Chapter 6

The sun was just coming up on the horizon as I paced the porch of my cousin’s cabin.  I’d tried calling Bruce repeatedly to let him know that Shen wasn’t on the plane. Something was wrong.  I wanted to grab Bruce and fly out immediately, but I wasn’t able to reach him on either his cell phone or his land line, so I drove back from the airport as fast as the speed limits allowed.

At first, I wasn’t too concerned about my inability to reach Bruce on the phone, since the thick foliage of New York’s Southern Tier often impaired cell phone reception.  Also, if Bruce was out and about, his land line would have been worthless. It wasn’t until I reached the cabin just as dawn was breaking and Bruce was nowhere to be found that concern set in. Where could he have gone? 

We had no time to spare. I went over Bruce and my last conversation in my mind. I hoped that he’d said something that would clue me in on where he might be now.

The faint snapping of twigs underfoot as someone walked steadily along the path that led to the State Land behind the cabin caught my immediate attention. I slid into the early morning shadows of the porch and peered through the remnants of the morning fog.

Since our battle in Wadim’s vampire den in Las Vegas, both Bruce and I were spending our convalescing time studying and learning as much as we could about vampires. There was an enormous amount of contradictory information floating around. Although some stated that the sun would burn the skin of the vampire and eventually kill him and others said they could tolerate it in small doses, all were in agreement that the sun would at least weaken or even strip my vampire powers.  We knew this firsthand about the mutant-vampires, but weren’t sure about the pure ones.

Although all was quiet since we’d returned like wounded soldiers from the battle of our lives, I knew that it was only a matter of time before we’d once again have to face those demons.  After all, we’d destroyed the den of Count Dracula’s son. Whether he was legitimate or not, he still had the Count’s genes in his body. From all that I’d read, the Count didn’t take kindly to having his flesh and blood taken down by a mere human. Yes, it was only a matter of time before we’d be battling vampires again.  They may not be mutant-vampires, but they’d be vampires none-the-less.

I wondered if our time of rest and recuperation was at an end.  If that was a vampire that I just heard, even though the sun was coming up, there were still enough shadows to protect a vampire and leave him fully functional. This wasn’t a chance that I was willing to take.

I was grateful for the body control my martial arts training gave me.  I slowed my breathing and kept almost completely motionless while I waited to see who or what was coming down the path toward the cabin. I wasted no time springing into action when I recognized my cousin walking into the clearing.  He was dragging his rifle behind him and he looked exhausted.

My eyes widened as a creature that appeared to be man and wolf combined stepped onto the porch not far from me.  I searched my memories for when I might have seen it before. It looked very familiar.  The beast stopped and sniffed the air.  Although I was able to disguise my whereabouts, I couldn’t disguise my scent. The beast grew more animated as his beady yellow-green eyes aggressively searched for me.

A shot rang through the air and the wolf-man fell off the porch.  He landed flat on his back at the base of the stairs. In a flash, Bruce was on top of him.  He drove the blade of his Hattori hunting knife deep into its throat until he’d severed its head from its body.

“That’s the third one since you left!” Bruce bellowed with disgust as he stood up and wiped the blood from the blade onto his pant leg.  “I’m tired and I’m raunchy,” he mumbled as he pulled at his blood soaked shirt.

I was speechless as I looked from the decapitated wolf-man to my blood soaked cousin. 

Bruce stopped and looked back at the beast.

“Get ready,” he said with a sigh of remorse.

 “For what?” I asked.

My words were nothing more than a shocked whisper as I watched the beast’s corpse turn human before my very eyes. The blank stare of the decapitated head was more than I could handle.  I flung my head over the railing while the contents of my stomach projected onto the dew drenched ground.

“That,” Bruce said flatly before continuing into the cabin.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. The body had barely turned from creature to man before it shriveled up into nothingness.  All that was left was a singed looking spot on the dew riddled grass.

I was still staring at the spot when Bruce reappeared wearing a clean shirt and pants. 

“Where’s Shen?” he asked as he rubbed a towel briskly over his freshly washed hair.

I took a deep breath. In all of the commotion, I’d forgotten all about Shen.

“He wasn’t on the plane,” I replied.

“Damn. That’s not good,” he muttered.

“No,” I said as I moved away from the porch railing. “We’ll have to go find him.”

Bruce nodded in agreement.

“I’m ready when you are,” he said as he tossed the towel back into the cabin through the front door.

I started off the porch and stopped to look back at the spot.

“I thought the only thing we had to deal with was vampires.  That in itself is bad enough,” I said as I shook my head. “Three, you say.  What’s next?”

“Don’t say that, you’ll jinx us,” he said nervously.  He shook his head and sighed heavily. “I’ll be so glad when this is all over. Hell, I never even believed in this stuff before and now... well... never-mind.  Let’s just go get Shen and put an end to this shit.”

“I’m with you,” I said.

    

****

Bruce and I relaxed in our seats while the plane left the runway. We’d driven to the airport in silence while we each stayed deep in thought. I was grateful that the trip to the airport was uneventful. The wolf-man ordeal had us both pretty shook up.  Anything more happening on the trip to the airport might have put one or both of us over the top.  Enough already!

We’d selected seats in the far back of the partially empty plane so we had room to sprawl out.  We also had plenty of privacy for conversation that could implicate us as mentally incompetents to the other passengers.

“So, are you going to tell me about those monsters?”  I asked. 

My words were mixed with an enormous involuntary yawn. My body was exhausted. Even though I hadn’t fought beasts all night like Bruce, I’d fought the rat race in the human jungle while searching for Shen and then looking for Bruce for hours.  My body longed for sleep.

“They sure took me by surprise,” he said flatly.

He checked to see if it was safe to unfasten his seat belt before moving into the empty seats in front of me where he was free to stretch his long, muscular legs while he filled me in on what happened.

“I thought it might be nice to have some fresh trout for dinner when you got back, so I hiked down to the creek,” he began. “It was so peaceful there and my body was still sore and tired from our workout.  I ended up dozing off a bit.  When I woke up, I was staring face to face with one of those bastards.  Luckily, I had my rifle with me. A habit, I guess.”

“In broad daylight?” I asked with surprise. “So, the sun doesn’t affect them?”

“The sun had started to go down, but not entirely,” he explained. “Son-of-a-bitch, he was scary; and mean! It’s lucky that I recognized it as the same thing we encountered in the dungeon of Wadim’s den.   I knew enough to realize that the bullet would only stun him, and I needed to cut his head off.  What I didn’t know is that the damned thing had a family.  They were pretty pissed off when I started killing them. I think it was the mama who got me.” Bruce pulled at the sleeve of his jersey shirt to expose a deep gash he’d received from the beast on his upper arm near his shoulder. “It was from her claws. I cleaned it good, so I’m hoping nothing comes of it.  If I memory serves me, I’m good on my tetanus for another year.” Bruce said as he shrugged his shoulders and stretched his neck. “I had no idea those things were running wild in the hills like that. Damn, what’s this world coming to, anyway?”

I scowled as I studied the gash on Bruce’s arm. I didn’t know enough about werewolves to know whether my cousin’s humanity was in danger from a scratch or if it was the bite we needed to worry about. While doing my vampire research, I’d read of a paranormal research group in Phoenix that claimed to be experts in their knowledge of the underworld. It might be a detour worth taking. The question was whether to look for Shen first, or immediately seek help from this paranormal group.  I chose the latter.

Not certain how Bruce would feel about it, I decided to hold off telling him of our change in plans.  After all, we had a two-hour flight to Atlanta before we’d have to change our destination.  I’d fill Bruce in then.  In the meantime, we both needed some sleep.