Vampires 101 (Twilight Hunters Book 1) A Vampire Romance (20 page)

I stood on the curb, staring at the far end of the lot where my car was parked. When I’d arrived a couple hours before, the parking lot had been crowded. With so many cars and people, it hadn’t seemed like I’d parked so far from the entrance. Now that most of the people were gone, that area of the parking lot was deserted. My car appeared to be much further away than it had during daylight.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped onto the blacktop and started for the car. I had to quit being such a wimp. If I didn’t toughen up soon, I’d be no use to Riley, or anyone else for that matter.

Now that I thought about it, I wondered if they would all leave me alone if they thought I was just too wimpy. Somehow I doubted it. They’d find a way to toughen me up, even if they killed me in the process.

After only a minute or two, I was already much closer to the car. Maybe twenty more steps and I’d be inside and relatively safe from vampires, zombies, or any other spooks that might be roaming around looking for a quick meal. With a little luck, I would soon be driving down the road and laughing at myself for being so jumpy. Unfortunately, I’ve never been a lucky person.

Just as I inserted the key into the door lock, I sensed someone behind me. Slipping my hand into my purse, I reached for my gun, but then I remembered I hadn’t brought it. Guns were against hospital policy.

Damn! Now what was I going to do?

The most logical thing to do was scream. It was possible that hospital security may hear me, or they might have cameras in the parking lot. I had no sooner taken in a deep breath so that I could scream bloody murder, when I felt a sharp prick at the back of my neck.

Just like the nightmares of my childhood, I felt my body go numb and I was completely paralyzed. Screaming was no longer an option. I could feel the darkness creeping up on me, but I fought it back. If I let myself succumb to unconsciousness, I would be totally at their mercy. At least if I were awake, whatever they’d used to drug me with might wear off, and then I’d have a chance to get away.

It was a good thought, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not keep the darkness away.

* * *

The first thing I became aware of was the cold. I’d never felt so cold in my life.

I must be dead.

The chill of the grave was the only thing that could be so cold. As the fog in my brain dissolved, I realized that I was lying in some kind of an oblong box or tube.

A coffin! I had to be in a coffin!

The thought brought on a moment of blind panic. All I could think of was that I must be dead and in my grave. Pushing the panic back, I forced myself to be calm. I grasped at threads of logical thought.

If I were really dead, it wouldn’t be so damn cold.

If I were really dead, there would be a bright light and a bunch of deceased relatives hanging around.

Of course with my eyes closed I couldn’t see anything, but if I were really dead, that wouldn’t matter.

Prying my eyelids opened, I tried to focus on something - anything. At first it was impossible to see much, other than blurred shadows. Finally I could make out some kind of glass just above my face. I was looking out a small window, not much larger than my head. The window appeared to be surrounded with dull - gray steel. It dawned on me that I was in an enclosed steel bed.

I tried moving my arms, but there were only a couple of inches of free space to my sides. Not enough room to move around at all. Whatever I was in, it did resemble a metal coffin from the inside.

In the time I had to evaluate my situation, it became apparent that escape wasn’t likely. I was again seized with panic. Before, when the shadows would come and I would suddenly lose consciousness, I would always wake in the morning and be in my own bed. I would remember nothing from the night before, except for the shadows and the prodding. This time I hadn’t been returned, so maybe this time they had no intention of ever letting me go.

A blur of movement beyond the glass window caught my attention. Forcing my eyes to focus, I tried to discern what I was seeing on the other side of the glass. I could see soft blue light glowing somewhere beyond the window, but there was also a face looking down at me. A face that was vaguely familiar.

At first I couldn’t grasp the memory of who it was, but slowly the cobwebs in my brain cleared enough that I realized it was Chaz.

“Chaz,” I gasped. “You have to help me. Get me out of here.”

“Right Dude! How do you think I’m gong to do that? I just barely learned how to levitate stuff,” he told me. “You should have seen old lady Taylor when I tossed her newspaper at her from across the room,” he laughed.

“Chaz please! You have to help me,” I cried. “Where am I?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice cracking from the panic that was building inside of me. “You had to have found me somehow?”

Chaz put a finger to his mouth to shush me. “They’ll hear you and figure out you’re awake.”

“Well how did you find me?” I asked again, but in a lower voice.

“I don’t find people the same way I did when I was alive. It’s a thought process. All I have to do is think about you, then I’m where you are.”

“Ok … so what do you see? What’s out there?” I realized that I was going to have to ask the right questions to get anywhere. Ghosts were not really that easy to work with.

“There’s lots of these tubes with people in them. There’s also a lot of random stuff, almost like computers.”

My first thought was the reptilians and their human farms.

“Is there anyone that’s not in the boxes?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Well what do they look like?” Taking stock of my situation through Chaz’s eyes was definitely going to be a process.

“They just look kind of like people, but tall. I think they are vampires. There’s also some strange dudes with big heads.”

That was all I needed to hear to know that they were Anunnaki. I wasn’t sure about the other beings he was seeing, but I had no doubt that the vampires were Anunnaki.

“Chaz. You have to figure out where I’m at and go get help.”

I could see him shaking his head. “You don’t understand. Only certain people can hear or see me.”

I had completely forgotten that I was one of the few people Chaz could communicate with. Even if he could figure out where I was, there probably was no way he could get someone to help me.

Then I remembered what he’d said only moments before. “But you said you could levitate stuff. Maybe you could use that somehow.”

“Yeah … cool idea,” he smiled. “I’ll go get your boyfriend.”

