"Tim?" I croaked.
Vincent's reply was to shuffle toward me, and I scooted back against the nearest crate. When he reached me he knelt down on one knee and looked me over. I cringed and prepared for death, but he did nothing. He only stared at me with those unblinking, intense eyes.
His inaction made me mad. I was tired of being the mouse. "If you're going to kill me then do it," I demanded.
"I wish I could," he quipped.
I blinked in bewilderment. "But you-"
"The circumstances have changed, and so have both of us," he interrupted. "What did Timothy tell you about our relationship?"
The change in subject was so sudden that I habitually shrugged. "Nothing except you guys were a team."
Vincent chuckled. "Is that what he told you? That we were some sort of a team? All for one and one for all?" I cringed, but nodded. He scoffed and his face twisted into disgust. "We were nothing of the sort." That was all I needed to hear from this psychopath. I slowly scooted along the floor, but Vincent slammed a hand against the crate that stood behind me. "You're to go nowhere," he told me.
I frowned. "If you're not going to kill me then what are you going to do to me?" I asked him.
"I'm going to protect you." I raised an eyebrow, and he impatiently sighed. "You're a slow one, aren't you? Have you even figured out what I am?"
"A psychopath?" I guessed.
He smirked. "True, but that doesn't describe my species."
"I just want to-ah!" A spasm of pain shot through my sore hand. I doubled over and clutched at my shivering fingers. Vincent grabbed my shoulders and held me still. I grit my teeth and raised my head to look at him. "What's going on?" I asked him.
"The union isn't finished yet. Where is the ring?" he asked me. My eyes traveled to the fallen lantern. The ring had rolled up beside the metal casing around the flame. Vincent followed my gaze, and he left me to snatch the ring and return. "Put this back on," he instructed me as he held out the ring. I squished against the crate and shook my head. I wasn't going through that pain again. He sneered at me and shoved the ring into my palm. "Put it-"
His insistence was interrupted by the sound of guns outside the warehouse. Bullets penetrated the thin walls of the old warehouse and shot over our heads. I swung my arms over my head and ducked down. Vincent threw himself over me and pressed me to the floor. He stuck his head close to mine and his long teeth looked impossibly sharp. "Put on the ring or we're both dead!" he snapped.
I was too panicked to argue, and hurriedly slipped the ring onto my finger. I clutched my hand as pain shot out from the band of metal and into my body. Vincent clenched his teeth together and I heard his stifled cries as his pain mirrored mine. The gunfire outside and was replaced by a more hideous sound of a large wolf howling. I heard the front door ripped off its hinges and tossed aside. Clawed feet clinked along the hard floor, and through the pain of the ring I imagined a far worse death than the one promised by Vincent. I feared I would be torn apart by some bloodthirsty hound. How wrong I was.
The clinking claws came closer and rounded the corner of a nearby crate stack. I tilted my head back and my eyes widened when, by the light of the dim lantern, I beheld not a large dog, but a wolf creature larger than a man. It spotted us and raised itself onto its hind legs. The wolf thing tipped its head back and howled. The awful noise echoed through the metallic building and sent a shudder through my body. It dropped back down on all four legs and raced toward us.
Vincent flew off me, and jumped between the monster and me. When the beast's was a foot from him he kicked out a leg in a circular motion and knocked the monster's front legs out from under it. The wolf crashed headfirst into the hard floor and slid into the crate of boxes behind me. The wooden boxes toppled over him. I crawled away, but the pain wracked my body so I couldn't find the strength to stand.
Vincent grabbed one of the crates and tore a long, jagged spike from the wood. The wolf beast burst from the crates and howled in rage. Its golden eyes fell on me, and I screamed when it lunged at me. Vincent tackled the beast from the side and the pair of them rolled away from me. I backed up and my hand knocked into something hard but light. It was the lantern. I grabbed the lantern and swung it to watch the tussle.
