I awoke to fangs gashing my arm. Higher up than my wrists. Different. Sharp fangs sliced into my other arm.
“Ooh. What deliciousness.” said a voice in English but with a German accent.
“So young and pure.” said another.
“So alive!” agreed a third.
“Fresh and with a hint of the dance still. Claire you’ve done well.”
The fangs settled into my arms. My body transforming into wine in a goblet being swirled until my legs drizzled along the inside curves of the glass while they discussed the subtleties of my life’s color and aroma. Taking a tentative sip to roll around their tongues and fill their palette. My wine ran from several wounds and they licked and sucked it from my veins in hungry waves. At least Claire wasn’t taking me on the adrenaline run but she stood back from the others letting them sample.
“That’s enough for now girls. We need to increase our strength from blood but we also need to focus on the task.”
Smacking their lips as if finishing off a bucket of fried chicken the vampires shuffled toward the door. They wanted to linger but discipline contained their animal urges. After the door closed Claire said, “I wanted to make sure they tasted your flesh. Anywhere you can run, they will seek you. They know you now as any bloodhound –” Claire chuckled at her own choice of words, “as any dog can track an escaped prisoner.” I did not move but the open edge of the bag quivered revealing my fear. I hoped she did not observe that slight movement. “Of course, it will be more difficult to keep them back from gorging themselves on you if I’m not around. They are younger, only a fifty to a hundred years and don’t have the training I have.”
I ventured, “Garin could hold back.”
“Of course he could. He knows what you will be like when you’ve crossed the threshold of the drinking age. A natural method. But when that connection is not there for a vampire, it becomes difficult to resist. And he knows you want him.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t want anything to do with vampires.”
“That’s not what I saw when we danced together or at Garin’s house.”
That seemed so long ago already. Claire leaned over me and licked my wounds until clean and healing. Claire stood up and seemed to step away.
Fangs plunged into my neck!
Fire coursed through my veins in waves of pain and fire too intense. Too strong. Renewed adrenaline ran my body into chest pounding beats like great gulps in my throat and rattling skips in its squeeze. The long and hard sprint relentlessly up that black mountain bursting forth the cloying raw metallic taste of blood staining the back of my throat. Up the mountain toward the blackness. Exhaustion. Fear. Tears rolled down my face as I pulled in air with the bag pressing against my gritted teeth. Toward the darkness I knew lay across the summit in a red fog.
Claire pulled the hood from my face. The air wheezed into my lungs in cold ribbons. My second wind lifted me. I challenged the run. But that faded too soon. Despair.
I cried in sobs, “Stop!” … “Please stop!”
Claire pulled her fangs from me.
“Where –” Getting another breath, “– is my sister?”
“Another location as insurance. Your boys will try to deal to save you but if anything goes wrong, you’ll be the one to lose your sister and those little kids. You’ll stop Branoc and Garin from considering any foolishness. They will do oh so much to protect you.”
Her fangs ripped into a new location on my neck burrowing sharp points and razor edges into my flesh like scalpel edged screwdrivers digging at a soft couch.
-:- Twenty-Six -:-
The last container lifted onto the truck trailer. A rivulet of white paint slowly drooled down the side from the paint recently splashed on the top of the container but it dried quickly in the bright sun. They stood behind the mirrored window of the lab watching the loading crane.
“Thanks for your help Reginald,” Branoc said.
“Remember that if you hear I got fired.”
“Look me up if that happens,” Garin gave Reginald his business card. “Ignore the bank on there, I’ve been unemployed for a while – caught in this same spider web. That’s my personal email and cell phone.”
“ … Ramsburgh? As in The Ramsburgh family?”
“That’s the one.” Garin looked at Reginald.
“Sir, you should have mentioned it earlier.”
“Would it have changed your level of assistance?”
“Probably not.”
Branoc clarified, “And it won’t change the secrets you must maintain about our particular affliction?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“But I might want to follow up on some research.”
