Blood Lust: A Supernatural Horror (42 page)

“My kind
was
pondering the intricacies of the stars while you still clung to trees
in
fear
of
the night. Only your prolific rate of reproduction has made you the dominant species, not your intelligence.”

I sensed a high degree of superiority
and
condescension
the creature’s attitude
. I supposed it would need that
arrogance
to feed on
humans, even if
it believed
we
possessed
inferior intelligence
.
I shrugged. “Intelligence is overrated.”

“Your glibness will not save you.”

I spread my arms wide and smiled.
“Then go ahead and kill me. No more of this ‘I will make you suffer’ crap.
I’ve had enough.
”

“Your suffering will define you if you continue to hunt me. Ignore me; take no more part in the search for me, and
I will allow you to
live
out the few years of your pathetic life
.”

“I’ll have to think about it
,
”
I snapped.

“You think to engage me in
banal
conversation
to
save yourself. Do not worry. I will not kill you now, but do not expect mercy from the merciless. Now, go!”

I stared at the creature just long enough to make my point, and then turned and left.
I could feel its cold eyes on the back of my neck until I reached my car.
I let out my pent up breath and took a deep breath.
I had just stared death in
its
blood red
eyes and
had
walked away
unscathed
. I knew that would not happen again
,
and
yet
I knew I could not ignore the creature. I had never left a case unsolved and I would
n’t now
. 

Where had this creature been when I
had
killed the others? Had it already flown the nest? No, it
said as
the youngest
it would
have
had
to fight for dominance.
I had saved it the trouble.
Like its parent, it seemed to
be most comfortable
near the
monastery
.
But the monastery was gone now.
Only ruins and rubble remained.
How could
the creature
use it as a lair?
There was no place for it to hide.

As I stood there, I felt the ground tremble beneath my feet and smiled.
I remembered the rumble
of the subway
when I had been in the underground mill.
How
close were the
subway
tunnels to the catacombs
?

I
left
the grounds of the monastery
. I
had
put it off as long as I could but
I
finally
put in a call to
Captain Bledsoe. He had heard about the three
dead
girls in my apartment and was livid.

“Hardin! What is it about you that attracts death like some God damn horror magnet? I thought you killed all these things. Now it’s leaving you presents
at your doorstep
like some
house
cat with a dead mouse.
Have you seen the papers? The city is in an uproar. The Mayor is demanding my head on a silver platter
and he wants your balls right there beside it.
Citizens groups are calling for vigilante action. What the hell have you got to say for yourself?”

I waited a moment to let the captain wind down.
“I just had a conversation with it. It said it would leave me alone if I left it alone.”

I felt a perverse pleasure at the stone cold silence on the other end. Finally,
he yelled,
“
Christ, Hardin! The bastard talks?
You’ve got to be …
What did you
tell it
?”

I smiled into the receiver
at the captain’s
incredulity
.
I had to admit it was
difficult to believe.
“I said I was going to kill it just like I did the others.”

Captain
Bledsoe erupted. “Damn it, Hardin! We’re a team
here
. You’ve
got to
play on the team or we’re
going to
lose.”

“Nine girls,
C
aptain. I think we’re already losing. If we go in
sirens
screaming and guns blazing
, this creature will have a field day,
shredding
cops like confetti. It’s a one
-
man job
, mine
. If I lose, you
can
send someone else after it.”

“Damn it! I can’t allow that, Hardin. You can’t go off on your own. You’re a cop…”

I interrupted
him
. “
No,
I was a cop. I’ll drop my shield off in the morning. If you won’t play it my way, I’ll play it alone.”

I hung up on him and then
turned off my cell phone
. I didn’t need him on my back.
He had helped me make my decision.
I couldn’t approach this like a cop any more.
As a cop, I would have to take Joria in for questioning and the Feds would have her in
their custody within
minutes.
I needed her.
I didn’t know just how involved she was with the
Chupacabra
, but
she knew more about them than anyone else. I needed her expertise.
It was war and I needed to be a warrior – no rules, no
speeches, no arrests. I had to blow this thing back to hell and soon.

As I
drove back to the motel
,
I
began to feel
better. A weight had lifted from my shoulders. Even as I had hunted and killed the others, it had been as a cop with a cop’s morals
and a cop’s remorse at the way I had handled it
. Now, I did
n’t
have that cloud hanging over me. I could hunt it
as
Ahab had hunted Moby Dick, out of sense of moral superiority feeding
my
desire for revenge. Intelligent or not, it was a creature from hell and deserved no mercy. I would kill it without qualms.

