Shufah must have had the same impression. Her face went soft and she even managed a comforting smile. “The damage is minimal. A few wrecked cars and some broken glass. The worst will be for Thad.” She turned to him. “The police will be searching diligently for you now. They will probably contact your parents, if they haven’t already. I’m not sure how we’ll be able to fix this for you.”
Thad managed a dry smile. “It doesn’t matter. Even if I survive this, I’m just going to end up in some concentration camp for the infected.”
Taos made a disgusted noise. “Stop being such a drama queen.”
Thad looked as if he wanted to respond, but thought better of it.
“We don’t have time to worry about it right now,” Shufah said, ignoring Taos. “We have about seven hours until sunrise. That leaves us six to find and deal with Kole.”
“What about the mess back at the diner?” Jerusa asked. All eyes turned to her and she fought the urge to take a step back. “I mean, how do we explain what happened to the police cars? Didn’t we expose ourselves?”
“We won’t have to worry about that,” Shufah said. “It was dark. I doubt anyone witnessed anything of consequence. Nothing anyone would believe, anyhow. They’ll explain it away and in a few days, it won’t even be news.”
Taos laughed. “Watch and wait. They’ll say it was some kind of freak storm. Humans are so self-absorbed. They see only what they want to see.”
They left the top of the hotel, moved from the brightly lit streets of town, and made for the darker suburban areas. The group moved from house to house like a roving gang of delinquents until Shufah announced that they had found what they were looking for.
Inside a detached garage next to a modular home was an old flatbed truck loaded down with landscaping equipment. Near the back of the bed, strapped to the rusted cattle-gate, was a red five-gallon container of gasoline. Shufah picked up the container, swirled it around, nodded in approval, then handed it over to Jerusa. The container was nearly full and Jerusa marveled at how just two days ago, the weight would have been grievous to her, but now she could handle ten times this without even a muscle twitch.
“What’s the gas for?” Jerusa whispered to Foster.
He edged in closer so that he could keep his voice low, even though Jerusa could have heard him whisper from down the street. Human habits die hard, it seemed. “Fire is the only safe way to kill a vampire, especially a savage. That’s why any vampire showing an above-average knack for pyro-kinesis is recruited by the Stewards to be a Hunter.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You can’t kill a savage like you would other creatures. Destroying the brain or heart of a vampire will turn him savage. Destroying the brain of a savage will render the body incapacitated, but that can make matters worse.
“When a savage’s brain is destroyed and there is no hope that it can devour fresh flesh to regenerate, it will undergo a rapid change. The tissue breaks down and explodes outward, almost like bacteria spores. The spores attach and infect any living tissue they come into contact with, turning the poor victim into a savage just as if they were bitten.”
Jerusa’s mind was spinning. She wanted to sit down. How were they supposed to kill a creature like Kole? Okay, the plan was to dowse Kole with gasoline and have Taos use his pyro-kinesis to set him aflame. But she had seen Kole in action, running at incredible speeds, leaping through tree tops, ripping heavy metal doors from pickup trucks as though they were made of paper. What good would all the fire of Hell do them if they couldn’t get him to stand still long enough?
Taos found a pair of long-handled axes in the bed of the truck. He handed one to Suhail and kept another for himself. Foster found a set of garden shears that he tucked into his belt as though they were a sword. Shufah took a round-point shovel down from a rack on the wall. She took the metal head in her hands and, with little effort, twisted it into a dangerous-looking spearhead.
Thad squinted in the dark. “What about me and Jerusa? Don’t we get a weapon?”
Shufah searched the contents of the garage and found an old machete buried beneath a pile of oil-stained rags and beside it, a heavy-duty flashlight. The machete had a bent blade, a cracked handle, and looked as dull as a butter knife. She handed the machete to Jerusa, then looked apologetically to Thad as she handed him the flashlight.
“There isn’t any weapon that I can give you that will protect you from Kole. You lack the speed and strength to harm him. Just stay near to one of us. If things go bad, run. If worse comes to worst, shine the light into Kole’s eyes. Savages can’t tolerate bright lights. It may just buy you enough time to escape.”
