Damage Control

by Eric Alan Williams

  The doors to the third floor opened just as fast as it had for when he arrived to be greeted by Hannibal.

  The room he entered was white, medical technologies surrounded the young vampire, as did numerous medical examiners. To the end of the room, there were vaults, each one containing a body. The vaults had numbers, going from 1-95. The room was large, taking up nearly an entire floor.

  His heartbeat slowed. Now he just wanted to get this over with. Admittingly he felt cheated. He had enthralled fifty unsuspecting humans, now he thought that act was in vain. He got his mind back on track. "You said remains?"

  Grace didn't seem like she wanted to answer, nor did Hannibal. Sensing Hannibal the weaker minded of the two, Xairin decided it was time to use his sensitive abilities, heightened by his vampiric blood. Xairin's eyes squinted. The green in his eyes widened. Hannibal stopped moving. He felt compelled to tell the truth and answer any questions. Xairin repeated himself. "What remains?"

  Hannibal turned around to address him. "Two nights ago, a man was mauled by a wereleopard. He matched the description of the man that abducted you."

  "Why was he attacked?" Xairin asked. His face was genuinely curious.

  "The wereleopard, Jeffery Marsh, was to meet his boyfriend at some new gay bar in ward 86. His boyfriend, Ash Petting, arrived an hour early."

  Grace was put off. "He doesn't need to know the details."

  Xairin looked at Hannibal. "Go on."

  Hannibal looked at Xairin. "Ash Petting is a sensitive. We realized that your attackers are targeting sensitives. To be short, a man identified as Kellen Pennywise, offered to by Mr. Petting a drink. According to Mr. Petting, the man was rather insistent. After several attempts, Mr. Petting agreed."

  Xairin looked at Hannibal, "So this Mr. Petting, is a survivor?"

  Hannibal nodded. "His partner arrived at the bar and couldn't find Mr. Petting. His boyfriend Jeffery Marsh used his wereleopard senses to track down his boyfriend's scent. When he found him, he was in the process of being abducted into the back of a black airvan. He transformed and managed to maul one of the men to pieces that were attempting the kidnap. Unfortunately, the van got away. Mr. Marsh says that there were at least three others in the airvan before it took off."

  Mr. Petting's blood work came back positive for Scopolamine. The same drug found in every case we have seen linked to your case."

  Xairin was sympathetic to the news. He knew what it felt like being kidnapped. He was just glad that they managed to save the man before anything further happened. "Where are Mr. Petting and Mr. Marsh now?"

  Hannibal shrugged. "Mr. Marsh, unfortunately, is being detained until we can confirm the identity of the attacker."

  "You just told me he saved his boyfriend?"

  "From a kidnapping, yes. If he were using a gun, it would have been considered self-defense, but since he is an Immortium, the laws haven't quite caught up to that yet."

  "Are you frigging serious?!" Xairin asked with a demanding tone.

  Hannibal was still being compelled. "Yes, I am serious."

  "This way." Hannibal pointed.

  There was a black body bag resting on top of a slab that was hovering being propelled by green laser propulsion beams.

  Xairin gathered around the body, as did the agents. Grace had a curious look. She couldn't understand why Hannibal told Xairin so much of what he had. She stood there, dumbstruck. "Is there a problem?" Xairin asked, noticing her facial expressions.

  "No.. No, just let's get this over with."

  While standing there, Xairin wondered if he could help Mr. Marsh. He then remembered the first thrall he accidentally created, the lawyer Miss Delahey. He reached out with his mind while they were unzipping the body bag. He could feel her, it was working. He could feel her mind. She was sitting behind a desk, looking over a case. Xairin decided to implant thoughts into her brain. He willed her to seek out a wereleopard named Jeffery Marsh that had been recently arrested and offer aid pro-bono. The heavyset woman sat back in her chair, reaching for her head, it was pounding suddenly. All she could think about was Jeffery Marsh, a wereleopard.

  Xairin regained his focus. The body bag was opened. He got closer and looked down. The body lying there was brutally gashed and clawed. The face was left intact, but little else. So much of Xairin wanted to be the one to have done this, another part of him felt relief, but when he looked at the man's face. It wasn't him. He had the same color hair, and close to the same length, but it wasn't the man that called himself Greg. This was someone else. Xairin's eyes studied the face and looked at it with disgust.

  "Is it him? The man that abducted you?"

  Xairin looked over at the woman asking that question. Xairin's red eyes had asserted themselves. He was tearful. He shook his head. "This isn't him."

  "Are you sure?" Grace asked.

  "Very." Xairin looked down at the man's face. His head tilting from side to side. "He looks like him, but this is not the man that took me."

  Hannibal spoke up. "You said there were six of them, but you couldn't make their faces out? Correct?"

  Xairin nodded. "Yeah."

  Hannibal looked at Xairin. "This man, Kellen Pennywise, is a cybersecurity student at Mullins University. As you well know, our system has been attacked by a very aggressive computer virus. Based on our research, Mr. Pennywise had submitted a project to his professor, on how an AI, could be used to create a virus that thinks."

  Xairin looked at him. "So, he could be one of the men that attacked me?"

  "Given the same drug being used to spike Mr. Petting's drink, and the security breach, it would make this man a good suspect for the same crimes."

  Xairin looked at both of them. "Does he have friends? Any other associations that you're going on?"

  Grace interrupted him. "We are working a few angles, yes."

  Grace was grateful. "I do want to thank you for coming in Mr. Thunder. I wish this were your attacker. It may have helped Mr. Marsh's case being able to link the result that would have happened to Mr. Petting."

