Undead as a Doornail

by William F Aicher

“It won’t fit through the opening!” I shouted back.

  Sofi looked at me like I was crazy, then to the plane and to the window, finally realizing what I had in mind. “You are stupid if you think this would fly. Besides, we would need a runway. Just jump in. Trust me!”

  So far, her plan seemed to be working, but that explosion wouldn’t buy us much time other than a few seconds of shock from the vampires. They’d already turned their attention back to us and were again lunging in our direction. I leaped out of the way of their oncoming attack, and onto the wing of the plane. Sofi took the gun, pointed it to the ceiling, and fired once, then again. I winced when I realized she was almost about out of bullets but probably didn’t even know it.

  “Brace yourself!” she screamed as she shoved the gun back into the bag. “We’re going down!”

  A piercing screech tore through the cavernous church as the cables, weakened by Sofi’s shots, began to stress and break. A few quick judders and the plane plummeted to the ground twenty feet below. It wasn’t a soft landing, but it was soft enough that we survived it. But still, the question remained, how the hell were we going to escape?

  “Take this and draw them away.” Sofi tossed me the bag and ran off to the end of the room where the red door had once stood. “I have a way out, but I need a few minutes!”

  “The door is blocked, Sofi! I saw it from above. The explosion, it brought down some stone. We can’t get out that way.”

  “Oui, je sais! Give me time!”

  Before I could respond, one of the vampires dropped down from above, landing between Sofi and me. He took one look at the bag and knew I was the one he needed. I gave him a little smile, then turned and ran. The rear of the old church-turned-museum ended with an area sunken lower than the rest, down a few stone stairs, and straight into a wall. I searched frantically for any place to hide, escape, or otherwise draw them off. But again, I was trapped. A few glass cases dotted the area, but none of them held anything of much use … a few telescopes, a chunk of old stone, an instrument that looked like some kind of trumpet … and some odd wooden contraption.

  I reached into the bag, took out my old single-action Colt. 45 and checked the chamber. As I expected: only one bullet left. I pointed it at the glass case, turned my face, and fired, shattering the glass. I reached into the case and took the contraption, said a little apology, and smashed it on the floor. From the destruction, I retrieved what I’d been hoping for all this while: a real weapon. One of the pieces of wood had broken off into a stick—perfect for a makeshift stake in a situation like this. The stake in my right hand, bag in my left, I bounded up the steps and onto the glass platform where the pendulum swung gently back and forth.

  Three vampires circled the glass on which I stood, each one waiting for the other to make the first move. “Well come on,” I taunted. “Which of you wants to go first?”

  And all three lunged onto the platform together.

  The first one I took out with a simple thrust, straight into the chest. He hadn’t been expecting it, so it was easy to catch him off-guard. But as blood spurted across the glass tabletop and he burst into flames, the other two quickly caught on to the fact I was now armed. I kicked him away, and he exploded before hitting the ground. The other two now circled, careful not to get caught up in the string of the pendulum. Each snarled incessantly, and their nasty-ass vampire breath made me want to gag. But it was all show, as each of them waited for the other to make the first move. I dropped down to one knee and did a sweep kick 360, knocking them both onto their backs. Before they could react, I sprung at one and plunged my stick into his heart, then vaulted from him to the other and stabbed him too, just as the glass broke beneath the pressure and all three of us came crashing to the ground. I scrambled away, cutting my palms on the shards of broken glass, and managed to get out of the blast radius before they exploded.

  “Phoenix, come! We must go!” Sofi sat on the seat of some strange bicycle—a bicycle with wings. Like a foolish flying contraption. “Climb on!” she beckoned and pointed to a second, tandem seat.

  The remaining vampires were closing in, and absent any idea of what else to do, I hopped on to Sofi’s ridiculous flying machine, and began to pedal.

  “Does this bike really fly?” I asked.

  “It is an aviette. And yes, it will fly,” she answered, as we steered us toward a long metal ramp running the length of the room.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because if it does not, then we are dead,” she replied. “Now pedal!”

