Softly Zephyr, Oh Come Softly Chapter 3 by Maggie Finson

He looked at the fangs, yes fangs, the girl was showing even while trying to keep her mouth tightly closed to hide them and backed a step away. Then stopped. And took the biggest chance of his life.

“If you need blood that bad, here it is.” He told her, rolling up a sleeve and offering his wrist, then tilted his head so his neck was exposed. “Or is this more to your liking? All I ask is one promise out of you first.”

“A promise?” She questioned, puzzled by his apparent fearlessness.

“That's right.” He nodded then waved to the other people in the area, most who were already watching the tableau in mixed confusion and fright. “I brought you here, so I'll pay the price if I was wrong about you. But when you finish me, promise that you'll leave and not touch the others in here. They don't deserve to die because I might have been stupid.”

“You would die to keep them safe?” She asked in something like wonder and shook her head. “Why?”

“Let's just say that someone once saved me from a slow death, I'm passing it forward and leave things at that, all right?”

“You are a very brave man.” She answered slowly then added. “But also very foolish.”

“Sometimes it takes a fool to do the right thing.” He shrugged. “Your promise?”

“It won't be needed.” She closed her eyes and visibly fought her urges back so hard her whole body shook with the effort. “You and yours are safe from me, and will stay that way. That is my promise to you, and them.”

“Thank you.” Zack let out an audible sigh and managed a smile. “As for blood, does it have to be human?”

“I don't know — again.” Zephyr answered with frustration showing in her tone and staccato answer.

“Well, then, come on in and we'll see if we can't find you an alternative.”

“If we can't?”

“We'll worry about that when it comes up, but there are solutions even then.” He tilted his head as he shook it. “Let's not get too worried about that until it becomes really critical, okay?”

“Why do I trust you, Zack?” She asked as he turned to lead her farther inside.

“I have a nice smile and a winning personality?” He grinned.

“Damned fool.” She shook her head while saying that.

“Yeah, that too.” He agreed. “Now come on, we have some raw meat and the blood in it isn't so important to us as having the food. Maybe that will help.”

“Madman, that's what you are.” She breathed then nodded. “It's worth a try.”

I followed him into a part of the building the heat didn't reach while trying to understand what had just happened. Something inside me insisted that I had just passed a very important test but I had no real idea what that test meant.

I did know that I would keep my promise to this man. Why? Because I had made it, and another vague memory told me that whoever I had been would have done the same. How could I do any less?

“They say that the mad are truly closer to the gods.” I muttered as he led me towards the tantalizing scent of blood. It wasn't hot, as it would have been from a living thing, but it was there and I began salivating as we got closer to the source.

“What was that?” He asked while pulling a plastic curtain aside to allow entrance to another, smaller, and colder room.

“Nothing.” I said with a grin. “Just something I remembered suddenly.”

Then the blood caught me.

There were actual carcasses hanging from hooks chained to the ceiling. I didn't ask how people seeming so desperate had gotten them, just went for the blood. Which is much harder to get when not driven by a still beating heart, by the way. But after some time, sated, I wiped my mouth then licked the blood off my hands and arms and nodded. “That worked. I'm still hungry, but the worst of it has been blunted now.”

He only nodded and I realized that I had shrugged out of his coat while feeding, and the contortions I went through to clean myself had him almost mesmerised. He had just watched an attractive, and very naked woman doing things that had to raise fantasies in a male mind. If I could have blushed, I'm sure I would have then.

“Sorry.” I told him and he snapped out of it with a sharp intake of breath.

“You could make a fortune as an exotic dancer.” He answered slowly.

I shrugged and asked. “You mentioned clothing?”

“Oh, yeah.” Very carefully picking up his coat, he again draped it around my shoulders and moved to the plastic covered doorway. “This way.”

“Might I ask?” I questioned as we left that cold room. “How do people so obviously in need have sides of beef and whole pigs hanging in their back room?”

“Oh, things 'fall off the truck' all the time.” He told me. “The people around here who have work know the ones who don't need all the help they can get. It's never much, but it keeps us going.”

“Good.” I answered and promised myself that I would help more things 'fall off the truck' in the future, and not just for the blood.

“What are you doing here?” Hines asked his subordinate.

