He tried to throw a punch, but I grabbed his hand and twisted until his wrist snapped in two. He screamed out in agony as shock waves of pain rocketed up his arm.
“You have seen your last shot with this eye.” I plunged my index finger into his eye and pushed until the eye disappeared from the socket. He continued to scream out in agony. I slung him down to the floor. “You careless piece of shit! You killed the one good thing in my life.”
My rage-filled assault was suddenly interrupted by a pounding on the apartment door as sirens screamed on the streets below. I dropped the shooter to the floor and stormed to the door and flung it open. “Do you mind! I am trying to fucking kill somebody.” I slammed the door shut on the appalled Samaritan. It suddenly occurred to me, the shooter had an employer, and with revenge in the air, I could not afford to stay and savor the moment.
He was crawling to his bag when I stepped on his back. I pulled his arm to my mouth, which rolled him over. “I just watched my fiancée die. Now it’s your turn.” I bit viciously into his wrist, quickly drawing off the vast majority of his blood, leaving only enough to sustain his slow, faintly beating heart.
His eyes searched mine in terror. “Yes. Now you understand, don’t you? You know how it feels to have your life leave your body.” I drank of few more precious drops. “Why did you have to put her through that?!”
He could not answer. He did not possess the strength to respond at all. I swallowed again, knowing full well every organ in his body was aching for blood. But there was none to give. Death would wait, but a few agonizing minutes. I dropped his arm to the floor. I bent down and stared into his one remaining eye. “Yes, this is what death feels like.” His eye stared blankly. I bent down to his ear. “One day, we will meet again. And on that day in hell, I will rain my misery on you for all eternity.” I whispered.
I climbed out on the fire escape and stared down the Avenue before climbing to the roof. Police surrounded Sam’s lifeless body. Six blocks in the other direction, an ambulance cried out, as it rapidly approached for no other purpose than to transport my love’s corpse to a harsh steely cold slab, in some lonely city morgue.
Shameless tears for Sam streamed down my face, the incredible pain of my injuries outweighed by the breaking of my soul. I looked up to the heavens. “I have no reason left to live, and you have nothing left to punish me with, I guess we’re both kind of screwed now.”
Two police cars skidded to a stop five floors below me. Decisions had to be made. I did not have the time to be arrested for the grisly carnage two floors below. I no longer cared if I found Sabine. I had no need for Gabrielle, Angelique, Phillip, Dee … or my son. Angelique would take care of him. Having learned my history, I was sure she would do right by the family legacy. There was only one last piece of unfinished business that would not wait beyond tonight. The shooter was CIA. I knew the exact origination of his orders. Before the sun would rise, the blood of Paul Watson would be on my hands.
I desperately wanted to return to Sam, to hold her body, just for a while. But with a bullet to the head and chest, and the growing multitude of cops, I knew it would be prudent to disappear until my injuries healed. Monique’s fractured skull looked virtually normal after only one night, with any luck mine would heal just as quickly.
I took one last look down the street to Sam’s body. In all of my rage, any opportunity to feel her spirit pass was lost and now she was gone. Even though the bastard killed her, if she had witnessed my actions, she would have been appalled. She always found a way to forgive even those who might not deserve it, especially me.
Appalled or not, it was time to take care of business in Washington. After Director Watson was dispatched, it would be time to call on Chuck’s services one final time. My time amongst the living had no further purpose. Sadly, I held no illusions of any spiritual reunions with Sam. The eternity I earned in hell was of my own creation.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
RETURNING TO MY home, unable to use the main entrance, I crawled up the ally wall to ensure my arrival remained a secret. Climbing over the terrace wall, I stared blankly at the chair, where just last night I had held her close. That chair, where for the last time, all my shortcomings were forgiven. The chair where I realized what mattered most.
Through all the bullshit of my self-serving sense of purpose, the one thing that had remained a bright and constant point of peace for me was Sam. Unbridled, unconditional love, no more. This chair, the balcony, this apartment, would never experience the joy of her presence, smile, compassion, and love ever again.
