The Hunted (8 page)

Once the transformation begins, it takes roughly twenty-four hours for full conversion. It begins with the human portion dying, followed by the renewal of the body into full vampiric form. I often wondered if it would be painful.

In regards to a turned vampire, I wasn’t so well-informed. I knew that they were created from some sort of blood transference, and that their powers were muted in comparison to their makers, but that was all I knew. Well, besides how to kill them. With a vân
â
tor however, the process is slightly different. I had read about it in the journals that covered the library walls in the IMI’s secret hideout. According to the texts, the sex is almost never consensual. They force themselves upon their chosen victims with no mercy or regret. There is too much wild animal in them to revoke their hormones and understand that ‘no means no’.

Their seed is just as strong as a vampire’s, and pregnancy is instantaneous. In a period of just two days, gestation, growth, and the actual birth occurs. It is torturous on the human who has to suffer through the rapid growth and broken bones. The birth itself is deplorable and so far, every single vân
â
tor birth has resulted in the death of the human mother.

The Vân
â
tors do not make passage into the world as a regular human does. They grow in their wolf form inside the womb instead of their human counterpart. Once fully grown, they tear their way out, breaking bones and drinking whatever blood is left inside the human carrier.

It is disgusting, murderous, and unforgivable. Even the Vampires consider their methods inexcusable, hence why the alliance exists.

The Protectors merely chose the lesser of two evils to side with. But again, what did that say about me and my intended fate if they considered vampires to be evil?

*          *          *

Lucas touched his hand to my shoulder again. ‘You know that I didn’t mean
you
specifically, right? I’d never hurt you, Elena.’

I shook his hand away and bent down to retrieve my mobile phone which was where I had left it. I had a missed call.

Kayla.

I tucked the phone back inside my coat pocket and started fast-walking towards the car. In the air the sweet scent of blood was slowly being replaced by the bilious stench of burning flesh. Either that or the dried globule of vân
â
tor saliva on my chest was starting to burn my nostrils.

I really needed a shower.

‘Elena … wait for me,’ Lucas called after me, jogging to catch up.

I kept walking, shoving my bloodied hands deeper inside my coat pockets and hunching my shoulders to deflect the cold wind.

‘Elena, I’m sorry. What I said … I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.’

‘Yes, you did,’ I said quietly, trying to breathe through my mouth so that I couldn’t smell the stink on my chest and the charred flesh in the distance. ‘Sometimes you talk exactly like the IMI expects you to. It worries me that you can be that narrow-minded.’

‘No, really,’ he persisted. ‘We may not be technically related by blood, but to me, you are still my sister and I would never dream of hurting you. And,’ he said, pointing a finger in the air as if to prove a point, ‘if anyone does try to hurt you I will personally kill them myself, regardless of the species.’

I smiled in spite of myself. ‘That’s sweet.’

‘Sweet is my middle name.’

‘Really?’ I said, slapping him on the shoulder again, ‘I thought it was dumb ass?’ He frowned. ‘I hate it when you call me that.’ ‘I hate it when you call me dickhead.’ Our pet names for each other were so charming.

‘I haven’t called you dickhead … yet.’

‘Just getting in first.’

‘I’m not a dumb ass. Okay, so what I said before was stupid, but I said sorry, so end of story. But if you really want to split hairs Elena, you seem to have the dumb ass corner of the market covered for this evening by taking on two vân
â
tors by yourself.’

‘Shut up,’ I said, elbowing him in the ribs and grinning. ‘I’m already in enough trouble without you rubbing it in.’

We passed the last container and headed directly for the car, which was located on the other side of the metal fence.

‘Yeah, but you’re not just in any trouble,’ he chortled as he swung the gate back to allow me to pass, ‘but
big
trouble.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘I know … I haven’t forgotten.’

*          *          *

When Susan and George finally made it back to the car, barely half an hour had slipped by. I leant my head up against the window and pretended to be asleep. Not that I was even remotely tired. I was still too highly strung to even consider closing my eyes and letting the sandman near me. Besides, I smelt too much like a wet dog right now to even get comfortable enough to sink into slumber.

In the distance, beyond the shipping containers, I could see the swirling clouds of smoke that still filled the air with the heavy stench of death. It was a solemn reminder of everything I had been through tonight.

The front doors opened and both of my parents lowered themselves into the car. It rocked slightly under their weight. George turned around to look at me.

I immediately snapped my eyes shut again, pretending to be asleep. I felt his eyes heavily upon me, but I didn’t give into temptation. I kept silent.

Eventually he must have given up because I heard the keys turn in the ignition and the car purr to life. He shifted it into gear, everyone silent except Lucas who emitted small snoring sounds. In another few minutes, those relatively quiet snores would turn into the ripping sound of a chain-saw coming to life. Even earplugs would be a lost cause at
that
stage.

