Two Polluted Black-Heart Romances

  Two Polluted Black-

  Heart Romances

  Two Polluted Black-

  Heart Romances

  Kevin James Breaux

  Copyright © 2017 Kevin James Breaux

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1541328248

  ISBN-13: 9781541328242

  Editor: Gretchen Stelter of Cogitate Studios

  Proofreader: Cassandra Wengewicz

  Cover Artwork: Le Vuong

  Cover Design: Kevin James Breaux

  This book is dedicated to my awesome pooch, Marshmallow.

  Why? Because I can.

  Contents

  Speeding Toward the Future

  Witness of Things to Come

  The Dawn of Pollution

  More Than Meets the Eye

  The Unthinkable

  A Woman Scorned

  Retrospection

  The Sleeper

  Mistaken Identities

  Health Care

  Basement

  Friday. Friday. Friday.

  Recording Her Feelings

  A Longer Trip Than Expected

  The Whole Clan

  Dead Memories

  Natural Disaster

  Falling

  Cade’s Lament

  Ghouls Gone Bad

  Storage Unit

  Generation Kill

  Like a Phoenix from the Flames

  Jackson Orders Out

  I Spy with My Slime’s Eye

  Death Proof

  Jackson’s Ghost

  Night Cap

  Out of Air

  Prickly Memories

  Wake Up

  Shake Up

  Frustrations Come and Go

  Boiling Point

  Time’s Up

  Run Out

  Who Knew?

  Evening the Playing Field

  Hole

  Survivor’s Guilt

  Dinner

  Reruns

  Home Sweet Home

  When the Past Comes Back to Haunt You

  On Shaky Ground

  Cade’s Charge

  Plans of His Own

  Escape From L.A.

  Sabrina Gets Her Groove Back

  Time to Meet Cade’s Maker

  Jackson’s Last Stand

  Sabrina Steps Up

  Moselle’s Worst Fears

  The Battle of the Crater

  Coronation

  Lonely Woman

  Save Yourself

  Abandoned

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Speeding Toward the Future

  Cade raced through traffic on his Honda CBR600RR sport bike. He could not shake the sound of Moselle’s words: Something unexpected has occurred. She needed his help, and he had never heard her sound so scared before.

  As he approached the hospital, he realized the large building was totally dark. He slowed and allowed his heightened senses to take it all in. Something’s very wrong here.

  Cade coasted his sport bike into the emergency room parking lot with the headlight off. If this was an ambush, stealth would be an asset. After parking between two large vans in the back of the lot, he moved cautiously toward the automatic sliding door that stood open.

  Head tilted back, he gazed up at the tall building. With a half-moon hanging behind it, the structure looked like a giant black stone. He shook his head. This is all wrong.

  The scent of blood suddenly filled the air, but not what he would have normally smelled near a hospital. This blood was not tainted with disease—it smelled fresh.

  He watched as an elderly couple walked up the ramp outside the building. The man’s arm was wrapped in towels. Poor old guy probably cut himself.

  Cade stepped just clear of the car he stood beside as the wind shifted, and a new scent overwhelmed him: carbon monoxide. He fanned his scrunched-up nose. Where the hell could all that be coming from?

  Cade’s gaze returned to the couple.

  “I’m bleeding so much…I’m starting to feel dizzy,” the old man complained.

  The hospital. Cade was sure of it now.

  “Sir? Excuse me, sir?” Cade called out loudly.

  The old couple gasped when Cade ran up on them.

  “We don’t have anything. I’m hurt and just trying to get inside the damn hospital.”

  Cade heard the anger in the old man’s voice, but his eyes were drawn to the man’s cap. It had a large patch with several pins displayed on it, all symbols of the man’s status as an army veteran.

  “Vietnam?” Cade said softly.

  “What of it?”

  “I was there…briefly,” Cade said lifelessly.

  “I’ll never understand you kids and your desire to vacation someplace that I spent a whole damn year of my life suffering.”

