Ichor : Blood & Secrets

Chapter 46

“Haven’t you ever wondered why the vampire population never goes down?”

“Huh?”

“If a vampire can’t have offspring and their only way of reproducing is making a new vampire and dying, then why are there always plenty of vampires when they kill each other and vampire hunters like me keep killing them? Shouldn’t the number of vampires go down until they become extinct?”

What he said was true and I didn’t know the answer.

“Groups of humans sometimes catch a vampire to drain it and drink its blood, until all the members of the human coven have been transformed into vampires. It’s against a vampire’s nature and is basically hell for them. It’s supposed to be worse than gang r**e is for a human. To make it worse, the process takes months—”

My mouth was dry as I finished his thought. “And then they kill the vampire.” Dudley nodded.

London’s words filled my head as I remembered what she said before she left. He has some friends that will protect me. Suddenly, I felt sick to my stomach. London was precisely the kind of vampire who would end up a target for people like that.

“How many people do this? How many people gang up to hunt a vampire?”

“I think three to five is the normal number, but I’ve heard of incidents of covens as large as eleven,” Dudley said. “Obviously, the more humans the longer it takes and the worse it is for the vampire.”

I was on the verge of screaming as I picked up my phone and programmed my parents’ number in. With each ring, I felt my heart would stop if no one responded.

My mother answered.

“Is London there?” I demanded without delay.

My mother’s voice was sweet and patient. “Not now. She went out to meet some friends who were visiting from the city. Do you want me to have her call you when she gets back?”

“No. Do you know where she went?”

“She just said she’d be back later.” I could tell from my mother’s tone she was imagining how jealous I was of London’s beauty and social life. As if!

I shrugged off my response and spoke as normally as I could under the circumstances.

“Thanks. I’ll try her mobile.”

I hung up and called my sister’s cell phone. It rang and rang. I ended up leaving a pointless rambling message for her to call me. I had no idea what else to do. Pacing my living room, I was becoming hysterical.

“Calm down,” Dudley said, putting his hands on my upper arms to steady me. Looking in my face he continued, “Do you know where she could be?”

“No!” I shouted, pushing him away, my cheeks flushing with hot blood. “If she left my parents’ house then I have no bloody clue. She could have gone anywhere with that guy.” “Then there is something we can try.”

“What?”

“Marshall. If he’s chasing her, he might know where her lover is.” “That’s brilliant!” I exclaimed. “Let’s go.”

Bleeding her Dry

Marshall’s office windows were dark when we got there. We stood on the sidewalk. I peeked around a post office box while Dudley followed me and frowned at the black building.

“Do you have a key?”

He frowned. “No, but I half expected him to be here.” “What are you two doing?” a voice rang behind us.

It was Marshall. He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, dressed in his gray suit with his gut hanging over his belt.

I didn’t know what to say. My tongue was tied in more knots than a ball of yarn the cat had been playing with.

Dudley salvaged the situation by doing the talking. “We want to discuss a case you’ve been working on,” he said smoothly.

Inwardly, I chuckled. I thought Dudley didn’t talk. Luckily, Marshall looked interested. “Oh?”

In Marshall’s office, I found the file on London and got a closer look at it. Dudley explained the situation while I read furiously. It was just as I remembered, except that the file had been updated since I last saw it.

I stared in disbelief at the messy scrawl in front of me. “So, you already contacted this vampire—Roan—with London’s whereabouts three days before my job interview here?”

Marshall nodded and rubbed his chin. “It’s too bad. Sweeper, you should have come to me about your sister when you saw the file. I don’t know what I could have done, but—” “Do you think he’ll go after her?” Dudley asked, cutting him off.

“Probably,” Marshall said unhelpfully. “It’s hard to imagine why he would have made the request if that wasn’t his plan.”

“And you didn’t get any information on any of the humans who made contact with London?” I asked impatiently.

“No. That didn’t matter to me. I was just doing my job—limited as it was.”

Dudley shook his head disapprovingly and muttered something crossly under his breath.

“I understand,” I said sympathetically. I couldn’t say that I would have done more work than I was paid to do in his place, either. I put it out of my mind, pulled out a pen, and copied the contact information for the vampire, Roan. There was only one thing to do. I’d have to hunt him down and see what he knew about London.

“Sorry, I can’t be more helpful,” Marshall said, speaking more to the disgruntled Dudley than to me.

