Chapter One
The gleaming white of bared fangs flashed in the darkness. Frank Dubin came awake with a start. His eyes swept about, searching for the monster from his dream. Seeing no sign of it, Frank slumped against the backseat of the cab. The driver was glancing over his shoulder at him with an expression of concern.
“You okay back there, buddy?” the driver asked.
“I’m fine,” Frank croaked in response. Sweat soaked the expensive business suit he wore. With the back of his hand, he wiped his forehead beneath the rim of his bowler cap. It came away wet. Frank wasn’t a precog, but sometimes he caught glimpses of the future when things were most dire.
The corporation he worked for was owned by a lady who expected results, and Frank was certain he was about to deliver them. His talent lay in sensing others like himself. They appeared to his mind like fireflies in a night sky, blinking in and out of his perception as they used their gifts. The farther away, the dimmer the light when it flashed. The closer he was to the person he was seeking, though, the brighter and more constant the light became. If he was within a block or two, they didn’t even need to use their abilities for him to feel their power. The individual he’d been dispatched to find was more powerful than anyone Frank had ever detected before. Indeed, he wondered why he was only able to perceive him now; a power like his should have been like the light of a supernova throbbing inside his head.
There were several explanations Frank could think of for why he hadn’t detected the power before. For one, it might have only recently manifested. Many people born with gifts like his died from old age without ever tapping into them. Sometimes powers naturally made themselves known as a person got older, but with others, it took a truly significant or horrific event in their life to bring their power to the surface and make them aware of what they could do. Newly-manifested powers almost always had a sheen to them that was easy to identify. This power didn’t. If anything, it felt old, as if it had been passed from one person to the next in a family line. Such a thing was not unheard of, but that didn’t explain why it was only now registering with him. Another possibility was that the man he sought, Geoff Ringer, was not only aware of the gift he possessed, but also had the ability to mask it. That would mean Ringer was not only extraordinarily rare, given the level of power Frank sensed in him, but perhaps unique.
Psi-talented individuals usually had only one talent, but approximately one in twenty were born with multiple, weaker gifts. Frank’s talent didn’t allow him to sense what power, or powers, an individual had, though—only that they existed and their overall strength.
As the taxi pulled up to the curb outside the police station, Frank regretted not asking one the telepaths back at HQ to tap into Geoff Ringer’s thoughts before he’d left to find him. Even if they’d failed to truly read his thoughts, that alone would have spoken volumes about Ringer and his power. As it was, Frank only knew what he’d read in the hastily-assembled file his boss had given him. The file included everything the combined government agencies—and other authorities his employer had contacts with—could get their hands on. Frank knew where Ringer had attended school, about the tragic death of the man’s parents, the foster homes that followed, and his record with the police force he was now part of. There were even photos of Ringer ranging from his childhood to present day—not that Frank needed them. From the information in the file, he knew Ringer was a twenty-seven-year-old detective, five foot eight, a hundred and sixty pounds, healthy, with gray-tinged black hair, green eyes, and pale skin. He knew other details about Ringer as well, from his favorite food to how his last romantic relationship had ended. Ringer was apparently very much a loner and a man without any real sense of ambition. His I.Q. scores indicated a sharp intelligence that hadn’t been put to full use beyond the cases he was assigned by the police department. Ringer’s record of solved cases wasn’t what Frank would have expected from the man. More often than not, the credit for cracking the cases he’d taken had been assigned to his partners over the years, not him. They’d all advanced in rank above him, while Ringer refused such promotions and remained a simple street detective.
Ringer was torn from his thoughts as the driver shouted at him from the front of the cab. “That’ll be forty-eight seventy-five, mister.”
Frank handed him the company expense card and said, “Add on another ten for yourself.”
“Thanks.” The driver beamed, ran the card, and returned it to Frank. He crammed the card into his wallet and got out of the cab. He watched it pull away on the nearly-empty road. There wasn’t much traffic this late, even in a city like Asheville.
