Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
P anic burned away every rational thought inside Demetrius’s head as he watched Cody being lifted into the night sky and carried away. His heart pounded, and his muscles burned with the need for motion, a way to act, but he couldn’t seem to move.
Amelia hurried to him through the cars, Eileen struggling to keep up. Their eyes were wide and wild, both shouting questions. Clarabell was talking to them, and Oliver and Dave were suddenly there beside him, all of their mouths moving as they shouted to each other and at him. But Demetrius couldn’t hear anything they said. A high-pitched and constant ringing had started inside his head, blocking out all other sound. He looked up into the clear night sky, the stars so beautiful and serene above the hospital.
There was no sign of Cody. Demetrius couldn’t believe what he had witnessed. Cody coming toward him, his smile big and face open, happy to see him. And Demetrius had been glad to see him, too.
But then that monstrous winged thing had landed behind Cody, grabbed him by the arms and taken off again. Demetrius shuddered as he recalled the finer details, now imprinted in his brain: the terrible, bat-like face visible above Cody’s head, and the way it stared hungrily at the side of Cody’s neck; the claws that had dug into Cody’s flannel shirt; Cody’s legs moving like he’d been trying to run through the air as the thing carried him over the hospital and out of sight.
“Demetrius?” Amelia touched his shoulder, her gentle voice breaking through the cacophony of terror inside his head. She’d taken his hand without him realizing it, and who knew how long she’d been trying to get him to speak to her.
“What?” Demetrius said. He looked up over the hospital again, then back at her. “What?”
“Come on, let’s get inside,” someone else said.
The voice had the same cadence and rhythm to it as Cody’s, but it was only Dave, standing with a protective hand on Oliver’s shoulder. Dave’s face was tight with fear and anxiety, and Demetrius thought he should say something to provide a bit of comfort and reassurance, but at that moment, he had no idea what words like that might be.
He allowed himself to be directed toward the hospital entrance, and the doors parted with a slight grating sound, admitting them to the familiar open space of the main lobby. But nothing felt the same any more. Everything was too bright, too fast, and all Demetrius wanted to do was go back outside and wait for Cody. Because surely Cody would be coming back any minute. He wasn’t gone for good.
But Cody had been taken by a monster. The thing they had argued about that very morning had swooped down and snatched him away.
The numbness that had fallen over him like a cold, heavy blanket, limiting his thoughts and movements, started to shift. The spark of love flared brighter, building within him. It quickly burned through the numbing shock and sealed up the rift of loss, leaving him scared, angry, and ready to act. Sounds became clearer. He could hear the calming instrumental music coming from hidden speakers. The murmur of conversations as people walked through the lobby. And the voices of those he loved and trusted, all talking over each other as they tried to formulate a plan.
But Demetrius knew they didn’t have time to sit and debate. They needed to act. And they needed to talk with the man who knew vampires better than anyone else in town.
“The morgue,” Demetrius said.
The others stopped mid-sentence and looked at him. All of them were wide-eyed and pale. Except for Clarabell, who wore a tight smile and a determined expression.
“What in the name of sugar maples are you talking about?” Amelia said in a slightly shaky voice.
“We have to talk to Dr. Graham,” Demetrius said. “He’s our only hope to get Cody and Zenona back.”
The entry doors slid apart, and Deputy Walsh hurried inside. Her expression mirrored that of their entire group, wide eyes, lips pressed into a thin line, face drawn. She stopped when she saw them, then quickly approached.
“It took Lucy,” Deputy Walsh said.
“Who?” Dave asked.
She made a face and looked down, shaking her head. “She’d give me hell for that.” When she lifted her head, Demetrius could see she’d composed herself a bit more, and her voice was steady. “Deputy Durant. She’s been taken. We were out on patrol and had gotten out of the car to disband a group that had congregated in the parking lot behind Main Street. It swooped down out of the sky and grabbed her up. I didn’t have a chance to do anything. She was there, and then she was gone.”
“The same thing just happened to Cody,” Oliver said, gesturing toward Demetrius. “It landed, grabbed him, and took off again.” He shook his head slowly. “It’s got to be incredibly strong to be able to just lift him up like that.”
“You saying Cody’s fat?” Clarabell asked.
