Eternal Service (47 page)

Authors: Regina Morris

Even though the crowd stood a good distance away, Daniel suspected it still posed a threat. The President had just finished a speech at a public auditorium. Daniel’s job was to get him safely to the Beast, the presidential limo which waited out back near the kitchen dumpsters. The decoy limo, with its own agents, protected a fake president at another exit.

From the corner of his eye, Daniel could see the Beast, but he remained steadfast on watching the crowd. The President would be safe once again inside the car with its bulletproof glass, its reinforced armor, and its antiterrorist safety features. Daniel counted off the President’s footsteps. Four more and the human would be safe.

With his vampire hearing, Daniel heard a bullet enter its gun chamber. Fearing for the President’s life, Daniel sprung into action. He was unsure of the direction from which the bullet would come, but he did know the exact location of the President, and that’s all that mattered. Daniel pushed past the two human Secret Service agents nearest the Beast and stood directly behind the President, wedging the man between the opened car door and himself.

A moment later Daniel heard the shot and the bullet streaking through the air.

The crowd screamed. The agents quickly pulled their guns and surrounded the President.

Daniel stood tall and held out his arms to block the President from all angles. The bullet whistled past the line of defense and continued its path. The hot lead missed its mark, but hit Daniel in the jaw where it traveled through to his neck and lodged in his spine.

The pain caused Daniel to cry out. His purple blood sprayed from the wound and covered one of the nearby agents, the cement sidewalk, and the inside of the still opened car door. Involuntarily, his head flung back, and any hope Daniel had of seeing the shooter disappeared.

A mass frenzy of agents jumped the shooter as Daniel felt his knees grow weak. He took a step backwards, towards the President. In the com unit, he heard the orders for the Beast to leave. Evacuate. Keep the President safe.

Daniel stumbled, turned, and pushed the President into the car. He noticed an agent from within the Beast grabbing the man and pulling him to safety as well. It caused Daniel to further lose balance. A Secret Service agent, standing on the sidewalk and covered with Daniel’s blood, pushed him the rest of the way into the Beast in an effort to close the car door as quickly as possible.

His head hit the President’s knee and caused more searing pain. Daniel lie on the floor of the Beast as the car sped from the auditorium and entered the streets under police escort. His blood poured from its wound onto the President’s pants, and soiling the floor. He had only detected one bullet, but still didn’t know if the President survived.

The President pulled himself into one of the seats. “I’m fine,” he said repeatedly. The man’s face whitened with fright and Daniel heard the man’s speeding heart rate. He heard all the heart beats of the human’s in the car. His eyes blackened and his fangs extended their full-length. He needed to feed. Feed, or die.

Again Daniel listened as the President proclaimed he was fine. Relief washed over him. He had done his job. But if someone didn’t remove the President from within his reach, the President would be his next meal.

Sulie inspected the President and then declared him healthy. She had been the President’s private physician for his entire tenure, just like she had been for all the presidents since Lincoln. She was another member of The Colony, the covert team of vampires who protected the President. She was also a vampire, just like Daniel. She moved from the President and now sat next to him on the floor. “Daniel,” she began, “I need you to look at me. Focus on me.”

Daniel’s initial aged appearance had been in his late sixties. His purple vampire blood gushed to the floor of the car. The blood darkened each moment as the cells of his body aged. In the moments since he had been shot, he had aged ten years.

Sulie leaned over and licked his wound to seal it, but Daniel knew the wound was bad. The determined, yet saddened, expression on Sulie’s face told him as much.

“You can see his jawbone from his chin,” Brandon said.

Daniel’s eyesight began fading, but he looked over to Brandon, the Colony Director. He was human. He had blood in his body. Blood that Daniel needed.

“It will heal,” Sulie insisted. “The bullet is lodged in him. It’ll work itself out soon.”

Brandon injected a syringe of blood into Daniel’s thigh. The hiss of the syringe was slight compared with the sound of Brandon’s beating heart.

Daniel counted the number of syringes Brandon injected into him. He felt the human red blood pouring out his wound and knew it was mixing with the dark purple pool on the floor.

“We need more blood,” Sulie cried out.

Weakness overpowered Daniel and he could no longer see. Before he lost consciousness, he managed to say, “I really loved my life.”

Books by
Silkhaven Publishing, LLC

Due Out 2013

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