by Alex P. Berg
“Run, Lexie. RUN!”
I felt his hand on my arm and together we raced away from his flaming corpse, the heat growing more intense, his death scream more violent. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dawn running. Tank, too. Even Adric. I felt a wave of air rush in, trying to force me back toward the vampire overlord, but I fought it and kept churning my legs. Larry screamed something in my ear. To jump, I think, so I did.
That’s when the explosion lifted me into the air.
38
I bounced across the pavement, my ears ringing and the smell of smoke thick in my nostrils. I didn’t fight it, keeping my arms tight against my body to avoid further injury. Eventually, the blast’s momentum dissipated, and I rolled to a stop. I felt heat on my leg. Looking up, I saw that my jeans had caught fire, but only a little. I slapped at them with an open palm, smothering the flame with a few well-timed strikes.
Larry skidded to a halt beside me. He wasn’t on fire, but he groaned as he pushed himself to his knees. “Son of a bitch. I think I shattered a femur.”
I looked past him to where Romanov had fallen. Instead of a corpse, there was nothing left of him but a smoking crater. Dead and dying bats littered the roadway around him, some of them on fire, others merely steaming. The midnight black portals and creeping purple tendrils had vanished from the now orange sky. The romance novel army lay on the pavement among the bats, winking out of existence into streams of blue light that whirled in the air, twisted together into ropes, and drained into the smoldering remains of Adric’s books.
I winced as I sat up. “Since when do vampires explode? I thought they turned to dust or decayed really fast when you killed them.”
“Normally, yes,” said Larry, grunting as he limped to his feet. “I think that had more to do with the concentrated, high-pressure evil inside of him.”
Dawn walked over, her black tank top torn in at least three separate places. She wiped sweat and soot from her brow with the back of her arm. “Well, I’ll be damned. We actually did it. We stopped Romanov.”
Tank was still in bear form as he lumbered up beside us. “Gruh rah ruh!”
“I know,” said Dawn. “And none of us died. Not even Adric. It’s a miracle.”
I looked behind me to find Adric pushing himself to his knees. He shot us a thumbs up. “I’m good. Just need a minute… and maybe a fresh set of underwear.”
“Wait… Bill!” cried Larry.
He hobbled toward the smoking crater, and I took off after him. Larry limped to a stop as he reached the epicenter of the blast, casting his head about frantically. “Bill? Bill! Oh, god. There he is!”
Larry kicked a dead bat to the side and staggered to Bill’s side. The poor guy lay on his ear, his eyes closed, his skin bright pink, and his hair totally gone. His tongue lolled out of his mouth across the pavement.
“Oh, dear lord. No,” said Larry. “Not Bill. Please, no. Bill. God! Why?”
Bill’s eyelids snapped open. His eyes darted about wildly before resting on the man before him. “Larry?”
Larry’s face brightened. “Bill! You’re alive!”
“Technically, I’m still dead,” he said. “What the hell happened? Last thing I remember I was hanging out next to Adric’s book pile, trying to hand him novels with my teeth, when Adric took off and I saw a bright flash and heard a bang.”
“Romanov exploded,” said Larry. “It’s weird, I know. But buddy—I’ve got some bad news.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “It’s Dawn, isn’t it? She bit the dust, and I’m the only one who never got to nail her.”
“No, she’s fine. Everyone is.” Larry pointed out her and Tank approaching on foot. “It’s you. You were too close to the blast. I don’t know how to break this to you, but… you’re bald.”
“Son of a…! Do you know how long it takes to regrow zombie hair?”
“Don’t worry, pal,” said Larry. “I’ll cook up a potion for you. Little bit of ragweed and powdered goat’s hoof in some Rogaine and you’ll be good as new.”
I heard a siren in the distance—several of them actually. I stood to find a trio of police cars with lights flashing tearing down Congress toward us. The caravan swerved around the Suburban. The lead car screeched to a halt some twenty feet from us.
A familiar cop jumped out the passenger side door.
“Jesus H. Christ!” yelled Frank Connors. “What the hell happened here?”
“Nothing much,” said Larry, picking Bill up gently. “Just stopped an evil mastermind from turning a million bats into an undead army that would take over the world. We’re back in your jurisdiction, by the way.”
“My jurisdiction? You just blew up my jurisdiction!”
“It wasn’t me,” said Larry. “It was Romanov. He was a vampire. How was I supposed to know a fencepost through the kidneys would cause him to spontaneously combust?”
“And him! He’s in bear form? Doesn’t he know the rules? It’s light out.”
While Larry and Frank argued, I pulled my phone from my pocket. Amazingly, it hadn’t been destroyed or even cracked in the fighting. I checked the time. Just after seven.
I put a hand on Larry’s free arm. “Larry? I need to make a call, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ve got this.”
I wandered off toward the smoking crater. First, I sent a short text. Then I went into my friends list and hit the name at the top.
The phone rang four times before eventually picking up. “Yeah.”
“Heather? It’s me. I need to talk to you.”
