The New Night Novels (Book 1): Rippers: A New Night Novel (17 page)

     “Well, I’m going to be putting this lumber in the holes I dug last night,” Jameson said. He gestured to the mentioned holes as he spoke. “It’ll take more to fill in the dirt because they’re smaller than the trees, but I think we can manage it. You ready to get to work?”

     Between Jameson, Phoebe, Gerry, and Leland, a fine rhythm and steady pace developed. It took almost six hours of intense labor, and by that time, the sun had begun to lighten the eastern sky.

     “I need to go inside,” Jameson said in an exhausted voice. Even with his vampiric strength, he felt as terrible as the others looked. He couldn’t imagine how awful they felt, but the wall had been successfully put up. The first level of their defense had been established.

     He marveled at it even as Phoebe collapsed against him. He held her with little effort and let his eyes travel over the sturdy wood, all aligned to make a wall nearly fifteen feet tall. He wanted to make it two or three deep, as well. Block off the barn from the other side. But those were tasks for another today. For now, he and those who’d helped him all night needed sleep almost more than they needed oxygen.

Chapter Twenty-Four - Complications

     Phoebe had actually fallen asleep against his side, so Jameson picked her up and held her against his chest. What a resilient little thing, he thought. So stubborn, and so strong.

     His blood lust roared through him, nearly sending him to his knees. He choked on the furious thirst and looked away from Phoebe. He’d tasted her blood, and that was what made his instinct rear its secret fangs and urge him to bury his own into her tender skin.

     “I need to feed,” he told Gerry as he handed off his daughter to him. “I’ve taken from her, so my instinct to feed from her is stronger than anyone else.”

     “What will happen if you don’t?” Gerry asked as he carried Phoebe inside.

     The others followed in, all dragging with exhaustion. Jameson doubted they would even clean up before they fell down somewhere to sleep.

     “I’m afraid to find out,” Jameson admitted.

     “Well, what can you do?” Art asked.

     “I’d prefer to feed from someone who isn’t already drained, but I have a deeper connection to Phoebe. I’m a new vampire, and feeding can be…hard to control. I don’t want to feed from someone I have no attachment to and drain them.”

     “You can feed from me again,” Phoebe said in a whisper. “I can sleep it off, anyway. Just stop before someone has to bash your head in again, okay?”

     It was the smartest option. Jameson knew it, even if he didn’t like it much. He gestured for Gerry to hand his daughter off, which the other man did with surprising ease. Jameson didn’t really like that about him.

     “Leland, please grab orange juice, an apple, and some of the leftover roast for her,” Jameson said as he went to the stairs with Phoebe in his arms. “She needs to eat before I even consider it.”

     Leland wanted to protest, but he also wanted to go to bed guilt free. If he set up the feeding well enough, he wouldn’t feel he was leaving Phoebe to be drained to death by the vampire.

     Jameson took Phoebe to his room, which had a queen-sized bed. He laid her down and she smiled sleepily at him.

     “We can both sleep after this,” she said. “And maybe when we wake up, we can just have a relaxing day.”

     “Maybe you can,” Jameson said. “But I still have to deal with you.”

     She punched him, but the blow was weak and she winced in pain. “I’m going to get you back for that when every inch of my body doesn’t hurt like hell,” she promised.
     “I’ll look forward to it,” Jameson said in a mock-solemn voice.

     Leland entered with a plate stacked high with food and a tall cup of orange juice.

     “All of it before I even consider the feeding,” Jameson insisted.

     “All right,” Phoebe said. She made a face as she brought the first bite of food to her mouth, but found she was famished as soon as the roast touched her lips. “Oh my God,” she murmured thickly. “It’s so good!”

     She finished the food in short order and chased it with the glass of orange juice.

     “Sleep well, you two,” Leland said as he took the dishes from her. “Jameson, seriously, don’t eat her.”

     Jameson saluted as Leland closed the door.

