Encounters with Evil Pt. 05

The daylight was disappearing much too rapidly. How long before Valjevo finds him? Guy was under no illusion that getting to Mel wouldn't be the first thing the vampire did upon awakening.

He launched himself onto the deck railing and from there to the roof, easily following the route Mel had taken. He could smell him now; the oil left by his hands and feet on the rough stone left behind a faint odor. Near the top he discovered the place where the stone had crumbled beneath Mel's hand and the evidence of his scrabble to regain his balance. Looking down, Guy shuddered. Why is he taking such foolish chances? Is he really so desperate to get away from me?

He quickly traversed the rest of the cliff face and set off at a punishing pace through the woods, following Mel's clear trail. When he came to the fence that encircled his property, he followed his mate's path west to where he had climbed a tree to get over the fence. If he had touched the fence, Guy's alarm system would have triggered. In fact, the alarm would have triggered if someone had come onto the property even without touching the fence, but it was not setup to detect when people left.

Guy made short work of the scramble up the tree and the ten-foot drop to the ground on the other side of the fence. Mel's trail ended at the road where he had climbed into a vehicle. It was impossible for Guy to track him after that. The demon inside Guy roared his frustration into the air, a sound that made his neighbors' blood run cold and caused them to double check their own security systems.

He was just about to take photos of the tread marks, when his ear bud chimed and Central was on the line. The dispatcher informed him that they had detected Mel's tracker, and he was stationary at an east Bothell address. Thank the Lord! Guy raced back to Consuela's house.

As the agent transferred the address to his phone, he jumped into his car and squealed out of the driveway. It was now fully dark and time was running out for Mel.

"God, it's so great to hang out with you again," Jon said, giving Tigger a hug from behind and resting his chin on the other boy's shoulder. "I missed you."

Tigger set down the knife he was using to chop red peppers and turned around as Jon let him go. His friend's eyes twinkled. "I can't believe how buff you've gotten!" Jon ran light fingers across Tigger's bicep. It was an affectionate gesture, not a sexual one.

Tigger smiled at him. He'd missed Jon a lot. "There was nothing else to do there but work out." He'd already confessed to Jon where he'd been staying and told him the whole story of Guy's strange behavior.

Jon had been furious. He'd said that Guy was obviously psychotic and that Tigger deserved someone so much better. He promised Tigger that they would go out dancing, and he'd help Tigger find someone.

Tigger had groaned. He didn't want to look for a replacement for Guy, he just wanted to wallow in his self pity for awhile. Later, when he felt stronger, maybe he'd be open to meeting someone new.

He was also apprehensive about going out. He felt reasonably safe at Jon's sister's house. It was a large, comfortable home with a good security system in a neighborhood with neatly mowed lawns and manicured flower beds. However, wandering around downtown Seattle in the dark, he was sure, would be foolish—at least until he knew the vampire was gone.

Jon's sister and her husband had gone to a party, and he had convinced Jon to stay home and spend a quiet evening with him. After dinner they were going to watch movies.

Jon glanced around at the preparations. "Looks like we're about ready for me to put the salmon on. It won't take long." He grabbed his glass of white wine and the platter with the fillet and disappeared out the sliding glass door onto the back deck.

Tigger finished putting the salad together and checked on the rosemary roasted potatoes. They were done, so he turned the oven off. After setting up the corn to steam, he found a clean platter for Jon to use for the salmon and headed out to the deck.

The salmon was sizzling on the grill. It looked about done to him, but he didn't see any sign of Jon.

"Jon?" he called out, suddenly apprehensive. He heard a small noise behind him and spun around. The only thing he saw was a dark cloth coming down over his face. He instinctively struck out with his hands, but before he could engage he was fully encased in fabric, his feet were swept out from under him, and he was dropped roughly on the ground.

As his brain registered what was happening, he started to scream. He was sure it was the vampire who had him, and being at the mercy of the demon with his soulless black eyes was his worst nightmare. He clawed frantically at the fabric with his fingers, trying to fight his way out, screaming the entire time. The dark covering was thick and strong, smelling of wool. He realized that he was trapped in a large bag and that whoever had him was fastening it shut. He tried to twist around onto his hands and knees in the small space, but just then the wool enclosure was picked up and he was carried away like a sack of garbage.

