The Vampire War

by Eric S. Brown

  “Hell, how do we even survive it?” Tim asked.

  “Hank has upgraded the weapons of our suits,” Scott assured them. “We’ll all be packing more firepower and ammo than on a usual op. In addition, Hank has equipped each of our mechs with shield generators. Don’t ask me how they work; I don’t have a clue. But Hank assures me these shields will offer protection powerful enough to turn a spell from a dark mage or withstand a solid, full-out blow from a master vampire.”

  “Just one?” Melissa stared at Scott.

  “Just one,” Scott confirmed, “but it’s more than we’ve had in the past. Being able to take that one spell or direct hit may just be enough to save your butts out there.”

  “Let’s assume we survive everything that may be waiting for us inside that top cave entrance,” Mina’s voice was calm, “and that somehow we do reach this throne room, or whatever. How are we supposed to stop Mavet if the psychic team fails?”

  “That’s a good question, Scott,” Tim agreed. “We’ve all seen the Psi-mech camera footage from the battle of New York. Mavet froze your mech and the others with you as if they were nothing. If Ringer hadn’t been there, forgive me, sir, but you’d be dead.”

  “I don’t have an answer to that,” Scott admitted. “Even in the best scenarios, we’ll be late to that particular party. All we can do is hope that if the psychics fail, they hurt Mavet before they go down.”

  “That’s not very reassuring.” Tim leaned back in his chair.

  “It’s the best hope we’ve got,” Scott said. “But you’re right, I do have a backup plan in place.”

  “Care to share that with the rest of us, sir?” Melissa pressed him.

  “If we reach the throne room and the psychics have failed, if Mavet simply freezes us as he did the team in New York, or we are unable to hurt him, then…”

  “You can’t be serious!” Heather blurted out as she realized what Scott had planned.

  “I am,” Scott told her. “If there’s no other way, and I really mean no other way, anyone left alive is to overload their suit’s reactor.”

  “Frag me,” Tim muttered.

  “Will that even work sir?” Mina wondered aloud. “I mean this Mavet guy is supposed to be not just a vampire, but a god, too.”

  “Hank believes that such a powerful explosion in close proximity will get the job done,” Scott explained. “Even if it doesn’t, it’ll wipe out everything else in that mountain and bring the entire place crashing down on Mavet. Best case, we kill the bastard. Worst case, we slow him down and give the world’s governments some time to take their own shot at him.”

  “This totally sounds like a suicide run,” Heather shook her head.

  “It is what it is,” Scott told her. “Now if there are no more questions, we need to get suited up. It’s almost time to roll out, people.”

  There were no more questions and the pre-op briefing came to an end. Scott watched his people file out of the room heading for the mech hangar. Newbies and veterans alike, they were all good pilots. He hoped some of them would make it out of the mountain alive…no matter how things played out.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 22

  Hank was exhausted. He’d been working nonstop since the preparations for the North Carolina strike began. His body was running on stims and energy drinks as he approached Donald in the mech hangar. The young precog wore a suit of lightweight, flexible combat armor Hank had designed for him. Donald appeared rundown as well, but more frustrated than anything. Hank knew Donald would be accompanying the other psychics to the lower entrance into the mountain’s system of tunnels. Hank would be the only psi in the company not going with them. Normally, he’d have raised hell over that. If the others would be risking their lives, Hank felt like he should be out there alongside them. Tonight, though, he was too tired to put up a fight. And Donald had already given him a good reason why he wasn’t going with them.

  For the duration of the strike in North Carolina, the warehouse base was being evacuated. The dark mages had shown their ability to replicate Eddie’s doorways through magical means. That gave them the power to hit back at the heart of Psi-Mechs, Inc. inside the base if they became pressed enough to try it. All the company’s psychics and Psi-mechs would be in the field for the battle, but the support staff would be vulnerable to such a counterattack, if one came. Donald had decided the best option was merely to abandon the base until things were concluded in North Carolina.

