“You think?” Jerry begged.
“Yeah. Your blood is what really gets them because they drink blood, right? I mean, if they ate skin or something, your flesh would probably be what gives them the kick.”
“Well, that’s a comforting thought,” Jerry said, still looking a little worried. “Man, I just got over all my other crap and now this...”
“So you’re okay?” Goose asked with a smile.
“I was until the idea of a Chucky sized suck puppet jumped into my mind!”
“No, I mean...vampire sex cured you?” he said with a little giggle.
“No...Cass told me some things, before...we talked about all the nasty things in our lives and getting it out; it felt good. I mean, not just purging my demons and all that wussy crap, but the serious kick up the ass that she gave me when I was baring my soul like a weepy little girl. I mean, she put it into perspective and I realized that all the shit that’s rolled into my lap lately is not completely out of my control. I can do something about it...I’m not going after Selena for kicks...I’m doing it because I need you guys to be safe.”
“What? Jerry, I’m your best friend and I’m with you for as long as this tour lasts, but that doesn’t mean I want you to do this kinda crap.” Goose said seriously.
“Dude, it’s my blood that’s screwed you guys. I’ve messed everything up because of whatever the hell is running in my veins,” he said honestly. “I can’t change that, but I sure as hell can kill some nasty freakin’ monsters.
“That’s not your call to make!” Goose yelled. “You wanna go do all that lone wolf bullshit, all you’re gonna get is dead. We survive by sticking together. So, you wanna fight a pureblood...I’m in.”
“What?!” Sarah and Steve gasped.
“Hell yeah, I ain’t missing out on all the fun. In case you didn’t notice, I took out two vamps during the fun at the Nearly Departed. I got skills, so let’s kill that bitch,” he grinned.
“It’s my gig, not yours!”
“Bull. It’s our gig! We play together or we don’t play at all!”
“Okay, these euphemisms are starting to get a little too sexually provocative, but seriously, I’m not draggin' you into this!”
“Nobody is dragging me anywhere! I’m volunteering!”
“Denied!”
“Again, not your call to make, you hypocritical bastard!” Goose scathed.
“Yeah, you’re a hypocripical–hypoc-hypocrip–hypocripi–hyp–hyp...”
“You’re still having trouble with that word?” Goose asked in amazement.
“Shut up!” Jerry growled. “That word sucks!”
It had been a strange little fault inside Jerry’s head since he was born. For him, the word ‘hypocritical’ was as impossible to pronounce as a poem in Aramaic.
“Jerry -”
“Point being, this ain’t your fight!” Jerry interrupted.
“That’s a stable full of horseshit! You’re my best friend,” he stated. “If you’re in this, I’m in this, and don’t you dare try and twist it otherwise. We fight this together, until the bell rings and that’s it!”
Jerry couldn’t ignore his friend’s loyalty. But that only made him want to protect him more.
“Goose, I got no illusions about this. This battle is gonna be bigger than anything we can imagine and there’s a good chance that I ain’t coming back from it. But I gotta try. I die and all this ends for you guys, I win...it doesn’t end, but at least it’ll make the rest of them hesitate,” he said. He was trying not to sound preachy but he was still coming off as self-righteous. “There is no win-win here...there’s just lose or really lose...I’m screwed guys. This shit’s in my blood and it’s here to stay. This is all there is for me now. All I can do is try and keep it together in this impossible situation.”
Jerry’s words and the tone of his voice rang true. They listened without even trying to speak.
“This is what Cass made me realize. She shocked me into the truth, and it worked. I had plans...I knew, before any of this crap that I was gonna finish school and become an engineer and work on cars and maybe do the odd security system here and there,” he smiled with a sad nostalgic look on his face. “But that’s all gone now...I’ll never have a normal life, and, you know what, I’m okay with that...because it ain’t the job, it ain’t the cars, it ain’t the college degree or the nine to five and it sure as shit ain’t my blood...it’s you guys. I love you, all of you...and saving you is way more important than working on a dashboard or worrying about acne. It’s you guys that make me what I am. I’m not crazy, I’m not suicidal, I’m just doing the only thing that I can. If I get the choice, I rather go down swinging and protecting you guys,” tears were welling up in his eyes, but he was still smiling with pride.
For a moment they all just looked at him in shock. They never imagined Jerry could say something so profound...and so stupid.
“Wow, Cass must have screwed some Hallmark into your brain because that is some truly beautiful and sweet bullshit you’re talking right now,” Sarah declared.
“Yeah, all you need is Brian Adams playing in the background and this would be lovely,” Steve agreed, trying not to laugh.
“Ahh blow me! I totally stayed awake last night thinking up that speech too!” Jerry yelled back, rubbing his eyes. He was a little heartbroken that the heroic words which he’d practiced hadn’t hit home in the way he had been hoping.
