Chapter 8

Every step of Electra's $200 shoes echoed throughout her cavernous penthouse. Behind her, the hired cleaners were picking up the body of the less-than-productive human employee she had just finished snacking on. This building was her castle. Everything within 300 square feet around her and 70 stories beneath her feet was hers.

After ascending the stairs, she paused when she heard the grunting coming from Jackie's room. Smiling, she concealed the sound of her steps and glided over to the door, carefully peering inside and licking her lips. She'd seen this before, but she never stopped enjoying it: Jackie and Big Chill both naked on her bed with Jackie riding on Chill's lap. Of course Jackie wasn't particularly fond of Chill, but she was quite fond of his dick, which she couldn't even accommodate the whole length of, forced to hold herself suspended at least an inch or two above his lap. Nonetheless, this was still Jackie's favorite position—cowgirl, what else?—and if Chill ever tried to roll over on top, she would grab the gun laying next to her and put a few bullets in his massive chest. It wouldn't take him long to recover from wounds like that, but they definitely smart and remind him who was boss.

Jackie had been a saloon girl in a small town in Nevada in the 1870's, serving drinks and having her ass grabbed by drunken patrons. Her life changed the night a mysterious stranger walked into her saloon and invited her to join him in his room, and there gave her his immortal kiss. From there she was taught to "ride and shoot like a man," until the day he was arrested and sentenced to be hanged. Of course, he never made it to the gallows, burning up in the sun when they tried to drag him to it. The authorities responsible for his death were soon brought down by bullets from the girl who came to be known as "Deathbride Jackie."

Big Chill had become a vampire while serving in the Vietnam War. His platoon had happened upon a village that just happened to be inhabited by vampires, and made the mistake of making camp there. Most of the men in the unit tried putting the moves on the ladies there; most ended up dead. Chill alone walked away with just a bite, but not without filling the heart of the self-defending vampire girl with lead. He managed to stay on his feet long enough to napalm the village before passing out and turning.

When she decided she'd seen enough, Electra turned away and saw Shao Li approaching. "They are doing it again?" the Chinese pureborn asked.

"That girl must always have her horse to ride," Electra grinned. "Is our guest ready?"

"She is still sleeping. Very comfortable."

"Where is Anthony? She'll want to see him, too."

"Anthony is with his harem. I think his new pet just woke up."

"Very well. I'll see if he can tear himself away from her long enough to greet his sister." Electra started continuing past Shao Li, then stopped and turned around, saying, "You and those two will remember to be ready tonight, won't you?"

"Of course," Shao Li nodded.

"Remember, as before, you are only to kill any of them who try to fight back. But no more than one of them."

"We will remember," Shao Li replied. "Do you have any preference as to the one you want brought back here?"

Electra had to stop and think about that for a moment. "Just bring the youngest among them."

Shao Li nodded with a smile, and Electra continued on to Anthony's section of the penthouse.

She approached the door to the room shared by Anthony's love slaves, which was open as always, where she saw him watching his newly turned girl, Nina, finishing off her meal of the idiot blonde he had recently picked up at the club. Nina was kneeling on one knee with the dead girl in her arms Caitlyn's blood messily decorating her face, lapping up the traces that still seeped from the wound. Both nascent vampire and lifeless victim were still quite naked. Anthony was standing over her watching closely, saying, "Alright, that's enough now. I don't blame you for being excited your first time, but try to remember: finesse. I don't want you losing that."

"Anthony," Electra said, drawing his attention up from his slave, who gently laid her victim down on the floor. "If you are through instructing your little plaything there, I think it's time we greeted your sister, don't you?"

"Of course," he nodded. He bent down to look Nina in the face and said, "I'll be back later. And then ... we'll see." He kissed her gently on the lips, getting some of the blood on her face on his own, causing her to giggle before he took a tissue and wiped it off.

Electra started turning, until Anthony said, "Wait ... maybe I should make a more impressive entrance." With that he closed his eyes and faded into mist that began creeping out the door.

