by David Page
"Archers fire!" Terrence barked. "Squires! Torches!"
Bowstrings twanged as Richard dove to the ground and pressed himself flat. Feathers brushed his cheek in a deadly kiss as an arrow whizzed past. Others thumped into the earth around him.
Twigs and branches cracked as something swept through the woods. More of Terrence’s men, he thought. He strained to listen but could not tell from which direction the sound originated. Four points of light flared one by one behind the archers, providing diffuse illumination at best, but allowing Richard to see their dark shapes moving through the fog.
"Continue firing!" Terrence shouted, his voice frantic.
An ear-shattering crack echoed across the clearing as a branch or perhaps a bow snapped under incredible force. Someone screamed and was silenced.
"John!" Terrence yelled.
"He's dead!"
Richard didn’t recognize the new voice, but regardless, his heart rose at the prospect that help had arrived in time to save him. He wondered if some of his loyal soldiers had followed Terrence to the wood.
"In god's name! What is it!" another man cried. "I can't-" he was cut short by a wet, gurgling. A sharp pop and a hollow thump followed.
Richard swallowed. Something was very wrong.
Two orange points of light flared to life in the fog. Like eyes in the dark, they turned towards him. He froze, chills running up and down his spine. Something about those lights seemed familiar. Flashes of another battlefield, shrouded in mist came to him and he remembered standing alone as the remaining men from the ambush searched for him. They had screamed too, though he had no idea what had happened to them. His blood loss had caused him to slip into unconsciousness. He blinked. He had not defeated them, he remembered that clearly now. Someone, or something else had.
"Die, Demon!" roared another man.
The lights winked out.
"Hold your positions!" Terrence bellowed hoarsely in sharp contrast to his normally forceful voice.
Richard had to know what was happening. Terrence and his men were not being attacked by any of his loyal knights. There was something evil in the wood, something far more dangerous than the traitors. Against his better judgment, he turned around and sloshed into the brook towards the men who wished to kill him. Another scream echoed across the clearing and one of the torches spun through the air, landing in the water next to him. It sputtered for an instant, and then went out. Richard held his blade before him like a talisman and climbed up the bank, peering into the thick fog ahead of him, trying to see who or what was there.
A bowstring twanged followed by the ring of a sword hitting rock.
"Take care!"
“My arm!” Someone shrieked.
"Retreat!"
Dark shapes moved erratically through the mist. Someone wept openly. Richard stepped into the clearing. The fog parted and the scene was revealed by the guttering glow of the torches held by the two remaining squires. Richard's sword arm dropped to his side as a cold numbness filled his body.
One of the bowmen lay upside-down against the base of a tree, his head turned at an odd angle, his eyes empty, his broken bow still clutched in one hand. Another lay sprawled on his back in the grass, blood smeared over his face. Two knights lay nearby, their swords pinning them through their chests to the ground, their faces locked in silent screams.
In the center, a woman in a torn red dress stood with her back to him. Her long brown hair fell haphazard over her shoulders in a tangled mess. She clutched one of the knights by the throat, holding him a good six inches off the ground with a single hand. Richard's eyes widened as he recognized her perfect form.
"Let fly!" Terrence's voice shook Richard from his stupor. He saw his old friend standing off to the right, the two surviving knights shoulder to shoulder with him, blades facing towards the woman.
The two remaining archers held their ground on the opposite side of the clearing, arrows knocked. They fired in concert, one arrow catching her in the thigh, the other in the back. She shrugged as if merely annoyed, and then flicked her wrist, snapping the captive man's neck clean. She let the body fall to the ground and spun towards the archers.
"Colette." Richard gasped as the truth of his nightmares was realized.
Her eyes glowed with sinister fire and blood smeared her beautiful mouth. She hunched over and bared her fangs at the archers. Still numb with shock and pain, Richard could only look on in horror. His brain searched for an explanation, but could find none. He recovered his wits enough to take a step forward. She looked right at him with her fiery eyes and he swore he felt burned by the anger coming off her. She drew the fog around her like a cloak and was lost to him. He heard movement, followed by a sickening sound lf two skulls smashing together and knew the bowmen were dead. His stomach roiled with panic and nausea.
"Richard! Help us!" Terrence was pleading now.
Richard staggered towards his old friend, unsure what he would do, but knowing that he could not let any man die in this way. His vision swam and he nearly tripped and went down. He had made love to a creature of evil, a killer of men. He stepped over the body of one of the squires. It was difficult to see the youth’s face, even this close, but the look of shock and fear frozen there chilled his soul. Colette had done this.
Another man yelled and steel rang off steel. There was a strangled gasp then silence. Richard ran forward, unsure what he could do to the woman who had saved his life twice.
"No! Please!" another man begged.
The fog parted again. Colette held the only remaining knight from behind. Her face was buried in his shoulder and Richard could hear her drinking his blood. His breath caught in his throat and he felt faint with shock. Only his instinct for survival kept him from doing so.