  The support staff would be let go on a temporary basis and called back if they were needed. They would be sent home with ample pay, and the means to protect themselves, if the battle was lost, and the vampires came hunting for them later. Not only did this help to protect them, it assured that there would be survivors from the company who could inform the government about what had happened if everyone on the strike teams was taken out. Though Hank didn’t really think the governments of the world and their military forces had a prayer against Mavet if Psi-Mechs, Inc. failed, warning them of what was coming their way at least gave them a chance to put up a fight. Hank wasn’t heading home like the support staff, though. He would be aboard the Cerebus and taking over the monitoring and coordination of the two teams hitting the mountain. Hank was cool with that. In many ways, it actually made him the world’s last line of defense.

  The Cerebus was a fast, heavily armed and armored airship decades ahead of anything else out there. Its array of weapon systems ranged from conventional and energy weapons to two homemade mini-nukes Hank had whipped up. In the event the mission failed, Hank could send out a warning to the company’s global contacts in various governments, then nuke the mountain Mavet was holed up in. Hank planned to keep the Cerebus cloaked (another of his inspired inventions) and circling within a three-minute range of the mountain at full combat speed. Donald’s orders to him were to only engage Mavet’s forces if they tried to flee the mountain or the mission failed. Otherwise, he was to just hang back and observe, helping however he could over the comms.

  “Hank,” Donald said, noticing him. “Is everything ready?”

  Sighing, he answered, “We’re as ready as we can be. I’ll have the Cerebus in the air and en route in the next few minutes.”

  “See that you do.” Donald nodded.

  Hank hesitated. “What about you, Donald? Are you ready?”

  The question was a personal one, but Hank was long past being afraid of pushing things in the face of situations like the one ahead of them.

  Donald appeared puzzled by the question.

  “What do you mean?” the young precog asked.

  “I was there when you took out the worm monster, Donald, and I know what we’re heading into now is a completely different deal. When you really think about it, we don’t have much of a plan for tonight, and that’s not like you,” Hank explained.

  “I am…troubled,” Donald admitted. “I cannot see what lies ahead. It’s as if the long-term future is closed to me.”

  “It’ll be the short term that matters if you’re going to be fighting vampires with the rest of them,” Hank commented.

  “Yes,” Donald agreed. “I can still see far enough ahead to be effective in combat. I have confidence I will be able to match the prowess I exhibited against the worm creature.”

  Hank stared at the young precog, not knowing what else to say.

  “Are you okay, Hank? Your behavior this evening is odd, even for you,” Donald asked.

  “I’m running on fumes, Donald,” Hank said. “That’s all.”

  “Do you need be relieved from your duties aboard the Cerebus?” Donald queried.

  Hank laughed. “Nobody can fly her like me, Donald. I built her.”

  “That was not what I asked, Hank.” Donald frowned.

  “Don’t worry about me, Donald. I got this,” Hank assured the precog.

  “I shall not then,” Donald promised him, noticing Eddie getting ready to conjure the first transport portal. “You had best be going. The Cerebus’ travel t
ime will be much longer than ours.”

  “Roger that.” Hank grinned. “See ya out there, Donald.”

  The tele-mechanic hurried to the Cerebus, boarding her. Hank strapped into the pilot seat and began running a series of pre-flight checks. All systems were green. The rear of Psi-Mechs, Inc.’s warehouse base touched the water of the harbor at the edge of the city. A section of it appearing in every way to be a normal dock raised itself upward, and the Cerebus rose from the waves beneath it. An observer couldn’t see the ship, though, as Hank had already brought its cloak online. The Cerebus drifted slowly higher and higher into the air. Hank kept her aimed out at the water. He flipped a switch on the ship’s control console.

  “This is the Cerebus,” he said over the open comlink to those still in the warehouse. “See you in North Carolina when the party’s over.”

  Be safe out there, Hank, Tonya Bellmore’s mental voice told him.

