The Vampire's Rival

Liberate

It took about a month to train Brownie into an explosive detection dog, but it wasn't until three months went by that we got a chance to head back to The Hotel.

Those three months went by in a blur.

In that time, the Enclaves collapsed as regional units when the vampire dog Super Pack began its blitz attacks from what was once Sleritu's Enclave and throughout the region. At first, it was a wonder that all these dogs had lived in the region without the Hunters noticing, but it soon became clear that the Super Pack was drawing animals from beyond the Dead Zone as well, where even Hunters hadn't thought was worth exploring for the sole purpose of bringing back a dog. Especially after I outlawed the practice and made an example of Josal's friends.

And it wasn't just dogs. There were now jaguars, panthers, caimans, and other predators in the mix!

As I looked around at yet another blood-soaked battlefield at the edge of what was once my Enclave, littered with the bodies of humans, vampires, vampire dogs, other vampire predators and ghouls, I began to wonder if I should have let the Hunters decimate the dog population all those years ago. The Super Pack had been chased off for now, but this didn't feel like a victory. The few vampires who'd survived walked back to Lujeo's mansion to regroup and plan the new patrol schedule with the reduced number of survivors.

And our numbers weren't just being lowered by the Super Pack. Across the region, Scavengers had ramped up their abductions and reports kept coming in from those seeking asylum that the Scavengers had a new leader. It was always the same story. Whoever was now in charge sounded like a maniac! Recklessly brave, seemingly invincible in those suits and a devilish fiend at hand-to-hand combat, with dead-blood-soaked knives and a machete as their go-to weapon when the vampires or Wildlings put up resistance.

It was all too much, and I felt stretched too thin.

I knew that everyone was depending on me, hanging onto my every word and action, eager to know what our next move was, but I couldn't deal with any of this madness anymore.

It was for that reason that, after this last battle, I walked over to Kitari's mansion, not Lujeo's mansion, our main strategic outpost, and not my cabin, where I usually found some time to myself as everyone stayed away from it on my explicit instructions.

Kitari opened her door, found me standing there drenched in blood and, without a word, she took my hand, walked me to her room, took my soiled and tattered clothes off and got into the shower with me. Fully clothed, she turned the water on and let it rain on me for a few minutes, sluicing off most of the blood and gore. She poured shampoo on her hands and gently washed my hair. Then my body. We stayed under the spray for what seemed like hours.

I was beyond exhausted but was starting to feel better as we towelled off.

"The vampire dogs we've been experimenting on revealed something new," Kitari said as we walked downstairs after the shower and to the backyard, where Brownie and Drew were playing. "We already know that the rabies virus is the agent that's passing on the vampirism, but there's something else. Their ambrosia. It's from an impossible source."

"A hybrid vampire – half Venom and half Norm." I said, as a matter of fact.

Kitari stopped walking and looked at me in surprise. "You say that like it's not an impossible thing. A Venom hybrid can't exist!"

I had never told her about my true self. I'd seen what had happened when I'd shared the truth with Sleritu and Trisca. They both ended up drawn to the Venom side of me. Always curious to push at it. Demand of it. I never wanted the relationship with Kitari to have a chance of that happening. And even though she'd joined my list of ex-girlfriends who wanted to end the world, by attempting to hold hostage the ability for vampires to turn humans, Kitari was as different from those other two as day was to night.