Traitor
I let out a wail that shakes the small basement window. I look at my own blood on my hands. I think I'm gonna die.
"Oh, suck it up you big baby," reprimands Martin. He peels the skin back further. I scream again and slap him hand away. "Do you want me to help you finish this or not?"
"It hurts!" I cry.
"Pain is the last threshold one must pass to achieve enlightenment," says Martin. He positions the sheet of metal over my exposed muscle tissue. "Are you paying attention here? You need to be able to remove this yourself."
As I look down at the flaps of skin peeled back to reveal the area over my heart, I realize I truly am insane. An hour ago, it seemed perfectly logical to have Martin teach me how to develop my fleshcrafting so I could reinforce myself against being staked. I mean, hell, if I contracted vicissitude anyway, I might as well learn how to use it…
"Jesus, Mary, Mother of God!" Pain shoots through my body. I instinctively kick Martin as he tries to seal me up. I hear a rib crack. He goes flying across the room and smashes into a bookshelf.
He gets up slowly with an aroused look on his face. "You know, the sight of you all peeled open, screaming in agony like this…and you're still the best at breaking body parts…I have to admit I'm getting a little excited here."
I jump off the table and quickly try to fix my own hanging flesh. "Stop it! You're starting to sound like a freak. You're creeping me out."
"Alex, stop it. You're gonna mess up your tattoo." Martin pushes my hands aside and starts demonstrating the proper way to seal up the wound. He gets an impish smirk on his face. "Did you ever think when we first met that one day I'd be fleshcrafting your breasts?"
"Aw, for the love of---"
"You want me to increase anything while---"
"I am a hair sliver away from frenzying on you."
"Maybe I should call Jason and ask him."
"What the hell is that suppose to mean?"
"I though he was your boyfriend now."
"When did that happen?"
"That's what Ralph said." He wipes off the excess blood and admires his handiwork. "All done. Now go clean up."
I wash up, change, and escape the club's basement. Craig is waiting in his car across the street. I get in.
"Where's Heather? I thought she was gonna pick me up?" Ever since Carlos turned my bike into scrap metal, I've been relying on rides or public transit to get around. I could just buy another bike, but Ralph insists he's going to make me a new one and he'd have a tantrum if I didn't wait for it to be done.
"The children are studying for finals. I told her I'd get you."
After ten minutes, he makes a left turn in the opposite direction of the house.
"Dude, you're going the wrong way."
"I gotta get gas."
"There's a gas station a block from the house."
"That's that fuckin' OPEC gas station. I only put American gas in my car."
"It all comes from the same place."
"No, gas station I go to only uses gas from Alaskan refineries."
"Oh, that makes perfect sense. Let's not use gas pulled from a friggin' desert. We Americans should only use gas from refineries that are destroying our own natural habitats."
"You got no room to talk about anything natural, you talking corpse."
I refrain from commenting as he pulls into the station. Craig gets out and starts filling his tank. I look across the street and notice someone dragging something into an abandoned department store. I get out of the car. Craig is standing still like he's listening for something, but I've seen that look on Heather's face before.
"That's what I thought, too," I say as I walk across the street. Craig quickly pays the attendant and moves his car.
We get around the side of the building and look in a broken window. Most of the building has been gutted. The only things in it are a few shelves, some tables, and a van parked near a rusting roll-up door. We see four guys, one of which is obviously a sewer rat, strapping a girl to a table. Craig and I look at each other, shrug, and grab our guns.
Craig tries the side door to find it locked. He waves a hand and it quietly pops open. He points and prepares to fire.
"No firing around the girl," I whisper. "One of them frenzies she's dead. Let me go in first. They'll come after me. You get her out of there then you can burn the building down for all I care."
Craig nods and steps aside.
Maybe it was survivor instinct. Maybe it was the calm look on the sewer rat's face when he looked over at me. Maybe it was the fact that Craig agreed with me so readily. I drop to the ground just as a phosphorous round speeds through the area where my head had been a second earlier.
The girl breaks free of the table and unleashes a set of claws. At my new angle, I can see the pointed ears and feline eyes. The five of them lunge toward me.