Thad took the flashlight, but didn’t seem all that grateful for it. Jerusa didn’t blame him one bit. She wasn’t all that keen on the dull-bladed, bent machete, either. She would have much preferred a weapon in the range of a rocket-launcher or a flamethrower. But poor people have poor ways, and sometimes, you just have to make do.
Shufah brushed Jerusa’s cheek gently with the backs of her fingers, then placed her hand on her shoulder. “Okay, child. Now it is yours and Alicia’s turn. Lead us to Kole and let us make an end of this.”
Jerusa looked about the darkened garage, but Alicia was not there. She whispered the ghost’s name, knowing full well that even though she couldn’t see her, Alicia was never far away. She waited but Alicia didn’t appear. Jerusa called again and still no Alicia.
Jerusa looked back at the others. Foster and Thad watched with wide, expectant eyes. Suhail and Taos couldn’t have looked more amused. Shufah alone stood still, her face unreadable.
Jerusa flashed them a broken smile, all the while hoping that it was too dark to see the blush in her cheeks. She turned her back on the group and called out Alicia’s name once again, this time through clenched teeth.
Alicia materialized before Jerusa, not in a quick flash as usual, but slow and reluctant, like the brightening of the day. Her face was puckered into a scowl and she refused to look Jerusa in the eye. The ghost knew what Jerusa wanted and she was making it quite clear that she was not a willing participant.
“Don’t be that way, Alicia.” Jerusa moved around her to catch her eye, but Alicia turned her head and ignored her. “We’ve been through this. There isn’t any other way.”
Alicia looked at her finally, her eyes pleading. She tilted her head as if to ask, Are you sure you want to do this?
“No, I’m not sure. I’m not sure about a lot of things anymore.”
Alicia ran her finger across her throat like a knife, then pointed at Jerusa. You might die.
“I know that. But if we don’t try, then the Hunters will come and kill us all.”
Alicia made the symbol for running with her fingers.
“Where can I go that they won’t find me? My fate is sealed. You know that. But they have a chance.” Jerusa took a moment to look at them all in turn, to absorb what little of their beauty she could. A terrible fear brushed past her, a realization that this was the last time she would see them like this. Shufah and Suhail, the ancient Indian children, probably no more than fifteen when they had been turned; Foster with his gentle, masculine features, a man who had been just as much a father to her as a friend; Thad, still mortal, but tall and perfect, what a vampire he would someday make; and Taos, rough and surly, an Adonis chiseled from ice with his mane of blond hair. They seemed like some fantastic dream standing there in the shadows. She wished she could freeze this moment, she wished that she could stay with them forever, but the pragmatic in her knew this was impossible. Once they stepped outside of this garage, the hammer of fate would descend upon them.
Jerusa turned back to Alicia. “They don’t deserve this. This is all my fault. All of it. If I had only listened to you, but I didn’t and here we are. But there is more at risk than just their lives. As long as Kole is alive, no one in this town is safe. I don’t want to be guilty of any more deaths.”
Alicia’s face contorted with sorrow,
but still she stood her ground.
“You’re my best friend, Alicia. You’ve been there for me in ways no one else could. But you don’t need to protect me anymore. Look at me. I’m stronger than I ever imagined I could be.” Jerusa moved closer to the ghost. “It’s time for you to listen to me. You need to stop protecting me and help me protect others. Will you do that?”
Alicia’s face broke. She turned, motioning for Jerusa to follow, then passed through the door.
“She’s ready,” Jerusa told the others. “Time to go.” She waited by the door while the others filed out past her. Taos, the last in line, lingered for a moment, looking down on her, his blue eyes dancing over her features. Though she would never admit it to anyone, she wanted to reach up and trace his strong jawline with her fingers, almost did, but chickened out at the last minute.
Taos noticed Jerusa watching him and he seemed discomforted by this. She thought that at any moment, he would lash out at her with some hurtful jape, but instead, he reached down and took the gas can from her hand.
