The Vampire Evolution Trilogy (Book 2): Rule of Vampire Read online

  A deep, throbbing pain wrenched through his gut, and he clenched the steering wheel until it subsided. It was always there now, in varying degrees of intensity. He had pain pills the doctors had given him. His oncologist had made a point of saying something like “taking five at a time is too many,” hinting at a permanent solution if the pain got too bad. But Robert wasn’t taking even one at a time. They made him foggy, slow to react. He’d taken one the other night when the pain was so bad that he couldn’t sleep. Instead of his usual six hours, he hadn’t woken up for twelve. He’d groaned, immediately checked his phone, and anxiously listened to the scanner until he was sure that Jamie hadn’t been caught.

  He needed to be alert, ready to respond to any sighting of a female “perp” who matched her description.

  Robert had loved his first wife: she had been his high school sweetheart. But his feelings for her had settled into a comfortable, middle-aged appreciation. With Jamie, it was as if it was the first and only time he’d felt real love. Every waking moment was filled with the thought of her, and he could call up her ghost, almost see her, almost hear her laugh––but that only made her absence hurt more.

  He didn’t know what they would do if he found her and she still wanted to be with him. Hide? Run away? He didn’t care. He just wanted to know if was possible for them to be together again. He was certain it was possible, that they’d find a way.

  Hadn’t she felt the same way? Didn’t she want to know if they had any chance at a future?

  So he kept driving around the small town, up and down the highways and the lanes and the dead-end streets, day and night, looking for any sign of her.

  Vampire sightings had grown scarce, and then one day the scanner had come alive with agitated voices, and the massacre at the Comfort Inn had reignited the search for vampires. But the excitement had soon died down as vampire sightings again dwindled.

  He’d seen his former brother-in-law once. Callendar had flagged him down as he was passing a crime scene, and he’d reluctantly stopped. It was clear, though, that the FBI agent was only checking to see if Robert had seen Jamie, and as soon as he ascertained from Robert’s unhappiness that she hadn’t made an appearance, he had seemed to lose interest.

  “Don’t be fooled, Robert,” Callendar had said before waving him on. “Call me the minute you see her. Don’t approach her. She’s a vampire, and all vampires are dangerous. They have no conscience––and no soul.”

  Callendar was wrong. Robert had lived with Jamie long enough to know she had both a conscience and a soul: more so than most humans, in fact. But he didn’t argue; he simply drove away.

  #

  Jamie had packed to leave town. Packing had consisted of putting one change of clothing into a backpack. She’d break into a business to get some money before she left, she decided, and she’d try to steal a car. It was time to go.

  She’d seen Robert in his patrol car again on her way home from the thrift store. She’d barely hidden in time. It hurt to see him, to even think of him. No one had warned her that she could fall in love again––and with a human, at that. In fact, Horsham had intimated that it was impossible, that vampires didn’t suffer from such feelings.

  It was clear she didn’t know anything about her own nature. She needed to find Terrill.

  It was also obvious that she’d made a mistake in running away from Bend. At the time, she’d been confused, ashamed of what she was, afraid of hurting her sister, Sylvie. So she’d run.

  Now, she intended to track down Terrill and ask him, as her Maker, to teach her. Perhaps when she finally understood who and what she was, and knew that she could control herself, she would return to Robert.

  If he was still alive.

  That was the worst part: to know that their time was limited, that their few remaining moments together had been taken away from them.

  The same thought kept breaking through the hurt. Jamie thought it every morning when she woke up, and every night when she went to bed. She could Turn him. He’d become immortal, like her, and they’d spend the rest of eternity together. What would be so wrong about that?

  But what if he didn’t want that? Would he curse her through eternity instead? Would she turn kindhearted Robert into a vicious vampire? She didn’t think that was possible, but what did she know?

  It was wrong to Turn him against his will. She didn’t trust her own feelings, so, if the chance ever came, she’d have to rely on his.