Glancing at his watch, Frank saw it was even later than he’d thought; its display read 2:15. A normal person would be comfortably in bed asleep at this time of night, but detectives like Ringer and folks like Frank often kept odd hours. Straightening his shirt, coat, and adjusting the bowler cap atop his head, Frank headed into the police station.
There was an overweight officer, though a tough-looking sort of bloke, sitting behind the main desk. He got to his feet as Frank entered. “What can I help you with, sir?”
Frank greeted the officer’s sour expression with a chipper smile. “I’m looking for Detective Ringer.”
The officer grunted, looking him up and down. “Is that so?”
“Indeed, it is.” Frank met the officer’s probing eyes with his own. “Do you know where I can find him?”
“He’s upstairs, but I’m afraid I’m going to need to see some ID,” the officer said with a scowl.
“And rightly so.” Frank nodded, digging out his wallet. He handed the officer his ID card.
The officer took it. “You’re a Fed?”
Frank shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. I suppose, in truth, I’m more of an independent contractor.”
“Uh huh.” The officer frowned. “Well, Mr. Dubin, if you’ll take a seat over there, I’ll let Detective Ringer know you’re here.”
“Thank you,” Frank said and moved to take a seat on the bench the officer had indicated. He took a handkerchief from one of his pockets and wiped the bench down before sitting on it.
The officer returned to his seat behind the main desk and started piddling at something on the computer there. Whether he was working or merely goofing off, Frank neither knew nor cared. His mind was fixed on mulling over what he was going to say to Ringer when he arrived.
Frank watched as the station’s door opened, and a woman who was clearly a prostitute was led into the station by another cop. The woman appeared to accept her fate, as if this were a normal thing for her.
The officer at the desk looked up at the two of them. “Welcome back, Gretchen.”
“Good to see you, too, Officer Fattie.” The hooker laughed.
The desk officer glared at her. “Watch that mouth of yours, Gretchen!” He rose from his seat like he wanted to strike her.
Gretchen shot him the bird as the officer that’d brought her in shoved her toward the processing area.
Frank lost track of the woman as he felt a surge of power rip through his mind. His head whirled about to see Detective Ringer coming down the stairs. Ringer looked just as he did in the photos from the file Frank had been given, though perhaps a touch more haggard.
Ringer reached the bottom of the stairs and came straight at him. “Mr. Dubin?” Ringer asked.
Frank rose to his feet, offering his hand. “Ah, Detective Ringer, I must say it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
Ringer didn’t accept his proffered hand. Instead, he stared at Frank with appraising eyes.
“I’m told you’re with the Feds. If this is about the Hangman killer case…” Ringer said.
Frank quickly shook his head. “No, nothing like that, Detective. I merely need a few moments of your time.”
“You picked a bad night for it, Mr. Dubin,” Ringer told him. “It’s a full moon out there this evening, and the crazies are coming out of the woodwork.”
“Crazies?” Frank asked.
“I just locked up a guy who thinks he’s a werewolf.” Ringer sighed. “We get a couple of them every year.”
“And is he?” Frank asked with a grin.
Ringer gave Frank a careful look as he said, “What do you mean is he? Of course not. There’s no such thing as werewolves, Mr. Dubin.”
“Anything’s possible, Detective Ringer.” Frank smirked.
“Look, I really don’t have time for this.” Ringer shook his head. “Either get on with what you’ve come to see me about, or go back to wherever you came from. I’ve got enough on my hands tonight without you.”
“Is there somewhere a touch more private we could talk?” Frank asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Ringer answered reluctantly. “This way.”
Ringer led Frank into a nearby office and shut the door behind them. He walked around the room’s desk and plopped into the chair there.
“Have a seat,” Ringer instructed him, gesturing at the chair in front of the desk.
Frank took it. He stared across the desk at Ringer.
“Well?” Ringer urged.
“Detective Ringer, I work for an organization that has reason to believe you have the capacity to be much more than the mere street detective you are now,” Frank started.
