Dave Zeltserman - Blood Crimes Book One

“Fuck you,” Raze said. He lifted a small black pistol, probably a 9 mm, and shot Carol in the side. It got so quiet in Jim’s head then. Fragments of time blipped away from him. He knew later he had killed Raze; he could see pieces of the biker’s body scattered across the room, but he couldn’t remember doing it. All he knew was that he was by Carol’s side; that the rag had been taken out of her mouth and the ropes tying her feet and hands had been cut away. He was holding her, trying to soothe her, whispering to her how much he loved her, but he couldn’t do anything to help her. Life was fading quickly from her.

“Don’t let me die,” she begged, her voice asthmatic, not much more than a whisper.

His head was swimming. He tried to think of something to say to her, but there was nothing. She coughed weakly. Blood leaked from the corner of her mouth.

“Please, don’t let me leave you,” she forced out between ragged breaths. “Save me.”

“I can’t. Not that. Not to you.”

“Please…”

There wasn’t much left of her. He tried to kiss her lips, but she turned away to show him her throat. She pleaded again for him to save her. A heaviness sunk into his chest. He tried to explain why he couldn’t inflict that type of misery on her. That he loved her too much. She couldn’t talk anymore. Her voice was gone, but there was so much disappointment in her eyes. They told him that he had failed her.

From behind he heard someone applauding, then a woman’s soft lyrical voice saying, “Bravo.” He turned dumbly to see Serena. Next to her were two other vampires, both of whom seemed familiar, but his brain just wasn’t working. Serena stopped applauding so she could talk to the other vampires. He heard what she was saying, but her words didn’t register on him, nothing did.

They started moving towards him, and the way they were smiling at Carol he finally realized what they were planning to do to her.

The world slipped away from him. He had a vague image of himself flying at the shorter vampire, the one who held his sword as if he knew how to use it, then all that confidence draining out of the vampire’s eyes as he saw Jim pointing his. 45 at his face, the vampire mouthing the word “fuck” just before Jim squeezed off three quick rounds, then swinging his sword low and slicing off the vampire’s feet and leaving him toppling to the floor.

The world came back. He recognized the vampire who was trying to get to Carol. Wilfred, one of Serena’s prized pets from the old days. Jim swung his sword at the vampire’s head. Wilfred dodged it but it forced him to move away from Carol. Jim raised his sword for another blow and was hit hard from behind. Claws raked his face, legs wrapped around him trying to break his ribcage. It was Serena. She had jumped on his back and the force of it sent him off balance and falling against a glass window. The glass broke. Before he fell through it he twisted his body and saw another familiar vampire standing in the room’s doorway. He was bigger than the others, harder looking, and as Jim crashed through the window he recognized Metcalf.

Then Jim and Serena were hurtling through the air. As they fell, she kept clawing at his eyes, her legs squeezing tighter. Jim twisted his body until she was underneath him. He saw the iron gate before they hit. The impact was jarring. Serena let go of him and he bounced onto the concrete sidewalk. He got to his feet, dazed, wondering why Serena appeared balanced on top of the gate. Then he realized one of daggers had impaled her and had sunk several inches into her body. She was stuck, there was nothing for her to use as leverage to free herself.

“Jim,” she said, gasping, trying hard not to show her pain. “Please, darling get me off of this and we’re even.”

Jim looked underneath her and saw where the dagger was sticking in. He couldn’t help smiling. He grabbed her and pulled her down, impaling her deeper until the dagger pushed through her chest. Even without the noises she made, he knew it went through her heart. He left her like that and headed back into the apartment building, racing up the seven flights of stairs and into Raze’s apartment. Metcalf was gone, as was Wilfred and the vampire whose feet he had cut off. So was Carol. The only bodies left in the apartment were the dead members of the Blood Dragons.

Jim stood staring blankly at where he had left Carol. A small puddle of her blood had pooled on the hardwood floor. He tried to tell himself that she was dead, that Metcalf didn’t have the time to infect her, and that taking her body was nothing more than a ploy on Metcalf’s part to make Jim search for him-to make him think that there was a chance that Metcalf would turn Carol into one of his experiments. She had to be dead. He had to just think that, but the other thought nagged at him, sickened him.

The sound of sirens brought him back to the present. He looked out the window and saw waves of police cars descending on the building. It made sense that so many would come after the gunshots that were fired and everything else that had happened in Cleveland that day. He looked straight down. Serena was still impaled on the gate post below, still flapping about like a fish out of water. He left the bedroom and climbed out a window from the adjoining room. He scaled down the side of the building so he could leave unseen by the police.

Metcalf was bluffing. He knew that. Carol’s life was slipping away so fast before. Still, as long as there was any chance that Metcalf had her, he had no choice about what he was going to do. He was going to have to chase after Metcalf.

Police lights strobed red and blue against the neighboring buildings. He heard police officers coming his way to check the grounds. Jim ran then, first sprinting across the back lot of the neighboring building, then disappearing into the night.

Pearce broke out of a feverish dream. He stared up at the ceiling blinking wildly, disoriented, with no clue where he was. God he ached, god he was hungry. It was weird when he blinked, like only one eye was working, and fuck, his face felt funny. He touched the eye that didn’t seem to be working and felt only bone. It didn’t surprise him. His fingers moved down his face and he touched ragged skin and more exposed bone. Yeah, half his face was chewed up. So what? Somehow he knew it no longer mattered. He looked at his right hand and saw he was missing two fingers. Again, so what?

Fuck, was he hungry. Must be why he was moaning so loudly. Except the noise wasn’t coming from him. He pushed himself up onto an elbow. The room was mostly dark. A single fluorescent light flickered overhead, but it gave off enough light for him to see that there were two other guys in the room with him. One was much bigger than the other. He didn’t recognize either of them, but they both looked out of it the way they moaned and squirmed around on the floor. As Pearce watched them he found himself salivating. He crawled over to the bigger one and sunk his teeth into the guy’s neck. It was reflex, he didn’t even realize he was doing it until he was sucking up the guy’s blood. Then he was crawling off of him, retching, wave after wave of nausea rolling over him. He thought he was going to die, but after a while the intense agony subsided and he could breathe again. A lesson to be learned from that. These two he had to keep away from, but at some level he knew he needed to drink human blood. That that would be the only thing that would satisfy his hunger.

He remembered then about that weird skinny-assed freakshow guy from the other day-the one who robbed Raze, and later tore Zeke and Ash apart like they were cloth dolls. Pearce sat scratching his head, trying to make sense of it, and then he started laughing. Because he understood. He knew what he had become.