My Girlfriend is a Vampire Ch. 05

Thomas fell silent after that and looked crestfallen. To break the uncomfortable silence I said, "So, what was it that Lara wanted you to tell me?"

"One of Lara's intelligence assets in the 15^th district was killed by a Black Court Vampire," Thomas replied as he picked up a manila envelope off the floor, "Something like that could be considered a direct challenge to her authority."

I took the envelope from Thomas and pulled out three eight-by-ten glossies. All three photos were grainy, and a lot of details were obscured by shadows, however, all three photos centered on something that looked like a walking corpse, little more than a skeleton with skin stretched tightly over the bones.

"Lara wants you to find the vampire and kill it," Thomas said, "I thought Lara just saw you as food, but apparently she thinks you can be an enforcer."

The photos all appeared to be taken in a parking lot by a security camera. I couldn't learn much from just staring at the photos, however, Kelsey could. Kelsey had abilities that could lead me right to this creature.

"Lara has been grooming me to be some sort of supernatural assassin," I explained, "Although I thought she wanted me to tackle the really big threats. She should easily be able to neutralize a single Black Court Vampire without any help from me."

"She could," Thomas conceded, "but Lara likes to move in mysterious ways."

The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that this was some sort of a test. She probably wanted to see how well I performed against a single opponent before she sent me into battle against the House Skavis or Malvora. If I couldn't handle a single Black Court Vampire, she'd know I wasn't ready to go to war against an entire family of cunning, wily White Court Vampires.

I told Kelsey that I had another job for her. I showed her the photos of the Black Court Vampire and told her it would be a good idea to track him before the sun went down.

"This type of vampire can't stand sunlight," I explained, "It's a fatal weakness. So, if we were to find him before the sun goes down, it'd be to our advantage."

"Who's going with us?"

"Nobody," I replied, "I'm going to kill this one on my own."

"Can Thomas come with us?" Kelsey asked, "He could be your backup."

"What? No!" I exclaimed, "This is just one vampire! I should be able to handle one vampire all on my lonesome! If I invite Thomas to come along as my backup, it's going to make me look weak!"

"What if this vampire has friends?" Kelsey asked, "What if he sired a bunch of other vampires? Vampires can reproduce pretty fast by biting humans, right?"

"This is technically true," I conceded, although my suspicion was that Kelsey wanted to invite Thomas not because she felt we needed the backup, but because she liked Thomas's pouty lips, his perfectly shaped ass and the way that he looked like someone who had just walked out of a Calvin Klein ad.

Eventually, I caved in and invited Thomas to come along with us. It injured my pride to ask for his help, but Kelsey was relentless in her pestering, and I wanted to get this over with quickly. The longer I argued with Kelsey, the longer this little errand would take.

__________

Before we went to kill the vampire, Thomas and I stocked up on weapons. Thomas suggested that we go see a guy who knew that could get us guns without having to go through background checks or waiting periods. Since we were in a hurry, I agreed.

Thomas's arms dealer was a big guy, but for a black-market arms dealer he didn't look very threatening. He had an avuncular face, a receding hairline and the thickest, bushiest eyebrows I've ever seen.

The guy was parked out on Twenty-Ninth Street, and called himself Alexandros, although that was probably just an alias. Honestly, I didn't care what he called himself. All I cared about was if he had the sort of weapons I needed, and he did.

He and his sons opened the back of his truck, and there were handguns, shotguns, assault rifles, grenades and thousands of rounds of ammo. Alexandros had enough military gear in his van to equip a small army.

"Hell's Bells," I swore, "I've come to the right place."

I got myself a .45 caliber Colt Commander. Thomas didn't have any money, but he talked me into outfitting him with a .50 caliber Desert Eagle.

Alexandros seemed annoyed with me for my lack of enthusiasm for his wares. I was just buying what I needed, but I think he was hoping that I'd be like a kid in a candy store.

"Seriously," he said, "I show you my beautiful inventory, and all you want is two handguns? You are like boring tourist who drives all the way out to Disneyland and goes home without riding any of the rides."

He gestured theatrically towards the interior of his truck and said, "I have an M16A2 with an M203 Grenade Launcher! How can you not want something like this?"

