The Birth of Vengeance (Vampire Formula #1)

by Ross, P. A.

  “Fight for me,” she said smiling and walked over to the side of the clearing with the camera.

  I looked about for an exit and so did Barry.

  “No running,” she shouted, baring her fangs and claws as a warning.

  Barry didn’t hesitate, pushed me over and dived for the knife. He easily knocked me over as I recoiled from her shocking announcement, and I landed on my arse in the wet mud. The wet landing and sudden smack across my backside jolted me out of my shock. Barry picked up the knife and came back at me smirking and throwing the knife hand-to-hand.

  “New boy, times up, no special drugs this time.”

  I found part of the fence and grabbed it as I jumped back onto my feet. Barry moved forward slicing the air before him, and crouching down ready to spring. I held the stick out in one hand as I prepared to block the knife. I didn’t know what to do. In Leeds, when I hit Dave, I knew I had Thorn just behind me. I knew if it went wrong, she was there to protect me. All the other times as a human, Thorn was always there to rescue me or scare them off. At the nightclubs, she would step in at the last moment saving me from a beating. Even a couple of days ago in the park I only fought one person who ran off after Thorn decimated the rest of his gang. The other times I was a vampire; I had superior strength, speed and instincts. I didn’t stand a chance against Barry. I knew it, and he knew it. Thorn must have known it but I again reminded myself that she was a vampire, and I had allowed my love for her to cloud my judgement. Day Jonathan was right; I had to escape if I survived tonight.

  Barry lunged and to my surprise, I reacted and blocked with the stick. He tried further slices and stabs, and I swung the stick in time to parry the blow or distract him from his task. Barry circled and charged, and I stepped quickly to the side moving out of reach. Again, he charged, and I stepped out of the way. I knew I couldn’t keep this going forever but I was just trying to survive hoping that a miracle happened; else, the outcome would be inevitable. Barry had a reputation; that was how you became a gang leader and he wasn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty. I should know.

  Again, he moved forward and stabbed at me. I backed off swinging the stick. He followed with a stab and slice, he relentlessly came forward and I continually circled backwards thrusting the stick to block the knife.

  “Come on fight me,” Barry shouted.

  Thorn watched on, interested by the cat and mouse game, following our movements with the filming camera. I thought maybe I could just tire him out and he would make a mistake eventually. His face raged, and he wanted revenge for the death of his friends and fear he lived in since I killed them. I hadn’t thought about his desire for revenge, just mine.

  Again, we moved around each other in the centre of the clearing. Barry then kicked a pile of leaves up and charged in behind it. The leaves distracted me as I shielded my face from the dirt that pelted me. He hit me full on and we crashed down into the mud. A pain shot through my left shoulder and put my hands up to protect it. I was too late. I could feel the metal blade pushing through my flesh. I grabbed at the handle and at Barry’s hand, trying to push it out. We rolled around in the mud coating our clothes and faces, and fighting for dominance over the blade. I couldn’t push him away but I was stopping it going in any further. We rolled again, and Barry was on top, his face full of fury, bearing his weight and strength onto the blade to drive it all the way in. I used all my strength to hold it steady but I couldn’t last forever. It was only a matter of time before it plunged through the rest of my shoulder. The pain would be too much, and he would cut me to pieces and take my place at Thorn’s side.

  “Boys,” Thorn said, “Something extra,” and she threw a needle of the vampire formula onto the ground a few meters away.

  We both looked over at it, and I wondered what to do next. Maybe if I could get to the needle I could transform, and it would heal my wounds.

  “New boy, when I am finished with you, I am going to take that needle and break your girlfriend.”

  I looked over at Thorn, he couldn’t be serious; she would destroy him.

  “I think Thorn can look after herself,” I answered looking at her.

  “Not her, you idiot, the redhead,” he said laughing.

  “No,” I screamed into his face.

