The Vampire War

by Eric S. Brown

  The temperature plummeted sharply inside Melissa’s Psi-mech, from comfortable to arctic cold, in a heartbeat. She felt something on her legs. Melissa began screaming as whatever was down there started oozing up her body.

  “Scott!” Melissa cried in her panic. There was nothing he could do to help her, though, and she knew it. The thing was inside her suit with her. Melissa screamed again as something slashed through the flesh of her stomach, entering her body. Her eyes rolled up to show only whites as her body twitched and she took her final breath.

  “Melissa?” Scott asked. “What is it? What’s happening?”

  The faceplate of Melissa’s Psi-mech took on an orange glow as it turned toward him, her modified SAW leveled at his own mech. Scott threw his Psi-mech sideways as Melissa opened fire. High-powered rounds streaked by Scott’s mech, narrowly missing it.

  “That ain’t Melissa in there anymore!” Tim shouted, taking aim at the Psi-mech with his pistol. The weapon roared, sending a stream of fully-automatic fire at the mech. The bullets sparked against the Psi-mech’s armor, bouncing harmlessly off of it. The laughter that rang out from inside the possessed Psi-mech was utterly demonic, like a chorus of demented voices shrieking gleefully all at the same time.

  The possessed Psi-mech emptied its SAW at Tim. Scott watched as the poor bastard tried to dodge the incoming high-powered rounds. They ripped Tim to bits, splattering his blood everywhere. There wasn’t much left of him to fall to the ground.

  Scott used the distraction to close on the demon. His Psi-mech charged into the demon’s with a loud clang of metal meeting metal, and the demon’s mech staggered backward. Scott pressed his momentary advantage to shove one of his armor blades directly into the suit’s power core. The Psi-mech instantly shut down, arms drooping at its sides, as the orange glow of its faceplate went out.

  Liquid blackness oozed from the Psi-mech through the cracks of its armor. The putrid mess congealed into the man in white, sitting on the floor of the tunnel at the Psi-mech’s feet.

  “That was most impressive,” Nazar smiled, “but you’ve already lost this battle, Scott. Your silver and wood will do nothing to me.”

  “You’re right about that,” Scott admitted, raising one of his suit’s arms toward the demon. “But you see…Hank figured we’d find you here, too.”

  Nazar cocked his head like an animal, staring at Scott as if trying to understand what he meant.

  A mini missile launcher deployed itself from the underside of Scott’s extended arm. A rocket tipped with an iron head erupted from the launcher, streaking toward Nazar. The startled demon tried to leap to its feet, but there was no time. The rocket entered Nazar’s chest through his sternum and blew him apart in a shower of gore.

  “That one was for Tim and Melissa, you bastard,” Scott swore.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 31

  Eddie gawked at the spot where his portal had appeared, only to collapse inward on itself. He couldn’t bring himself to believe it had happened. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as he glance over at Donald. The young precog’s mouth was open as if to scream a warning. Or rather, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion—except Mavet. The vampire god had exploded from beneath the debris and came charging at them. Eddie strained, trying to open another portal, but Mavet struck him before he could finish the attempt. The vampire god plowed into him like a football player, and Eddie heard the bones in his right arm snap. Intense pain flared in his chest as several ribs gave way from the force of the impact. The next thing Eddie knew, he was flying through the air. He slammed into the floor of the vast chamber, skidding across it. Before Eddie had stopped moving, Mavet whirled about, heading for the young precog.

  One of Donald’s sai still jutted out of Mavet’s temple, and the vampire god yanked it free as he ran at the young man. It took every ounce of Donald’s speed to dodge the weapon as Mavet thrust it at him. Donald brought his elbow down on Mavet’s arm, knocking the sai from the vampire god’s grasp, and it clattered to the floor between them. Donald spun, delivering a kick to Mavet’s jaw that would have smashed the bone in a normal human. It didn’t faze the vampire god. Mavet roared in anger, making a grab for the young precog. Donald flipped through the air over Mavet to land on his other side, but Mavet wasn’t letting him get away that easily. With supernatural speed, Mavet turned in time to land a blow to Donald’s midsection. It flung the precog like a rag doll into the wall of the chamber. Donald slid down and slumped onto the floor, unconscious.

