The Feeding House (14 page)

It may have been a whole month after the death of Missy but that day still rang through Jacks head like it was
yesterday. Maybe because he had ran and never gained closure he had thought to himself for a while, but any sort of closure he could have wanted could have easily been found in the papers lying around the streets of Oxford. It was a heavily reported on story. after Jack had left the saloon the sheriff had arrived and a man hunt had started for Jack. It was a weird case as there were many people who could have told the police what Jack looked like but there was no one who could describe anything about him it had got him a name in the paper “the phantom man”.

It had been a long time now since people had really stopped looking for Jack but he still remained in hiding maybe because he had become more li
ke some form of stray feral dog. Now he only came out every once in a while, at night, to feed when he needed to and would then quickly return to what he had now taken as his home.

Jack had spent the last month living in the foundations of an old run down building on the bad s
ide of Oxford. Every night that he would return to his lair he would have to remove an old white board and crawl in under the building lying on the cold dirt. He shared this area with the worms and vermin and rats would often visit him and nibble at exposed parts of Jacks flesh. He should have been miserable here but he couldn’t remember what miserable felt like. All he knew was that he had been sad for so long before he got here it was fairly impossible for him to get any lower.

Even now when Jack felt that he could not get any lower he still spent his days looking at the child’s doll
. Any time that it all seemed to get too far on top of him and he sought relief in the doll. It reminded him of why he was here, why he was still fighting to stay alive and most importantly how he would one day save that poor girl. Although he now woke every night with night terrors that mixed the screams of the little girl with the screams of Missy he still held strong and swore even if it was the last thing that he did, which it probably would be, he would save her.

Someone that he c
ould not save however was Missy. The nightmare and shame of her death played regularly in front of Jack’s mind seemingly nonstop. It tortured him and bound him to never want to leave the vermin filled hole in the ground that he had decided to call home. He continuously wondered how he could have been so weak and how he could have brutalised the one that he loved like that, no matter what state she was in or indeed what state he was in either.

Saying that Jack was unhappy would be an understatement but there was a positive though, Jack was very well hidden.
Dreno’s men had lost all knowledge of the whereabouts of Jack on the night of Missy’s murder they had become confused in the commotion and had not realised that he had ran out until it was too late. They had not stopped their search for Jack’s whereabouts since but it probably comes as no surprise that, with no knowledge of where Jack was nor whether he was alive or dead, Dreno was less than happy.

Dreno
had not forgotten. Every day he thought of Jack. Every day he thought about how he was still out there defying his punishment going against what everyone thought was possible. Dreno, as always, had plans though and it would not be long now before they ran through.

Dreno
once again met with yet another vampire that day. It seemed that his life revolved around meetings at the moment. It had often been quite full of different talks and meetings when he was living in France but it seemed as though, now that he was here in America, much more of his time was taken up by talking to feeding house Chancellors. He put it down to people around here not being used to having the High Chancellor in their presence. But it was still beginning to annoy him greatly.

This meeting however was different, this was one that he had only just arranged
himself and he was very much looking forward to it. Dreno had summoned one of his test subject vampires to see him, one of the ones that have been feeding purely off of the children’s blood, after the meeting with the scientists earlier he was very interested to see first-hand just how strong these vampires truly were.

The doors opened wide to
Dreno’s office and in stepped a tall vampire. His hair was long and black and his eyes were near solid black themselves. He had more colour in his face than a normal vampire and stood with much less fear towards Dreno, though he still stood with respect. This was one of the test subjects.

Dreno
looked at the vampire that stood in front of him and smiled. It appeared strong and easily up to any challenge of strength. As soon as his eyes fell on the vampire he gained the feeling that hoped for, the feeling that this was how vampires were supposed to be. Dreno was pleased with what he saw and decided to test further.

Dreno
stood up and walked slowly over to the vampire who stood completely still in the middle of the room. He had said nothing since his arrival. Dreno began to circle several times but still the vampire stood solid as rock, unmoving. Finally Dreno stood still in front of the vampire looking deep into his eyes and in a split second shot his hand forward in an attempt to rip the vampires beating heart from its chest.

Usually this would have worked. I
n fact on any other vampire it would have worked after all he would have caught them off guard and Dreno was known for his lightning fast movements. This however was different. The vampire simply grabbed Dreno’s wrist and threw his hand back towards him returning to his original standing position once he was done just like nothing had ever happened.

Dreno
looked at his hand a slight look of shock covering his face. He had not been blocked like that since he was very young. Truly this new feeding technic worked and it became obvious to him that he needed to begin giving it to everyone, himself included as soon as possible. Dreno could not have been more pleased at the results of the test that he had seen here today.

“This is perfect,” he began
, as a smile replaced the look of shock. “This is exactly what I was hoping for, vampires who are finally once again proper vampires, back to the way that we were supposed to be.” It was then that an idea came into Dreno’s head, one that surprised even him at its resourcefulness but never the less way very good. “Sir I want you to take all of your fellow test subjects and hunt Jack Crowe, no doubt you still remember him, when you find him I expect you to bring him back here, after of course you have savagely beaten him. I trust that this won’t be a problem?”

“Not
at all, it will be my pleasure High Chancellor,” Replied the vampire as he bowed low “We will head out tonight, we will find him for you, I can promise you that.” The certainty in the vampire’s voice seemed to spell nothing but trouble for Jack.

