Dread Nemesis of Mine

chapter 35

Nyte and Ash returned later, having dropped Nathan and pals at a bus stop. They had hot pizza with them, probably hoping it would serve as a peace offering and save them from mine, Katie’s, and Elyssa's wrath. While we were shocked at the abrupt change in our friends from Goths to vampires, it was hard to blame them for wanting payback for all the cruel things Nathan and his goons had done to us. So instead of yelling or making a big deal out of the whole kidnapping, assault, and revealing the secrets of the Overworld to noms, we accepted the pizza.

Besides, it had mushrooms and olives on it—my favorites.

"I don't even want to think about how many times they crapped themselves," Nyte said, laughing as he passed out paper cups.

Ash giggled like a little kid. "Join the Chess Club? Classic! Can you imagine those morons trying to figure out how to play?"

Elyssa wiped her mouth with a napkin. "I think making them protect the other nerds from bullies was a nice touch. But do you really think they're going to keep it up?"

Nyte looked at me with wonder. "Man, if growing horns out of your forehead and roaring like a demon doesn't keep them straight, I don't know what will."

"Yeah, about that," I said, scratching my forehead where the aforementioned horns had been. "I guess it's time to tell you two everything."

"All this time you've been holding out," Ash said. "Not cool, guys." He looked at Katie. "And you knew?"

She nodded. "I found out by accident. But I was sworn to secrecy." Her green eyes regarded him, traces of hurt or disappointment still evident.

"We had our reasons to keep it quiet." Elyssa gave them pointed looks. "Maybe you'll agree once we're done explaining."

We gave them the short version, taking turns, from the time I'd discovered my incubus abilities, to Elyssa's duties as an undercover Templar, sent to apprehend vampires preying on unsuspecting noms at our high school. It was hard to believe all we'd been through in the past few months.

Ash and Nyte looked absolutely flummoxed.

"Whoa, whoa, wait!" Ash said, a horrified look on his face. "Are you saying we joined the bad guys?"

Nyte's eyes grew worried. "Did we go to the dark side?"

"How did Maximus turn you?" I said, my heart chilled at the thought the rogue vampire might have infected them with the vampling curse.

"We injected ourselves." Ash pulled out two vials of a clear red substance with a bluish glow. "The recruiter told us we'd made the final cut and gave us vials like this. He had a bundle of them, so Nyte distracted him while I stole a couple, thinking we'd give them to you guys." He shrugged. "Obviously, you don't even need them."

I took one of the vials and examined it in the dim light. "Why is it glowing blue?"

"Oh, god," Elyssa said. "Maximus had time to make a batch with your blood, Justin." She peered at Nyte's eyes. "I knew something was off. Look at their irises."

I leaned in and spotted the anomaly right away. Although his and Ash's eyes had the standard red irises of vampires, they were edged by a soft blue tint. "Let me see your hand," I told Nyte.

He raised an eyebrow, but held it out. His hand was warm. I motioned for Elyssa to touch it.

She gasped. "Most vampires have a low body temperature. They're not cold, but they definitely aren't warm." Her eyes met mine. "But they aren't like dhampyrs either. This would explain why we didn't sense them as vampires."

"Dhampyrs have violet eyes?" Ash said. "And I always thought you were wearing contacts."

Elyssa squeezed his hand. "Have you had human blood yet?"

Ash and Nyte looked warily at each other.

"This is important, guys," she said. "Have you drunk blood from a human?"

Nyte winced. "Well, not exactly from a human. We drank from some blood packs right after, because the recruiter didn't want us jumping any classmates. We were supposed to go to an orientation tonight where they'd teach us how to hunt properly, you know, without killing people."

"Oh, and how to control blood urges, and what to do if we get the munchies," Ash added.

"How does daylight feel?" Elyssa asked.

"Uh, normal." Ash shrugged. "The recruiter told us we'd feel sluggish and tired in daylight, but he was wrong."

Nyte nodded. "I'm just glad I don't have to worry about bursting into flames or having a hot girl stab me in the chest with a stake."

"So they're not normal vampires?" Katie said, looking somewhat relieved.

"Not entirely," Elyssa said. She asked them several more questions, probably straight out of the Templar handbook for identifying vampires, and mulled over their answers before asking one last question. "And how many vials did you say this guy has?"

"Probably thirty or forty," Ash said. "No telling how many others he's already juiced with the stuff."

Elyssa stood and brushed the dust off her jeans. "We've got to get those vials."

"The orientation is at the same place they took your dad," Ash said, looking at me. "The dude gave us a pass phrase to get in the front door. Supposedly, we're gonna meet Maximus, too."

