Read Online Dave Carver (Book 1): Thicker Than Blood by Andrew Dudek - Free Book Online Page A

vampire territories. There were millions of people who lived with the very real threat of being turned into a meal for the vampires, and that wasn’t enough for the undead sons of bitches. They wanted more. They wanted my home.
    That wasn’t happening. Not on my watch.
    All I knew about Flavian were rumors that had filtered down to me throughout the years, and Rob had filled in a few gaps on the drive across the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The vampire who’d taken to calling himself “ambassador” had been trying to establish himself as the mediator in the conflict between the official vampire forces and the Table. His followers called themselves the peaceful vampires. He expected us to believe that he wasn’t interested in a world where vampires were the dominant species and that he wanted to promote peaceful coexistence between humans and vampires. Yeah, right. I’d sooner believe that a lion had converted to veganism.
    Rob and I belted our swords around our waists. Rob’s was a longsword, fully four feet long but with a narrower blade than mine. I checked the captain’s badge on my collar. Then, we strode down the sidewalk towards the metal doors of the warehouse.
    We passed in front of a long-abandoned coffeehouse. The sign called it the “Javascript ‘Spress.” Two people stepped out of the grungy interior. Both of them were filthy, skinny, and nearly sexless. They both wore baggy clothes, had limp hair and yellow teeth and vacant eyes.
    One of them—I was pretty sure she was a girl of maybe seventeen—stepped forward and held her hand out in a stop gesture. Clumsily, she pulled a snub-nosed revolver from the waistband of her jeans.
    “Whatcha want?” Her speech was as slow and awkward as her motions.
    I eyed the gun for a moment. The barrel moved back and forth with jerky, birdlike motions. She’d be more likely to send a bullet harmlessly past my ear than she’d be to hit me. The other kid, an even younger boy, was similarly fidgety. Not thralls, then—they lacked the otherworldly focus. These two were volunteers.
    Rob’s hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. I put my hand on the jeweled pommel of mine. Neither of us drew.
    “Do you know what this is?” I asked.
    “T’sha a shord.”
    “That’s right,” I said. “It’s a sword. A magic sword. I just need to talk to your boss. Nobody needs to get hurt.”
    Dirty Harriet’s eyes danced with the electricity of somebody on a heroin rush. She didn’t lower her gun. I kept my hand firmly on my hilt. Not that it would matter if she decided to shoot.
    “Wait,” the boy said. “I think he’s the guy.” He tapped the medal on my chest.
    “Oh.” Dirty Harriet squinted and leaned forward. “Why din’tya say so? Guy with a shord and a big C on his chest. We’re s’posed to let you in to see the boss.”
    She signaled to the boy, who led us down the street towards the warehouse. The kid staggered and stumbled as he walked. If I didn’t know better I would have thought he was drunk.
    The boy—Dirty Harriet, too—had been dosed with vampire venom. Vampires have a gland connected to their fangs that produces a kind of thick, clear liquid. Enough of a dose—enough to replace a third or more of the blood—turns a human into a vampire. In smaller quantities have a warming, numbing effect. They say it makes sex even more incredible. But like any drug it has its downsides: Over time, unless the recipient gets turned into a vamp, the venom slows down reflexes and fries brain function. They become totally dependent on a vampire to provide them with their next hit. Which, of course, is exactly what the vamps are going for. Junkies obviously aren’t as effective soldiers as thralls, but they have their uses. As watchdogs, for instance. Still, it was strange that Flavian would leave himself unguarded except for a couple of junkies during a time of war. Sloppy.
    The junkie pushed open a sliding door. Light spilled into a darkened warehouse.