Chronicles of an Extraordinary Ordinary Life

by Aurélie Venem

  “There are about thirty of us crammed into a smelly old wine cellar, waiting to be drained of our blood any minute now by a bunch of psychopathic vampires. Their boss is supervising the first exsanguinations this very moment. So I suggest that you find a solution fast.”

  “He is there? Did you see him?”

  “No, not yet, but Heath is here, and he knows me.”

  “I will not let him hurt you.”

  “All that I ask is that you let me kill him. Him and Huan,” I said angrily.

  “No. Huan is mine.”

  Phoenix hung up.

  Meanwhile, I risked a glance over Angela’s shoulder to see if anyone had heard my conversation. Evidently, only my friend had been close enough. As it happened, she turned and stared at me hard.

  “Phoenix? François? Vampires and exsanguinations? What is going on?”

  I sighed. I had to explain everything. I sat down beside her, sliding an arm over her shoulders so we would be against the wall where no one could see us talking; anyone looking would just think we were consoling each other.

  “Up until a few months ago, my name was Samantha Watkins, I lived in Kentwood, where I was a librarian. I didn’t believe that vampires exist, but I discovered I was wrong, and my discovery wouldn’t let me go back to my normal life. Since then, I’ve been working for one of them, as his assistant. I had a hard time accepting it at first, but believe it or not, by doing this I’m protecting human lives. The vampires are peculiar, but not necessarily bad . . . and the one I work for is a good man who wants these disappearances perpetrated by criminal vampires to come to an end. We live in Scarborough undercover, and Phoenix’s best friend François came to help us in our efforts. They followed me and they’ll do all that they can to get out us out of here.”

  Angela seemed not to believe what I was saying. It was true that I’d given her an abridged version of my story, and that telling her about the existence of vampires in this point-blank way was enough to make me sound crazy. She shook her head.

  “So . . . mysterious Peter and your Phoenix are the same person? He’s your boss, not your fiancé, or your grandfather? A vampire?”

  “Yes.”

  “So François . . .” She couldn’t finish her thought out loud.

  “Yes. He’s a vampire too.”

  Seeing her look of alarm, I feared that she would reject him because of his nature. I could understand that since it would certainly complicate things between them, but that would have been a mistake. I took her by the hands and forced her to look at me.

  “Angela, don’t judge him too quickly, please. François is a vampire, that’s undeniable, but he’s a good and generous man—more so than many humans. He’ll do everything he can to protect you. Don’t reject him before you know him better.”

  My friend seemed shocked by my declaration. Maybe I’d said too much, but it had to be done, for François’s sake.

  Then we heard the door that separated us from the ground floor being unlocked. Our fifteen minutes were up.

  I hoped that Phoenix and François had succeeded in getting into the building. I turned quickly to Angela.

  “They’re coming. Listen to me. You don’t know me, do you understand?”

  “What?”

  “Do what I say. Whatever happens, do not under any circumstances show that we have a connection. They’ll likely lash out at you. Is that clear?”

  She nodded her head, and I moved away and found a spot near the gate to put some distance between us. Five vampires, including Huan, opened the gates and ordered us to get up, not hesitating to dole out kicks to the ones who were having trouble regaining consciousness.

  “What if we don’t want to?” spit out the jogger, his defiant attitude hardly credible, because of his trembling legs.

  Huan was behind him instantly. He broke the man’s neck.

  “You’ll die immediately . . . Any other volunteers?” he asked, surveying the prisoners’ faces.

  Horrified, the people still in the cells came out without any more orders. I used Huan’s momentary inattention to slip among everyone else. As we walked up the stairs, everyone was sobbing; I tried to not think about Angela, who was five people behind me. She must be completely panicking . . . as I was, knowing what awaited us above.