Dudley scratched the back of his head as I finished writing the address.

“Thanks, Marshall,” I said as I got up. “Just to let you know, I might not come to work tomorrow.”

I didn’t stay to watch Marshall’s eyebrows or the rest of his reaction. I left the office. I needed to get to Roan’s house on the edge of the city. The address was part of a village the growing city had swallowed up.

As I marched out, I thought about the things I needed to take if I was going to confront a vampire. I didn’t have a car, so I needed to arrange for transportation. Maybe a taxi was the best I could do. My vampire slaying license was in my pocket. Weapons? I didn’t have anything with me other than the standard pepper spray. The only gun I had was at home and I only had four bullets. So it was probably a waste of time to go home. I would have to go shopping.

Dudley followed me out of the building and grabbed my arm. “You’re not thinking of going to talk to that vampire, are you?”

“It’s the only lead.”

“Try calling London again.”

I steadied my hands and tried her number, but it just rang and rang. No one answered.

“See?” I said, tossing my mobile at him. “What else am I supposed to do?” He caught it in one hand. “I’ll go with you.” “Got a gun?” I fumed, marching away from him.

“I got fifty.”

I did a double-take. “What?” Dudley smiled while I stared.

Vampire hunters masquerading as private detectives; why didn’t I have them in my life before?

As it turned out, Dudley and I stood outside Roan’s mansion by two o’clock in the morning. I was exhausted and my nerves were strung as tight as bowstrings. The cab pulled away from the curb. Now there was no way out.

I looked over at Dudley. He looked just the same as he did when I met him in Marshall’s office the first time—silent and serious. That must be what his mask looked like. His thoughts weren’t the only things he was hiding. Of course, you couldn’t tell by looking at him, but he had three guns and two retractable knives that extended as long as katanas.

Me? I was carrying less. His swords were too heavy for me, so I wore a knife and two guns; one in the back of my pants and one in my boot.

Lights cast inverted shadows on the front yard grass as we headed up the steps toward the house. Maybe we would be able to see something through one of the windows—especially the basement ones.

After we’d gone around the house twice, Dudley whispered, “It looks clean and it is very quiet. The house is probably empty. Unless Roan is on the second or third floor.” “Should we just ring the doorbell then?” I said, trying to be funny.

“No,” Dudley smirked. “We should check the garden shed.”

“Why?”

“There’s a light on. It’s dim, but there. Can you see it?” I nodded.

The shed he was referring to looked like a former garage, abandoned when the owner built a four-car garage onto the main structure of the house.

Dudley and I crept up to the shed and looked in the window. It was dusty, but through the grime, I could see the white outline of a square on the floor. Light shone around the edges of a trap door.

I tugged at Dudley’s sleeve. “Do you see that?”

He didn’t say anything. Instead, he tried opening the window.

“Do you think we need to break in?” I whispered. “Maybe we should go to the house and ask for the vamp himself?”

Dudley’s face finally showed some emotion and he looked pained. “I’m sorry, Sweeper. I think this situation is much more serious than you realize. I’m worried about London. Do you think vampires who are made the natural way care about each other? They don’t. Vampires only care about each other when they are vampires made with the same blood.” He breathed deeply and then looked me gravely in the eye before he continued, “Roan and Schroder probably had a pact and slew their vampire host together and now Schroder is dead, his partner in crime is looking to repeat the crime with London as the victim. It wouldn’t surprise me if London went prowling for a mate, didn’t find one (she has got to be the most backward vampire in the world), Marshall told Roan her whereabouts, he found her looking for a mate and supplied her with a human he prepared. Actually, it’s quite possible he has more than one human he wants to transform into a vampire. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t know for certain, but London might be here, so we need to be careful and snoop before we barge into the house.”

After giving me one last look—I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be encouraging or comforting—Dudley started to pry the window open.

Now he had my attention, he wasn’t moving nearly fast enough. I almost pushed him aside to jam the thing open myself. My panic was turning into frenzy.

Finally, Dudley got the window open and I held it up with one hand while he helped me through. Once I was inside, I turned to pull him in. Within seconds we were both standing on unholy ground beside shelves of seeds and fertilizer.

I felt impatient as long as we were still outside. Now I felt like an intruder.

