The Birth of Vengeance (Vampire Formula #1) (14 page)

“Shall we?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Thorn hand braked the car in the road followed by screeching tyres and smoke. I held on tight to the armrest as the car whipped around in the empty road and drove back through the smoke to the warehouse. We drove slowly through the industrial estate forcing our senses to home in on the strange set of signals. As we approached the heartbeats became stronger, and the emotions of fear and violence could be sensed from two different groups inside. We pulled up and sat outside for a second; Thorn closed her eyes taking in their emotions.

“Close your eyes. Feel their emotions and listen to their thoughts,” she said.

I picked up the emotions easily, and slowly the thoughts came in between the feelings. First, feelings of fear raced through my mind, followed by images of violent and sexual memories from a group inside. Images of men pinning them down, and arms bruised from their grip, and stomachs and ribs hurting from punches used to subdue them. The feelings of their limbs restricted and breathing difficulties through their noses, as mouths dry, with the sensations of a blockage preventing them for screaming for help. I connected into a girl’s thoughts as she tried to struggle against her bonds, “We are never going to escape,” she thought.

Images of a burly unshaven man approached and he slapped her across the side of the face. Her mind went blank with face stinging, brain rattling and head bouncing off the floor. He shouted, as she lay crumpled on the floor blood trickling out of her nose. Next, I sensed the emotions of the violent group inside. I picked up feelings of the man who just hit the girl. His thoughts full of anger. “Why don’t these bloody girls learn to sit still?”

He looked down at her, blonde ragged hair, her cheeks blowing trying to breath around the dirty rags stuffed and tied around her mouth. Her pale skin covered in dirty patches from the warehouse floor, blue teary eyes and blood trickling out of her nose. He looked at his watch and thought, “Still time to enjoy myself before the others arrive.” His disgusting lust imaged her body and scared face, as he intended to take her, without her consent.

Thorn quickly got out of the car; jacket flung into the seat and walked up to the side of the warehouse door. She beckoned my over to join her.

“Listen,” she said.

My improved hearing picked up the conversation.

“How many girls do we have?”

“Ten, all ready for shipment.”

Thorn’s eyes blazed red.

“Watch how it’s done,” she said, and then stood back and kicked the door flying off its hinges into the warehouse. She stepped through, and I followed behind excited and wanting to see what Thorn could do in full battle rage.

The warehouse was disused and dirty, the floor covered in dust and grime. The inside was barley lit by a few working bulbs hanging from long cords high in the ceiling. Inside, the ten girls sat in a circle in the middle of the dirty floor. They were all about my age and a mixture of races, clothes dirty and eyes stained with tears, hands bound behind their backs and dirty rags gagging their mouths. I sensed them before seeing any of them. I knew each of their thoughts, and their scents now bombarded me with smells of dirt and sweat. Their fear intoxicated me, and seeing them bound and gagged I felt the urge to feed on them. An easy meal but I knew it was wrong. The ragged blonde with blood trickling out of her nose was being dragged off to the back of the warehouse, by the man I had seen earlier in her mind. The girls looked at us in the hope of salvation, and it reminded me of the look Giles gave me at the front gates of the school. Eyes stretched wide in fear and hoping someone would rescue them. They now all looked at us, and I sensed their hope, that we were the ones to offer that salvation.

Around them were four men who had been talking to one another and waiting. When the door fired across the room and skidded to a halt before the group of girls, the men imprisoning them turned to see Thorn stepping inside. Their thoughts were decidedly different and changed as soon as the door flew past them and they saw Thorn. They looked about for more people at the other exits at the opposite ends, left and right of where they now stood. When they saw none and realised we were it, their initial fears altered into feelings of anger at being disturbed by Thorn and I. Intentions of violence towards us filled their minds, and the adrenaline and testosterone raced quickly through their bodies having been surprised by the flying door. My urge to feed on the girls had been replaced with feelings of anger and aggression towards these men. Having experienced the memories and fears of the girls imprisoned, I felt like it had happened to me. I wanted revenge for having experienced those feelings, as if I were one of the girls. Plus, they looked like they would provide a better hunt and a bigger meal.