The creature righted itself and dove at Vincent, but he was too fast and dodged the thing's claws. Vincent slipped behind the wolf and raised the stake to plunge the weapon into the creature's back. The beast turned the tables by using Vincent's trick of kicking back a leg to knock him off his feet. Vincent fell hard on his back, and the beast turned to tear Vincent to pieces. I thought fast and threw the lantern at the beast's back. The flame hit the thing's furry back and caught the hair on fire.
The creature screamed and tried to reach back to extinguish the flames. Vincent took his chance, grabbed the stake that he'd dropped, and jabbed it into the creature's chest. The wolf released a long, terrible howl before it fell over dead. The fur continued to burn, and by its light I watched the thing transform from a furry demon to a barely-clothed man. Once the transformation was complete the fire was extinguished from the no-longer existing hair on his back, and I was completely blind and still wracked with pain.
Chapter 3
I shrieked when I felt myself lifted into a strong pair of arms. "Quiet," Vincent's voice ordered me. He held me against him as he dashed away from the light of the front door and through the maze of crates. We quickly reached the rear, and he turned and slammed his back into a heavy metal door. The exit led outside, and I was grateful to be able to see where we were going.
That is, until Vincent raced along the rear of the other warehouses. His speed was impossibly fast for a human. The ground sped by in a flurry of rocks and broken pieces of glass, and in a few seconds we covered a distance that would have taken me at least a minute to cross. I tried to free myself and get off this horrible ride, but he only pressed me harder to his chest. "Don't move," he growled.
I stiffened and obeyed his command, especially when I saw how many cars and people were lay in front of the warehouses. There were at least half a dozen cars and twice that number of men dressed in black suits. They had dark sunglasses over their eyes, and all of them were armed. Half of them were still at the entrance to the end warehouse, but the other half was spread out between the gate and where we stood behind the center warehouse. Vincent crept us up to the front of the warehouse, but any further and we'd be seen.
We heard shouts from our former warehouse. The body of the wolf man had been discovered. The men who stood in front of the gate glanced in that direction, and Vincent took advantage of their distraction. He shot out of our hiding spot behind a few crates and raced to the gate. The chain-link gate was shut, but that didn't slow him down. The men in sunglasses noticed our escape and turned their guns on us. Shots rang out and bullets whizzed by our heads. Their aim must have been as bad as a Storm Trooper's because they didn't hit Vincent. At least, he didn't slow down, but my body felt pricked by dozens of pins. Then something hot dug into my shoulder as one of the men hit their mark, me. The bullet flew clear through and my blood soaked my shirt.
We were ten yards from the gate when Vincent leapt up into the air. The momentum of his prodigious speed flew us over the top of the barbed wire and onto the other side. The closed gate slowed down our pursuers and gave us a head-start down the river road. We entered the asphalt jungle before their cars left the warehouse island, and Vincent didn't have any trouble losing them in the maze of dark alleys and narrow, dingy streets.
Regardless of the danger I was glad when he stopped us in a splendid mix of a dingy, dark, and narrow alley. My wounded hadn't closed and the pain was nearly as bad as what the ring had caused. I cried out when he set me down a little too hard against a brick wall. "Quiet," he commanded.
I glared at him. "Quiet? There's a god damn bullet hole in my shoulder!" I snapped back at him.
Vincent ignored my whining and ripped open my bloodied shirt sleeve. The blood had traveled down my
arm and chest, and covered half my body. I expected him to wrap it with the torn sleeve, but Vincent only stared unblinkingly at the wound. "Vincent?" I asked him. He didn't reply and I nervously shifted beneath his unwavering gaze. His hand shot out and held me still. My eyes caught sight of his outfit and for the first time I noticed it was riddled with bullets. Those guys in suits hadn't missed, they'd shot him full. He shouldn't have been alive, much less holding me down. My heart raced as I remembered how he'd earlier threatened to kill me. Vincent's sharp teeth gleaned in the weak light of the night, but his pallor stood out in the dark shadows of the alley. He looked like a creature of the night, like a- "Vampire!" I gasped.
