by Tim O'Rourke
“What’s going on?” I heard Rea ask from over Trent’s shoulder.
“I’m not sure,” he replied, peering into the darkness.
“It’s just a couple of kids,” I said, heading down the landing toward them.
They turned to face me, their eyes bulging with fear. I could see that both wore necklaces fashioned from cloves of garlic. The boy brandished a crucifix before him and the girl held what looked like a posy of blue flowers that had long since wilted and died.
“Keep back!” the boy shouted, thrusting out the crucifix at me.
“I’m not a vampire,” I told him.
“Then get back, wolf!” the girl screamed, waving the posy of blue dead flowers.
“And I’m certainly not a werewolf,” I half smiled, taking another step closer to them.
The girl screeched and this was followed by the sound of gunfire.
“No!” I cried, spinning around and placing myself in front of the children. I felt a bullet tear into my chest and out through my back. The force was so great, that I was spun around and thrown back off my feet. With time slowing down to a crawl all around me, the narrow passageway flashed once more with bright white light as another shot thundered out of the darkness. With the world now spinning in slow-motion as I flew through the air, I scooped the boy and girl up into my arms, pressing them flat to my chest as I crashed through the closed doorway and into the room beyond. I smothered them as the sound of running feet came racing toward us along the landing and into the room.
“Is she dead?” I heard Rush gasp. He sounded panicked.
“Who the fuck fired?” Trent exploded.
“I did,” Calix said. “I heard a scream and…”
“They’re just scared kids,” I roared, rolling over. I sprang to my feet.
“But you’re still alive….” Calix breathed.
“No thanks to you, you freaking cretin!” I shouted screwing my fists tight. The urge to fling open my hands and send him flying back along the hallway to his death was overwhelming. The rage now burning inside of me was so potent that if I dared release it at Calix it would crush every bone – every organ – in his body. I could turn him into nothing more than dust. But I fought it. I had to.
“Just put your guns away,” I said through gritted teeth. I drew in another deep breath before speaking again. “Put your guns away – all of you.”
“But…” Calix started.
“Do it!” I shouted at him, my fists open and closing like a throbbing heart. “I don’t know how long I can hold it back for…”
“Hold what back?” Rush asked, looking somewhat bewildered by what I had just said.
Trent was watching me. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me since they had all come racing into the room. Could I see a remote spark of fear in them – or was it respect for the magic he was now coming to suspect seethed inside of me? Was he finally starting to understand my power?
“Put your guns away,” Trent told the others, not once taking his eyes off me as he slid his own guns back into the holsters strapped about the tops of his thighs.
Without further debate or argument, each of the werewolves re-holstered their guns. Sensing there wasn’t going to be any more shooting, I reached beneath my coat and felt for the gunshot wound. With the tips of my fingers still tingling with magic, I brushed them over the bloody opening until it had closed over and fully healed. Removing my hand, I turned around to face the boy and girl who lay cowering on the floor at my feet. I knelt down beside them.
“I’m sorry about my friends,” I said, keeping my voice soft, little more than a whisper. I didn’t want to scare them. The boy couldn’t have been any older than twelve years and the girl, ten. Both were human. Their faces, hair, and hands were covered in grime and dirt as were the tatty clothes that they wore. I looked at their bare feet and knew that it was they who had left the footprints in the snow outside.
The boy reached once more for the crucifix that lay on the floor beside him. I let him take it. He clutched it to his chest.
“I’m not a vampire,” I said, looking into his sunken eyes. Both he and the girl were very thin. It had been their supper that Calix had shoved down his throat in the kitchen. “My friends aren’t vampires either. They’re werewolves.”
Hearing this, the girl reached for the posy of dead flowers that she had dropped.
“Wolfsbane doesn’t work on us any more than crucifixes work on vampires,” Trent said from over my shoulder. There was no harshness or ridicule in his voice.
“Those cloves of garlic you wear won’t help you none either,” Rea said.
The boy and girl looked at me.