Electra sighed. "You are such a showoff, Anthony."

Slowly Elizabeth opened her eyes, and sat up on the ornately lavish bed she lay on. The bedroom she was in rivaled the beautiful quality of even the bedrooms in Annabelle's mansion, though the patterns of the décor seemed somehow less soft and feminine than Annabelle's. Then she noticed the dress she was wearing. She had to get up and inspect herself in the mirror that stood nearby. The dress was certainly beautiful, and whoever put it on her had enough of an eye for fashion to know that black and red were her best colors, but it wasn't something she'd usually wear if she had a choice.

So who put it on her? And where the hell was she, anyway?

She thought back to the last thing she remembered ... she was in Tyler's car, enjoying a perfect moment that was shattered when she suddenly lost control of herself and bit him... oh my god, Tyler! What happened to him?

She left him alive after biting him, she knew that, and judging by the reddish light that was peaking through the blinds over the window, it was late afternoon now, so he was probably still turning. What was going to happen to him now?

While one part of her mind continued swimming with those thoughts, she continued recalling the events of last night ... she remembered getting out of the car and running, and then that scary man with the iron stake, probably a hunter ... and then...

Anthony.

She had seen her brother's face for the first time in six years. Was he the one who brought her here, wherever here was? Was this where he'd been living?

She turned her head to the door when she began to sense someone approaching—and shrunk back to the bed when she identified who it was. The door opened and Electra Rose swept inside. "Ah, you're awake now. Very good."

"Wh-where am I?"

"You're in my penthouse, on the top of the Rose Empire building in the east part of downtown. A place I think you'll come to call home. I had you brought here so I could complete your Blood Rose training."

Elizabeth was positively cringing at what Electra was saying. "What do you mean? I thought Annabelle—"

"Annabelle has nothing more she can teach you. But there is plenty more that I can. And so can he," Electra finished, pointing to a spot across the room behind Elizabeth.

She turned to look where Electra was pointing, and saw a weird mist rising up from the floor, seeming to form into a shape. That shape quickly grew to resemble a person, and that person quickly grew to resemble Anthony. "Hey sis."

"Anthony? What are ... how did ... what the hell is going on?"

"You're here for the reason I made you in the first place. I'm sorry it took Electra so long to realize you belonged with us, but I knew it right from the beginning. You're going to rise with us to become one of the most powerful vampires alive."

"I don't understand..."

"Under Annabelle's care," Electra said, "you have only scratched the surface of your potential, and had you remained with her that is all you would have done. All Annabelle could teach you to do with Blood Rose is play with people and have fun in bed. That's not what I created Blood Rose for; it's meant for so much more than that—"

"Wait a minute, you created Blood Rose?"

Electra gave her a smug grin. "Yes I did." Then she paused, seeming in thought. "Well, I suppose it has always existed in some form or another. Many vampires in times past practiced the different skills it entails. I simply brought them together into a singular discipline and gave it a purpose and a name. I asked Anthony to bring you here because I believe you have the potential to succeed where Annabelle failed."

"Succeed at what?"

Electra started to answer, but then Anthony turned to her and said, "Electra, would you give me and my sister a moment alone?"

Electra looked both of them over for a moment before saying, "Very well," and left.

Elizabeth watched Anthony intently as he moved across the room. "Anthony, please..."

He stopped moving and looked at her. "Elizabeth, do you know how vampires came into being?"

That certainly wasn't what she expected him to say. "What? Uh, no..."

"We don't have an exact date," Anthony started, "but we estimate it starting somewhere between 1500 and 2000 years ago with a secret order called the Black Church. It was an underground cult spread across eastern, central and southern Europe that worshiped the power of the Dark."

"What do you mean, the Dark?"

"The world we know is balanced between two parallel realms, one of Light and one of Darkness, both of which have equal mystical influences on our world. The Black Church sought power from the energies of the Dark that exist in our world, using magic and summoning what you might call demons from them."

"You're talking about Heaven and Hell?"

