Chapter 11
The Creature's POV
The cool evening wind howled through the dead trees. From behind my gas mask I surveyed the arid world with predatory focus. The Parson Asylum roof peaked over a mass of rocks and the wind blew the guards' scent towards my lookout post. Their scents commingled together, but they all repulsed me. They all suffered from some kind of disease, infection, or addiction, and the older ones on patrol were tainted with radiation. Smelling the human refuse almost made me miss another scent, this one far more palatable and divine.
I sniffed the air again and my throat burned with thirst. I had fed a few days ago and I wasn't in dire need of sustenance yet, but that didn't matter. The smell, sweet and almost floral, entranced me. There was only one explanation as to how a wastelander could smell that good. He or she must've lived in a Vault. Vault 81 was a possibility as the traders sometimes made their rounds through the Commonwealth, but they smelled stale like a loaf of bread that was a day away from spoiling. She smelled like a fresh loaf of bread hot out of the oven.
It was the Vault Dweller. It had to be. I was sure of it. I sniffed the air again, now parceling out the scent of her companion. The robot she was allegedly with didn't give off the typical metallic or gasoline odor that was common for their type. Instead it smelled like tobacco and old books. Odd.
As they walked closer to the road that led to the asylum, I caught snippets of their conversation on the wind.
"… we gotta be on our guard, doll…."
"… sneak in and pick the lock…."
"Just a quick in and out and we'll …."
"…encounter the vampire…"
A smirk toyed at the corner of my mouth. Oh they would indeed encounter a vampire.
I climbed down hillside and kept to the trees. My footsteps were light and I slunk through the underbrush slowly so as not to spook them. As I moved closer to the duo, the woman's smell lingered in the air like perfume. Floral, sweet, and heady, I hadn't smelled anything quite like her in two centuries.
I heard how the dirt and branches crunched beneath their feet and deduced they were a 200 meters distance away and approaching from my right. I waited among the thickets and dense trees like a lion hiding in the tall grass for the wary antelope to cross his path.
The robot climbed up the hill first. He was dressed like a 1930s hardboiled detective with a long grey trench coat, dress slacks, and a grey fedora. Maybe its original master or creator had some sort of pulp fiction fetish. Unlike Mister Gutsys, Assaultrons, Protectrons, and Sentry Bots, I couldn't discern a power source which would easily render it inoperable. And as they approached, I heard the strangest thing of all. It had a heartbeat.
Nathan's wife, the Vault Dweller, crested the hill after the robot. Her dark hair was pinned back to reveal vivid green eyes. Her full lips parted slightly and she was breathing heavily from the walk. Her traveling clothes hid the soft and feminine features of her body but I knew from the worried and faded photograph that Nathan always carried on him that she was shapely and strong beneath her traveling clothes.
I rose from my crouch to get a better look but the robot's head snapped in my direction.
"Wait, doll." It said and grabbed on to her arm protectively. "I—I think there's something nearby."
The Vault Dweller stopped and looked to where the robot was looking. Her hand immediately went to the gun on her side as did the robot.
So the robot had preternaturally keen senses. Fascinating. Most robots utilized thermal imaging to scan the area for human threats. As I didn't give off body heat, they were never able to find me … until now.
"Who's there?" The Vault Dweller called out. Her voice sounded brave but her scent told the truth. She was scared.
Fear, like lust, was a cloying and seductive scent that toyed at my instincts. If she ran, I would pursue without question, but when coupled with drumming of her heart, so vital and full of life, I knew there was no way I could back out now. Her blood called to me like a siren's song. I wanted her and I would have her.
I walked out from behind the trees with my hands raised. The machete at my hip bounced with each step, the blade glinting in the moonlight. Both of them had their guns trained on me but I smiled from behind my mask to make my voice sound more amiable.
"Please don't shoot." I said.
"What are you doing out here?" The robot barked with cop-like authority.
"I'm just looking for something to eat." I said in a calm and measured voice. "It's been a few days since I've fed."
