I’d used up a few bullets in the wrecking yard earlier when I tried to scare off the Rottweilers. Between my spare magazine and the bullets already loaded, I figured I had close to twenty-five rounds left. The mob of bloodsuckers zeroing in on the building had to number twice that. And that was an optimistic estimate.
I’m not a bad shot by any means, but even if I managed to take down one vamp with each of my remaining bullets, I’d still be outnumbered two dozen to one.
Not exactly the best odds.
I mentally ran through my options. Should I make a run for it and confront the undead horde in the maze of machinery outside? Or would I improve my chances by trying to hold off the advancing vampire tribe from inside the office building?
I decided on the second option. Outside in the darkness, the vampires’ heightened senses and sheer numbers would easily overwhelm me. The night was their playground. Better to stay put. Within these walls, I would do my darnedest to pick off as many of the bloodsuckers as possible. At least until I ran out of ammo. I hoped they might back off once they realized the high price they’d have to pay to get their fangs in me.
Look at the bright side, kiddo, I told myself. It’s a full moon, so at least you can see the bloodsucking bastards. I couldn’t remember how many times in the past I’d wished my magical pistol came with a night-vision scope of some kind.
And you won’t miss any of the gory details when they break in here and rip you apart.
Shit, I have bleak sense of humor.
I leaned out of the window and sighted down on the incoming vamps. My breath steadied and all sounds faded. My world was reduced to the green glowing gun in my hand and the advancing ring of monsters.
I waited for them to draw closer and step into my gun’s effective range. I might not have enough ammo to shoot my way out of the wrecking yard, but I would make every bullet count.
Sweat trickled down my hair despite the cool wind. Steady now…
The first vampire had almost reached my position when I squeezed the trigger. The sound shattered the unearthly silence in the junkyard. A perfect black hole formed in the vamp’s forehead. Black lines spiderwebbed across his face as the power of Hellseeker reacted with corrupted flesh. A beat later, the creature evaporated in a cloud of ash and fire.
One down, way too many to go.
Seeing the first of their ranks fall didn’t slow down the monsters. In fact, it seemed to speed up their attack—and they were already moving fast.
I tried not to dwell on the fact that Archer was among their numbers and squeezed off the next shot. A second vampire went supernova and turned into a whirlwind of ash. More vampires followed. Even as I took one down, another took its place. I was racking up a considerable body count, but my fusillade was barely slowing the vampires down.
As they drew nearer, the vampires slipped between the mass of car wrecks, dipping in and out of view. I tried to track them, my eyes darting everywhere at once. Amid the deafening roar of Hellseeker, I heard a different sound—a metallic creak that seemed to be coming from overhead.
They’re on the roof, I thought, panic rising inside me. The sound of a window shattering made me whirl. There had been no time to secure the exits, no time to fortify my position. The vampires were breaching the building and all too soon would be upon me.
I moved toward the center of the main chamber, stepping behind one of the desks sagging under piles of junk. It provided lousy cover, but I’d take what I could get.
A shadow ahead of me moved. I reacted on instinct, my next bullet finding the intruder before he could attack.
A silhouette erupted from the darkness, backlit by a flash of fire, accompanied by an inhuman shriek.
The shadows bled ash.
I’d lost count of how many of the vampires I’d killed so far. Didn’t matter. There were still too many of them and only one of me. I was making my last stand. All I could hope for was to take as many of the undead bastards with me a possible.
More shapes moved in the dark, and more succumbed to my bullets. The sudden click of the hammer falling on an empty chamber served as a sharp reminder that my ammo was limited.
I released the empty magazine and snapped in a fresh one. Not a moment too soon, as another vampire leapt at me.
But this time I didn’t fire.
I couldn’t.
Archer stepped into a pool of moonlight. Her transformation hadn’t tainted her beauty. She moved like liquid, her skin flawless porcelain. An irrational, animal part of me wanted to cast my holy weapon aside and take her into my arms. Dark hair spilled down her ivory neck, framing the face I’d fallen for when I’d first laid eyes on it less than a year ago.
