In Loving Memory
“What?” David asked, confused.
“Oh, don’t give me that!” Star spat.
“John and Virginia hired you, didn’t they? What? The physical torture
wasn’t enough, they gotta resort to this? It’s sick!”
“What the hell are you going on about?” He asked, however Star ignored him.
“You go back and you tell them, I’m not
giving them anything! I don’t know anything and even if I did, I
wouldn’t tell them. They murdered my family! Did they really think
parading their shells in front of me would get me to break?!”
“Dude, she’s lost it.” Paul whispered.
“Star…who do you think we are?” Dwayne asked cautiously, brow furrowed. Star laughed hysterically.
“You tell me…”
“Star, it’s us…” Marko gasped from under her grasp. She shook her head vehemently.
“No. Stop lying to me. I felt you die!”
“Star…just put the needle down. We’ll
talk about this and you’ll see it’s us.” Dwayne coaxed, unsure if Star
was even in her right mind.
“No…” She wailed. “You can’t be…y-you just…can’t…it’s not right.”
She dropped the syringe and pushed Marko
away from her. He kicked the needle out of her reach and picked it up.
Star had collapsed into a ball and was now sobbing. Marko backed up
further, in case it was another ploy.
“Please…kill me. Just don’t do this…don’t be them. Please…I didn’t do anything to you.”
“We’re not going to kill you, Star.” David confirmed, before smiling coldly. “That would be too kind after what you did.”
“You think she’s lying?” Dwayne asked David, once they were outside the chamber where they were holding Star.
“Of course she is. She was too cowardly
to kill us herself, she had to get those wannabe hunters to do it for
her. Shit, maybe she was even working with Max.”
“I don’t know, David. She genuinely didn’t seem to understand what was going on.”
“Maybe she’s got amnesia?” Paul suggested.
“I don’t think so.” Marko shook his head. “I mean, she recognised us, but it was like she didn’t want to believe it was us.”
“Of course she doesn’t want to. She
thought she was rid of us and now she’s going to have to face the
consequences of what she’s done.” Marko looked behind him at Star and
shook his head again.
“No, there’s more to it than that. Something’s wrong. It just…doesn’t feel right.”
“Marko, she was threatening to poison you!”
“How do you know for sure that there’s
even anything in here?” Marko asked, breaking the syringe and cursing as
he burnt his fingers on the toxic liquid inside.
“See?”
“That doesn’t prove anything.” Marko countered, returning to Star.
“Marko, get back here…” David growled after him.
“Star?” Marko asked timidly, slowly approaching the huddled form before him. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
“I told you, I’m not telling you anything.”
“Marko, get away from her!”
“Do you know where you are?”
She nodded sadly.
“Iad.” She whispered.
“Marko, step back, I won’t tell you again.”
“Wait, what is that?” Dwayne asked Marko, ignoring David’s warning.
“Hell. She thinks she’s in hell.”
“She will be soon, if she doesn’t quit this act.”
“Why'd you do it, Star? Why'd you betray us?” Paul joined in.
“I didn't!” She protested.
“Then where were you that night?”
“One minute I'm fast asleep and the next,
Michael is waking me up telling me he's taking me out of there? What
was I supposed to do? Ask him to wait there while I asked David if it’s
okay? I didn't know what to do!” She couldn't hold the tears back any
longer. Paul's scarred face softened as he realised the predicament
she’d been in. David, however was having none of it.
“That’s it! I’ve had enough of this.” He
grabbed her by the arm, hoisting her to her feet and she screamed so
loud you would think he had just torn her arm from its socket.
“David, you’re hurting her.”
“I’ll do more than that…” He snarled “I warned you, Star. I warned you what would happen if you threatened my family again!”
He threw her against the wall and the
scent of blood invaded the air. Marko ran over to her. Her face was
clean, however there was a dark patch of something on her jacket that
seemed to be rapidly increasing in size. Removing her jacket, he
discovered her side was bleeding heavily through makeshift bindings. He
also noticed deep bruising and track marks on her arms.
“David, come look at this…” He beckoned David over. The boys crowded around her, taking in her injuries.
“Get…the fuck…away from…me.” Star coughed, holding her side.
“What the hell happened?”
“I don’t get it. This injury is over a week old. She’s still a vampire, so why isn’t she healing?”
“It b-burns…when it…goes down…your
throat…” Star whispered, her voice getting weaker. Marko pulled her her
hair back and discovered similar bruising along her neck, her veins dark
in contrast with her skin. Curious, he slipped into fang and lowered
his mouth to her neck.
“What are you doing?” David asked.