  Memories of Scarlett flashed across my mind. The first time I met her in the sixth form common room and the elation of being introduced and becoming friends. My first kiss with Scarlett at her house, my heart hammering and feeling like it was breaking open my rib cage. After the mugging, Scarlett cradling my head, her tears dropping onto my face, and her flame hair was billowing in the wind. After I had pushed her over and tears of heartbreak rolling out her green eyes and nose bleeding onto her lips. At the nightclub, saying I could still come home and we could be together again. The hope it sparked and the rekindling of my love for her. Then it happened the uncontrollable rage just like I felt as a vampire but this was pure human rage.

  The anger brewed ‘til boiling point and my muscles began to shake with the rage. The blood rushing faster and faster around my body, heart pumping and hormones crashing about sparking every part of life force I had to sacrifice. My face went red, and I gritted my teeth from the change. I started to emit a low intense growl that slowly and surely turned into a full ear-splitting roar. Saliva spitting from my teeth and into Barry’s face, and the muscles around my hands began to squeeze tight crushing his grip. The sudden strength in my arms began to push the blade out of my shoulder as I continued to shout into his face. His expression changed as he began to lose the battle of strength between us. Fear crossed his face; my psychic abilities picked up images of me as a vampire in his mind. He thought I was changing, I wasn’t; this was old-fashioned human rage. Rage and anger inspired by my love of Scarlett. He had taken everything from me, and I wouldn’t let him take any more. The blade came out of my shoulder, and I pushed it to the side allowing the pressure between us to be released. His head dropped down with the lack of resistance, and I smashed my forehead into his nose as he dropped. The blood spurted out, and he screamed in pain. I didn’t stop and grabbed his nose between my teeth and began pulling and tearing. His blood poured into my mouth, and I allowed it to slide into my throat gulping it down, imagining I was a vampire. Time to finish. I pushed him off to the side of the clearing. I got to my feet still in a rage but I was steady and thinking straight as I walked over to the needle. I had used my anger and love to fight back. I had bathed in my emotions just as Thorn had taught me. However, I was Day Jonathan, and the thoughts of Scarlett had been overwhelming and had triggered the reactions I needed to win. This side of my personality had the strength to react and the motivation to fight. Day had won over Night. My face and body returned to its natural self, the scowl and the tenseness gone. I felt calm and in control of my emotions, not scared of my thoughts and feelings. I picked up the needle and looked at Barry holding his nose and rolling around on the floor moaning in pain. He knew what would happen next when I injected, and he watched, preparing for his final moments. I knew what would happen; the vampire would take charge and the instincts would be strong. All I needed to do was let it off the leash. It would be easy for me, no pain, no thought needed to kill Barry. I turned to Thorn and threw the needle down by her feet instead. I wanted to feel all of it. I wanted to feel the pain on my knuckles. I didn’t want it to be easy. I wanted to feel every single moment. I wanted it to be under my control and I wanted to remember it as a human, Barry and I on the same level man-to-man. This was going to be my, Day Jonathan’s, moment of triumph, and I didn’t care if Thorn sensed the change in my emotions, or sensed my love for Scarlett. My decision had been made for better or worse.

  Barry charged headfirst at the sight of the needle being thrown away. I stepped to one side, and a knee powered across my body and hit the side of his head. He crashed to the ground. Thorn’s training had come to the fore; my confidence and aggression triggered the movements and instincts I had practiced. I slid the knife into t
he back of my jeans and clenched my fists ready to practice some more. He stood back on his feet, and I moved forward ready for contact. He swung a fist, I ducked and threw an undercut onto his chin and then swiped an elbow across his face fracturing his cheekbone. Barry crashed to the ground whimpering. I kicked him in the stomach, and he curled into the mud to cover up. I walked about him kicking him in the back and legs as he hopelessly tried to crawl away. I stopped after a while, not wanting him dead, and grabbed hold of him and dragged him to a tree. I pushed him against it, sitting him up. Blood poured out of his nose and from the cuts across his face.

