Standing Before Monsters (Vorans and Vampires) (56 page)

“We finished off the reapers,” Nicola stated sounding tired in spite of it being the middle of the night and nowhere near her bedtime.

“They were working under the same people as Cyrus. The reapers are the clean up crew for his failure and destroyed every nest that they could find trying to figure out who destroyed Cyrus’s army.”

Charlotte nodded and replied, “Then they probably reported what happened at the nest.”

“Their leader wasn’t there that night, but we took care of him and the two that escaped us,” Nick said. “How much they knew aside from being caught by another wave of vampires before they could finish off the nest, we don’t know; but their leader said they work for some elder vampires in something called the Consortium.”

“Great more vampires that want to come here to kill us,” Charlotte retorted sitting back in her seat looking unhappy with the news.

“We’ll just keep alert as always,” Nicola replied reaching over to put her hand on his leg as he drove.

The conversation lapsed into silence as they drove. With the news of the Consortium, there was little more to say. Nick would see if he could find anything on the internet that might have leaked, but he doubted that there would be much to find. Vampires were pretty good at covering their trails and few were stupid enough to
Facebook about themselves, if any.

A vampire kept to the night and darkness. Secrecy was their best defense and many were hundreds of years old. Only the fledglings and newly turned might be stupid enough to go public about their new lives, and if that happened someone from the darkness would make sure that they were silenced and labeled crackpots by society. People claiming to be vampires would turn out to be Goth kids or so the newspapers and other reports would say. Kids that had gone astray with their weird culture, they would hypothesize, and the world would write them off to go on as usual. It was how they had managed to survive and coexist with humans, their food source for so long.

Nick sat on the couch in the living room alone for the first time in months. No werewolves or vampires were around as the television played while the voran checked his laptop analyzing stocks to
trade and sell. While the market had been unpredictable for a couple years, more recently it had become easier to gauge. The voran had lost some money along the way since the crash, but overall he still had managed to rebound and had enough safe investments that he wouldn’t be hurting for money even with the extra mouths to feed anytime soon. The occasional freelance article would help as well, even though he had been trying to adjust to a more online presence than he might like.

Charlotte had been getting sick more often over the last week and decided to visit her brother down at the clinic. She could have him check her over to see what it was. So far no one else in contact with the woman had shown any signs of whatever she had, but then again most of the people she was in contact with the most were other werewolves, vampires and a voran. Only Geni saw her regularly while she worked to clean up his apartment or hang out with Lena now that they were on summer break.

Left alone, Nick wondered about this Consortium threat the reaper had made. He had no reason not to believe him, since the creature had little reason to lie as he faced his death. It had been a threat not an attempt to save his life, which usually meant it was more likely true than someone just trying to tell him what he wanted to hear.

The ping of the elevator outside in the hall wouldn’t have been heard by any of his neighbors, but Nick heard it. He had also felt Charlotte in the elevator, but was surprised that Logan was with her as well. When she entered the door, it was unlocked. As secure as the building was, the long time resident had little worries of the wrong people ever getting in let alone up to his floor.

The dark haired woman looked at him with those strange blue eyes which were beautiful but still hard to see when he remembered first meeting her with brown eyes. Her face looked to be a mix of emotions and he couldn’t even begin to read them all. Worry, happiness, confusion, joy, fear, she was a mix of contradicting looks.

“Hey, Logan, I didn’t expect you today. How’s Kate doing?”

The big blonde haired man still wore a button up shirt though his tie was likely left in the car. He was a doctor and had to look professional even when a white coat often was the only thing making patients believe he was a doctor. Of course, Logan knew what he was doing and exuded confidence since he had been an ER doctor in his past.

His eyes looked a little uncomfortable as well, but he answered easily enough, “Kate is good. She’s working right now and our paychecks are looking big enough that soon we can buy a car to get yours back to you.”

Waving the last part off, Nick said, “Don’t worry about it. Furnish the place and make it your home before you worry about spending large amounts on cars. I have three and don’t always remember to make sure to drive all of them enough anyway. It’s one less chore to do.”

Taking a seat, the big man shrugged, “We appreciate it.”

His eyes went to Charlotte who still stood nervously. Drawing more attention because of her nervous energy making the woman pace now, Nick asked, “Did he figure out why you’ve been sick?”

Logan hid a smile behind his hands as he looked up at his sister.

“Um, yes, and it wasn’t what I thought it might be. I mean, I kind of saw the signs, but being in heat (I still hate calling it that),” she complained as the woman hit a tangent. “Being in heat, I wasn’t sure what was reset. The wolf took over in some ways and the full moons seemed to turn me even more upside down. I hadn’t been able to figure out what was going on anymore.”

She paused and continued to pace. “We worried that you couldn’t reset my body when it was out of control, but you did. We did! I mean, making love with you...” Her eyes glanced to her brother realizing she didn’t want to talk about her love life in front of him. “Anyway, then we worried, would the new moon cause more problems, but it didn’t. Well nothing unusual happened to my body, and I didn’t need to change right away because of the moon. Well, it didn’t force a change immediately, but that could
have been the clouds and weather. That can change how we react on a full moon as you know. Well maybe you don’t know, but it does.”

He had never heard the woman go on like this. Being someone training to become a lawyer, public speaking wasn’t much of a problem for Charlotte and she had never seemed unable to talk to him. There had always been an easy rapport between them even before the strangeness of the full moon brought them together.

Logan looked ready to push his sister impatiently. “Just tell him already. I promised to let you do it your way, but your way is killing me, Charlotte.”