     “Not to rush you or anything, but I really want to go to sleep,” Phoebe said. She exposed her neck to him, on the side that had just begun to fully heal. “Shall we get this done with?”

     “Talk to me through the feeding,” Jameson suggested. “You can keep me distracted and I won’t get as lost.” Hopefully, he added silently.

     He leaned over her and inhaled her scent. He thought he should have eaten as well. Maybe hunger wouldn’t claw so ravenously at his belly if he had.

     “My dad left my mom three years ago.” Phoebe said the first thing that came to her mind, and the words spilled out as she did. “He was tired of everything. Marriage, parenting, jobs, the works. He didn’t want a house payment. He didn’t want responsibilities. Midlife crisis, maybe. Either way, he left and decided he’d live on the road.”

     Jameson bit into her neck and her breathing hitched. Though the amazing feeling of him drawing her life blood from her made her want to moan in contentment, she instead forced herself to continue to speak.

     “I hated him later. I hated myself first. Typical divorced child syndrome, I guess. I thought it was my fault. He never called. Never even wrote letters. There are so many ways he could have kept in contact and he just…didn’t. I felt so worthless. But my mom built me back up. Made me try out for sports; for band. Encouraged friends. And of course there was the daycare. Helping out there helped me more than maybe even I realized. And now she’s gone.”

     The sting of tears at her eyes burned as much as the fist of pain clenching around her heart. “She’s gone and he’s here and I hate him more than ever!”

     Jameson pulled away from Phoebe’s throat with tears in his own eyes. He felt as though he’d been able to drink her emotions along with her blood. They were not pleasant emotions.

     “Phoebe, I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

     Her eyes fluttered closed and Jameson worried he’d taken too much again. However, her chest began to rise and fall in a deep, content rhythm and he knew she was just clocked out from the stress and physical exertion of the past couple of days. She would sleep for quite a while, as she should.

     Jameson wrapped a cloth around her neck and tied it fairly tight. He’d be with her through the day, so he’d hear it if the cloth began to interfere with her breathing.

     He was about to take off his shirt and pants and sleep only in his undershirt and boxers when he heard a terrifying cry from Elise.

     “Help me,” she called out weakly.

     Jameson was out of the room and up the stairs in an instant. He could see light coming from under the crack of her door and shouted at her through it, “Elise! You have to block off the windows so I can come in and help!”

     “I’ll cover them,” Jenn said as she rushed to the door.

     Jameson stepped back so she could open it and not fry him with the early morning sunlight.

     “Oh, shit,” Jenn whispered to herself as she saw Elise.

     “Don’t waste time,” Jameson snapped from the safety of the sunlight-free hallway. “Cover the damn windows!”

     Jenn did as she was told and got the windows covered. She moved a tall dresser in front of one and tucked a thick blanket over the bar holding the foamy curtains on the other.

     “You’re clear to come in,” Jenn shouted.

     Jameson entered the room and saw Elise was soaked with blood. It was all he could smell, but even if he hadn’t just fed, he wouldn’t want it. The blood was tinged with the scent of death.

     Elise screamed and leaned forward. Labor, Jameson thought. She was in labor already. It was too early, and there was too much blood. If she didn’t die herself, she was almost certainly about to lose the baby.

     “Jameson, what’s happening?” Elise whimpered. She leaned forward again as another contraction tore through her lower body. Muscles clenched, pain radiated from her lower abdomen, and it felt as though something was pulling all of her muscles inward with meat hooks. The agony was something she’d never experienced, and it terrified her.

     “Breathe, Elise,” Jameson said as he sat next to her on the bed. “You have to breathe. Take my hand and squeeze. You certainly aren’t going to hurt me.”

     She took the offered hand and squeezed, but her grip was weak. Elise cried out again. She heaved heavy sobs from her deepest core and shook with the strain of her body’s betrayal.

     “Jameson, if I die,” she began.

