One Night Burns (The Vampires of Livix, #1) (22 page)

The security guard halted and waited for his companions to join him.

“They’re already gone.” I heard as the man snapped his blade down, “Now let a trucker get back to fixing his ailing radiator.”

One of the IT guys bumped the security guard and pointed. The unloading dock spotlights reflected our flashing feet in the wet mire coating the concrete under the truck as we ran.

“We’re going in there?”

Garin didn’t answer me. He lifted me and jumped onto the cattle unloading floor. He held me above the feet of the jostling cattle and warded off the horns around us. He forged ahead through the gates. The workers, if they saw us for a moment, blinked and we disappeared amid the pressing animals. Their mind couldn’t register a girl being carried across the docks like crowd surfing over a rock concert mosh pit.

Garin pushed forward like a bull cutting through the mass of steers and spent dairy cows. The maze of fences turned into a concrete box that wedged down to a cone that only allowed one steer at a time to pass through. The concrete cone bent at the end so the pressing cattle couldn’t look around the corner until too late. The steers couldn’t back up. Those behind them coaxed by their weight and pushed with the force of a herd that any individual steer had no hope of stopping.

The steers resigned themselves to the inevitable slaughter.

The cattle pressed against a breech that loaded each of them into a metal magazine. They indexed to the side where clamps pressed against their bodies and legs and dealt rapid pneumatic hammer blows through their skulls. I glimpsed the edge of the abyss at that enormous plant. Whirring chains on tracks carried the pieces and parts of cattle. Bins and vats collected entrails and offal. Pipes carried other things away. I should have read more Sinclair. I should have paid attention. I could even smell it. The blood everywhere. A fine red mist.

Garin grabbed me with a savagery I didn’t expect and he jumped forward over racks and onto machines and pipes and across catwalks. He growled like I had never heard before as he carted me forward deep into the plant. His eyes wild with barbarian blood lust on an order of magnitude greater than any fantastic adventure movie I had ever seen. Ever.

 A commotion erupted near the pneumatic hammers where the blood rushed out of the carcasses. The security guards and IT guys fell onto the machines biting the cattle and slaughter house workers in random rage. I think I saw one of the guards fall to the concrete lapping up the spilled blood like a wolf. Brimstone in its crimson eyes. Conveyors screeched and complained and burst. Stainless metal chunks and cattle giblets flung around the equipment as the killing spree of those four continued unabated. Cattle pushed through the entry wedge by those behind them sprawled on the slippery concrete and garishly fell about in flashing hooves and horns

The factory became a blur. Garin carried me forward like a monkey at the zoo carries a snack tossed by a kid who couldn’t read the ‘don’t feed the animals’ sign. Hunched over with one arm he pinned me against his body too tightly. He ran. Concrete and stainless grates and steam pipes and fork trucks blotted my blurry view. I glimpsed the wrapping line where nice pretty little steaks arrayed on shelf-pleasing white trays wrapped in see-through plastic and bar coded labels. These nice packages fell stacked into stiff cardboard boxes baled onto wooden pallets. Then sent to a local supermarket near anyone. But only a fleeting glimpse. Twenty minutes transpired between the steer standing at the beginning of the loading floor and packaged steaks boxed for transport to a supermarket. So fresh they probably still quivered in the packaging. Garin would tell me later this process encouraged a young Henry Ford to reverse the slaughterhouse steps and produce cars for a nation. The method carried through and used by the auto manufacturers today. And apparently still slaughterhouses.

Garin crashed through a window with a snarl and we fled into the night. Flecks of glass and wire and steel bounced on the pavement in our wake.

-:- Eighteen -:-

The fierce wind tugged at my skin and shredded my hair. Although the running seemed to calm Garin and he put me on his back rather than hugging me like a rag doll. We ran through the countryside passing subdivisions, small farms, old houses, corn fields, newly harvested wheat field stubble. And then with a leaping snarl we stood at the back door to his house. He set me down. He fumbled getting his keys out of his pocket. He dropped them.

I picked up the keys and unlocked the door.

