We Are Legion (van Helsing Diaries Book 2) Read online

  W E A R E L E G I O N

  Peter Cawdron

  thinkingscifi.wordpress.com

  Copyright Peter Cawdron 2015

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Peter Cawdron to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published as an eBook by Peter Cawdron. US Kindle Edition

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Cover art vampire-42665722 copyright 2014 Ivan Bliznetsov via iStockphoto by Getty Images. Used under license.

  Synopsis

  We Are Legion is the sequel to the novella Vampire.

  In the dark woods of Eastern Europe, an ancient evil returns in a modern form.

  Alan is confused. He doesn’t understand what has happened to his wife. After a decade of marriage, she is suddenly detached and indifferent to him, attacking him in the night. If he is going to find answers, he is going to have to follow her to the ends of the Earth and unravel the mysteries of a small Eastern European village in the remote regions of Transylvania.

  Chapter 2:01 — Home Sweet Home

  “Just here, thanks,” I say as the driver pulls up outside my apartment complex.

  “That’ll be twenty-seven bucks,” he says, more out of habit than anything else, as the fare has already been paid and money exchanged at an electronic level as soon as his fingers touched the meter to close out the ride.

  “Sure,” I reply, not really listening. I’m already getting out of the warm car and into the bitter cold evening. Snowflakes swirl around me, falling lazily to the deep snow smothering the lawn. I close the car door gently, only in the still of the evening it sounds as though I’ve slammed it.

  Streetlights illuminate the night, making the falling snow appear like stars drifting elegantly to Earth. My shoes crunch through a crisp layer of snow on the sidewalk. Even though the snow’s been shoveled earlier in the day, there’s still a couple of inches hiding the concrete, and I am careful not to slip on any hidden ice.

  Most of the apartments have their lights on, but not ours. Dark windows and a darkened doorway greet me as I arrive home. The front door is slightly ajar. It should be shut, I locked it this morning. I know I did.

  My heart races.

  As I creep toward the open door, I spot fresh paw prints in the snow beside the path. Most of the shoe prints from this morning have been buried beneath the fresh snow fall, leaving only a faint outline or subtle indentation in the snow, but the paw prints leading to the apartment are crisp and sharply defined.

  There’s a faint glow coming from inside the apartment.

  “Jane?” I ask, not understanding why she didn’t pick me up from the hospital, or at least meet me at my folks’ place.

  A low growl comes from the shadows within the apartment. My legs shake. I can see the outline of a wolf in the darkness. I can’t move. I want to turn and run, and yet I know that would be a mistake, the savage creature would be on me in seconds.

  Slowly, the massive animal paces toward me, baring its teeth and snarling from the shadows. The wind whips around my legs, causing the snow to swirl about me.

  “Alan?” a familiar voice says, and a light turns on inside the apartment, blinding me for a second.

  Jane stands roughly where I thought I saw a wolf moments before, but my eyes must be deceiving me, as with the light on I can see through the lounge and into the kitchen.

  “Jane,” I cry, rushing forward and throwing my arms around her.

  Jane smiles warmly, but her face is pale. Her skin is cold and her lips are blue. She looks like a cadaver. I shake such a morbid thought from my mind.

  “Alan, you scared me.”

  “Me? You scared me. I—I thought…”

  “You thought what?” she asks, leading me into the apartment. The door has been open for some time, and a fine coating of snow covers the furniture near the entrance.

  “Nothing,” I say, feeling immense relief. “It’s just, after this morning, I thought…”

  Jane has lit a few candles and placed them around the kitchen.

  “Why was the door open?” I ask. “Why were the lights off?”

  “I just got in,” Jane says, but there’s something unusual in her reply. Although what she’s said is entirely plausible, she rushes her response, leaving me wondering about her sincerity.

  She goes on to say, “Fuses must have blown. I had to reset the switches.”

