Ten, p.6
Ten, page 6
“Behold the Sterrick Building, once the glory of downtown Memphis. It was a place so exclusive that the first tenants were expected to pay their rent in gold!” Silas said as he spread his arms wide. “I think that the Booth building sounds better, but I have to finish the lease papers.”
“It’s kinda creepy,” she said as she stumbled over a broken piece of plaster. The full moonlight pouring through the windows and skylights illuminated some cute scrolling letters by one of the office doors.
“Welcome to hell,” it read. Paige cracked a small smile. She turned and clutched her hands over her chest.
“This is awfully creepy,” she said, letting a little tremble into her voice. “Why did you take me here, Silas?”
The one called Winston slapped the chain back on the door. He then tossed Paige’s phone over to Silas. “I just wanted to get a selfie, my dear. I want you to see the look on your face before—”
“Before?” she squeaked as he slithered around her and handed her the phone.
“Take our picture, dear.”
Her hand shook as she raised the camera well over her head to capture both of them on the screen. Her eyes widened as only her face showed up on the viewfinder.
“Say cheese,” he snarled as he lunged for her neck.
Paige dropped to the floor and scrambled away as her phone clattered to the floor. The vampire laughed at her blurry petrified face now frozen on the screen. Paige darted for the office stairs, putting a surprising amount of distance between herself and her attackers in ten seconds flat.
“Yes! Run! It gets the blood pumping,” Silas called from the lobby.
Paige scrambled over broken hunks of drywall and empty cans. It was only once she found a room with a desk and cabinets in it that she backed herself into a corner. She kicked one of the flimsy remaining doors, breaking the facing into a few splintery planks at her feet.
“There you are, my lovely,” Silas said as he kicked in the door. “I can hear your heart fluttering from here. It’s so. . . delicious.”
“You’re a . . . you’re a. . . .” she gasped.
He opened wide to show off his nicotine stained fangs. Paige buried her face in her hands and shuddered uncontrollably.
“Yes, I am a vampire, little lamb, but don’t worry, you’ll enjoy every little bit of your death.”
Paige’s shuddering escalated until she could no longer contain her maniacal laughter. The vampire cocked his head. “There is nowhere for you to run, silly girl. You know that you want to come to me. Come to my side!”
“Just tell me something,” she said between tears of laughter. “Do you rehearse that speech?”
“Excuse me?” the vampire asked.
Paige finally lowered her hands. “That lame-ass speech, did you rehearse it?” she asked.
“You be quiet!”
“What if I don’t want to?” she barked back.
Silas growled and bared his fangs. “You have nowhere to run, little bitch,” he said as he made it to Paige’s side in a blink of an eye.
He jerked her neck to the side and made a stereotypical vampire gurgling moan.
“Neither do you,” Paige snarled as she rammed her elbow into the undead. The vampire stumbled backwards as he watched all of the white drain from Paige’s now amber eyes. She cracked her knuckles and licked her own emerging fangs as Silas crashed to the floor.
“Who? What. . . are you?” the vampire asked.
Paige snatched up the broken hunk of the built-in. In a single leap, her knees drove into the vampire’s sternum, and she held the
improvised stake to his throat.
“I am what you bloodsuckers fear most,” she snarled as she raised the stick. Her heart pounded, and her hand quivered. The vampire slugged her square in the jaw. He pounced once more, but just as his fangs pierced her neck, ten blood red talons popped from her fingertips. Her cry twisted into a howl, and she raked open his cheek. Soon she was back on top driving her fists into the vampire’s chest until she heard a satisfying crack.
“This is how you made those girls feel,” Paige growled as she dislocated one of his shoulders and then the other. “How does it feel?” she snarled as she grabbed the stake again.
She heard the click a second too late. Her chest lurched as she heard the bang. She drove the stake down instinctively, driving it between two ribs and into the squishy, meaty primary colony of the monster that paraded around in a smelly human suit. The creature shrieked as two more bullets fired into Paige, sending her sprawling into a heaving, spastic, blood-spattered mass.
