Running From the Night (6 page)

“Good point,” Jelani said, thumbing through a black book with a set of fangs protruding from the cover. “I wonder if the bastards are numerous in Alaska during the winter.”

“I doubt it. If they were, Alaska’s population would’ve long ago plummeted.” He flipped a few pages and stopped. “Hey, Jelani. Check this out.” He turned the book around and pointed at a page filled with diagrams and text. “Looks like a lot of the info is right here.”

Jelani looked the page over. There was a chart with attributes and weaknesses, and the next page had numerous diagrams. “I had no idea there were stories about vampires all over the world. I thought it was just from European lore. Here is Native American, North American,” he pointed further down the page. “We’ve got South American here. What’s making this a little less straightforward is that the traits and weaknesses vary depending on the origin.”

“Maybe vampires differ depending on the region.”

Jelani thought about it. “I do remember that freak telling me that their weaknesses and traits were largely dependent on the individual. All have enhanced abilities that carry over from when they were human.”

Daniel tapped a thumb on the page. “The most common is the holy water and the cross, sunlight and garlic.”

Jelani shook his head. “Our little conversation didn’t cover garlic, but he had a good laugh when I mentioned water and the cross. We walked right out in the rain, and he claimed that holy water would just yield an annoyed vampire instead of a burned one.”

“You think he would tell you the truth?”

“I don’t think he was lying about that. My gut tells me to ignore the religious side of this and go for what seems the most logical.”

“That makes sense,” Daniel agreed. “So, crosses and holy water are out. Sunlight is most likely in.”

Jelani nodded. “And I can’t imagine anyone surviving a stake to the heart, or decapitation, so I’m going to put my money on those.”

“That leaves drowning, fire, silver, and garlic.”

Jelani snorted. “I can’t really imagine them being deathly vulnerable to a vegetable. Unless we find out otherwise, I’m not going to risk throwing a piece of garlic at him; though he might be too distracted from laughing so hard we might get the drop on him.”

“Okay, garlic is out. Silver?”

Jelani thought a moment. “It’s plausible. Lead is poisonous to us. Maybe silver is poisonous to them. I always associated the silver weakness with werewolves.”

“Must depend on who you talk to.”

“Yeah right,” Jelani said. “Like we’re really going to go talk to somebody about this.”

“Okay. Drowning and fire?”

“Fire makes sense. I think we can go with that. Drowning all depends on a person’s need to breathe. I’m pretty sure a dead person doesn’t need to breathe.…” he trailed off, looking out the window.

Daniel, who had been focused on the page, noted the silence and looked up. “What is it? What are you …” he followed Jelani’s gaze out the window to see a very feminine, very attractive—and very underdressed for the weather—woman walking so smoothly she practically glided by the window. He glanced at Jelani and saw his friend fixed in his seat, staring without blinking.

“Wipe your chin or you’ll drool all over …” Daniel glanced back out the window and the woman caught his gaze, and instantly he was entranced. Those light brown eyes may as well have been his entire world, the way they drew him in.

“What was that about wiping my chin?” Jelani said, breaking the trance. Daniel blinked, and the woman continued on her way. The two friends looked at each other, then hurriedly rose from the table and made for the door.

Once outside, they looked around, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“I could have thought that was a hallucination if not for the fact that you saw her, too,” Daniel said. “I’m guessing that was the extremely gorgeous Indian woman you told me about?”

“Aw, how sweet of you, Jelani.” They turned to the left to see the woman standing a few yards away smiling at them. She glided toward them and gave Daniel a once over. “You’re pretty cute yourself.”

“Ah, thanks,” Daniel said, looking like he was trying to keep his thoughts intact.

“You’re a bit far from home, aren’t you?” She looked from one to the other. “You’ve survived another night and thought to run away?” She looked at the building beside them. “Hmm. No. You decided to get away for the moment and educate yourselves about your pursuer.” She turned and started to walk away, the tiny anklet bells jingling with each step.

“I must say I’m quite impressed with you, Jelani. I hadn’t expected you to survive another night.”

“And we had so much help,” Jelani said, his voice laced with sarcasm.