“Jerry, you do realize that even though you got some messed up blood and saliva and whatever else, you’re not any different to us?” Goose asked, still smiling from Sarah’s comment. “Blood might run thicker than water, but family runs thicker than anything and that’s what we are. We aren’t friends; we’re family and family sticks together. So, if you’re going on some kamikaze run against Selena, we’re in.”
Jerry looked at his best friend and saw that he wasn’t kidding. He looked to Sarah and Steve, hoping they would shoot him down, but they didn’t. They were nodding in agreement with Goose.
“We got you outnumbered bro,” Steve grinned. “You can’t fight city hall.”
He knew that they were willing to go all the way, but that just made him hate the situation even more. He wasn’t afraid to die, not anymore, but he was afraid for them to die.
“Son of a bitch!” Jerry growled, defeated.
“You said it,” Goose smirked.
“So, how you planning to fight that unbelievably powerful super-vampire bitch?” Steve asked.
“Purebloods got wings, but they’re just like normal bats. Wind, pressure, air pockets, they gotta take that into account when they’re flying. The books say that in a dive bomb a pureblood can hit one eighty. That’s miles, not kilometers, so it’s fast...but, I got something that’s faster,” Jerry grinned.
“What?”
“The Boss.”
“The Boss can’t push one eighty!” Goose said quickly. “She can do one twenty, max.”
“Not with the engine that Joe put in her. He completely rebuilt it, took out all the flaws and added a few personal touches. Most of the components are from F1’s or NASCARS. With the guts she’s got inside her now, she can punch two hundred, maybe two ten if she’s in a good mood. I should know, I helped him with some of it. If she went any faster, she’d burn the pistons out. And she ain’t some plastic piece of crap that they’re putting out these days, her shell is light weight reinforced steel. She’s a tank with a jet engine under the hood.”
“You think the 429 can tip the tide?” Goose asked.
“No vampire - Empusa, Strigoi, pureblood, none of them can push two ten. The Boss can, she’s faster, she’ll give me the edge...but, I’m gonna need some extra kick.”
Goose sighed. He knew what he wanted. “The minigun...”
“I want the minigun,” Jerry nodded.
“Jerry -”
“I don’t give a shit how powerful she is, nothing stands up to two thousand silver armor piercing rounds a minute at point blank range!
I unload on her and there won’t even be anything left to burn. I need the minigun!”
“The minigun, the Boss, hardware might not be enough...you need back-up,” Goose said.
Jerry nodded in agreement. “Heavily armed back-up?”
“Is there any other kind?”
“Alright...we do this together.”
“Where do we start? I mean, Sophinia’s gang haven’t been able to find Black Forest, how are we supposed to?” Sarah asked.
“We don’t have to; they’re gonna come to us.”
“No!” she said as soon as she realized what he was suggesting.
“It’s the only way.”
“No, that isn’t an option!” she yelled. “Jerry, they don’t know who you are at the moment. You use your blood as bait, they will find out. You wanna protect us, protect our friends? Well, you’d be handing them over on a platter if they find out that it’s you! If even half the shit we’ve heard about Black Forest is true, you know damn well that if they can’t get you, they’ll go for everyone you care about. They’ll kill every last person at this school just on the off chance that they get you. They’ll wipe out the whole city if they think they have too!”
“That’s why we gotta find this undead winged bitch. That’s why I’m gonna kill her myself.”
“No! This is bullshit!” Goose yelled. He knew Jerry too well. “You aren’t going Terminator just for the hell of it. This ain’t some crappy last stand nonsense. You actually wanna die!”
Jerry was about to brush that comment off, but he couldn’t. Goose knew the truth and anything else he said would just confirm it. He was right on the money. Jerry wanted to die...but he wanted to go out fighting.
If he died, this all went away. At least his friends would be able to go back to their normal lives and forget all this madness.
“Everybody dies. If that’s the way it’s gotta be,” he shrugged in admittance.
SMACK!
Goose laid a massive right hook straight into Jerry’s jaw. He fell backwards off the table-chair and hit the ground. All the other student watched as if they were getting free pay per view.
“You stupid son of a bitch!” Goose roared with fire in his veins. “How could you even think that?!”
“Goose, she dies, it ends. I die, it ends!” Jerry said, wiping the blood from his mouth. “Its win-win!”
“I’m sorry, I thought you were just saying that it never ends!” Goose spat, angry and snarky. “You don’t get to do that! You don’t get to be that selfish!”
“Selfish?!” Jerry said, standing up and rubbing his jaw. “I’m trying to save you, you dumb bastard!”
“Save me, save us?! By leaving us?! That’s a coward’s way out and you know it! You’re planning to throw your life away for some bullshit pipe dream and you think everything is gonna be hunky dory? If you could be turned, you’d be begging for it right now because you’d think that it would make you strong enough to fight this!”
Goose was voicing a truth that Jerry didn’t want to face. He was livid.
“You know what, you’re right! I would! I’d do whatever it takes to stop them and save you!” he meant it.
