King's Blood: Vampire Descent (A Serial Novel, Part 4) (18 page)

“
Are you kidding me, Jack? There are patrols everywhere in the city. The daylight is too risky, not only because it will fry you, but it will also be easier for them to recognize you in the daytime.”

I looked at Hu with an intense gaze. “Do you have a car, a motorcycle...anything I can use to drive there?”

“I have a scooter in the garage,” he said.

“
Let me use it?” I asked.

“
Um...no,” he said.

Milton scowled at Hu. Hu drew down his eyes in submission. “Fine, the keys are on the counter behind me,” Hu said. Hu looked at Milton, “Your friend better take care of my scooter, it’s the only transportation I have. I am not going to take the bus to work. People give me weird stares.”

“It’s because you look like a stupid pothead,” said Milton.

I grabbed the keys and bolted toward the stairs that led down to the garage. Milton didn’t put up any resistance as he let me go without a challenge. “Jack?” he said loudly, immediately garnering my attention.

“Yeah,” I responded, halfway down the steps.

“
I’ll keep an eye out for you. We’ll join you at the campground once Lucretius and Kai finish scouting the area and meet us here...be careful.”

I nodded my head and ran down the steps toward the garage.

I grabbed Hu’s helmet which rested on his workbench and put it over my head. I made sure my gloves were tight and snug, as I didn’t want the emergent sun scorching my wrists. I sat on Hu’s red and white Vespa and pressed the garage door button on the wall. The door slowly lifted, revealing crisscrossing traffic, pedestrians on their way to work, and the blinding fog from the morning sun.

Chapter Eighteen

I arrived at the campsite after a thirty-minute ride outside the city. The morning sun was in full effect, and I was roasting inside my black leather outfit. I parked the scooter in the empty parking lot of the campground. It was apparent that the park was in the midst of its off-season, as there were only a few cars scattered in the muddy lot. I looked behind me and I found the camera that Hu used to find Holly. I gave it a playful wave as I dismounted the scooter.

Across from me a large sign read,
Seven Star Park, East Campground
, in English and Mandarin. There was a trail that led to the campgrounds up ahead which laid at the base of one of the seven mountains that towered over the park. The group most likely got spooked after seeing their faces on the posters spread throughout the city and ventured into the heart of the park. I lowered the tinted visor of my helmet and walked onto the trail in search for clues.

As expected, the campsites were empty. Small wooden signs greeted me with a single character at every chain. Unused woks straddled the fire pits. I scanned the surroundings of the lush park as I moved through the campsite. I approached one of the trails, which had a sign of a waterfall at its entrance.

After ten minutes of walking up the trail, I heard the sound of water splashing onto the rocks. I could see the mist from the cascading rapids emanating from the thick overgrowth of plants, trees, and flowers down the side of the trail. The main waterfall was just up ahead.

I heard the sound of an engine and looked behind me. I could see the parking lot from above. A small white produce truck pulled in right next to my motorcycle. Two black masked men got out of the cabin of the truck and one of them proceeded to go to behind the truck, a tall lanky man suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Milton?” I yelled down the slope. The man looked in every direction, finally focusing on me at the top of the trail.

“Jack?” Milton yelled back. “Have you found anything?”

“
No,” I said, lifting my visor and yelling loudly. “I’m going to head to the waterfall.”

“
Jack, we’ll go to the western trail,” Lucretius yelled. “Meet us here in an hour.”

I waved at Milton, Lucretius and Kai and continued my trek.

The water hissed as it dropped down to the gray stones below. Five-fingered ferns hung over the water and dropped spray from their green fronds. The water rushed down a thirty-foot drop as if the mountain used gravity as a way to expel its innermost secrets. I noticed a pair of green suede Puma sneakers resting on a large rock in the gorge below. Ted wore the same exact type of shoes.