Anthony shrugged. "For all I know, I might be. We don't know if the spirits of the dead go to either of these realms; they could, but we just don't know. What we do know is that eventually, the Black Church was exposed and its fourteen high priests were executed. However, their followers had prepared for this, and they gathered to perform a Dark spell that allowed the high priests to be reborn as the first vampires, what we now call the Old Ones.

"As the vampire race began to spread, a few followers of the Light who saw them as a threat decided to take action, and gave certain powers to three chosen warriors, along with blood that vampires could not drink. These warriors came to be known as the Darkhunters, and they became the greatest threat to the vampire race we have ever known. Plus their powers and their blood were passed on from generation to generation, so that there was always a new group of Darkhunters waiting. Over the centuries, they killed off most of the Old Ones, until eventually only one was left. And believe it or not, you've actually heard of him."

"I have?"

"He's gone by many names, but the one you'll be familiar with is Dracula."

"Wait a minute, Dracula? As in Bram Stoker, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, that Dracula? You mean he actually existed?"

"Still does, as far as we know," Anthony nodded. "As the last surviving Old One, Dracula declared himself king of the vampires. And he also chose a queen, a powerful warrior woman who he had made into a vampire himself and gave a portion of his power to her. That queen was Electra."

Elizabeth's eyes turned towards the door Electra had left through. "She's the queen of the vampires?"

"Was. Around 400 years ago, Dracula cast her down from her throne, and gave it to a sorceress named Veatrice. Also, rumor has it that 200 years ago the Darkhunters caught up with Dracula, and while they weren't able to kill him for whatever reason, they did manage to seal him in some sort of hibernation and hide him away somewhere, meaning that Veatrice is now the supreme vampire. Electra has spent the centuries since her exile preparing to strike back against Veatrice and win back her title as Queen of Darkness."

Elizabeth sighed. "Well, this is all very interesting, but what does all this have to do with us already?"

"We're going to help her do it."

"We are?" was Elizabeth's incredulous response. "Why? Why should we care about this?"

Anthony grinned wide like a Cheshire cat. "You did see how I entered the room, didn't you? Aren't you a little curious how I did that?"

Elizabeth didn't know what to say there. It actually seemed strange, now that she thought about it, that she hadn't gone crazy asking him what that appearing out of mist trick had been.

"The Old Ones had certain powers," Anthony said, "that no other vampire has had since. Until now. Electra has long since believed in a prophecy about a Chosen One who will wield the powers of the Old Ones and lead the vampire race to greatness. Elizabeth, I'm that Chosen One! It's my destiny to rise to power over the vampire race, and Electra is my means to do that! When she's Queen of Darkness again, I'll be by her side as her king! I'm going to take the place of Dracula himself!"

And then he leaned in towards her, putting his hands on her shoulders and staring into her eyes with a big smile on his face. "And you, you're special too. That's why I turned you, and now that Electra's recognized it, it's why you're here. You are the one who has the potential to carry on Electra's techniques the way they were meant to be carried on. Don't you see what I'm saying? You're going to be princess! Lesser vampires will bow down to you, and do whatever you want!"

Elizabeth stared back at him for nearly a minute before she said, "Is this what she's been spoon-feeding you for the last six years?"

Anthony's smile faded. He sighed, still holding her shoulders, and said, "I understand that you're skeptical, because I had trouble grasping it at first." He looked into her eyes again, his eyes seeming to give off a golden glow that rivaled the hypnotic charm of Annabelle or even Electra, and forcibly pushed her down so that she sat on the bed. "But I've learned one important thing in the time I've been with her:" he brushed her hair aside and leaned towards her, so that she felt the warmth of his breath on her neck, just like the night he first bit her, as he whispered, "the only thing that really matters in the world is power. Electra has power. I have power. And whether you believe it or not, you have power. Accept that, and accept your destiny, and you can't begin to imagine what awaits you."

With that he released her and began moving to the door, leaving Elizabeth sitting in a light daze. "Don't worry," he said as his hand fell on the doorknob. "After tonight, it'll get easier."

