Reborn by Blood

by Richard Murray

  “Just because you enjoy spending time with men, it doesn’t mean I have to. Men are the cause of all women’s problems you know.” Gemma sneered.

  “Yes, you have said many times before. Look, I am not here to argue with you. I just need this favour. Will you let me borrow it?”

  “Send your... friend away and we can talk properly. Perhaps have a drink and a little something to take the edge off.” Gemma said and picked up her glass of what smelt like vodka and took a long swallow, “Then we can discuss it.”

  “The last thing she needs is more of that crap from you.” I snarled with anger heating my voice.

  “Ray, it’s ok.” Beth said with a pat on my leg before she turned back to Gemma. “I’m not here to do anything like that with you Gem; I just need this one favour.”

  “No. I don’t think so.” Gemma said her tone turning condescending. “You come here with him and ask me for a favour. You refuse to have a drink with me, you don’t return my calls.”

  I glanced at Beth, her cheeks were turning red as she blushed and she refused to look at me. She had never mentioned that Gemma had tried to call her.

  “This was a mistake we best go.” Beth said.

  “Yes, leave me like you did before. Leave me to be with him again!” She shrieked and threw her glass at Beth.

  Time slowed, I could see the flecks of spittle as they flew from the mouth of Gemma in her sudden rage. The glass was moving slowly turning in the air as it crossed the distance between the two women and Beth was cringing back in the sofa, an expression of terror and old pain plain on her face.

  My own anger was rising, I was angry at myself for agreeing to come when I knew it had been a bad idea. I was angry with Beth for not telling me that Gemma had been calling her again and I was also scared that she would answer those calls and go back to her.

  But mainly I was furious with Gemma for what she had done, what she always did to my friend. The fury was like a ball of white hot rage in my mind boiling and tumbling as it sought a direction. With a thought, I cast it all towards Gemma and felt it connect with her as I spoke one word. “STOP.”

  The glass shattered on the wall behind Beth as time returned to normal. Gemma stood in place, unmoving. Her mouth was open mid shout but no sound emerged, her arm still outstretched.

  “What the hell?” I said aloud. I could still feel the connection between Gemma and me. It was a strange and uncomfortable feeling. “Sit down.” I said and Gemma obeyed.

  She sat on her couch without complaint and Beth looked at me with wide eyes.

  “What the hell?” She echoed.

  “I have no idea.” I replied. The link that connected me to Gemma was growing taut, pressure growing as the seconds ticked by.

  “This must be compulsion” Beth said and I nodded slowly.

  “Get the cutlery set and give it to Beth” I commanded and watched as Gemma rose from the couch and disappeared into the bedroom to return minutes later with a laminated wooden case. She passed it to Beth without a word.

  “Now what?” Beth asked.

  “Go to bed and sleep. When you wake up, forget we were ever here.” I told Gemma who turned without a word and went into her bedroom. The door closed with a soft thump and without knowing exactly how, I severed the link between us.

  “Ow, crap. Holy hell that hurts.” I yelped as pain ripped through my brain.

  “You’re bleeding” Beth said, “What’s going on?”

  I grabbed an expensive looking scarf from the back of the couch and pressed it to my nose. When I pulled it away it had more of my blood on it that I was comfortable with.

  “If that was compulsion, I have no idea why people would do it. It bloody hurts.”

  “I think we should go.” Beth said with a troubled look towards Gemma’s bedroom.

  “Good idea.” I said, “I still have a Werewolf to rob.”

  We left the apartment in silence as I dabbed carefully at my nose. The pain was receding and the flow of blood had pretty much stopped by the time the lift dropped us at the ground floor. The concierge glanced up and once he saw that we weren’t one of the residents, quickly went back to reading his magazine.

  I kept glancing towards Beth but she adamantly refused to look at me and I frowned as we crossed the road to her car. She unlocked the door and we both climbed into the car, the cutlery set was placed carefully on the back seat by Beth before she finally looked at me.