I stood beside the chair, her scent veiling the fabric like the fragrance of a spring rain caressing a field of wildflowers. I picked up the chair, bitter and angry, and hurled it over the balcony and fell to my knees, weeping uncontrollably.
On the blood-covered sidewalk of Third Avenue, Samantha had been pronounced dead on the scene, her extraneous injuries bewildering the coroner beyond fascination. They had loaded her body in the back of the meat wagon, preparing her for a rendezvous with the butcher of investigative necessity.
Back on the scene, forensic specialists were busy recreating the event and collecting evidence. Thanks to my unrestrained intervention in his departure plans, detectives had already found the body of Louis the Laser, and were busy trying to understand the nature of his injuries. A massive city wide APB was put out for the missing man, an eye witness, shot by the same assassin, first a victim, and after the discovery of Louis, now a suspect.
As the ambulance was about to depart, Angelique, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, approached the driver’s door. He looked to the woman standing by his window. As she lowered her hood, her beauty instantly mesmerized him.
“Wait,” she implored. “I think that is my sister in the back. Please let me see her.”
“I’m sorry lady. You’ll have to come down to the morgue for an ID. Go see one of the detectives over on the sidewalk. They’ll tell you what you need to do.”
“Let me see her, now,” she demanded in forceful tones.
“Geez, alright. Help yourself lady, but I got to tell ya, she ain’t too pretty anymore,” the driver replied in monotone submission.
Climbing into the back, she could feel the eyes of the young paramedic trolling over her features as she gazed upon the lifeless corpse. Before he could ask a question, she announced her intentions.
“I am here to help this woman.”
“Lady,” the paramedic scoffed, “I hate to tell you this, but your friend is dead. There is no way she is coming back.”
The door slammed open to my apartment and Gabrielle rushed in. “Nick!” she cried out anxiously. Spotting me hunched over at the top of the spiral stairway with my face buried in my hands, she rushed to my side.
“Tell me it’s not true!” she urged, as she sunk down and wrapped her arms around me. For the first time in her life, in my extreme anguish, my thoughts had been revealed to her. From across the city, my torment jolted her like a surge of electricity.
“My God, what happened to you … to Sam?” As I wept openly, Gabrielle submitted to the crushing grief as well.
Verbalizing the events, retracing every detail, so vivid, yet so dreamlike, brought the harsh reality to life, a finality that I had yet to absorb.
Gabrielle sunk into an instant state of depression. As a young prostitute in France, Gabrielle had never had a role model the likes of Samantha, who became a sister and friend, sharing her ways of wisdom and strength. She had convinced Gabrielle beyond any doubt that she could accomplish any goal she set her mind to.
So we sat on the cool marble steps, two vampires embraced in a cradle of pain, a pain that would endure for all eternity.
The buzz on the street amongst the detectives at the crime scene had erupted into confounded hypothetical bantering over the preliminary findings. Samantha, victim one: shot dead, a set of odd bite wounds that matched the bite wounds on victim two; apparently the sniper, found mutilated, three blocks away. The third victi
m, who appeared to have created the injuries to the neck of victim one, was shot twice, once in the head, as reported by eyewitnesses, and then went missing so quickly, nobody could account for his disappearance.
Bullet fragments, bone, blood, brain matter, a gun, and fingerprints were methodically being processed by the veteran staff of CSIs. In this neighborhood, only the best would work a case like this. Detectives were busy collecting video evidence from several surveillance cameras that lined Third Avenue between the two crime scenes. Once the bodies arrived at the morgue, the DNA samples would hopefully reveal the freakish nature of the lacerations and punctures on the victims.
Angelique ignored the words of the young paramedic. “Drive,” she demanded, to the man behind the wheel. Pulling away from the crime scene, Angelique watched the clueless circus of humanity disappear from sight.
Angelique looked at the handsome young man sitting in the back with her. “Return to life, no. But to live among the dead? That remains to be seen.” Buttons flew about as Angelique ripped Sam’s shirt open. “What is your name, young man?”
