In one of the pods, a pair of wrinkled hands pressed against the glass. A face swam to the surface, its dark eyes fixed on Starnes. The mouth opened as if to scream, but was silenced by the amber fluid and thick glass. In defeat, the face vanished in the murky depth. A thick rope-like appendage slammed against the glass hard enough to be heard in the observation deck. It slithered against the glass like an eel seeking escape. Starnes took a step back, repulsed by the sight.
Goodalle smiled at him. “It knows you’re watching. Enhanced senses and strength are present, though not in the levels seen in the older vampires. They possess incredible regenerative abilities, as well.” He paused for a moment. “That is, once they have a transfusion.”
“Yet, they aren’t true vampires. Nor are they like Lazarus. Why?”
Goodalle shrugged. “The blood sample Lazarus left in the lab was already dissipating when we collected it, so it wasn’t a true sample. We had to do a lot of guess work. You know, genetic fill-in-the-blanks. Now that the sample is gone, this is all we have to work with.”
“That’s why we need Shadow Team out in the field. When they locate Lazarus then we’ll have our pure sample. How long until the others are up and running?”
“Three out of the remaining thirteen are showing promise. I’d say they’ll be up to par with Shadow Team in another three months.”
“Three months?”
“Please, sir, don’t push the process. If we hatch them too early, they could die. Or worse yet, they could live, but the compliance data chip might not take hold. You don’t want them running loose without a leash.”
Starnes nodded, but deep down he didn’t believe they had three months. General Pleasant suspected something. Starnes could see it in his eyes. Sooner or later Pleasant would stop by, with a few well-armed friends and want to know what the taxpayers’ money was being spent on. Starnes couldn’t allow that to happen, not when the Light Bearers were so close to the answers they had sought, so diligently for, throughout the centuries. The vampires had hoarded their secrets like spoiled dragons, but soon the Light Bearers would have the power to take what they wanted, to slay the old dragons in their lairs and retrieve the treasure for the good of mankind.
“Sir,” Goodalle said, drawing Starnes out of his thoughts. “Maybe there is another way to advance the program.”
Starnes turned his attention to the scientist, though he felt oddly uncomfortable turning his back on the incubator pods. “I’m listening.”
“Just because we don’t have Lazarus doesn’t mean we can’t benefit from what we do have.”
“And just what do we have?”
“We have the location of a small vampire coven, with Shadow Team within walking distance of their sanctuary.”
“I thought we discussed this. I don’t want the umbilicus feeding from vampires until we know what it will do to them.”
Goodalle shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. Why not apprehend one of the vampires? Bring it back here to Purgatory. True it isn’t Lazarus, but just think about it. An endless supply of vampire blood, to do with what we please.”
“We’ve made attempts to capture vampires, many times. All have failed. They are too strong and fast.”
Goodalle smiled. “But that was before you had two umbilicus at your disposal.”
CHAPTER SIX
“I’m going,” Jerusa said.
“No, you’re not,” Shufah answered back.
Jerusa forced herself to breathe while trying to keep her emotions under control. She had never spoken harshly to Shufah before and right now she was on the verge of screaming her head off. “You can’t stop me. I’m not a prisoner here.”
Jerusa looked to Taos for support. The hulking blond was the eternal scoundrel, who considered rules and boundaries to be as irritating as a rash. He’d take her side in this.
Much to her chagrin, Taos shrugged his shoulders. “I have to agree with Shufah. It’s foolish and unnecessary. What do you hope to gain from it?”
Jerusa stood silent for a moment, fixed in an indignant awe. When the words finally came, they rose up out of her like volcanic bile. She shook her head. “I should have known better than to expect any help from you. You play the great warrior—the vampire that answers to no one. But the truth, is you’re nothing but a mindless drone, doing the bidding of whatever master you serve. First it was Kole. Now Shufah.”
Taos squared his stance. His jaw jutted forward in defiance. “I am my own master, no one else’s. Not Kole. Not Shufah. No one.”
