The Vampire's Curse

by Mandy Rosko

  He fisted his hands in his pockets, not two minutes ago the bigger man looked ready to pop a vein in his forehead, now he was the picture of calm and professionalism. "No, but you are her match. Her kidnapper likely doesn't know this and probably won't be expecting you tonight. Assuming she's alive."

  Kyle's eyes narrowed and fists clenched. He didn’t like the hesitation before that last part. "She's alive."

  "Do you believe that or are you just saying it?"

  His heart beat sporadically in his chest, a painful tempo that pulled at him and spoke to him, and he really did know that somewhere, hers did too. "I know it." Excitement drummed through his blood. "We wait 'til night, and then I'll track her."

  Just like he’d done at her mother’s store.

  Carter snapped his fingers. "Give the man a prize. I'm going to get you fitted with a wire. First thing you change, you're going out to find her."

  Kyle walked with him when Carter put his hand on his back and led him away from the scene. "Will I have anyone with me?"

  "We're going to have some of our people following you, this means you'll have to try and let us keep up while you track her."

  He’d be scaling buildings and jumping rooftops. He would’ve looked forward to doing it again had the situation not been so serious. "I think I might have some help when I find this place anyway."

  Carter stopped. "What do you mean? You know where this place is?"

  "No, but," he sighed. "I think that whoever took Jackie took Evey."

  Carter's face went stoney. "How do you figure that?"

  Just another one of those feelings he had, but that wasn’t explanation enough. “You didn’t find her at her place, did you?”

  “No, but that’s still a whole lot of nothing to go on. You can sense Jackie, not Evey.”

  “I know, but we’re still talking about someone who has no qualms about killing vampires because of a hatred for them. If Evey’s missing then she’s probably a victim of this same person.”

  Alibi or not, he was sure Charity Dodd had something to do with all this. She was the only one who knew about Jackie’s blooming relationship with him, and her friendship with Evey.

  Carter shook his head and rubbed the spot between his eyes. "Evey has a habit of taking off out of the city without much of a warning, but I agree with you. With everything going on now she’d let someone know if she was going anywhere.”

  "So with Jackie gone and that guy dead...?" Kyle prompted.

  "We're searching for two kidnapped women."

  Stay alive a little longer, baby, I’m coming.

  SEVENTEEN

  Kyle never waited so long for sundown to come in the entire five months since his curse.

  While he waited, Carter and his men updated him on what little they could find. Not too long to go now, but his leg still twitched as they prepped him.

  "Because you couldn’t let it go, we checked out the mother and daughter this time. Turns out Claire Dodd got a job here not too long ago, and she left early after she told her manager about some kind of family emergency."

  Carter slapped his arm, a genuine grin on his face. “Nice instincts.”

  Kyle clenched his fists and stared out the window, ignoring the friendly gesture. All he could think about was Jackie and how she was in the hands of those psychopaths.

  Only a few more minutes and he’d change. He never wanted it more. "She planned this whole thing." Hell, with the timeline, Claire could have abducted Evey before her shift started and still made it to work on time.

  Carter tipped his ten gallon hat back, clearing his throat and becoming serious again. “Right. I sent word out to pick her up if anyone sees her, and I was already at her apartment. She isn’t there. Almost nothin’ is actually. Place is filled with mostly fold out furniture."

  Kyle snapped his head to him. He couldn't believe the man had left to find Jackie without him. "You should've taken me with you."

  Carter raised his giant hands. "Calm down. I already told you we didn't find them there, but we did find a few things in her closet."

  "Anything that'll help us find her?"

  "Yes and no."

  Kyle clenched his teeth. That wasn't an answer to his question. "What did you find that'll help us find her?"

  Carter sighed and rubbed his mouth. "Tapes, twenty-three of them, none too long either. Mostly boring stuff in the beginning, but by the end you want to be sick. Most of them look like footage of the vampires that attacked you being slowly starved until they go wild. A few of them depict Claire Dodd herself talkin’ into the camera and makin’ notes to herself. Looks like she's being pretty scientific about it all. If I didn't know any better I'd say she was tryin’ to write a book.

