Immortal Coil: A Novel (Immortal Trilogy Book 1) (27 page)

When she first became aware of Randal’s distress, she staggered. She wasn’t sure at first what she was sensing, and when David glanced at her, she smiled, reassuring him she was okay. The first sensation had been a mere ripple in a pond. The second was a surging wave. When the tsunami hit her, she screamed and dropped to the floor. With Dylan’s help, she managed to regain her composure. She was dazed and confused. Her ability had left her for a moment, but soon returned little by little until she was once again able to pinpoint Randal’s proximity. Her heart grew heavy with sorrow and fear for him. When Antony returned from hunting, she told them what she knew.

“He’s gone to the lair.” She said this in a rush of words and tears. To aid in the confusion, she clarified: “Randal has done something rash. He killed an innocent woman. And then, in order to come to terms with what he has done, he went to the lair of the one who had created him. Randal wants to destroy the Dark Father but he’s too weak. He’ll be destroyed instead. Dylan and I will never get there in time. You have to go on ahead and stop Randal before it’s too late. It may be too late already.”

David rushed out the door at top speed, leaving behind a hot breeze in his wake. He arrived at the crumbling mansion quickly. Antony was not far behind him. They stepped up to the double doors together. Antony was slightly disappointed the doors were already open. He had been looking forward to kicking them in. David and Antony glanced briefly at each other then entered the house. They listened and heard the shouts and curses issuing from the basement. They followed the commotion until they found the door to the basement. The sound of struggles grew louder as they opened the door.

David and Antony descended the stairs and confronted the six vampires. Quickly glancing around, David located Randal, cornered and swinging an axe. He was only barely keeping his attackers at bay. They laughed as they toyed with him. His face had been disfigured by a multitude of slashes. Any one of the attackers could have disarmed him and killed him but instead chose to draw out their fun.

The Dark One turned to confront his new arrivals.

“Have you come to take my pet from me again?” he said. “He found his way home all by himself. I don’t plan on letting him go again.”

“You do not have a choice,” Antony said. “When we leave here he is coming with us, and you will be dead.”

“The two of you plan on taking on the six of us?” the leader said.

David snorted. “There were more of you as I recall,” he said as he pulled his katana from its sheath. “Where are they? That’s right: I already killed them.”

“And I recall you had a few werewolves the last time we met.”

“They are on the way.”

The vampire scowled. “They aren’t invited. This is a vampire’s quarrel, no place for your pets.”

“Noted,” David said and pressed the attack. Holding the weapon out in front of him, David swiveled his wrist and slashed at his opponent. The Dark One staggered back, just out of reach of the sword’s deadly edge. The other five vampire minions moved in to assist their leader. David slashed and cut the head off the first vampire to come into range. After that it was all he could do to keep the vampires from swarming over him. Antony moved in to protect David, but the vampires were moving too fast. Their skills had improved since the last encounter.

Suddenly it was like a bell rang on Wall Street; bodies flailed, arms waved, and a flood of vampires swept over David. Antony struggled to pull vampires off him, and managed to tear the head off a female vampire. David’s katana was wrenched from his grasp. He fought at the wave of bodies pressing in on him. He felt Antony’s presence in there with him as both of them struggled to get the vampire attackers pushed back. David felt teeth dig into his neck. He desperately floundered in an attempt to pull the vampire off him. He regained his stability and pinned the attacking vampire in a headlock. Looking into the evil eyes, David slowly slid his arm down the vampire’s neck, caressing his face one second before twisting the vampire’s head to the side and taking it clean off.

David then watched as his katana rose in the hands of someone else. He viewed the glint of the blade as it arced down in the direction of his head. Offhandedly, he thought:
No, fool. You’re holding it all wrong!

An instant before the katana found David’s neck, Antony dived into the path of the blade. The weapon struck Antony in the back, nearly cutting him in two. Antony screamed and fell away from the blade. He could do nothing more to help David.

Antony crawled toward Randal, struggling to keep his severed torso from coming apart. The katana wielding vampire turned his attention to the mortally wounded foe, raised his weapon, and aimed for Antony’s neck. Antony had no more strength to defend himself. Looking up, Antony saw his looming fate mirrored in Randal’s frightened, sorrowful eyes. Antony smiled sadly at Randal, wishing the small vampire didn’t have to bear witness to what was about to happen.

