Selena took one look at Sophinia and pushed Cass off of her with all the strength she could muster. It sent her flying backwards into the wall and she slumped to the ground before jumping up again. Selena had already taken to the air and busted through the roof of the factory.
She wasn’t stupid. There was no way in hell that she could take on Cass and Sophinia at the same time. She had lost this round, but there would be another.
They came charging towards Jerry like secret service agents protecting the President. They surrounded him and stayed ready for anything.
“Daniel, are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m okay, but she knows it’s me! You gotta go after her,” he said, breathing heavily.
Sophinia looked like she was about to take off into the sky, but a snarl stopped her. They all turned to see Cassandra standing there. Her eyes were still burning and she was covered in blood, but looked ready for yet more. She stared at Jerry.
“Easy Cass, calm down,” Jerry tried.
“Cassandra, it’s alright, nobody is going to hurt you,” Sophinia said, approaching her slowly with her hands held up.
“Come on, sis, it’s okay,” Claire nodded, looking horrified.
Cass’s eyes darted back and forth between each of them, like a predator marking its prey. The hiss that slipped from her mouth sounded like something a crocodile would make when it was pissed off. It made Sophinia stop moving, as Cass starting showing her blood soaked fangs. It was if she’d lost any semblance of her human side. At that moment it was pure animal instinct.
She roared like a rabid bear and lunged straight at Jerry. Sophinia managed to lock her arms around her and squeezed like a vice, trying keep her under control, but even against her strength, Cass was putting up a hell of a fight. Claire and several other vampires pounced on her and held her. Like police subduing a suspect, they forced her to the ground and locked her arms behind her back. She screamed and snarled and kicked wildly, but they managed to keep her pinned.
Jerry felt guilt flood his gut. He had done this to her. At the time he’d thought she’d just power up enough to save them. He hadn’t imagined that she would turn into some bloodthirsty beast.
“Christ! She’s burning up!” Larz yelled, feeling the heat coming from her body. To a vampire it must have felt like the sun was inside her. “We gotta incapacitate her! Somebody shoot her in the head!”
“Jerry!”
He span around to see Joe, Goose, Steve, Sarah and Rachel running up. Apart from Rachel they were all armed and looking both shocked and relieved.
Joe immediately pulled his nephew into a bear hug for a second, before grabbing his arm and looking at his wound. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, but Cass is...” he didn’t know what to say.
“Rachel!” Sophinia called her over.
She ran up, held her hand at Cass’s head and closed her eyes. Whatever she was trying to do, it didn’t seem to be working because Cass continued to thrash.
“I can’t find her!” Rachel gasped.
“What?” Goose asked, looking very confused.
“Her conscious mind is buried under the blood lust. She’s gone back to the way she was when she was first turned!” Claire said, her voice shaking.
“I didn’t know! I didn’t know this would happen!” Jerry cried.
“It’s okay kid,” Joe said.
“It’s not okay! Look at her!”
Her movements started to slow down and she looked up with her eyes locked on Jerry’s wound. The blood had started seeping through the makeshift bandage he had used and it was starting to drip down his arm. She watched, almost hypnotized as a tiny drop of crimson fell from his arm and hit the floor.
Suddenly, Cass exploded with rage and hunger. She blasted everyone off of her and shot straight towards Jerry. Joe tried to use himself as a human shield, but she shoved him aside like he wasn’t even there.
She grabbed Jerry and buried her teeth deep into his throat, piercing his artery. Blood sprayed from the corners of her mouth covering both of them. Sophinia and the others screamed in horror and rushed to his aid. They did everything they could to pull her off, but her jaws stayed dug into his neck.
BANG!
Cass flopped backwards and hit the ground with a bullet hole in her forehead. She didn’t burn up like other vamps because silver had no effect on her at that moment, but she was out for the count. Goose stood there, a the smoking gun in his hand. Everyone rushed to Jerry’s side and began clamping hands down on the hole in his neck.
He was leaking blood like a burst water main. He choked as his mouth filled up with metallic warm liquid. His eyes were wide in shock. He hadn’t been able to process what had happened and still couldn’t. Everyone was screaming things at him, but he couldn’t make them out. Their voices seemed so far away.
Joe and Goose had tears in their eyes as they yelled in panic. Sophinia looked as if she was begging, but their faces had started to fade from his vision and he was consumed by darkness. Any pain that he had been feeling became a light numb feeling. He was so tired. He just wanted to sleep.
Sleep forever.
CHAPTER 19 – REBORN
St. Cloud Hospital – Minnesota.
The slow and steady beeping noise that came from the heart monitor was the only thing giving Joe and the others any hope. Jerry was alive, but nowhere near well.
