by Brant, Jason
Lance burst into a sprint, heading straight for Adam. He aimed the flashlight at the beast, but didn’t flip it on yet. If the cultists saw the light bobbing across the field, they might take a shot at him. He had to close the distance first.
Another shrill cry came from the Vladdie as it reached Adam.
It sniffed at his feet, his legs.
Adam squirmed against the wood, trying to get away from its flaring snout.
Lance flipped the light on when he was ten paces away, angling the beam at the vampire. It squealed as the cone of light flashed across its shoulders. The beast spun toward him and hissed, bared fangs glinting in the light.
The thunderous pounding of Lance’s heart intensified as he ran straight at it. No one got this close to a Vladdie and lived. The idea of running straight at one would have felt impossible and stupid just ten minutes ago.
Now it was just stupid.
“Get away from him,” Lance roared.
The merriment at the bonfire ceased. Naked men and women stopped writhing and singing when they saw the light, heard Lance’s battle cry. King stood stupidly in front of the others, mouth ajar as he watched his prisoner attack one of his so-called gods.
“Lance!” Adam squirmed against his bonds. “Thank God you—”
The Vladdie lunged at him, sinking its teeth into his shoulder.
Adam howled in pain, bucking wildly against the vampire.
“No!” Lance thrust his knife forward, slashing at the creature’s side.
The blade sliced through pale flesh, jabbing into bone and muscle. It deflected off the Vladdie’s ribs before doing any significant internal damage.
“Stop him,” King cried. “He’s going to damn us all!”
Even as Lance lashed out with the knife again, he marveled at the death of King’s flowery language when fear overcame him. His theatrics had disappeared as quickly as his courage.
Lance stabbed at the beast’s throat.
The Vladdie released Adam, blood dripping from its fangs and lips. It swung a meaty, veiny arm at Lance, catching him across the chest. The arm deflected the knife, a gash cutting vertically above the elbow.
Pain exploded throughout his torso as Lance collapsed to the grass. He landed ass first, sliding across the dewy landscape until he stopped flat on his back. He struggled to remain conscious, his eyesight blurry, hearing distorted and distant. His limbs were splayed out as if he wanted to make snow angels in the grass.
The beast came for him as he sat up.
By some miracle, Lance hadn’t dropped the knife or flashlight from the blow. He raised the light again, aiming it directly at the Vladdie’s face.
It cried out and lunged away from him at the last second, shielding its face from the harsh beam with a taloned hand. It fled back to the shadows, bounding on all fours. A massive chorus of shrieks echoed across the field, blotting out the cries of the morons standing by the fire.
Lance staggered to his feet, almost falling back down after the first weary step, and stumbled toward Adam. His friend sagged down, all his weight hanging from his wrists. Blood coursed down his body, soaking through his shirt.
The cultists fell silent. They all turned around, gaping stupidly at something on the other side of the fire. Lance cast a glance their direction, but couldn’t see what had their attention because of the towering flames.
He hoped Brandon and Greg had managed to get a gun from the guards and were freeing Eifort.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Lance reached Adam and bent down, sawing at the rope tied around his feet. The kitchen knife wasn’t designed for material so tough and struggled to cut through.
“It bit me,” Adam mumbled. “It bit me.”
“Doc will get you fixed up.” Lance didn’t want to think about the bite. He had to focus on what he could control. That meant cutting his friend down and dragging him away from the camp, leaving the cult and the horde of monstrosities to sort things out among themselves.
“You fool,” King shouted from behind Adam. “You goddamn fool! You’ll ruin everything! They’ll kill us all!”
Lance finally cut through the bindings around Adam’s ankles. He stood and stabbed the knife into the rope around Adam’s left wrist. The force of the blow sent the blade straight through the binding, embedding the tip into the wood.
Adam’s arm fell to his side. He shook it out, then reached up and worked at the knot by his other hand.