“Jane,” I breathed. If she recognized her name, it didn’t show on her face.
As Archer drew closer, I noticed a subtle but important difference in her appearance. The spark in her eyes was gone, the playful twinkle replaced by an unyielding, bottomless hunger.
I had dreaded this confrontation, had played it out in my mind’s eye too many times to count. How would I react when I came face to face with the monster my foolish actions had created? Would I be strong enough to forget everything we had shared? Would I be able to pull the trigger and release Archer from this earthly Hell I’d condemned her to?
Well, the moment had finally arrived. And not surprisingly, I felt my resolve wavering. I found it impossible to pull the trigger.
“Archer, stay back…”
“Nice to see you again, lover.”
The voice sent a shiver down my spine, and I forgot to breathe for a beat.
“Have you come to save me from the big bad vampires?”
The question hung in the air.
“I never…” my voice trailed off, the apology dying on my lips. “Or perhaps you came to put me out my misery? To save me from myself?” Her lips curled upward in a diabolical smile.
That was exactly what I’d come here to do, but I still didn’t pull the trigger. I couldn’t look away from her eyes. Vampires could hypnotize their victims, lulling their prey into helpless surrender. Part of me knew what she was doing. Part of me didn’t care.
“I’ve been hoping you’d come for me. But not to set me free.”
“Archer,” I tried again, mumbling through numbed lips.
“Join us. Embrace the darkness and live forever.”
Never, my mind screamed. But my body was saying something very different.
I lowered Hellseeker. Archer’s mesmerizing sexuality had overwhelmed my mental defenses. I wanted those luscious lips to find my neck, for her to sink her fangs into me…
She took a step forward, her arms open wide.
Movement caught my eye, wrenching my gaze from hers for an instant.
It was enough to break the hypnotic spell she’d cast over me. I scowled and fired at the two vampires who’d materialized at Archer’s side, dropping them both.
She hissed and darted away.
I continued firing into the darkness, the rest of my ammo impotently vanishing into the encroaching shadows.
Gun empty, I knew it was over. I’d reached the end of the road.
The ring of vampires realized it a second after I did. They closed in, grinning.
Archer led the way.
She took a confident step toward me.
It was poetic justice that she’d be the one to take my life.
Bracing myself for the inevitable, my lips set in a tight line.
I’m so sorry for this.
Hellseeker might be out of ammo, but I still had my protective talisman. My fist shot out, connected with Archer’s alabaster cheek. She cried out in surprise as my blessed ring raised an angry welt on her skin.
The Seal of Solomon couldn’t kill a vampire, but it could sure as hell hurt one.
Before she could rip my throat out, the shadows lifted once more and I heard the fluttering of what sounded like wings. We both froze.
Wings?
A monster such as I’d ne
ver encountered before stepped into the moonlight. Its features were more animal than human, the ears pointed like those of a bat and the twin vampire fangs grotesquely elongated. Cadaverous skin that made the other vampires look like devoted sun worshippers stretched across a tall, bony frame. Crimson eyes bored into me as the creature’s membranous wings extended from his bony back. The wingspan had to measure about twelve feet, wide enough for the creature to take flight.
Flight over, for example, a downtown skyscraper. Could this winged abomination be the killer who had whisked the demon-worshipping lawyer from his apartment?
In pop culture, vampires could transform into bats and wolves or even mist. Reality was, as always, a tad different. These creatures were capable of terrible horrors, but shape-shifting wasn’t one of them. So what had changed this vampire?
And then the realization hit me.
This master vampire must’ve fed on the demon, the same demon I had so foolishly liberated. The demonic blood had mutated the vampire in unpredictable ways, giving birth to a terrifying hybrid beast. I had no idea what powers this cross-bred monster possessed, but they had clearly come at a price. Vampires were monsters, but they looked like rock stars and supermodels. This beast had fallen from the ugly tree and taken every branch with it.
