Vampire Cadet (6 page)

He sat and the muscles on his back rippled in the dim light of the moon that was filtering in through the canopy. “If I can’t be powerful, my life is not worth living.”

“You don’t mean that.” She couldn’t believe that were having this discussion. How could he take this threat to his life so causally?

“I do mean it. And if you don’t like this, you know the solution to this problem, don’t you?”

She knew what was coming but Shannon couldn’t help but ask. “What do you mean?”

“You can turn me into a vampire and we could be mates forever.” He stood, walked over, and took her hands in his grasp. “It would be perfect, Shannon. Imagine an eternity together. We would have a wonderful time.”

“I never had this choice to make. Someone turned me without my permission. If I had my way, I would never have chosen this path. Eternity means nothing. I would give it all away to live again. Please don’t ask me to do it. I won’t.”

Shannon moved out of the tree’s canopy. It was time to put some distance between them. Why couldn’t he understand that she didn’t want to turn him into a vampire? Her life, undead as it was, wasn’t worth much. Alone, without permanent companionship, without love, she moved from town to town, country to country, creating new identities every ten years or so. It was impossible to stay in one place. Not only did it get boring but also she had to keep moving to avoid arousing suspicion.

She loved her current role in the army. But for how long could she continue? Another three or four years and then she would have to go away, find something else to do. She didn’t sleep and didn’t eat. As she had told him before, eternity was tedious after a while – and no matter what he said, she wouldn’t help him in his desire to achieve it.

Chapter Six

The rest of the night passed without any excitement. While Bryce slept, Shannon patrolled the area. As she was returning to the willow trees while the first rays of dawn dappled through the thick canopy of the trees, she stopped. Far away, she heard the sound of running feet. Someone was running away through the thick jungle's underbrush, coming in this direction.

Maybe their patience had paid off. Could Ra’ad be returning to collect the things he or his underling had forgotten? If it was Ra’ad, and if he was a vampire as they suspected, any little movement could alert him to their presence. She stood still as a rock against the broad trunk of a tree as her ears detected the pounding of feet against the forest floor. As the enemy neared the ruins, she gnashed her teeth. The thumping of a human heart betrayed the fact that it wasn’t Ra’ad. This was a mortal person, probably a man, near to thirty years of age. She could tell all that and more just by the thump thump of the heart that beat in his chest.

Whoever it was would not be able to return the way he'd planned. She tracked him through the sounds of his movement and breathing as he neared her hiding place. Suddenly, she was aware of another presence. Shannon put her finger on her lips when she saw Bryce staring at her from behind the underbrush where he had taken refuge. Clearly, he had been disturbed by the new arrival.

They waited, still as stone, while the man ran into their view. He stopped at the entrance as if he wanted to make sure that he was indeed alone. After a few moments, he felt reassured because he stepped into the ruins, his movements stealthy. When he was standing between them, all his avenues for escape cut off by the two of them, Shannon leapt in front of him.

For a few seconds, he stood still as if unable to believe his eyes. To him, it must have looked as if she was a ghostly apparition who had materialized out of nowhere. But then suddenly, he thrust his hand inside his pocket and drew out a gun. He fired at her even as Bryce lunged from his hiding place and tackled him to the ground. To Shannon’s naked eye, the bullet travelled slowly as it pierced the air, aiming for her chest. Just in time, she stepped aside and the bullet buried itself in the tree behind her.

“We need him alive,” she reminded Bryce who had the man pinned against a wall, his hand around his throat. The prisoner’s eyes were popping out and his tongue protruded from his mouth as Bryce slowly crushed his windpipe. 

Bryce removed his hold and the man fell down. Shannon squatted next to him. “What’s your name?”

He skidded back until he was pressed against the wall. “James,” he muttered.

“You’re not American?” She detected an eastern European accent to his voice. “Where are you from?”

