Vampire Mafia: Santa Cruz

by Jackson Stein

  Painful convulsions ratcheted through his body. He clenched his fists in agony as his nerves twisted into knots and his muscles contracted. He could not comprehend how his two brothers had failed…and now, including his father, he had lost three members of the family…

  Impossible! This cannot be happening.

  But he knew in his heart his brothers were gone.

  Constantino felt another vision emerging from deep within. He closed his eyes and pressed hard to utilize his extrasensory ability. The premonition flooded his mind like a distorted dream. He could again see a long tunnel swirling in and out of focus, but soon the vision began to reveal the infidels’ future location…in the chamber below his very castle.

  Very interesting…

  “So the fly comes to pay a visit to the spider,” he mused. “You shall pay with your lives…but first…you shall suffer.”

   

  ***

   

  Stanic walked into the candlelit ring that encircled the red pentagram and joined hands with his two friends. The tension in the room rose to a palpable level as Stanic gave a slow nod to the others, signaling them to begin reciting the ancient script written on the back of the motel rules and regulations sign. They spoke in trembling voices not much louder than a whisper:

   

  Habetur deos orare nocturno

  Noctis mutare di permittitis

  Patiaris nostri obscuro transmutatio

  Exigimus obscuro magno donum

   

  Stanic grabbed the bottle of red wine from the bag of supplies, opened it, and poured about half the bottle into the small black kettle in the center of the ring. “Not exactly a chalice,” he mumbled while shaking his head. He let out a long sigh, then placed three plastic cups on the floor next to the kettle.

  Rachel pulled out the vial of the virgin girl’s blood and removed the rubber stopper. She then poured the entire contents into the kettle, and they repeated the mantra in a monotone style now louder and with more conviction:

   

  Habetur deos orare nocturno

  Noctis mutare di permittitis

  Patiaris nostri obscuro transmutatio

  Exigimus obscuro magno donum

   

  Stanic picked up the three box cutters, passed one to Valentine and another to Rachel. He ran the tip of the blade through a candle flame to sterilize it, then, after it cooled, placed the blade across the palm of his left hand, closed his fingers around it and pulled. Blood spurted from the open wound and ran down onto the shag carpet. Searing pain shot up his arm.

  Valentine and Rachel followed in sequence, slicing open their own flesh, their blood dripping down their hands to their wrists. Stanic held his bleeding wound over the kettle, alongside Rachel and Valentine, and all three watched as their life force came forth and merged with the other elements. The only sound was the soft pitter-patter of droplets of thick liquid hitting the wine and blood mixture already in the kettle.

  They repeated the ancient incantation again, putting more passion and force behind it:

   

  Habetur deos orare nocturno

  Noctis mutare di permittitis

  Patiaris nostri obscuro transmutatio

  Exigimus obscuro magno donum

   

  Finally, Stanic lifted the kettle, swirled it around then poured equal portions into each of the three cups. He handed both Valentine and Rachel a plastic cup of the bizarre mixture, then paused in profound disbelief as he stared into his cup.

  At that moment, the weight of what they were doing sunk in…like a runaway boat anchor plunging deeper and deeper into a cold and dark churning sea. Stanic looked at his two friends and whispered with a slight quiver in his voice, “Bottoms up, you two.”

  As the salty and sanguine liquid touched his tongue, Stanic’s body shuddered, as if it was making one last attempt to stave off whatever dark secrets were being imparted.

  The warm mixture tasted coppery, then sour. Stanic knew if he thought about it too long, he’d gag on the rank concoction. Instead, he swallowed hard, forcing it down his throat. The others did the same, making sure to have swallowed every last drop, then they rejoined hands to recite the incantation one last time:

   

  Habetur deos orare nocturno

  Noctis mutare di permittitis

  Patiaris nostri obscuro transmutatio

  Exigimus obscuro magno donum

   

  Stanic saw Rachel’s body convulse then jerk forward, and for a second, he wondered how he could’ve let her do this. But she quickly regained control, and he reminded himself how strong her convictions were and that she would do what she wanted, whether he wanted her to or not. While they stood there waiting for something to happen, Stanic also wondered if they had made a mistake in performing the ritual or, even worse, had they forgotten something?

