Blood Crusade Read online

“And that’s different from other assignments in what way?”

  “That’s true, but be on guard. Take extra precautions if you can. You remember the code words?”

  “Yes, Lance. The informant will recognize me by my cap and will ask if I’m from Camelot. I tell him yes and ask him if he’s seen Merlin. If he doesn’t answer that Merlin has vanished, I chew his fucking head off.” Lance is such a mother hen sometimes.

  He’s also one of the few who was turned vampire against his will--most people beg for it. He still holds onto the same virtues and righteousness that made him an extraordinary human being--a knight in shining armor. He is now an uncommon vampire.

  “Nola,” he told me when I first signed up for the cause, “Earth has two forces--good and evil. I’m so happy you’ve joined me in this battle. It’s a crusade, and one that we must win.”

  And then he gave me that amazing dimpled smile, looking at me with his benevolent, deep blue eyes peeking from behind his long blond hair. Lance doesn’t have a clue that I’ve fallen deeply in love with him. It took me a decade to get over Sean and I still missed him terribly but I no longer wanted to find him, it was Heather I sought. Lately, though, Lance has become everything to me.

  I believe he is aware I have feelings for him but he doesn’t understand it’s true love. He tries to discuss this sometimes. It tears me up inside when he tells me, “I’m lucky to have you for a friend.” Sometimes he reminds me of our age difference. He’s thousands of years old and I was twenty-six when we met under the most dire circumstances when the werewolf attacked me and my daughter.

  Vampires are said to be immortal but that’s not entirely true. They do age but at an incredibly slow rate. It’s kind of like comparing human years to dog years. Although inaccurate, it’s said that dogs age seven years compared to one human year. Vampires age about one year for every millennium and werewolves have the same attribute. It’s been eighteen years since my infection with the lupus contagion and I haven’t aged at all.

  Lance is quiet on the other end; he doesn’t like it when I swear. “Listen, if this assignment is so dangerous, don’t you think I need to know who the double-agent is? I asked. More silence on the other end. “Lance, come on. I need to know.”

  “I can’t tell you, Nola. It’s for the safety of both of you. Do you realize what they would do to one of their own who betrays them?”

  “No worse than they would do to me,” I said. This double-agent has been feeding Lance information for two years. I’m getting pissed that he doesn’t trust me enough to tell me who it is. And now another informant has come forward with supposedly “life or death” information and Lance doesn’t have a clue who it is.

  As if he’s reading my mind, he replies, “Nola, I depend on your loyalty more than anyone in the world. It’s for your own protection that neither of you can know the other. You know I always have a plan.”

  That was that--he wasn’t revealing shit to me. “Alright Lance, just don’t blame me if I happen to kill your double-agent while I’m here.”

  “Nola, just focus on your mission and get out of there fast if he gets any code words wrong. Also, Nola, I have some important news but it needs confirmation. I’ll share it when I get to Vegas in a few days. ”

  “Bullshit, Lance, bullshit. Tell me now. You won’t tell me who the spy is so you just tell me the news right now,” I said firmly. “You’ve assigned me two missions this trip—finding out if a vampire is murdering women and meeting with an informant. If there’s something I need to know, just spit it out!”

  He hesitated. “Nola…I think Percy has found her. We need to confirm it. I will let you know the second I do.”

  The cell phone fell from my hand. The scenery around me began to whirl. I felt dizzy. Maybe I was over-heated. I leaned against a metal pedestrian barricade. The metal must have been 150 degrees. “Damn!” I picked up the cell phone; my hands felt like they were on fire.

  “Nola, Nola!” Lance was calling.

  “I’m here. Tell me now. Lance, please. Please. Where do you think she is?”

  “We think she’s there Nola. In Las Vegas. She had been living in Ireland with her stepmother after your ex-husband passed away.”

