by Drew Hayes
“What are you doing?” My voice was barely above a hiss, yet it sounded so loud, too loud, in my vampiric ears.
“We can’t stay down here. From what you said, it sounds like Quinn brought a whole team with him. They’ll find us, and there’s no way we could keep them out long enough to wait for our people to get back. Depending on the type of parahuman he brought, I might not be able to kill them all before they got to you. Better to stay on the move, give ourselves some options until the others return. But we’re going to need a little help.”
Arch dug into his coat once more, pulling out a dark leather bag. Reaching in, he scooped out a handful of dust and sprinkled it on himself before turning and blowing the rest of it around me. Some got up my nose, and I went to sneeze, but before I could, the sense of it had vanished. The bits around me were gone too, like they’d never been there. I took a test sniff and didn’t smell anything. Anything. Not even the residual blood in the nearby mugs.
“Powder from the bones of a shadow-walker,” Arch said, as if that somehow served as an explanation. “They won’t be able to smell or hear us unless they’re very close. It’s how I sneak up on vampires, therians, and other parahumans with enhanced senses.”
While I was a bit miffed at the sudden onset of anosmia, I did have to admit that having such a material on hand was pretty . . . well, cool. I’d seen Arch in his role of authoritative leader, and I’d heard other agents talk about how respected he was, but this was the first time I’d ever seen Arch really on the job. He was composed, quick-thinking, and seemingly had a plan and tool for any situation. I just hoped he continued to live up to the hype once we actually met our attackers.
Slipping out of the ammo storage room, I strained my ears to hear the sounds of movement, but apparently the shadow-walker dust cut both ways. I could still hear, mind you, it was just that the amount I could hear was highly diminished. For that matter, when I really tried, I could pick up occasional smells from around me, though nothing like what I could normally detect. It took a few moments for me to realize what Arch’s dust had done: he’d dialed back my smell and hearing to human levels. Disconcerting as it was, things only seemed so silent when compared with my normal hearing capacity. I wondered if I could buy some of that powder for nights when I wanted to work and the neighbors were being loud.
“Wait,” I told him, my eyes catching a door to another room. “What about the jail cells? They said most of the bars were silver, right? We could hide out in one of those. Even if Quinn finds us, he wouldn’t be able to get through.”
“It’s not a terrible plan, and if everything goes to shit, use it, but you can still shoot a lot of things through bars. Better not to leave you at his mercy if we can avoid it. Now, come on. I can hear them working on the door.”
“Really? How? You got hit with the dust, too,” I pointed out.
“Fred, my hearing is always at a human level. I’ve just spent a lot of time learning how to get the most out of that. Now, do you want to stand here gabbing, or do you want to get a fucking move on?” Arch stood there, unmoving, waiting for me to respond.
“Sorry. Lead the way.” I fell in directly behind him, and as soon as I did, Arch began moving forward once more.
We crept up the stairs, Arch stopping occasionally to cock his head and listen as we ascended. I had no idea where we were heading; however, Arch never hesitated. He knew this place, after all, and apparently, time away hadn’t dulled his memory in the slightest. Bit by bit, we rose, until we were almost back at the top floor. It was there that I heard the first sound from our attackers since Arch had coated me in dust, and it wasn’t because the effects were fading.
The loud bang that echoed through the house and into its subterranean catacombs was impossible to mistake for anything other than what it clearly was: the massive, metal front door being roughly broken through. Arch and I looked at each other, though we said nothing. There wasn’t a point in speaking the words out loud; we both knew what had just happened.
Our attackers had broken through the front door. They were now officially in the house with us.
5.
Had I been on my own, I would have most likely frozen in panic until I was inevitably discovered by the intruders. Thankfully, Arch had no such reticence. No sooner had the noise started to fade than we were on the move again, past the kitchen and into the one of the bedrooms. It seemed counter-intuitive to me that we were moving closer to the people breaking in, but this wasn’t really the time to question Arch’s judgment. Especially since we were within earshot of the others, vampire hearing or not. I could make out the sounds of them scrabbling inside, and just before Arch eased the bedroom door shut, a familiar voice rang out—one that conjured terrible memories of a ghoul-infested church and Krystal with a bloody throat.