Jerusa spat a derisive laugh at him. She didn’t know why she was being so hateful, but she couldn’t stop it. “It was you and your master that caused all of this. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be human. The least you could do is take my side.”
A glimmer of regret flickered in his cold blue eyes, but it was quickly devoured by anger. “Kole was not my master,” he yelled, taking a step toward Jerusa.
Jerusa lowered her stance, preparing for Taos’s attack, almost craving it. But before the battle could begin, Shufah stepped between them.
“Easy,” she whispered to Taos, who turned away with knotted fists and a clenched jaw. “It is the hunger that maddens her.” Shufah looked to Jerusa with eyes soft and full of love. Jerusa hated how those eyes somehow changed her anger into guilt. “I know it’s important. I do. I’m not so old that I’ve forgotten. But is it worth the risk?”
Jerusa found it hard to press the words past the knot in her throat. When she spoke, her voice sounded shaky and frail to her own ears. “She’s my mom. I know she’s just another human to you, maybe not even worth feeding on, but she’s mine.” She turned away, unable to look at either of them. “Let’s be honest here. I’m not going to make it back. The Stewards are going to take one look at my scar and order the Hunters to turn me into a pile of ash. I can accept that. I’m not afraid to die. But I can’t leave without saying goodbye to my mother. You want to know what there is to gain, Taos? Nothing. Nothing at all. Life is about the comfort you give to others, not yourself.”
She glanced at Taos over her shoulder, but he remained silent with his back to her.
Shufah placed her hand on Jerusa’s neck, a gesture so soft and kind that she wanted to cry. “All right. If you want to see your mother, we won’t stand in the way. But know the risk. In your state, you may attack her. Alicia may stop you, this is true, but if she’s too slow…The guilt of killing your own blood is overwhelming. Believe me, I know.”
Shufah would know. She had risen up against her own brother to save Jerusa’s life.
“I won’t attack her. I promise.”
“Just the same, Taos and I will be close by, watching. Don’t be tempted to tell your mother the truth of your situation. It could drive her mad.”
“I understand. I won’t.”
Shufah sighed. She looked over Jerusa’s face with careful scrutiny. “Well, you can’t go see your mother looking like that.”
Jerusa turned to the decorative mirror on the wall. Shufah was right. Jerusa could pass off the deep red of her lips as lipstick. Her mother wouldn’t approve, but it wouldn’t draw her suspicion. Jerusa’s eyes were a whole other story. The rings of blood surrounding her irises were ghastly and inhuman.
“I see what you mean. Maybe I can wear sunglasses. Tell my mom my eyes are irritated.”
“That may work for you mother, but the Stewards will see you for what you are.”
“And what is that?” Jerusa didn’t mean for the question to come out so harsh.
“All I’m saying is that the Stewards will see you as a vampire that has not fed. For the Stewards that’s an offense worse than the scar you bear.”
“Oh, sorry.”
Shufah smiled. “I understand. Let me teach you a trick that may help us with our tasks ahead.”
Shufah brought her hand to her mouth and used one of her fangs to draw a drop of blood from her thumb. Jerusa caught the scent and her body tensed. Alicia appeared beside her
and placed her hand on Jerusa’s chest. It was warm to the touch, as real as any living person’s, but there was warning in that embrace.
“Alicia won’t let me drink from you, either.” The smell of blood, though slight, sent a shudder through her body. Every muscle burned, urging her to abandon reason and pounce on Shufah. Her mouth filled with saliva, to the point of nearly slobbering, yet her throat remained as parched as the desert.
“I figured as much,” Shufah said, her deep voice soft and calming. “I’m not offering you to drink from me, though I would if Alicia would allow it.”
Jerusa glanced at Alicia and the ghost shook her head.
“She says no.”
Shufah stepped forward. “Then let me place a few drops in your eyes.”
Alicia’s hand tightened on Jerusa’s chest and a bolt of pain flashed throughout her body. “Stop,” she said throwing out her hand. “Back up. Please.”
Shufah sighed, then sucked the blood from her thumb. When she removed her thumb from her mouth the tiny wound was gone.