He had wires and tubes connected to his body in dozens of places. A huge bandage was on his throat and another on his arm, and his eyes were closed and unmoving. He couldn’t breathe on his own. He wasn’t even dreaming.
Jerry was in a coma.
In addition to his uncle, Goose, Sarah, Steve and Rachel were huddled around his bed in silence, still covered in his dried blood. Steve had his arms locked around Sarah, whose cheeks were still red from the tears she’d been shedding since they arrived.
Claire and Sophinia had returned to the mansion to lock down and detox Cassandra, which was probably a good thing, since right now Joe wanted to put a stake through her heart. He knew it wasn’t her fault. Jerry’s blood, like his saliva, had turned her into something she didn’t want to be, but it didn’t make him hate her any less.
The rain that spattered against the window of Jerry’s hospital room mimicked the occupants’ moods perfectly. Outside, several police officers including Adams and Benchley were patrolling the ward under Sophinia’s orders. They would have to suffice as protection for now, since Sophinia wouldn’t risk having vampires around him.
An hour later, the doctor entered the room with a clipboard in hand. He was black, in his forties, with a white doctor’s jacket.
“Mr. Jericho?”
“Yes,” Joe said, standing up and walking over to him.
“Your nephew’s condition is stable for the moment. I can’t guarantee that it will stay that way. We won’t know the extent of the damage until he wakes up...if he wakes up,” he said sincerely.
“What do you mean if?!” Joe growled.
“I know how difficult this is for you, but you have to be realistic,” the doctor sighed. “He sustained massive blood loss. When the brain is starved of oxygen for that long, the chances of Cerebral Hypoxia skyrocket. His brain scans are already showing a significantly reduced amount of neural activity. The fact that he’s even alive right now is nothing short of a miracle. If he weren’t blood heavy, he’d be dead already.”
“Blood heavy?” Goose asked. “What the hell is that?”
“Well, a normal person of his size, weight and age should have between nine or ten pints of blood in their body; he’s closer to eleven or twelve. Has this ever been mentioned to you before?”
“Err, no?” Joe said, truly unsure.
“Jerry’s got a very strong immune system,” Sarah said quietly.
“Yes, I can see that. He’s never been admitted for any natural ailments in his whole life,” the doc said, looking over his medical history. “Does he eat a lot?”
“Lately,
yeah,” Goose nodded.
“Well, he also seems to have an extremely enhanced metabolism. We’re feeding him intravenously at the moment, but he’s absorbing it much quicker than usual. This could indicate that his body is trying to stock pile energy in order to sustain him. That’s a good sign. It means his base bodily functions are still active. We had to tube him because the wound in his neck affected his ability to breath.”
“Jerry’s tough, he can take it,” Goose said to himself, whilst looking over at his comatose friend.
“Yes, he is...and he’s got a heart like a battleship piston. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“What do you mean?” Joe asked looking scared.
“Well, his sinus rhythm isn’t off, but his heart has got a hell of a lot more kick behind it than any normal person’s should. It’s almost as if he has an extra layer of muscle around his heart. It makes the pump a lot stronger. Unfortunately, that’s why he lost so much blood when he was injured. His circulation runs faster, so when he bleeds out it’s much worse than it should be. He’s got an incredibly powerful machine in his chest and that is what’s keeping him alive right now. It’s almost as if his blood and his heart have created equilibrium. He bleeds out faster but he also has more blood to lose, so it balances out. We should have spotted this the last time he was brought in, but you discharged him before we could.”
Jerry having a strong heart wasn’t the slightest bit surprising to them.
“That’s why he’s gonna pull through this,” Joe stated.
“He’s fighting very hard and we are doing everything that we can, but I can’t promise anything. I’m sorry,” the doc said, but not particularly comfortingly. His mind was on other things. “I have to ask, this is the second time he’s been admitted for an...’animal attack’,” he read out the report. “The injury is in the exact same place as last time...is your nephew doing anything that would invite this kind of attack?”
“You have no idea,” Goose mumbled.
“It’s a freak occurrence, that’s all,” Joe said over Goose’s voice.
“Really? Is that why there are so many police officers walking around?” he asked, looking suspicious.
“It was an animal attack,” Joe said, getting very close to him. He glared into the doctor’s eyes and projected as much threat as he could. “That’s all there is to it.”
“Alright...” the doc said, recoiling, but it wasn’t because of Joe. He seemed to suddenly crash like a computer, then restart automatically. “If that’s how it was. I need to run more tests.”
He left a few seconds later, but Joe had already noticed Rachel staring at him beforehand. She had made him act that way. As soon as the door closed, Joe spun around and turned his eyes to the psychic.
“Fix him!”
“I can't.”
“You have to do something!”
