The Birth of Vengeance (Vampire Formula #1) (16 page)

Thorn looked around for a bit and listened as I explained the events in detail. She listened, and I could tell she was reliving those memories and emotions as I explained it. I held myself together as a sadness welled up from all the years of fear I went through at school and that fateful day. She held my hand as I explained, and we hugged at the end.

“They can’t hurt you anymore,” she said as we hugged.

“Remember what you have become. You have a rare opportunity to put things right,” she added.

I nodded, and I knew without any psychic abilities what she had planned for the night.

“Good, now where do they live?” she asked, standing back and pressing the car key fob making the car lights flash and the locks clunk into place.

I wasn’t particular keen on walking into that place at night as the old fears were too strong to quash, but she wasn’t taking no for an answer so I pointed in the right direction. Thorn walked on to the estate putting on a terrific show, seriously working her body, swaying her hips back and forth, as if she belonged on a catwalk. I knew her game, as she had done this before. It was her way of hunting. She didn’t go to find her prey; she got them to find her. She was the honey and the trap. We got the attention she desired as we walked through, cars beeped and young men leered out the windows, and a few local youths wolf whistled. Thorn enjoyed the attention and blew kisses at them trying to provoke them into fatal action.

The further we walked into the estate the more uncomfortable I felt. The houses got more run down, windows broken and boarded up. The litter on the streets blew about from the abandoned garbage. I would have never walked around here day or night. I started to feel scared; my muscles tensed up and I looked down at the floor as we walked on trying to avoid everyone’s gaze. Thorn stopped, grabbed my shoulder and I looked up. Her eyes flashed red and she bared her fangs for a second. I suddenly remembered whom I was walking with and pulled myself upright. We carried on down the road deeper into the hunting ground. I loved it when she read my mind.

As we turned onto another road, I recognised it as the place the accident happened. I could even find the exact spot and pointed it out to Thorn. I remembered Liam catapulting over the car and his motionless body behind it. I remembered opening the door, being sick and running off scared at what would happen next. I was right to be scared as they came after us driving Giles to suicide, and I would have been me next if it hadn’t been for my Dad’s work. Just then, as Thorn was reliving my memories, a gang of three lads came around the corner ahead. Thorn caught their attention and they started staring. She held their gaze and strutted towards them, giving it everything to fuel their desires. They approached full of swagger and bluff pulling their hoodies down, and I recognised one of the lads from the gang, Dave. He acted as Patrick’s right-hand man in school, always there to act as the extra muscle and had bullied Giles and me in the past. Dave’s face pulled a quizzical look as he recognised me. He had shaven his ginger hair and sported a piercing in his eyebrow. His face pale and spot covered as always.

“Jon?”

“Yeah,” I replied confidently.

“Hardly recognise you, especially not here.”

“Well just showing my girlfriend around,” I responded.

Thorn stood next to me hugging my arm and smiling at Dave, acting the part to perfection.

He looked at her surprised.

“Really, why here?” he asked.

“I want to find the O’Keefe’s house,” Thorn answered.

Dave looked surprised again at hearing this answer.

“Why would you want to find them for?” Dave asked.

“I have a deal for them.”

“Not going to happen sweetheart; now run along and put some clothes on.”

“Come on Dave, why don’t you tell us?” I asked.

“You’ve some guts all of a sudden. Not that long ago you did everything you could to hide from us. Even left your mate to fend for himself. Well I have news for you, the police and schools have better things to do than watch us,” Dave carried on getting more agitated, and began pacing back and forth, as he spoke.

“We found those little grasses that came after us. You better leave now. No one has forgotten your part in what happened to Liam. Even though you were too scared to come to the trial.”

I couldn’t be bothered to explain why I wasn’t at the trial.

“Not going to beat me up first?” I asked, as I sensed something was missing. They would have usually just hit first.

“I have heard things about you. Police and others have been around here asking questions about you. We thought at first they were blaming us for your disappearance. But no, they wanted to catch you for some murders in London.”

“Really,” I stated, happy that I now had a reputation.

“Yeah, so go on leave, I have better things to do,” Dave said and walked backwards keeping his eyes on us.

Even without the remnant vampire power, I could tell he feared us and was suspicious of me being back in Leeds.

“I want the O’Keefe’s address, and I want it now,” Thorn shouted and her mood had changed.

She let go of my arm and stood legs apart, hand on hips and face frowning.

“Tell your whore to shut up,” Dave shouted back.

I placed my hand across Thorn’s chest to hold her still. I didn’t need to be psychic to know what she wanted to do. I decided to do Dave a favour; he wouldn’t thank me for it but it would save his life and those of his friends. I could just let Thorn kill them, but I hated him and something inside just snapped. I didn’t need to let the anger build to fuel my actions. As soon as I saw him, I wanted to punch him in his stupid spotty face.

I walked over.

“Oh big man are we? Come on then,” Dave called me forward with his hands and then squeezed them into fists.

He swung first; I parried and returned a punch, and he staggered backwards into his two friends. He swung another fist, and I dived back and followed up with a roundhouse kick across his thigh, dropping him to one knee. The other two advanced forwards, and I quickly front kicked the closest in the stomach flinging him backwards and tumbling him onto the pavement. The other one caught me with a blow to the side of the head, and I rocked backwards but stayed on my feet. I instinctively turned back and jumped backwards to gain some space. He came again, and I lunged forwards grabbing him around the neck with both arms, and hands locked behind his head. I sprung a flurry of knees into his stomach and ribs while pulling him down into them each time. Dave got back to his feet and the second friend picked himself up as well. The one I held tried to drop down out of my grasp, I let him drop his head and it met a right knee full force into his face. He collapsed to the floor, and I jumped one footed on his back and flew forward with another knee and elbow out in front of me straight into Dave’s oncoming charge. The force of the my attack broke through his feeble block and smashed him to the floor. The third one froze as I piled through Dave and then turned and ran back down the road. I knelt down, grabbed Dave by the head and pulled back my fist ready to continue.

