Vampire: Familia Primum

Vampire: Familia Primum

By Sharon and Mike King

Vampire: Familia Primum

Published in 2016 by Sharon and Mike King

Copyright 2016 Sharon and Mike King

Smashwords Edition

This book is a work of fiction, any resemblance to the names and characters; living, dead or undead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved

Cover designed by Sharon King

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Summary

1 – Station 21 Calling

2 – Sloppy Work

3 – New Guy

4 – New Info

5 – Trapped In The Subway

6 – All The Fun of the Fair

7 – Gregor

8 – Friend or Foe

9 – Fire Alarm

10 – All Hell Breaks Loose

11 – Bullet Breakthrough

12 – New Strain

13 – Bad Sportsmanship

14 – Reverse Technology

15 – Base In Trouble

16 – Tables Turned

17 – The Witching Hour

18 – Fire Ball

19 – Familia Primum

20 – Revelations

21 – Time To Walk Away

PREFACE

This book is a fantasy fiction about vampires and the chasers that hunt them down. About whether or not blood is truly thicker than water and can love and friendship last the test of time, all time...

SUMMARY

Sheridan was twenty when they took her twin sister Tamzin.

After thirty five years of chasing down every unexplained death or vampire sighting she sees her best chance yet to get her back.

But the vampire who has her sister is also searching for her.

Family ties and friendships might have to be broken or at best reassessed.

She is about to find out whether it is nature or nurture that makes us what we truly are.

1 – STATION 21 CALLING

Station 21 calling. Station 21 calling. Attention all chasers and protectors. Urgent meeting here at the base in ten minutes.

Even though I’d just got to sleep after a tough nights work chasing them down; I was already deep into my dreams; dreams where I was with Tamzin, drinking coffee and talking about my day or dancing at a party with her, my dreams were always of the two of us together and that helped me carry on. When the radio started shouting at me, it woke me up with a start and for a second I had trouble remembering where I was.

My mind was only half awake and not paying attention and as I tried to climb out of bed my body was still asleep and I fell into a heap on the floor.

I crawled to the bedside table and reached for the switch to turn on the outside monitor and saw that the sun wasn’t long up. Most of my brain was still asleep and failing to tell the rest of my body what to do, so I turned off the computer generated stars that were drifting across the ceiling, luring me back under the cover and forced myself to sit up and listen.

The radio shouted at me again Station 21 calling. Station 21 calling. Attention all chasers and protectors. Urgent meeting here at the base in ten minutes.

Jeez, I’ve only just lain down. This better be urgent! I grumbled out loud to myself, cross to have been woken up only an hour after going to bed. I needed at least six hours down time to function properly, if I didn’t then my sense of humour tended to stay at home and I had difficulty concentrating. I would have to watch myself and make sure that no one got the sharp end of my temper or my blades.

I put on my dark grey, skin-tight leggings and laced up my leather boots that were still covered in dirt from the night before; then tucked my black striped t-shirt into my leather belt and put on my shoulder harness that had two sheaths sewn into the back of it to hold my blades; blades that I sharpened most nights on an oil stone before going to bed, so no matter what happened out on the hunt, they wouldn’t let me down.

I reluctantly stretched to wake the rest of my body into some sort of action before carefully putting my brown contact lenses back in to protect my eyes from the sun’s rays. Grabbing my blades from the table at the side of the bed I placed them securely into the harness on my back and I was almost ready to go back to work.

I checked the monitor to make sure no one else was in the apartment before opening the security door with the specially made code pad, if anyone got inside and made an error then they were locked in until it was opened from the outside, I knew the password; it was indelibly entered into my brain and something I could never forget 04 05 79; the day Tamzin was taken and the day my life changed forever.

Almost silently the door swung open and I dragged myself into the bathroom. When I turned on the light and looked in the mirror my tired but unchanged face looked back at me. I say mirror, but it was actually a laser generated image played onto the mirror so that I could see myself as others did.

As I stared at almost exactly the same face as I’d looked at for the past thirty five years; the face of a twenty something, another thing that was different about me and everyone else, it made me wonder how much of a difference your genes made to the way you were and if you really needed to live off blood every single day to be a vampire.

