Blood Heavy: Ascension

by S. L. J. Shortt

“You mean she’s only handing us remedial crap like ghosts and wraiths!” Goose huffed.

  “I think we’re gonna have to earn her trust again before she hands us anything big,” Jerry nodded.

  “That’s bullshit man! She’s being overprotective.”

  “Well, that's sort of her job. Besides, she’s still worried about Dimitri,” he reminded.

  “That dickbag can’t make a move on her turf.”

  “Dimitri may be a pureblood shit sack but he’s a smart pureblood shit sack and he’s not about to forget about what’s running through my veins,” Jerry said. “Just because he can’t go for a full on attack like Black Forest did doesn’t mean he ain’t after me. Soph doesn’t trust him as far as she can stake him so I sure as hell ain’t gonna underestimate him.”

  Dimitri was another region leading pureblood vampire that controlled most of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. He wasn’t a rogue like Selena was and he wasn’t stupid enough to go against the other purebloods but he was a nasty piece of work and didn’t have much respect for humans. Unfortunately, the events at Newton High and the death of Selena had let Jerry’s secret out and now there were hundreds more vampires that wanted to sink their teeth into him.

  Not many of them had the guts to actually try it but Dimitri was one of them. He had the power and the brains to become a very serious threat to all of them and not just because he was four hundred years older than Sophinia. His immunities to silver and being staked in the heart were just as tough as other purebloods but he was also way more cunning and ruthless, not the blunt instrument that Selena had been.

  “Well, as long as you don’t take a trip to Albuquerque, you’ll be alright.”

  “Let’s hope so. I don’t feel like getting into another fight with a pureblood and using a lightning bolt as the referee.”

  “You won didn’t you?” Goose smirked.

  Jerry just shrugged but still looked kind of proud.

  Finally they rolled into the parking lot of Newton High School. The boys still got nauseous every time they got near the place. Save for Jerry and Goose, not a single soul at that school knew what had really happened on Prom night. The repaired and restored parts of the building and the memory wipes that Rachel had done couldn’t erase the fact that this was where their friends had died.

  As per usual the first lessons went by with Jerry barely paying attention to anything that was said or written on the board. He’d just sit there doodling pictures of fangs, bullets and engine parts on his text book until the bell rang. It should have been Parker teaching this class but that was never going to happen again and the new guy really wasn’t very good. Every once in a while a word would catch his attention. Usually something like jugular, bone, blood and anything else that made him think about the horrible things out there that liked to slice into them.

  He always shuddered when he walked past the restored biology classroom where Steve and Sarah had made their last stand. Luckily his biology lesson was in a different classroom. Goose didn't have the same luck. He shot past it as quickly as he could on his way to the cafeteria. Once there he found an empty table and pulled a newspaper from his bag while digging into a plate of spaghetti.

  These days he didn’t read the stories, he went straight the obituaries to see if any strange deaths had occurred in the last few days. Now that he knew the signs, sometimes the papers were the best place to look for evidence of supernatural activity.

  The kids sitting at the tables on either side of him started yelling at each other about trading lunches and instead of simply handing each other the bartered stuff, they decided to start tossing it through the air straight over Jerry’s head. He tried to ignore it for a minute or two but he was still aggravated from being in the place that his friends had died. He finally lost his temper and caught an orange in mid air, stunning some of the students with his reflexes.

  “Eat it or wear it!” he snapped and threw the orange back at the kid who looked a bit frightened.

  It had been three months since it had all started and already the changes to his actions were pretty visible. Most of the creatures he hunted now were a lot faster than him and they weren’t slowing down so he had to speed up. His reflexes, senses and even thinking time had increased so much that it often made him stand out from the other teens around him. Luckily Goose was exactly the same.

  “Someone’s in a good mood,” his best friend said taking a seat across from Jerry.

  “I hate this freakin’ place!” Jerry growled through his teeth. “I don’t even know why we come here any more. It’s not like their handing out scholarships for monster hunting.”

  “I know. I can’t stand sitting in that damn biology classroom and acting like nothing happened,” Goose nodded. “But Soph and Joe say we need to keep up appearances.”

  “Why? Half the supernatural world knows about my blood now.”

  “It’s still a public place with daytime hours. You know the chances of them pulling anything here are slim to none. Black Forest were the exception to that rule and they’re all dead.”

  “I know. Still sucks though.”

  “Well then, how about a little something to brighten your day,” he smiled and pulled a file out of his bag.

  “Oh, presents?” Jerry said intentionally sounding childish. “What did you get me?”

  “Four mutilated corpses,” Goose said handing him the file.

  “And they say romance is dead,” he snorted.

  “Undead maybe. Two last night, two the night before. Bodies were ripped to shreds, all had their chests cracked wide open and were missing their hearts,” Goose said as Jerry started looking through the police file. “Heavy lacerations, bite marks and missing limbs. Police suspect a bear attack.”