“They won’t get all of us.” Lance yanked the knife free. Spun it in his hand until the blade jutted from the bottom of his fist. Stepping around the cross, he faced the king of the dipshits. “Not if I kill you first.”
King froze a few feet away, his eyes settling on the knife.
With a growl, Lance charged him.
23
Brandon and Greg slipped around the house, quietly running toward the crackpots. The bare, sweaty skin of the cultists gleamed from the firelight. A tall man stepped behind Eifort and put a hand on her shoulder, keeping her from fleeing. A pistol dangled from his other hand. That made two guards they had to deal with now, instead of the one they’d planned for.
The guy’s butt was angled toward Brandon. He would have preferred a different view as he sneaked toward them.
Lance loosed a battle cry as he ran for his crucified friend, grabbing the attention of the cultists. They stopped dancing, standing ramrod straight as they watched their prisoner charge a demon.
Brandon almost paused when he saw how crazy Lance looked. The plan had called for him to free his friend, not go toe to toe with something he stood no chance of defeating. Brandon tried to stay on the task at hand, but found it hard to focus when Lance was charging forward like Mel Gibson in that Braveheart movie.
Brandon had found an old DVD of that flick a few months ago. He’d watched it religiously ever since. It was so bad ass.
With two guards standing by Eifort instead of one, the plan he’d made with Greg didn’t matter. They’d intended to take the lone guy together, overpowering him in a flash. If they tried that now, the second dude would turn around and execute them.
Brandon slowed down, wanting to head back to the corner of the house and work out another strategy. His eyes cut to Greg to see if he’d reached the same conclusion.
Greg barreled forward without hesitation.
Either the bro guy hadn’t seen the second guard, or he didn’t care.
Cursing under his breath, Brandon accelerated again, running for the guard on the right. A gun dangled by the man’s hip as he stared at Lance. Brandon raised the knife, readying his killing blow.
His hand trembled.
Knees threatened to buckle.
He stopped five feet behind the guard and lowered the knife.
Couldn’t do it.
Greg reached the second guard.
He slammed the blade into his back.
It sank in to the hilt.
The guard grunted and staggered forward, falling to a knee.
“Joe? What—?” The big man in front of Brandon spun around, his mystified gaze locking onto his wounded friend. His eyes widened when he spotted the handle of the knife jutting from his buddy’s back.
Brandon lunged for the gun, grabbing the barrel and yanking on it.
The guard didn’t drop it.
Instead, he tore it free from Brandon’s grip and then threw a back fist directly at his head. The punch cut through Brandon’s hair as he ducked under it.
Without thinking, he jumped as high as he could and kicked both feet at the big man’s chest. His shoes connected perfectly with the guard’s sternum. The drop kick threw the guy off balance, and he stumbled backward.
Brandon landed hard on his ass.
The guard’s feet tangled with Eifort’s.
He fought to maintain his balance, arms pinwheeling.
For a splint second, Brandon thought the guard would regain his footing.
Instead, the blocky naked dude fell into the bonfire.
Brandon wat
ched in horror as flames engulfed the man. Sparks burst into the air. Red-hot coals enveloped the guard as he writhed in agony atop them, his panicked movements burrowing his blistering body deeper into the inferno. The cultists screamed.
Then they fled.
Greg snatched the gun off the guard he’d stabbed and stood up, waving it around at the retreating men and women. He hollered something that Brandon couldn’t hear over the dying man’s screams, but he assumed the sentence had a bro or two in it.
The dude in the bonfire finally managed to roll out of it.
Most of his skin had blackened.
Coals had fused to his bubbling flesh.
Blisters and exposed muscle replaced his hair and most of his face.
Brandon’s throat worked as he stared down at what he’d done. He hadn’t mustered up enough courage to stab the guy in the back, but he’d somehow managed to burn him to death. The image of the peeled and charred skin would no doubt haunt Brandon’s nightmares for a long time.
“Cut her loose,” Greg yelled.
Brandon finally peeled his gaze from the dying man toward Eifort. She’d stood up and moved away from the fire, her back turned to Brandon so he could sever her bindings.