I ruffled my shoulder length, unkempt, auburn hair, gave it a comb and then pushed it behind my ears. I gave my teeth a quick brush then swigged some mouth wash from the bottle. It tasted much better than the night breath I could smell when I first woke up. That’ll have to do. I said to no one but myself.

Grabbing my hooded sweat shirt and grey military style jacket I undid the dead bolts on the front door, then turned the keys to open the lock before leaving my apartment. I made sure that no one or should I say no thing was waiting for me and I went out into the quiet street where most sane people were still in bed.

Much as I liked it this early in the morning, the cool and new fresh air untainted by the world; the birds singing and the sun just peeping its head over the horizon, I’d much rather have been in bed, snuggled under my nice, warm duvet, secure in my safe room.

Music played through my earpiece as I walked or should I say danced along the street, Bo was manning the controls as usual at Station 21; we all listened to nothing else because we knew our lives depended on it.

The base was just around the corner, but I wandered about for a bit just to make sure I wasn’t being followed. More of a habit than a necessity and just one of my OCDs; if I didn’t do them then I was sure something bad was going to happen and I couldn’t risk that.

As I pressed the number into the basement security door, I could hear the delivery lorries working their way across the streets on the other side of town and the paperboys and girls clicking the letterboxes as they posted yesterdays news through them; news that was as good as useless to me, what did I care about politics and what the latest celebrity was wearing, what I wanted to know about they didn’t print. Not in the mainstream newspapers that was for sure. Nearly all the information I got these days was on the internet, most of it was just fantasies or the imagination of amateur writers or people with a vampire sex kink, but every now and then I’d find something useful and would follow it up just in case it led me to Tamzin.

Walking down the concrete stairs to the lower ground floor I passed the occupied cages and the putrid stench of the captive vampires filled my nose. If you’ve ever stumbled across a dead fox or rabbit, well they smelt a bit like that to me, I don’t know if everyone else could smell it or not and I never asked. The cages held our very unwilling guests: the prisoners or should I say test subjects, the vampires and changelings we’d caught for the Doc. They all stared at me, I don’t think they knew what I was or if they just hated all of us, but they bared their teeth as I passed, they were all hungry for some blood. I slapped the cages to taunt them and they clawed uselessly at the thick wire to try to get at me and maybe take a bite.

As I walked past the brightly lit operating room, I could hear the same music on the loud speakers as was coming through my earpiece and Doc and her team were dancing merrily as they always did when something lively came on; whilst at the same time busily worked on another experiment. We all hoped that one day they would find the answer; they were getting close and they still had some spares locked in the cages to continue their work on, spares that were getting very, very hungry, so it was a good job they were securely locked up.

Hi guys I said casually as I walked into the communal room and made my way to the coffee machine, it wasn’t good coffee, but it was hot and with enough sugar was drinkable. Bo was safely padlocked in his cage to protect him and his equipment; without him we wouldn’t have been a coordinated force, without him we wouldn’t have been able to sleep safely in our beds. He was so dedicated, more than most of the people that were part of the team and he practically lived in there, even had a camp bed just in case things got heavy. He was a funny little man with brown curly hair and a bright red beard, but his dedication was an inspiration to all of us.

Nearly everyone was waiting; some like me were still tired and bleary-eyed from last night’s shift and would rather have been left to sleep, but when Bo called an emergency meeting we knew it had to be because of something serious.

Hi Sheri some of them that had noticed me walk in replied, although they didn’t look up from their coffee cups.

Wassup? Taking my coffee I sat down on the armchairs with the rest of them.

Bo unlocked his door and came out to join us as he usually did when he was giving us an important briefing. Apart from going to the toilet that was about the only time I ever saw him outside his caged radio room.

He stood in front of us all, his voice quiet as usual, it’s Rosa, she hasn’t called in, everyone looked up and listened intently as he said it again only louder this time Rosa, hasn’t called in and as they all registered the significance of this they stopped drinking.

Matt went round to hers but she aint there either. Anyone seen her? He looked around the room at the half asleep faces watching him, including mine.

Last I saw her I answered was in South Street before we checked out the abandoned office block, I thought she was with Stevie.

Stevie stood to speak next I left her at the corner of Brown and West as I always do when we finish our shift, but she never called me when she got home. That’s why Bo sent Matt along to check her place out and that’s why Bo’s called us in.