  There were forensics photos and reports with notes scribbled on the sides but Jerry didn’t need to read them. “Lunar cycle?”

  “Yep, it matches up. Tonight’s the last night of the full moon to boot,” Goose nodded.

  One of the common misconceptions was that werewolves only turned one night a month when in actual fact they only needed the moon to be about ninety-seven percent full to transform so the lunar cycle for them lasted about three days. Apparently this beast was taking full advantage of it's long weekend.

  “Looks like Old Yeller’s gone rabid again.”

  “You're surprised? The human heart is to a werewolf what blood is to a vampire. It juices them up, makes em' stronger. It's like a steroid packed bacon double cheeseburger with extra onions...and seasoning and barbecue sauce and curly fries and it's really making me want a cheeseburger right now,” Goose admitted absently.

  “You and me both, this spaghetti sucks,” Jerry said pushing away what was left of his food. Looking at gruesome photos didn’t change his appetite but bad pasta did.

  “The attacks happened a few miles outside of Paynesville.”

  “Ha! Somebody’s got a sense of humor,” Jerry chuckled. “Wait a sec, I thought Soph made a deal with the pack that’s living down there?” Three months worth of supernatural learning had made them pretty savvy to what and what was happening in the area.

  “She did. They’ve been there for like eight months and nothing. Now suddenly we got four innocent people that look like lycan linguine.”

  “You think one of them flipped?”

  “Maybe or it’s a rogue passing through. There's no connection between the vics so the odds of it being a revenge thing are low. All the dead were defiantly human so turf war is out. Basically random occurrence or preplanned slaughter. Either way it needs to be stopped,” Goose shrugged.

  “You wanna hit em?” Jerry asked with raised eyebrows.

  “If they’re the ones doing it, yeah.”

  “They’re seven of them down there, not to mention the three hundred year old alpha that’s running the show,” Jerry reminded.

  “Yeah and we’ve got enough silver rounds to make em shit cutlery,” Goose said a little too loudly. “Look, we’re two full
moons down, one to go which means two or more people might be getting moped up with a sponge by tomorrow morning unless we do something about it.”

  “You got a point,” Jerry conceded. He rolled the idea around in his mind, assessing the dangers of attacking a pack of pissed off werewolves for a second. “Wait, why didn’t Soph tell me about this?”

  “Well...” Goose said suddenly looking very guilty.

  “Goose, where did you get that file?”

  “I might have borrowed it...from Claire’s bag...” he said the last part very quietly.

  “You stole it from her? Oh, she is so gonna kick your ass!”

  “Oh, come on man! They’ve have been throwing us scraps since that Strigoi thing! I don’t know about you but I don’t like the idea of kicking back when we could be saving people. They’re purposely trying to keep us out of this shit when they know that we could be helping! Come on, Jerry, it’s our job!”

  Jerry chuckled lightly. “I love how normal you make that sound.”

  “What? It is normal.”

  “Oh, yeah. A couple of high school kids that moonlight as monster hunters, you’re right, there’s nothing weird about that at all,” Jerry scoffed sarcastically. It really was a bit surreal that now they could just talk about this stuff like it was an everyday occurrence.

  “It’s normal for us,” he leaned closer and looked Jerry in the eye. “You said it yourself; if we’re not hunting them, they’re hunting us.”

  Jerry couldn’t argue about that. And truthfully, he really didn’t like the idea of sitting out a fight like this. Especially if Cass and Claire were going to be in it.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “Let’s go neuter Cujo.”

  CHAPTER 4 – THE NINJA THING

  Outside Paynesville – Minnesota

  Goose’s Volvo shot down High 23 heading towards Paynesville with the stereo blaring. Jerry couldn’t resist putting Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival on. The sun was setting quickly behind them and only lazy red glow was visible on the horizon. The moon would be rearing its ugly face soon.

  “So these guys are camped out on the other side of the airport. Some trailer park that they converted into permanent housing,” Goose said.

  “Classy,” Jerry said throwing what was left of his cigarette out of the window.

  “Remember, if they turn nasty, you just focus on the alpha. I’ll keep the pack off your back until you bury a Nitro round into his face. Hopefully the others will just turn tail and run after that.”

  “So tonight I’ll be playing the role of Cruella de Vil.”

  “Hey, you’re the one with the cannon. What I don’t get is that these guys haven’t caused any trouble in years. Not since they were still camped out in British Columbia and one of them tried to eat Parker.” Bringing up their old teacher made Jerry flinch. He’d given his life to save him. How could that not affect him? “If it is one of them, what made it flip out and start snacking on humans now?”

  “Well, you know what they say,” Jerry said looking over the file again and trying to push the hard memories away. “It’s like vamps. They can bury the killer deep inside of them but that don’t mean it’s gone.”