  “Oh,” I reply, seeing a slab of raw steak defrosting on a plate beside the kitchen sink. A bloody puddle has formed beneath the meat. The steak has been bitten, or perhaps chewed would be a better description. There’s an open bottle of red wine and a wineglass beside the steak. Drops of scarlet red wine have dripped onto the white marble counter. This is unlike Jane. She’s normally overprotective of the counter as getting stains out takes considerable effort.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” she asks.

  “When—when you came to the door,” I say, trying to lighten the mood with a little humor. “The shadows. For a moment, I thought I saw a wolf.”

  Jane laughs, smiling a little, and I can see tiny bits of raw meat stuck in her teeth.

  Jane always had slightly long incisors, and when we began dating, she used to joke about her teeth being long enough to draw blood. My wife, the vampire. Seemed funny back then. Right now, I feel unsettled by her strange behavior. She seems to realize something’s wrong and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Behind me, I hear the distinct sound of a dog padding on the carpet. I turn, catching a shadow disappearing out the door.

  “Did you see that?” I ask, turning away from her, my heart pounding in my throat.

  “See what?” Jane asks, stepping behind me and slipping her hand under my arm and around the front of my chest as she hugs me. She pulls gently at the zipper on my jacket before sliding her hand in beneath my shirt. Icy cold fingers claw at my skin as my heart thumps inside my chest, exploding with life. I can’t help but jump at her touch.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  Everything, I want to say, but I can’t bring myself to be honest.

  “Nothing.”

  I close the front door and turn on the central heating, adjusting the thermostat and firing up the gas furnace. Light, I’ve got to have light. On an impulse, I march through the apartment turning on lights. It’s as though light will drive away the darkness I feel looming over us, and I cannot be content until all the lights are on, even in the spare bedroom and the guest bathroom.

  “You’re acting really strange,” Jane says, following me with her glass of red wine in hand, sipping softly as she watches my manic behavior.

  “Me?” I say, tempted to look in every cupboard and under the bed for... For what? The boogeyman? “It’s been a crazy day.”

  Already, the apartment is beginning to warm. To banish the cold is as effective as turning on the lights, helping me to relax a little more, and I breathe deeply, trying to calm my nerves.

  Jane watches me with curiosity as I take off my tie and hang it on a rack in our walk-in closet. She knocks back her wine, drinking it as though it were orange juice. A thin strand of red wine runs from the corner of her lips, rolling down her chin and onto her neck as though it were a drop of blood.

  “You’ll get stains on your clothes,” I say, reaching out and wiping the wine with my thumb. I’m curious. I lick my thumb. Pinot.

  “Hungry?” she asks, taking her jacket off now warmth is radiating through the apartment.

  “No, I ate at the hospi
tal.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t talking about food,” Jane says, biting softly at her lip and looking at me with what can only be described as wild eyes.

  “What happened?” I ask, ignoring her. “We were supposed to meet at my parents’ place.”

  Jane doesn’t answer. She turns her back to me, pulling off her sweater in a slow, provocative motion.

  “I was worried about you,” I say.

  “Me?” she replies, peering over one shoulder. “I’m fine. Never felt better.”

  She takes off her shoes and jeans.

  Standing before me in her bra and panties, Jane looks hot, and yet there's something different about her. We’ve been married for over a decade. Our sex life is as regimented and predictable as our professional lives, while her underwear is neither lacy nor frilly, being more functional than sexy. Practical is how I’d describe her underwear, as it's a drab flesh tone, lacking any color or excitement, and yet my heart races at the sight of her sensuous body. There’s something unusual about her posture, the poise of her hips, the way she rests her slender hands by her side, toying with the skin on her thighs with just the lightest touch of her fingernails.

  “You shouldn’t worry,” she says, grabbing playfully at my belt buckle and dragging me over toward the bed.

  “I thought all this freaked you out,” I say, gesturing to our ransacked home with scratch marks lining the walls, torn sheets on the floor, overturned furniture and a half broken bathroom door.