  #

  It was nearly morning by the time Jamie was ready to go. She decided to wait one more day. The hideaway was safe and comfortable, and now that it was time to leave, she was reluctant. Robert was out there, looking for her, and somehow that thought was comforting.

  She was about to fall asleep when she heard a rustling at the entrance. She thought about escaping out the secret back exit, but then thought, What if it’s Billy or one of the others returning?

  So she waited. After a minute, a young man poked his head into the clearing. At first, Jamie didn’t recognize him. He was so out of place and so distressed that he looked nothing like the smiling clerk from the thrift store.

  “I don’t feel so good,” said Marc-with-a-C. “Please help me.”

  #

  Robert hadn’t slept in more than a day. With dawn breaking, he decided he’d go home and catch some sleep. Wherever Jamie was, she was holed up by now. Maybe he’d cut one of the pills in half and see if that helped with the pain without knocking him out for too long. The time was coming when the pain would be too extreme for him not to take his medication.

  As he accelerated down the coastal highway, he caught a flash of silver out of the corner of one eye. He’d driven by the rundown parking lot a hundred times, and he’d recently noticed a shopping cart sitting there, but hadn’t thought anything of it. This time, as he glanced over, it seemed to him that the cart had been moved. He pulled into the lot.

  As he drove up to the cart, he saw the hole at the bottom of the thicket of blackberry bushes for the first time. He held his breath and his heart seemed to skip a beat. The pain in his gut receded under a surge of excitement. She’s here, he thought. I’ll bet anything she’s here.

  He got out of the car and removed his gun belt. Whatever happened would happen. However she reacted, he would accept it. If Callendar was right, that she’d been pretending, that she was evil, then she’d kill him. So be it. At least it would end his suffering.

  He got down on his hands and knees and crawled into the hole.

  #

  Jamie helped Marc up. She could tell at once that he’d been bitten. “How did you know I was here?” she asked.

  “Billy showed me this place once. He brought me here on my birthday and they had a little party for me. I remembered you came in with Billy that first time.”

  She put her hand to his pale face and felt despondent. He’d been a good man, and somehow, though she didn’t know how, she suspected that she’d brought this fate down upon him.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening to me,” Marc said. “I wasn’t feeling well; I passed out or something. I was talking to Stuart, and then… I don’t remember anything.”

  Jamie flushed. It was her fault. Stuart was on her.

  “I woke up and went home, but I wanted to…” Marc swallowed and stared at her in shock. “I wanted to kill her––my mother. To… I can’t believe… I wanted…”

  “Shhh, shush,” Jamie hushed him soothingly. “But you didn’t, did you?”

  “No,” he said. “I ran away. I kept running until I found myself here. What’s wrong with me?”

  You’re a vampire, Jamie almost blurted out, but she stopped herself. How do you tell a person that they have Turned, that they’ll never again bask in the sunlight, that they’ll be hungry for blood every day for the rest of their life?

  Before she could speak, she heard someone else coming through the bushes.

  “Go––over there,” she pointed to the chairs and tables on the other si
de of the enclosure. “Hide.”

  Marc hid.

  Jamie stood over the entrance, holding one of the kitchen knives. She looked down at the dull blade and wanted to laugh. Her fangs were so much sharper.

  She recognized Robert from the first inch of him that showed––dark hair with strands of silver in it. She put down the knife and dropped to her knees at his side as he began to emerge. He looked up in alarm, then relaxed and smiled when he saw it was her.

  What was I doing? Jamie wondered when she saw that smile. Why was I avoiding him?

  She heard snarling and turned to see Marc hurtling across the enclosure, his fangs extended. She grabbed him in midair and slammed him onto his back. She stared into his eyes. “Stop!” she commanded, and he did. “Go to sleep,” she ordered, and he fell asleep.

  She turned to Robert. “I didn’t know I could do that.”

  Then they were in each other’s arms, and everything else in the world disappeared.

  Chapter 33

  “Come in with us, Jill.” Billy was almost begging. “I guarantee you a bed, and I promise no one will bother you.”