     “You’re not going to die,” Jameson insisted as Art, Gerry, and Leland came to the door. He waved them away. Leland was the only one hesitant to go, but he did. “Jenn, we need water boiled. A first aid kit if there is one. Clean towels. We just need stuff.” He’d never handled a birth. He’d never even been in the room for one. But he was what Elise had. It would have to do.

     Elise shook her head. The muscles in her neck strained and popped out. “Something’s wrong,” she groaned. “It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong!”

     Jameson held her as she convulsed around another contraction.

     Elise wailed as the next contraction brought forth a surge of fluid including another wash of blood. Something was wrong. Jameson couldn’t argue with her there.

     “You’re going to be fine,” Jameson whispered into her hair as he rocked her and she sobbed. “You’re going to be okay. It’s all okay.”

     “Not yet, not yet,” Elise pleaded. She screamed; a high pitched, piercing wail that held so much fear, pain, and sick misery Jameson thought he’d die himself.

     When she collapsed against him, Jameson was sure she was dead.

     Elise moaned and shifted against Jameson. From between her legs, a tiny form shifted and writhed on the blanket. Jameson didn’t want to look at the thing. Whatever it was, it didn’t have a heartbeat.

     He knew before he dragged Elise away from it and lifted the blanket to reveal the tiny form. Not a baby at all. Elise had birthed a Ripper.

Chapter Twenty-Five – Revelations

     “How?” Jameson asked in a horrified voice. “How could you have carried an infected child and not known it? How did it not kill you?”

     Delirious, Elise was still able to somewhat hear Jameson’s questions. “Dunno,” she whispered thickly. She continued to bleed, gushing infected blood from her torn and damaged body. She twitched in pain sporadically and moaned whenever she moved even a tiny bit.

     He’d begun to suspect things, but he needed to know more. With a grimace, he lifted the infected child and wrapped it in a blanket.

     Jenn had never returned with the requested items. Jameson figured she’d been scared off by Elise’s terrified screams. He couldn’t really blame the other woman.

     “No,” Elise objected weakly. “No, Jameson, no. Bring my baby to me. I want to see her.”

     Jameson hesitated, but Elise attempted to climb off the bed and claim the girl for herself. There was little else the child could do to her mother now, Jameson told himself. He handed the girl back and watched half in pity and half in horror as Elise treated it as any mother would with her newborn daughter.

     Premature as she was, the child was absolutely tiny in her mother’s arms. Her eyes were milky blind and her small mouth was open in a snarl. Her miniscule hands curved into hungry claws and grasped at her mother’s face as Elise bent down to kiss her on her toothless mouth. The baby snapped at her mother, regardless. Elise didn’t seem to notice her daughter’s wrongness.

     Jameson returned to the bed. He would have to warn the others to stay away from the blood.

     “If I die,” Elise tried again.

     Jameson put a hand on her bare leg and nodded. “I’ll do what’s best for the girl,” he promised.

     Elise sat back with a sigh and cuddled her daughter closer to her chest. What parts of her hadn’t been soaked in blood before had now become crimson-stained, as well.

     Jameson knew she didn’t have long, and he needed answers at once.

     “When did you come into contact with any infected?” he asked sternly.

     “My husband was first wave,” Elise admitted in a breathy voice. She leaned her head back and closed her bloodshot eyes. Her cracked lips opened and closed as she strove to formulate more words.

     “He was one of the Army groups given the initial experimental drug. He showed no effects, so they let him go. He was about to return to base the day we were overrun in town. I…I kissed him goodbye.”

     Jesus, Jameson thought to himself. What a horrible death to happen from a kiss.

     “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Elise asked. “So tiny. Look at her tiny little fingers.”

     Jameson couldn’t stop the tears on his face. He didn’t fight them as he watched Elise stare at the miracle of her daughter as she slipped away by inches.

     “You were immune to the first form of the virus,” Jameson murmured. “But when your daughter’s infected fluid got into your bloodstream…It was over.”