He led her to their room and closed the door behind them. “It’s been rather an eventful day,” he said.
“That’s the understatement of the year.”
He took her in his arms and held her tightly. “Are you alright? It couldn’t have been easy watching me die then seeing those two attack each other.”
“I’m fine,” she said, “and so is this little one.” She rubbed her belly as she spoke. “I was a little shocked at first, but I’m alright now.”
“Good.” He kissed her. “Did I do the right thing, bringing them here?”
It wasn’t often that JD questioned his own decisions and he rarely did so to someone else.
Sarah smiled at him. “Yes. We needed to know what they were capable of and no harm has been done. As long as Luke recovers, that is.”
JD took her hand. “Thank you. Come on. I’m not in the mood for work. I can finish my report later. Let’s go watch some TV or something.”
When Luke woke up, Anna was with him once more, as was Gabriel.
“How are you feeling?” Gabriel asked him.
He tried to sit up and winced. “Like someone stabbed me with a wooden stake. How cliché can you get?”
“Get over it,” Gabriel said. “At least I didn’t kill you.”
“I wish you had. I would have been out for longer and the pain would have been gone by the time I woke up.”
“I’ll remember that next time.”
“Next time?” Anna asked. “There will not be a ‘next time’.”
Gabriel ignored her. “Are you able to travel yet?”
Luke nodded. Then he noticed Scott and the video camera in his hand. “What are you doing?”
“Recording your recovery,” Scott said. “They said it was okay.” He indicated with his head that he was referring to Gabriel and Anna.
“Whatever floats your boat. Any chance someone can lend me some clothes? I feel half naked.”
“I’ll get you something,” Scott said. “You’re about my size.”
Luke looked him up and down. He was dressed in baggy jeans and a scruffy t-shirt. “I hope you have something better than what you’re wearing,” he said.
“Wow,” Scott said. “A vampire with a sense of humour.”
“You really need to meet more vampires,” Gabriel said.
“I meet enough. Though usually they die before I have chance to talk to them.”
Scott flashed him a smile then left in search of clothes.
————————————-∞————————————-
“Thank you for coming,” JD said from the stage as the last few people took their seats. It had taken a few days to organise the meeting with all Sanctuary trainers and leaders and Doc hadn’t told them what it was about.
“There’s something I need to tell you and I would appreciate you holding back your questions until I have finished.”
He then told them everything, other than the identity of the greater vampires or where they lived. He explained all he knew about the difference between greater and lesser vampires and described just how deadly greater ones were. He even spoke about his death.
When he had finished, silence greeted him.
“Please tell me this is a joke,” someone eventually said.
“I wish I could, but I can’t. Everything I have told you is true and all events I described really happened.”
“You really died?” Patrick from Sanctuary 7 asked. “What did it feel like to come back to life?”
JD had been expecting the question. “I’ll go to Sanctuary 7 soon and answer all your questions then. Right now we have more important things to talk about.”
“So what is your plan for killing these so called ‘greater’ vampires?” another voice asked.
“I don’t have one,” JD said. “They have promised to leave us alone if we leave them alone and I strongly suggest we take them up on their offer. Having seen them in action, I can guarantee that if we make any sort of move against them they will wipe out every last one of us.”
This statement caused shocked muttering.
“But you said there were only eight of them,” someone protested.
“From what I have witnessed, if just one of them was in this room with us right now, we would all be dead in under a minute, if that’s what the greater vampire wanted.”
“I find that hard to believe,” someone said.
“Not only did one manage to kill me, he stabbed me in the stomach with a blunt sword. He used enough force that the sword sliced through my flesh as though it was sharp. Need I say anything more?”
“So where do we go from here?” JD’s father asked. He wouldn’t question what his son had told him. JD did not lie and he did not exaggerate. If JD said one greater vampire could kill everyone in the room, then his father accepted this as fact.
“I’ve written a statement and Doc has sent it up the chain of command. I am strongly recommending that they call a truce with these vampires and I hope they agree.”
‘So you’re saying we stop hunting?” a woman at the back of the room asked.
“No. We continue to hunt the lesser vampires just as we have been doing. Not only do the greater vampires not mind, they actually like the fact that we do it. They hate them almost as much as we do. I am just suggesting that, should you ever meet a greater vampire, you leave them alone.”
“How do we know if a vampire is a greater one or not?”
“Trust me, they will let you know. If you do attack one by mistake, they have promised to disarm you only. They won’t hurt you in any way.”
“And you’re taking their word for that?”
“Yes I am. I trust them. They have had plenty of opportunity to kill some of us and have done nothing more than make us forget we saw them. They are not a danger to us unless we make them become one.”
“I don’t need to hear any more,” JD’s mother said. “As leader of Sanctuary 3, I’ll tell the hunters under me everything you have said and instruct them not to attack anyone they know to be a greater vampire. Unless I receive instructions from the chain of command to the contrary, that is.”
“Thank you,” JD said. “Anyone else?”
