Posted by The Black Knight on October 08, 2000 at 20:54:57:
Chapter 20
It was not until early the next morning that Danielle's body was found. Two hours before sunset Karen Alexander went to Lucas Drake's house. Dracula sat on one side of the room and Luke on the other.
Madeline stood behind Luke looking over his shoulder at the papers that he was grading.
"Why may I ask are you here?" Luke asked as he stood up.
"I have some really bad news." Karen said.
"Are you going to share it with us, or are you going to keep it to yourself?" Luke asked.
"This morning just after sunrise Leigh Ann Barnes returned to work to find Danielle Francis dead." Karen said.
"How?" Dracula asked as he stood.
"Someone had pinned her to the wall by driving a stake through her heart. My captain thinks it is someone with a serious vampire complex." Karen said.
"Seward." Dracula said as he walked up the stairs.
"Who's Seward?" Karen asked.
"He's a vampire hunter and the great-great-grandson of Doctor John Seward, one of the men who drove the Count back to Transylvania almost a hundred years ago." Luke said.
"In that case someone had better deal with him." Karen said.
"We can't find him. He never stays in the same place two nights in a row, he hits and runs, and he never leaves a clue." Madeline said.
"I'm afraid that he was taught too well." Luke said.
"I would like to get my hands on whoever that was." Karen said.
"You're looking at him." Luke said.
"You might have taught him a little about right and wrong in the process." Karen said.
"I tried, but after the Count made a point of isolating him from every one that he loved he kind of snapped. For twenty years he's used every trick that I taught him against us." Luke said.
"He learned a little too well I think. Gabby and Heather are missing. It would be wise to assume that he got to them. Now with Danielle gone we're caught like a rat in a trap." Madeline said.
"What do you mean?" Karen asked.
"Gabby was the one who worked at the slaughter house and brought the supply of blood that we need to survive. Danielle kept her and us from being discovered. With them out of the picture some of the
younger ones will begin to feed on whatever they can find and reveal themselves to Seward." Madeline said.
"Did you find anything in Danielle's office?" Luke asked.
"Her files had been rifled and a financial report from the Drake Foundation was left on her desk." Karen said.
"He's getting too close. I leave at sunset tonight and I would advise you two to do the same." Madeline said.
"You've never struck me as the kind who would run." Karen said.
"There are times when you have to run, if you want to survive." Madeline said.
"After tonight it won't be necessary. You just keep those youngsters out of trouble tonight. I have enough blood downstairs to keep them busy for tonight." Luke said.
"What then? With Seward on the loose they don't have a chance." Madeline said.
"If I'm right and he's going to the Drake Foundation building tonight, he won't be on the loose after tonight. He won't even be alive after tonight." Luke said as he walked to the stairs.
Karen looked a little confused as she looked at Madeline.
"I don't know what's going through his head." Madeline said.
"It is a good thing that you do not." Luke said as he walked up the stairs.
That evening as the sun set behind the hills of northeast Tennessee John Seward and his two lackeys walked into the Drake Foundation building. They ignored the receptionist at the front desk and walked to the stairs. As the receptionist called security they walked up the stairs to the third floor to the offices of William Drake, head of the finance department of the East Tennessee Drake Foundation. In the front office sat Alexis Sweeton, William Drake's
secretary. The minute that Seward walked in Alexis stood and walked around her desk.
"Good evening Miss Sweeton." Seward said.
"John Seward I presume." Alexis said.
"Not much for small talk are you?" Seward asked.
"Not with you."
Seward smiled a little and nodded toward Bill. Bill opened a bag that he was carrying and pulled out a wooden stake. Alexis winced as he handed it to Seward.
"You've put on a little weight since I last saw you." Seward said as he stepped toward Alexis.
"A little too much protein in the blood of cattle. I don't digest it that well." Alexis said.
"Either that or you've been a little too busy with the local gentry." Seward said.
"I don't kill people, you know that." Alexis said.
"I know what Lucas Drake told me, before he betrayed me." Seward said.
"He did everything that he could to save your wife." Alexis said.
"He turned her into one of you." Seward said.
"That was the only way to save her." Alexis said.
Seward threw the stake toward Alexis. She easily caught it with one hand, but it provided the distraction that it was meant for. By the time she looked back at Seward he was less than a foot away from her. Alexis screamed as he drove his silver bladed knife into her stomach. She stumbled back and bent a little as her eyes turned bright red.
"For eight hundred years I've tried to protect mortals from vampires, and this is what I get in return?" Alexis asked as she fell to her knees.
Seward picked up the stake that she had dropped.
"No, this is what you get for being the blood sucking monster that you are." Seward said as he raised the stake over his head.
"You would dare to call someone else a monster?" Luke asked as he stepped into the office.
Seward turned around and smiled. He looked at Bill and Bob.
"Take him." Seward said.
Bill and Bob ran blindly toward him, not even worrying about who or what Luke was. They were stopped short as Luke grabbed them both by the throat.
"It kind of begs the question: of these two idiots whose head is the hardest?" Luke commented.
Luke slammed the backs of their heads together so hard that their skulls were crushed on impact. He let them fall where they were and stepped over them.
"I guess we'll never know now will we." Luke said.
"You took me from a orphaned child and taught me how to hunt vampires and remove them from the face of the earth." Seward said.
"I taught you tell the difference between the power hungry and those just seeking to live. The threat that each posed and if necessary when to remove them from circulation." Luke said.
"What do you mean remove them from circulation?" Seward asked.
"You can't kill a vampire. A few dismembered parts may become inactive, but once they're brought back together they reanimate." Luke laughed.
