Jack Kursed (6 page)

She cursed at herself as she ran to
the ghoul and grabbed it by the back of its collar and what was
left of its slacks. Lifting it over her head, she tossed it across
the road and through the window of a shop.

"T-Thank you," the man
said.

"You're welcome. Get
safe."

Victoria heard an engine followed by
Annie's scent grabbing her nose. She caught sight of a Model T
heading for the road out of town, running down people as it
went.

She adjusted the bag on her shoulder,
and ran.

John once told her the
Model T had a top speed of forty-five miles per hour. Victoria was
much faster than a human, but she wasn't sure what her top speed
was. She was determined to find out.

The sounds of the hell
Monterrey was going through faded. It was only Annie and Victoria
on the open road. The moon and stars were the only light they had,
although Victoria never had a problem seeing in the dark. Victoria
worried as the fact that she wasn't faster than a Model T settled
in. Annie pulled away, and only the dirt road helped the vampire. A
bump here, a swerve there, helped Victoria keep pace.

Still, after five minutes of running,
Victoria had gained no ground.

"Witch!" Victoria shouted.

Annie peered behind her.
The vampire and witch's eyes met, and Victoria only saw anger and
rage.

As Victoria ran she could only wonder
why. Why would a witch want to raise the dead? Why would a
supernatural being want to draw attention of any kind?

She saw a large swerve in
the road up ahead. It was the chance Victoria was looking for.
Annie had to keep the Model T on the road, but Victoria cut through
the grassy field, running as straight as she could. She gained
ground quickly, but Annie was nearly through the swerve.

Victoria reached out, and
her hand found the retracted soft-top. If Annie had the top up
Victoria never would have made it.

Slowly, Victoria made her
way up the side of the automobile. Annie hit a few bumps, but the
vampire held on easily. Moving one foot slowly at a time, she
climbed over the rear tire and was nearly to the door.

Annie turned and threw a
glass vial directly into Victoria's face. At first the vampire was
only blinded, but then the pain settled in. It felt like the heat
of the sun was upon her. Screaming in agony, she let go and tumbled
on the road.

As the momentum rolled her
over and over, Victoria heard a scream and a crash. She finally
stopped and tried to open her eyes, only to find they were gone.
Whatever magic potion Annie threw at her melted them
away.

Victoria felt inside her
sack for her blood, but only pulled back a bloody hand. Her bags
had ruptured during the fall. She ripped open the sack and licked
up and down, covering her face in blood. The delicious nectar swept
in and forced the pain away. She licked her lips and the insides of
her cheeks. Her fangs grew involuntarily as her vision came
back.

She saw the Model T on its
side up ahead, on the side of the road close to the woods. Dealing
with Victoria was enough of a distraction for Annie not to see the
hole in the road. The axle of the Model T was destroyed.

Victoria climbed to her
feet and ran. She wished she had more blood. Her body wasn't
entirely healed. She had her knives, and that would have to
do.

She ran through the woods, following
her nose. Annie couldn't have gotten far. A witch couldn't see in
the dark, as far as Victoria knew. A vampire could.

Worry attacked her as
Annie's scent grew stronger. What else didn't Victoria know about
witches?

She picked up the scent of water. A
river or lake wasn't too far away.

She heard a quiet chanting.

Annie was just ahead,
standing near the edge of a river. She dumped liquid on a stump and
watched it burst into flames. She poured a vial of one liquid into
another, and held it to the fire, never breaking her odd
chant.

"Annie Fritz," Victoria said, her
fangs slurring the words.

Annie jumped back near the river,
holding the vial out.

"Don't come any closer!"
she shouted. "Do you know what will happen if I throw this in the
river? My pets in Monterrey are just the beginning."

"Why are you doing this? What did the
people in town do to you?"

Annie turned her head to
the side, as if she was confused.

"Not that silly
town.
All
people.
I see you're not like them. Why do you defend them? How many of
your kind have they killed?"

"Actually, a vampire
killed my human family. But I can be however I want, Annie. I don't
have to be a murderer, and neither do you."

Annie cried. "My mother
and father…killed simply because they were different. They helped
people, you know. Made little potions to make people better. But
that didn't matter in the end. They were burned alive."

Victoria didn't move a
muscle. She felt the blade on her leg and her back, but she didn't
dare reach for them. She was faster than Annie, but all the witch
had to do was flick that open vial into the river. Victoria didn't
know what it would do, but she didn't doubt Annie and her power.
The ghouls were proof of that.

"Annie, just step away from the water.
We can talk about this."

Her face twisted with despair and
rage.

"No. No more talking."

She drew her arm back,
aiming for the river.

Victoria threw one knife, and then the
other. The first struck Annie in the temple, pushing through her
brain and protruding through her forehead. The second landed in her
arm, just above the elbow.

Annie was motionless for
an instant before falling toward the water.

Victoria summoned her last
bit of speed. Her aching body fought against her as she closed the
distance and grabbed Annie's body. She wrapped one arm around her
neck and locked her hand on the witch's wrist, securing the vial.
She gently lowered Annie to the ground and dragged her away from
the river. Wrestling the vial from her grip, she tossed it in the
open flame.

Her body was slowly
beginning to feel better, but she collapsed by the river anyway.
The nearby sounds relaxed her. The river flowing, crickets and
frogs singing and croaking, birds flying through the trees, the
hypnotic fire and the wild shadows it created.