In the distance I could hear sirens wailing. They were drawing closer; no doubt the fire department was coming to extinguish the flames. When they arrived there would be no evidence to suggest something supernatural besides
me
had walked the shipping yards this evening.

I cracked my eyes open slightly. Susan and George were both talking quietly, neither one of them paying attention to me. I took that as a good sign. But between the sound of the sirens and the racket coming from Lucas’s snoring, I couldn’t hear anything intelligible that they might have been saying anyway.

I imagined that they were probably tossing up between hot oil or the rack in terms of punishment, although realistically, grounding was the most likely choice. I’d come to expect this hindrance to my social life, but it was not an unsalvageable punishment, especially when the possibilities of my second story window were endless. If they really wanted to punish me, all they had to do was ban chocolate from the house. That really
would
kill me.

We had only just driven shy of the shipping yard’s entry point and turned back onto the side road that led us here when the sound of the emergency vehicles grew louder.

The sirens wailed and tension mounted. I could see the lights on the top of the fire truck flashing brightly in the darkness ahead. Behind the fire truck was a single police car, its sirens flashing blue and keeping an easy pace with the truck.

They both blew past us in an instant, the sirens fading as quickly as they had come.

I let out a small sigh of relief, but soon regretted it when I heard the short, sharp burst of the police car’s siren. Its warning sounded again, assumedly because the policeman had left the wake of the fire truck and had set a new course back towards us.

I resisted the urge to turn around. The blue, neon flashing lights reflected dimly on the underside of the roof of our car. The police were definitely behind us. The siren sounded again and George swore underneath his breath, still loud enough for me to hear even above the racket of Lucas’s snoring.

George manoeuvred the car over onto the shoulder of the road and switched off the engine. ‘Stay calm,’ he said to Susan as he wound down the window.

She nodded, seemingly unperturbed by our current predicament.

I heard the slamming of a car door behind us and a flashlight beam glance through the rear window, filling the cabin with mottled light. It moved around the car and then disappeared from sight before flicking back on again and hitting me full in the face with its intensity.

I squeezed my eyes shut at the sudden brightness before I felt the beam move away and I cracked my eyes open again.

The officer, walked around the car very slowly with the flashlight, arcing the beam over every surface of metal and every face inside the car. The fingers of his right hand were stroking the butt of his gun in readiness of a draw. He seemed very wary of us, skittish even.

‘Can we help you, officer?’ George said calmly. Lucas snorted loudly and then shuffled around in the seat until his face was pushed uncomfortably against the glass of his side window. God only knew what it looked like from the other side.

I suppressed my amusement in light of current events.

‘Can I see your licence please, sir?’ the policeman asked sternly.

George made no move to find his licence. Instead, he glanced up and looked in the rear-view mirror, studying something outside the rear window. ‘Are you alone, officer?’

The policeman wrapped his fingers tightly around the butt of the gun and turned the torch on George’s face. ‘Step out of the car please, sir.’

George didn’t even hesitate. He unbuckled his seatbelt, pulled the handle, opened the door, and stepped out into the cold night air.

Susan looked almost bored.

The policeman took a step back and refocused the flashlight on each of us sitting in the car. ‘None of you move, please.’ He focused his attention back on George. ‘Sir, I’m going to ask you to turn around slowly and place your hands on the side of the vehicle.’

‘May I ask what this is about?’

‘Sir, I’ll ask you one more time …’

George did as he was asked and rested his hands on the front of the bonnet and looked back at the police car parked behind us.

I hazarded a quick glance behind me and noted that the police car was empty. That was strange. I thought policeman always travelled with a partner for backup.

‘Please. My family is tired and we just want to go back to our hotel. We took a wrong turn on the road up ahead and got lost.’ George said all this calmly as he looked in the windshield at Susan. She gave him a brief nod.

‘I would believe that story if your face was not covered in ash, sir,’ the policeman offered abruptly as he dropped his hand from his gun and fished around on his belt for handcuffs.

George spun around, hitting the policeman dead in the centre of his chest. The officer dropped to the ground like a lead balloon, surprise plastered across his features.

His flashlight dropped from his hands and hit the road, the arc of light illuminating the road’s centre dividing lines. Air rushed from the policeman’s lungs as he braced his hands behind him to stop falling further backwards. The smell of blood once again hit the air and assailed my nostrils—I glanced down and noted that he had scraped his palms across the asphalt upon impact. It stirred the same feelings of excitement and need that I had felt earlier.

I drew in another sharp breath, tasting the scent across my tongue and feeling the bloodlust rise within me.

George stepped forward, placing his hand out in front of him. Red flickers of light danced across the tips of his fingers like tiny sparks of electricity, steadily increasing in colour, intensity and energy.

The policeman watched in disbelief. He couldn’t seem to move. He was completely transfixed by the seemingly unlikely possibility that magic could even exist.