"You are all a danger to man kind." Seward said.
"On some occasions there would be no man kind if it weren't for us, but that's another story altogether. Only a few pose a serious threat to humanity. It is those few that I taught you to seek out. By cutting off the supply of blood to the community here, you have become the threat to the mortals here and as such it is time to remove
you." Luke said.
"You taught me everything I know, now you wish to destroy that knowledge?" Seward asked as he backed away.
"There will be others who will follow you, others who perhaps will not be so quick to judge." Luke said.
"Perhaps if I backed away now, the community will not have to prey upon humans." Seward said as he was backed into a corner.
"There is a line between good and evil, I tried to teach you that. You crossed the line twenty years ago when you butchered a sixteen month old child because his father was a vampire. I allowed you to go on this long because you weren't a serious threat to me or anyone else. Eight hundred years ago I made Alexis a vampire with the same mission as you had, to prevent the innocent from being harmed in a power struggle that most people have never heard of. You pulled yourself out of being a protector and placed yourself in that power struggle between mortals and vampires. Ordinarily I would let that go on by without a word, but you knew better and you have to be stopped. I tried to stop you peacefully three weeks ago, but you would not." Luke said angrily.
"There is always another way. You said so yourself." Seward said.
"I let you live this long because of your
great-great-grandfather's memory. He was a good man, a little misdirected, but a good man. It's too bad that you inherited his name instead of his respect for life." Luke said.
Seward tried to run past Luke, but he was stopped as Luke grabbed his collar behind and his belt. Seward could do nothing more than scream as Luke lifted him over his head. Luke brought Seward's lower back
down across his knee so hard and so fast that Seward's spine broke in half and splintered.
"You didn't kill him." Alexis gasped as Luke knelt beside her.
"No, but he'll never walk again. It kind of impedes you when you're chasing someone who can fly." Luke said.
Alexis grimaced as Luke eased the knife out of her stomach. The door opened and Karen walked in.
"We got a report of a break in here." Karen said.
"These two men here tried to break in, but Mister Seward here stopped them. Unfortunately his back was broken in the process." Luke said.
Karen smiled and nodded a little.
"See to it that Mister Seward is taken to the hospital and given everything necessary to his recovery courtesy of the Drake Foundation." Luke said.
"Couldn't I just let him lay there and bleed to death?" Karen asked.
"Karen he has paid enough for what he's done." Luke said.
"I'm sure that the Count will not agree." Karen said.
"So am I, but he will get over it. I owe his
great-great-grandfather that much." Luke said.
Karen nodded and picked up the phone.
"Now Miss Sweeton, I'm giving you the night off." Luke said.
"I'm afraid that you can't do that." a man said as he came out of the inner office.
The man was a little shorter than Luke with light blond hair, crystal blue eyes, and very pale skin.
"I'm the only one who can allow Miss Sweeton to miss her duties as secretary. I will consent, only if you allow me to buy the both of you dinner." the man said.
"I thought you didn't like me William." Luke said.
"I never said that, just that I don't like what you do." William Drake said.
"An ambulance is on its way. I will need you to come by my office about eleven o'clock tomorrow and give us a statement." Karen said.
"I'll think of something by then." Luke said as they walked out the door.
"What exactly did you mean by buy us dinner?" Alexis asked.
"Dinner as in food. Remember I do get hungry." William said.
"Food, novel concept." Alexis said with a shudder.
"I thought you liked to eat." Luke said.
"Only when I must. I've never been able to stomach a piece of cooked meat since you made the mistake of making me a vampire." Alexis said.
"There are just some things in life that you have to get used to." Luke said.
"As you are so fond of point out, we're not alive." Alexis said.
Early the next morning as the coroner came into his lab next door to the police station he found Danielle Francis' body lying on the center table. She lay there motionless with her eyes still staring
upward and the sawed off wooden stake still through her chest. The coroner was a man in his early forties with a look of utter boredom on his face. He had short hair that was receding back on the top of his
head. He put glasses on and stepped over Danielle.
"I thought that I had you in the vault pretty lady." he said.
"I moved her out here for you." Dracula said as he closed the door behind the coroner.
"Was she a friend of yours Doctor Tepesch?" the coroner asked.
"Yes, I just thought it was disrespectful to leave that stake in her chest like that." Dracula said.
"Yes, well I'll see what I can do." the coroner said.
The younger man walked over to the table and wrapped his hand around the stake.
"It's in there pretty good." the coroner grunted.
The stake made a sick splattering sound as it began to move.
"That shouldn't happen, she's been dead for over a day. Her blood should be dried by now." the coroner said.
Danielle let out a groan as the tip of the stake cleared her chest.
"What's going on here?" the coroner asked.
Danielle smiled a little as she sat up. She lay her hand on her chest and kind of laughed as the wound sealed itself.
"Fascinating." Danielle commented as she hopped off the table.
The coroner backed away, but Dracula stopped him.
"What are you?" the coroner asked.
Danielle's eyes turned bright red and she opened her mouth to show elongated incisors.
"Vampire? That's a myth." the coroner said.
"Does she look like a myth?" Dracula asked as he pushed the coroner toward Danielle.
The coroner screamed as Danielle's fangs dug into his throat. When she had finished her meal she threw his lifeless body across the room. She walked toward Dracula wiping blood from her lips.
"How does it taste?" Dracula asked.
"He has spent too much time in a bottle, it's in his blood."
Dracula lay his hand on her stomach.
"And what about the little one?" Dracula asked.
"As fine as I am. I can actually hear his heartbeat." Danielle said.