“Hold on a sec.” Ringer leaned forward where he sat. “You’re here to offer me a job?”
“Something like that.” Frank grinned.
“I’m not interested,” Ringer said gruffly and started to get up. Frank’s next words knocked him off his feet, causing him to collapse back into his chair as if he’d been gut-punched.
“We know about your power, Detective Ringer.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ringer said, though it was clear he was lying.
“There’s no reason to be ashamed of your abilities, Detective,” Frank assured him, “and what the two of us are about to discuss will never leave this room.”
“I think it’s time you left now, Mr. Dubin,” Ringer growled.
“Far from it,” Frank said. “We’re just getting started, Detective Ringer.”
Ringer sprung from his seat and started for the office’s door. “You can either show yourself out, or I can have one of the officers out there help you back to the street.”
Frank left his own seat and moved to block Ringer’s path. “I have a gift myself, Detective Ringer.”
Shaking his head, Ringer started to shove Frank aside. Frank took him by the arm.
“My gift is that I can sense the powers of people like yourself, Detective,” Frank told him. “You can’t deny your power to me. I can see it in my mind, glowing like a bright, shining star in an otherwise dark void.”
“You’re crazy,” Ringer snapped, shaking free of Frank’s hold.
“You need to listen to me,” Frank warned. “I know about what happened to your parents. I mean what really happened, and how you survived.”
Frank’s declaration stopped Ringer in his tracks.
“You don’t know crap!” Ringer shouted as Frank continued to stare at him.
“Vampires are very real, Detective Ringer.” Frank cocked his head to look up at Ringer as he spoke. “The organization I work for…We deal with them, and other monsters, every day.”
Ringer stabbed a finger into Frank’s chest. It hurt, as Ringer thumped it repeatedly against him. “I don’t know who you are, Mr. Dubin, but I’ve had enough of your crap. Now take your crazy and get the hell out of my life. Do I make myself clear?”
The pictures on the wall of the office vibrated as Ringer raged at Frank. Frank’s smile grew wider.
“You’re a TK, aren’t you?” Frank asked.
“I don’t even know what that is!” Ringer bellowed at him.
“You can move objects with your mind, Detective Ringer. We call that TK. It’s a term that denotes you have telekinetic abilities. They’re how you saved yourself from the vampire who murdered your family when you were thirteen.”
Ringer said nothing. He stood, shaking with fear and rage.
“You’re not alone, Detective Ringer,” Frank told him. “There are many others in this world with powers like your own. As I’ve said, I have one myself, though it’s not as powerful or as physical in nature, as your own. I urge you to have a seat, so we can talk about this a little more. I highly doubt your captain would be as understanding of your gift as I and my employer are if it should, say, become public knowledge.”
“Is that a threat?” Ringer snarled.
Frank shook his head. “Certainly not. Now if you would…?” Frank gestured for Ringer to return to the chair behind the desk.
Ringer did so, though he clearly wasn’t happy about it.
“There’s so much to tell you, Detective Ringer; I’m afraid I don’t even know where to begin,” Frank said.
“Then why don’t you start at the beginning, and let’s get this over with,” Ringer said with a frown.
“Right then.” Frank chuckled. “Let’s do just that.”
* * *
Katherine Grimm rolled and twisted in the covers of her bed. They wrapped about her otherwise naked form, entangling her arms and legs. Every so often, a terrible moan of fear escaped her lips…and worse, those moans were accompanied by a red glow seeping from between her closed eyelids. Almost every night, Katherine’s dreams were the same. Over and over, her mind replayed the events that had led her to the life she now knew. Dreams as sharp and real as if the events they depicted were happening right before her, all over again.
In her dream, Alpha Squad advanced into the system of caves that sprawled throughout Henshaw Mountain. Beta Squad held back, protecting the command vehicle, where Katherine watched everything unfold on a collection of monitors. The video feeds from the helmet cameras of the men and women of both squads filled the screens.
