“I think it’s in our best interest and survival if we do,” Sol remarked simply.
“Then let’s draw blood on the written contract right away! That way, right here and right now, the agreement is binding. No one may alter it,” Clayton said.
Clayton took the parchment from his pants pocket and unfolded it. “I will pass this around to the elders of all eight tribes. All of us will take our nail and slice our skin and let the flow drip down on the parchment.”
Clayton went first, then Maryl and Sol. Platov and the others did the same, but they showed their displeasure.
When the parchment came back to Clayton, he handed it to Grady. “Put this in the cupboard in the kitchen for safekeeping.”
Grady sped to their house.
“Now what?” Maryl asked.
“Now, we wait. It won’t be too much longer, a couple of minutes at most,” Clayton said with relief.
Tabatha hissed in his ear. “You have no idea what you have just done!”
“Oh, yes, I do. I saved our tribe,” Clayton whispered back.
“Look around you! How many tribal elders would have agreed to your insane proposal?”
“None, that’s why I invoked the primacy law,” Clayton hissed back.
“You better know what you’re doing, Clayton. Our continued existence depends on it.”
Clayton got up. “It’s time. Prepare for an attack. Remember something when we fight today! We will not cave into tyranny! We are proud and able-bodied!”
Everyone rose. Clayton took a quick headcount. He estimated over two thousand vampires. Clayton closed his eyes and put his hyper hearing to use. He counted several thousand heartbeats of soldiers. For the first time in over seven hundred years, he was afraid.
The first soldiers entered the area where the firepit still burned. The king's soldiers looked around while the vampires had scattered before their arrival.
The red uniforms of King George’s army made them stand out. Easy targets, thought Clayton as he snuck up behind one. He fed on the man’s blood to gain much-needed strength. He noted the other vampires did as well. Since they could smell the blood, Clayton wasn’t worried anyone would die from sucking on the wrong blood type.
After fifteen minutes of fighting, with the mounting bodies of King George’s army sprawled over the ground, Clayton thought of something that never entered his mind until now.
If King George did not know about vampires, why was Clayton seeing a bunch of dead vampires on the ground too? The rifles should not be able to penetrate their skin. It was something else Clayton thought as he sniffed a deceased vampire.
And that’s when he knew he had been betrayed.
Heartbeats were heartbeats. There was no distinction between humans and vampires when it came to the beating of hearts, except in rare cases when there was a medical condition such as heart murmurs, a fast or slow heartbeat, or if someone had a pacemaker. But the smell of the vampires never changed. He had been tricked. He had been duped, but by whom?
Clayton sped to the edge of his house. He crept beside his home until he was at the front door. Detecting no heartbeats within a twenty-yard range outside, he sped in his house and looked around.
He saw several deceased vampires lying next to his father. Clayton checked for a heartbeat. His father, the mighty Tarson, lay still. Anger swept through him from the loss of his father. He looked around when he realized his sons Grady and Markus were nowhere to be found.
He sensed several humans behind him. He turned around. The soldiers backed away when they saw Clayton's unchecked anger in his eyes. He raced to them and dispatched them without care.
A roar that came from Clayton’s anguish eclipsed the sound of the rifles shooting.
He witnessed several soldiers looting his crops and putting them in large burlap bags. They stopped when they heard his battle cry.
Rifles were targeted at him from all angles as he went into the heat of the ongoing battle. Bullets bounced off him as he swept through the soldiers, slaying them with unchecked rage. His side was losing, which was supposed to be impossible. And then he saw the reason.
Sol was looking around and finally saw Clayton. Sol had Grady and Markus in each hand, holding them by the throat. “These your children?” he said tauntingly.
“Why?” the words escaped Clayton as Sol sliced his kid's throats and sped away before Clayton could get to him.
Panic forced Clayton to yell, “Retreat! We were set up! Retreat!”
Out of a few hundred vampires that made up his tribes, Clayton saw less than a hundred survivors. He motioned them toward him as he saw the truth unfold. There stood Maryl, and she was looking defiantly at Clayton.
“Now!” Maryl yelled to her right side. Over a hundred of her vampires jumped high into the air. They had burlap bags too, but they weren’t stealing crops.
“Oh no,” Clayton said as he realized what was in the bags.
“Dump them!” Maryl hollered.
The weapon Grady had told him about was in the bags! A fine mist of gray powder engulfed the skyline and fell steadily to the ground.
Not long before the mist touched the ground, he started to cough up blood. What manner of weaponry did they possess that could penetrate their impenetrable skin without affecting their own?
Before she sped away, he saw Maryl. She smiled fearlessly while she showed him the contract they had all just signed in blood, not an hour ago.
Clayton knelt and threw up. “Had I known you were in cahoots with King George, and not in my weakened state right now, I would kill you!” he said in-between nausea and retching.
Maryl smiled and then raced away.
Clayton staggered to the ground. His eyes burned, and his throat was on fire. He was losing consciousness when a tall African American woman appeared before him.
“Am I dreaming?”
“No, I am Desiree, and I am here to help you, your brothers and sisters.”
“Why aren’t you sick?”
“Because I am not of your sweet-smelling blood.”
“You would help someone,
