Immortal Coil: A Novel (Immortal Trilogy Book 1) Page 15

  He knew of the tabloids calling him the Houseguest Killer, but that was not a name he approved of. He would need a new name. He would need to tell the army what to call him; the army he intended to create and fight against that bothersome vampire. He decided The Master would suffice. And so that same night, having lost his opportunity with that last family he had chosen, The Master had picked his first disciple. He found a murderous looking soul wandering the streets and offered to make him immortal. And although the man first took this as some kind of joke, The Master soon showed him it was not. He took the man, draining him, and then carried his corpse back to the mansion. The Master then returned to the streets and found two more victims on which to feed. These two were not worthy of the gift and so were destroyed. The following night, when the new disciple rose, the two went out into the squalid neighborhoods to feed. The Master had learned his lesson, and chose only the bums, the destitute and the infirm for his meals. No one would be missed. There would be no more high-profile attacks from the very heavily publicized Houseguest Killer. When The Master found a potential disciple, he brought this one back to the mansion and offered him—or her—the gift. It was important that his minions want to join him. He would not risk another runaway.

  Within a month of this recruitment strategy, The Master had three loyal disciples. After two months, his ranks had swelled to seven.

  However, after six months and ten disciples, something unusual began to happen. His minion horde began to dwindle. Upon awakening some nights, one or two of his newest minions would be turned to crusty shells. Although the horde slumbered in the basement where no daylight could touch them, there would be a drop in their numbers the following night.

  To rectify this, The Master purchased more coffins. All his disciples would need their own coffins in which to slumber during the death sleep. He focused on twelve. Twelve coffins for twelve disciples, how fitting.

  But this, he learned, would not be the solution to his problem. Even inside the coffins his minions were not safe. For several nights, The Master continued to wake to empty coffins. Perhaps his minions were fighting amongst themselves, trying to develop a hierarchy. Perhaps there needed to be a pecking order.

  His very first vampire disciple was still with him. This one, he determined, would be his second in command. He judged the rest to be fledglings. They were to obey The Master above all else, and they would obey the second in command in The Master’s absence.

  This seemed to work. The number of missing slowed to only one or two a month, of which he promptly replaced.

  After a year the number of missing disciples tapered off and The Master finally had his twelve disciples.

  Of the twelve, The Master had eight males and four females. He taught them to fight. He taught them the basics of the hunt and the finer points on how to kill other vampires. His followers obeyed his every command. There was only one incident of dissention in the ranks. It was time for the vampires to prove their skills.

  The vampires were labeled one through twelve. Number Six was a hairy beast of a thing who did not want a number. “My name is Sam, and I expect to be called Sam,” he said to the group.

  “You are Number Six,” said Number Four, a female. “Live with it.”

  Six laughed. “I don’t have to live with anything anymore,” he said. “I died, remember? We all did. You are a stupid bitch.”

  The Master had overheard the conversation and instructed the group to attack with only a look.

  The group fell on Number Six with the ferocity of a pack of hungry wolves. There were screams of rage and screams of pain. When the attack was finished, and there was nothing left of Number Six but body parts strung from one side of the room to the other, The Master renumbered his troops. Seven was the new Six; Eight was the new Seven, and so on.

  The Master instructed his corpse boy to clean up the mess. Corpse boy worked diligently, disposing of the remains thoroughly. Afterward, there was hardly a speck of proof that the slaughter had occurred.

  That night The Master created a new Number Twelve: a male.

  His new Number Twelve accepted his rank without question.

  Weeks after the disposal of the dissenter, The Master deemed it was time to tell his horde why they had been assembled. “We must go to war,” he said. “There is an enemy out there that must be destroyed. It has been determined, by me, that this vampire is a nuisance to all vampires and his punishment for this discretion is death.”

  “We’ve already shown what one vampire will face when we work together as a team,” said Number Four. Others in the group mumbled their agreement.

  “Do not be overconfident. This is not a mere infant. This vampire could possibly have been around as long as I have been, or even longer. I have no way of knowing. We cannot overestimate him. He has proven himself very resourceful in a fight, and he is not alone.”

  “How many vampires does he travel with?” a male voice asked.

  “Only one,” the master said.

  Laughter erupted in the group.

  “It’s a vampire child.”

  The laughter grew.

  The master growled and the laughter stopped abruptly.

  “Do not be fooled by this. A child vampire can be just as strong, and as dangerous, as any vampire. In some ways, they can be more dangerous. They tend to be faster, and more resilient: harder to kill, in other words. But that is not all that we must face.”

  The horde grew silent and listened intently to The Master’s every word.

  “He travels with a woman; she is a human, yes, but she has an amazing power. This woman is—she is a witch, I guess. She has the power of sight. She will see us coming and will be able to warn her vampire counterpart. She must be made a priority target. We will eliminate her first, then the main target.”

  “What about the child?” asked a female designated as Number Four. He was impressed by her question. Maybe he should have made her the commanding force.

