“And what is that purpose?”
Taos shrugged. “Beats me. There have been a couple of them milling around town for the past few days. We can go ask them if you like, though, I suspect they’d die before telling us anything.”
“The Light Bearers still exist? And they’re in town?”
“Oh, they still exist. They’ve been around for the better part of a millennium. These days they’ve broken into splinter-cells that latch onto various governments, acting as some sort of secret research firm, but all along, they are funneling money to their true purpose.”
“Which is?”
Taos sighed. “I told you, I don’t know. Nor do I care, any more than I care about the mission of fruit flies.”
“But why are they in town?”
“I’d say they caught wind of our little escapades a few months back. Don’t worry. Soon their trail will go cold and they will leave.”
“And what if they find us?”
Taos shot her his patented mischievous smile, showcasing his fangs. “We turn them into dinner.”
Jerusa glanced back at Alicia.
Taos turned and followed Jerusa’s gaze. “Come on, ghost-girl, cut Jerusa a break. If you want to pick on someone, pick on me.”
Taos pulled his hands toward his chest, pressing them close together, as if squeezing a basketball. An orb of fire appeared between his palms. The flames licked the air, writhing and twisting around each other like a mound of fiery salamanders. Waves of heat distorted the air, turning Taos’s handsome face into a grinning fiend’s.
Taos thrust his hands forward and the ball of fire shot forth, soaring through the air like a comet. Though Taos couldn’t see Alicia, his aim was strangely accurate, hitting the ghost in the chest. Alicia lacked a corporeal body, of course, so the fire passed through her, doing no more damage than it did to the air. The fireball hit a tree behind Alicia, exploding the trunk and raining bits of smoldering bark down on them.
Jerusa slapped Taos in the shoulder. “Shufah would be mad if she knew you did that. Besides, all that’s going to do is make Alicia angry.” Indeed, the ghost girl shot Taos a rude hand gesture. “That was a good one, though.”
“Thanks,” Taos said. “I’ve been practicing.”
“Still hoping to join the Hunters?”
The corners of Taos’s mouth turned down as he considered the idea. “Maybe. Or perhaps I just want to be ready if we have to defend ourselves from them.”
That meant more to Jerusa than she could express to him.
The Stewards were tyrannical when it came to who they allowed to be a vampire. They respected only two things: beauty and power. Jerusa’s gift with the spirits was truly unique. Vampires couldn’t see ghosts, even if they could when they were human. And though she had great strength and speed to go along with her other talents, there was one major factor working against her.
The vampire spirit perfects the vessels it inhabits, yet it will not remake you. Jerusa still bore the large scar on her chest, given to her on the day she received Alicia’s heart. There was a very good chance that the scar, which symbolized her fight for life, would be the cause of her death.
Oh, life and its hilarious ironies.
Jerusa slipped her arm into the crook of Taos’s elbow and the pair strolled through the forest, leaving the obliterated tree to smolder in the darkness.
“I know I’ve asked this before,” Taos said after several moments of blissful silence, “but I’m going to ask again, because you’ve never given me an answer that I can swallow. Why, do you think, is your ghost friend preventing you from feeding?”
“Her name is Alicia. She doesn’t like it when you call her a ghost.”
“Oh, I know,” he said, wielding his arrogance like a sword. “I can see her over there, looking all morose.” Alicia stood just ahead of them, leaning against a tree with her arms crossed over her chest—her favorite pose. “I know Shufah is fascinated by this little touch-and-see gift you have, mainly because she can visit with her lost love.” Jerusa’s chest knotted at the thought of Foster’s death. Taos continued, “I, however, find it rather creepy. No offense to the lingering dead. But let us not be distracted from my original question.”
Jerusa shrugged, as she always did when asked this question. “She knows something. She can’t tell me what it is, but it’s important. I think Foster knows it as well, though he doesn’t seem to share Alicia’s conviction on the matter.”
“Ah, so there is trouble in ghost paradise.”
“No, not exactly. They just have a difference of opinion.”