  Rachel suddenly dropped to one knee, crying out in pain. Stanic started to move to her side, but realized the elixir had taken hold of his body as well. The pain started in his head and shot down through his body. It felt like his skin was on fire…like he was being burned alive from the inside. His muscles tightened and he writhed in pain. He could see Valentine who was also bent over at the waist, apparently going through the same thing. He reached out and they all held each other’s hands vise-grip tight as the immobilizing pain escalated to pure scorching agony,

  But as the pain began to subside, Stanic felt his strength returning and attempted to pull himself up. Within seconds he began to feel elated, mesmerized by the onset of what could only be called a growing ecstasy. He released Rachel’s hand and lifted his own, as if to inspect something foreign. A palm he had never seen before. Something was definitely different.

  He was also focusing on the empty kettle…felt some sort of direct connection between his hand and the kettle. A magnetic pull. And he could actually see the kettle vibrating with energy. He turned his wrist to the right. And the kettle turned to the right.

  His jaw dropped open as the realization of his new power became evident. It was like there was a strange force pulling hard against his hand. He turned his wrist to his left. The kettle jerked about thirty degrees around to the left, spreading out the soft soil across the shag carpet.

  Fascinating…

  He raised his hand high into the air, stretching his fingers out wide and the kettle reacted, springing up from the shag carpet and straight into the air. It smashed into the ceiling, hovered there, then came plummeting down, landing not far from where it had been originally. He started to speak but Rachel spoke first.

  “You can move objects with your mind and it scares the hell out you,” she said with a mystified look in her eyes.

  “Yes,” Stanic said. “But how did you—”

  “Because I can read your mind.”

  A cold shiver crawled up his back.

  He and Rachel turned as one to look at Valentine.

  But Valentine just stood there with eyebrows raised and shrugged, clearly disappointed. But then…a faint blue light radiated from around his body, electrifying his silhouette with veins of light. And then…he vanished.

  Gone…

  Stanic stood there, wide eyed and speechless, looking at Rachel and then back to the empty space where Valentine had been standing.

  Another flash of blue light flooded the motel room. Valentine returned, standing behind Rachel and several steps away from the place where he’d been. He seemed out of breath but had a crooked little smirk on his face.

  “Well, looks like it worked, love,” he said as he walked back into the encircled pentagram.

  “I know,” Rachel replied without turning… both eyes still closed.

   

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

   

   

  5:15pm.

  The dusky night seemed to pulse with electricity. The stars had become more noticeable as  it got darker, speckling the skyline like tiny diamonds a
dorning the strip of black velvet horizon, hanging just below the looming thunderheads. They had work to do. Daunting, treacherous work. The full darkness of night would be upon them within the next ninety minutes.

  No one spoke as they walked through a billowing wall of condensation rolling up from the ocean and over the sand dunes, their black recon suits making them look like some kind of futuristic superheroes.

  A bashful moon showed its face through the dark clouds, peering at them as if intending to light their way with its hazy white glow. Thick fingers of the evening’s fog were already beginning to embrace the small seaside town as the cool swirling moisture took its nightly stranglehold on the coastline.

  They were each armed with a pistol hanging off one hip and a mallet hanging off the other. Their recon suits also had long pockets stitched along their backs, which were perfect for housing the foot-long ash stakes. The sleeves were wide enough to fit around Valentine’s cast and the zippered pockets in front held their other weapons nicely.

  They were as ready as they could be…

  Emotions raced through Stanic like an electrical charge. His new powers coursed through his veins, radiating wave after wave of exhilarating adrenaline bursts of strength and pleasure. The trance-like sensation seemed to be coming from deep within. They all climbed into the SUV but no one spoke for some time.

