God Touched - 01

by John Conroe

  “Tell me, how did you keep all this from Nika?” I asked.

  “Bah, after two hundred years of age, most vampires can block even the best mind reader.”

  “So, you’re providing the demons with vampire blood, they’re twisting it with their own vile essence and then it’s going to unsuspecting humans? What in God’s name could you gain from that?” I asked.

  “Everything, Officer Gordon, everything. The time is long past when vampires, the preeminent lifeform on earth, should hide in the shadows and skulk like rats. Vampires, not pathetic cattle like humans, belong at the top of the food chain, ruling the planet.”

  “And Hance will help you get there?” I asked.

  “Hance was just an experiment. But a new drug, based on Tanya’s proteins will be exponentially more addictive, spreading through the human population like wildfire, causing the confusion and chaos our partners crave and giving us the opportunity to seize the reins of power. Humans are weak, but their science is progressing too rapidly, you see. Their weapons are growing more powerful with each passing month. Man portable laser based weapons will soon be a reality, and that would pose a real threat to our kind.”

  “And you think you can accomplish this against the will of the Elders?” I asked.

  A different voice spoke from the doorway.

  “Idiot, of course they have the support of an Elder. As the only Elder fit to rule, it falls to me to bring this about.”

  Fedor looked tiny next to Vadim’s mass, but he exuded menace and power. A gust of wind blew in through the open door, swirling some papers across the floor. I watched the debris float into the darkness while I thought about their plan.

  “So what do the demons get from this?” I asked.

  Fedor didn’t answer, having settled into an eerie stillness. After a moment, Anton spoke up.

  “I already told you. Weren’t you listening? They get the chaos and anguish they feed on.”

  I snorted, but didn’t say anything. Both Anton and Vadim looked at me.

  “You think you know different?” Anton asked.

  “Demons only crave negative emotions to get stronger. They only get stronger to bring more demons into our world,” I said. “Riddle me this, Batman. What happens to Hancers that overdose?” I asked, having a pretty good idea of the answer.

  “They go insane,” Anton said.

  All three vampires were paying attention to me now.

  I nodded. “Do you know where most of the empty meat shells come from that demons inhabit?” I asked.

  None of them said anything, so I went ahead and answered.

  “People that have lost themselves on drugs, alcohol and depression. Sounds like you’re creating meat shells in huge numbers while providing the chaos and fear they need to bring their own kind over. So you will have your reign of power for what? Maybe a day?”

  They all went still, then suddenly I was suspended from Fedor’s hand, his razor sharp fingernails buried deep in the muscles of my chest. I never saw him move. The pain was unlike anything I had felt before. Like five red hot pokers buried an inch deep in my pectorals. His face was inches from mine, his eyes glowing with insane fury and he smelled, oddly enough, like a leather jacket.

  “Thank you for the warning. I have to admit certain…..suspicions regarding my partners intentions. Now I have ample time to prepare and adjust my plan. Maybe a delayed poison mixed with the Tatiana’s blood?”

  He flicked his hand and I smashed into the steel wall of the container, hitting my head and wrenching my bound arms.

  “But this changes nothing regarding Tatiana’s fate. As if I would ever allow an infant to rule me. Senka grows more addled with every decade that passes.”

  Now my headache was keeping company with the large knot on the back of my skull, but I suddenly realized that the cobweb feeling was gone. I tried looking with my Sight and was rewarded with a brief flash of their auras, before it flicked off like a faulty television.

  I also got the feeling that Tanya was near. I needed to stall.

  “What makes you think that Vadim can take Tatiana?”

  “Because, while Vadim has taught her everything she knows, he hasn’t taught her everything he knows. Vadim was fighting Swedes for Prince Nevsky in Russia eight hundred years ago. You really think a twenty year old anything can match his experience. And he will have a measure of my much older blood to lend him an extra edge. Not to mention that when I drain you dead, she will most likely go catatonic. ”

  He pulled up the sleeve of his dress shirt and motioned Vadim to his exposed wrist. Two handed sword slung over his shoulder, the big vampire dropped gracefully to his knees and reverently brought Fedor’s wrist to his mouth. My kernel of hope was collapsing under despair. Anton and Fedor both raised their heads and a moment later my slightly less sensitive ears picked up the sound something rushing over hollow metal.

