Blood and Stone (7 page)

Kenslir stopped her and examined the wound. “He got your heart?”

“I told him I was saving it for you,” Laura said, smiling weakly. “Who’s your sidekick, and what the hell does he have on his face?”

“That is his face,” Kenslir said, then looked up at Victor. “Go in the back, get all the blood you can find from the cooler.”

“No,” Laura said. “I already drank it. That was my last one.”

“Drank it?” Victor asked. He was so confused.

“You’re cute,” Laura said, opening her mouth wide. “I’d show you my fangs, but that bastard tore them out.”

Victor could see the holes in Laura’s gums where her fangs had been.

“She’s a vampire?” Victor asked, incredulous.

Kenslir rolled up a sleeve. “Find me a metal tube, Victor.”

“A tube?”

“If I cut my arm it’ll just heal up—we need to keep the blood flowing.” Kenslir pulled one of his Bowie knives free and prepared to slice open his arm.

“Not enough,” Laura gasped. “I’m assuming room temperature here. I need more.”

“More?” Kenslir asked.

“I finally learned how to do it,” Laura said. “I don’t have to drink anymore.”

“What do we do?” Kenslir asked. He slid an arm under Laura’s head helping to hold it up.

“Lean closer and I’ll tell you...” the vampire said.

Kenslir leaned in closer.

Suddenly, Laura sat up on her own, her hands grabbing at Kenslir’s shoulders. She kissed him passionately on the mouth.

Victor raised the barrel of his gun, ready to fire.

Kenslir held up a hand to stop Victor, breaking off the kiss. Blue-green energy crackled from his mouth into Laura’s, flickering out as they pulled apart. “No!”

Laura sat back up again, with more vigor, grabbing the sides of Kenslir’s head. She kissed him more vigorously than Victor thought was possible. Flashes of blue-green light escaped from between the supersoldier and the vampire’s lips.

Victor was a little embarrassed, watching them kiss, and was about to look away. Then he noticed something. The tips of Kenslir’s fingers were turning gray. The gray expanded, up his hands, then his arms. The gray flesh began to harden, turning stone like, almost like Victor’s own living stone.

The wave of gray swept over Kenslir, finally coming up from under his collar and up onto his face. As the color change was just about to reach his lips, Laura finally broke off the kiss and leaned back.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” the vampire said.

The color swiftly came back to Kenslir’s face and arms and hands. Laura sat up, then sprang off the table, energetic and completely unlike the dying woman Victor had seen upon entering the infirmary. Her body temperature now read the same as Kenslir’s—one hundred degrees.

“You’re healed?” Kenslir asked. In the amplified vision of the tactical visor, Victor wasn’t sure, but it looked like the Colonel was blushing.

“See for yourself,” Laura said, opening her jacket and shirt. The gaping wound on her chest was gone, her flesh whole again, but smeared with dried blood.

“Naughty boy,” Laura said, covering her breasts with the shirt.

Victor looked away, embarrassed.

“I see you’re still burning your bras,” Kenslir said dryly.

“I don’t need support with these,” Laura said, grinning and briefly flashing Kenslir.

“I hate to interrupt,” Victor said, “but just what the heck is a vampire doing at Alcatraz?”

Back at Detachment 1039's Command Center, where everyone had been watching the live feed from Victor and Kenslir’s tactical visor’s, Josie was wondering the same thing.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Laura Olson had been so close to achieving her dreams the night she was killed. The twenty-five year old had put herself through college and medical school and was about to begin her residency at a local hospital. Then Mark Kenslir came into her life.

Laura worked at a local all-night diner not far from the campus. Few people came in so late—mainly students who had stayed up doing research. It was a great place to relax and do some reading.

The cook had already gone home that fateful night, leaving Laura to lock up. She’d been taking her time doing so, giving the diner one last, really good cleaning before she left town for her residency. She would miss the old place and its Midwest charm.

The bells over the door clanged loudly—which was odd since Laura had already locked up. And since the bells never rang that loudly. She left the kitchen and walked out into the dining area.

That’s when she saw him.

He had long, shoulder length blonde hair and a thin face. He was wearing a faded blue denim jacket that matched his jeans and cowboy boots. He had a t-shirt on under the jacket, but Laura couldn’t read what was on it. The shirt was covered in blood.

“Help me...” the blonde haired man had said, then promptly collapsed to the floor.

Laura ran over, already assessing the situation. She’d seen a hole in the man’s chest, just above his heart. He’s been shot or stabbed—she couldn’t tell.

Despite being an inch taller than her, the man was not very heavy. Laura lifted his shoulders and pulled him up against the front counter, propping him up there. She quickly checked for a pulse. There was none. But he was still breathing.

“Step away from the hippy,” a stern voice said behind her.

Laura turned around, surprised.