The other vampire ran to his master’s side, making a sign of the cross as red striations already ran across what was left of Silas’s face. He kept the gun trained on Paige until he heard her shirt ripping and bones snapping. Paige curled back to her feet slowly and ripped the blonde wig from her head to reveal a fresh mane of chestnut brown fur. She now snarled from under a black-tipped muzzle and brandished fully-formed claws.
Winston slid back against the floor brandishing his gun weakly as the werewolf arched her back. A terrible snapping sound echoed as her back split open to let a fully formed tail drop over the tattered remains of a schoolgirl skirt. He began praying in a mix of Spanish and English, begging for his life as he fired again. The bullets tore into her chest, yet she didn’t flinch. Instead, her muzzle turned into a warped smile as the vampire emptied the rest of his nine-millimeter.
His hands shook to the point that most of the bullets peppered the already damaged walls. He screamed like a girl as the monster lumbered out of the cloud of dust and wiped the blood off her chest so that he could see her flesh knitting before his very eyes.
The only thing that slowed her advance were her legs snapping and popping into a decidedly inhuman position, giving the vampire just enough time to yank out his phone. Paige snarled as the flash snapped in her eyes. Winston scrambled and tried to crawl for the door. He had only made it to the outside landing when the snarling beast finally found her footing.
“Please. . .” he stammered as the monster lunged. She grabbed him by the throat and lifted him as high as she could. Unfortunately, even in werewolf form she wasn’t quite tall enough to lift him off the ground. She remedied the situation quickly by flinging him against the guardrail and holding him over a nasty pile of broken lumber and drywall. As he saw his imminent demise, Winston’s face warped from terror to anger.
“It doesn’t matter what you do to me,” he said now laughing maniacally himself. “My brother. . . my brother will hunt you down and kill you.”
Paige stared down her muzzle at the bloodsucker. “You’re done killing,” the monster growled. Downstairs the chains on the door began to rattle and shake. Paige let go just as the door burst open and a frantic Kyle watched Winston fall two stories onto a veritable pile of stakes.
“Paige!” he cried as he ran to the impaled vampire. The monster vaulted over the rail and began scrambling down the walls. As she was doing her best King Kong impression, Kyle surveyed the damage to the bloodsucker.
“Let me end this,” Kyle hissed as he pulled a syringe of antibiotics out of his pocket.
Winston stared at the rebar poking through his chest and the monster quickly approaching. He gave a little nod. As Kyle stabbed him with a lethal combo of antibiotics, he smiled. “The sheriff will hunt you all down,” he choked out. “My brother. . . Kevin . . . serves the sheriff. He’s seen the. . . mon—”
“Oh shit, Kyle said as the sudden force of a four-foot-ten werewolf slammed into his side. He skidded across the rubble as a fully wolfed-out Paige roared and stretched her claws.
“Paige, it’s me, it’s Kyle,” he said as he fumbled for one of the pockets on his leg. “You know me, Paige.”
She roared and pounced, raking open his shirt as she landed on him and leaned in very close to get a deep sniff. She sniffed again, growling and slobbering over Kyle’s cheek.
“Paige, please,” he pleaded. She responded by sinking her teeth into his shoulder. He yowled in pain and finally managed to shove her away with his own higher than average strength. He stared in horror at the ring of teeth marks and the blood welling up as he tried to escape into one of the offices on the first floor. Paige watched as his hand began to crack and warp as black claws burst from his fingertips.
“This can’t be good,” Kyle choked out as his eyes turned solid green. He howled as his legs began to crack. Kyle fumbled one last time and managed to get his phone. He yelped in terror as his hand was no longer capable of triggering the fingerprint lock on his phone.
“Damn it,” was the last thing he choked out before his jaw began to dislocate and break in its socket.
Paige opened her eyes slowly and spat a tuft of ginger fur out of her mouth. Her jaw dropped as she stared at copious amounts of dried blood on both hands and her naked body caked in grime and even more blood. She grabbed her back and whimpered as she felt a new swishing appendage freshly regrown and trailing from her tailbone.
“Oh, god,” she whimpered as she saw another naked, blood-spattered body curled next to hers. “Oh, god!” she growled as best she could as she rolled the body over to reveal a trembling, feverish Kyle covered in shallow scratches and bites from head to toe. “Kyle!”