Elizabeth instantly came out of her daze. "Why? What happens tonight?" she asked, with more than a slight impression of fear.

"You'll realize your true power. You'll see," he said, and walked out the door. Elizabeth heard him lock the door behind him, leaving her to do nothing but wait for whatever sick thing Electra was planning for her.

Before Tyler's eyes were even open, the first thing he noticed was warmth on his face. And he smelled something. Whether it was the warmth on his face or the smell that woke him he wasn't sure, but of the two it was the smell that dominated his attention, as his brain attempted to place what the smell was. It was when he felt the wet tongue licking his face and he sat up and sputtered that he figured it out: dog breath.

The German shepherd staring him in the face and wagging its tail was easily the first thing he saw when his eyes opened. The second was the large, nearly bald man in a white muscle shirt with his right arm in a sling that approached. "Hey, Shadow, give him some space," the man said to the dog in a deep, raspy voice, pulling it by the collar. Then he turned his head behind him and called, "Hey, Dorian, the kid's awake!"

Tyler took a moment to take in his surroundings. He was lying on a cot in what looked like a warehouse, on a metallic second-level landing, surrounded by tables with computers and power tools and a lathe or two. The part that worried him was when he noticed the assortment of weapons that decorated the place; some were firearms, others were just scary-looking edged weapons, and to his dismay there were quite a lot of them. Where the hell was he?

The sound of footsteps coming up the metallic stairs heralded the appearance to the man who emerged on the landing and looked straight in Tyler's direction. The man seemed to look vaguely familiar, but Tyler couldn't quite place from where. Tyler started to get up in a hurry, but didn't quite make it off the cot before he suddenly got too woozy and had to stay seated. The man at the stairs hurried over to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Take it easy, kid. You've lost quite a bit of blood."

"Who are you?"

"My name's Dorian Steel," the man said. "I'm the guy who saved your life. This is my ... associate, Ethan." The man he referred to turned and moved with his dog to one of the workbenches and began checking what Tyler seriously hoped only looked like a gun.

"You saved my life?" Tyler said with plenty of doubt in his voice. "From what?"

"What's your name, kid?"

Tyler was a bit annoyed at having his question answered with a question, but after pausing a moment answered, "Tyler."

"What do you remember about last night, Tyler?" Dorian said, pulling up a chair and sitting down.

"I went out for a drive with Elizabeth ... we parked in the woods..."

"Elizabeth, some chick you hooked up with last night?"

"No, I've been seeing her for about a week or so," Tyler said. "I guess..." he smiled and shrugged, "I guess she's my girlfriend. We parked, we got a little NC-17, and then she just kind of freaked all of a sudden and ran, and I ran after her ... that's about where it all goes black."

"Yeah, that's about when you passed out at my feet," Dorian said. "This Elizabeth ... black hair, kind of goldish eyes, about yay tall?" He held his hand at what looked like about Elizabeth's height.

"Yeah, you saw her?"

Dorian nodded. "What can you tell me about this girl? How'd you meet her?"

Tyler gave Dorian a cold look. "Would you stop trying to pry into my personal life and just tell me what the hell I'm doing here already?"

"Just bear with me for the moment, kid. We'll get there. Right now I'm interested in this girl of yours. Let me guess, she's mysterious, evasive, doesn't like to talk about herself?"

Now Tyler was piqued. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"You ever seen her during the daytime?"

Another question answered with a question. "Well, now that I think about it, no, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"And I don't suppose you remember her, say, biting you while you were parked last night?"

Tyler stared at him. "Alright, what's going on here?"

"I take it you haven't noticed the bandage on your neck." As soon as Dorian said this, Tyler did in fact become aware of the adhesive feeling on the side of his neck that he hadn't noticed before, and reached a hand up to feel the piece of gauze that had been stuck on him. "You're lucky I found you and treated you when I did," Dorian said. "Otherwise you'd either be dead or sucking blood clots now."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Dorian's face had the grim look of a doctor about to give a patient the news that he had terminal cancer. "Kid, I really hate to be the one to have to tell you this," he said, almost as if he were about to do just that. But Tyler never could have expected what he said after that. "Your girlfriend's a vampire."

