Gidion's Blood

by Bill Blume

  Jolly not only dodged his swings, but he reached past them to grab Gidion by his left forearm. He lifted Gidion off the ground one-handed and drew his gun. Gidion kicked with both feet into the guy’s stomach. The strike caused Jolly to drop him and sent them both tumbling to the ground.

  They landed on the grass and not the bricks. Gidion swung his sword before trying to get up, but Jolly rolled out of the way.

  They scrambled to their feet. Gidion couldn’t let this guy get off a shot. That meant staying in close and pressing his attack. He thrust forward, stabbing his sword deep into Jolly’s stomach. He left it there and twisted it. Putting all of his limited weight into it, Gidion pushed the vampire back and into the burning bush. He’d hoped to send the vampire up in flames. That didn’t go as planned, even though the back of the vampire’s jacket smoked as they rolled off to the right. The only part that went in Gidion’s favor was that Jolly lost his gun. Gidion ripped his sword out of the vampire as they pulled apart. The vampire hissed and bared his fangs.

  A pair of gunshots cracked from the backyard, and brick shattered right behind Jolly as the bullets hit the side of the house.

  Jolly flinched, glancing over his shoulder and then in the direction the shots had come from. Gidion resisted the urge to look and buried his sword in Jolly’s thick neck. A second swing finished the job.

  Only then did Gidion turn to look towards the backyard. Blood stared back at him as she tossed the gun to the ground. She picked up the hose and finished what the shorter vampire, now a head shorter than before, had failed to even start, which was putting out the tree.

  Gidion did the same after he wiped the blood from his sword. If an officer or one of the neighbors saw these fires, first responders might pour into this place.

  No sooner had Gidion put out the burning bush than he heard an alert tone coming from Jolly’s headless body. Gidion pulled the phone out of the dead vampire’s jacket pocket and saw the text message on the screen. The name on the screen “Caelan” let him know it was from Mom, and her message wasn’t good news.

  “Blood!” He ran to her as she dropped the hose next to the smoking tree and picked up her dead vampire’s handgun. “We have ten minutes.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The news that the fanged cavalry would arrive in ten minutes didn’t receive the insult and gripe Gidion expected. Blood held her tongue and ran for the back porch of the mansion. He stayed with her. His body shivered now that he was no longer distracted by the fight with Jolly. Every stitch of clothing he wore was drenched, and when Blood paused just outside the door to the screened porch, he wanted to shove her out of the way and get inside the house.

  “All of the first floor before the second,” she said.

  “I helped make the plan, you know.” The last thing they wanted was to risk that another vampire was here and find themselves trapped upstairs while a guy with a gun blocked their path of escape.

  They’d both taken the guns from their kills, but neither of them seemed eager to use them. Gidion had flipped on the gun’s safety and placed it in his backpack. Handguns didn’t do much good against vampires unless they were a heavy caliber hollow-point and the gunman’s aim was near perfect. Gidion got damn lucky with the rifle against Blood back at his Grandpa’s house.

  He gestured for her to move, and she took them inside the screened porch which included a small bar. From there, they went through the back door into the kitchen and dining area. His wet tennis shoes squeaked on the tiled floor. A groan of disgust slipped out as they walked through the kitchen. He wondered what use, if any, a kitchen saw in a house full of vampires.

  A cheer erupted from the living room, off to their left. Judging from the play-by-play of the announcer, their vampires were watching a hockey game. Sounded like the San Jose Sharks were chomping the mess out of the Carolina Hurricanes.

  They went through the room with the TV. The master bedroom was on the other side with its door closed but not locked. Blood threw it open, glanced inside a moment and then moved to the right through the walk-in closet towards the master bath.

  Gidion didn’t follow her. The bedroom wasn’t occupied, but they hadn’t expected it would be. This space belonged to his mother. No question about that. The bedroom reminded him of Dad’s, which he’d never bothered to update after she died.

  A shut laptop rested on the night stand. A small light glowed to indicate it was in standby mode. The top of the case was purple, Mom’s favorite color. He unplugged the laptop and slid it into his backpack.

