Fanghunters (Book 4): The Claw Order

by Leo Romero

  He grabbed it and eagerly stuck it in the lock. It turned nice and smooth. Eddie licked his lips in anticipation as he pulled the drawer open; small plastic wheels rolled with a whoosh. He was now faced with a multitude of files running from the front of the drawer to the end. He scratched his head. What was Rufus’ last name? He had no idea. There was no way he was gonna be down under ‘Rufus’!

  He began flicking through the files, hoping to find something significant. A hundred-odd faceless names stared back at him.

  Try Beauchamp, he told himself.

  He skipped A and went straight to B. He flicked through the files until he found Patricia Beauchamp.

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. Even Trixie had a file here.

  He wanted to take a peek, but he was pushed for time. He didn’t want anyone spotting him nosing around in people’s medical files. He skipped past Trixie and right behind her was Rufus. Rufus Beauchamp.

  Eddie nodded to himself. Vincent must have adopted him after his dad died. He grabbed the file, just as his heart began to beat harder. There was a nervous energy building inside him that was causing his hands to tremble. He felt like a thief, a burglar. It was a strange sensation, feeling that way in his place of work. But, in a way, that’s what he was. He was trespassing, examining private and confidential files on patients. He had no right, bar the desire to quell that nagging in his mind. He just had to know. He had another little look around, just to make sure he was alone before he turned all his attention back to the file.

  He blew the air from his lungs, and opened up the file, the rain thrumming against the windows in a steady beat. An x-ray of Rufus’ chest now stared up at him. Eddie grabbed it and held it up to the scant light. He wasn’t an expert in medical stuff, but when the x-ray of a guy’s chest showed little to no bone because of a dark cloudiness, then something definitely wasn’t right. A bullet, clear as day, had been highlighted by the x-ray scan. But, that dark wispiness still remained.

  Eddie replaced the scan and flicked through the file. Next was an assessment sheet, which described what happened to Rufus and what procedures were undertaken.

  Patient: Rufus Beauchamp. Patient ID: 788.

  Patient shot with multiple projectiles. Fybosponge absorbed one hundred percent of foreign objects coming into contact, diverting them away from major organs.

  Eddie’s eyes widened. Fybosponge? That was the black crap vamps had inside them.

  His jaw dropped. Wait, was Rufus a vampire? No way.

  He read on.

  Blood loss minimal as result of fybosponge interaction. Three of four foreign objects (bullets) removed safely from fybosponge with no damage to fybosponge fibers. Any foreign objects remaining are too deeply embedded within fybosponge to be extracted. Assessment indicates no harmful consequence of foreign object as they are encased with fybosponge.

  Broken skin as a result of penetration of foreign objects healed quickly and effectively. Patient went into a temporary shock-induced coma caused by the stress of being shot for the first time. Patient should make full recovery within days. Tests show no long-lasting damage present.

  Eddie shook his head. Miracles, my ass.

  There was something weird going on here.

  If Rufus is a vamp, why can he walk in sunlight? If he isn’t, why is his body full of this fybosponge crap?

  And a more pertinent question entered Eddie’s mind. If Rufus is a vamp, then whose side is he on?

  He rubbed his head in agitation. This was some seriously bad stuff here, and it brought Vincent’s loyalties into question. Vincent had to know all this about Rufus, and if he did... then whose side was Vincent Beauchamp really on?

  The creak of a door opening made Eddie start. He hastily stuffed the file back into the drawer and threw it shut. He spun the key in the lock, shoved it back beneath the plant pot, and tiptoed as fast as he could out of the reception area. He made it back out into the corridor just as one of the cleaners rounded the corner and almost bumped into him. The cleaner’s back straightened, his eyes popping like he’d just seen a ghost. He screamed in auto-response.

  Eddie winced under the noise. “Hi,” he said with an uneasy grin, trying to act cool.

  The cleaner grabbed his chest. “Who the hell are you?” he exclaimed, taking quick breaths.

  “Hey, it’s okay, I work here,” Eddie said, flashing him his ID attached to his lab coat. “Just doing a bit of... research. For a new project. That’s all.”

