Nightwalker Chapter 7

"Y'know, I never thought my prison sleep routine would be obliterated this quickly," Lev muttered as he watched the sun rise from the balcony of Reggie's apartment, one hand clutching his old phone and another on a cold coffee that he had yet to even take a sip of.

Reggie looked up from the Vora Carrion, which he had been poring over ever since they got back to his place. "Yeah, well, I doubt this is what you were expecting when you got out," he responded.

"Tell me about it, I was convinced that Jessica was gone, then I see her again in OUR old bedroom, and then some vampire bounty hunter dude tells me she's dead and he's trying to make her DEAD dead... I don't know what to think anymore." Lev exhaled and looked skyward in defeat.

"We gotta figure out what we wanna ask this Ulaq guy when we see him tonight! First and foremost is WHY he has to kill her and then find out how certain he is that she can't be cured.... Because I've read all through this book's section on vampires and man... I feel like there must be a way." Reggie explained as he held up a notepad that he had been scribbling notes on while he read through the vora carrion.

Lev sighed and looked at his friend. "Ok, give me hope again so our new friend can stomp all over it."

Reggie wagged a finger at Lev. "Come on now, Lev, you gotta believe... Anyway, there's a section where it talks about the power of vampires waning through each generation, so the original vampire, which their kind calls 'the progenitor' was considered the pure blood of the vampires, then the ones he bit were a little bit less pure and then the ones THEY bit a little less, and so on and so forth!" Reggie finished with a flourish as he slapped his notes.

Lev nodded and shook his head at the same time. "So you think that the level of vampire running around today is low quality enough that, what? We could just hook Jessica up to a blood drip and drain the vampire out of her or something?" he asked somewhat dismissively.

Reggie shook his head. "Well, no, that would be too easy, and Ulaq would have figured that out if it were so easy a fix... What I'm thinking is, from what Ulaq said, it gave me the impression that there is something big being attempted, and Jessica is involved in it. So we just need to find out what that is and what EXACTLY it involves, then go from there!" Reggie exclaimed again, slapping his notes.

Lev looked at his friend and set his coffee cup on the ground. "Reggie... I'm going to bed," he muttered in disappointment.

"You gotta believe, Lev! You gotta believe!" Reggie called out as his friend disappeared inside.

The evening came, and with it, the moon, the mist, and the cold came too. Lev and Reggie sat in the lounge of Lev and Jessica's old house, waiting for Ulaq to arrive. "You think anything in your fridge is still good?" Reggie asked as he glanced over to the kitchen.

"Somehow, I doubt it," Lev muttered as he stood up and began to pace in the moonlight that shone through the glass sliding door.

A short while later, the sound of something landing on the roof above them made the pair stand at attention and listen. Light footsteps creaked down the roof in the direction of the front door, "Must be him," Reggie exclaimed as he stood up and stretched his arms

"Wait." Lev hissed, "Listen... There's more than one person. Somehow, I doubt he's much for teamwork." Lev said as he looked around for a weapon.

Reggie gulped and rummaged in his jacket while he whispered to Lev. "Here, take this."

Lev looked down at the wooden stake in Reggie's hand. "You're kidding me, right?" He muttered in disbelief.

"Best I could whip up this afternoon," Reggie responded as the front door whined loudly as it opened.

"I don't suppose we could borrow a cup of brown sugar, could we, neighbour?" a voice mocked as a shadowy figure stalked into the longue, closely followed by another. "Oh my, wooden stakes, how rustic." The voice added as it noticed the makeshift weapons in Reggie and Lev's hands.

"Wh-what do you want?" Reggie stammered as he brandished his stake in front of him

"The master has had enough of you poking around; time to die." The voice simply said, and with a flick of its wrists, long talons seemingly appeared on the end of its fingers.

Reggie gulped and looked at Lev, "Y-you go right, I'll go l-left?" he muttered in terror. Before Lev could answer, there was a tapping on the sliding door, and Lev looked behind him to see a crow standing there looking up at him.

Lev let out a sigh of relief and lowered his stake slightly, which drew the ire of the two vampires stalking closer to them, "Mangy human!" one roared as it leapt over the dust-covered couch and coffee table in the middle of the lounge.

No sooner had the vampire left his feet than the glass sliding door behind Lev and Reggie exploded inwards like a bomb had gone off. The pair threw themselves to the ground, and another black figure streaked in amongst the raining glass, plucking the leaping vampire from the air with one hand. "Urgh!" The vampire gargled as his throat was slowly being crushed by Ulaq.

The other vampire rushed forward to attack, but was sent flying backwards through the boarded-up front window with one swift kick. Ulaq let go of the vampire he was choking and, in one swift chop, split him in half from head to crotch with a hidden blade that protruded from his sleeve.

The vampire who had been unceremoniously kicked outside leapt back in through the window in time to see his comrade erupt into a cloud of ash. "Eat this!" he growled as he pulled out a pair of guns, but was impaled with Lev and Reggie's wooden stakes, which Ulaq had snatched and thrown in one deft motion.

Each stake impaled itself into one of the vampire's shoulders and pinned him to the wall below the smashed window. "Oh yes, we get to interrogate h-him..." Reggie had begun to exclaim, but trailed off as Ulaq swept one leg under Lev’s coffee table. A sharp crack rang through the room as one of the table’s legs tore free, making the vampire squirm even more desperately. Time seemed to slow as the splintered leg spun up into view. Ulaq’s sweeping motion carried through; with his back to the vampire, he flicked his other foot out, kicking the airborne leg toward his incapacitated foe. The vampire let out a guttural scream as it struck his chest. His cries were cut short as he violently erupted into a cloud of ash that drifted down to the floor.

