Replacement

by Wojciech Cram

  "You mean like freedom of speech?" More like freedom for humans in general. She nodded and he ran off to show off his news to his friends.

  There were less elder witches than expected, for although aged, most of the witches were more powerful than some dragons and were needed at the battle site. More Daybreakers

  had to be called in to baby sit the children. Thankfully the children cooperated obediently, even waking up early to make breakfast and bathe themselves. Unfortunately, she had to

  salvage what was left of burnt toast while David ran like crazy to stop the naked wet toddlers running amuck down the hall ways.

  For the next two hours, she was too busy to answer any questions pertaining the missing adults. There were children to clean up, feed, clean again after the food fight, change into

  pajamas, and tuck into bed. When she was done sweeping up the last bit of dinner rolls from under the tables, she wound her way through the halls to find most of the young and fit

  in the living room.

  "You arrived just in time," David said as she snuggled next to him on the couch. Dick Clark appeared on the giant screen, thousands of people behind him. Gillian observed the silent

  people surrounding her. For millions, New Year's Eve was a time for confetti, kisses, and champagne. But for them and their friends and family, it might have been the last moments of their safe world

  Sunset

  Damned Clan Island

  Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

  The Circle Daybreak army marched silently through the snow with grim faces. Wind beat fiercely about them, yet remained silent. There were no words to describe the fear and

  determination in their minds.

  Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

  Snow banks were grayish blue in the fading light. Ears with unnatural range picked up sounds of laughter as they neared the battle field. For some, they took steps closer to their

  graves.

  Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

  Thierry felt jovial thoughts before he saw who thought them. He felt like Jack, trying desperately to outsmart the giant. Except this time the prize was much more valuable than a

  golden goose. He didn't know who the hell he was trying to fool. Elder he may be, Circle Leader he may be, thousands of years he may have seen…but he had never led an army.

  And he had never gone into war.

  Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

  But he'd be damned if he let his followers know how scared he was. "I do not think we'll have a determined victory." His loud declaration startled his troops behind him. He

  continued his brisk march, never turning back to face them. "I do not think we'll defeat the villains with a mighty blow. I do not think we'll destroy these bastards in a few hours."

  Crunch.

  They reach the edge of the basin. Thierry turned toward his group, the people who knew the odds were not in their favor and yet stayed by his side. His friends, his only family left

  on earth.

  "I do not think we'll win. I know we will." Trepidation written on their faces washed away, revealing solid ferocity. Some were fighting for lost loved ones, some were fighting for

  son or daughter or sibling in Las Vegas. Some were fighting old friends, some were fighting former allies. Some were fighting their own flesh and blood.

  With a last deep breath, he looked at his comrades eyes. Kestrel, Jez, James… He suddenly realized he would rather die than let anyone harm them. With speed formerly reserved

  to protect others, he turned and swiftly started down the slope of the basin. Others followed seconds later, forming a v formation.

  They waited for five whole minutes before running up to meet them. It was an obvious show of arrogance. The dark Night Worlders stood with smug expressions on their faces as

  they waited for Hunter's signal. At his slightly raised eyebrow, they charged, fangs or claws extending. Bodies became taut and furry.

  He sent out orders before Night World could hit. At Thierry's command, the most powerful vampires sent out psychic punches to the approaching beasts. Cheetahs, jaguars, tigers,

  bears…all fell to the ground. Their bones cracked under the rushing feet of Daybreakers. Hunter copied his move. Thierry spread his thoughts to humans surrounding him, but a

  good number of humans, 'wolves, and shape shifters on his side momentarily collapsed as witches and vampires blocked the psychic abilities.

  Daybreakers broke the v formation to surround the Night Worlders. Night Worlders saw this and rammed and killed the engulfing arms of fighters before they could completely

  surround.