Before I had time to protest, he was gone. Given that the Anunnaki were the ones holding me prisoner, getting Damian wasn’t going to do any good at all.

The minutes stretched to hours. I made sure to keep my eyes closed, just incase someone looked in at me. If they saw I was awake, they might try and drug me again. I couldn’t have that happen. Getting out of my current situation was going to take all my wits. I would certainly need to be awake.

I had no way of measuring time. What seemed to me to be hours, in reality might have been only minutes. While I waited for Chaz to return, I found myself drifting off to sleep. It was difficult to stay awake, partly because I had to keep my eyes closed, but mostly because I was bored out of my head.

I was just ready to doze off for about the sixth time when I heard some commotion outside of the steel tube I was trapped in. There were raised voices that sounded as if they were arguing, but it was in a language that was a little like Arabic.

A moment later I saw a face staring down at me from the viewing window of my steel coffin. My heart jumped into my throat. It was Damian.

Had he really come to help me?

I heard a humming noise and then the top of the tube lifted and I was free. Damian held his hand out to help me up. I must have been much weaker than I originally thought, as he had to literally lift me out of the coffin-like tube. When he set me on my feet, I had to cling to him to keep from falling.

The air outside was even colder than the air in the tube. For the first time I realized that I was wearing no clothes at all. Damian pulled his black cape from around his shoulders and draped it over me. Once I was sufficiently covered, he lifted me into his arms and cradled me against his chest.

“Hide your face,” he whispered. “If you look at them, it will only give them more of an excuse to keep you.”

Though it didn’t make a lot of sense to me, I did what he asked, burying my face in his chest.

A few minutes later I felt a tingling sensation crawling over my skin. It lasted only for a brief time, and then was gone. The next thing I knew, he was laying me down on a large bed.

Blinking rapidly, I tried to open my eyes. The lighting was low, but it still took a moment for my eyes to adjust. I appeared to be in some kind of circular room. The walls were made of large gray stone. The furnishings of the room were so old that they almost looked medieval.

He was leaning over the bed, staring down at me. I wasn’t sure that I could face him yet, so I averted my eyes. “Where are we?”

“We’re in my home. It is where I stay when I am here.”

“What do you mean by that?”

I felt the bed give against his weight as he sat next to me. “I’m sure your friend has told you what I am, and that your world is not really my home.’

I nodded, but was still unwilling to look at him. “So where are we?”

Placing his fingers on my chin, he forced me to look at him. “We are in Transylvania. Isn’t that where all vampires come from?” he said, a faint smile on his lips.

“Ok … but why? Why was I in that tube thing?”

“My people believe that you’ve been corrupted and will no longer be useful to them. You were scheduled to be terminated.”

“Terminated!” I gasped. “If that’s what they were going to do … why didn’t they just kill me in the parking lot instead of abducting me?”

“Human blood is a precious commodity. They wouldn’t have wasted it by spilling it on blacktop.”

“Did you change their minds about killing me?” I asked.

“For now … but they’ll go over my head,” he warned.

My face twisted in disgust. “You hold people prisoner in your house and have them killed?”

“You were not here,’ he shook his head. “You were on one of our ships.”

“So we were zapped here?”

Damian smiled. “I guess you could call it that. It’s a device that scatters matter and reassembles it somewhere else.”

I was glad he explained that, since I’d been wondering how the zapping thing worked.

“And how did you find out I was there?” I asked.

He drew his brows together. “It was the strangest thing. An old - bony looking man in a black suit walked right through my wall and told me.”

So it wasn’t Chaz.

What Damian described reminded me of the reaper I’d seen. If it had been a reaper, I suspected Chaz still had something to do with it.

Cupping my face in his hands, Damian gazed into my eyes. “I didn’t know they were going to do this. You have to believe me Cassie. I wouldn’t have let this happen to you.”

I jerked my head out of his hands. “Why should I believe you? It was you that took my mother.”

“That’s not true!” he insisted. “Your friend is wrong. I don’t know what happened to your mother.”

I still didn’t’ know if I could trust him. “Who killed those campers?”

“I’m afraid that was us, but not me personally. It was a warning to others not to interfere.”

“But they were going to kill me anyway, so what did it matter?” I frowned.

“There are two fractions. One side feels that you can still be useful, but the other side wants you dead. They think that if you are not under our control … you could be too dangerous.”

“And which side are you on?”

“Neither,” he whispered, brushing my lips with a kiss. “I was foolish enough to let my emotions get in the way. Now I can’t stand the thought of risking your life for what they want you to do?”

“What’s that?” I asked, hoping for answers to what both Riley and I wanted to know.

But even as the thought entered my mind, Damian was already shaking his head. “The less you know the better.”

“But …”

His lips were on mine, cutting off my words. I felt his tongue caressing my mouth and all thought of argument melted away. Then his lips were on my throat, his tongue leaving a trail of fire as it slid across my skin.

“I want you again,” he whispered against my ear, sending shivers throughout my body.

“But what if we are caught?” I asked in breathless gasps, my desire almost too overwhelming to think coherently.

“No one would dare come in here,” he assured me.

I felt the material of his cape slide away to expose my bare breasts. Then he was squeezing and pulling at my taut nipples, delivering pain mixed with such intense pleasure that all I could manage was a whimper.

Though my body was consumed with delight, a spark of sanity burst within me. Even as I felt him spreading my legs and his fingers invading my molten core, bits and pieces of religious scripture kept running through my mind.