At the moment the sword began its downward arc, an ominous, snarling growl echoed through the dank basement. The Katana wielding vampire lost his head as Maggie bit through his spinal cord. The katana clattered to the cement floor in a cloud of vampire dust. Maggie and Dylan then tore into the remaining two minions without remorse. When the vampires were dispatched, save the Dark One, the two wolves stood panting. Antony was down with a gaping wound in his back. David, as well, had been waylaid. Maggie’s wolf padded over to Randal to protect him.

The auburn-haired wolf paced in front of the Dark One. The vampire did not seem afraid. He stood motionless as the werewolf moved back and forth in front of him.

Abruptly, the wolf leapt into the air with a snarl, its teeth in line to rip out the Dark One’s throat. But the wolf stopped in midair as the dark one reached out.

And punched a hole into the auburn wolf’s chest. When he withdrew his hand, Dylan’s heart was throbbing in the vampire’s fist. Dylan dropped to the floor on his back. Within seconds, the wolf had transformed into a mere man. A hole, raw and glistening with blood, had been opened in Dylan’s chest. His head listed to the left and his dead eyes stared at the wall.

Stunned, David retrieved his katana and staggered to his feet. Behind David the black wolf howled, and tears spilled from the human eyes.

The Dark One, fearing an attack from the remaining wolf, moved away from her. He kept the vampire with the sword at a distance as well; he knew when to retreat and that time was now. He walked backwards toward the stairs not taking his eyes off the group. He smiled at David and gave a salute, then started up the stairs. The fleeing vampire could not use his speed in reverse, but as long as he could keep his enemies in front of him, nothing could surprise him. If the other vampire moved with the deadly speed, he would see it coming and defend himself against the assault. Once on the ground floor, he would move faster than any of them could comprehend. He sensed the open doorway approaching from behind. So far the blonde vampire and the wolf had not pressed an attack. What were they waiting for? Did they fear having their hearts ripped out as well? The Dark One felt his foot touch the top of the stairway...at last.

As he stepped through the doorway at the top of the stairs, a thick and rusty blade burst through his chest. The shocked vampire looked down at the protruding appendage that had seemingly sprouted from nowhere in the center of his chest then it disappeared again. Startled and confused, he managed to turn around in jerky movements, as if he had no understanding of how his body worked anymore. Once he had managed to turn around, comprehension hit him. He stared at his precious Corpse Boy holding the machete.

The corpse boy spoke his first three words. The words were slurred and issued forth from rotting vocal cords.

In a garbled, tortured—but distinct—voice, the boy said, “Goodbye, Dark Father.”

Then he pushed the stunned vampire down the stairs.

As the Dark One stumbled back, David stepped forward and swiped his katana, severing the vampire’s head from his neck. The head flew against the side wall and burst into ash. The headless body continued sliding down the stairs past David to rest at the bottom in a dried and shriveled husk. The remains would continue to dissolve until there was nothing left to prove the vampire had ever existed. David stepped over the remains.

He stared up in stunned silence at the decaying boy standing in the doorway. David had no words as he watched the expressionless face, stretched taut with mummified flesh, contort into a grimace. David realized suddenly that the creature was actually smiling. The corner of David’s mouth turned up slightly, and he waved at the corpse boy standing at the top of the stairs. The moment passed, however; and the boy turned and disappeared into the rooms above. David continued to stare for a moment, shocked and confused. When the moment had passed he headed back to the basement where Maggie’s black wolf was standing over Dylan’s corpse. Randal brushed a hand across her fur, consoling her. Antony had already begun to heal and was leaning against the wall near the others. David walked over to him and helped him to the stairs.

In another section of the basement, to the left of the stairs, David saw with slight interest the collection of broken coffins. David, being a modern vampire who slept in a bed, found this ritual to be archaic and pointless. He turned to Randal. “Did you do that?” Randal nodded in the affirmative. David ruffled the boy’s hair, and then carried Dylan’s body up the stairs and out of the mansion. He buried the body under the massive oak tree in the back yard.

