I picked up my duffle bag and packed it up as well. Again, not knowing what I’d find at the Rift, I had to fill it with a little bit of everything. I had two extra spray bottles filled with the holy water mixture, a tube of anointing oil, two homemade napalm grenades that I’d made by dissolving styrofoam in a couple of mason jars filled with gasoline with a road flare duct taped to the side, a few spare mags and speed loaders, a tin of silver nitrate powder, and five lighters. Call me paranoid, but I’ll probably outlive most of you, and I hunt monsters on the regular.
I was dressed and waiting when Alastair showed up. I had my black trench coat on over my vest and track pants. I slung my duffle and followed him downstairs. He was wearing his customary black get up with the white collar. Guy stuck out like a sore thumb. At least it was dark, and he was dressed in black. Could have been worse I suppose.
“Al, I think we need to talk about the outfit. We aren’t exactly going out for a gallon of milk.”
He looked at me as we walked out of the building. He glanced down at himself and pulled off the white collar. He pocketed it and smiled at me.
“Better?” He asked.
“Catholic stealth mode,” I said.
I followed him to a Hyundai Elantra, a car that I’ve never seen anyone driving if it wasn’t a rental. I’m also pretty sure every mid-size rental car is an Elantra. Damn things are everywhere. I tossed my duffle in the back and got in the passenger seat. Al got in the driver’s side and started heading towards the park.
“You know the way?” I asked.
“I’ve scouted out every potential location over the past few days.”
“Sounds like a blast.”
After that, we drove in silence. I felt the familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t fear, and it wasn’t nervousness. It was an anxious energy. My body knew that I was about to do something stupid, and it was trying to prepare itself.
It took about twenty minutes to get where we were going. Al parked in a small lot. I had him go to the far side of the lot where the lamp was out. Anyone passing by would just think we were a couple of kids fondling each other.
I grabbed his arm as he went to open his door.
“When we are out there, my word is your new gospel. I’m not dying for you. Run when I say run.”
He looked tired as he nodded. “Agreed.”
“Good. And Al, trust me when I say that if we run into any Hellions, don’t wait for me to say run, just do it.”
He nodded again.
I got out of the car. I grabbed the duffle and pulled the 552 out of it. I slung it across my body and handed Al the bag.
“You get to hold my stuff. Don’t lose any of it.”
He smiled in the near darkness. It wasn’t a kind smile, and I’m pretty sure he was thinking thoughts that would need to be confessed later. I tend to have that effect on people.
We started walking, moving into the park. We followed a path for five minutes. We walked in silence. I was tense, straining my senses, physical and magical. It was quiet, and I hated it. I checked my watch. The Rift should be opening in a minute. We came to a fork in the path when a wave energy washed over me.
I shivered as the power was pulled into my body and dissipated. I held my hand up and dropped down to one knee. The energy was intense, but not overpowering. We were still a good distance away from the Rift.
“What’s wrong?” Alastair asked.
“The Rift just opened,” I said. “Trying to figure out which way to go.”
“You felt it?”
I nodded.
“Fascinating.”
Bastard said that a lot.
I looked all around me, trying to ignore Alastair’s academic interest in my abilities. I looked off to my left. There was a stand of trees. Something about it called to me as the magic pulsed in the air.
“This way.”
I got up and left the path, moving through an open field. The frozen grass crunched under my feet with each step. I moved quickly, keeping low with the 552 shouldered. Alastair kept up, walking with a quickness. I ducked into the stand of trees. The sky was clear, and the moon washed silvery white light over everything. I kept low, moving through the evergreens. I broke through the tree line slowly, staying in a pool of shadow as I did. I hunkered down, scanning the open area in front of me. My attention was drawn to a covered bridge about fifty yards away. It crossed over a small stream, and there was a faint shimmer in the air in the center of it, like the haze of heat over a fire. The air rippled, and I could feel the energy pulsing from it. We’d found the Rift alright.
