4. Chapter Two #2
“I’m calling the cops, man,” Lucas said and started dialing. The operator answered immediately, but before he could get one word out the two men in suits grabbed him. His phone fell to the ground, clanking as it hit the pavement.
He struggled against the hold. He felt their emptiness, which scared him far more than Shawn’s fear had earlier.
He couldn’t tell if they truly were unfeeling assholes or if they were blocking their emotions.
How would they know Lucas could tell what they were feeling, though?
Hell, Lucas didn’t even understand how he could do it.
“Stop struggling, witch. Or I’ll break your fucking arm,” one of the suits said.
His voice was so level, as if they were having a normal conversation.
It was that lack of emotion more than anything that made Lucas go still and comply, because it told him that these men really would hurt him if he didn’t do what they said.
The energy in his brain moved to the center of his chest and something about that calmed him.
He had no time to think about being called a witch again because Gary grabbed Shawn’s arm and pulled him flush with his body.
Lucas struggled against the hold. “Let him go, you fucking asshole!”
The way Gary held onto Shawn was an intimate gesture that seemed out of place, given the current threat of violence swirling around all of them.
“Get away from him!” The energy in his chest gave him a sense of strength he hadn’t experienced before.
Gary smiled, flashing those long, unnatural fangs.
Gary turned back to Shawn, stroking the side of Shawn’s face with one big hand as he spoke.
“We don’t need you now that we have the witch.
I’m getting tired of the way you taste. One last time as I kill you?
” He said the last part as if he was asking Shawn’s permission instead of taking what he wanted.
God, was the creature really going to do what Lucas thought he was going to do?
Gary licked his lips as if Shawn was a tasty treat.
Gary’s lips pulled back. His impossible fangs seemed to glow in the moonlight and got bigger.
Gary looked at Lucas again. His brown eyes changed to red and Lucas stopped breathing .
His mind shut down as he watched Gary sink his teeth into Shawn’s flesh.
Oh God, this couldn’t be real. Those were fake teeth and he was getting pranked, right? Please, let that be the case.
The skin on Shawn’s neck ripped and Shawn stiffened. A couple of minutes later, the life went out of his body. Lucas could tell because he felt it trickle out with each drop of blood Gary took, like rain rolling off a roof.
Lucas stopped breathing when Shawn did. And then their bodies went slack.
Lucas knew the exact second the ball of light exited his chest. The force of it lifted him off his feet.
The guys holding him let go, and flew backward, landing on their ass on the pavement a few feet away.
It was disorienting, as if someone had twirled him around in a circle for too many spins.
Once he came back to himself, he scrambled to his feet, trying to find where the light went.
Shawn’s back bowed before he fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. He lay unmoving and he didn’t make a sound.
The force of the light sent Gary tumbling to the ground—a heap of biker leather and long legs.
His hands shook as he took a step in Shawn’s direction. He needed to check for a pulse because something stirred. Lucas felt Shawn in the center of his chest again. It was an odd sensation, but it was there.
The men, who had been holding him moments ago, lay on the ground. One of them had passed out, slumping against the brick building. The other stirred, shaking his head before he grew fangs right before Lucas’ eyes. His eyes glowed an eerie red.
And then the guy turned all that unnaturalness onto Lucas. He held his breath and his body stiffened. As much as he wanted to go to Shawn, to check on him, he didn’t take his eyes off the threat .
He froze in place for what seemed like hours, but it had only been a few seconds before he willed himself to run. His feet, pounding on the pavement and his own breath were the only things he heard. The car keys were an afterthought. The memory of handing them to Shawn came even later.
He hoped the police could trace his phone or something, like on television, so they would know where to find Shawn’s body.
He should go back, but his feet kept moving forward as if they had a mind of their own.
He couldn’t go back and face those…things.
Shawn was dead. Lucas knew for a fact Shawn’s heart had stopped beating.
Lucas wasn’t sure if the ball of light had saved him like it had his mother’s plants.
Oh God, what if he had left his friend behind. What kind of person did that make him?
He saw a cab and stopped running long enough to flag it down.
The cab stopped and he wrenched open the door, throwing himself inside as fast as humanly possible.
He closed the door just as one of the creatures started around the corner.
He gave the cab driver his address, still breathing hard from running.
He shut his eyes wanting the calmness of relief to settle his nerves, but nothing changed.
“Can I borrow your cell phone?” Lucas asked the driver once he was able to get his breath back.
“I don’t loan it out,” the cab driver said without taking his eyes off the road. The man was older. The dark hair had flecks of gray through it and he had more wrinkles than not on the parts of his face Lucas could see.
“Please, sir. There were men attacking us. I think my friend is hurt really badly. I think they killed him.” Maybe. He didn’t know. Shit .