Taos nodded. “Are you sure she isn’t doing this out of spite or jealousy? Perhaps she even wants you to die, so that she can reclaim the heart you took from her.”
Jerusa shook her head as if she could rattle this idea right out of her brain. “No. She’s not like that at all. When she hurts me, it hurts her just the same. She’s trying to protect me from something.”
“She’s going to kill you.”
Jerusa hugged his arm tighter. “Well, then you’ll be rid of me and free to continue your immortal trek around the world.”
“I’ve seen the world,” he said gruffly. “Nothing in it near as entertaining as you.”
“Careful now. You keep showing your soft side like this and people are going to start saying you have a crush on me.”
Taos pulled his arm free from her and tried to give her a playful shove. Jerusa rooted her feet to the ground, and though Taos was older and much larger than her, he managed to move her no more than an inch. Jerusa reached under Taos’s arm, placing her palm flat on his ribs and shoved, sending him several feet to the side, into a tangled knot of vines.
“Man, I need to get me a taste of that Divine blood.” Taos ripped free of the snaring vines. “Do you suppose Silvanus would let me have a drink, if he ever gets back around this way?”
Jerusa made a sarcastic look, as if she were pondering the question. “Um…I kinda doubt it.”
Taos strolled back over to her, not one ounce of his bravado wounded from the push. “How about you give me a drink? I bet your blood would do wonders for an average vampire such as me.”
“I’m gonna hafta go with a no on that one. If you want some strong blood to give you a boost then you’ll have to ask Shufah to make the donation.”
Taos rolled his eyes and offered his arm back to Jerusa. They walked in silence the rest of the way back to the house. They passed through the hidden laser perimeter set just on the edge of the open property, knowing it would ring their return to Shufah in the house. The warm glow from the windows invited them like a gentle smile, and the sassafras and hickory smoke billowing from the chimney embraced them as they approached.
Jerusa typed the passcode into the digital display panel near the front door then walked inside. Taos followed her, shutting the door behind them. The stillness of the house was nothing new, yet something seemed off. A subtle scent wafted in the air, not of cologne or body odor, but something alien to the house.
They found Shufah in the living room sitting on the plush leather loveseat. She sat, back straight, legs crossed, her dark skin magnificent in the firelight. She turned to look at them as they entered, as did the pair of vampires sitting on the matching couch across from her.
“Welcome home, my lovelies,” she said with a forced smile. She gestured to the pair of vampires. “It seems the Stewards have finally come to call on us.”
CHAPTER TWO
The pair of vampires sat on the couch, leaned back with their legs crossed. From the outside looking in, it seemed just a casual little get-together—all they needed was some tea and finger sandwiches—but inside the room, the discomfort was palpable.
Shufah stood up and gestured toward them. “Allow me to introduce Taos and Jerusa.” Her face remained relaxed with a simple smile, but her eyes warned them to follow her lead. “This, my lovelies, is Ralgar and Ming. They have come a great distance to extend to us an invit
ation to meet with the High Council of the Stewards.”
Jerusa wasn’t feeling too social this evening, but she managed a nod and a small smile. Taos remained as still as a gargoyle.
The pair on the couch were dressed alike, each with thick, loose-fitting canvas pants, a heavy linen shirt, with a hooded, leather trench coat—sometimes called a duster. The one named Ming was a short, squat, Asian woman that looked to be in her fifties. She had a flat, wide, spade-shaped nose, and salt and pepper hair pulled back into a tight bun. The one named Ralgar was shorter even than Ming, with a friar’s bald spot, crooked teeth, fixed in an overbite and beady little eyes.
In the vampire world, for the Stewards to allow you to live, you had to be either beautiful or powerful. Ralgar and Ming were not even attractive by human standards, so…
“You’re Hunters, aren’t you?” Jerusa asked.
Ming stood to her feet. “Yes. We are members of the Crimson Storm, the fiercest group of savage-slayers in the world.”
“Why are you here?”
This time Ralgar answered. “Your presence has been requested by the High Council.”