Several loud cracks told Richard that the man’s ribs had snapped under the pressure of Colette’s frightening strength. Terrence grabbed the torch from the only remaining squire and hit her in the back with it. She released the knight but it was too late. The knight’s helmet spilled away, revealing his sightless eyes. Richard gasped as he recognized Philip, another of his men. Damn them for their betrayal and damn Colette for killing so many to save him! If that was even her goal. He stood there, unable to move.
Terrence plunged his sword into Colette’s chest just below her left breast.
"No!" Richard was not sure why cared, but he did. He took another step towards them.
Colette looked down at the blade. Her eyes narrowed and her lips shaped into a menacing smile. She snarled, reached out, gripped Terrence's sword hand, and snapped it at the wrist with ease. He cried and tried to pull away, but she held him fast. Her fiery gaze projected two points of red against his face, marking him for death.
Richard could not believe what he was seeing. She had ignored arrows, tossed men aside as if they were dolls, and now had taken a sword thrust to the chest and did not seem to care. She tensed her fingers and Terrence winced in pain, dropping to his knees.
"I beg you, spare my life, Demon."
"Is that what you think me?" A sardonic smile twisted her blood-smeared lips. She bared her fangs again and leaned towards his neck.
"Wait!" Richard shouted.
Colette paused, turning slowly to look at him. Her eyes smoldered like coals. "This man who you once called friend, was planning to kill you."
Richard sheathed his sword. Whatever happened next, there was little he could do that involved violence against such a creature. And despite what he had seen, despite the revulsion he felt, he did not know if he could bring himself to do her harm. It was as if she had him entranced.
"Let him go," Richard pleaded.
She regarded him for a moment, oblivious to the blade protruding from her chest or the arrows sticking out of her flesh. With lightning fast reflexes, she gripped either side of Terrence's head and looked into his eyes. His face instantly went slack as if all life had drained from it, but his chest continued to rise and fall.
"You will forget what y
ou have seen here tonight and you will never again do any harm to Richard. You will serve him loyally for the rest of your days."
“I will serve Richard for the rest of my days,” Terrence repeated her orders in a blank monotone.
Colette turned to the terrified squire. The youth quaked so badly he looked like he might hurt himself. "Must I follow the same course with you?"
He shook his head vehemently. "No… milady. I will carry this secret to my grave."
She laughed softly at that. "See that you do. Now, lead your master out of here, put him to bed and in the morning when he asks, tell him that you remember nothing, nor do you know what happened to his missing men."
He bowed. "As you say."
She slowly pulled the sword from her chest. It emerged with a sickening noise, but without the blood that Richard expected. He gasped. She sheathed the sword in Terrence's scabbard and motioned for the squire to take him. The youth grabbed his good arm and led him back into the woods. In a moment, they had disappeared from site, leaving Richard alone with this monster he had locked bodies with in the throes of passion. She plucked the two arrows from her flesh and tossed them aside. Then she looked at Richard; her eyes back to their normal deep green, her sharp teeth gone. If not for the blood smearing her face and her torn dress, Richard would never have suspected what she was or what she was capable of doing.
He swallowed, wondering what her plans for him were. She had saved him twice now and allowed Terrence to leave unharmed at his request. It left one very large question. He met her gaze, unable to quell the fear gnawing inside him.
"Why?" It was all he could think to say.
“You know why.” She turned to him fully and he saw that her wounds had closed. His eyes widened, though he was not completely surprised. She stared at him, and in that look, he saw centuries of loneliness and longing.
Richard’s blood turned to ice as he realized that this demon loved him. A wave of panic seized him, pressing against the inside of his chest. He shook his head and fled into the woods, tears blinding him to what lay ahead.
"Richard," She called after him, her voice trailing behind him like the mist that had so quickly vanished.
20
"Richard?" Beth gripped both of his shoulders and shook him.
If Richard had not been sitting on his bed he would have fallen. As it was, a bout of nausea closed like a fist around his stomach. Colette’s image burned in his mind along with the memories of shock and betrayal he had felt when she had revealed herself to be a vampire and for all intents and purposes had ‘reprogrammed’ Terrence.”
“It was her.” He gripped the blanket and tightly. “There is no longer any doubt.”
“What?” The spot between Beth’s eyebrows crinkled as she frowned.
“I saw her kill twelve men; saw her feeding.” He blinked. “Men I had known, men who had betrayed me and who wanted to kill me.”
“Do you remember her bringing you over; making you a vampire?” Beth released him but continued to stare at him intently.
“Not as such, but there can be no doubt it was she.” He was baffled by how he could have gone from fleeing into the woods to allowing Colette to bring him across. The feelings he had developed for her paled in comparison to the revulsion that had overwhelmed him when he had seen her lapping up his friends’ blood.
And then there was Terrence. In Richard’s original memories, he had chanced upon his ‘friend’ in the woods days after the battle. Terrence had remembered nothing of what had occurred and the mystery of his broken wrist had never been solved… until now.
“What else to you remember?” Beth asked, her eyes betraying her eagerness.
Richard’s body suddenly grew heavy, as if his limbs were made of lead. As the cobwebs of past memory dusted from his mind, he remembered that on the surface above, the golden orb of the sun had just sank behind the Cascade Mountains. The sleep of the dead dragged at him like a drowning victim threatening to take down the healthy swimmer.
