Apocalypse Assassins: The Complete Series

by D. Laine

  “What do you have with you?” Jake asked in a strained voice.

  “My switchblade.”

  I felt Jake’s hesitation through the line. Finally, he asked, “That’s it?”

  “That’s all I got.” I flinched from a particularly hard hit on the door that resulted in the sound of wood splintering. “She’s almost through. What do I do? I already stabbed the thing in the heart, but it’s still coming.”

  “You’ve got to impact the brain,” Jake quickly muttered, then shouted, “Why do you not have your gun?”

  “Wasn’t planning on trying to get laid by a tag tonight,” I returned drily. “So kill the brain? With a switchblade? Anything else?” I glanced around the room, and eyed the window behind me.

  “Decapitation works,” Jake went on. “The agency was experimenting with the use of fire last month. Haven’t heard about the effectiveness yet. You say four blocks east?”

  Through the line, I could hear the rumble of the Hummer’s engine. He was coming to find me. Another heavy thud, and the sound of splintering wood at the door, assured me that he wouldn’t make it in time.

  “Look for me in the parking lot,” I informed Jake as I moved toward the window. “I’m making a run for it.”

  I had one leg out the window when the door burst open behind me. The phone dropped to the floor as I swiveled around to brace for attack. Over the tag’s growls and snarls, I heard Jake’s voice hollering through the speaker on my phone.

  He was no help to me now. I had to tackle this thing on my own.

  When she launched herself across the room, teeth gnashing on their way to any exposed flesh she could get her mouth on, I pointed my knife at her throat. It sliced through her skin like butter, nicking an artery, as evidenced by the blood that pumped onto the bedspread beside me.

  But she had my blood in her mouth, and a taste for my flesh. Nothing was holding her back from seeking more.

  I used her blind bloodlust to my advantage, and stabbed at every opening she gave me. Blood coated both of us, and was sprayed all over the walls and the floor, by the time she stumbled away from me. The sizable gash in her neck caused her head to tilt to one side, but her enraged eyes were still settled determinedly on me. Short of finding a torch to light her on fire with, I had to finish the job with the knife.

  We charged at the same time, both going for the other’s neck. Her weight crashed into me, and her sheer power leveled me to the floor. Her blood splattered my face as she moved in for the kill.

  Holding her head at bay, I pressed my thumbs into her eye sockets until they squirted blood. She howled in pain and I rolled away, narrowly avoiding her teeth. At the same time, I brought the knife up to thrust it straight into her ear.

  I cringed at the sound of crunching cartilage and bone as I withdrew the blade in preparation for another strike. My arm froze mid-swing when she hunched over and dropped facedown onto the crimson-stained floor.

  I crawled out from under her limp arm, where it had fallen across my chest, and pushed across the sticky, wet floor. I didn’t stop until my back hit the wall. The window was directly above my head, and the phone laid near my feet. I picked it up as Jake hollered through the speaker.

  “Jesus, Dylan! Answer me! Dylan?”

  “I’m here,” I groaned into the receiver. “I think it’s dead.”

  His loud sigh of relief made me flinch, and I pulled the phone away to rub my bare shoulder against my ringing ear. In the process, I smudged a trail of sticky blood on my cheek. All at once, the putrid scent of tag blood that filled the room hit my nose.

  I jerked to a stand and bolted to the bathroom as the liquor I consumed earlier rose up my throat. I dropped to my knees just in time to hurl into the toilet. I stayed there, forehead pressed to the cool seat, long after the waves passed through me, listening to Jake’s voice through the phone.

  “You need to get out of there.”

  “Does it smell that bad?”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “How badly are you bitten?”

  “Are you still throwing up?”

  “Clean clothes in the car.”

  “Need to move, man.”

  I ignored every suggestion and question he muttered through the line until he declared, “I’m in the parking lot.”

  I put the phone to my ear as I pushed to my feet. Catching my reflection in the mirror, and seeing nothing but red, I said, “I need to clean up first.”