  “That was wrong.” She said.

  “What was?”

  “Compulsion.” She said flatly, “It feels wrong to do that to someone.”

  “It does?” I asked.

  “Yes. You took away her control. You could have done anything to her or made her do anything. That’s wrong.” Beth said and I noticed tears forming in her eyes, “No one deserves to be treated like that and I can understand what Anna meant about it making you less human.”

  “I think I see what you mean” I said carefully. It was strange, since a week ago I am fairly sure that I would have been horrified at the idea of controlling someone like I just had. Now, I was just irritated by the headache it gave me. The emotion behind it was absent.

  “Promise me you won’t do it again.” Beth pleaded and it occurred to me that the idea of being completely in someone’s control was affecting her badly.

  “As much as I want to, I don’t think I can.” I said quietly and I raised a hand to gesture her to wait as she opened her mouth to speak. “I will promise that I will never use it on you and that I will only use it as a last resort, but I can’t say what Sebastian will make me do and sometimes it may be necessary to save you or me.”

  “That’s all I can ask then I suppose.” Beth said. “If you ever use it for fun I won’t be around anymore.”

  “Sounds fair” I said with a slight smile of reassurance for her.

  “Ok, let’s go and find this Werewolf.” Beth said as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  I settled back into the seat and watched her from the corner of my eye as she started the car. It was an unsettling feeling to be able to identify how I was changing. Perhaps Anna was right and I would become the heartless monster she claimed all Vampires to be.

  The one thing I was sure of was that I didn’t want that. I had no intention of being that sort of monster and I would have to watch myself carefully to ensure I didn’t go down that route.

  “Promise me something.” I said quietly and carefully to Beth.

  “What?”

  “Promise me that you will always tell me when I am doing something I shouldn’t. I don’t think I will be able to always tell. You may need to be my conscience.”

  “Well that may be tough since I am hardly the most moral person, but I’ll do my best.” Beth said with a low laugh.

  “That’ll have to do.” I said and turned to stare out the window to watch the night time world go by.

  Chapter 14

  The smell of wet dog covered everything. It overwhelmed the smell of manure that would otherwise fill the senses for anyone who visited the farm. I couldn’t seem to rid myself of the odour though Beth hadn’t noticed it.

  “Are you sure this is the place?” she asked in a whisper and I nodded emphatically.

  We were crouched in the thick bushes on the edge of the property and had been watching the farmhouse for the last twenty minutes. No movement or lights had been seen and considering that it was close to four in the morning, I imagined any sane person would be asleep.

  Beth had parked her car on the main road and we had walked the few hundred metres down the weed choked dirt track in silence. The address that Randall had provided was a farmhouse past the far edge of the city and its suburbs.

  It hadn’t been a working farm for a long time. Just a small patch of land and a barn with a few cows and sheep, or so I assumed from the pens set around the farm that seemed curiously empty.

  We had two buildings to watch. The first was the farmhouse itself. A two storey building of old s
tone with moss covered slate tiles on its roof. The windows were all single paned glass and at least two that I could see had cracks in them.

  The barn was made of the same stone though the large wooden doors looked to be handmade from various odds and ends of timber. Cracked and peeling paint covered the doors and window frames of both buildings.

  A battered old Ford Scorpio sat in the yard beside the barn. It was likely thirty years old with dull red paint and rust spots that were large enough that I could see them even from where we sat in the bushes. The large dent in the bonnet of the car looked new and I was fairly certain that it was my body that had made that dent as I bounced off of it.

  “So what now?” Beth whispered.

  “We check out the barn and then the house.” I said as I wrapped the scarf I had taken from Gemma’s apartment around my hand. “Ok pass me the knife.”

  Beth held out the silver carving knife with the hilt towards me. I reached out and gripped it with my cloth covered hand.

  “That ok?” she asked and I nodded.

  The carving knife was ten inches in length with six inches of that as the blade alone. Its blade was curved towards the end with one edge sharpened. The handle was bordered with delicate scrolls and whorls. It weighed a little under a pound and was as far as I could tell, completely silver.

