Standing Before Monsters (Vorans and Vampires) (52 page)

“Come on, man. We weren’t hurting anyone. Why did you send those monsters here last night? We just wanted to be left alone,” one of the men made a plea even as he held a knife tipped with silver. It could only cut Nick’s flesh if it hit, but it wouldn’t make him burn like the vampires.

“We didn’t send the reapers to attack you, but we made sure to kill as many of them as we could catch. You’re gang simply helped us achieve our goal of removing even more dangerous vampires from the city,” Nick answered with both blades ready in his hands.

“What are you anyway?” the second man asked. “You aren’t a vampire with those light sabers. You smell human.”

“I’m a voran or you can just call me a vampire hunter, either works. I kill vampires so the disease doesn’t spread.”

“With a werewolf?” the first asked trying to buy time as the remaining two fighters tried to figure out an ending that didn’t leave them dead.

“And vampires under my protection that don’t kill humans or turn them for numbers like you and your friends.”

“We found most of these guys last night. We didn’t make a ton of vampires. This nest was formed to try and stop the slaughter, man. Those creeps killed hundreds of us on the north side, so we armed up and hid here with the others. The guys up top wanted to fight them. We came down here to hide and keep the young ones alive,” the first one tried to explain. “If there’s a way to not drain blood and not lose our minds, I’m up for it. Just show me the way and I’ll follow you.
Really.”

He hadn’t dropped the blade and Nick could tell that it was only a half truth. The preferable way out of this situation was for them to win and kill both Nick and Charlotte; but the voran replied giving him a last chance. “Fine drop your weapons and I will let you live, but you must follow what I say.”

Letting the aura blades disappear from sight to show he was willing to stay his hand, Nick wasn’t surprised when the two vampires rushed him instead. They thought they were fast and the distance too close for him to react. Two aura blades lanced out from the voran’s chest. Since they were light and merely extensions of the voran’s aura, he could call them from anywhere.

Both light blades were like spears hitting directly in their chests as they attacked. Stunned by the aura blades a moment, Nick withdrew them as they stood numb and took their heads with new swords called into his hands.

With a big sigh, the voran felt the remaining handful of vampires. All were weak and most likely turned without access to blood from humans since they were originally the blood stock. Charlotte moved beside him and asked, “Are there any you think should be saved?”

She was referring to pure souls cursed like Sami. He had spared the girl, the only survivor and a mistake of the vampires at that; but the girl had been willing to die rather than give in to her bloodlust. As he had said then, it was a rare trait among the newly turned and starving vampires.

“Oh my God, Nick, look,” Charlotte said seeing a child. The boy was probably only eight or nine by his guess. With dark brown skin, his eyes would have stood out if they were normal, but they were white with his hunger. Two young women, an older man with gray hair and a middle aged woman huddled against the far wall. They had seen what had happened to the brave and strong. Those with fight in them were dead.

The pretty brunette moved closer to the boy talking soothingly as she hoped that he could be saved. He bared his fangs and Nick warned, “Be careful. Those eyes tell that they are on the verge of being out of their minds with hunger.”

“But he’s just a boy, Nicholas,” she chided using his full name like the wife she would be if life were fair. “He just needs to be taken care of properly and you’ll see that he can be saved. Maybe they all can.”

Nick moved with each step of Charlotte watching their eyes and wondering if fear of him or restraint of themselves held them in check. When the little boy leaped for the werewolf, the voran guessed that he could smell the wolf in her as well. Whether he thought to take her blood or just kill the woman, they would never know.

Charlotte pulled back in surprise and the glowing voran blade stopped the little vampire cold as it stabbed the feral creature in the chest. A small fire erupted, but the child never sounded like anything other than the animal he had become. He was also the changing of the tide and the lynch pin to the others’ willingness to attack.

The old man and one of the young women charged in the first wave. Teeth were bared and unintelligible snarls revealed that only the hunger remained. The smell of the werewolf made them charge the armed voran and both erupted in flame as he took them through the heart. Last to attack was the middle aged woman and she joined the others in fire.

As the last girl huddled against the wall, he asked, “Can you understand me?”

The white eyes stared at him and fangs were bared. He tried asking a second time without receiving the glimmer of the humanity he hoped to see. She was merely a frightened animal too afraid to attack him. With nothing left of the girl save the vampire’s instincts, Nick sighed feeling the pain in his heart; but knew that it was the only merciful thing he could do for the girl that had once been human.

Light destroyed the darkness as her black heart started the fire that consumed the shell of the girl.

He could hear Charlotte crying and turned to hug her to him. The claws were gone and the blades put away. Only the amber glow of the sticks fought with the shadows as Nick held the woman he loved knowing her pain, since it was also his own.

Chapter 29- The Art of Flirting

She couldn’t stop crying and in fact, Charlotte was so upset by the death of the boy as well as the others that she grew sick and threw up. Nick walked her to the stairwell where she sat on the stone, rather than the jagged metal stairs while he tended to the clean up. More than a dozen vampires had died and not all had caught fire.

Like silver, Nick’s aura blade reacted with the flesh of vampires inducing flame to reduce the evidence to dust. With little air getting into the subbasement, Nick had to make sure to disperse the dust as best he could by kicking the remaining mounds. There was so much dust that it made him
sneeze and would make future visitors curious about the abundance on the floor and machinery; but dust was natural and humans didn’t think much of it. Dead bodies raised a lot more questions, so he was thorough.

By the time he recovered the glow sticks and finished the clean up, Nick was very dusty and would have to make sure that he brushed his clothes off in the basement before being seen by any of the police who they had met earlier. He didn’t want any questions; though being dusty was the least of the ones they could ask about. Hoping that the thick stone had muffled the sounds of the fight, and apparently getting his wish; Nick collected Charlotte who sneezed at the dust on him.