“I told you,” Shufah said. “Ghosts cannot be trusted.” Jerusa had never heard such disgust in her voice before. It pained her to know that she was angry with Alicia. “If not my blood,” she continued, “then what about your own?”
Alicia glanced over her shoulder at Foster. The two ghosts exchanged a silent conversation using only their eyes. Alicia turned back to Jerusa and nodded.
“She says yes.”
“Wonderful,” Shufah said sarcastically. “Do just as I did. Pierce your thumb with your fang and draw out a little blood.”
Jerusa did as she was told, gasping a bit at the sharpness of her fangs. She had never used them before and though she had run her tongue across them many times, she never realized just how deadly they were, until now. In movies, vampires always looked like some sort of saber-toothed monster, with fangs longer than her pinky fingers. Those movie creatures were so wholly inhuman that they shocked their prey with fear and repulsion. But true vampires weren’t meant to drive humans away, but to mimic them, draw them into their clutches by beauty and mystique.
No, those long grotesque fangs were not the dangerous ones. The tiny fangs, the ones you don’t notice until they have opened your veins, they were the substance of nightmares.
Jerusa pulled her hand away from her mouth and stared at the tiny crimson drop tenuously balancing upon the curve of her thumb. It seemed so powerful, so volatile, like a drop of nitroglycerin.
“Place a couple of drops of blood in your eyes,” Shufah said. Jerusa hesitated, more than a bit mortified. “Go on. Trust me.”
Jerusa tilted her head back and brought her hand over her face. The wound in her thumb was already starting to heal. Jerusa had to squeeze hard to get the drops to fall. There was a fraction of a second when the blood caused her eyes to burn, but that quickly gave way to a cooling sensation, so refreshing that a small moan of relief fell from her mouth.
She looked up, amazed at how much better her eyes felt. Until now, she hadn’t even realized how irritated they had become.
“Now smear some blood on your lips,” Shufah said.
Jerusa reopened her thumb and rubbed on a thick layer of blood.
“Did it work?”
Taos made a tiny, impressed smirk. Shufah smiled and pointed toward the mirror.
Jerusa stared at her reflection in awe. She understood that her body would reabsorb her own blood, but that knowledge couldn’t replace eighteen years of human rational thinking. With the amount of blood that she dropped into her eyes and smeared on her lips, her face should have been a macabre mask. Yet, her pale skin was clean and flawless. Not only that, but the rings of blood around her irises were gone and her lips no were longer crimson.
Shufah stepped up beside her and ran her fingers though Jerusa’s hair. “It will hide the signs of your hunger for a couple of hours. Long enough for you to meet with your mother. I want you to do this as often as you can while we are in the company of other vampires and especially when we stand before the Stewards. The more secrets you keep from them, the better off you will be. Understand?”
“Yes,” Jerusa said. She turned back to the mirror. “Thank you.”
The last remaining rays of sunlight bled into the purple twilight. Jerusa knew this, not because of the clock on the wall, or the security monitors, but because she could sense it. Shufah typed in the security code to lower the steel shutters and unlock the sanctuary door. They moved upstairs where the lights, set on timers, were brightly glowing.
“Ming and Ralgar will be here to collect us in a bit,” Shufah said. “We haven’t much time. Jerusa, we’ll go to your mother’s first, then go get Thad.” She caught the look of concern that flashed in Jerusa’s eye and cocked her head with intrigue. “Is something the matter?”
“No,” Jerusa said, a little too quick to be convincing. “I’m just worried about Thad. I don’t think he’s going to be too happy to see us.”
“I suspect not.”
Taos stepped out of his bedroom, dressed in dark blue jeans, expensive leather boots, a button-down shirt and a sports coat that made his broad shoulders seem as wide as Jerusa was tall. He pulled his long blond hair back into a tight ponytail, checked himself in the hallway mirror and then turned to the group. “That boy needs to stop being a bleating little sheep and let me finish the job I started on him.”
