Operation (7 page)

The man’s heart raced as anger filled him.  He hurled the notebook at the nearest wall. There was a resounding as the leather made contact with the cinder block followed by a  sound as the book fell onto the floor.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

***

After Barkley left his office, Reese returned to his desk and the folder he had yet to review. He looked up at the clock on the wall and saw it was nearly 6PM. The realization that he had been awake for over thirty six hours reinforced the physical effects brought on by lack of sleep. Fatigue was catching up with him.

His mind was beginning to blur with the possibilities discussed with Barkley combined with the search parameters that had been put into place. If he opened the folder and looked through any additional information, he doubted he would even be able to comprehend it in any useful way.

He pushed the folder aside deciding that a few hours of sleep would do him good. The folder could wait. As it slid across the desk, the business card with Christina’s phone number slipped out onto the desk blotter. He remembered that he had started to call her earlier, but then Barkley arrived interrupting.

He picked up the card from the blotter and held it between his fingers. The flowing script of Christina brought a smile to his lips. He remembered when she had written it and what she had said about calling her soon because she might have to leave town for a while. But he didn’t have time tonight, and…

Agreeing with the subconscious thought, his hand went to the telephone and dialed the numbers. The phone rang once and he felt his stomach begin to tighten. On the second ring, he felt his hand nervously twitch and he grasped at a pencil to keep it still. On the third ring, he was poised to hang up the phone because he decided he didn’t know what he would say if she answered the phone. As the fourth ring began, he was ready to remove the handset from his ear, but then a voice answered.

“Hello?”

Reese hesitated.

“Hello?”

Say something, his inner voice demanded.

“Chris-tina,” he said struggling with the syllables as if he were learning to talk for the first time. He felt embarrassed and thought about hanging up. This wasn’t how he wanted to come across, weak and unsure and sounding like a wimp.

“John? Is that you?” she asked.

Busted, he thought. He had to talk now. “Hi,” he said, struggling to place some normalcy back into his voice.

“Hi yourself,” she said in return, “I’m very glad you called.”

Really, he thought to himself. Was she really glad?

“I thought I’d give you a call when I got a chance,” he began. “Sorry about the time, it’s been one of those days.”

“I know what you mean,” she said. “Have you had a chance to get any sleep yet?”

“No. In fact, that was what I was going to do. Grab a few hours and then start back at work. I wanted to call you…and…maybe when this is over, I…we…can…”

“I have an idea,” she said not addressing what he found so hard to say. “I need to take care of some things, and you need to get some sleep. Why don’t you let me bring you dinner later on tonight?”

“Dinner?” he asked.

“Yes. You know… food?” she said playfully. “You do eat, don’t you?”

“Ah…yes,” he said although his voice sounded skeptical. He tried to focus and calm down so he would sound normal.

“Well then, it’s all settled then, I’ll see you—say around midnight?”

“Midnight…”

“Yes John,” she said.

He thought he heard a little laughter in her voice. Stop screwing it up you idiot, he told himself.

“Do you always repeat everything?” she asked.

“Repeat…” he began then caught his words. “No—well sometimes…”

“You’re cute when you get flustered.”

“Ah…” he stuttered feeling himself flush with embarrassment. How was she able to tell what he was feeling—was he that transparent that she could tell by the way he talked how he felt? He didn’t know what to say to her statement so he decided surrender was the best avenue. “Okay, midnight sounds good,” he said. Unlike his previous words, these came across more confident and assured. Of course they did—he wanted to see her again.

“I bet your favorite is…,” she paused and then said, “Italian food?”

“Good guess,” he said agreeing with her because he really did like Italian food the best of all.

“Great,” she said. “Now that we have that settled. Go home and get some rest. I’ll see you at your house around midnight then.”

“Is it easier if I come to you?” Reese suggested, “Your place?” He proposed the suggestion because after his conversation with Barkley earlier, he was wondering if he wasn’t being watched. Or had his meeting with Christina already been logged in some report already? Did it matter? He wasn’t sure, but he wanted everything to go right with her and, not knowing what the true ultimate goal of the agency was, he wanted to play it safe.

“My place is…” she hesitated, “a mess right now. I don’t think you’re ready to see it yet, John. Maybe later okay?”

For the first time since he had met her, her voice did not sound confident but rather cautious, he thought. Was it that there was something he was not supposed to see or know? Perhaps she lived with someone—another man? Or worse yet, was she married? Or was he just doing the same old thing again and assuming the worst? How he wished he could just stop it. “Ah…sure,” he said.

“It’s not that, John.” she said.

“What?” he asked.

“What you’re thinking,” she said. “I heard it in your voice. I’m not…seeing anyone and I’m not married John. That’s not why I am suggesting having dinner at your place. It’s complicated and I don’t want to discuss it over the phone. Maybe tonight we can talk about it. Okay? Don’t worry, it is not some great mystery to be solved. You’ll see it…soon.”

“Sure,” he agreed.

“Now go get some rest,” she continued, “I want to talk about some things tonight. Some of my own research that you might be interested in and I want your full and undivided attention.”

Intrigued by her promise and suggestion he asked, “Such as?”

“You’ll see. I’ll see you tonight.”

“What no hints?” he said, enjoying the mystery of her.

“Nope. I like to keep you guessing. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay,” he said. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

Reese hung up the receiver. He couldn’t help the feeling that seemed to invigorate his tired body. He was excited at the thought of seeing her again and he felt it—and he liked it. Goose bumps actually made a cursory trip over the skin of his flesh before heading back to wherever it is they hung out when they weren’t needed. He thought of how wonderful a human emotion that was. Of course, he was sure that there was some scientific explanation that could explain the reaction, some neural to physical connection, but just this one time, he could not care.