One by one, all trainers and leaders agreed to do the same thing.
“They don’t look happy,” JD’s father said when he approached his son after the meeting had broken up.
“I’m not surprised. It’s a bit of a shock to discover we don’t know anywhere near as much about vampires as we thought we did. And finding out that there are those out there we stand no chance of killing has made more than one person in this room today scared. The hunters are not going take this news well. I’m dreading what the reaction to my report will be.”
Spotting Patrick approaching, JD’s father said goodbye and departed.
“I have something for you,” JD said when Patrick was close enough. He took a thumb drive out of his pocket and handed it over. “Scott videoed Luke coming back from being almost dead. He thought you might find it useful.”
“I will. Thanks. When are you coming over so we can experiment on you again, to see if anything has changed since you died?”
JD phoned Sarah and the three of them agreed on the following weekend.
The next evening, JD got a phone call. His report had been read and he was being summoned to give his account in person. The woman on the other end of the phone didn’t say it would be an interrogation, but JD knew it would be.
Two days later, he and Sarah travelled to the city. Only JD had been requested, but there was no way he was going to leave her behind. He had never been to hunter headquarters before and it was an experience he didn’t want Sarah to miss out on.
It went better than expected. JD and Sarah were seated in front of a panel, all of whom listened carefully as he told them everything he knew.
They asked a lot of questions, most of which he couldn’t answer, but not once did anyone say they doubted he was telling the truth.
Though they had never met him, they had heard enough about him to know that they could trust him.
“You make it sound like we have no choice other than to agree to their terms,” one of the panel said. He was an elderly Asian man, whose grey hair had become so thin it was almost invisible.
“That’s because I honestly believe that to be true.”
“In that case,” the middle aged woman sitting next to him said, “we will agree. For now. We will send word to all Sanctuaries that there’s a truce between hunters and greater vampires.” She then shook her head. “I really don’t like that term.”
“Do you know how to contact them?” one of the other interrogators asked.
“Yes,” JD said. He had neglected to mention that Sarah and Craig worked with two of them. He also kept silent about the fact that Sanctuary 7 had their address. Patrick had agreed to remove it from their records.
“In that case, tell them that we will keep away from them if they keep away from us. If, however, they get in our way or interfere in a hunt in any way, we will take that as violation of the truce.”
“Yes Sir,” JD said. “Understood.”
When he was dismissed he took Sarah’s hand and left the room. “They really have no clue still, do they?” he said once he and Sarah were alone. “‘We will take that as violation of the truce’. What’s that supposed to mean? What exactly do they plan on doing if the truce is violated? It’s for our protection, not the vampires.”
“They had to say something like that,” Sarah said. “If not, it would look like they were surrendering.”
“Maybe you’re right. Let’s head home. Then you should give Anna a call.”
JD spoke to Luke, who promised to tell Gavin. He found the comment about breaking the truce amusing rather than taking it as a threat.
The two men then exchanged phone numbers and Luke provided contact details for both Gabriel and Gavin as well. They would need to get in touch if there were any issues on either side.
“Can I come and visit again sometime?” Luke asked. “I’m interested in seeing how you train your hunters.”
“Sure,” JD said. “As long as you don’t bring Gabriel with you. Something tells me he won’t be made very welcome.”
Luke laughed. “I can understand why. They would end up liking him if they got to know him, but I promise not to bring him with me.”
“You can come on a hunt with us as well if you want.” JD was curious as to how Luke would react to the offer.
“Can I think about it?” he asked. “While it would be good to see you in action, I’m not so sure I want to watch the killing. Also, I’ll need to get permission from Gavin.”
When he hung up, Luke went directly to Gavin and told him about JD’s offer.
“I think you should take him up on it. It will be an education, but I will leave the decision to you.”
Luke wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Watching Craig fight the other hunters had fascinated him, but he wasn’t sure how he would react to seeing it happening for real. A vampire, especially a greater one, was constantly fighting to keep their killer instinct under control and Luke was afraid that, should he attend a hunt, he would be too tempted to join in.
Possessive, isn’t he
When JD went to spend a weekend at Sanctuary 7, so they could experiment on him, Sarah went with him. Nobody commented that she was putting on weight, but they both saw the questioning glances.
“Here to humiliate us again?” Oscar, 7’s trainer, asked as the evening meal began. The last time Sarah and JD had visited, Sarah had beaten their best hunter so easily it had been an embarrassment to the hunters at 7. Also, most of them had joined in the 5am training session and had only just survived it.
“No,” JD said. “Patrick wants to experiment on me again now that I have died.”
That got everyone talking at once. They had all heard about JD fighting a greater vampire, but none of them believed that JD had actually been beaten.
“Silence,” Oscar shouted out and all conversation stopped. He then turned to JD. “As you can see, everyone is having a hard time believing that you really lost a fight.”
“Not only did I lose, but the vampire I was fighting was just toying with me. He allowed me to try my best to try to touch him with my sword when he could have killed me the moment he entered the arena.”