  “The child vampire belongs to me. He is to be brought to me unharmed. I will have my roped boy back. If he will not be swayed to stay by my side as my personal pet, well…well then, I will be the one to destroy him. Do I make myself clear?”

  Everyone agreed.

  When the group disbursed, The Master hunted in the homeless section of Allentown. The bodies were buried in the surrounding mountains. The Master hated the taste of bums and outcasts. He longed for the days when he could return to feeding on the upper middle class families that had been his favorite meal for so long. He was proud of his disciples and would reward them with lavish gifts upon completion of their task.

  Of course he would also have to destroy them. There was no way he could allow so many of his own creations to walk the earth. There was too big a risk that their presence would be unfavorable for him in the future. But there was plenty of time to figure out that mess later. As soon as the more pressing thorn in his side was destroyed, cleanup on the horde could begin.

  He watched his creations when they were not aware of his presence. They were following his rules well. He had forbid them to take any minions of their own. Their prey was to be of the dregs of society. Prostitutes, bums, and criminals were going to be declining in numbers in the hillside towns and valleys of the Pocono Mountains.

  Upon watching the final few of his minions returning to the mansion, The Master ordered the corpse boy to ready the coffins. Corpse boy was expected to open the lids and see to it that all the coffins were sealed tightly upon closure after each vampire was put to rest. Unfortunately, the corpse boy did not communicate. Otherwise, The Master would ask him to watch over the coffins, and report to him if he saw any vampires that were waking early and killing others while they slept. He suspected the culprit to be his second in command. If he caught his second in the act of doing this heinous deed, he would deal with it. Until the perpetrator was caught, however, The Master’s hands were tied.

  Soon the horde would be on the move. The Master would have to prepare some mod
e of travel for himself and his twelve. Corpse boy was a big help, but he could hardly be expected to drive whatever form of transportation The Master chose for the trip. Corpse boy would have to stay behind and look after the mansion. The lump of rotten flesh would only be in the way on this mission.

  The Master saw to it that everyone was laid to rest then he himself climbed into the only unoccupied coffin, and allowed the corpse boy to close the lid. Once inside, he bolted the lid, locking himself in place.

  All the vampires were reposed. The mansion took on the silence of a monastery. The only sound was the shuffling gait as the corpse boy moved through the mansion. The boy staggered up the steps to the basement and into the attached garage. He grabbed something off the work bench then returned with the object to the basement. The boy placed a hand on first one coffin, then another. The boy moved through the maze of coffins until he found the one he wanted.

  The corpse boy lifted the lid.

  Inside the coffin, Number Four lay in the pink silk lining of her coffin, resting peacefully. Then, with both hands, the corpse boy lifted the machete he had retrieved from the work bench and cut off her head. The body turned into a husk of dried leather and the head crumbled into a pile of gray ash.

  The corpse boy closed the lid and returned the machete to the garage.

  He then retired to a corner of the basement, curled up into a fetal position and waited for night to fall.

  19.

  Maggie and the crew prepared for the arrival of her new baby. She found a doctor that didn’t ask too many questions about her home life. She took care of herself, took her prescribed prenatal vitamins, and whiled away the daylight hours alone. She had given up chasing murderers and rapists, and left the heavy lifting to the men. She still had visions, and used them to help track prey for David and Antony, but she no longer took part in the captures. Strangely, watching them feed made her hungry as well. She couldn’t be around them when they fed, or she would end up weighing five hundred pounds.

  Antony, strangely, turned very paternal. He doted on her whenever he could, refused to let her do any lifting, or exert herself in anyway, and he saw to her every need. David seemed jealous—to the point that he even accused Antony of fathering the child, as absurd as that was. The baby would have two diligent fathers looking after her. Maggie had convinced herself it was a girl growing inside her. Or so she hoped. David hoped for a boy, of course.

  And then there was the uncle, as Randal referred to himself when he mentioned the baby. What more could a baby want than to have three vicious vampires looking after her?

  Maggie laughed at the thought.

  She took a lot of naps during the day, she found. Being alone made her feel lonely. And the loneliness led to depression. Depression made her sleepy. She dreamed a lot. One dream in particular disturbed her more than any others. In the dream, she saw a man. He was a handsome man with unruly auburn hair. The man liked to strip naked and run around on all fours. He was a murderer, this man. He ripped people apart with his teeth and ate their flesh. She had found that the dream seemed to come in twenty-eight day cycles for some reason. She wanted to tell David and Antony to go after this man, and bring him back to face their distinctive form of justice, but she could not pinpoint his exact location. She didn’t want to bring David and Antony into a discussion about this dream until she could determine the specifics of the dream.

  There was another aspect of the dream that confused her. She was aroused by the naked killer with the mop of reddish-brown hair.

