vampireinthebasement (2 page)

“You
are
a remarkable creature. By now any of your kind would be on the ground begging for the pain to stop, but you barely feel a thing. They would be whining for blood to ease their agony.”

“Thank you.” She did not know how to respond.

Her master laughed. “Do you know why I sent for you?”

“N-no, Master.”

“You’re only a young vampire, not even a year old in this life. I was a little befuddled when
Balthus
asked to turn you. You’re not a rare flower among humanity.
Mocha-colored skin and dark eyes.
Medium build and average tits.
However, I let him because it amused him, and he has been a loyal servant. You obey and that’s good, but today you perplexed me. Can you tell me what happened to you?”

She wracked her brain for what he might want. “I don’t know. We were going back to the warehouse for the day. The others had fed, but I wasn’t hungry. The nest must have picked up that something was off and vanished into the shadows. I can’t ride the shadows yet so I was stuck, and I sensed someone coming. I hid behind a Dumpster and waited for the sun. Then Marlon appeared and whisked me away.”

“And yet you managed to avoid detection from two highly trained vampire hunters. It even took Marlon extra time to find your whereabouts. How is that?”

She shook her head. The whole ordeal baffled her too. “I don’t know.”

“They should’ve sensed you right when they appeared, but you remained hidden for a few minutes. Those minutes were long enough for you to get away if you knew how to ride the shadows. Marlon, being my right hand, should have a lock on you at all times, even me, but you were invisible. I have my eye on you, Daniella. Clearly, you are not so ordinary.” He waved his hand again to dismiss her.

Daniella did not have to be told twice and slipped out of the room, grateful she had made it out alive. Her master’s questions went through her mind.
Why wasn’t I detected? And what were the hunters looking for in the first place?

Chapter Two

Tris ran his finger over the silver blade and came away with a line of crimson. He sucked on the tip but did not register the pain because the wound was superficial. He would heal rather quickly. In the background, one of the H’s was cheering for a football game. Tris did not care for the sport, and his thoughts lingered on the beast that had gotten away from him. No matter how many times he had played it over in his mind, the only feasible explanation was that they had been tipped off. Why were their orders to bring the bloodsucker in alive? They were supposed to capture a female, and she had not been there. The whole troupe had not been there. Vampires usually nested in groups of five to ten, but no more. It was rare to find one alone, unless it was an old one and only oversaw the duties of a nest or were higher ranked for the
Grigori
it worked for. Mostly the
Grigori
promoted demons within their rank or other
Grigori
who had been manipulated and chose the dark path. He shivered at the thought and pushed the idea of his forsaken brothers from his mind. There was no use dredging up painful memories; instead he put his mind to the coming hunt. On this night, the vampires would not slip away from him.

“You ready to snag this one?” Lori clapped him on the back.

He grunted at the force behind it. “Tell me again why we’re not hunting this creature during the day? Then we could take out the whole nest.”

Lori set the silver manacles he carried on the table. The heavy clicking of the metal on the wood sent chills down Tris’s spine and stirred a few recollections he quickly squashed. His brother angel looked at him and readjusted his black shirt and straightened his cuffs, revealing a glimpse of one of his tattoos on his wrist.

“Orders.
That’s all I know. We get ‘
em
, and we have to follow them. I’m just as stumped as you. I’d rather see them all eradicated, but this one seems to be important.”

Tris sighed and shook his head. One of the H’s shouted again because the team they routed for scored. He would never understand his superiors and most of the time he never questioned orders, but this time something was off about this whole mission. Horatio bounded out of the rec room with a smile on his face.

“High five, man.” Horatio held up his hand, waiting for Tris and Lori to slap it.

His partner hit it first and Horatio waited for Tris, who did not understand the elation he felt for the game, to slap his hand. He glanced at Lori, who raised his eyebrows at him, saying it was up to him. Tris relented and hit the other angel’s hand. Horatio smiled and slapped him on the back before heading into the kitchen.

“You were saying about orders?” He turned his attention back to Lori.