  I disconnected the call without waiting for a response and grabbed a towel. For the first time since I got my license to kill in defense of the world four years ago, I felt like a murderer as I watched the tag’s blood swirl down the drain.

  3

  My throbbing, chewed-up arm kept me awake most of the night. The hefty dose of penicillin Jake injected into my ass cheek when we got back to the hotel kept the tag’s bites from getting infected, but they still hurt like hell. On a positive note, I wasn’t in danger of becoming one of them.

  Though they loved to feast on human flesh, tags were not the typical walking dead made popular by Hollywood. These things were very much alive, and amped up with a boost of demon juice. As aboveground members of Lucifer’s army, they were second only to vessels.

  Unlike the mainstream perception of zombies, tags could only be created by a vessel. Not another tag. Transfer of bodily fluids was necessary. Kissing could do it, if enough saliva was exchanged, as well as the ingestion of food contaminated by a vessel. But we’d found that the most successful method, and the one most widely used, was unprotected sex.

  Humans woke up a few days after a hookup with a vessel feeling like they had the mega of all flus. Little did they know they also had the mark behind their ear that identified them as a tag. Over the following weeks, they would gain exceptional strength, speed, dexterity . . . and a taste for human flesh.

  Vessels had created hundreds of them—possibly thousands. While the tags had been quiet so far—with few documented rogue attacks on humans—the agency knew it was only a matter of time before that changed. They were deadly ticking time bombs with the ability to annihilate the human population in the post-apocalyptic devastation.

  When that would happen was speculation, but the agency believed the tags were phase two of the apocalypse. We were in the middle of phase one now, with devastating global disasters weakening the human population on a near-daily basis. It wouldn’t stop until Lucifer’s vessel was assassinated—or so the agency hoped.

  He was here in the United States somewhere, spearheading his minions on their mission to destroy the world ahead of the arrival of their demon parasites. I wanted to get that fucker so bad. We all did, and it wasn’t just because of the huge cash out that bagging him would earn. The assassin that wiped out Lucifer’s destined vessel before Lucifer came to possess it would literally save the world.

  I was arrogant enough that I wanted to be that guy.

  I sure didn’t want to be remembered as the one that got his ass whipped by a tag.

  “Keep an eye on it,” Jake told me after he finished wrapping the fresh wounds on my forearm. “We’ll need to get in touch with the agency if it gets infected. We’ll need more antibiotics.”

  “I know the signs.” I wagged a finger at the plastic bottle on the table behind him. “Gimme the pain killers.”

  Fortunately, the agency supplied us with basic first aid and commonly used medications when we went on the road. Otherwise, I might not have slept at all that night. Even with a heavy dose of Vicodin, I didn’t drift off to sleep until after the sun rose.

  I woke hours later in our cheap hotel room, which Jake had converted into Investigation Central through the day. The bedside clock flashed 6:58 when I finally sat up, and rubbed my scruff covered jaw.

  Across the room, Jake strung a blue string between a blurry photograph tapped to the wall and a piece of paper with a large black question mark on it. Multiple strings of various colors angled across the wall, connecting photos, notes, and other
documents by color.

  “What are you doing?” My voice was raspy, and I rolled out of bed in search of water.

  “Organizing the research I did today.”

  “Find anything out?” I strolled up beside him with a small plastic cup of water, and eyed the wall. I noticed the abundance of question marks—that didn’t bode well.

  “Not much luck yet,” he admitted glumly, “but I’m thinking the university might play a part. Wasn’t that apartment complex the tag took you to set aside for students?”

  I shrugged. “Damned if I know.”

  “It was.” Jake answered his own question confidently.

  “Then why did you ask?”

  He ignored me as he tacked up another string. “I think we need to dig around the school. If there was one tag hiding among the students, there’s likely to be more. Four vessels in one town is a lot. Something is going on here.”