The Vault Dweller moved slowly to my left and away from her robot compatriot. Her heartbeat thudded in a steady ba-bum ba-bum rhythm which echoed in my brain like the beat of a war drum.
"You look like a raider." She said. "What settlement do you belong to?"
"None. I'm a hunter. I live alone."
The Vault Dweller and her robot shared a look. She cocked her head in my direction and blinked twice and the robot nodded.
How cute. They were communicating in code.
"You got a name, bub?" The robot asked.
"I do." I confirmed. "But I'm pleading the fifth on that one. I'd rather not tell you my name."
To a vampire, names could be powerful. Names could bind you to someone and allow you to control them. The only other being who knew my name died some two and a half centuries earlier; I ripped out her dead, black heart.
"Look." The Vault Dweller said, "We just wanna get by so if you just let us go, we'll all part here happy and alive."
I sucked in my breath and hissed a little, "I haven't been alive for a very, very long time Nora."
Through my green-tinted visor, I saw the Vault Dweller jerk at the sound of her name falling from my lips. I knew she felt my presence in her mind. My influence over her would be small. I could probably entice her closer to me but she could fight it provided she had enough willfulness to do so. But if I drank from her…if I put her into my thrall …
"How do you know my name?" Her voice held steady despite how loudly hear heard pounded in her chest.
I smiled wide, "Your husband told me all about you."
"That's impossible. My husband is dead." She snarled and took a step towards me.
I rolled the vowels of her name on my tongue and visualized what I wanted her to do. I wanted her to walk towards me, away from her robot bodyguard and away from safety. All I had to do was to say her name again.
"Yes he is dead. But it's not impossible." I said.
"What do you mean it's not impossible?" She seethed.
"Doll…" The robot warned from behind her.
I continued, "He spoke about you quite often. Especially in our early years together. He had a bad habit of living in the past. I suppose as a Pathologist and a Medical Examiner, he's use to living in the past."
"Who the fuck are you?" Nora snarled.
She cocked the hammer back on the revolver. I almost had her.
"I've known your husband Nora. Actually, I've known him quite intimately. I bet you never knew that your husband wasn't exclusive with just you. Did you know that he enjoys men as well as women?"
"You son of a bitch." She snarled and took two more steps forward which was all I needed.
She didn't see me move until I was standing behind her with my arm around her neck in a choke. I knocked the gun out of her hand as easily as swatting a butterfly out of the air. As I squeezed down on her neck, she grabbed onto my bicep to struggle for air. The thin, rattling wheeze that came from her throat thrilled me.
"Let her go!" The robot ordered. His gun was aimed at my head. No matter how good of a marksman he might've been, I had the faster reflexes and as soon as he pulled the trigger I could move the Nora into the bullet's path like she was my personal human shield.
She struggled in my grasp and tried to get her leg behind mine to sweep me off my feet, but I stepped away from her and tightened my hold so her eyes slightly bulged out from her skull.
"I wouldn't do that." I purred in her ear. "I was planning on killing you quickly. Anger me and I'll make you wish you had died when the bombs fell."
"What do you want?" The robot snarled.
I ignored the cop and reached out through the thrall.
"Nathan." I shouted aloud.
My outburst didn't phase the robot man and he kept his pistol aimed at my head. "I ain't askin' you again, pal. What the fuck do you want with her?"
Nathan must've felt my heightened excitement because he reached out through the thrall on his own free will and saw what I saw.
No. NO Oh God. Please don't! DON'T HURT HER. Please! Please!
Nathan's fear and anguish crackled through me with orgasmic intensity. He was so angry that I could feel him clawing at his own skin as though he could crawl through himself and get to me.
"This is what happens to those who defy me Nathan." I snarled aloud.
I ripped off my gas mask and bared my fangs at the robot. His yellow eyes widened in shock and in horror but he quickly regained his composure. He fired two rounds at my head, two at my right shoulder, and two more at my knees. As soon as the first bullet discharged from the gun, I moved out of the way and all his shots hit the trees behind me.
