The Blood Talisman (11 page)

“She gonna be okay?” Amalia asked
him.

“I don’t know. That’s my wife, by the
way,” he answered.

The blood on his hands seemed of no
concern as he had let his habit of tidiness go. Amalia wondered if
she was seeing a softer side to the monster standing in front of
her.

Then something happened. The girl on
the bed began convulsing and shaking. Black blood spewed out of her
mouth, filling the oxygen mask on her face with blackness. Ram ran
over to her side and one of the doctors yelled out, “We’re losing
her!”

They seemed to work faster but their
efforts were in vain as Ram’s wife quit breathing. With her eyes
still open, her head turned towards Ram, staring him directly in
the face. He reached over and closed her eyes shut, allowing her to
rest in peace.

The doctor called the time of death at
6:15 p.m. and a nurse laid a white sheet over her face. Ram’s anger
overcame him. He reached over to the nurse and broke her neck. The
doctor stepped backwards clumsily to get away but Ram stopped him
from leaving and ripped his neck open with one bite. Ram drank him
dry and dropped his dead body to the floor. It made a resounding
thud.

He turned to the other nurse, who was
screaming her head off, and demanded she run. She obliged and
hurtled out the double doors, along with another male doctor and a
male nurse. Ram smeared the blood off of his face onto his sleeve
and looked over at Amalia.

“John, I want you to bring me Sol. He
will know what to do,” Ram said, still staring at Amalia. John
scurried out of the room on his mission. “And you have to stay in
this room, with this… mess that your husband… What he took away
from me was a good soldier. You would do well to understand what
this means.”

Amalia stepped forward to him and
touched his arm, attempting to comfort him. He pulled away from her
and looked angrily into her eyes.

“
It has to hurt, losing
your wife. I’m sorry for your loss,” she said.

“Make no mistake, Amalia. I AM A
VAMPIRE!” he screamed at her. He pushed her shoulders back against
the wall and his face stood inches from hers. “We do not feel. We
are bred to not feel emotions. You will know this soon. I could
fuck you right here, inches from my dead wife’s body, without
blinking an eye.”

He softly kissed her cheek and exited
the room, closing the double doors and locking her in behind
them.

She stood against the wall, still
breathing heavily. She stared over at the dead woman on the bed.
She felt no remorse but she did feel disgusted. She wondered how
living, breathing creatures could be so callous and removed from
society.

Ram leaned against the locked double
mahogany doors that led into the bedroom that he and Ember had once
shared. He wiped his face down with the untucked portion of his
light blue dress shirt. He looked down at himself and realized that
he needed to change before Sol arrived.

He slid down to the floor and put his
face in his hands. He took a deep breath and felt someone tall
standing over him. He squinted through his fingers up at the tall
figure. It was his loyal servant, John.

“Sol will arrive at noon tomorrow,
sir,” John said.

“Good. I want to move ahead with our
plans to hunt the Immortal. This would have never happened if we
already had the blood talisman,” Ram said.

“Yes sir. Anything else I can do,
sir?”

“Get a clean up crew to take care of
Ember. I should have never let her go with you. She was too young
to cope with the disease. Too much power too soon can be
deadly.”

“Yes sir. Right away.” John turned and
walked away.

Ram sat there for a few more moments
and then picked himself up off the floor and took his blood-soaked
shirt off. He threw it down to the floor, leaving it there in front
of the double mahogany doors. He walked down to another set of
doors and went into another huge bedroom with a shower just off
from it. He finished undressing and stepped into the shower to wash
away his thoughts of Ember’s death.

Chapter 14

When they arrived night had fallen. The
full moon outside Alex and Selene’s car window promised good
happenings. Selene was on cloud nine following the kiss they
shared, however Alex felt even more guilt. Not only had he killed a
man but now he had kissed a woman who wasn’t his wife. He had so
much to tell Amalia. He wandered if she could look at him with the
same loving eyes once she learned everything that he had
done.

He couldn’t understand John’s part in
the whole thing either. He wondered if he meant for Ember to be
killed or was he trying to get rid of Selene? There were so many
questions plaguing his mind that he couldn’t think straight. He was
distracted and Selene could tell. She reached over and held his
hand tightly. He loosened her grip and looked over at
her.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Just nervous,” he answered.

“Rose and Ben are in the car behind us.
They’re here to help us get Amalia to safety. These vamps don’t
want to mess with me or my sister.”

Alex looked at Selene, questioning her
last statement. “I didn’t think about this before but… why did she,
the vampire I mean, get sick when she bit you? Are all witches
poison to vampires?”

Selene paused for a few moments to
think of how to explain to him when a knock on the window of her
side of the car came. She jerked around to find Rose smiling and
waving at her. Ben lurked in the distance, smoking a cigarette.
Selene rolled her window down.

“So, what’s the plan, young lovers?”
Rose asked.

Selene’s face turned red and she gave
Rose the evil eye. “Very funny.” she said.

“I don’t really know what we will do. I
guess we could walk right in. It is a public hospital, right?” Alex
said.

“Looks that way, sweetie. Are you sure
you want to go in there and rescue your wife? I mean, you have my
sister now. Isn’t that enough?” Rose asked.

“Rose!” Selene shouted.

“She’s in there because of me. It
doesn’t matter what I feel for Selene. I have an obligation to make
this right,” he responded.

There was an uncomfortable silence in
the car for a few seconds but it seemed like hours to Selene. She
felt like she was in the middle of what would be a grand argument
that she hoped would never happen.