  “It was hell,” Cade stated bluntly.

  “What do you want? Can’t you see I’m bleeding like a stuck pig?”

  The scent of carbon monoxide was clearly undetectable to them, but to Cade, it was as strong as bleach. It had no effect on his kind, but he knew it would kill the couple.

  “I just wanted to thank you for your service, sir.”

  “Well then…” The man trailed off, his head bobbing some. “Why’s the lights off?”

  “You need to get out of here,” Cade stated bluntly.

  “What?” the old woman said, finally joining the conversation.

  Cade turned to her. She looked tired and frail, out of breath from just helping her husband up the ramp. She won’t last long. The gas will overcome her quickly.

  “You both need to leave here now.” He was running out of options. With a quick glance into the dark hospital, he confirmed that the power was still off. No security cameras running. No witnesses.

  “Kid, be glad I left my sidearm at home or—”

  Cade bared his fangs and growled at the old couple. “Go! Get out of here! Go before I kill you both!”

  It worked; they turned and shuffled away as fast as they could.

  Cade sighed. He hated that he had to result to such a barbaric ploy, but he really did not want to see them die senseless deaths.

  After they sped off in an old Cadillac, Cade saluted the man and then finally entered the hospital.

  Inside the building, the carbon monoxide was much stronger. Cade spit—he could even taste it and when he spotted at least a dozen dead hospital employees near the front desk, he was reminded just how lucky he was that vampires did not need air to breathe.

  What the hell happened here?

  Cade knelt and touched the wrist of a nurse who lay facedown on the linoleum floor, blood pooling around her broken nose. She had not been dead long; her skin was still warm. Could the gas have gotten to them all? Is everyone here dead? Oh hell. This is why Moselle called. She and Jackson… He barely survived Kintner’s attack…no way he can survive this too. Shit, Moselle. I’m coming.

  Witness of Things to Come

  Taking the stairs up to Jackson’s room on the eighth floor, Cade passed by several dozen more bodies. They were patients, nurses, and doctors alike—all of who must have been trying to move about the building after the power went out, he supposed, since the stairwells weren’t normally so populated. It was relatively clear they’d no idea the danger they were in. There was no sign of panic, no sign of mass exodus. Whatever happened here, it happened quickly.

  It looked like the emergency power was on, as the exit signs were glowing an eerie red, shimmering in the otherwise dark stairwell. When Cade opened the door to the eighth floor, he heard mechanical humming. Something’s being powered up here. He sniffed the air before proceeding in the direction of Jackson’s room. The carbo
n monoxide was not as strong here as it was in the stairwell and at ground level. And now there was another scent—faint but Cade picked it up. Hard to discern at first, he thought it might be mold.

  I don’t recall smelling that here when I visited Jackson before.

  He retrieved several pens that had spilled to the floor from a doctor’s lab coat. The man still gripped a tablet computer that was on and displayed the details of a patient. As Cade reached for it, the man’s cell phone rang, making him jump.

  As quickly as he could, he found the phone and shut it off. He half expected the sound to alert someone, that he would be attacked.

  But by who? Who could’ve done this? Who would’ve done this? Cade thought as he crept behind a nurse’s station.

  “Wraiths.”

  With the realization, came a cold shiver down his back.

  The Otherworldly Assembly could have sent the wraiths, their unstoppable assassins, here to wipe away any and all proof of Moselle’s and Jackson’s existence after the mess at Kintner Co. It all makes sense: Alexander Kintner and his company were public entities. Investigations are being conducted. There’s no knowing what kind of evidence was left behind…or maybe I’m just being paranoid.

  He looked around the desk, toward the open door to Jackson’s room. He couldn’t see inside; it was too dark. Still holding one of the pens, Cade lobbed it into the room like he was throwing a grenade. He listened to it bounce off the open door and land on the floor, and he waited for voices or footfalls—anything. But there was only silence.