I held up a hand. Al came up and knelt down next to me. I leaned my head towards him but kept my eyes forward.
“Look at the bridge,” I whispered.
I heard him take in a breath. “It’s here. That is twice that I have been able to predict a location.”
“Looks like it.”
“We have to get closer.”
“Just a sec. We need to sweep the area first. Make sure nothing’s waiting for us out there.”
A giant wave of energy poured out of the Rift. I felt my fingers and toes start to go numb as my body scrubbed away all the magic.
“Something’s happening,” I said. “Something’s about to come through.”
The shimmering haze started to grow. I could see through it to the other side, but everything shifted, blurring in and out. It appeared to swirl for a moment before a thin black line split the middle of it. It was blacker than the darkness. It was everything that light was not. I’d seen something like this before. The Rift was opening, and something was coming out.
A clawed hand appeared out of the darkness. Al started muttering something I couldn’t understand, probably a Hail Mary. Fat lot of good it was going to do him. I flipped the selector on the 552 to full auto.
Hail Sig, full of death. Thy bullets are with me.
An eyeless face broke free behind the arm. The grayish purple skin glistened in the moonlight. The ugly Hellion let out a screech as the rest of it came tumbling out of the blackness. It fell three feet to the ground in a clumsy heap. As soon as it broke free the darkness it had come from started to dissolve into shimmering moonlight.
“What is that?” Al asked.
“Ghoul,” I said. “Looks like a juvenile from the size.”
“Dangerous?”
“Not on their own. In a pack, they can be a pain in the ass. Stay here. I’ll go deal with it. I’ll signal you once it’s clear for you to come over.”
I started to stand up when something caught my eye behind the Ghoul. I dropped back down, taking a knee.
“What’s wrong?”
I moved a finger to my mouth and made the shushing motion.
The Ghoul was pulling itself up. Blind because of the whole no eyes thing, they hunt by sound and smell. Something had its attention on the other side of the bridge. It whipped its head around, cocked it, and then scrambled away, taking off in our direction as it squealed in what had to be fear.
That wasn’t good. Ghouls may be the rat kings of the Underworld, but there shouldn’t have been anything in the park that could have scared it. It made it off the bridge and got maybe fifteen feet before a man dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket came over the bridge at breakneck speed and ran the Ghoul down.
The guy moved quick, too quick, coming up behind the Ghoul and kicking out one of its knees. I heard the bones snap from forty yards away. The Ghoul shrieked, dropping to the ground. It didn’t even bother turning to fight; it just kept crawling on the ground, trying to get away. Then the mystery man did something that dumped ice water into my veins. He grabbed the Ghoul by the back of its disgusting neck and hauled it up.
He held it off the ground, clawed feet dangling. His right hand started to transform. The fingers grew into sharpened talons, eight inches and black as night. He slashed at the Ghoul’s stomach and dumped its intestines on the ground with a wet slap. Steam billowed into the air around the viscera. The Hel
lion’s scream was cut off as he used a single claw to slash its throat.
In front of my eyes, the stranger’s jaw unhinged and a three-foot-long tongue shot out and wrapped around the Ghoul’s throat. I knew that the tongue had a series of hollow fangs that would pierce the Ghoul’s flesh. Some of the fangs would start draining blood. The others would pump in a toxin that acted as a paralytic and an anticoagulant.
Al let out something I’ll call a whimpering moan. I groaned silently to myself.
“It had to be a Vampire,” I muttered.
Vampires fall in the category of Theriomorphs. The halfbreed beasts are the bastard children of Hell. They’re part Hellion, gifted with all the strength, speed, and regenerative properties that come with it. They’re also human enough to be immune to pretty much every traditional weapon used against anything from south of the eternal border. They shrug off holy water and anointing oil like nothing.