“So it’s true then,” one of the younger female hunters said. She sounded scared. “There are vampires out there that can’t be killed.”
“They can be killed,” JD said. “But I wouldn’t like to try. However, there’s nothing to be afraid of. They won’t harm us. I have their word on that and I believe them.”
“What was it like to die?” one of the scientists asked, wishing to change the subject. The thought that vampires could easily wipe out an entire Sanctuary had everyone on edge. “Can you describe it to us?”
“No,” Sarah said forcefully. “That is not a suitable topic of conversation for the dinner table and it will not be talked about in front of me. Got it?”
The scientist who asked nodded his head. The last time Sarah had visited, he had suggested they kill JD to see how long it took for him to come back to life. Sarah had calmly told him that anything he did to JD, she would do to him. He had believed her and was still scared of her.
They were asked about greater vampires and JD and Sarah told all they knew about how to become a greater vampire and how much stronger they were than normal vampires in every way.
“Can you get me a sample of their venom?” Patrick asked when JD had finished explaining how greater vampires can control human’s minds. “I want to compare it to yours.”
JD looked at Sarah, who shrugged. She had no idea how Luke or Gabriel would react to such a request.
“I can try, but I’m not making any promises,” JD said.
“Are you really sure they can control people?” Oscar asked. “I can accept that they can alter someone’s short term memory, as some hunters appear to have experienced it, but there’s a big difference between that and controlling someone.”
Sarah told him what Gabriel did to Katie. All of the hunters around the table, as well as some of the scientists, knew both Katie and Jonathon well and found it amusing.
“How did Jonathon react?”
“Let’s just say it’s a good job JD was there to stop him attacking Gabriel. I don’t think he would have left the house without a few broken bones, at least.”
JD then went on to describe, in detail, Luke and Gabriel’s fight.
“You can’t be serious,” someone said. “He really got stabbed in the chest and just pulled the remains of the Bo out of him before carrying on with the fight?”
“I’m perfectly serious. He then went on to win, before collapsing. When he came round he was pretty pissed that Gabriel hadn’t killed him as he was in a lot of pain. He hadn’t fully healed. Had he died, he wouldn’t have awoken until his body had completely fixed itself.”
“Those two must really hate each other.”
“On the contrary. They are cousins and seem to love each other very much.”
This comment made the room go silent again. If these two vampires were happy to kill each other, what would they do to any human who got in their way?
After dinner, JD and Sarah went to see Patrick in his office.
“I’m pregnant,” Sarah said and Patrick’s face lit up. Nobody outside of Sanctuary 14 had been told about Sarah’s previous pregnancy, or that she lost the child, but Sarah was finding it harder and harder to hide the fact that she was expecting, so she and JD had agreed to begin letting other people know.
They had started with JD’s parents, who had been thrilled. They didn’t believe that JD would be able to father a child so had been relying on Jonathon to provide them with grandchildren.
Sarah phoned her father, who lived in New Zealand, to tell him the news. While he had been very happy for them, his reaction had been a lot less dramatic as he had no idea a
bout JD being a vampire.
They had yet to tell Sarah’s mother. Sarah kept finding excuses not to go and see her. She still hadn’t forgiven them for eloping, which was the story they were telling everyone outside of the hunter society. In reality they had married in the hunter society church, along with Jonathon and Katie. For obvious reasons, nobody outside the society had been invited.
Patrick asked a lot of questions about how Sarah was feeling and if there had been any strange symptoms, anything to suggest it was not a normal pregnancy. Sarah assured him that she was fine and that Doc was keeping a very close eye on her.
The next morning, before the experiments on JD began, Patrick took some blood from Sarah. He wanted to analyse it to see if there was anything out of the ordinary. Doc had already done so and found nothing, but Patrick sounded so excited that neither of them had the heart to tell him.
JD wasn’t subjected to the same amount of testing as he had been the last time he had volunteered to be a guinea pig. This time they only wanted to see if anything had changed because of his death. They tested his senses then attached sensors to his body so they could monitor all of his vital signs and track his brain waves as he fought Sarah in the arena.
He fought her just as hard and fast as he had the last time they had been at 7, though for nowhere near as long. She tired more easily and he would not push her. Soon he would have to reduce her training and stop her going hunting. He was dreading that conversation.
He went on to fight four of 7’s hunters at once and, like last time, they didn’t manage to beat him.
All experiments showed that JD seemed no different after his actual-death experience.
The following day, Sarah found ways to occupy herself while JD described dying and coming back to life. She could not bear to hear him talk about it. Every time he did, the memory of watching Gabriel slide JD’s own sword into his body, then break his neck, filled her mind, making her feel sick.
The scientists had lots of questions and kept JD talking all morning.
After lunch, JD and Sarah returned to 14 and JD called Luke. He passed on Patrick’s request and Luke was more than happy to help out.
Greater Vampires Page 18