Yes that’s right, that IS why you’ve all been called in, Bo continued, you all searched the area quite thoroughly, but none of you found any signs or hole-ups, so we gotta go back in and look around again just in case we missed something. Sheri, you and your team can start at her house and work your way back to South Street, the rest of you can start here, here and here he pointed at a large map of the district pasted on the wall. Then make your way back to the abandoned office blocks and check out the nearby warehouses on the way, she must be around there somewhere and we gotta find her. He raised his hand and rushed back into the cage to put on another record. Right get to it and don’t come back without her."

We all stood up ready to get going; we knew the routine, chase them down, divide them, find out if they knew anything, bring back a couple to top up the cages and kill the rest. Most of us came already equipped with weapons but Bo handed out guns and blades to all that needed them. We left in our small packs to hunt them down and hopefully find Rosa alive and unharmed.

Keep me posted guys he shouted across to us, anything at all, we gotta find her, let’s hope it’s not too late.

Rosa was a new hunter, she had a very bubbly personality and everyone liked her, she’d only been with Stevie a few weeks but she was eager. Losing your family can give you a great incentive for revenge killing and she soon got to like the feeling it gave her when you destroyed one of them by decapitation, a silver bullet to the brain or a blade through the heart. She liked to watch as the dead creature turned into a smouldering pile of ash, vanished into thin air and was gone, we all did; it felt like a job well done.

I left the basement with Jim and Thom, I couldn’t help but like them which was always a bad idea because they either got killed or the time would come for me to move on and I would miss their company when I was alone again.

Thom was about five foot ten and stocky in build; he could charm the birds out of the trees if he wanted to and had a one of the guys go get it, straight forward manner, he didn’t care if his opinions were not the same as yours and wasn’t slow in offering them up whether they were wanted or not. Most of the women at the base had slept with him at one time or another and from what I’d heard from their gossip had greatly enjoyed it, even I’d been tempted. His charm and sense of humour was easy to like, he had a great body; scarred and a bit bent out of shape from fighting but still great. Maybe I’d give him a go before I left the area; at least that way it would save any complications or emotions from developing and I’d get to see what all the fuss was about, perhaps I’d even have a good time.

Jim on the other hand was more measured in his responses; usually too quiet for me, I liked my friends to challenge me and not let me walk all over them. He stood over six feet tall but never used his size in an overpowering way unless he was fighting. He was private and seldom said anything about himself, hardly ever mixing with the other team members outside work. Thinking about him now, the only thing I knew about him then was his name and in this line of work the name you knew wasn’t always their true one.

They’d been around for several months before I’d joined them and knew how to work a building; we made a good team and always worked well together; being the first to make chase or get the kill, our strike rate was high and we liked it that way.

The three of us rode together on Jim’s motor trike towards Rosa’s house, leaving the others to make their own way to their starting points; with the plan that we all meet up at the abandoned office block before deciding what to do next.

Finally we were at the end of South Street and I could smell that they’d definitely been there; because of the way I was my senses were much more acute than any of the others, but I could barely smell Rosa. Their stench was overpowering any traces of her unique aroma.

At the door there was no answer to the bell and no sign of a forced entry so Thom climbed up the outside of the building just like a first floor man and just like he did it every day; when he got there he peered into the window of her apartment. It had security bars across it like all the others in her street, but he could clearly see in; there were no signs of a struggle which was a good thing, in fact there was no sign that she’d even been home, which definitely wasn’t.

We got back on the trike and as we made our way towards the other side of town and the abandoned office blocks, we checked every doorway, alleyway and garden. Through my earpiece I could hear Bo regularly calling out to her over the airwaves, but the line stayed silent apart from his voice and she never replied.

As we neared the dilapidated buildings I could clearly smell them again, their stink assaulted my nostrils and made my adrenaline pump through my veins. When I was like this everything around me moved in slow motion, I could respond faster than everyone else, my senses increasing to an even greater level than the enhanced state that they were normally, normally for me anyway. Chasing them down and fighting gave me a buzz that I never got when doing anything else.

I think there’s some around so keep close and keep focused I said to the guys. They didn’t seem