He continued to scream and struggle to no avail. Soon he was tossed onto a hard surface and he heard a door slide shut. He guessed he was in the back of a van. He stopped screaming and started panting instead. The fabric was suffocating. He tried to calm himself down so he could think clearly and figure a way out.

"T ... Tigger?" It was Jon's voice coming from close by.

Tigger's panic, which was barely under control, ratcheted up again. The vampire had caught Jon too. "No!" he cried, and then with great anguish, "Oh, no, Jon!"

"We need to figure out how to get out of here," Jon said. His voice sounded steady.

Tigger had already been struggling against the fabric, but he was making no progress. "You don't happen to have a knife in your pocket?" he asked hopefully.

"No," Jon replied.

They both struggled in silence for a few minutes, then Jon said, "It's the slasher isn't it? He's kidnapped us. He didn't look that big. I don't understand how he could carry me so easily."

Tigger's heart froze. "He's not a man," he said quietly. He swallowed, but his mouth was bone dry, and it felt like his tongue was stuck in his throat.

"What do you mean?" Jon's voice was laced with a fear that hadn't been there before.

"He's ... he's a vampire." Tigger fought to make his words come out in some semblance of order. His brain was so awash with fear he wasn't sure he was making sense.

"Oh, come on!" Jon sounded irritated. "There's no such thing..."

"But there is!" Tigger cut him off sharply, anger suddenly flaring in his breast. It was a welcome emotion—anything was better than the bone-chilling dread which had soaked into his core. "When he attacked me before, I saw his fangs. And his eyes." His voice lowered to a horrified whisper. "No one has eyes like."

"It was probably contacts," Jon said, but he didn't sound so sure.

"When he broke into our apartment, he literally ran up the side of the building. And you yourself just said he's inhumanly strong. Wait until you get a good look at him, Jon. You'll believe me. God, I wish he were just a regular serial killer." Tigger let out a bitter laugh at the irony of his last statement.

"What are we going to do?" Jon's voice was a squeak. His friend seemed truly terrified now.

"I wish I knew," Tigger replied. He was suddenly overcome with an oppressive sadness. "I'm so sorry I got you into this Jon. I should have stayed at Guy's house and just dealt with it. I'm such an idiot to think that the danger had passed. Guy told me that the vampire would never stop looking for me, and that he had resources I couldn't even comprehend, but I didn't want to believe him. I'm so stupid."

"Tigger, I would have done the same thing in your situation, except probably much sooner. It's not your fault. Let's focus on escape, not on how we got here in the first place."

That was good advice, but try as they might, they couldn't figure out how to get out of the bags, and they couldn't come up with an escape plan that had more than a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding.

Guy was on 405 heading north. Traffic was still fairly heavy, and he dodged in and out between the cars, grateful that he was driving such a precision machine. He heard sirens behind him and then the Central dispatcher's voice was replaced by Ed's who told him that he was calling off the Bellevue police, but if Guy didn't slow down to a safe speed, he was going to let them pull him over. "You might be perfectly competent weaving in and out of traffic at seventy miles an hour," Ed said, "but other drivers are bound to panic and you'll end up being the cause of a pile-up."

"As long as it's behind me," Guy growled, but he slowed to fifty, which was still ten miles an hour faster than everyone else was going.

He had left Bellevue and then Kirkland behind him when Ed spoke up, "He's moving."

"God-damn-it!" Guy yelled, pounding his fist against the steering column. He pulled his punch a fraction of a second before it engaged. He didn't want to break his precision machine. "Where is he now?"

"He's still in the same neighborhood, but he's moving pretty fast."

Guy groaned in frustration. He was still twenty minutes away in traffic.

"He's heading west, toward I-5," Ed said.

"Can you get a chopper on him?" Guy asked. It would be the surest way to catch them.

"We don't know for sure that he's in any danger," Ed pointed out. "Maybe he's just going to the grocery store."

"Yeah, right!" Guy could not help the bitterness in his tone. He was sure that if he had done something differently, Mel would not have left him and would not be in grave danger now.

"They're getting on the freeway," Ed said and a few seconds later followed with, "Looks like they're heading south."

