“Vittorio, step on it!” Regina shouted from the car’s rooftop, simultaneously beating down on the roof with her fist. The speedometer’s needle jumped from 75 MPH to over 120 in a span of five seconds, and the engine revved with a deep guttural rumble.
“Regina, jump!” Enttu yelled just in time, as a rocket propelled towards the racing sedan.
The grenade hit the rear left corner of the bumper with just enough impact that it took out the custom, after-market spoiler wing. Vittorio lost control of the car, and veered into the oncoming lane, right into the path of an approaching eighteen-wheeler. He overcorrected his turn and the car skidded off the shoulder, into the woods below, and then flipped about five times, totaling it in the process. She couldn’t see the car anymore after it was swallowed by the trees, but she could smell spilling fuel from the distance. The car landed upside down, and all the windows and windshield were shattered to pieces.
Regina was mortified, staring at the scene whilst she levitated, unsure of what to make of her emotions now. The worst fears came alive in her mind. She looked back, when the headlights of an approaching vehicle caught her off guard, and soon noticed that the SUV had made a U-turn and was driving back in her direction. Another grenade came flying out of the open sunroof, and she was able to dodge the projectile with ease.
With a tunnel vision and red-hot lividity in her eyes, she flew towards the SUV, and kicked broken the entire windshield so hard, that the glass shrapnel embedded into the skin of the driver and passenger. She grabbed the passenger by the throat, and violently swung him onto the side of the road. The impact with which he crashed against the asphalt was sure to kill him, as he landed face first on the pavement. His face deformed, and his nose smashed flat into his skull, pressed against ebbing, viscid blood. In the vehicle, the driver reached for a pistol, and shot Regina point blank in the head, which much to his dismay, it didn’t kill her. It only pissed her off furthermore. She kicked the driver out through the driver side door, until he too went rolling into the asphalt, and got ran over by the rear tires. The vampires in the back tried to claw and bite her. One of them sank his teeth into her shoulder, only provoking her to stab the vampire in the eye. She then placed the SUV in cruise control, in preparation for her next move. She re-opened the driver side door, letting it hang open as the car moved, and then reached inside of her duster jacket.
Quickly, she pulled the pin out of a palm-sized grenade and left it underneath the floorboard of the driver’s seat, before she flew out through the door. She floated up into the night, observing the self-driven black Tahoe for a little less than ten seconds, before it burst into flames, and car parts, glass, and tires went flying everywhere, and the SUV was consumed by red orange fire. She then tended to the accident in the forest, where Enttu and Vittorio could have still been trapped inside of a totaled car.
She followed her acute sense of smell towards the increasingly powerful smell of gasoline fumes as they spilt out of the gas tank. There was a short but steep hill and a dent on the asphalt lip of the shoulder that was caused by the car going over the side. She ran down, and then went into the woods, where she found the upside-down vehicle not too long afterwards. It hissed as radiator fumes and exhaust leaked out of the hood of the car. In the front seats, an unconscious Vittorio and Enttu remained strapped to their seats, bloodied and with scrapes and cuts from a broken windshield. The driver’s side door was pried open, and even though she was beginning to lose blood from being shot in the head, Regina still had the strength to pull them both out.
She reached in and unbuckled Vittorio, catching him from hitting the top of his head against the roof. He was badly bruised and bleeding out of his nose where the airbags had collided directly with his face and shattered his nose. He also bled from his mouth, meaning some critical internal hemorrhaging was also happening. She had succeeded in dragging him just right outside of the car onto the fuel-soaked soil. She knelt beside him and elevated his feet by using a large rock near the scene to prevent him from going into shock. There was still Enttu to worry about, trapped inside the car.
His seatbelt was unbuckled, and blood dripped from a gash on his forehead down along his flaxen strands. He groaned in dull pain when he felt small cold hands trying to pry him out from the strangely bent position he was in. His spit tasted like blood from a shattered fang that he accidentally swallowed. Another one had already began to regenerate. Regina grabbed him by the ankles of his combat boots and dragged him feet first out onto the ground. He coughed twice, to dislodge the sharp piece of fang stuck in his trachea. He spat a viscous clear puddle of spit and blood onto the soil, and the broken fang laid floating in the center. Thankfully, his vampirism had healed him for the most part from the damage he sustained in the accident. Tragically however, not the same could be said for his fellow detective, Vittorio, who was going into a tremor from onsetting shock.