  Eddie watched helplessly from where he lay as Mavet moved to retrieve the young precog’s silver sai. Mavet was grinning from ear to ear as he approached Donald with it. Eddie tried to cry out, get Mavet’s attention, but with his broken ribs, he could barely even breathe.

  Mavet squatted in front of Donald where he lay unconscious. The vampire god reached out with one hand to snare Donald by his hair. He lifted the precog’s head, exposing his throat, then drove the sai into it. Blood splashed over Mavet’s hand as he twisted the sai around inside Donald’s neck. When he was finished, Mavet raised the blade of the sai to his lips and licked the young precog’s still-warm blood.

  “No!” Katherine Grimm screamed at the top of her lungs as she, Ringer, and Selah entered the chamber. She charged straight at Mavet. Eddie saw Selah spot him, and she altered her path to come to the psycho-porter’s aid. Ringer skidded to an abrupt halt, allowing Katherine first crack at the creature they’d come to kill.

  Mavet threw up a hand to block the swing of Katherine’s katana as it whistled through the air toward his neck. The sword slashed through flesh and bone alike, severing his hand at the wrist. Putrid, black blood spurted from the stump where Mavet’s hand had been attached, and the vampire god roared in pain and anger. The vampire god’s hand flopped onto the floor with a wet thud as he reeled away from the fury of Katherine Grimm.

  “This is not over!” Mavet promised as a dark portal opened next to him and the vampire god vanished through it.

  “You’re damned right it’s not,” Katherine Grimm snarled, but Mavet was already gone.

  “How in the hell did he do that?” Selah asked from where she knelt next to Eddie.

  “Magic,” Eddie croaked, “I could feel it.”

  Katherine Grimm stood over the corpse of her dead son, shoulders slumped, her body shaking with sobs. Tears of blood streamed down over the curves of her cheeks. Ringer started toward her, but she must have sensed him moving.

  “Don’t,” Katherine said in voice no louder than a whisper but filled with indescribable pain.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 32

  Hank sat in the pilot’s seat of the Cerebus. The sleek battleship hovered a few miles away from Mavet’s mountain base. The tele-mechanic hadn’t really been able to keep up with what was happening inside the mountain. Despite even his best efforts—and that was saying a great deal—something about the mountain blocked the comm signals of the two squads that had entered it. Hank had been bored at first, keeping an eye out for any vampires trying to take flight and escape the battle via the ship’s long-range sensors, but the skies had stayed clear.

  When he felt Tonya Bellmore die, that changed everything for him. The two of them weren’t super close, but like most everyone who had worked for Psi-Mechs, Inc. as long as they had, she was family. Her loss stung him, prompting him into action. Hank fiddled with the Cerebus’ sensors, realigning them time and time again, until he was able to pick up the bio-signatures of the two squads. He’d watched the lights that were Scott’s pilots blink out one by one on his screen, cringing at each death. Each of the mechs had their own sensor signature, so it was easy to tell who was who, and that Scott was still alive. That gave him some comfort at least. The two of them were longtime friends who had worked closely together on the Psi-mechs for years.

  The psychics were also easy to identify once he’d gotten the sensors working. They, like the mechs, had their own distinct power signatures, based on thei
r psychic abilities. All of them had gone into the mountain knowing that some of them would never come out, but no one had really expected a slaughter on the level that was unfolding.

  Tonya was only the first of the core group of the senior company psychics to die. Richard went next. Hank had liked the newbie. Richard had proven himself while Katherine Grimm was held captive by the vampire god and his minions. It was the third death among the squad of psychics that rattled Hank the worst, though. He couldn’t believe it when Donald Grimm’s signature went dark. Unable to accept it, Hank ran a full systems check, twice, before admitting that the precog was dead. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of effect his loss would have on his mother. Katherine Grimm was not a woman you wanted to mess with. To kill her son? That had to entitle you to whole new level of Hell as yet undreamt of.

  Leaning back in his chair and fighting back tears for the kid, Hank continued to watch the sensor screen. After Donald’s death, things looked to have slowed down inside the mountain, as if the battle was over. With Tonya gone and something within the mountain messing with the comms, there was no way those inside could let him know if the battle was over, won or lost. Hank figured he would find out soon enough. Either the mountain would blow up, or someone from the two squads would make their way back out and contact him. All he could do was continue to wait and watch the skies for fleeing vampires.