  Thierry blocked the woman's sword with a crushing blow to her wrist. She evaded but fell to the ground on her side. He was knocked on his back by her kick as she jumped up and

  pulled out a wooden knife. As he took a moment to shake off dizziness, she lunged onto him. At the last second, he put his feet up and kicked her off as soon as she tried to land on

  him. He jabbed a pressure point in her wrist and caught her knife as she lost all control in her right hand. When he rose, she lay a few feet away from him. He spied a rock under

  her head, which explained her short episode of confusion. Before she could blink, he stabbed her in the heart.

  Just as he slid the knife out, another vampire choked him from behind. He grabbed the arms around his neck and flipped him forward. Thierry began to run towards him before he

  saw the end of a wooden sword thrust through his back in mid air. With her foot, Kestrel pushed the skewered vampire off her weapon and winked at him. He really didn't approve

  of her taking crucial seconds to smile at him, but he found himself smiling back. They were both vampires, whether they liked it or not, fighting was in their blood.

  Rashel stopped struggling as her captor squeezed all air from her lungs from behind. Her feet were dangling but she couldn't get an angle to kick him. Summoning all her strength

  from her air deprived body, she tensed her neck muscles and jerked her head backwards. Crack! She pivoted mid air and landed on her feet to face him. In a split second she

  observed his bloody nose and snap kicked his body to the ground, his silver dagger still held pathetically up. Before she could lunge, she heard running behind her and caught the

  'wolf in human form by her shoulders. He sailed through the air and landed directly on the vampire. Ironically enough, the wooden knife he held in his hand killed the vampire,

  while the vampire's silver dagger pierced through the werewolf's side. She would have taken a moment to admire her handy work, but a bear shifter charged blindly at her before

  she could even smile.

  Poppy didn't think it was fun to kill. But, it was even less fun to die. So she fought with all the tricks Rashel taught her, and sometimes coming up with her own.

  Right now, she had to dispatch a pure white tiger. It was so pretty, it almost broke her heart to fight it.

  "Come on, Fluffy, you know you want it," she cooed . He snarled and pounced on her. She fell at the sheer weight of the animal. He pinned her arms to the sides, making it

  impossible to grab her knife. He pulled his head back to bite her neck, and Poppy took the moment to stiffen her body to a crescent shape. She rolled forward, but there wasn't

  enough room to bash his head. So instead, she spit into his eyes. With a furious roar, the tiger backed off, pawing at his face. Poppy did a triple forward flip and landed behind him.

  In the midst of his transformation to human form, she thrust her razor edged knife between his ribs. It was her first kill. Poppy hated it and loved it.

  Jez knew the elite of Night World warriors was waiting their turn for her. Being a wild power gave her the privileges of battling the most impressive fighters of her past life. Now

  she concentrated on blocking her opponent's blows. Iron clanked against wood as Jez calculated and blocked the vampire's wooden sword with iron sickles she'd stolen from an

  unrecognizable
burnt body. Every offensive move she threw was also calculated and blocked. Damn, he was good. She whirled on one foot, letting her left foot knock his head

  aside. Instead of falling, however, he did a one hand cart wheel and landed, facing her vulnerable back. Before he could do so himself, Jez fell purposely to the ground, then rolling

  from the sword that stabbed the frozen ground next to her head. She grabbed the sword's hilt, and pulled it towards her, allowing her access to the man's arm. In his surprise, he

  failed to surmise her next move and Jez stabbed the sickle through his fore arm. He yelled in annoyance and stood up. She scrambled off the ground and shook the snow from her

  hair. Much to her disappointment, he simply tugged the sickle from his arm. The blood stopped flowing and the skin closed over the gory hole. Idiot! She realized belatedly.

  IRON! She would have slapped herself in the forehead if she wasn't so preoccupied.