She broke the awkward quietness and
said, “I think gaining access from the back would be the most
inconspicuous way to get inside and find her. We don’t have to be
seen by anyone at the front desk and we might be able to avoid
being spotted by security.”

“Ben and I will scope it out and come
back and tell you if it’s safe,” Rose announced as she made to
leave the car. Selene grabbed her hand, stopping her.

“We need to stay together. I don’t
trust these people, Rose. They have werewolves that work for them.
There is nothing we can do against them.”

“I have Ben and you have Alex.
Werewolves can fight their own. I think the boys can handle
themselves.”

“I just think this isn’t a good
plan.”

Alex touched Selene’s leg and she
turned to face him. “This is our only plan. It has to work out. You
are right, though. We go together.”

Selene smiled at him. She wanted to
kiss him again but she didn’t want to push her luck. His lips
looked like two soft, pink pillows of bubblegum on his handsome,
newly rugged face. She admired them for a moment and then worked
her way to his eyes. They were serious yet wary. The whirlwind of
recent events had no doubt aged him by years. They told a dreary
story of anger, hurt, and despair.

Rose and Ben had disappeared from their
sight. They both got out of the car and looked around in the car
that Ben had driven behind them.

“
They went without us,”
Selene said, shaking her head. “Jeez, Rose.”

“
Let’s stick to the plan
and go through the back. Maybe we can catch up with them,” Alex
said.

They headed towards the hospital
cautiously. Looking around every corner and in every crevice
outside the big brown building, they made their way to the back.
The huge generators and tanks outside the back door hummed full of
activity, unknowing that they were supporting a place of ill intent
and sinister behaviors. Every step felt on the ground made Alex and
Selene nauseous. They knew it would be a fight if they were
caught.

The pavement was hard but the grass
crunched beneath their feet as they reached the back door. Rose and
Ben were still nowhere to be found. The door swung open and Alex
pushed Selene against a wall. The short, skinny man was carrying a
bag of garbage. His bald head shone in the moonlight. He threw the
bag over into a huge green bin and pressed a button. The bin made a
screeching sound as he walked away. He wiped his nose on his sleeve
and snorted as he walked back to the back door.

They crept closer to the unsuspecting
man, unnoticed. He swiped a card on a reader beside the door and
opened it. They were close enough to the door and Alex caught it
with his fingertips to keep it from closing. He looked back at
Selene and she gave him a reassuring smile.

Selene hopped up the steps and peeked
through the rectangular window on the door. The unsuspecting man
that had unknowingly let them in rounded the corner of the hall.
Nobody else was to be seen. Depression and the feeling of death
seemed to plague the halls as they entered through the doorway and
followed the corridor. Alex stood with his back against the wall to
the left and Selene followed suit against the wall on the right.
They both peeked around their corners to see if there was anybody
around. The halls were empty.

“
Which way from here?”
Selene whispered over to Alex.

Alex motioned one minute and leaned
his face against the wall. He couldn’t smell Rose or Ben. He did
smell Amalia, faintly. She had passed down this hall at some point
and he could see a foggy picture of her face in his mind. She was
walking behind a short man with a set of keys. She didn’t seem
panicked or frightened or hurt at all. As she walked past the
corner, her fingertips stroked the grey wall across from them and
her image faded to darkness.

“
This way,” he responded,
and Selene scurried over into his arms. He wrapped them around her
tightly. He peered around the corner once more and they headed
slowly down the corridor. Their footsteps were light and quick.
Brisk, loud footsteps began to sound behind them. Alex jerked his
head quickly around to see who it could be.

The short man with the keys in Alex’s
vision from earlier was walking steadily towards them.

“
What are you two doing
down here?” he asked.

Selene stopped walking and gave Alex a
worried look.

“
We are a little lost. This
hospital is a bit bigger than I thought it to be. Can you guide us
back to the elevator?” Alex asked calmly.

“
No, I know you. I’ve seen
a picture of you. You’re that missing patient. Stand right here and
I’ll call…”

He was cut off by Selene. She had
reached forward and touched his chest. A shot of dim light came
from her fingertips and the man slid backwards against the
floor.

Alex looked at Selene,
puzzled.

“
Don’t worry. He’s only
unconscious, but it won’t last long. Let’s hurry.”

She took Alex by the hand and rushed
him down the corridor. They turned several corners and passed many
closed doors. They stopped short of one that had a bloody dress
shirt at its foot. Alex picked it up and smelled the blood. It
wasn’t Amalia’s blood, he was sure of it. But the vision of Amalia
was clear this time.

She was standing in the room behind
the door where he’d found the shirt. A tall man with dark chestnut
hair paced the room as she watched. He crossed the room and slammed
her against the wall. Alex felt the anger well up within him. The
wolf inside wanted to rear its ugly head but Alex held the urges
back to see what happened next. The blood-soaked man mentioned
fucking Amalia and Alex could not contain his anger any longer. His
nails protruded and his eyes bulged. His teeth were growing long
and hair now covered his entire body. He grew two feet taller in
minutes.

Selene stepped back away from him, not
knowing what he had seen. She worried it might be Amalia’s blood on
the shirt and that this caused his transformation.

“
Alex, calm down. It’s
okay. You can’t be like this right now.”

He couldn’t hear her. He only heard
her heart beating. It sped up even more as he inched closer to her.
It wasn’t fear that was making her heart race. He could tell it was
love.

He turned his attention to the door
and ripped it from the doorframe. Splinters flew into the air, over
both of their heads. They could hear footsteps running towards them
in the distance. Alex couldn’t hear their heartbeats, like he could
hear Selene’s. And there was another faint heartbeat coming from
the room in front of him.