  An alarm lit up on the control console in front of him just as the intruder alert klaxon began to blare, echoing off the walls of the pilot compartment. The warning light indicated a massive buildup of energy inside the ship’s cargo hold. Whatever it was had disappeared quickly, but something had come out of it, activating the intruder alert. It couldn’t be Eddie. The Cerebus would have recognized the energy signature generated by one of his portals as friendly, merely notifying Hank. Eddie’s presence wouldn’t have tripped the alarm. The tele-mechanic knew that the dark mages in Mavet’s employ had magics that could mimic Eddie’s gift. That meant one or more of them had just come aboard.

  There was no one he could turn to for help. He was alone aboard the Cerebus—or he had been until his uninvited guest or guests had shown up. There was no way to call for help, either. Everyone else was still inside the mountain where he couldn’t reach them. If Tonya had been alive, things would have been different. He’d have only needed to cry out to her mind…but she was dead, and that meant he really was on his own. Hank had been in tons of combat situations over the years, but right now, in the wake of Donald’s death, his nerves were getting the better of him. Still, somebody had to go down to the cargo bay and deal with whoever had come aboard.

  The Cerebus was his invention and his baby. Hank knew her like the back of his hand and had loaded her up with tricks for just such an occasion. His fingers closed around the butt of the heavy tri-barrel pistol tucked beneath his pilot seat and dragged it out. As he got up, Hank walked over to a small compartment at chest height in the bulkhead. Opening it, he added a bandolier of extra rounds for his tri-barrel pistol and took out a grenade that his fingers deftly snapped onto the tool belt he wore. He should have felt prepared, but he didn’t. All the tele-mechanic felt was a deep-rooted sense of dread as he left the pilot compartment, sealing its door behind him as he headed for the cargo bay.

  Approaching the doorway that led to the cargo hold carefully, Hank readied his pistol. He punched the entry code into the doorway’s keypad, and the heavy bulkhead door slid open in front of him. The cargo bay was dark. He could see at a glance that something, or someone, had smashed all the lights inside it. Hank stood in the doorway, staring into the darkness. There was no way in hell he was going in there without light. Keeping his tri-barrel aimed into the cargo hold, Hank reached down to pluck a small flashlight from his belt. Clicking it on, he shined its beam into the darkness. The flashlight was incredibly bright for its size. Like everything Hank used, it was much more powerful or advanced than anyone else’s typical gear.

  Something moved at the other end of the cargo bay. Hank’s heart skipped a beat, and he gasped as Mavet walked out of the shadows into the beam of his flashlight. The flesh of one of the vampire god’s hands was discolored, almost pink, as if it had just grown back. Mavet’s sleeve was smeared with blood above the hand, and the ancient being looked royally ticked off.

  Mavet opened his mouth as if to speak, but Hank didn’t give him the chance. Hank’s heavy tri-barrel pistol boomed. The round it fired streaked through the air at the vampire god. Mavet moved with impossible speed, dodging it. It struck the wall behind where he’d been standing, exploding against it. Thankfully, Hank had reinforced the Cerebus’ walls to the point where they could withstand such a blast without rupturing.

  The flash of the explosion stung Hank’s eyes. He jumped to the right of the doorway, slamming a fist onto its control keypad. The door clanged shut, trapping Mavet inside the cargo hold. Almost immediately, the door was dented outward as the vampire god smashed into the other side. Metal squealed and whined as Mavet continued to press against the door. Hank could see it wasn’t going to hold the vampire god for long. He fled down the corridor back toward the Cerebus’ pilot compartment, pausing only long enough to leave behind a nasty surprise for the vampire god when Mavet broke through.

  The door to the cargo hold broke loose from its frame, and the heavy door clanged to the deck as Mavet came bounding over it. Hank was almost to the pilot compartment, and, just as the tele-mechanic had planned, the vampire god tripped the trap that had been left for him. A bomb detonated where it had been placed on the wall of the passageway. There was a quiet popping noise as it blew and sent a mesh web flying over Mavet. The web entangled the vampire god, tripping him up, and wrapping so tightly about him that Mavet toppled onto the floor. Hank stood at the doorway to the pilot compartment, grinning.