Jerusa gave an exaggerated nod. These two had the conversational skills of a grizzly bear. “Yes, I understand that. But why did the Stewards send you. Do the Stewards not know about email?”
Ming and Ralgar looked at one another, as if trying to decide if Jerusa was mocking them or not. It was clear they were not unintelligent creatures, not blunt and mindless weapons, but more that they were not used to having their motives questioned.
Shufah placed her hand on Jerusa’s shoulder. “The Stewards honor us by sending members of the Crimson Storm to meet with us. That they sent two such elite Hunters is a sign of respect to our modest little coven.”
Shufah’s soft words eschewed the Hunters’ brewing anger while, at the same time, warning Jerusa to tread lightly. Jerusa didn’t mean to come off so haughty. Her thirst and the frequent battles with Alicia had given her emotions a hair-trigger. She considered apologizing to the Hunters, but thought better of it. Best not to admit she was mocking them and let them accept Shufah’s praise.
“What is it that you want from us?” Taos asked.
Ming looked up into the chiseled face of Taos and smiled. “Please, sit with us. We are here as ambassadors. Let us commune as such. A man wielding such a defensive stance is not apt to hear the words of peace.”
Jerusa and Taos each took a chair on either side of Shufah. The Hunters returned to their place on the couch.
“The Stewards of Life didn’t summon us to attack you,” Ming continued. “Nor are we here to apprehend you.”
“If we were,” Ralgar said in a gruff voice, “we would not have blessed you with a warning.” He stared into Taos’s eyes, seemingly daring him to make an aggressive move. Taos held his gaze, but said nothing.
Ming put her hand on Ralgar’s knee as though she meant to calm his ire, but Jerusa read a certain pleasure in her eyes. She liked this game they were playing. Enjoyed passively lording their power over them. Jerusa wondered just how old and powerful they really were. It was impossible to tell.
Ming smiled, flashing her fangs. “We are here to escort you to the High Council. There is much they would like to discuss with you.”
“And just what would that be?” Taos asked.
“We don’t presume to know the mind of the Stewards,” Ralgar answered. “We act only as their hands. Nothing more.”
“Where will you be escorting us to?” Jerusa asked.
Ming and Ralgar looked to Shufah.
“The Council is awaiting us in Rome,” Shufah said, with the same pleasant face she held through the entire conversation.
“Rome?” Jerusa asked in a gasp. “As in Italy?” Her mind spun at the thought. She had never been much of a traveler. Her mom saw to that. She had only been out of the state a few times, all for medical reasons and never once had her feet crossed over onto foreign soil. She had always wanted to travel the world and now that she was a vampire, with an endless supply of nights, she figured she had time to do so. The only thing holding her back was her mother.
A near uncontainable storm of emotions rushed through her. On one hand, she was excited to set off on an unplanned adventure, to see a place she had only experienced in books and movies. But, on the other hand, she felt crippled with fear. This was no vacation. No sight-seeing expedition. She was being called before the Stewards’ High Council to be judged. If they deemed her unworthy to be a vampire…well, she and Alicia would soon have a lot more in common.
Shufah flashed Jerusa a concerned glance. “We leave tomorrow night, just after dusk. And Thad must come with us as well.”
A knot rose in Jerusa’s throat. Though she hadn’t been able to be alone with Thad since the blood thirst had come upon her, they still chatted every night, mostly through email and texts. They were careful to keep their conversations vague and cryptic—never know who might be eavesdropping—but one topic that came up over and over, was Thad’s fear of this event.
Thad had been infected with the vampire spirit from Taos’s bite. Though Thad wasn’t yet a vampire, the virus or whatever it really was, now lay dormant in his cells, waiting to become active upon his death.
Infected humans are given few choices by the Stewards. If the human does not meet the Stewards’ standards, they are either killed outright or shipped off to a quarantined town, a commune of sorts, peopled solely by the infected.
Thad was tall and athletic, handsome, almost to a fault, with a boyish grin and kind eyes. Shufah and Taos both assured him that the Stewards would find nothing unworthy in him and Jerusa had no doubt he would make a stunning vampire. Though they often skirted away from this subject, she had once asked him what his choice would be. His answer had frightened her.
