Vampire Manifesto (26 page)

“
Yes, I do.” Kruger declared. “Which is why I’ve allowed you to still breath after the atrocities you have committed here. Terrence was not supposed to engage the target, only to locate then report back. I was well aware that Palm Coast was claimed territory, your territory to be exact and I did not wish to antagonize someone with such a…colorful reputation.”

Bartholomew Kruger stood in front of me, looking me up and down, before turning to Connor. “But Terrence was a good soldier and if he decided to deviate off script then he had his reasons. So now I find myself in possession of an item that the ambiguous Translucent Man so desperately desires, an item that caused one of my best men to disobey orders and attempt to capture himself, not to mention the fact that the Vampire Connor is here, in
my
city, killing
my
Wolf Pack, threatening to burn down
my
house, all while declaring himself sole protector of said item.”

“
What’s a Wolf to do?” Connor asked sarcastically.

“
What is the Mark of Pandora?” Bartholomew Kruger asked.

“
I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Connor exclaimed.

Kruger sighed. “Then everybody dies.”

I felt a sharp pain in my back and chest. It became hard to breath and I could taste blood in my mouth. I glanced down and saw the tip of a bloody machete sticking out my stomach. Someone had stabbed me, ran a machete directly through my body from back to front. I drooped forward, sliding off of the blade and tumbled forward.

Connor caught me before I hit the ground.

It was so hard to breath. Everything was getting dark, shadows creeping in around the edge of my vision threatening to black out everything. Connor was stroking my hair, his face stoic. He didn’t speak, but I could see everything he wanted to say in his eyes.

“
There are a couple of ways this can play out.” Bartholomew said. “You can waste time trying to fight us, but I don’t think she has that much time left, do you?”

Connor still didn’t speak.

“
There is another option.” Continued Kruger.

He continued to talk but I couldn’t hear him anymore, it was like he was too far away. Connor was saying something, but I couldn’t understand him, the pain was blocking everything out. I started coughing. There was so much blood in my mouth that it was difficult to breath. I knew I was dying, I could recognize that feeling you get when deaths icy fingers sends chills across your soul once he gains a good grip on it.

Connor was whispering in my ear again, an address in Oakland he wanted me to try to get to. He made a point to give his blessing, that I was allowed to enter the apartment, then he shoved his keys in my pocket. There was a sudden commotion then, all the bodies around me exploding in balls of flame, coupled with the intense sound of fighting and furniture breaking apart. It was a war zone. It could barely see now, but I heard Connor screaming for me to run, so I did. I was out the Townhouse suddenly and when I turned around it was on fire. I could still hear screams inside, I could tell they were still fighting, but I couldn’t tell who was winning.

I fell against our car, my hand on my wound to try and stop the bleeding. I couldn’t concentrate anymore, I was blacking out for seconds at a time now and it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain consciousness. All of the tires were flat on Connors car, so I just started running down the street, hoping I wasn’t being followed. I just needed to get away as fast as I could and not put any more innocent people in danger. There wasn’t anyone I could call that the Werewolves wouldn’t be able to tear to shreds if they found them with me.

I got about two blocks before I saw the BART, the Bay Area’s Rapid Transit system entrance, what they called the subway here on the West coast and I rushed towards it, stumbling down the escalator, almost collapsing once I got to the bottom. I shoved a handful of dollar bills to pay for my fare, then ran up the platform. There was a train waiting and I rushed to catch it, the doors closing just after I entered. I collapsed in a seat furthest away from any crowds and looked at my hand. It was covered in blood. I needed to stop the bleeding and I needed to do it now. What I really needed was a hospital, but I couldn’t risk going to one here, maybe a couple of stops down the line, put some distance between myself and the Werewolves.

Connor…

I leaned my head against the window, I didn’t have any strength left, I couldn’t even keep my eyes open anymore and breathing had become the most painful experience I had ever taken part of. I…I just needed a minute to catch my breath. Just a minute, that’s all I need. I just need to….but I was unconscious before I could finish my thought.

Chapter 4

From the moment I opened my eyes I knew something was wrong. I sat up slowly, the weathered bench that I had fallen asleep on damp, the wetness already soaked completely through and as the wind stirred in the Fruitvale Bart Station, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

Everything around me was wet, even the air tasted of moisture. Had it rained? But when? When did it rain? I tried to stand, but it was difficult. At first I stumbled, barely able to catch myself before crashing to the concrete. It was dark, darker than it should be, the Fruitvale Terminal unnaturally still and quite.

I didn’t see Connor anywhere. I was alone in the terminal and it took a second for me to get my bearings. I checked my watch. 4:45 am. That made me pause. It’s been over six hours.

The last thing I remembered was someone pulling a machete out of my gut at the Townhouse where Goodwin lived. The place was crawling with…Werewolves of all things. It was Goodwin’s Pack members and that domicile was their Den. Connor told me to run and that’s exactly what I did. He said he was going to hold them back and he would meet me at a safe house later. I checked my stomach were I was stabbed, dried blood caked up around the slit in my shirt, but the wound was gone, completely healed.

There wasn’t even a scar.

How is that possible? Wound like that, without medical attention, stitches, I should be dead and yet I wasn’t. It was as if it never happened. I remember making it to the Bart station and finding a seat away from all the other passengers, then nothing. Everything after that was black. I shook my head, trying futilely to clear my thoughts, attempting to focus, but it was utterly pointless. The pain was gone and my joints no longer ached; yet, my mind was racing, incoherently so, useless facts flooding my brain all at once.