  “That stuff is as tough as I can make it,” Hank grinned, taunting the vampire god. “Good luck getting out of it.”

  Mavet’s fingers worked their way through openings in the web so he could get a firm grasp on it. With a roar of sheer anger, Mavet ripped the web holding him apart and launched himself out of it. Hank stared at the vampire god in disbelief. Just how powerful was the bastard?

  Hank threw himself into the Cerebus’ pilot compartment, sealing the door behind him, with Mavet on his heels. The tele-mechanic flinched as he heard Mavet’s fists strike the door. He was royally and totally screwed. There was no place left to run. Hank was going to have to make a stand, and he knew it. Backing away from the door, the barrels of his heavy pistol aimed it, Hank waited for the vampire god to breakthrough. It didn’t take long. Mavet’s claws pierced the metal of the door, and the vampire god tore his way inside. Hank fired both of the remaining barrels of his pistol at once. The heavy pistol bucked in his hands, its recoil driving him backward into the Cerebus’ control console.

  One of the rounds punched through Mavet’s body, leaving a gaping hole in its wake, continuing onward down the corridor behind the vampire god to finally bury itself in a wall. The other exploded on contact, unleashing a burst of acid over Mavet’s face and chest, and the flesh melted away from Mavet’s face. His lips curled and burned away, exposing teeth and bone. Mavet’s chest suffered much the same effect. Hank could see the vampire god’s ribs as the acid continued to burn, dissolving them. They smoldered and bubbled beneath the power of the acid. Mavet shrieked in pain and fury. The vampire god staggered, reeling backward as Hank popped the chambers of his tri-barrel pistol, reloading them with fresh rounds from the bandolier he wore.

  “You will pay for that, little man,” Mavet hissed through what was left of his mouth. His eyes were hollow holes in his head. Shreds of melting flesh still clung to the bones of his cheeks. There were holes even in his bones where the acid had burned through. The vampire god looked like a demented zombie from a cheapo horror film as Hank got ready to fire again, slamming the pistol closed.

  The acid had expended itself—or Mavet had somehow magically canceled it ou
t—and the vampire god was already healing, the holes in his bones mending themselves back together as his flesh regrew over them. Hank’s finger began to tighten on the trigger of his heavy pistol, but Mavet moved in a blur, reaching the tele-mechanic before he could fire. Mavet tore the pistol out of his hands, crushing it and flinging it into the passageway outside the pilot’s compartment. Hank yelped as one of the vampire god’s hands closed about his throat. Mavet effortlessly lifted the tele-mechanic from the floor. Hank’s legs kicked in the air as Mavet held him tight.

  “I should kill you now for the indignity you have inflicted upon me, little man…” Mavet raged, “but I have need of you.”

  “Frag you!” Hank managed to yell as he clawed at the vampire god’s fingers, which were tight about his neck.

  “I think not,” Mavet said, slamming Hank down into the Cerebus’ pilot seat. “You will set this ship’s system to return to your base.”

  “What part of ‘frag you’ didn’t you understand, you bastard?” Hank spat at the vampire god, staring up into his burning red eyes.

  Mavet had calmed some, anger giving way to the wisdom of millennia of experience. He smiled at Hank, his fangs showing as he did so. “Make your choice, little psychic. Comply or suffer.”

  “The others stopped whatever it was you were trying to do, didn’t they?” Hank laughed. “And all you have left now is petty vengeance.”

  Mavet growled, reaching to grab Hank by the back of his skull, slamming the tele-mechanic’s head down onto the control console. “I should have known you wouldn’t make things easy.”

  Thick, white, hair-like strands grew out of the skin of the hand that held Hank. The tele-mechanic screamed as they slithered over his face and head. They were prickly and barbed, leaving tiny drops of blood in their wake wherever they touched him. The strands worked their way over his flesh, slinking up and into his nose. More of them entered his head through his ears. Hank screamed at the top of his lungs, clawing at Mavet’s hands. His fingernails left gashes on the vampire god’s hand, but Mavet seemed not to feel any pain. Then it was over. Hank’s eyes flushed red as blood poured into them from behind them, filling them. The tele-mechanic’s resistance ended as drool began to drip from his lips. His body twitched a final time and lay still.