  The cleaner gave him a sideways stare, his eyes looking Eddie up and down. He craned his neck forward to get a better look at his ID. Eddie kept his grin on his face the whole time. The cleaner looked from the ID to Eddie’s face with squinted, studious eyes. Eddie tightened his grin.

  The cleaner loosened a little, but kept a firm gaze fixed on Eddie. “Just don’t be creeping up on people like that, pal,” he told Eddie. “Especially after hours. This place is spooky enough without that crap on top.”

  Eddie showed him his palms. “Sure thing. No more creeping. You got it.” He backed up and sidestepped past the cleaner. He gave him a pat him on the upper arm as he went past. The cleaner immediately checked his upper arm as if Eddie’s hand was loaded with paint.

  Eddie continued to sidestep the cleaner regardless. He backed up along the corridor, the cleaner’s stare following him around. Eddie kept that grin on the whole time. Once he reached the double doors, he gave the cleaner a wave and scampered through them. The moment he was out of the cleaner’s field of vision, he ran down the corridor, that fake grin melting off his face, his mind firing off in a million directions.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Eddie stormed out of Sun; he needed fresh air. His mind was spinning; a carousel of questions, anxiety, and confusion. Things were weird enough what with losing Dad and not knowing if he’d see Dom again or if their lives would ever be normal. The one crumb of comfort in the madness was having Vincent to trust and rely upon. If he was fighting the bad guys, that made him good, right? Well, maybe not. What if they were all bad guys just fighting it out, kinda like the Gambinos and the Corleones. If that was the brutal truth, then weren’t they dancing with the devil either way?

  He stared at the parking lot with dismay, despondency dropping in his heart like an anchor. His lonely car sat there waiting for him, the empty parking lot appearing to swallow it. Rain dripped from his hair and hit the concrete. He wiped it from his face. What he needed to do was find out the truth. Find out what was really going on. Maybe it was just all a misunderstanding. But, his gut was telling him otherwise. He just had this nasty feeling—

  “Hey, you Eddie?”

  Eddie spun in the direction of the voice. A rough looking guy in a waist jacket with nothing underneath was standing in the rain. His bare arms were getting soaked while his hands were stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. There was a dark gleam in his eye, something that reminded Eddie of the Father. He shivered.

  “Er, who wants to know?” he answered with a small shake of his head.

  The guy stepped toward him. “The name’s Troy.”

  Eddie crossed his arms over his chest. “So, you’re Troy!” he said with a look of distain. “Heard a lot about you, buddy.”

  “And it’s all true,” Troy said with a rueful grin.

  Eddie looked him up and down. “Yeah, I can believe it.”

  Troy glanced over both shoulders. “Seen Trixie around?”

  Eddie shook his head. “Her and my brother are on a mission.”

  “Mission?” Troy echoed, his face pinching in surprise. “That’s news to me. Where is it this time?”

  “Iraq.”

  “Iraq?” Troy exclaimed. He puffed his cheeks. “Glad I missed that one!”

  “Look, was there something you wanted?”

  “Yeah, I was actually looking for you.” Troy moved in closer.

  Eddie stepped back. He didn’t want this guy getting close to him. He was trouble. “What do you want me for?”

  “I
thought you might be interested in this.” Troy whipped a hand out from his pocket and held something up.

  Eddie looked down, laying eyes on the thing in Troy’s hand. It was a syringe, filled with a gooey green liquid. Eddie frowned. “What is it?”

  “Ambrosia.”

  “Ambrosia? What’s that?”

  “Was hoping you’d tell me.”

  “Why would I know?”

  “Weren’t you trying to synthesize venom for the Blood Order?”

  Eddie hesitated.

  Troy grinned. “It’s okay, buddy, I know the in’s and out’s.”

  Eddie cleared his throat. “Okay. So, what do you think that stuff is?”

  “Fake venom. It’s all over town. It’s turning people into vamps left and right in quick time. Seen it myself.”

  “That’s impossible. It would take multiple doses of that stuff to trigger transmutation.”

  “It’s happening right now.”

  Eddie just stared at him.

  “You better take it and check it out.”

  With a reluctant huff, Eddie snatched the syringe and held it up to the streetlights. That green liquid oozed up and down like slime.