  God, how ironic the universe can be. I’ve been searching for her for ten years. It took me eight years of hopelessly seeking a cure to the werewolf virus before I finally found the answer that would reunite us in The Master’s teachings of control and meditation. Thoughts swirled through my dizzy mind. I heard her voice, “Mommy, Mommy, don’t leave. Don’t leave. I’ll be good.” Thoughts of that dark, horrible night and the hulking figure that bounded towards a helpless woman and child. My four-year-old daughter being snatched from my arms. All these years. All these years of dreadfulness and searching.

  “Nola, are you alright?”

  “Far from it, Lance. I need to know where you think she is. I have to see her. Hold her. Tell her I love her,” I sobbed. “Poor Sean, he died too young. She must have been so lost after her father died.” Strangers walking by on the strip stared at me and then quickly turned away.

  “Nola, get a grip. She’s twenty-two years old now. She’d think you were some crazy person.”

  He was right, as usual. Get a grip. I tried to stop crying.

  “Nola, I promise you. I will tell you as soon as we confirm it. I’ll see you in a few days.”

  “Alright. Lance…thank you. You’re a good friend.” I sobbed out the same words he said so often to me. “Goodbye.”

  Barely able to see clearly due to the tears stinging my eyes, I continued walking down the strip. You have a destination, Nola. Just keep going, I told myself, left, right, left. Tourists were enjoying their vacations, laughing and bumping into me. I snarled at a few of them and got some elbow room.

  Perhaps Lance should have been told about my suspicions regarding Mark Anthony. I could call him back but for now it was essential to get inside somewhere, sit down, and have something cold to drink. What harm could it do to wait and give him the information in a few days when he arrives in Las Vegas?

  I walked into the nearest cold casino, sat down at a row of slots and put twenty dollars in the machine. It was my lucky day--a cocktail waitress came by immediately and took my order for bottled water.

  It can be fun to mindlessly play the slots. Playing poker requires concentration; the slots simply necessitate a finger to push the button. The machine lit up like I’d won a million dollars when the “bonus” played on it. In reality, it’s awarded me a whole five bucks.

  A young man with gelled-up hair and Tom Selleck as Magnum P.I. mustache sat down next to me. His bright canary-yellow shirt made his colorless skin look like he had jaundice. I just glanced at him; people sit next to each other all the time in the casinos, even though there are rows of empty slots.

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  I had to look around to make sure he was talking to me. He was grinning at me with a crooked smile to match his crooked teeth and looking quite earnest. I was ready to tell him to bite me but thought better of it. He was just a kid looking to pick up a girl.

  Be kind, Nola, I told myself. Something I had to repeat to myself…often. It wasn’t easy for me to be kind like it was for Lance. For him, it was just part of his nature. I, however, had to work at it. And it was hard work.

  “Listen,” I turned to him and smiled. “The drinks are free in Las Vegas when you’re playing.”

  He looked embarrassed now. “So now you know. The next time you offer to buy, make sure it’s in a club because the drinks are expensive there and women love it when you buy.”

  “Oh, okay, thanks for the advice,” he said, and then he took off as fast as a burglar with an angry Chihuahua nipping at his heels. The waitress brought my water and I tipped her five dollars to insure she’d be around quickly to see if I wanted another. “Thanks,” she said, “good luck.”

  I was down to five bucks in the machine and ready to continue my journey, hydrated and refreshed. I
hit the maximum bet button and stood up to leave. It’s a funny thing about slots--they always seem to hit when you least expect it. My machine was making loud noises like shooting fireworks and the graphics were going crazy. CALL ATTENDANT appeared on the screen--it had actually produced and hit a jackpot, a rare Vegas occurrence.

  It must have hit pretty good as the floor person was there in an instant. Her name tag read Mary and she said, “Oh, good for you. Congratulations.”

  I was wondering what I could possibly win on a penny machine when she told me, “You’ve won $6,800. I’ll just need to see an I.D. and get your social security number and we can pay you.” Mary seemed as genuinely happy for me as I was for myself.

  She was given my phony driver’s license and social security number. Lance wouldn’t be bothered for expense money for a while. Lance paid me fifty thousand a year to do what I felt was my destiny and with all expenses paid. I had over half a million in the bank, money saved from ten years of assignments. Lance promised he would get the money to my daughter if something happened to me. It was really only a matter of time before he would have to fulfill that pledge.

