Immortal Coil: A Novel (Immortal Trilogy Book 1) (11 page)

The house was gutted by the time they arrived. It was nothing more than a charred shell with blackened, windowless panes still dripping with moisture from the fire hoses. Small tendrils of smoke reached up to the night sky where the charred remains still held just that little bit of heat. The trio moved closer to the wrecked building. All the bodies had been removed from the premises, and the rescue vehicles were mostly gone. Only a few onlookers remained in the vicinity, with only one or two police officers still finishing up their investigation. If anyone noticed the Zephyr’s approach, no one showed any curiosity toward it.

Antony looked at Maggie as she stared intently at the house, hoping she could get some kind of reading on the vampire. Her grim visage told him all she could pull from the horror that occurred there were the echoes left behind by the sorrowful dead family. She sagged against David, exhausted from the emotional toll of the images the house hammered at her. David held her up. She turned to him and hugged him, burrowing her head into his neck. She began to cry. “I can’t do it.” She groaned, defeated. “I can’t stay here. It’s too much. We have to go.”

After a minute her sobbing subsided, and David led her back to the Zephyr parked at the curb. She lay down on the bed and rested. David drove the Zephyr back to their campsite as Maggie rested. Apparently, there was nothing more they could learn at the house.

With the Zephyr parked for the night, David and Antony sat at the table and talked. David said, “What should we do if we can’t locate the vampire?”

“We cannot give up. He is bound to make a mistake sooner or later and when he does, we will be there to stop him.”

“How many people have to die before we finally catch him?” David had not expected an answer, and he didn’t get one.

Toward the end of the night, just as Antony was about to retire to his steel box under the table, Maggie woke and joined them in the small kitchen of the mobile home. She seemed rested and strong, and ready to fight.

“I can’t track him,” she said. “Maybe because of his age or maybe because he feels no emotion; I don’t know. But…” She paused and smiled a little. “I can track the boy.”

Jake Shields was a lonely kid, and school was not easy on him. He was fourteen and pimple-faced. He was tall and skinny—lanky, his grandfather called him—and he wore glasses. Kids at school picked on him, and called him names with merciless intensity. They called him the usual names such as four-eyes and queer, but there were crueler names as well. Once, in English class he had written a paper where the words “does not” had been separated improperly to read “doe snot.” The teacher corrected this in red ink. Another student saw this correction and started calling him Doe Snot. The name stuck.

But probably the one name that bothered him the most was Bird Boy. The other boys chose this name for him because of his long thin nose, and because a boy in the gym locker room commented that his flat white chest and stomach looked just like a bird’s. Suddenly the name Bird Boy had replaced Doe Snot. Kids in the hallway would see him coming and squawk. “Bird Boy is coming!” He loathed the name, not because of this negative attention, but because it was a slight on his personal imperfections. These were physical traits about which he was very self-conscious. He wanted to be strong and physically fit, but just hadn’t been blessed with those specific traits.

But as Jake stood in his room looking at himself in the full length mirror, none of that mattered. Jake did have one trait that made him proud. Although his hair was always greasy no matter how much he washed it, and his pimply face was always oozing, he at least knew how to dress. His clothes were always pressed and wrinkle-free. He tucked his shirt in, and admired his flawless gig line. A gig line was the invisible line the clothes made when the tie, shirt buttons and fly all lined up perfectly. Though he may have been ugly, he was a snappy dresser.

Jake also kept his room as clean and orderly as his wardrobe. This pleased his mother.

And although no school kids called him friend, to say Jake had no friends was not entirely true. He had no friends at school, but once he sat in his computer chair and turned on the computer, he had many friends. In fact, he had three hundred and forty-six to be exact. Jake was the guild master of a very popular and productive guild in a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, also known as an MMORPG. And tonight he and his online friends were about to lead a raid on the enemy stronghold. Jake was now a level 85 undead hunter named Toade. Toade and his pet tarantula named Leggs, as well as 25 others, were about to go after the enemy faction’s king. As Jake donned his headset in order to talk with the other players via a Ventrilo server, he decided it was going to be an excellent night. What Jake didn’t know was that he was about to have visitors, and before he could make it through the enemy’s castle, he and his family would be dead.

