Blood Heavy (Blood Heavy Series)

by S. L. J. Shortt

  “She killed him,” Jerry guessed.

  “Nope. She told him the truth. Told him that her sis was a vampire. He freaked out and actually tried to stake Claire. It devastated her. Cass and Claire didn’t run into each other again until World War II started. They still haven’t forgiven each other.”

  “Really? They seem to get on so well,” Goose said, his voice laden with sarcasm.

  “They’ve gotten a lot better, actually. These days they just throw insults at each other. Back in the day, it was stakes.”

  “Yet another reason I am happy to remain human,” Jerry stated.

  “Yeah, well, Sophinia’s blood is pretty damn potent and yours managed to kill it off, so I’m guessing it’ll do the same for almost every other foreign contaminant. Lycanthropy, cancer, Ebola, I doubt any of ’em will affect you.”

  “Well, maybe my messed up blood is good for something after all,” Jerry smirked.

  “Sophinia’s ecstatic. If we can isolate what allows it to kill off everything harmful, we might be able to use that to safely destroy the vampire traits in people. Of course, I’ve got no idea how your blood is able to do that, but like I said; it’s only been a day.”

  “Well, it’s been an okay day so far, apart from Sarah slapping me,” Jerry shrugged.

  “You told her?”

  “Nah, Steve did, but she’s not buying it.”

  “Can’t wait to see her face when she meets Cass and Claire,” Goose chuckled.

  “Guys, keeping people in the dark keeps them alive,” Parker warned.

  “No, keeping them alert and prepared keeps them alive. They’re my friends and if there’s even the slightest chance that Black Forest might go after them, then I want them locked, cocked, and ready to rock at a moment’s notice.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Parker nodded.

  The rest of the day was as numbing as the biology lesson had been. Jerry just couldn’t stop thinking about the world which existed behind this one. He couldn’t stop thinking about how all the kids at the school had no idea about what was lurking in the dark. It made time stretch out interminably.

  Finally, school finished and the boys headed home. They decided to make a quick stop off at Joe’s garage before heading back.

  Inside the large open workshop, an Oldsmobile 442 was raised up on a hydraulic lift and a second car was covered by a large tarp. In the center was a car which made a huge smile slowly creep onto Jerry’s face: the metallic black Boss 429.

  Green River by Credence Clearwater Revival was playing on a radio somewhere in the back. Next to it Joe had a CB radio and a few other old tech machines that he kept around for nostalgic value only. Jerry’s uncle was stood by a work table, tweaking the bearings in a small cylinder.

  “Damn! I know what I want instead of food for Ramadan,” Jerry said, looking at the Mustang.

  “When did you convert to Islam?” Joe asked, not looking up from his work.

  “I didn’t. You know cars are my religion and Henry Ford is my God, may he rest in peace,” Jerry said, reverently running his hand over the bonnet of the Boss.

  “How was school?”

  “Oh, a frickin’ nightmare! I felt like I should be yelling from the roof trying to warn people that vampires are real.”

  “That would probably land you in a straightjacket,” Joe remarked.

  “Yeah, probably,” Jerry agreed. “I just feel like I should be doing something about it.”

  “You are doing something about it. Your blood might result in a cure,” Goose reminded him.

  “I mean something to protect people,” Jerry sighed.

  “I’ve got the same impulse,” Joe said, finally looking up.

  “Yeah, what made you hold back?”

  “I just blocked it out of my mind. Focused on my work,” he shrugged.

  “Good idea, gimmi something to do,” Jerry said instantly.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have any spare jobs at the moment. I’ve got to do some welding on the chassis and replace a -”

  “Welding? I can weld; I’ll do that,” Jerry jumped at the chance to work on the Boss.

  “And it comes out of my pocket if you screw it up.”

  “I won’t screw it up, I’m good at welding!”

  “Forget it. There’ll be some wiring that needs doing after I replace the speedometer in a few days and you can help me with the body work on the Oldsmobile, but nothing for today. Go home and make sure those vampires haven’t wrecked my house,” he said unsympathetically, making Jerry look downcast.

  “Oh, hey, Parker told us that Claire turned Cass,” Goose said.

  “Well, that certainly explains why she’s so pissed off,” Joe replied, still concentrating on the cylinder.

  “And I can’t be turned,” Jerry said, looking smug.

  “Really?” that caught Joe’s interest.

  “The one perk of having freaky blood I guess,” Jerry nodded.

  “That’s good to know,” Joe said.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Oh, hey, I’m gonna be home late and probably in no mood to cook, so we’ll get some takeout tonight,” Joe mentioned, as they started to leave the garage.

  “Pizza!” Jerry voted.

  “We’ll see.”

