“Sure.”
“Stay near the tent and stay quiet.”
“See you soon.”
Garin evaporated and I stood alone under the pines. The silence of the trees barely broken by the chirps of nuthatches. I stepped over a small line of rocks in the direction of the tent, but my trailing foot hooked against the dry stub of a curling grapevine that reached up through the pines out of the gloom. Either my toe or my pant leg hooked against that sharp burr. I tripped. I reached out with my hand to catch my fall the sharp points of a dried cracked pine branch scraped my arm below my shirt sleeve. I swore at the world. The rough scrape burned like fire and a wide line of blood seeped to the surface. Not a bad wound for being careless and clumsy. I checked my pockets for a stray tissue to blot at it but I had nothing. I looked around and the grape vine had nice wide leaves, wider to catch more of the sunlight that filtered between the pine boughs on its way to the open light above. I pulled a few leaves and blotted at the slowly congealing blood. Still cursing. The leaves didn’t soak anything up of course but I could scrape the blood off like using a spoon along the welt. The air could dry the thinned strip better than a big glob and not run down in rivulets. A few more leaves wiping across the line and the wound crusted over. I didn’t look forward to explaining to Garin what happened.
I released the grape leaves from my hand and wet a finger to rub off excess blood that smeared across my skin outside of the cut. The abrasion looked much smaller confined to its actual damage and it dried quickly. I rubbed my fingers into the long pine needles of the tree exchanging the potential smell of blood on my fingers for their piney fresh scent. Maybe that might lessen the clumsy discussion with Garin.
I came to the tent.
Fresh boot prints circled the tent, while the tent itself seemed off kilter as if roughly handled or searched. The scuffs in the dirt did not look like either Branoc’s or Garin’s strides. And the dirt seemed scoured and churned. Then two vampires materialized. They stood at opposite sides apprising me wearing camouflage hunting jackets and pants with matching baseball caps blazed with a pro shop logo. Their eye sockets appeared hollow and hungry. One of the vampires inhaled deeply of some green leaves in his fist like smelling a dozen roses. He let the leaves flutter away from his fingers and I saw the grape leaves covered in my blood. Stupid of me.
“Now don’t scream, little girl. We’re hungry now that the Massai is poisoned.” He stayed still.
“Poisoned by the humans. A fool’s act. Why would they do that?” The second tipped his head like a dog waiting for a ball to chase.
I had no weapons and I saw they had nothing but themselves, no guns or hunting knives. But why would they carry anything when their hands and claws gave them infinite power to inflict death on any animal they hunted? Obviously, I became their prey. With two of them I did not stand a chance – then laughed inwardly through the fear – with one of them alone I didn’t stand a chance.
The first one peered at me, “We’re not intending to kill you miss. But we really crave some of your blood.”
“You can’t catch any of the turkey or maybe deer?”
“We’ve survived on them for a while, but the taste of real human flesh and blood is overpowering.” My blood incensed them. “Finding you here is lucky for us.” Pretty eyes searched around my face from my eyes to my mouth and back to my eyes, studying me. Unshaven stubble caressing his square jaw.
Bravely I suggested, “Do you think I’m alone?”
“You look alone, smell very alone,” the second vampire licked one of the leaves, “and taste alone.” Fine bone structure balanced his face and dark eyes, handsome if not so threatening. Not scrawny white trash hunters after a cheap time but courteous about the mugging.
“How did you get left here? Alone?”
“Maybe I’m dangerous.”
“That’s not what I smell. I smell fear.” The vampire moved to my side, holding my wrist up.
The other appeared at my other arm and held it delicately, “Such dainty beauty.”
“You really are a fine specimen.” The first vampire looked into my eyes, “We can take a little or a lot – or everything. Don’t scream or yell or fight us or we will drain you.”
