Operation (8 page)

I misjudged you. I sought to make you cherish life, the human life, by bringing you to the brink of death—to feel the emptiness and coldness as compared to the fullness and warmth of life. But instead, you gave it up willingly, and took from me what I would never have given freely.

You are an evil woman as well as a fool. You believe this life will be better then death? It will appear so in the beginning, but its joys will wane quickly as you remember what you could have had in a normal life. I was taken without a choice and have often begged for death. But I have accepted my fate and tempered this life with caution and indifference in order to survive over the years, hoping that meaning will come to me. I still wait after many years to find it.

As for you, I would have killed you for what you did, but by the time I had recovered, you had turned and we don’t kill our own. Yes, there is a bizarre and perverse code by which we conduct ourselves in contrast to the solitary lives we choose to live. Our kind generally keeps to themselves: We’re territorial, I guess you might say. You may never meet another like you and so you may have nothing but solitude for company for the rest of the nights of your life, unless you choose the companionship of a human.

Unlike you, I never gave up my conscious being and I still adhere to the rules and principles that governed my human life. So I will share the bare necessities with you. It might appear to you that you understand what has happened to you since the transformation, but there is much that you will have to experience on your own. As I have created you, albeit under conniving circumstances, I shall give you the basic tenets of what you need to know in order to survive.

You must avoid all forms of daylight. You must immediately seek shelter as your first daylight period approaches. Religious symbols when properly prepared and consecrated with unwavering faith are also deadly. There are various forms of elixirs made by people of the villages to ward us away from their cattle and people: Many are useless but others are not. Approach them with caution. Do not attract unnecessary attention. People are changing; they no longer hide behind their myths and ghost stories. They pursue us like they do any other adversary so choose your victims carefully. Better yet, purchase cattle and keep them yourself. Animals are always safer. Human blood will make you reckless as a human drinking too much wine.

Remember that money always tames the biggest fears, so always have some with you.

I leave you now to whatever fate awaits you. If you do not change, your anger will consume you and turn you into an even more hated creature then you were in your village. You have time now, use it well and allow it to heal whatever scars have been cast upon you. Search to find what you have lost in life, so you can cherish it in death. Make something out of your death other than the creation of pain and suffering for others.

Alexander.

Christina stared at the note for a few seconds, and then stuffed it into her bodice. She made a conscious reminder to revisit the note at a later time…how much later, she didn’t know. But right now, she had some things to take care of and headed off in the direction of her old home, her old village. She wanted to pay a visit to her family, her friends and especially one man.

She would show them that she had overcome their use of her to achieve their own selfish goals. Yes…she would show them that their judgment of her was wrong…dead wrong.

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IFTEEN
yet I am not sure if it is the effect of the creatures influence or my own thoughts which are causing my attraction for her…
20 October 1944

Our non-violence agreement holds. The creature has made no offensive gestures toward me or any of the other men. At times I detect an air of arrogance in her demeanor, as if she’s just toying with us and that she could have her way if she chose to. Yet at times she appears to want something from us. I just don’t know what it is yet. She is indeed an enigma on so many levels.

As to her requirements for sustenance, she does not desire nor is she able to eat normal food. All that she requires is blood from a living organism. We keep her fed with animals purchased on local market. The blood from them seems to satisfy her although I do not see the same extreme vitality she exuded when she killed the two men and fed on them. I suspect that the animal blood, although it can sustain her life, does not produce the same euphoric effect on her body as human blood.

I have held several conversations with her and find her to be extremely intelligent and captivating. I have to remind myself of the gruesome assault she performed on my men. This is another trait that the civilian warned me about; this potential for her to infiltrate based on her physical and mental qualities alone would be highly formidable. I regret having to terminate him, he could have been useful in my understanding of this creature, but he left me no choice.

I have discovered that she possesses a remarkable memory of the period from the late 1800’s to the 1920’s. However, when I questioned her about her own past and how she became what she is, she is hesitant to give me complete answers.

I have not been able to get anything further from her about her own past or the specifics of how she was created or the creature that made her. Her reluctance to go into this area is quite obvious, so for the moment, I have decided to not go any further into it.

As she speaks I can hear a change in her perception of the world over the long life she has lived. As she comes further toward present day, she loses something - perhaps what I would define as purpose. This is why, I think, she has no great concern for the explosive device within her. She doesn’t care if she lives or dies. This I believe is the key that I shall use to motivate her—the promise of purpose.

 22 October 1944

She has agreed to join us! I am glad of her decision on both a professional and personal level. The conversation that we had was fascinating. I have tried to recapture the essence of it in my notes.

I was told that she wished to see me. I entered her living space and she said, “I have decided to accept your proposal.”

May God have mercy on my soul for what I am about to do. I know that the act of my asking for forgiveness is in itself a poetic irony—yet it is all I can do. Not everyone will understand what I do; I only hope that someday my son knows the truth and that when it came to the end there was no choice. I had to do it. My son, I wish I could have been there for you but our country needs me. I hope you can understand that.

As the CIA man spoke, the older man sat and thought. He could hear and understand the entire conversation but he was also thinking about the diary and its contents. The two words, , resonated in his thoughts. The itch to know all the pieces of this puzzle began and he knew that he would have to scratch it at some point. The only question was how?