Maggie and Dylan had driven to the mountain resort. It was why they had arrived so late. They had kept their clothes in the car before turning into wolves. Now Maggie transformed into her human form, dressed, and made a marker out of wood to put on Dylan’s grave. She stayed by the grave after the others had gone. She stayed by the grave for days.

The woman came awake with a start. Her eyes were open but unseeing. Was she blind? No, she realized with some relief. She was just in the dark. She had no idea where she was. It was too dark to see but she could feel. There was a sheet covering her naked form. She was hungry, so hungry. She reached out and her hand hit the cold steel that was only a few inches away from her face. She pushed out at the steel over her head, felt it give under her powerful strength. She pushed until the bolts broke and the small door popped open. She pulled herself toward the opening and the drawer on which she lay slid out of the hole she was in and into the empty room. She climbed out of the drawer and realized she was in the morgue. She was having trouble piecing together the events of her last few hours. She remembered jogging in the park, getting ready to head home, and then the strange boy asked her if she was his mother. After that she could remember nothing. She pulled the tag off her toe and looked at her name: Sandra Pollack.

She pushed through the swinging doors and searched until she found a laundry basket with some clean hospital gowns. She slipped into one and continued down the hallway. In one room she found a tray with utensils spread out on a quilted blue cloth. This was an operating room. She picked up one of the utensils from the tray and held it protectively at her chest. She left the operating room and continued down the hallway. Florescent lights flickered overhead, confusing her, frightening her.

At a hallway intersection, the woman bumped into a maintenance worker. He apologized for his clumsiness.

“Should you be down here?” he asked grabbing her arm and intending to lead her to the elevators.

The woman lashed out with the scalpel in her hand and opened a two-inch gash in his neck, at the carotid. She covered the wound with her mouth and sucked. During her escape from the hospital, the woman came across two more hospital workers that met with similar fates. She left the hospital and pushed through the night in a blur of movement and crackling thunder.

She returned home where she lived alone.

She headed into the basement and began blocking out the windows. She needed a nest out of the sun.

She wondered what happened to that boy from the park. She decided she would look for him. Whatever had happened to her—whatever she was—it started with him. He would have the answers to her questions. How hard could it be, after all, to find a boy with fangs, who liked to attack people for no reason, and who would be the same age for the rest of his unnaturally long life.

Yes, she would find this boy and thank him.

Personally.

The blind woman watched as her dark companion finished his meal. When the vampire had drained all the blood from the prey, she used the knife at her side to decapitate the corpse. The body was then taken to a preferred dump site where it might never be found.

But then again, perhaps it would. It didn’t matter to the pair. They took precautions, but they didn’t live by any rules or standards. If the body was found, there would be no way to track it back to them; and even if it was traced to them, they were not afraid of man’s laws or his retaliations.

The woman and the vampire returned to the house on Lansdowne Drive. They watched from the darkness as the figures inside the house moved back and forth past the windows. There was a party. The vampire known as Antony and the child vampire were celebrating the graduation of the human offspring of the werewolf woman and the vampire known as David.

The man beside the blind woman grinded his vampiric teeth. She had warned him against that—she couldn’t guarantee they would grow back if he ground them down to nubs.

“They have no right to be happy,” he said. “Listen to them laughing and carrying on. I could go in there right now and wipe them all out.”

“Their time will come. As I’ve said before, we will know when the time is right to strike. And when that time comes we will crush them. You will finally have your vengeance.”

The vampire stopped grinding his teeth and opened his mouth wide to relieve the tension in his jaw.

“That time cannot come soon enough. Antony will pay for his past regressions, and I will have my day of vindication.”

“Yes,” the blind woman said. “That time will come sooner than you expect.”

The cloaked vampire’s shadowed face glared hatefully at the forms moving through the house. His vampire ears could pick up bits and pieces of their conversations, but he didn’t care about anything they had to say. After a moment, the calmness of the woman standing next to him caused him to become still as well. He trusted what she had to say. He accepted her words.

She turned to him.

“A war is coming,” she said and placed a hand on his arm. “Two sides. Yours and his. He will be making new friends, and new enemies, because even as his numbers will grow, so will yours. And when the time comes, you will get your revenge.”

The hooded figure nodded slowly, and they walked away from the house, leaving those inside consigned to their fate.