Tyler wasn't sure how much time he spent staring at Dorian after hearing that, waiting for the little smirk or the "had you for a second" to indicate the joke was over. But Dorian's face remained rock-steady, with no trace of humor at all. From over at his workbench, Ethan finally pitched in with, "He's serious."

Tyler slumped against the cot as he realized the harsh reality of his situation. "This is just perfect. I've been abducted by a loony tune."

"We're vampire hunters. I was looking for a missing member of my team when I found you. That bandage on your neck is covering the wound from where your girlfriend bit you last night."

"You're crazy!"

Dorian sighed. "You don't have to believe me right now kid. What's important right now is—" Dorian stopped and looked behind him at the sound of the large door opening and a car pulling in. Then he turned back forward and continued, "What's important is making sure you're safe before we send you home."

"I need to be safe from you, you crazy bastard!"

There was the sound of a car door shutting, and another set of footsteps ascending the metal stairs, and a middle-aged black man with a salt-and-pepper beard in a tan coat and a tie came into view. "The kid's finally awake?" the man said, looking at Tyler.

"Yeah," Dorian said. "He's still a little hysterical, though."

"I'm hysterical?" Tyler snapped. "You're the freak who's talking about vampires!"

"So I see," said the man.

"Hey Keith," Ethan said, "you heard from Andy at all?"

"He hasn't checked in with you guys?"

"We haven't seen him since he took off last night while Dorian was out."

"No worries, I'm here," said a new voice coming in through the still open big door. The young man with the ponytail and the long black duster who appeared now stopped at the top of the stairs when he noticed Tyler. "Oh, didn't know we had company."

"This is Tyler," Dorian said. "I found him last night when I was looking for Kaeli. He'd been bitten. Oh, and Andy, I didn't find her. I'm sorry, it was a dead end."

Andy's already glum face darkened, and his head hung low. "I know. I found her."

The other three men instantly focused their attention on him. "And?" Ethan said.

Andy looked up, his jaw set in a grim line. "They turned her."

The room fell into a somber hush. Even the dog seemed brought down. "Did you take care of her?" Dorian asked after a moment of silence.

"I tried. She got away."

Ethan responded by grabbing up a wrench and chucking it across the room, hitting the wall with a resounding bang. His dog backed away from him and whined. Keith slumped into a chair and sighed, "That's two of us lost in as many nights."

"What we gonna do now?" Ethan said.

"I'll tell you what we're gonna do," Andy said, pointing a tense finger at him. "We're gonna track Kaeli down and finish her off, 'cause I'm not gonna sleep at night knowing my girl's out there somewhere sporting a pair of pointy ones."

"We'll deal with that later," Dorian said, firmly laying down the law. "Sooner or later, I think she'll come to us. Our first priority is Electra."

A collective scowl turned in Dorian's direction. "Is anyone else sick of that name?" Keith sneered.

"You ask me," Ethan said, "I think our priority right now is the kid."

Even Tyler himself had almost forgotten he was in the room until the attention turned back his way. And he realized at that point that he'd stopped thinking of these people as insane by now. He'd just watched a serious conversation between four men who seemed perfectly sane, albeit a little scary. These guys were serious—but they couldn't be, right? They couldn't really be vampire hunters, could they?

Tyler looked around at their faces, waiting to see what they were going to do with him—and then spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Something that really didn't belong in the whole warehouse, let alone the table it sat on. And what was more, he was sure it hadn't been there a minute ago. "Hey, what's with that red rose over there?"

Dorian instantly sprang to his feet and looked wide-eyed in the direction Tyler was looking. He strode to the table and picked up the rose, and now Tyler could see a tag attached to it that Dorian was reading. "Everybody get out," Dorian commanded.

"Why, what's going on?" Andy said.

"Get in the van, take Tyler home."