  “Not the worst of it either. You were right when you told me your theory about Charles Clayton. A few tapes focus on him, chained to a desk and being forced to work on the collars while feral vampires jump around in cages behind him. He looked pretty scared for the most part.”

  Carter shook his head. “Didn’t think I’d ever see anything like this.”

  “Does anyone mention anything about his daughter?”

  Carter shook his head. “I don’t think he even knew she was dead. Bet he regretted inventing those collars after being chained to a desk like that. Get this, the signal that’s controlling those things is coming from a Blackberry.”

  “Jesus.”

  “S’what I said. Seems that what’s controlling those ferals isn’t such a complicated piece of work that it needs a lot of tech support.”

  Kyle ran his hands through his hair. He figured that the signal for an invention like those collars would come from some kind of giant super computer that filled an entire room. Not a cell phone.

  A fucking Blackberry. Something like that would allow those bitches to control those ferals from pretty much anywhere.

  "Is the footage all taken in the same place?"

  "You really should be a detective. We haven't gone through all the tapes yet, but so far, yeah, looks like it is. Wherever she's doing it, it’s being done in a large enough space where no one can hear screams for help. She didn't exactly gag them as she starved them. Just let them circle around in cages until the thirst threw them overboard."

  He couldn’t wait until he found them. He was going to tear those fucking cunts limb from limb for trying that on Evey and kidnapping Jackie.

  Carter shook his head and stared out the window at the falling sun, as though he too were wishing it away. "Thank God Evey was only taken today. That gives us some time for her. Hopefully it'll be the same for Jackie. But because we can't find her that leaves it up to you to sniff her out and lead us to where Claire and her mother are hiding."

  He hesitated for one second. "Kyle, I’ve had a team specializing in curses looking into your problem, and it doesn't look like there's going to be a cure for you."

  Kyle watched the sun like Carter did, the glowing ball descended until it melted away in the distance and darkness took back the sky.

  He welcomed the change, embraced it for the first time and inhaling as though breathing fresh air for the first time as it came.

  He clenched his fists, urging the claws to grow faster, for his eyes to adjust to the darkness sooner, and for his fangs to make their nightly debut as sharp as possible.

  He stared hard at Carter who still awaited his answer.

  "I don't care."

  ***

  Jackie jerked awake and covered her eyes with her good arm to block out the stabbing light. Her arm tingled with sleep because she'd been laying on it, while the other throbbed for more pain killers. A small pulsing headache began in the back of her head, and the hand that previously had the IV stung and itched. She had a feeling these were the least of her worries.

  What she was laying on was hard and flat, not at all similar to her blankets and pillows from the hospital, nor was the smell quite the same. Everything smelled damp and cold, like the early morning in autumn, only dirtier, instead of
clean and sterile.

  "Where—?" She pulled her arm back and tried to adjust to the light. She turned over and felt the freezing steel beneath her.

  "Jacklyn, are you alright?" A voice whispered.

  "Evey?" Jackie lifted herself to sit and grabbed her throbbing head with her tingling hand. The shoulder that had been shot screamed for her pain medication with the movement, but she doubted she'd get it any time soon. She still had trouble seeing when she opened her eyes again. Her glasses were gone. "What's going on?"

  "Lay back down. Try to keep quiet until help comes. I can tell the sun went down so we only have to wait for your match to get here."

  Jackie forced her eyes to stay open, and when they adjusted she saw herself in a cage, a big one with thick grey bars, fuzzy to her eyes, but solid enough to her hands.

  “Where are you?”

  “In another cage across from you. Lay down, be still, and try not to speak much.”

  Jackie turned her head to view her surroundings.

  There were other cages, she could tell that much, but unlike Evey’s, she didn’t see the dark blob shape that indicated there was someone inside them.

