Reign of Coins (27 page)

This was going to be where it ended. My life and hers, I just knew it. Both of us totally fucked.

A sudden spray of bullets pummeled the creature and two others that appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. More angry shrieks—even worse than the previous one—erupted all around us. I thought for sure we’d all be attacked. The police with raised weapons gazed anxiously into the darkness above them while I hovered over Tyreen’s motionless body.

But the menace retreated, at least for the moment.

“Are you all right?” asked the cop closest to me. He didn’t wait for a response, perhaps seeing I was unharmed before he even asked, other than a limp from aggravating my ankle again. A hardened veteran roughly my father’s age, he glanced at me with steel blue eyes before turning his attention to Tyreen. “Let’s get her inside, Jim!” he told another cop who came up to join him. “Bobby, I need for you to call in another patrol for back-up, and tell ‘em to have the S.W.A.T. team ready in case we need it!”

“Got it, boss!” said another cop, taller than the rest.

Three more police officers came over to help carefully carry Tyreen into the lobby. I followed close behind them, fearing the worst while praying she’d be all right. I looked outside to confirm our attackers had truly left, as they had the other night. I didn’t see anything, but the darkness beyond the security lights could easily hide any predator. I knew they had to be hiding out there someplace, biding their time before launching another attack. Meanwhile, the cops outside remained huddled together, searching the darkness with the same fearful look I’d seen on Tyreen’s face earlier. Like us, they had no idea how to combat effectively these lesser vampires. But they would be schooled soon…sooner than any of them could’ve ever imagined, I’m sure. 

That, however, was the least of my concerns. I was beside myself, thinking Tyreen might die from her injuries. She had lost a lot of blood, which left a dripping crimson trail as they brought her inside. But one of the cops, named Ty Sorwell, had spent time as a paramedic. He assured me that she’d be fine. When I didn’t believe him, he showed me the wound to her shoulder, which was the main one. Deep tears in her flesh, but not so deep the bleeding couldn’t be stopped. When I worried about how an ambulance could reach the dorm with the menace still out there, he assured me Tyreen wouldn’t need one for now, and that we had enough medical supplies to get her through the night.

Obviously, he didn’t wish to venture outside any more than I did. But, the low tremors shaking her body told me that she was in shock, something I’m sure Ty knew too.

“We need to get her stable, and then she’ll be fine,” he said. The youngest male in the group, and by far the best looking, Ty’s soft brown eyes reminded me of Peter’s. “You might want to take a seat by the TV while we get everything taken care of.” He smiled, revealing two perfect rows of veneers. 

“Okay,” I agreed, and took a step toward the middle of the lobby where the television was. But, then I thought of Johnny and Peter waiting upstairs, and me not being able to call them since I left my cell phone in my room. “Just let me go upstairs, so I can let her boyfriend know what’s happened. I’ll be right back!”

Before he could stop me, I’d made my way to the elevator. I noticed three guys sitting in front of the TV suddenly look up, as if until that moment they had absolutely no clue what was going on. Luckily, the elevator door opened right away, and I stepped inside.

As I pushed the button for the fourth floor and the door began to close, an immense crash shook the building’s main floor. I heard screams and even more gunshots, along with the sound of breaking glass and terrible inhuman screeches from near the main entrance.

Looking back on this, I should’ve stayed and try to lure the bastards away from Tyreen. But at the time, I thought Johnny and Peter—and whoever else was upstairs—could help us aid the police in fighting these fiends.     

Such tragic folly, especially after I learned later that nearly two dozen of the creatures attacked the lobby. We couldn’t have saved anyone.

When I reached my floor, the handful of girls who had yet to leave were running around in a panic. Breaking glass and more unearthly shrieks resounded from either side of the hall, and behind the doors leading to the men’s side of Massey Hall I heard similar shrieks, and screams from our terrified male counterparts, no less.

“Txema—get back in the elevator!!” Elaine Johnson, our floor’s RA shouted at me. “They’re attacking everybody! They’re—oh my
God!!  Oh God, NO-O-O!!!”

I had stepped out of the elevator, and Elaine stood outside her room, just inside the entrance to our wing. Or, I should say she stood there for a moment following the destruction of her room’s picture window. Within seconds of her panicked scream, something flew out into the hallway and grabbed her. My first impression was of a hideously deformed, hairless, white man. Very tall and naked, except for a dark tunic around his waist, with no shoes covering elongated feet with sharp nails curled at the end of each toe. 

But, that wasn’t what frightened me. The fiend leered at me, with a pair of glowing yellow eyes and a mouthful of jagged sharp teeth, opened wide with dripping saliva. It held Elaine’s trembling body fast with one hand while it used the long sharp fingernails on its other hand to tear her throat open. Too late to save her, I could only stare in horror. Tortured by her terrible screams, as the thing’s horrible Nosferatu face bore itself into her neck, its pale skin quickly turned crimson from my RA’s blood.

It had all become too much for me…the terror and the horror, and I burst into tears. Before I collapsed where I stood, I caught a glimpse of a blurred image racing toward me that followed an explosion of the wooden door to the guys’ wing. Then something grabbed me, and I became aware of two small needle-like sensations upon the birthmarks on my neck. For the second time in four days, my body grew weak and the world swam around me. Unable to move, I couldn’t respond to anything—not even Peter and Johnny’s panicked screams as they ran toward me from further down the hall. For the second time in four days, everything went black.

To purchase your copy of
The Vampires’ Last Lover
, click on the link for your preferred ereader device below:

Kindle US

Kindle UK

~~~~~~~~

Abo
ut the Author

Aiden James resides in Tennessee with his wife, Fiona, and their two sons, Christopher and Tyler. An avid researcher of all things paranormal, he still spends time visiting haunted locales throughout the Deep South.

Please visit his website at:
www.aidenjamesfiction.com
, or look for him on Facebook and Twitter.