Captain Jackson led Alpha Squad into the mouth of the cave the command vehicle was parked in front of. Alpha Squad was composed of Jackson, Harwood, Smith, Seville, and Spencer. They were the best mercs money could hire. They had countless hours of combat experience, and they’d all served in the military before becoming private operatives.
Jackson, Smith, and Seville were armed with Heckler and Koch G36 rifles. Jackson and Seville’s rifles sported barrel-mounted grenade launchers, while Harwood and Spencer had flamethrower units strapped to their backs. Alpha Squad’s rifles were loaded with custom-made silver rounds. And, regardless of their faiths, or lack thereof, each member wore a silver cross about their necks that dangled and bounced against the armor of their tactical vests.
With them, Katherine felt she’d paid for and received the best. Just watching the professional manner in which the members of Alpha Squad moved, assured her she was correct in that assessment.
“Entranceway is clear,” Captain Jackson reported through his helmet mike.
Katherine didn’t bother to respond. She knew Alpha Squad would proceed into the cave without additional orders from her. Lieutenant Sanderson also remained silent where he sat at the command vehicle’s comm station in front of her.
The interior of the cave was dark, lit only by the piercing beams of Alpha Squad’s headlamps as they moved deeper into it. Jackson and those with rifles kept several steps ahead of Harwood and Spencer but were ready to retreat behind them in an instant should the need arise…assuming the enemy gave them a chance to do so.
It had taken Katherine nearly three years to track down this system of caves, and she’d stumbled onto them while researching and monitoring hot spots where there was rumored vampire activity. The world at large didn’t believe the monsters existed. She did, though, and had spent a considerable amount of money searching for them across the globe. Her failures were numerous, and her hunches usually led to nothing but more disappointment. Tonight, though, she felt that things would be different. Tonight, she’d finally find proof that the supernatural was as real and tangible as the natural. Such, too, had been her father’s goal in life, before cancer had taken him from her seven years earlier. Oh, how his peers had laughed at him. Her father had been blackballed in the world of academia. Called a crackpot and a loon, he’d never given up his belief that there was more out there than the human race believed possible. And Katherine herself stood firm in those beliefs too, taking over for him after his untimely death.
Everything pointed to the caves of Henshaw Mountain being at least the temporary residence of not just a real vampire, but a master vampire. Masters were older creatures who’d lived for centuries or longer, drinking the blood of men and preying upon humanity as if they were nothing more than cattle, theirs to do with as they wished, as long as they remained in the shadows.
Captain Jackson and Alpha Squad entered a large chamber inside the cave. Its ceiling was high, and there were several tunnels that led deeper into the mountain. Katherine had briefed them on what she knew of the habits of vampires gleaned from folklore, myth, and legends. The beams of light from the squad members’ helmets jerked upward to rove over and across the ceiling above them. Only jagged stalactites met their beams. There was no sign of sleeping creatures hanging upside down above them.
Katherine heard Jackson’s audible sigh of relief as he swept the beam of his headlamp away from the ceiling and in the direction of the tunnels across the chamber from Alpha Squad’s position.
“Which one do we take?” Jackson’s voice rang from her comm.
Studying the feeds coming in from the squad’s cameras on the command vehicle’s monitors, Katherine considered her answer carefully. “Take the middle one,” she ordered.
“You heard the boss lady, boys and girls,” Jackson barked. “Looks like we’re moving straight ahead. Spencer, Harwood, watch those corners close!”
That was when things went to hell…
No one in Alpha Squad saw the thing coming. It was moving too fast for the human eye to register its movement as anything other than a barely-perceptible blur. Jackson, who was in the lead heading for the central tunnel, had his head taken from his shoulders in an explosion of blood as the thing sped passed him. As the geyser of red erupted from the stump of his neck, the rest of Alpha Squad began screaming. Smith and Seville were still in the process of raising the barrels of their rifles toward the blur flitting among the squad’s ranks as it struck Smith. The monster slowed enough to become visible as the clawed fingers of its hands closed on Smith’s throat, lifting him from the floor of the cave. Smith’s legs kicked wildly beneath him as he dangled in the monster’s grip. The master vampire stood nearly eight feet tall and held him at an arm’s length.