  Once we were upstairs, we were marched into the great hall. There weren’t enough stretchers for everyone, so Huan divided our group in two. My group, including Angela, was pushed into a corner and forced to sit down under the surveillance of two colossal men. Utterly powerless, we could only watch the spectacle of victims being made to undress, then being connected to tubes, which drained their life force from them. There were shrieks, then . . . nothing. They must have been given a strong dose of sedatives to calm them so they wouldn’t move around too much during the procedure.

  There was total silence in our corner. I thought that the cruelty and absurdity of the scene had taken away all sense of reality. My companions in misery were in a state of shock; I doubted they were even picturing that in a few minutes, it would be their turn. As for me, I was desperately impatient. I couldn’t do anything until the leader showed himself, and in the interim, innocent people were dying; it was atrocious.

  Suddenly Heath entered the room. There was someone behind him, but I couldn’t risk revealing myself by trying too hard to see his face.

  “We’re almost done with this bunch, and she’s one of them. You’ll be happy.”

  The small smile of satisfaction of the tall blond vampire that I hated so profoundly made me want to drive a stake through his heart.

  “I certainly hope so.”

  I recognized that voice at the same moment that Heath moved enough for me to finally see the man who was organizing all these murders. I felt as if I’d just had the wind knocked out of me. Luckily I knew how to compose myself and avoid attracting the attention of the murderer who was heading straight for Angela, a horrible and oh-so-familiar smile on his face.

  “So, we’ve finally woken up, I see.”

  Using my hair to hide my face, I saw my friend utterly unsettled by the sight of a vampire she’d already met . . .

  “Karl?”

  His smile widened, becoming even crueler. I shuddered. What was he going to do? What were we going to do? Where was Phoenix? While I was panicking, the vampire went to detach the corpses from the stretchers and stack them like garbage in an adjacent room.

  “But of course, my dear. So you’re a great friend of a Samantha’s . . . she is going to be so sad when I kill you. But you know what? That is the point. Don’t worry, it’s nothing personal against you, although I will take immense pleasure in seeing you die.”

  Without warning, he grabbed Angela by the arm and pulled her to him. She tried to struggle, crying, but Karl had her in a steel grip.

  “Hook up the others,” he ordered without worrying about his prisoner’s attempt to free herself.

  I didn’t know what to do. Phoenix hadn’t shown up, and Karl was getting ready to kill Angela. I had to do something.

  As the vampires who had brought us here approached us menacingly, I positioned myself at the back of the group. I quickly charged forward and pushed aside the people ahead of me with all my strength, as I shouted, “We won’t let you!”

  Like dominos, the prisoners pushed against each other, and in the panic, they tried to scatter. Thinking it a mutiny, the vampires starting grabbing the fleeing people, without doing them any harm.

  Taking advantage of the surrounding confusion, I managed to seize a pair of scissors left on one of the refrigerated cases. I rushed at Karl, who, without any interest in what was happening around him, was about to sink his fangs into my friend’s neck.

  With a roar of rage, I drove the scissors into his neck before jumping on his back, hammering him with punches. It was doubtless not the pain but rather the surprise that made him let go, but Angela was liberated from his vise grip.

  “Run!” I shouted at her from my perch.

/>   I had just enough time to see her try before someone grabbed me and sent me flying against the facing wall, then crashing to the floor. This time, I couldn’t find the strength to get up.

  Heath was now coming straight for me, and he wasn’t messing around. Karl was right behind him.

  Karl stopped Heath. “Heath. Catch the blond.” Karl was looking in my direction suspiciously.

  Heath took off, and Karl came slowly toward me, but he turned around when he heard Angela’s cries from the main hall. Heath had already grabbed her and brought her back. That was fast.

  “Hook her up.”

  Heath didn’t want to get his hands dirty, so he gave Angela to one of the other vampires.

  The German traitor returned his attention to me and bridged the gap between us. My hair had fallen over my face, and to finally see who he was dealing with, he reached out his hand to brush my hair aside . . . As soon as he did it, he took a step back, his pupils now bright and his fangs out.

  “You!” he said furiously.

  But instead of attacking me and tearing me into pieces, he stood up and screamed at his men. “It’s a trap! Kill them all, we have to get out of here!” He turned back to me. “But not before you and I settle our score.”