“At seven in the morning? This better be good.”
“It is. I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. For everything. I’ve been a colossal asshat, an awful teammate, and a worse friend. I let you and everyone else on the team down when I went psycho at practice, then I made it worse by hiding from what I’d done like a coward, and then I made it even worse still when I lied to you about coming and talking to the team at practice yesterday. Well, actually, it wasn’t a lie. I was just too scared to do it, too scared to face the fact that maybe I’m not as good of a softball player as I’ve always thought I was. But I’m not going to make excuses. I’ve screwed up. I don’t know if I can make things right, but I’m going to try.”
The line was silent. Eventually Heather responded in a softer tone. “Okay.”
“I mean it, Heather. I’m taking action, today. But the most important thing is you. What do you say? Are we still friends? Because I really don’t want to lose you.”
Heather’s sigh tickled my ear. “Yes, Lexie. We’re still friends. God, don’t be such a drama queen.”
I laughed, feeling a pressure I didn’t even know was there lift from my chest.
“But,” continued Heather, “I don’t know if apologies are going to cut it with everyone else—especially Coach.”
“I just sent her a text telling her I needed to talk to her in person,” I said. “But I know I can’t fix everything with words. Maybe I can’t fix everything, period. That’s okay. I’m still going to be there at practice to confront this head on. Pointless or not, I’m going to try to make things right.”
“Good,” said Heather. “I’m glad to hear it. And for the record, I hope you can fix it. You’re not just my friend. When you’re on your game, you’re still the best hitter we’ve got.”
I thought about my demon bat and smiled. “You don’t know the half of it. So… practice?”
“Practice.”
Heather hung up. I smiled as I slipped my phone back into my pocket.
I felt a soft pressure on my shoulder and turned to find Larry standing next to me. Behind him, Tank was grunting and gesturing at Connors while Dawn interpreted. Some of the other cops grilled Adric and Bill.
“So,” I said. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to get a gist of the conversation,” said Larry. “You know, I was coming over to tell you I was proud of you for taking charge, and beyond that, for coming up with a way to take dow
n Romanov. Instead, I find myself being proud of you for doing your best to be a good person.”
“Thanks, Larry,” I said. “And I know I already apologized, but you’re really not the hopeless, incompetent schmuck I painted you as. You’re actually a pretty decent guy, yourself.”
“Please. I’m blushing.”
I heard a distant rumble, then the ground under my feet started to vibrate. I thought it might be a heavy truck approaching, but the rumbling grew. My whole world started to shake.
“My god,” I said. “Is that an earthquake?”
I fell to the concrete as the bridge continued to dance, and then I heard something over the rumbling. A laugh—impossibly deep, dry as dust, and painfully ancient. It grew in intensity. I plugged my ears as I bounced over the pavement. And then I saw it. A nebulous spirit, barely discernible from air, emerging from the crater left behind by Romanov’s explosion.
Words formed on the wind. “Free. Free. Free at last!”
The spirit rocketed into the air with a whoosh, the scream fading as it went. The laughing ceased, and the bridge stilled.
“What the hell was that?” I said.
Larry picked himself off the ground. “I don’t know. Probably nothing to worry about. The important thing is Romanov’s dead.”
“Nothing to worry about?” I said. “That spirit just few out of Romanov’s crater, laughing as it sped into the sky! Of course we should be worried. Wait… What was it Romanov said as he was dying? Something about us being fools, and us only making things worse for ourselves?”
“Lexie, Lexie,” said Larry, as he helped me off the ground. “Stop obsessing over this. The important thing is we stopped the bad guy and we all lived to fight another day. Trust me, that’s the best you can hope for in this line of work. Now, what do you say we go celebrate?”
I glanced at the sky, a frown on my lips. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I know a guy who makes a mean Mountain Dew Baja Breeze-a-rita.”
“It’s seven in the morning, Larry.”
“Or we could just get breakfast burritos. I know for a fact Tank wouldn’t say no to those.”
Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright. Breakfast. And then I’m going back to my dorm to take a nap. Something tells me I’m going to need it.”
About the Author
Hi. I’m Alex P. Berg, author of The Nyte Patrol. Hopefully, you laughed your head off in this off-the-wall, urban fantasy spoof, but Lexie, Larry, Dawn, and Tank’s adventures are just beginning. Be sure to pick up the sequel, Nyte Terrors, in which Lexie joins the Nyte Patrol full time and gets more than she bargained for.
Need more adventures, mysteries, and laughter? Try my Daggers & Steele series, featuring homicide detective Jake Daggers and his clever new partner, Shay Steele. The complete ten book series is now available on Kindle Unlimited. Read it now!
Word of mouth is critical to my success. If you enjoyed this novel, please consider leaving a positive review on Amazon. Even if it’s only a line or two, it would be a huge help. Thanks!
Want to connect? Visit me at www.alexpberg.com or contact me on social media.
For a complete list of my books, please visit: www.alexpberg.com/books/.
