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Jerome scowled, hating the itching from the slowly healing wounds that Troy’s claws and fangs inflicted upon his body. He marveled that the fool had actually tried to kill him by ripping his body apart. He had to admit, he never saw that coming, didn’t think Troy had the balls.
And Wilder just standing there, watching it all! It was Darnell that protected him and saved his life even at the high risk of being destroyed by that strange little woman. She threw ultra violet like Celeste. Was she another kitchen witch, another witch to deal with and force away from Wilder?
But Velvet! Damn, she was one lucky bitch! How hard was it to kill one woman?
“Aaaaah!”
Jerome had nearly forgotten about his unconscious companion, as he was so into his own murderous contemplations. He was up again pacing the study, holding his elbow trying to keep his arm in the air. He needed a strong source of blood to heal from the ultra violet. Human blood merely took the edge off the pain for a few minutes. A werewolf’s blood was the ticket. The problem was there were no werewolves they were on good terms with these days.
“Oh God,” Darnell groaned and doubled over. “Can’t stand this!”
“You can make it until sunrise and then your coffin. Just barely two more hours.” Jerome assured him. “You’ve endured worse.”
“No, man, I haven’t!”
Taken aback Jerome noticed tears gathering in Darnell’s eyes. “Damn.”
“My-my arm feels like it’s going to burn off! I can’t take it, Jerome. Help me!” Darnell implored him pitifully and collapsed to his knees.
“I’ll get more blood!” Jerome hurried to the door.
“Human blood is useless! Jerome, you know what I need.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t. You have to put up with it a little longer.”
“Please, Jerome, just a little. I can’t stand this!”
“No.” It was out of the question. It wasn’t like he was going to die.
“I saved you,” Darnell grimaced. Grabbing the edge of the chair, he pulled himself up and fell into the chair. He struggled for control of the overwhelming pain. “Help me or kill me,” he begged then fainted.
“You’ll recover.” Or remain unconscious long enough to get over the worst of it. “Crap.” He was coming around already. Damn that witch. Darnell’s arm was dying, and vampire limbs didn’t grow back, unless the whole body was reduced to ashes and then brought back by a rare and risky ceremony that had to be performed by an ancient master vampire. Jerome doubted he was old enough and he knew for a fact, he wasn’t going to risk his personal power to bring back any vampire.
“I saved you, you bastard,” Darnell mumbled. “I saved you.” He fainted again.
Jerome considered his own injuries were still serious because they were inflicted by a werewolf, but he was healing, no longer losing blood. Darnell was a companion, if not a friend, and he was loyal. But his own blood was precious. A master’s blood was potent, he could heal Darnell. Should he put himself at risk? Two hours to sunrise, he could not put it past Velvet to not storm the mansion. No, he simply could not do it.
He burst from the study doors, yelling for any available vampire. One of his brood preferably, however anyone would do at the moment.
~*~
Darnell awakened with a loud gasp for air. His eyes opened wide staring at the ceiling. He felt strange, his chest heaved and he felt the veins in his head pulsing. He was sick enough to vomit. Fighting the urge, he rolled to his side. Mary’s unblinking eyes stared right back at him. Her skin was eggshell white, her neck bloody and torn.
“What happened?” he asked. “Mary!” He jerked up to sitting and tried to rouse Mary, knowing full well he’d drained her. He was using his arm. It ached some but it was good to go. Next to Mary lay a human maid. “No!” He liked her and talked to her all the time. She had two babies. “Cheryl!”
“Feeling better?” Jerome asked from behind the desk, he sat enjoying a large snifter of blood. “Come join me.”
“Is that Cheryl you’re drinking?” That was the kind of guy Jerome was, wouldn’t waste blood on sentiment. “What happened?”
“You asked me to help you and I did. Get off the floor, come have a drink.”
“Are you going to bring Mary back?”
“Doubt it.”
Darnell rose from the floor. His head swam briefly, and then he was straight.
“Now, the maid, however.”
“No! Don’t do it!”
“Darnell.” Jerome came around the desk and shoved a snifter in his hands. “Drink this, now.”
“My arm is fine, I’m fine.”
“A thank you would be nice.”
“Thank you.” He went to pick up Cheryl’s body. She’d just decided to go back to college.
“Where are you going with that?” Jerome demanded.
“To the crematorium.”
“It’s late and I need you here.”
“Jerome, you’re the boss, but you aren’t my master. I’m going to take care of this girl whether you like it or not, understand?”
“You can see to the maid, but don’t you touch Mary.”
“Fine.” He never liked Mary much anyway.
He left the house running to the gates, and jumped to take flight. No, he never liked Mary, but she was one of them and loyal. Tonight how many had perished, he wondered. Jerome never once mentioned revenge in their names. He looked down at Cheryl’s dead brown face and felt something, an emotion he thought long lost. Sadness. He was sad Cheryl was dead in his arms.
~*~
That was gratitude for you, Jerome scoffed, slamming the great doors shut. He scratched his itchy, tender chest, going back to his study. The maid’s blood was delicious though not potent. If Troy were available his wounds would already be a thing of the past. Instead, Troy had tried to slaughter him like he was another beast! Furiously, he gulped the last glass of blood. His eyes blazed as he relieved the attack.