“Joe, I can’t just -”
“He’s in a coma and you’re a psychic! I don’t care how deep you have to go, you find him and pull him out!”
“It’s doesn’t work that way! I can’t just snap him out of this. It could take months to find him. His consciousness has retreated as far inside his head as it can get. Do you have any idea how big the human mind is? It would be like me wondering the Gobi desert calling out his name.”
“Then get those damn Harry Potter wannabes down here to use some special juju and fix him up!”
“The Salem Witches can’t help. He’s immune to their magic. They can’t heal him, besides, we have no idea what magic would do to him in this state,” Rachel argued back. “We can’t even inject him with that hormone shot which Parker made for him because it’s too risky. Why do you think Sophinia ordered all the vamps away from him?”
By now Jerry’s scent was thick in the air and the vampires probably wouldn’t be able to resist.
“I don’t give a crap!” Joe snapped. “They promised that they would protect him! My nephew is dying!” tears suddenly flooded his eyes. “You did this to him! All of you!”
Even though she could have dropped him to the floor with a serious aneurism, she still backed away from him. She could see the thoughts in his head and they were all locked on Jerry. He was so scared and angry it was amazing he wasn’t going postal. Rachel was actually backing away from the love that Joe had for his nephew. It was something even her power couldn't fight against.
“Joe, dude, he’s gonna come back,” Goose said, putting a hand on his shoulder while trying to hide his own tears. “He always comes back.”
He wished he had Goose’s faith, but he didn’t. He was Jerry’s guardian and was therefore obligated to consider the worst.
They weren’t the only ones who were gathered around a bed.
Sophinia’s Mansion
Sioux Falls – South Dakota
Below the hardwood floors of Sophinia’s mansion, Cassandra was screaming in agony. The wound on her head had healed, but that wasn’t the problem. The detoxing formula was burning away the blood in her body. She was writhing and kicking, but her arms and legs were locked down by heavy metal clamps. She had lost a great deal of her strength from the bloodletting, but was still as wild as ever. Claire was at her side trying desperately hard to calm her sister, but nothing was working. She wiped heaps of sweat from Cass’s head as blood poured from her ears and nose.
“Shh, shh, It’s gonna be okay,” Claire shuddered with worry.
This detox was way more violent than any normal one. Jerry’s blood had really screwed her up. A horrible crunching noise erupted as Cass gritted her teeth so hard that they broke. It was like she was being hit by sunlight, but wasn’t burning up. It was torturing her.
“There’s gotta be something you can do!” she yelled at Parker, who was standing by the door. Sophinia was also there just behind him.
“I’m sorry,” he shook his head. “We just gotta get it out of her. The only thing that stopped her from combusting already was the fact that she was drinking vampire blood. I think she knew and she was trying to counterbalance what she took from Jerry.”
“I mean -” her words were cut off by Cass screaming again. “I mean about...she can’t go back to the way she was, she can’t!”
Tears started rolling down her cheeks as she looked at her sister. It was obvious that she loved Cass just as much as Cass loved her. They just couldn’t admit it to each other anymore.
“Claire,” Sophinia said, moving closer. He voice was soft and caring. “You know as well as I do how vicious Cassandra was in her early years...if she reverts back to that...it’s something I can’t allow.”
“You’re not killing her!” Claire shouted, and shifted backwards, protecting her sister.
“Claire, I don’t like it anymore than you do, but you know she’ll go on the same rampage she did when you first turned her.”
“No! She’s better now! She won’t!”
“We have to be ready for -”
“JERRY!”
All of them span around as soon as Cass had screamed his name.
“Oh God! What have I done?!” she cried amidst the pain flowing through her.
“Cass, it’s okay, shh, shh.”
“I killed him! He’s dead!” she moaned, tears flooding her eyes.
The agony that was racking her body had gone away, but her senses were starting to come back as his blood disappeared from her body. She was remembering everything that she’d done while being juiced up, especially ripping Jerry’s throat out.
“No, Cass, he’s alive! You didn’t kill him!” Claire said quickly, trying to calm her.
She managed to pull herself away from the imaginary knives that were piercing her body long enough to look are her sister.
“He’s alive?” she gasped.
“He’s in a coma, but he’s holding on,” Claire nodded, trying to make the situation sound a little hopeful.
Suddenly, she burst into tears and tried to hide her face. She’d just had a high definition 3D enhanced look at her old
self, and she hated it. She was reliving all the horrible things she’d done, except this time her guilt was right there with it. This was why vampires believed in hell and why they thought they were going there.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay...he’s...he’s gonna pull through...” Claire hushed, but clearly didn’t believe her own words.
“I’m sorry...for what I did to you, I’m so sorry!” Cass sniffed, wincing in pain.
Blood Heavy (Blood Heavy Series) Page 26