Its skin was a leathery gray, and bat-like wings extended from the undersides of its arms. Its head was pointed like a snake’s, with malformed, pointed ears that stretched from the sides of its head. The master vampire’s eyes burned like miniature red suns in the darkness. Smith struggled against it. His rifle lost, he pounded on the master vampire’s arm with his balled-up fists. With an effortless flick of its thumb and forefinger, the thing snapped Smith’s neck, and his body went limp as Seville opened up on the monster. Her G36 spat a stream of fully-automatic fire into the master vampire. The high-powered silver rounds ripped at the flesh of its chest, and a putrid, black ooze leaked from the holes the bullets punched into it. If the master vampire felt any pain from them, though, it was impossible to see. The monster flung Smith’s corpse into the wall of the cave with enough force that the snapping of bones could be heard from the impact. Harwood and Spencer had been holding their fire for fear of engulfing Smith in the flames. With Smith dead, and Seville retreating toward their position, they stepped forward and lit up the darkness. Great geysers of rippling fire spewed from the barrels of their flamethrowers at the master vampire. The monster’s wings carried it upward toward the tunnel’s high ceiling and over the flames as it dove back down on them.
The master vampire landed between Harwood and Spencer, and its claws flashed like gleaming razors. Half of Harwood’s face vanished in a spray of red. Thankfully, his finger slid away from the trigger as he toppled to the cave’s floor. The stream of fire from his weapon died out as the master vampire finished him by ramming a clawed, almost hand-like, foot down onto his head, popping it like an overripe melon, as Harwood’s helmet was crushed inward. Spencer tried to sweep the barrel of his flamethrower around toward the master vampire, but the monster caught it with impossible strength, jerking the barrel to the side, away from its body. Spencer screamed as the master vampire’s elongated jaws lashed out to close around his throat. His scream was cut short, turning into something more akin to a sickening gargling noise. The master vampire drew its head back with a large chunk of Spencer’s throat in its mouth. Blood splashed over it from the ragged hole it had left in Spencer. The master vampire almost seemed to mewl in pleasure as it swallowed what it had taken, and the man’s body fell to rest at its feet.
Seville was on her own with the monster now. Having seen what it had done to her squad mates in only a matter of seconds, another person might have turned to run. In fact, Katherine was yelling at her to do so over her the helmet comm, but Seville ignored the order. She leveled her G36 at the master vampire as it calmly strolled along the corridor toward her, and fired. The weapon bucked and chattered in her hands as she hosed the master vampire with every round left in her magazine. The master vampire took them all without so much as flinching. They tore at the leathery flesh of its form, splattering the blackness that passed for its blood over the walls of the corridor and the rocks beneath its feet. Then suddenly, the master vampire surged forward with blinding speed. There was no escaping it. Seville didn’t even have time to cry out before its oversized hands closed on the sides of her head and crushed her skull between them.
Katherine and Lieutenant Sanderson had watched it all in utter shock. The lieutenant was barking orders at Beta Squad as Katherine gave up her position looking over his shoulder and staggered away to collapse into another of the seats in the rear of the command vehicle. She felt sick. At last she had her proof, but at what cost? Five people had died to obtain the video footage still being recorded by the helmet cameras that hadn’t been damaged to the point of being inoperative. And how many more would die before the night was through?
“Beta Squad prepare to engage. It’s coming out!” she heard Lieutenant Henderson shout from what seemed half a world away, though he was no more than a few feet away from her at the comm station.
Katherine Grimm came awake screaming at the top of her lungs. She jerked herself up into a half-sitting position in her bed, propping the weight of her body onto her hands against the mattress under her. Katherine’s glowing red eyes whipped around, searching for the monster from her nightmare…but there was only darkness.
* * * * *