  Mary arrived with a security guard. “Congratulations,” he said, without smiling. It’s a real endorphin rush to have sixty-eight one-hundred dollar bills placed into your hands. It’s called “gambling euphoria”, a physiological progression that produces ecstatic feelings. It’s an actual process caused by neurotransmitters in the brain that relieve pain, similar to morphine and just as addicting. Everyone’s heard of a “runner’s high” when continuous exercise releases the endorphins. Laughing also releases them, so does eating chocolate. But nothing compares to that gambling rush.

  Poker players are action gamblers, fulfilling that rush with the thrill of playing and betting in a social setting. We need the recognition that comes from winning a game with other players. Slot players are escape gamblers, preferring the solitary rush and playing against a machine. I’d never won playing slots before. It was my first experience at the solitary high. I liked it.

  I tipped the security guard a hundred and gave Mary five hundred. “Thank you so much,” she gushed. It was her turn for an endorphin rush. The jackpot had made my day and hers. I continued on my mission with a new enthusiasm.

  Chapter 4: The Philosopher and The Professor

  I pulled the white Cubs cap out of my purse and put it on. I must have looked pretty silly standing by the Bellagio fountain in a low-cut red blouse, short black skirt, and heels with a Cubs cap on my perspiring head.

  A scruffy-looking man with holes in his jeans leaned on the concrete banister next to me. He looked at my cap and said, “Hey, you like the Cubbies? You must be from Chicago--so am I. I lived near the old Riverview Park. You’re too young to remember that but have you heard of it? I loved the roller coaster there--those were good times.”

  Could this possibly be the informant? He was unshaven and wore a dirty t-shirt with an odor that made me regret having a werewolf sense of smell. I couldn’t bring myself to focus on being kind. I just stared at him.

  He stared back and asked, “Would you happen to have an extra cigarette you can spare?”

  Okay, now he was getting on my nerves. He obviously wasn’t the informant. “Don’t you know those things can kill you?” I inquired rhetorically.

  The next thing he would ask for would be spare change. I thought about handing him a hundred from my winnings but if I gave him money he might share the information with friends and I would be besieged with requests for handouts. It’s not that I believe all the homeless know each other but they certainly know how to network.

  This was known from my experience on Fremont Street. I gave a handout to one drifter and two minutes later was approached by another. And another after that. And another. It’s as if they’re blue jays, letting the flock know where to find a peanut. I don’t begrudge them, it’s their method of survival, but I couldn’t be bothered while talking to an informant. There was simply no time to be kind now. “Just keep walking buddy--I can’t help you,” I said coldly.

  Another twenty minutes passed in the intense heat and my legs began to buckle. It was my own fault, I was early. I figured the informant was human since the requested meeting time was before sunset. Too bad the Bellagio didn’t put benches out so people could sit down and enjoy the fountain show. I moved to a concrete alcove that provided a little shade from a dried-up looking pine tree. The palm trees in Vegas are lovely to look at but shit for sun cover. I was grateful for the little pine.

  A tall man walked by and stole a glance at my Cubs cap. He was in his fifties, wore glasses, and had on a white, short-sleeved shirt and brown khakis. He carried a leather briefcase and looked very much like the professor from Gilligan’s Island. He nervously glanced around, took a coin from his pocket, and threw it into the water as if making a wish.

  “Hi,” he said, clearing his throat. “Are you from Camelot?”

  “Yes. Have you seen Merlin?”

  “Merlin has vanished,” he replies, “it’s really a shame; I hear he was a gift to mankind. You know, he was infected with a benevolent virus, different from vampires—a virus that could have pushed humanity into a greater evolution.”

  Great, he’s gone off script. Now what do I do? “You know, you’re way off code—I may have to kill you,” I said, laughing, “just kidding.”

  “It’s hot today,” he states, a worried look on his face.

  “Yea, you could bake a potato on the sidewalk,” I reply.