“It … will have to …wait.” He fell over onto his side as the darkness swallowed him.
***
Richard awoke with a start, pulling his face from his pillow and sitting bolt upright. He knew before looking that it was still daylight, could feel the solar death reaching into the earth for him with ultraviolet tentacles. The small analogue clock next to his computer verified that it was a little after four in the afternoon. His stiff muscles protested, but he managed to slide his legs off the bed and hunch forward into a sitting position. He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear away the last remnants of sleep and the tortured dreams of Colette. His forearm muscles spasmed over the second tracking device. He rubbed it gently. He had two days to figure out what to do with the knowledge of Radovan’s identity. As he saw it, his only real chance was to tell Beth everything and see if she and Nash could help him. His only problem, was that he still did not fully trust the doctor.
He glanced at his computer. Assuming that Stan had not simply taken the money and run, there could be an answer waiting for him there. He moved to the desk, slid into the uncomfortable metal chair and booted up his laptop. A metal ping sounded as someone knocked on his door interrupting him.
“Come in.” He swiveled the chair towards the door.
Nash’s lab coat swirled about him as he stopped short a few feet from Richard. His face was red and sweat beaded on his forehead. In one hand, he held a manila folder that Richard guessed was a lab report. He frowned making Richard instantly nervous. He straightened.
“What is it, Doctor?”
Nash ran a hand over his bald head. “There’s something wrong with your blood.”
“What do you mean?” Richard braced himself.
“The Department’s virus is mutating.” Nash frowned. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is this a good thing?” Richard’s throat tightened. Frederick had told the truth.
“We’ll have to run a lot more tests before I can answer that from a medical standpoint. They could have encoded their virus with some kind of time released mutation that could be harmful to your species.” He started to pace back and forth across the small room.
“What is our next course of action then?” Richard gritted his teeth.
“More tests for now.” Nash stopped pacing. “Have you had any strange symptoms, any dizziness, sweating, or palpitations?”
“No.” Only visions of a past he had forgotten and the occasional bout of power. He kept his expression stoic. No one could know.
Nash studied him for a moment. “I want you in the lab for tests ASAP.”
“Very well, however I would like to take a few moments to fully awaken.” He had to check his email before he did anything. “It’s difficult to get moving after rising from the dead.”
“No problem.” Nash nodded reluctantly and hurried from the room.
With a sense of renewed purpose, he returned to the computer desk and opened his email. It was a sure bet that Frederick was monitoring his messages, but Stan would take precautions. A single email awaited him. It was from someone named ‘Nat S.’ The subject line read: Vampire Vixens. It had a file attached to it that would probably open some kind of pornographic viewer on his screen. His lip curled involuntarily at the vampire pornography spam. He had known lows since the Department had taken his powers, but nothing as low as making X-rated films for money.
He poised his finger over the delete key and froze as he realized that Nat S. was backwards for Stan. Simple but effective. He clicked on the message link. It opened a blank message, clearly showing an attached executable file but nothing else. Richard saved it to his desktop and opened the it. The program opened a word processing window. A single sentence had been typed in. It read:
The account belongs to Questor Corporation. Don’t contact me again, asshole.
Richard closed the window as soon as he read it and turned off the machine. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the blank computer screen. Questor Corp�
��s questionable use of laboratory animals had sent the company’s stock spiraling downwards and nearly drove them into bankruptcy. The newspaper had predicted an end to the company altogether unless the board of directors could come up with some last-minute financing. Richard opened and closed his fists. It would seem that they found their money.
He got to his feet, throwing his chair back in the process. It clattered to the cement floor with a loud bang but he barely noticed. Questor Corporation had earned its reputation for cutting corners and for performing shoddy research. They were using him just as the Department had. He punched his open palm making it tingle as he turned around in a circle looking for something, anything that might make him feel less betrayed. There was nothing. Questor Corp would not have to answer to anyone about a lab that did not exist; a lab that had used dogs in horrific vampire experiments and now wanted to use him as a guinea pig. They had no intention of searching for a way to restore his powers any more than they would help him if he revealed the truth about why his virus was mutating. Many had speculated that vampire blood could hold the cures to cancer, AIDS and dozens of other maladies, however the religious right had banned all such research calling it an affront to God and his followers. Questor could say their cures came from normal lab animals. It would be a simple matter to fake the research.
Anger scorched his blood. His fangs sprouted and he felt the power slamming against the shield within him. It was there, screaming to be released, crying out for vengeance against the Department, against Questor Corp and against anyone who had slighted him during the past ten years. Frederick was never going to give him an antidote and although Nash and his people might, he would be relegated to the same slavery for which he had suffered the past decade. He kicked the desk. The metal bent inwards and the computer nearly slid from the desk.
He closed his eyes and reached deep within himself, pressing the full weight of his mind, his soul, or whatever it was within him that tapped the preternatural powers of the undead, against the shield. At first, he felt nothing but unyielding smoothness; then, the small fissure returned. Wisps of power leaked outwards from his core, slowly filling him. He pressed himself into that gap, forcing it open wider.