  I pulled out the knife, knelt down and looked into his eyes. I didn’t intend to kill him. I didn’t want to cross that line as a human, not now that I had decided who I genuinely wanted to be. Killing as a vampire was surreal, an out of body experience, this would be different and hard to cope with and recover from. I was Day Jonathan following the outpouring of emotions for Scarlett, and I wanted to return home as intact as possible. I had my revenge with the beating I had given him, but I wanted him to suffer for a bit longer by making him think I was going to kill him, and to make sure he never came after me.

  I remembered him talking to me about consequences, so I reflected his speech back on him.

  “Life is all about consequences,” I stated.

  “Consequences like mugging a new boy because you fancy his girlfriend.”

  “Consequences of me being in London in the first place, which are out your control.”

  “The job my Dad does, or just simply looking the other way have all lead us here tonight,” I began to enjoy my speech but could see it went totally over his head.

  “It’s too late for you Barry.”

  “Consequences Barry, consequences,” I said in a matter of fact voice and flicked the knife back and forth in the air.

  His eyes traced it as I waved it around and fear consumed his face.

  “Don’t kill me. It wasn’t my idea. I was paid to mug and bully you,” Barry blurted out.

  “What!” I replied, I felt like I had been punched in the stomach and the news rocked me backwards.

  “Yeah, these guys paid me two-thousand pounds to give you a kicking. Then more money again on the Sunday night to carry on the following week,” Barry said, hands held up in front of his body surrendering.

  “What people?” I asked as acid crept up my throat.

  I wanted to be sick but forced it back down.

  Thorn walked over intrigued by what Barry just said.

  “The people who will be here any minute,” Barry said laughing and looking around the woods.

  I was totally confused. I didn’t know what to do. I looked around trying to sense anyone approaching but could only hear the wind rustling the leaves in the trees and creaking of branch against branch.

  “You mean the people who gave you this Barry,” Thorn said holding up a small broken plastic box.

  Barry began to pad his jacket frantically but to no avail.

  “Yeah,” he said defeated, looking at her hand with the box.

  “A transmitter. I broke it when I first captured him,” Thorn replied.

  “Who?” I asked.

  Barry didn’t answer but just looked down at the mud, defeated and broken.

  “Who,” I said again waving the knife under his nose.

  “The same guys who been sniffing around ever since you killed my friends. They have been talking to everyone. They paid for the attacks on you and the bullying. They gave me the transmitter to track you down. It was all arranged, the mugging, the bullying and your girlfriend,” Barry said.

  “Thorn?”

  “No Scarlett, they wanted you to suffer as much as possible.”

  His words stunned me, and I tried to work out what it meant. The sickness burnt away in my stomach distracting me from my thoughts.

  Thorn interrupted, “She is part of it, building you higher than you have ever been, so the fall would be further, harder and darker. Enough to make you take the vampire formula. No wonder the Hunters were at the nightclub waiting when we saw Scarlett,” she added.

  I realised I had been played from the beginning. There was no random consequence; it was all planned by them, the Hunters but it had gone wrong. I had come back, released Thorn and taken the needles. They wanted the needles and me back for testing. Barry was involved, my Dad and Scarlett as well. That would explain why a woman like Scarlett ever went out with me in the first place. I always knew she was too good for me. I was just a scrawny depressed teenage boy, and she was a young beautiful woman. It all made sense now, being introduced to her on the first day was no accident and all those shared lessons, she just pretended to like me. The same music, films, tastes and we came from the same place as well. The constant chasing me about college, when I hid and avoided her. The invite to her house when we started dating, she made all the moves and flirted encouraging me onwards. Of course, the mugging, walking out through the front gates with her, and Barry and the gang were waiting. Her dropping the bag so I tripped up and her running off until the mugging was completed.