I swallowed hard; I needed to live as long as I could to give Garin time to finish his call and return to find me. I nodded assent. Fangs sliced into my wrists so abruptly, pain shooting along my arms chased with pleasure that I sucked uncontrolled air into my lungs. They siphoned my blood from my arms like calves until my head swooned as if I stood up too quickly. They sensed this change in me and eased me to the ground. Soft pine needles cushioned my spine and buttocks. The vampires slowed to a rhythmic series of draws first from one wrist and then from the other like an oil rig pumping station going up and down, up and down, drawing energy from the earth. The space above me interwoven with pine boughs crossing the translucent sky making it shadowy around but glowing near me. Serene peace filled the depths of my surrender. I sensed they took more than they professed but the slow draw they pulled now and the desire I knew they released into me kept my thoughts blurry. Wrong and dirty and then a knife of clarity pierced through my mind forcing survival before I had no mind left to survive with.
I snapped my wrists back and kicked my legs to scoot myself away. I screamed. I rolled. The startled vampires scrambled for me, jostling each other as they reached for my flailing limbs. Their face now grimaces of anger at being abruptly wrenched from their own thoughts of ecstasy while sipping my blood. My shoes kicked into their faces and they slapped my legs down and snatched at my wrists.
They did not hear Garin approach with his swords. He struck them in a single rush, removing their heads in a quick strike. He dropped his swords to the dirt and grabbed the neck of one hunter with a hand pinching off the spurting blood while his fangs sucked at the neck of the second vampire. I scooted myself away and back against the trunk of an evergreen watching in horror. I had never seen Garin feed. When the flow of the one subsided, he sucked out the first hunter’s neck. Then he cast the two bodies aside. So violent and intense and horrific. Then he came at me with rage-filled eyes and I feared he would drink me without thinking but he stopped. His face near mine and drew me close to kiss me.
Their blood covered me. I could only taste blood on my lips and his lips, the hard abrasive grip of iron, both slick and sticky. Burning warmth exploded in my pelvis and I pulled him to me. I broke our embrace to suck breaths into my lungs then I leaned to kiss him. Garin pulled back, his face full of energy and intensity and I lusted for him.
“You’re under their effects still. I’m under the venom too.” He rocked back on his feet and stood up holding his hand out for mine. “Let me take you to the water.”
I looked at my body and my clothes barely remind me of their original colors. My hair hung heavy with blood and vampire gore. Garin pulled me up, scooped his other arm under my rear, and carried me briskly through the woods until we came to a small clear river floating lazily under some oak trees. The water a tinge feathery brown from the tannic acid of the tree leaves, but maintained crystal clear from that action. We kicked off our shoes into the grass.
Garin stepped into the illusionary water surprising me at its real depth, its clarity creating the impression that the bottom was near. The water bloomed with blood from our soaked clothes. Garin kissed me while he removed each article. I pushed his clothes from him and we flung them to the shore.
The cool water invigorated my senses such that my faintness dissolved as the blood washed clean from my hair and body. Energy, excitement, and passion flourished between us. Reeds by the shore wavered from the cadence of our motions. Our hands touched each other, our fingers glistening under the water as our fingers laced one into the other. Our skin glowed under the tea-like water as if floating apparitions in ghostly love. Gossamer ribbons of plant leaves curled around our ankles as our feet pressed into the stream’s pebbly bottom. The slow current pulling at the fire in my abdomen as we c
ame together repeatedly. It seemed like hours that we lingered. The minutes lengthened into days. I wanted to stay here forever. Feeling like this with him. He pulled me from the water and we lay on the warm soft grasses near the shore. Our skin cool in the warmth of a few rays of sun striking bands of happiness between a cottonwood’s limbs over us.
I nearly asked him to make me a vampire here and now. But my addled mind burst through the after-love euphoria hammering that thought down and away. To be alive and human. I glanced at Garin and saw him comfortably sprawled and spent on the grass. Undead, yet he appeared more alive too at this moment.
