Immortal Coil: A Novel (Immortal Trilogy Book 1) (18 page)

Maggie and the crew prepared for the arrival of her new baby. She found a doctor that didn’t ask too many questions about her home life. She took care of herself, took her prescribed prenatal vitamins, and whiled away the daylight hours alone. She had given up chasing murderers and rapists, and left the heavy lifting to the men.  She still had visions, and used them to help track prey for David and Antony, but she no longer took part in the captures. Strangely, watching them feed made her hungry as well. She couldn’t be around them when they fed, or she would end up weighing five hundred pounds.

Antony, strangely, turned very paternal. He doted on her whenever he could, refused to let her do any lifting, or exert herself in anyway, and he saw to her every need. David seemed jealous—to the point that he even accused Antony of fathering the child, as absurd as that was. The baby would have two diligent fathers looking after her. Maggie had convinced herself it was a girl growing inside her. Or so she hoped. David hoped for a boy, of course.

And then there was the uncle, as Randal referred to himself when he mentioned the baby. What more could a baby want than to have three vicious vampires looking after her?

Maggie laughed at the thought.

She took a lot of naps during the day, she found. Being alone made her feel lonely. And the loneliness led to depression. Depression made her sleepy. She dreamed a lot. One dream in particular disturbed her more than any others. In the dream, she saw a man. He was a handsome man with unruly auburn hair. The man liked to strip naked and run around on all fours. He was a murderer, this man. He ripped people apart with his teeth and ate their flesh. She had found that the dream seemed to come in twenty-eight day cycles for some reason. She wanted to tell David and Antony to go after this man, and bring him back to face their distinctive form of justice, but she could not pinpoint his exact location. She didn’t want to bring David and Antony into a discussion about this dream until she could determine the specifics of the dream.

There was another aspect of the dream that confused her. She was aroused by the naked killer with the mop of reddish-brown hair.

On several occasions she woke from the dream soaked in sweat after having made love to this stranger in her dream. Some days she woke with a scream on her lips because the stranger had been eating her flesh. On these days, she would place her hand on her stomach and feel the baby in her kicking. That kicking life inside her always had the ability to calm her racing heart, no matter the reason it was racing; be it from fear, or from ecstasy.

The visions from the Dark Father’s victims had tapered off until she no longer sensed his activities. She didn’t know the reason for the inactivity, but she suspected he had moved out of her range of power. He had always only been on the cusp of her visions, perhaps now he was finally off her radar.

Or perhaps the baby had something to do with that as well. Sensing the Dark Father’s victims had always taken a toll on her emotions. Maybe her body was protecting the baby by blocking those visions. The only downfall was that it left them vulnerable if the monster decided to attack.

Randal had been a real challenge for her, but he was coming around. He sometimes reverted to the wild child he had been when he first joined them. She thought he sometimes looked at her as a cat would a freshly caught fish, but then he never attacked her, and she was confident he never would. Antony stayed cautious when it came to the child vampire, not completely trusting him to stay sane without constant supervision. Antony always hunted with Randal. David, too, helped to keep an eye on the pint-sized killer.

And what a killer he could be. Randal often showed signs of diverging from the code Antony had put into place for the vampires, although to date he had not acted on the urge to kill innocent people. Randal spoke only to Maggie about his dark side. She kept his secret, even though doing so could threaten to put a wedge in the group. She feared that telling Antony Randal sometimes felt the urge to kill innocent people would leave Antony no choice but to destroy Randal. She could handle this issue without Antony’s intervention. And so far, she was successful. She was confident Randal had adhered to the code and only killed bad people.

Gardner Thomas Jervis was born at 1:18 a.m. on a Wednesday. She fell in love with his doughy flesh, round face; his red button nose and rosy cheeks the minute the nurse placed him in her arms. Maggie was so happy that both David and Antony could be there for the birth. Randal did not come to the hospital, but chose to stay home and wait there for word on Maggie’s and the baby’s status. He was still distant and moody, and just couldn’t be trusted. That would change; however, as Randal proved he could be, not only safe around the baby, but actually an adoring and doting uncle. Sometimes Randal looked at Gardner—or Gar, as Randal would affectionately refer to him—with a look of stern determination and unconditional love that led Maggie to believe Randal would die to protect the baby. Eventually, Antony learned this, too; and Antony relaxed his attitude toward the child vampire. When Antony realized Randal was not the vicious monster Antony had expected him to be, Randal officially became part of the group.

Months before Gardner was born, Antony took Maggie to his New Jersey house. They acquainted themselves with the caretakers there, and then Maggie started interviewing nannies. Antony explained that if the danger got too great, she and the baby would need somewhere to take refuge. He didn’t want to leave her on her own, so a nanny would need to be hired. In the end, Maggie chose an English woman whose aura and personality was perfectly suited. Antony peered into her soul, looking for any sign of evil intent. There was none, so he gave his seal of approval, and they had a nanny.

The Nanny was given room and board at the mansion on the beach of the Jersey shore. Her one hundred thousand dollar a year salary would start immediately, even if she didn’t. The Nanny understood that she, like all of Antony’s employees needed to be available at any time in any given situation. She agreed.

Not long after visiting New Jersey, Maggie received a visit from the local law enforcement. “I’m Detective Smith and this is my partner Detective Jones. Do you mind, Ms. Owens, if we ask you a few questions?”

Being called Ms. Owens brought back memories of being on trial. She did not want to revisit that part of her life. “Ask,” she said gruffly.

“We’d like to ask you about Grover Dixon. Have you seen him lately?” asked Detective Smith.

“No.” She hoped the lie didn’t show on her face.

“Are you sure?” Detected Jones asked.