  I watched him fiddle with the strings. “But why here? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  He turned to me with a sigh. “That’s the question we need to find the answer to. I was just waiting for you to get up to go snoop around campus.”

  I waved him off. “I’m heading back to the bar.”

  “What? That’s not—”

  “I found one tag there already,” I cut him off. “If we’re looking for more, there’s no better place to start. For all we know, there’s a vessel there taking unsuspecting drunk chicks home to tag them. Besides, it’s a Saturday night. The entire student body is going to be at the bar tonight—vessels, tags, and hot college chicks.”

  “Like the one you were seen there with last night?” Jake countered. “The one whose body will be found, if it hasn’t already.”

  “Hallway was clear when I ran into her. We ducked out the back door. No one saw us. No one can pin it on me.”

  “Another tag might recognize you,” he pointed out.

  “Trust me. I’ll be looking for them this time.”

  Jake nodded thoughtfully. “Alright. Go ahead. See if you can stir anything up there.”

  I sipped on the water as I moved across the floor to take a look at the makeshift workstation Jake had created in the corner of the room on the flimsy hotel table. Our agency-issued laptop was open and purring softly. Long black cords ran from it to the wall and to the small printer positioned on the cushioned chair.

  “I see we’re fully operational.”

  “We’re going to be here for a few days,” Jake sighed. “We might as well take advantage of the opportunity to move out of the Hummer.”

  I nodded wholeheartedly. I used to love the constant running, but lately I had grown tired of it. Nothing but an endless string of greasy takeout and questionable rest stops to break up the miles we traveled. Our “breaks” to the agency’s headquarters in Nevada had steadily declined as the vessels grew bolder and more assassins were killed in the field.

  Jake and I were no longer the only non-sibling team, though we were the only two assassins that didn’t know if their siblings were dead or alive.

  Sometimes I thought the not knowing was worse.

  Laying on top of the laptop’s keyboard was the picture of Jake’s sister standing in front of the statue. I plucked it up to study it closer. The young girl smiled at the camera and whoever stood behind it. She looked around eleven or twelve years old at the time the photograph was taken—ten or eleven years ago. Around the time I met Jake.

  Around the same time my life fell apart.

  AN HOUR LATER, I walked through the rapidly filling parking lot outside the Rowdy House bar. The unsynchronized variety of tunes pouring from the rolled down windows of several cars in the parking lot drowned out the thump of bass from inside.

  As I passed one particularly noisy cluster of sporty cars surrounded by preppy college guys, I spotted a familiar face. The poster boy for steroids I ran into last night glanced up, then did a double take when he recognized me. He pushed away from the car he was leaning against with a smirk. I groaned when he started in my direction.

  “Hey, you!” he called out to me.

  Behind him, his frat buddies followed. Excitement and booze were evident in their steps. They were looking for a fight.

  They were about to pick it with the wrong guy.

  “I remember you,” the leader shouted. “You need a lesson on watching what you say around here.”

  “And you think you’re the guy to teach me that lesson?” I slowed as he approached. “Bigger men have tried . . . and failed.”

  He reeled back like I’d just hurled the world’s biggest insult at him. I supposed he wasn’t used to being challenged. He obviously didn’t take it very well.

  “You”—he jabbed a finger at me—“you need to learn your boundaries.”

  I shrugged lazily. “Boundaries make me feel caged in. I don’t like feeling caged in.”

  His eyes narrowed at the warning that laced my tone. I patiently waited for him to decide if he was going to make a move, or walk way. My bet was on a pussy cheap shot.

  Behind him, a petite brunette climbed out of one of the cars. Two other girls tried to pull her back, but she rapidly shook her head and yelled, “Kyle, knock it off!”

  Kyle, was it? Well, Kyle proved that he was obviously an idiot when he kept advancing on me. “If I remember right, you were too much of a pussy to fight back last night,” he taunted. “How about now?”

  I sighed over my boredom with this guy as he rolled up his shirt sleeves.

  “You hear me?” he continued.

