Crimson Storm Read online

  “Don’t stop. Run. Keep running.”

  We reached the SUV in seconds and dove into its open back door. One vampire in prison garb was already inside. Margaret. She was seated in the darkened third row, huddled into a corner.

  Thank God she’s safe.

  There were two human men in the front seat and another man in the back row with Margaret. I couldn’t see him well, but his heat signature told me he was human.

  The driver twisted back to look at me. He was a middle-aged man with sparse gray hair and piercing dark eyes. He was very underweight for his height with a gaunt face.

  “Where’s Shane?” he demanded.

  I spun back to look for the younger guy who’d spoken to us. “He was right behind us.”

  And then there he was, charging toward the SUV and leaping onto the bench seat beside me. He slammed the door behind him and made a chopping motion with his hand and forearm, breathing hard.

  “Go. Go. Drive. We’re outta time.”

  The older man threw the SUV into gear and punched the gas pedal, causing the vehicle to leap forward. Metallic pings and thumps sounded throughout the cabin, no doubt from the guards firing at us.

  As we sped down the narrow access road away from the Safety Center, I shifted in my seat to peer through the vehicle’s rear window, searching for headlights or any other signs of pursuit. There were none.

  “Why aren’t they coming after us?” I asked no one in particular.

  The man in the back seat grinned and held up a box cutter. “Maybe they would if all the tires on their trucks weren’t flat.”

  “Who are you people?” I asked.

  The front seat passenger turned around to face me, giving me a little shock.

  I know him.

  5

  A Favor

  He was a guard at the Safety Center. Glenn, I thought his name was. I’d seen him only a few times—I assumed he usually worked the day shift while we were all sleeping.

  Shane was the one who answered. “We’re friends. Don’t worry. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “Did Sadie send you?”

  “Who’s Sadie?” he asked.

  “Sadie Aldritch, the leader of the Vampire-Human Coalition.”

  “Oh no.” The driver groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those.”

  “One of what?” Heather asked.

  “Those hippie peacenik vamps. Fantastic. Dammit Glenn—how could you let this happen?” He swore again and shot a glare at the man beside him.

  “Sorry. It got real crazy real fast,” the front seat passenger explained. “I thought I’d never figure out how to turn off the current to that western fence. By the time I got it shut off and made it out to the yard, most of them were gone already. I’m impressed we pulled it off at all with only a few hours’ planning. At least we got some.”

  I shook my head, thoroughly confused. Why would one of the guards help us escape?

  And the driver should have been thankful we were pacifists who believed in Sadie’s peaceful philosophy and leadership.

  If we weren’t, he and his companions might not be in possession of their full blood supply at the moment.

  The prison rations had been barely adequate, keeping us alive but only at a subsistence level. I was weak, edgy, and ravenous, and I knew my fellow vampires were too.

  “Wait—what is going on here?” Kelly asked. “Did you mean to rescue someone else?”

  My mind flashed back to the large, warrior-looking types who’d stolen Margaret’s rations and killed Gatlin. Maybe they had been a couple of Imogen’s soldiers, and she’d orchestrated the jailbreak to get them out.

  The ruler of the Crimson Court valued her Bloodbound soldiers above all else—even me. Especially me.

  Maybe Glenn was a mole for her or something? It didn’t seem like her style to rely on a human, but I would put nothing past her if it served her purposes.

  “Just be grateful we got you out of there, okay?” the driver said in a highly irritated tone. “You’d probably be a little puff of smoke by now if we hadn’t.”

  “What does that mean?” I looked at Shane because he seemed to be the friendliest of our liberators.

  “I guess they don’t let you guys watch the news in those places, huh? It’s Inauguration Day. One of the first things President Parker did when he left the podium after taking the oath of office was sign an executive order regarding the Safety Centers and the vamps in prison,” he said.

  An invisible hand grabbed my throat, making it difficult to speak. “What order?”

  “To uh... liquidate their population. Tomorrow morning.” Shane’s face crinkled in an almost embarrassed expression.

  “Liquidate? What does that mean?” Heather asked.

  I knew what the word meant, and it wasn’t good. “They’re going to kill all the people in all the Safety Centers?”

  “Not the people,” Glenn the guard piped up from the front passenger seat, shooting a cocky grin over his left shoulder. “Just the vamps.”

  “Hey, they’re people too,” Shane said, but Glenn just chuckled and turned to face the front windshield again.

  “No offense,” the guard said in a tone that was far from apologetic. “A little gratitude might be nice, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” I bit out.

  The driver smiled at me in the rearview mirror. “That’s better. Now how bout all of you shut up and let me focus on driving? The sun’s gonna be coming up in a couple hours, and if we don’t make it home before that, all our heroics are gonna be for nothin’. This SUV isn’t treated for daytime vamp driving.”

  Interesting. It must really have been a quickly planned operation for them to have arrived so close to dawn.

  Or... maybe they’d planned it that way so we’d have very little time left to find shelter if we decided not to go along with them.

  I turned to Shane, speaking quietly. “Where are you taking us?”

