Demon Driven (7 page)

The main door unlocked itself at the
application of my hand to the reader and I walked in. It was dark
enough now for security to have transitioned to the ‘night’ shift,
but no one was immediately apparent.

Then I spotted him, across the foyer, his
back to me, peeking into the main ballroom. It looked like Trenton,
a tall, lean versatile vamp who was in Arkady’s circle of trust. He
didn’t turn as I approached, absorbed in whatever he was watching.
My scent must have reached him before I did, because he suddenly
stiffened and spun in a blur, his expression scared, his body
tense. What the hell?

I raised my eyebrows at him, then flicked my
glance at the door behind him. My connection told me with certainty
that my girl was on the other side of that particular door. I
motioned him aside, still puzzled at his reaction. At first he
didn’t move, as if reluctant to let me through. When my expression
hardened, he rethought that and suddenly fled in a burst of vampire
speed. What was he scared of? Me? That I could take him in a fight,
even though he was one hundred and forty years old, was never in
question. But I got along just fine with Trenton. My elated mood
gone, I moved to the partially closed door with the tiniest bit of
dread forming in my stomach.

The door, tall and made of heavy wood, was
well balanced and moved smoothly at my touch. I looked through.
What I saw didn’t make sense for about two seconds. Then it hit
with all the force of freight train.

Sitting on an ornate French chair with his
shirt off was the Central American emissary, Desiderio Reyes.
Straddling him, wearing nothing but a sleep shirt, which his hands
were roaming under, was Tatiana.

Chapter 8

“
Of all the liars in the world,
sometimes the worst are your own fears.” - Kipling

I knew it was her, even if she was hidden by
his mouth, which seemed to be attempting to suck her lips off her
face. At that moment she lifted her head and stared at me, her face
blank for a moment before hissing at the interruption.

I’m usually pretty quick on the uptake, but I
couldn’t seem to make sense of what I was seeing. It didn’t help
that I couldn’t breathe or that my heart had stopped in my chest.
Desiderio choose that moment to look my way, a contemptuous sneer
on his face. The rage exploded in a black geyser through my chest,
my hate focused on his dark features like a laser beam. My right
hand slammed forward on its own, a bolt of deep purple power
blasting the Latin vampire right out from under Tanya and slamming
him twenty feet across the room and into the wall beyond. His body
embedded in the sheetrock, his eyes unfocused and
non-comprehending. Tatiana was sitting on the floor where she had
fallen when my bolt dumped her on her ass. She shook her head to
clear it and looked my way. The rage had hardened into a cold lump
of coal in my chest and the glare I gave her told her all she
needed to know about where we stood.

Not willing to physically hurt her for any
reason, I turned my back on her and headed back to the entrance.
Lydia and Arkady were standing in front of my exit, a nervous
Trenton
[at]
their side.

“Chris, wait! It’s not what you think! No
matter what you saw….” Lydia managed to get out before I flicked my
hand at the three of them, sliding all three away from the door
without touching them. Spinning to her right, Lydia slammed her
hand on the emergency lockdown button. Bank vault thick bolts of
steel slammed into place around the edges of the titanium
reinforced doors, sealing the exit in armor.

Part of me seemed to be observing from a long
distance away, watching as some other part of me operated my body.
My right hand came up again and the deep purple, almost black aura
that shot from it tore through the locking bolts like a hard wind
blowing away smoke. In moments the steel had eroded to nothing. The
doors are designed to open into the house. My violent exit
'redesigned' them to open out, with one of them hanging from a
single hinge. I was distantly aware of Lydia and Arkady staring at
me as I stalked out into the night, but the black bubble of rage
was too deeply in control for me to acknowledge them.

* * *

I came back to myself sort of gradually,
lying on my back in the damp grass looking up at the night sky
where the field of stars was slowly being covered with a soft
blanket of puffy gray clouds. My head was pillowed on something
warm and furry. My cheeks were wet. The rhythmic sound of large
amounts of air moving in steady rushes, like some kind of great
forge bellows, filled my ears. Gathering my perceptions, I slowly
came to the conclusion that I was in Owls Head Park, my 'head rest'
the torso thick forepaw of a VW-sized spirit bear.