Standing in the doorway of the diner was a large man, well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders. He had jet black hair, cropped close to his head in a military-like flattop. He had dark green, almost black eyes. He wore black and green striped-camouflage pants and shirt—a military uniform. And he was pointing a large handgun at Laura.

The red head stood quickly, turning her back to the injured blonde man. She shielded him with her body. “Don’t shoot!”

“Miss, you need to step away from him, please,” the large man said. He kept the pistol aimed, not at Laura, but at the man behind her.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Laura said. “But you are not shooting this man.”

Mark Kenslir gritted his teeth as he weighed his options.

Telling the girl the truth was out of the question. And it would take too long.

At this range, he could fire a round through her leg and hit the man in the heart, finishing him off. But there was a chance he’d hit the girl’s femoral artery and give her far more than a flesh wound.

His last option was to knock her aside, shove the barrel of his gun in his target’s mouth and blow his brains out. Which would give him enough time to cut out the monster’s heart.

Kenslir didn’t get a chance to enact any of his plans. The man on the floor behind Laura suddenly sprang to his feet and grabbed her by the neck.

“Who said I’m a man?” blonde hair whispered into her ear.

Laura could feel long nails, almost clawlike, at her throat.

“Put down your gun, soldier boy, or I’ll rip out the girl’s throat.”

Kenslir fired his pistol one time.

Laura flinched at the flash and report of the pistol, her startled movement a split second after a bullet from the pistol cored through her blonde attacker’s right eye.

The blonde haired man screamed in pain and released his grip on the girl, then shoved her forward against Kenslir.

Kenslir caught the girl, then swung her around behind him, shielding her with his body. He was sure that in this time, his target would have flipped over the counter and sprinted out a back door. Instead, the blonde haired man was leaping at Kenslir, a pen in his left hand—taken from the pocket of Laura’s apron.

Mark Kenslir was inhumanly fast, but his enemy was just a bit faster. Even as the supersoldier brought his hands up, the blonde haired man jammed the pen into Kenslir’s right eye. The ballpoint tip punctured the eye, then rammed through flesh before spearing Kenslir’s brain.

The six-foot, four-inch supersoldier shuddered and fell over backwards, knocking Laura to the floor and pinning her there under his immense weight.

“The pen is mightier than the sword,” the blonde haired man said. Blood was still draining out of the hole where his own right eye had been.

Laura was screaming now, struggling to free herself from under the corpse laying on top of her.

The blonde haired man reached down and flipped the soldier’s body off of Laura, then grabbed her by the hair and lifted her to her feet.

“Shut up!” the blonde haired man said. He backhanded Laura, nearly knocking her unconscious. Then he grabbed her by the chin and began to move her head near his own. His mouth opened and she saw that he had two fangs, on either side of his incisors.

Instead of biting Laura on the neck, the blonde vampire moved her mouth to within inches of his own. Then he inhaled deeply. Glowing blue mist rose up out of Laura, drawn out of her mouth that the vampire held open with one hand. Laura’s lifeforce slowly drained from her body, into the vampire’s.

As she became weaker and weaker, her vision darkening, Laura could see the vampire’s right eye impossibly growing from nothing. It swelled and bulged in his eye socket, a bloody orb that solidified into a white ball with a brown pupil. In seconds, the vampire had regenerated his injuries.

Then Laura went limp in the vampire’s grip.

“I must thank you, my dear,” the vampire said. “Without you, I fear this monstrosity would have done me in.”

The vampire leaned back in toward Laura, and opened his mouth wide again. This time red glowing mist poured from his mouth, into Laura’s—but only for a second. Then the vampire dropped her to the floor.

Not by choice. He had dropped her because a knife was sticking through his ear. A Bowie knife, with a fourteen inch blade. A blade so long it had passed through the vampire’s skull and out his other ear.

“Lose something?” Mark Kenslir asked the impaled vampire. Then he thrust the pen he had pulled from his own eye into the vampire’s chest, between two ribs, so the point was just inches away from the vampire’s heart. Then he put the tip of his forefinger on the end of the pen sticking halfway out of the vampire’s chest.

The vampire couldn’t move, as even his healing powers couldn’t overcome the high carbon steel of the blade that was embedded in his skull.

Kenslir slowly pushed the pen deeper into the vampire’s chest, just puncturing his heart. But when his finger reached the vampire’s chest, he didn’t stop pushing. He drove his finger deep into the wound, pushing the pen deeper still into the vampire’s heart.

He was about to draw his second Bowie knife and decapitate the paralyzed vampire when Laura leapt from the floor and bit him.

Kenslir was surprised at the bite—it was on his arm, not his neck. His right arm, that had been reaching for the second Bowie knife he wore on his combat harness. The redhead’s teeth were surprisingly sharp and drew blood, despite her not yet having grown fangs.

