Duel Nature

by John Conroe

  I jumped up and back, clearing ten feet from Hosokawa, who was watching me curiously. Looking down, he examined the small cut in his pants leg before looking back up with a slight nod.

  “It’s a start,” he said, softly. Then he attacked again. And again. And again.

  I remember sparring with my first martial arts instructor as a kid. He taught both karate and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, with a habit of combining the two in one session. In other words, mixed martial arts. We would start on our feet, but inevitably end up on the ground, where he would usually find a new form of choke, arm bar or muscle split to inflict on me. Five minutes felt like an hour, leaving me heaving for breath as I tried to repay a ridiculous oxygen debt.

  Twenty minutes of non-stop vampire sparring was on another planet of energy expenditure. At speeds of ten times or more faster than the best human reaction time, twenty minutes becomes hours in human time.

  Soaked in sweat, my body trembled as I struggled to find a way to stop the fight. I had already literally used a whole day’s supply of calories and my reserves were gone. The metabolic beast that is my body had depleted the tank, used up the emergency supply and was in danger of consuming the rest of me if it didn’t get fed soon.

  In fact, Grim had switched from sparring mode to survival mode, now looking to truly kill, maim or incapacitate my enemy, as my life depended on it. My aura was almost exhausted, having been eroded against my opponent over the course of our match. His uniform was now mostly shredded, the black showing a dull gray sheen underneath. The gray was some type of chainmail he wore that I had quickly figured out was formed from depleted uranium. Seventeen minutes ago, when Grim had gone into kill mode, I had blasted the vamp with a burst of aura that should have removed his legs. It destroyed the black cloth, but was ineffective against his DU armor.

  Crouched at the far end of the room, myself studied the vampire. Two forms of vision overlapped. One mostly normal, the other an overlay that outlined his form in sharp slashes of red. Each red line was a weak point in his armor, the brighter the red, the closer I had come to penetrating it. Myself was studying those spots intently. Aura was almost gone, eroded by a fight that had started as sparring but become a dance to the death.

  A huge impact struck the steel door behind him. He jumped. I didn’t. Myself knew what or who was on the other side, demanding in.

  The vampire shifted left. An electrical conduit caught my dark half’s eye. It was the kind run on the outside of concrete walls. Coming down from the ceiling it ended at an outlet box. Myself noted others just like it around the room, with the closest being six feet to my left. The outlet box was steel, with circular cutouts that could be knocked open for wire access. Each steel knockout was the size of a quarter.

  Springing left, my fingers punched out two metal discs, tearing them free from the box. A shock jumped my hand when my fingers touched live wires but I barely noticed.

  The vampire was moving toward me at speed, not recognizing my actions but determined to stop them.

  Fingers dimpled the metal discs, hand tossed them into the air, both hands clapped. Both discs fired in supersonic bursts of molten metal. One struck the metal door, ripping through the thickest part of the upper hinge. The other hit the vampire in his left shoulder, blew through in a mist of blood and flesh, then blasted a crater from the wall.

  The vampire rocked back, I headed forward and the steel door tore free from its remaining hinge.

  “Stop!” the new vampire said. This one had blue eyes and black hair. This one I had to listen to. I stopped. Other vampires came into the room. I moved back to the far end.

  A little female flitted in. She carried food. My sight telescoped onto the plastic jar that read ‘Skippy’.

  “Just throw it to him, Lyd,” the one I must listen to said. Mine.

  The jar arced across the room, but I met it half way. The top came off and myself shoveled the brown oily paste into my mouth in gobs.

  “So…what the fuck?” mine asked, voice quiet. I edged back at that tone.

  “Demidova-san. Your Chosen is…surprising,” my enemy said, one arm hanging limply.

  Two more vampires entered, one tiny and Asian, the other taller and blonde. All the other vampires bowed, except mine. She was angry. Very angry.

  “Arashi? What has happened?” the tiny Asian vampire asked.

  My enemy bowed. “Training, Elder.”

  “And at what point of the training did you decide to attempt to kill my Chosen?” mine asked.

  My enemy looked startled. He glanced around the room. I followed his gaze, still gobbling the nutty paste, squatting at the back of the room.

  The room was in shambles. Craters gouged the floor, walls and ceiling. Two of the concrete buttresses had enormous impact cracks. Scorch marks and burns were everywhere.

  “I have not had a match like this in seven centuries. I lost myself in battle. I have failed,” my enemy said, his tone flat.

  The blonde vampire spoke in a voice used to being obeyed. “Doctor?”

  A male vampire moved forward, his skin dark. I knew him, he was no threat to me.

  “I’ve not seen a wound like this before. It’s completely cauterized. Like a plasma burn. The tissue will have to be abraded down to raw tissue. It will be painful.”

  “That’s a start,” the little Asian said. They all turned to me. I finished the jar, my attention back on the little female with the food.

