Shadow Born: Book 1 of the Shadow-Borne Chronicles (30 page)

“So, they compelled you again to retrieve your notes and burn them, delete everything off of your hard drive that had to do with vampires and to forget everything that happened.
 
Again, not a good thing making someone lose that much time.
 
It obviously had its…effect on you.”

Victor nodded slowly.
 

“So, the vampires weren’t after me…I was after them?”
 
Something about it felt true to Victor.
 
He was still confused though.
 
After a moment he removed his sunglasses and the ski mask so he could breathe and think.
 
They already knew who he was.

Once the ski mask was off, Alec could see that Victor wasn’t a bad looking guy.
 
His brown eyes looked troubled and were staring at nothing in particular.
 
He looked tired and gaunt with dark circles around his eyes.
 
His dark blonde hair was slightly curly and was longish.
 
He almost looked like a surfer dude except he was way too pale.
 
He obviously didn’t get out in the sun much.

“If you had forgotten all of this, what led you here with a gun tonight screaming about vampires?”

Victor had been thinking and was getting more and more agitated.
 

“It doesn’t matter,” he said a little too loudly.
 

Alec frowned at him.
 
He felt like he had reached Victor in some way and had gotten through to him, but suddenly it felt like the crazy was back.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said and aimed his gun at Alec.
 
“They’re going to kill me.”

Alec started to ask a question but Victor continued.

“Don’t you see?
 
They compelled me so that I wouldn’t talk about what I’d seen.
 
So I showed up and asked to be turned.”
 
He was getting more and more agitated.

“Then they made me forget and I came back a second time.
 
Then they made me delete all my notes
and
forget and here we are, tonight.
 
They will kill me after this.”

“I don’t think the vampires would kill you if you were in police custody.”
 
Alec’s words sounded lame and hollow.
 
He knew as well as Victor did that the vampires could arrange an accident for a prisoner. People died all the time in jail.

“They are going to kill me now.
 
They sent you to kill me, didn’t they?”
 
He shook the gun in Alec’s direction.
 

“No.
 
I’ve never killed anyone in my life and I don’t plan on starting now.”
 
This was getting out of hand, quickly.

“Listen Victor, calm down and let’s talk about this rationally.
 
I’m sure we can find a solution of some sort and work this out so that no one has to die; not you and not the hostages.”

“Listen to Michael, dude.
 
We can all get out of this in one piece,” Steven said from behind his computer.

Victor however, had a wild look about him.
 
Alec was afraid he might have finally come unhinged.
 
Now that the mask and glasses were off, Victor looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
 
His eyes were red and there were circles under them.
 
Lack of sleep because of nightmares, plus having your memory wiped, twice and the fear that the vampires were now going to kill him had been too much for Victor.
 
He looked like he was ready to explode.
 
He started pacing back and forth talking to himself.

“Victor?
 
Victor?” Alec was trying to get the man to look at him.
 
“Stay with me, man.”

He finally did take notice of Alec.
 
“How did you know my name?”
 
He was suddenly completely still and glaring at Alec.

“When you got here I told you to call me Jinx.
 
But then later you said you knew who I was and started calling me Victor.
 
How did you know my name?”
 
He was very calm now and Alec didn’t like it one bit.
 
He had to think quickly.

“That’s one of those things that I can’t tell you.”
 

“Are the vampires communicating with you through telepathy?”
 
His eyes narrowed at Alec.

“No.
 
As far as I know that isn’t possible.”
 
Alec needed to change the direction of the conversation.

“If you don’t remember anything that happened previously, how did you end up here with Chris and Steven as hostages demanding to speak to the vampires?”

Victor glared at him a moment longer.
 
Alec wasn’t sure he was going to answer.

“The three of us went to high school together, and now we are at the same college.
 
Chris bullied me a lot in high school.
 
He and his little band of thugs started picking on me again.”
 
He was agitated again but was focused on his memories and not Alec.

“I went to Senator Taylor to talk to him and he made fun of me and told me to suck it up and be a man.”
 
Victor looked like he was about to cry and blinked his eyes several times.

“I was furious and stormed out of his office.
 
I stopped to catch my breath and calm myself down before I got in my car and I heard voices coming from one of the rooms.
 
It was Chris’s, so I decided to confront him without all of his buddies around.
 
When I peeked through the open door there was this really beautiful woman in there with Chris.
 
I mean
really
beautiful.
 
I thought she was kissing on his neck until she pulled back and I realized she had fangs and that there was blood around her mouth.”
 
He shivered involuntarily at the memory.
 
Obviously, this part of Victor’s memory hadn’t been erased.

“They didn’t see me, so I left.
 
I wasn’t sure what was going on so the next day, I hacked into the Senator’s computer and found all kinds of interesting information about vampires.
 
I thought maybe that was why they were after me.”

“Wait… you said this woman was feeding on Chris?” Alec asked incredulously.

“Yes and he was just acting casual about it and laughing.
 
There’s more.
 
Lots more.”

“
This
is not good,” Marcus said from his hiding place.
 
Alec hadn’t heard orders relayed from Silas recently and wasn’t sure what the man was doing.

“Hold on,” Alec said and walked over to Chris.
 
