The Blood Order (Fanghunters Book Two) (12 page)

"Is it really that bad?"

Trixie gave him a vehement nod. "It's bad. But, they've got structure."

"Well
,
they would if they refer to themselves as 'Order'."

"Nice."

Dom smiled. He had another look around. A disheveled bag lady was pushing a shopping cart along a litter-smothered sidewalk at a snail's pace. He saw a furtive looking youth--his neck and face covered in tats--watching the street from a corner with beady eyes.

"Thing is," Dom said, "we're no different from the cops."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, we're basically busting heads in poor areas where the people in the rich areas--i.e
.
Order--are left alone. It sucks."

"Would you rather we did nothing?"

"No, but the reason these vamps exist is cause of the Order. It's the Order vamps creating these non-Order vamps by breaking their 'no-bite' policy. If we just took out the Order, then there'd be no vamps. Period."

Trixie nodded. "You're right there."

"So, tell me again why we aren't taking out the Order themselves?"

"Cause me and you would get our asses handed to us by midday."

Dom tilted his head to the side. "Yeah, but..."

"Is that not a good enough reason?"

"Well, yeah, but..." He broke off. "I dunno."

"Come on, drive." Trixie pointed at the green light above them.

"Huh?" Dom said and glanced up at the traffic lights. "Oh. Yeah." He got moving again; they rolled through the broken streets of the Windy City.

"Do a left here," Trixie ordered.

Dom did as he was told. He rolled into a thin street of boarded-up housing and derelict shops. A sudden tingle crawled up his spine. As he delved further into the street, the sensation intensified.

"You can feel it, can't you?" Trixie said, sucking in a shuddery breath while wringing her hands. She closed her eyes for a moment.

Dom nodded. "Sure can. They're here." He spotted a couple of kids riding along on rusty tricycles, their parents nowhere to be seen. How long before the gangs, or the drug dealers, or the vamps got hold of them? A year? Two? Why was it this stuff was allowed to happen? He then recalled what Vincent and Trixie told him about the Order being in control of everything. The truth was they'd allowed this to happen. They'd split society into pieces. Why? To control the population, while protecting themselves. If the people really knew what was happening to them and who was doing it, they'd take back their power.

Or would they?

"Why don't the people just rise up against the Order?" Dom then asked.

Trixie opened her eyes and stared at him. "Who'd believe a story about vampires running society? And what would they do? Enough people are comfortable in their lives with their TVs and their jobs to give a damn. Not everyone lives like this." She nodded her head at their surroundings.

"I know, but they're victims as well. We all are."

"They don't see it that way, Dom. As long as the football's on and MTV is still running shows, we could be run by flesh-eating aliens from Mars and they'd accept it."

Dom puffed his cheeks. "That's some scary shit."

"
Hmm-hmm.
Sure is. Besides, that's the very reason Order give us voting machines."

Dom shook his head.

They crawled along the broken street in silence, both of them soaking in the cracked atmosphere.

"Pull up over there," Trixie ordered, pointing over by a dented fire hydrant. Dom slid the car over, pulled up and killed the engine. From their position, the spine-tingling was at its strongest since entering the street.

Trixie looked over both shoulders, then stared hard into the side-view mirror.

"There's definitely a vamp around here," Dom said with a shiver.

"Yeah. Right in there," Trixie answered, pointing at a three
-
story building to their left. Dom looked over her shoulder at it. The brickwork was pocked and worn. All the windows on all floors were boarded.

"Okay," Dom said with a nod. "Whereabouts?"

"Basement."

"How many fangheads?"

"I've only seen the one come and go at irregular intervals. There's no specific timing with him. There could be more inside. There's usually a minimum of two for guarding breaks. So, I'm expecting at least one other inside. But since I haven't seen anyone else, and I've been scooping this place for a couple of weeks now, I'm thinking this could be a lone brood deal."

Dom nodded, just as a knot of nerves tied itself up in his stomach. He licked his lips. "So, what's the plan?"

"Same as usual. We go in there, kill the vamp, then go home."

"Yeah, sounds easy."

"Well, at some point I'll probably have to intervene and stop you from getting killed."

Dom gave her a sideways look. "Yeah, yeah. Just pass me the dart gun."

Trixie had another look around before she reached beneath the seat and pulled out a dart gun. "This one's loaded with holy water," she said as she discreetly handed it to him. Dom took a quick glance over both shoulders to make sure no one was looking. All he saw was an empty sidewalk. He took the gun, gave it a check, then stuck it in his belt.

Trixie then retrieved another gun from the glovebox. "And this one's got tranq, just in case our friend is inside."

"Well, let's hope he's not," Dom retorted, taking the gun and sticking it in the back of his belt.

"Try not to forget which gun is which," Trixie said.

"Front is holy water, back is tranq. I got it."

"Let's hope so."

Dom sucked in a series of quick breaths. The nerves were playing up again, just like on the Drake job. He tried to get himself to think of the positives of the job: how he survived and won his prize, how he helped make the world that little bit more of a better place. Then he thought of himself almost getting killed and a flotilla of butterflies shot through his stomach.

He glanced back at the building where Trixie said a vamp was hiding out. He shivered.

"Hey, just relax," Trixie then said and he flinched her way. She had a kind expression on her face; something he hadn't seen yet. Warm eyes, a friendly smile. She placed a soft hand on his shoulder and he suddenly felt much better about things. "I've got your back," she added with a sincere smile.

