The Nyte Patrol

by Alex P. Berg

  Romanov stood in the center of the bridge, his amulet glowing bright green, ten times as bright as when I’d seen it in the armory. He’d sheathed his sword across his back and rearranged the crystals into a pentagram around his feet, the latter of which were glowing with a potent pink light. He held the Librum de Virtute open in one hand while he gestured in the air with the other. I was too far away to hear him, but his lips were moving in tandem with his waving hand.

  Beyond him, in the air over the Colorado River, hung several midnight black portals, the edges crackling with a mysterious purple energy. Two already occupied the air on the east side of the bridge and another to his left on the west side. As I watched, a fourth formed. It started out as a bright purple speck in the pre-dawn sky but quickly spiraled and expanded to the size of a pickup truck. Tendrils of the purple energy trailed from the far sides of the portals, dancing in the air like jellyfish tentacles.

  Adric hovered in the air behind Romanov, bound by glowing blue ropes that twisted around him. He struggled against them, but the sound of the Suburban’s screeching tires must’ve drawn his attention. His eyes widened at the sight of us, and he started screaming. “Help! Help me! This psycho’s going to kill me. He’ll kill us all!”

  We all raced forward, coming to a stop some thirty feet from Romanov as the Russian turned to face us. “Well, if it isn’t Nyte Patrol,” he called. “I was expecting you, but thought you would be faster. Is disappointing, really.”

  “Well, prepare to be even more disappointed, Romanov,” said Larry. “Because we’re here to stop your evil plans once and for all. You should’ve killed us when you had the chance.”

  “Yes, I think about that,” said Romanov across the expanse of concrete. “But delivering monologue felt so good, I could not bring self to kill you, not until you see means of ultimate destruction, nyet? Victory so much more satisfying when you see knowledge of inescapable defeat in enemy’s eyes and hear fear-filled cries.”

  “Too bad that won’t happen.” I pulled my demon tooth from my pocket and gave it a good squeeze, growing it to bat length in the blink of an eye. “What you don’t understand, Romanov, is that we’re prepared this time. We’re confident. We even had a group meeting. Not to mention this is like the third time we’ve faced you, and I’m pretty sure we’re up for a run of good luck around now.”

  “Perhaps you miss moment when I say I expect you here sooner,” said Romanov. “That imply you are late. In fact… I think I hear means of your demise coming as we speak.”

  I perked my ears, but I couldn’t hear anything but the faint crackling of Romanov’s floating portals. Then something joined in. A faint humming coming not from the portals or Adric’s glowing bonds or the rumbling engine of the Suburban but from the air, instead.

  The crackling purple energy at the edges of one of the portals flashed. Something whistled and flew from the center of the hovering darkness, landing on the concrete bridge with a thump. A young man, crouched on one knee. He unfolded and stood, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator, with the same death stare locked onto his face and his body just as free of clothing.

  “Ugh,” said Larry. “I was fine with it before, but now I’m with you. This nudity is gratuitous.”

  Two more portals crackled, and two more individuals, one man and one woman, landed on the bridge. I glanced at the portals, seeing the purple tendrils dancing, flicking at speedy black blurs that whipped through the air just out of reach.

  “Oh, shit…” I said.

  Romanov smiled and started to laugh. “Ah, yes! I know look. Softball player has deduced plan. Go on, share. I wait.”

  I spun to the rest of the Nyte Patrol. “It’s the bats. The bats!”

  “What bats?” said Tank.

  “The ones that live under the bridge,” I said. “Remember how Romanov said he wanted to build an army to take over the world, Larry? The tome gives him the power to imbue items with power. Not just items. Non-sentient beings, too. Like bats!”

  “Hold on,” said Larry. “Are you saying he’s turning the bats under this bridge into an army of vampires?”

  “They leave to hunt bugs at dusk,” I said. “They return at dawn. All of them.”

  “And how many roost under this bridge, exactly?” said Dawn.

  “I don’t know. A million? Maybe more?”

  Larry’s eyes widened. “Holy…”

  Romanov’s laugh grew. “Yes. Yes! That is look of fear and despondency I hoped for. Is perfect!”

