Night Realm (33 page)

Too many questions and not enough answers. Wasted thinking in the end. Focus on what had to be done and what he
did
have control over, he told himself.

A thought occurred to him and he slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop on the side of the quiet road. He whipped his phone from his pocket, searched his recent calls list and pressed on the number of Angela Cartwright. Hopefully he wouldn’t be interrupting her during an awkward moment at this time of the evening. But what real choice did he have anyway? He needed to ask her something and he didn’t have much time.

“Ryan!” she said brightly into the phone. “Wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon.”

“Hi, Angela. Sorry to interrupt your evening, but I really need another favour as soon as you can. I’ve got a bit of an emergency. I’ll explain later.”

“You need more info from Becker’s files?” Angela deduced.

“Yes, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble. I can access them all here at home. What do you need to know?”

“That vaccine, whatever it was called.”

“APHV.”

“That’s it. I need to know where Becker has some samples of it. I need to get my hands on some.”

“You’re going to steal it?”

“If I can. I have too. I don’t have any choice. Like I said, I’ll explain it all another time.”

“Okay. I’m on it. I’ll call you back when I know something.”

“Thanks, Angela. You’re a good friend.”

“A friend who’s been waiting ages for you to ask her out on another date,” she confided openly.

Her candid admission took Ryan by surprise. “Really? I thought you were happy with the friends thing?”

“I am, but it’s not totally satisfying. When I look back I realize you and I had a good thing going. I think it might be worth rekindling and see if it goes to a deeper level.”

He smiled despite his current predicament. “I’m very tempted. We’ll see. I’ll have to get back to you on that one as well, once I’ve sorted this mess out.”

“Okay. I’ll hang up now and get you what you need and call you back. Bye.”

Ryan tossed the phone down on the passenger seat, gunned the motor and sped off. As he rounded another bend, he didn’t see the large pothole until it was too late. The left front tyre collected it flush and burst on impact. The steering wheel was wrenched from his grasp and the car went out of control, running off the road and down a ditch. It only stopped when it crashed headlong into a tree.

Fortunately Ryan had his seatbelt on, but the collision still caused his head to bang hard against the driver’s side window. His eyes spun around like tops and his neck twisted at an awkward and unnatural angle. Just before he passed out, the last sound he heard was steam hissing from the busted radiator.

*  *  *

Travis sat on his desk chair intently watching the bed. He was totally on edge and nervous about the events that were due to unfold. It had started just a few minutes ago. Tonight was not going to be a pleasant night for Chelsea.

He leaned over the
bed and listened to her breathing. It was now quite labored, coming in short, ragged breaths. Beads of sweat leaked from her brow. The bare skin of her arms was also covered in a sheen of perspiration, and Travis knew from first-hand experience that that would be the case all over her body.

Although she appeared hot, she was shivering. The start of the turn was often like a fever. The pain would set in soon
, followed by the nightmares and sense of loss as the human spirit fled her body.

At that moment Travis wished he could undo the process he’d set in motion. If he had Becker’s serum he’d probably inject it into her right now and hopefully stop the
turn. She was going to go through hell over the next hour or two and there was not a thing he could do to make it any easier for her.

An hour later and the nightmares started. Ch
elsea’s eyes were shut tight, but Travis could see her eyeballs moving rapidly around beneath her eyelids. Strange sounds and gibberish came from her mouth. She tossed and turned, shivered and shuddered. Every now and then her body would suddenly go tense, as if zapped with high voltage electricity. It would then relax before being jolted stiff as a plank again.

The sweat never stopped. It poured from her face now and Travis was there with a towel to mop up the worst of it. He could feel heat radiating from her. That meant the human life had not yet left her body.

Occasionally she broke into a coughing fit. Her eyes fluttered open several times, only to clamp tightly shut once more as the field of bad dreams enveloped her. Her body was wracked with pain and she kept contracting into the fetal position. Her facial features were contorted into a portrait of sheer agony. Travis watched as the colour gradually drained from her skin until it was left a whiter shade of pale. The human life force had left her now. The nightmares and fever were rapidly subsiding. Within another half an hour all the symptoms had vanished completely. Even the wound on her neck was completely healed without a trace.

It had taken several hours for Chelsea to turn, but it was finally over.

*  *  *

Ryan awoke to the sound of his mobile phone ringing. He opened his eyes and immediately felt dizzy. Coagulating blood ran down the right side of his face from a gash on his temple. His head ached and so did his neck.

He unsnapped the seatbelt, groaned as he moved his stiff and painful body, and searched the car for his phone. It was no longer on the passenger seat where he’d left it, but it was still ringing. Sounded like it might have fallen down the side of the passenger seat. Ryan leaned over and felt for it with his hand. By the time he’d retrieved it, the caller had given up.

A message saying there was one missed call appeared on the screen. Ryan accessed his recent calls list and saw it was Angela that had been trying to call. He sighed with sudden exhaustion, slipped the phone in his pocket, creaked the car door open and fell out onto the ground.

How long he’d been out to it, he didn’t know. He sat up, took a few deep breaths, then got unsteadily to his feet. The sensation of vertigo gripped him and he held onto the side of the car for support until it had passed. That took a little while. His head still throbbed and his neck was extremely stiff whenever he tried to turn his head in any direction. When he felt like he could stand without falling over, Ryan walked around the front of the car. It was now shaped like a V, with the trunk of a gum tree smack bang in the middle of it. He was lucky he hadn’t been killed, he now realized. It was his own fault for driving like an idiot.

He looked up at the black sky and saw lightning flash way off in the distance. A storm was on the way.