“What? No!” Oliver looked slightly panicked. “I mean, Cody’s a big guy. Like, tall, and broad.” He held his hands out away from his own shoulders as he looked around at each of them, his frantic gaze finally resting on Demetrius. In a voice that grew steadily quieter, he said, “He used to play football, so he’s big.”
“I was teasing you,” Clarabell said. “Sorry.”
“Not funny,” Oliver said.
“It kind of was,” Eileen said, then looked back at Deputy Walsh. “When did it take Deputy Durant?”
“Maybe thirty or forty minutes ago. I tried to follow it… follow her, in the car, but it flew too fast and off over some fields. I lost sight of them. I called it in, but I was already just outside the hospital here and thought I’d come in and talk to Dr. Graham since he’s…” She made a face and waved a hand slightly. “One of them.”
“I agree,” Demetrius said. “We’re wasting time. Let’s go.”
They moved as a group toward the elevators. Demetrius figured their expressions and the fact that a Sheriff’s deputy was with them convinced other visitors to give them a wide berth. When the elevator arrived, they crowded inside and listened to the oddly arranged instrumental version of “Bad Moon Rising” as it carried them down into the depths of the hospital.
“We’ll find him,” Amelia whispered from Demetrius’s side, and squeezed his hand a squeeze. “We’ll find them all.”
Demetrius gave her a tight smile, and when the doors opened on the familiar white-tiled hallway, he and Deputy Walsh led the group to the stainless steel double doors and pushed inside. The morgue was in complete disarray, and the doctor was straddling the chest of a young man who struggled beneath him on the tile floor. Dr. Graham held a wooden stake in both hands and was trying to force it down into the chest of the man who writhed and hissed and shrieked up at him, exposing fangs as he clutched Dr. Graham’s wrists and held the stake at bay.
“The fuck?” Deputy Walsh said, immediately drawing her gun. “What’s going on?”
Their arrival distracted the vampire on the floor, and Dr. Graham took the opportunity to drive the stake into the man beneath him. They all cried out, Demetrius included, as the point pierced the man’s chest with a terrible cracking sound. Black blood erupted around the stake, and a foul stench filled the air as the vampire’s shriek climbed in volume and pitch. Then the whole body collapsed into a thick puddle of dark and noxious fluid, and Dr. Graham fell into the middle of it, the stake loosely held in one hand. He was on his hands and knees in the mess as he looked at them and smiled shakily.
“My apologies,” he said, getting to his feet and slinging some of the goop from his hand and onto the floor. “I was having a little trouble with one of the bodies.”
“Jesus H. Christ on a treadmill,” Eileen said.
“Oh crabapple trees,” Amelia said, one hand going to her throat. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Demetrius rubbed small circles on her back. “You’re okay. We’re all safe here.”
“I don’t think any of us will ever be safe again,” Amelia said, unable to take her eyes off the mess on the floor.
“What brings you all back?” Dr. Graham looked hopeful. “Have you found Zenona during the daylight?”
“Found Zenona?” Deputy Walsh looked at Demetrius as she holstered her weapon. “Is he kidding?” She looked back at Dr. Graham. “That thing that tried to grab me has been busy tonight, Doc. It’s grabbed Deputy Durant…” She gestured toward Demetrius. “And Cody Bower. Just came down out of the sky and snatched them up.”
“Oh,” Dr. Graham said. He perched on a stool at the back of the room. He raised a hand to rub his forehead, realized it was still covered with vampire slime, and went to the sink where he scrubbed his hands clean.
“Oh?” Dave took a step forward, hands fisted at his sides. “That’s all you’ve got? You’ve been tracking this guy for decades. You’re our only hope to get my brother and everyone else back alive, and all you can say is ‘oh’?”
Dr. Graham dried his hands with a paper towel and dropped it into a trash bin. He was nodding as he turned to face them again. “You’re right, of course. And I will help as much as I can. But I have no answers or quick solutions for you right now. Tell me what this creature looked like.”
“Bat face,” Demetrius said. “With a human body, pale and wrinkled, sexless. And wings.”
“Big bat wings,” Deputy Walsh added. “And big claws on its hands.”
Dr. Graham pressed his lips tight and nodded. “Father has indeed arrived.”
“Father?” Oliver said. “The vampire who turned you and your brother?”
“Yes. He is ancient, and has become more bat than human. From the descriptions, he’s become more ferocious as well.”