When the robot how quickly I had moved his mouth dropped in astonishment. Now it was my turn to impress.
With my left hand, I pulled a five inch serrated knife from my hip and threw it with practiced ease. The blade would've struck its artificial heart but the robot twitched away at the last second so it entered just below his rib instead.
"NICK!" Nora choked out in my arms.
The robot fell backward from the blow and clutched the knife hilt. Dark, viscous coolant poured from the wound.
I turned my focus back on my prey and craned Nora's head so her tan neck was pulled taught. Her pulse was visible in her vein and that was the final temptation which pushed me over the edge. I sank my teeth into her as a chorus of voices screamed around me. The Vault Dweller tasted fresh and sweet like the first bite into a watermelon in the summertime. As I drank more, her blood turned heady and thick like a tankard of beer after a hard day's work.
Out of my peripheral, I saw that the robot was trying get up but the pain and inability to breathe correctly made him collapse to the ground.
NO! NO! STOP DAMN IT! PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING!
There it was. My favorite three word phrase that Nathan had ever said to me. I smirked which smeared some blood along her neck before I pulled away.
"What will you give me Nathan?" I murmured against his wife's skin, her blood dripping from my mouth wet and hot.
I'll come back to you. Just let her go. Don't kill her and don't turn her.
"You have a deal." I said.
A mix of relief and fresh fear pulsed out through the thrall. I brought my wrist to my mouth and bit down until a small pool of blood bubbled up fresh and bright in the moonlight.
"Drink or you will die." I murmured to Nora and I forced my wrist to her lips.
She choked and sputtered but it didn't matter. As soon as she swallowed the first gulp down, I could feel that my blood was in her system. I was inside of her and I reached out through the newly formed thrall and established the connection.
A human/vampire thrall was a far more limited type of communication than a typical thrall. If I was in earshot, she'd obey my orders and If I was nearby she'd feel my presence. She'd dream of me. She'd crave my touch, and she'd never be satisfied until she was in my arms once again. But I wouldn't be able to communicate with her like I could with Nathan. That type of telepathic bond required that I make her my fledgling…my progeny.
"I'll be in touch, pet." I whispered behind her ear. "Don't forget about me."
I looked at the robot who was now prone and helpless like an overturned beetle and then pushed the Vault Dweller away from me with such force that she fell forward onto her hands and knees and then collapsed onto the ground.
I pushed my will through the thrall as I wiped the Vault Dweller's blood from my lips and licked the residual blood from my fingers. "You will meet me outside the Parson Creamery no later than midnight otherwise I'll come back to finish the job."
I walked over to the robot, kicked his pathetic gun away from his hand and pulled my knife out of his stomach. His yellow eyes flickered as the coolant stained the dirt beneath him, and I disappeared back into the forest to wait for Nathan.
Nate's POV
"I'll come back to you. Just let her go. Don't kill her and don't turn her." I begged.
You have a deal.
I curled up on myself as I watched the creature sigh in pure bliss as my wife's blood dripped from his gaping mouth. I had pushed through the thrall in my rage and now I could feel everything my sire could. I felt my lips, in addition to his, on my wife's neck. The steam from her leaking blood was visible in the cold night air. I heard the greedy slurping as my sire drank his fill. My only saving grace was that I couldn't taste what he could; I couldn't taste my wife's blood, and thank God for that.
I felt my sire pull away from Nora. He looked down at her in unfiltered lust. The thoughts of what he wanted to do with her and to her had me sending hot waves of rage through the thrall as though my fury could burn him from the inside out.
A tear dripped down her face and mingled with the blood dripping off her neck. She was panting and her pink tongue peaked out from behind her full lips as though she could taste the very molecules in the air. Her heartbeat raced as the organ worked double-time to pump whatever blood remained in her body and she trembled in the creature's arms like an injured rabbit.
My sire brought his wrist up to his mouth, bit through the skin, and offered his blood to her. Nora tried to refuse but she was too weak to put up a fight. As soon as her tongue tasted the blood, her chest sobbed in relief as she drank deeply.