Her ears perked up as she heard movement from the main lobby of the supposedly abandoned Sterrick Building. She scrambled to the doorway and eased down the hall until she saw two people in painter’s jumpsuits and masks scrubbing away at a rubble pile. The violet and strawberry-blonde braids gave away the cleanup crew.
“Psst!” Paige struggled to say as her throat burned. “Nadia!”
She was rewarded with a third, shorter painter handing her a pair of coveralls. Paige looked up in horror at an extremely unamused Toy. She grabbed the two suits and stumbled back to the office of shame as Toy followed her. Paige was handed a bodybuilding protein bar as Toy helped her ease the trembling Kyle into some clothes.
“You’re lucky Kyle tracked you. Kayleigh has a tracer on his phone at all times,” Toy said. “What the hell did you do to him?”
“I don’t. . . I don’t know,” she choked out.
“Let’s get you out of here, but you’re going back to my place,” Toy snapped. “I don’t think you two want to run into Morgan or Sammy right now.”
“Wait. . . what?” she choked. “Oh, god,” she muttered again as she took a deep sniff of the air. “You mean we. . . I . . . oh. . . no—”
“Come on, Shorty Spice. If what I think happened, happened then Red here needs fluids and calories fast. I’m not Kyle, but I’ve passed a first responder test, so let’s get going.”
It took both of them to drag him into the backseat of Toy’s car.
Paige sat in back with him and stroked the baby-fine, fresh red fuzz on top of his head as she chowed down on energy bars and protein shakes. Tears streamed down her face as her friend continued to tremble and moan with his fever.
“Toy, what if he doesn’t wake up. What if I killed him?” she choked out.
“Don’t you even say that? He’s gonna be fine, Shorty Spice. He’s gonna be just fine.”
They pulled into a strange house tucked in one of the nastier areas of midtown. Strangely, none of the neighbors flinched as two young women dragged a large, unconscious, white dude into a tiny brick ranch. Toy dumped him on the sofa and went straight for a cabinet. Paige clutched her chest as she felt strange pains in her ribs.
“Not you too, Shorty,” Toy admonished as she dragged out an old school IV and some bags of saline. “We keep this place as an emergency hideout. Lucky for Kyle, the Wonder Twins just stocked
this place with medical supplies in case we had a random code moon.”
Paige watched in awe as Toy popped the IV into Kyle and administered a shot of something into his arm without so much as a pause. She then ran to the kitchen for more protein shakes and poured a strawberry-flavored one into a big sippy cup. At the distinctive sweet smell, Kyle’s eyes fluttered open and he reached weakly for the trucker jug. Paige held it for him until he could lean against her and hold it on her own.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Kyle just nodded and continued to chug smoothies as the saline entered his veins. An hour later, he was growling barely human critiques at his nurse as his arms and legs continued to crack and pop like a bowl of rice cereal. Both Kyle and Paige ended up sleeping through the afternoon until a surprisingly calm Nadia and Kayleigh came over.
“The evidence is gone,” Nadia said. “Sammy and I took care of the two at the bar.”
“And Billy and I got cocaine and information about more evil vampires,” Toy added.
“But what about Kyle?” Paige growled. “I—I—”
Nadia leaned next to Paige and looked her in the eyes. She then gently rubbed the tiny curls on top of her head. “Rule number one is that we never judge the human by the actions of the wolf,” she said softly.
“But—” Paige tried to protest.
Nadia squeezed Paige’s hand. “Look, we all have incidents from when we weren’t ourselves,” Nadia said not quite looking at Paige.
“We move on, and we take care of each other. We forgive each other because, in the end, we’re all we’ve got.”
Kayleigh knelt to check on her snoring brother. “Yeah, we are all we’ve got,” she said with a surprising amount of concern. “I guess he was a real werewolf after all.”
“I told the rest of the pack that you had to hide, while we were making sure that all the evidence was erased because you were the bait, Paige. Of course, Kyle would be the one to look after you,”
Nadia said softly. “You two just rest up. Kayleigh and Toy need to go to the bunker for a few days, then it’s Morgan and Bernard’s turn.