It was deep night, but I could see clear as
day. As I could for every night of the last seven months.

Since I had met
her.
My brain refused
to offer up her name, for fear the awful scene from the dining room
would replay itself on the movie screen in my mind. Turning my head
to look at my giant companion, I could see nothing of his form,
just his lava bright eyes gleaming in the dark, about four feet off
the ground. He was looking at me calmly, sending no images, just a
feeling of concern. I tried to remember when he had found me and
what I had done since I had left
her.
Just a hazy stream of
Brooklyn streets, a few people out and about.

My jeans pocket started to buzz. I pulled out
my cell phone and looked at the display. A text from Lydia. There
were seven voice mails and eight text messages
a
waiting my
attention. I turned it off and stood up to take stock. My clothes
were damp from the ground and a bus-sized hole seemed to have
opened up in my chest. My jaws ached like I had been clenching my
teeth and the black lump of rage had taken up residence in my gut.
Okwari watched me patiently from where he was curled up on the
ground, still not bothering to 'say' anything. What would there be
to say? What could there be to say?

“Eh, pendejo!
¿Qué haces
aquí?
”

The voice came from across the park where a
group of five males had pushed out of the trees lining the field.
Just enough high school Spanish remained for me to understand they
were questioning my presence. The five all wore loose fitting
clothes that hadn't seen a washing machine in days, each different
but all having the same black, blue, white and red beads on them.
They squinted at me, trying to pick out my form in the dark. I had
no such problem, their every feature clear and crisp. The black
lump in my gut wriggled at the tense hostility that their bodies
broadcast .

“¡Coño! No sabes nada, mojao
”
the
leader said.

I got none of that one so I requested a
translation.

“Huh?”

“Listen, fucker! This is our property!
Comprende? Understand?” he said, his voice thick with intent.

The speaker was actually smaller than all the
rest, the others being tall and heavy. They moved up close to me,
spreading in a rough semi-circle, just right for confrontation,
none of them noticing the invisible form of the giant bear. My
fight brain was calculating distances and noting which ones had
their hands out of sight. I noticed the rapid pulses in their
throats, and while it held no attraction to me, I still felt the
predator-prey thing that vampires live with constantly.

I had nothing to say, the young men’s menace
having little impact on my apathy.

Then one of them pulled a blade to get my
attention. It did. Or more accurately, it got the attention of the
roiling black lump in my gut that suddenly expanded to fill my
chest. Some primitive part of their brains was able to sense enough
danger to alert them, but pulling more weapons was the wrong
response. The absolute worst. I felt a smile grow on my face. It
didn’t seem to make them feel safer. Again I was an observer as
another part of me broke them. It really took no time at all. A
wrist crushed here, knee snapped there, some broken ribs, a
splintered clavicle and pretty soon the ground was littered with
writhing bodies. But it was too quick to satisfy the rage. When my
hand pulled itself back to take the kill shot on the leader’s
skull, observer-me objected, and the death blow stopped. Instead, I
let him drop among the others, his sounds of pain meshing with
theirs.

“Hey, what the fuck?” another voice yelled
from the same tree line and eleven more bodies rushed into the
grassy field. The lumpy black bubble was ecstatic. Eleven with
weapons meant that at least a few would die, right? I mean it
would, after all, be self-defense, wouldn't it? Part giddy at the
prospect, part appalled at my own eagerness, I prepared to face
them.

The rushing gang members skidded to a sudden
stop, their anger changing to fear as they looked behind and above
me. A quick glance back and up showed Okwari's lantern eyes fifteen
feet off the ground, his now-visible form blocking out the night
sky behind me.

“Madre de Dios; es brujo!” one of them
yelled.

Something about a witch?

Their motion reversed itself and leaving
their fallen fellows behind, they disappeared back into the dark,
screaming like schoolgirls at a Freddy Kruger movie marathon.

The black bubble retreated and I looked at
the groaning young men on the ground, unable to summon any sympathy
for them.

“Awwww! You scared them away!”

A low growl was Okwari’s only response.