He woke to darkness. And hunger. The hunger burned like hot ash in his guts, but it didn’t seem to stop there. The heat seemed to rip through his veins. He could smell the food he needed to quench this all-consuming, fiery hunger somewhere in the air, but it was far away. It was out there somewhere waiting for him. The food he craved with such ferocity smelled like coppery soup. The rich, thick broth called to him like a dinner bell ringing inside his head.

Something stirred beside him and he realized for the first time that he was not alone in the darkness. There was movement and a latch was thrown. Momentarily, another latch was thrown, and then a creaking of old hinges as the lid above him rose. It was at this point the boy understood he was inside a coffin, and the light that flooded over him felt like hot lava burning his eyes. He squirmed away from it.

“It’s only lamplight and cannot hurt you, boy.” The voice was close to his ear and unfamiliar to him.

After realizing he was not harmed by the light, the boy climbed out of the coffin. He still craved the source of that enchanting scent but he was also confused by the unfamiliar surroundings. He looked around the room, and spotted the door a few yards away. Beyond the door he saw stairs leading up, perhaps to safety. He rushed for the door, and managed to come within a few inches of the steps beyond the threshold, but then was tugged back. He landed in a sprawling heap at the feet of the one who had shared the coffin with him. The man laughed at him. Confused and embarrassed, the boy reached up and touched the rope around his neck.

The rope was tight but there was no feeling of strangulation. The stranger had given him the gift, and now he no longer needed air. The rope was there merely to keep him from wandering off. The other end of the rope was attached to the stranger’s waist. The man looked down at him with a smile that had no humor in it. As the boy turned away, to escape the ill feelings the smile invoked, the smile twisted into a snarl. “You will call me Dark Father.” The stranger looked at his creation with pride and happiness. He smiled but the smile faded quickly, turning first into a scowl and then a frown. “I have rules and you must obey them without fault or I will destroy you.

“Rule number one is: don’t talk back. If you talk back when I give an order, I’ll destroy you.

“Rule number two is: don’t look directly at me. Look away whenever speaking to me. If I catch you looking at me, I’ll destroy you.

“Rule number three: speak only to me. If I catch you speaking to our victims—or any strangers for that matter—I’ll destroy you.”

The vampire boy averted his eyes from the Dark Father. “I’m hungry.”

The Dark Father ignored the complaint and continued. “This last is not so much a rule as information you need to know so I don’t destroy you. I have an aversion to dots. They irk me and make me dizzy. Do not draw dots or make dot-like patterns of any kind. To do so would cause your death. Do you understand these rules?”

When the vampire boy nodded the Dark Father dragged him up to the main floor of the house.

The boy looked around at the cathedral ceilings and the lavish artwork hanging from the walls. This was no ordinary house; it was a mansion, but it was a mansion in terrible disrepair. The ancient wallpaper was peeling, revealing the plaster underneath, and in many places large chunks of plaster had crumbled away completely, leaving black cavities where anything could be lurking, watching, waiting.

The boy wasn’t afraid, though. He remembered that in this new world
he
was the monster. There was nothing left for him to fear; even in this dark and dingy place where shadows lurked like living things and sounds echoed like lost souls calling out their woeful songs. The boy tried to get used to his new surroundings, but every time he tried to examine the furniture or the ornate paintings on the walls, the Dark Father pulled him by his rope to somewhere else.

Father spoke to him, but the boy barely understood the words. He did understand that this strange man had promised the hunger would go away. The boy grew excited by the prospect of finally getting to feed. He was being dragged by his rope through the streets at a speed that caused the scenery around them to blur into light and dark streaks, and there was sound; a harsh crackling sound like rocks being struck together repeatedly. When Father stopped, he would sniff the air. If something didn’t please him he would move on. They stopped at several houses before the man smelled something that pleased him enough to entered house. He showed no fear of capture as he dragged the boy into the house behind him.