"Why would I need a grenade launcher?" I asked.

"Sometimes it's not about need," Alexandros explained, "Sometimes it's about creating an image for yourself! You heft a dangerous weapon like that over your shoulder, you'll be the biggest badass in the room! Everyone will be afraid of you!"

"I'm not insecure enough that I need a grenade launcher to feel like a badass," I replied.

"You should at least buy some grenades," Alexandros said, "There's no telling when you might need to blow something up."

I passed on the grenades and the grenade launcher. I was going after a lone vampire. A semiautomatic weapon, a grenade launcher and a box of grenades seemed like overkill for a lone opponent.

I ended up buying two shoulder rigs, two boxes of ammo for the handguns, a cavalry sabre and a scabbard. It wasn't the sort of arsenal that Alexandros wanted me to buy, but it was enough to get him to shut up.

I didn't want Kelsey meeting with any arms dealers, so I left her at home while I met with Alexandros. Once Thomas and I were armed, I drove back home and had Kelsey direct us to the Black Court Vampire.

Following Kelsey's directions, I drove west and eventually ended up in a run-down neighborhood that exhibited all the signs of poverty and desperation. There was a strong theme of urban decay, punctuated by concrete, rust, crumbling buildings, liquor stores and a thriving outgrowth of weeds on every block.

"A vampire lives here?" Kelsey said incredulously when we finally parked my car in front of a boarded-up building, "I thought vampires were supposed to live in castles."

"The Black Court has fallen on hard times," Thomas explained, "They can't afford castles anymore."

I got out of the car and had Kelsey get into the driver's seat.

"Leave the doors locked and the engine running," I told her, "If a vampire tries to break into the car, get the hell out of here and drive straight home. Don't take any chances."

"How will you get home if I take off with the car?" Kelsey asked.

I just rolled my eyes at that. Then Thomas and I walked up to the front door. I was expecting that I'd have to break the door down, but the damn thing wasn't even locked.

"What sort of predator leaves the entrance to his secret hideout unlocked?" I asked.

Thomas shrugged his shoulders and then replied, "Maybe he's hoping some of the locals will try to rob the place. If humans break in, he doesn't have to go hunting. He can just kill the intruders. It's like food delivery."

I paused at that. It was a chilly thought, but it made a lot of sense. It was like he was inviting his victims to come to him. After that; every moment I spent in that condemned building; I felt like a character in a horror movie.

The interior of the condemned home was straight out of a horror movie. The windows were boarded up and there was no electricity, so it was dark and spooky. The floorboards creaked and there were cobwebs in every corner. I pulled out a flashlight to cut through the darkness, it helped to illuminate the room, but did nothing to reduce the creepiness of the place.

Thomas and checked the ground floor and the second floor, but we didn't find the vampire. Then Thomas uttered the words, "I guess we better check the basement."

I let out a disgusted grunt and nodded in grudging agreement. One thing that I've learned about horror movies is that you never search the basement, especially when there's no way to turn on the basement lights. Searching a dark basement was almost certain doom. It was a great way to get decapitated, disemboweled or bisected.

Before Thomas and I were even halfway down the basement stairs the smell hit me, the reek of old blood and rotting meat. The disgusting odor assaulted my nostrils, causing my gorge to rise and prompting Thomas to opine, "I think he's down here."

I paused and shone my flashlight down into the odorous basement. I was expecting to come across the vampire, or at least the corpses of one of his victims.

I was not disappointed.

There were dead bodies everywhere, some were piled up in corners of the room, some were sprawled underneath the staircase, others were propped up against the hot water heater, three or four of them were stacked underneath the fuse box. There were dozens of dead bodies just scattered carelessly throughout the room without any care for order or organization.

Even with my flashlight, the basement was dark, grimy and shadowy. The corpses and the bloodstains were nebulous even under direct illumination of my flashlight. Thomas and I outnumbered the vampire and we were both armed, but I felt a nagging sense of trepidation. Everything about that basement gave me the creeps, it was like the walls could close in at any minute, break my bones and leave me trapped there for all eternity.