The only reason they haven’t taken over the world is because they’re relatively stupid. When they’re turned, they lose most of their humanity. They lose their ability to think and reason except for the most basic of ways. Pack animals, they usually fight each other for dominance inside of some cave out in the middle of nowhere. It’s not like it is in the movies. They don’t get rich and suave. Real vampires are merciless killers who live, for one thing, blood. They’re driven by the need to feed, and thankfully for the human race, it makes them stupid.
The only exception was Vampires that got their hands on Hellion blood. All blood has power, but Hellion blood has even more power. It allows Vampires to transform back into their human form and regain some semblance of sentient thought. It’s only temporary though. They need a continual source of Hellion blood to maintain it. The Vampire in front of us drank his fill and dropped the Ghoul to the ground. The Hellion wasn’t quite dead, and it writhed soundlessly, stunned and damn near bloodless if I had to guess.
Tongue sliding back down its throat, the Vampire changed back into its human form. Tall, slender, and pale as a well digger’s ass, he had black blood dripping down his mouth. He pulled out a hanky and began to wipe the blood off. As he did, he turned back and called out something in the direction of the bridge. I couldn’t hear it, but I didn’t need to. I’d been so distracted by the Vampire chasing down the Ghoul that I hadn’t even noticed that there were two more of them on the bridge.
They were both female and in their animalistic form, hunched over and walking like chimps. Their hands had five black talons, and their mouths were unhinged to allow their bloodsucking tongues easy access. I couldn’t see it, but I knew they were drooling out their paralytic spit as they slobbered all over the ground. They were also naked, loose skin hanging off their bony frames.
They moved forward cautiously, clearly hesitant to feed on the Hellion with the Alpha still close. He stepped back though, and after a quick glance at him, they swarmed the Ghoul. One of them, an older blonde, shot out her tongue and wrapped it around the Hellion’s thigh. The other grabbed the thing by the shoulders and wrapped her tongue around its throat.
I could see the muscles in their fanged tongues contracting as they pumped out the Ghoul’s blood.
“We need to leave. Right now.” I whispered, not taking my eyes off of what was in front of me.
“Agreed.”
I moved silently, standing to a low crouch and slowly backing up. I put out an arm to make sure Al came with me. He did. Unfortunately, Al did not move silent in the night. The sound of a snapping branch cut through the near silence. My heart stopped and every muscle in my body clenched.
All three Vampires snapped their heads up to look in our direction. We’d gotten their attention.
I had one thought, running. I was confident in my ability to get away, only because I was sure that I was faster than Al. They’d catch him and busy themselves bleeding him dry. I could get away. The problem was that if I let him to die, I wouldn’t get the rest of my money, which I really needed. Since I couldn’t run, I needed to get loud and start dishing out the violence. Number one rule, if you can’t run, escalate. I turned and snatched my duffle bag out of Alastair’s hands.
“Run!” I screamed, pushing him backward.
I didn’t have time to make sure he actually did run. I needed to move quickly or die.
I yanked the zipper and opened the duffle. I dug around and came out with the tin of silver nitrate. Holy water and anointing oil were less than useless on vampires, but silver was deadly. In the back of my mind, I rejoiced for my constant paranoia and over preparedness.
The next thing to come out of the duffle was a napalm grenade. The term grenade was a little generous for the glass jar that I’d filled with gasoline and slowly dissolved Styrofoam into. It wasn’t military grade by any means, but it was sticky and burned. That was good enough. I’d duct-taped a road flare to the outside of the jar. I set the thing on the ground gently and whipped the 552 up to my shoulder. The two female Vampires were coming towards me in a slow gallop. I couldn’t see the male, which worried me. He would be the most dangerous by far. I also didn’t like my chances against both of the females when they started to regain their ability to problem solve and think.
Not being one to wait for an invitation, I aimed at center mass on the brunette Vampire and worked the trigger. The gun roared as it spit a stream of 5.56 NATO rounds through the air. Blood poured out of puckering bullet holes in the Vampire’s stomach. Headshots would be deadlier, but I needed to take on the Vampires one at a time, and their ability to regenerate was based on blood stores, which they kept in a series of sacs inside of their torsos, not unlike a cow’s multi-chambered stomach.