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IXTEEN

As Christina finished her phone conversation with John Reese about their meeting later on tonight, an odd mood settled within her. She felt strange, but what bothered her more was that she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was she felt oddly about. She knew that part of it was that she needed to feed soon, but she decided that it was important to not summon Jake for that purpose.

She didn’t want to see Jake tonight after she had almost accidentally killed him the night before. Whether it was guilt from that or just that she was feeling something else from the memories that had arisen during that experience—she wanted to forget about it for a while—especially before she saw Reese later this night.

At dusk, she left the abandoned naval compound in Driver and drove toward the little airport that resided on the edge of Suffolk and the border of North Carolina. She had been to the area before and had observed several homeless people who made their home on the fringes of the airport in a small stand of woods. There were some abandoned shacks that had earlier been used to store obsolete runway maintenance equipment that had been out of use for many years. The area was now commonly referred to as a transient hotel.

She pulled her car off of the side of the road and turned the ignition off. Gazing out at the dark woods she sat there for a few minutes focusing and preparing for what she knew she had to do. To hunt required the proper mindset and being sloppy could cause her to be discovered, or worse yet, possibly injured. These skills required practice just as anything else. She had become so dependent on Jake that she didn’t have to go out and search for someone to supply her needs very often. Of course, there had been those that she had killed on her assassination missions but she had not been allowed to take their blood—only to kill them. Then there had been those who had wandered into the area she lived—the occasional teenagers and a police officer. They were unfortunate kills, but necessary for her continued safety.

As she sat in her car, she felt her impatience grow. It wasn’t just that she needed to feed that caused impatience to gnaw at her, but rather just the fact that she wanted to get it over with. Tonight it felt like something that you had to get done, rather then something you wanted to do. This change in attitude she did not understand.

Feeding upon Jake, her primary source of human blood had brought her pleasure over the years. She couldn’t deny that.

She tried to pinpoint when her feeling had changed and the answer came quickly as if it had been waiting to be discovered.

Ever since she had learned of the possible existence of other vampires and about John Reese, something had changed. Was it that she felt her isolation was over? That there were other vampires that she could join?

She opened her car door and stepped out. Her feet crunched on the gravel parking lot as she swiveled her body around to close the car door. Looking to both sides of the small area she saw that there was only one other car parked nearby. She assumed that whoever owned this vehicle was probably fishing in the stream that meandered along the quiet road that slipped from Virginia and into North Carolina. Walking away from the car, she moved toward the area she had remembered seeing the homeless people.

She entered the wooded area, flushing her mind of all thought and allowing her senses to guide her in the hunt. She lifted her head as a gentle breeze tickled the forest around her and told her what she needed to know. For an instant, there was a sense of familiarity—something from her own country; as if she had been here before long, long ago. She placed these thoughts aside and her senses told her that someone was here. She closed her eyes allowing her mind to drift toward the smell.

Suddenly something reached out and slammed into her mind so hard it made her stagger in her steps and stop. Then it was gone. She didn’t know how to interpret it but thought it was like a memory long forgotten that had come back with a vengeance. But as suddenly as it had appeared it had departed leaving her wondering what it was. It had something to do with her surroundings…the woods she thought. She looked around and saw or sensed nothing unusual. Regardless it was gone now and so she returned her thoughts to her prey and the meal at hand.

She moved toward the smell and came to a small building where a single man with his back to her sat next to a small fire he coaxed along on a small tabletop grill. Some kind of meat sizzled on the hot grill, the smell also reaching her nostrils, but ignoring it for the smell of the blood that coursed through the man. She moved in quietly.

She stood directly behind the man when he suddenly rose and turned to face her as if he had known that she was there.

However, he was not the one that was surprised by what he saw. Christina stared into his face. It was then that she recognized the feeling she had had moments ago; the woods of her home. She felt her breath escape her lungs in surprise as she saw the face of the vampire that had made her.

Alexander.

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EVENTEEN

Samantha smiled as she imagined the efficiency of such a kill. She smiled and felt the warmth between her legs as she thought about the explosion and the effect it would have on the human body.

No…she could not give into it yet…the pleasure…not yet!

She exhaled deeply focusing on the moist warmth between her legs and forced it to dissipate. A few moments of breathing deeply and she felt that she was back in control. She let her body relax a little as the images of the explosive device and their effects diminished from her thoughts.

She returned her thoughts to Iron Stake. Samantha knew that the creature was aware of all of the issues dealing with controlling her actions and even could have possibly resisted at times. But the interesting part of this revelation was that she simply chose not to.

This fact had always puzzled Samantha and during her first meeting with the creature, she had asked about it, to which she received no satisfactory answer to explain it. However, the way in which the creature spoke when asked had given Samantha a lasting impression of that moment. The creature had simply smiled and said, “What price we have placed on our existence always possesses a cost that is greater then what we can afford to pay, so we always remain indebted.”

What she had meant by that the creature had never truly explained—so Samantha let it drop.

Samantha never called the creature by its name. Their relationship was purely professional and not of a personal nature on any level. There was not any sort of female bonding between them because Samantha refused to believe that the creature was an actual woman. The creature was an abomination. Their talks were always professional, succinct and about mission requirements. Despite her personal contempt, Samantha was not totally heartless. She allowed the creature a range of freedom as long as it did not pursue any interests that were in contrast to hers or the agency’s mission.