He rolled onto his side and touched my hip. He slid his hand across my skin gathering beads of water between his finger tips and my body. Warming the little pearls as he gathered them running around my breasts and then down my thigh looping like an ice skater around my knee, twirling and jumping and splaying. The number of points I awarded the skater’s dynamics increasing the closer the path returned between my legs. And “Hmmm.” escaped my lips as the skater touched softly, briskly, and wetly against the right locations.
I lifted my opposite knee and coiled onto him. He guided himself into me and I pushed up on my hands with my knees balancing to either side of him. My hands found his and we communicated by fingertips and our eyes searching the other’s. He sat up and kissed me as we moved our bodies more roughly together. The heat of the day seemed intense and he slid us back into the quenching water. Waves of pleasure struck us repeatedly and I surrendered and succumbed to my trust in this man, this vampire. I lost count of the number of times my body exploded in pleasure that at times repeated with such proximity that I could not fathom a heartbeat between them. The final release left me laying weak on the shore by the water. I watched a fuzzy caterpillar trundle his way along a cat-tail blade fascinated with its rhythmical movement, any other coherent thoughts freely expunged from my mind.
Garin slipped back into the water and I turned my head. I watched him take our still bloody clothes and rinse them at a furious pace under the surface of the water like the water boiled from a hot pot on the stream bed. He finally squeezed the water from the garments and threw them spinning through the air to land over untouched tufts of grass to dry in the breezes. He climbed out of the water and lay down in the grass next to me, giving me a lingering kiss, “I have missed you.”
“And I …” my voice trailed off. I couldn’t think straight yet. Muffled in warmth, comfort, and relaxation. “I missed you too.” My hand hung heavy from my lethargic arm as I brought my fingers to the short hairs at the back of his scalp. Heat and coolness mixed like an Asian carryout meal, the curves of his shoulders and back beautiful next to me. I think I fell asleep and dreamed. I awoke with sweet smelling wide leaves covering my body in a green blanket. Petals from wild tiger-lilies scattered across the leaves and the grass near me. A hint of crushed mint near my head, cool and crisp in the air.
Garin had gone with his clothes but I remained calm. His presence wandered nearby. He floated through the brush like a ghost. My clothes lay dry in a neat pile next to me on more of the wide leaves. The fragrance of sunshine and sage permeated my clothes as I dressed. My shoes seemed freshly cleaned as well. Except for a small red streak where the sole met the upper on my left shoe – a reminder of my attackers still lingered. I plucked a blade of grass and jammed the sap end of the blade against the blood to loosen and remove it. Soon that mark faded. I stood and shuffled through the grass onto the higher bank away from the water and strode in the general direction I remembered the tent.
Only a few dozen paces and Garin’s voice came from branches above me, “I moved our camp.” He jumped to the ground next to me. “This way.” He slid his hand smoothly into mine and tugged me along.
“What did Branoc tell you?”
“He didn’t have anything new.”
“I see.”
Garin skirted us around a large swamp and a small attached lake and back into another wood-choked corner between rising ridges in the forest.
“You went this far away while I slept?”
“Not for long.” He pointed to strips of scoured ground, “I’d race here then run back to ensure you remained safe.”
“That’s what I thought before the recent attack.” Sleeping naked next to the stream could not be different from being human in a vampire controlled world, second below the top of the food chain. Naked and weak. Powerless. I did not like that thought.
Still tired, especially after Garin found some more eggs and helped me cook them to perfection, I crawled into the tent and zippered myself into the sleeping bag. The darkness enveloped me completely.
In the night I awoke with a start. Clarity piercing my thoughts with sharp blades. I sought freedom from vampires because of what they did, but not necessarily free of all vampires. Or not free of one vampire. I realized I loved both Garin and Brett. Each differently and my love came from different corners of my soul. The only way they could be safe and I could be free is to stop the monster, “We have to take the fight to Aravant.”
“I agree,” said the vampire’s voice watching over me from the darkness beyond the tent.