  His men were about to comply when a velvet voice, dangerous and terrifying, rose above the din.

  “It seems like you are about to leave, like your friends who are waiting outside . . . They are no longer with us.”

  Phoenix and François were standing in the doorway, armed and ready for a fight, their eyes bright and their clothes already stained with blood.

  Silence fell over the room, each of the vampires having recognized their angel of death. In a flash, Karl had lifted me and was using me as a shield, a silver knife pressed against my throat. Phoenix stared at us intensely, but he had to act according to the priorities of the moment.

  Huan was holding Angela; abandoning his hostage, he was the first to attack Phoenix, but in vain. Taken over by a murderous rage, my boss had no difficulty stopping him before slamming him to the ground and ripping out his tongue. François prevented anyone from getting close to Phoenix, though he didn’t need to do much since everyone was petrified by my boss.

  “That is for daring to kiss her!” Phoenix shouted, holding up his enemy’s bloody tongue. “This is for daring to touch her!” He tore off Huan’s left arm. Huan’s shrieks filled the room, and the entire audience was hypnotized by that scene worthy of the most gruesome horror films . . .

  “And this is for making her watch you kill that girl.” He finished by pulling out Huan’s fangs, which earned a new series of dreadful screams, and three of the hostages vomited at the sickening sight. Even Karl couldn’t suppress a brief shudder. As for me, I didn’t feel anything: not pleasure, not horror, not compassion . . . My conscience had become silent as the grave, estimating that after all Huan had done to me and to other people, he fully deserved his punishment.

  Phoenix straightened his chest and stared at Heath and Karl with his steel gaze. “The others will not have your luck, Huan . . . Their deaths will be far from painless.” In a rapid movement, he put an end to Huan’s suffering by decapitating him with his bare hands. When he stood up, the tension was extreme; Karl’s knife was pressing so hard that a stream of blood was escaping from my neck.

  There were only six Chinese vampires, Heath, and Karl left. I saw Phoenix signal to François to take care of the six, who moved to face their opponent, totally forgetting the presence of their human victims. My boss looked at the humans.

  “Leave this place and forget what happened here. No one will believe you anyway.”

  As my fellow prisoners moved to follow his orders, Phoenix spoke again. “One more thing. I know your faces. If any of you are stupid enough to talk to the press, I will find you wherever you are. You will not be safe anywhere, and you will only have to await my arrival to enjoy the same treatment as the carcass lying at my feet!”

  As a group, fifteen people ran to safety without a single look back. All but one, that is. Angela stayed behind François, and she stared at me, afraid. I blinked at her to make her understand that she should leave too, and in tears, she obeyed, but not before sharing one last look with her heart’s desire.

  When she was gone, Phoenix said, “So, what are we waiting for?”

  In an instant, the great hall became an apocalyptic battlefield.

  As Phoenix carved a path toward Karl and me by violently pushing aside stretchers and full refrigerated cases that crashed against the walls, splattering blood everywhere, François killed every man who came too close to him. Knowing that he would be fine, I turned my attention back to my boss.

  Phoenix was radiating so much anger and disgust that it looked like he was surrounded by a fiery aura. I’d never seen him like that before . . . Every part of him said Death, whose messenger he was.

  He should have frightened me, as was surely the case for Heath and Karl, but on the contrary, I couldn’t look away from him. Even if a large part of his anger had been provoked by the betrayal of the man he considered his brother, he’d been cruel toward Huan as a punishment for touching me. Even now, as he made his way forward, it was not his friend he was staring down . . . but me. He would not allow me to be hurt . . .

  My fatigue dissipated quickly, and an enormous wave of energy from my innermost reserves gave me courage. With a subtle tilt of his head, Phoenix conveyed that he’d seen the change in me, and reassured, he now could turn his attention to the one who had claimed to be his friend.

  “Let her go and I promise you when the hour of your execution comes, it will be quickly and without pain.”

