Carlotta and the Krius Scepter (Carlotta Series Book 1)

by John Booth

  “You really don’t know nothin’ about your kind, do you?”

  I frowned as that sounded a little insulting.

  “Even the boy knew he couldn’t touch silver. Allergies he said.” Mike snorted in derision. “These cuffs are silver plated and if you try and escape, you get to wear them all the time, just like the boy. You wonna try?”

  I put my arms out defiantly and he snapped the cuffs over both my wrists in a fluid motion. I screamed in agony. The cuffs burned as though they were red hot. My skin blistered where they touched. I rolled on the bed unable to think on anything but the pain. It took a lot of effort just to stay conscious. All the strength that had been flooding through my body since I woke up evaporated. The room dulled in my eyes, its colors fading and my head throbbed.

  Mike’s strong hand held me while the other fumbled to put the key into the cuffs and unlock them. I wanted to help, but I couldn’t stop squirming. When he got the first cuff off I managed to recover enough self control to hold my other wrist out so he could free it. As soon as the cuffs where gone I pulled my arms close to my chest and shook with reaction as the pain slowly diminished.

  Mike put the cuffs in his pocket and looked at me.

  “If the boss finds out about Vinnie you may end up wearing them. The only reason you ain’t wearing them now is how you showed you ain’t much of a threat. The boy’s worn them since his escape attempt. He’s a lot stronger than you. Been wearing them for three weeks now. He’s two doors down away from the elevator. Vinnie’s key fits his door too. Kid’s in a bad way. Could probably do with the company of his own kind.”

  Well, that was a message you could read without the aid of spectacles. I was surprised he didn’t write it down and leave it as a note just to make sure I got it.

  Mike got up and picked up the tray. He walked over to the door where Pat still waited with his gun pointed at me. Pat moved as Mike approached so he always had a clear shot. I was still recovering from the cuffs and it was as much as I could do to keep my hands from shaking.

  “Have a nice day,” Mike said cheerfully. He closed and locked the door behind him.

  Ten minutes later the red marks and blisters around my wrists were gone. The weakness slowly faded and I managed to get off the bed without falling over. I walked over to the mirror and checked myself out. My eyes looked a little bloodshot, but otherwise I seemed okay.

  I thought it was crosses and holy water that vampires feared and here I was almost killed by a little silverplate. When did they change the rules? I shivered at the thought of being in those cuffs for any time. This boy they kept talking about must be superman or insane if he’d worn them for days. Need the company of his own kind? More likely he needed a straightjacket and a permanent room in a sanitarium if you asked me.

  Whatever else, I’d been given an opportunity to case the joint and information is power. I’d search the Penthouse, leaving the kid’s room till last. There was nothing I could do for him if he was wearing those cuffs. I admitted to myself that I also didn’t want to see what I would look like if The Don took exception to my handling of his son.

  The Penthouse proved a big disappointment. There were five other rooms my key opened, apart from the one I was avoiding. They were identical if you ignored the fact that mine had a broken chair. There was a whole section I couldn’t get into and then there was an industrial size kitchen. It hadn’t been used for a while. Mike must have brought my breakfast up from the restaurant. There were a couple of large and locked fridges and freezers and a small fridge with a few cans of cola in it. I drank one and hid the empty can behind an oven.

  I found a drawer with cutlery in it. That was stupid, giving me knives. I reached for the nearest and pulled my hand back as pain shot through my fingers. Who used real silver cutlery? I took a tea towel and tried to pick a knife up with it. I dropped the knife a second later. The damned thing had bitten me through the cloth.

  I moved a finger cautiously towards a piece of the silver. When I got an inch away my finger started to hurt. By half an inch it felt as though it was on fire and I gave up. One thing was for certain, no way was I ever going to wear those cuffs. I’d rather die first.