The young dark haired man looked up at him expectantly.
 
Alec reached forward and turned his head this way and that looking at his neck.
 
Just like Victor had said, there were fang marks there.

“He has bite marks on his neck,” he said out loud so Marcus would hear.

Chris jerked his head away from Alec and turned away from him slightly hiding his neck.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Chris said nastily.
 

“Oh, I understand all right.”

“What would someone like you know?
 
You’re just the vampire’s lap dog doing their bidding.”
 
His voice was very derisive and condescending.
 
Alec narrowed his eyes at him.

“We’re in love.
 
We are going to be together forever.
 
She’s already agreed to turn me, soon.
 
Then you will bow down to me.”

“You are nothing more to her than a play-thing Chris.
 
You’ve fooled yourself into believing it’s something more.”
 
Alec leaned down and looked Chris directly in the eyes.
 
“And I will
never
bow down to the likes of you.”
 
Wow.
 
He really had changed.

“How dare you!”
 
Chris’s eyes bored into Alec.
 
“Who the hell do you think you are you snotty little piss?”
 

“I’m the one that’s going to save your miserable ass from getting blown up.”
 
Alec hated bullies and had been bullied his whole life.
 
He was trying to save this miserable piece of shit’s life and he was talking to him like a dog.
 
He was an arrogant turd.

“We will see what my father has to say about this when I tell him.
 
I have powerful friends.”

“Yeah?
 
So do I.
 
Get over yourself.”

Chris sputtered and fumed.
 
He wasn’t accustomed to being spoken to like this.
 
He was used to people being afraid of him, or his father.

Marcus said,
“Alec we need to talk to Chris.
 
We need to get those people out of there.”

Alec needed time to think.
 
“Why is Steven here and what is he working on?”

Victor smiled then.
 
“Like I said, when I hacked into the Senator’s computer I found some very interesting files about the vampires and their dealings with the Senator.
 
There were several important looking files that I couldn’t open.
 
Steven is the best hacker I know so I’m having him work on opening the files.”

“Thanks for that,” Steven said dryly.
 
“And I’d like to add, I’m being
forced
into doing this against my will.”

“When the files are opened and you find out all that I’ve dug up, the vampires aren’t going to be happy with the Senator
or
his son,” Victor said triumphantly.

“Okay Victor, let’s take all this information to the vampires and let them deal with the Taylors.
 
We need to end this before someone ends up getting hurt.
 
These people are victims, just like you.”

“Alec,”
Marcus said urgently,
“something is wrong.
 
Silas said he just saw several vampires go through windows on the second floor.
 
All vampires have been ordered to stand down until told otherwise.
 
I don’t know who they are or what they want, but this can’t be good.
 
Silas is questioning Von Bell about who they might be.
 
Get out of there, now.”

“Okay,” Alec said.

“Huh?” Victor looked confused.
 

Alec turned to Victor, then to the hostages sitting on the floor.
 

“Everyone out of here.
 
Now.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Victor asked angrily.
 

“I’m not sure what’s going on, but right now, we are all in danger.
 
Against orders vampires have broken in on the second floor and are working their way down.
 
If you want to live you need to let these people go and turn yourself in.
 
And turn that detonator switch off.”
 
The urgency in Alec’s voice scared Victor.
 
He turned to look at the confused people on the floor.
 

“Go.
 
You’re free. Get out now!” Alec shouted.
 
They didn’t wait to be told a third time.
 
They rose, helping each other as they stood, and walked to the doors giving Victor a wide berth.
 
Alec tossed the key to the doors to a young man leading the way.

Victor was dumbfounded.
 
He had just let it happen.
 

Alec looked at him and then the detonator switch.
 
Victor sighed, but turned it off and took his finger off the trigger.
 
It was over.
 
He’d lost.

“I guess they’ll come after me now.”
 
He sounded defeated.
 

“I’m sure they’ll have some questions for you, Victor.
 
Don’t give up yet.
 
We need to get out of here as quickly as possible.”

Alec could hear the commotion outside as the hostages exited.
 
He heard questions being asked about whether or not Christopher was still alive and okay.
 
Most of the hostages were weeping and had no clue what was actually going on.
 

Alec turned to Victor and Steven.
 
“We need to get out of here.
 
How do I take this vest off?”
 
He walked up to Chris and helped him up.
 
Chris jerked his arm away from Alec as soon as he was up and glared at him.
 
Alec didn’t have the time to care.
 
Steven was quickly packing up his computer and equipment.
 
He was a little freaked out by what Alec had said.

“There’s a key to the lock on the front.”

“Where is it?” Alec asked impatiently.
 
He could hear doors opening to the stairwells on the floor above him and what sounded like bodies hitting the floor.
 
They were running out of time.

“It’s in my backpack, over there.”
 
Alec looked to where Victor pointed and saw a black backpack lying against the service desk.
 
It was close to the doors that were about to open and probably spill out several vampires that wanted to kill them.
 
Not good.

“Is this thing disarmed?
 
Will it blow up if I break the lock?”

“No. It’s off, but how are you…”
 

Alec grabbed the lock and yanked.
 
It broke free with very little effort.
 
He removed the vest from Chris who rubbed his chest and winced.