Blood Heavy (Blood Heavy Series)

  BLOOD HEAVY

  By SLJ Shortt

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.

  First published in Great Britain 2011.

  ©2011 Sam Lewis John Shortt

  All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to any persons alive or dead are purely coincidental.

  The right of S L J Shortt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988.

  Cover design ©2011 SLJ Shortt

  Self published by SLJ Shortt CT6 5PH.

  For the unrelenting, always inspiring and often oppressive support of my parents.

  Thank you.

  Prologue

  1 – Little Angel

  2 – Party Monster

  3 – Brain Freeze

  4 – Steroids

  5 – Sunburn

  6 – Q&A

  7 – Wings

  8 – Hormones

  9 – Cassandra

  10 – Books, Bars and Guns

  11 – The Nearly Departed

  12 – Brave New World

  13 – Fresh Blood

  14 – Fire In The Hole

  15 – Old Wounds

  16 – Cold Hearts

  17 – Family Matters

  18 - The Devil You Know

  19 – Reborn

  20 – When the Levee Breaks

  21 – Prom Night

  22 – After School Special

  23 – The Good Die Young

  24 – Lightning Rod

  25 – Death and Transfiguration

  PROLOGUE

  Abbot Northwestern Hospital – Minneapolis

  Dr. Reeves hurried down the quiet hospital corridor towards the pathology department. He didn’t have much time. He knew they would find him eventually, but he had hoped they wouldn’t be this quick.

  His white lab coat flapped behind him as he rushed into the records room at the end of the hall. At this time of night the department operated under a skeleton crew that assisted the emergency rooms downstairs. The real work took place during the day, which made it much easier for him to do this quickly. He had already destroyed the copies in his office and erased the information on the computers; now he needed to dispose of the original files. He still didn’t know what was so special about this blood. It didn’t show any signs of being different, but to some, it was clearly worth killing for.

  He entered the records room using his swipe card. Inside he immediately started flipping through the endless wall of pathology files, searching for the final four candidates he’d narrowed it down to. Sweat had started rolling down his forehead and his breathing was heavy. The hospital was a pretty big place, but it wouldn’t take them long to track him down using his scent.

  It took him only a few seconds to find the papers. They held information on two men and two women. Either could be the person the trackers were looking for. Whoever it was already had the doctor’s sympathies. They were in more danger than they could possibly imagine, and they didn’t even know it yet. Still, he trusted the people he was helping. They would protect those that needed it. Unfortunately, nothing could stop the trackers from finding him or her, eventually.

  Reeves grabbed four other files off the wall at random and then rushed out of the room. Just as he did, he heard the chime of the elevator arriving down the corridor. He didn’t wait to see who was inside. The cold feeling in his gut had already told him that he didn’t have to.

  It was them.

  Dr Reeves’s heart raced as he bolted down the hall, ducking into an administrator’s office. He didn’t turn on the lights, but shot straight over to the desk and opened the bottom draw. Inside were some envelops that already had stamps on them. He grabbed one and quickly scribbled an address down on the front of it, then pushed the blood files inside and sealed it tight.

  He had to work fast.

  Reeves shoved the envelope into the middle of the outgoing mail stack on the desk, then rushed over and grabbed the small waste-paper bin. Into this he threw the four unimportant random files that he had also snagged, and then he extracted a small tube of lighter fluid from his lab coat. Spraying the files with the fuel, he lit a match and hastily threw it in. The whole lot went up instantly. Dr Reeves watched the papers crinkling and blackening in the flames, internally begging them to burn more quickly. Before they were gone completely, the door opened.

  Reeves froze on the spot, eyes wide with fright. Three men and a woman had entered, their faces hidden by the shadows. Only the flickering flames illuminated their features, causing their eyes to reflect the light, like cats.

  One of the men stepped forward, bringing his face into sharp relief. He was a mountain of a man - at least six five and made of pure muscle. His long hair and rugged features gave him a wild, barbarian look. His name was Devlin. For a moment he stared at the burning bin, then he sighed deeply.

  “You have taken a very big slice of the stupid cake this time Arthur,” he said in a deep gravelly voice.

  “I destroyed all the copies and erased the computers,” Dr Reeves said defiantly, trying desperately to hide his fear, but failing.

  “You know we’ll find it,” Devlin smiled, revealing a set of neat, pointed fangs.

  “Maybe...but not before Sophinia does.”

  “We’ll see,” he grinned and stepped forward again. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of avoiding the whole horribly-painful-torture-thing, and you just telling us what we want to know right now, is there?”

  “I don’t know… I never found out who it was,” Reeves replied, edging backwards.

  “I think you’re lying to me Arthur,” said Devlin, his voice gravelly with irritation.