  Just as he was about to walk out, he saw several photographs framed and mounted on the wall. One included a picture of Mom and Dad holding him when he was a baby. Other frames contained his school pictures. He spotted his little league football photo. These were the extra five-by-sevens that Dad had claimed went into his locker. Then he saw the picture Dad took of him when he was eight and holding Windsor, his stuffed dragon. He pulled the picture off the wall.

  “What are you doing?” Blood kept her voice low, but that didn’t make it any less harsh.

  He took a deep breath and blinked a few times to push back his emotions. “I was getting her laptop.” He set the picture on the dresser.

  “Downstairs is clear,” she said. “We have six minutes.” She took them to the foyer. The staircase to the second floor started there. That led to a landing and split to the right and left.

  She pointed for him to go left while she went right. Naturally, that left him with more house to search. The first bedroom he came to faced the front of the house and contained three single beds. Mom’s boys shared space to fit in this house. Only one of the beds was made, and they scattered all of their clothes throughout the room. The whole thing struck him as so damn domestic that it was weird. He checked the room’s connecting bath and walk-in closet but found nothing.

  He returned to the hallway. Blood emerged from the bedroom she’d checked. They exchanged shakes of their heads. Blood went for the rear bonus room, while he went to the bedroom to the left.

  He was tempted to call out, but nothing guaranteed Dad was capable of answering him. Even worse, if the guy who had betrayed Mom fed Blood bad intel, they might run into more vampires. Shouting for Dad would give away their position, not that the hardwood floors throughout the house did anything to help with that. Their footsteps sounded far too loud.

  The second bedroom he checked turned out to be just as empty as the first. Blood joined him from her section of the house. They only had one room left to check…the room over the garage. Next to the door, a narrow set of stairs led down. He glanced to make sure no one was there while he waited for Blood.

  She held up three fingers to indicate how much time they had left. Gidion wanted to kick himself once he saw the door. This was it, without question. Unlike all the other doors that had been left open, the door was shut. Someone also installed two brass slide bolts on the outside of the door.

  Gidion undid the bolts and threw the door open. The space wasn’t finished. The blackout curtains blocked the moonlight and kept the room in total darkness. Gidion pulled out a short, stubby flashlight he’d gotten at the hardware store. He pressed the button on its base and 320 lumens flared to life. The light revealed a single bed, like the ones in the other rooms, placed in the center of the room. Dad was on top of the bed, stripped of his clothes and cuffed to the headboard.

  Gidion had prepared himself for the poor conditions his father might have been forced to endure. He wasn’t prepared for his father’s reaction to his flashlight: an anguished cry and a hiss.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Gidion froze. The hiss sounded like a vampire. “That’s not possible.” He didn’t know all the mechanics of the process, but he knew enough. “It’s only been two nights.”

  “He is not turned.” Blood gripped Gidion’s arm and pushed the light to aim away from Dad and at the floor. “Bolt cutters. Hurry.”

  She marched up to the side of the bed and grabbed Dad by the head.
Gidion went to the other side.

  “Gidion?” Dad’s voice came out slurred, hearing it like this reminded Gidion of how Grandpa sounded when he got drunk. “Who is this?”

  “Call me Blood.” Dad flinched back and gritted his teeth. Even with the light pointed at the floor, the glow revealed Dad’s canines. They’d grown to sharp points, but still lacked the length.

  “It’s okay, Dad.” The bolt cutters were heavy, and getting them placed on the chain was awkward. To Gidion’s surprise, the vampires left on the Gatchaman wristband Gidion had given Dad, despite stripping the rest of his clothes. “I need you to stay still.”

  Blood turned Dad’s head to examine his neck. “She has been with him twice.”

  Gidion grunted as he squeezed the bolt cutters to slice the link near Dad’s wrist. They would need to wait until elsewhere to get the metal bracelets off of Dad’s wrists, but they could at least free him. “What does that mean?”

  “Bad for getting him out, but your mother will be weak from sharing her blood.”