  “She’s here! Much sooner than we expected,” Fedor said. He yanked his wrist from Vadim’s clutch, and pointed to the doorway. “Get out there now!”

  Vadim vanished in a rush of air and Fedor turned to me, his eyes expectant. I tried pooling my aura, but the results were weaker than I had hoped for. Still, it was all I had to work with, so I prepared to use it as best I could.

  “She’s just gonna run over the top of the containers and avoid all your pets,” I said.

  “These steel shipping boxes are stacked five and six deep, with an unusual cross stack pattern. She has no choice but to approach on our terms,” Fedor said.

  He turned to Anton and issued orders. “Get out there and control those mutants of yours.” The dapper vampire left in blur. The papers that had floated up when Vadim left were still swirling in a mini tornado, behind Fedor. It expanded in size and the kernel of hope flared back.

  “Now then, you’ve had enough time to distract me. Or didn’t you think I was aware you were trying to get me talking?” he said.

  “It’s called monologuing, and of course I was trying to get you to do it. That would give my rescuers a chance to get here in time.”

  His smile was pure malice. “I’m afraid none of your fans will make it in time, as I’m tired of waiting and frankly, you smell delicious.” He started in my direction.

  At that moment the front of the box suddenly disappeared in a shriek of twisted steel.

  “Actually I think one of them is already here,” I said.

  The container door and much of the surrounding metal was gone, torn away like tissue paper. But nothing was there, just a pile of shredded metal and a broken light pole, the still shining bulb swinging in the eerie quiet. I never saw Fedor turn around, he was just suddenly facing the empty space outside the container. When nothing happened, he took a slow predatory step forward. I tried my Sight again, and was rewarded with the giant green, red and purple form of Okwari just as he slammed his two dinner platter sized paws together on Fedor’s torso. I have no way of telling for sure how much power was involved, but I’m guessing it had to be similar to two thirty millimeter cannon shells slamming together head on. Fedor did a remarkable impersonation of a caterpillar being crushed under a bike tire. Blood, brains and gore spattered the ceiling, the floor and me.

  Vampires are reported to be hard to kill, particularly the old ones. However, when the crushed husk that had been Fedor fell over, I had absolutely no doubt he was dead and gone. I would have liked to wipe the gore from my face, but my arms were still secured behind my back. “Thank you Okwari,” I said to the not-so-empty space in front of me. In fact the air was blurry across most of the opening. A mental image of me pulling his collar off and of me stepping in front of Lydia flashed through my head.

  “Yes, we certainly are friends.” I responded to the theme of the message. “You don't know anything about handcuffs do you?” I asked, wistfully.

  A picture of me turning around to present my secured arms popped into my mind. Doing as told and hoping for the best, I spun in place and held my arms as far from my body as pos
sible. A talon that felt the size of a banana gently moved between my arms and with an effortless motion parted the handcuff links.

  “Thank you again. Now I have to find my mate and help her,” I said, using my Sight to see him.

  He woofed in agreement then backed out of the opening and swung his whiskey barrel sized head to look in the direction of the fighting noises, which had suddenly started.

  The corridors formed by the seemingly haphazard placement of containers were long, dark and confining. Just as they had been intended to be. I raced down the one leading in the direction of the fight, pausing just long enough to snap the head off a heavy duty broom I found, giving me a weapon. The ground shook behind me as more than a ton of prehistoric spirit bear followed me. I didn't know if Okwari would fight alongside of me or not, but just his massive presence would be a boon. Invisible or not, the acute senses of the vampires would make them aware that something was in their midst. The sounds of close quarters combat grew louder as I ran through the tunnels and alleys formed by the stacked shipping containers. Rounding a lefthand turn, I found myself at one end of a large corridor, the other end full of screaming Hancers. Vadim and Anton stood with their backs to me, watching a blurry form in black leather spin glittering blades of steel through the closely packed addicts like a weed wacker through crabgrass. Body parts were flying everywhere and after a brief glance in my direction, Vadim flowed forward to meet Tatiana's arrival.