We crept along the old garage wall until we came to the trap door. There was a carpet rolled up beside the entrance. It looked like it was normally used to keep the trap door hidden.

Someone must be down there.

Dudley seemed to think this was another bad sign and drew his gun, c****d it, and slid it back up his sleeve. “Everyone is down there,” he whispered. “That’s why there’s no one to cover the door after them. You should stay up here.”

“No. I’ll cover you,” I said, getting the gun out of my boot.

Dudley carefully lifted the trap door and, after peering through the gap, threw it open.

I looked down. A dimly-lighted bulb in the cellar shone upon a tiny staircase leading down.

There we could see another door, which was closed.

Dudley glanced at me and then proceeded down the steps.

I followed him, grateful he didn’t try to aggravate me by telling me to stay behind again.

Sounds came from behind the door. I put my head to the wood, but couldn’t hear much. I could make out a woman’s voice and a man’s. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though it was obvious they were yelling.

Dudley cracked the door open and we peered through the gap. The only thing visible was a man’s back. Light shone in the basement, which was more than I expected for a vampire gathering. I could just make out the man’s burgundy velvet dinner jacket. His blond hair was slicked back, covering the neck of his jacket, but the white hands by his sides told the tale—he was a vampire.

I could hear his voice now as he said, “Your story is almost believable, but you’re so weak. It’s hard to believe you killed him on your own. The thing is, if you didn’t kill him, then who did?”

The vampire turned to the side and when I saw his face, I had to slap a hand over my mouth to keep myself from screaming.

“Bloody hell,” Dudley mouthed.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “Isn’t that Schroder?”

“It can’t be.”

Then I heard London’s voice. She sounded exhausted and slightly choked. “It was all a mistake. I loved him.”

“You’re probably delirious from the blood loss,” the vampire continued, “but try to concentrate. I didn’t ask you if you loved him. I asked you who killed him.” London didn’t answer.

I bit my lip. This was intolerable.

“London, I think you don’t quite understand the situation. There are fifteen of them and one of you. Each of them needs ten liters of blood within eight weeks. I have only started seven of them. It would be best for you to let them drink in shifts, rotating, so you don’t have to give the entire hundred-and-fifty liters in two months. If you don’t answer my question, I’ll start another three tonight. Do you really want me to make it worse?” London sobbed.

I moved to open the door, but Dudley stopped me. I pushed away his hand and reached for the door.

Dudley grabbed my shoulders and pulled me away from the door before I could move it. I fell backward and as we both fell to the ground, I landed between his legs. With his chest against my back and his breath on my cheek, he whispered desperately, “There are at least sixteen of them already in there, if not more. Fifteen of them are still humans. We can’t shoot them. We have to wait until some of them leave before we can get to her. It’s too dangerous to go in now.” “But!” I hissed.

“But nothing,” he retorted. “If we go in now, we’re both dead. Let’s just listen.”

My face was like fire as I nodded and Dudley patted me on the shoulder. We stood up and resumed our position in front of the door c***k.

The vampire extended his hand and it looked like he was about to snap his fingers, when

London screamed, “My next-door neighbor!” “s**t,” Dudley breathed, but he didn’t move.

“Really?” the vampire said, pausing in mid-motion. “And what was that ‘neighbors’ name?” “I don’t remember,” she mumbled.

“You don’t remember? Well, there are some things a person should never forget. One of them would be the name of a loved one. Let me tell you some things I remember about Schroder. He was my twin. I lost count of how many people he killed for my sake, including the little b***h that sucked my blood and tried to end my legacy before I even started living.” “This is much worse than I thought,” Dudley muttered.

Then the vampire stepped out of the way and I could see London. She was strapped to a table with her arms extended—her wrists were tied to poles on either side of her. She had cuts in her wrists and the blood was dripping into a pail on one side and into a human’s mouth on the other.

I couldn’t stand by and watch this. Dudley put his arms around my shoulders from behind and held me tightly to his chest to stop me from doing anything stupid, but he didn’t attempt to stop me from looking.

The vampire went on through set teeth. “Give me a name now, or I’ll add another three.” London’s head lolled back. “Tate Crosswood,” she admitted weakly.

“Ah, now you’re being reasonable, but here’s the clincher,” he said, moving languidly toward her and rubbing his temple. “Do you have proof?”

“It was eight years ago. What kind of proof are you looking for?”