  Dad lunged at Blood, reaching for her throat with his freed hand.

  Gidion shouted at him to stop, but Dad never got a grip on Blood. She slapped his arm aside far too easily.

  “Don’t tell him.” Dad’s eyes had been glassy, but he focused when Blood mentioned Mom. He turned to Gidion.

  “I already know.”

  Dad hid his face as Gidion snapped the chain of the handcuffs holding the right arm captive. Blood manhandled Dad into an upright position.

  “There are more than a half dozen vampires and your mother,” Dad said.

  “We know.” Gidion ran the light over the rest of the room, looking for Dad’s clothes. “Only Mom and four others are left. They’re gone, but we’ve only got a few minutes.”

  “Take from other rooms.” Blood’s glare warned Gidion to shut up and move. “Bathrobe, towel, just enough to reach the cars.”

  Gidion ran into the room across the hall. He grabbed some dark green sweats he’d seen earlier, hanging off the foot of a bed. Dad would have to go commando.

  He went back into Dad’s room and jerked to a halt. Dad was still sitting on the bed and Blood stood right in front of him. His head tilted back and his mouth gaped. Blood held the edge of a dagger against one of her fingertips.

  “Get away from him!”

  Blood glared at Gidion. “No time for anything else.”

  Dad raised a hand to keep him back. The hand shook from the effort to not collapse. “It’s all right.”

  “He must walk, or we die.” Blood sliced across her finger and several drops of her blood spilled into Dad’s waiting mouth. His eyes rolled back in his head and his moan shook through the dusty air. She shared her blood, treating him like a feeder. The infusion gave him a brief high. Gidion knew how this worked, but he’d never witnessed it.

  “Get dressed.” Blood summoned Gidion with a gesture of her hand to give Dad the borrowed clothes.

  Dad stood without any help. He slid the pants on and then the sweatshirt. “No shoes?”

  Gidion shook his head.

  “Don’t suppose you have an extra sword?” Dad asked.

  “Nope, but I’ve got this.” Gidion reached into his backpack and pulled out the handgun.

  “Where did you get this?” Dad looked like Gidion admitted to cheating his way through Ms. Aldgate’s class.

  “Took it from one of Mom’s vampires.”

  Blood snapped her fingers at them. “Move!”

  They didn’t make it down the front stairs to the foyer. Light flared through the front windows. Dad cringed back and turned his entire body to place his back to the light.

  The cars screeched as they stopped in the middle of the driveway. The headlights went dark.

  “Wo cao!” She hissed and hit Gidion with the complaint he’d expected earlier. “Ten more minutes would have been better.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The vampires climbed out of the cars. They’d stopped halfway up the driveway. Even from inside the house, Gidion heard his mother yelling.

  The irritation on Blood’s face changed to a grin. “Arguing.”

  “Can you tell what they’re arguing about?”

  “Their guns,” Dad said, clearly avoiding a look at Gidion, “and you. She doesn’t want you shot, but they’re losing patience with her.”

  Gidion hadn’t considered how limited the loyalty of Mom’s vampires might be. Vampires got stronger with age, harder to kill. Mom lacked the divide to make her position secure.

  “Splitting up.” Blood sounded pleased. “Two go for the back, one on each side.”

  Mom and the two still with her walked up the driveway to the front door.

  “Other stairs.” Gidion ran back towards the room where the vampires had kept Dad. “We go down that way, out of sight, and slip into the garage.”

  They raced down the narrow set of stairs, reaching the bottom just as the front door creaked open. Blood opened the door to the garage. Gidion and Dad got hung up trying to usher the other through the door first.

  Blood grabbed Dad by his sweatshirt and jerked him into the garage. Gidion made a mental note that she was much stronger than she looked. That or the small feeding Blood gave him provided just enough energy to stay on his feet and little else.

  Gidion shut the door with a click that echoed through the garage. He hoped it didn’t sound as loud on the other side of the door.