I pushed these things aside, compartmentalizing the thoughts and tried to focus on tonight, trying to figure out what my next move was. I turned once, spun on my heels a little too quickly than planned, expecting a head rushing dizzy spell, but it didn’t happen.

There was a poster on the wall; the backdrop was completely red with white graffiti sprawled across it. The poster read:
The Mutant among us may be YOU!
I’d seen these types of posters before, popping up in back alleyways in Palm Coast. I thought they were for a new movie, but here in the Bay Area, they took on a whole different vibe. It felt like there was actual meaning behind it.

I checked the wall map of the city, then made my way towards the steps leading downstairs. No need to wait here, considering I was roughly fourteen blocks from the address Connor told me to meet him at. It wasn’t until I reached the fourth step down, the pain started.

It was gradual at first, yet it came on with such increasing force that I doubled over. My foot slipped and I had to force myself to grab the handrail to keep from falling. There was a thudding in my ears, impossibly loud, almost to the point of being deafening.

That’s when the burning started.

It began in my chest, working its way up to my esophagus in rapid succession. It felt as if my throat was on fire. The inner flame wrapped itself around my head as if tiny burning fingertips were massaging my brain. Something began to bubble up inside of me, working its way through my veins, driven by the insane pumping of my heart. I never thought a heart could beat that fast, that intense, a tunnel vision ferocity of single mindedness.

I began to heave. Well, at first I thought that was what I was doing before a stream of dark crimson splashed the steps in front of me. Blood. And a lot of it. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. My body had taken a mind of its own and its only thought was to bleed me dry.

There was so much blood and it was everywhere. The steps, the side of the wall, the handrail. It was a crime scene now. That’s how much blood there was and when I finally stopped, finally stopped throwing up the one thing that separated me from a lifeless corpse, bloated swollen with formaldehyde, all I could do was collapse back on the top step, my head in between my knees as I desperately tried to regulate my breathing to something more manageable.

My breath was coming in haggard gasps, my lungs fighting to oxygenate the few little remaining blood cells I had left. Tears streaked down the side of my face, striking the ground, pooling together in little red puddles on the floor.

Why are my tears red?

Yet, before I could even begin to ponder the significance of that question a new sensation began to overtake me. The pain had all but subsided, replaced instead with a cooling calm effect that was so intensely profound that it forced me to my feet in one fluid motion.

I didn’t even feel my legs move.

I gripped the handrail to steady myself, squeezing the metal beneath my fingers tightly. My mouth was bitter, the dull, flat metallic taste of blood seemingly overpowering my senses. My head swooned as I swallowed, the blood tainted salvia in my mouth changing texture.

I licked my lips. The blood tasted…different. The thundering returned. Why were my ears so sensitive? I attempted to tune it out, somehow block the rhythmic pounding in my eardrums.

Thumpthump. Thumpthump. Thumpthump.

It was getting louder, stronger, more powerful with every ear-shattering beat. It was getting…closer? I closed my eyes again, concentrating on the precious sound, my own heartbeat attempting to synchronize with the pounding until it matched itself to the deafening crescendo that played within my head.

“
Jesus!”

The sound of another human being snapped me out of the lethargic trance that had enthralled my senses so fully.

I opened my eyes.

There was a uniformed Police Officer a few steps down from me, an expression of terror playing across his hard features. His eyes never left the gallon of blood splattered across the steps and walls. I could see it in his face, the horror of it all. I watched his thoughts play out as I stared at my reflection in his eyes.

I was drenched in blood. From my shirt to my jeans and shoes. Blood dripped from my hands, my chin and the amount of blood that splattered my surroundings like a Jackson Pallet portrait was ridiculous. No one person could lose that much blood and still be alive.

The Cop reached for his standard issued nine-millimeter Beretta, pointing it in my direction. “Hands over your head! On your knees!”

I tried to speak, attempt to explain, yet my mouth refused to listen to my mind, refused to acknowledge the words that were so palatable on my tongue that I could almost taste them. I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t focus on anything other than that blasted thumpthump, thumpthump.

It had speeded up now and…

“
On your knees! Do it now!” Bellowed the Cop at the top of his lungs.

I released my grip on the handrail. There were deep indentions in the metal where my fingers had been wrapped around the bar. Odd that I didn’t notice that before.

I placed my hands behind my head and took a knee, the deep pool of sticky wet on the steps soaking into my jeans at the knees. The Cop took a tentative step forward, speaking into his Walkie Talkie.

“
Possible 187 in progress at the Oakland Fruitvale Station. Suspect: Caucasian female, approximately five foot three, one hundred and ten pounds, covered in what appears to be human blood. Suspect in custody. Officer requesting assistance.”

I should have been scared, but I wasn’t. Something had clicked inside of me as I stared at this man with the loaded weapon in my face. It wasn’t like before, when Goodwin shoved that gun in my face and I was so scared that I didn’t know what to do. There was no terror that overtook my senses now, no panic that froze me in place.

This Cop, he seemed so fragile to me. As if the slightest gale would scatter his limbs to the wind. The vein in his neck throbbed with each beat of his heart and I realized the thundering in my ears was in fact the adrenaline laced pounding of the Officers heartbeat.