“David.” Awestruck in the presence of a force he could not begin to understand, his dumbfounded expression hardly instilled the confidence he could tie a shoe, much less save a life.
Inspecting Sam’s body, Angelique found the bullet hole and the puncture wounds from Nicholas’s failed attempts at resurrection. Realizing what he had attempted to do, she opened Sam’s mouth only to find it remained partially filled with blood
“David, cut off her bra.”
“Hell no lady, I am not going to lose my job over some kind of freak show.”
Angelique held up her index finger, a talon about three inches long grew out of the end. “David, if you want to help save my friend, I will need a little more expedient cooperation out of you.” Angelique slid her finger under the bra and sliced the center.
“What the hell are you, lady, some kind of alien?”
“No, David, but if you do not do everything I ask from this moment on, in a more timely obedient manner, then perhaps you will wish an alien was all that I was.”
Angelique’s razor sharp talon sliced through Samantha’s skin, tendons, and muscles like a scalpel. Pulling her flesh apart, her lifeless heart was exposed below the ribs. Not one globule of blood spilled, as virtually every drop had been consumed by me. Angelique slid her finger through Samantha’s ribs until her finger punctured, then penetrated deeply into the heart.
David watched in frightened fascination.
“David, this next part is vitally important. Her life depends on you. David!” Angelique snapped, as David was unresponsive. “You must pay attention. This next part is crucial. In a moment she will breathe, gasp out, and choke. You must hold down her head, and force her mouth to remain shut. She must swallow the contents of her mouth.”
“You … you mean the blood?”
“Yes. She will fight you, but you have to be stronger. She cannot be allowed to exhale. You must not fail me.”
David nodded. He grabbed Samantha’s head firmly. “You do realize I am holding the head of a dead woman, and you have your finger in her chest, and outside of some kind of miracle from above, I’m gonna be fired and you will be packed off to Bellevue, right?”
Angelique ignored his typical trivial human skepticism and focused all of her energy on Samantha. “Pierdut spiritul, timpul nu a venit pentru trecerea dvs. A reveni la acest cadavru. Insufle viață ultima respirația,” Angelique chanted. The medieval force possessed by vampires flowed through Angelique’s finger directly into Samantha’s heart. Slowly, and faintly, the organ responded to the bidding of its new master.
The beating heart meant nothing without a spirit to drive it. Angelique knew this all too well and summoned Samantha’s spirit from the world of the dead once more. “Pierdut spiritul, timpul nu a venit pentru trecerea dvs. A reveni la acest cadavru. Insufle viață ultima respirația.” Other than the rhythmic beating, there was no sign of life.
Angelique would not allow thoughts of failure; she had seen this done by the Tepes himself. Again she demanded, “Pierdut spiritul, timpul nu a venit pentru trecerea dvs. A reveni la acest cadavru. Insufle viață ultima respirația.” Still nothing happened. “Breathe!” Angelique screamed.
Sam’s body jolted to life, then convulsed in agony. David, although pummeled by fear, maintained his grip on Sam’s head and mouth. Gasping for air, she inhaled deeply, her body contorting with violent seizures. Instinctively she fought to break free of David, to open her mouth and cough out the fluid that filled her lungs. David hung on with all his strength, withstanding the onslaught of her desperation.
As suddenly as it began, Samantha’s body collapsed lifeless, except for the slow, soft methodical beating of her heart. Angelique removed her finger from the delicate organ.
She smiled an expression of timid confidence. “You can let go now, David.”
Angelique leaned down to Samantha’s face. Caressing her skin, she whispered in her ear. “Do not be frightened by what will transpire. We all must die to live.”
I had not been home thirty minutes when the phone rang. Undoubtedly it was Phillip calling to harass me over being late for dinner. Gabrielle was kind enough to answer the phone. “Tell him we won’t be making dinner,” I said before she had answered.
