The Vampire War

by Eric S. Brown

  A Psi-mech on Scott’s right flank wasn’t so lucky. Its pilot had opted to follow Scott’s lead and had extended her arm blades to engage the snarling monster coming at her up close, dropping her SAW in the process. It was a rookie mistake, and one the pilot paid dearly for. The werewolf closed, ducking a slash of the Psi-mech’s right blade as it swung through the air over the monster. Catching the Psi-mech’s other arm, the werewolf held its left-hand blade at bay while the werewolf plunged its free hand into the Psi-mech’s faceplate, shattering it. The pilot screamed as shards of glass exploded into her face and eyes, leaving her blinded. Shoving the Psi-mech off balance, the werewolf threw it over into the water, leaping on top of it. The beast tore at the mech with its claws, trying to get at the flesh of the pilot inside. It succeeded by tearing away the lower half of her Psi-mech’s front, and most of the pilot along with it, in the same swipe of its claws.

  The third werewolf met a blast of silver rounds from a Psi-mech’s arm cannon and died before reaching its intended target.

  Scott swung at the pouncing alpha werewolf, and sparks flew as the wolf parried his strike with its claws, turning his blade away from its body. Scott had braced himself against the impact of the wolf as it plowed into him, but even so, the beast was so strong that it knocked his Psi-mech backward. Scott managed to keep the alpha werewolf from taking him down, though, and that saved him as he was able to regain his balance quickly as the alpha werewolf roared and closed on him again. Scott’s Psi-mech and the alpha werewolf traded a flurry of strikes, machine against monster. The alpha werewolf couldn’t get past his swords, nor he its claws.

  For a moment it seemed as if the two of them were locked in a stalemate, until Scott opened fire with his Psi-mech’s shoulder-mounted railgun. It spat a stream of high-powered rounds that hammered into the alpha werewolf’s chest, shredding its flesh and punching through its rib cage. The alpha werewolf’s yellow eyes went wide, as if noticing the railgun for the first time, too late. It staggered from the wounds Scott had inflicted upon it. His railgun’s rounds were laced with silver, which now burned like the deadliest of poisons in its bloodstream. The beast’s sheer size, and the fact that it was an alpha, were the only things that saved it from being killed instantly.

  Scott’s Psi-mech surged forward, the blade of his right arm slicing across the alpha werewolf’s throat before the monster could react. Blood poured from its throat, over the hair of the alpha werewolf’s savaged chest as the blazing yellow of the beast’s eyes dimmed. The alpha werewolf stared at Scott’s Psi-mech for a second longer before it toppled face-first to splash into the water at his feet.

  The two remaining werewolves were outnumbered two to one, and the black-robed, gun-toting humans had been completely wiped out. Scott pushed his Psi-mech to its limits, coming up on one of the werewolves from behind. The blade on his left arm entered the wolf’s body at its shoulder and cut downward at an angle into the beast’s body all the way to its sternum. Scott slid the blade free of the collapsing corpse. The last werewolf had seen the alpha fall, and had no desire to stick around and continue the battle on its own. As it made a run for the thicker trees of the swamp, two of Scott’s fellow Psi-mech pilots targeted the monster. High-powered silver rounds ripped its upper torso to bits.

  As fast as it had begun, the battle was over. Scott’s Psi-mech was the only one left that hadn’t taken damage that impaired any of its systems. One of the other mechs had a damaged arm that hung uselessly at its side. Another was limping, dragging a claw-torn leg with each step it took. And the mech belonging to the newest of his pilots, Lex Hayworth, was barely able to stay on its feet. It looked to have taken damage to its power core and was running solely on its backup systems.

  Still, they’d survived, and they had a job to do. Scott returned his attention to the bunker-like base. “We’ve cleared the path,” Scott growled over his Psi-mech’s comm. “Now it’s time to open the way. All units still able to deploy rockets, target that main door and fire at will.”

  Twin volleys of armor-piercing high-explosive rockets blasted into the heavy bulkhead doors of the base. Some of them detonated on contact, while others punched through the bulkhead doors before going off. When the smoke cleared, the heavy doors blocking the entrance to the base lay in the water of the swamp, mangled pieces of barely recognizable metal.