  Now it was just his beautiful, hand crafted, ash wooden sword against her pitiful sickle. I might as well reap wheat fields with this thing, it can't even scratch him, she thought, and

  for the first time her beautiful face showed worry. The vampire gained confidence. He rushed at her with speed she lacked without blood and swung at her neck. Jez jerked her

  head down and forward, praying to Goddess the world wouldn't end with her decapitation. Her ears rang as the rounded hilt banged the side of her head. Jez ground her teeth in

  pain as she lay on the ground. Her adversary was so intent on stabbing her throat he did not notice her desperate fumbling for her last weapon. He raised the sword above her

  head.

  Click. Oh the sweet sound of victory.

  Jez pulled out her Snub Nose 48 and released the safety. Without hesitating, she pulled the trigger. He lurched and his pupils dilated, completely covering the whites. With a

  strained groan, he fell to his knees, skin drying, and flaking even as his body grew cold. Time for the next victim.

  Keller dodged the bolts of fire easily, playing a pyromaniac's game of hopscotch. The dragon was obviously furious by being outsmarted by a lowly panther. Keller gave a laugh, a

  deep rumble from her panther throat. A bolt hit her right hind leg, the smell of burnt fur making her nose twitch. Now it was the dragon's turn to laugh, puffs of smoke escaping his

  wide, reptilian jaws. The dragon reared his golden head to build up more fire. It was a bad idea to hang his head so low. With a powerful paw the size of a grown man's head, Keller

  swept her paw through the deep snow, the snow hitting the target: straight into his mouth. Of course it didn't permanently damage the built up flame, but it did choke him. Both

  shape shifters shifted into human form. Unfortunately, both had Keller's height, shape, and face.

  "You're going to be sorry for that, bitch," the clone spat.

  Now if there was something that Keller could not hold her patience for, it was being called a bitch. First of all, no self respecting woman who worked her ass to be the boss could

  ever be a bitch. Secondly, bitches were female dogs.

  "Oh am I?" Keller walked slowly to the imitator. Not her usual approach, but the anger in her affected her tactics. The dragon moved first, swinging a fist but hitting air. Keller

  ducked and gave an upper right hook. And then she drove another punch to his nose. "Did you spend so much time playing dragon…" she said calmly as she grabbed his long, blue

  black hair and twisted his head. "you never got to learn combat fighting?" Keller number two continued to spit out obscenities. Keller pulled the hair even farther down, then kicked

  his back with her knee. She smiled as she heard vertebrae snap. She morphed her right hand into a huge black paw.

  "Oh and by the way." The claws slid out swiftly. "I am so sorry." Blood spurted from the pale white neck. While he changed back to the golden haired man and choked for air on the

  ground. Keller slid her knife from her sleeve and proceeded to cut the four horns. The process dulled the knife, but it was of little importance, for she had more weapons on her

  than Morgead's closet.

  Thierry wiped the blood from his mouth. One by one, he felt a Daybreaker s' minds go blank like snuffed candles, due to death or unconsciousness. The sun disappeared behind the

  waves of snow. Darkness was ineffectual to him, but he worried about the human's night vision. It was time for his next vital decision.

  Witches! One by one, dark silhouettes appeared on the rim of the basin, forming a wide horse shoe around them. Distantly, small balls of orange flames appeared in their hands.

  Like fireflies, the hazy fires floated down into the sunken valley, meeting and melting into one bonfire at the center. A floating conflagration gave more confidence to Circle

  Daybreak. Thierry's troops began to battle with new vigor. But in their new found passion, they also made brash mistakes, decreasing defense for offense. Again, Thierry felt more

  candles blown out. He sent the witches more commands.

  Abruptly, the werewolf he tussled with dropped mid lunge. A neat hole still smoked between his eyes. Silently, he thanked his lucky stars for Claire's suggestion of rifles and silver,

  iron, and wooden tipped bullets. And that Iliana was up on the edge of the basin with the other witches and not in battle.