  “There’s no time to waste,” I said. “We have to stop Romanov before more of those bats make it to the portals. Dawn? You and I will take Ivan on head to head. Tank? Keep the vampires off our backs. Larry? You need to shut down those portals.”

  Dawn nodded. Tank switched off the safety on his grenade launcher. Larry gave me a thumbs up. “You’ve got it, boss.”

  “Hey, what about me?” said Bill.

  “You’re good at chewing, right?” I said.

  “Better believe it,” he said with a smile.

  “Great. Then your job is to free Adric. Fly like the wind, Bill!”

  I’d never been much of a pitcher, but I did my best. I grabbed Bill by the hair, whipped my arm underhand, and released. Bill flew threw the air, screaming a battle cry the whole way. “For Sparta!”

  I gave Dawn a nod and we raced toward Romanov. The Russian smiled and pulled the claymore from its sheath. As he did so, the Librum spun and grew, glowing with the same green light as the amulet as it transformed into a book-shaped shield. A grenade screamed across the sky, blasting one of the vampires to pulp as Dawn and I made contact.

  Despite my athletic background, Dawn was a step faster than me. She spun through the air, her swords whipping around in a tornado of sharpened steel. Sparks flew and clangs filled the air as Romanov parried the blows, moving with vampiric speed. I lunged in beside her, slapping my demon bat at Romanov’s midsection, but he pulled his shield back at the last moment. My bat hit the leather cover with a thud, pushing him back mere inches instead of launching him into the surrounding river.

  Dawn intensified her attacks, as I did mine. Romanov kept blocking my blows with the book shield, but I didn’t let it phase me. Despite the fact that I was a college student with absolutely zero martial arts or combat training whatsoever going up against a potentially millennia old vampire armed with multiple pieces of magical weaponry and armor, I never once lost confidence in my abilities, even when it was warranted.

  Romanov punched with the Librum, sending me skidding across the pavement thirty feet until my shoes snagged, I toppled, and fell. I rolled and bounced to my feet as Dawn continued to battle Ivan, glancing at the mangled, glowing blue ropes that had tripped me. “Hey, way to go, Bill!”

  “Thanks!” Adric cradled him under his arm, standing in the middle of the chaos as he looked about him in fear.

  “What the hell do I do?” cried Adric.

  Tank ran past, his grenade launcher thumping as he fired missile after missile. “Help fight the vamps. How are you with a shotgun?”

  “Dreadful!” he said.

  Larry darted into the fray, firing bursts of bright white light from his palms. “I got your back, Adric. I packed a crate of books into the Suburban on our way out of the library just in case. Get to it!”

  Adric took off while Larry fired more light at the portals. The inky black masses swallowed the beams whole. “Damn! Guys? I’m not having a lot of luck.”

  A dozen more vampires flew from the portals, landing on the bridge in coiled crouches. Tank fired several more grenades before ditching his launcher, pulling his SIG Sauer tactical patrol rifle, and cutting loose with a hail of gunfire.

  I stood and dusted off my pants. “Well, try something else.”

  Larry mumbled something under his breath. “Fine. Here goes nothing. But if you see any demons, don’t kill them. They’re on my side. Balthazar! Murray! Horatio! Hah! That’s been my least favorite name for two decades!”

&nb
sp; Red light flickered across three of the portals, and they started to shrink. I darted toward Romanov, whose sword continued to ring and spray sparks under Dawn’s unrelenting onslaught. I swung my bat at him with wild abandon, even catching him once across the ribs. I think it was only because he was distracted, though.

  He glared into the sky and roared in anger. “I think not!” He spun, blasting Dawn and me through the air before turning his attention to the shrinking portals.

  This time, pain blossomed in my shoulder as I hit the concrete and rolled to a stop. Gritting my teeth, I pushed myself up only to have Adric race by me with a crate in his arms. “Damnit, Larry! What is this? I thought you’d grabbed one of my boxes. These are all Harlequin romance novels and chemistry textbooks.”

  “I thought you’d be happy I remembered at all,” called Larry. “Come on. Work with it.”

