Page 47 of High Seas

“Yeah. I mean, there are thousands of us.” He held up his wrist revealing tattooed numbers: 1711. “What year are you?”

I gritted my teeth together, the gums around my fangs still swollen and tender. I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Are you telling me that you’re a clone?”

“Yeah…” he drawled. “You’re not?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “No, I’m not.”

The Titus clone looked puzzled. “Why are you laughing? You can’t be the Abram.”

I cackled. And then suddenly, a new sense of rage filled my heart. My hands began to tremble.

When Titus’s foot found the staircase, he hooked his free thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going to go upstairs and finish cleaning up. You take yer time and head out when you get ahold of yourself.”

“You aren’t going anywhere,” I said softly.

“Beg pardon?” he asked.

But I knew he heard me. His eyes sharpened. The sole of his boot slid further across the step. The fabric of his pants swished as his knee bent. He tightened his grip on the knife’s handle. I could hear the sweat from his palm soaking into the wood. He eased up one step, then another, standing as straight as the cellar stairway would allow. When he bolted up to the door of the butcher shop, I caught his ankle and sent him sprawling, the knife clattering uselessly from his hand. He had been trained as an Asset. He knew how to fight. He was strong, but I was stronger.

“Do you mean to tell me you’re the Abram? The first?” the clone marveled. “I always assumed you failed in your mission. That they sent us as a failsafe.”

“And yet you are the greater failure,” I replied dispassionately. “You are a traitor. You turned your back on the people who gave you life. The question isn’t why on earth would they send us; it’s why on earth did they bother making you?”

He kicked out, aiming at my knees, but I sped toward him and knocked his head against the floor with a resounding thump. In the few moments he was dazed, I bared my fangs. He blinked a few times, then furrowed his brow as comprehension dawned.

“You’ve been turned.”

“Into a far more capable weapon. Who better to fight a vampire than another vampire – one aware of where his loyalty lies?” I boasted. “One who hates all who stand against what is right; namely, those who stand against God above and everything sacred on the earth He created.”

I backhanded him. His neck twisted to the side but didn’t snap. The clone managed to roll onto his stomach, trying to push himself up, but I settled the heel of my boot between his shoulder blades before he could gain purchase. He clawed the blood-spattered, wooden floors.

“I have no quarrel with you! Please, just leave me alone. I just want to live out my life peacefully.”

I drew upon my memory. “First Thessalonians chapter five, verse three. ‘For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them…”

“Please don’t kill me,” he begged, pushing against the floor with all his might, quickly learning that he wasn’t the stronger of the two of us. Or anywhere near it.

“…and they shall not escape,” I finished, placing my hand where my foot had been and holding him to the filthy floor. The stench of raw meat was drowned out by the smell of his blood. Coppery and sweet. “I won’t kill you,” I promised. “I need your help.”

“I’ll do anything,” Titus’s clone promised.

“Where are our targets?”

He stilled. “Asa lives on this island. He has a home not far away. I can tell you how to get to it. As for the others, I’m not sure. But I can tell you where to find Asa. He’s the one you want.”

“I’m so bad with directions,” I leaned over to whisper in his ear. “I’d rather you show me. But first… I’m so thirsty. And if you are to truly atone for your traitorous actions, you’ll have to prove to me that you’re worthy by sacrificing yourself for the greater good.”

His scream was almost as delicious as his blood.

I pushed my venom into his veins as I fed.

He would be my first sire. But I was only getting started.

Chapter Fourteen

Eve

I was unsettled. I wish I’d been well and had thought to question the clone more. Where did she come from? How were they trained? Were there more? Were other attacks being planned?

---