  Troy began backing off. “If you see Trixie, tell her I wanna speak with her.”

  Eddie gave him a small nod. “All right.”

  Eddie kept his eye on Troy as he departed. The guy seemed to melt into the shadows. In a few seconds, he was gone from sight, like he was a ghost. Eddie shivered. He stared at the syringe once more. Ambrosia. His formula. Who was creating and distributing it?

  He glanced back at Sun with a glum face. “Looks like it’s double overtime for me.” He trudged back toward the building like a schoolkid on detention.

  PART FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Dom, Trixie, and Faisal were taken to an abandoned prison camp surrounded with razor-wired fencing. Dom guessed it was in use during the height of the Iraq war to detain the kinda guys who’d captured them. Now it was under Global Jihad control and the roles were reversed.

  The masked jihadis led them through the outer fencing and across the sandy ground toward the series of small prison shacks all lined in a row. As they passed, Dom caught glimpses of eyes staring out at him through the sliders in the doors. Glo-Ji already had hostages, Dom guessed they were journalists, spies, and Western insurgents; the people they’d been slaughtering on national TV. Now he, Trixie, and Faisal were about to be added to the collection.

  A jihadi opened up a shack and swung the door open. He barked an order at the others and all three of them were shoved into the shack. Dom’s eyes darted around, taking in his new surroundings. A dirty bunk sat to the right, a chemical toilet at the back, and that was all. The door clanged shut a second later and was locked. Dom raced up to the door and threw open the small slider embedded in it. He caught a glimpse of the jihadis marching off. He was left with the grim sight of razor-wired fencing and endless desert beyond that. Even if they could escape, they were in the middle of nowhere and probably wouldn’t make it through the night.

  This place is worse than Camp Crystal Lake.

  He threw the slider shut and stepped away from the door, running his hands through his hair. What were they gonna do now? They were screwed. The images on the TV of those guys being beheaded bombarded his mind like a whack from a baseball bat. Is that what was waiting for them? The thought was enough to make him wanna slit his wrists.

  He turned to face Trixie. She was sitting on the edge of the bunk, her eyes burning with trepidation. “Way to go, Trix!” Dom said to her. “You walked right into their trap. Thought you’d be smarter than that.”

  Trixie’s jaw dropped. “Me? If you two knuckleheads hadn’t been caught in the first place, then none of this would be happening!”

  Dom threw his arms over his chest. “Yeah, but you were supposed to be our backup. You know, like getting our backs! We put ourselves in the firing line and we got shot down. It was up to you to get us outta Dodge!”

  Trixie jumped up from the bunk. “Hey! I tried my best. What was it you said? ‘Leave the work to the men’. ‘We’ll be out in no time’. Don’t blame me for your mistakes!”

  Dom pointed a finger at her. “Yeah, but once you knew something was up, you should’ve been more careful!”

  Trixie got up in his face. “You shouldn’t have got caught. There were two of you, one of me!” Her eyes burned with fire.

  Dom’s mouth scrunched up, just as a bolt of rage blasted up in his chest. He went to say something back, when Faisal stepped between them.

  “Easy! Easy!” he said, his hands in the air. “We need to preserve our energy.”

  Dom cooled, flicking his eyes to the ground. He put his hands in the air and spun away. “All right, all right,” he said as he went.

  Trixie’s chest relaxed.

  Faisal gave his head a firm nod. “Hmm. Now, it’s no one person’s fault we’re in this... situation. We’ll all take responsibility.”

  Dom caught Trixie’s stare.

  “We all tried to do what was right,” Faisal continued, “but it wasn’t enough. Now, we are in the hands of Allah.”

  “With all due respect,” said Dom, “that doesn’t make me feel any safer.”

  “Maybe not. But we mustn’t let these demons defeat our spirit. No matter what they may have in store for us.”

  “And what do they have in store for us, Faisal?”

  Faisal’s expression turned dark. He gave the ground a grave stare.

  Dom nodded. “Yeah, exactly. We’re screwed!”

  Faisal shrugged. “Pah, I’m old now, it makes no difference to me. My time is near either way.”