Guy immediately started looking for a turnaround, cursing under his breath. He could not just whip around across the meridian; his car sat too low to the ground to jump over curbs. He needed to find the nearest exit and turn around properly. He gnashed his teeth the entire time it took him to navigate the exit and the intersections, skate through a red light, and get back on the freeway heading south.

"How are the bridges?" he asked.

"Five-twenty looks like your best bet," Ed said. Hwy 520 used to always be a nightmare, but a number of years earlier they had made it a toll road and that had lessened the traffic across the narrow bridge to a reasonable flow. Now I-90, the other bridge between Bellevue and Seattle, was usually a nightmare.

"They're exiting the freeway in downtown Seattle," Ed informed him. They're on James street, heading east."

Perfect, Guy thought. I can intercept them as soon as I'm across the bridge. Hang on Angel, I'm coming!

He had just taken the ramp onto 520 when he heard Ed say, "Uh oh."

"What is it?" Guy asked, his stomach flip-flopping.

"There's been an accident on 520 West. Traffic is backing up fast."

"Son of a bitch!" Guy yelled in frustration. He couldn't turn around now. He was well onto the one-way bridge and it was much too narrow to squeeze around the traffic which was now quickly slowing in front of him.

"He's stopped moving now," Ed said. "I think he must be out of the vehicle. Hang on, I'll get you an address ... it's 8^th and Marion."

"St. James cathedral," Guy said. "I knew it!" His vehicle was now inching along at a snail's pace, but his heart was racing a million miles an hour.

"I'll see how quickly I can get the SPD to send out a SWAT team. We don't have any proof that there's a problem yet."

"Oh come on, Ed!" Guy yelled, his blood pressure skyrocketing. "The fact that I smelled vampire at that church yesterday isn't enough evidence that that bastard has him?"

"Of course," Ed said soothingly. "I know that, but unfortunately I can't tell the chief that. Don't worry. I'll come up with something. Uh oh. His signal just disappeared."

"He's taken him underground, into the basement. Make sure the SWAT team doesn't go in until I get there," Guy said unnecessarily. Ed knew what he was doing—he was the one who set that policy in the first place. Local police were not equipped to deal with vampires; they would lose him and his victim and probably get any number of themselves killed in the process.

Traffic had come to a complete standstill. Guy looked out his window at the dark water and tried to calm himself. He was sure the vampire wouldn't kill Mel right away; he would play with him for a while first. I'll get there in time to save his life, he told himself. Whether or not he would be in time to save Mel's sanity was another story.

Tigger could feel the coldness of the hard floor seeping through the wool of the sack where he was still trapped. He heard a gasp and then a whimper from Jon followed by a low laugh from Valjevo and the rattle of chains.

A chill shivered up his spine that had nothing to do with the coolness of the floor. Valjevo had obviously taken Jon out of his sack and was doing something to him. Jon started to beg, "No, please. Please don't," and his voice was so full of fear it broke Tigger's heart. Oh God, Jon, I'm so sorry.

"Lovely, lovely..." the vampire muttered in his low raspy voice.

Jon whimpered again. His sounds were of terror, not pain, but that gave Tigger no comfort. The pain would come soon enough. Please, Guy, please hurry. Tigger had realized their best chance for escape would be for Guy to rescue them, but he had no idea how the hunter would even find them. I am such a fool. I should have stayed at his house even if he hates me.

The vampire was chuckling and muttering to himself in a low voice. Tigger couldn't quite make out his words and was pretty sure that he didn't want to. He began to pray. He believed in God, but he hadn't prayed in years; he didn't think that God actually listened to people's prayers. Now, however, he began to pray fervently.

All too soon he felt his sack moving and guessed that Valjevo was opening it. He tensed, ready to strike out for all he was worth, but before he knew it, the vampire had a firm grip on his hair and was hauling him out. Valjevo dangled him at arm's length, holding him only by his hair. Tigger screamed in pain and automatically latched onto the demon's frigid wrist, holding himself up so that his scalp wasn't ripped off.

Then Tigger caught sight of those black, bottomless eyes, and all the breath left his lungs. His vision swam. He wondered if he was going to faint dead away from sheer terror, but luck was not with him. His vision cleared shortly, although he seemed to have no control over his breath which came in shallow pants, and he was still dizzy.