  “I guess,” Goose shrugged.

  They past a sign point towards the airport. It was only about ten miles away now.

  “Ahh, crap!”

  “What?” Jerry asked, his head snapping up.

  “We’re being followed,” Goose said looking in the rear view mirror.

  “Dimitri?”

  “Nope,” Goose sighed and pulled the car over into a rest stop.

  A moment later two black Escalades stopped behind them. Goose and Jerry got out of the car just as Cass and Claire stepped out of theirs. Six other vampires got out of the second Escalade while four got out of the back of the first and stood behind them. They wore similar black outfits, that probably could have been called an unofficial hunting uniform. Jerry and Goose recognized some of them as Larz, Jason, Fredrick and Robin. All Sophinia’s main entourage under the command of the White sisters.

  They were both dressed in full black matching outfits. Same knee high black steel toe cap boots, same pants and tops that showed off just how amazing their bodies were. They even had their hair in matching pony tails. They always wore this sort of thing when they worked mainly because their clothes usually got damaged during fights. No point in getting dressed to impress if they were going to be covered in blood and clawed practically naked if a brawl broke out.

  From a distance they were literally twins. Of course Cass was taller, her hair was longer and lighter and at that moment she seemed fine while Claire looked seriously pissed off.

  “Evening ladies,” Jerry grinned.

  “Pick a number between one and ten Goose,” Claire hissed.

  “Why?” he asked looking confused.

  “Because that’s how many of your fingers I’m gonna break!” she started advancing on him but Jerry quickly jumped in her way.

  “Whoa, whoa, easy there Xena. When exactly where you gonna tell us that a bunch of werewolves have fallen off the wagon?” he said with annoyance.

  “Try never!” she growled. “After Waterloo, you’re lucky Sophie is giving you any jobs at all! You're lucky she isn’t keeping you on lock down!”

  “Oh, come on!” Goose moaned. “We killed the vamps, we got out alive, job well done!”

  “The reason we’ve been keeping stuff from you is because we knew you two morons would run off half-cocked, guns blazing and probably get yourselves killed,” Cass said, backing up her sister.

  “Yeah, you do you think you are, Duke Wayne?” Larz added from behind her.

  “I might have a few shades of Eastwood in me,” Jerry shrugged.

  “I always preferred Bronson,” Goose said.

  “This isn’t a freakin’ game!” Claire snarled.

  “No, it’s a job; one that we signed up for. They’re Replicants and we’re Blade Runners. People are dying and we are gonna stop it,” Jerry said trying to keep his cool.

  “These wolves aren’t exactly cute and cuddly,” Cass said.

  “So it’s definitely them?”

  “There aren’t any rogues in the area so yes, it’s them,” Claire nodded still pissed.

  “You know what we can do. You can’t keep barrel blocking us,” Goose agreed.

  “Oh, I’m so glad he said ‘barrel’ then,” Cass mumbled.

  “Look, we’re here now and the moon is on the rise, you might as well use us. We’re not looking to run the show, you’re in charge okay? We back your plays,” Jerry negotiated.

  Claire pressed her lips together then looked back at her sister.

  “Hey, if they get killed I’m not taking the blame,” she said holding up her hands.

  Claire sighed to herself before looking Jerry in the eye. Unfortunately he did have a point. “You stay behind us at all times and you don’t make a move unless we tell you to, is that clear?”

  “Crystal,” Jerry nodded while behind him Goose fought to keep the smug grin off his face.

  “Let’s go,” Claire said and began walking back to her Escalade. “Oh, and Goose, you ever steal from my bag again and I’ll steal from your anatomy!”

  He shuffled back into the car looking very worried. He knew exactly what part of his anatomy she was talking about. Jerry got into the driver’s side with a smile on his face.

  “See dude, you just gotta know how to talk to the undead.”

  They continued driving down towards the airport and beyond into the sticks. They stopped the cars about a mile from the trailer park and when they got out the moon was shining down at them.

  “You hear any howling?” Jerry asked.

  “No,” Cass said listening out.

  “That’s not a good sign. They might have already run off to find a victim,” Goose said.

  “We gotta move now.”

  Jerry and Goose went to the trunk and started pulling out their gear. They strapped on bullet
proof vests and holsters for their weapons. Soon they were armed to the teeth. Jerry had his four silver shock machetes, sawn-off, two pistols and silver knives attached to different places on his body. Goose had a shotgun on his back and his M240 slung over his shoulder. He had silver knives and a Desert Eagle on his hip and grenades on his belt.

  The finishing touch were the roadside flares attached to Jerry's stomach. They did come in handy since the Magnesium in them burned pretty damn hot.

  “All you're missing is a hockey mask Jerry,” Claire said looking a little concerned at how many machetes he had.