Operation (13 page)

Reese tried to keep himself aligned with the pretty side of her face; the other side was too repulsive to look at for any length of time. The longer he stared at the misshapen side of her face the more he thought he actually saw something squirming underneath the surface of the skin. However, as he moved she moved with him keeping the perspective equal so that he had to see both sides. Apparently she did not want to afford him the luxury of seeing only her good side.

Her eyes fixated on his as she spoke. “I am what you seek, John. I am two distinct versions of your thoughts because you cannot separate the side of truth from the side of the reality in which you have firmly entrenched yourself. I am in limbo because of you, John. Until you decide what truth is and what is real for you, I shall remain in this state. In essence I am a part of you.”

“No. That doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

“Yes, John, it does. Stop deluding your own reasoning and you will see it. I am what you cannot decide. I represent the complexity of life—your life.”

“This is not really happening,” he said. “All of this is a dream.”

“That is a valid consideration. Yet perhaps it is more than that,” she said calmly. “I prefer a constant reminder…as it shall remain until you decide, John.” She turned to face him so that he had a full profile of one side of her face. She raised her arm and touched the youthful side of her face, the soft and gentle flesh, the eye that reflected vitality. She ran her fingers over her plush and full lips and touched the enamel of her white teeth.

“This is what I can be, John. Today. Tomorrow. A hundred years from now. I will be the same. I can love and be loved if I choose. Eternity is nothing but a word which no longer possesses any relevant meaning; however, it does come with a price.”

She shifted her body so that the other side of her face was toward him. As she had done before she raised her arm to touch her skin. This time however, it was not the youthful looking arm, but the one that appeared old and wrinkled. Her fingers were like twisted and gnarled tree limbs and she ran them along her sickly looking flesh. Reese thought he could actually hear the sound of scratching, like someone running their fingers across a piece of coarse sandpaper.

She touched her half closed eye and a white puss oozed under the slight pressure dribbling down the side of her face. The eye fluttered open and for a brief instant, Reese saw something in that eye. A glimpse of something that he thought he knew, or should at least be familiar with. His vision clouded over and the thought of history passing…no not history, but time passing and its ravaging of civilizations entered into his mind. Shifting sands that had come and gone and cleansing the Earth of the parasites of mankind that inhabited it.

The image quickly vanished and he saw her face again.

“You cannot deny what is truth,” she said. “History precludes a lie. What has happened has happened. What will happen is destiny.”

He opened his mouth to say something but quickly closed it. It was as if the images had stolen his voice.

Next, she ran one of her fingers over her decayed teeth—Reese could actually see one of them shift from the pressure as she touched it. Her gums were black from what he assumed was tremendous age.

“This is the harshness of reality, John,” she said. “This is what will happen over time. Physically you will become old and as feeble as you see me now. The thought that you shall die becomes a constant. However, with this thought also comes a reality of truth. Time is relevant, time is meaningful, therefore life becomes precious because of the scarce quantity one is given. You saw what was in my eye, John. You know it well. It is normalcy—it is conformance to societal norms and all that the acknowledgement brings with it.”

Reese fought his mind to not interpret what she was saying. Finally he said, “Why do you look like this? Why do you show me this…contrast?” His hands clawed at the arms of the chair he sat in, digging in as if preparing for the fight of his life.

“You bring this upon yourself, John. I am what you have made me; a controversy that you refuse to decide upon.”

“No—no—no, I don’t understand this!”

“Yes you do, John. You understand it perfectly well. Ever since you met your dream—you have been faced with your conundrum which you nurture like an alcoholic nurtures their last drink.”

“No!”

“Yes, John. You admire them—you envy them—you want to be like one of them.”

“That’s not true,” he said, his voice sounding uneven in its tone.

“You continue to deny it even when you know it is true. Lieutenant Johnson saw it in himself as well, but he did not hide it as you do.”