  “This morning, maybe,” she says, unbuttoning my shirt. “But the night is ours.”

  As unsettled as I feel, her soft hands stir something primal within me, melting my defenses. Like Jane, I want to put this nightmare behind me. Perhaps it’s the stress of the moment, but I want her. I want to ignore the madness, the chaos of our home, and lose myself in her love. I unbuckle my trousers as she tosses my shirt to one side.

  “Doesn’t that feel good?” she asks, unzipping my trousers and slipping her hand down the inside of my thigh, playing with the hair on my leg.

  “It’s been a long day,” I say, kicking off my shoes, and finally feeling as though something is going right.

  “It’s going to be a long night,” Jane says, teasing me. This kind of aggressive sexual behavior is unlike Jane. In the deep recesses of my mind, I’m aware something’s wrong, but I feel overwhelmed by a desire to escape from the insanity around us.

  Jane reaches out and turns off the light, plunging the bedroom into darkness, and I feel my heart pounding in my chest. Her fingers claw at the hairs on my chest immediately over my heart, and we collapse onto the bed, kissing passionately.

  There’s a gap in the curtains, and the streetlight casts a soft glow through the room. As my eyes adjust to the dark, Jane transforms from the woman I married into a foreboding silhouette. My adrenaline surges in response to both fear and desire. For a moment, I could swear there’s a glow in her eyes, but it’s just the light reflecting off her pupils.

  I reach around behind her back, unhooking her bra, and she pulls a hair tie from her ponytail, allowing her hair to fall freely to her shoulders. We roll over on the mattress, madly pulling off our underwear and tossing them onto the messy floor. Jane and I giggle like children.

  Normally, I’d rise on top of her, but with a burst of strength, she flings me back into the mattress, straddling my hips.

  Jane claws at my chest, scratching so deep with her fingernails I have to tell her to stop. My mouth opens, but no sounds come out. She’s being too rough. I want to tell her that, but words fail me. I am overwhelmed in the passion of the moment as she kisses my chest, biting at my nipples. My body trembles beneath her touch.

  Jane runs her tongue across my lips. I want to kiss her, but I’m paralyzed. It’s not that I can’t move, but that I don’t, and I can’t explain why except to say that I'm scared. One wrong move, and as crazy as it seems, I fear she will devour me.

  Waves of passion roll over me. Jane grinds her hips against mine. In the darkness, I feel her lips brush against my neck, and she licks softly at my skin. Slowly, we rock back and forth on the mattress, building in intensity.

  Jane nibbles at my earlobe, moaning.

  A sharp pain stabs at my ear.

  “Ouch!” I cry, grabbing at my earlobe and feeling warm, sticky blood on my fingers.

  Jane sits back, riding up and down on me as blood trickles from her mouth. I want to say something, I want to protest, I want to get her off me, but I can’t. I’m too weak, and I find myself swept away in the moment. My head seems to fracture with pleasure, and I black out, catching one last glimpse of Jane’s naked body writhing on top of me as the darkness washes over me.

  Sunday dawns, but without an alarm, as we normally sleep in. There’s daylight outside when I wake, which means it must be after ten in the morning. I crawl out of bed feeling weak and sore. Every muscle in my body aches. I feel sick.

  “Jane?” I ask, suddenly realizing I’m alone in the bedroom.

  I walk into the bathroom with my bladder bursting. After relieving myself, I take a look in the mirror. Red scratches line my chest, running at a variety of angles. It’s as though I’ve been mauled by a bear. My right ear throbs with pain. Dried blood clings to what remains of my mauled, mutilated earlobe.

  “Oh, Jane,” I say, knowing something is terribly wrong. I thought we were reacting to the pressure of all that has happened and a desire to comfort each other, but last night was agony. What could have set Jane on such a wild path? I know she’s been under a tremendous amount of stress over the past few days. Has she snapped? Was this a once-off overreaction? Where is she?

