Revisited (Redemption Series) (23 page)

The room was eerily silent as Filipp woke. He grasped the coin in his palm several times before he opened it fully. The slight addle in his brain shrugged off the coin’s presence in his hand as he slipped it back into his pocket. The clock on the wall made him aware of the time and he grinned. It would only be a short while before all the plans he had been making for decades came to fruition.

    “Valentina?” Filipp saw her as she glided to the open doorway. 

She stood still and smiled, waiting for his greeting.

“I’m off to make the final preparations. Make sure Liam and Debir are there on time. This is not the day to be late.”

Valentina smiled and nodded demurely before retreating into her bedroom.

“Right.” Filipp turned on his heel and was out the door to face his own destiny.

Filipp entered the abandoned hospital he’d turned into a personal playground for himself and his underlings. It excited him that even though Debir and Valentina had helped create the environment, they were still in the dark about what was truly going on.

He entered what had once been the hospital cafeteria to find his future army engaged in various activities. Several surrounded a pair sparring, some were eating, others were reading or playing cards, but most looked bored out of their minds. That was unacceptable.

Filipp slammed his hand against a table, sending it flying across the room to where it crashed into the wall. “These are your last hours as humans, and this is how you prepare yourselves?” Filipp seethed as saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth.

One of his strongest men came forth to speak for the group. “We are waiting for your instructions, Master.” 

“Did Debir not give you my instructions?” 

“Debir has not been here since yesterday, Master.”

Filipp rubbed at his forehead, thinking he must have slept longer than he intended. He then remembered the young blood slave he took a sip from before he fornicated with her in ways that were never intended. He smiled and composed himself. “Then I will give them to you now.” Filipp looked down at his watch and calculated the time he would need. “In twenty minutes, I want you all in your rows, ready and waiting for your final injections. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Master,” the group collectively agreed.

Filipp left them to gather the supplies he needed for their last round of injections. His footsteps echoed as he walked through the dark, barren hallways. Several twists and turns had him at his destination in no time.

Filipp paused, staring at the Tersuline Lock on the door. The locks would deter any human, but they weren’t placed to keep only humans out. The Tersuline Lock had come in handy many times over the past several decades. As he disengaged the lock to the refrigerated room, he thought of the day in Rome when Becca Swift had touched it.

The first spell Valentina cast under Filipp’s watchful eye was a monitoring spell. On Gideon’s advice, the spell was cast to watch over both Becca and Nathaniel while they stayed in Rome. Peering into a rare mystical glass ball, Filipp was able to observe every move they made. 

He had found out Becca had been in Rome to study cuisine after she had received her degree in Criminal Justice. She wanted something to fall back on.

The implications of being in the city alone weighed on Becca, so on a whim she invited her friend and surrogate brother, Nathaniel, to join her. Little did she know, those days would be a turning point in both their lives.

Filipp and Gideon had caused havoc across the globe for centuries. When Gideon approached him about needing help to capture Becca, Filipp was more than happy to help. They separated Becca and Nathaniel rather easily. It was laughable at how gullible young Nathaniel had been. A pretty face had him drifting away from Becca in an instant.

What neither Gideon nor Filipp had anticipated was the fire that raged within Becca to survive.

The moment Becca came to in the dimly lit room they imprisoned her in, she lurched for the door. The doorknob would not budge no matter how hard she tried turning it. After a moment, the skin on her forearms began to itch horribly. Thousands of small, green boils appeared there almost instantly. She fell to the floor as boils formed over every inch of her skin. 

Becca ripped off her shirt, her breasts covered with the sickening green bumps. Her body began to ache as each boil rose to the surface. She stripped off her jeans, leaving her in only her bra and underwear. As she realized her entire body was covered in boils, she fumbled about the room for another way out. In a brief moment of calm, she pushed open the bathroom door.

The light was scarce in the bathroom as well; only a single dim light bulb hung from the ceiling. Once Becca was in front of the mirror, she didn’t recognize the reflection in front of her. She could see several of the little bumps quivering across her face. A number of them burst open at the same time, and splattered the mirror with opaque pus. She felt her face and gathered a bit of pus to inspect. It was in that moment the debilitating pain took a death grip on her entire being. She fell to the bathroom floor and writhed for hours as all the boils burst and the pus dried on her skin.