“Well, for instance, did someone besides you see him do it?”

There was another pause and I grabbed Dudley’s fingers. What this vampire was doing to my sister was too cruel and it seemed like London was going to take Dudley and me to hell with her.

“Once again, did anyone beside you see him do it?”

I couldn’t see the vampire now, because he was standing by her legs, but I heard her gasp as he cut her.

“My sister saw him!” London screamed.

“Good. Your sister saw him. Garth, I believe you mentioned something about a sister. Can you tell me more about her?”

I couldn’t see Garth, but the enthusiasm in his voice made me wince. “She was her roommate in the city. Her name is Sweeper. I’ll give you the address.”

“No thanks, Garth. I already have it.” The vampire came back into view. He was sucking on the knife’s point like it was a lollipop. “Well, I think that finishes our first meeting nicely. Garth,

you keep our princess company while I’ll go check on these ‘facts'." “Don’t hurt my sister!” London yelled.

“Of course, I won’t hurt her.” The vampire chuckled ironically. “Just so long as she tells me what I want to hear, then she definitely won’t get hurt. I wonder if she’s like you or if she has more spirit. I haven’t had a proper mate in a while. Maybe she would do. You know how much fun it is to mate, don’t you, London?”

“Don’t touch my sister!”

“We’ve got to go,” Dudley hissed in my ear.

Halfway up the stairs, I heard Roan’s voice proclaiming to the whole room, “We’ll meet again tomorrow night.”

When we reached the shed, we heard the door open and movement in the stairwell. Dudley chucked me out the window. I landed on my can with a bump. Biting down on a scream, I scrambled to my feet and frantically pulled Dudley after me. We couldn’t risk being discovered. I had already seen what they did to vampires and I didn’t want to know what they did to humans. They seemed utterly ruthless. Dudley toppled to the ground. I closed the window as quietly as I could before ducking down.

“Which way should we go?” I panted.

“Around the back. They’ll probably go to the house.”

We snuck around to the back of the garage when, suddenly, I bumped into the front end of a black BMW. That was why there were no cars out front. The human coven had all parked behind the old garage. There were six cars in total.

“Bad idea,” I hissed, just as I heard the side door to the garage open and voices as the group came out.

“Keep going and we’ll start walking down the alley. Maybe we can hide in one of the neighbor’s rose bushes.”

Keeping our heads down, we got past the cars and onto the paved alleyway.

“This isn’t going to work,” I said, nothing but solid stone fences and closed garage doors in front of us. “They’re all going to have to drive past us as they leave. They’ll see us for sure.” Dudley took my hand. “Let’s try to run to the end of the block and get around to the front.” I nodded and we took off.

I could hear their voices and car engines igniting. My heart pounded, my breath came in short gasps, and my feet didn’t move fast enough.

And I had to leave London.

I glanced behind me to see if any of them were headed toward us. The first car moved, but luckily it headed in the opposite direction.

We made it to a curve in the alley and Dudley threw us both into a shadow. I saw a cluster of garbage cans and ducked down behind one. Dudley jumped in beside me and I moved over to make room for him. He pulled out a notepad from his inside coat pocket and flipped it open.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Keep quiet.”

When the first car came our way, he jotted down the license plate number, but after it passed the air was quiet.

“Only one car turned our way. The rest must have gone left, but we should wait here to make sure.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. It’s a pity there are no good hiding places between here and Roan’s. If he locks up his back gate after the last car leaves, we’ll have to sneak back to the front if we want to save London tonight.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Well, we have to wait a few minutes. Roan made it sound like he was leaving Garth in the basement alone with her, so if we only have to get rid of him—it should be pretty easy—even if he is a human. One of us should probably get a car before that.”

“I could take a taxi out to my parents’ place and borrow theirs,” I suggested, knowing it wasn’t a good idea before I finished speaking.

“If we’re going to do that, then maybe it would be better if we came back tomorrow night.”

“No. We can’t leave London here like this.”

“Then we’ll have to steal one of Roan’s.”

“Can we do that? What if he calls the police?”

Dudley’s voice was hesitant and when it finally came, it sounded hoarse. “I have actually been thinking of calling them myself. Even though just being a vampire is technically illegal, you probably know the chief of police is a vampire.”

“Pierce Wagner?”