Night time
was in full swing in the city and it had been an uneventful night to say the least for Jack. He had ventured out of his hiding place for the first time in a couple of nights but found himself nowhere near hungry enough to feed plus the fact he tried to avoid feeding as much as possible. Jack had more gone out for the walk to soak up the moonlight as it were. He sometimes liked to take small walks around the area that he lived it, would clear his mind and make him forget just for that short amount of time.

Jack had walked along some of the roof
tops that he used to hunt from. He remembered capturing the humans and taking them back to the feeding house and he did not find himself missing those times, in fact he found himself regretting those times and wishing that that he would have only realised what he was doing sooner, maybe he thought, he could have saved all the trouble that was happening now and quite a lot of lives at the same time for that matter.

Jack however had now returned to his space u
nder the building for the night. It always felt cosy in there too him and he always felt at home he was happy with the thought that no matter what happened while he was staying there at least he couldn’t get any of its residents killed. There was no headroom or even room to sit up in his little home and so he lay there, eyes open deep in thought.

Of course Jack did not even realise that this was going on around him while he lay there in hiding but the vampires who were hunting him were hot on his tail
. Their sense of smell heightened by the child’s blood, the vampires were beginning to home in on the smell of a fellow vampire. They were never going to get an exact placement so they had to draw out Jack or else they stood very little chance of finding his exact whereabouts.

It was a bit later in the night and Jack was playing with a beetle that had crawled onto his Jacket which he was using to lay on top of just like he did every night. A sound came off from the near distance it couldn’t have been more than one street over and it attracted the attention of Jack straight away
. He knew exactly what it was.

He heard the screams
of a woman and then heard the high pitch unnatural scream of a vampire. He didn’t know why there was a vampire out here attacking a woman maybe it was a rogue or maybe one of Dreno’s vampires had just got too big for its boots. Either way Jack felt obliged to do something about this attack. He felt that it was his duty to stop whatever was attacking this woman, after all the vampire could have information that Jack could use as well, it was worth a shot.

Jack came out of his hiding place and quickly went over to the source of the sound completely unknowing of what he was getting himself into
. All he knew was he wanted to stop this vampire and maybe gain some information from it. He knew it was hypocritical because he fed too but he had to try and redeem himself somehow and Jack felt that this would be a better way than any.

Jack heard the noises of the attack and felt as though he was getting closer fast, as the sounds of the women screaming became louder and louder.  He looked down the end of a street and saw two silhouetted characters at the end of the street it was blatantly the scene of the crime Jack could see the women being attacked, the vampire looming over her Jack had to intervene now before it was too late.

Jack ran up to the crime shouting and waving his arms, trying to make himself look as big as possible he screamed at the vampire to leave hoping that it would make itself scarce and luckily it began to run Jack was pumped with adrenaline by this point and did not even stop to check if the women was alright although she did not seemed to scared by the encounter.

Jack could not stop himself the adrenaline had completely taken hold of him and he was now in hot pursuit of the assailant, he wanted to catch him and he wanted him dead. Jack was clueless as to why this vampire was out this far or why he was working alone on such a small  feeding but Jack was going to get the truth out of this strange and mysterious vampire.

The vampire Jack was chasing now turned a corner and at the last moment Jack managed to stable himself to turn the corner continuing his pursuit. However as Jack turned he noticed something very strange, the vampire that he was chasing had completely disappeared. Jack continued to walk down the alley way confused as to where the vampire had gone.

The a
lley way now seemed unnaturally quiet and, as Jack looked around him, the buildings began to feel as though they loomed high above him in an ominous fashion. There was something very wrong about this situation Jack could feel it in his bones, it felt fabricated, it felt as though something or someone was watching him from the shadows.

Then out of the shadows came silhouetted figures from all directions
. Jack knew exactly who these figures were; these were vampires and most likely Dreno’s vampires at that, but why would they make their presence so obvious was the question. It wasn’t until the vampires got closer and Jack could now clearly see their faces including the face of the assailant and the women that he was attacking that he realised what was going on here.

He could not believe tha
t he had been trapped so easily. Jacks guard truly must have fell over the past month of living on the street. He kicked himself for being so easily fooled and tricked into coming to this exact alley way, of course the women was a trap. No vampire was going to feed so obviously in the open but they also knew that Jack would not be able to resist trying to save someone.

The vampires had now formed a very threatening ring around Jack and one of them moved forward ever so slightly and began to speak “It’s so nice to finally see you Jack, I must give you credit where credit is due you have managed to disappear for a long while now we were beginning to wonder if you were dead yet, sadly it seems you are not.”

“What do you want with me, I knew Dreno had sent observers after me but why are you here talking to me?” questioned Jack as he stood his ground against the vampires that vastly outnumbered him.

“High Chancellor
Dreno has decided that he now wants to take care of you personally, you have survived too long out here and have become a nuisance with the way that you cling to life it is time for you to be ended and your punishment fulfilled,” Replied the vampire.

The circle around Jack began to tighten and even though Jack did not stand a chance at fighting them he still intended to put up the best fight that he could
, he held his ground and prepared for the coming fight.

The vampires began to grab at Jack and throw their fist at him, he responded by blocking quite a few at first and managing to dodge or escape from a lot of holds and attacks but eventually he became overwhelmed, there were far too many enemies for him to fight and each one was much stronger than Jack had previously expected.