The extra time taken by the voran to clean up had given her a bit of time to gather her composure. She hadn’t been sick since he had left her, and with a bit of wiping of tears; the pretty brunette looked nearly calm and collected once more.

Sniffing, Charlotte asked quietly and with a lot of sadness, “Did you know that they couldn’t be saved going in there?”

“I knew it when I saw their eyes. It was like finding a pet infected with rabies. Their minds were lost and all that was left was the savage animals that only want to kill and thirst for blood.

“I hoped that maybe one would find their way back out of the darkness, but all I could do was
end their slavery to the monster inside.”

She nodded. “I can’t believe that they resorted to turning a child.”

“They were desperate, but using him for food or for fodder; either made them worthy of destruction. Those hearts were truly black inside and out.”

Coming out of the entry after trying to get rid of the dust only took care of one visual problem. Some of the black blood had splattered onto Charlotte from the vampire who had attacked from above. Luckily the color looked a lot like oil while still wet, but the policemen manning the exit didn’t ask though they noticed both were dirtier than when they went inside.

After leaving the north east exit and walking south along Morgan Street, Nick looked to the south roof of the building across the street from the nest and spotted the shadowed heads of the two kasha. He pointed at them and signaled to come down and meet them on the same street heading south.

Once on the sidewalk walking towards the car, the building and distance soon hid them from the police at the nest. Lamassu and Alad popped out of an alleyway as they walked by and Alad asked gruffly, “You look dirty. You didn’t kill all of them without us, did you? We demand our chance at revenge, Nick!”

In a blur, Nick took the lighter weight man and shoved him against the brick wall of the building alongside the sidewalk. Forearm across the kasha’s collarbone, the voran’s hand held his shoulder while his greater weight pressed Alad back. Only with effort could he have pushed him away.

“You killing those vampires
doesn’t get you vengeance. These weren’t the creatures who killed Shedu. The ones you want I am hoping my police friend can find before they kill again.

“We simply put down the weak and newly turned. They had all given in to the evil of being vampires and there was nothing redeeming left inside them. All you could have done is torn their souls away. Either way it was just a mercy killing and not a means to revenge through killing such pathetic creatures.”

The voran’s voice had remained even and devoid of feeling. Such calm seemed to resonate in Alad more than any bout of screaming could do.

“They turned a child and an old man,” Charlotte said quietly looking ready to cry again at the thought.

Nick nodded and added, “The vampires of the nest were so pathetic and destroyed that they turned their food sources into vampires just to appear to have numbers. Starving and stuck in madness, most of them only fought and attacked out of instinct. There was only the hunger for blood in them and no intelligence beyond that.

“Does that sound like the something your vengeance would be satisfied by, Alad?”

Grinding his teeth, it was Lamassu who replied, “No, it was just cleaning up trash, Alad. Now show some restraint for Shedu’s sake, if not for your own.”

Nick released the man and reiterated, “I am having my friend, who helped me find you, look for these reapers. When I have a lead, I’ll call you. Go off on a stupid tear like that again and I’ll take you down, Alad. Do you understand me?”

Through gritted teeth, the man of Arabic descent narrowed his dark eyes and said, “Yes, I understand you.”

Lamassu looked like she wanted to argue as well, but Nick understood how these kasha worked now. Like the werewolves, they respected authority and his strength and power enforced the alpha to their beta status making them fall in line. For all Shedu’s ability, Nick thought that the man had barely held Alad in check and perhaps because the two had wills and strength too similar. The voran took any question of who was in charge out of the kasha’s mind.

Dismissing them, Nick took Charlotte home so they could clean up and held her some more on the couch. Normally strong, the woman’s vulnerability was plain to him, but much of that came from the trust and love they shared.

When the evening came and the sun went down, they told Nicola and Sami of their day. There was no partying at the lair that night, but days would pass before any word would come of the reapers again.

The trail had gone cold. Detective Tucker had managed to find the vehicle on a traffic camera, but that was where there luck ended. As feared, the car had been reported stolen and the primary owner was missing. In their circle, missing usually meant dead or turned.

Nick looked at Marek as they sat in the living room in back of the Lair. While Sami joined Lena and Geni out on the dance floor, the adults were speaking on matters concerning the vampires. Nick also noticed other members missing from the circle of vampires.

“I haven’t seen Lenora or Vicki in awhile,” he stated with an air of curiosity.

Spreading his hands wide as if it was out of his hands, Marek replied, “They’ve been going out for weeks now. They tend to drag along Justin with them for protection supposedly. Frankly, I fear that Lenora may not want to stay here much longer.”

Nicola asked looking more at Audrey than Marek, “She doesn’t want to stay or have you finally grown sick of her bad attitude.”

The redheaded, female vampire sitting beside her man smiled at the assessment; but Marek answered with a shrug and said, “She isn’t that way all the time and has been better since the girl has been taking time away. In fact, her attitude has been rather tolerable.”

Audrey nodded and added, “I think going out to the other bars on the pretense of keeping an eye out for strays and reapers was Lenora’s idea, but she doesn’t want to be alone. She began dragging Vicki with her and then they asked Justin.

“If Lenora decided to leave, I am not sure where the others’ loyalties would fall.”

Tony, one of the new vampires added along with the other three mentioned, shook his head and complained, “It’s disrespectful. I think I can speak for Will when I say, that I wouldn’t think of doing this to you after taking us in, when you could have just destroyed us for being with Cyrus.”