  Every window was blacked out, even the skylights in the kitchen. And not one of them opened. Some of them had opened once and they’d been welded shut. Not just spot welded, but an incredibly thorough weld going around the whole window. I was willing to bet money the glass was unbreakable. It didn’t seem worth the effort to try to find out.

  At the ends of the corridor were the most amazing steel doors I’ve seen outside of a bank, with no glass and set in equally impressive steel frames. They opened with an electronic pad and there were six LED’s that lit up in sequence when you pressed a button. All I had to do was guess the right six figure number. I tried all the obvious ones like one to six and six to one, and then all zeroes, but none of them worked. Probably what I needed was The Don’s phone number. Unfortunately that was in the letter Rex King had kept from me. Damn. He would have shown it to me if I’d asked.

  After another hour of prevarication, I gave up and headed for the kid’s room. There wasn’t much else to do unless I wanted to try the elevator and end up wearing those damned cuffs.

  I turned the key in the lock and listened. Not a sound. This room seemed to be as empty as the others. Taking a deep breath I opened the door and walked in expecting to find a corpse wearing pretty silver cuffs.

  The boy sat at the dressing table staring at the mirror above it. He looked to be in his middle teens, somewhere between 15 and 19 if I had to hazard a guess. He looked a little like me at first glance. Same ash blonde hair, same build.

  He turned towards me and my eyes were drawn to his face. There were no visible whites in them as they were bloodshot. He’d put cloth around the inside of the cuffs, but it obviously wasn’t working. No surprises there after my experiences in the kitchen.

  “Who are you?”

  “Carlotta,” I replied, thinking that was probably the only question of his I’d be able to answer. “And you?”

  “Brian Talbot. Are you one of them?”

  “Do I look like a gangster?” I was insulted. For a start, I wasn’t wearing the obligatory suit.

  He shook his head and gave me a look that suggested he doubted my intelligence. “One of the creatures like me. Though I guess I’m a half-breed.”

  “A vampire?”

  Now the contempt was clearly written on his face.

  “Get the eff out of here if all you’re going to do is play games.”

  He didn’t actually use the word eff, but a lady doesn’t use such language unless appropriately provoked. I could see he was in a lot of pain so I made allowances. The best way to resolve this was to show him. I stepped to the full length mirror, which was the… err… mirror of the one in my room.

  “I’m a vampire,” I told my image.

  Nothing happened.

  “Is that supposed to prove something?” Brian sneered. If he kept this up I’d try my testicle twisting technique on him. I needed the practice in case Vinnie came calling again.

  “It worked before,” I said somewhat lamely. Disappointment had definitely diminished my usual witty repartee.

  “Are you here to rescue me?”

  I decided on telling him the truth. “I was the other half of your prisoner exchange.”

  The look of contempt on his face grew deeper. Something I would have sworn was clinically impossible if I’d been asked the question a moment before.

  “How’s that going then?” Sarcasm dripped from his words like blood.

  I moved towards him, fingers outstretched. We’d see how he liked the Vinnie special. After that, if he was still able, we’d talk.

  7. Brian

  The insane girl in the room made me think about my life. She looked enough like me for me to be certain she was one of my own kind. The only one I’d met.

  I’ve had a feeling that people were watching me since I was a little
boy. But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that someone isn’t out to get you. I wouldn’t be locked in this room with silver burning my wrists if I’d paid more attention to my paranoia. I’ll know better next time, assuming there is a next time.

  I grew up on the west side with my Mom. My Dad never once entered my life in the seventeen years I’ve been on the planet. According to Mom he was a famous guitarist with some hard rock band, but I think she made that up. There have been quite a few ‘uncle’s’ living with us since then, but none of them lasted long.

  My allergy to silver forms my earliest memories. The blinding pain I endured when women picked me up with silver chains dangling round their throats. Mom says that nobody ever believed it until they saw it for themselves. I was also amazingly strong, even as a baby.