  I really didn’t want to get another write-up for putting my fist into a civilian’s face. It was really frowned upon by the agency. Sure wouldn’t look good on my final records—that would forever be preserved as the guy that bagged Lucifer and saved the world. Some things were worth the wrath of the agency. And some things—like this asshole—were not.

  I turned my back on him with a shake of my head. I fully intended to walk into the bar without engaging him—I would show Spence that I could be the bigger person. Then I heard the stomping of his feet on the blacktop behind me. Hearing the shouts from the frat boys over my shoulder, I spun around. My fist shot out the same instant Kyle reached for me.

  He had ten pounds on me, but I had training. I held back enough to not kill him, but hit him with enough force to knock him out cold. Color me shocked when that didn’t happen. My lips pursed in surprise when he not only stayed on his feet, but then flashed me a blood-tinged smirk.

  His buddies, on the other hand, stopped dead in their tracks. They recognized the severity of the fight about to go down, and wisely wanted nothing to do with it.

  “Kyle, please stop!” The brunette in the background tried again. She pushed forward, and was held back by one of the smarter frat boys.

  The moron I suspected was her boyfriend dropped his shoulder and steam-rolled into me. I staggered into one of the cars, and took a fist to the kidney, before I managed to wrestle the guy into a headlock. Once his face was nice and purple, I drove a knee up into his nose. Blood spurted from his face, and I let him go as he backpedaled. He regrouped much faster than I expected, and charged me again.

  “Jesus,” I groaned. He had to be high on something right now. Either that, or . . .

  I caught him by the waist and slammed him, back first, onto the hood of the car behind me. Metal crunched under his weight as he rolled off. His shirt drifted up, and I saw why he was stronger than I anticipated.

  He carried the black mark on his right hip—proof that he wasn’t entirely human. He was marked. He was the enemy. The thing that was bringing this world to an apocalypse, and the very thing I was trained to kill. Not a tag, but a vessel.

  But he didn’t know what I was, and that was where he made a mistake. He treated me like an ordinary human—not one experienced at killing things like him.

  He came at me with a sloppy swing, which I easily dodged. I feinted, and he took the bait, creating an opening for me to wrestle his arm behind his back. H
e was a tough one—I had to give him that. The veins in my neck popped as I twisted his arm and pushed his face into the car door.

  Holding him there, I gritted, “I’ve had a shitty couple of days, fucker. If you don’t want me to kill you, I suggest you listen to your girl.”

  I spared a glance toward the group surrounding us, and settled my gaze on the wide-eyed brunette in the center. She and the others were the only reason I couldn’t kill this vessel now. Too many witnesses, and we had two more vessels to locate yet. Best not to cause too many waves.

  “Fuck you,” Kyle muttered.

  “That’s what I thought.” With one last hard shove into the car for good measure, I released my grip on his arm, and backed away.

  He took one step toward me, then wisely stopped.

  “That’s enough, Kyle!” the brunette shouted at him. “Get in the car!”

  I flicked my gaze in her direction, and noticed that her eyes were on me. She wasn’t looking at me with disdain or disgust, as I would expect to see on the face of a girl that just witnessed her boyfriend get his ass handed to him by some strange guy. No. She regarded me with a hint of . . . was that amusement?

  Interesting.

  She was hot. Her tight jeans and cleavage-worshipping tank top temporarily intrigued me. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t hesitate to hit on her, even as her defeated boyfriend was being corralled into the backseat of a car with a bruised ego. If anything, the thought of screwing the asshole’s girlfriend under his nose made her even more alluring.

  But I would have to pass. Not her. Not after what I’d experienced last night, and definitely not after discovering her boyfriend was a vessel. No way in hell was I about to go near another tag, no matter how hot she was. I wouldn’t see her again until Jake and I went after her and her asshole boyfriend later tonight.

  Such a shame she would have to die.

  I flashed her a smug grin before I turned my back on the group. Something told me neither Kyle nor any of his brothers would come after me again.