“Hurry up,” she hissed as she glanced over her shoulder at him. “We have to get out of here while there’s still time.”
“Sorry.” Brandon worked at the rope around her wrists with his knife.
A few of the cultists had remained on the other side of the fire, watching Lance and the other guy at the cross. Brandon spotted the dude in charge, Magnum Kane or whatever his name was, approaching Lance with his fists clenched.
Half-a-dozen demons stepped from the darkness, hovering near the edge of the bonfire’s glow. They bleated in rage and hunger. Brandon shivered at their ear-piercing lamentations, knowing the light would only keep them at bay for so long.
Eventually, one or two of the beasts would brave the pain and risk a few burns if it meant their bellies would be full for the night.
The cinder of a man wheezed and sputtered as he flopped to his back.
Brandon tried not to burst into tears.
He finally cut Eifort free.
She tore the gag out of her mouth, then threw it into the fire before holding a hand out to Greg. “Gun.”
Greg tossed it to her.
Snagging it out of the air, she pointed it at the burned man and shot him in the face.
His mewling ceased as his brain matter sprayed the scorched earth.
“Holy shit.” Brandon took a rickety step away from her, his gorge rising. “You guys are crazy.”
“Stay behind me, kid.” Eifort turned and finished off the stabbed guard with a bullet to the back of the head.
Brandon puked in the grass.
The demons wailed as they approached.
24
A gunshot boomed from behind the bonfire as Lance charged at King. He ignored it and closed in on the man who’d intended to sacrifice Adam to a horde of vampires in some kind of pathetic Viking ritual.
King had pressed forward until he spotted the knife in Lance’s hand.
Now he backed away, calling out for his guards.
No one came to his defense.
Over King’s shoulder, Lance had seen most of the naked minions flee. He hoped that meant Brandon and Greg had managed to free Eifort. If not, they were all screwed.
“Let’s see how powerful and glorious you’re feeling now.” Lance raised the knife.
The tubby little bastard stopped retreating. Instead, he threw a sloppy punch at Lance. It connected with Lance’s shoulder, but he barely felt the impact. Between the adrenaline pumping through his system and the lack of strength in King’s pathetic body, the blow hardly even registered in his mind.
He slashed with the knife, cutting through King’s forearm.
“Stop!” King kicked at Lance, hitting him in the thigh.
Lance sliced the blade across King’s face, cutting him from chin to ear. Blood sluiced down the man’s jawline and neck. He stared dumbfounded at Lance for a moment before pawing at the gushing cut, trying to stymie the blood flow.
“Where are your bullshit speeches now, King?” Lance prepped for the killing blow, intending to plunge the blade into the dipshit’s heart.
As Lance pulled his arm back, raising the knife up, Adam backed into him, throwing his balance off. The impact skewed his aim. The tip of the blade cut into the side of King’s bicep, rather than puncturing his chest.
King cried out and staggered away, blood pattering to the grass beneath him.
A powerful snort behind him kept Lance from attacking again.
King cut to his left, fleeing toward the darkness.
Lance turned around, raising the knife defensively in front of him.
Adam stood beside him, facing the area by the cross.
The Vladdie that had bitten Adam had closed in on them again, stopping a few yards away. Blood seeped from the wound on its ribs. It sniffed in their direction, wide nose flaring and snorting. Snot flittered into the air.
“Huumannnn…”
“What the fuck?” Adam stumbled away from it.
Lance stood frozen in place, disbelief locking his mind and muscles. He gaped at the muscle-bound horror before them. It bared its teeth, tongue snaking through a gap between its elongated canines. Shadows dancing across its face made its empty eye sockets appear bottomless.
“Huummaannnn… iisssss… fffooooddd.”
The vampire coiled its muscles, lowering its bulk closer to the ground as it prepared to pounce. Veins bulged through its corded body. Its claws dug into the soil, digging furrows through the grass.