Oh God. She was his.
As I watched my sire toss Nora away like discarded trash, I was roughly shaken back into reality. Colors, sounds, and light swirled around me in a disorienting miasma.
A deep, rough voice cut through the chaos and said, "Nate. C'mon. Talk to me. What's happened?"
My sire reached out through the thrall and I felt the raw power of his influence push out into me. I hadn't felt this kind of strength from him in a more than a century.
You will meet me outside the Parson Creamery no later than midnight otherwise I'll come back to finish the job.
"Yes, master." I murmured.
As soon as I consented, the thrall bound me to that promise and my sire closed the connection leaving me alone and empty in the cold cell.
"Nate! NATE!" Edward's voice boomed above me and I opened my eyes.
His face swam in front of me like a warped watercolor painting. I inhaled and thick tears ran down my cheeks. How long had I been crying?
"Edward …" I gasped. Air filled my lungs again and I coughed hoarsely, "God — I."
"Breathe Nate. I'm here." He said. "You're safe."
I shook my head, "Jesus Edward, he attacked Nora. My sire. He's so close now. He knows I'm here. And Nora's nearby? He attacked her."
I knew that I sounded like a raving madman but my head swam in pain and I tried to orient the pieces into a coherent series of events.
"What d'you mean Nora is nearby?" Edward growled. "Why would she come all the way up here?"
I ignored his question. My head pounded and my throat burned with my own reawakened thirst. Although I couldn't taste Nora, my inhuman nature didn't differentiate. Seeing another vampire feed was more than enough to reawaken the bloodlust. I needed blood.
I scrambled off the ground and rifled through the large cooler in the corner of the room. I pulled out a blood pack and tore into the cold, syrupy substance trying to imagine anything other than what it would feel like to bite into Nora.
I drank deeply until the bag shriveled in my hand and I threw the empty plastic into a wastebasket. After a few deep breaths to gather my thoughts and push the monster in me back into the depths, I walked back to my bed and collapsed onto the mattress.
"She needs medical attention, Edward." I said wearily. "That synth copy of Nick Valentine was with her. I think he's hurt too."
"Where are they?" Edward demanded. He withdrew his pistol and checked the chamber before holstering it again.
"They're close. Maybe a mile? Maybe less? They were coming from the southwest. That's all I could see. I'm sorry."
The ghoul shook his head dismissing my apology. His warm, rough hands mussed my hair. The gesture seemed so mundane for how panicked I felt.
"Just relax Nate. Me and Jack will get 'em." Edward said.
I swallowed and felt my tongue brush along my fangs which were retreating back into my gums. My promise to my sire chimed in my head and I felt like I was beneath a guillotine awaiting execution.
"I have to leave Edward." I said in a rush.
"It's fine Nate. Jack and I will get to them. I promise you. We'll — "
My eyes met his and I knew he could see the faded silver-blue of the monster still receding.
"I can't fight my nature Edward." I whispered. "And if Nora is here with me then she'll always be in danger."
Edward's eyes narrowed and he scrutinized my face. "We're not gonna just put you out like that. Where would you go?"
The guilt and the anxiety that briefly flashed across my face said everything that I couldn't.
"Jesus Nate. NO!"
I met his eyes and set my jaw in a hard line of defiance. "I don't have a choice! I made a deal with him Edward. My life for Nora's and now that my sire has fed from her, he's regained some of the control that he lost. Nora's blood is potent; I'd wager more potent than Jack's and I can't defy him this time. The thrall is too strong."
"Do you know what he will do to you once he gets you?" Edward asked. "He will kill you."
"I'm already dead." I shot back grumpily.
"You know what I fucking mean." He snarled. "Nate, this is gonna kill Jack."
"I know." I murmured. More tears slipped down my cheeks. "He can't know that I'm gone until Nora's safely back at Parsons."
Edward's hard face crunched into even more severe lines. He looked like a glowering skeleton in the low light. "He loves you Nate. He isn't gonna like this. Fuck, I wanna punch you in your face just for making a deal with that bastard."