He was still conscious but beginning to slip in and out of it. Two blurry shadows appeared before him, blocking out the light of the moon peering through the silhouettes of rustling leaves. The gentle breeze felt amazing against the rising heat from the swelling of his face that made it increasingly difficult to breathe. He felt cold fingertips gently rap the side of his cheek, and he hissed in complaint of the pain.
“Vittorio, please stay with me,” Enttu was heard whispering, keeping his cold alabaster fingertips on his cheek.
“Tepes…….call my wife…..and tell her that I love her,” Vittorio managed to say, through the burning hoarseness in his throat.
“Don’t you dare speak that way. I won’t let you die, Celentano!” the dhampir protested, holding back tears.
“I….I don’t want your gift, Enttu. If you make me an immortal, I will kill you,” he threatened. Vittorio became aware the he couldn’t feel his legs, neither one of them, though he could still see them.
He was paralyzed from the waist down, and lay on the ground, sprawled with his arms to either side in resignation. Regina had gone off to call an ambulance and would return shortly.
“No, you wouldn’t,” the dhampir said back to him, as a single tear spilt out of his cobalt eyes. He bit his wrist enough to break skin, and pressed it to Vittorio’s lips, just long enough for the liquid to seep into his mouth.
“What the fuck are you doing?! I don’t want to become a vampire!” he yelled.
“This won’t turn you into a vampire, its simply going to help you heal faster,”
Even in his paralytic state, Vittorio wasn’t having it, and he spat out the dhampir’s blood at his face, making the other one retract. He growled angrily into the sky, loud enough to alert Regina to return to the scene, where she witnessed the miracle of Vittorio spawning back to full health. He felt the burn of raw emotion in his chest and felt each vein in his body explode with invigoration, even the ones in his legs that he couldn’t feel before. When the temporary psychosis subsided, he rose to his feet, and came back to his senses. In his arms, he felt that he had the strength to move mountains and take down bears with his bare hands.
“You can try to kill me now if you still wish,” Enttu commented, through bleak sarcasm.
“If I see even the hint of fangs growing out of my mouth, I will tear you to shreds, Tepes,” Vittorio warned him.
“You’re welcome, Celentano,” he replied through a smirk.
The trio climbed out of the woods and back onto the road, where the metal frame of the SUV was the only thing that remained from the immolation of the exploding grenade. They walked together, side by side, away from the inferno, in the middle of the road, black silk and leather clad sentinels of the nocturne.
Haunting, red intermittent streaks tinted the stratus of the after-midnight, from the direction of the city. Acutely observant, Enttu saw it first and stood still, cobalt eyes in the direction of the metropolis. A gentle breeze picked up the tail of his coat and smelt like another rainfall was going to shower over them
again. He then picked up speed and began on a jog towards the city, and his two other friends followed in unison with him. Vittorio struggled to keep up with the vampiric speed which the other two mindlessly got carried away with.
Just past the city limit sign was a traffic block of police cars preventing vehicles from coming and going into town. Red and blue flashes bedazzled the slick and black asphalt road in a twinkling reflection. Squads of policemen that Vittorio recognized from the department were positioned outside of their vehicles, bent down on one knee, and aiming weapons towards a hidden object the cars encircled. Deafening gun fire ensued, and the scene was lit up with the pyrotechnic effect of firing weapons, filling the air with a whitish, billowing smoke from the barrels. Before he could stop him, Enttu broke free from the trio formation, and cut his way in between the cops, alarming them and almost getting shot in the process.
He lunged straight for the necrotic, grime-covered humanoid that wouldn’t die even by a firing squad of twenty or so men. He reached around its neck from behind, and put the thing in a headlock, while it snapped away and tried to bite him. A dagger plunged right between the creature’s eyes, and Enttu twisted the blade to ensure the successful lobotomy that meant immediate death to its wretched kind. The dagger made a wet, crunching sound as it swirled around through meat, tissue, bones, and spilling brains. It collapsed in a sticky sounding thud, face first to the asphalt. Its head crunched flat as it was crushed underneath the heel of the dhampir’s combat boots, and his eyes glowed a fiery crimson hearing its agony. Rain-filled gusts swept his long blonde hair to one side, and it veiled over one of his eyes. Everyone in the firing squad murmured to each other and relaxed their weapons as they awkwardly witnessed the hated former policeman save all their tails.