"Has he added any security?" I asked.

"We only went one time before," Nyte said, an apologetic look on his face. "The recruiter took us in to meet a British guy. We didn't think to look for cameras or anything."

"We didn't even know they were vampires," Ash said. "They told us the meeting was about finding new meaning or some crap like that. The British guy asked us a lot of questions."

Nyte shuddered. "And he shook our hands in a really creepy way, too."

"Did he have a monocle and an oiled mustache?" I asked.

Nyte gave a vigorous nod. "Yeah, exactly. Accent like Sherlock Holmes."

"The Master," I said. "Maximus's sire."

"Didn't you say Felicia needs Maximus's blood?" Nyte said.

"She needs the blood of her sire, whoever that is," I replied. I flicked my gaze to Elyssa. "It must be the Master, right? I mean, who else could it be? Unless Maximus has more than one elder vampire helping him."

Elyssa pulled a ring from her pocket, crowned with a tiny red gem. "Meghan made this to help. She charmed it with Felicia's blood so when we're within a few yards of her sire, it'll glow. The closer we are, the brighter the glow."

Nyte oohed. "A magic ring?"

She smiled. "Yep. Not much else to it, though."

"I wish I could do magic," Ash said, looking glum.

I stared at the ring, my mind wandering in a thousand different directions.

"You've got that look," Elyssa said, crossing her arms.

I turned to Nyte. "When is the orientation?"

He checked the time. "At midnight, a couple of hours from now."

"Please tell me you're not thinking what I think you're thinking," Elyssa said, a note of alarm in her voice.

"Your father won't even be ready to attack for a couple of days," I said. "By then, it might be too late for Felicia." I sighed. "It might be too late for me."

"We'll do whatever it takes," Ash said.

Nyte nodded. "No matter what, guys, we'll help."

"If I can help, I will," Katie said, giving Ash a concerned look.

I took Elyssa's hand. "Trust me, babe, I have a plan." My stomach, heaved. Apparently, it didn't think my plan was so great. I grinned to cover my nerves. "Where's a good Goth store?"

An hour later, I stood before a mirror, a man transformed. My eyes gleamed red. Fake fangs protruded beneath my lips. But the biggest difference was my hair. Elyssa's mom, whose day job was hair styling, cropped my hair close and bleached it blonde. By the time I put on the designer jeans and long-sleeve button-up shirt, I looked like a vampire who'd escaped a steamy romance novel.

"Your father doesn't like this plan one bit," Leia said, looking me over, and preening my eyelashes.

Elyssa took a towel and brushed something off my ear. "We don't have time to wait for him to be ready."

Leia looked at her daughter. "He promised not to get in your way, but he is sending a squad of his best people to go along."

"As long as he doesn't storm the castle," I said. "We don't need a bloodbath."

"Why do you think he hasn't gone in already?" Leia said. She took Elyssa's hands. "I'm not saying the plan is a bad one. Just be careful."

Elyssa offered her mother a smile. Nodded. "We will."

Her mother turned to me. "Bring my daughter back, Justin."

It was hard meeting her eyes, but I forced myself to do it. "Yes Ma'am."

Someone knocked on the door. Elyssa opened it. Adam Nosti stood outside, tablet in hand.

"I did some digging and found some background on Maximus and the Master." He stepped inside. Gave a nod to Leia. "Want to see?"

"Let's save it for the group," I said, motioning toward the door. "No sense in repeating it."

"You don't look half bad as a blonde," Elyssa said, running a hand through my short hair as we stepped into the hallway. "Will you be able to mask yourself from the vampires?"

"I did it the last time," I said. "Considering all the freaks after me, it's a matter of pure survival."

We made our way to the main hall where the rest of my so-called team waited. As my eyes wandered over the assembled crowd, I found it hard to believe how large the group had grown. Cinder sat isolated in a chair near the corner of the room, his gray eyes never leaving the motley crew. Katie also sat somewhat apart from the group, her uncertain eyes regarding Ash. She'd been through a lot. Seen a lot. And she'd killed. I knew from experience how bitter a pill that was to swallow.

I also wondered how deep her emotions ran for Ash. Had his change from gentle Goth nerd to vampire changed her feelings? No telling. Trying to understand women was like—well, like trying to understand something that's super hard to understand. But maybe things would work out. I spotted Ash where he stood next to Nyte, taking in the motley crew. But I also caught his furtive attempts to look at Katie, worry on his face.

Man, I knew the feeling.