Gideon’s plan to rescue Becca, gain her eternal gratitude, and undying love was interrupted when Nathaniel had a vision of her in tremendous pain. The vision was enough to shake Nathaniel from the enchantment the young woman had put on him to divert his attention.

Nathaniel made it to the room where Becca was being held, and broke the door down after several swift kicks. The bathroom door stood wide open with Becca quivering on the floor. He instantly ripped the shower curtain down and wrapped her in it.

They quickly made their way out of the building and into Nathaniel’s car. Having no idea where his cell phone was, he sped off toward the nearest pay phone. Becca lost consciousness just before he pulled to the curb. Nathaniel frantically checked her for a pulse and was rewarded with the strong beat playing beneath his fingertips. A number was dialed and Manchester was alerted.  Only moments later Peter arrived and whisked them to safety.

Upset their plans had been thwarted, Filipp had flung the glass ball in anger, shattering it and permanently destroying the magic within it. Although things didn’t work out for Gideon in the end, Filipp was overjoyed the lock had worked as it was intended. He sighed, putting the past to rest and thinking instead about what devious antics they would partake in for decades to come, should their present plan succeed. Many ideas sprang to mind, but Filipp pushed them aside as he retrieved what he needed for his army’s final set of injections.

Several rows of tubes filled with clear liquid glistened sat on shelves as the cool air wafted around them. Filipp gathered thirty vials, one for each of his creations. As he walked back to where they waited, Filipp checked that each of the rooms were ready for the evening’s transformations.

Liam had regaled him with the details of the ceremony Lily preformed when she turned him. He wanted that much and more for each of the new vampires. Though they were not true Ahbmonites, they were being made by them, in part by Filipp and, in finality, by Liam.

Satisfied with each room, Filipp found his sanctuary and began to prepare each injection. He filled the syringes with the liquid from the tubes. He had spent years perfecting the collection of his own venom. Since he couldn’t drain humans because of the chip, he had tried various times to create a vampire by injecting large amounts of his venom into a donor, but had failed at every turn. The only effects were a temporary increase in strength and speed. A year before, when he and Gideon had come up with their latest plan, he had gathered a few sad souls and began testing on them.

At first, he gave them small injections and measured their increased abilities. Every single one gained strength, speed, and intelligence, just like many of the Ahbmonites before they were turned. Filipp decided it was best to have his humans at their strongest and have them prepared in the way a true Ahbmonite would have been.

“We are ready and awaiting your command, Master.” His strong servant bowed before him with the rest waiting behind him.

When they each got their final injection, they were sent to the room where their human lives would end and their everlasting lives would begin.

An hour later, Liam, Debir, and Valentina had still not appeared. In a slight state of panic, Filipp made phone calls to each of them. No one answered. He raced to his laptop to pull up the GPS on each of their phones. Each showed they were all still in the hotel room. He dialed the hotel, asking if they had been seen. No one reported seeing them the entire day.

Filipp got hold of hotel security and convinced them to look through their film footage for the trio. A grainy video was forwarded to his laptop showing the three of them leaving the hotel the night before. That was the last time they were videotaped.

Filipp struck the wall with such force that half of it crumbled to the ground. He knew the video couldn’t be accurate; he had seen Valentina that very morning, talked with her. He froze. No, he had not talked
with
her; he had talked
to
her. She had never given him a response. He dug into his pocket and found the coin he had put there after waking that morning. A five bani coin dated 1885 rested in his palm. A coin such as that had no business being in his hand, let alone that of his companions . . . except one.

“Valentina!” Filipp screamed before he threw the coin with such force it went straight through the wall and imbedded in the floor of the next room.

“Master?”

“What?” he screamed at his most loyal male servant.

“You may be interested in this. After you asked about Debir, I went looking through our security footage. I found this.” The man pulled up the video on Filipp’s laptop.

Pure unadulterated rage pulsed through Filipp as he stared at the images of Debir with one of their greatest enemies, Abe North. He calmed enough to read their lips and figured they were going to Italy. He switched the view to the camera outside the front of the building and caught one word that formed on Abe’s lips.

“Balestrino.” The years he spent studying every aspect of The Manchester Group were not spent in vain after all. Filipp knew where they would be. The small abandoned castle would be perfect for the new plan that quickly formed in his mind.

“Balestrino, Master?”

“Yes. It looks as if plans have changed.” Filipp straightened his clothing before brushing the hair from his face. “I’ll take care of things. We travel to Italy tonight.”