After several minutes of searching, Thomas and I still hadn't found the vampire. I desperately wanted to get out of that basement, so I came up with halfway decent excuse do go back out into the sunlight without making me sound like a coward.

"I don't see him down here anywhere," I said to Thomas, "Let's go and check with Kelsey. Maybe she saw somebody leave the building while we were inside."

Thomas seemed okay with that plan, and I turned towards the stairs, but suddenly the elusive vampire was blocking the exit.

It was a disgusting creature, dressed all in black. It looked like a human in the final stages of terminal cancer. It was skinny to the point of looking anorexic and malnourished, its skin was pale and an unhealthy shade of grey, its eyes were filmy as if it had severe cataracts, and its mouth and chin was filthy and stained with something that was possibly blood and gore.

"Fools," the vampire admonished us in a raspy voice, "you should not have come here."

I already had my .45 in my hand and I pointed it directly at the vampire's head.

"And you shouldn't have gotten between me and the exit," I told the vampire brusquely, "It's Drag Queen Night at Hamburger Mary's and if you make me miss it, there'll be hell to pay."

"What?" the vampire croaked, "Are you insane?"

That's a thing with Black Court Vampires. They seem to be stuck in another century and never get pop culture references. They also seemed to be utterly devoid of humor. My whimsical banter was wasted on him.

"No," I replied tersely, "just bitter about being sent out to this disgusting place and having to deal with you."

I fired two shots into the vampire's head. At close range the .45 made huge holes in the vampire's skull. Traditionally, gunshot wounds aren't considered a method for killing Black Court Vampires, however the explosive damage those two .45 slugs had done was so extreme, there was almost nothing left of the vampire's skull.

Thomas made some sort of comment after that, but I had difficulty making out his words over the sound of the ringing in my ears. Firing a .45 caliber weapon in a closed basement makes a lot of noise. It was like the boom of a cannon.

"I think he's dead," I said and looked to Thomas for some sign of agreement.

There was a look of alarm on Thomas's face and he shouted something at me. There ringing in my ears was still acute, but I was almost certain he used the word "trap" somewhere in his excited shouting.

I followed the direction of Thomas's gaze and understood. The corpses weren't inanimate piles of rotting flesh. They were dozens of Black Court Vampires, and they were all getting up off the floor and staring at me with malicious intent.

Things looked grim for Thomas and me. I had killed one vampire, but suddenly the exit was being blocked by four more vampires, and there were at least twenty vampires on the other side of the room, ready and willing to ruin our day.

"You are correct, Young Raith," one of the vampires said, "This was a trap and you walked into it quite expeditiously."

"Fuck," Thomas exclaimed, "Well, this is embarrassing."

It was too dark and shadowy to do proper math, but it seemed to me that there were at least twenty-four Black Court Vampires in that basement, and my handgun only held eight rounds of ammo, of which I'd already fired two. Thomas's handgun only held seven rounds of ammo. So, even if Thomas and I killed one vampire with each remaining round of ammunition, there'd still be eleven vampires left after our guns were empty.

Thomas seemed to have similar dismal thought bouncing through his head as he said to me, "Boy, sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don't you think?"

"Bite me, pretty boy," I replied and I shot another vampire right between the eyes. It was a good line, followed by a good shot. If the battle could have ended right there, it would have been just peachy. The problem was the remaining twenty or so vampires that were opposed to us leaving unmolested.

Four Black Court Vampires attacked me simultaneously and knocked me on my ass. Then a fifth vampire opened its mouth and lunged forward, intent on biting me. I shot him in the face and there was a disgusting explosion of blood and brains. A lot of that blood splattered all over me. A sixth vampire climbed on top of me, but I kicked it in the solar plexus, and it went flying like a cannonball into the ceiling before crashing back down to the floor.

I dropped my flashlight and the battle went downhill after that. I couldn't see Thomas, but I assumed things weren't going well for him either. I heard a series of gunshots, so I knew that Thomas was still alive and shooting.

In the inky-black darkness everything seemed so much worse, and I felt the beginnings of hysteria forming. In a blind panic I ripped my arm free from my attackers and fired off two more shots. I didn't aim, I just fired. I have no idea what I hit, although in such a target-rich environment, the odds were good that I hit one of many vampires that were swarming over me.