  The boys got back to Goose’s car, but not before Jerry said goodbye to the Boss and gave it a little kiss. They got back to the house twenty minutes later.

  When they entered the front door, they were both amazed to see that the house had been cleaned top to bottom. Everything had been dusted and vacuumed and it looked tidier than ever before. Joe was going to have a heart-attack when he saw this. He liked his mess.

  “Did you guys hire a maid?” Jerry asked in amazement.

  “Talk to the clean freak over there,” Cass said, still lounging on the couch, watching a soap opera.

  “I finished my book,” Claire explained, and went back to scrubbing the sink.

  “I probably should have warned you not to mess with Joe’s mess.”

  “Sorry,” she smiled.

  It was hard to imagine Claire as some psycho killer with fangs. She was one of the ‘good ones’. A person with a sickness, not an inhuman freak with an addiction.

  “We’re getting takeout tonight, do you guys wanna eat?”

  “Pizza!” Cass shouted from the couch.

  “That’s what I said,” Jerry grinned.

  “Well, maybe you’re not as dumb as you look,” she replied absently.

  “I’m not dumb...you’re dumb!” usually Jerry was good at witty retorts, but he just couldn’t seem to manage them against Cass. It was embarrassing.

  “Oh, good comeback,” she quipped.

  “Don’t be afraid to return her fire, Jerry. She knows that if she touches you, Sophinia will turn her into a finger puppet and not in the way that she enjoys,” Claire said.

  “Kinky,” Cass smirked.

  “Actually, she probably wouldn’t get the chance. Too much of my blood will kill you,” Jerry replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Parker ran a few tests, and it turns out that too much of a good thing is lethal. The ‘thing’ in this case being me. Also, it means I can’t be turned.”

  “You’re kidding? That’s incredible!” Claire exclaimed in excitement, smiling widely.

  “Parker thinks that if he can figure out how my blood does that, he can make a cure out of it,” Jerry said.

  This was the best news Claire could have. Half an hour later the smile was still slapped all over her face. Cass seemed a bit disinterested. Whether it was because she was pessimistic, or just didn’t care was a mystery.

  There was a knock at the door, causing the boys to jump straight back into their newly defensive routine, their guns ready and waiting. They didn’t need them though.

  “It’s that other idiot I saved,” Cass drawled, not even looking up from the TV.

  Jerry peeked through the window and saw Steve and Sarah standing outside. He put away
his gun and opened the door. Sarah immediately marched through, looking unimpressed.

  “Okay, so where are these vampires then?” She said tartly, still thinking the whole thing was a joke.

  “We’re right here,” Cass waved, still glued to the TV. “I’m Cass, that’s ’Bitch’, I mean Claire.”

  “Don’t be a dick your whole life Cassandra,” Claire groaned back.

  “Do you even know what a dick looks like?”

  “Of course I do, I’ve seen yours,” Claire said smartly.

  “Then why don’t you come over here and suck it!” Cass snapped.

  “Oh, come on! Will you two stop it!” Jerry yelled.

  “Holy crap, that’s her! That’s the chick that tried to eat Jerry!” Steve suddenly yelped and starting backing up, looking terrified.

  “I said I was sorry,” Cass moaned indignantly.

  “Don’t worry, she’s been...muzzled,” Jerry assured Steve.

  “Did you just refer to me as a dog?!” Cass said indignantly, jumping off the couch.

  “Ahh, see Cass, he knows you already,” Claire said sweetly.

  “Wanna get bit?” she glared at her sister.

  “Enough! or I’m opening all the curtains!” Jerry shouted. “Will you two just prove to Sarah that you’re vampires?”

  Claire sighed and opened her mouth. Her canines extended into fangs.

  “Holy shit!” Sarah shrieked, and jumped backwards.

  Goose started laughing. “See, told you it would be funny.”

  “She’s a freakin’ vampire!” Sarah screamed.

  “Yeah...we did tell you that,” Jerry nodded, not really understanding her shock.

  “But she’s a vampire!”

  “See, this is how normal people react,” Claire said, seeming not to notice the terrified looks on Steve and Sarah’s faces.

  “Yeah, but we’re awesome,” Goose smirked.

  “Keep telling yourself that, short bus,” Cass said.

  “Bite me!” Goose replied, without thinking. “Not literally...” he hastily amended.

  “It’s okay Sarah; they aren’t going to hurt you. Well, they might make your head hurt with their constant bickering, but they won’t attack you. They don’t drink human blood...most of the time,” Jerry corrected.

  “I said I was sorry!” Cass yelled in frustration.

  “Look,” Jerry ignored her. “You guys have a lot of catching up to do, so I suggest you start digging into the books over there,” Claire had stacked the books in a neat pile by the wall. “But not the top one, I’m still reading about werewolves.”