  Xairin looked at her with an angered look. He held back his fangs. "Probable result? This asshole lying here has to be one of the men that took me or is working for them. Hell, there may be more of them, and if there are, then that means, there are more than just that one guy who kidnapped me, out there kidnapping others!"

  Xairin crossed his arms and stood there snarling. "These men have taken how many now? How many!?" He looked at Hannibal.

  Hannibal answered complacently. "One hundred and eighteen have been confirmed linked to this case."

  "Apparently Bastion City is not the only hunting ground these sadistic individuals have targeted. There have been cases in York Town."

  Xairin's hands reached for his head as he tried to wrap his mind around this. He couldn't get over the fact that one hundred and eighteen victims, actual murders have been linked to his particular case.

  Xairin had to think for a moment. "So these bastards have been targeting sensitives? A few of my friend Topher's text messages said that."

  "They've also started targeting humans in dating apps that put certain races not being a problem. Sensitives, Vampires, Brutes, Werewolves, etc." Grace added. "It is a recent development."

  She added. "Specifically, they seem to only be targeting those who have put, Sensitive friendly in their preferences, my guess is they modified their pattern after all the alerts warning sensitives went out."

  "All gay men?" Xairin asked her.

  She nodded slowly. "So far, yes."

  Xairin took a deep breath as he looked around the room out of frustration. He walked over to an empty slab. He used it to balance himself as he leaned forward. "There's so much hate in this world. I'll never understand it. Why… How… How could anyone hate people so much to want to hunt down and kill a hundred and eighteen people? Why is this even a thing?" He asked out loud.

  Hannibal seemed the most sympathetic. "I don't know Mr. Thunder. I will never understand why anyone co
uld hate another human being, or even an Immortium or Aeonian enough to do such a thing."

  "I came down here…" Xairin's jaw slid side to side as he thought genuinely before speaking. "I came down here, hoping to possibly get some closure. I feel dirty, violated, like part of me was taken away from me, and I will never get it back. I will never get back what those men took from me. I close my eyes sometimes and can still relive what happened to me in that cold, nasty, shit-filled water they tried to drown me in, and then everything else they did to me." His eyes watered. "A hundred and eighteen people…" He closed his eyes, fighting to revert to a less human form.

  Xairin opened his eyes and looked forward. He was about to turn around. He saw something in the distance. A phone in a plastic bag lying beside another body bag just thirty feet away. It was a crystal phone. Xairin's eyes zoomed in. It looked just like the same model that Rory and Topher had.

  "We will get them, Mr. Thunder," Grace said.

  "That is a promise," Hannibal added.

  Xairin was uninterested in anything else those two had to say. He pushed off from the slab and walked around it, heading to the plastic bag in the distance. "Where are you going, Mr. Thunder?" Grace asked.

  "Mr. Thunder?!" She called out.

  Xairin walked over to the plastic bag lying on the metal table next to the slab with a body bag on top of it. A medical examiner was working at a desk right beside it. She looked up as the two agents approached. "Can I help you?"

  Xairin didn't respond. He grabbed the plastic bag. "HEY, THAT'S EVIDENCE!" The woman sitting there called out.

  Xairin opened the bag, he didn't touch the phone, he just opened the bag and sniffed. His eyes widened.

  He looked at the medical examiner. "Did this phone come with…" He pointed at whoever it was lying there. "OH, god... Did this phone come with this…" He gasped. "Who's lying here in this body bag?"

  The woman looked up. "I can't give you information..." Xairin looked at her with a vicious growl.

  "WHO IS LYING HERE?!"

  The woman almost fell back from seeing Xairin's red eyes and fangs.

  Agent's Hannibal and Grace came running. "Mr. Thunder?" Grace asked.

  Xairin turned around to the body bag and unzipped it. He unzipped the entire bag. He opened it. Lying there was a headless corpse, body parts. He leaned down and sniffed as a dog would. That's when he noticed the tattoo. "Oh god… Oh god no… No… No… Not you… NO… NO!!!"

  Xairin was panting. His heart raced to the point that if having a was possible for an Immortium, it would have happened right there. He grasped his chest, then his head, pulling at his hair. He knew exactly who was lying there on that slab. "No… Please, god no…. No… This can't be happening. God… why… WHY?!" Xairin fell to his knees.

  He began crying. His tears streamed as they had never before. His whimpering was loud, his deep voice breaking and cracking. Xairin's heart was breaking. It felt as if it was being ripped out of his chest and then crushed before his eyes. He couldn't catch his breath.

  A Message from The Author.

  I would like to thank you for reading book three in the Immortium Series. This book took me longer to write than books one and two because there was so much, I wished to convey and advance the characters, plus introduce some new ones. Xairin's story mirrors me in a lot of ways. I survived something kind of what Xairin went through, though nowhere near as severe as my main character has. For me, Xairin is a character that feels like a part of me. One that I personally relate too in so many ways.

  His story, has so much more to come, so many things left to tell, and I can't thank you enough, you, the reader, for sticking with me and following Xairin as he grows and overcomes some significant things that happen in his life. As I publish book three, book four is already a few chapters in. I humbly ask, that you, the reader, share my work with others, feel free to share my posts on Facebook as that is where I do 90% of my advertising, and I can't do that alone without my readers sharing, and liking posts, not to mention commenting on them to keep posts relevant based on Facebooks new settings.

  Don't forget to follow me on my Twitter,@AuthorEricW, and at www.AuthorEricwilliams.com.

  Sincerely Yours.

  Eric Alan Williams.