Heart of the Dead: Vampire Superheroes (Perpetual Creatures Book 1) (2 page)

Alicia winked at her then vanished from sight.

Chapter Two

H
is mind surfaced as a waterlogged corpse might in placid waters, drifting slowly in the current, in no real hurry to rise to the top. He caught the drone of distant, unfamiliar sounds: whispers, screeches, hissings and mumbled speaking in a language he could not understand. After a time, he became aware of the constricting force surrounding his body, touching every part of him as if he was buried at a great depth. He tried to see, but all was darkness.

The clamor in the darkness grew more frantic. Strange trumpets sounded out in alarm. He sensed movement all around him and he understood, with a sudden awakening, that he was not buried, crushed and blinded by an unbearable pressure, but was, in fact, in a room, being watched by others.

He shifted his body side to side. The tightness confining him gave way in several places and cool air washed over his skin. He filled his lungs with a large draught of air and realized, for the first time, that he hadn’t been breathing. He forced his arms and legs outward in a yawning stretch and the prison surrounding him fell away.

Bright yellow lights flashed all around him. The thundering trumpets roared louder than ever, spilling forth from a tiny grated hole in the ceiling. The words
speaker
and
siren
came unbidden to his mind and he realized that he had somehow plucked the meaning from the thoughts of someone nearby.

A lifeless voice rang out, repeating a single statement:

“EMERGENCY QUARENTINE OF SUBSECTION D-13.”

He found that if he pressed his hearing, the voice — which he now recognized as something called a
recording
— quieted and he could detect the sound of panicked conversations, feet running across the concrete floor, even the thunder of a multitude of hearts beating at all different speeds. He cycled back through the sounds, returning to the sirens and back to the heartbeats.

He tuned out the sirens and allowed his hearing to settle on the voices outside the room. He didn’t understand the language they were speaking, but he could feel the weight of their words, picking up the meaning from their very minds.

They were frightened of him. But why?

He looked down at the shards of black stone, shiny like volcanic glass, littering the floor around his feet. Much of it was in ruin, but a few larger pieces remained intact. The outside of the shards were smooth and indistinguishable, but within, he could see the negative molding of his body. One piece was shaped like his fingers. Another set looked to be his ankle. In the largest piece, he could even make out the semblance of his face.

He did not understand. How had he survived being incased within the shell of black stone?

He moved toward the door in the opposite wall, but before he could lay hold of the knob, a terrible pain, a soul-wrenching hunger pang, dropped him to his knees.

The pain was quick, but it left him feeling drained and empty, not just in his stomach, but in every fiber of his being. The act of shedding the black shell had devoured part of him and left, in its wake, an insatiable thirst. But a thirst for what?

The people beyond the door would know.

He rose to his feet, gripped the doorknob, but the door was locked. He twisted hard and the metal knob broke free from the door as if it were made of pottery. Frustrated, he slammed his fist into the door and the thick steel dimpled. He threw the knob aside and punched the door again, this time buckling it in its frame.

He punched all the harder, and the metal rang like a great bell. He poured in all of his strength until the tiny bones in his hands shattered and the flesh around the knuckles split on impact, leaving tiny smears of blood across the now-rippled surface. The wounds on his hands healed just as fast as they formed, the bones resetting before the next blow fell.

The thick steel door would not be displaced, and he caught from their minds why. A thick metal panel had risen from the floor to reinforce the door, and though his strength far surpassed what a normal person’s should be, he knew he would not be able to move it.

Those on the other side of the door were not here to help him. They were here to imprison him, to study him. They would not give him the answers he desired.

A thick yellow mist plumed up from several small grates in the floor, burning his eyes and throat. He didn’t know if the fumes had the power to kill him, but he didn’t intend to find out.

He scanned the room. The walls were made of concrete block, thick and reinforced. The ceiling was poured concrete, as was the floor. The vents from which the noxious gas entered the room were too small to be of any use.