“Who the hell are you?” one of the men shouted, dropping the girl with the bloodied nose to the floor. He signalled the others to get Thorn and walked over to join them as they approached us.

I stepped to the back and side to allow her to show off her skills. A slight smile appeared, and her thoughts were in my head.

“They are already dead.”

“I am Thorn, and I have come to make you bleed,” she responded.

They flicked out knives and drew out batons ready for a fight. They tried to look menacing swinging them about as they closed in. Thorn waited for them to get close enough, standing motionless and showing no emotion. They were steps away, batons coiled back and their sweaty stink burning my nostrils. Thorn unleashed her vampire features, eyes burning red, fangs cutting through her gums and claws ripping through the ends of her fingers. She roared, arching her back and head up in the air, with her fangs gleaming in the light. It sent a primeval shudder through their bodies as the sound resonated in their stomachs, triggering a pre-historic response to run, and they did run. She quickly leapt after the man who hit the girl, jumping high above his head and then down, leg extended onto his head, smashing his face into the concrete floor. His head exploded like a melon dropped, and she skidded in control on the blood, spinning around to face me at the end. She pointed to the one running for the two main doors at the other end of the warehouse, and darted off to the other two men running in the opposite direction.

I sprinted after him sensing his fear as he tried to escape. I ran past him, stopped a couple of meters in front and faced him. Only seeing a teenager, he stopped running. He was a big fat man but well over six foot tall and broad. I relished the idea of taking him down and waited, as Thorn did, for him to get close enough first. I had plenty of pent up rage after Thorn tried to kill me, and anger after hearing about the O’Keefe gang escaping justice. I would make sure these people didn’t escape justice tonight. Vengeance for these girls would be immediate. He began his run again with baton coiled on his shoulder. I let the vampire rage take over and with fangs, claws and eyes burning bright; I ducked his swipe and slashed my claws across his stomach. He stumbled to one side, dropped the baton and looked back at me. His eyes met my mutated features and he tried to run for the door again. I quickly grabbed him by his arm and swung him around and around in a circle lifting him off his feet, and then firing him like a hammer into the wall of the building. He laid crumpled, blood pouring from his nose and face, and spluttering words as I walked over. I put my foot on his head and stamped; the skull cracked and an eyeball popped out firing across the floor.

I walked back to Thorn who had already killed the remaining two guards. One hung from the light fitting at the end of the warehouse, eyes gorged out and blood dripping to the floor. The other slumped against the blood-stained wall, throat ripped out but no blood on his clothes. Blood soaked in on Thorn’s chin, and she smiled as she untied the girls. I sensed the girls fear, the same as before but now of Thorn and I. I walked to the back of the group and untied the girl with the bloodied nose and ragged blonde hair. The images in her mind replayed Thorn jumping high in the air holding the guard and wrapping the electric cord from the light around his neck. I snipped the cloth around her arms with one of my claws and she quickly grabbed the gag from around her mouth and slung it across the floor.

“Thank you,” she said, looking straight into my eyes.

I winked and gave a little smile, and a friend grabbed her by the arm dragging her to the exit.

Just then, the main warehouse doors opened at the end where I had killed the guard, and in drove three old and battered white vans. I focused in at more men in the front seats, their emotions and senses altered by the sight of their prisoners running off and the mutilated bodies of the four guards. They drove on quickly, with the passengers reaching for weapons and shouting at each other. I pushed my senses past them and into the back of the vans and sensed more girls tied and gagged. Their emotions and thoughts replicating what I had sensed earlier in the girls now running through the exit. They bounced along in total darkness in the back of the van, struggling to breathe and reliving horrible memories from their kidnappings and abuse. The drivers slammed their brakes on, and the doors burst open as nine rough and angry looking men piled out with weapons in hand, baseball bats, knifes and one man dressed in a grey shiny suit with a gun. The suited man aimed. I dropped to one knee pulling my pistol out of the back of my trousers and fired. My vampire powers allowed me to focus in on my target, and I moved quicker than he anticipated. The bullet travelled along its perfect trajectory straight into his eye and bursting out the back of his head, smashing the windscreen on the van behind. He flew back onto the floor with his gun sliding out of his hand and under the van. They froze in fear.