  Romanov lifted his arms to the air, the heavy claymore pointing toward the nearest portal. More of the mysterious purple energy rippled along the blade before shooting into the void. The purple energy mixed with the red from Larry’s middle name-powered spell. Unseen voices shouted in anguish, filling the air with demonic screams. Romanov’s arm shook with exertion, but the portal reversed course and started to grow again.

  Two dozen more vampires poured through the existing portals. Tank’s assault rifle clicked empty as he switched to his submachine gun.

  “Now, Adric.” Fire and lightning shot from Larry’s fingertips. “We need help. Any help.”

  Adric looked terrified, but to his credit, he didn’t let that stop him. He overturned the crate of books and tossed several of them in the air. With a speed he hadn’t shown the first time I’d met him, he plunged his arms into the books as they spun around him, brilliant flashes of the familiar radiant blue light shooting from their pages as he did so. As I wondered about the color-based properties of everyone’s magic, Adric ripped his arms free and began tossing people onto the battlefield.

  Yes, people—or at least stereotypes. From the pages of the romance novels he summoned a buff, shirtless cowboy, a buff, shirtless firefighter, a buff, shirtless sea captain, a buff, shirtless prince, a buff, shirtless billionaire bad boy, and at least a dozen other buff, shirtless guys whose faces seemed nebulous and indistinct. Then from the chemistry texts he ripped free a pile of lab coats and goggles. “Safety first! Put these on. And soft hands for this next batch.” Barely had he flung the apparel before he started tossing bunsen burners, graduated flasks of bubbling liquid, and packets of powder wrapped in twine to the waiting beefcakes. “Go. Go!”

  The romance guys surged into the fray, punching vampires, searing them with flames from the bunsen burners, and tossing the chemicals into their midsts, alternatively blowing them to pieces or melting them with strong acids. Of course, they weren’t ideal soldiers. Many of them got distracted and went after the naked female vampires, abandoning their weapons and lab coats alike to wrap them in fierce embraces and try to make passionate love to them. Those guys got their faces torn off.

  “Damnit.” Dawn raced up beside me, panting hard. “Why is it every fight we’re engaged in is so freaking hot?”

  “Never mind that,” I said. “We need to come up with a new strategy for Romanov. With that sword of deflection of his and his book turned shield, I can’t land a decent hit on him.”

  “Me neither,” said Dawn. “Larry? You have any ideas?”

  Larry froze a vampire with a spray of super chilled frost. “Archer! Damn. I actually liked that one. Do I have any ideas about what?”

  “Stopping Romanov.”

  “I’m a little busy keeping these bat-to-vampire portals under control. Maybe get Tank to help?”

  Tank rushed by in full bear form with the red bandanna still wrapped around his forehead and a mini gun in his massive paws.

  “Tank?” I said. “When did you transform? And where did you get that gun?”

  “Gruh rah rur gruroo.”

  “From a Gulf War themed romance?” said Dawn. “They make those? Never mind. Unload on Romanov while he’s distracted by Larry’s anti-portal magic.”

  Tank depressed the firing mechanism on the mini gun with one of his gargantuan claws. The barrel spun up, and a second later the machine filled the air with high-speed lead and ferocious sound. Romanov jerked and spasmed as the barrage hit him, but Tank kept right on firing. Bullet casings choked the air, shimmering as they flew, the multicolored magics playing off their shells.

  After thirty seconds, the hammering rattle of gunfire ended, replaced instead with the metallic melody of the last bullet casings bouncing off the concrete. Romanov turned toward us, his clothes ripped to shreds but his body seemingly intact. He scowled and threw down his sword.

  “Well, that didn’t work,” said Dawn. “Anyone have any other ideas?”

  Larry stopped another naked attacker dead in his tracks with a burst of some sticky, tar-like substance. “Come on, guys. Think. He’s a vampire overlord, and beyond that, he’s an evil supervillain. He’s got to have a secret weakness. They all do.”

  “Like what?” I said. “His love of cheap Russian stereotypes?”

  “No,” said Larry. “Something obscure, but something he’ll have hinted at during our interactions with him. Maybe during one of our calls or his monologue. It’s classic villain behavior.”

  The world around me slowed, and my eyes widened with sudden realization. “That’s it. He’s a vampire. We can stake him!”