That should buy you guys enough time to recover. I can hold on for a few weeks yet if you need help.”
Paige just closed her eyes and let a tear fall. “Morgan,” she sniffled.
4
“JUST BREATHE, GEORGIA,” she whispered to herself as she smoothed her little black dress one more time. She checked her lipstick and her teeth in the miniscule mirror tucked into the top of her sequined clutch and scowled at the halo of blonde hairs that had managed to escape from her crown of braids.
Next to her, Mr. Lambley squirmed as he blindly smoothed his hair and picked at his fangs. He too stared into the dinky mirror and groaned in frustration at his total lack of a reflection.
“You look fine, Mr. Lambley,” she sighed as she turned her attentions to him. His hair was slicked with enough pomade to keep it in place even in a hurricane. She checked the edges of his sideburns and the middle of his ears for any rogue tufts of ginger hair. Once satisfied with the trimmer’s handiwork, she gave him a big thumbs-up and one more straighten of his tie.
“And you look lovely, Miss Sutherland,” he said in his super-posh English accent. “You really should get dressed up more often.
“Does that mean that you want to go out and about more then?”
she teased. “I’m sorry if I don’t want to wear a dress to vacuum and scrub the grout.”
“Well, tonight my Cinderella is going to the ball. Shall we?”
She took his hand as they slid out of their hired car and joined the other swanky dressed couples with tickets to an honest-to-goodness ritzy fundraiser at an art museum. Mr. Lambley drifted with ease among the mostly middle-aged and older guests in their tuxedos and
budget red-carpet finery. As he overheard talk of Degas and Renoir, the vampire smiled so broadly that he nearly showed off his pointy teeth.
“Easy, tiger,” Georgia chided as she saw a fang poking over his lip.
“I do love these sorts of soirees!” he confessed. “They might not be quite as civilized as days gone by, but when you get to meet cultured folk discussing objects of beauty, there is simply no feeling like it.”
Georgia smiled and squeezed his arm. “Well, Mr. Lambley, tonight shall be all about you then. If we’re lucky, we might get a good laugh as a bunch of modern snobs talk about your grandpa.
Tomorrow night we’re gonna do one of my things though—”
“I know, I know, S tar Trek and hopefully Japanese takeout!”
Georgia paled almost to the ghastly tone of her companion.
“Please, never make one of Minnie’s jokes ever again. Also, it’s Star Wars, not Star Trek. . . big difference.”
“If you say so,” the vampire sighed as they wandered into the atrium of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
Georgia smiled as her clear glass slippers clicked on the marble floor. She breathed deeply the smell of expensive cologne and freshly cleaned floors. Many of the older gentlemen in the crowd stared jealously at a puffy ginger Brit being escorted by a leggy blonde in a tight black dress. Said blonde took a moment to get a selfie next to the placard announcing that tonight’s gala would feature one Dr. Noah Adebayo discussing his Essays on Arthur live.
“It looks like there will be exclusive pieces on display as well!” Mr.
Lambley exclaimed as he devoured the program. “Ooh, one is called the Impaling of Mordred!”
“You get way too excited to see that man get stabbed,” Georgia sighed as she led him into the little auditorium set up for the donors rich enough to have purchased this exclusive reading. While the vampire continued to gush about the paintings, Georgia scanned the other seats. A choice pair in the front row remained marked with reserve cards. Her heart skipped a beat as she heard someone speaking Japanese. Her face fell as some very tall, blond man with
the physique and face of an eighties biracial supervillain chatted up a rather distinguished looking pair of older men.
One of the curators gave a boring and barely-hidden begging for dollars speech. Georgia tuned it out for the most part as the last stragglers wandered in. As it turned out, the choice seats belonged to a rather distinguished looking elderly couple, and she could only sigh and fidget in anticipation of the evening to come.
She froze as a younger man took to the podium. He pushed his glasses up adorably and used an old-school handkerchief to blot a tiny bead of sweat off his smooth shaven head. Georgia sighed a little at his high cheekbones, chiseled jaw, and perfect ebony complexion. Her sigh deepened as he began to speak in the same rich, foreign-accented voice that made his vodcasts such a pleasure to listen to.