I rushed down the muddy slope toward the pristine pool. My feet collapsed into ankle-deep sludge with every step I took. I almost fell face first into the large stones on the ground as I caught my foot on an upended root. I safely arrived at the shoes and I picked one up to look inside. It was a size 10. Ted wore a size 10. I immediately looked around the area of the waterfall, hoping for further signs of Ted’s presence. All I saw were trees, vines, and gorgeous flowers; some red, others pink, and hanging orchids, but no sign of anyone.

“Ted!” I cried out. “Where are you? It’s me, Jack.”

Nothing. Just the sound of the waterfall and songs from the birds in the trees.

As soon as I put the shoes back down onto the rocks, my nose picked up a rancid smell. It came from a thick grove of trees up above on a bluff to the right of the waterfall. I climbed up the rocks next to the waterfall so I could reach the grove. I reached for the top of the small cliff. I began feeling around with my right hand, trying to find something I could grab onto to lift myself on the top of the cliff. I found a thick root that was sticking up from the ground and used it to lift myself. As my head reached the top of the escarpment, the putrid smell of what was waiting for me on the bluff overtook my senses. I closed my eyes and began coughing. I felt instantly nauseous. The smell was so strong it seeped into my helmet and began to burn my eyes. I lifted my entire body and rolled onto the ground. I laid on my back and closed my mouth and nose. I gingerly stood up, slowly opened my eyes. A woman’s decomposing body was up against one of the trees surrounded by flies. Her haunting, lifeless eyes stared straight at me, which felt eerily familiar. It was Jenny. She had an arrow straight through her chest, which had impaled her up against the tree.

I immediately pulled the arrow from her chest. Her body dragged down the trunk of the tree, finally resting over my shoulder. I slowly put her limp body onto the ground. I placed my fingertips over her eyelids as I brought them down over her eyes.

I stared at the arrow’s tip. The way the metal absorbed the sunlight meant only one thing: it was made of fine silver. My eyes quickly darted around the area, trying to pick up the slightest movement or a shadow of a dead body. I looked at all the trees within the vicinity, seeing if there were other bodies stuck against them. To my relief there were none. There was still hope that Holly and Ted were still alive.

I knelt next to Jenny’s body. I caressed her cheek with my right hand and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Chapter Nineteen

An hour and ten minutes passed. I stood impatiently in the barren parking lot, tapping my foot on the muddy ground, as Milton, Lucretius, and Kai didn’t come to meet me as promised. The pale sun was beginning to burn through the afternoon haze and began to irritate my skin, as the black leather that covered my body was losing its skills as a buffer. A cool wind blew in from the north as I sat up against the scooter and continued to examine the arrow that took Jenny’s life; its shaft was the darkest of black and made of the highest-end, industrial-strength graphite. Only a well-funded marksman could afford such weaponry.

I placed the arrow into one of the scooter’s pouches and ran toward the western trail which led straight into a small, lush forest ravine which was covered in huge ferns, trees lathered in parasitic orchids, and hanging cascades of moss. I took off my helmet when I entered the lush vegetation and let out a deep sigh of relief from the heat inside the constricting plastic.

Removing my helmet also made it so I was sure that Lucretius would be able communicate with me without the obstruction of plastic covering my head. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my thin, black, cotton ski mask and tied it around my mouth and nose. I looked like a Chechen rebel, but it was the best I could do if I were to remain unscathed in the daylight. I stopped and bent down on one knee, hoping to hear Lucretius’ voice. Noises typical of a forest, like chirps and the rustling of branches were at first the only sounds that entered my ear. I closed my eyes, bowed my head and calmed my breathing—this time Lucretius finally broke through.
Meet us by the river. Turn right at the temple sign. Go up the hill. Look down once at the crest of the hill, we’ll be below. Be silent. It is not safe,
his voice said, echoing through my sinuses like the flutter of hummingbird wings.