“What my friends say is true,” I said. “The Beautiful Immortals lied to the humans about what would kill them.”
“Are you human… are you like us?” the girl asked, her eyes red-rimmed with tears.
“No,” I said, with a smile and gentle shake of my head. “I’m not human.”
“What then?” the boy asked.
“I’m a Wicce,” I said. Both boy and girl frowned at me. “I’m a witch.”
“So you’re not going to kill us then like the wolves and vampires have?” the boy asked, inching himself away from me.
“I’m not going to kill you,” I said, opening my hands so he could see that I hadn’t a concealed weapon, that my hands weren’t claws or paws. “I’m not like the Beautiful Immortals. I am born of a highly advanced culture, not the primitive one that those who are gathered behind me have come from.”
“Cheeky bitch,” I heard Rea mutter from the doorway.
I ignored her remark and continued. “My people are spiritual, we practice the arts of magic, healing, and medicine. We don’t destroy or conquer other worlds or its people even though we have the power to do so. We have transcended to a higher layer than those of the Beautiful Immortals. There is no beauty in war however beautiful those fighting may perceive themselves to be. Beauty is found in silence – not in the cries of battle.”
“When you’ve quite finished preaching perhaps you could ask the kids what they’re doing here,” Rea cut in.
“We ran from the vampires… from the werewolves and the war,” the boy said. “They took over our homes – they took over Maze.”
“Is that where you come from?” I asked.
Both the boy and girl nodded their heads.
Trent came forward and knelt beside me. “Are there any wolves left there?”
The girl shook her head and said, “The vampires killed them all.”
“Bastards,” Calix hissed from the doorway.
“Are you brother and sister?” Rea asked, coming forward. Her tone had softened a little.
“No, just friends,” the girl said, closing her hand around the boy’s. He laced his fingers through hers.
“Where are your parents?” I asked them.
The boy looked right back at me, his eyes darker than they had been before. “In the farm,” he whispered.
“But this is the farm,” Rush said, sounding a little confused.
“Not this farm,” the girl spoke up, her eyes suddenly haunted. “Our parents are in the human farm.”
Calix frowned and scratched his messy head of hair. “What the fuck is a human farm?”
“It’s where they take the humans who weren’t killed in the war,” the boy said, his voice barely a whisper. “It’s where they breed humans.”
Trent took a deep breath, what little colour he had now draining from his face. “Why would they want to breed humans?”
“To feed on, of course,” the girl whispered.
Chapter Nine
Before any of us had a chance to comprehend what the boy and girl had just told us, the distant sound of screeching could be heard. With every passing second the sound grew louder until it was at an ear-piercing pitch.
“Vampires!” Calix shouted over the unbearable sound.
Within a blink of an eye he had drawn his guns once more and so had the others
.
Trent looked at me as he drew his own and said, “I don’t think now is the time for diplomacy, do you?”
I turned to face the boy and girl. Springing to my feet, I pulled them up. I knew that it would be too dangerous for me to take them with us – the journey that lay ahead for me and my companions was a dangerous one and I couldn’t risk letting two human children tag along. But I knew that I couldn’t leave them behind to be discovered by the vampires either, or risk them being captured and taken back to the human farm they had escaped from. As Trent and the others raced toward the door, and the sound of the approaching vampires became deafening, I put my arms around the boy and girl and pulled them close.
“As long as there is one male and one female, the human race will survive,” I said, leaning in close so they could hear me. “So you must keep yourselves safe because I fear that it won’t be me who saves the humans but you.”
“But we’re just children,” the boy said, staring up into my face. “How can we defeat the Beautiful Immortals alone?”
“C’mon, Julia! We have to get away from here!” I glanced back over my shoulder to see Rush beckoning me toward the door.
I looked once more into the upturned faces of the boy and girl. They trembled at the sound of the approaching vampires. “I will come back for you, I promise. But you must do as I say.”
“But what if you are killed?” the girl said, trembling with fear now.