Garin swooped his arms under me and carried me across the threshold like a new bride and to the king bed upstairs. He tossed me on the billowy sheets. Then scrambled back until he bumped against the dresser. The dresser’s tall mirror quivered and thumped against the wall.

I kicked and wiggled my way backward until my spine pressed hard against the ornate headboard. Heavily stained swirls of carved oak pushed through my t-shirt into my skin.

“I want you so badly!” he clung to the wood at the foot of the bed, “The blood!” His head shook back and forth, “You must leave.”

“I can’t leave. I’m terrified. But I also can’t leave you if you are having this much pain.”

“I’m feeling out of control.” He wailed, pulling on the heavy bed frame and rattling it like a thin cage. “This is bad. It’s not ever been like this before.” His muscles rippled through his shirt as his hands strained at the wood. His fingers dug into the oak foot board like one of those green foam blocks used to keep roses alive, his muscles and sinew writhing under his hard skin. “You need to go.”

I had this urge to save him. I should be running. Running down those stairs and out the door, never to return, but would that incense the creature that fought him for control? Like never run from a dog? I knew my intense feelings for him.

I came toward him on my hands and knees. His tormented eyes locked with mine. “Turn around,” I whispered.

He flipped around but still gripped the foot board with both hands as if he dangled his feet over the edge of a tall building – a single gust of wind away from falling to doom. I pressed my body against his and tightened my arms around his chest. I held him for a long time. His breathing slowed. His muscles relaxed a fiber at a time as I rested the side of my head against the back of his. We stayed silent and still.

My mind flashed to the moment in the street when he healed my injury. Helpless, the warmth that spread through my body then now returned and wound through my senses, seemingly never relinquished. A lapse in judgment. I moved my hands down and pushed up his shirt. It lay on the floor. I kissed his shoulder. His body warmed and I realized an aroused vampire is oh so deliciously warm. He turned and met my lips. I became lost in that kiss. A kiss that became my center of everything. I felt my blouse and bra briefly break our embrace as they slid together over my head. My hair bounced back over my bare shoulders in freedom. His naked torso turned in my grasp as he fell back over me onto the bed. We landed in that kiss again and … I surrendered.

His touch came light and intense. Stroking along my body in the right places. Never really getting to any target but getting achingly and passionately close – purposefully and knowingly teasing my body into desire. My body agreed and the passion of the next kiss became much more intense. Golden energy radiated out of my heart to my extremities. His rough, almost gritty beard stubble raked across my cheek as he kissed my ear, then his lips alighted warmly on my shoulder. I turned into him and kissed deep against his neck.

“NO!” He had me in the air. Like a salsa cross-body dance spin he whipped me out uncoiling and spinning until held only by my hand at the extended end of his. A fragile second ticked and he yanked me back in. I coiled up in my body and his – finishing the dance move. His face near mine. His fang points pressed against the delicate skin of my neck. I screamed as I had never screamed before.

His eye’s flickered. Pushing the wickedness away. A battle fought against the hunger in the fragile tick of the wall clock’s pendulum. Moonlight from the window glinted sharply from the polished pendulum as it swung back.

He hoarsely grunted, “Don’t ever kiss a vampire’s neck without warning.” He dropped me back on the sheets. The billowing comforter did not comfort. I pushed its softness away with my hands as I stood. My body ached as my bare feet touched the floor. I trembled. I guess we had gotten more undressed than I realized. He glowered and clung to the carved mantle of the cold fireplace. Dried husks of wood sat neatly stacked and dusty from never having burned. I stood there more vulnerable than my lack of clothing. I fought with conflicting urges to either save him or fall into him and lose myself. Vampires aren’t fuzzy cuddly pets. Real danger. Real death. My body reminded me painfully of the deathly dance I almost died in. The tick of the clock echoed in the silent room.

I reached for my clothes and slipped them on in silence despite my hands shaking uncontrollably. My rubbery leg muscles protested. My big toe caught in the side of my jeans as I pulled them on and I almost fell over.

