The Vampire's Curse

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

 

The sun was setting, and Nikolai was just waking up.  He went to the fridge to get a glass of blood for breakfast.  He popped the glass in the microwave for thirty seconds; he hated drinking the blood cold.  He sipped his blood and thought about Angel, and what he was going to do this time.  He did not want to kill Her, but he did not know how to avoid it.  He wondered what she was doing right this moment.  If she realized the danger that she was in just being in his presence.  How best to keep her safe this time.  He glanced at the newspaper from last week that he had not had a chance to read yet.  Saw the article on the front page about the dead go-go dancer and immediately put thoughts of Angel aside for the moment.  They coven he was hunting had struck again. 

This was definitely Erika's modus operandi.  She liked to go after the prostitutes, go-go dancers, and strippers.  Male and female alike, but she especially liked the women for some reason.  He had come across her coven before and had never been able to get to her directly.  If he could just eliminate her then maybe these killings would stop.  He remembered the chaos that she had created in California.  He had been in Covina, California when he had last seen her damage.  So many muggings gone wrong and the useless deaths of so many humans at her hands; she was a ruthless killer. 

Nik hoped that this time he would be able to find her nest.  He planned to go out hunting tonight.  He went to the closet where he kept his weapons.  He had wooden stakes, his crossbow, and a contraption that he had made that attaches to his wrist.  All he had to do was walk up to a vampire and extend his hand and release the catch and the stake was in the vampire's heart before it could even blink.  He hated to have to kill his own kind, but he could not stomach knowing what they were doing and do nothing to stop them from the senseless slaughter of so many.

He packed his gear into his bag and prepared to leave.  He would start at The Stratosphere and see if he could pick up any kind of a trail or any clues the cops had missed.  He walked out the front door, locking it behind him and threw his bag into the back of his car.  He drove out of his neighborhood and got onto the I-95 headed south.  He got off at Las Vegas Boulevard and went south down the strip towards The Stratosphere.  He parked in the back parking lot reserved for employees.  He got out of the car and walked towards the area that still had remnants of the yellow police tape.  He walked around the area sniffing the air to see if he could pick up any scent of the killer. 

Vampires had a unique scent all their own, other vampires could always tell when another of their kind was around by the way they smelled.  He was picking up a faint scent but it was too faint to follow.  Instead he began looking with his heightened vision to see if he could find any clues.  The only thing he noticed was a valet ticket from The Golden Nugget, which was down on Fremont Street.  The trail here had gone cold.  He knew this was the hunting grounds for the coven.  He just needed to find a way to locate them.

 He was about to turn and head back to his car when he smelled something else.  It was Her, Angel.  He looked in the direction that her scent was coming from and she was headed towards the area he had just investigated.  "What is she doing here?" he mumbled to himself.  Was she trying to get herself killed, without his help this time? He was about to head in her direction to intercept her, but started to think better of it.  What if he could not control himself?  What if he attacked her right here and killed her after only having just found her?  These thoughts were swirling through his head, but he knew he could not leave her out here by herself, it wasn't safe. 

"Angel?" he asked, "Is that you?  It's Mr. Kavanah from UNLV.  I think you're in my class, right?"  Angel looked up startled, and saw her professor walking towards her.  "Um, hi.  What are you doing here?" she asked.  Nik looked at her and thought for a moment about what to say to her, "I was going to do some gambling.  I like The Stratosphere. I usually have good luck here.  What about you, are you here to gamble too?"  It was a good cover for why he was there and he wondered what she would say.  "Oh, well my friend works here and after what happened I did not want her to take the bus home."  How could she tell her professor that she was really there under a hunch that the person responsible for this girls death, either killed her father or knew who did, and that she suspected vampires.  She did wonder though if she could use her theory on her final paper for his class.  A story about real vampires here in Las Vegas.  

"Well that is very noble of you Angel, but aren't you worried about your own safety.  There could be something dark and dangerous out here just waiting to attack a young woman on her on alone out here," Nik said.  Angel just laughed and help up her pepper spray, "I never leave home without this.  If someone comes at me then they get a face full of this, plus I took some martial arts classes last summer and know how to defend myself." 

"Well be careful out here, you do not want to end up like that poor girl," Nik said as he headed towards the entrance of the casino.  He had to maintain his charade that he was there to gamble.  Angel replied, "Thanks, professor.  See you in class next week," she also headed towards the casino not wanting him to know the real reason she was there.