  His giant two handed sword met her smaller pair of blades in a crash of metal and the real fight began in earnest. Anton grimaced in shock at the blood covered sight of me, torn between the urge to attack and the need to flee from whatever had befallen his much more powerful Elder. I sensed Okwari sliding around the corner behind me and his impact into the closest shipping container made enough noise to pause the fighting for a microsecond. If the sound wasn't enough, the car sized dent that magically buckled into the side of the container was more than sufficient to convince Anton that he needed to be elsewhere fast. The slick vampire darted up the corridor, keeping as far away from Vadim and Tatiana as possible, his finely shod feet dancing over top the blood soaked mess that had been twenty or thirty people a few seconds before. I wasn't sure how best to help Tatiana without distracting her, but before I could come to a decision; she skipped back a few steps to gain room and paused to look in my direction. Her rimless black eyes locked onto my gore covered form and I could literally feel the rage that flowed from her. She thought the blood was mine!

  My enhanced vision had let me see some of the blows that she and Vadim had traded in the first exchange, but her next attack was too fast to process. Whatever edge that eight centuries of practice and the blood of an Elder had given Vadim in the first round, evaporated in the heat of Tatiana's fury. As best I could tell, she met him head on, trading him blow for blow, her enraged strength stopping his much heavier sword dead. To his credit, faced with more than he had envisioned, Vadim fought with everything he had. It wasn't enough. The finish came so quickly, if I had blinked I would have missed it. One moment it was head to head, like steel meeting iron. Then she suddenly folded away from a blow and was past him. He started to turn to face her but his right leg, from the thigh down, stayed where it was. He fell over, part way around. His left arm shot down, arresting his fall, in a move that would have been incredible, except for the fact that Tatiana was suddenly standing back in her starting position and Vadim's big gleaming bald head was sliding free from his neck. His body stayed in a grotesque side lean, blood spraying from the stump of neck and leg in opposite arcs. Then it collapsed into the dirt. My view of his carcass was suddenly eclipsed by a pair of rimless black eyes framed with raven hair, as Tatiana stood in front of me, searching for the massive wounds that had covered me in blood. Her nostrils flared, telling her the truth, at the same moment I spoke. “This isn't mine. It's Fedor's.” Small blue specks appeared in the center of her eyes, swiftly replacing the coal black. She looked confused.

  “How...where -- ?” She struggled to ask, but I interrupted. “Tatiana Demidova, please meet my friend, Okwari.” I said.

  Slowly his giant form materialized as he willed himself visible. I hadn't known he could do that. Tatiana took a deep breath, but held her ground, as a wet black nose the size of my fist slowly gave her a sniff. He was very close in appearance to the paleontologists' images I had seen, but there were some differences. I don't believe the short faced bears that had roamed the prehistoric world had short black horns emerging from their skulls and flowing back toward their necks. His eyes were the hot orange-red of lava and he was even bigger visible than I imagined. A mental image of Tatiana and I engaged in sex appeared in my mind. Ignoring the sudden rush of lust I felt from the image, I nodded at him. “Yes, she is most certainly my mate.” I said. Her expression was equal parts wary, disbelief, and happiness at my statement. “He sends me extremely clear images and understands what I say in response.” I explained. “He pretty much made Fedor paste back there, kinda like you made Weasel paste with Lydia's car door.”

  Okwari lifted his head and looked behind Tatiana at the same time she turned to look over her shoulder. An object about the size of a soccer ball arced through the sky and landed in the dirt by Vadim's body. It rolled to a stop, leaving Anton's still blinking eyes looking right at us. Tatiana spoke. “Senka is here, with the others.” Okwari lifted up to his full fifteen plus feet and stared in the direction the head had come from. “It's okay. It's Lydia and other friends, here to help,” I explained to him. He fell back to all fours, the ground shaking at his heavy impact. He woofed once, snuffled me hard enough to push me sideways and disappeared in a swirl of cold air. “That was your Damnedthing?” Tatiana asked.