He held his breath, closed his eyes, and rested his head against the door. There had to be a way out of this room. Then something unexpected happened.

The door vanished. The air was different — felt warmer, cleaner. He opened his eyes and found that his surroundings had changed, that he had somehow passed through the mangled door and the reinforcing panel to the room beyond, though he hadn’t taken a single step.

He now stood in a long hallway, void of doors, with a floor that sloped gradually upward. Every so often an insignia of a hand holding a candle was painted on the walls. He caught the name
Light Bearers
— the name of the group holding him prisoner — on the mind of someone close by. Footsteps echoed, some fleeing, but many more approaching.

Ten men, adorned in black body armor and riot helmets, slid to a stop twenty yards from him. Each held a weapon that he had never seen before. He probed their minds, found the word
rifle
, and gained a quick understanding of their capabilities. The first five men dropped to a single knee and raised their rifles, allowing the remaining five a clear shot over their heads.

The men were nervous, their breathing ragged and heavy beneath their helmets. Their hearts raged like contending thunderstorms. The stench of their sweat filled the air. He searched their minds, reading only hatred and disgust, as if he was an abomination that deserved to be extinguished from the earth. There would be no bargaining, no compromise, no answers.

The men on their knees fired something attached to their rifles and a series of darts, tethered by wires, pelted him in the chest. The sharp prongs could not pierce his skin and instead, fell to the floor, sparking and sizzling with tiny arcs of lightning.

“Live rounds,” shouted one of the men. “Fire!”

He threw up his arms, protecting his face from the searing projectiles, which riddled him head to toe. The immense pain forced him backward. He pressed himself against the thick panel blocking the doorway, nowhere to go. At first, he thought the bullets were piercing his flesh and he couldn’t understand why he wasn’t dead. When he opened his eyes, he found that the bullets were instead flattening against his skin, falling away and leaving only tiny burns that healed almost immediately.

The men continued the attack, each row alternating between firing and reloading their weapons. Tiny flames spurted from the ends of their guns, creating a strobe effect even more irritating than the band of yellow lights in the room behind him. Acrid gun smoke filled the hall. The reports echoed off of the walls, fed off one another until the sonic assault was too much for even his enhanced hearing to tune out.

Another hunger pang quaked throughout his body. He pressed his fingers against the concrete floor hard enough to bleach the tips. He clenched his teeth and the cords in his neck drew taut. A great force churned within his chest as the pain within and the pain without fused. The air about him became dry and hot, as though he were standing near a great furnace. The concrete floor blackened. The tiles of the drop ceiling smoldered. The pain in his flesh ceased, for the bullets were no longer reaching him, but instead, exploded in white-hot sparks mere inches from impact.

The heat surrounding him became immense, setting the ceiling and walls aflame. Still, the men continued to shoot their rifles. He rose to his feet, his face screwed into a scowl, his eyes bulging. He screamed loud enough to deafen even the gunfire, and in his mind, he willed the great heat forward.

A great burst of fire exploded down the hallway, blowing all ten men off of their feet and igniting each like the wick of an oil lamp. None of the men had the chance to scream or flee or even flinch. One moment, they were ten living beings and the next, charred bones were all that remained.

Water showered down from the ceiling, hissing as it hit the scorched floor, though it was unnecessary. The fire had devoured all of the air in the hallway. What little bit remained burning, when he quenched the blaze with his mind, smothered on its own.

He looked up at the tiny metallic cylinders causing the deluge in the hallway. It was such a strange and marvelous thing to see. He closed his eyes and turned his face up to the indoor rain. He sighed and shuddered as the cool drops slithered down his head and body, washing away the soot and grime clinging to his skin. He reached out with his mind, searching for an answer to the inexplicable rain, and from another’s mind, he pulled the word
sprinkler
.

He swayed on his feet, a bit dizzied by the strange world about him. He could remember no past, but he knew he was not newly born, because some things were common place to him, like doors, fire and smoke. Then again, other things — the lights, guns and sprinklers — felt so foreign to him.