“Testing a theory.” Marko answered,
before puncturing Star’s neck with his fangs and allowing her blood to
fill his mouth. He immediately spat it out on the floor beside him.
“What is it?”
“Whatever the hell was in that syringe
it’s in her blood.” Marko replied, trying to get the remnants of Star
tainted blood out of his mouth.
“Why the hell would she inject herself with Holy Water?” Asked Paul.
“She wouldn’t.” David answered solemnly. “It would have been injected purposely to prevent her from healing.”
“Who else would know that?”
“Hunters.” David hung his head in realisation. The Frog brothers it seemed, were only the beginning.
“I won’t go back!” Star cried and suddenly sat up. “You can’t make me.”
“Star...”
She shuffled backwards as far as she could manage, while slipping in and out of reality.
“Stay away from me! Oh, don’t worry,
sweetheart. They’ll come, I know they will. You know I won’t let
anything happen to you, right? Right, Laddie?”
“Star, Laddie’s not here.” Replied Dwayne.
“What have you done with him? He’s just a little boy.”
“We haven’t done anything with him. He was with you, remember?”
“Oh! I remember…”
“What are they going to do to us, Star?”
“I don’t know, but I can make damn sure they don’t do it to you. Come on, I’m getting you out of here…”
They crept out of the house, careful
not to alert it’s inhabitants. It was pitch black outside and Laddie
couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. He was glad he had
Star, who could see just as well in darkness.
“Careful!” She warned, holding him back. “This is where they lay. Well, what’s left of them.”
She put her hand to the newly turned earth, as if they would be able to feel and find comfort in her touch.
“I heard the old man and the Frogs burying them this morning.”
“They scare me.”
“I know. Me too, sweetheart. Me too.
You should be able to find your way to town from here. Just keep
following the road and don’t stop until you’re well away from this
place.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“I can’t. It’s too close to dawn, I’d never make it. Besides, I won’t leave them here with those monsters. I told you that.”
“Then I’m not going either. They were my family too.” She placed her hands on his small shoulders and pleaded with him.
“Laddie, don’t argue with me. You’re
human, they have no interest in you. You can go and live a normal life.
Please, I don’t want to lose you too.”
“I don’t want a normal life, I want to be with you!”
“You can’t, this has gone too far. You need to go. Now!”
Just then, lights shone on them, almost blinding her.
“No one’s going anywhere.” It was him, and
behind him was Michael and the Frog brothers. Sam was no doubt inside
with Lucy, as these days he rarely left her side. She gulped and held
Laddie close to her.
“Where’re you going, Star?” Michael taunted, using the same phrase David had when they first met.
“Please…” Star begged. “Just let him go. He’s human now, he can’t hurt you.”
“Let him go squawking all over town? Get your vamp buddies up here? I don’t think so.” Edgar grunted.
“Who’s going to believe him even if he did tell? He’s not a threat to you.”
“All filth like you are a threat to us.” Alan replied, aiming his water-uzi at them and Star pushed Laddie behind her.
“I won’t let you hurt him.”
She yelled at Laddie to run and
launched herself at Edgar and Michael. Alan squirted her with Holy Water
and she screamed as it melted her skin. She threw Edgar at Alan,
knocking him off balance. Dropping her fangs, she growled at Michael,
while the Frog brothers were busy fishing for their stakes.
“I should have killed you the first night we met. None of this would have ever happened!”
BANG!
The sound of the shotgun reverberated through the air. She looked down expecting to see a hole in her chest, but he hadn’t been aiming at her. She jumped off Michael and turned around to see a little body on the ground.
“NOO—”
“—OOO! They killed him…” Star whispered, tears falling down her face.
“What? Who killed who?” Dwayne asked, startled by her sudden outburst.
“He was just a little boy and they killed him.”
“They…killed Laddie?” Dwayne growled before briefly vamping out.
“I couldn’t save him. It was a shotgun
and he was so little…” Star covered her mouth with both hands to stop
herself from screaming again.
“Oh, man…” Paul sighed, shaking his head.
Even David wasn’t quite sure how he
should be feeling at that moment, so he kept his face impassive. He
hadn’t been as close to Laddie as the others - in fact he’d been quite
indifferent to the young boy. Star and Dwayne’s connection to him had
unlocked a bond between them, that David could never hope to have with
her. He had no patience for children, however that shouldn’t suggest
that he wasn’t grieved to learn of his death. Imagining the pain it must
have caused Star, instantly made him want to comfort her. He quickly
put his feelings in check, once he remembered that he wasn’t completely
convinced of her innocence.
“They just left him there, bleeding out on the gr…” She stopped.