His focus was on the terrifying demon, but he registered that the room they were in looked like a medieval dungeon, complete with torches on the ancient stone walls. The room held the stench of blood and death.

He immediately started kicking at the vampire and trying to break the iron grip the demon had on his hair. Valjevo's response was to shake him like a rag doll. Over the sound of his teeth rattling, he heard the demon growl, "If you kick me, I'll tear off your leg." He stilled himself immediately. Some part of his brain told him that bleeding to death from sudden amputation would be preferable to whatever else Valjevo had planned, but he couldn't make himself provoke the vampire. The concept of losing a limb was too horrifying.

He also realized that his best bet was to try to stay alive and whole as long as possible to allow for a rescue. Striking the vampire would not be wise. Please, Guy, fucking hurry!

Valjevo hauled him over to the wall of the large stone room and proceeded to attach a heavy iron chain to his leg. It was then that he saw Jon. He was stark naked and sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. His ankle was chained as well. He watched Valjevo and Tigger with an expression of numbed shock. His eyes were huge, taking up most of his face, and his lovely honey-brown skin had taken on a greenish cast around his eyes and on his cheeks. He was visibly shivering.

Tigger was sure that he himself was white as a sheet and looked just as terrified. He kept eye contact with Jon and tried to pull strength from his friend as Valjevo very efficiently stripped him of his clothes, shredding them in the process and tossing them into a corner.

"Well, what have we here?" Valjevo asked, his voice rattling across Tigger's nerves like ancient bones. Realizing that the vampire was looking at his chest, Tigger suddenly remembered the crucifix that Guy had given him. Hope blossomed in his heart only to be immediately crushed. Valjevo was laughing and the sound turned Tigger's stomach.

"You humans are so cute with your quaint superstitions. Did you think this would save you? Did you think this would even slow me down?" With that the vampire grabbed the crucifix and yanked. Tigger cried out as the sturdy chain bit deeply into the skin on the back of his neck before it broke. Valjevo threw the crucifix across the room where it slammed into the wall and fell to the floor with pitiful clink.

"Oh!" Valjevo gasped, his nostrils flaring. "Your blood ... so delicious!" He bent his head over the back of Tigger's neck, and the swipe of something cold and wet told Tigger that the vampire was licking him. His shivers became so violent it felt like his body was going into convulsions.

"Yes ... yes," the vampire hissed as if he were in ecstasy. He pulled away from Tigger, licking his lips. "It's going to take a lot of will power for me not to suck you dry immediately, but then we would miss out on lots of other fun, wouldn't we?"

Tigger tried with only moderate success not to whimper in terror.

The vampire stepped back, and as soon as the cold hands were no longer on him, Tigger scrambled over to Jon, who jumped to his feet to hug him. Their ankle chains were affixed to rings in the stone wall about ten feet apart, but the chains were long enough that they could easily reach each other. They clung together and watched Valjevo with horror.

"Such a lovely pair I've captured," Valjevo said softly, a sinister smile playing around his thin lips. "Alike and yet different. Light and dark. Two sides of the same coin."

Tigger heard a noise from the other side of the room, and his gaze flickered that way. He saw a man in priests robes, and his first instinct was to yell at him to flee, but there was something very wrong about this man. He shuffled slowly into the room with a halting gate and Tigger got a better look at him.

His robes were filthy and tattered, and his feet were bare. His skin was stone-gray, and he was so thin he looked like a walking skeleton. His face did nothing to dispel that illusion: his eyes were sunk deep into their sockets and his skin was translucent. His eyes were not black voids like the vampire's, but were completely blank and lifeless, which was almost worse.

"Look pet, I've brought you some food." Valjevo laughed.

Tigger's brain could not even process that statement. He was too busy watching in horror as the apparition that might have once been a priest lurched forward on spindly legs.

"No, not yet," Valjevo said sharply. "I'm going to have some fun first."

The creature stopped in his tracks. His mouth opened and a gray tongue swept across his bloodless lips. His eyes were focused on the pair of them now, and they were no longer blank; they were filled with hunger. Tigger had thought that he couldn't get any more terrified, but the chill that now crept up his spine frosted his spirit.