  The power seemed to be increasing in its intensity as it permeated each cell in his body, filtering down into the depths of his soul. His senses heightened with superhuman awareness. His vision was sharper, his hearing magnified with everything sounding crystal clear. Stanic vibrated with anticipation while attempting to harness a range of dark emotions bubbling up from within.

  “We’re cutting it kinda close don’t you think?” Rachel finally whispered, breaking the silence. “How far are we from the castle?” She gestured to the dashboard’s LED clock that read 5:18 p.m.

  “We’ll ’ave plenty of time, love,” Valentine replied. “We’re about twenty-five minutes out, which gives about sixty minutes for us to get in, get the codebook, and get out.”

  Stanic watched Rachel’s eyes ping to Valentine, then back to him. Even without her power of telepathy, he could tell what she was thinking.

  “If Constantino’s powers are anything like ours, no jail will hold him. We need to end this tonight,” Stanic said, voicing what he felt to be their shared opinion.

  “He’s right,” Rachel said in a low, breathy voice. Stanic watched her eyes as they began to illuminate with an eerie red glow. “We need to end it here. Tonight.”

  “Okay.” Valentine nodded after a long pause. “We take out Constantino tonight.” But then he added, “There are, however, several low-life thugs we can take off the street if we do retrieve that code book. There is a list. A group of street thugs who are either simple street criminals or brutal killers for hire, and I’ll be willing to bet the code book has enough information to put them all away for a very, very long time. The least we can do is try to clean up some of the Stelino mess and help the city if we have the chance.”

  “Agreed.” Rachel nodded.

  “Agreed.” Stanic confirmed from the back seat.

  They sped down San Lorenzo Boulevard, their silence continuing as they turned onto Highway 17. Stanic’s emotions seemed to be growing more intense as the sky grew darker. From the car window, he watched the tall green pines fly by as they raced up the steep mountain highway. They reached the mountain’s peak and turned left onto Summit Road, then came to Devil’s Canyon Gorge and turned left again, back down into the throat of the monstrous gorge.

  This road was smaller…even smaller than the last. It wound around jagged rock formations, diving straight down into the canyon’s dizzying depths. Huge oak trees grew from the steep canyon walls. The gnarled and exposed root systems jutted out overhead, squeezing the one lane road down even more. Their tires squealed as Valentine carved his way around the hairpin turns and the tiny road descended deeper and deeper into the heart of the huge canyon. The terrain formed a thick, fortress-like wall of overgrown vegetation, intertwining with soaring redwoods and rock canyon walls, enveloping them in a flood of darkness.

  Valentine switched the SUV’s floodlights on and they drove still deeper into what now looked like the world’s largest trench-like rock formation. Sheets of granite leaned in overhead, as their vehicle threaded around each perilous turn. They continued their descent into the darkness like they were headed into the center of the Earth.

  Or straight into hell…

  Finally they came to a long, paved driveway.

  “There’s the entrance road that leads back to the Stelino castle.” Valentine pointed toward the right-hand side of the road.

  The castle’s grounds were protected by thick stone walls that rose ten feet high and stretched three feet wide. Huge, hand-carved pillars stood at each side of the driveway and thick black iron gates barred their entry.

  An eerie mist twisted toward them like a ghostly serpent, manifesting out of the darkness, slithering up to greet them from the forest just beyond the castle’s rusted iron gates. Valentine drove past the ominous driveway in search of a place to hide the vehicle.

  Several hundred yards past the castle, Stanic noticed a small clearing. Valentine must have seen it too, as he pulled over, shifted the transmission into neutral, and then engaged it into four-wheel drive, low. He floored the accelerator and drove off the road’s shoulder toward the mountain’s steep grade. The soft, wet earth churned beneath the wheels. The SUV rocked to the left and then bounced hard to the right as it lurched forward, but soon the tires gripped the terrain and they powered up the mountainside, parking the SUV out of sight.