  “Eddie, this is Scott,” he said. “Phase Two is a go!”

  A shimmering trans-dimensional gateway formed between where the Psi-mechs stood and the now-open entrance of the base. Katherine, Tonya, Selah, Hank, and two armed Psi-mech techs emerged from it. They rushed headlong into the base, weapons at the ready.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 13

  Katherine led the charge into the base, with Hank bringing up the rear. Several black-robed defenders ran along the corridor to meet them. Katherine hit them tearing into their ranks as they began to raise the weapons they carried toward the group. Her katana took one’s head, opened the chest of another, and severed the arms of a third at the elbows. She moved with supernatural speed, dispatching one black-robed defender after another. Only two of the half dozen that had been coming at the group were even able to discharge their weapons at Katherine. One of them ended up shooting one of his comrades in the back trying to get at her, and Katherine reached the other one in time to knock the barrel of her weapon downward so the rounds she fired sparked against the floor of the corridor, ricocheting up from it. The black-robed woman grunted as one of her own bullets came back at her, digging into her groin, before Katherine’s fist caved her face inward.

  “So far resistance has been light,” Donald’s voice echoed in Katherine’s mind as her son addressed everyone in the Psi-squad she led via the telepathic link Tonya had connected them all with. “Expect it to get worse as you get deeper into the base.”

  Katherine had picked up her speed after tearing through the initial group of defenders, and only Selah had managed to keep up with her. Tonya and Hank had fallen behind, but Katherine preferred it that way. In her opinion, Hank had no business being in the field; without him, the company wouldn’t be able to carry on as it did now. Hank had trained several of his techs as best as he could, but not one of them could match the tele-mechanic’s intuitive understanding and knowledge of how the Psi-mechs worked. She was keenly aware of just how priceless and irreplaceable Hank was, which was why she’d fought so hard to keep him back at base instead of on the front lines when she’d run the company.

  As Katherine continued sprinting along the corridor deeper into the base, she felt the air change around her. She knew the change was born of foul magic, and she turned to warn Selah to stop but it was too late. The redheaded psycho-metabolist had already entered the same area Katherine had. It felt as if they were falling, then they suddenly lurched to a halt. The corridor around them was gone, and the two of them stood in a large circular room with a pentagram drawn upon its floor in blood, long dried. The room was dark, lit only by a series of well-placed candles, whose light kept the darkness from being complete. A hooded dark mage stood in the center of the room. Katherine could tell from the dark mage’s posture and scent that they weren’t dealing with just another of the human gun-toting defenders that they had been. This dark mage had power—lots of it.

  “Elick,” Katherine Grimm said, remembering the name.

  “Welcome, Ms. Grimm,” Elick hissed. “I wasn’t expecting you to bring along a friend, but no matter. She won’t be able to help you.”

  Squid-like tentacles erupted from the black floor of the room, twisting toward Selah. The psycho-metabolist met the first of them with her katana. Its blade bit deeply into the squirming flesh of the tentacle, and greenish blood sprayed outward from the wound. Katherine watched as Selah attempted to wrench her blade free for another strike, but couldn’t. It was stuck and held fast in the regrowing flesh of the already closing wound she’d dealt the tentacle. Selah struggled to keep her hold on the sword, but the tentacle snapped back away fr
om her, taking her weapon with it. Other tentacles shot forward, wrapping about Selah’s arms and legs, lifting her from the floor. Katherine saw Selah’s muscles grow, bulging to the point of tearing through the sleeves that covered her arms, as the psycho-metabolist pumped strength into her limbs and struggled to break free. It was a vain effort. The tentacles continued to hold her, wrapping more tightly about her. Selah’s expression was one of helpless pain as another tentacle wrapped over and around the lower portion of her face, covering her mouth so she couldn’t scream.

  Elick was laughing. “You and your people, Ms. Grimm…you just don’t know when to quit.”

  “I could say the same thing about you and your master,” Katherine spat.