“You’re out of your freakin’ mind! You’d become one of those things?”
“To get the job done!”
“And what is it that paves the way to hell?” Goose reminded.
“No, this is on me!”
“If it’s on you, it’s on all of us!” Goose yelled.” All the spectators in the dining room didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, they just wanted to see a fight. “That’s what family means you dick!” Goose continued angrily, “Anyone that would choose to be one of those things, for whatever reason, it just means that they can’t hack life! Anyone that wants to get rid of their pulse is a pussy, by any measure! It takes nothing to turn your back on being human; it takes strength to endure it! You’re strong!”
“I can’t be turned...so I gotta do the best I can with what I got. That means heavy fire power and some kick-ass wheels!”
“Err, guys...we have an audience,” Steve interjected.
Goose and Jerry broke away from their angry stares and heated argument long enough to look around at the crowd of kids that had gathered.
“I’m not gonna lie,” Goose announced to the crowd. “What’s going on here; it’s a pretty screwed up situation. But it’s our shit, so unless you want me to hurt every last one of you lame ass bitches, I suggest you get disappeared real quick, or I’m gonna start swinging!”
Nobody moved. They just looked on confused.
“GET THE HELL OUT! NOW!”
That simple order made them shuffle to the exits as fast as they could. As soon as the lunch hall was empty, Goose and Jerry prepared to square off against each other again.
“I’m not gonna let you do this, I’m not gonna let you throw your life away!”
“I’m not throwing anything away! I mean, I’ll fight; I’ll fight to my last breath but let’s be real about this. Even with the car and the gun, I’m the underdog...all I’m saying is, me losing this fight might have a b-side.”
“What b-side? You die and we just go back to living our lives like nothing happened? Oh, right, people do that every day!”
“It’s not ideal, but it’s a possibility!”
“Yeah, but it’s not an option! Getting yourself killed is not a solution!”
“I’m not gonna kill myself, Goose. But I can’t ignore the fact that I might lose this fight!”
“So, while everyone else is going to Prom, you’re gonna go hunt a super-vampire?!” Steve jumped in.
“I wasn’t planning on going to Prom anyway,” Jerry shrugged.
“Well, we ain’t either if this is the alternative venue.”
“Hey, what the hell is going on?!” it was Parker. He’d obviously seen the students evacuating the lunch hall and rushed to investigate what was happening. “I know you two like to scrap, but not with each other. And you can’t take on Selena, Jerry.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“Claire called me. They’re all freaking out over there because they think you’re about to do something supremely stupid!”
“You ain’t in my shoes! If Selena tears this place down and I could have stopped her, it’s on me!”
“You wouldn’t stand a chance. And Selena wouldn’t kill you, she needs you alive.”
“Then I’ll put a cap in my temple before she can drain me!” Jerry yelled.
“Do you even know how far off the reservation you’ve gone?!” Goose shouted back. “You’re gonna blow your own head off?! You’ve lost it man!”
“Actually I’m seeing more clearly than I ever have before!” he shot back. “This is the only way! Don’t you get it, even if I can’t take her, I can bring her out of hiding so that Sophinia can rip her head off! I’m not happy about this plan, but it’s the only one we got so I’m going through with it. End of discussion.”
It wasn’t the end. It had only just started. As soon as he arrived back home, Rachel, Sophinia and about half a dozen vampire bodyguards were waiting. He knew he’d have to deal with Sophinia at some point but he hadn’t expected it to be this soon. Unfortunately it was not the nicest weather outside. A storm system had started to build because of the recent humidity and the dark clouds above had covered the sun, making it possible for them to move around during the day.
In addition to looking angry about his insane plan, they all knew about him and Cass, who was sitting in the corner looking a little worried while Sophinia stood behind her, watching her every move. Joe was next to Claire, both looking annoyed.
Goose let out a little ‘eep’ when he saw them all.
“Oh, good, Captain America’s back,” Rachel scoffed as soon as he entered.
“I’m going to tell you right now, you even think about going after Selena and we will stop you by force,” Sophinia declared, not looking so kind anymore. “I’ll cuff you to a radiator if I have to.”
“He can pick handcuffs,” Claire informed her quickly.
“Okay, chains and padlocks then,” Sophinia shrugged.
“Ahh, Sophie, you kinky bitch, you’re gonna have to buy me a drink first,” Jerry grinned and giggled.
“You are the drink, you dumb bastard!” Claire yelled. “Don’t you get that?”
“Yep, I’m a stiff pissed off drink with a big kick.”
“No, Daniel, you’re just a man. We’re vampires, Rachel is a psychic that can drop thirty people with a thought, and you think you pose a threat to us? I understand your plight. These people are the only family you’ve ever had and you’re desperate to protect them, but be realistic. You’re a seventeen year old kid with two weeks of weapons training who never knew his mother, has some daddy issues and drinks too much scotch.” Sophinia said coolly.
Blood Heavy (Blood Heavy Series) Page 23