  Reeves was a doctor. His job was to save lives, and this business was far, far too important for him to care about his own life right now. He had to go through with his intentions: he steeled himself.

  “You’re right,” Reeves grimaced and looked away. “We can avoid the whole torture thing...”

  Suddenly, he bolted for the window. He jumped, going straight through the glass, and plummeted towards the ground six stories below. There was a sickening thud. Devlin walked over and looked down over the jagged edges of the broken window. Reeves’s body was splayed out on the ground, not moving. He shrugged. “Well, that’s annoying. I was hoping to eat him...”

  “We needed him alive!” the woman in the room cried angrily, though still covered in shadows.

  “No, we didn’t. He wouldn’t just destroy the information, not when they were so close to finding out who it is. We just need to follow Sophinia’s people. They will lead us straight to the carrier,” replied Devlin. The four vampires exited the office, oblivious to the fact that the information they needed was sitting right on the desk in front of them.

  CHAPTER 1 – LITTLE ANGEL

  ONE WEEK LATER

  St. Cloud - Minnesota

  Ironically, the song If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It) by AC/DC happened to be the music which blared out of Daniel Jericho’s alarm clock, waking him up. He moaned and stretched for a few moments before finally getting out of bed. Still tired, he walked to the bathroom to take a leak and splash some cold water on his face. As he looked at himself in the mirror he couldn’t help but think that his chest hair was growing at an alarming rate. The mop of black hair on his head seemed to have frozen in time, whilst the rest of his body was trying desperately to turn him into some kind of yeti. A few needle points of stubble were littered around his square jaw, but he wasn’t going to be growing a beard anytime soon.
/>
  He hoped this was just a crazy side effect of being a seventeen year old boy.

  Daniel pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt before heading to the kitchen and grabbing some OJ. It was pretty obvious from the silence that he was the only one in the house. Uncle Joe had probably left early to go finish replacing the piston rings in his friend’s 1970 Ford Mustang ‘Boss 429’. What he wouldn’t give to get his hands on that car. It was a thing of beauty.

  Personally, Daniel would much rather help Joe out on weekdays than go to school, but he didn’t get that option. Engines, circuit boards and rebuilding classic cars were far more interesting than hearing about Napoleon, or what carbon emissions do to the atmosphere. But again, he didn’t have a choice: Joe was his legal guardian and he’d made it very clear that he wasn’t going to let him skip out on his education.

  After finishing off some of the Chinese takeout they’d eaten the night before, Daniel grabbed his school bag and headed out the front door. It wasn’t much of a breakfast, but it would do. Most of the kitchen was littered with odd tools and car parts that somehow never seemed to disappear. There were wrenches and socket sets sitting next to the toaster and a broken wing mirror balanced on top of the fridge.

  Joe’s house, if you could call it that, sat on the outskirts of town, not far from the Mississippi river. It was a one floor building that had apparently been converted from an old farm. It wasn’t a bad place to live, but it was pretty old and had that sort of comfortable messy feeling to it. Unfortunately, it was also out of walking distance from school.

  That was where Goose came in. His best friend.

  Goose had moved to St. Cloud about six years ago from somewhere in Texas and now lived about a mile down the road. They were the same age, went to the same school and had most of the same classes. Unlike Daniel however, he had a car.

  Daniel strolled down the road until he came to a footpath that led to a small marina where a dozen or so boats were docked. Quite a few of the locals liked to travel up and down the river for fishing and relaxation. As he approached the marina, he saw Goose’s silver Volvo C30 parked near the water.

  He walked down the docks toward a small yacht that looked barely sea worthy. Goose’s father, Doug, had brought it about a month ago and was fixing it up by himself, although he regularly got Daniel or Joe to help him out with it whenever he could. It had originally been call Lucy II, but Lucy was also the name of Goose’s dad’s ex-wife so he was planning to re-name it.

  Daniel spotted Goose inside the main cabin playing around with the fuse box. He walked over and knelt down next to the port hole.

  “Yarr! Capt’n, have ya found Moby Dick yet, coz I got a pretty good idea of where he might be…” said Daniel, doing a pirate impression and pressing his groin to the port hole.

  “Jerry, please take your balls off the window,” winced Goose’s father, without amusement.

  Everybody, at least everyone that knew Daniel well, called him Jerry. This was mainly because there were so many other Daniel’s at the school he went to.

  “Still having problems with the fuses then?”

  “Yeah, the deck lights won’t come on,” Doug mumbled as he fiddled with a few wires. “It’s a coast guard regulation thing. If I can’t get them to work, I can’t take her out on the water.”