“Hello Phillip,” Gabrielle answered in her soft French accent. “No,” she replied in a stressed tone. “Phillip, I do not know.” She listened as Phillip babbled on. “He is here.”
Muting the phone as she crossed the room, Gabrielle handed it to me. “He knows.”
“Phillip.” I struggled to maintain my composure.
“Brian, what the fuck man?”
“It was a motherfucking assassin, Phillip. Sam stumbled right into the shot. She was dead before she hit the ground.” Tears flowed freely as I visualized the scene again. “There was nothing I could do.”
“Geez Brian, half the cops in the city are looking for you. They got your face on some surveillance video from inside a jewelry store you passed.”
“Does Dee know?”
“Are you fucking kidding, man? I don’t know how to begin to explain this. She is going to lose it, big time.”
“Bring her here. I will tell her.”
“We will be there in twenty minutes. And Brian, stay put. Do not go outside. We’re gonna have to get you out of the city, tonight.”
“Trust me, Phillip, there’s not a chance in hell I am going back out there tonight.” With my head looking like it came straight out of a B-film horror flick, there was no going anywhere without risking an outbreak of pandemonium.
“They are coming here?” Gabrielle appeared confused by the revelation for apparent reasons.
“Yes. Why wouldn’t they?”
“Not many people have seen the likes of your head. Had I not seen the damage you inflicted on Monique, the site of you might have put me in shock. I would suggest you get cleaned up. Phillip and Dee do not need to see you like this.”
I walked to the mirror on the wall. “What? I look the same.” I looked down at my white linen shirt, now stained almost entirely dark crimson. I felt my head. The bullet exit wound in my forehead had almost closed, but I could only assume my skin remained black and blue and grotesquely swollen.
“No, I will see them as I am.” I plopped down on the leather couch. Bitterness had replaced any shred of decency. I stared at the mirror across the room, the same mirror that for months held the reflection of Sam cuddled next to me. Now this was nothing but an empty couch.
Samantha’s body jumped to life, flailing wildly against restraints that confined her to the gurney, her body writhing in burning pain. She vomited the contents of her stomach, screaming out in unfathomable pain. Angelique observed in quiet, self-congratulatory satisfaction, most pleased with her accomplishment. David had pinned himself against the side of the bus, seized in a magnitude of fear he believed impossible to survive.
Samantha continued to
fight with all of her energy, the life in her body giving way to the undead. After several minutes of futile resistance, she collapsed again.
“Take off the restraints,” Angelique ordered silently. David submitted without hesitation, as if the order had been given aloud. Unexpectedly, with the successful resurrection and some higher connection to the spirit world, Angelique’s powers had grown expansively. Again she tested this newfound surge in the energy of her thoughts on the driver. “Take us to the Village, corner of Houston and Thompson Street.”
The knock to the door startled me. I was hoping Phillip and Dee would magically not show up. But here they were, just after eleven. Gabrielle answered the door. I sat dumbfounded on the couch. As they approached, my disheveled look from behind forewarned of dire news.
“Nick, my god, what happened?” Dee cried out. The lack of hair and skull made it impossible to hide the severity of the incident.
She rounded the front of the couch and took in the full visual nightmare that was my face. Phillip gasped in repulsion.
The tears were streaming down my face. I could not contain my raw emotions.
“She’s gone, Dee. Sam’s dead,” I cried.
“Nick? What happened? Where’s my sister?” she shrieked as her knees buckled.
“We were ambushed. A gunman shot us. I could not save her.” The words burned my lips as they passed, the all-powerful vampire completely helpless, the futility of a lifetime so ill timed.
Dee fell to her knees, took my hands and sobbed out, “No, no, not Sam. Oh god.”
Gabrielle dropped to the floor and hugged Dee from behind, offering what little comfort she could render. Through Samantha’s and Gabrielle’s friendship, Dee had grown almost equally close and the comfort offered was beyond the realm of my current frame of mind. Phillip looked over the girls huddled on the floor and mouthed, ‘we need to talk.’
Invierea Page 18