  The last thing he remembered was fighting tooth and nail. Abruptly, that memory shifted to awakening in a grayish white basin, half buried in snow, while more fell perpetually

  from above. It was frustrating not knowing what happened in between. All that he knew what occurred in the hours of his unconsciousness was the loss of the blue fire. The second

  he opened his eyes, the underlying current of electricity that ran in his blood since the day he was born was gone. For this reason, he could breathe, simply breathe as, not as an

  instrument to save the world and not as a savior to anybody, but as himself. Delos Redfern, vampire extrordinaire and nothing else. Literally, Delos stopped carrying the world on

  his shoulders.

  But when he also awoke, the moments of this relieving discovery were short lived. At first, he believed for the rest of eternity, the world would suffer at the cruel hands of the

  Night World. After getting to his unstable feet, he saw bodies as far as his eyes could see. And, considering his specialized vision, it must have been an immeasurable number.

  Six thousand. Six thousand had died in action and in the following forty eight hours a blizzard froze their bodies into a glacial and massive grave yard. And yet the Night World only

  suffered, roughly, five thousand casualties. At least by Circle Daybreak's hands, that's what the witches said. He, and the others…simply stopped the rest in the blink of an eye.

  Those of Circle Daybreak survived, but all who sided with the dark were obliterated. An autopsy of one unfortunate soul showed cardiac arrest, but it would never be certain if that

  was how all the Night Worlders were affected. And Delos had never heard of selective blue fire.

  Delos could still feel the tears freezing in his eyes at the sight of them. He should have been happy for their victory, but a Pyrrhic victory.

  "Delos? Hello, I have caller ID so I know it's you…" Delos blinked several times, shaking himself from the memories.

  "Maggie! Yeah, hi, just zoned out for a minute there…" He heard her fuzzy laugh through the telephone.

  "Never in my life would I imagine you zoning out. What's up?"

  "Hannah wanted directions for your new apartment and since you have a new cell phone number…"

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Delos, I thought we agreed it's our new apartment. In fact, for some strange reason I remember you saying, yes it's our apartment darling…"

  "Then you must have been dreaming because I never said that. Besides, Mags…" Delos looked around him and continued when he found the hall way empty and heard nobody in the

  rooms. "It's improper." There
was a long pause on the other line. In fact, there seemed to be a long pause in every telephone conversation they shared.

  "Right… So, it's proper for you to sneak into my room at night when I visited Thierry's mansion but improper for us to live together. What, are you afraid I have germs or

  something?" Now she began to sound defensive and Delos could never win an argument when she became riled up. He could almost envision her hand clenching defensively.

  "No," he answered patiently. "Bacteria cells don't kill vampires, honey. And even if they did, I'd live with you with antibacterial cream at hand." Somehow, that didn't come out as

  flattering as it sounded in his mind.

  "Fine. I'll just take my big screen tv and put it in my car, and drive them off a bridge!" Delos pulled the phone away, but she still managed to do some ear damage.

  "Okay, okay, okay, we'll review this. We're engaged, not married, but you propose to live together."

  "Think of the mileage, the gasoline with sky high prices, that you'll save for not having to pick me up! And if you still insist upon not moving in on me, we'll just stop having…"

  "FINE! Fine, Maggie, I'll pack my stuff today and I'll be there tomorrow. I promise, honey, just don't do that."

  "Delos, calm yourself down. I had no idea that you enjoyed my massages so much! Bye now!" There was a faint tinkly laugh and then the dial tone. Delos' jaw dropped open.

  little manipulator!

  On his way out, arms so full of boxes he could barely see ten inches in front of him. At his last obstacle, the massive doors of the main entrance, Delos wondered if there was a

  way to get a free hand to open the door handle and not unload his burden.

  Suddenly there was a gust of wind and Delos heard the quick voice of Kyros.

  "Hey, Del, thought things would move along faster if the door was open."

  Raised in the New York Bronx with an accent to prove it, the shifter made the hated nickname even more irritating.

  "It's Delos, and thanks," he gave a muffled reply.

  "I'm off for a new mission, thanks for asking. In fact, I'm one of the few who are, what with all the vamps and shifters migrating to their enclaves." Kyros talked rapidly and