"Is she here?" said Ethan. "We're not going anywhere without—"

"In the van, NOW!"

There was no more argument. Keith and Andy began heading down the stairs. Ethan approached Tyler and gently lifted him by the arm to his feet and guided him along, saying, "Come on, Tyler, let's get you outta here. Shadow!" The dog followed as Ethan led Tyler down the stairs, and they followed Andy and Keith into a rusty gray van, filled with weapons, that Keith started up and drove out the door after the dog climbed in and Ethan shut the sliding door behind them.

Tyler slumped into the seat along the side of the van. He realized suddenly that it was night, and Dorian had been describing what happened as "last night," meaning he'd been out for a whole day. One minute I'm having the night of my life with the girl of my dreams, and the next thing I know I'm waking up with a bunch of weapon-toting wackos who think they're vampire hunters and it's a day later.

His thoughts began circulating around last night. The whole thing had seemed to him like a perfect moment—the most perfect of his life in fact—and she suddenly freaked for some reason ... he could see the moment she started panicking and grabbing her clothes ... the look on her face ... was there something on her face? Now that he stopped to think about it, when he pictured her at the moment she started freaking out, he could almost swear there was something dark around her mouth area. Like blood. What if...

What am I thinking? This is insane! Elizabeth can't be vampire, because there's no such thing, right? Vampires don't exist, not in the real world. These guys don't know what they're talking about, no matter how much they sound like they do.

"Where do you live, kid?" Keith asked.

Tyler hesitated, noting the palpable unease in the van around him. He was just about to answer when the dog suddenly raised its head and started barking. "Pull over!" Ethan commanded.

Keith swerved off the road and ground to a halt before parking the car. The three men then began going for their weapons while the dog continued barking. "What's going on?" Tyler said.

"Shadow here smells bloodsuckers," Ethan said, putting his good hand on the dog to calm it. "That means we're up."

The dog jerked its head suddenly to the sliding side door and started barking again—seconds before they heard the sound of metal tearing and that door was ripped off the van, and tossing it away with his bare hands was a seven-foot black goliath in a green muscle shirt and camouflage army pants. Tyler scooted backwards along the seat towards the back, until the back doors flew open and a woman dressed like a cowgirl in a black hat and long coat was pointing a pair of .45s at them and commanded, "Out of the van!"

Tyler put his hands up and slowly exited out the back, while the others did similarly. The dog continued barking at the intruders, until the huge man snarled, "Shut up Fido!" and threw a kick to the dog's mouth, causing it to yelp and shrink away.

"That's my dog, asshole!" Ethan growled, snatching up an iron stake and throwing himself at the giant.

The huge man responded by grabbing Ethan by the throat with one massive hand and holding him there, saying, "You want me to break your other arm? Or your leg maybe? How 'bout your neck? I'll have fun with that!"

Tyler felt the flat side of a piece of cold metal press onto the underside of his chin, and could tell there was a sharp edge just millimeters from his throat. He carefully turned his eyes to see the Chinese woman holding the sword that held him prisoner, who seemed to be studying him. "This one is new," she said.

"And look, he's been tasted," the cowgirl said, her eyes focused on the bandage on Tyler's neck, while keeping her guns trained on the other men. "Probably a stray they found on a hunt."

"Think we should take 'im?" the giant man said, and then followed it with something that made Tyler go absolutely cold: "You know, finish the job?"

The cowgirl responded with a question that, if it was possible, chilled Tyler even further: "If he's been bitten recently, do you think he has enough blood for the ritual to work?"

"He still walks," the Chinese woman said. "And Electra did say to bring the youngest."

A wicked grin spread across the cowgirl's face. "Take him, Chill!"

"Baby, I thought you'd never ask," the goliath grinned, dropping Ethan back on the floor of the van with a hard thud. The two women took a step back to allow space for Tyler to stare up in terror at the face of the huge man now standing in front of him, who said, "You're comin' with us, squirt!" and reached out an enormous hand that grabbed Tyler by the collar and flung him onto the man's shoulder.