He set me up. The bastard set me up and the Heralds let him. They let him and didn't tell Heather.
Maybe they did tell her, growls the Beast deep in my gut.
I point both Anacondas in front of me at the pack. As I pull the triggers I see Craig wave his hand out of the corner of my eye. Both guns jam. He calmly walks out of the building.
The feral girl jams a claw into my gut as the Nos tries to bite down on my shoulder. I grab one of them by the face and push my thumb into his eye. I hear a sickening pop and he lets go of his grip to grab for his face. I generate some shadowy tentacles to help pull hungry vampires off of me. Craig comes back in with a red gasoline container.
"What was that you said, Alex? You don't care if I burn the place down?" In their frenzied state, the others don't notice Craig pouring gasoline around the perimeter. He lights a match and drops it to the floor. I use a tentacle to slam the door before he can leave the building. Craig tries to open the door and soon realizes my tentacle is stronger than him. Even with five frenzied, panicked vampires running around and the building on fire, I enjoy the look on his face when he realizes he's trapped in here too.
He takes off for a flight of steps. I chase after him, only to be speared by one of the others and slammed into a wall. You never realize how flimsy modern buildings are made until you're forced through a wall. I get pinned beneath the vampire and falling rubble. As he tries to bring his fangs down on my forehead, I manage to get both hands in his mouth and with a good pull remove his lower jaw from his head.
I stumble out of the hole in the wall and barely get out of the way of a flailing vampire who managed to get himself caught on fire. The doorway is completely consumed in flames and the only safe passage is to the stairs. I hit the stairs and reach the second floor. I look down into the atrium and see the first floor is flooded in fire. I hope there's a window up here…
Then a bullet with a hint of phosphorous zips pass my ear. I turn and dodge a second from Craig's gun.
"And you felt the need to hang around why?" I scream as I try to find cover behind a graffiti-covered pillar.
"I'm gonna personally make sure you go to hell." He fires again and a piece of plaster breaks off the pillar.
Then there's an explosion. A pieces of a melted tire flies within inches of me. I hear Craig scream and the sound of metal giving way.
LET ME OUT, the beast screams as I realize the van on the first floor just exploded. I collapse to the floor and curl up in a ball to collect myself. I hear Craig scream again and I manage to force myself to crawl out from behind the pillar. Through the smoke, I can see a hand gripping onto a rapidly bending banister. I crawl over to the edge and look down to see Craig dangling above the flames.
"Now in retrospect, doesn't your little plan seem stupid?" I say looking down at him.
I want to shove my foot into his face and force him off the ledge. Instead I reach down and grab his hand. "Did it ever occur to you that if you die who the hell is gonna take care of your daughter?" I say as I pull him up.
We both stumble to our feet. I push Craig in front of me toward a vaguely visible exit. He stumbles and falls to one knee, coughing from the thick smoke. I bend over to help him up. I get rewarded with a phosphorous round to the chest for my trouble.
I fall backwards and almost fall off the edge. Craig stands, coughs, and points his gun at me. I hear a gun fire from behind Craig. He drops his gun and collapses to the floor.
Heather runs over to me. I twitch and crawl away from her as the Beast threatens to completely take over.
"Alex, it's me! It's Heather. Come on, I have to get you out of here. The entire building is on fire."
"Really? It felt a little warm in here," I quip as I finally push the Beast back into the pit of my stomach and let Heather help me up.
"I got here as fast as I could."
"How did you---"?
"They told me."
"Tell them I owe them one."
We go out the exit and down the back steps. As we escape the building and enter the empty parking lot, it occurs to me I don't hear any sirens. Heather leans me against her car as she tries to get the passenger door open. The street is empty. Not even a concerned neighbor.
From the corner of my eye I think I see the shadows peeling off of a building and coagulating into a pool of black ink.
He couldn't have.
Heather stops trying to get me into the car and turns her attention to the black pool slowly moving toward us.
He wouldn't have.
"Get out of here, Heather," I say as I try to push her into her car. Black tentacles rise up out of the pool and begin writhing around each other, finally assuming human form.
He did.
Belzitane smiles, waves a hand, then everything goes black.
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