“Look, Tris, I don’t question; I just do. If you have issues with what we’re supposed to do, then go see Joe. I don’t want to bother him, but hey. Why don’t we get the bloodsucker, deliver her to Joe, then come back and relax? I have things I want to do. We’re not always on business. We do have lives, at least the H’s and I do, but you always want to be on the job. I happen to enjoy the privileges we are afforded, with our status as Fallen. It could be worse.”

Tris snorted in a halfhearted laugh. It was true. It could be worse, considering his past, but that was another awful memory for another day.
“Right.
Come on, then. Let’s go find this bloodsucker and deliver it to Joe. After I’m done with it, I’ll gladly go on trying to get a life.”

Lori laughed. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Your idea of a life is sharpening weapons and training. It wouldn’t hurt for you to go see a movie once in a while. Hell, even take a moonlit walk on the beach. Maybe even get laid.” Lori picked up the manacles and slipped them into an inner pocket of his jacket, giving Tris a glimpse of the array of blades he had lined inside of the coat.

Tris readjusted his sword so it fit snugly in the sheath nestled along his spine. Then he grabbed his coat and slipped it on, making sure he had easy access to the curved short sword at his waist just in case he needed to take a head tonight. “Let’s go.”

His friend flashed him a smile and disappeared. Tris heard the flutter of the other angel’s wings and felt the powerful puff of air that came from them. Tris stretched his own wings and followed after his brother. They flew so quickly that time seemed to stand still around them, so if any humans noticed them, it appeared they popped in and out of reality. When they landed, they were at the same warehouse from the night before. Tris sensed the life around them and the coldness of those who were already dead, the vampires they were hunting.

The air held the chill of the oncoming winter and he could smell the snow on the breeze, giving the wind a metallic scent. When he inhaled deeper, Tris realized it was not the aroma of an encroaching storm, but the fresh copper of human blood that was recently spilled. The fragrance turned his stomach at the idea of what the undead things were doing to the poor souls who had fallen victim to their wiles.
And Joe wants us to take one of their females alive. What is that all about? We should eradicate the nest and be done with it. Then I can spend the night relaxing and sharpening my weapons.
He smiled at what Lori had said to him.

Lori touched his arm and motioned for him to follow when he found the door that led into the lair. It was pitch dark, but he could still see as they made their way up four flights of stairs, not making a sound. They got to the landing of the fifth floor, and the perfume of death filled the space. He pressed his wrist against his nose to try and dampen the pungent scent, but even that did not work. Light filtered through the crack underneath the door, and he heard the sounds of the nest feasting on their latest kill. The opportune time to take them unaware was during their blood frenzy.

Tris put a finger to his lips signaling they had to be quiet. Lori nodded and held up his hand to count down.

One.

Tris took his sword from his sheath, hoping they would get to exterminate the nest.

Two.

Lori gripped the handle for the door with one hand. Tris’s heart raced with the excitement of the hunt. His instincts kicked in, and he remembered why he enjoyed being a Fallen. This was what it was all about, not just sitting in Heaven and singing or praising flowers.

The three did not come. Instead, Lori opened the door and they both slipped into the nest. In the center of the room were seven vampires and four humans, or what was left of them. The vampires were nearly finished with their meals. He counted three females and four males.

They looked up at him, but many appeared to not see them. One male paused and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood into some gruesome resemblance of a deranged clown. He stood, straightened his clothes, and smiled at them.

Tris tightened his grip on his sword and held it at the ready.

“My, my.
Children, what do we have here?”

The vampires stopped their feasting and looked up with only one thought on their mind. Tris could see it in their eyes. They did not recognize the danger they were in. All they saw was another meal. One female slowly crawled over a body, covering her clothes in the blood, and slithered closer to Tris and Lori. He held back his disgust.

“We’re not here to cause any problems with you,
Balthus
. We only want the female,” Lori said.

The elder vampire chuckled and motioned toward the others. “Take your pick. We have several to choose from. I’m sure they can satisfy whatever desires you gentlemen have. Granted, we don’t get many of your kind here.”