Lev stood up and brushed himself off."I was kind of thinking of fixing up the place, y'know," he muttered as he looked around at the fresh destruction that had been wrought.

"I hear the neighbourhood's gone to hell," Ulaq replied.

After giving Lev and Reggie a moment to compose themselves after the brief excitement, Ulaq stood by the remnants of the sliding door facing them as they sat on the couch awkwardly. "I assume you have questions. Ask away." Ulaq said as the crow hopped into the lounge and poked around at the creepy crawlies that had moved into Lev's house.

Reggie took a deep breath and let fly his salvo of prepared questions; "Alright, so! I was reading the Vora Carrion, and I saw this whole thing about the progenitor and the diminishing 'purity' from generation to generation. My question is, where does Lev's fiancée, Jessica, fit in on that, and what is she involved in that makes her so important?" Reggie looked at Lev to make sure he was happy with his questions, to which Lev nodded.

Ulaq rubbed his temple and sighed, which made Lev and Reggie look at each other curiously. "The vampire that bit the girl is about as low down in the hierarchy as you can get." Ulaq began, to which Reggie interrupted excitedly.

"Perfect!"

Ulaq shook his head."Hold on. While that vampire might be nothing special, he knew what he was doing and picked Jessica specifically for two reasons."

Reggie produced his notepad from his pocket and clicked his pen. "Ready," he muttered, not that Ulaq was waiting for him; his eyes had rested on Lev, which made Lev anxious as to what was about to be said.

"First thing is Jessica's blood type, she had one of the rarest blood types a human can have. and the second..." Ulaq stopped and continued looking at Lev as if he was waiting for him to give the second reason himself.

Lev glanced at Reggie, then back at Ulaq in confusion. "A-and the second is?" Lev asked, his question causing Ulaq to exhale.

"I figured that might be the case..." he muttered, "So you didn't know... Jessica was pregnant." Ulaq answered.

Lev's eyes grew wide, and the room began to move as he tried to process what had just been revealed. "Y-y-you what..." Lev stammered before he threw up on the floor.

Reggie stared at Lev for a few moments, unsure of how to console his friend, who had his head in his hands, staring at the ground. Eventually, Reggie cleared his throat, "H-how does, uh, did, that make her more uh, desirable for this vampire?" Reggie asked as he looked to Ulaq.

"A woman's body goes through several... changes, when pregnant..." Ulaq said, stopping to see if Reggie was going to expect him to go into detail.

"I don't really understand, but ok," Reggie muttered as he scribbled on his notepad.

Lev looked up from the floor and up at Ulaq, "d-did the baby..." he tried to ask, but couldn't bring himself to finish the question.

Ulaq remained an emotionless statue and finished the question for him. "Survive. That I don't know, typically babies die in the womb when a woman is turned, unless they are considerably close to giving birth. Jessica was quite early on in her pregnancy, so normally I would assume it wouldn't survive the change, but because of her blood type..." Ulaq stopped, seemingly doubting whether what he was about to say was a good thing to tell Lev.

A stressed Lev rubbed his face with both hands, "There's a chance the baby is, what, a nine-year-old vampire child? Or a fetus frozen in time?" he asked, not sure which of any possible scenario he could even think to prefer.

"It either died or it's been held in a type of stasis this entire time," Ulaq replied bluntly.

"So if we can cure her, there's a chance the baby could still be fine?!" An ever-optimistic Reggie interjected himself.

Ulaq's stoic demeanour broke, and he growled under his breath, "This woman doesn't have a cold or the chicken pox. You don't just cure vampirism with a weekend of rest and some soup." Ulaq said with the most emotion either Lev or Reggie had heard yet. The glimpses of his fangs as he spoke in annoyance made Reggie shrink into the couch in fear.

Ulaq looked at Lev and exhaled, "I understand what you feel. I've been like... this, for over a hundred years. You don't think I've searched for and tried anything I could to cure this curse?" an impassioned Ulaq continued. " Putting this doomed hypothetical cure back on your fiancé, she has a blood type that is found in less than one per cent of living humans. Whatever possible cure there could be, that's a huge damned hurdle right there, isn't it?"

"Yeah, well, we can't just give up on her," Reggie muttered.

"What is it you want me, us, to help you with?" a drained Lev said as he began to feel not quite so much like his stomach was going to erupt from his mouth.

Ulaq nodded at Lev, "There are things I cannot do and places I cannot go due to my... limitations. If you assist in those things, then I will do my best to let you be the one to put your... fiancé to a proper, eternal rest," he answered.

"Or attempt a cure, when we find one!" Reggie said as he slapped at his notes while looking at Lev. The smirk slowly faded as he remembered who they were talking to, and he looked slowly at Ulaq, who didn't entertain Reggie's comment with a response.

"Fine, deal," Lev answered as he stood up and offered his hand to Ulaq, who accepted the handshake with a smirk.

"Wait, there's one thing we want, need to know," Lev said as he looked back at Reggie. "What is it that this vampire wants Jessica for? He asked.

Ulaq whistled to his crow, who flew up onto his shoulder, "He's trying to capture as many vampires with the purest blood that he can, so that he can drain and use that blood to infuse it into... Jessica, so she can become a new, second coming of the progenitor. Turn her into a vampire god, if you will." Ulaq answered, sounding as though even he was bemused by such grandiose machinations.

Lev's shoulders sank, and he closed his eyes "Jesus Christ," he muttered.