“Then someone like me will come for you – I promise,” I said, pulling them both closer still. “Now listen to me. I’m going to teach you some magic. This is what I want you to do.” Pressing my lips to the boy’s ear, I whispered into it.
When I said what I’d needed to, I let go of them.
“I’m scared,” the girl whispered.
“There’s no need to be scared of magic.” I winked at her. “Now do as I’ve told you.”
“C’mon, Julia!” I heard Rush roar.
I looked back again to see Rush and the others racing back along the landing toward the stairs. Turning away, I watched the boy and girl join hands and walk slowly into the darkest corner of the room. Just before I lost sight of them to the gloom, the boy looked back at me.
“There is a secret tunnel in the basement that leads away from here,” he said.
“Thank you,” I smiled.
The boy turned his back on me once more, and hand in hand he led the girl into the darkness that filled the corner of the room. Once I’d lost sight of them, I heard them both begin to chant the words I had told them until their voices fell silent.
Turning, I fled the room and raced down the landing after Rush and the others. With both my hands out before me, I clenched my fingers open and closed as my fists swelled with energy. I felt it surge through me like a bolt of lightning. With my long, black hair billowing out behind me, I charged down the stairs. Trent and the others were gathered at the bottom. There was an earthshattering crash against the front door. The frame supporting the front door began to splinter. Glass exploded into the hall from nearby windows as the vampires that now swarmed outside tried to break in, to get at us. Glancing to my left, I saw the first of the vampires scrambling through one of the broken windows. Its head was long and white, pulled out of shape by the jagged teeth that stretched like an open wound across the lower half of its pale face. The vampire’s skull was framed by a black hood. The creature thrashed at the air with a set of long bony claws. Raising one arm, I flexed open my fingers sending a surge of energy across the hallway. The vampire was propelled backwards and away from the window. The front door was now little more than splinters and the first of the vampires broke through.
“Do I have permission to fire?” Rea glanced at me, a smouldering cigar dangling from the corner of her red lips, guns clenched in both fists. “Or perhaps you think this is the right time to start your negotiations.”
Before I’d had the chance to reply, both guns were exploding in her fists as she unleased a volley of bullets at the vampires which were clambering into the farmhouse via the splintered front door. I watched the vampires’ heads disintegrate as their brains exploded out the backs of their skulls, splattering the hall walls scarlet.
“Fuckers!” Calix roared as he pumped one bullet after another into the faces of those vampires scrambling over the corpses of those now sprawled in front of the door.
Flash after flash of bright white light filled the hallway as Trent and Rush began to take aim and fire at the vampires. Over the roar of gunfire and the deafening screams, I heard what sounded like claws scraping and scratching against the upper walls and the roof of the farmhouse. And for every vampire my companions shot down, another two filled its place in the doorway and smashed windows.
Raising my hands out before me, I threw open my fingers, sending the vampires flying back through the air as if they were nothing more than a child’s kite. With a momentary gap in the tide of vampires that raced toward us, I shouted over the boom-boom-boom of gunfire at Trent and the others.
“Follow me! I know a way out of here.”
Racing back toward the stairs, I yanked open a small door beneath them and scrambled inside. There was a narrow wooden staircase that led down into utter darkness. Blindly, I raced down them, my companions at my heels and the sound of bloodthirsty vampires ringing in our ears.
Chapter Ten
“Run! Run!” I roared over my shoulder at the others as they spilled from the foot of the stairs and into the narrow passageway that we now found ourselves in. It smelt of mould and mildew and I could hear the steady drip-drip of water coming from somewhere in the darkness.
There was a sudden burst of light in the dark and I blinked. Rea had flicked on her lighter. The wavering flame lit the tunnel. The walls curved just above our heads. I looked into the well of darkness that led away from us. The black seemed to want to reach for me and drag me deep into the tunnel. I could hear the sound of screeching from overhead as the vampires searched for us.
