Operation (11 page)

She headed back to the parking lot finding the other vehicle still parked near her own car. She decided to walk down the trail leading to the water and after a short walk, found what she sought.

The man was young with beautiful dark skin, perhaps twenty, she thought as she spied him sitting alone. Next to him were two fishing poles with their line cast out into the river. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, he was wearing a set of headphones and humming loudly to the music his player was providing. She searched the area to ensure they were alone and not sensing anyone else, she moved toward him. He was oblivious to her approach because of the headphones he wore.

Although hungry, she also felt unusually playful in the new mood brought on by her…what would she call it? Her epiphany? Sure, why not—that sounded good and Christina smiled. This was going to take a while to get used to.

She picked up a piece of a branch that was lying on the ground, and tossed it near the man. It struck him in the leg causing him to look in the direction it had come. He removed his headphones and stared at her.

He had a strange look on his face, his eyes wide and puzzled at the sight of her and Christina remembered what she had done to her clothing. She had cut her shirt from her collar to waist, including her bra, exposing her blood splattered chest. She imagined she looked like some kind of monster from Dawn of the Dead, or some other movie young men would watch.

“Christ, lady, you scared the hell out of me,” he said loudly as he jumped up allowing him to get a good look at who it was that had snuck up on him. His eyes explored her and he said, “What the hell…hey…are you okay?” His voice was hesitant, thick with concern for her and her present condition.

“I’m fine,” she said, “I just fell down a bank over there and tore up my clothes. It’s just muck and dirt, not blood. I must look like a mess,” she said as she tried to re-button her blouse which she knew was too badly torn. She kept playing with the fabric in order to get his attention, smiling to herself as his eyes focused on her exposed breasts and lingered there.

The young man sighed with a heavy breath of relief. “Well, that’s good. I thought for a minute I was going to have to run you to the hospital or something.”

“No, I’m fine, but there is something I need,” she said as she released the pheromones that would relax him as well as raise his testosterone levels making him receptive to her enticement. His enticement was further manipulated by her molding the image he received as well as the perception by his senses. She guided his perception by using her hands to touch herself in certain ways, her hands stroking her waist and breasts were having a direct impact on his sexual attraction for her.

In a few seconds, his demeanor changed and he slid into the mood she required.

“Well,” he began, the look in his eyes reflecting his sudden and growing desire, “you just tell me what you need, and well…I will be more than happy to do what I can for you. Anything.”

“Can you give me a little hug to cheer me up?” she asked.

“I sure can,” he said as he moved closer without hesitation.

When he was within arm’s reach, she placed her hands on his shoulders and drew him into her fold. She could smell his sweat mixed with the hormones of emotional anticipation.

“That’s nice,” she said.

“Hmm, yes it is. I feel so…wonderful,” he whispered. “I could just stay here…forever.”

She knew he was ready. Her own body reacted to his as she felt her front canine teeth elongate in preparation to feed. She gently turned his head with her hands and drove her teeth into his neck. She felt him involuntarily jump at the pinch when she broke skin, but then settled down as the natural anesthetic further soothed him. When he relaxed once again, she began to suck his blood.

This process was routine for her and there were certain expectations each time that were fulfilled. With Jake, the added familiarity of his reaction and his sexual appreciation of the event always yielded a gratifying result to both of them. When his blood entered into her system, there was an exhilaration that went along with the satisfaction of hunger. Baring the sexual aspect with Jake, with other humans there was a similar reaction on her part every time, the exhilaration of the stalking, the final attack and the similar excitement of those she tasted. The experience of fresh hot blood as it entered her system. However this time it felt different.

She felt the effects of the blood entering her body and the nourishing effect it had upon her but there was nothing more. No excitement, no exhilarating feeling of having seduced the human so easily into a sense of false calm. There was no longer the pleasure from the manipulation and the potential destruction of the living being. It was just…food.

She wondered if this was part of her epiphany. She wasn’t sure if she liked that word or not but there was no doubt about the change. This giving up her sole reason for existence—getting revenge—would change her existence in nearly every way she began to understand.

After a few minutes she had had enough blood. She released him and helped him to sit down on the ground. He was still entranced in her pheromones, oblivious to everything around him. She allowed her thoughts to flow into his mind.

She left the man sitting at the base of the tree and walked the short distance back to her car. She felt a smile form on her lips and a sense of…she didn’t know how to describe it, perhaps a sense of neutrality about what she had just done. For the first time that she could remember, she did not have to fulfill any expectations beyond her sustenance or feeding. With Jake, there was a pleasing that had to be accomplished to keep him satisfied. With others, it had been about killing for the sake of killing. But this time, she had acquired what she needed with no commitments, no expectations, and without killing.

She arrived at her car and got into the driver’s seat. Starting it and putting the car into drive, she turned back onto the main road and headed back toward the city of Suffolk. As she drove, she felt lighthearted and it felt nice.

She remembered that she had promised John dinner tonight and checking the time she saw that she had just enough time to find a restaurant before they closed. She could get some food and then drive over to his house in Norfolk. She, of course, would not eat any of the food but she would just tell him that she had already eaten. It would work as an alibi for now.

Thoughts of John as well as everything else tonight seemed to jumble about in her thoughts as she drove. For the most part, she felt good about everything that had happened and was embracing the new outlook she found herself living in. However that did leave her with two potential areas of contention: Jake and her connection to the agency for which she had dutifully worked for the past sixty-plus years.

She would have to decide what to do about Jake. What would she tell him and would he understand? As for the agency, that would require something more resourceful. She knew that she would not be allowed to leave on her own accord. There would be no fond farewell dinner given to her because she had decided she had had enough of this line of work. The break would have to be decisive and believable.