As these flippant thoughts whirled through my adrenaline-drenched mind, I wisely kept them to myself. Facing certain death left little room for banter.
“You set the demon free, didn’t you?” the winged vampire-demon hybrid said, his voice surprisingly human and refined. It was jarring to hear such a well-spoken voice coming from that misshapen maw.
The vampire didn’t wait for an answer. “It won’t change anything at this point. I drained the demon of all his powers, all his strength. He’s nothing but a walking corpse unwilling let go, clinging to a life I took from him, one drop at a time.”
As the beast slinked toward me, I feared a similar fate was in store for yours truly. Despite its bulk, the creature managed to move with grace. Another two steps brought it close enough to see a detail the shadows had obscured, and I gasped.
There was a gaping hole where its left eye should be.
I knew of only one vampire who was missing a left eye. Despite a tendency to play things close to the vest, Skulick had shared some information about the vampire who killed his fiancée. One detail stood out. Skulick had shot out the bloodsucker’s left eye with a silver bullet before my father finished off the creature.
It couldn’t be…Could this be Marek?
Was this the vampire who’d destroyed Skulick’s life and set him on his dark monster hunting journey? Had Marek somehow survived my father’s blessed bullets all those years ago?
A hideous grin spread across the master vampire’s visage. “You know who I am. How is my old friend Skulick? Stuck in that chair of his, a prisoner in his fortress turned prison? How does he manage to go on like that, a bag of broken bones and sagging flesh?”
The vampire-demon drew closer, and I recoiled, natural human revulsion getting the better of me.
“Don’t worry, I won’t harm you, my frightened little boy. I want you to relay a message to your partner. Tell him that a storm is coming. A storm such as the world has never seen. There will be nothing he can do to stop it. Not him, and not you.”
The vampire-demon leaned closer, the sickening stench of the creature turning my stomach.
Fueled by terror, my fist blasted out, the Seal of Solomon grazing the vampire-demon’s albino skin. The creature didn’t even flinch.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Archer lurking in the nearby shadows. She observed us with stony indifference, not a hint of empathy in her icy face. She wouldn’t be helping me. I had to admit the truth. The woman I fell in love was gone.
“Your trinkets don’t scare me, monster hunter,” Marek hissed. His wings flared and knocked me off my feet. Before I could regain my bearings, the winged creature was upon me.
“I know how skeptical Skulick can be, so I need to make sure he knows that I’m back.”
I stifled a scream as the vampire’s fangs sank into my throat.
And then I felt nothing, my world swept away in a river of blood.
10
The morning sun burned down on me as my eyes snapped open. I lay sprawled on a sidewalk, marinating in a miasma of blood and sweat. As I peered up at my gritty surroundings, I realized I’d been dumped on the loft’s doorstep.
They know where we live, was my first thought.
Marek didn’t fear us. In fact, he felt so sure of himself and whatever horrible plan he was cooking up, he was willing to provide us with front row seats to the terrible spectacle.
Marek’s arrogance gave me hope that Skulick and I might find a chink in the fiend’s armor. He had mentioned a storm. What did he mean by that? And could his plan have something to do with the high-rise murder?
My head ached. I had too many questions and not enough caffeine. Not to mention that a vampire had snacked on me—who knows how many pints of blood I’d lost. I was glad to be alive, but my aching bones and the blood-encrusted gash in my throat made it difficult to maintain a positive attitude.
Groggily, I staggered to my feet, my face feeling hot to the touch, feverish almost. Draining me wasn’t enough to turn me into a vampire, but like any wound, a bite could become infected if not properly taken care of.
As soon as I lurched into the loft, Skulick’s wheelchair buzzed toward me, his disapproving gaze sweeping over me. His expression changed when he realized this wasn’t another walk of shame after a night of carousing.
“What happened? Are you alright?”