“See, I told you that Tepes was a vampire,” one of the men said to another, and some other cops in the group nodded in agreement. Enttu squinted his eyes at them and shook his head at their mediocrity, as he labeled it.
“You people can shoot the shit, but you can’t shoot for shit,” he said, sounding as if it was Bela Lugosi that had said it if someone wasn’t looking.
Vittorio and Regina joined his side, and they felt the heaviness of all eyes on them, as if they were either dystopian heroes, or their worst enemies wanted with their heads on a stick. Regina flinched upon feeling Enttu’s hand slip around her waist, and tug her closer by his side, showing the world that she was his woman. She rolled her eyes and gave a bleak smile to his sudden peppy, suave savagery; a living paradox. He looked back haughtily at the astounded squadron under his lashes and gave them his last signature denouement of “You’re welcome.”
When they suavely turned their heads around to continue their path into the city, the blinding white electricity from a taser greeted Enttu face first. And then Vittorio, and then Regina. While the other two collapse, she remained standing, the daintiest of the three. She cocked her head sideways and cracked her neck bones, laughing hysterically from what felt like a staticky tickle. One step forward from her stilettos sent the cops running back to their cars.
CH. 15
THE GENESIS OF
SOVEREIGN ANNIHILATION
20:30, 100 Nautical Miles from Kapaho Bay, 28 Jun 2018.
Ocean waves gently rocked the megalithic, haze grey-painted, amphibious transport dock, USS San Diego, to and fro, from bow to stern. The atmosphere outside was still hot despite the sun setting two hours before, and it was now pitch black up on the smoke deck, except for the artificial illumination of the red and white task lights from the giant, conical forward and aft stacks. The smoke deck, on the 4th level of the ship along with the bridge and signal shack, smelt of the toxic combination of burning tobacco, jet fuel from Ospreys flying overhead, and tinged with the kelp aroma of sea water. Faraway, the burning shores of Kapaho Bay, on the Big Island of Hawai’i, was a neon orange strip from the volcanic magma that emptied into the Pacific Ocean. Dark grey smoke plumes billowed hundreds of feet up into the night sky, bedazzled with the sequins of the Milky Way.
Sailors roamed around the smoke deck, accidentally bumping into each other, but brushing it off, more concerned about getting signal and a nicotine fix. Plenty of them were just up there to get enough cell phone service to check Facebook and to communicate with their families back home in San Diego or wherever they were living. The commanding officer of the ship had extended cell phone time until taps to compensate the watch standers who were currently getting relieved. It had been almost two months now, and Mt. Kilauea was still erupting, and by now, the lava flows had created a completely new volcanic island off the shore. Many homes were destroyed, and the locals had to relocate. Many were in camps, and the Sailors of LPD-22 were out on a humanitarian aid mission to assist them.
After taps, around 22:00, many Sailors had gone to bed in their coffin racks down in the freezing berthings, only lit by red fluorescent fixtures of “darken ship.” The few that remained awake were watch standers or the supply department’s night crew on the mess decks. The passageways of the ship were dark, cold, and austere, with a few encounters of sleepy Sailors on the way to or from watch stations, in need of sleep or caffeine. Down in the engine rooms, the auxiliary rovers tried their best not to nod off in the control consoles. In Central Control Station, or CCS, engineering Sailors drank cup after cup of coffee and spewed crude ad-libs at each other. Everything was fine, and dandy, and very uneventful for the next hour or so.
The EPCC watch stander, who oversaw the entire ship’s electrical plant, was shooting the shit with the PACC operator next to her, another young woman, of African descent. They were talking about all the food they couldn’t wait to try in the next liberty port and were loosely making liberty plans together. The Engineering Officer of the Watch, or EOOW, had called their attention to be a little more professional, and they jokingly mocked him, much to his displeasure. They continued, until the overhead fixtures all flickered in unison, and then dimmed steadily, unexpectedly.