  Pouring power to the ship’s engines, Hank punched it. The Cerebus shot forward, accelerating as it went.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 23

  Mavet’s throne room was empty except for himself, Elick, Nazar, and Mot. Mot was merely an observer, present in case something arose that needed fetching or attending to. Elick and Nazar were there to assist Mavet in the final ritual required open the gates of time and space to allow the entity the god vampire served onto the earthly plane.

  Entrails, bits and pieces of once-human bodies, and bones littered the floor of the throne room. The blood that slicked the floor around them gleamed a wet red in the light of the few torches that adorned the room’s walls.

  Mavet was nearly overcome with joy as he spoke the entity’s true name for the first time. “Non, Lord of Oblivion, Master of the Darkness, God of Madness, I beseech thee, hear your humble servant!”

  Both Elick and Nazar chanted ancient words beyond the realm of human comprehension beside Mavet like backup singers keeping the beat.

  The throne room shook as something on the other side of reality stirred from eons of slumber. Dirt and dust fell from the ceiling to the floor below. The walls of the throne room trembled but held.

  “I call upon thee, my master!” Mavet cried out. “Your time has come! On this day, upon this world, you will be free once more!”

  With that said, the floor of the throne room parted to reveal a pit filled with rotting human remains. Hundreds upon hundreds of dead men, women, and children were amassed within it, the limbs of their corpses entangled and their blood mingling into a vast pool of red that covered the bulk of corpses beneath it. In the center of the corpses was a star-shaped emerald jewel. It glowed from the arcane energy already trapped inside it as Mavet stepped to the edge of the pit, his hands extended toward the jewel. Clenching and unclenching his fingers, the god vampire pulled the power contained within the bodies of the pit toward and into the emerald star. Its glow grew brighter each time the god vampire’s fingers uncurled.

  Elick and Nazar kept up their chanting. Mavet watched it all in awe and horror. He had walked the streets of Babylon, witnessed the fall of Rome, feasted upon the blood of Roanoke colonists, been a colonel of the SS during the days of World War II, helped keep the Cold War between America and Russia from growing hot, as such a thing would have been a threat to his food supply, and even reveled in the growing Goth trend in America as it came into being, but never in all those long years had he witnessed anything such as he was seeing right now. This was a new beginning, not just for his kind, but for all of humanity as well. His god’s god was coming home.

  “Awaken, Non!” Mavet bellowed. “Awaken from the long eons and come forth so that your divine darkness may engulf this wretched world and all who dwell upon it!”

  Mavet could feel Non stirring; a power was rising, so intense it was almost orgasmic to behold. He had waited so very, very long for this moment to come. Now it was finally within his reach. All that was left to do was finish charging the emerald talisman to the point of bursting, and Non would be released from his eternal prison. But something was wrong. Something nagged at the edges of Mavet’s perceptions.

  Elick stopped his chanting, shooting a concerned look at Mavet.

  “You feel it too?” the dark mage asked.

  “I do.” Mavet nodded.

  “It’s them!” Nazar screeched. “They are coming!”

  “Surely not, not now,” Elick rasped.

  “The demon is right,” Mavet growled. “It’s the psycho-porter. He’s opening a portal to this mountain.”

  “Can we stop him?” Elick asked.

  “Not without disrupting the energy of the ritual.” Mavet’s fangs were bared as he spoke. “We are too close for me to stop now. The three of you, go! Stop the humans; whatever it takes. Do not allow them to reach this chamber before I am done.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Elick, Nazar, and Mot chorused in answer. The demon blinked out of existence, taking a shorter path to its prey, while Mot and Elick sprinted out of the throne room-turned-ritual-chamber to deal with the interlopers, before they had the chance to interfere in the summoning.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 24

  The mouth of the cave on the mountain’s north side was wide and hundreds of feet above the forest below it. The night was clear, and stars filled the sky. The moon was bright and reaching its zenith above the mountain. Patrols of bats flew here and there, keeping an eye out for unwanted visitors. A ledge extended from the mouth of the cave, large enough for a dozen men to stand upon. Just inside the cave’s mouth stood three sentries, two of whom were vampires. One was a man dressed in a punk rock t-shirt and jeans, his hair tied in braids that hung from the sides of his head. The other was a woman dressed in a sleek leather bodysuit, with matching knives hanging sheathed on the belt wrapped about her thin waistline. Their skin was pale, almost as white as snow. Their eyes glowed a blood-colored shade of red. The other sentry was a young man adorned in black robes. In one hand he held an AK-47, while his other grasped the arcane symbol that hung down onto his chest from the necklace he wore.