If I could pop enough of the sacs, I’d slow the damn thing down long enough to deal with the other one. The Vampire screamed taloned hands clutched at its stomach. I kept on the trigger, firing bursts into its chest. She dropped to the ground, trying to plug the holes.
I swung the 552 around to sight in on the blonde Vampire, and as I looked, she was starting to regain more of her human form. Her jaw hinged back into place, her tongue no longer hanging out of a gaping maw. Her skin began to tighten around muscles as she stood straight, and from ten yards away, I could see awareness in her face. Not good.
I ran the magazine dry, dumping a dozen rounds into her, aiming for the stomach. She was onto me though, and turned, dipping her shoulder and taking most of the rounds high in the back. It had to hurt and did some damage, but I knew for a fact that I hadn’t done any real damage to the blood sacs. I also didn’t have a whole lot of time.
The blonde Vampire roared and started to move, blindly fast. I dropped the 552, letting the sling catch it, and scooped up the napalm grenade. I ripped the cord on the flare, the end erupting in red flame. I yanked the .38 out of my ankle holster and kept it in my left.
I didn’t like shooting left handed, but I had a far better chance hitting something shooting left handed than if I tried to throw the grenade with my left. I didn’t have a whole lot of opportunities, so even though the Vampire was ten yards away, I waited. I needed her to be a little closer.
She screamed as she closed the distance, moving at breakneck speed. Not one to be outdone, I shouted back, feeling my throat strain with the effort.
At five yards out, I opened up. I squeezed the trigger five times, aiming for her left hip. I was rewarded as three holes appeared at the joint. She stumbled, pitching forward as her left leg gave out beneath her. Tumbling, she went to the ground, her momentum carrying her past me. I turned, tracking her movement and hurled the grenade. The glass shattered on her back. A fireball erupted as the napalm caught.
The Vampire howled, rolling back and forth in an attempt to put the flames out. The motion smeared the sticky goop around on her back and chest. Flames blackened flesh as the stench of burned hair and seared meat filled the air. Globs of napalms splattered across the snow, little fiery islands in a sea of ice.
I stuffed the .38 into a pocket and drew the 320. I sighted in on the
fireball and started working the trigger. I didn’t waste time; I pumped eighteen rounds into her torso. The slide locked back, and I dropped the mag reaching for a new one.
I had enough time to slap a fresh magazine in and drop the slide before something hit me from behind.
My feet left the ground, the 320 left my hand, and I was flung through the air before flopping in the snow in a heap. I tried to roll, but something grabbed me from behind. The brunette Vampire had healed enough to be deadly, and she was clearly pissed.
Black talons tore at my back, ripping through my coat and scraping on the ceramic plates. I twisted, rolling to my back. I launched a wild kick, catching her in the sternum. Being a Vampire may have made her strong, but she still only weighed a hundred and thirty pounds at most. With my back on the ground and good leverage, we achieved lift-off.
I heard ribs crack as I kicked. Her body lifted up off the ground and dropped back down five feet away, collapsing and scrambling back up to all fours. I started to push myself backward, digging into my pocket for the tin of silver nitrate.
The Vampire screamed at me and came charging forward. I fumbled with the lid, but couldn’t get it open in time. Instead of slashing, the Vampire grabbed my jacket, lifted me off the ground and hurled me through the air. I yelped as I flew, colliding with an evergreen. I hit a thick branch that splintered and snapped before I dropped to the ground in a heap. I managed to keep ahold of the can of silver, but everything hurt, and I’d had the wind knocked out of me.
I gasped, sucking in air to fill my lungs. I didn’t have time to catch my breath. The Vampire was already coming. Thankfully for me, she’d decided to move slowly, thinking her prey was on the ropes. I put every ounce of focus I had into opening the damn tin in my hands. I gave it a quarter turn and the lid popped open, spilling powder. I poured the rest into my hand and clenched it into a fist.
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