  Elick snorted. “Regardless of what happens here now, Ms. Grimm, you have arrived too late. My job is done. The lord god Mavet has what he needs now to open the doorway to where his master waits. Soon this world will be devoured by flames and madness, and in their wake, the night shall be eternal.”

  Katherine stared at Elick, wondering if he was bluffing.

  “You know me better than that, Katherine Grimm,” Elick told her, then tilted his head sideways like an animal studying its prey. “Or perhaps you don’t,” the dark mage admitted. “It was I, after all, who cleansed the memories of the time you spent with us from your mind.”

  “You…?” Katherine stammered. “But I thought…”

  “What you thought is irrelevant. You know I speak the truth.” Elick cackled. “I have heard the lord Mavet found you an excellent lover, but when he grew tired of you, it was I who cleaned up the mess and sent you back to your cage.”

  Something snapped inside Katherine as Elick’s words sank in. Snarling, she raced forward, swinging her blade in a mighty arc intent on taking the dark mage’s head from his shoulders. Elick was no fool, though; he’d prepared spells to deal with her. By merely raising his hand in her direction, a bolt of crackling lightning shot from the scaly flesh of his exposed palm to strike her. The bolt hit her in the center of her chest, and her muscles seized up as the electrical discharge cooked her body. She was frozen in an eternity of searing pain that in reality lasted only a fraction of a second. Tendrils of smoke rose from her back where she lay sprawled face down upon the floor.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 14

  Outside the sphere of magical displacement, Hank and Tonya skidded to a halt as they came upon a barrier of twisting and slithering darkness that blocked their way in the corridor.

  “What the devil is that?” Tonya rasped.

  “Careful!” Hank warned. “Don’t touch that stuff!”

  “We have to get through it, Hank, whatever it is. Grimm and Selah are on the other side, alone,” Tonya said as she took a step back from the wall of darkness, annoyed that the tele-mechanic hadn’t answered her question.

  “What is it, Hank?” she asked again.

  “Magic isn’t really my thing, Bellmore,” Hank answered, “but if I had to guess, it’s the edge of some sort of temporal and spacial displacement spell.”

  “Great.” Tonya made a disgruntled face. “How do we get through it?”

  “I’m working on it,” Hank scolded her. “Just give me a minute to think, okay?”

  Hank continued, talking to himself more than her, “All energy is energy, magical or not. We’ve just got to figure out a means of redirecting it, shutting it down, or forcing an opening in it.”

  Tonya didn’t tell Hank that he was stating the obvious. She kept her mouth shut and let the tele-mechanic do his job.

  “I think we can do it with a powerful enough EMP discharge,” Hank muttered, and then turned to her. “Tell Eddie to go to my work lab and grab a bandolier of EMP grenades.”

  Tonya didn’t say anything; she just concentrated and sent Hank’s message to Eddie.

  Hank and Tonya watched for other defenders of the base. There were several other corridors they could have emerged from at any moment, but none did. About two minutes ticked by before Eddie appeared in the corridor they were in, carrying the bandolier Hank had asked for. The tele-mechanic snatched it out of Eddie’s hands.

  “You need to be gone from here before I set these off, Eddie,” Hank said.

  “If those are what I think they are, then heck yeah I do.” Eddie nodded.

  Eddie vanished through the same gateway he’d come through. It closed in the wake of his departure, leaving Tonya and Hank alone in the corridor again.

  “EMP grenades,” Tonya said. “Will they be strong enough to punch through that crap?”

  “I’m hoping they will be,” Hank nodded as he set their timers. “Let’s move.”

  Hank and Tonya moved back around the bend in the corridor. The EMP grenades detonated, and the barrier of darkness shimmered, grew lighter, then imploded upon itself. Beyond where it had blocked the corridor was a large open room lit only by candlelight. Within it, tentacles coiled around Selah and held her above the room’s floor as she struggled to break free of them. Her katana lay beneath her, out of the psycho-metabolist’s reach. Katherine was sprawled out, unconscious, with a dark-robed figure approaching her. The figure came to a halt at the sight of them. Purple eyes burned bright with bitter fury from beneath the hood that shrouded the dark mage’s face.