  “Yeah, but I don't really like that term any more. I don't think he's damned now that his collar is gone.” I said.

  “Lydia said you might have a new pet.” she said, her expression halfway between amusement and awe.

  “More like a new friend.” I said.

  Fast moving figures appeared at the other end of the corridor, quickly resolving into Senka, Lydia and a host of scary serious vampires that I hadn't met before.

  “Jeeze, Chris! What did you do? Take a blood shower or something?” Lydia greeted us. Senka had paused at Vadim's body, studying it with a thoughtful expression. Presently, she headed our way, ignoring the dangerous looking vampires who had flowed past to take up security positions around us, a few moving back the way I had come. I looked them over while Senka looked Tatiana and I over, her expression unreadable. They were hard and edgy sorts, dressed in black military and tactical gear. Weapons covered the gamut from state of the art assault weapons to antique swords from a dozen cultures. Black, white, Asian, male and female, no two were alike in appearance but all had a similar, professional carriage. The two that had gone behind us came back at a sprint, and being vampires, showed no sign of being winded. One approached Senka and reported. “We found the remains of Elder Fedor in a torn up container, Lady,” he said. “Tracks and claw marks in the metal indicated an extremely large predator of some type, possibly a bear, but....well...larger.” He paused and noticed Lydia pointing at the ground by his feet, where a series of dinner platter sized tracks dimpled the dirt.

  “Ah, yes, the tracks look just like these.” He looked around warily, like the track maker was going to sneak up on him. “Also, no scent of any kind to go with the tracks.” He finished.

  Senka turned to me, her expression sardonic. “Your Damnedthing I presume?” she asked.

  “My friend,” I corrected, with a smile. “Who took exception to Fedor's attitude toward me.”

  “I just met him.” Tanya said with wide eyes. “He's a lot bigger than I expected, but nice.”

  “Nice?” Lydia asked, incredulous. “He was scary as hell, when I met him.”

  The tiny vampire shuddered.

  “Actually, Lydia, I believe he is rather fond of you,” I said, thinking of how many times he replayed the image of me stepping i
n front of Lydia. It seemed to define for him the essence of friendship.

  Senka's security detail had gone from ignoring me to suddenly studying me carefully, like something unexpected and possibly threatening. The soldier who had reported was studying my blood covered form and I could almost see the light bulb go on over his head as the link between my condition and Fedor's became apparent to him. It wouldn't take CSI:NY to figure out how the giant paw shaped impressions on the ancient vampire's body came about. It struck me at that moment that vampire bodies didn't fade to dust or immolate on death as some works of fiction would have it. They just lay around like any other dead body. It raised a whole series of questions for Dr. Singh when next I saw him, which based on the protective gleam in Tatiana's eyes would be rather soon. Senka had been studying me while I was thinking my way through some things, frozen into that spooky stillness that all vampires seemed to favor, and she finally turned to Lydia with a nod. “I find myself agreeing with your theory more and more, young Guardian.” Then she turned away and began to issue orders for the removal of bodies, body parts, blood and other forensic evidence. More vampires were arriving, bearing a plethora of serious looking and completely unfamiliar equipment. I looked at Lydia in question and she simply shrugged and grinned at me. “Guardian?” I asked. Before she could answer, Tatiana spoke up. “Senka's specially trained agents are called Guardians. She assigned her very best Guardian to keep track of me, and apparently you,” she said in a matter of fact tone.

  I struggled with that concept before remembering the rest of Senka's words. “Theory?” I asked.

  Lydia laughed. “I can't give away all my secrets. It would ruin my mysterious allure,” she said.

  I snorted. “Lydia, I couldn't figure you out with a four hundred page manual and a telephone help line.”

  She winked and spun away to intercept a vampire carrying cleaning supplies. Tatiana had moved very close to me during this exchange, her side almost pressed against mine, while she looked at the wreckage that had been Vadim. He had been her weapons instructor her entire life and she had been forced to kill him. On top of that, her father and one of the three Elders had wanted to use her, living or dead to advance their own agendas. I didn't have a clue how that must have felt. Nudging her with my shoulder, I asked, “How are you doing?”