He checked his watch; it was almost 6:30 PM. He would make a stop in the control center and see if anything had come up from the surveillance before he called it a day. As he rose from his chair, his eyes returned to the unopened folder on his desk. It beckoned him to just open it up and have a fast look.

“It can wait for a few hours,” he said out loud. He was surprised as this reaction was another first for him. Normally he would have given into the demands of his work over his physical needs of sleep or….well whatever might happen later this evening.

He felt himself smile at the thoughts while he pushed the folder to the side of his desk blotter and headed out of the office.

Maybe…

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

As Christina lay asleep in her bed, a smile crept onto her face. It was the sweet smile of revenge as she remembered the look of surprise on Alexander’s face all those many years ago as he watched his own blood squirt from the main artery in his neck.

***

She wasted no time. Using the element of surprise, she pushed him over onto the ground and straddled him. She saw his precious blood spilling from the wide gash in his throat. She smiled momentarily and then put her face to his throat and tore at his flesh with her teeth while swallowing his blood in long satisfying gulps: Just as he had done to her.

In those few seconds, she literally tasted her revenge against this man and against all the men that had abused and used her while thoughts of the perversity of the action was forced aside. There was something odd in the taste of the blood.

She had tasted blood before, the sucking of a cut finger or a slice from something sharp on the inside of the mouth which produced the coppery sweet taste. But what was entering her mouth, what she tasted on her tongue, was much different. It was vile in some way she couldn’t describe, perhaps old and musty or…decayed. And it was cold.

She could feel the cool liquid slide down her throat and into her belly. She imagined the process in her mind and saw the blood making its way through her bloodstream and heading to her heart. Along the way, the altered blood left a path of destruction within the body organs it came into contact with. The simplest explanation entered her mind with what was happening; the altered blood was in essence turning the organs off because they were no longer required. When it reached her heart, it felt as if someone had taken a sledgehammer and hit her with it in the chest. All the oxygen in her body seemed to escape, leaving her gasping for air.

She leaned back up to a straddling position and looked down at the creature. His eyes were closed as if he were unconscious. The gash at his neck was still open and oozed blood but the flow had slackened considerably and was beginning to slowly close back up. Her body convulsed with another sledgehammer blow to the chest and she fell to one side of him and lay on the ground.

She felt her breathing stop and she grew cold as her life passed away from her. Her eyes remained open and they were filled with the light from the full moon above. She remembered staring up at the silvery orb as she died and remembered how its image changed when she was reborn as a vampire. It appeared to be laughing at her in a mocking fashion as she gave up her life as a human being for the life of the undead.

When she returned to consciousness, the moon had moved across the night sky and was no longer in her field of vision. She rolled over on her side and saw that she was not entirely alone. The man known as Alexander was no longer there. However, in his place sat a wolf on its haunches looking at her. It was a large wolf, weighing about eighty or ninety pounds and each panting exhalation showed its chest was massive. Its fur glowed in the moonlight and its eyes shone as they stared intently into hers. She could see the circular aspect of the creature’s irises clearly as they glimmered in their sockets. As if acknowledging she was awake and examining it, the wolf growled and bared its long, menacing teeth at her. They outlined the large mouth; saliva dripped and oozed between its pointed fangs.

Normally she would have been scared at the predicament in which she found herself—now however, Christina felt nothing of the sort. Instead, she felt a surge of excitement course through her body. She thrilled with the anticipation of facing this creature in its own home but most of all she had the urge to kill. She wanted to kill the wolf—no, she had to kill the wolf. The beast growled and lunged for her.

She effortlessly caught the animal in mid-air and grasped it by its throat holding it securely with her hands. She was not surprised by the strength that flowed through her. Then as if by some instinct she didn’t comprehend, she knew what she needed to do and her body slipped effortlessly into the killing mode. She felt her nails become longer and sharper, like the talons of a hawk or eagle. They slipped easily into the flesh of the animal, slicing it open. She felt the elongation as well as the increased sharpness of her incisors with her tongue. The wolf’s warm blood flowed over her fingers and she could smell it. She could smell the life within the animal’s blood and she wanted it.

The smell of the blood was sweet, provocative and inviting. It drove her to an immediate madness—a near obsession for the liquid. She must have it now her mind screamed and she buried her face into the animal, her teeth and nails easily separating the flesh and exposing the veins and arteries where the blood flowed. She drank deeply feeling the animal’s warmth flow through her. It was invigorating beyond words. Her body responded to the blood as it made her feel…reborn.

As the animal neared death, she felt the change in its blood. It began to taste bitter and sour instead of sweet. Her instincts told her to stop: that there was danger in drinking the blood so close to death. The urge to continue was strong, but she dropped the carcass on the ground. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and saw the blood that came away. She stared at the blood with no remorse, no revulsion. This was life, her life and she gladly accepted it.

Life. She was now a part of life that included the stories she had heard as a child about the creatures that owned the night. She wondered how it would be, not being able to see the light of day any longer. Would she adjust? Of course she would. Like anything else, there were advantages to her new self as well as disadvantages, but most importantly, she was able to control her own destiny from this point on. If the myths were true, she would no longer feel cold, heat, pain or hunger as a human would. All of these would now become inconsequential, as would the emotion of love. She was dead for all practical purposes, and with it, she had buried any hope for love or human life, at least for the time being.

For now, she had to decide where she would go. Which direction would she go? Back toward the town or away? She turned in the moonlight as if trying to sense what direction to take. While doing so, she caught a glimpse of something on the ground. She walked toward it and saw it was a piece of paper with a rock on top of it to keep it from blowing away. She bent over and picked it up. Although it was dark except for the moonlight, she discovered it was quite easy for her to see in the reduced light. She smiled at this ability as she observed the scrawled words in a rough handwriting.