My heart pounded madly in my chest and I screamed in inarticulate frustration. It was still daytime and here I was, trapped underground in pitch-black room underground without a single ray of sunshine visible anywhere. I screamed at the cruel way that fate mocked me as I died in the darkness when the sunlight that could save me was just a few yards away.

Then I felt teeth painfully biting into my throat. I screamed in pain and outrage and struggled once again to break free. It was a valiant struggle, but I was severely outnumbered. Then I screamed again. It seemed wildly unjust that I would die in this dark, disgusting, foul-smelling basement.

And as I screamed, I felt a rush of mystical energies coursing through me. My body seemed to be permeated with it. I could feel mystical energies throbbing in my chest, in my hands, in my loins and in my throat. It felt as if the energies pulsing vigorously inside me might cause my entire body might explode.

I was confused, but almost certain that I was going to explode like some sort of living bomb, and then the vampires started screaming in agony.

Suddenly, the basement was no longer encased in darkness. The room was brilliantly illuminated, and all the vampires were flailing around, their bodies in flames.

"Hell's gate," I swore and got up off the floor. Every vampire on the room was rapidly being burnt to death and none of them were grappling with me anymore.

"Hannah," Thomas screamed, "we need to get out of here!"

I ignored Thomas at stared up at a spot near the ceiling. A hole in the fabric of reality had opened up and sunlight was streaming in directly from the hole.

I realized that the chaotic pulsing of energies in my body must have been me somehow subconsciously warping the fabric of reality and creating that hole.

"I did it," I screamed in swaggering victory, "I am undefeated! You lured me into a trap! You outnumbered me twelve to one, and I still kicked your asses!"

"Hannah," Thomas screamed urgently, "We need to go now! The whole building is on fire!"

I glanced about and realized he was right. The floor of the basement was made of concrete, however the staircase was made of wood, shelves on the walls were made of wood and a collection of dirty blankets and garbage was strewn about the floor. All of these things had caught fire and if Thomas and I didn't escape from the basement soon, we would surely burn to death.

Still holding my gun, I shot a flaming vampire that stood between us and the staircase and I raced up the stairs with Thomas shadowing me. Within seconds we were out of the basement and out on the street.

Thomas threw me into the back seat of the car and yelled at Kelsey, "Drive! Drive!"

Kelsey didn't hesitate. She hit the gas and we sped out of the neighborhood where the Black Court Vampires had been lurking. And as she shot down the street, she demanded, "What happened in there?"

"It was a trap," Thomas replied, "Instead of one vampire, it was more like two-dozen."

"We got jumped," I said, "We almost died in there."

"Why didn't you guys know how many vampires were in there?" Kelsey asked, "I thought Lara had spies and intel people all over the city."

I sat there and thought about that for a few seconds. Lara has a vast and effective intelligence network. Why didn't we know that there was a whole nest of vampires?

"Oh fuck," I swore, "Thomas could your sister have deliberately sent me into an ambush to get me killed? Is this her way of breaking up with me?"

"Would Lara do that?" Kelsey asked.

For approximately three seconds, no one said anything, then Thomas commented, "Lara would be willing to manipulate, deceive, and exploit others to achieve her goals. If she wanted you dead, she'd trick you into walking into an ambush without hesitation, but in this case, where is her motive? You're both her food and her thug-in-training. Killing you off wouldn't be to her advantage at all. She'd just be hurting herself."

I nodded at that. What Thomas said made absolute sense. Lara had no motive for wanting me dead. So why was I sent into a scourge of Black Court Vampires, while believing that there'd only be one there?

"Wait," Kelsey demanded, "Lara is some sort of cold, calculating villain that would send her own girlfriend off to certain death if it would further her own interests?"

"Yes," Thomas and I answered simultaneously.

Kelsey merged onto I-290 and asked, "Why would you sleep with somebody like that?"

Thomas looked at me as if he was curious about that as well. For several seconds there was an uncomfortable silence in the car. Then finally I responded and said, "Well, the sex is amazing."