  I learned to hide my strength while still little more than a toddler, though I wrecked quite a few toys, including some steel framed ones at various nurseries. I never stayed very long at any of them either. The kid with the snow white hair, deep blue eyes and the destructive properties of a bulldozer outstayed his welcome very fast. It was either learn to cover up my strength, or not be welcome anywhere.

  By the time I was being encouraged to join in team sports I was covering so well that nobody wanted me in their squad. Not the kid who couldn’t run and acted so clumsy. I became the archetypal nerd. Not that I ever got bullied for it. Well, not twice, because there were times I felt that using my strength was appropriate. Bullies kept their distance and when one or two tried to report me for the damage I did to them, well, no adult ever believed them. I was short for my age and thin as a rail. I didn’t look as though I could hurt a fly unless someone tied it down for me first.

  But it’s no fun playing Clark Kent and never getting to be Superman. I think it was the feeling of being watched that kept me from showing how good I was, though I made an exception when playing pool. Nobody ever beat me playing pool.

  It was hiding it in sunshine and moonlight that was a pain, though I was eleven before I discovered moonlight did it too. Put me in bright sunlight and my strength and agility increased tenfold as did the urge to use my gifts.

  When I found the chance I’d go into the alleys between the tenements and run up the walls, thirty or forty feet. I used the brickwork as brakes coming down though it was hard on my shoes. It wasn’t flying or anything, just speed and strength, but it was so exhilarating. I’ve never felt more alive and I’d do it whenever I could, pretending to be a superhero.

  I don’t know why it took me so long to find out moonlight had the same effect. It had to be a full moon and it didn’t work if there were clouds. Maybe that was the reason.

  Once I discovered it, I’d sneak out on the nights of a full moon even if it was cloudy, because those moments when the moon shone on me were magic. Sometimes I howled like a wolf just from sheer pleasure and it turned out I can do pretty good wolf impressions. I got so caught up in it that it felt as if my body was starting to change into a wolf. My imagination gets the better of me sometimes.

  I’ve never had a zit in my life, even when my balls dropped. I hit puberty a little late at thirteen and my body shot up as if I was standing in manure. The urges it brought were overwhelming. I jerked off so often at school that the teachers got my Mum to take me to a urologist to see why I needed to visit the toilet so often. Even then, I’d get an erection if a girl so much as bent over in front of me. I used so many tissues at night that Mom asked if I’d developed hay fever to go along with the silver allergy.

  While I wasn’t a jock, I was blond, blue eyed and increasingly tall. My hair had darkened to ash blond which didn’t stand out so much as when it was white. What I’m trying to say is that getting a girlfriend wasn’t all that difficult. One thing led to another and losing my virginity at fourteen made me a late developer in my neighborhood. My first and last time as it turned out.

  When I finished Amy was gasping. She told me later she’d never had a boy last so long or bring her to climax so many times. The trouble was, she was gasping in pain rather than pleasure because I’d bruised her terribly in the process. I’d gone at it like a steam-hammer and hadn’t been able to stop. We were in the park and it was early morning, having snuck out together to do the deed. I carried her in my arms running the two miles to the nearest ER.

  Amy made up some story about being ganged raped while I was held down by the gang and made to watch. The cops put out a lot more patrols in the weeks that followed, but fortunately no one was arrested and charged; I couldn’t have let another go to jail for something I’d done.

  Amy stopped being my girlfriend after that, though we’re still friends. I’d learned my lesson. Whatever I was, it prevented me from ever having sex with another girl. There were things they could do for me and I could do for them. Amy had shown me those long before our night in the park. But I knew it wouldn’t be enough and that abstinence was the only thing that would stop me hurting someone again.

  Life carried on. I got excellent grades in school. I had a few female friends who learned not to try and take it further than friendship with me. Most of them thought I was gay or indifferent to that sort of thing. The boys in school shunned me for pretty much the same reasons. Oh, one or two tried cornering me in a bit of gay bashing with their friends, but they never tried it twice.