“What? What is it, Star?” Asked Marko.
“They left him bleeding on the ground
over where they buried you. His blood soaked into the earth and brought
you back.” She looked up wide-eyed into the faces of her lost family,
her Lost Boys. The reason her cravings had gotten so much worse lately,
was standing right in front of her. A vampire needed a lot of sustenance
in order to heal quickly and effectively. Star had effectively been
trying to heal five seriously injured vampires all by herself.
“It’s really you?”
“It’s really us, girl.” Paul smiled, although there a tinge of sadness, now he knew to whom he owed his second chance.
They took Star to the foyer and gave her a
bottle of blood to flush out the remainder of the toxins in her system.
They all watched as she held it carefully to her mouth and drank slowly
but steadily. After a while, she leaned back against the love-seat on
which she was sitting next to Dwayne. Her brow creased with confusion as
she looked over at Marko.
“W-wait. How is Marko here? He wasn’t there that night.”
“No I wasn’t, but someone really needs to
give those Frog brothers an anatomy lesson.” He grinned, lifting his
shirt to reveal a healing scar in the middle of his chest. “Nowhere near
the heart. Hurt like a bitch, though.”
“I know. I felt it.” Said Star, taking another swig from the bottle.
“Incineration is the true key to a
vampire’s demise.” David explained, tiredly. “Stakes and Holy Water will
immobilise us for a very long time, however there are still enough
cells left for us to regenerate. Burying us speeds the process, too.
Those wannabe hunters have a lot to learn.”
“John and Virginia obviously aren’t as good as they think they are.” Star scoffed.
“You said those names earlier, who are they?” He asked.
“I thought they were something else you were hiding from me.” Star replied, looking pointedly at David.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The name Max ring any bells?”
“Oh…”
“Oh? That’s all you have to say?”
“You have no idea what was going on, Star!”
“I would have, if you’d told me.”
“So what if I did? What could you have done?”
“I could have been there for you. You wouldn’t have had to do it alone.”
“Do what?”
“I scanned Max’s mind. I know what both you and he were planning. He was trying to get rid of you all.”
“I thought he wanted us all to be one big happy family?” Paul asked, confused. Star shook her head.
“He’d wanted you gone for a long time, thought you were getting too out of control. David turning me was the kicker.”
David nodded, remembering his conversation with Max when he’d told him about Star.
“He didn’t want Gypsy blood watering down his legacy.”
“He was going to start again with the
Emersons. He tried to use Michael, but you were already inside. He
twisted your plan, David, for his own. Michael was battling with two
wills pulling him in different directions. One telling him to kidnap me,
the other telling him to rescue me. Still, they both led to the same
place.”
“Are you defending him?” David growled.
“No! I’m saying neither of you counted on
the Frog brothers getting involved. They weren’t supposed to be there
in either scenario.”
“Wait, back to this John and Virginia. Who are they and how are they connected?” Asked Marko.
“You really don’t know? They’re Edgar and Alan’s parents.”
“What?! The spaced out hippies from the
comic book store? That’s who you’re so afraid of?” Paul burst out
laughing and Star scowled.
“They are not spaced out hippies. That’s
just a cover.” She replied, carefully. She reached into her jacket
pocket and pulled out another syringe. The boys all jumped back.
“This, is one of their chemical cocktails. I stole as many as I could after I escaped them holding me prisoner.”
“I’ve been watching you for some time now, Star. You certainly didn’t look like a prisoner when you were with the Emersons.”
“Looks can be deceiving. Just like John
and Virginia. They may look harmless, but they are serious hunters and
they’ve taught their sons well. Maybe Edgar and Alan did screw up with
taking you guys out, but it was their first time. And you know what they
say, practice makes perfect, and boy, have they practised.”
“How do you know?” Dwayne asked, suspiciously.
“Because, I’m their secret weapon.” She replied, despondently.
“What does that mean?”
She sighed and then looked at David with regret.
“You never did teach me how to shut you out.”
David looked at her quizzically and then his eyes widened in realisation. Star nodded, confirming his suspicions.
“David? What’s she talking about?” Asked Dwayne.
“David worked out that I was tapping into
all of your hunger, which is why no amount of feeding seemed to satisfy
my cravings. It was why I was turning feral.” David exhaled sharply and
put his head in his hand.
“I was going to show her how to shut us
out after we’d taken care of Max. I wanted to use her blood-lust as a
weapon against him.”
“Yeah, well the Frogs had a similar idea.
Torture me, weaken me, refuse to feed me. Place me in a crowd, wind me
up and watch me go. Take me out and do it all over again. And it isn’t
just vampires they’ve been hunting.”