Indeed, Edward's right hand was clenched so hard that the fine joints of his knuckles were visible through the thin, scarred membrane that had replaced the ruined skin.
I nodded and I grabbed the ghoul's clenched fist. "Edward this past decade has been more than I could've ever hoped for. But I made a vow to Nora and I don't take that lightly. I can't love her as I am but I can protect her from my sire … and from me."
The ghoul's ragged face softened a little. If there was anything that Edward understood and respected, it was loyalty. He had served the same family … Hell … the same man for over 250 years. Jack and Edward were just as married as Nora and I were and I knew that Edward would've made the same decision in a heartbeat if the tables had been turned.
The ghoul pulled me to my feet. I swayed a bit, still not completely healed from my sire's previous mutilation of my body, and he hugged me with such a force that our chests slapped together.
"No matter what that bastard does to you or makes you do, you don't fucking give up. We will come and get you. I swear. I will drag you away myself if I have to." Edward growled in my ear.
I didn't have the heart or the time to protest, nor did I tell him that there might be only parts of me to drag away after my sire was through with me.
"I'll try." I replied. "Just take care of Nora first."
Edward sighed. "I'll go get Jack and we'll head over there right way."
"Nora can't leave from here." I said. "She's taken his blood. He'll be able to find her anywhere in the Commonwealth. This is one of the few places in which he can't enter so long as Jack and Emogene are alive."
The ghoul nodded solemnly.
I shuddered and then I said, "I need you and Jack to do me a favor."
"Anything." Edward agreed.
"Tell Nora about me. Tell her the truth. She deserves to know. Don't hold anything back. If she wants to know more she can read my journals. They're all here more or less." I gestured at my bookshelf.
The ghoul nodded again Then he gently grabbed around my neck and placed his scarred lips to my forehead. The kiss was brief but firm. It was such a paternal and protective gesture that it made my dead heart ache in my chest. Here we were, two soldiers, two brothers, two lovers, saying goodbye the only way we knew how.
When I broke away from Edward, I slipped out into the dusty and decrepit hallway and ran towards the stairs which would lead me back outside and back to the monster that made me.
Nick's POV
Hot crackling pain jolted across my circuits, through my chest, and down my spine. Every warning buzzer, bell, and alert in my brain was chiming at full obnoxious intensity.
When my sight came back online, I sought out Nora and found her lying pale-faced, half bloody, and unconscious two feet way from me. Her heartbeat was weak and rapid but it was still there. Blood dripped from the wound in her neck while a darker blood leaked down her chin and the corners of her mouth.
The bastard had fed her his blood. Vampire or not, what kind of sick freak would do that to someone?
I rolled onto my side and groaned as my exposed wiring ached like they were exposed nerves. I dug my feet into the rocky and hard ground and I tried to push myself on my back towards Nora.
Every movement sent fresh waves of agony through my body. More annoying chiming came from my brain which sent disorienting flashes of the original Nick getting shot in the shoulder by a gagster who got the jump on him. It made it damn hard to focus on the task at hand without wanting to just lie back and die. But I couldn't do that. I couldn't quit on Nora.
I fished around in my pocket for the small soldering iron and multitool that Nora smugly called a 'robot repair kit' every time she had to use it on me. The knife wound was about an inch and a half long and was just below my lung. The knife had slipped between my fourth and fifth rib.
I slipped my intact hand inside the wound as every nerve, synapse, and conduit in my body screamed at me to stop. Then I slipped the device into the widened gap and pressed down on the top to complete the circuit.
The small, two pronged ends zapped with electricity and I touched the ends to my metal rib. It felt like a Super Mutant had punched me in the chest. The breath left my lungs and my vision and hearing shorted out again as the electric shock cauterized the severed arteries and supercharged my heart.
I pulled the burnt out smoking device and wrinkled my nose at the acrid smell of burning electronics. My hand trembled and when I opened my eyes the tips of my fingers, all the way to my knuckles, were stained black with coolant.