  It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship and the first time I had touched it I had recoiled with blisters rising immediately on my fingers. It seemed that my Vampire state gave me a severe reaction to just touching silver and I had no doubt that a wound made with such a knife would burn like hellfire itself.

  With my hand wrapped carefully I could at least hold it, though my grip was not the best. Beth held up her weapon of choice. It was a silver knife that was even more ornate than the one I held, though hers would have been used for cutting a wedding cake only. It had no point so would be useless for stabbing but she could slash it across the wolfs flesh if needed and do some damage. Not that I intended for her to have to use it.

  “I’ll lead” I said and without waiting for a comment I crept forward quickly and as quietly as I could. My ability to see in the dark was a huge bonus and I avoided most of the fallen twigs that would crack alarmingly loud. Beth had no such benefit and must have stepped on every damn twig on her way to the yard.

  Her every step was followed by the sound of a snapping twig and I cringed with each sharp noise. By the time we had reached the barn doors my nerves were in tatters.

  “What’s that smell?” Beth hissed as she reached my side.

  “I think the wolf has been marking his territory” I said, “It’s all I can smell.”

  “No, not just the dog smell, it’s something else. Like rotting meat.”

  When she mentioned it I realised that I had smelt something else, layered beneath the manure and overpowering scent of dog was a distinctively rotten odour that I could swear I had smelt before.

  Unable to discern exactly where the odour was emanating from I pulled open the barn door and ducked inside. The smell hit me like a wave washing over me and I gagged. Beth followed me in and stopped as it hit her too.

  “What the hell?” She gasped and I waved her to silence.

  I was glad that she didn’t have my night vision for the scene in the barn would have been too much for her. It was almost too much for me and I had the whole Vampire lack of conscience going for me.

  We had found the missing animals from the farm. A dozen or more cows were stacked in a pile towards the back of the barn. Each one of them had been neatly disembowelled, their insides had seeped out and left a fly covered pile on the floor.

  It had been goats and not sheep in the other pens and they were scattered around the edges of the dirt covered floor. Their still forms had been savaged and lay torn and broken. Hanging from hooks tied to the crossbeam above, were what I could only assume to be the farmer and his family.

  Their deaths had been unpleasant and each of the three bodies hanging limp were covered with wounds made by teeth and claw. The father had been disembowelled much like the cattle, while his two sons, neither one out of their teens, had body parts missing.

  “Get out” I said quietly and with as much force as I could. “You don’t want to see this.”

  Without a word Beth left and I was thankful that she had listened to me. I stared at the bodies hanging before me and found no horror, no burning desire to avenge them. I felt nothing and I knew that was wrong.

  I should have felt outraged or horrified. I should have been screaming for vengeance or curled into a ball weeping but I couldn’t feel anything except a sense of loss at not feeling that. With a sigh I left the barn and rejoined Beth.

  “You ok?” She asked.

  “I’m fine.” I told her with a false smile that she probably couldn’t even see clearly in the dim light provided by the moon and stars. “Let’s go get the package and get out of here.”

  My fingers trailed over the bonnet of the car as I passed, moving over those bumps that were made when it hit my body and threw me from the bridge. I shuddered as I recalled what happened afterwards, the pain and the terror.

  I gripped the silver knife tight as I approached the door. It was a simple wooden frame with a glass panel. Two steps led up to it and when I pushed it swung open without a sound. I glanced at Beth and she nodded once with a look of determination on her face before I stepped forward and stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” Beth asked in a hushed voice.

  “I can’t go inside.” I said with some confusion.

  It was as though a sheet of glass covered the doorway and prevented my entry. I pressed my hands against the invisible barrier and pushed with all the strength I could muster but I couldn’t move through the doorway.

  “Another spell?” Beth asked as she stepped up beside me and looked curiously at my hands pressed firmly against nothing.