Lieutenant Johnson. It had been a long time since Reese had heard the name. Johnson had been the operational platoon commander of the Team of Darkness until he had been killed during one of the missions. He had liked Johnson even though toward the end they had become divided upon their views of the vampires and their use. As Reese looked back at that time, he knew that the main difference was that Johnson had seemed to know what was going to happen all along and what the ultimate use of the Team would be, whereas Reese willfully remained hopeful that it would end differently. As it turned out, Johnson had been right and Reese had been very wrong. John wondered how he could have been so blinded by his own personal gain to not see it coming. He guessed it was the naïve part of him that wanted everything to end well. Yet although Reese had been less than honest with himself, Johnson was dead while he was still alive.

“And for that, you were jealous of him,” she continued as if she had read his thoughts. “He admired them as you do, although his admiration was from the perspective of a military man and what the transformation would mean. When he was on the verge of death, he pleaded and begged Dimitri to make him a vampire. When Dimitri refused you were glad about it, weren’t you?”

“Yes that’s right,” he said vehemently. “I didn’t want to see Johnson turned into a vampire.”

“Why not, John?”

“He was a human being for God sakes!”

“But it was what he wanted,” she asserted. “Why should he be denied?”

“Because it was not…right,” he said offering no further explanation.

“Perhaps not in your eyes, but in his it was,” she asserted. “You knew he wanted to be like Dimitri. Johnson admired him, envied him just as you do. You had it firmly fixed in your mind that if anyone should be changed—it should be you.”

“That’s not true!” screamed Reese.

“You still hide from what you cannot deny,” she said as she rose from her chair and moved closer to him.

Reese watched as her face came nearer to his. She started to turn her face from side to side the movement becoming faster and faster causing a strobe effect of the two sides of her face.

“Why do you do this?” he asked as he pressed himself into the chair trying to get as far from her as possible. He wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t.

“No more, John. You must choose! If you wish to live you must choose which side of life you will accept.”

“No. I can’t.”

She stopped her movement and remained poised inches from his face. Reese stared at the side of her face which was youthful in appearance.

“It is this that you want, John,” she said. It was not poised as a question, but as a confirmation. “I can help give it to you. All of it.”

Reese felt the draw of what that side of her face represented. It was strong—very strong, but something within him tried to deny its pull. Suddenly he felt the touch of her hand, smooth and silky, upon the side of his face. She ran her fingertips alongside his cheek. Her touch brought euphoric comfort to him, conveying the thought that he should do as her voice suggested.

“John,” she whispered. “We can end your turmoil now. You will be free.”

Reese slowly raised his own hand and grasped hers. He felt the softness of her skin.

“Free, John,” she murmured into his ear. “You can finally be free.”

As the last syllables of the word dissipated, everything around him became hazy and then vanished. The room with its lavish furniture and draperies were gone and now it was just the two of them alone in the dark. His body felt as if it had been immersed into a vat of warm oily liquid that caressed every pore of his body and was sucking every nuance of emotion from him. Then, without any conscious thought of what he was doing, Reese placed her hand on his throat and moved it back and forth.

“Yes, John. Is that what you want?” She murmured. “You must be sure.”

“Y-eee—-sss,” he said, the syllables lingered on his lips like the hiss of a snake.

In the hand that remained touching hers, he felt the contour and texture of her fingers change in his hand. On his skin, where her nails gently raked the flesh of his neck, he felt the softly sanded edge of her nails change. They became sharp and toyed at the softness of his skin as if probing for a particular area.

His excitement, fed by the induced euphoria he was immersed in, sent his pulse to quickening. With her hand on his neck, he could feel the throbbing of his artery where her hand settled. There was a slight pinch and then he felt liquid warmth on his skin.

“To life, John,” she said as she moved closer.

The words resonated in his mind bouncing around like the metal ball in an arcade game from one point to another, but unlike the pinball game, instead of harmless bumpers of flippers, when this ball struck areas in his mind, they keyed thoughts that gave him the impression that there was something he should know—something about what she had just said to him.