  It was a stupid idea, but when you’re all out of ideas, even the stupid ones are worth trying. So, I tried. I pedaled as hard and fast as I could, and Sofi did the same. Up we went, along the length of the ramp, the pedal pushing not only the gears on the bike wheels but also a small propeller at the fore of the little bike-plane. I dared not look back over my shoulder, though from the heavy clang of footfalls behind us, I knew the vampires were gaining ground. Still, I pedaled. I pedaled until my legs burned. Just as we neared the end of the ramp, the machine lifted off the ground, and we were airborne.

  As I kept working my legs, Sofi pulled back on the machine’s yoke and took us higher, until we flew through the shattered stained-glass windows of the church of Musée des arts et métiers and onward into the red glow of a Paris sunset.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Where to now?” I asked as we soared above the buildings of Paris. “I don’t know how much longer I can pedal this thing.”

  “I do not know how much longer this thing can fly before it falls apart.”

  “We need to land. How about the Eiffel Tower?”

  “It is too far, and too conspicuous. We would be on the television.”

  “Where then?”

  “There,” she replied and pointed to our left.

  “The Louvre? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “No, not The Louvre. Over there. Behind us and to the left.”

  I scanned the city beneath us, my eyes following from The Louvre to the Seine River and its series of bridges, then even further until they lit upon an island smack in the middle of The Seine.

  “Notre Dame?”

  “Yes, Notre Dame. We will claim sanctuary.”

  “I think that’s only in the movies.”

  “It was a book first. Besides, maybe we can get help from your friend, the hunchback.”

  “I’m pretty sure that was only a story, Sofi. But yes, Notre Dame looks as good a place as any. Especially if we want to land this thing.”

  And so, we pedaled as hard as we could, though our legs ached and burned from the effort. As we neared the fabled church and the covered remains of its charred roofs and grand spire, our energy continued to wane until our legs gave out and the aviette became nothing more than a gliding bicycle. Sofi aimed us at the rooftops, but as we neared them it became clear we were coming in much too fast and too high to land.

  “We’re going to have to jump.”

  “I know,” she replied and leaped from her seat down to the rooftop of Notre Dame’s fabled North Tower nearly twenty feet below.

  I followed and hit the ground close beside her. Remarkably, neither of us was seriously hurt from the drop, other than a having a bit of wind knocked out of us. I scooted on my butt up next to her and put my arm around her, as we watched our flying bicycle crash into the Seine below.

  “You are awfully close,” she said, and I made to take my arm back. “But it is cold tonight. And I am tired.” And she rested her head on my shoulder as the sun set and the rest of the vampires came out to play.

  The two of us shared a cigarette as we contemplated our next move. Security had likely been alerted to our presence, so we couldn’t stay here forever, but after the exhausting ride from the museum to the rooftops, our legs burned, and the idea of climbing down several stories of old staircases didn’t much appeal to either of us.

  “It is beautiful, no?” Sofi asked as curls of smoke escaped her lips.

>   “It sure is,” I replied, not taking my eyes off her.

  “Paris is the city of love for good reason. There is no other place as beautiful.”

  “Or anyone,” I whispered.

  “Look there, to the East,” she said, ignoring my compliment. “It is lit up like that every night, and every night is more remarkable than the one before.”

  I took my eyes from her and scanned the city. A few miles to the east, the Eiffel tower sparked to glowing life.

  “This place must have been amazing as well,” I said. “Before it burned.”

  “It is still beautiful. Beneath all of that, there is much to behold. Not everything was damaged in the fire. And we are French. We will rebuild.”

  “Is that why there’s no one up here?” I asked. “I expected to come crashing down on a crowd of tourists.”

  “Tourists can only access the South Tower,” she replied, pointing to an adjacent tower very similar to our own, but with a massive metal cage wrapping the walkway. “But it has been closed since the fire.”