“Oh, no,” Amelia said quietly, putting a hand to her throat. “Oh, Cody.”
Demetrius would not let himself think about anything other than finding and saving Cody, Zenona, and Lucia. There was no other option in his mind. He folded his arms, squared his feet, and fixed Dr. Graham with a steady look.
“Tell us everything you can about it, as well as Aldrik. Especially what they hate and how we kill them.” He looked around at everyone else. “And we need to figure out the identity of their Renfield.” He saw their confused expressions and explained, “Someone here in town who guards them while the sun is up.”
“That’s going to be difficult with all these strangers in town now,” Eileen said.
“It won’t be a tourist,” Clarabell said. “The vampires have been here a while, right, Doc?”
“Yes, they’ve been here for a long time. And, please, call me Michael.”
“Who’s your Renfield?” Eileen asked.
Michael gave her a long look.
“What?” Eileen looked at the rest of them, then back at Michael. “Is that some kind of deeply personal question?”
“Dr. Baldwin did errands and other things I wasn’t able to accomplish during the day.”
“She’s been pale and tired a lot lately,” Demetrius said. “She’s been working a lot of late shifts at the hospital, plus these things during the day that you’re unable to do.”
“Yes. She’s become quite dear to me.”
If Demetrius hadn’t been so focused on finding the others, he could have commented about how sweet the endearment sounded. But he also realized Zenona had been providing Michael with her own blood from time to time.
A shiver went through him, and he forced himself to tamp down all the questions spinning inside him. Better not to share that with everyone right now. Had she simply drained enough blood into a bag, like a gruesome juice box? Or had he bitten her somewhere out of sight, where the marks wouldn’t show?
The others were talking quietly, giving Demetrius the opportunity to approach Michael, being careful to avoid the slick and noxious mess left by the eliminated vampire.
“Were you…” he started, then stopped and lowered his voice even more, trying to figure out the best way to word his question. “Did Zenona… help you, when you weren’t able to hunt in the woods?”
Michael looked away. There was no blush in his cheeks, but that was probably due to the lack of a heartbeat. And if Demetrius really let himself think about all the physical implications of Michael being a vampire, he’d never run out of questions. So he muted that part of his brain and tried to focus on the moment as it played out.
“Very rarely. There were some nights I had been unable to leave the hospital, and she… I declined the first time she offered, but she could tell I was weak. Too weak to make it out to the woods and track down a deer. That time it was more procedural. She performed a blood donation on herself here in the morgue. It was awkward and uncomfortable for us both, and I took the bag into the bathroom to… eat.” He cleared his throat and crossed his arms. “After that, it became almost a regular thing. A weekly event. We began to jokingly refer to it as our date night.” He smiled, but it looked sad. “She grew tired of the long process of drawing the blood into a bag, and it was becoming more difficult to quietly collect the supplies we needed. So I started biting her on the wrist.” He held up a hand and fixed Demetrius with a steady look. “And I was always careful to never take too much. I never put her at risk of death or being turned.”
“I believe you,” Demetrius said. “Did that form any kind of connection between you two? Are you able to track her or sense where she might be?”
“Unfortunately, no, it doesn’t work like that. Consuming blood is like having a good meal. Sometimes you can’t find your way back to the restaurant.”
Demetrius felt a little sick. “That makes it pretty clear.”
“My apologies,” Michael said. “Zenona always said I needed to work on softening my delivery.”
“Yeah, keep working on it.” Demetrius gestured to the mess on the floor. “Will this be a problem for you?”
“No, I can clean it up. This one was most likely sent by my brother to torment me.”
The others had approached and stood several steps back from the dark puddle.
“What’s the plan?” Clarabell asked.
“We listen to what Michael has to say about Aldrik and their father,” Demetrius said. “Then we go out and patrol the streets. If we find a vampire or see an attack, we call Michael and he’ll come help. If you think of anyone in town who’s been acting off or secretive, let’s talk about it.”
“Have you met half the people in this town?” Dave said.
“I know,” Demetrius said. “But take that as a level of normal, and anyone acting above it could be our Renfield.” He turned to Michael. “Now, it’s your turn. Tell us everything that hurts you or makes you uncomfortable.”
“More than this conversation?” Michael said, and Demetrius simply stared back until he nodded. “Right. Okay.”