Next, I needed to find out what lay beneath the old church.
I was delighted and somewhat mystified upon my return to the motel to find Joria waiting. Knowing her penchant for disappear
ing, I had
half
expected her to be gone.
Her smile seemed tentative and given our earlier conversation, I understood her hesitation.

“Where were you?” she asked.

“
Talking to our gray friend.”

“What? You saw it? At the monastery.”

Had she guessed the monastery because of
its
earlier visits or did she know something more?
“Yes. It offered to let me live if I
quit chasing it.”

Joria stared at me expectantly. “And?”

“I told it I intended to kill it.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “It will kill you.”

“Would you care?”

She jerked her head
up
and looked up at me, her eyes wide. “Of course I would care,” she snapped. “
I love you.
You’re too blind to see that.
”

My jaw dropped
while my heart skipped a couple of beats
.
Her words struck me like a
punch in
the
stomach. Maybe I had been blind
. It had happened before.
“You have a funny way of showing it, popping in and out of my life like a damn mirage
.”

“I ran because
Section One was after me, not because I wished to.”

I sat down on the bed beside her.
Her eyes were moist and she clutched the sheets savagely with trembling hands. I couldn’t help doubting her
;
she had given me ample reason to
doubt, but deep inside I wanted just
the
answer
she had given me
.
I needed it more badly than I cared to admit even to myself.
I lightly touched her hand. She grabbed it and squeezed as if
my offer was a lifeline tossed to a drowning person.

“I’ve got to kill this creature
. I’m going to kill it, but I need your help.
I have to know where you stand. Will you help me kill it?”

She did not answer immediately, which I took to mean that she was seriously considering my question. If she had said yes immediately, I would have known she was lying.
I knew s
he
badly
wanted the creature
to live, to study it, but she had seen the bodies in my apartment and in the
monastery. She had seen their pale, mutilated, drained bodies. I had
witnessed their impact on her.

“I don’t want you to die,” she replied.
“I’ll help you.”

“Why is the creature staying near the monastery?” I suspected the answer, but I needed to hear it from her lips.
I held my breath.

She looked at me, her lip quivering. “The subway tunnel run
s
beneath the
monastery. Maybe the
Chupacabra
is using
it.”

I released my breath. I knew she was right. It was the only
possible
answer.
She had known about the subway tunnel before I had gone after her and torched the monastery.
It would do not good to confront her
about it
now. I had no proof, just my gut instinct. I needed her help.
I nodded.

“We’ll need some help.”

21

Tray Faber strongly believed in fate. He had weathered the fiasco
that ensued after
the death of the adult
Chupacabra
.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President
and
the Director of Homeland Security
had
each
taken turns berating him and his department for failing to secure a live specimen
, threatening him with disciplinary action
. Finally, fatigue and the
raw
memories of those who had
given their lives trying to
carry out
his orders
had taken
control of
Faber’s
tongue.

“Get off my back!” he had yelled at the President
and the Director.
“What the hell do you want?”
The
ensuing
silence
had
brought him such a sense of joy that he didn’t mind that he had probably just personally delivered his
oral
resignation
to his Commander-in-Chief
. Miracle of miracles, the President had backed down
and apologized
and had even
thanked him for securing the
two
dead specimens
. It was fate, therefore, that decreed he still be head of Section
One
when word came that the killings had
begun
again. There was another creature out there
, a second chance
.
Faber was overjoyed.

It came as no surprise that Detective Thackery Hardin was
once again
at the center of
the melee
. The creature had delivered three corpses to Hardin’s apartment upon his absence, had even stalked him while
he was
at his cabin in the woods.
What did surprise
Faber
was learning through
Captain Bledsoe’s reports
that the creatures were intelligent and capable of speech.
That bit of information had Washington
astir
as never before
.
Now
,
they were not
simply
dealing with an ancient creature with remarkable powers
of rejuvenation
, but also
one
as intelligent
as,
or possibl
y
more intelligent than man.
The threat to national security had gone up a
nother level
. Suddenly,
Washington
had offered
Faber
a blank check and
the
unlimited resources
of the
F
ederal government
to produce a live creature.