"I know that," Dom told her. He took a moment to close his eyes and breathe in deep.

Come on,
he said to himself.
Let's go.

He popped the door open. Without hesitation, he stepped onto the worn tarmac and shut the door behind him. He went straight to the trunk and opened it up. From inside he grabbed a pair of radios, a flashlight, and a crowbar. Trixie came to meet him; he handed her a radio. She fiddled with it; crackle pinged out of it for a second before her voice came through crystal clear on Dom's radio. Now all set, they went for the building. Dom looked over both shoulders. The whole street was quiet, like a giant catacomb. Boarded-up windows stared back at them like blindfolded men, what was hidden beyond remaining a secret. The litter on the ground was half-decaying, emitting a nauseous smell akin to sewers. Dom had all of a sudden become immune to his senses. His heart was thudding against his ribs, adrenaline flooding his veins, numbing him. He had a final look around, making sure there were no prying eyes.

One thing he didn't have to worry about was being disturbed by any cops. He doubted a cop had been this way since forever.

They reached the building and Dom stopped on the sidewalk and looked up. It reached for the sky like a giant. He geared himself up.
Come on, come on. You can do this!

He shook the ants out of his legs and then ventured into the stairwell leading down to the basement. The feet scratched on cement, the sound amplified in the small space he was enclosed in. Trixie followed, looking up, down, left, right, no doubt her body flooded with adrenaline too.

Dom finally reached the bottom of the steps. Stuffed in the corner of the small area were bags overflowing with trash that stank like dead bodies. He stepped up to the only door around him: a metal sheet nailed onto what looked like wood beneath. The handle was half hanging off. He ran a hand along the edge of the sheet, looking for a recess to edge his crowbar into. His fingers found one. He dug them in and the door gave way. To his surprise, it was unlocked. He frowned. He pulled and it edged open some more. A sliver of darkness from beyond spilled out like mist. He slid the crowbar into his belt and pulled out his radio. He then stepped back and turned to Trixie. He pointed down at the ground, indicating for her to wait there. He then held the radio up and shook it on the air; if he needed help, he'd call.

Trixie nodded her head in understanding. She pulled her dart gun from her belt, took a step back, and pointed at the door.

Dom closed his eyes and inhaled deep.
This is it. Get into the groove
.

He then snapped his eyes open, grabbed the door, and pulled it open.

E
ddie made it to the 7-Eleven just as raw anxiety began to rear its ugly head. He didn't like being on the streets alone, even during the day. Although much of his earlier life was now a haze of distant memory, he knew he grew up in a suburb and not the slum that he now found himself in. He knew he wasn't a brawler, or streetwise in any way. But, with the Father needing protection, he knew the time had come to toughen up, to get used to living in dangerous places. It was just alien to him. He barely had anything even resembling muscle, his arms and legs twig-like. It's what caused the anxiety to gnaw away at him whenever he was away from the Father. He didn't want to get embroiled in any kind of confrontation while gathering food. But, if anyone dared to harm the Father, then things would be different. Very different.

If anything were to happen, it was most likely on the streets, so once he was off them and in the relative sanctity of a store, the anxiety tended to calm. He stepped into the 7-Eleven, the heady aroma of donuts and hot dogs hitting his nostrils. He licked his lips as he followed that smell like rats trailing the Pied Piper. The clerk eyed him with the usual suspicion as he made his way past and to the back of the store to the drinks cabinet. He slid the door open and was hit with a blast of chilled air. He shuddered. He grabbed a couple of bottles of fruit juice and slid the door closed. He then trudged down the aisle, conscious of the security camera trained on him. He stopped and picked up a large bag of salted potato chips, a bag of tortilla chips, and a packet of chocolate donuts. He then stepped up to the counter and placed all his goods down. The clerk stepped over to the till, his facial expression unchanging as he began keying the items in. Eddie didn't make any eye contact with him, instead he stepped over to the left where he grabbed a cold burger from the mini fridge and took it over to the microwave oven. He placed it inside and warmed it up. As he watched the burger rotate, his mouth began to salivate. He was starving. His stomach growled like a wild dog. He couldn't remember how long it had been since it was full of food.

Come on, come on,
he urged the timer. He wanted food so bad, he could hardly wait even a few seconds.

He couldn't watch the burger rotate any longer. He stopped the process, pulled out the burger and took a greedy chomp from it. Even though it had the texture of rubber, it tasted divine. It was warm on the outside and stone cold on the inside, but that didn't bother him. He needed feeding and needed it now. He swallowed the fat morsel without barely chewing before proceeding to take another bite. His eyes rolled up into his head. The first chunk hit his stomach and it released a groan of relief.

"Hey, you gonna pay for that, buddy?" the clerk said, snapping Eddie out of his gorging. He spun his head around, his mouth full of cold burger. The clerk was giving him a hard stare.

Eddie swallowed the morsel; it eased slow and jarring down his now stretched gullet. He breathed in hard to try and force it down, then made his way to the counter, his half-eaten burger in its box. He placed it down on the counter. "Sorry," he muttered.

The clerk took it and keyed it into the till. He threw it into a bag with the rest of the stuff. "Eight forty-nine," he then demanded.