“I don’t know,” he had said. “When I think about the options, being a vampire or quarantined away the rest of my natural life, I sometimes think I’d just rather choose death.”
Jerusa hadn’t asked him again.
“You’ve known about us this whole time, haven’t you?” Taos asked.
Ming shifted in her seat to better see Taos. “Us personally? No. The Crimson Storm only recently became aware of your situation. We’ve been on assignment and were called back to escort you in.”
“Yes. Fine,” Taos said, annoyed with the evasion of his question. “But the Stewards were aware of us, right?”
Ming and Ralgar glanced at each other, as if unsure of what they should and shouldn’t say. “Yes, the Stewards are aware,” Ming said. “The augurs of the Watchtower have been keeping close tabs on you, ever since Kole turned savage.”
“I must say, I’m impressed.” Ralgar’s face looked anything but impressed, however. “A savage born of a fledgling is hard enough for an untrained vampire to dispatch.” His nose crinkled at the word untrained as though he detected a foul stench. “But Kole was over a thousand years old. He must have been a nightmare for you and yet, somehow, you managed to destroy him. How did you do that, might I ask?”
“I’m sure that if the Stewards wanted you to know that, they would have told you,” Shufah said.
The truth was, Kole had been a nightmare. Savage vampires were little more than flesh-eating zombies, but not the slow, mindless ones of the movies. The mind of the savage is controlled by the once-symbiotic vampire spirit, which becomes parasitic and rabid upon the vampire’s death. Kole was fast and powerful, retaining his pyro-kinesis, motivated by only his fear of the sun and an instinctual need for survival.
Jerusa, with the help of Alicia, had tracked Kole to an abandoned air-conditioner factory, but it had been Silvanus who had killed him. It was unclear how much of this the Stewards actually knew. Shufah had told them that she hoped to keep both Jerusa’s gift and Silvanus (who she believed to be a mythical Divine Vampire) out of the Stewards’ scope of vision.
Jerusa didn’t see how that was going to be possible, but she trusted Shufa
h.
Ming kept her smile, though it didn’t translate to her eyes, making her look strained. Ralgar had a harder time hiding his emotions, scowling at them each in turn.
“That’s fine,” Ralgar said. “We can discuss something else. Like why hasn’t your fledgling been feeding?”
Jerusa’s face blushed hot as all eyes fell upon her. She grew uncomfortably aware of her full red lips and blood-ringed irises. Her skin went clammy and she couldn’t decide what to do with her hands. The awkward moment of silence seemed to stretch on like the black eternity of space. She opened her mouth to speak—she felt she should say something—but the words wouldn’t come and she only managed to babble, which made her feel more awkward, which in turn made her babble all the more.
They all looked at her as though her head was changing shape. Even Alicia stood with her arms crossed, shaking her head with pity. Some vampire Jerusa had turned out to be. So much for the image of the graceful and alluring undead. She was Jerry Lewis with fangs.
Thankfully, Shufah came to her rescue.
“These are matters to be discussed with the Stewards in person, not with their slave soldiers.” Shufah’s face remained soft and beautiful—not a sign of anger anywhere in her visage, except maybe for her fierce eyes.
Ming’s mock smile fell away, as though it had been slapped from her face.
Ralgar clenched his teeth together with an audible clack. He stood to his feet, prompting Taos to step in front of Jerusa. “How dare you speak to the Crimson Storm in such a way.”
Shufah rose to her feet, and though she was the shortest and youngest looking person in the room, the danger emanating from her permeated the air. She reminded Jerusa of a honey badger: small, beautiful and an absolute terror when provoked.
“How dare you enter into my home and insult my coven,” Shufah said. “You are mere servants, yet you presume to question us, as though you rule. You are the hand and foot, not the head. Do not veer from your station.”
Perpetual Creatures, Volumes 1-3: A Vampire and Ghost Thriller Series Page 28