“Coordinating the search for Zephyr.” Bill Stewart answered.

“Not good enough, Stewart.” Hines answered. “She got loose on your watch. Get your butt out there in the field and coordinate from there, not here.”

“I should point out that I'm not field trained, I'm a scientist, sir.”

“I don't give a damn.” Hines shot back. “She's on the loose out there and in my estimation that's your fault. Get off your ass and go find her.”

“Yes, sir.” Stewart let out a sigh.

“Take Taggart with you.”

“Taggart, but sir...”

“I know things tend to get messy when he's involved, Bill.” Hines put a halfway conciliatory tone into his voice. “If she's gone back to familiar haunts a little collateral damage won't be anything to get all choked up over.

“Plus, when you do find her, you're going to need a stone cold killer like Taggert to take her down.”

“Then you don't want her back?”

“Stewart.” Hines patiently answered. “We obviously can't contain her in this facility and there is no other more secure in the world that I know of. The only alternative is to kill her. See to it. Before she starts killing civilians out there.”

“Whatever you say.” Stewart answered.

Hines did not miss the lack of an honorific in that answer.

“Like I said, see to it.”

The man gave a sharp, abrupt nod and left without another word.

Once He was gone, Hines pinged Willis Taggert's secure phone. There were some orders that needed to be given before he was contacted by Stewart.

Willis Taggert examined his image in the mirror as he shaved. Hard, honed by years of Spec Ops, then more in the even more secret Black Ops military wing of the CIA it still pleased him that those grey eyes staring back at him showed no hint of emotion.

But he was seething inside. One of the freaks this place had made was loose, and had the temerity to kill four of his own hand picked people when it got away. Something like that could not go unanswered.

But that soft idiot Hines had shown more backbone than expected following the escape of the thing code named Zephyr and had held the leash on him so tightly it nearly choked him. When all he wanted to do was get out there, find and kill the monster.

His secure phone buzzed and he took the time to finish shaving before answering it. “Taggert.”

“You're a go on the hunt.” Hines' voice answered his prayers. “I have some additional orders for you though.”

Taggert listened, confirmed he understood what was needed, and closed the connection.

“Oh, now it's time bitch.” He quietly spoke into the air. “I'm going to kill you, and anyone trying to help you.”

“Taggert.” He muttered to himself while thinking the man was a not only a psyhopath, but a homicidal maniac who only managed to get away with what he was because people in powerful positions found him useful.

Taggert was a cleaner. Meaning that he got rid of things his superiors found inconvenient and dangerous.

William Stewart had abrubtly realized that he was now among those 'inconvenient' things.

So started making plans of his own, and readying things he had very carefully kept hidden just in case such an event happened. If Taggert couldn't find him, no one could, and he was reasonably sure he could stay out of the way until this mess with Zehpyr had been finished and the fallout was far away.

Caught between the known, and bloody,threats of both Zephyr and Taggert, he was desperate enough to take any chance offered.

Clothes.

They felt strange on me. Just the fact and sensations of wearing garments was odd to me.

I got a flash of another place. Huge, with sterile white walls, large windows and faces watching me, unclothed, for what felt like an eternity. I hadn't been allowed the dignity of clothing in that horrible place. So it was no big surprise that nudity held no taboos for me at all.

But wearing clothing was strange and felt not quite right.

After that I got another flash of memory. Of electical prods, and other less pleasant things used on me. And pain, pain like no living thing should have to endure.

And others were going through the same thing, even now, I was sure.

I didn't know how just yet, but was very sure that there would be a reckoning for all that pain. I would see to it personally. And release those others from their agony when I did.

Why? WHY couldn't I remember? Why was I plagued with tantalizing bits and pieces of things past before the one sure memory of agony chased those away? What had happened, was done to me, to make my mind shy away from even looking at it?

I promised myself then and there one thing. No matter how much it hurt, I would remember.

Then would come time for retribution. Bloody, screaming retribution. And this time, I wouldn't be the one screaming.

What, what oh gods, had I become? Half insane, I knew that, but clinging to a morality and sense of ethics I barely understand. Or recall.

But I can't, just can't let go of those last two things. The only shreds of decency left to me.

If I did, then I would truly be lost.