“All of you by the couch, go to the kitchen and head downstairs. Start at the bottom and search a floor at a time. If I know my spawn, he’ll have holed up in the darkest corner he can find and be cowering in it. The rest of you, start working from the top down. Except you, Beauregard. You guard the front door.” Quinn’s voice was unmistakable, still as mad as it had been the last time. Except there was something different, even if I couldn’t put my finger on what. His words seemed stronger, heavier, like there was an air of authority with every inflection.
Also . . . he’d just called someone Beauregard. That was a hell of a coincidence, seeing as Krystal had turned his old lackey with that name into sliced-up ashes. Did Quinn seek out underlings with that name? It was a weird detail, one I really didn’t have time to dwell on, but it’s amazing the things a mind will latch on to in a state of panic.
Through it all, Arch was silent, listening to the sounds of footsteps moving to various parts of the base. I could make out some, though not in much detail, but apparently he had a far better sense of their location than I did. Pulling out a dark gun in one hand and a gleaming silver dagger in the other, Arch tilted his head toward the door and whispered. “Four of them are still up here, not including the big one by the door. I can’t tell which one is Quinn, but he might be among them, so be ready for anything if he pops up. Our best bet is to avoid the five up here, or kill them if they see us, and sneak out the front while the rest are searching below.”
“Won’t all of them come running the first time you shoot that?” I pointed to his gun, in case he’d missed the context.
Arch double-checked the weapon before shaking his head. “No, I pulled the enchanted one. Between the muffling spells and the shadow-walker powder, they shouldn’t hear it. Trust me, Fred. I’m used to getting the drop on bigger, stronger enemies.”
Not for the first time, I found myself wondering just what exactly Arch was. I knew he’d been alive for a long time, yet that was literally the only supernatural feature he’d demonstrated, unless one considered constant calm a parahuman power. Which, given how impossible such a skill was for me to grasp, it might as well have been.
“We’re going to have to move now. I can’t risk leaving you on your own,” Arch continued. “No matter what happens out there, don’t worry about me. If I get hurt, pay no mind. Unless someone manages to shoot or stab me in the brain. Then, run like hell and just survive until help arrives.”
I realize I’ve just commented about Arch’s calm demeanor, but I was still bowled over as he placidly discussed the idea of his being shot in the head. There was no time to ponder it though, as he pushed open the bedroom door and led us out into the hallway, gun first. Arch was methodical, checking every corner we encountered as we took a route that felt circuitous, but that was probably picked to maximize our chances of making it out while encountering as few intruders as possible.
It was a good method, until we were halfway down a hall and another vampire stepped into view. There was no question of what this man was; his fangs were bared already, and they only continued to stretch further as we stepped into view. Yet there was something off about him as well. He moved more
like an animal than a person, and dark, pulsing red lines stretched across the sclera of his eyes and into the iris. That was all the detail I could take in before a soft pop came from Arch, and the vampire’s head whipped back. He was right; the gun really didn’t make much noise. I stood, ready for my fellow undead to rise up; bullets weren’t the best method of stopping us, yet he stayed on the ground, a small pool of dark blood stretching out around what remained of the back of his head.
Much as I’d have loved to back away, this was still the direction we were heading, so I had to press on. As we made our way past the vampire’s body, because that’s all it was now, I saw that the back of his head looked like a cannonball had soared out of it, and I caught the distinct glimmer of silver. I’m not quite sure why I’d never realized that agents, especially ones as prepared as Arch, would have bullets specially made for vampires, but it was still disconcerting to see the results laid out upon the ground. So much destruction from one shot; it boggled the mind. And Arch hadn’t even hesitated. He’d fired without pause directly into the skull. Moments like these showed me why so many parahumans were afraid of agents.