  Mom and I celebrated my seventeenth birthday together at a fast food restaurant. My life was a bit lonely, but overall I felt pretty good about myself. The times I spent in alleys climbing the walls helped. It stopped me from climbing the wall in other ways.

  I wasn’t aware of organized crime in the city. I knew it existed and people sometimes told me scary stories; but for a kid like me with no desire for drugs, I never saw any sign. I’d heard of The Don, of course. He was a famous man, having built the biggest of the new casinos, which was also the biggest hotel in town. Some people said he was a mobster. Some people said the Mayor had mob connections. I didn’t know one way or the other. Nor did I care.

  It was the day of the game that got me into this mess. I’ve always enjoyed baseball and this was the biggest game of the year. I’d got a ticket that put me close to the players’ tunnel and near to the field. The tunnel wasn’t so much a tunnel as a canyon. Concrete walls sloping slightly outwards rose with the seating to fifty or sixty feet at the back. There was a hand rail barrier to stop people falling into it.

  I was looking up the tunnel when I saw some idiot holding his little kid balanced on the rail looking down. The girl was all of six or seven. The crowd were waiting for the players to come out of the tunnel, and there was pushing and shoving from those not able to see.

  The girl slipped off the rail. That part of me that was good at math and physics knew her father couldn’t hold her. I jumped over the wall into the tunnel. It was twenty feet or so down to the ground. I landed lightly and ran diagonally across the tunnel and then up the wall on the other side when I’d built up enough speed.

  The girl’s father was holding onto her by his fingertips as I started the climb. She was falling as I reach halfway. Fortunately the sun was shining on me and I ran faster than I could have without it. I don’t think I would have made it without its help. I sped up and caught the girl about fifteen feet below the rail. I was going so fast I had to let her slide down my body to avoid injuring her. Then I was standing on the rail with the child dangling in my grasp. I dropped her into her father’s hands and jumped into the crowd behind him.

  As soon as I landed I ducked down and worked my way through the people. When I was far enough away from the incident I stopped and turned, asking a guy what had happened.

  “A little girl did some party trick on the wall. Jesus, what kind of father lets his daughter do that?”

  “I didn’t see it? What happened?”

  “It was on the big screen for a second, but they haven’t repeated it. It looked like a publicity stunt with some guy going up the wall on a wire.”

  If I’d have been smart
, I would have known that something was going on. No stadium or studio manager would fail to re-run the video of me running up the wall. This stadium had been built by The Don’s father and was owned by The Don. I knew that the way I knew what buses in the city went where. It was part of the landscape. I should have suspected something was up, but all I wanted to do was get out of the place as quickly as I could.

  I must have been pretty conspicuous as the only person leaving the stadium. My usual sense of being followed was working overtime. I put that down to adrenaline from saving the girl and the fear of being caught.

  A big black limo pulled up at the bus stop. The rear door opened and I saw a pistol pointing at me.

  “Get in, kid,” the guy with the pistol said. I should have run, but there was open ground on all sides and I didn’t think I could outrun a bullet, so I followed his instructions and got into the car.

  I was taken to this room with a fancy pool table and pushed in front of a big fat guy with rings on most of his fingers. The guy was looking at footage of me climbing the wall and rescuing the girl. It seemed to be on a continuous loop.

  “Pretty good action, kid. And very stupid. Why’d you bother rescuing her? She ain’t one of your kind.”

  I was confused. My kind? What kind was that? White? Protestant? American?

  “Why are you holding me? What’ve I done?”

  The man I was later to discover was The Don smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It frightened me.

  “It’s nothing to do with what you’ve done. It’s what you are. Your people have been stopping me from doing things. Now I have you, they’ll leave me alone to see to business. Capiche? Nobody tells me what I can do in my town.”

  “I don’t have any people. Only Mom.”

  The Don waved his hands and they dragged me up to the Penthouse. That night, when I tried to escape down the elevator-shaft, they put the silver cuffs on me. Since then I’ve been trying to endure the pain.