomfortably before speaking again.

  “I’m going to run back to my place quickly. My dad’s probably already on the road, but if he’s not I’d like to say goodbye.”

  “Try to get back before the sun goes down. Black Forest could be out there,” Claire warned.

  “Will do.”

  CHAPTER 7 – WINGS

  Joe’s House – St. Cloud.

  Goose returned about an hour later, just as Claire finished on the phone to someone. They hadn’t heard the whole conversation, but there was something about arranging a car. After Goose walked in, he immediately signaled Jerry to come and speak with him in private. The two of them went into Jerry’s bedroom.

  “Here,” Goose said, pulling a silver Colt .45 from the back of his belt, “I lifted it from my dad’s collection.”

  “Were you not paying attention at all, Goose? Guns won’t kill a vampire,” Jerry replied.

  “I heard her say that a bullet to the head would put them down for a while, and I doubt they’d move so fast if you blew their kneecaps off. Look, I think Claire is on the level, but that doesn’t mean I’m dropping my guard,” Goose said solemnly.

  Jerry nodded in agreement and took the gun from him.

  “You know how to use a pistol, right?”

  Jerry just looked at him with an ‘are you serious?’ look. He ejected and checked the clip before sliding it back in and cocking it. Then he triggered the safety and tucked it into his jeans. These days you only needed to watch a couple of decent action movies in order to know how a gun mechanism worked.

  Of course, that didn’t mean he was a good shot.

  The two of them exited his room, only to run straight into Claire. “You’re not going to need those. No one’s going to hurt you,” she said. She must have heard them through the door.

  “It gives me piece of mind,” Jerry shrugged.

  “Fine. Oh!” she cringed and held her nose. “That is some nasty aftershave!”

  “It’s all I could find.”

  “Okay. Our ride will be here in a bit.”

  “So, this Sophinia, she’s like fifteen-hundred years old?” Goose ventured.

  “Closer to sixteen hundred actually. She’s very highly respected throughout the whole vampire community,” Claire said.

  “I thought it would be the other way around. I mean, she is looking for a cure, right? That’s got to upset some of your kind.”

  “Well, not a lot of people know that, and even if they did, no one is stupid enough to mess with a pureblood,” Claire said absently.

  “Err, pureblood?”

  “There’s more than one type of vampire, Daniel.”

  They just stared at her, waiting for her to explain.

  “Purebloods were never human. They were born vampires. They’re much stronger, immune to silver and stakes and are so rare that they’re treated like royalty.”

  “Wait, born a vampire? You’re tellin’ me that you guys can actually have an undead bun in the oven? You’re kiddin’ right?” said Jerry.

  “It isn’t easy. In fact, it’s next to impossible. Two vampires have to fill themselves to the brim with human blood, just to get the equipment working again.”

  “So that’s why vampires are so pissed off all the time? Because their junk’s gone rusty?” Jerry tried to keep from laughing.

  “No, it all still physically works, but sperm, eggs, fertilization; that stuff doesn’t happen unless your whole body is practically bursting with blood and it has to stay that way. I don’t drink human blood so my...cycle has shut down. Honestly, I can’t say I miss it. Jerry and Goose just nodded, taking her word for it.

  “And if conception does occur?” Jerry asked.

  “If there is a conception, the woman has to be fed human blood daily otherwise the baby wouldn’t survive. Ninety-nine percent of the time conception fails. In zero point nine percent of the one percent that do conceive, the baby is stillborn. The remaining tiny zero point one percent success rate results in a pureblood. There’s only seventeen of them in the whole world, so we’re lucky to have Sophinia,” Claire explained.

  “And what, the purebloods are like the vampire government or some
thing?” Jerry asked.

  “More like the local sheriff. They each have a region that they control. Any non-humans inside that region obey the laws that they set down, or they get punished. Purebloods are right up in the top ten of the ‘most powerful supernatural creatures list’. Sophinia’s turf includes North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and part of Wisconsin - hence the reason that our forces are spread a little thin at the moment.”

  “Damn!” Jerry gaped. This Sophinia controlled a pretty big chunk of the country.

  “Don’t worry, she’s very nice...but don’t stare at her wings, okay? It bugs her,” Claire said.

  “Wait-what?! Wings?!”

  “Yeah, purebloods have wings. We think that’s where the whole ‘turning into a bat’ thing came from,” Claire said, as if she were talking about a TV show. “We don’t know why they get wings. Maybe it’s something to do with where vampires originally came from? Perhaps it’s something hidden in the ‘original vampire genome’ that only comes out if you’re born a vampire? Who knows?” Claire shrugged.

  “A chick with wings...” Goose mumbled to himself.

  “…And the hits just keep on comin’,” Jerry said.

  “Car’s here,” Claire said, looking out the window as Joe walked in loading his military issue Beretta. He tucked it into his jeans, just as Jerry had done. Claire saw it, pursed her lips, but didn’t argue.

  Jerry looked out of the window to see an old broken down beige Winnebago sitting outside the house. The thing looked like it was barely managing to stay in one piece, what with all the rust all over it.

  “We’re going in that thing?” Jerry squawked.

  “What, not what you were expecting?” Claire smirked.

  “Hardly. I’d imagined a black SUV with tinted windows or something,” Jerry whined.

  Claire raised an eyebrow, “We’re vampires, Jerry, not Homeland Security. Besides, they’re probably watching the usual cars we use. We’re traveling incognito.”

  “We’re traveling incrapnito, more like!”