“I’m sure.” She knew she was being overly hostile with the detectives, but they represented the government who had tried to put her away for her daughter’s murder. She didn’t feel she had to be nice to them.

“If you see him, please contact us, Ma’am. We have a warrant out for his arrest.”

“Why?” Maggie asked.

“We’re not at liberty to discuss—”

“Bullshit. If you want to know where he is you’ll tell me why you want him,” Maggie said. “You bastards tried to pin my daughter’s murder on me. You owe me.”

“With all due respect ma’am, we don’t owe you—” Detective Jones started to say, but his partner stopped him.

Detective Smith cleared his throat. “There has been a review of the evidence. Apparently, the coroner missed it the first time, but the bruises on Baby…on Molly’s body were made by a man. You have been exonerated of any wrong doing in this case. We are now looking at Grover as the prime suspect.”

“Do I hear you correctly?” Maggie felt her face getting redder by the minute. “You ignored exculpatory evidence that could have cleared me in order to get a conviction, and now you want my help putting the real perpetrator of this crime behind bars? Is this correct?”

“Ma’am,” Detective Jones started to say.

Call me Ma’am one more time you little shit and I’ll sic my vampire friends on you
, Maggie thought.

“If you’ve seen Mr. Dixon…”

“No, I haven’t seen him. But at least you’re now starting to see this from my point of view, now that it’s too late.” Maggie flushed.

“Too late? Why do you say that?”

Maggie scrambled for a cover. “I have nothing to do with that monster anymore. He’s your problem now, and you’ll probably never find him. He should have been arrested when I first told you what he did. It makes me sick that he got away with this. So you should really get out there and start doing your job.”

After the detectives left, Maggie began to research opening up her own women’s shelter. She enlisted David and Antony’s help. The three worked out the details, and construction began on Molly Owens Shelter for Abused Women and Children, or MOSAWC. This turned out to be a doubly good idea since David and Antony could target some of the more aggressive and dangerous men out there abusing women and children.

There were some men not chosen as prey: men who were not overly aggressive, and who had at least some redeeming qualities; but the men who beat their women and children mercilessly, and showed a tendency to escalate their violence, soon became part of the missing just like all the other violent offenders in town.

Maggie liked to make her presence known to the women at the shelter whenever she could. She returned home from the shelter and climbed the stairs to her room where she met up with two of her favorite men.

David sat on the edge of the bed, and watched his seven-month old son Gardner swinging and shaking the colorful plastic key ring he held in one plump, pink fist. When Maggie entered the room to feed Gar, David stood. “Goodnight baby bunting, daddy’s going a hunting.”

“Okay, that’s just creepy, considering what you’re hunting,” Maggie said and laughed.

David admired his newly formed fangs in the mirror over the dresser. The fangs had started to form two months ago. Since then the fangs had doubled in size. They were finally sharp enough to use tonight. His second weapon was a katana. He bought it a few months ago to use when disposing of the corpses. It was a genuine Japanese katana and was as sharp as Maggie’s tongue. “We’re going after a group of thugs that kill the elderly for their pension checks. We are performing a very noble act, if you ask me.” He sounded offended.

“They are still people was my point. Anyway, I was just kidding.”

David turned to her and flashed his fangs.

“Impressive,’ she agreed. “Is Randal going with you tonight?”

“Yes. Will you be okay on your own?”

She scowled at him.

David smiled his most charming smile, kissed Gar on the forehead, and then headed out in search of Antony. The elder vampire was waiting for David in the living room with a glare that said,
why are you not ready yet?

“I had to give my son a good night kiss.”

Randal, standing to the left of Antony, smiled at the mention of his little buddy. Randal’s own fangs were coming in nicely.

The three took off into the night. Within minutes, they reached their destination and surrounded the five men they had targeted. The muggers had finished trolling in a dark alley and were divvying up the night’s riches. The youngest looked to be about seventeen. Randal claimed him. The others were in their twenties. The group seemed unconcerned by the trio’s arrival. To the muggers—who outnumbered the newcomers—they were just three new victims. And one of them was only a kid. The muggers surrounded their victims.

But Randal was the first to strike. He was hungry and could wait no longer. He leapt and brought his prey to the ground, his fangs piercing the boy’s neck. Instantly, the blood flowed.

Two men converged on Randal, intending to protect their young member, but Antony intervened. Antony grabbed one by the throat, holding him in place as he pulled the second into his deadly bite. Antony drank the first then tossed the body aside and drank from the prey he had been holding out at an arm’s length.

David waited for one of his two attackers to move. As the man swung his leg up waist high with a powerful roundhouse, David easily ducked under the attack and moved to stand behind the kicker. Wrapping his arm around the man’s neck, essentially immobilizing him, David grabbed the final man as he approached. David pulled him into his embrace and drained him. As that victim crumpled to the ground, David turned to the man struggling against his iron headlock. David delighted at the ease of his fangs sinking into the man’s neck, sending the delicious flood down his throat.

The three vampires stared at the five corpses littering the ground around them. David unsheathed the katana on his hip and went to work decapitating the corpses. The bodies were collected and disposed of in the sewers. Randal was finished for the night, so he returned home while the others continued to hunt.

Antony’s third victim that night was a rapist he had read about in the Philadelphia Enquirer. This rapist was accused of killing his latest victim. The police had no leads, but Antony had Maggie. Antony paid his prey a visit as he lay sleeping in his bed, and just like that there was one less rapist in the world.

David visited a rather nasty child molester in another part of town. He returned to find Maggie asleep in the recliner, with Gardner nestled on her chest. He covered them and headed to his room to retire for the night. Once again his skill at walking through the house without making a sound came into play.