  On several occasions she woke from the dream soaked in sweat after having made love to this stranger in her dream. Some days she woke with a scream on her lips because the stranger had been eating her flesh. On these days, she would place her hand on her stomach and feel the baby in her kicking. That kicking life inside her always had the ability to calm her racing heart, no matter the reason it was racing; be it from fear, or from ecstasy.

  The visions from the Dark Father’s victims had tapered off until she no longer sensed his activities. She didn’t know the reason for the inactivity, but she suspected he had moved out of her range of power. He had always only been on the cusp of her visions, perhaps now he was finally off her radar.

  Or perhaps the baby had something to do with that as well. Sensing the Dark Father’s victims had always taken a toll on her emotions. Maybe her body was protecting the baby by blocking those visions. The only downfall was that it left them vulnerable if the monster decided to attack.

  Randal had been a real challenge for her, but he was coming around. He sometimes reverted to the wild child he had been when he first joined them. She thought he sometimes looked at her as a cat would a freshly caught fish, but then he never attacked her, and she was confident he never would. Antony stayed cautious when it came to the child vampire, not completely trusting him to stay sane without constant supervision. Antony always hunted with Randal. David, too, helped to keep an eye on the pint-sized killer.

  And what a killer he could be. Randal often showed signs of diverging from the code Antony had put into place for the vampires, although to date he had not acted on the urge to kill innocent people. Randal spoke only to Maggie about his dark side. She kept his secret, even though doing so could threaten to put a wedge in the group. She feared that telling Antony Randal sometimes felt the urge to kill innocent people would leave Antony no choice but to destroy Randal. She could handle this issue without Antony’s intervention. And so far, she was successful. She was confident Randal had adhered to the code and only killed bad people.

  Gardner Thomas Jervis was born at 1:18 a.m. on a Wednesday. She fell in love with his doughy flesh, round face; his red button nose and rosy cheeks the minute the nurse placed him in her arms. Maggie was so happy that both David and Antony could be there for the birth. Randal did not come to the hospital, but chose to stay home and wait there for word on Maggie’s and the baby’s status. He was still distant and moody, and just couldn’t be trusted. That would change; however, as Randal proved he could be, not only safe around the baby, but actually an adoring and doting uncle. Sometimes Randal looked at Gardner—or Gar, as Randal would affectionately refer to him—with a look of stern determination and unconditional love that led Maggie to believe Randal would die to protect the baby. Eventually, Antony learned this, too; and Antony relaxed his attitude toward the child vampire. When Antony realized Randal was not the vicious monster Antony had expected him to be, Randal officially became part of the group.

  Months before Gardner was born, Antony took Maggie to his New Jersey house. They acquainted themselves with the caretakers there, and then Maggie started interviewing nannies. Antony explained that if the danger got too great, she and the baby would need somewhere to take refuge. He didn’t want to leave her on her own, so a nanny would need to be hired. In the end, Maggie chose an English woman whose aura and personality was perfectly suited. Antony peered into her soul, looking for any sign of evil intent. There was none, so he gave his seal of approval, and they had a nanny.

  The Nanny was given room and board at the mansion on the beach of the Jersey shore. Her one hundred thousand dollar a year salary would start immediately, even if she didn’t. The Nanny understood that she, like all of Antony’s employees needed to be available at any time in any given situation. She agreed.

  Not long after visiting New Jersey, Maggie received a visit from the local law enforcement. “I’m Detective Smith and this is my partner Detective Jones. Do you mind, Ms. Owens, if we ask you a few questions?”

  Being called Ms. Owens brought back memories of being on trial. She did not want to revisit that part of her life. “Ask,” she said gruffly.

  “We’d like to ask you about Grover Dixon. Have you seen him lately?” asked Detective Smith.

  “No.” She hoped the lie didn’t show on her face.

  “Are you sure?” Detected Jones asked.

  “I’m sure.” She knew she was being overly hostile with the detectives, but they repres
ented the government who had tried to put her away for her daughter’s murder. She didn’t feel she had to be nice to them.

  “If you see him, please contact us, Ma’am. We have a warrant out for his arrest.”

  “Why?” Maggie asked.

  “We’re not at liberty to discuss—”

  “Bullshit. If you want to know where he is you’ll tell me why you want him,” Maggie said. “You bastards tried to pin my daughter’s murder on me. You owe me.”

  “With all due respect ma’am, we don’t owe you—” Detective Jones started to say, but his partner stopped him.

  Detective Smith cleared his throat. “There has been a review of the evidence. Apparently, the coroner missed it the first time, but the bruises on Baby…on Molly’s body were made by a man. You have been exonerated of any wrong doing in this case. We are now looking at Grover as the prime suspect.”

  “Do I hear you correctly?” Maggie felt her face getting redder by the minute. “You ignored exculpatory evidence that could have cleared me in order to get a conviction, and now you want my help putting the real perpetrator of this crime behind bars? Is this correct?”

  “Ma’am,” Detective Jones started to say.

  Call me Ma’am one more time you little shit and I’ll sic my vampire friends on you, Maggie thought.