“Where do they live?” I shouted.

I sensed Thorn’s thoughts in my head.

“Good, you are learning.”

I smiled to myself, and I soaked in my feelings of triumph and victory. This was the first time I had ever won a fight, and it was against my old tormentor. I was enjoying my newly found strength in my human form. Revenge felt great.

It struck midnight and we stood in front of a terraced house with lights flashing in the downstairs window. Accompanying the lights, screaming and moaning came from the TV. Occasionally, above the TV, laughing and shouting joined in. The streets were deserted, and the lights above us flickered on and off every ten seconds. I stared at the front door preparing myself. I rehearsed it in my mind, across the path through the assorted junk and rubbish dumped outside, around the weatherworn dumped sofa and smashing through the front door, then round and into the TV room.

Thorn looked at me, “You know what to do?” she asked sternly.

“Yes,” I responded.

I twitched with nervous excitement. I would have more control this time around, savour their destruction and fear. Thorn pulled the needle out of my pocket and prepared it by pushing it down slightly and tapping it to force the air out.

“Remember to pass me some meat back once inside,” she said, as I rolled up my sleeve.

She waited until I responded.

“I will remember Thorn,” I acknowledged her and looked away in preparation for the injection.

“Look at it Jon. You must face your fears,” she said waiting for me to turn back and look at the needle. I did, and she plunged it into my skin and pushed down on it forcing the formula into my bloodstream. I waited for the power to come and enjoyed the sense of my body changing this time, knowing it was the precursor to immense power. I shook and my body burned as it changed, and then I allowed my senses to soak in the new scenery, as can only be seen and sensed by a vampire. Thorn stepped in front of me, wrapped her arms around me and kissed me passionately.

“Go now my darling, relive your anger and fulfil your revenge. Bathe in your anger and rage, and then enjoy their fear and destruction.”

My memory flashed back to those dark days in Leeds, the sickening fear of an unknown attack. The constant feeling of being on edge. The image of poor Giles in the cloakroom on that final day in school still haunted me. The hate in his eyes as the tears streamed down his face, and then he attacked me, his best friend. Worst of all, the ever-present guilt I felt by walking away from those front gates and then allowing my Dad to make me abandon my friendship. I let the guilt and anger for them escaping justice at the trial join in with the other emotions. I let the anger and rage build up, holding it back, and waiting for its strength to break down my barriers of self-control. When it reached a climatic point, I released the barriers, and let it flood through my body, soaking it in power, triggering the full strength and rage of the vampire within. It was enough. I blazed across the street, jumped the discarded weather-torn sofa and smashed straight through the front door into their house.

I burst into the smoke-filled room, with the TV the only light as it flashed its images across the walls and onto the four men watching it. The father, Liam in his wheelchair, Patrick, and a friend from the gang were all watching a torture porn film, with a young woman in ripped nightclothes tied to a chair and a smiling man approaching with a spinning drill. The father was a big fat man dressed in a grubby white vest and dirty dark blue jeans and bare feet. Tattoos of barbed wire spiralled down the left shoulder to the forearm. On the other arm, the words, “Fighting Irish,” tattooed in black across his bicep. He was bald on top, with grey strands through his black hair grown from the sides into a ratty ponytail at the back. Patrick and Liam were just as I remembered them. Patrick had short black hair and a greasy freckled pale face. Liam’s face hardened, stubbled and depressed. They wore tracksuit tops and jeans with fancy new trainers on. Patrick had a long rolled up joint in his hand and coughed out smoke on my entrance
. The friend slumped on the sofa in a large green parker jacket, jeans and heavy-duty black boots.
They all had a can of drink in their hands, which they were in the midst of putting down having been altered by the noise of the front door. I faced them blocking the TV.

I knew what I wanted to do. I pictured myself turning their house into a blood bath in a terrifying blur of claws and fangs, but I controlled my instincts to kill and drink this time around. I decided to enjoy myself first. My face was contorting, eyes burning red and fangs showing. I snarled and growled at them, and I sensed their building fear and panic as a trembling through their entire bodies. I felt it paralyse them into their stain-ridden paisley chairs. I stared at them all one by one, as I showed them my vampire face and snarled at them from the bottom of my guts. They looked around at each other in a panic, waiting for one of the others to do something, waiting for someone to take the lead. I changed things about and reverted to my human face. They stopped backing away up their chairs in an attempt to escape, stepped down and stared at me.

“It’s Jonathan, Giles’ friend. The one who disappeared. The one the police has been asking about,” Patrick stated.

I was surprised he recognised me.

“Yeah, he is,” Liam replied.

Their fear started fading away now that the sight of the kid they used to bully stood in front of them. Their confidence grew now that I had appeared in human form again and they crept forward. Their fear flipped to anger; the muscles in their arms tensed and white knuckles showed as they squeezed fists ready to fight.

“Nice special effects kid,” the father said. “What next, a rabbit from a hat?”

They all continued to move forward looking at each other for reassurance.

“No, I am here for vengeance. I have a deal for you, a chance to understand the game of consequences,” I waited for dramatic pause. “You must choose which two of you will live and which two must die.”

They stopped moving and again glanced around at each other.

“Or you all die,” I added.

They looked at each other again. The boys all stared at the father who laughed flicking his ratty ponytail backwards. He still thought this was some kind of act.