“I’ll take this,” he said. “I’m the only one here that can make fire, even if it is just a spark.” He leaned in to her, fast enough to startle her, and whispered into her ear. He made great effort to keep his voice from reaching the other preternatural ears. His voice was so soft that even Jerusa wasn’t sure she had heard him right. It sounded as though he said, “Be careful. Enemy in the camp. Not me.”
She gazed up at him, hoping that he would confirm his words with a wink or a nod or any other subtle indication, but Taos gave no such confirmation and was out the door before she could ask.
Jerusa joined the others in the yard beside the garage. All eyes were upon her, but Jerusa’s eyes were upon Alicia. The ghost ambled around in a slow serpentine fashion, alternating her gaze between ground, forest, and sky. What did she see? Jerusa’s vampire eyes could detect so much more than human eyes could. Alicia seemed to be reading the tales and signs of another dimension.
For some reason she couldn’t explain, Jerusa thought about Silvanus. She hoped that she lived long enough to see him again.
Whatever Alicia was searching for, whether a scent to be sniffed out or a sound to be heard, she found it hidden in the shadow-drenched forest. She motioned for Jerusa to follow.
“Alicia’s ready,” she announced to the group.
The ghost traveled through the woods, not with her usual skipping from place to place, but on foot. Jerusa and the others ran with all of their vampiric speed, but had trouble keeping up with Alicia. Not only did the ghost’s speed exceed Jerusa’s, but Alicia wasn’t required to sidestep massive tree trunks or bypass thick snagging briar patches, but instead, passed right through like the wind. Several times, Jerusa lost sight of her and had to call her back or ask her to wait for them to catch up.
They ran like this for over thirty minutes, darting this way and that, with no real discernible destination. They stood in a patch of scrubby pines, Jerusa having once again lost sight of Alicia. That’s when the complaining started.
“This is ridiculous,” Taos said. His old sour disposition was back in full display. “Are you taking us somewhere or not?”
“Alicia will be back. She’s just searching for something.” Jerusa turned from Taos’s scathing blue eyes. There for one brief moment in the garage, when he had whispered his vague warning in her ear, he had seemed almost kind and decent. But that Taos vanished as quickly as he appeared, and that was a shame.
“We’re wasting our time out here,” Taos said to Suhail. “We should be making other plans.”
“He’s right,” Suhail said to his sister. “Perhaps we should abandon this dream of slaying Kole to win back our lives from the Stewards. There may be other ways of appeasing them.”
“You sound frightened, Taos,” Shufah said with a mocking grin. “I didn’t realize dark forests unnerved you so.”
Taos scowled at her. “Any place where a savage may be hiding is a terror to me. You’re a fool if you don’t feel the same way.”
Shufah considered this with a little tilt of her head, but did not answer. Instead, she turned to her brother. “With what method might we appease the Stewards and save ourselves from the Hunters? If you have an idea, it’s long overdue.” Suhail looked as though he wanted to answer, but he either didn’t have another idea, or felt it best to keep it to himself. “Have some faith, dear Suhail. Give her a chance. She may surprise us all.”
Jerusa appreciated Shufah’s words more than her simple smile could convey. Jerusa didn’t want to disappoint her, but if she were being honest, she sided more with Taos and Suhail on the matter of her ability to make this situation any better. Chances were good that she would lead them all to their death. And considering the countless lives that most of them had endured, death seemed all the more cruel. For humans, death is an unavoidable certainty. For vampires, death is a roll of the dice.
Jerusa called for Alicia again, but the ghost didn’t return.
The night air was cool and a carpet of mist loitered just above the ground. A pair of screech owls echoed messages back and forth through the distance. A herd of whitetail deer drank from a narrow creek at the bottom of a nearby hollow. The world smelled green and alive in a way she had never before known. She breathed in the living, almost sentient, fragrance and let it out in a wistful sigh.
Jerusa could be happy here, roaming these woods, or others more perilous. Just her and Alicia and no one else, roaming, with freedom and impunity, the dark places of the world where men of cruelty and power feared to tread. But such liberty was an illusion, as it had been her whole life.