  We are both awkwardly quiet. He gazes at me, searching for something to say.

  “Look,” I turn to him, “I don’t feel like having any chit-chat today. Just tell me what I need to know.”

  “Just blurt it out?”

  “That would be extremely helpful,” I said.

  “They plan to wipe out two-thirds of the world’s population,” he said, sighing. “The Vampire Illuminati are going to murder billions of people and begin a New World Order.”

  That was quite a blurt. I suddenly felt a need to chit-chat.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head so hard my Cubs cap swung to the side. “I don’t believe it. Why would they kill the golden goose? They have plenty of people to feed on and they make trillions of dollars off the backs of hardworking humans. They own everything. It doesn’t make sense. You’re wrong.”

  “I wish I was mistaken and the apocalypse wasn’t knocking at the door,” he said, removing his glasses and wiping sweat from his eyes.

  “No way. What could they possibly gain?”

  “Total and absolute control,” the professor said.

  “They already have that. They’ve taken over every government, religion, bank and the media. Anyway, how would you know they want to kill billions of people?” I asked suspiciously.

  “You really don’t understand,” the professor said in a voice tone I recognized from college. He was about to teach me. “They don’t control humanity’s free will. There are billions of us and thousands of them. We could wipe them out if people knew of their existence.”

  He was beginning to make sense. I nodded. He continued in his scholarly tone, “The Vampire Illuminati have had hundreds of years to finalize plans for total domination of humanity. Some of them are older than the pyramids; you can learn a lot and construct extremely diabolical plots in that amount of time. They consider people “useless eaters” and want them subservient as cattle led to slaughter. They even plan to microchip the survivors like pet dogs. And the chips they implant can kill any human they want to dispose of from a control center.”

  I was beginning to fear that the professor could be right. A female mallard was enjoying the Bellagio pond. I let my mind drift away for a second and wondered where she went when the water spouted. The end of the world as you know it is hard to adjust to. “How did you learn of their plans?” I asked.

  “From my wife, Hypatia. She served on the Senate of the Supreme World Council. She tried to sway other senators into opposing th
e depopulation agenda. I believe Emperor Claudius had her killed for it.”

  The pain was still fresh in his mind and showed on his face. He explained that he’d lost his wife only days before. The professor talked about his wife and I patiently listened to a grieving man explain why he had become an informant. They’d met twenty years ago when he signed up for a mathematics class she taught--a night class, of course. He’d always had an interest in mathematics and her knowledge combined with his thirst for learning combined into true love. He gave up his construction business and became a professor. Bingo, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s always a duck or in this case, a professor. His name, he said, was Harold.

  “I was a teacher too,” I shared. “My name is Nola Marrs. I was breaking all the rules of meeting with an informant--telling him who I was and sharing my life story. I told him I identified with the love of learning and teaching. I only taught third grade for one school year but they were happy days. It was enjoyable working with hard-case eight and nine-year-olds. I had a treasure chest full of inexpensive trinkets that students could earn for good behavior and better grades. It worked like a charm. The light bulb would go on daily in my classroom. For the first time I wondered why I hadn’t remained a teacher. Why couldn’t a werewolf be a teacher? As long as I didn’t eat my students, why not? It’s not like you teach third graders at night during a full moon.

  The professor shared his painful memories of the sunlight murder of Hypatia. It wasn’t the first time she was murdered, he said, but it was the first time she died. She’d been on the brink of death in the 4th century in Alexandria, when the formerly persecuted Christians had become the torturers of pagans. “How quickly they forgot the teachings of Jesus is one of civilization’s tragedies,” he said with sadness.

  So-called Christians burned down temples, burned books in libraries, and killed pagans after Emperor Constantine converted to the religion, he explained. Hypatia tried to stop them from destroying the Library of Alexandria which contained all the knowledge of the ancient world. The mob burned down the library, destroying all the information within. The monks then stripped Hypatia naked and dragged her through the streets before they scrapped half the skin off her body with shells and left her for dead, certain they had done their “Christian” duty. The vampires had saved her from an agonizing death.