“Oh fuck!” the EPCC operator cursed, as she saw the kilowatts of 5 SSDG in Auxiliary Room 3, circulate from 1800 to 2100 amps in continuous cycles.
She called the aux rover on the 1 MC and ordered for him to check 5S Switchboard and then the LOCOP. Not even five seconds passed after she gave the order, that suddenly portions of the ship’s lights cut out, as well as all air conditioning, and hotel services. Only battle lanterns remained on, as well as vital control air and vital equipment down in the engine rooms for the engines and the shafts. The EOOW arose from his seat and grabbed the mic of the 1MC and announced loudly,
“ENGINEERING CASUALTY, ENGINEERING CASUALTY, LOSS OF STARBOARD BUS!”
Every Electrician’s Mate was abruptly woken from their racks, including the females in their own separate berthing. Much to their unexpected dismay, the port bus of the electrical distribution system then cut out, and the entire ship went dark except for battle lanterns. Consequently, the engines were lost as well, and the ship went dead in the water. The ship’s crew was awakened by watch standers from each department who were still awake, and the halls soon filled with groggy, disoriented Sailors with half-zipped navy-blue coveralls, and untied combat boots. They were verbally told to walk, not run to their general quarters battle stations. One young sailor had loudly complained why they had to go to GQ, since it was just an engineering problem. He quickly got scolded by a superior who had been awake past taps and was told “There’s some shit going down outside, so just shut the fuck up and listen!”
Curiosity got to the young minds of many Sailors who overheard, and several were able to sneak away only by using the light of their cell phones to guide them down the darkened p-ways. They opened the doors that led to the weather decks and left them open for anyone who wished to follow. Carefully, they trudged up the ladders to the flight deck, grabbing onto the rails to avoid slipping into the ocean below.
On the flight deck, moonlight illuminated the non-skid grated dec
k, and showed a mass group of Sailors gathered in the center of parked AV-8’s and OSPREYs, secured by chocks onto pad eyes. Sailors of all departments were all staring up into the sky at the events occurring right above them. It was unlike anything ever seen before, and some were even recording the supernatural incident. Three floating pyramids hovered in front of the ship, maybe 5 nautical miles away, and shuffled about in a triangular formation. They each had four, blinding blue lights underneath them that were very likely to be plasma-like propellers. The group of sailors then all gasped and screamed together as the pyramid crafts approached the ship, and were now hovering directly above the vessel, blocking out the moonlight. They dispersed like roaches and in the fright and adrenaline rush, several Sailors lost their footing and fell into the ocean. Many Sailors also stayed fixed in placed and were all startled when the pyramids began to fire in the opposite, port side of the ship, not at the ship, but at something in the water.
The moonlight reflected from a tentacled beast that emerged from a whirlpool in the water, and it was coming fast for the ship. The monster was sleek and black, shaped like an inverted teardrop that towered as high as the ship’s stacks. It smelled overpowering of dead fish and plankton, and it opened its giant mouth to engulf the ship. Its teeth were about the size of the lube oil pumps down in the main spaces.
“Don’t abandon ship, I repeat, don’t abandon ship! Get back inside the skin of the ship! The Air Force is on the way!” the robust voice of the Commanding Officer bellowed on the flight deck.
Two of the pyramids moved away from above the flight deck, and only one remained above. As the two crafts fired at the black nautical monster, the third pyramid was suddenly struck by the whiplash of a tentacle and it was powerful enough to knock the pyramid off its circular axis and fling it far away into the ocean. A predictable, yet formidable tidal wave rushed towards the ship and all the Sailors who witnessed the event screamed and clung on to one another. They were hysterical, and widespread panic revered through the decks, as this deployment had taken a horrifically unexpected turn for the worst. The wave was a now a nautical mile away, when suddenly, a rising object from the ocean caused the wave to abruptly halt and secede back into the rest of the Pacific. The remaining two pyramids seemed to slow down in motion a bit, as if they too were losing power, but they kept firing away.
The Dhampir Dimension Page 40