My vision was in greyscale and my hearing was muffled as though I was hearing sounds while being underwater, but at least I was alive. So I resumed my crawl to Nora's prone form.
"Doll?" I cried out. Light static crackled over my voice.
She was sprawled out onto her side with her face pointed away from me. Her dark hair had fallen out of their pins and coiled around her head like a wild mane. Blood seeped down her tan skin and her side and chest heaved irregularly as she gasped for air. When I finally got other, my coolant stained hand touched her forearm and I gritted my teeth. She felt cold.
"Doll?"
Her eyes fluttered beneath her eyelids and each breath she took sounded laborious and wet, like she was choking on the blood that bastard had fed her. I fished out our last stimpak from the bag, a cloth, and some purified water and cleaned the bite wound and her bloodstained mouth. I cupped her cheek and shuddered at her cold skin. The puncture wounds in her neck were about an inch and a half a part but the skin around the bite was starting to bruise and discolor.
As I wiped the blood from her lips and chin she shirked away and moaned "No!" in a pathetic and almost needy voice.
"Hey. Hey, it's okay. It's just me, doll. I gotta clean you up."
Then she opened her eyes. Nora's face was always easy to read — she made a terrible poker player — but when I looked into her eyes this time, I saw heat and desire. It was more than the flirtations we shared, more than the undercurrent of desire that I felt for her; Nora was sexually aroused.
"Nick…" She breathed out. "What happened?"
"You mean you don't remember?"
She closed her eyes again and felt the bite mark on her neck. When her hand pressed over the cleaned wound, she moaned softly and bit her full lip. She unconsciously pressed her chest out towards me and I tried to look anywhere but the full swell of her breasts beneath her threadbare t-shirt and jacket.
"Nora? What was the last thing you remember?"
When she pulled her hand away from the wound, two small drops of blood remained on her palm and she looked at them with morbid fascination. Her head cocked to the side as though the blood was puzzling to her.
"Nora." I said sharply.
She jolted and looked into my eyes. And I saw something else in hers. Her green eyes were unusually pale; it was almost like a thin film was obscuring their normal brilliance. Her pupils were unnaturally dilated. It was like she was a chem addict who had just shot up some Psycho.
"I — I feel … weird." Nora said hollowly.
"Can you explain how? Maybe I can help you. We still have some medicine left in our bag, and we —"
"— I need to find him."
"Find who?"
She didn't answer. Instead she struggled to her feet and swayed like a newborn radstag and began walking towards the tree line.
"Nora, wait!" I got up from the ground. My own wound burned and ached but now that I wasn't at risk of overheating, I tried to compartmentalize the pain into a different part of my brain.
When Nora saw me following her, she started running towards the tree line.
"Nora!"
She was fast but one of my strides covered two of her own and I caught up to her before she could disappear into the bushes. I grabbed her around the waist like I was hugging her from behind and lifted her off her feet.
"LET ME GO." She snarled.
She thrashed against me kicking and clawing my face like an angry cat. My hat got knocked off my head in the tussle. She elbowed my wound and I cried out as my legs collapsed beneath me, taking her down as well.
My mind clicked into cop mode and I got on top of Nora, put my knee into her back, and handcuffed her hands behind her back.
"Let me go Nick!" She snarled. "I need to get back to him. I have to —"
Him? Nora was trying to get back to that vampire? Then the answers clicked in my head.
"The blood he gave you is making you do this Nora." I said calmly despite how hard my heart was pounding, "This isn't you, doll. His blood probably acts as a drug on people to make them more complacent."
"I am not drugged Nick Valentine." She seethed. "Undo the handcuffs. NOW!"
"Nick! Nora? Where are you?" A higher register baritone voice called from over the ridge.
Nora jolted as someone said her name, but I recognized the voice. It was Jack Cabot.
"We're over here!" I yelled.
Nora growled. A sound so unlike her which was low and feral in her throat.
"Doll. It's —"
Nora let out a scream that could've sent a deathclaw running. A small vein in her head bulged as she writhed against the handcuffs kicking out at me.