My giant bear disappeared into a swirl of
wind, but I felt him with me the whole way back to my car. Little
gusts lifted my hair and tugged my tee shirt as I walked, head
down, finally letting myself think about Tanya. The memory of her
on the lap of that…man? Vampire. Male. It seemed surreal, coming
out of nowhere, no warning. Seven months of the only relationship
I’d ever had and it was gone within twenty-four hours of Reyes’
arrival. My attack had been instant and overwhelming. I had never
thrown that much force at an entity … hell, I didn’t know I could.
With any luck it would knock him human for a year. The twisted
black inside me wished I’d done more, the rest of me agreed. The
thing with the door was new as well. In my mind’s eye, I replayed
that image. It was easier to stomach than the one of Tanya and
Reyes. The massive steel bolts, designed to stop an attack by weres
or vamps or even a car, had blown away like dust, particle by
particle. Like a sandcastle taken apart by a leaf blower. A really
big leaf blower.

I shoved that thought aside, uncomfortable
with what I had been able to do. My thoughts turned back to
Tanya…Tatiana as I must now think of her. Tanya was reserved for
friends, those that knew her well. It turned out that I didn’t know
her at all.

* * *

My stomach rumbled. I shouldn’t have been
hungry, not for days, not with the nausea inducing image in my
brain. But the V-squared virus was not to be denied. I could either
feed it or it would eat me.

I found an all-night McDonalds within a block
of my car (and
her
house) and raided their dollar menu for
cheeseburgers (ten) and a chocolate shake. The Rastafarian behind
the register looked a little incredulous at the burgers, then shook
his head and went back to bullshitting with the skinny old dude
cooking in back.

I ate the burgers as I walked, a cold spring
rain falling from the purple sky, the blanket of cloud having fully
covered the stars. Dumping the empty bag and cup in a city garbage
can, I turned the corner of Willow Street, Brooklyn Heights. The
Tonka-yellow Xterra waited for me just up the street, about two
houses back and across the street from number 119. Shadows shifted
as I approached my car, pale figures sliding back from their
watchful positions. The front doors of 119 were patched with 4 by 4
pressure treated timbers, no doubt awaiting repair when daylight
returned. Two figures appeared on the front entry, one massive, the
other tiny. I ignored both as I key fobbed my door and slid into
the driver’s seat. They watched me, just visible in my peripheral
vision as I drove off.

Chapter 9

“
You’ll never know how your
face has haunted me. My very soul has to bleed this time, another
hole in the wall of my inner defenses…” – Disturbed
.

Sleep was impossible. Every time I closed my
eyes, images of Tatiana with Reyes would pop up, no matter what I
did.

So I headed to the basement, where a number
of residents had contributed to a basic weight training setup. As
long as I had access to lots of calories, workouts weren’t too much
of a problem. Weight training actually helped me add mass, but the
problem was getting enough weight on the bar to do much good.
That’s why I dropped my gym membership and pitched in with a few of
the buildings muscleheads. The advantage of having the weights in
my own building was late night workouts like this one. No one was
around to see me heft loads that would handily break world records.
I had contributed more than anyone else just so I could be sure
there was enough poundage. While I worked out I swilled protein
shakes instead of water. So with music set low but pumping, I
proceeded to pound myself into the floor, running an aggressive
circuit load until I was finally tired enough to catch an hour’s
catnap.

Mind numb, I got my gear together, dressed in
black combat pants, boots, black UnderArmour tee shirt and threw my
combat vest on my gear bag, ate a huge omelet and headed to
Manhattan.

* * *

The heliport in downtown Manhattan sees lots
of use. NYPD, Homeland Security, New York State Police all land
there on a regular basis. A dedicated air traffic control staff
handles flight approach at all hours, on all days of the year. Most
of the aircraft are of the Bell series choppers, 206B’s and a
Bolkow BO 105 that belong to the NYPD, State Police 407’s and 430’s
mainly. I was waiting near the flight control room, my gear piled
under my feet, leaning back with my eyes closed, listening to the
controllers talk. I felt/heard/smelled Gina come into the room, but
I didn’t open my eyes, preferring to pretend sleep rather than face
her eagle sharp perceptions.