  I guessed I was supposed to use the injection sooner but didn’t. Scarlett then coming around on that Saturday and starting the argument in the hope it would trigger me into action. When that didn’t work and I was back at college, it was the bullying and the photo of her and Barry to tip me over the edge. Her final betrayal. The memories flooded back, with my new insight putting them into perspective of how I had been played. This was the truth of Scarlett. Thorn had been right about Scarlett at the nightclub with the Hunters waiting for me, and she knew what I had done and then tried to convince me to come back. The signs had always been there, and it made sense now when I looked back and viewed it properly. She was always out of my league. I should have realised it was too good to be true. I had always known it was but enjoyed it anyway, and now the reality had come back to haunt me. I was an idiot.

  The memories triggered other disturbing truths, my Dad bringing me to the lab that night knowing there was a vampire in the other room and letting me see the needles. It all fitted into the stories Thorn had told me about the lab and what thoughts she heard. It was a set up. They had purposely let her hear their thoughts and set the needles down for me to see them and for her to tell me to take them. Why else leave an innocent and angry teenager next door to an imprisoned beautiful psychic vampire? It was all planned to test their formula in the field, and I wondered how far it went back; Leeds, the car accident, the bullying in school and obviously the new job. The half-packed boxes of books at the Leeds house and the waiting job offer the next morning after the O’Keefes’ attack. The whole thing planned in detail. I couldn’t believe my own father had sold me out. My normal life destroyed. There would be no return, no happy ending and no dream life with Scarlett. The exact people who I thought could save me and give me a normal life again had put me here in the first place. They had been behind the scenes manipulating events to turn me into a test subject. I could only trust Thorn, she had been loyal to me every step of the way. Even tonight I had realised as I fought Barry it was part of the training, a test that she knew I would pass stronger than before. She had said at the outset it would be tough, and now I understood.

  The tears burnt down my face as the extent of the betrayal sank in. My life was just an experiment. I was just a test subject. A line of data to measure results against.

  “Why trick someone into using it? Why not pay someone?” I shouted at Barry.

  He just shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Take us to them,” I told Barry, as I choked on my tears.

  “I don’t know who they are; they would just appear from nowhere,” he answered.

  I felt numb and cold. My heart had been frozen solid, and it pumped out ice into my veins. The tears had stopped and the sickness went, as it was replaced by nothingness. Cold, empty, nothingness. My soul void of thoughts or emotions. They had all been blown away by the sta
rk reality of the truth.

  “You are of no use to me then,” I responded coldly and thrust forward with the knife.

  “No,” he screamed as the knife penetrated his flesh.

  I took Barry’s life away. He screamed, and I saw Day Jonathan instead. It spurred me on, I started to stab harder and I repeated over and over again taking in every moment of the resistance of knife against flesh. The squelching of his stomach breaking, as the knife tore at the fat and muscle. I enjoyed watching Day Jonathan die and with it, his stupid dreams of redemption and forgiveness, his stupid fantasies of a normal life with Scarlett, his plans of escape and his potential betrayal of Thorn. Thorn was the only true and loyal friend in everything that had happened. I loved her deeply. The blood poured out over the knife covering my hands in its sticky warmth and pumping onto my clothes. I was left now, Night Jonathan. No, even he had gone. I hadn’t returned to Night Jonathan. My muscles and face remained the same and the twitching energy hadn’t returned either but something inside had died and I remained void of any emotion. I’d become someone else, someone stronger, someone darker but I wasn’t sure who yet. I had regained my motivation and confidence in that battle, and truth of the betrayal had hardened it into something solid and dark.

  I stood up slowly watching Jonathan Harper die beneath me; then Thorn rushed over and hugged me.

  “You are ready. You are my man; you passed the test,” she whispered in my ear and kissed it gently.

  “We will find them, find the people who did this to you and the people who captured me, and we will get you your answers and have our revenge,” she added.

  I stared silently at Barry/Jonathan dying in front of me and tried to work out who I was and what my life meant.