  “Thanks, Faisal,” retorted Dom with an ironic nod. “What about us? We got our whole lives ahead of us.”

  Faisal took a deep breath and sent Dom a sincere stare. “God has given you both the strength to make it this far. No matter how hard they try, these demons cannot defeat the will of God. If it is God’s will for you to continue on your mission against these creatures, then He will save you. My time has come and gone. My flesh is weak, but you two are strong. God will be with you.”

  Dom huffed. “That doesn’t fill me with much optimism, Faisal.”

  “No, for my words are merely words. But you will see. God has a plan. And those lost souls out there are not part of it. Trust me.”

  Trixie flopped back on the bunk. “If all this is God’s plan. Vampires, war, and jihadis, then count me out.” She glared at the wall opposite her with a granite stare.

  Dom glanced from her to Faisal. Faisal gave him a sympathetic smile.

  Dom looked away. He leaned up against the metal door and gave it a soft thump. Faisal was right on one thing. They were all in the hands of a higher power. And that scared Dom shitless.

  Dom checked his watch. It was 9 pm. They’d been locked in there for over five hours. The air in the cell was stifling. His throat was dry, he was sweaty and grimy. He’d kill for a cold beer and a shower. But, that was more than wishful thinking. Anxiety electrified the atmosphere with a negative charge. They barely spoke to one another. Faisal was lying on the bunk, taking a snooze. His snoring punctuated the otherwise silent ambience. The old guy didn’t seem worried about his predicament. Dom guessed losing his parents and an eye at such a young age went some way to emptying his cup of ‘give a shit’. Add old age to the mix and a life of paranoia and vamp-fueled anxiety and that cup must be just about empty. All he had now was whatever desire he had left to fight vamps, and his religion and God. The big guy he was gonna be meeting soon. Like they all were. Maybe deep down, that was what Faisal wanted.

  Dom glanced from him to Trixie. She was sitting on the floor in the corner, her knees tucked into her chest. Her despondent eyes were fixed on a spot somewhere in the middle of the cell. Dom gazed at her sorrow with a heavy heart. It wasn’t her fault they were holed up in there. It was him and Faisal that messed up in the first place. Trixie had saved his ass before. He couldn�
�t rely on her every time he got himself in trouble. They’d all ridden their luck up till this point. By the law of averages, that luck was bound to run out at some point. It had been a good run, but finally, Lady Luck had deserted them. Caught by jihadi cats. If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be funny.

  He went and slid open the door slider. It was night time. Nothing in sight for miles beyond the fencing. No lights. Just darkness. There wasn’t even a puff of air coming through the slider from outside. The night was still. Hot, sticky and still. He reached into his pocket. He pulled out his lucky Zippo. He noticed a few scratches now crisscrossing it. He ran the tip of his index finger over them. It was scarred, battle wounded. He flicked her on. The flame burned bright. She was hurt, but still alive. The fire burned hard inside her. He wondered whatever happened to Mary Lou. Where was she now? Married? With kids? A nice house surrounded with a white picket fence? Maybe it should’ve been him who married her. Maybe he should’ve got serious about her. Then, none of this shit would be happening. He’d be sitting on his couch with a Bud in hand, watching the football with Dom Jr while Mary Lou was busy in the kitchen rustling up pumpkin pie. Wasn’t that the dream? Wasn’t that what people strived for? To fall in love, have kids, then spend the rest of your days getting fat on the couch watching repetitive, irrelevant sports tournaments year after year? Okay, so the vampires were controlling it all, but at least you’d get to have a smile on your face.

  Man, it surely beat being locked in an abandoned POW camp in Iraq with a crazy one-eyed dude and an ice-cold acrobat with attitude. All right, there was more to Trixie than that, but still, at least Mary Lou liked to have fun, liked to smile. Maybe he should’ve seen past the aesthetic exterior and looked deeper into her heart. Okay, on second thoughts she was shallow and a bit of a stereotypical cheerleader airhead, but at least life would’ve been easy-going. He glanced over at Trixie and something in his heart tweaked. Her hands were trembling. She was scared. And it hurt him to see her like that. Yeah, a girl like Mary Lou is fun to be with for a while, but once the hot looks start to fade and get old, then what’s left?