  “Then who’s that?” I asked as a flash of movement caught my eye. Then another. I leaped to my feet and ran to the edge of our tower for a closer look and was met with pair vampires hissing in our direction from the opposite tower.

  “Looks like you two picked the wrong set of stairs,” I said, laughing. “Good luck breaking through those bars.”

  One of the vampires grabbed ahold of the metal cage holding them in and shook it fiercely like an ape trying to escape from a zoo. The second reached through with his arm, then shoulder … then somehow managed to force his head through too, before getting stuck. Sofi joined me by my side, saw their predicament, and began to laugh as well.

  “You silly monsters,” she shouted. “We will pick you off one by one.”

  I was about to tell her we were out of bullets and remind her they wouldn’t do a lick of good anyway when Sofi’s bag began to ring. She reached inside, retrieved her phone, and took the call.

  “Allo ? C'est moi, Sofi,” she answered. After a few seconds pause, she handed the phone to me. “It is for you. Rousseau.”

  “This is Phoenix. What’s up, Rousseau? Sorry about the mess. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, yes, I am okay. They are gone. There is no time to chit-chat. They are coming for you.”

  “They’re already here,” I replied.

  “Then listen to me. I will be quick. I reexamined the photos Sofi sent me and have deciphered more of the inscription. Though I do not understand what it means.”

  Behind me, Sofi screamed. I took the phone from my ear and turned to see what happened. The other two vampires across the way had given up their struggle to reach us, and now stood staring our direction, their gazes transfixed on the sky above us. I eyed Sofi, saw she too was now transfixed on the sky … and I followed her gaze up into the night. A cloud of smoke hovered a dozen feet above us and dropping quickly. As the smoke cleared, a man in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt emerged.

  “I have to go, Rousseau. We have trouble,” I hissed into the phone.

  “Wait! Just listen. The part I made out: it says The blood key leads to the path of shadow.”

  “Blood key. Path of Shadow. Got it.” And I hung up just as the man touched down in five feet in front of us.

  “You have been a major pain in my ass, Mr. Bones,” he snarled. “As have you, Miss LeRoux.”

  “And who are you?” I asked. “The Flying Dutchman?”

  “I am not Dutch,” He took a pull from an electronic cigarette and blew out a cloud of thick black vapor that once again engulfed him. “I am German. And I am here for the amulet. Give it to me now, and we will go our separate ways. Resist, and I will tear you apart.”

  “You seem to know our names; shouldn’t we know yours?” I assume Sofi was attempting to buy us some time while I came up with a plan. But with a bag full of nothing but some drugs, half a pack of cigarettes, Sofi’s purse and a gun with no bullets, I was completely out of ideas.

  “My name is Wagner. David Wagner. But you may call me Deathbringer.”

  “You are serious now? Deathbringer? This is maybe your PlayStation name? I think I will call you Vampire Dave instead,” Sofi replied. “Well, I have the news flash for you, Dave. Mon’Ami, Phoenix is a master vampire hunter. He has killed dozens of your friends. He will have no problem killing you.”

  An empty gun. A bag of drugs. A purse … and the amulet.

  “Is that so?” Vampire Dave snarled. “Well, Mr. Vampire Killer. I admit you have made quite a mess out of my friends. But they are nothing compared to me. Now hand me the amulet or I will rip your artery from your throat and throw your twitching corpse off this tower until it crumbles into a mess of mangled meat on the pavement below.”

  The amulet … blood key … path of shadow. A plan started to form in my mind. A stupid plan, but the best I could come up with.

  “Sofi, give me your hand,” I said.

  “Are you not going to slay me, vampire hunter?” He took a step forward. Then another. “Have your movies not prepared you for this?”

  Sofi took her hand in mine and slowly backed away from Vampire Dave, tugging gently at her arm as I coaxed her to follow.

  “There is nowhere for you to go up here,” the vampire continued. “Frodo and his gargoyles will not be coming to life and singing a song. It is just you and I.”

  “His name is Quasimodo,” Sofi corrected him. “And the gargoyles don’t come to life. It is the chimeras. You’d think a powerful vampire like you would know the difference.”