“There are some bad elements in this city. Don’t know how many times I gave rides to you people.” The man’s hands came up and held out a cell phone.
“What to do you mean by you people ?” Lucas took the phone. “Thanks.”
“You non-humans or whatever the fuck you are.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.
” Okay, he sort of did know, but he wasn’t about to admit he might be like those things that had killed Shawn.
He dialed emergency services and waited.
When they answered he told them what happened and where they could find Shawn.
They asked where they could find Lucas and he told them he was in a cab, and that one of the men chased him.
“We’ll send an officer to your location.”
He gave her his parents’ address.
He shut off the phone when the conversation ended and handed it back to the cab driver.
The driver took it back. “I used to be a hunter. I’m too old for all that bloodshed and violence now. Plus, I learned things aren’t always black and white with paranormals.”
“‘Paranormals’?”
“It’s what you call yourselves, right? Or has that changed over the years? Hell, I’ve been out of the loop for so long you could call yourselves just about anything by now, what with all the political correctness going on in this country.”
Lucas couldn’t really focus on what the old man said.
“I don’t really know what you’re talking about.
” He looked out of the window, watching the houses on the street as they drove by.
He thought about the men with the teeth, like vampires in a movie, but they were real.
Hopefully, he was having a psychotic breakdown and he’d come to consciousness in a hospital bed with his arms strapped down.
That was much better than what he was experiencing at the moment. “You know about…paranormals?”
“Hunted them for thirty years. Course that was a long time ago. When we didn’t know as much as we thought we did and were scared off by it. I was a bigoted fool before I met my Cassie. She changed my mind, but it was a rough start we had. I finally came around.”
“Those things that hurt my friend…” Lucas rubbed his hands on his pants and then clenched his fists to keep from shaking. “They had long fangs and red eyes. One of them stuck his teeth into him and drained his blood.”
“Yep, vampires can be a nasty sort sometimes. The coven around here didn’t used to be too bad, but in the last few years they’ve been killing more humans.
Probably got a new coven leader that’s not as good as the last one.
Politics suck no matter what you are.” The cab driver said it in such a matter of fact tone, Lucas could tell he believed in such creatures.
“How do you know they’re killing people?” Lucas couldn’t keep his voice from shaking.
“Police scanner. Sorry about your friend, kid.” The cab driver parked the car in his parents’ driveway and then turned around.
Lucas handed him a twenty-dollar bill for the ride and the cab driver waved him away. “It’s on me, kid. You’re probably going to need it more than me.”
“Thanks.”
“You’ve never come across a vampire, have you?”
Lucas shook his head no. “Never in my entire life did I know those things existed.”
“You want some advice, kid.”
“Yeah.” He would take all he could get.
“Don’t trust anybody around here, including the cops. With as many vamps are in this damn city, there’s bound to be one on the force.”
“What should I do? I think they want me for some reason,” Lucas shook even harder.
His fear kicked up and he could feel the light start to leave his body.
He closed his eyes and breathed in, trying to calm down enough so that stupid ball of light wouldn’t hurt the nice man in the front seat.
He had no way of knowing exactly what it would do.
He didn’t even know if it had helped Shawn.
He thought it had, but who the fuck really knew for sure.
The cab driver sighed. “Damn it, Cassie is gonna have my head for getting involved. Grab clothes and as much money as you might have. And whatever else you might want. You can come home with me for the night. Cassie might be able to help you. You can’t stay in the city for long, though.
Those vampires have your scent now. They’ll track you here. Probably to my cab too, the fuckers.”
Lucas nodded and opened the car door. His hands shook so bad, he had to try the handle twice before it opened. He did what the man said and packed a bag as full as he could get it. He got the cash he had been saving out of his sock drawer and stuck it into his pocket.
He looked out his bedroom window at the cab still parked in the driveway and then farther up the road, making sure no one had followed them.
He didn’t see a vehicle, but he could see movement across the street between two neighbors’ houses.
It was difficult to see in the dark, but whatever it was turned on those motion sensor lights at almost every house it passed.
He ran down the stairs and out of his parents’ front door.
Everything happened so fast after that. Lucas was in a daze.
The old man must have sensed it coming because he put the car in reverse and backed up just as the vampire stopped in the road.
The ball of light left Lucas at the same time, only the light was gray and not that stark white color.
Lucas focused and pushed the light toward Gary, who stood in the middle of the road.
The light grew bigger and when it hit Gary, he flew back, smashing against the side of the house across the street.
Lucas clutched his bag to his chest as he ran to the cab. He pulled open the door and fell inside once again. The cab driver took off down the road even before he got the car door shut. “Yep, I’d say you’re right. You do have vampires after you.”