  “More psychics come to play?” the dark mage taunted. “Unexpected, I will admit, but nonetheless, you have come only to your deaths.”

  More tentacles like those holding Selah sprouted from the floor of the room, stretching toward Hank and Tonya.

  “Screw that!” Hank yelled, tossing a cryo-grenade at them. The grenade burst apart in a shower of ice that froze the reaching tentacles solid. Tonya shattered the tentacles with several well-placed shots from her pistol.

  The dark mage flipped his hood back in anger. Beneath it was no human face. His features were snake-like and scales, not skin, covered his body. A forked tongue flicked in and out of his mouth before he spoke again.

  “Ah yes, you are the tele-mechanic,” the dark mage hissed. “I’ve heard much about your prowess with machines and technology.”

  “Always nice to meet a fan,” Hank quipped as he drew the weapon holstered on his right leg. Jerking the large tri-barreled gun free, Hank took aim at the snake creature that stood on two legs like a man.

  “Its name is Elick,” Tonya told Hank.

  Elick’s purple eyes moved to glance at her. “And you would be the telepath, then. It will be my sincere pleasure to bring you to your end, my dear…and perhaps then, you and I can have some fun of our own.”

  Tonya shuddered at the implications of Elick’s words but didn’t hesitate. She brought her pistol level with his chest and squeezed its trigger in rapid succession. Her pistol barked and bucked in her hands as she put a trio of rounds into the dark mage’s heart. Each one struck exactly where she’d aimed, silver bullets piercing robes and scales alike. Elick stumbled backward but managed to remain on his feet.

  “Impressive, Ms. Bellmore,” Elick said with a snort, “but then, you were always a fighter, weren’t you? At least that’s how Katherine Grimm thought of you, at any rate. You were among those she kept mentally crying out to for help during the nights she spent with my master and myself.”

  “You raped her mind, and he raped her body,” Tonya sneered, getting ready to fire again, “and I’m going to see to it personally that you burn in hell for it, you freak.”

  “Please, do try!” Elick giggled like a mad child, his hands swinging away from the front of his body to return and meet in a massive clap like a sonic boom that sent both her and Hank rolling across the floor of the room.

  Hank’s ears were ringing and hurt like hell, but he’d stayed conscious. Tonya on the other hand was out. His tri-barreled weapon was several feet from where he lay. Ignoring the pain he was in, Hank leaped toward it. A bolt of energy exploded from Elick’s right palm, coming at him. It missed the tele-mechanic narrowly as he hit the floor and rolled away from it. The crackling energy slashed through
the air above him, singing the hair on the back of his head and neck. Had it made contact, Hank knew he’d be dead. His fingers closed on his weapon and he readied one of its barrels to be fired, springing to his feet. The top barrel of Hank’s weapon boomed and flashed as it fired a cylinder at the inhuman dark mage.

  Elick whipped a hand through the air in a circle in front of where he stood, conjuring a magical shield to block the incoming round. The cylinder-shaped round struck the shimmering barrier with several times the force of a round from an elephant gun but didn’t break through it. Cackling, Elick taunted him as he stopped the tele-mechanic’s attack cold.

  “Your technology will never match the power of magic, little man,” Elick said as a sneer spread across his serpent-like mouth.

  Hank didn’t waste his energy making a witty comeback; instead, he took another shot at the dark mage. His weapon boomed a second time, and the round it fired broke apart during its flight toward the dark mage. Dozens of smaller rounds sprang from its primary casing. Half of them collided with the front of Elick’s mystical barrier, while the other half streaked around him to strike from behind where he stood. They, too, hit the barrier. All the secondary rounds were in place before the larger round they’d emerged from hit. When it did, all of the smaller rounds clinging to the mystical barrier lit up. Energy flowed from one to another, engulfing the entire barrier at the speed of light.

  “No!” Elick wailed as the barrier broke apart and Hank fired his last round. A geyser of fire sprayed from Hank’s weapon like Dragon’s Breath, engulfing the now defenseless dark mage. Elick’s cries rose in pitch as the dark mage turned and ran, his robes burning against the scales of his body.