The red headed vampire showed a look of surprise on her face when all Kenslir did was look down at her. She held her bite on his arm for several seconds, wondering why no blood was pouring from the wound any more. Finally she opened her mouth and leaned back.

Where she had bitten the soldier, her teeth had torn the skin. But the skin was no longer flesh colored. It had turned gray, like stone. Blood on the arm was being absorbed back into the gray skin. The bite marks were filling in, swelling up from within. In a second, the wound had closed up, with no sign it had been there save the gray splotch. Then that too faded and the area where she had bitten turned back to flesh color again.

“Are you done?” Kenslir asked, annoyed. He was still holding on to the Bowie knife sticking through the blonde vampire’s head with his left hand. His grip on the blade was all that kept the vampire on his feet.

Laura crept back, fear in her eyes.

Kenslir drew his other Bowie knife with his right hand and in one swift motion he cut the blonde vampire’s head off. He allowed the body to fall to the floor. Then he calmly set the head, still transfixed by the Bowie knife, on the counter.

“I’m real sorry this happened,” Kenslir said. “I got hit by a car running across the street when I was chasing this hippy. It slowed me down. If I’d have gotten here sooner, he never would have made it inside.”

Laura craved the blood she could smell in the soldier’s veins. Craved it more than anything she had ever wanted in her life. But she was smart—whatever the large soldier was, a food source he was not.

Kenslir took another step forward and raised his Bowie knife, ready to slash at the girl and remove her head. “May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”

“Please!” Laura said and raised her hands defensively, closing her eyes.

The slash of the blade never fell.

She opened one eye slowly, peeking over her arms at the soldier.

Kenslir was clearly perplexed as he stood over her. But he had sheathed his Bowie knife.

“I’ve killed a lot of vampires,” he said. “They all go out fighting like the monsters they are. But not you. That’s very interesting.”

The words sank in. Vampires. Laura was now a vampire. Her dreams of saving lives were over. All her hard work had been for nothing. Tears began to roll down her cheeks.

Mark Kenslir extended a hand to the girl. “My name’s Major Mark Kenslir, United States Army. Have you ever considered serving your country?”

***

Laura was sure Tezcahtlip had departed the island. She’d watched him fly away in his monstrous dragon form.

“So what the hell was that thing?” she asked Colonel Kenslir.

She, Kenslir and Victor were outside now, waiting for the fleet of Army helicopters that were coming to clean up the mess.

“Antediluvian shapeshifter,” Kenslir said. “He eats hearts to steal memories and powers.”

“I hope he chokes on mine,” Laura said angrily.

“What do we do now, Colonel?” Victor asked.

“We’re going to have to return to base,” Kenslir said grimly. “All we can do is wait until he shows up again.”

“Good—I was ready to get off this damned rock twenty years ago,” Laura said.

“You’ve been here twenty years?” Victor was amazed. The vampire didn’t look much older than him.

“Kid, I’ve been here since 1972.”

“I don’t think you leaving is such a great idea, Laura.” Kenslir was giving her his stern look again.

“I promise not to eat anyone,” Laura said, raising her hand and making a boy scout sign. “Besides, it’s not like I have anything left to do around here. He killed all my patients.”

“Are you really a doctor?” Victor asked.

“Why yes, I am,” Laura said. “I specialize in blood.”

“She was keeping the more powerful, more violent paracriminals in line.”

Victor was shocked. Letting a vampire feed on inmates seemed barbaric.

“Oh, don’t say it like that, Marc,” Laura said softly. She looped an arm in his and leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “We had an arrangement—I get to eat, and he gets intelligence on any vampires that pop up around the world.”

Victor made a surprised face. “That happens a lot?”

Kenslir freed himself from Laura’s grip. “You’d be surprised.”

“And I can track them,” Laura said. “You see, we vampires have a sort of sixth sense for that kind of thing. We can feel where others of our kind are.”

“So you’ve been sending the Army after your own kind?”

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” Laura said, shrugging.

“You’re not leaving the island,” Kenslir said grimly.

“Why can’t she leave?”

Laura moved next to Victor, and ran a finger down his chest. “Because I’m a vampire, silly. I can’t cross water on my own.”

“Because she might just eat someone back at base,” Kenslir said. “She can’t help herself.”

“You could help me, Mark,” Laura said, making a pouting face. “You don’t want me to stay here all by myself and starve do you?”

“We’ll find some more prisoners.”

“What if I told you I can track your six-fingered bogey man?”

Kenslir was surprised. He pushed his tactical visor up on his forehead so he could see better. “Can you?”

“He’s part vampire now. Of course I can.”

Kenslir stepped closer and grabbed Laura by the arms. “Stop playing around, Laura. Where is he?”

“He’s headed southeast,” she said, pointing toward the coast. “And he’s made it out of the country now.”