  A look around didn’t offer Gidion the escape he’d anticipated. The floor plan they’d seen had suggested a door leading out the back of the garage, but someone had bricked up the door long ago. The only car in the garage, an army green Buick LeSabre that looked like a refugee from the seventies, was parked in front of the far garage door. A table with a large toolbox was placed against the wall flush to the house. A layer of dust muted the red of the toolbox, suggesting this was inherited from the previous owner. Blood went straight for the toolbox and pulled out a screwdriver and hammer.

  Gidion found the control panels for the garage doors next to the house door. Each panel was dark grey with several buttons which were labeled.

  “Soon as we open that door, they’ll know where we are.” Gidion glanced at Dad. He stood next to the door with his gun ready.

  “Wait,” Blood said as she walked towards the Buick.

  “You know how to hotwire a car?”

  She didn’t answer as she climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “How is it you’re working with this vampire?” Dad didn’t take his eyes off the door as he asked.

  “She was hired to kill me, but now she’s getting paid to kill Mom.”

  Dad didn’t say anything, but his face tightened. Whatever his thought was, he wasn’t pleased. “Get in the car with her. Surely it has a garage door opener.”

  “Yes, but I’m in better shape than you.”

  Dad’s jaw clenched. “Do as you’re—”

  The door flung open. Gidion saw one of Mom’s vampires, not one of the shades. The vampire carried a gun in his hands, but he never got it up for a shot. He screamed just before Dad blasted three bullets dead center on the vampire’s face. Gidion knew he’d never unsee the explosion of blood and gore. Definitely hollow-point bullets.

  The car cranked to life.

  “Get in!” Blood shouted. The garage door groaned and screeched as she hit the opener on the visor.

  Gidion and Dad ran for the car. Dad backed up, keeping his eyes on the house door. Gidion made it to the passenger side of the car, but he never got any further than to open the door.

  “Cao ni zuzong shi ba dai!” Blood slammed her fist on the steering wheel. One of the vampires had moved their car in front of the garage to block them in, and two of Mom’s remaining vampires stood on each side of the car with their guns ready.

  So much for their escape route.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  One of the shades, who must have been the most recently turned, judging from the fact he still had a slight t
an, aimed his gun at Dad.

  “Put it down!” He hissed a slow threat to go with the spoken one. “Do it now, or we’ll shoot you and your brats. I don’t care what Caelan says.”

  “Matthew!” The shout came from the front of the house. Mom walked out the front door and strolled towards them. Seeing his mother move like one of these predators poured a cold sickness down his throat.

  In some ways, she looked the same as always. Dad once described her fashion sense as eclectic. She wore a short, dark green velvet jacket that had a subtle military style to it. Along with her black pants and boots, she belonged in a Steampunk novel. She looked a little older than her wedding portrait, but not by much. She’d been turned when she was 29, and if the truth of what she’d become wasn’t so horrifying, the irony of forever being that age would have been hysterical.

  “Let’s all relax.” She smiled, the gracious hostess pretending her guests weren’t held at gunpoint. She stopped next to Matthew and placed her hand on his arm. If Matthew’s sunglasses hadn’t been enough of a tip, Gidion would have recognized the show of ownership in how she touched him. She’d turned this guy herself. Given that the other two also wore sunglasses, they were probably all hers, which explained why she’d chosen them to go with her and left two non-shades behind.

  Even with her eyes hidden, Gidion noticed how she looked from Blood to him. One of her eyebrows arched as her lips curled in amusement.

  “Caelan, let our son leave, and I’ll stay.” Dad hadn’t lowered his gun, and Gidion noticed the difference in how he held it compared to the three vampires working for Mom. He knew how to handle it. Grandpa had taken Gidion shooting, and while most of the experience dealt with rifles, he’d spent a lot of time pointing out the better shooters at the firing range. Only Matthew held his gun with both hands. He looked like he knew what he was doing, standing in a proper stance similar to Dad’s. One of the guys, a short, hairy guy with a scruffy beard like Wolverine, had adopted a pose similar to the kind used in a duel. He held the gun in one hand. He probably thought this made him less of a target, but it would make his accuracy crap.