  “Werewolves?! Werewolves are real?!” Sarah looked like she was going to faint.

  “A lot of stuff is real,” Jerry nodded.

  “Is Hogwarts real?” Sarah whispered in all seriousness.

  Everyone just looked at her like she’d gone crazy.

  CHAPTER 13 – FRESH BLOOD

  Joe’s House – St. Cloud.

  Joe caved into the demand for pizza after he got home, just after the sun went down. He wasn’t all that pleased when he saw his house looking so clean though, and decided to just dump his dirty clothes on the floor to make up for it. Steve and Sarah had settled down after a while, but were still a little jumpy.

  It was a truly surreal experience to be sitting at a table eating pizza with a pair of vampires. The four teenagers were eating and reading, still trying to learn as much as possible about their strange new world.

  “A vengeful spirit is almost exclusively produced from a particularly brutal and violent death at the hands of another human being,” Steve said, reading his book out loud. “A vengeful spirit will often re-enact its own violent death, most often in the location that they were killed. It will practice this loop on the living because it is unable to discern them from the person or persons that murdered them.”

  Sarah put her book down, looking anguished. “How can this be real?!”

  “Well, unless someone slipped some shrooms into my coffee, I’d say quite easily,” Jerry said, before taking another bite of pizza.

  “I mean, how can the world not know about all this stuff?”

  “We take precautions to make sure that they don’t,” Claire answered. “Besides, most people don’t want to know about this stuff. If they come close to it, they brush it off as something else. Some are the opposite and become obsessed. The smart ones find out the truth, then keep their traps shut. It’s the stupid ones who get labeled whack-jobs.”

  “Most end up with a little stint in the puzzle factory,” Cass added.

  “I think I’m on my way there,” Sarah groaned.

  “Yeah? If you do get shipped off to the loony bin, I’ll take your shoes; they’re nice,” Cass said, mercilessly.

  “Nobody’s getting committed. You just gotta wrap your head around this stuff and deal with it. Whatever knocks you down, don’t let it keep you there,” Jerry quoted.

  “Was that Hemmingway?” Claire asked in interest.

  “No, that was Joe,” Jerry smiled.

  “Really?” she said, looking impressed.

  “Sort of a motto from my Drill Sergeant.” Joe joined in.

  “It’s a good one,” Claire smiled.

  Jerry was the only one in the room who didn’t seem to notice the way Claire was gazing at Joe. Cass smiled wickedly; she’d just found something else to attack her sister with.

  “Speaking of, I’ll take you guys up to Preston Field tomorrow and give you some target practice,” he said.

  That only made Sarah look even more nervous. “Err...I don’t like guns.”

  “Well, they don’t like you either. Deal with it,” Cass said, causing Sarah to gulp.

  “I hate to say it, but she’s right,” Joe said to Sarah. “If the shit hits the fan, sticking your fingers in your ears isn’t going to save your life.”

  “Yeah, and you’ve got a big strong war hero to teach you how to fight. It might even be fun,” Cass said, rubbing Joe's arm.

  Claire’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t like her sister touching him.

  “I’m not a war hero,” Joe smiled back and actually looked a little shy.

  “Nonsense, I saw your medals when Betsy Ross here was cleaning the place. Impressive collection,” Cass said.

  “I was just doing my job,” Joe replied modestly.

  “Well, you must be very talented then,” Cass said, licking her lips and throwing a seductive smile his way.

  Claire ground her teeth, trying to hide her anger. Cass was only flirting with Joe in order to get to her, and would only enjoy it more if she knew she was succeeding.

  Jerry didn’t miss their exchange. He looked pretty pissed off himself. Whether it was because Cassandra was flirting with Joe, or because she wasn’t flirting him was yet to be seen. He was the one with the magic blood, after all. She was supposed to be tempted by him.

  He stayed quiet about it though and tried desperately to concentrate on his book. He couldn’t stop himself from looking up occasionally, to see Cass giving Joe more suggestive looks. It was seriously pushing his patience.

  When Steve and Sarah left, the group became a bit more at ease, but Jerry couldn’t imagine them getting any sleep tonight. Shortly afterwards, Cass went outside for a smoke, but not before blowing Joe a kiss.

  That did it!

  Jerry knew he was being immature and stupid, but he couldn’t let this go on. Watching the vampire he was lusting over flirt with his uncle was too much to take. He slammed down the book and marched outside.

  She was leaning against the wall of the house, blowing smoke out of her mouth.

  “What the hell are you doing?!” he growled.

  “Smoking. Why, you want one?” she said lazily.

  “I mean with Joe!”

  “Just having a little fun,” she grinned.

  “Leave him alone!” he ordered.

  “Or you’ll do…what?” she teased.