They fell in step beside her and she looked up at Daniel. “Too bad cutie here has been pulled into this, hmm?”

“How do you know he’s been pulled into it?”

“Why else would you be studying about vampires and trying to reason out their weaknesses.”

“What?” Daniel frowned in disbelief. “How do you know what we were talking about?”

“I heard you, silly.”

“There was no one anywhere near us in the library!” he said. “You couldn’t have heard us from outside.”

She just smiled at him. “Why not? You were speaking loud enough.”

“We were speaking barely above a whisper.” She blinked slowly at him.

“Wait, what …” Daniel stopped and looked up at the gray and cloudy sky. He looked back at the woman, who had stopped to regard him, and Jelani, a few steps ahead of her. “What are you?” He took a step back, glancing at his friend. “It’s daylight out, so you can’t be … I mean. That …” He took another step back. “Jelani, who is this? I don’t like the way she looks.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “No, I mean, you’re obviously beautiful, but there’s something that’s making me, nervous. No offense.”

That last word had barely left his lips when she was suddenly right in front of him, dangerously close. Seductively close. “None taken,” she said, sliding a delicate hand down his cheek. His body went rigid. It looked to Jelani as if his friend’s brain was screaming at him to run, but he had no control over his body. He may as well have been trying to will himself to fly.

She slowly, casually, walked around him, trailing a finger across his muscled back. “Nice,” she said, and an instant later, she was beside a startled Jelani.

Whatever hold that was on his body was released, and Daniel let out a ragged breath. He looked up at the sky again, then back at the predatory smile of the woman standing next to him, while Jelani was steadily inching away.

“Will you two stop being so silly. I’m no vampire.”

“You aren’t?”

“The sun is out, is it not?”

Jelani thought back to what that blond vampire had said. “Not all vampires suffer the same weaknesses. Is that not true?”

She seemed amused. “True enough. Sadly, though, a human rarely survives an encounter long enough to learn such.”

“Why are you here?” Jelani asked. Daniel had hesitantly approached again, and the three of them continued along the sidewalk. The two men zipped their coats, Jelani pulling up the hood of his jacket, and Daniel pulling on his beanie—a
toque
, they called it here in Canada, though Jelani couldn’t bring himself to call it such—and slipping on a pair of gloves.

“When I discovered you had come all the way here, I couldn’t deny my curiosity. Although that vampire was only a
shaquora
, you should not have been able to escape him.”

“What was that? Sha … what?”

She glanced up at him, and Jelani felt a shiver travel down his spine. Those eyes were weapons!

“
Shaquora
. A vampire who was not born, but turned; re-created.”

“Turned?” Jelani gave her a confused look. “What other kind of vampire is there? How can you be born undead?”

Her resulting titter surprised them. “Ah, yes, more of the human stories. I suppose you would think a vampire is dead, or undead, as you would put it.”

“You’re telling us vampires are living things?” Daniel said, a bit of disbelief in his voice.

“I’ve not the inclination to explain vampiric history to you right here, but let us just say that when early humans came upon a sleeping vampire and found no pulse and no breath, they deemed him dead instead of waiting long enough. The heart of a vampire does beat, but infrequently. They draw breath, but just as infrequent.”

“How long is infrequent?” Jelani asked.

“Oh, it depends on the individual. Some of the older ones have hearts that only beat once every half hour.”

“Once every half hour?” Daniel blinked at her. “How can that be possible?”

“There are things far more unusual than this, child. If you survive long enough to learn.”

“Child?”

Jelani shook his head at Daniel to let it go. He’d been called a child by her the previous day, and that would just lead to more confusion.

“So, is the infrequent blood flow the reason vampires need to drink blood?”

“No. The need for blood replenishment is simply a physiological trait. While they can do many things a human could only dream of, one thing a vampire’s body cannot do is produce red blood cells fast enough to sustain their bodies. The younger the vampire, the less rapidly these cells are produced and the more frequently they need to feed.” She looked up at Jelani, and the eye contact made him feel the need to look away, though he couldn’t.