“Yeah. Even though he’s a bloodsucker, that doesn’t mean he would condone this kind of behavior. It’s out of harmony with a true vampire’s nature. It’s torture. There’s a reason why there can’t be more than eleven members to a human coven. A vampire simply doesn’t have enough blood to change all of them without being drained completely dry even if they let her suck their blood. Those humans Roan has gathered don’t know that if he isn’t careful, London won’t live through the ordeal and probably the only one who will actually end up becoming a vampire will be Garth. Although it’s possible Roan may sabotage his transformation as well. The rest will die if they don’t find another vampire to finish their dosage.”

“Should we report them?”

Dudley sucked in his breath. “I don’t know if the police or Pierce Wagner would take our side. I’ve had a few dealings with him, but not enough to predict how he would respond. I don’t know the history behind the most important police officer’s transformation. Maybe the police would sympathize with us, or maybe they’d kill us just for seeing what one of their buddies was doing. I don’t know.”

I didn’t know either, so I clapped my jaw shut and sat quietly.

“The thing is, whenever I’ve been faced with something similar, I’ve just killed the vampire the humans were draining and put an end to it, but I can’t do that this time. What do you want to do, Sweeper? Should we come back tomorrow or should we try to save London tonight? What do you think?”

I sat down, pulling my knees up to my chin, and thought. This whole thing was a disaster. Roan could have already left the mansion and gone to my apartment to find me. Luckily, I wasn’t there. If he went there and found that I wasn’t, the next place he could go was to my parents’ place. They were home. What would he do to them? They didn’t know anything about this. They didn’t even know London was a vampire. How could I prompt them to get them out of there? I couldn’t. They probably wouldn’t believe me. Rather than having him meet my parents and possibly torturing them, it might be better for me to meet him first, but the thought made my stomach turn and my head delirious—like I was in a nightmare.

But on the other hand, if Roan left to go to my place then maybe ripping off one of his vehicles wouldn’t be as hard as I was imagining. The timing would work out better that way because then I could take London directly to our parents while Roan was still at my apartment.

Then something else came to my mind. “Dudley, do you think Roan will be able to hunt you down since you changed your name?”

A muscle near his eye twitched. “It will probably slow him down a little, but I can’t hide forever. Besides, there’s no need to worry about me. You’re the one who’s in immediate danger.”

“Let’s go get London,” I said, getting to my feet. “We’ll try going around the back way and if that fails, we’ll try the front. I don’t want to wait for any more cars. I think they already left the other way.”

Dudley nodded and got up.

Chapter Six

Dudley Doesn’t Need a Wooden Stake

The alley was quiet as we made our way back. The gate behind Roan’s mansion was closed, but as I inspected the latch, I saw there was no lock. I could open it just fine.

“Why isn’t there a lock?” I asked Dudley.

“It’s probably a sign Roan doesn’t do this sort of thing all the time. If he did, there would be locks on the gate and the shed windows. He’s doing this specifically to avenge Schroder. It’s not his regular entertainment or business.”

“Is that a good sign?”

“No. If he’s usually a well-behaved vampire, he could have friends in high places who back him as a moral blood drinker.”

I shuddered. That was a bad sign.

The yard was empty behind the shed now. All the cars were gone.

“Let’s just try the front door,” Dudley said as he walked past the window to the shed and opened the door.

Once inside, we could see the carpet spread out over the entrance to the cellar. Dudley stooped to roll it up while I held my gun at the ready. Once it was off the trap door, I could see there was no light coming from under it. Dudley swung the door open into blackness.

Dudley took out his gun and motioned that he was going down first. “It’s dangerous to turn on the light, in case someone in the house sees it,” he cautioned. “Stay at the top of the stairs, so you can alert me in case there’s trouble.”

I did as I was told and watched the doors. My heartbeats ricocheted around my ribcage, but

Dudley came right back up and said, “It’s empty.”

“What?” I exclaimed, not bothering to keep my voice down.

“They must have either taken London into the house or driven her away in one of those cars.

Let’s check the house.”

I was going to have a heart attack. This whole situation was so much worse than I envisioned when I struck out to save London tonight. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t experienced enough to protect London.

I peered down the stairs into the blackness and wondered if Dudley could make up for all that I wasn’t.

Through the eighty percent shadow, his face looked tired and strained. “All right,” I said, throwing my lot in with him.