Vincent lunged forward and he buried his teeth into my shoulder. I yelped and tried to jerk away, but he held me tight. The initial pain of his penetration melted away and was replaced with a sensual pleasure that spread out from my shoulder. My eyes widened as my body became heated, and liquid pooled between my legs. I gasped for air and my face flushed with the creeping need that flooded over my body.
My hot need was slowly replaced with lethargy as I felt Vincent pull my blood from my body. My head lulled to one side and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I thought I would lose consciousness, but a bright light shot through my closed eyelids. The brilliance burned with the intensity of the sun, and reawakened my mind and body. I heard Vincent cry out and opened my eyes in time to see him stumble to the opposite side of the alley. He hissed and snarled at my hand, and I saw that the ring on my finger was the source of the light.
However, it wasn't the only source. His own finger was lit with the same light. He clutched onto his hand and ground his long, sharp fangs together to stifle his cries of pain. His light pulsed and stretched out into a long, thin beam of light that wound its way up toward the sky. It stretched over the distance of the alley and connected with my ring. My eyes shot open and I gasped when I felt an enormous amount of strength enter my body through the beam of light. The lethargy vanished, replaced by an energy that made me feel like I was on a thousand energy drinks, and they were all working.
Vincent screamed and fell to his knees. His face turned a ghastly white and the flesh seemed to shrink and shrivel fro his bones. For all his psychotic antics I felt sorry for him. The moment the emotion rose up inside me the light connecting us vanished. The world slipped back into the darkness of night. The energy in my body lessened, but the pain from my wound was gone. When I glanced at my shoulder I realized that the wound itself had disappeared. All that remained was the mess of blood.
I heard a groan and whipped my head over to Vincent's dark shape on the opposite side of the alley. He still sat on his legs and his body shook with a violent tremor. A hoarse chuckle slipped from of his pale lips. "Quick learner, girl, but you nearly killed us both."
His weakened state and my healthy state emboldened me, and I scowled at him. "Me kill us? You were the one sucking me dry," I shot back.
"Merely a survival instinct."
"That nearly killed us both?" I pointed out.
Vincent stumbled to his feet and I scuttled to mine. If he wanted to try his luck with me again then he was going to have to catch me first. "It was necessary to finish the connection between us."
I blinked. "Come again?"
He straightened and groaned when his back erupted like a string of firecrackers. "I mean what I mean. We are connected."
"I got that part." I paused, furrowed my brow, and shook my head. "Actually, I didn't get that part. What are you talking about?"
He held up his left hand and showed off the ring that was identical to mine. "These pieces of jewelery were forged with more than metal. They were infused with the blood of an ancient vampire and a spiritually strong human. When a vampire and a human wear them they become bonded to one another. If one feels pain, the other will feel an echo of that pain. If one dies, the other dies."
I held up my hands in front of me. "Wait a minute. If what you're saying is true, and it sounds Cracker Box crazy, then you really are a vampire?"
"Yes."
"And if you tried to kill me you'd get hurt?" I guessed.
"Yes."
"And you're an ass?"
"No."
I shrugged. "I thought I'd try."
"Very amusing." His face was as funny as the grave. "But we don't-"
"Wait a minute." I held up my own ring. "If Tim had this ring and he's dead, how come you aren't dead?" I wondered.
"He wasn't wearing the ring at the time of his death. Instead we find it on you," Vincent pointed out.
"Why would he take it off?"
"I have no idea, but we have more immediate problems."
I frowned. "Yeah, you're right. Those guys might find us again. I gotta get to the cops and-"
"-and tell them what?" Vincent asked me. "You escaped from men in black suits who had a werewolf in their employ and were saved by a vampire?"
I scowled at him. "I have to tell somebody about this. It's too big for me."
Vincent frowned and tilted his nose up in disdain. "There is one person in this world who would be interested in what you have to say."
"And who might that be, Count Chocula?"
"Frederick Batholomew."
"That's a mouthful."
"His mouth is certainly a problem."
"So why do we need to go to this person rather than somebody who might at least give me protection?" I asked him.
"I am your protection, Batholomew has other uses."