Lucretius’s words elicited the urge to run. I wanted to meet them as quickly as I could since I became a paranoid pessimist after discovering Jenny’s putrescent body. I kicked up my legs and sprinted up the trail. I saw a brown, wooden sign with a white arrow ahead of me. As perspiration bubbled up through the fibers of my mask, I noticed the sign had a faded drawing of Buddha and the word
Temple
written across the wooden placement in large white letters. I immediately ran to the right of the trail, cutting across tall grass before I reached the hill. I climbed a few meters, feeling a rubbery strain riding up the center of my calves. When I reached the top, I peeked my head over the crest and immediately focused on the muddy bank below. As expected, the Jiang-Shi were on their backs and bellies, resting behind a large piece of porous driftwood. Lucretius was on his back and motioned me, with his gloved hand, to hit the ground. I ducked into the tall grass on the hill and quickly noticed two military jeeps across the river. The slender, well-dressed man standing in front of the jeep had an unmistakable hitch in his step as he walked over to a portly fellow who had his hands tied behind his back while awkwardly resting his lower back against one of the jeep’s fenders.

I left my bike helmet on the grassy knoll and yanked down on my black mask, making sure it was snug and secured. I slithered down the hill on my belly. Rocks and twigs stabbed at my midsection. I rolled and tumbled the last few feet, finally resting up against Kai’s black, hard-soled boots. Lucretius’s neck slumped and curled against an indentation on the large log like an amateur contortionist. He looked at me and whispered, “They have them across the river, but still no sign of Jenny.”

I stared down at the floor and looked up with a moment of brief silence. “She’s dead,” I said, my voice cracking. Milton pulled his attention away from the scene across the river and looked at me with an empty stare.

“
I’m sorry,” I said. “I found her body, shot in the chest by an arrow, impaled to a tree.”

Everyone looked downward for a moment as there was no time to reflect. I peered over the top edge of the mushroomed log, trying to snipe a closer look. The slender man with the familiar lift in his hip was Yi and the captured man in front of the jeep was Ted, whose face was dotted with bruises and cuts. His lower lip looked as if it was in need of stitches, as bloody drool dripped onto his collared shirt. I looked into the backseat of the jeep Ted was resting against, and Holly was sitting with her hands tied behind her back while her mouth was gagged with a white cloth. Havens Ling, dressed in a traditional Chinese army uniform, stepped out of the passenger seat of the other jeep, which had Alan and a young soldier sitting in the front seat and was parked right next to the river. Havens cleaned his crossbow with a red rag, while glaring at Ted with protruding eyes and flaring nostrils.

“What’s the plan?” I asked, in a low murmur.

“
We need to split up,” said Milton, wearing the same style of black mask I had on. He pointed at me and said, “You come with me. We’ll crawl downstream, cross the river and approach the jeeps from behind.”

“
What about Lucretius, and Kai?”

“
They will be fine...there is no time to explain...they  know what they’re doing, let’s go.”

Milton and I crawled downstream unnoticed like serpents in the grass. The river’s muddy water rushed with violence. No human could traverse its rapids, but a vampire, that was a different story. We swam through the rushing river with ease. Milton reached the other side of the river first and held out his arm as he reached for my hand. I gripped his arm at his wrists and he pulled me in with amazing strength. We clung to the stones and rocks that jutted out from the muddy bank and muscled ourselves upstream, hidden from the activity on dry ground. We managed to position ourselves right next to the jeeps as the current battered us with branches, rocks, and whatever else the Li River contained within its bowels.

We snuggled against muddy banks. Milton placed two of his fingers against his eyes, telling me to look out for the activity above. He tugged himself downstream along the muddy bank. I remained completely still in the river as I overheard Yi interrogate Ted in his Napoleonic cadence, “Where are the fucking vampires?”

“
I already told you; I don’t frickin’ know...”

Yi yelled at a man who was getting some supplies from the back of the other jeep. “Alan, inject this fool. Get him loopy so he can talk.”

“Havens, can you help me restrain Ted?” Alan said.