  Karl stared at him with scorn.

  “You must be dreaming, Brother . . . You are going to let me leave because I know how fond you are of this bitch who sticks her dirty human nose everywhere. You will not do anything to me, because she is too important to you to risk me killing her.”

  Phoenix got out a knife from his jacket and played with it. “Your flaw has always been arrogance. You think you know everything, but you know nothing. You think I am attached to her enough to run the risk of failing the mission Talanus and Ysis assigned me? It is not surprising that they never thought of making you their angel . . . You are entirely too naive.”

  Choking with rage, Karl held me even harder, almost crushing my bones; I couldn’t stifle a cry of pain.

  “And your flaw is too much confidence! The great Phoenix, hero to all vampires who sing your praises to the deepest corners of the Amazon. It all started with Finn, who only ever listened to you and who spent all his time belittling me. Everywhere I went I was Phoenix’s friend, and the amazed and admiring sighs were unbearable because I know you, and I know that you are not even a third of what they imagine you to be! Playing your friend all this time when I hate you more than anyone was torture, but the one who ordered me to do it merits this sacrifice—he knows who you really are, and that I am worth more than you. You’ll swallow your pride when the Greats come here, and we await that moment with impatience.”

  Nauseated by these horrible revelations, I looked for a reaction on my boss’s face. I would have missed it if I hadn’t noticed how Phoenix was grinding his teeth. Karl had meant a lot to him, and he’d defended him many times over, including against me. After forcibly throwing him out of his manor for what he did to me, Phoenix hadn’t gotten over their quarrel.

  I couldn’t imagine the pain and betrayal he must have been feeling, faced with this man who had been lying to him for so long, who in fact wanted him to die quickly. By playing with Karl’s supersized ego, Phoenix had made Karl admit that someone else was pulling the strings. But his admissions had revealed a hatred so well hidden that my boss could never have imagined it.

  It was my turn to feel rage boiling in my veins. “You are just a piece of garbage who was never as talented as Phoenix and who was jealous of him because he’s better than you! You’re so blinded by your need for recognition that
you just told us there’s someone above you, you idiot. You’ve let yourself be manipulated, you, the great Karl. How about that?” I sniggered, my tone like acid.

  “Shut up!” he screamed in my ear, tightening his grip.

  It cut off my breath, but I wanted to push him more so that he’d make a mistake. Looking at Phoenix, I continued.

  “I pity you. All this for that? Because the ugly duckling wasn’t hugged enough as a kid? I tell you, I knew right away who you really are. Even me, a dirty human who sticks her nose everywhere like you say, it didn’t escape me. You were nothing, you are nothing, and you will always be nothing!”

  “Shut up! Shut up!” he screamed again, but this time shaking me so hard that I thought he would dislocate something.

  I continued to stare at my savior, whose worry was becoming more pronounced.

  “You know what? I’m not afraid of you, because you’re just an insignificant insect. Phoenix is important to the Greats in this region and to all those who want to have him in their service. Phoenix is important to François, who didn’t hesitate a single second to choose his side when he saw that you were behind all this. And he’s important to me, and all I feel for you is disgust.”

  That was one comment too much.

  “I’m going to kill you, you bitch!” roared Karl, pushing me brutally away from him so he could look at me when he stabbed his knife into my chest.

  That was the mistake Phoenix and I were waiting for. Blinded by rage, Karl had let his guard down, giving my boss the opportunity to send his own knife flying into his Karl’s chest. However, it didn’t happen as expected . . .

  Heath, understanding our little game, threw himself on Phoenix at the last minute to prevent him from getting to Karl. But the knife had already been thrown, and it landed in Karl’s right lung.

  In unbearable pain, my executioner pushed me away with a Herculean force, and I landed on a stretcher that was on the ground. The shock made me see stars, and I had some difficulty getting back to my feet to try and help Phoenix, who was grappling with Heath in a fight to the death. Their super speed prevented me from discerning their movements well, but the struggle was relentless.