Fear welled from my heart – are we not meant to be? My head demanded considering safety. I saw Garin’s Katana swords resting in hangers above the fireplace. I should protect myself. My eyes glanced at his naked body. His arms still knotted and his hands gripped the mantle. The scenes carved in that wood might be happy pastoral scenes of cheerful animals on a farm, but in the moonlit darkness they twisted into frightening hunting scenes. Ghoulish moaning faces.

His body shook. “I need you to leave but I can’t let you go out there alone.” He turned his head, “Not until we get this figured out.”

“I don’t think I can stay. I care deeply for you. But I can’t be constantly afraid … of us.”

His phone rang urgently in his pants balled up on the floor. The phone’s display glowed like a little ghost through the pocket lining.

“Are you going to get it?”

“It’s my phone. You let me worry about answering it.”

We stood there unmoving. Funny how a device makes people automatically do something at its mewing. The rings cut off finally. The display went dark. I imagined someone leaving a random message. Then the display lit up and the phone commenced ringing again. Garin growled deep down. Almost hidden from me. I finished putting my clothes on. I sat on the bed pulling my socks up. The phone stopped. I sat there. The phone rang again.

Garin flicked over from the fireplace and picked the pants up. He dug the phone from the pocket, “What?!!”

Other than my breathing and the ticking of the pendulum clock on the wall, the silence let me hear the voice on the other end of the call.

Yashar said, “I’m sorry it’s late – or early. We’ve got a problem. You need to stop by my house. I have paperwork from the plant and I need you to verify what I’m seeing. It’s best to see it so we can decide what to do before anyone goes to work early at the plant.”

“What’s your address?”

“North of Main and West of Indian Trail. Twelve-hundred Gallows Court.”

-:- Nineteen -:-

“I’m glad you arrived so quickly,” said Yashar, opening the door and motioning us to enter his massive Tudor built with old European timber and daub trimmed with gray brick. Cylindrical lamps of thick heavy glass brilliantly lit the walkways against the night.

“Did you park on the street? You could have parked on the drive.”

“No, we walked. It’s not far.” I combed my wind-shredded hair with my fingers. I probably looked comical wearing Garin’s trench coat as it hung loosely on me. I leaned against Garin’s ear, “We have to get your car fixed or get mine.”

Yashar shrugged and asked, “Shall I take your coat?” as he opened the foyer closet.

Garin said, “No, I’m expecting we won’t be staying long.”

Yashar slid the closet door back, “Sure. My study is to the left.” He started in, “A few months back I began noticing inconsistencies in the company’s Accounts Payable.”

We entered the large ornate study that consumed more space than my entire apartment. A fireplace with a fake fire danced at one side with a fan blowing sheaves of plastic while lights flickered and glowed under it. It only gave an impression of fire if you didn’t look closely, but otherwise gave a cold inhuman undead fire.

“Here, please be seated.” He pulled side chairs over for us, “You can see the papers I’ve spread on my desk.” His desk clear of the usual knick knacks someone might have scattered across their workspace. A computer monitor glowed on a back sideboard with a keyboard leaning haphazardly against it. The desk indeed covered with papers.

Garin said, “Those are newspapers not financial documents you’ve spread out.”

“But I did choose the finance section. The one with the stock listings.”

I could see layers of papers with bits of masking tape holding the sections together like I used for carving a Halloween pumpkin. I stood up. A hand from behind me pressed firmly on my shoulder and pushed me hard into the chair.

“I heard you stayed late in the office,” said Yashar.

“How do you know?” asked Garin.

“Your IT department tells me things.”

“But they are employed by the Bank of Draydon not Ramsburgh Industries not my company.”

“That’s how interconnected and entwined a small town is.” Yashar grinned a wicked smile. Nodding to me he said, “I see you brought dessert.”

“That’s not right to talk that way.”

“You haven’t been paying attention.” Yashar sat sideways on the edge of his desk with one knee up and the other still firmly on the floor next to Garin, “Amid those papers you signed … you turned the company over to your senior leadership. You authorized share sales to the workers. And we bought them. We bought them all. For a pittance.”