The boy looked around the living room. It was a nice, ordinary room. It reminded the boy of the house he had once lived in, but that was before the Dark Father had entered his life. There were two large fluffy brown recliners and a matching sofa. The walls were covered with large framed pictures of family members. One wall had a red brick fireplace built into it. On the mantle were trophies for bowling, hockey, baseball and other sports. On the other side of the room was an opening that led to another room. In that room there was a stairway leading up. From down the stairway a young girl approached. She stopped and stared at the boy standing directly in front of her. She stared at the thick rope around his neck with a confused expression on her face. She would have thought it was one of Jake’s friends, but Jake didn’t have any friends. It wasn’t until she glanced over at the strange man in the beat up trench coat that she finally understood she was in danger. She let out a short, frightened little gasp.

Cindy? The boy thought briefly, but then the rope around his neck pulled him nearly off his feet, as the man took flight after the escaping girl that might have been Cindy but wasn’t.

He tried to tell himself he didn’t know anyone named Cindy. That name held no meaning for him anymore.

The boy felt himself gliding across the smooth, perfectly polished hardwood floor. The strange man had cornered the girl in the brightly lit, clean kitchen. He stood over the girl as she cowered, and her opportunity to escape was lost. The boy wanted to say,
Run Cindy, run!
But by the time she could get her frightened legs to move, it was already too late. The strange man had reached out and pulled the girl into him. He ripped out her throat and drank the blood as it gushed out of her. The boy no longer thought of the girl as Cindy. Now she was food.

“No!” The Dark Father pulled the dying girl out of the boy’s reach. Blood splashed across the floor from her wound like cheap table wine. “She is not for you. You must wait until I allow you to feed.”

The sound of movement upstairs drew the man’s attention away from the girl. He drained her, dropped her to the floor and began to climb the stairs. The boy obediently followed. The upstairs landing was carpeted. The boy liked the feel of the plush carpeting under his bare feet. He looked down and saw with some distaste that he was leaving red smears on the carpet. He was tracking Cindy’s blood through the house.

No, he reminded himself. He didn’t know anyone named Cindy.

A woman wearing an evening gown and fixing a shiny silver earring in her left ear stepped out of one of the rooms and screamed at the stranger coming down the hallway. The vampire was on her at once, and her scream died as quickly as it had begun. The Dark Father didn’t share any of this delicious nectar with the boy, either. The vampire dropped the empty body to the floor and the boy licked his lips when he saw the red neck wound still oozing blood. He wasn’t allowed even a taste, and the Father was moving again, dragging the boy like a tail.

The hallway turned at a 45-degree angle with the banister over the stairs. This turn led to another hallway and a single door at the end. The man and his boy appendage walked down this hall and pushed the door open to reveal a man sitting on a toilet. His boxers were gathered around his stocking feet. The startled man didn’t know if he should stand or just cover himself. He attempted to stand and at the same time lift up his shorts. The boy caught a brief glimpse the man’s genitals swinging between his legs before turning away. Daddy wouldn’t want him to see that.

No, that was not his Daddy. He had no Daddy, not anymore. Now he only had the Dark Father.

The man cursed and pulled his boxers up to his waist, but the vampire took him without even so much as a defensive blow. His struggles were useless anyway. When the man was drained he dropped back onto the toilet at an awkward angle, hovered there for a moment, and then slipped to the floor in a heap.

The Dark Father dragged the boy from the bathroom before he had a chance to reach the food. They moved as one back down the hallway to the top of the stairs. There was a door here the boy had not seen originally, but was now being presented to him by the Dark Father in a gesture like a game show host revealing the grand prize.

The boy inched toward the door, and then a little more. He was suspicious because his every attempt to quench the burning hunger had been thwarted. He was afraid this was just another cruel joke being played on him.

The vampire pushed the door open, but before he had time to enter the room, he hissed and backed away from the door. The boy watched the caper in awe as the man fell backward and crab-crawled away from the room. He stopped when he saw how the boy was looking at him. The vampire stood and collected himself, but didn’t go near the room again.