“No guns,” Thorn shouted at me.

I threw it to the side across the warehouse floor but kept the bullets and placed them into my pocket.

The rest of the men eyed us suspiciously, as they looked down at their dead comrade. They looked down the warehouse and pointed to the guard swinging from the ceiling. Their surprise quickly turned to anger, and they began to run towards us yelling, weapons at the ready. Thorn walked to my side, and we faced the gang together as a team. Thorn looked at me and smiled with her eyes burning red.

“Jackpot,” she said grinning.

“We’re the good guys?” I asked.

“Why not!”

We exchanged thoughts for a few seconds and devised a plan. We didn’t wait for them this time, straight into full battle rage and charged at them, vampire weapons brandished and full of blood lust.

We jumped high into the air and then pierced down with claws out wide slashing into a few. They scattered quickly as claws ripped through and injured three of their number. The others panicked at the sight of their fallen friends and monstrous features on our faces. They began to run for the exits but we quickly covered their escape paths forcing them to fight. I went for the one running back to the door, and grabbed him swinging him about and back into one of the men coming back at me, knocking him over like a skittle. At the far end, a couple the girls had stopped and were watching the battle. It was the ragged blonde haired girl and her friend that helped her up. They weren’t scared anymore but were angry. One of the men jumped back to his feet and ran off to the far end towards the two girls. The other ran towards me brandishing a knife and charged. I slipped inside the stabbing action and grabbed his arm with one hand, twisted it around so the hand faced upwards and elbow joint faced downwards. I smacked my other open hand through the elbow joint breaking his arm. The knife dropped, and he fell to the floor clutching his arm and screaming in agony. I stepped in and broke his neck.

The two girls at the other end hadn’t run upon seeing the man approaching but had picked up a knife and baton from their previous captures. They blocked the exit and he punched the ragged blonde’s friend hard, knocking her to the floor and the ragged blonde stepped in and stabbed into his stomach. He pushed her aside and staggered onwards. I picked up a dropped knife, tunnelled my vision and threw it, spinning through the air arching down and hitting him in the side of the stomach. He tripped and fell by the door but still tried to get up and crawl away. The girl with the baton jumped back up, face bruised and jumped onto his back hitting him as hard as she could over the head. The ragged blonde came back around the side, and pulled out the knife and stabbed repeatedly into his stomach. He stopped moving and slumped, blood spilling out over the dirty warehouse floor. I quickly finished off the next one slicing his throat open in a spinning back claw movement. Thorn was just finishing the last opponent but one. I entertained Thorn and I for a bit with the last opponent we had cornered. Thorn enjoyed the spectacle and eventually signalled me to finish.

The girls waited as we walked back down the warehouse, the blonde girl holding still while the other held her hand pulling and pleading with her to leave. They both feared us and watched as we approached blood soaking into our skin, fangs retracting, eyes changing back to normal in a blink and claws sliding back into our fingers. The muscles on our faces relaxed and lost their contorted aggressive features and flesh resumed its normal colour from its aggressive sick grey. Thorn smiled as we approached, and I sensed her pushing smoothing thoughts into their minds.

“Calm, relax.”

The girls followed the instructions without conscious agreement and relaxed. The blonde’s friend stopped talking and pulling on her hand and smiled back at us. They were only about fifteen years old but I already knew from their thoughts they had been through an unimaginable hell. The suffering I felt was nothing compared to what they had been through. We stood in front of them and both smiled. I copied Thorn pushing relaxing thoughts into their minds.