She laughed at her own thoughts. Normally she had to be concerned about how to murder someone, and now she was concerned about what to have for dinner. Such domestic bliss. She only hoped that all of her decisions would be so simple. But experience told her there would be hard times ahead and she didn’t think those decisions and choices would be so simple.

Welcome to the world of the living…

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
HREE

The closer that Reese got to his home in Norfolk, the greater the fatigue of the past two days pressed on him. It was another of those rules of nature that he never understood, just like the one about having to go to the bathroom; the closer you got to home the more you had to go. In either case, it was as if there was some link between body and home.

The thought made him wonder about the girls and if they possessed some kind of link to their home and if they missed it. It had been different with Dimitri and his fellow vampires. They were able to rationalize what was happening to them. That thought also brought on a twinge of guilt because he had been the one who orchestrated their capture and removed them from their home. But there was nothing that could be done about that now.

But the girls had been snatched up and taken. One minute they are in the Balkans and the next they are in America with virtually no explanation about where they are and what is happening to them.

So much hurt and pain. It was devastating to think about these two little girls and what had been stolen from them. Not stolen. Ripped away described it better. He only hoped that he would be able to help them in some way. Maybe Christina could offer…but he couldn’t tell her. Telling her would only endanger her and he would not let that happen. She was special.

“Blow it out your butt,” he said to his own thoughts. “You will not win this time my friend. This time it’s going to work out, I can feel it.”

Reese pulled into his short driveway and got out of the car. He unlocked the front door and as he crossed the threshold, he had to admit that he hoped his mystery woman would be inside again as she was the previous night. Instead only silence greeted him and his thoughts quickly returned his fatigue.

He went straight to the bedroom, dropped his clothes on the chair next to the bed, and crawled in under the covers. He set the alarm clock for 11:30 pm; leaving enough time to get a quick shower before Christina arrived with dinner. He reached for his backup alarm clock and set that one for 11:35 pm, just in case the first one did not get him up.

As he settled under the covers, her image entered his mind, but he reluctantly drove her away. If he didn’t refuse her entry right now, he would never get to sleep. But thoughts of her were still preferable to the nightmares that haunted him. Tonight he could only hope that exhaustion would refuse entry to the horror of his greatest fear that drove him mad. Just as that thought dissipated from his mind, Reese was fast asleep and the dream began.

***

Reese awoke in the darkness to the touch of a cool breeze across his body. As he looked around, he found himself back amongst the ruins in Kosovo, near the town of Kacanik where the original Team of Darkness vampires had been captured.

But unlike that time, now he was all alone. There was no Navy SEAL search and destroy teams with him. No Lieutenant Johnson. No Idriz Lauki. He was totally alone. He was here on a different mission—a mission of his own.

Something was calling to him. Calling him to come inside the subterranean cavern. A voice that he not only heard in his mind, but that touched his heart or rather his soul. What he wanted was there—waiting for him.

He walked on feeling the earth crunch underfoot. He entered down to the crypts that he knew existed; the crypts that had held Andre, Iliga, Josip and Dimitri as they slept the sleep of the daylight. He also remembered the Navy SEAL that had lost his life after tripping the sabotaged door down in the underbelly of the tunnels. He had been a young man in the prime of his life…but that had been so long ago. At least he would not die again in the dream for that was the one thing that Reese did know. He would be the only one whose life would be in jeopardy.

Apparently he was expected because torches hung on the cavern walls illuminating his path down into the depths. Yet even with the burning flames around him, the air was cool and as it mixed with his nervous sweat and he felt a chill run up his spine as he descended. The torch light also added a new dimension to the cavern walls—deep dark pockets of shadows. When he was here before, their only source of light came from the night vision goggles they wore and John thought how he preferred their greenish glow over the dark shadows. He couldn’t see into those dark shadows because they denied the entry of light, batting it away with a veiled shroud of blackness. Those dark corners with their shadows would remain unknown to him and not help to reveal what had brought him to the caverns. What was it that called him here? What summons had been so carefully sent that it drew him ever deeper into this dark abyss? He didn’t know. It was just the overpowering sense that what he wanted—what he needed—was here. The answers to his questions were here.

He travelled further into the depths. The coolness that he had first experienced now turned to cold. He could see his breath mist in front of him as he walked; his mind never considering the impossibility of such coldness and he continued on thinking how easy it would be to get lost in the underground lair. He had turned corners so many times since entering the caverns he had no sense of the distance or direction he had traveled. He knew that he could never find his way back but also knew that his escape was something that no longer mattered. As he turned one more corner he saw the door to the crypt. He knew that whatever it was that drew him, or more truthfully, had summoned him was here.

Unlike the way it had actually appeared, in his dream the door was covered with hundreds of red roses. With the cold air that blew freely in the cavern the roses appeared fresh as if they had just been cut from the bush. They appeared to slither and merge with one another in fluid motion making him think of two bodies melding into one during the act of making love. He reached out to touch the roses and as the flesh of his fingers neared the beautiful petals of the flowers, several stems of the roses reached for him with sharp thorns. They attached themselves to his flesh with a sharp sting and John felt the warmth of his blood dribble from where the thorns had embedded into his skin like the sharp teeth of a vicious animal. The more he struggled to remove his hand from their grasp, the tighter their grip became and the more they tore at his skin.

Blood dripped from his hand and fell upon the other roses which responded by writhing with renewed vigor. Unlike what he had seen earlier and had equated it to the act of love, the movement now was more forceful and somehow more destructive in its nature. The roses that were not attached to his flesh used their thorns to tear at each other as if fighting for the drop of blood that landed between them. Petals of the beautiful roses flew into the air as the stems fought more and more violently. It was like a wild pack of dogs that had picked up the scent of a fresh kill and had decided to abandon their own activities.