  “No idea. What the hell do we do now?”

  “Let me try.” She said and stepped through the door without any difficulty at all. She turned in the doorway and looked out at me. “What the hell?”

  “It must be another Vampire thing.” I said quietly. “Come outside. We’ll have to try another time.”

  “I can check out the house.”

  “Not alone you can’t, it’s too dangerous.”

  “Hey, I can look out for myself.” Beth said indignantly. “Besides, we don’t have much choice... did you hear that?”

  “Oh crap...” was all I managed before the Werewolf hit me from the side and I flew across the yard, the knife flying from my hand.

  “Stay inside” I yelled to Beth as I pushed myself to my feet.

  The Werewolf was bigger than I remembered. Its dark fur shone in the moonlight and its yellow eyes bore into my own. Thick strands of saliva dripped from its wide jaw and it growled a low rumble deep in its throat promising blood and pain.

  It circled me slowly and I was forced to turn with it to keep it in sight. Large paws with those claws that I remembered all too well tearing through my flesh, clicked slowly against the paving slabs that covered the yard.

  I knew that I needed to give Beth time to find the package and since I had rather unhelpfully lost the only weapon that I knew could do real damage to the hulking form of the Werewolf I did the best thing possible. I ran.

  A leap and a slide across the bonnet of the car and a dash alongside the barn. I could hear the beast as it bounded after me, breath heavy on the back of my neck as it almost caught me. Teeth snapping all too close to my skin. It was playing with me, enjoying the chase.

  The heavy weight of the wolf as it landed on my back blew the air from my lungs and I fell to the floor as its teeth sank deep into the flesh of my shoulder and I screamed. It picked me up in its powerful jaws and flung me like a ragdoll through the air to land with a cry of pain on the roof of the car.

  I had a moment to think of how pissed Sebastian was going to be with yet more of my blood covering a crime scene when those jaws clos
ed around my ankle and pulled me from the roof to land with a thump on the hard ground.

  Its eyes shone brightly as it stared down at me and I could swear its mouth had formed some kind of a grin. Its breath was hot and fetid and the saliva that dripped to my chest had flecks of my blood. It growled, low and deep and I could feel its excitement rise as it raised one huge paw before me with its claws out, poised to strike.

  A small part of me began to gibber in terror as I remembered what those claws could do but the larger part of me was full of rage. I gave a hiss of defiance and my fangs descended into place. Strength surged through my battered limbs and I grasped the paw and pulled it to my mouth before sinking my fangs into it.

  The blood was hot and vile, rancid to taste and I gagged and let it spurt out of my mouth rather than swallow it. The Wolf yelped in anger and pulled its paw back, an instinctive move.

  Its yelp turned to a cry of pain and shock as Beth sliced into the flesh of its back with her silver blade and it leapt away from her and off of me. I scrambled to my feet and ran to retrieve my own knife.

  I scooped up the blade and felt it burn my flesh, the scant protection of the scarf lost somewhere during the scuffle. I turned on the wolf and saw it crouched before Beth, its hackles raised and growling. She stood defiant and seemingly unafraid, her blade raised before her.

  With a cry of rage I ran toward the beast, knife held before me. It swiped at me with its paw and I felt the claw rake down my side but I was close enough to sink my knife into its shoulder. It roared in pain and I pulled the knife free to stab again and again.

  The Werewolf bucked beneath me and I went flying once again to slam into the stone wall of the barn. I caught one last glimpse of Beth as she lashed out with her blade and caught it across its face before I blacked out.

  Chapter 15

  A persistent prodding awoke me and I opened my eyes to find to my amazement that I was still alive. I groaned and looked around to get my bearings as I took stock of my physical situation.

  My back felt bruised and battered but I didn’t think anything was broken. The pain from the long gash in my side and the bite in my shoulder were bright spots of pain while my hand where I had gripped the silver knife was badly burnt. I could just about move my fingers but every time I did, it sent pain shooting through my arm and the skin cracked and oozed.