  He thought about Moselle’s phone call. She was scared, but she had not warned him of anything; she had only asked for his help.

  Cade stood and moved cautiously toward Jackson’s room, pausing only to peer down the hall in each direction. Nothing moved; there were only lifeless bodies to be seen, and he didn’t know what he feared more: finding his friends dead or the malicious wraiths he was sure were lying in wait.

  You should be underground, warned a voice that did not belong inside his head.

  No, he replied. I should be giving aid to my friends. I can’t turn my back on them. Not again.

  He stepped into the room and was surprised to find…no one. The room had been ransacked: the bed was turned over, the sheets shredded. It looked as if everything in the room had at least some small degree of damage. Even the clipboard that hung against the door had been broken, its papers tattered.

  He could smell Jackson’s blood in spite of the scent of death that clung to Moselle, which, although masked by bath oils and pungent perfume, had filled the room.

  Jackson was alive when he left here. But where did he go?

  Cade sniffed as he turned to the door and saw it: a shadow where no shadow should have been.

  “Now I know what smells like mold,” Cade said as he stared at the darkness. “Come out.”

  The shadow moved, and suddenly a small black cat emerged. It sauntered forward several feet, its tail slinking behind it.

  “Give up the ruse.”

  The cat meowed and rubbed itself against his leg.

  Cade shook his head, straightened his jacket, and then snatched the cat off the ground. “I know your kind, slime. Talk. What happened here?”

  When the cat finally ceased its deception, Cade smiled.

  “Hey, let me down, you punk-ass punk.”

  “Please don’t hurt us.”

  Two voices. Cade shook his head again. There are two of them, two slimes merged into one. Disgusting.

  “I won’t hurt you as long as you tell me what happened here,” Cade said as he held it at arm’s length.

  “You ain’t got the chops to hurt us. We’re here on a mission, bloodsucker. We’ll hurt you.”

  The first voice had a Brooklyn accent. Cade had not heard one so thick since the end of World War II. It was oddly reminiscent of his past overseas.

  “No, don’t listen to him.” The second voice sounded like a scared child. “We have nothing against you—nothing against your kind, vampire. Nothing—”

  “Shut it, coward.”

  “Quiet, both of you,” Cade said sharply. “Look, I had two friends in this room—a human and a cursed undead. I just want to know what happened here. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Friends?” the first voice chuckled. “Buddy, you got problems then.”

  “Why?”

  “Because anyone connected to those two are gonna suffer their same fate, know what I mean?”

  “The wraiths?” Cade asked.

  “The wraiths,” the first voice groaned. “Always with the wraiths, like they’re the only thing anyone fears anymore. No, pal, not the wraiths. Something much worse.”

  “Don’t listen to him. He lies,” the second voice whispered.

  “What are you two doing here? Spying, right? That is what your kind does.”

  “Look at you, Mr. Knows His Stuff,” the first voice said sarcastically. “Few even acknowledge us anymore. But that’s all gonna change.”

  “Don’t listen to him. He’s trying to confuse you. He doesn’t want you to know what happened here. He doesn’t want you to know about the wraiths.”

  There was something odd about how the cat’s mouth moved when the second voice spoke. It almost smirked. Whatever it was doing, it made Cade uncomfortable—all of this made him uncomfortable.

  “Who hired you slimes?”

  “Hired us?” the first voice echoed. “Yo. That’s not how it works anymore. We slimes, molds, and fungi are—”

  The second voice, sounding suddenly confident, interrupted. “The Otherworldly Assembly hired us, who else? The kings want a firsthand view—”

  “Look at the big bad vampire!” the first voice interrupted, and when the cat’s mouth stopped moving, its head tilted. “He ain’t buying that garbage you’re selling.”

  His patience tested, Cade shook the cat and shouted, “Tell me now! Have my friends been destroyed by the wraiths? Are they alive or dead?”

