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Maddison knew about the homeless living in tents under expressway bridges only because of an incident that occurred in Rochester. The story made local and national news. It wasn’t just because the city’s mayor had tents demolished and the homeless evicted from the streets. The mayor got herself into a status war on Facebook and Twitter, obnoxiously defended her position, and then had city officials claim her social media accounts had been hacked.
The tents pitched under the bridge here mirrored the ones destroyed in Rochester. Empty coffee cans held small fires, like large candles. The flames could not provide that much warmth, but also would not attract unwanted attention from police.
There was a variety of tents. Nineteen in all. They were huddled close together, but each seemed to occupy an invisible outline of personal space. A few people sat on folding chairs outside of unzipped tent door flaps. As if a house’s driveway, shopping carts packed full of an array of items were parked alongside many of the tents.
Madison felt foolish. She stood silent with her arms at her side.
The weight of her decision was not lost. The approach taken would be key.
Those outside of their tents stared at her, as if waiting.
She walked across the threshold, a shadow line from the bridge above, and into the center of Tent City.
Eyes followed her.
She sucked in a deep breath. The idea she came up with was thin, lame. It was all she had.
“My name is Madison Young,” she said. Their attention was hers. That made her feel more apprehensive. Slowly, she spun around, taking in each tent, each person.
She heard zippers.
More people appeared, emerging from tents to look at her.
“I am here because I need your help. You may be the only ones who will believe me, and I am sure you are the only people who can help me.”
She could hear them breathing, could hear their hearts beat, could smell blood pump through their bodies.
Madison knew she was crying. She felt cold tears roll down her cheeks. The words were there, but she had no idea how to assemble them in her mind before speaking again.
A man wearing a Steelers jacket and brown wool gloves with missing cloth fingers stood up. “What do you need, ma’am?”
His question was innocent. It made her request that much more difficult to make.
“Tell us,” a woman said. She was short and heavy. Dirt was smeared on her face. Grey hair protruded from under a knit cap. She sat by one of the coffee can fires warming her hands over the small flames that danced with the wind.
“There are people who have kidnapped children. Abducted them. They have them stored like animals in a tractor trailer.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“They’re no help,” Madison said.
Someone grunted in agreement.
“They’ve also taken my friend. The people that have him, that have all of them, they aren’t people at all,” she said. It sounded ludicrous. She knew she sounded like a raving lunatic.
A man asked, “What are they?”
Madison wanted to close her eyes. She wanted to believe that this was nothing more than a nightmare. She knew better. The cold was too real. The pain she felt from guilt, from fear, from hunger, was too strong. “They’re vampires.”
Some of the homeless people gasped. The heavy woman brought her hands up and covered her mouth.
Madison didn’t know if they believed her. She wasn’t positive if telling the truth made sense. “I am a vampire, too.”
Those sitting, stood.
She heard heart beats increase. If she didn’t have their attention before, she had it now. She smelled their fear. That was not what she wanted. There had to be a way to keep them calm, to control the situation. She could not think of any other way to go about this.
Those kids were in trouble. They were all going to die if she couldn’t save them.
Neal, with all his hypochondriac symptoms, must feel sick. She couldn’t imagine the fear he felt. She hoped he wasn’t being mistreated. It was impossible to keep horrible images from flashing through her mind. She kept seeing Neal tied to a chair with thick ropes cutting into his wrists and ankles. The worst was the gag she envisioned, a filthy cloth stuffed deep into his mouth and held in place by silver duct tape.
She fell to her knees, brought the heels of her hand to her face and pressed them tight against closed eyes.
She almost jumped when she felt a hand touch her shoulder.
“What do you need from us?” It was the woman. She stood just over four feet tall, wearing at least three pairs of gym socks over brown corduroy slacks. Her breath was stale, enhanced by obvious tooth decay.
Madison lowered her hands and shook her head. “I have no right.”
The others walked closer.
In a moment, she was surrounded by eight people.
The woman pulled up the sleeve on her coat. She held her arm out, her wrist below Madison’s chin.
Madison looked up.
Their eyes locked.
“I am very weak,” Madison said.
“You are going to save the children?”
“I am going to try.”
“You’re not evil, dear. I can see that. And I had a child once. He was stolen from me by the state. He was just a baby then. He’d be older than you now. I prayed and prayed for someone to save my son, and bring him back to me. No one ever did. My prayers were never answered. I bet there are parents in their homes right now praying that someone would bring back their child. You might just be the answer to their prayers.” The woman spoke in calm sentences. She did not cry. She looked hard, and weathered, but also sad and lonely.
“I won’t drink too much.”
“You take what you need,” the woman said.
The man with the fingerless gloves rolled up his sleeve. “I want to help.”