I looked over the psychotic vampire and cringed against the brick wall behind me. "Hell no are you my protection. You've tried to kill me twice in twenty minutes, and for me that's a record for assassination attempts on my life."
"I am satiated, and our bond is complete. You have nothing left to fear from me."
I wasn't comforted. "Uh-huh, so you're supposed to protect me like you protected Tim?" I countered.
Vincent winced. "A mere oversight on his part. If he had refrained from trouble during the day then I would have been of use to him."
"Great, so you're only useful for what? Twelve hours in a twenty-four hour day?" I remarked. "Or do vampires not have to sleep and you were just napping in that wooden box I found you in?"
"My body may need to rest during the day, but my powers are yours." He nodded at the ring. "That will offer you all the powers you need. Tim forsook the powers by giving you that ring."
"Wait, so during the day I'm kind of like a vampire?"
"Yes."
"But without that whole sun-burning thing?"
"Perhaps your incessant questions are better directed at Batholomew," Vincent suggested.
"I haven't agreed to go with you to him," I countered. Vincent stalked over to me and swung me into his arms like before. "Hey! Let me down! I can walk!"
"Not as fast as me."
I yelped when he took off down the road, carrying me at warp speed to another adventure.
Chapter 4
I grasped onto his arms as we sped through city blocks like they were standing still. Actually, they were standing still, but we were still going really fast. I did notice we weren't going as fast as we had on our escape from Warehouse Island. Still, by the time Vincent put on the brakes we were several miles from the river, and for me we were several blocks from any familiar area. All around us were old factory buildings, hulking skeletons of industrialization with broken windows for eyes and gaping doors for mouths. The only living things besides me and-well, just me, were a few stray cats. There weren't even any streetlights to help me see into the streets that wound their way around the large structures. The only open spot to see the stars lay behind us, and that was just a large loading and unloading area for all the goods they used to manufacture.
Vincent parted his arms and dropped me onto the road. I yelped when I hit my butt, and rubbed my sore posterity as I scowled up at him. "Do you mind being more careful next time?" I snapped at him.
"I would," he coolly replied.
"Thank
s, I appreciate it."
Vincent ignored my snark and walked over to one of the buildings that actually had a pair of steel doors that were closed. He pushed them open and revealed what I expected, a mad scientist's laboratory filled with crazy-looking machines and bright, flashing lights. Wait, what?"
I scrambled to my feet and gaped at the scene. "What the hell-?" I breathed out.
"Follow me," Vincent ordered. He stepped inside and the doors began to close.
I hurried in after him and just barely missed a free, and painful, hip tucking procedure. My mouth was still agape as Vincent led me into the bowels of the science crap that bubbled, boiled, fizzed, and popped around me. There were vials of questionable goop against the left wall and the right wall was covered with diagrams, papers, graphs, sketches, doodles, and equations. The center floor was filled to overflowing with machines I could only guess at what they did, and others I didn't want to get that far with their purpose.
Vincent was unfazed by the weirdness around us and took me to the rear of the factory floor. In the center against the back wall sat a desk, and at the desk sat a strange little man. He had long white hair that was tied in a tail and ran down his back and beneath his butt. The man wore a white lab coat that was stained with all the colors of the rainbow and others that didn't suggest anything that pretty. He had a long white mustache with pointed ends, and heavy eyebrows covered the upper halves of his eyes. I placed his age somewhere between geriatric and Jurassic. He was hunched over a paper furiously writing away by the light of a simple desk lamp.
Vincent walked up to the desk, but I lingered a few yards back beside a tall spire that was either a gumball machine or a torture device. The old man didn't lift his head when he spoke up. "What are you doing here, and with a girl, no less? Did you take a bite out of your partner and pick up a new bride?" the old man quipped.
"Tim is dead," Vincent calmly replied.
The man's head snapped up and those bushy eyebrows crashed down. "Dead? Then why aren't I dancing over your dust?"
"Because he passed the ring on before he died." Vincent half turned and gestured to me. "This girl now has the ring."