And what of his special gifts? His strength and speed, his ability to hear thoughts and make fire with his mind? They came as naturally to him as walking, yet he understood from the fear of those surrounding him that there was nothing natural about them. He was unique and with that came a burden of loneliness.

If he wasn’t human, then what was he?

Before he could search out the answer in the minds of his captors, the hunger pang returned tenfold.

There were others still within the building. He could hear them scurrying about like frightened mice, chattering to one another, seeking places to hide. But there was nowhere they could go that he could not find them. Their very heartbeats betrayed them.

He rushed past the burnt corpses, down another hallway and up two flights of stairs. He tracked the others, not just by the noise they made, but by the scent of their bodies and the beacons of their minds.

He found four of them huddled in a large stainless steel freezer. They backed into the farthest corner, stumbling over one another.

He didn’t like the fright in their eyes, nor the way they begged for mercy. He pitied them. There was evil within them, dark desires such as he could not understand; even so, he wanted to turn and leave them be.

But the hunger warring within was maddening, dulling all sense of justice, silencing all self-control. Breaking free of the black shell, his birth into this strange world, the regeneration of his wounds, and the mind-fire had stolen too much life from him. He needed to replenish life with life. He needed to feed.

Chapter Three

T
he sidewalk twisted away from the main school building, snaked its way around the student parking lot, and nestled up against a thick wooded area. Cars were escaping the parking lot like life boats from a sinking ship. Groups stood here and there, waiting for the traffic to thin before heading out. Jerusa waved to them, they waved back, some called her name, but none invited her over to join the fun.

Alicia followed, but instead of walking, she moved along, appearing and disappearing on the tops of the cars. She pouted, refusing to look at Jerusa.

“I’m going to see him whether you like it or not.” It wasn’t a good idea to talk to her ghostly friend where others might overhear, but she figured she was far enough away to not arouse any suspicions. Alicia didn’t look up. “Foster will be leaving soon. I want to say goodbye to him.” She had once asked Alicia why she didn’t like Foster Reynolds, but she gave no answer. Perhaps it was some secret that only those beyond the grave know. Or maybe she, like Jerusa’s friends and mother, thought it was a bad idea for a young girl to be alone with an older man.

Jerusa understood their concerns — she was eighteen and he was in his mid-forties — and with any other man, she would agree that it was creepy. But Foster was different. There was never anything sexual about their relationship. He was the father-figure she had needed after her father ran out, and she was the daughter he yearned for after he had lost his own years ago to cancer. No one approved of their friendship — not even Alicia — but Jerusa didn’t ask for their approval.

Foster was witty and charming. Crazy in a silly way. Wise and learned, without even a trace of the usual haughty hubris. And besides all of that, he was the only one that knew the truth of her supernatural gift.

Jerusa hadn’t meant to tell Foster about seeing spirits. He had drawn it out of her, as good friends often do. After she had told him everything, she had sat with her eyes to the floor, unable to bear the disbelief and pity that were surely painting his face. He had been silent for a long moment, and then he placed his hand on her shoulder and had said the best three words Jerusa had ever heard in her life: “I believe you.”

For that, she loved him. Not in the poor-broken-girl-with-daddy-issues way that everyone accused her of. She loved him with a purity that only comes from baring your soul to another and having them treat your secrets as a treasure to be guarded. Though he had never said so, Jerusa believed that Foster loved her because she had survived her illness. For him, in some small way, it was a vindication for his daughter.

They were just two broken souls being lonely together. What was so wrong about that?

Jerusa followed the sidewalk around the farthest parking lot. It was known as the tardy lot, because if you could only find a space this far back you were most likely late to school. The dogwood trees were blooming, sprinkling the budding green forest with a dusting of purple. The air smelled of magnolia, and pine overlaid the mustiness of decaying foliage. Something small, probably a squirrel or a rabbit, skittered about in the underbrush. Turkey vultures circled the sky, riding the thermals as they sniffed out their next ghastly meal.