“Not a good idea Reginald,” said Branoc.
“Ok.”
“You can make the call to requisition more lab supplies from Arnold Janitorial Service?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks again.”
Reginald reached for the phone handset, “Sure.”
Garin and Branoc shed their lab coats and found their way to the janitor closet. Garin’s acute hearing picked up Reginald’s voice and the correct words to get a special delivery from Brett. Then the two of them could get out of the plant.
-:- Twenty-Seven -:-
I think only an hour passed. Claire forgot about replacing the hood so I saw when she opened the door again. Claire walked across the floor in a tight business-like cold line toward me. No idle chit-chat. Claire opened her mouth and dug her fangs into my arm at the hinge of my elbow. Veins that the Red Cross nurses always twittered, “oh, nice veins” when I donated blood since they are close to the surface and larger than a dainty girl should have.
The pain became immediately intense and the blood flowed too fast. My body and mind prickled with points of heat and spikes of pain while my vision narrowed from the expanse of the moldy basement to a single bright door lock. I felt myself slipping way over the edge Claire had put me on before and I fell, fainting. My body didn’t even try to stretch and grip the rim. The brightness of the door lock faded from focus. My head fell forward heavy and uncontrolled. It could have rolled on the floor except for that annoying neck thing holding it aloft and my body roped to the chair.
This is how you die slowly from a vampire.
-:- Twenty-Eight -:-
Garin and Brett sat in the back of Branoc’s car. The black car idled at the end of Garin’s driveway. The engine purred with no direction to go. Yet.
Brett asked, “Is it ten?”
“Soon,” Garin stared out the window at the horses next door munching on grass inside the wood fence.
Branoc said, “That’s the time they called yesterday. If we are to give them the container numbers and identifying marks, they need to call us soon. Otherwise those containers will be ship-bound.”
Branoc’s phone buzzed softly. Then louder. He answered it with the speaker-phone.
“Well boys. I see you had a productive night.”
“We loaded the equipment on two containers and marked them –”
“– We already have them in possession.”
“How did you know?” asked Brett.
“Like we said, we watch that facility closely.”
Garin opened his computer and it latched onto the wireless Internet signal from his house. The booster “cantenna” proved its good investment for the three dollars in parts he’d used to build it last year. His phone reached for the cell tower atop of the water tower a mile away. Garin used his cell phone plugged into the USB port to link to it and route the tower ID to his Internet servers. The servers did their work. His new software, updated the previous night, reached out along the call strings and found his as well as Branoc’s. Then he kicked in a second layer software patch that flooded the other calls. Many angry cell phone users would be screaming at their dropped calls. He saw the line hooked to Branoc’s cell from the outside. He traced it back through the phone company and over the vampire net. The code ran like hounds
pursuing a scent along the dark fiber revealing its secrets. The screen dropped another silent dot to update the lord observing his hounds on the chase. The route cut across underground cables, deep-sea intercontinental fiber networks, bounced from satellite to satellite, through several countries rounding the Horn of Africa where the hounds turned through a fiber network plowing across China. This is where the jumpsuit assassins made their mistake and allowed Garin to track them. Their routing went along a traditional fiber and not the vampire net. He licked his lip and followed the dogs. They next popped at Hawaii before diving beneath the waves reaching to San Francisco. The hounds sped up over the Rockies and across the plains. They rounded the lake from Chicago into Michigan. The signal flipped across two university networks and then North of Ann Arbor into the Marybend State forests. The run of the hounds took barely a dozen milliseconds to reach the source.
“– So you know there are two containers splashed with paint?”
“Yes. They are going through the Zeeb Road truck stop wash station now. We’ll send those trucks on to our intended rendezvous from there.”
Brett asked, “Where is Anna? You have what you wanted, we want Anna.”
“We haven’t yet fully received the cargo. You can’t expect we give up our bargaining chip yet. You could have the trucks diverted.”