“I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m an innocent tourist and am exploring this jungle,” he made the statement quickly and without hesitation. It looked as if he’d rehearsed the words beforehand.

She chuckled. “With a gun?”

He clamped his mouth shut as if he didn’t want to answer any more questions. “Let me deal with him,” Bryce grabbed him by his hair and lifted him high up. James’s feet dangled as he swayed in the air. He screamed loudly.

“Put him down,” she ordered.

Bryce let the man go. He fell down with a loud thump. “We will let you go as soon as you tell us where Ra’ad is?”

His eyes widened and his nostrils flared, but he didn’t say anything. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I didn’t want to do this but you leave me with no choice.”

Shannon grabbed his hand. She took his thumb in her fingers and bit down hard on it. His loud, shocked cry reverberated throughout the forest as her fangs separated the tender nerves, muscles, and bone, and his thumb fell on the grass. Blood spurted out from the open wound. Staring at his mutilated hand, James screamed and screamed while Shannon wiped her fingers across her lips.

She held his hand, pressed down on a nerve, and the blood stopped flowing as quickly as it had started. It was almost as if someone had turned the tap off. She stared into his terrified eyes. “Listen to me very carefully. I can allow you to leave, but it won’t long before you collapse on the jungle floor due to the loss of blood. Hyenas and jackals would make a lovely feast of your flesh and bones. The other option is for you to tell me everything I want to know, and I will make sure that you leave this forest alive.”

He gulped. She could see the pain in his eyes as he stared at the wound where his thumb had been moments ago. “What do you want to know?”

“Where is Ra’ad?”

“He is hiding in an apartment building.” He gave the address and Shannon committed it to memory. It was close to downtown San Diego.

“Why did you come back?”

His eyes flowed with tears and a sob escaped his lips. “I forgot my stuff. Ra’ad said…if I don’t get back with it within two hours, he would personally kill me.”

“Bryce, get the first aid kit,” she ordered as her mind worked out a strategy. If they needed to capture Ra’ad, they had to leave now. After Bryce brought the first aid kit, she tied up James’s hand, injected him with a painkiller, and led him through the forest to their jeep.

They followed his directions to the apartment building. Taking out a pair of handcuffs, she tied him to the jeep’s door handle and left him in the parking lot while they took the stairs to Ra’ad’s apartment. Shannon put her ear to the door as she listened for any noise. Not a soul stirred inside the apartment. Since Ra’ad was a vampire, she wouldn’t have heard his heartbeat even if he was there, but still Shannon had a nasty feeling that the apartment was devoid of any presence.

Either they were too late, or Ra’ad had already moved out. Everything pointed to the fact that he was an extremely careful person. If he suspected that his underling had made a mistake and left something back in the forest, he might have shifted already in order to avoid being captured.

Still, she listened for a long time until she could say with eighty percent certainty that the apartment was empty. Shannon gestured to Bryce and he handed her the small pouch he carried. Opening it, she took out tools to open the door. After opening the lock, she pushed the door slightly and listened intently. Not a soul stirred in the apartment. Shannon slipped inside. She moved from room to room with the stealth of a silent tiger.

No one was in the apartment but there was stuff thrown about the room, indicating that people had left rather hurriedly. He must have disappeared immediately after his underling left for the forest. Damn it! She couldn’t believe he had escaped her clutches once more. Not a clue was left to give them any hint as to where he had gone. Once more, they had nothing to pinpoint them in the right direction. Shannon cursed loudly.

What the hell was she going to tell her superior? She had so boldly claimed that she would have Ra’ad within a week, and all she had was a certain knowledge that he was many steps ahead of her. Angry and disappointed, Shannon marched back to the parking lot. And much to her shock, James wasn’t in the jeep where they had left him. The handcuffs lay on the floor but there wasn’t any sign of him.

She resisted the urge to stomp her feet. The gesture didn’t befit her age, but it sure would have felt better to throw a tantrum. “What the hell? How could he have escaped?”