The females rose on command, waiting for the elder vampire’s order to pounce.

So which one is it?
Tris asked his partner silently.

Lori barely glanced at him and saw the slight raise of his eyebrow. The other angel did not know.

“Joe didn’t tell you which one we were supposed to take with us.”

“No.
He said look for a butterfly
.
You know him and his macabre messages.”

Tris rolled his eyes.
Wonderful.
He lifted the sword and stared at the vampires before him.
Balthus’s
lips spread into a wider smile.

“Well, gentlemen, it seems none of my wares are to your tastes. Shame, really, because if you had a flare for the exotic, I have the thing for you. Of course, we would have to come to some arrangement where we get to keep our heads.”

“Sorry. It doesn’t work that way,” Tris muttered.

“I agree with my partner.”

Balthus
snarled his response, baring jagged, blood-stained fangs. The other vampires hissed and rushed them. Tris reacted and swung his sword. The satisfying sound of a head hitting the wooden floor made him feel a slight moment of gratification, but it was fleeting because a male vampire tackled him. Caught by surprise, he dropped his sword and hit the back of his head.

Dazed, Tris had but a second to react before fangs grazed his flesh. He seized the male vampire by the throat and held him back with all his strength. The creature gashed at his flesh, but Tris brought up his knee and thrust it into the vampire’s groin. The slight grunt and grimace that passed over the beast’s face gave him the opportunity he needed. Tris propelled the beast off him and retrieved his sword. By the time the vampire rose, Tris swung his sword and detached his head. Blood spattered across his face and down his coat. He wiped it from his face with the back of his arm. He quickly took stock of Lori and saw three headless bodies around him, and he was now cornered by two others. Tris stabbed a female through the back, making sure his silver sword pierced her heart. When he pulled the blade out, the blood smoked on the metal. Lori took the time to behead the other one, catching Tris with a splash of blood across the face. He shivered at the acrid taste and spit out what landed in his mouth. He willed himself clean again, and he was. That was one good thing about his kind: he
could will
himself clean and pull clothes out of the
aether
. He preferred the normal way of bathing in the shower, but in this case it was best to will the filth of the vampire away unless he was contaminated by it, although there was no fear in that because there was no way he could become a vampire. He glanced around at the massacre before him.

“Wonderful,” Lori murmured.

“What?”

“Do you see
Balthus
?”

They had slaughtered the whole nest, and there were no survivors to bring back to Joe. He did not see the elder vampire among the carnage. “No. So what do we go back and tell Joe?”

Lori sighed. “We tell him the truth. They rushed us, and we had to defend ourselves. Let’s search for survivors. Maybe they kept a few alive. At least then, this won’t be a total failure.”

Tris wiped the sword on his thigh and sheathed it. He knelt down and stared into the vacant eyes of one of the victims. His soul had fled the way of the three other victims the brood had feasted upon. No blood had been shed from the victims. Tris shivered at the fear-locked expression on the man’s face and closed his eyes before moving on to search the rest of the floor. Lori motioned that he was going down one hallway, and that left Tris to explore the other side of the warehouse. He slowly made his way down the corridor, checking the empty offices. Inside of a couple he found mattresses, suggesting the vampires used the individual rooms for their sleeping chambers. Tris slipped into the last room at the end of the passageway. It was the biggest one he had come across and was split into two separate rooms. A large desk was shoved against the wall with drawers missing and papers strewn around the floor. He leafed through one of the folders and came away with nothing. He turned to leave, and a slight movement caught his eye. Something had fallen on the other side of the office, papers sliding down a large pile. It could have easily been caused by a rodent, but he went to check it out anyway.

Moonlight streamed in the window and illuminated the space. Stacks of paper were shoved into a large bookcase, and through the open shelves he saw a sofa on the opposite side of it. He peered through a small opening and saw the top of a head ducking behind the couch, wedged between it and the wall. Tris walked around the bookcase and pulled his sword once more from his sheath in case it was another vampire.