“Yeah, peachy,” I rasped, gingerly touching the wound on my neck.
“How did you get that mark?” my partner asked in a shaky voice, pointing at my neck. The question echoed hollowly in our loft. I’d never seen Skulick so scared before.
“I ran into an old buddy of yours. He sends his regards.”
Skulick’s’ face went white. This wasn’t a subject to be making jokes about but I couldn’t help myself. My dark sense of humor was a life raft in the ocean of craziness threatening to sweep me away.
I dragged myself over to a nearby mirror and froze. Two twin puncture wounds marred the skin of my neck, one vertical and one horizontal, together forming a cross. Talk about mocking the mythos surrounding vampires. The cross-bite had been Marek’s signature. He’d marked all his victims, including Skulick’s fiancée, in a similar manner. The bite was the real message here.
“How can Marek be back?” I asked. “I thought you and Dad destroyed him.”
“That makes two of us. It’s impossible...”
Impossible, unless Dad lied to you, I mused. Perhaps he wanted you to believe that Marek was out of the picture so you could move on. “Well, it sure seemed possible last night when he attacked me. Marek survived somehow, and now he’s back. And he’s planning something terrible.”
I quickly brought Skulick up to speed. I expected him to scold me for entering the wrecking yard without back-up, but he merely listened to my tale in rapt silence. When I brought up the demon—and how Marek had apparently been warped by feeding on him—Skulick finally interrupted me.
“You set this demon free?”
“It was an accident,” I pointed out defensively. “I think Marek had drained the demon to the brink of death and was pretty much done with him.”
“And where is this demon now?”
I shrugged. It hurt. “I was going to buy him a beer and catch up on the latest Hell gossip, but I’m afraid he had other plans.”
Skulick didn’t smile.
“Do you have any idea what Marek meant when he said a storm was approaching?” I asked. “Think he’s going to launch an all-out attack against the city?”
Skulick frowned. “A host of vampires can cause a lot damage, but it’s not enough to bring down a city of millions. I fear he might be up to something far worse. The fact that he’s fed on demon blood changes
everything. Your father and I barely defeated Marek thirty years ago, when he was just a vampire, but now…”
Skulick didn’t have to finish. We both knew the score–the big bad from my partner’s past was back in town and planning on turning our world upside down. We were in for the fight of our lives.
I was just wondering how things could get worse when Skulick asked, “Did you run into Archer?”
I hesitated for a telling beat. I sensed that saving Archer meant almost as much to Skulick as it did to me. Marek had turned his fiancée into a vampire, and my dad had been forced to destroy her. Skulick had never really gotten over it, and I guessed he didn’t want me suffer the same fate.
Another thought occurred to me. “The blood in the chalice…it belonged to Marek, didn’t it? That’s why you held on to it all these years.”
Skulick nodded, pensively chewing his lips.
“I never wanted to forget where I came from and why I was fighting this war,“ Skulick explained. “If I was to ever doubt the worthiness of our mission, Marek’s blood would remind me what it was all about.”
It was starting to make sense to me. With Marek’s lifeforce inside of her, Archer had sought out others of her kind. The call of the black blood must have led her to the master vampire himself. Vampires shared a hive mind; Marek could tap into the thoughts of his vampires and draw on their knowledge and memories. I guess that’s how he discovered the whereabouts of our base of operation. Archer had led me to Marek, but she had also steered the vampire toward Skulick. In short, Marek now knew everything Archer knew. Our weapons, our defenses—everything.
I was also beginning to understand why Archer hadn’t gone on some mad killing spree after escaping from the loft. Marek had protected her from herself, keeping her safely hidden in the shadows, teaching her not just how to hunt but whom to target. There were plenty of lost souls out there to feed on. Forgotten people that wouldn’t be missed. Marek and his tribe dwelled on the fringes of society where they would be less likely to draw attention to themselves. At least for now. But that would soon change if Marek was to be believed.
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