“That man was a trained mercenary. Do you think he wouldn’t have been able to flee in the time we left him alone?”

She glowered at her assistant. “If you suspected that he might escape, why the hell didn’t you warn me?”

Bryce jumped on to his seat and started the jeep. “I wanted him to go back to his boss. Do you really think he told us everything he knew? Surely, he would have kept back something as insurance. Given time, he may have spilled all the beans, but you were in such a hurry to rush here, you didn’t think to question the information he so willingly parted with. I am sure he knows his boss’s other hiding places.”

“What the hell is the point of allowing him to go back to his boss? How would that serve us?” Shannon glowered at him. What was he playing at? If Bryce had known that James would make an attempt to escape, why didn’t he stop him?

“Shannon, dear. We need James to lead us to Ra’ad. While you were busy intimidating the hell out of him, I planted a tracker on his shoes. It’s a flat, button-sized devise that would emit a signal of his location every three minutes, and from that signal, we will be able to track his movements. James doesn’t know it yet, but he is going to become the reason for Ra’ad’s downfall.”

Shannon stared at him, her mouth agape in shock. She couldn’t believe that she had missed something so obvious. How could she have been so blind? If Bryce hadn’t figured out that James was holding back information, they would have been in a quandary because they had nothing else to go on. And now, they had an amazing ace up their sleeve – and Ra’ad had no idea about it.

“You are brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.” She jumped on the seat beside him.

Bryce grinned as he gunned the jeep and they shot out of the parking lot. Shannon eagerly looked forward to their next move, and that was to track James and figure out what he was up to. Now, finally they had gotten a break they badly needed to finish this mission. And thanks to Bryce, they were a step closer to achieving that result. 

After they reached the warehouse, Shannon followed Bryce’s instructions as they set up the system that would trace James. “I’ve to hack into a satellite to follow his movements through the city.”

Shannon couldn’t care less what he did as long as he got the job done. “Ok. Just do whatever needs to be done to catch that bastard.”

Bryce’s fingers flowed over the computer’s keypad as if they were filled with an electric energy. The screen pulsated wildly, and then showed a red signal on the backdrop of the city’s map. “There he is,” said Bryce. “Got him.”

“Is he walking?”

“The speed with which he is moving shows that he is in a vehicle,” said Bryce as he did some fast calculations on the computer. “Now, let’s wait and watch while we see where he ends up.”

“If he does know where Ra’ad is and he goes there, Ra’ad is not going to wait a long time before shifting again. Surely, he would suspect the ease with which James managed to escape our grasp.”

“We will try to catch him the moment he reaches Ra’ad. Or else we can hope that Ra’ad would take him along with them. Either way, we have a good chance.”

Shannon sat back with a satisfied smile on her face. Finally, they were getting somewhere. Now they had a good, in fact, better than good chance of catching the terrorist who had eluded her for so long. “You’ve done an excellent job, Bryce. I am going to strongly recommend you for a promotion once this is all over.”

He turned to glance at her. “You know what I want more than a promotion.”

“Please let’s not discuss this any further.” She sighed. Couldn’t he leave this topic alone? Why did he bring up the same thing again and again when she’d already said no?

“Why not, Shannon? This is very important to me. What’s going to happen when this mission is finished? You aren’t going to stay with me forever. Sooner or later, you will move on and I will be back to square one. I will be the same weakling that I was without your help.”

She ran her hand through her hair. “So you do it the hard way. Do regular exercise, gain some muscle. It will take longer but it will be worth the effort.”

“Even if I exercised for five hours a day, there is no way in hell am I ever going to retain this speed and agility that is due to your powers being transferred to me. You know it, and I know it. Why wouldn’t you turn me? I don’t understand…”

She finally lost her temper. “You don’t understand. Do you think I would’ve wanted this life if I had a choice? It’s eternity without redemption, Bryce. You will lose your soul. Do you want that?”