She didn't know how much
time had passed. An hour, maybe two. Her mind wandered as she
reflected on the night's events. She didn't even hear the
footsteps, or pick up his scent.

"Victoria?"

She jumped to her feet and
spun to face John. He gasped at the sight of her, covered in blood.
He didn't look perfect himself with his clothes torn and a
bloodstain here and there.

"John? What happened?"

"We stayed in the movie theater. We
lost some people, but most of the town is okay. The ghouls, they
just...stopped attacking. They fell over dead. So I got a horse
and-"

He went silent and his
face fell when he saw Annie's body. Victoria wanted to hug him, to
apologize. But she knew the best thing was to keep her
distance.

"You...killed her?"

"I didn't have a choice."

"Yes, you did. You could have chosen
not to kill her."

"John-"

"Was she a full-blood?"

Victoria's lip twitched,
and John knew the answer before she spoke.

"Yes."

He reeled back, like he'd been punched
in the stomach, and leaned against a nearby tree. Emotions played
across his face. She hadn't seen him truly upset in a long
time.

"How could you?"

"It was actually quite simple. It was
either kill her, or she would have killed countless people.
Monterrey was just the start. Who knows how much destruction she
wanted to cause? We saved a lot of lives."

"And those lives will all
be dead in fifty years," he shouted. "But I'll still be stuck here.
This was my chance, Victoria. My chance at finally being free. I
just want to sleep. One night. No, just an hour would do. But
you...you said you wouldn't kill her, and you lied."

"We'll find another
witch."

"We've found two after Angela, in a
century, and only one full-blood."

Victoria said nothing. She knew she
made the right decision. It was never the wrong decision to save
lives.

"Never speak to me again,"
he said, his eyes hard. "Our friendship, our partnership, is
over."

"Are you serious? As long as we've
known each other? You would throw all that away, just like
that?"

"I didn't throw it away," he said,
gesturing to Annie's body. "You did."

John turned and walked
away without looking back. Victoria knew how important lifting his
curse was to him. But he would get over it. He would heal, and they
would move on. She just needed to give him a week or so.

CHAPTER 3

Year: 2012

Chicago, Illinois. John
hated Chicago. They weren't joking when they called the place the
Windy City. Cold, dirty, too many people. It was like the weather
flowed across the United States, hit Chicago and the Great Lakes,
and then dropped twenty degrees.

He fidgeted in his chair
and checked his phone for the fourth time since stepping foot in
the bank. Thirty minutes had passed. The twenty-first century was
an amazing time. The world had increased its speed by a number John
couldn't even begin to guess. Gone were the sleepy days of the
mid-twentieth century. Computers, the Internet, ATM machines, fast
food. Technology ruled the day, yet he still waited in a chair at
the bank.

He looked at the people
around him to help kill his boredom. A grandmother with a toddler
stood at the kiosk next to him, filling out a deposit slip. A woman
in sweats leaned on the counter in front of a teller, withdrawing
money. Judging by the look on her face and her body language, money
wasn't looking so great. A security guard stood at the front door,
hands in his pockets. A man trying to open a line of credit talked
to the associate at the desk behind John. He was the reason John
had lost thirty minutes of his life.

A quiet snore caught his
attention. He looked at the elderly man across from him, the
husband of the grandmother with the toddler. The man's head was
slumped to one side, his arms folded across his chest. His chest
rose and fell with a steady rhythm.

John couldn't look away.
Jealousy, curiosity, anger, all danced in his stomach. Part of him
wanted to reach out and slap the old man, tell him that if John
couldn't sleep, no one could. But the man looked so serene, so
peaceful.

He would give anything to know that
peace once again.

The toddler broke away
from the grandmother and ran across the bank. He nearly bumped into
two people before coming to a wobbly stop next to a cute woman
waiting in line with a McDonald's bag. John laughed as he checked
his phone one more time. Smart kid.

"Ralph!" the grandmother called. "Go
and get Dennis."

Ralph barely stirred. He looked around
for a second, and then rubbed his nose before going back to
sleep.

Grandma retrieved Dennis in a huff.
The little kid spun in a circle as Grandma held his hand and
finished her deposit slip.

She gave John a smile as
their eyes met.

"Don't you just love children?" she
asked.

"No, not really. Maybe you should put
that thing on a leash."

Grandma's eyes bugged out
of her skull and her jaw dropped, as if John had slapped the child
with his bare hand. She filed into line with Dennis, keeping an eye
on John a few extra seconds.

He looked up as the
attractive bank associate strolled by with the customer looking for
the line of credit. The customer was trying to lay on the charm,
although not for financial reasons, but for a date. John laughed to
himself as the man swung and missed. She politely declined, and the
customer left with a new line of credit and no romance on the
horizon.

She hovered over the sign-in book and
read the next name.

"John...Kursed?"

He stood up and laughed at
her pronunciation, his own little private joke. Everyone had
trouble with his last name.

"That's me. But
it's
Kur-said
."

"John Kursed," she said, getting it
right. "That's an interesting name."

"Thank you. I came up with it myself.
But please, call me Jack."

"Okay...Jack."

Jack recognized the signs
immediately as she led him back to her desk. A slight toss of the
hair over the shoulder. Glancing back to give him another smile. A
subtle popping of the hips, which were lovely.

He stole a look at her
calves, enhanced by her high heels. She was certainly an attractive
woman. Jack tried to remember the last time he enjoyed the company
of a woman in a bedroom. Unlike the customer before him, Jack
wouldn't miss if he decided to take a swing.