“
Shaquora
, turned vampires, have endured physiological changes that are both traumatic and severely alters their minds and bodies. That is mostly why the Hunters are necessary.”

“That and to make sure we don’t know they exist,” Daniel added.

She looked between the two of them. “You’ve been speaking with your friend,” She said, nodding. “Good.”

They rounded a corner and continued walking. “Where are we going?” Jelani asked.

“Hunters,” she continued, ignoring the question, “function somewhat as a veil between the human and vampire world. When a human is turned, the process of re-creation is so traumatic that many do not survive, and most that do, fall into insanity. Others develop a thirst that is nearly insatiable, and still others become violent or completely erratic in their behavior. When a new vampire emerges Hunters monitor them for a time to ensure their proper reintegration to human society.”

Daniel chuckled nervously. “Reintegration to human society? Are you kidding me?”

“Did you believe they existed before now?” the woman asked.

“Good point.”

They had walked for so long, they had reached the pier. The air was even colder this close to the water, and the two men stuck their hands into their pockets, hunching their backs against the cold. This woman in her skirt that hung just at the hips, and top that stopped several inches above the navel, ignored the cold as though it was a warm summer day.

“And that brings us to you two. Twice, Jacob has tried to dispatch you, and both times he has failed.”

“Jacob? So that’s his name.” Oddly, Jelani felt a little more confident, knowing the name of his pursuer.

“There might have been a possibility the Hunters would have allowed him to live if he had been able to kill you last night. After this second failure, his fate is written. It is only a matter of time before they deal with him.”

“So should we just fly to Australia and wait this thing out?” Daniel asked hopefully.

“Why would you fly to Australia?”

The two men blinked at her. “Um, maybe to wait for the Hunters to kill Jacob before he can kill us.”

She regarded them. In the center of her forehead was a tiny black dot. Jelani found it complemented her perfectly. Nothing about this woman was out of place or unattractive. It was a haunting, hypnotic beauty that was undeniable and irresistible.

“You might succeed in eluding Jacob, but the Hunters would await your return. And if you failed to return, someone would find you there.”

“I doubt it,” Jelani said. “We can keep a low profile easy enough.”

“If the one who is interested in you is old enough and powerful enough, there is nowhere in the world you could hide.” The weight of those words seemed to wrap about the necks of the two friends like a noose.

“I don’t get why the Hunters would just kill us, no questions asked,” Daniel said. “Trust me, the last thing I would do is go tell anybody about this. I like not living in a rubber room.”

“Vampires leave nothing to chance, and they are too interwoven in your societies to take the risk. People might deny what you say, but the seed would be planted, and all it would take is for something to happen that would resemble a vampire attack, and the suspicion, though quiet, would take root. Best to eliminate the potential problem.”

“So there is no way out of this situation?” Jelani was starting to feel hopeless.

She thought for a moment. “The easiest way would be for you to be turned. And it would have to be by a pureblooded vampire, not a created one.”

Jelani and Daniel shook their heads in unison. “Naw, I like the sun far too much. Any other options?”

“You could try to relocate, someplace very far away and remote. If they put in enough effort the Hunters, of course, could find you, but if enough time passed and more pressing business drew their attention there is a chance they would deem you less of a threat and cast you from their minds. Though rare, there have been such instances.”

“Far away and remote,” Jelani said. “Sounds like the Amazon, or something.”

“That would be a good place to flee.”

Jelani and Daniel looked at each other over her head. Daniel’s face looked like Jelani felt; desperate.

“How do you know so much about them if you’re not a vampire?” Daniel asked. “Your knowledge seems more experiential than academic. And you scare me.”

She laughed, and it was the most beautiful sound Jelani had heard.

“One must know their history.”

“You said you weren’t a vampire,” Daniel replied.

“And I spoke truly. I am not. Well, not wholly, anyway.”

“What does that mean?” Jelani asked.

“Perhaps if you survive long enough, we can further speak.”

“Why don’t you help us, then? You seem interested enough in us. Why don’t you just help us deal with this Jacob guy and maybe explain things to the Hunter that’s lurking around?”