  “This bucket is gonna sink before she gets out of the marina, but still, want me to have a look?” Jerry offered.

  Doug shrugged, “Knock yourself out,” he said.

  Jerry climbed inside the cabin and took a quick look. He spotted the problem instantly. “It’s not your fuses, it’s the panel connection. You need to replace the wires right here,” he said, pointing.

  “Oh...” Doug looked a little confused. “Yeah, that’s what I thought it was.” He did a bad job of covering up the fact that he really didn’t have a clue.

  “I still can’t believe you brought this tub of shit.”

  “A man should have a hobby,” said Doug nobly, whilst wiping his hands with a cloth.

  “I thought guns were your hobby?” said Jerry. And this was true, they really were. Goose’s dad was a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and he owned an impressive assorted arsenal. He had even taken Jerry and Goose out a few times for clay pigeon shooting and duck hunting. Jerry never took much enjoyment from it, but it had been a different and interesting experience. Guns were certainly a lot louder than in the movies.

  “A man should have two hobbies,” pronounced Doug, sounding like a robot. He walked over to the stairs that led into the hull of the yacht. “Goose,” he called down, “you’re gonna be late.”

  “Just a sec,” Goose yelled back.

  “You find someone to go to Prom with yet?” Doug asked as they waited.

  “Don’t need to, I’m not going,” Jerry replied. In truth, one of the main reasons he wasn’t going was because he had no idea who to ask.

  “You can’t miss your junior Prom, it’s important,” Doug looked concerned.

  “I’ll go to the senior one instead,” Jerry shrugged.

  “Isn’t the junior and senior Prom happening at the same time though?” Doug asked shrewdly.

  “I meant the one next year.”

  A few seconds later, Goose climbed up the stairs and into the cabin. He was shorter than Daniel, about five foot nine and had sandy blonde hair with blue eyes. Despite this, Goose somehow managed to look about three years older than he actually was. It might have had something to do with the fact that he now had quite a bit of stubble gracing his chin. In Jerry’s opinion, Goose was the best ‘best friend’ anyone could ever have. He was fun, clever, had a great sense of humor and above all else he was loyal. They might as well have been brothers.

  “Bonjour,” Jerry nodded.

  “Konichiwa,” Goose returned. They had developed a strange little habit of greeting each other in any language other than English.

  “Goose, don’t forget, I’m going down South this afternoon,” interrupted Doug.

  “And you won’t be back for two maybe three weeks,” Goose nodded. “And you’ll put some money into my account every few days, I haven’t forgotten.”

  “And if you decide to go clay pigeon shooting -”

  “Make sure I clean the barrels and pick up the empty cartridges. Haven’t forgotten that either,” Goose smiled.

  “Good. Now shift your butts over to that school and get educated.”

  “Edgeucated? Isn’t that something to do with carpentry?”

  “Yeah, it’s when I take a power sander to your ass if fail your classes. Shoo,” said Doug in a convincing monotone.

  “Hey, that’s a good change-up, Doug. He was starting to enjoy getting spanked,” Jerry laughed.

  “Screw you,” replied Goose.

  “Go on, both of you, you’re gonna be late!” Doug huffed at them.

  So Jerry and Goose left the boat and walked over to the car. A few minutes later they were driving down the street past Oakridge Park and Sauk Rapids. Goose fiddled with the iPod that he had hooked up to the stereo. A moment later a serene operatic melody poured out, causing Jerry to look very confused.

  “Is that Mozart?”

  “No, it’s Beethoven, seventh symphony, second movement. What, don’t you like it?”

  “Oh, no, it’s very nice. I just wish I was sitting in an armchair with a glass of Cognac reading War and Peace right now,” said Jerry snidely.

  “You sad uncultured bastard,” Goose shrugged and switched the track over. Up around the bend by Credence Clearwater Revival came on. It had a hell of a lot more beat to it.

  “Yeah! Credence!” Jerry punched the air and started miming the lyrics.

  It wasn’t long before they drove past the Apollo Clock Tower that sat right on the river edge. It stuck out like a sore thumb, not just because it was about twice as tall as all the other buildings around it. It was also brand new. It had been finished about a year ago and still looked way too clean to fit in. It was beautiful to look a
t, though, and was designed in the same style as an ancient Greek forum. A long horseshoe shaped building with a big clock bang in the centre, it was about twenty feet taller than the rest of St Cloud.

  Unfortunately, the setting wasn’t exactly perfect. Not too long ago a kid had almost died after climbing onto the roof, apparently convinced that it was an excellent place to start a running dive bomb into the river. He almost drowned after being swept downstream. Even so, the most they had done in terms of health and safety was to put up a warning sign. People could still get on the roof quite easily.