Lance squeezed the handle of the knife even tighter, knowing he could do little with the weapon, but prepared to go out fighting anyway. “Come on then.”
Another gunshot cracked behind them.
Blood spurted from the shoulder of the Vladdie.
It howled in rage as it staggered back.
“Move your ass,” Eifort shouted from behind Lance.
More gunfire thundered as the beast retreated to the shadows.
A dozen more Vladdies appeared from the darkness around it, lining the field.
“Run!” Grabbing Adam’s arm, Lance yanked him toward the fire.
They turned and fled as shrieks filled the night. The piercing noise stabbed at their ears as they ran away from the vampires. Eifort stood beside the massive bonfire, a pistol in her hands aimed beyond Lance. She popped off a few more shots as they closed the distance.
Brandon stood behind her, bent over at the waist, puking into the grass.
A body, burned beyond recognition, lay by Eifort’s feet, its head a ruin of brain and bone. Greg waved them toward the other side of the fire, to where yet another body rested face-first in the dirt. A knife stuck out of its back. Blood matted its hair.
Lance shoved Adam ahead of him, wanting to position himself between his friend and the pursuing beasts. Adam ran with his injured arm tucked against his stomach. His shoulder still oozed.
As they ran past Eifort, she stopped shooting and matched them stride for stride. She grabbed Brandon’s wrist, towing him along. The kid wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand as he tried to keep up.
Lance risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the Vladdies had encircled the fire, but the creatures hadn’t stepped too far into the light. He wondered if his attack at the cross had caught the Vladdies off guard as much as the cultists. How many times had they gone through with their little trade without a hitch? Dozens? Hundreds?
Neither side had expected an attack.
He prayed that the beasts would stay away for just a little longer. If they could flee deeper into the woods, they might have a chance of hiding until dawn.
Maybe.
The idea of hiding out in the open from a horde of vampires felt hopelessly stupid. They had little choice, though, and at least the forest might give them some cover.
The house loomed ahead, candlelight seeping from the windows. Shadows of nude idiots moved behind the glass panes. Several of the cultists stood by the back door, watching the mayhem play out by the fire.
Lance waved at their audience with his middle finger.
Eifort shot at them twice without breaking stride.
The first bullet struck the side of the house, embedding in the wood paneling.
The second round shattered a window on the first floor. A woman cried out from inside. The shadows by the other windows retreated into the house. Lance expected them to return fire at some point, but they never did.
Without the two large guards they had, no one else seemed capable of fighting back. They’d become complacent in their safety and their schedule. For years, they’d felt invincible in their little valley and now that their illusion had shattered, they didn’t know what to do.
Greg took the lead as they sprinted past the house and through the front lawn. Goats bleated as the group ran past them to plunge into a massive garden. Lance stomped through green beans and squash. He almost tripped over a low fence surrounding the garden, vaulting over it at the last second.
He flipped on the flashlight as they neared the edge of the woods, illuminating their way. If the cultists behind them seemed inclined to follow, he wouldn’t have used the light. He’d have let the darkness of the forest hide them. But since none of nude morons had even shot back, he didn’t think they planned a pursuit.
And the Vladdies couldn’t see the light anyway.
Leaves covered the forest floor, crunching underfoot as they blundered between the trees. Brush and low branches slapped at their bodies and faces. Lance held his knife-wielding hand up, trying to protect his eyes. He kept the beam of the flashlight out in front as best he could, but running at full tilt made it difficult.
The shrieks grew quieter as they ran, their volume dying from distance and tree cover. Brandon finally shed his nausea to run out ahead of the rest of them. He vaulted fallen trees and sizeable rocks with ease.
“This way,” Brandon called several seconds later. “There’s a trail up here that I used earlier.”
They turned onto a narrow path, Adam and Greg a few steps ahead of Lance. Adam stumbled and almost fell before Greg managed to grab his arm and steady him. They both huffed and puffed as they struggled to keep pace with Brandon, but Adam’s unsteady stride grew more pronounced the longer they ran.