  “Jane?”

  I get dressed and walk into the hallway.

  The front door is open, but only slightly, just enough to allow a draft to chill the air. I push the door shut, hearing the lock click in place.

  “Jane, honey?” I say to an eerie, empty apartment.

  Several drawers in the living room and kitchen are open. Someone’s rummaged through the contents. Jane’s cell phone and handbag are gone.

  I dial her cell number. After ringing a few times, the call switches to voice mail so I leave a message.

  “Jane? It’s Alan,” I say, unsure why I’m clarifying my identity to a woman I’ve known for almost fifteen years. “Listen. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I’m—I’m confused. What happened last night? Between us, I mean. I—I… We need to talk.”

  There’s a knock at the door and I jump at the sound as though the soft rap were gun shots going off in rapid succession. Cautiously, I open the door, peering out through a thin crack.

  “Dr. Langford?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jimmy Davis. From the garage.”

  A teenager in a thick coat holds out the keys to my car, ready to drop them into my hand. I put my hand out and the key chain falls like a lead weight into my palm.

  “Are you all right?” he asks, and I see my car parked behind him. A second car out on the road has another mechanic in it, eagerly waiting for Jimmy.

  “Fine,” I say, realizing his silence demands a reply.

  “Well, the problem was your alternator. I replaced it, charged your battery overnight and flushed your radiator, replacing your antifreeze.”

  “Great, thanks,” I say in a deadpan tone of voice.

  “Mitch said you can settle the account online.”

  “Good. Good.”

  Jimmy is still standing there. I don’t know what he’s waiting for. A tip? I’m not sure, but I can’t talk any more. My stomach churns. My head is spinning.

  “Sorry,” I say, closing the door.

  “If there’s anything else,” he calls out, but I’m already rushing to the kitchen, clutching at my stomach. I vomit into the sink. My stomach muscles convulse and I find myself clinging to the bench, barely able to stand as projectile vomit splashes around in the stainless steel sink.

  My stomach is empty, and within minutes, I’m dry-heaving. Frustrated, I pound on t
he edge of the counter, desperately trying to bring my body under control. I’m dizzy, on the verge of fainting. Being a doctor, I understand what’s happening. My body has picked up some kind of bacterial infection or a virus, and being so weak, I’m struggling to remain conscious. With no food or water in over twelve hours, my blood sugar is dangerously low and I’m slightly dehydrated, accentuating my distress.

  I stagger to the fridge, clutching at my stomach. I need fluids, simple sugars, something carbonated to settle my stomach. There’s a bottle of ginger ale. It’s all I can do to slump on the floor against the pantry and unscrew the lid. Sipping at the fluid, I slowly fight the cramps. I’m not sure how long I sit there, probably for several hours, but I feel as though I’m on the verge of dying. A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead. I can barely think beyond the pain wracking my body. Slowly, I gain the upper hand. I’ve got to get to the hospital.

  My fingers tremble as I dial my phone.

  “9-1-1. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  My mouth opens, but no sound comes out, not the slightest croak. I try, but there’s nothing beyond my soft wheezy breath. Spasms of pain rip through my body, forcing me into a fetal position. I curl up on the floor with the cell phone to my ear. My breathing is labored.

  “Are you in distress?” the female dispatcher asks in a soft petite voice. “I can hear you breathing. You’re not choking. Unless you state otherwise, I am going to assume you are suffering a heart attack and dispatch paramedics to your location. If you cannot talk, tap the phone. I would like some kind of acknowledgement from you to make sure this is not a phantom call. I need to know this is a genuine call and not a prank. Do you understand me?”

  I try. My lips mouth the words that fail to emanate from my throat.

  “I will stay on the line and talk to you until the paramedics get there. Can you respond to me in any way?”

  Two beeps signal the battery on my phone dying.

  I claw at the floor, dragging myself forward with the phone still by my ear. My breathing is heavy, as though I have a chest cold.