I still felt the weight of my mental scars after seeing Brad Nichols and others die as a result of the vampling curse. I had also killed people. Some people needed killing, but it didn't make me feel any better about it.

Most of this crowd had fought together. They knew each other. While they'd never be the perfect, happy-go-lucky bunch I'd seen in sitcoms, I still considered them family. A wonderful, bizarre, dysfunctional family. At least I knew what they were, rather than the lie of a perfect family my parents had smothered my childhood with. For all I knew, my mom had blurred out all the negative memories, leaving me with only positive ones.

It doesn't matter anymore.

My parents might as well have been dead.

Nyte was speaking with animated gestures to Shelton and Bella, probably begging for magic tricks. He'd already extracted a promise from Ryland to transform into a wolf, though I expected he'd hovered close to the lycan so he could gawk at Stacey's shapely form.

Meghan stood near the roaring fireplace, while Adam took up a position in the center of the room, his tablet ready with whatever information he'd gleaned. His face looked pale. I had to assume he was worried sick about his sister. Meghan's eyes locked with mine and held contact for the space of a couple of seconds. If she was trying to tell me something, I didn't get it.

"Oh, lamb," Stacey said, walking a circle around me, a purr in the back of her throat. "You look absolutely delicious." She glanced at Leia. "I really must have you style my hair sometime. You do a marvelous job."

"A Templar hair dresser?" Shelton said from his position on a leather sofa to the left of the table. "I don't get it."

Leia shrugged. "It started out as a cover for one of our operations many years ago. By the time we were done, I realized how much I enjoyed styling. So I continued."

"If you'd ever take off that cowboy hat, maybe she could gussie you up," Ryland said to Shelton with a wolfish grin.

Shelton grunted and pulled off the hat to reveal his close-shorn head. "For one thing, wolf man, this is a fedora, not a cowboy hat. As for hair—" He gave a disdainful look at Ryland's thick head of long, unruly hair. "I got a pair of hedge trimmers that might improve that mess."

Ignoring the verbal jousting, I set my arcphone on the table in the middle of the room. "Before we start talking about waxing body hair Brazilian style, maybe I should go over the plan." I spoke some magic words to pull up a holographic image of Maximus's crib. Unless the rogue vampire had changed things up, the map appeared accurate, including the location of the crypt where he'd kept my father deep beneath the old building. As I looked it over, apprehension settled over me. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined setting foot back in the place where Elyssa had almost died. The place where I'd first manifested into demon form and annihilated a mob of vamplings. The place where Felicia had sicced those very vamplings on me and Elyssa. How ironic it was, going back into that place to save Felicia.

"Are you okay, Justin?" Bella said, concern etched in her face.

I shook my head. "Yeah. Sorry." I covered my worry with a smile. "Just some bad memories of this place." I glanced at Nyte, whose eyes were glued to Stacey's backside as she prowled about the room. I cleared my throat. "Anything you and Ash want to add before I go over the plan, Nyte?"

Ash looked away from Katie, a guilty expression on his face. "No?"

Nyte wiped the corner of his mouth and jerked from his ass-induced trance. "Uh, no. I wish we had more inside info."

I waved to Adam. "Want to show us what you found on Maximus?"

The gawky Arcane came to the table and set his tablet on it. Flicked a finger across the surface. The black-and-white image of a man with a monocle and an oiled mustache flickered into the air. "Meet Simon Barclay, aka The Master. This is the vampire turning noms for Maximus."

"What a horrid moustache," Stacey said, wrinkling her nose.

Adam smiled, though it didn't look like his heart was in it. "Barclay isn't ancient by vampire standards, having been around only since the fourteenth or fifteenth century, but from all the information I was able to find about him, he's anti-establishment."

"He doesn't like the Red Syndicate?" Ryland asked.

Adam shook his head. "Back before vampires modernized to the Syndicate, they ruled with an elder council. Barclay thought vampirism was a gift they should spread to the masses. The elders disagreed. Said it was reserved only for a chosen few."

"Populist versus the elitists," Shelton said. "How quaint."

"Barclay formed his own cult and tried to create a vampire army. At the time, he wasn't old enough and, instead, wiped out an entire village in Northern Ireland with the vampling plague." Adam changed the image to that of old drawings, showing zombie-like vampires in the act of killing screaming victims. "Sound familiar?"

"Obviously, he's old enough to turn noms into vampires now," Bella said. "But why did he wait centuries before trying this again?"

"Apparently, the elders ordered Barclay executed. I couldn't find any historical records about the results, but I think it's safe to say they failed. Barclay went underground for centuries. When he came back, he must have started by turning Maximus, using him as a proxy instead of coming out of the shadows himself."