  She crinkled her nose. Was that blood? Was there blood in those cages? In hers? She didn’t want to know.

  She shivered and wished to be anywhere but there.

  Fear rushed her at the obvious danger she was in, and Jackie did as she was told and lay back on her side, both of her arms protesting the move.

  She kept her eyes locked onto Evey's shape, as if the woman could comfort her with her presence alone. Though, she would rather Kyle was with her instead. He would know what to do, how to escape. She hadn’t even gotten to have any of the self-defense training with him yet. What was she going to do until he came?

  "She took me from my bed." Jackie said, chilled as she remembered Claire and what she’d done. “She took me right out of the hospital and no one noticed a thing.”

  “I know sweetheart. Try to stay calm.”

  Calm. That’s what Kyle had told her to do. To stay calm, take deep breaths, and search for anyplace she can hide, escape to, or anything she could use as a weapon. Ten seconds of that can save your life.

  She darted her eyes around, searching for her kidnapper and trying not to move her head much in case she was near. Jackie half expected her to jump out wielding a chainsaw and wearing a mask made of human flesh.

  She tried to think of what Kyle would do, how he would view the situation. The walls were concrete, grey bricks, the air felt wet and cold against her skin and she couldn’t see well enough to even know which direction the door was in.

  She was in a basement, had to be, either that or a castle, which wasn’t too likely. Too bad, with her eyes, it probably wouldn’t be enough to give Mike a good description.

  God, her shoulder throbbed. The cold, wet air down here couldn’t be good for that.

  A different coloured shape snaked up the grey wall along the far side of her prison. Brown. Wooden stairs?

  “Evey, where’s the door?” Jackie whispered. “I think I see stairs.”

  That was something she was sure Kyle would have her do. Search for the way out first. Get a sense of her surroundings. Maybe he’d be proud of her if she lived beyond tonight.

  “Those are stairs. They lead to the only door out.”

  “There’s no windows?” She asked. There had to be windows.

  “There are, but they’re far too small for either of us and too high for you to reach without help. Concentrate on the door.”

  “Where’s Claire?”

  "She’s upstairs, with her mother." Evey whispered, her face twisting. “I am not sure about you, but when this is over I’m leaving the city. I’ll go where everything is safer.”

  Jackie heard the word mother and slid her eyes shut, tuning out the rest of what Evey said. Well, at least now she knew her enemy. "I was hoping Charity wasn't a part of this."

  Evey chuckled as though Jackie said something funny. "You can never tell with some people. But don't worry. They're going to try and starve me into being feral. That takes a while. I'm not sure what they’re planning with you, but Kyle will find you before anything can happen. He's tracking you right now."

  Jackie didn't know how Evey could talk about being starved wild so calmly, but she knew that Kyle would sense where she was and come for her. Evey was right about that. Charity and Claire didn't know that she and Kyle were matched, they wouldn't know to expect him.

  Her heart lifted and she smiled. "He's coming. He's going to bring help."

  Evey nodded, excitement in her eyes. "Yes, but until then we need to not attract any attention."

  A door snapped open as Jackie opened her mouth to reply. She shut her eyes as tightly as possible without looking obvious and tried to keep the muscles in her body from tightening up.

  Two pairs of footsteps creaked down the wooden steps. Claire's voice sounded annoyed and shrill. "See? They're still out of it."

  Charity sighed. "Alright, but keep an eye on that thing there, she might be faking it."

  Claire laughed. "You're just being paranoid. I'm surprised I didn't kill her with all the stuff I pumped into her. She'll be out longer than the traitor."

  "If only she didn't make friends with that creature. Maybe we should let her go." Charity said.

  Jackie's heart leapt hopefully.

  "What? Are you kidding? She'll go to the police."

  "She doesn't even know where she is, or who's holding her. I should've talked to her first. Maybe she didn't know what she was doing."

  Claire's voice raised in volume. "She knew he was a vamp and she knew he was about to turn. The slut's putting out to a creature that nearly let himself turn feral. Feral, mom. That's all we need."