Yes, she had been changed by the vampire spirit, fashioned anew with health and strength and longevity of life, but that didn’t mean she was free. It merely meant her shackles were heavier, thicker, more constrictive. Before, she had been bound by her physical health and her mother’s over-burdensome love. Now, the sun was her prison. Soon, the blood-thirst would be her chains. And most likely, no matter what she did, the law of the Stewards would be her condemnation.
Alicia materialized in the distance and Jerusa gave a cry of relief. She ran for Alicia, leaving the group behind, startled, and in a press to follow. As Jerusa neared Alicia, the ghost vanished only to rematerialize, moments later, several hundred yards away.
Jerusa spotted Alicia through the thick of the forest, glowing like the flicker of witch’s fire. None of the spirits that had ever visited Jerusa had glowed in the dark as Alicia did now. She wondered, in passing, if this was due to her new vampiric eyes or the odd change that seemed to have taken place in Alicia.
Just as Jerusa caught up with Alicia the second time, the ghost vanished again, reappearing once again in the distance. This happened several times more, and each time Jerusa pushed harder, ran faster to try and catch her ghost friend. She ignored the calls of her companions, gave up all pretense of stealth, snapping over small trees, tearing through the underbrush like a tornado on two legs. What a frightful sight she must have been.
A strange combination of scents hit her. The smell of a smoldering fire and death filled the world around her.
At last, Alicia held her ground and allowed Jerusa to catch up. She slid to a stop in a tiny twenty-foot circle where the vegetation was pressed flat. Jerusa stood bent over, hands on knees, trying to catch her breath.
A few tiny coals in a diminished campfire sent up wisp of smoke pleading to the heavens for help. Slivers of shiny yellow fabric and webs of cotton down were scattered about. Sitting up against a tree, still in his shredded yellow sleeping bag, was a man. He seemed as though he were awaiting company, a gentle soul to come share the warmth of his fire and a sip from the bottle of cheap wine he still clutched in his hand. Jerusa imagined that, in a better circumstance, the man would have had a great and cheerful smile, though now she would never know.
The man’s head was missing.
CHAPTER TWENTY
To say that the man sitting against the tree was missing his h
ead was a bit misleading. It was clear from the wound that it had been separated from his body with great speed and force, but it wasn’t actually missing. It had been obliterated.
The creature that took it had peeled the man’s head open to get to the brain inside, leaving bits of skull and flesh scattered about like discarded melon rind. From the trail of remains, it looked as though Kole had circled the body almost aimlessly as he gobbled his gray-matter treat.
Jerusa turned away, nauseated by the grim spectacle. Shufah ran into the tiny beaten circle of grass. The others came darting up behind her, and it wasn’t until just then that Jerusa realized just how much faster she had been running than all the others.
Shufah had admitted that she had never witnessed a fledgling quite like her, and Jerusa was beginning to get a sense of what she meant. Her strength outmatched Foster’s, and that in itself was impressive. Foster was her fledgling twin, born the same night — and from the ancient and powerful blood of Shufah — even so, he was no match for her. She wasn’t sure how old Taos was, but if she had to guess, she’d say more than a few centuries. Yet, when they had their little battle back at the house, she would have overtaken him had the fight not been stopped. Though Taos would never admit to it, the fear she had seen in his eyes told her that he had been on the verge of fleeing.
But then there was Shufah and Suhail, the beautiful twins of untold years. It was clear that they were millennia old, but just how many Jerusa was afraid to think about. Surely her speed and strength didn’t outmatch theirs. Perhaps they had stayed back with the younger vampires for fear of being separated.
But if not …
Jerusa shuddered at the thought. If she truly held this much power now, what would she become if permitted to live a thousand years? Could she use this to her advantage to sway the minds of the Stewards? Would they see her as an asset, or a threat?
Perpetual Creatures, Volumes 1-3: A Vampire and Ghost Thriller Series Page 19