“They’re not at Zeeb Road are they?” said Branoc, his hand resting heavily on the steering wheel.
“Good guess Branoc. Can you guess where?”
“No and you probably repainted the containers already and hooked new rigs on the front to drag them around without detection.”
“Very good Branoc. I see why you’re in the career you chose for yourself. And Brett, since your friendly Militia saw fit to poison the Massai supply we can only reliably drink live humans. And that girl you’re concerned about is what we have here to sustain ourselves. Garin, you did receive the incentive vial?”
Branoc gripped the steering wheel. The hard vinyl gave away to the power of his fingers.
“It took us a while to find but Brighton became a bad choice to hide that equipment. Easy to extract it from that scientist Gale once he had the loss of his daughter on his hands. Then we destroyed the equipment and research notes.”
“Was that you at the aluminum plant vampire office?” asked Branoc.
“My team, yes. Those silly simple terrorist vampires not following the vampire rules. A danger to us all. However, we used their work. We have their detonators now. Like we needed for our little project.”
“– When will we get Anna returned?” asked Brett.
“We will call you again.”
Garin growled low, “That’s not good enough. We upheld our bargain. You now have advanced equipment with the capability of growing any dangerous bioweapon you choose.”
“Garin, I wondered when I’d hear your voice again,” said Claire coming closer to the other phone.
Garin popped the door open, “I need some air.” He dropped his computer on the seat. The door closed softly and Garin vanished in a blur. Branoc saw Garin in his rear view mirror leap crashing through the glass windows into the second story of his house.
Branoc reached for the door handle but paused as Claire continued, unknowing that Garin had left, “Garin, your girlfriend is tasty.”
Brett picked up Garin’s computer and saw a red dot centered in a yellow triangle surrounded by a satellite image of forests. Miles and miles of forests. Map grid lines and thin little dirt roads knifed across the woods miles apart and well away from the red dot. The screen faded to black and went out! Brett touched a key and the computer demanded a password to view its contents. “Claire, where are you?”
“Await our call. Brett, I look forward to seeing you again,” a hungry lilt filled her voice like a devil’s grin across the phone.
“I don’t.”
Brett lifted the computer finding Garin’s cell phone still plugged into it. Garin’s second burner phone lay on the floor mat glistening in gray-black plastic and reflecting glass.
“Aww. I think you do.,” she said.
Branoc saw Garin flit passed the car across the road and through a subdivision of massive brick McMansions the size of apartment buildings and through a far tree line. Even matching his vampire speed he had no hope of catching Garin with that lead. Branoc knew he needed to keep the kidnappers from realizing Garin had gone. Safest to limit the conversation.
“Goodbye,” Branoc said. “Play fair and give me a call when you’re ready next.” Branoc’s mind went over the details of Garin’s fleeting form and what he carried with him from the house. Garin clenched two shiny black Katana scabbards
Branoc knew Garin should not have gone alone.
-:- Twenty-Nine -:-
Garin slowed his pace as the ridge following the stream smoothed down and disappeared under the tree canopy of black cherry and maples. The trees aged at least a hundred to possibly two hundred years and rose straight to the sky. The stoutest trees thickened to two and a half feet across and covered the forest floor in a sturdy canopy drowning everything but the trickiest undergrowth.
Uncle Tremper, when teaching him how to use his swords also taught him a few other survival skills that he brought from the back of his memories. He had said, “Stalking prey often requires more stealth than speed or strength.” His uncle had him practice when he still lived as a human. Stalking deer in the forest and woodchucks in the fields. “Step slowly and in a straight line rolling from your outer foot,” and had him sit for hours watching house cats approach a mouse or squirrel including remaining downwind barely twitching an ear. “That is how you hunt everything – including humans.”
Or vampires.
Garin hunched low and moved quietly between the trees. The vampires might have a guard perimeter and their sense of hearing would be as acute as his own. The stalking gait took too long but he knew if he sped up then surprise and saving Anna would be lost.