My soul intrinsically understood. Vampires should be feared enough to be cautious but not feared so much to hide from the responsibility to remove a deadly threat. Time to take pitchforks and torches to their nest. “I don’t care if it takes a lifetime. I need to know how to use a sword. None of this accidental crap. If I’m involved with vampires, I want to know the basics. I want to choose my destiny – not let it choose me.”
“Agreed.”
-:- Seven -:-
“Show me your manufacturing process.” Branoc looked at the two scientists and their quality control specialist.
The first scientist, the older of the two but he looked younger, having been made into a vampire in his twenties two centuries ago while the older looking scientist had been made in his forties only three quarters of a century ago, took a dry erase marker from the conference table. He took two steps to the tall white boards. He stood motionless for a moment thinking and then sketched out boxes and arrows. “This big box is the manufacturing plant. We unload tanker trucks over here at Receiving. It’s a direct pipe hookup to the tank –”
Their quality specialist leaned over. “Hard to get any contaminates in there. See how it is attached above and then plugs onto the back of the truck. We have cameras on that dock and nothing showed out of the ordinary.”
“What about the truck before it arrives?” Garin tapped his pen against the table.
“It’s sealed at the slaughterhouse and the seal is broken here as the pipe is attached. A damaged or missing tag prompts additional checks and decision making as a possible tampering event. We did not have any such instances.”
“You have the employee job records for each shift?”
“Yes.” He spun around a black three-ring binder and opened to one of the first tabs.
Branoc said, “Then after receiving what happens?”
“Then it is either put in these temperature-controlled holding silos or run direct to the manufacturing floor.”
“Then what happens if it goes direct? Any different handling processes for batches that go into storage versus direct?”
“The batch flow sheets are updated, mostly electronically, for that event. In fact the whole plant is traceable to the lot codes that get issued at Receiving.”
“You don’t mix more than one truck full per lot?”
“If we get any amount of raw material ahead of production then it goes into the same storage tanks, but we trace which truck loads go in there.”
“Milk from the dairy farms goes into these tanks, refrigerated, and handled on the same lot methods of tracking everything.”
“So you can take the lot codes from these bottles and tell us where –” Branoc pushed two bottles forward on the table still in sealed plastic bags marked with warning tapes and vampire police case numbers.
“– Yes, but b
efore we get into that, we wanted to follow this back through the plant.”
“Carry on then.”
“Thank you.”
“So the blood is routed into the mixer where we add stabilizers and other chemicals to ensure the blood is more easily digested providing quicker nutrient absorption.” He watched me when he said that, being the only human in the conference room. I did not flinch or otherwise change my expression. He shrugged his eyebrows at that and went back to his description. “In this part of the facility we then homogenize the two main ingredients, milk and blood-mix then low temperature pasteurize it under high pressures and then heat seals it into bottles with two layers of security tamper-proof sealing.”
“Good, now show us your floor.” Garin stood and stepped toward the door leading from the conference room into the manufacturing plant. “Start with Receiving and take us through to final shipping.”
“Right this way.”
We wandered under the shadow of fifty-foot stainless steel cylinders holding, transferring, and mixing blood and milk into the final product ready for the bottling line. The place remained clean. And I saw why that might be a good idea since I only saw vampire workers.
Garin whispered to me, “All the pipes and vessels are designed with a five point oh factor of safety.”
“What does that mean?” I stepped over an accordion stainless transfer hose snaking across the floor like a python.
Branoc leaned toward my ear, “It means it’s unlikely to break and spill and incent the workers into a feeding frenzy.”
“I see.” I decided keeping my distance from the equipment might be a good idea. I didn’t need any clumsy trip over those hoses or snagging my shirt against a shutoff valve.
We pushed through some atmospheric portals and into a large enclosed chamber.
The Vampires Of Livix Twin Pack (Volumes #2 & #3) Page 22