“Shut up,” she complained looking at him like the little sister she was and being frustrated by her big brother. “I’m getting to it. It isn’t easy to just say things like this.”

Taking a deep breath, the dark haired beauty stopped pacing to look at him with those magical blue eyes and tried to conclude her rambling tangent, which was obviously being used to give her time to get the courage to say whatever it was she needed to say. Nick was beginning to have a strong feeling that what was wrong wasn’t exactly something that was truly wrong.

“I haven’t had a period since before I went into heat. I wasn’t sure what my timing was anymore, but it hasn’t come back. Maybe it was the full moon messing with me, and then I started getting sick. It wasn’t a certain time and it wasn’t every day or anything, until this week.”

“And you’re pregnant?” Nick finally just took her where she was trying to go.

Her eyes looked afraid that he would be angry with her or something along that line. Nick looked to Logan, “You can be sure? I mean, with her being a werewolf and all, not because I can’t believe such a thing can happen.”

“The pheromones and other chemicals are still the same,” Logan nodded. “I just can’t let anyone aside from the doctor I trusted to check her out to look at her blood work.”

This part of the news made Nick look at the man as if he had gone mad. “You haven’t been working there that long and you had another doctor look at Charlotte? We can’t let humans know that something like werewolves exist, Logan.”

Waving the worry off, Logan stated, “Don’t worry. I trust her and so can you with this. I’ll also keep an eye on her to make sure nothing is out of line, but there was no way I was going to do a check up like this with my sister. And there is no way in hell I am going to be looking at my sister’s vagina!”

Everyone looked assaulted by that proclamation. Logan quickly argued, “Doctors have problems taking care of family and there are just some things a man should avoid in life.”

Charlotte looked like she wanted to be insulted by his statement, but Nick guessed that the disgust went both ways. “As my insensitive brother said, I don’t really want him examining me like that and if I am going to have a baby, the only way he is going to be playing catch down there is if the rest of the planet is dead or busy... or busy because they are dead!”

Waving off the worry of bringing another human into their world, Nick asked, “I am also kind of surprised that our joining would make her pregnant. Have you heard of any other werewolves having children? Are they normally even able to have them?”

Logan shrugged, “I only know the pack, but Eric was born a werewolf. He’s never fully said it, but a couple times he talked about how his father raised him and took him for runs on the full moon. He never says much about his mother, but I think she was a human and may not have survived the birth.

“None of his mates have had children with him and Kate hasn’t been having similar problems, though we haven’t been trying as long as Eric and his mates probably.”

Charlotte sat next to him still looking worried. “You aren’t mad? You were kind of forced into this relationship after all.”

Nick pulled her close to kiss her on the cheek and then more impulsively on the lips. “Well, I can’t say I ever saw this coming, but I guess after more than a century I don’t mind being a father for the first time. It’s always a good thing to have a child, especially with someone you love.”

Her arms went around him in a hug nuzzling his neck and he heard little thank yous and I love yous as she cried.

Well, his life never seemed to stop being complicated, the man thought in amusement. Nick decided that he was definitely going to have to start looking for a bigger apartment after all.

***************

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Voran: The Night Guardian

Chapter 1- Guardian

The city, never fully asleep, always imbued with its own sound, quiets momentarily and only the sound of the wind whistling through metal and brick ways stands out. A sliver of the moon gives light in places, but doesn’t penetrate the alleys where monsters prey on the innocent. Stories of wild dogs and
coyotes made the news, but it was often a different predator that would not come into the light that was most dangerous.

A woman’s voice cries out weakly.

A green bulb changes and the sounds of nearby cars drown out another sound, the sound of flesh tearing and blood dripping to the ground where it escapes the mouth of the predator.

The woman’s voice continues to call for help, but her strength is fading and her sounds seem to go unheard. The creature continues to draw out her blood, feasting. It has done this before, though he is still young and new to the feeding to sate his hunger. The predator that was once a man is now merely a vessel of desire for the only food that will stop his hunger, if only for awhile. The woman’s head lolls to the side, her energy spent as her life begins to fade.

The scuff from the roof top above draws the predator’s attention, though human ears could not have heard the faint sounds from nearly thirty feet away. The creature no longer needs to hunt, but he will not leave a witness to his deed. Still dripping blood from his chin, the creature leaps high upon the near wall and bounds from it across the alley to the far wall. A third leap brings it to the lip of the building and the creature searches for the source of the sound.

Night vision picking out heat sources, the creature quickly finds the man. The voyeur is calm. The murder and the monster which created it bring no fear or seemingly any emotion from the man. The creature should have wondered at such a thing, but its bloodlust clouded judgment. The man must die, it thinks and no other option presents itself.

Leaping forward to attack, the predator’s claws search for the man’s throat. It will rip the life from his body, or so it thinks, but as its claws slice the air before its target, the man moves with amazing speed side stepping the killing blow.

The predator feels pain from the side of its chest.

Glancing down, the creature sees blood dripping and bands of flesh and cloth swaying as it turns to face the man. Confusion etches it features. The mouth opens revealing extended incisors. The eyes are all white save its irises. Ears, nearly pointed, are oversized and acute of hearing. It hears the man’s heartbeat thrumming steadily.

It looks at the man more closely. Reason begins to override bloodlust and the creature notes four ivory claws dripping with his blood. Virtually gleaming white even in the wane moonlight, the claws extend unnaturally from the man’s right hand. There is a glint of steel from the man’s side. A sword rests upon his hip where the moon catches the metal hilt revealing the blade still sheathed.