  The hunters exited the vehicle as more light rain floated down from above. Stanic was amazed at the way the group moved, like a trained special ops team as they approached the castle’s perimeter.

  A rustling sound whispered from above Stanic’s head. He looked up into the dusky gray sky and saw a hideous creature. He stifled a cry.

  The creature had ominous, leathery wings that billowed high in the air above its wide back. Large pointed ears rose from each side of the monster’s oversized skull. A wicked and toothy grin seemed to challenge all who dared trespass. The infuriated demon-like eyes stared down on Stanic and his two friends. Its scaly arms and legs were rippled with large, well-defined muscles that led to enormous paw-like feet ending at razor-sharp talons.

  The beast looked to be half man and half fiend and sat patiently, perched in a full squatted position on the edge of the castle’s gate, ready to spring forward at the first sight of any intruder. The ghastly stone-carved gargoyle unnerved the three as they stared up at it from the base of the castle’s foreboding exterior stone wall.

  Valentine took a small grappling hook from his belt, tossed it over the wall, and then pulled back on the cable until it caught on the wall’s upper edge. Stanic and Rachel helped Valentine climb to the top, and one by one, they ascended the thick rock wall, climbed over and landed on the soft soil without a sound. Valentine led the way as they began their slow assault on the castle though the misty wet foliage.

   

  ***

   

  After they made their way to the rear and moved in toward the castle’s back entrance, Valentine signaled the others to pause in the high brush as he assessed the situation. From their vantage point he could see the courtyard. A beautiful fountain flowed above an opulent swimming pool surrounded by large, hand-carved Roman pillars. The massive stone castle rose up through the mist just beyond the Romanesque aqua-blue pool, all dark and dead silent. Beyond a large stone archway and through a window, he saw Constantino pacing, a scowl hung from his face and his sunken eyes seemed to dart out, searching the cold night air.

  “There’s Constantino,” Valentine whispered, pointing toward the huge man moving past the window. “And he doesn’t look happy.”

  Valentine spotted an entry point along the castle’s right side that looked
as if it led down below the monolithic structure. He pointed toward the small iron and wood cellar doors that lay at the base of the castle. “Let’s move out,” he ordered like a confident field general while at the same time feeling a nagging uncertainty in his gut…and it was growing stronger. They moved toward the cellar door, crouching, staying as low as possible to the ground.

  Valentine arrived first and saw an old rusty ring attached to the center of the ancient-looking door. He pulled hard with his good hand, but the door didn’t budge. He bent to inspect the iron ring. It was a medieval locking device of some kind. He motioned for Stanic who held the lock with both hands, bending his knees for more torque, and turned with all of his might.

  The ring began to move until it had rotated a full 180 degrees. Then Stanic pulled back on the cellar door and immediately it opened upward with a muted cla-thunk. Quickly bracing their backs and shoulders against the heavy door they held it above their heads and peered inside. The entrance led to a dark staircase descending into the ground. Valentine motioned for Stanic and Rachel to go in first while he continued to hold the door.

  Stanic and Rachel did as he suggested, creeping across the threshold and into the murky darkness of the stairwell that led into bowels of the castle. Valentine watched as they faded into the shadows below. Once they were inside, Valentine paused, still bracing against the heavy cellar door above his head.

  His physical shape seemed to blur in and out of focus, then he veined with blue electricity…and blinked.

  Gone.

  The door now seemed to be floating on its own in mid-air.

  “What are you waiting for?” Stanic called back to Valentine.

  “I’ll meet you inside in just a bit,” Valentine answered.

  Suddenly the door swung closed with a loud thud, extinguishing all light, leaving him and Rachel entombed in the darkness.

   

  ***

   

  Valentine walked through the courtyard and around to the left side of the castle, listening to his boots crunch against the wet gravel. He looked at his feet, or where he knew his feet should be, but now he saw only the ground, his power of invisibility perfectly cloaking his appearance.