  “I trusted you before,” I whispered to Sofi. “Now this time, you have to trust me.”

  Sofi nodded, and the vampire moved closer.

  “Very well. Though I hate to make such a mess of this place.” He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head and frowned. “It has already suffered enough.”

  “Blood washes off,” I replied, and took another step back.

  “I guess we will find out,” said the vampire, and he rose a few inches from the ground and sped toward us, teeth bared, as we turned and ran the other way.

  We raced across the rooftop, to the edge of the tower, and off into the night sky. Sofi screamed as we fell. I took her hand to my mouth and bit down, piercing the skin and drawing blood. Down we fell, the stone sidewalk below rushing closer and closer with each millisecond. I pulled the bag from her hand, tore it open, and pulled out the amulet.

  “See you soon,” I whispered, as I shoved the amulet into her bloody hand, and she disappeared.

  Moments later, I hit the ground with a sickening thud, feeling my bones crumble and my skull crack as I exploded like a water balloon onto the streets of Paris.

  Then, everything went black … just like I hoped it would.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Once again dead, I counted my blessings that I’d managed to target my fall accurately enough to hit the shadowed enclave at the base of the tower. If I hadn’t, there would have been a bit of a mess to explain once I got up, since the only way in and out of Eitherspace is through darkness. The people across the street would have probably called the police, and then there’d be a whole mess of new problems to deal with. Then again, they probably still called the police once my body crumpled onto the sidewalk and disappeared. The sickening crunch of my bones breaking still echoed in my head loud enough for me to know any passers-by would have seen it as well. How they were going to explain the explosion of blood and the lack of body was beyond me, but I didn’t give a shit since I had more important things to deal with.

  For one, since I hadn’t come back to life yet, my body here in Eitherspace was in pretty rough shape. With more broken bones than I could count and a fractured skull with brains leaking out and floating in the blackness around me, it was a miracle I could move. But like I’ve said before, things work differently here, and though I was a mangled mess of an undead corpse stuck in limbo between worlds, I managed to move around anyway like some sort of sluggish blob
.

  My first order of business was to find Sofi. If I understood Rousseau’s translation correctly—and from the way things panned out on our way down, I did—Sofi’s blood had activated the amulet, which had sent her straight into Eitherspace. I spun my floppy body in a series of cartwheels, like a circus acrobat in the space station, and found her floating above me (or below, or to the side, since there isn’t any up or down in Eitherspace) and flapped myself on over like a boneless bird.

  Her eyes were as wide as moons, and her mouth was open in what looked like an eternal scream, though no sound emanated from her lips. When she saw me approaching, a little whimper escaped from her mouth, but she did not blink.

  “Sofi, are you okay?”

  “Are… are we dead?” she asked.

  “Well, it’s complicated—”

  “—because you look dead. You are all smushed. We are dead. We are in hell.”

  “Listen carefully, and I’ll explain. Me? I’m dead. But I’ll come back once we get out of here. We’re in a place called Eitherspace—kind of a limbo between the living world and the dead world. Almost like a parallel universe that exists beside our own. This is the same place I went when that monster killed me in a cave all those years ago. And now it’s kind of my personal commuter lane.”

  “So, I’m dead?”

  “No. You’re not dead. You’re alive. Don’t ask me how you’re here and alive, but you are… and it has something to do with that damned amulet. I think it’s some kind of key that unlocks doorways between reality and Eitherspace.”

  “My hand… it’s bleeding. Wait a minute… did you bite me? I seem to remember you biting me.” Her thin voice echoed in the emptiness as if she were both miles away and inches from my ear simultaneously.

  “I had to. It was the only way I could think of to make you bleed. Somehow the blood interacts with the stone and opens a portal. I don’t know. It doesn’t make any damn sense, but nothing does lately, and so we’re just going to go with it.”

  “How do we get out of here?” she asked.

  “Getting out of here’s easy. But the question is, where?”