He felt the soft touch of her lips upon his throat, her tongue licking the flesh where the liquid warmth had been felt.

Something shot through him. It was as if a stake of ice had just been plunged into him; its cold quickly eliminating the euphoric warmth that he had been bathed in only seconds ago. Those words. He knew those words. He had heard them before! They had been said by…

He lifted his arms and grabbed the woman. He forced his arms to push her away from him. He stared straight ahead. What he saw drew away his breath and confirmed where he had heard those words before. The woman was no longer there. In her place was a man, his lips covered with blood, his eyes red with a fury that danced within them. He recognized him immediately—it was Dimitri!

“No,” Reese screamed. “No not you!”

He flailed his arms widely striking out at the vampire. The blows had no effect. Dimitri did not move. A smile slowly appeared on his lips.

“You are mine and you shall become like I am,” said Dimitri. “It is what you want. It is what you have wanted ever since the day you stared upon us in our crypts.”

“No!” Reese screamed as he continued to strike out at Dimitri to no avail. “I refuse! This was a trick! Just a trick to make me question my own beliefs and trick me into giving in.”

Dimitri laughed. “It is too late,” the vampire said, “It is too late for many things and you know it. Things are at an impasse that must be resolved.”

“No!” Reese screamed as he struggled. “I can not. I will not!”

Reese continued to struggle against the vise-like grip that held him. As if in response to his struggle, Dimitri’s eyes glowed an even deeper blood red and he returned his sharp fangs to Reese’s throat to finish what he started.

Reese screamed.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
EVEN

The van containing Dimitri and the other vampires continued along in the night heading toward Norfolk. Dimitri sat quietly in the passenger seat delving into his thoughts trying to retrieve what he had seen earlier. The images and thought had hit him with an intensity he had never felt before. The thought was so strong that in an instant it commandeered his consciousness. Now he tried to put what he saw and felt into perspective.

There had been the image of Reese and he appeared to be terrified of something. It must have been that terror that caused the image to bleed into Dimitri’s thoughts. He needed to know what it was that caused such an emotional outburst; He demanded that his mind reproduce the image and allowed himself to flow into it.

The image came quickly and with such intensity that Dimitri felt the fear that had surged through Reese. It was an emotion of such depth, that even Dimitri felt swept up in it. He had not known fear for so long, not since becoming a vampire, so long that he had forgotten what fear felt like. As disturbing as the effect was, there was also a sense of exhilaration. Casting aside the feeling he forced himself to focus.

Dimitri became an outsider to the event as he watched Reese being attacked by someone or something. First he saw what he thought was a woman, but as time progressed, it changed into a man. Then the location struck Dimitri as familiar and he recognized it as their sanctuary back in Kacanik in Kosovo—their old home.

What madness is this? Dimitri thought. He is not back there. That was in the past. He is here in this country. How can this be? This question drew an immediate response—it was a dream. Reese was having a dream about being attacked in the place where he had taken them into captivity.

Dimitri forced his attention back to the struggle. As he studied the images, he heard the attacker speak. Fear crept back into Dimitri in a new wave. He recognized the voice and the words. He felt sickened for he knew the attacker. The words had been his own words, and he was the attacker.

Why had Reese had this dream? Dimitri had never threatened him. At one point during their captivity, Dimitri had even considered the possibility of friendship with this man. Dimitri held back because Reese was too distracted by his own emotions. The man didn’t know what he wanted from life. What had happened to change all this? That thought was puzzling, but not as much as the next one that he had.

How could the images from Reese have touched his mind? There were only two possibilities that Dimitri could think of. The first was the most obvious but he quickly eliminated it. He had never taken Reese’s blood. The taking of blood forms an attachment by which the vampire can sometimes sense what the victim is thinking or feeling. As this had never happened, there was no chance that it was a possibility.