  “Or that,” said Larry. “Assuming you can find a stake.”

  The burly, shirtless eightieth century sea captain approached. “Yar. Did someone call for a harpoon?”

  “Close enough.” Dawn grabbed it from the man’s outstretched hands, wound up, and threw it with all her might. It sailed through the air and plunged straight into Romanov’s chest, right over the heart.

  Romanov looked down at the weapon, put a hand on it, and ripped it out. He roared with anger and started stalking us from across the battlefield.

  “Strike two,” said Dawn.

  “That’s impossible,” I said. “I was sure that would be it. Romanov even alluded to it during his monologue, just like you said, Larry. Remember? He emphasized the fact that he wasn’t heartless.”

  Larry froze in mid step. “You’re right, damnit. He did emphasize that. But if that harpoon didn’t stop him, that can only mean…”

  “What?”

  “That he’s moved his heart to prevent himself from being staked.”

  “What?” I said. “That’s insane.”

  “It’s not insane,” said Larry. “Lots of people have tried it. Davy Jones did it in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and the Tzimisce clan from the Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game can do so via the vicissitude skill.”

  “Well, if you say so.” Romanov batted a pair of battling vampires and buff dudes off the bridge with a casual swipe of his hand.

  “Plus there were episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where vampires got dusted after failing to get hit in the chest, implying their hearts were in the wrong spot. Not to mention the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode where Homer stakes Mr. Burns in the crotch, though that was more for comic relief. Heck, even Tony Bennett wrote about leaving his heart in San Francisco, though I think he meant it in a figurative sense.”

  “Whatever, Larry!” I screamed. “None of that helps us unless we know where his heart is now!”

  “Well, for all our sakes, we’d better hope it’s somewhere in his body,” said Larry. “Otherwise we’re in a world of hurt.”

  “Got anymore harpoons, handsome sea captain guy?” asked Dawn.

  He didn’t respond because there was a vampire perched on top of him, tearing open his throat with its bone white fangs.

  “And I think that’s strike three,” said Dawn.

  “Not on my watch!” said Larry. “Adric. Quick. What do you have in hand right now?”

  The bibliomancer was elbow deep in a pair of floating
books, one a thick softbound volume and another a small paperback. “A McMaster-Carr catalog and a quaint nineteen-fifties suburban romance. Why?”

  “Perfect,” yelled Larry. “Picket fence me!”

  Adric was either smart enough or scared enough not to ask. He ripped a length of white picket fence from the paperback and chucked it at Larry. Larry’s hands whipped in front of him. Air rushed and swirled, catching the fence in a nascent cyclone. “More! More!”

  Adric chucked more pieces toward Larry as the maelstrom grew in power. It swirled faster and faster, ripping the whitewashed pieces of hardwood from their supports and accelerating them to category five speeds.

  Romanov, still some thirty paces away, glanced at the cyclone. His eyes widened, and I knew we were on the right track. Of course, he was also supernaturally fast.

  “Now!” I screamed.

  Romanov blurred as he leapt toward us. At the same time, Larry unleashed the cyclone, sending it crashing into Ivan’s path. Wood cracked as fifty feet of white picket missiles pounded Romanov in mid air. I lifted my arm to shield my eyes from the debris.

  The wind howled mercilessly, but I still heard the thump as Romanov landed next to me. I screamed and pulled back on my demon tooth bat, but I couldn’t beat his speed. Not one on one. Thankfully, I didn’t have to.

  The Russian wobbled and nearly fell. His body was mangled, covered in scrapes and dotted with thousands of tiny splinters, but it was the lone fence post protruding from his kidneys that gave me hope.

  “You… you fools,” he said. “You think… you can stop… me? You’re only… making things worse for yourselves… in the end.”

  I smiled. “That fence post looks a little wobbly, Romanov. Let me help you with it.”

  I swung my bat at full force into the end of the post, driving it another two feet into Romanov’s stomach and out the other side. Ivan screamed, an ear-piercing death howl that heated the air and shook the bridge underneath us. He fell to his knees, and his entire body burst into flames. I put an arm up to shield my face from the sudden heat only to hear Larry’s voice over the searing crackle.