  “Dead.”

  “Alive.”

  “Dead.”

  “Alive.”

  “We’re all gonna be dead soon, pal.”

  “Stop lying to him.”

  “Both of you, stop!” Cade screamed.

  His body trembled with frustration. While he tried to calm down, the cat pawed his arm and the voice with the Brooklyn accent whispered, “Look, pal, you got to free me. He’s messing with both our heads and he’s gonna get us all killed.”

  “I’m going to get us killed? You—”

  “Stop it!” Cade demanded.

  But the two voices didn’t stop; they continued to bicker until Cade felt his nerves fray and his patience run out. He squeezed and, finding his fingers pressed deep into the cat’s shoulders, tore the thing in two with a loud growl.

  Not being a cat at all, the body did not explode or spill blood and guts to the floor. Instead, the two slimes separated, their mimicry ended. Back in their original shapes, they oozed through Cade’s fingers and trickled, chunk by chunk, to the floor.

  “Oh, you guys smell worse than the gas.” Cade recoiled.

  “That’s him, yo. He’s a dog vomit slime,” the first voice said.

  “We both are.”

  “No way. In 1727, Jean Marchant called me flowers of tan.”

  “She didn’t call you that; she called us that.”

  Cade looked down at the two yellow piles. They did look like dog vomit and smelled as bad. This is getting me nowhere. He took two steps back and considered leaving.

  I should just track Moselle’s scent. She might be hiding in the hospital somewhere…or maybe I should call her.

  “Look, buddy, we ain’t got much time. The Tainted—they sent it to destroy the hospital.”

  “What?” Cade asked as he searched his pockets for his phone.

  “You already did me a huge favor, separating me from that—that thing.” When the pile of slime on the right spoke, an appendage stretched out from its center to point at the o
ther pile. “Keep it off me, and I’ll tell you. Better yet, I’ll show you everything I know.”

  The puddle of slime on the left had already begun to ooze toward the one on the right. Cade could not believe he was getting caught up in this mess, not now, when he had bigger concerns.

  “The wraiths are coming back. They seek to kill you and all who were involved in the Kintner debacle. You were there, weren’t you, vampire? You and the rebellious fairy. The water king’s daughter—she’s the one who killed Kintner, wasn’t she?”

  “Kintner was trying to kill her-trying take her wings. I was trying to save her.”

  “She was there,” the slime on the left said with a wave of the appendage. “He’ll want to know about this. He’ll reward us with all we ever wanted.”

  “No. You leave Sabrina out of this.” Cade pointed at them.

  “Too late, vampire.”

  Cade stared down in disbelief; his world was falling apart all around him. The last thing he wanted was for Sabrina to be a target of the wraiths.

  “It’s not too late, pal. Scoop me up. I’ll tell you what to do.”

  Cade was unsure how to proceed. His dealings with slimes had been limited, but he knew the ones most vampires encountered were liars and cheats. Slimes, once slaves and beasts of burden, were considered a lesser kind by all otherworldlies. In the end, it was the slime’s accent and the straightforwardness of his words that convinced Cade to trust him.

  “Come here.” Cade scooped up the slime, then poured it into his jacket pocket. “Don’t make me regret this. You know I’m ruining good leather for you.”

  “Pal, you and me, we’re gonna be the bestest of buds.”

  “Sure.”

  “You will regret this, vampire! And sooner than you know.” The slime on the ground began to pulsate.

  “Yo, it’s taking shape! Better flush it now.”

  “Flush it?” Cade asked.

  “Yeah, buddy! Grab that bedpan over there, get’ em in that, and flush him down the toilet.”

  Cade grabbed the bedpan and used it and the edge of his boot to gather the slime up. Its yellow color was not unlike urine—a similarity not lost on him.

  “Flush him! Flush the prick!”

  “Don’t!” The slime’s voice echoed in the bedpan. “Don’t do this, vampire.”