  “To my uncle’s house.” He pointed to the driver. “That’s my Uncle Terry.”

  Gesturing to the guard in the passenger seat, he said, “That’s my Uncle Glenn. They’re brothers. You and your friends can spend the day at the house and leave when the sun goes down tomorrow night. Don’t worry. Like I said, no one’s going to hurt you. Terry just wants a favor.”

  Ah. Now it was starting to make sense. The men didn’t strike me as pro-vampire activists or do-gooders of any kind.

  “What kind of favor?” I asked, but Glenn shot me a warning look.

  “Quiet now. We’ll tell you when we get there.”

  Okay then.

  I wasn’t sure what favor our “liberators” were after, but I was grateful. If there was something legal I could do to help the man, I would.

  Now if he wanted me and my friends to use our speed and strength to rob a convenience store or something, he was out of luck. With President Parker officially in office, it was possible vampires caught committing crimes could be shot on sight with no repercussions.

  Maybe Imogen was right.

  She had warned that we couldn’t trust the humans to honor the Accord, that eventually they’d turn on us. That was why she offered sanctuary to any vampires who wanted it and had formed her own personal army, the Bloodbound.

  No. I refused to believe it. I had to trust that Sadie would be able to reason with the new president and make him see the Crimson Accord was still a benefit to society. It terrified me to think of what would happen if it were to be dissolved.

  Peace between vampires and humans was the only answer. I’d believed in that enough to leave home over it, enough to dedicate my life to working for Sadie and her cause.

  Enough to leave Reece behind.

  6

  You Owe Me

  The last few miles of the drive were a harrowing race with extinction.

  Shane’s Uncle Terry cursed under his breath and sweated profusely, flooring the accelerator and taking curves at terrifying speed. I prayed we wouldn’t tip over an
d be forced out into the quickly approaching daylight—and that the police didn’t notice his erratic driving and pull us over.

  As the sky lightened, I could see the man’s face in the mirror more clearly. The gray tint of his skin.

  He was ill. A sense of unease tightened my muscles as a suspicion developed about the “favor” he planned to ask.

  Not that. Please not that.

  We pulled into the garage of a nice suburban home in Davis just before the sun crested the horizon. When the garage door lowered, we all climbed out of the SUV, and Terry invited us into the house.

  Once inside, we stood in the kitchen together, looking around in awkward silence. It was one of those open concept homes where you could see the living area from the kitchen. There was light wood furniture and a large TV set over the fireplace.

  Though there were some feminine touches like throw pillows on the sofa and a pair of matching lamps on the side tables flanking it, everything looked slightly dated, as if perhaps the woman of the house hadn’t lived there in some time.

  I’d noted some major differences between human homes and vampire homes. For instance, windows that weren’t covered by drapes or blinds.

  Also, kitchens in vampire homes were typically spotless, unused as they were for food preparation.

  This kitchen smelled like fish. I could tell from my friends’ reactions they noticed it too and weren’t any more thrilled at the offensive odor than I was.

  They were also exhausted, as was I. It had been a long night, and even on a regular day, most vampires are overcome by fatigue at sunup.

  “So what can we do for you gentlemen?” Margaret asked.

  At the moment, she seemed the strongest of us all, less affected by the dawning day than the rest because of the double-portion blood ration she’d ingested earlier.

  “Let’s have a seat in the living room, and we’ll discuss it.” Terry motioned toward the couch and the two chairs facing it.

  Taking care to steer clear of the windows, we all headed for the furniture grouping in the center of the room.

  Once we were seated, Terry cleared his throat. “So... I know you’re wondering why we did what we did, breaking you out of that place. My brother, and my nephew, and my friend Jeff here—they were helping me. I’m dying. I’ve got aggressive pancreatic cancer, and my doctors tell me I’ve only got a few months left. Maybe weeks.”

  Oh no. It was what I’d suspected. He was going to ask us to turn him.

  Dread slid down my backbone like an icy breeze. Long before I’d gone to work for Sadie, I’d made a personal pledge not to bite any humans—under any circumstances. It was one of the chief reasons I’d had to leave the vampire sanctuary in Virginia.

  It had been easy for me to sign the no-bite agreement required of every vampire who worked at the VHC. Kelly and Heather had signed it too.

  Even if they hadn’t, they literally weren’t capable of turning a human. I might have been—my capabilities hadn’t been tested.

  In any case, turning someone was a lot more complicated than most humans realized. Of course we couldn’t explain to these humans how it was actually done—sharing that information was against vampire law.

  “I’m not ready to die,” he went on. “I want to become like you, a vampire.”

  “No,” I said at the same time Kelly said, “We can’t.”

  “Absolutely not,” Margaret added.

  Terry’s face went from humble to furious in a matter of seconds. “You have to. You owe me.”

  Glenn stood and towered over us in our seated positions on the sofa. “How can you refuse to help my brother after we saved you?”

  “It’s illegal,” I said.

  “The Crimson Accord says it’s okay to bite people who give you permission,” he argued. “They haven’t changed that yet.”