“You mean to kill him?” Jerusa asked, a slight edge to her voice. “Cause that was your original intent, wasn’t it?”
Taos looked at her with one raised eyebrow. “Don’t get sassy. You know what I meant.”
“Thad has some tough choices to make,” said Shufah. “But he must decide for himself. Come, we must go.”
“All right,” Taos said. “But I’m driving. I can’t stand to ride shotgun to Jerusa any longer. You know, for a fledgling vampire, you sure drive like an elderly human.” Taos turned and stepped out the front door before Jerusa could respond.
A small smile flashed across Shufah’s face before she turned and followed Taos. Jerusa, the last to step outside, closed the door and reactivated the security system. It was a short walk from the house to the garage, but the three of them took it slowly, scanning the darkness with their enhanced senses for any sign of danger. The area was clear, but the two men from the Light Bearers Society were still out there somewhere and Jerusa didn’t like that thought at all.
Taos parked down the street from Jerusa’s old home.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Taos asked. “We can come in with you.”
Jerusa touched his arm and smiled. She couldn’t quite figure Taos out. When they had first met, he had been a nightmare, a hulking vampire with a short temper and a bad attitude. And though he sometimes slipped back into his misanthropic, sullen persona, there were times when a light of kindness would spring forth. She sometimes caught him watching her and the look in his eyes both disturbed and fascinated her at the same time. And there were times when he spoke so harshly to her that she would gladly set him ablaze just to shut him up. But other times, he treated her with such thoughtful compassion, like now, that it made her want to weep. She wished that he would just pick one mood or the other so that she could stop feeling confused.
“No. You both should stay here. For better or worse, she’s my mother. This may be the last time we ever see each other.”
“We’ll be here if you need us,” Shufah said.
Jerusa nodded, then slipped out of the car and made her way toward the house. The downstairs lights were on. The curtains were open, giving her a clear view of the living room, but she didn’t see her mother.
The house, which seemed so large to her as a child, yet so tight and constricting as a teenager, looked practically miniscule to her now. It wasn’t that living in the lavish house Foster had bequeathed to her had given her a haughty spirit toward her mother’s home. But sometimes places become cluttered, not with physical items, like in a hoarder’s den, but with memories. In o
pen spaces, those memories might drift to you like the subtle scent of a sweet perfume. But when those memories collect in a small space, they can choke you.
Or maybe she was being melodramatic.
Jerusa glanced in the window of her mother’s car as she passed by. The keys were still in the ignition. She gave a tiny laugh, but the sight of the keys made her heart hurt. When she was gone, who would take care of her mother? Who would make sure she locked the doors at night and remind her to check the car for her lost keys?
Jerusa pulled the keys from the ignition. She opened the front door of the house, which was of course unlocked, and knocked as to not startle her mother. “Mom,” she called. “It’s me. Are you home?” She knew her mother was home. She could hear her heart beating, but asking seemed like the human thing to do.
“Jerusa? Is that you?” Debra Phoenix poked her head out of the kitchen, as timid as a rabbit emerging from its burrow. She glanced about as though the room was dim, then locked on to Jerusa. A great smile broke across her face and she shuffled out of the kitchen with her arms outstretched.
Debra hugged her tight, saying her name over and over as though Jerusa had been lost to her for years. Jerusa tried to return the hug, but her mother’s frail form felt alien to her now. Debra had always been skinny, but now her mother felt like a loose bundle of sticks hiding within a thin leather bag. Her heart roared in Jerusa’s ears and she struggled to tune out the sound of the rushing blood.
“Okay, okay, I missed you too, mom.” Jerusa gently pushed her mother back. She wanted to breathe through her mouth to keep from smelling her mother’s human scent, but she was afraid of revealing her fangs if she did so. “Let’s go sit down. I have something I need to talk to you about.”
“Oh, okay.” Her mother looked around the room as though she were unsure where she was, then turned and shuffled off toward the kitchen.
“Why are you dressed like that?” Jerusa asked, pointing out her mother’s bathrobe and slippers. “It’s only seven o’clock.”
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