  It was a special night. The coming of Mavet’s master was at hand. Each of them were keenly alert, attuned to the darkness around them in their own ways. Their efforts did them no good whatsoever. In a flash of shimmering light, the night changed, and metal feet clanged against the rock of the ledge. Where there had been nothing, there were now six mechanized warriors howling directly toward them.

  “I’ve got the vampire on the right!” Scott shouted over his Psi-mech’s comm.

  “I’ve got the left!” Tim’s voice answered him.

  A blast of fully-automatic shotgun fire struck the mage between the two vampires as the Psi-mechs closed on their targets. Fist-sized holes punched through the mage’s chest and stomach as his body went flying backward to land with a thud inside the cave. Then Eddie was gone, leaving the mechs to their work.

  The arm blades of Scott’s Psi-mech were already deployed. He rammed one into and through the male vampire, pinning the undead creature to the rock of the cave’s mouth. The vampire raged against the blade impaling his body as its silver burned within him. Scott’s left arm blade flickered through the air, slashing across the vampire’s neck and separating his head from his shoulders.

  Tim plowed into the female vampire, using the weight and momentum of his Psi-mech to knock her over. She lay sprawled at his feet as Tim aimed the heavy, modified SAW his mech carried at her. Bullets ripped and tore at her flesh as he opened fire. The rounds the modified SAW pounded her with were not only silver, they also contained bits of wood within them. The female vampire rolled about beneath the shower of lead hammering her until one of Tim’s rounds found her heart. Her eyes went wide in the instant before her entire body erupted in supernatural flames, burning her to ashes.

  Mina and Melissa hadn’t failed to notice the bats circling nearby. They engaged the vampires-turned-animals, their SAWs roaring in the night, and Zach joined in. Like Scott, his mech carried no external weapon. A fl
amethrower unit emerged atop his right arm, a geyser of flames spraying outward from it at the closest of the bats. Squeals of pain echoed down the mountain as the creatures burned, their flesh melting away from their bodies and their leathery wings popping and curling up from the heat. The dead bats plummeted into the woods below the mountain, vanishing from sight.

  “This way!” Scott barked over the squad’s comlink. His Psi-mech charged into the cave ahead of the others, and a group of six snarling vampires rushed to meet it. The tunnel was as wide as its opening, giving Scott’s Psi-mech room to maneuver. None of the vampires were armed with anything but their claws and supernatural strength, and Scott sank his right arm blade into the lead vampire’s stomach and jerked it upward, cutting the vampire’s upper body in two. The creature died as blood flew, and flames erupted to carry it on into the true death.

  Heather and Zach were next to enter the cave behind Scott. Heather’s SAW bucked in the hands of her Psi-mech as she targeted the approaching vampires. Zach switched weapons, his mech’s flamethrower unit snapping back inside the top of its right arm as the barrels of autocannons sprouted from the undersides of his Psi-mech’s wrists. The barrage of fire from the two Psi-mechs brought the charging vampires to a quick end.

  Scott, Heather, and Zach came to a halt as Melissa, Tim, and Mina caught up to them. Beyond where they’d slain the second group of vampires, the tunnel they were in opened up, splitting off in several directions.

  “Which way, boss?” Heather asked over the comm.

  “We should split up,” Scott answered. “We can do more damage that way. Everybody pick a partner and get moving.”

  Mina and Tim raced down the tunnel to the right as Heather and Zach headed left.