  “Throw him the donuts,” mine said. I caught the box halfway across the room and retreated, grabbing a broken sword blade on my way back. Tearing open the box, I shoved a donut in my mouth, then jammed the blade into the concrete in front of me. My fingers squeezed the top of the sword where the steel had snapped, forming it, molding the metal into a flat square that faced the vampires. Tiny aura claws on my right fingers scored the steel in a four-by-four grid.

  “What is he doing?” the blond bossy one asked.

  “He’s simultaneously replenishing reserves while preparing a defensive weapon to kill Hosokawa. The blade will act like a mini-Claymore mine when he claps his hands, sending about twenty explosively formed projectiles across the room,” mine explained.

  “The fight is stopped. Why is he doing that?” the blonde asked.

  “Because Hosokawa has pushed him so far into survival mode that he sees no way out except to kill everything that threatens him. His body reserves are all gone and he had begun to cannibalize his own tissues.”

  “Like a vampire who has been starved of blood for weeks,” the dark skinned male said.

  “Like a vampire starved of blood for months or years!” mine corrected.

  “How is that possible?” the tiny Asian asked.

  “He burns calories like a were, but if he simultaneously engages in combat and uses his aura, the burn rate multiplies. Hosokawa started this as a sparring match, right?” mine asked.

  “Hai, Demidova-san,” my enemy agreed, swaying on his feet.

  “When did it escalate?”

  “Ah…” my enemy was lost in thought. “After he tried to push me with his…aura? Yes, after that. I think he noticed the armor then. It got…exciting after that.”

  “So, he didn’t know about the armor. He faced his first older vampire, got his ass handed to him, Grim took over and then found out about the armor. He still controlled it as he never pulled the ceiling down on you, but as the fight went on and he used up more reserves, both energy and aura, he got more desperate.”

  “Pull down the ceiling?” the blonde asked.

  “He’s thinking about doing it now. His energy levels are back up enough. Lydia, throw him the protein bars, please.”

  “He could pull down the ceiling? And why are you throwing everything to him?” the blonde asked.

  “I think he could pull a satellite or asteroid down from space if he was sufficiently motivated. Right now he’s pretty motivated and if I leave this part of the room to go to him, he’ll probably do something drastic to everyone on this
side of the room.”

  The vampires were all silent for a moment, staring at me as I tore through the box of chewy bars.

  “He fought well?” the blonde finally asked my enemy.

  “Hai! Best fight I’ve had,” he replied. “I need to heal for a rematch.”

  “No! You still don’t get it do you?” mine said, stamping one foot hard enough to crack more of the floor.

  “I told you…stop pushing him. But no one listens to me, do they? I’m the one linked to him, I’m the one who sees what happens each and every time,” she said.

  They all just stared at her. She went on.

  “His other personality, Grim, just went through a half hour doctoral program in fighting both older vampires and ones that are armored in depleted uranium. Trust me when I tell you that he learned everything you could teach him and more. The very next time he fights either or both he will have adapted all his strategies. He won’t spar, he won’t hold back. He will blast your head off your body, rip the floor out from under you, create a spear of energy so sharp and focused that it will slice through your armor like tissue. That’s what Grim does…learn and adapt to combat. You threatened his survival. Grim’s only function is to ensure survival. In fact, it will be a struggle for Chris to keep Grim from killing you on sight, Arashi!” she said.

  The center of my chest warmed suddenly. The God Tear made its presence known. I glanced down then touched it. Tanya spun at my motion.

  “You back?” she asked softly.

  I held one peanut butter covered hand out flat and wobbled it back and forth. “Sorta,” I said.

  “Doctor, please take Hosokawa-san for treatment,” Senka said, not taking her eyes off me.

  “Ah, hey Spikey, got anything to drink? I got peanut butter mouth,” I asked Lydia, who walked over and handed me the last item she held. A large size Monster energy drink. Perfect.

  Chapter 27

  We left the gym, passing a crushed golf cart that appeared to have been thrown into the steel door. Several vampires remained in the larger gym space and they all stopped to stare. Now that I was coming back to myself, I became aware of my condition. Drying blood matted the back of my head, my clothes were torn and blood-soaked, my hands and face covered in a greasy mix of donut crumbs and peanut butter. Vampire noses sniffed my blood, but the angel of death walking next to me helped them keep their restraint.

  Tanya led me to the locker room and pushed me gently into the shower. Senka left at that point, promising to check back later, but Nika showed up with clean sweats and some more food.

  I stripped, which was easy as my clothes basically fell apart, and started to wash up. Tanya watched me morosely, while Lydia and Nika tried to talk to her. The fact that I was standing naked ten feet from them didn’t appear to bother them, although they completely failed to look away. In fact, all three sorta stared. Lydia even winked.

  “Okay, so that was a disaster,” Lydia said.

  Tanya shrugged, still looking at me. “If the intent was to train Chris on fighting older vampires, than it was a complete success.”

  “He looked in tough shape,” Nika noted, motioning at me.