  Jackie clenched her jaw. They knew Kyle was spending the night at her apartment. Charity must've been watching her since the scene in the library.

  Claire was the obvious choice for the one in charge here, but Charity was not going to stand up to her daughter and stop her from what she was doing. It sounded to Jackie like Charity didn't mind what her daughter did to vampires, but when it came to someone who was human, who used to be a friend, it seemed that’s where she got iffy.

  "We stick to the plan. We wait for it to find her through their link or whatever, and put him away too. Then, when they turn, we won't even have to stick them in collars. We can put her to sleep before sticking her with them if it makes you feel better about it. They'll feed from her, we'll put the vamps down, and then we'll leave. You won't have to see anything like this ever again, we won't even talk about it if you don't want."

  The comforting coo in Claire’s voice made Jackie want to be sick. They knew Kyle was coming for her, that they were matched, and they were planning on starving him and Evey until they had no choice but to feed off her. Claire talked about putting Kyle and Evey down like they were sick animals.

  She had to get out. Had to think of something, anything, she couldn't let them hurt Kyle! He was walking into a trap!

  "We won't even have to wait for her to turn into a feral. A week, two at the most without blood and they'll be so thirsty they won't be able to resist. We can get this over with fast and then get out."

  “The police already suspect us, we should leave now instead of drawing this out.”

  “No.” Claire’s voice was firm, controlling. “It isn’t enough. What we’ve done isn’t enough to make dad’s death mean anything. Just two more vamps, then her, and we’ll go.”

  The stairs moaned under the strain of holding Charity's weight as she walked back up the stairs. "Fine, fine. I'm tired. I’m going to take a nap. If you hear anything—"

  "I'll check on them. If anything happens I’ll tell you."

  The creaking of the stairs stopped and the heavy door shut behind them. Jackie waited sixty seconds before deciding it was safe to open her eyes. When she did, she saw Evey up on her elbows staring at the spot where Charity and her demented daughter had exit
ed the room.

  Jackie knew what she was thinking but said it anyway. "They've completely lost it."

  "They could give the Shepards a run for their money."

  She talked like she knew from experience, but Jackie didn't feel like sitting around comparing the two women to other ruthless killers. She leapt to her feet and found the door to the cage, shut and locked with three combination locks: one at the bottom where the door opened, the other in the usual spot in the middle, and the other at the top. She looked at them all, as if they could give her the combination, but nothing came to her.

  "They didn't want to risk that anyone they took knew how to pick locks. Or was strong enough to bend the door at the corners."

  Jackie looked back at Evey, who was laying on her back and now seemed to be staring at the top of her cage. "They even charmed my cage against magic because they discovered I was a witch after the last time they sent their pets after us." Evey flicked the metal bars. “They’ve thought of everything.”

  Jackie grinned as she held one of the locks in her hand. "But I'm the worst witch in the world." And everyone knew it.

  Evey was silent for a few seconds. "What are you thinking about?"

  The rest of the conversation she had with Kyle in her hospital room came back to her. "He told me he'd show me how to defend myself, in case I needed it." She shook her head. "He didn't have time to show me much of anything, but he gave me a few pointers."

  Evey got to her knees and gripped the bars of her cage.

  Jackie looked her square in the eyes. Or at least, what she thought were her eyes. "You didn't happen to see them charm my cage, did you?"

  Evey shook her head. "No, but are you sure you want to try this. They could hear you and come down here."

  Jackie held the bottom lock in both of her hands, calling all her faulty magic to come to her and focusing it into the lock. "They know Kyle's coming. They'll hurt him."

  "He seemed to be very good at his job, he'll come with Michael and every cop in the city."

  Jackie shook her head. No, not good enough. She couldn’t risk it. She focused on a simple warming charm, like when she made her coffee mug explode, and already felt the energy she came up with going haywire. "You said they've thought of everything, right? I'm not risking the chance that they thought of that."