  “But not to turn them. The law is clear about that,” I said.

  “Yeah, technically,” Jeff said. “But it’s not like we’re gonna report you. And people do it all the time. A buddy of mine at work fell in love with this vampire lady, and she turned him so they could stay together. What’s the big deal? It’s in your nature to bite people, right? You’d probably enjoy the hell out of it.”

  “Not all vampires like biting people, you know,” Heather informed him. “We have to use blood for nourishment because we can’t eat food. We all have—”

  “Liver failure. I know,” Terry said. “I’ve read the scientific reports. Your bodies can’t process food. I have sympathy for you—believe me. I know what it feels like for your body to fail you and drive you to take desperate actions. We wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t understand that. So why can’t you just help me out?”

  For some reason the others looked to me to answer. But what could I say to make these men understand? And to make them let us go?

  “I know it must seem like we’re being obstinate, but that’s not the case. I do appreciate you getting us out of there, and I wish I could help you. I’m sorry you’re sick. I truly am. But we can’t turn you. We’re pacifists.”

  “So... what... it’s like against your religion or something?” he snarled.

  “Something like that.”

  Now Terry turned his frustration on his brother. “Leave it to you to kidnap the only vampires on the planet with morals.”

  “There are a lot of us actually. Besides, you don’t want this life,” Margaret said quietly.

  “It’s better than death,” Terry argued.

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” she said. “Especially now. If I’d been given the choice between dying of natural causes and being a vampire, I’d have chosen mortal death.”

  “That can be arranged,” Glenn muttered.

  At the veiled threat, Shane, who’d remained quiet until now, spoke up. He stepped away from the wall he’d been leaning against.

  “Hey guys, listen, they said they don’t want to. It’s okay. We’ll just find one who does. We’ll go out again tomorrow night. We can go into the city. We can pay a prostitute to do it or something.”

  “No,” Terry said quietly. “These vampers owe me. We put ourselves at risk of getting shot or arrested to get them out of that prison camp. We saved their lives. Now one of them is going to save mine—or they’re not leaving here.”

  Casting a nervous glance at my friends then at the sunny window, I stood.

  “We’ll leave as soon as the sun goes down. We’ll sleep in the garage until then. Again, I’m sorry for all the trouble you went to and that we couldn’t help you.”

  Terry stood as well, motioning to Jeff who moved to block the exit door.

  “I don’t think so. We’ve got a room for you—right downstairs.”

  Shane took another step forward, looking bewildered. “What are you talking about? Did you finish out the basement?”

  He sounded alarmed, which did nothing to quell the panic rising up my throat.

  His uncle gave him a sardonic look. “So to speak. Glenn and I have been doing a little ‘remodeling’ down there. I think our guests will find it comfortable enough.”

  I did not like the sound of this.

  “Really, thank you but there’s no need to trouble yourself. We don’t need bathrooms or anything. The garage will be fine. At nightfall, we’ll just open the door and let ourselves out.”

  I added an additional apology to try to soothe any lingering sore feelings. “Again, I apologize for all the trouble you went to, and I’m sorry we couldn’t help you.”

  “You mean wouldn’t.” The sickly man sneered. “Put ’em in the basement,” he ordered, and the other two older men sprang into action.

  Jeff, the largest of the men, wrapped his arms around Heather while Glenn pulled a pistol from his jacket. It was like the one all the guards at the Safety Center carried.

  “This is loaded with platinum rounds,” he warned. “Just cooperate, and I won’t have to use it on any of you.”

  He grabbed Kelly’s upper arm and began st
eering her toward an open doorway. The top of a stairwell was visible just beyond it.

  “No. You can’t force us to stay down there,” I said and started toward them to try to help my friends.

  The time of day and my extreme lack of nutrition had weakened me severely. I had only a fraction of my normal speed and strength.

  Terry caught me from behind and jabbed a needle into my neck.

  Margaret ran to the home’s front door and unlocked it. Before throwing it open, she turned back to look at me. There were tears in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be a prisoner again.”

  Then she opened the door and stepped out into the morning light.

  “Dammit!” Glenn shouted. “Now we’re down to three. Shane, why didn’t you stop her?”

  The younger guy looked like he was in shock. He stared out the open front door at the pile of ash in the front yard.

  “Well, at least shut the damn door. The last thing we need is the busy-body neighbors reporting us,” his uncle said.

  All the remaining energy deserted my limbs, and my knees buckled. Just before losing consciousness, I heard Shane’s voice, loud and anxious.

  “Uncle Terry, Glenn—what are you doing? You said they wouldn’t be hurt.”

  And then there was silence and cool blackness.

  7

  Hunger Strike

  I woke in a stupor of confusion and pain.

  My head was swimming, and my back was sore. When I sat up, I looked around and understood the reason for the back part—we were all lying on a bare concrete floor. The head part I assumed was an effect of the liquid platinum injection.

  The substance was sometimes used at the Safety Center to bring unruly inmates under control. Glenn must have pocketed some while at work.

  The development of pharmaceutical platinum by a U.S. lab had been the final straw for Imogen.