What to do?

He pulled out his phone and called Angela back.

“Are you all right? I tried calling you before. I have that information you wanted.”

“Are you busy, Angela? I’m so sorry to ask, but I’m in a bit of a bind and really need just one more favour.”

“You’re pushing your luck now, Ryan,” she said, but he could tell by her tone that she was smiling on the other end of the line.

Ryan filled her in on what had happened and did his best to explain where he was located. “If you could pick me up that’d be awesome.”

“Of course I will. Stay put and I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll leave right now.”

“Thanks, Angela.”

“Do you want me to call a tow truck for you?” she suggested.

“No. I’ll sort that out tomorrow or sometime. Right now I just need to get out of here.”

“I’m on my way.”

*  *  *

“How are you feeling?” Travis asked Chelsea.

She was now awake and sitting up in bed. The sweats were gone, as was all her body temperature. She was as cold as he was.

“I feel okay,” she said softly. “I think.” Her head hurt and she voiced that.

“It’ll pass in a little bit,” her boyfriend assured her.

“I feel really hungry, but I don’t want food.” She looked at him, feeling confused. “Does that make sense?”

He smiled. “It certainly does. You need to feed. You need blood, Chelsea.”

For some strange reason that proposition didn’t turn her stomach or make her nauseous. In fact it had the opposite affect on her. It awoke in her a deep craving for exactly that. Warm, fresh blood.

“Can I feed now?” she asked hopefully.

Travis was still smiling. “Of course. I’m a bit hungry myself. We’ll go out and hopefully find us a nice juicy kangaroo.”

Selena was watching TV down in the living room when they walked by, through the kitchen and exited the house through the back door. Selena just glanced at Chelsea with a knowing look and a slight smirk.

The first thing Chelsea noticed when they were outside was lightning flashing above the nearby hills. The distant rumble of thunder reached her ears. It was dark out, but everything was surprisingly clear. She was feeling good, apart from the gnawing urge to drink some blood.

Travis led her past an old barn and into the forest and it wasn’t long before he’d picked up the scent of a large animal. Chelsea, being a novice at this, was happy to let him trek the animal and capture it for her. While she followed Travis through the forest she practiced tuning into her newly-enhanced senses. Everything was amplified if she wanted it to be; eyesight, hearing, sense of touch, smell, and especially her instincts and intuitive faculties. It was like being human in a way, only everything was increased tenfold.

With a rapid motion that rendered him a blur, Travis darted off and launched himself into a swan dive. Chelsea heard, rather than saw, him crashing to the ground. As he wrestled with the beast it started to grunt and squeal and she realized he’d nabbed a pig. She rushed to his side. She’d been hoping for kangaroo, as he’d told her it was the richest and most satisfying blood next to human, but the pig would do. She just needed to feed and feed now.

He held it still for her. His hand clamped its jaws shut, reefing the head back to expose the throat for her. His other arm was wrapped tightly around its bulbous midsection.

Chelsea didn’t really have to do anything. It all happened naturally when the lust for blood overcame her. She felt the fangs start to extend from her upper jaw and it was an awesome sensation, one of pure power.

She knelt to the ground and buried those fangs into the beast’s throat without hesitation. The sharp points easily burst through the pig’s soft flesh. Blood rushed into the hollow tubes within her teeth and she sucked hard. Aided by the animal’s slowly fading heartbeat, the blood pumped out of the pig and into Chelsea’s body.

Within minutes it was all over. The pig was dead but Chelsea was very much alive.

“You’re now truly one of us,” Travis said with a smile.

It was nearly forty five minutes later before Angela found Ryan and picked him up. She drove him back to his Surfers apartment and joined him upstairs for a drink.

While she made some bourbons, Ryan went into his bathroom and cleaned the blood off his face. He checked the wound and decided it didn’t need a doctor’s attention. It would heal fine on its own, but probably leave a scar. He took a quick shower, letting hot water run over his stiff neck to try and loosen it up a little. It did help. After spraying on some cologne, he dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, then padded barefoot back out to the living room.

Angela, dressed in tight black jeans and a red top, was standing out on the balcony taking in the view by night. She had her drink in hand as she leaned on the rail. Ryan’s bourbon was waiting for him on the outdoor table. He picked it up and took a sip. It was ice cold as it slid down his throat. Combined with the warm bite of the bourbon it was a unique and pleasurable sensation.

When Angela took a seat beside him, Ryan said, “I think I’d better tell you exactly what’s going on, though I doubt you’ll believe it at first.”

Ryan went on to relate the tale to Angela from start to finish. He filled her in on Selena Thorne and all his dealings with her, his troubles with Chelsea, and finished off with tonight’s events that led up to him finding himself crashed in a ditch. To Angela’s credit she didn’t interrupt him once. She just listened patiently and let him talk it out. Even when he told her that vampires were a real entity, she didn’t scoff or ridicule and barely raised a dubious eyebrow. She was all class and he appreciated that.

Ryan went to get fresh drinks. When he brought them back outside and had gotten comfortable in his seat again, he looked at Angela and said, “So, what do you think about all that?”

Angela didn’t reply for a moment. She sipped her drink while she absorbed everything he’d just narrated to her.

“If you’re thinking I don’t believe you, you’re wrong,” she said eventually. “I know you’re not a liar and you’re certainly not delusional. If you’d said all this took place
after
your head knock, I might have been a lot more skeptical.” She sighed and took another sip of bourbon and Coke. “I’m having difficulty letting it truly sink in, though, I must admit. Who would have thought that these creatures really do exist?”