  “Don’t mind him,” Goose said. “Jerry is very particular about vehicles.”

  “I’d noticed.”

  The four of them walked out of the house and over to the rusting car in the driveway. As they approached, a huge muscle bound man in a black jacket got out of the driver’s seat. He looked like some kind of professional wrestler because his arms were roughly the size of Jerry’s legs.

  “Hey Larz,” Claire said.

  “Claire,” he nodded. “You really found him?”

  “Looks like,” she smiled.

  “What’s that smell?” Larz asked, wincing slightly.

  “Oven cleaner,” Jerry replied.

  The two vampires looked at him in confusion.

  “What? I ran out of aftershave, okay!” said Jerry indignantly. He then mumbled something to himself about ‘stupid smelly blood’ and walked over to the side door of the Winnebago. “Is this thing even going to stay in one piece if I get in because I -”

  “Jerry, Stop bitchin’ and get in the damn van!” Joe ordered.

  “Yes sir.”

  The door squeaked as he opened it, and he stepped inside. The interior was a horrible lime green color and everywhere there were signs of deterioration. It made Jerry feel physically ill. He didn’t even want to touch the seats.

  “Nasty...” he hissed, looking at his surroundings.

  “Would you prefer a hearse?” he heard Claire say pointedly from outside. Vampire hearing was good.

  Joe and Goose didn’t seem to have the same reservations, however. They climbed into the camper van and sat down without a fuss.

  “Sophinia lives just outside of Sioux Falls so I’m afraid we’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of us,” Claire called out.

  “I don’t think this thing is going to make it that far,” Jerry grumbled.

  ‘A bit of a drive’ was an understatement where the camper van was concerned. They probably could have made it in under three hours if they had been in a half decent vehicle, but they passed the three and a half hour mark before even getting close to Sioux Falls. During the journey, not much speaking was done.

  Mostly, they just sat there and tried to wrap their heads around the idea that the paranormal actually existed. Vampires were real, and from what Claire had said, they weren’t the only supernatural beings. Werewolves, zombies, ghosts, Frankenstein’s monster, the creature from the Black Lagoon, were those things real as well?

  Somehow, Jerry didn’t think the old fifties B-Movies were exactly accurate, but it was certainly frightening to wonder just what else was out there.

  As they were driving through Sioux Falls, Jerry went into the tiny, cramped bathroom of the camper and pulled the bandage off of his neck to see how his wound was doing. It wasn’t exactly pretty, and would almost certainly scar, but it could have been a lot worse.

  After a while, they left behind the noise and lights of the city and headed back into the sticks. Soon after, the road turned a little rougher and they began driving over gravel. After four and-a-bit hours, they finally stopped. Jerry peered out of the window to see where they were.

  Honestly, he had half expected a crypt, or maybe an old monastery. He hadn’t been expecting this.

  It wasn’t an old mansion, so to speak; it looked more like the country home of an oil tycoon. The place was enormous and surrounded by a huge steel fence. There were security cameras attached to trees and posts and what looked like a security booth at the main gate, which currently towered right in front of them.

  The building itself imitated the style of an old fashioned country house, the sort usually found in England or France, but it was obvious that this place was pretty new. It was probably only built twenty or so years ago because the brick work hadn’t faded and the green creepers had only made it about half way up the walls.

  From where they were parked, the house might have been the Playboy Mansion.

  After a few seconds, the gates slowly opened and the camper van moved forwards , looking out of place next to the grand building.

  “Does Donald Trump live here?” Goose asked, as he stared out of the window.

  “No, I don’t think Donald could afford this place,” Joe said.

  As they approached the house, they noticed three other cars parked outside and several men walking around the front. The way they acted and dressed screamed ‘guards’.

  The van pulled up and stopped. Claire and Larz immediately jumped out of the front and then the door to the camper was pulled open.

  “Welcome to Casa de Sophinia,” Claire smiled.

  Jerry, Goose and Joe walked out, staring at the building in amazement.

  “So you meant wings of a building and not flappy bat wings?” Jerry asked.

  “No, I meant the bat wings. Why, this not what you were expecting?” she asked.

  “I thought it would be a little more Transylvania and a little less Beverly Hills, but this is nice,” Goose interjected.

  “Nah, she hates the whole Dracula image,” Claire smiled again. “Well, shall we?”

  Jerry really didn’t know how he should be feeling knowing that he was about to meet a sixteen hundred year old vampire with wings, but mostly, he just wanted to run away.

  It was a bit late for that now though.

  CHAPTER 8 – HORMONES

  Sioux Falls – South Dakota

  The heating must have been blasting on full because the air was very warm as they entered into a long open hallway. Ahead of them, the hall opened up into a larger area with a massive stone staircase that led up to the second floor.

  The inside looked very new. Light colored polished wooden furniture was everywhere and so were stylish looking gadgets, like an intercom system that had a little TV screen and speakers attached to the wall. However, there were still all the classical mansion touches, such as large portraits on the walls, statues on the foot of the stair banisters and all-wooden flooring. Sophinia had done a gre
at job of mixing past and present tastes throughout the house.

  Claire led them past the stairs towards a set of sliding double doors.

  She opened the doors and walked inside. They found themselves in an extensive library where the bookshelves reached from the ground all the way up to the ceiling, which was at least eighteen feet up. About forty feet away at the end of the Library was a raised platform with a huge oak desk in the center. There a woman was stood, flipping through a book in front of her.