"Fuck you." She spat. Her pupils were fully dilated. Only a thin sliver of pale green remained. "Go to hell."
"Lucifer's balls. What the hell happened?" Jack cursed.
I surpassed my own anger and frustration and glowered up at Jack. "Did you know you got a vampire problem up here?"
Jack looked to Edward with a questioning look as though he was looking for the ghoul's approval. Edward nodded his head and jerked it towards Nora.
"How much of his blood did she drink?" Jack asked me.
I froze. Jack knew about this other vampire? I scrutinized him starting from head to toe. His dark eyes looked stern and worried but not hungry. Not like the animalistic hunger that I saw in the other creature's face after he removed his gas mask. Jack's fingernails were cut short and naturally clear unlike the black daggers the creature sported. I blinked once and activated my thermal vision and looked up at them both. Jack and Edward both showed up in a swath of yellows, oranges, and reds, like every other human.
Jack wasn't a vampire.
He pinched the bridge of his nose where his glasses were perched and turned to Nora who was lying on her belly. "Mrs. Pendleton, how much blood did you drink from the vampire?"
"Go fuck yourself." She spat again.
Jack frowned and sighed. He approached Nora's and turned her head to examine the bite wound. His intelligent eyes swept over the wound, Nora's body, and my face as though he was formulating his own theory as to what exactly happened. Then he withdrew a small syringe from his lab coat and removed the cap.
"What are you doing?" I said.
"I'm giving her a mild sedative." He replied. Edward came around to Jack's side and held Nora's shoulders so she couldn't jerk away. "This will help her get through the worse of the effects until I can get her started on fluids and a possible blood transfusion to flush out the vampire's blood from her system."
Nora growled again but Edward's grip was too strong. Jack looked at me for consent and I nodded. Nora needed help and if Jack and Edward were the two we had to trust right now, then so be it.
Jack slid the needle into her neck and dispensed the plunger. Nora whimpered pathetically and Edward held onto her until she stopped writing and fell silent.
The huge ghoul stood up and then lifted Nora, who was still handcuffed, onto his shoulder like a potato sack.
"Edward will bring Nora back to Parsons while I accompany you to get your stuff." Jack said.
I eyed the large ghoul. He was in full combat armor and he carried an impressive-looking .44 magnum revolver on his hip. He looked like he could handle himself but I was worried about Nora.
"Nora will be fine." Jack said to me. "Edwards senses are more keen than mine so he'll know if the vampire tries to come back and start more trouble."
I nodded at the ghoul, retrieved my hat, and walked back to the broken road where our bag sat in the dirt. I retrieved our guns and shouldered Nora's canvas bag. It was now completely dark. The clouds obscured the stars and the silver crescent moon. I could see fine thanks to my augmented synth vision, but then I looked at Jack.
He met my gaze and I saw my yellow irises reflected in his horn rimmed glasses.
"I imagine you have many questions for me." He said. "I'll try to answer as many of them as I can once were safely inside Parsons."
I coughed once. I craved a cigarette but my pack had run out soon after we left the National Guard Depot. "I appreciate that."
Jack nodded. "However, I do have one question for you, which you are going to answer for me right now." His voice was smooth but I could detect the irritation that fed it.
"What the hell were you thinking?"
I frowned, now defensive. "We are investigating a murder that happened here three years —"
"— A murder in which the suspect in question was thought to be a vampire." Jack finished for me. "And you decided that a human Vault Dweller and a prototype synth could stop said vampire if you caught him?"
"We thought you were the vampire." I seethed. Now I was hurt, and tired, and irritated at myself for having brought Nora on this misguided chase.
Jack bark-laughed, "And now your parter has been brutalized by a real vampire. Are you happy?"
"Of course not." I growled. "I wanted answers, that's all."
Jack sighed as we walked towards the dark facade of Parsons State Insane Asylum which stood out against the clouded sky like the House of Usher, gothic and macabre in its decrepit abandonment.
"You'll get answers Detective." Jack said softly. "But I doubt you'll like what you hear."