  “He was moments from killing Hosokawa. His dark half will evolve new skills almost exponentially,” Tanya said, her voice flat.

  “Sooo, that’s not all bad, right?” Lydia asked, trying to understand Tanya’s mood.

  “Lydia, his dark side is learning and growing so fast that his other side might get left behind. If he reacts with ultra-violence to every stimulus, where will he be? Plus, he could have died in there,” she said with a sigh. “Sure, he’s probably got a duel well handled, but he is also prone to being on a hair trigger now. See, he’s been teaching his dark side to use degrees of response. But the so-called ‘training’ with Hosokawa wiped that control out. It taught him that measured responses will get you killed. Respond with overwhelming force instantly.”

  “Oh! Maybe he could work with Hosokawa to re-learn it?” Lydia suggested.

  “That’s unlikely to be a good idea, Lyd,” Tanya said.

  “So I stay away from nasty old vampires as much as possible,” I said, turning off the shower and grabbing a towel and the sweats.

  “That is a start,” Tanya said, as we climbed into another golf cart for a fast ride to our quarters. “You will not need to be around for much of the opening events, but you do need to be with me for a few of the formal announcements.”

  “Why don’t I go over the cast of characters with him. Introduce him to the Deck of Significants, work on protocol and coven meeting survival,” Nika suggested. “I don’t need to be there for most of those events either, in fact my presence tends to make some uncomfortable.”

  Even vampires get creeped out by a telepath that can read their every thought. She never let it show, but Tanya had told me that the beautiful blonde mind reader hated being shunned for her talents.

  We pulled up in front of our suite of rooms and Lydia led the way inside.

  “Deck of Significants?” I asked.

  “Like a deck of playing cards, but more similar to say baseball cards,” Lydia answered. “Photos and stats on all the major players in our world.”

  “I never heard of them before,” I commented.

  “There is an enormous amount you haven’t been exposed to yet,” Tanya said. “That is actually a really good idea, Nika. Thank you.”

  “Notta problem. Give me a chance to hang with my brother-in-law,” Nika said.

  “Just don’t watch him eat…it’s disgusting!” Lydia said, a grimace on her face.

  “Oh great! A vampire with a weak stomach!” I said.

  “I’ll have Remy bring him more food,” Tanya said.

  “Way ahead of you T. He should be on his way any moment,” Lydia said.

  “Good! He doesn’t have much meat left on him,” Tanya said, smiling sadly at me.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I saw lots of ‘meat’ a minute ago,” Lydia said, smirking.

  Tanya snorted in amusement, kissed me goodbye, then towed my spikey-haired nemesis out of the room, leaving me with my blush.

  Nika, ignoring the banter, headed to a set of Tanya’s drawers in the corner of our room and pulled a cloth bag from the top drawer, which I had thought was strictly the realm of bras and undies. Of course, anytime I had seen it open, I had been too distracted by the tiny wisps of silk, lace, cotton and nylon to notice anything else.

  Nika smiled at my thought. “I would be worried if you had noticed anything else!”

  Nika had trained me in shielding my mind from her, which it turns out was fairly easy to do with my aura, but I usually didn’t. Too many times in the past, all the way back to my first meeting with vampires, her ability to ‘see’ my thoughts had been beneficial.

  “You’re in a very small minority that feels comfortable enough to do that,” she said, having again glimpsed inside my head.

  “Lydia would say that I can’t form any thoughts worth hiding,” I said with a shrug.

  “Lydia loves you like the little brother she lost,” Nika replied.

  “Lost?”

  “He died of Spanish Influenza when they were both little. She’s decided that you’ve replaced him. Which means that she is honor bound to poke and prod you.”

  “Some of her comments are decidedly less than sisterly,” I said, thinking of the quip she left on.

  “Well, you fill the role of little brother, but you’re not really related. It seems to have slipped your notice Chris, but most unrelated females are going to have a hard time ignoring your, eh , assets,” she said with a quick little smile.

  “I’ve spent my whole life being ignored by the ladies, it’s hard to adjust is all,” I said.

  “Most males would have gone hog wild with the attention,” she suggested.

  “Umm, most don’t have my background,” I said, thinking of how the demons I hunted would treat a girlfriend or date.

  Nika froze, motionless, as she read that train of thoug
ht. After a moment she locked her gaze to mine. “Thank you for sharing your past with me,” she said.

  I double checked to see if she was sincere or sarcastic. Her even gaze and nod answered my question.

  “Almost everyone around me goes on lockdown or outright panic when I’m nearby. But not you. That’s rare. Then you show me your past like just now. I appreciate the gift.”

  I shuddered. “Most people wouldn’t think my past was much of a gift.”

  “I see it filtered through your eyes, so I get the horror of what you have dealt with, but that horror is limited by the knowledge that you already dealt with those horrors…severely in every case,” she said. “It helps me understand you better. Anything that helps me understand the ‘Young Queen’s Chosen’ is valuable.”