Behind a tree he paused, like a cat freezing, he moved his eyes around to scan for any movement and strained his ears. Nothing came to him except the calling birds and buzzing bugs. So far, he had not even aroused the chipmunks or squirrels that like to chirp warnings throughout the wood. He slowly moved forward.
He first saw the disturbed leaves like a shuffling walk and broken twigs hanging crooked on the thin underbrush. One set of stumbling woman’s shoes that he guessed as Anna’s but as he looked, he saw the marks of other boots with surer strides. The patterns disguised how many moved ahead of him. He avoided loose rocks that could tip or grind against one another and maintained his cautious approach across the uneven leaf littered ground. Garin reached down, brushed aside several loose blowing leaves, and saw they must have stopped and had a conversation or exchanged orders.
A squirrel chirped in a nearby tree. Garin froze. He scanned the trunks of the trees that only stood silent and dark. Then he saw the sheen of light filtering from the canopy touch against a blond wisp of hair poking from a black cap. Her face watched the route away from Garin. He peered around and of the four tree trunks close enough to reach, three of them had an unusually large clump of undergrowth around their bases that would rattle a warning if he came close to them.
The face scanned like a searchlight across the forest. She wore the black jumpsuit uniform of the others and would be looking at him soon. His jeans and black shirt only made him easier to see in the green living wood. Garin wiggled his shoes into the ground to ensure he stood solidly and he leaped up and forward. He froze clutching the trunk with his fingers sunk in the wood and letting his body dangle. He kept infinitely still.
The squirrel still chattered near the blond vampire, scolding and warning her to keep her distance. Garin knew he had made some unavoidable sound but he needed to remain absolutely still and listen for her possible approach. Tending toward impatience with what his uncle had taught him, he learned that reciting the Declaration of Independence in his mind provided the right duration that prey stopped worryin
g about a previous sound. Garin completed half of it when the squirrel stopped chipping. Garin kept running the words through his head while listening for other sounds but nothing except the clashing of fighting ant mandibles and the crunching nibbles of caterpillars came to his vampire ears – nothing that seemed like an alarm among the animals.
Garin carefully eased an eye around the edge of the trunk. The vampire had gone. Did she leave and warn the others? Did she sneak silently around the trees to surprise him? Had she stepped back so a tree blocked the squirrel’s sight of her?
A bird moved in the branches overhead. Then a ruffling sound like a small flag in the wind. Garin looked up and wisps of blond hair dropped from the sky. He released the tree landing in the leaves crouching with a sword in each hand. The assassin kicked away from the tree and landed on her feet skimming her own sword from its scabbard.
The assassin attacked in the shadow among the toes of the old black cherry trees.
Garin swept his leg against hers but she spun back remaining standing, her sword slicing above Garin’s head. Garin turned his arm mirroring hers so they came nearly back to back. She bumped him with her hip and kicked back with her foot to catch Garin’s knee. He spun out and back to hit her knee knowing the crunch and pop telling him he hit the right angle.
Uncle Tremper had grilled him as a teen that his greatest threat to longevity after overcoming his own moody elation or depression is other vampires. They will match or exceed your strength. Like a runner, wearing weights during training, his uncle taught him to fight against a vampire’s speed when he remained but a human. “Most vampires learn the sword after they become a vampire and fight mostly humans. You will learn to fight now so the skills will transfer and magnify.”
The assassin’s sword flipped around and slid up between them. Garin met the blade with the base of his sword near the guard. The knee had not fazed the assassin and it healed quickly. She must be drinking human blood. He guessed who’s blood. The assassin pushed closer, her golden hair falling free over her shoulders as her cap fell back, “Good technique on the knee.” She pulled out a small dagger for her free hand and pressed forward.
The Vampires Of Livix Twin Pack (Volumes #2 & #3) Page 15