Eventually, we made it past the corpse, although I wasn’t sure it was a sight that would ever entirely leave me. As of the writing of these pages, it still hasn’t, but plenty more terrible images have been added to keep it company. Arch slunk down the halls, always listening and at the ready for another attack. Whether it was luck or his guidance, I don’t know, but we managed to make it to the living room where the front door was located without encountering another attacker. That, however, was where our luck ran out.
Arch’s elbow dug into my ribs as he pointed at a mirror on the wall, one that had clearly been placed to check the entryway covertly. The hulking monster in the doorway would have caused me to gasp audibly if I hadn’t stopped breathing to stay quiet. It was a vampire—at least, I thought it was—but I couldn’t even imagine the cocktail of blood it had been fed to assume such an appearance. Standing so tall his head brushed the doorway, the man was as wide as Bubba, but with a physique more akin to Richard’s. His fangs were exposed, shining in the moonlight, as were the black claws on his hands and six horns lining his bare skull. Instead of the usual pale skin our kind had, this vampire—presumably the new Beauregard—had a complexion mottled with splotches of red, purple, and green. Beyond that, his skin’s shape was wrong; it had odd lumps and dips, like poorly molded clay. The eyes, however, were similar to the ones we’d seen in our first fight, if one can even call it that—red lines across the sclera, just like the dead vampire in the hall. The rest of him was so bizarre that I wasn’t even sure Beauregard counted as a vampire anymore. Quinn had done a real number on him, just like he’d do to me if given the chance.
Arch was stepping closer, getting ready to attack the behemoth blocking the door, when his eyes suddenly darted to a nearby doorway in the hall. Seconds later, a vampire woman with the same unnatural eyes—even by our standards—came bursting through. No sooner had she entered our view than Arch struck, slicing her with his blade. Unfortunately, she was quicker than the first guy, throwing up her arm to block and letting out a pained shriek as his dagger cleaved easily into her flesh. The pain caused her to pause, unsure of what to do next, and that was all Arch needed. Another pop, and she was down. Mercifully, the small hole in her forehead was all I could see this time. But dead or not, the damage was already done. Her yelp hadn’t been muffled like our actions, and in the mirror, I could already see Beauregard rushing forward.
What I didn’t see, however, was the vampire sneaking up behind me. No, Arch was the one who caught that, grabbing me by the arm and shoving me roughly to the side as he fired into its chest. The wounds were enough to slow it down, and Arch finished it off with another shot to the brain, but by the time he turned back, Beauregard had already arrived. One deft slap from Beauregard’s massive paw of a hand sent Arch slamming into the wall. I suspect that if the whole place hadn’t been reinforced, he’d have gone through it, but I could still hear the crunch of bone when Arch hit.
With him cleared out of the way, Beauregard advanced on me. There was no joy or surprise in his face; it was empty of any such higher brain functions. He was like a caged wolf being let loose on its prey, just a wild beast doing its master’s bidding. God . . . what had Quinn done to these people?
Before Beauregard could snatch me up and rip me in two, however, more muffled gunshots rang out. The mighty vampire looked pained, but he didn’t drop to the ground. Instead, he spun in place to face his attacker. Arch was standing there, popping in a fresh clip, looking annoyed that his bullets weren’t doing their usual damage. This time, I was the one who saw someone creeping up behind him, a familiar form that I pointed to while trying to get my friend’s attention. “Arch!”
He started to spin around, just as the blade cleaved through his neck, separating Arch’s head from his body in a single smooth motion. The body fell to the ground, but the head seemed to float for a moment. It took me a second to realize that, just like Paula and the mug earlier, Arch’s attacker had caught his head before it could drop. Even one-handed, Quinn still had exceptional reflexes.