  “Get away from me, Billy. I said no and I mean no. I won’t be shut up in some room with a bunch of bums.”

  You’re a bum yourself! Billy nearly said, but he knew that would be a mistake. To Jill, a middle-aged, formerly middle-class woman who still tried to keep her fingernails polished and saved and scrimped for real haircuts, she wasn’t a bum. She wasn’t homeless. She didn’t have a drinking problem. She just liked to camp outside with her friends.

  “It isn’t safe out here,” Billy protested. “There are monsters.”

  Jill snorted. “Yeah, what a laugh. That might work on some of the crazies in the next camp over, but I’m not buying it. Monsters… LOL.”

  That was the other thing about Jill: every dime she managed to scrape up that didn’t go toward grooming, she put into her cellphone. Her kids, who lived far away in another state and, from what she said, probably didn’t care all that much about her, seemed to believe she was living in a nice condo.

  Billy didn’t know all the homeless folks in Bend, not the way he knew everyone in Crescent City. He wanted to get back to his hometown, but he couldn’t leave Bend until it was safe.

  Billy knew firsthand that the homeless were all too often the victims of violence. They were easy prey; sadly, sometimes they preyed on each other as well. Even worse, the local authorities didn’t take crimes involving the homeless seriously unless they resulted in death or dismemberment. Billy had kicked the alcohol––mostly––a few years ago, and after that, he’d taken it upon himself to save those he could. Most wouldn’t accept help from civilians, but from another bum? That seemed all right.

  This time, when the citizens of Bend started to disappear, the homeless weren’t the victims. Of course, in a sense, they were already the disappeared––in the eyes of society, anyway. But Billy and his friends knew most of them, and Father Harry and those who worked at the St. Francis shelter kept a rough count.

  Billy was a little surprised that he had managed to talk as many of the homeless into coming indoors at night as he had. All the shelters were making room, quietly breaking capacity regulations until the emergency was over. Some of the operators were told the problem was marauding gangs, others that there was a serial killer active in the area, and a select few––mostly those who had spent earlier lives on the streets––were told the truth.

  Monsters.

  The only advantage the homeless had over the stalwart citizens of Bend was that they believed in monsters. They’d seen monsters. When Billy told them there were vampires on the loose, they believed him––except for a few deluded souls like Jill, whose mind-set was still that of a middle-class woman, even as her body resided in a tent on a dirt lot.

  “Well, then, lady, I’m staying with you,” Billy told her now. He could count on Perry and Grime to get the other homeless folks in town into shelters. They were locals; they knew their way around.

  They had taken Billy aside and told him the story of Terrill, the vampire who had turned human, and about his love for Sylvie, the human girl.

  “Not all vampires are bad,” Perry had concluded.

  “Gud… ’uns,” Grime had added in his muddled way.

  Billy wasn’t sure he believed it. Until then, he’d thought all vampires were evil and the only good vampire was a dead one. He was still going to act as if that assumption was true.

  In the backpack slung over his shoulder, he had an anti-vampire package that Father Harry had assembled: a spray bottle filled with holy water, blessed that morning; a couple of sharp wooden stakes; a giant silver cross, valuable enough that, if he pawned it, he could afford to live in a motel for a few months, but he’d resisted doing that so far. The priest had also taught him a few Catholic prayers for banishing demons.

  It was all untested, but Billy was halfway looking forward to being able to use his vampire hunter’s arsenal.

  Best of all, Father Harry had thoughtfully included a bottle of sacramental wine. Billy put the backpack on the ground and pulled out the bottle.

  Jill’s face lit up. “Why, Billy, I think you’re trying to get into my pants!”

  Billy suppressed a shudder. Jill weighed at least three hundred pounds, and while she always sported a nice hairdo and a manicure, she wasn’t so punctilious about her bathing. “Nah… I know you like them young, Jill,” he said, laughing.