“Dots,” the vampire said in explanation. “I hate dots!”

The boy merely stared dumbly at him.

The boy turned and looked into the room, where there were black dots covering the wallpaper. To the Dark Father they were swirling and expanding, threatening to swallow him up. He turned his back on the room.

“Go ahead.” Father urged the boy in a soft whisper. “I’ll wait out here. The dots hurt my eyes.”

The boy did not enter the room right away. He looked in and studied the surroundings. When he saw the other boy sitting in front of a computer on the other side of the room, he finally understood. This other boy was about fourteen years old. He was tall and skinny, and wore glasses. His head was turned away from the door and had not yet realized he was no longer alone in the room. This other boy had some kind of headset on.

The boy at the doorway studied the boy in the room for a long time. He turned and sought direction from the Dark Father.

Without looking into the room, the vampire said, “He is for you, my pet. Now you may feed.”

The vampire boy needed no more encouragement. He entered the room, and his eyes turned blood red. The boy sitting in the room turned around now. He saw the strangers and stood. The head gear snapped back and landed on the floor. They caused a distraction that the vampire boy used to act.

The vampire boy advanced. With the hunger driving him like fuel, the boy leapt. His groping hands reached for the other boy in the room. As the vampire boy made contact, he pulled the prey toward his open mouth, biting at his neck. Having only been turned a few hours ago, the vampire boy did not have fangs. His flat teeth were useless. And, although the taller boy was weaker, and did not have the speed of a vampire, he did have something more potent, adrenaline. He struggled and pushed the biting boy off him. His would-be attacker stumbled backward and landed hard on his back side. He jumped up and came at the boy again. But the vampire boy could not get close enough to bite into the prey’s neck. His teeth gnashed together with audible clicks and grinding sounds. The smaller boy grunted and moaned in frustration. He had a preternatural strength that he could feel coursing through him, but it did not seem to be enough. He would snap the bones in his prey’s arms if he wanted to.
Let’s see you hold me off with spaghetti arms,
the vampire boy thought. Just as the vampire’s mouth seized a bit of flesh, the victim screamed in pain and shoved one last time, sending his attacker sprawling.

The vampire boy skittered across the floor. Behind him, he heard the familiar mocking laughter of the Dark Father. The prey had crawled into a space between his bed and the dresser. The vampire boy let out a cry of frustration and fury that only fueled the mocking laughter from the Father again. The boy turned to the man in the hall way. The Dark Father’s trypophobia kept his eyes averted as the drama unfolded in the room with dots on the walls.

But with a sudden and blinding joy, the vampire boy realized that, although the rope was still around his neck, it was no longer attached to the vampire’s waist. Had he been released in order to hunt his prey or had the rope come loose by accident? It didn’t matter. His missed prize was curled up on the floor, crying. The vampire boy ignored the prey, finding the thought of freedom much more alluring.

Without really knowing what he was going to do until he did it the vampire boy bolted out the bedroom window with a crash of shattering glass. There hadn’t been any movement the human eye could have detected. There was just the crackling sound; like a paper bag being crumbled, a warm breeze and then the window blew outward.

And the vampire boy was gone.

The man in the hallway stopped laughing. He looked stupidly into the room that was now occupied by one less child, his dot aversion forgotten. What had happened? He growled his rage and advanced on the boy cowering in the room. Without looking around, the vampire snatched up the cowering boy and fled the house. The quivering, lanky boy squirmed, but to no avail.

Randal flew through the night seeing everything in the reddish glow of his vampire-hungry eyes. The people he passed were sometimes shocked, sometimes saddened (who would let such a small child wander the streets at night alone, they would think), but all who saw his blood-tinged red eyes were afraid. These people saw him gnashing his teeth and snapping at them like a wild dog. He tried to bite the people who reached out to help him, and the attempted good deed was forgotten. They always pulled away before he could make contact. He scampered away, searching for the ever illusive food source that seemed to be everywhere, but always out of his reach.