"Because the Syndicate would kill Barclay," Elyssa said.

Adam shrugged. "Far as I know, a number of the elders from those days are still around. I'm sure they haven't forgotten." He switched to the black-and-white image of a group of vampires posing with fanged grins before what looked like an old Ford Model T. Using his finger, he circled a familiar face on the far left. "Say hello to Herbert Lipschitz, aka Maximus, shown here shortly after his transformation to vampire."

A few chuckles went up around the room.

"Are you serious?" Stacey said, raising an eyebrow. "His bloody name is Herbert?"

"I kid you not," Adam said, zooming in to show Maximus's face.

"No wonder he changed it," Ryland said with a grin.

Adam moved the focus to another familiar face, at least to me. "As you can see, Barclay is in this picture as well. According to the writing on the back, this photo was taken a couple of days after he turned this group of men into vampires."

"So we know for sure Barclay is Maximus's sire," Bella said, leaning in to examine the hovering image.

"I couldn't find much more about Maximus's history, but he was supposedly abandoned by his immigrant parents when they arrived in America. A rich Jewish couple, the Lipschitzes, found him abandoned at a warehouse by the docks and raised him as their own. Sometime after this picture was taken, his adoptive parents were found murdered in an alley, supposedly mugged, and Maximus took over the family fortune."

"Did he kill them?" Katie asked.

The Arcane shrugged. "From the old newspaper articles I dug up, plenty of people suspected as much, but nothing was ever proved." He glanced back at me. "Anyway, that's all I got."

Shelton raised his hand. "One thing I gotta know."

Adam raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"

"How in the hell do you say Lipschitz with a straight face?"

After the chuckles died down, I spoke. "The plan is simple. Elyssa, Nyte, Ash, and I will go in Maximus's front door and act like we're there for the orientation." I held up a tiny glass ball. "Along the way, we'll drop these flashers Shelton gave me. Once we identify Felicia's sire using the magic ring from Meghan, I'll shout out the magic word to activate the flashers. That should stun or knock out most of the vamps. We'll grab Barclay and Maximus and head out."

"Whoa," Shelton said. "Do you know how much sunlight I concentrated into those flashers? A lot. Last time I checked, your pals there are vampires, so you'd better plan on toting them outta there, too."

"I don't think the flashers will work on Ash and Nyte," I said, and told them about the serum Maximus had made from my blood. By the time I finished, those who hadn't heard about the stuff looked shocked.

"The bloody fool can inject people now?" Stacey said. "And make super vampires?"

I nodded. "We have to stop him before he turns more people."

Shelton didn't look convinced. "Alright, so you set off the flashers, scoop up our good buddy, Herbert, and then what? You make a break for it?"

I nodded. "The flashers should knock out most of the vamps. Then it'll be up to the rest of you to clear out the vamps outside."

"Don't this just feel like déjà vu all over again?" Shelton commented dryly. "After the can of whoop-ass the Templars opened on Maximus down in Colombia, do you really think you'll just be able to march in there with your fancy blonde hairdo and fake fangs, and manage to drag Lipschitz out of there?"

"He has a point," Ryland said. "A snatch and run ain't a half-bad idea, but I'd be willing to bet Max has a few more tricks up his sleeves."

"What about guns?" Katie said. "What if the place is surrounded by armed vampires?"

"Thomas has provided us with upgraded Nightingale armor," I said. "It'll stop the bullets."

"I'm gonna look ridiculous in that black unitard," Shelton said with a grumble.

"You can wear it under your clothes," Elyssa said, rolling her eyes. "It's skin tight and nobody will notice."

He groaned. Looked at Meghan. "How long does geek-boy's sister have before—uh—you know?"

Her lips tightened. "Not long. Hours at most, the last time I checked."

"And she's the same crazy vamp who helped kidnap your father?" Shelton said, shaking his head.

"I seem to recall a certain Arcane who tried to kidnap him, too, Shelton. Just before Felicia and her gang showed up."

"Man, you're never gonna let me live that one down, are you?" Shelton shoved the fedora back on his head, and stood up. "Guess I need to go put my bulletproof undies on."

I looked around the room. "Look, it's not the best plan in the world. We don't have any recon on the place, or certainty that Maximus and Barclay will be there. If anyone wants out, I won't blame you."

Ryland grinned. "Why would I want out? This is gonna be fun."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Stacey said.

A chorus of agreement went up from the others.

Elyssa took my hand and held it tight. "Guess we'd better get moving so you can be back in time for your sci-fi marathon."

I couldn't help but laugh.

It was go time.