He tried to think of a good stall tactic.
“You didn’t mention the third client,” Muehlik said, trying to buy a temporary reprieve from the needle.
“I pulled a pint of your blood while you were sleeping,” Nada grinned.
“What are you going to do?” Muehlik asked with clear disgust. “Sell it on the black market?”
“Hell no,” Nada grinned. “See, I’m the third client. Having seen how badass you vampires are, I can’t wait to become one. I’ll be tougher, stronger and richer than I am now, that’s for damned sure.”
The vampire couldn’t believe his immortal ears. The gift of vampirism was supposed to be sacred. A human was all-but drained dry and then allowed to drink of a vampire’s blood. What Nada suggested was akin to a rape of sorts. His hatred of this mortal only intensified.
“Enjoy it while you can,” Muehlik growled. “I will escape. I will find you. And you’ll long for Hell when I’m done with you!”
“Whatever chief,” Nada muttered as he moved in to sedate Muehlik for the long trip home. “Sleep tight and have some bratwurst for me.”
THE INTERN
Donna Vishe watched her world slowly stop spinning as she fought the urge to vomit. At age twenty-three, the full-time law student wore a pair of blue jeans, a pink U of Michigan sweater, and a muddy pair of white sneakers. The last traces of red steam flowed upward from her lithe body. Mystified, she watched it dissipate for a few moments longer. Then she stood up and brushed her long, reddish-brown hair out of her eyes.
A soft, evening breeze blew past her as she looked around. Donna’s azure eyes widened upon the realization that she wasn’t in her tiny Ann Arbor apartment anymore. In fact, she was looking up at a cloudless sky, just shy of dusk, wherein there were two moons: one white and one reddish-brown.
At that point, things stopped making sense.
Being something of a logical person, she tried to connect the dots. The last thing Donna remembered was plopping down on her comfy old couch, hell-bent on getting some shut-eye. She had a fair amount of caffeine and pizza in her system, along with achy eyes and a mostly-finished trial paper to polish up. The second-year law student had set her alarm clock to 4 a.m. and then closed her eyes.
Now, she was standing in the middle of a grassy battlefield, surrounded by thousands of bodies and their collective stench. Donna decided to table the question of how she got here and take in the details. Most of the bodies wore full-body armor and wielded medieval weaponry. One side wore crimson-hued armor, styled with the emblem of a three-fingered claw on the chest plating. The others wore armors of different colors and emblems. Donna’s guess was that many weaker sides had banded together to take on a single adversary.
For a brief moment, she wondered who won.
Then, what really caught her eye was the large number of non-human carcasses littering the battlefield. A few were large. Others were small. One even looked like a gray dragon with tentacles (instead of wings) along its sides. Most of them were felled by arrows. Clearly, they had been used as living weapons on the battlefield. Donna saw many of the corpses with claw and bite marks. A few of the beasts had actually been killed while dining on the warriors and had pieces of the combatants (and sometimes, fellow monsters) clenched in their dead jaws.
For a brief moment, Donna prayed that someone had pulled her out of her Ann Arbor apartment and dumped her in a Renaissance festival as a prank. But the crows were already feeding on the dead. The blood, spilled entrails, and stench couldn’t be faked. And some mean-looking men were busy looting the corpses. There were eight of them, all dirty and dressed like the cutthroat characters Donna would see in medieval-period movies.
When they spotted her, they greedily chased her down. While Donna was a decent runner, she had a difficult time racing across the slippery, corpse-strewn battlefields. Her would-be captors, on the other hand, moved with greater ease and familiarity. They seized her and argued amongst themselves in some strange tongue. She figured that they were debating what to do with her.
They tied Donna up and walked her toward a thick forest. A road was cut through the woods, which abruptly ended at a huge clearing. In this clearing rested an enormous camp, which was probably the size of U of M’s campus – times two. She guesstimated that there were tens of thousands of crimson tents, set in row after row of military precision. Soldiers walked about in that same style of crimson armor she had noticed on the battlefield. Based on their proximity to the battlefield, Donna figured that they had won. Still, she expected to see more than the few dozen who were here.
As her captors dragged Donna along, a group of five soldiers met them. They broke into smiles at the sight of her. Even though she couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying, it was clear that they were haggling over a price for her. Three of the soldiers pulled small pouches out of their armor, which had the sounds of coins in them. A chill ran through Donna as they tossed their pouches at her captors, who looked quite satisfied. They handed her over to the soldiers and walked off with their earnings.
Suddenly, horns blared in the distance and the soldiers looked worried. They argued amongst themselves, while gesturing her way every few seconds or so. Donna wondered what the horns meant, then hoped that it was a summons of some kind. If they had to run off somewhere, they would have to leave her behind – which would allow her a chance to get away and avoid getting raped. The horns continued to sound off in the distance.
A huge man in fancier armor approached on the back of a huge gray warhorse. Behind him rode two other warriors, each on smaller mounts. As Donna sized up his huge frame and the huge broadsword sheathed at his back, she wondered why he needed the bodyguards. He removed his dented battle helm and shook loose a long mane of grayish-blonde hair. She took in his menacing, battle-scarred face and figured him to be somewhere in his mid-forties. He tucked his helm under his right arm and scowled at Donna’s “owners,” probably because they weren’t at their duty stations.
The other soldiers snapped to attention and bowed to him with evident fear on their faces. The officer began to yell at his men and gestured in the direction of the horns. But then he noticed her and fell silent. He dismounted without a word and casually strode toward her. The leader gently picked up a few locks of her hair and inhaled her scent. Donna fought the urge to pull away, certain that the blood-covered officer was short on both temper and mercy.
Then the officer barked an order. One of his escorts produced a few gold pieces and flung them to the ground. The other escort dismounted, walked over to Donna, and picked her up like she was a newly-purchased rug. The bodyguard wordlessly put her over the saddle of his horse and grabbed the reins.
The officer gave his escorts a quick command and then put his helm back on. Donna found herself being taken away by the first escort, who guided the horse on foot. The other soldier/bodyguard rode behind them. As they left, Donna looked back as the five derelict soldiers greedily picked up the gold pieces. They cheered as they drew their weapons and ran off toward the direction of the horns. The officer gave her body one final, lusty glance as he mounted his warhorse and rode off as well.
Donna simply hoped that the officer somehow ended up in a monster’s guts.
The bodyguards took her into a large crimson tent with a pair of banners in front, both with the three-clawed emblem. Donna figured that the tent belonged to the officer. It was about the size of a small ranch house and was packed with trunks and furnishings. At the center of the tent was a huge oak table covered with maps, scrolls and letters. She figured that the officer was a senior officer in their army – perhaps even their leader. In his eyes, Donna was his newly-bought trophy/pet.
The guards untied Donna’s arms and then bound her wrists and ankles together with thick rope. Then they gagged her with white cloth, even though she hadn’t made a sound. Unwilling to annoy them, the law student allowed them to set her down on a pile of cushions and meekly watched them leave. They stood guard outside of the tent, with their backs to her. The methodical way in which