Loud knocking interrupted his mounting anger. Whoever that was, he decided, he was going to twist their neck until it snapped. Flinging the double door wide, he snarled ready to take the unwelcome guest by the throat. Omar’s glock pointing at his face stopped him cold.
“Human, if you don’t want to live, keep that thing in my face!”
“Oh, I expect to live a long life!” Omar put six bullets in Jerome’s face. He fell hard, back into the great doors. “But I want your ass dead now!” He fired six more bullets in Jerome’s chest and belly. “Come on, you piece of shit!” Omar dragged him by a foot out past the manicured lawns and out into the driving lane down to the front gate. “Bastard!” He kicked him continuously with his size thirteens. When he became winded from the exertion, he paused a moment to catch his breath. “You had to go do the one thing I can’t take. You had to hurt her, didn’t you?” Omar backed off and pulled a flask from his hip pocket. He unscrewed the cap and took a sip. After wiping his mouth he said, “You just won’t let it go, will you?”
“This is about that bitch?” Jerome asked and laughed. He saw the surprise in Omar’s eyes that he was orientated enough to respond to his ranting. “She means that much to you?”
“Yeah, she does. And unlike all these other fellas that claim they got it for her, I’m going to show her and most of all, you.”
“Show me what?”
“That you should have actually gone there to kill her tonight, instead of taking off her friend’s head to torment her. Jerome, that was some ill shit right there.”
“What are you going to do detective?” He watched Omar take another sip from the flask. He needed to drink a little courage first, and by then Jerome was sure he’d be able to muster enough strength to overtake him. “What do you have the balls to do, human without back up? Are you sure you have enough bullets?”
“I did my homework, Firestrom.” He took another long sip.
“Please, take your time,” Jerome snickered. “Take all the liquid courage you need.” Omar stuck his pistol in the back of his pants. He raised the flask high and brought it down, dousing him straight down the middle from his head to his crotch.
“What the hell?” Then the pain started. “No, no!” It wasn’t alcohol in the flask, but blessed water! Jerome began to scream at the searing pain of his burning and melting flesh. He crawled from the paved lane to the thick grass and started digging with his claws for dirt to put in his wounds. The pain in his groin was too much for his already weakened condition, he passed out before Omar dragged him back to the lane.
He heard the sound of a car door slamming then the engine turning. Omar was leaving him for dead. The fool. Clearly, he did not know what it took to take out a master vampire. He waited to hear the gate open, then close before he opened his eyes and looked up at the sky. “Oh shit!” Jerome shouted and rolled his body back to the grass where he had started to dig a hole. Where had the time gone? How long had he been out of it? With the rising sun approaching, he had maybe six minutes to dig out enough dirt to cover his body. “Darnell!” Damn, where the hell was he? He looked at the house just out of his reach, no way was he able to out run the sun in the shape Omar left him. Bastard didn’t have the guts to outright murder him. He was letting the sun do it! “Darnell!” He wasn’t coming and where were the others? Franticly, he dug his claws deeper and faster into the hard ground. His body began to heat from the approaching rays. Soon he’d burst into flames. The dirt wasn’t going to save him. On unsteady feet and legs, he ran up the lane hoping to find some shadows on the way. “Aaaaarg!” He screamed as fire was igniting on his back. “No! Not like this!” His back was ablaze with fire and his knees just gave out and buckled. Fire was all around him as he crawled just touching the front lawn. The mansion was still a million miles away.
~*~
He was pitched inside the house, his burning body slid from the entry way into the main foyer. He heard heavy footsteps, then the tearing and pulling of a curtain from a window. He rolled to his side, trying to get a look at his savior before the curtain covered his head to extinguish the flames.
It was agony trying to move his arms to throw off the curtain. Did this fool not see the flames were out? Finally, he got his head free of the heavy fabric. “Darnell?” He was alone and practically skinless, as near to helpless as he’d ever been. Pounding footsteps were coming back from behind him. Thank the spirits. He sighed and continued lying on his side. Darnell would get him upstairs and feed him. A couple of nights in his coffin and he’d be up and about, not fully mended, but at least able to see to his own needs.
The footsteps halted behind him. “What are you waiting for? Find a maid to feed me.” He waited for Darnell to take care of him. “Darnell, I said- Aaaaah!” Something cold and hard went around his body, he felt as if he were being squeezed in half. “Bloody hell!” It was a heavy chain binding his sun scorched body along with the curtain. “Darnell!” A foot forced him down on his belly. “No!” Where was Darnell? Where was the brood? How was he being restrained in his own home? Roughly, he was pulled to sit while the curtain was pulled over his head. “Who are you? Show yourself, you bastard! Let me see your face!”
The bastard lifted Jerome with the chains, tossing him about like a big bag of potatoes and settled him over a shoulder.
Seemed like they went up every stair step in the mansion, so Jerome assumed they were on the third floor. From the temperature in the room, he knew they were in his suite. The bastard was carrying him inside the closet to the back where the hidden door to his secretly secured casket was concealed. “Aaaaah!” He was stuffed inside and the curtain was snatched down off his head. “Henderson! You bastard!”
But it wasn’t Henderson. It was the face of a demon. The demon’s face was glowering above his own. It was the horrible face of his master. In his raised hand was a short handled battle axe.
“No,” he said as dread came to visit, then settled in his chest. “No, Wilder. You can’t do this to me.”
“You gave me no choice,” Wilder told him and swung the blade.
Will be continued