Madison tentatively took hold of the woman by the hand and the elbow, but never looked away from her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, before sinking teeth into dirty flesh. It took control not to let her eyes roll back as fresh, warm blood filled her mouth and coated her throat.
She saw peripherally the men and women around her rolling up sleeves and sitting or kneeling on the blacktop, waiting for their turn to donate.
Chapter 21
She sat in her Jeep staring across the street. There had to be a way to thank the homeless people. She did not want their selfless trust to go unrecognized. Somehow she would find a way to repay them for their generosity.
The rearview mirror revealed the swirling blue marble of her eyes.
She pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road. The immediate plan was to head back to the mall.
Checking her cell she was surprised she did not have any more calls from her father. She was relieved. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to him. If he called again, she would answer. She wasn’t sure what she would say, but there was no way she could avoid talking to him. Once this mess was over, she was going to sit him down, and tell him the truth.
If Neal accepted it, there was no reason her father couldn’t.
As she drove, she was amazed by the vibrant city colors. The cold no longer bothered her. The new blood coursing through her body was invigorating. She felt stronger but not just in her arms and legs, but even in her fingers and toes. Every inch of her surged with adrenaline. She hoped the high did not fade too quickly, because right now she felt like she could take on an army and come out victorious.
Right now.
The vampires wanted to meet up after the carnival closed. Their terms. Doing so would give them the advantage, the upper hand.
They had that anyway. They held the cards. They had the hostages. They called the shots.
They.
Them.
She signaled a left-hand turn and pulled into the mall parking lot. She drove around back to where the carnival was set up. There was no need to be sneaky. They knew she was here.<
br />
They.
It wouldn’t surprise her to learn someone followed her all morning. It surprised her she hadn’t thought of that until now.
Waiting was what they wanted.
Rolling and unrolling her fingers, Madison looked left and right. She wondered if she would be able to spot a tail. She checked her rearview mirror to see if any other vehicles pulled around to the back of the mall parking lot.
Best she could tell, none had.
She didn’t want to wait.
Madison got out of the Jeep and put on her backpack again. She crossed the lot toward the back side of the carnival where the trailers were parked, and stopped by the white trailer with the I Would Rather Be Driving My Bugatti sticker. There was a heavy padlock on the handle. She’d need bolt cutters to get through that. She pounded on the walls of the trailer with her fist. “Hello?”
She waited.
Nothing. Her hearing was exquisite at the moment. She could hear something in the trees to her right and radios playing inside cars driving by the mall, hundreds of yards away.
From inside the trailer, though, she could not hear a sound. Not breathing, sniffling, or crying. She still smelled feces and urine, but the odor was not as pungent. Ammonia and disinfectant were the more overpowering scents.
She didn’t think the children were locked inside.
Had they been in the trailer earlier, before Neal was snatched? And then were moved when she left the mall for Tent City?
How would they have moved the children without drawing attention? Without the activity being captured by security cameras?
They couldn’t have.
There were only two possibilities. The children were in a different trailer, or they were dead and gone.
“Can I help you?”
Startled, Madison stood up straight and spun around. The man had snuck up on her. That wasn’t likely. She pursed her lips and shook her head. “All set,” she said.
He was tall with dark skin and dressed appropriately for the weather. His winter coat was zipped up to under his chin, and his hands were tucked into the side pockets. He wore a black winter hat, and when he breathed, small tufts of air escaped his lips. “Seemed like you were looking for something?”
He was a vampire. She couldn’t smell his blood, but it was his eyes that gave it away. Swirling dark brown marbles.
He smiled, baring small fangs. She didn’t know how to control her teeth. Maybe hers were visible as well. She ran her tongue over them and knew she was ready to fight as well. “I was. But it isn’t here. Anymore.”
“Hmm,” he said, and rocked back onto his heels. “Shame. You report it?”
“Thought about it.”
“Try coming back tonight. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
This vampire must have been her tail. She wondered if he’d followed her to Tent City or just kept an eye on her when she was in the mall parking lot. She supposed at this point it didn’t matter. “I’m not good with waiting.”
“Sometimes it’s the only choice,” he said.
She was tired of games. “If you’ve hurt any of those kids, or my friend, I am going to kill all of you.”
He pulled his hands from his pockets and held them up, surrendering. “Whoa. Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“This is not a game,” she said.
When he stepped closer, Madison went rigid. Her mind raced. The grappling lessons were last summer. She wished she’d continued taking them.
He spoke in a whisper. “No, Madison. This is not a game. You want your friend. We want the dagger.”
“I want the children.”
He pulled back and smiled. “There are no children.”
His eyes should have told her that he’d recently fed as well. Madison felt as though she had been punched in the gut. She felt like she couldn’t breathe and held out a hand for something to hold as he knees wobbled.