“It isn’t going to take them long to figure out where we are,” Trent said, before setting off into the dark.
Rea flicked off her lighter, throwing us into utter darkness again. I heard the sound of the others’ footfalls disappear along the tunnel. Unlike me, the wolves had some vision in the dark. Despite my magic, I couldn’t even see my hands as I held them out before me and staggered blindly forward. I felt a hand close around mine and I yanked it away.
“I’m trying to help you,” I heard a voice whisper from the darkness. It was Calix who had spoken.
“I don’t need your help,” I said back.
“Then die,” he said over the sound of vampires racing down the stairs and into the tunnel.
Blindly, I felt for his hand in the dark. I found it and closed my fingers around his.
“Now run,” he whispered, pulling me deeper into the tunnel.
With my heart in my throat, I shot a look back over my shoulder. Although I couldn’t see the vampires, I could hear the sound of their fast approaching feet and the near deafening sound of scratching. Aiming blindly backwards with my free hand, I open and closed my fist sending a glowing sensation up my arm. I forced two bolts of lightning energy back along the tunnel. At the same time, the tunnel exploded with light, like a hundred or more camera flashes. The narrow enclosure roared with the sound of gunfire. Bullets screamed past me as Trent, Rush, and Rea shot at the approaching vampires. Still holding my hand, Calix gripped his gun with the other and unleashed a volley of bullets into the hideous creatures that made chase after us. As the tunnel continued to be illuminated by bursts of gunfire, I saw the bullets rip into the heads of the vampires as they swarmed into the tunnel. They flew backwards into the dark.
Shooting my arm out before me, I flexed my fingers, sending another shockwave of energy along the tunnel. And in the glare of gunfire, the energy that I had unleashed seemed to shimmer in streaks of blue and mauve. Those electric strobes of light appeared to take hold of one of the vampires as I made a
fist with my free hand again. Jerking my arm upwards, the vampire was lifted off its feet. I shot my arm out to my side, and further along the tunnel, the vampire was hurled into the wall. Its head made a sickening thud as it bounced off the grey stone. I clenched my fist tighter still, and the vampires’ head exploded in a blast of red and black mush.
“Fuck me,” I heard Calix gasp.
“No thanks,” I said right back.
“I didn’t mean that,” he said over the roar of gunfire exploding all about us. “If this is what you call a negotiation, I’d hate to see what you’d do if those negotiations failed.”
“Perhaps you should hope, then, that I don’t fail,” I said, shooting him a sideways look before throwing open my fingers again and sending another bolt of energy down the tunnel.
The vampires were just feet away now. Calix fired another shot and I released another wave of power from my fingertips. Bullets whizzed over my head and screamed past me in the dark, close to my face. Brick dust exploded in large clouds all around me as wayward bullets thudded into the tunnel walls. Dodging the constant wave of bullets and the bolts of energy that I was throwing at them, some of the vampires leapt at the walls. They clung on with their long, bony claws. Like giant insects, they scurried over the walls toward us. Reaching out with one fist, I clawed at the air, dragging one of the vampires from the wall, even though I hadn’t touched it. Snapping open then closing my fingers, I dragged the vampire to its feet. It hung just above the floor of the tunnel. Shaking my arm violently from left to right, the vampire began to slam into the wall. Over the constant sound of gunfire, I could hear the vampire’s bones shattering like brittle sticks. It screamed before it exploded into nothing more than a cloud of grey ash.
Another of the vampires scurried overhead. Before I’d had the chance to react or dive out of its way, it had dropped out of the dark, its face a white mask of hate peering back at me from beneath its long, black, flowing robes. Losing my grip on Calix’s hand, I stumbled backwards and onto my butt. The vampire threw itself at me. Raising my hands to protect myself from its imminent attack, I threw open both fists. I felt the shock of energy ripple through me, then out of my fingertips. In the flash of gunfire, I watched wide-eyed as the bolts of energy shone electric-blue, slamming into the vampire’s head and crushing its misshapen skull.