“The werewolves?”
“Werewolves, ghouls, demons, witches - anything that poses a threat to truth, justice and the American way.” She recited.
“Fuck!” Paul exclaimed.
“So how did you escape?”
“With great difficulty. They were using
me to infiltrate a vampire pack downtown. They’d had info from a half
who was sired by their Head. He was supposed to back me up, however he
didn’t show. The Head recognised my blood belonged to Max’s family, with
whom she had an unfortunate history, and it turned into a bloodbath and
not the good kind. In the confusion, I managed to escape, but not
without receiving the wrath of a crossbow.” She explained, gesturing to
her bloody bandages.
“Didn’t hurt as much as one combined with
electricity, mind you.” She smiled sympathetically at Dwayne, who
grimaced at the reminder.
“So why take the syringes?” Marko asked.
“Because I don’t just have to worry about
protecting myself against the hunters who kidnapped me. I’ve also got
an irate vampire pack, a pissed off werewolf pack and a furious coven of
witches all after me. And now you guys as well!”
Marko looked over at David, who was still
analysing everything Star had told him, for any hint of deception. When
David still refused to make a comment, he spoke up instead.
“We’re not after you, Star. We just didn’t know what to think after that night.”
“Yeah, we thought you’d turned. Especially when you screamed when you saw us coming.” Paul said and Star shrugged.
“I wasn’t sure what the plan was, so I thought the best thing was to continue playing my role.”
“To the point of helping them to kill us?” David asked.
“No! They tried to kill me and Laddie
too. We hid under the bed and when I heard Paul, I got out to help him. I
was going to slip into the other bedroom and trap them in the
bathroom.”
“So why didn’t you?” Paul asked.
“Because when I opened the door, Sam’s
dog was there and I know it sounds pathetic, but I’m terrified of dogs.
It was growling and snarling at me and I hid in the closet.” Star
shifted about uncomfortably as her voice got quieter with embarrassment
at being frightened by something so…human.
“I couldn’t move, I was paralysed and
then my face felt like it was on fire and I couldn’t see. I felt the dog
had gone so I tried to get out and then my whole body went into spasm.”
“The dog came after me and pushed me into the bathtub filled with Holy Water. You felt that?”
“I am so sorry that I didn’t help you, Paul.”
“But you felt it?”
“I told you, I felt you all die…” She
paused and looked over at David who was studying her through cold eyes.
“Yours was the worst. I remember, they were tying me and Laddie up when I
felt that…plunge through my chest and I knew it was you, David.”
David looked down at the floor, face set in a frown. Star tried to continue through the tears.
“I broke free, raced down the stairs, saw
your body and I died right there with you.” After she had regained her
composure, she sniffed, wiped away her tears and carried on.
“After all the shit with Max went down,
me and Laddie were trying to come up with a way to get you all out of
there and back to the cave, without us being noticed.”
“Why didn’t you just leave?” Dwayne asked. “You could have escaped with Laddie.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you there, with
them! They were all celebrating in the kitchen and I’d somehow convinced
myself that David wasn’t really dead and that I could save him.”
At that, David finally looked at Star
properly. It was the ignition he’d been hoping for. The flame within him
wasn’t truly alight, however the embers were beginning to smoke.
“Someone knocked me out before I could try, though.”
“Who?” He asked.
“John, I think. Well he and Virginia were
the first faces I saw when I came to. Oh, and just for your
information,” she said, giving David an accusing stare. “I’m getting
really tired of being knocked unconscious all the time.”
“It’s for your own good.” David smirked. Star sighed and smiled back at him.
“So they kidnapped you and Laddie?” Asked Marko, trying to get back to Star’s story.
“Not exactly. They held us hostage at the Emersons for a while until they figured out what to do with us.”
“So Edgar and Alan went running for Mommy
and Daddy? Least I managed to scare the shit out of ‘em, bud!” Paul
grinned as he high-fived Marko, pleased he had accomplished something
worthwhile, prior to his untimely demise.
“They were just as surprised to see them there as anybody.”
“So what were they doing at the Emersons? They got trackers on their kids or something?”
“No, the old man brought them. He
recognised Max and got suspicious after Sam’s ruse to get him out of the
house before you guys dropped in. So he went to get John and Virginia.”
“How the hell did he know about them being hunters?”
“C’mon, Paul, you’ve seen the guy’s
truck, and all those animals he likes to stuff. He’s a fucking hunter
too!” Dwayne answered, however Star shook her head.
“He’s not a hunter, he’s a half. In fact, he’s the one who didn’t show up while I was infiltrating his sire’s pack.”Next Chapter
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