  He built up the fire and put one of the stakes and the holy water within easy reach. He stuck the cross in the ground just behind where he and Jill were sitting.

  He let her drink most of the wine, taking only a few sips himself. For once in his life, wine had little appeal. He couldn’t afford not to be vigilant. In fact, he’d never stopped being vigilant since the moment he’d watched his friends torn apart by those things.

  It was about midnight when Billy sensed the monster approach. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck rising. He reached down and shook Jill, who was snoring, her head in his lap.

  “Wha…” Jill started to say; then she, too, sensed the danger and fell silent.

  Billy stood up, the fire at his back, the crucifix in front of him. He had the spray bottle of holy water in one hand, the stake in the other. Jill scooted back in the dirt, nearly going into the fire, and peered out between his legs.

  He started to chant the prayer that Father Harry had taught him. “Glorious Saint Michael, Prince of the Heavenly hosts, who fought with the Dragon, the Old Serpent, and cast him out of Heaven…”

  The vampire had been striding confidently toward them, but once he saw the cross, he began to creep to one side. Now, as Billy started chanting, the vampire hissed and backed up a step. Billy wasn’t religious, but seeing these results was going to make him question his skepticism, that was for sure.

  “I earnestly entreat you to assist me also, in the painful and dangerous conflict which I sustain against the same formidable foe.”

  The vampire stopped and stared at him as if confused. Under other circumstances, he might have looked like an ordinary guy, but fangs distorted his face and his eyes glowed red in the firelight. He wore black-rimmed glasses, which was strange, because from what Billy had learned from Father Harry––who thought of himself as an experienced vampire hunter––vampires could see better than any human. Either camouflage or habit, Billy thought. There was a look of hate and hunger on the vampire’s face that transformed it from that of a young man to that of an ancient evil.

  “Be with me, O mighty Prince! That I may courageously fight and vanquish that proud spirit, whom you, by the Divine Power, gloriously overthrew…”

  The vampire had stopped hissing and was wavering. Billy held the holy water and stake at the ready.

  Then the creature simply disappeared. He fled into the darkness so fast that Billy lost sight of him in the blink of an eye. Behind him, Jill was cowering on the ground and whimpering. Billy’s legs went weak all of sudden.
He sat down heavily on a nearby log.

  “Now will you go inside with me, Jill?” he asked softly.

  She didn’t answer, but he knew she was convinced.

  #

  To hell with those bums! Stuart thought. Who needs them?

  He’d had a busy and successful week, having already Turned and then trained three vampires. He had them all convinced they wouldn’t survive without him. He’d embellished the truth about himself, drawing on all the vampire movies and TV shows he’d ever seen to concoct a background of hundreds of years and thousands of victims.

  Having spent so much time on his disciples, Stuart was a little tired and just wanted an easy meal. Bums tended to taste pretty bad, but they’d do in a pinch and were usually easy prey.

  The sensations he’d felt when the homeless guy was chanting his prayers had been strange. The crucifix in the ground had repelled him, and the wooden stake and spray bottle had scared him a little. He’d watched as Greg had burned outside his house, killed with similar implements.

  It was weird: he’d never been religious, and yet here he was being forced away from a perfectly good meal by the symbols of religion. Maybe he was damned. Hell, of course he was damned.

  And he didn’t care.

  He settled for a teenage girl who was sneaking back into her house after a night of partying. She started to scream when he grabbed her ponytail. He wrenched her head back and tore into her neck, cutting her off in mid-cry. She tasted better than any bum would have, anyway. As a bonus, she was drunk. Stuart drank the alcohol-infused blood and got one of the best highs he’d ever had.

  He sat on the darkened front porch and ate the girl’s flesh, down to the bones. He tossed the bones, one by one, out onto the lawn. He wasn’t ready to take on another new disciple just yet. Well, now that he thought about it, it was time he Turned a girl: a good-looking girl. He’d been concentrating on the muscle and had forgotten how nice it was to have a female around, especially one who was in his power.