“Neal needs you. You don’t want anything bad to happen to him.”
They killed the kids.
There had been so many.
“Give us the dagger.”
It was in her backpack.
“The dagger,” she said.
He put his hands back into his coat pocket. He didn’t fear her.
She reached up and behind her back. Her fingers gripped the dagger. She tugged on it. The sheath remained in the backpack, but the blade came free. She held the dagger in the air, twisting it back and forth. “This?”
“That.”
“And you’ll give me Neal?”
“I don’t have Neal. Not here. Not with me.”
“Then you don’t get this.” She feinted like she was going to re-sheath the blade.
“You give me the dagger, and I will bring Neal to you. We can avoid this whole meeting tonight. Trust me, you don’t want to meet Julius.”
Julius. “I think you’ve got that wrong.”
“Wrong?”
Madison didn’t think about what she was going to do, but just did it, moving fast. She stepped forward with her left leg. She set her foot down next to his right foot. Her left arm shot out to his left side, hand to his back, and tripped him. Caught off guard, he went down hard. She dropped on top of him, straddling his chest, her knees pressed against his outstretched biceps. “He doesn’t want to meet me.”
She raised the dagger in both hands and thrust it down and into his chest.
His mouth and eyes opened wide. He didn’t scream. From the dagger wound, Madison saw bright red and yellow liquid. It bubbled up and out. It started out oozing, and then flowed. Most of his clothing remained, but all of his skin disappeared. Exposed muscle turned to liquid, and bone melted away. She stared at the clothing left behind. The process was quick. She had stabbed him, and he had. . .dissolved. There was no odor associated with the burn. One second he was there, and the next, gone.
She used the dagger to poke through the clothing. When she accidentally got some of the vampire blood onto her skin, she shrieked thinking it would corrode away her flesh. When it didn’t, she fished through the dead vampire’s pockets.
She hoped she might find one of the pendants needed for the dagger, but was just as happy to find a cell phone, set of keys, and a wallet. She tried to get into the phone, but it was protected by a four-digit code. She slipped the cell into her front pocket. Inside the wallet she found a Florida driver’s license, Drexel Unterborn, and a Pittsburgh Hotel key card. The back of the key card gave an address and the room number. That would be a great place to start.
Feeling no remorse for having killed a vampire, Madison stood up and kicked the clothing into a heap under the trailer behind the one the kids had been kept in.
She tried the keys she taken off his possessions on the padlock. Once unlocked, she pulled open the trailer door. She used the flashlight app on her phone and shined it inside the trailer as she climbed up and into the back.
Chains were coiled in a corner.
Metal loops lined both long sides of the inner walls.
There were no children inside.
For the most part, it looked like the back of the trailer had been scrubbed clean, hosed down.
She tapped the hotel key card against her thigh.
There was no turning back. No walking away.
She didn’t want to stop now, and she wasn’t going to wait. Her father used to tell her it was always best to strike while the iron was hot. It had nothing to do with hunting down vampires, not when he said it. It was an expression that, for once, made sense to her. Julius was going to pay.
Chapter 22
The day was not warming up. The sun threatened to shine through thick rolling clouds, and managed to occasionally send a burst of rays over the city of Pittsburgh, but it proved more of a mirage of warmth than anything that could be felt or appreciated. At least the snow had stopped, but that was about the only good thing. The wind continued to whip itself up into a frenzy, howling between buildings as if angry at the world.
This was not a ritzy place, but neither was it a rundown motel. It had three levels, with an arched awning over the entrance drive, and an attached restaurant and bar that featured discount chicken wings on Tuesdays and live entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights. Julius might have a room here with Drexel, but she doubted Neal was being held captive at the hotel.
The next vampire she caught she’d torture for answers, and then kill him.
The hotel was just a mile or so from the mall, just on the cusp of downtown. There was still plenty of traffic around her, and some at the hotel. She worried she stood out sitting in the Jeep.
She pulled out her cell phone and the one she’d taken off the vampire, as well as the hotel key card, and then called the front desk.
“Pittsburgh Hotel.”
Madison did not want to get complacent. She continually checked her side mirrors and rear-view mirror. “Yes, I was hoping to speak with Mr. Unterborn, please. I believe he is staying in room two-one-five,” she said, and replaced the key card into her pocket.
“One moment, please hold.”
“Thank you.” There were maybe twenty or so cars in the parking lot. It was stupid to think one or more of them would stand out as something the carnival workers. . .
She saw three cars clustered together. Florida plates. Drexel Unterborn had a Florida driver’s license.
The phone rang three times before it was answered. It was a man’s voice that said simply, “Yeah?”
“Drexel there?”
There was a moment of silence. “Who is this?” he said.
Young Blood: The Nightbreed Saga: Book 1 Page 16