“Silly little agent. Did you think I’d learned nothing from tangling with your kind? This Beauregard is testing implanted subdermal armor for me. Magic might not be able to stop silver, but humans are remarkably adept at finding ways to keep their pathetic flesh-vessels safe.” Quinn stepped fully into view, his left—and only—hand holding a long saber in the palm, his fingers wrapped around Arch’s hair. Aside from the missing arm, he looked just as I remembered him, with the exception of the black collar with glowing runes wrapped around his throat. He grinned at me briefly, that smile promising all manner of suffering, before turning his attention back to Arch’s head. “Funny how we endure for a few moments even post-decapitation. You’ll be dead in seconds, so if you have anything to say to my spawn, I’d do so now.”
I looked into Arch’s eyes, from which the light was fading quickly, and noticed that he moved his lips silently, squeezing out a single word before his face went slack.
“Run.”
6.
I did as I was told. I’m not proud of it, by any means. I dearly wish I could tell you that I was filled with righteous anger and that I rose up to stop Quinn and Beauregard right there, but if I had, then I wouldn’t be writing this. That would be where my story ended, because they’d have easily overpowered me and, if I was lucky, killed me on the spot. No, I didn’t find some hidden reserve of senseless bravery. Instead, I did what all humans, undead or not, have been hardwired to do since the beginning of dawn. I tried to survive.
Bolting back down the hallway, I did some quick mental math. Arch had said there were five vampires on the top floor, counting Beauregard. Between the three he’d killed and Quinn, that meant there shouldn’t be anyone standing between me and the kitchen. Granted, I’d be plunging into floors with unknown amounts of vampires waiting for me, but there was at least a chance I could lose Quinn. With the time Arch had bought us, and the shadow-walker dust making me hard to find, I might be able to last long enough for the other agents to get back. I couldn’t bring Arch back; however, I could still testify and make sure Quinn paid for the murder. That thought almost slowed me down; the grief at seeing a friend slaughtered made me want to fall over and weep. Survival is a powerful instinct though, and it wouldn’t let me process the loss until I was safe.
Making it to the kitchen was easy. So easy, I felt a bit suspicious, not that I’d had any other options in the first place. With a giant, bulletproof uber-vampire blocking the front door, it was going to take someone with real strength to break through. All I had was a knack for numbers and a sweater vest. I bolted down the stairs as fast as I dared, making a break for the bottom floor. If I was lucky, which seemed unlikely, the first team would have finished searching it already, and I could hide out there for a while. Maybe I’d even be able to get into one of the jail cells with
the silver bars. That probably wouldn’t stop Quinn, but it might slow him down. At this point, I was playing a game of minutes, perhaps even seconds, where every bit of time I bought could be the difference between survival and death.
I made it to the bottom floor so fast it was a blur, leaping off the stairs and racing toward the cells. I managed exactly three steps before the vampires fell upon me from the shadows. Their grips were incredible. If they hadn’t been drinking therian blood, then I didn’t want to know what gave them this strength. They yanked me to the center of the room. Four of them had been here, had been waiting for me, with one grabbing each limb. I tried to prepare myself to be quartered, by which I mean that panic gave way to momentary acceptance of my fate.
Curiously, my life didn’t flash before my eyes, as I’d always heard it would. Instead, my mind filled with images of the people I loved. Krystal, Bubba, Amy, Neil, Albert, Charlotte, Richard, Sally, Lillian, and even curmudgeonly Arch. My clan. My family. I hoped they’d be okay when I was gone. I hoped the death of a leader didn’t hurt the clan. I should have looked into that. I should have done a lot of things differently. It was oddly clear, here at the end. I could see now all the places where I’d been letting my fears and insecurities hold me back. One of life’s cruel jokes, I suppose, that only in the moments before death do we see our lives plainly.
Except . . . they weren’t ripping me apart. The other vampires, all with the same sclera-tainted eyes, had dragged me to the middle of the room and were holding me still. It didn’t take me long to realize why, as footsteps came from the stairs. Slowly, Quinn stepped into view, sword in hand and evil smile on his face. He walked across the ground slowly, savoring the moment as he stared at my captured body.
