The Blood Order (Fanghunters Book Two)

by Leo Romero

  Dammit, she vented to herself. She huffed and pulled back her dart gun. There was no time to hang around. Eventually, they'd glance up and see the missing panel. She got a quick fix on everyone, mapping the room out in her head. Leviah was back behind her with Dad, and most likely Dom too. Sammy was across to her right. She needed him to come back this way. Now.

  And he did. He took a tentative step her way, his gun at the ready, his head shifting left and right. Trixie's eyes widened. Sammy's frame began to fill the gap ahead of her.

  A little more, a little more, she urged, her heart picking up pace. Come this way, little pig. Come to Mummy.

  He took one more step; she grinned. Bingo.

  She dived headfirst through the open panel. She lunged through the air with a scream. The whole room recoiled in unison. She slammed square on Sammy's head and back, sending him crashing into the floor, his body breaking her fall. He groaned in agony. Trixie rolled away from his prone body and leaped to her feet before Leviah even had a chance to turn. She kicked Sammy's hand hard; his gun flew across the room. She then bent down, wrapped a quick arm around his neck, and yanked him upward. "Come on! Get up!" she screeched.

  Sammy did as he was told.

  From behind, Trixie poked her dart gun into his cheek, holding him in a classic hostage position. She faced the room full on. Dad and Dom were staring back at her, their faces riddled with disbelief. A broody Leviah was stood between them, hands on hips. Behind them all, Nixon was hanging out of the elevator, snoring his ass off. Over to the left, a decapitated body bled freely.

  Vincent's eyes widened. "Trixie!" he gasped with a hope-filled smile.

  Trixie returned the grin. "Hi, Daddy," she responded in a pleasant voice, which was totally out of place. "How do I look?" she asked with a twitchy smile.

  "Like you've been through a lot," Vincent replied in a voice laced with lament.

  "Now you see why I don't go on jobs. You always get your clothes ruined." She glanced over at Dom. "Hey, Dom."

  "Hey, Trixie," Dom replied in a solemn tone. "You still look hot to me by the way."

  "Really? Even in these ragged clothes?"

  "Ragged I can deal with," he told her.

  "Aw, you'll make me bawl any second." She then looked around her. "So, what we got here?" she asked with a scowl. "More vamps to kill?" She jammed her dart gun into Sammy's cheek. "I'm kinda getting to like it!"

  "Take it easy, Trixie," Sammy said in a nervy voice.

  Leviah then stepped forward.

  "Uh, uh, uh!" Trixie scolded him, flicking her dart gun his way.

  Leviah stopped moving.

  "You come closer and I'll kill you both," Trixie warned. "I got plenty of ammo."

  Leviah just stared at her, his eyes glimmering. Trixie knew what his game was. "And that won't work either," she told him. "I'm protected."

  Leviah switched off his eyes, his mouth drooping.

  Trixie grinned. She then turned her attention back to Sammy, sticking the muzzle of her dart gun back into his face. "What was it you called me earlier?" she asked him. "Trixie Beau-chump?"

  Sammy sent her a nervous chuckle. "Hey, I-I-I didn't mean it. It was just a joke."

  "Just so you know for future reference, jokes are supposed to make one laugh," Trixie informed him. "And besides," she then whispered in his ear, "it's Beau-CHAMP, asshole!" Without warning, she shoved him forward, her face contorted in a snarl. Sammy stumbled over on his front between the two chairs holding Vincent and Dom. He spun onto his back like a performing seal.

  With a wild-eyed glare, Trixie aimed her dart gun.

  Sammy threw up a palm. "No, no, no, no--"

  Trixie pulled the trigger. The holy water dart jabbed him in the leg. In the next instant, he was convulsing like a fish on the deck of a trawler.

  Trixie gave him a pleasant smile. "That's for calling me a bitch," she said as she watched him die.

  Leviah then went to make a move for her. Trixie flipped her dart gun up, aiming it straight at his chest. "Not so fast!" she snapped. Leviah stopped dead in his tracks. He backed up a couple of steps, his hands out to the sides. There was a half-smile on his face, but his eyes were narrowed, giving him an appearance of shrewdness.

  Trixie limped toward him. "So, you're the famous Leviah I've heard so much about," she said up to him in a voice laced with irony. "I was expecting someone taller," she quipped even though he towered over her.

  "You've done well to make it this far," Leviah declared, that shrewd half-smile still remaining on his face. "I must commend you."

  "Thanks, but I've received enough medals in my lifetime, Jack."

  "We can... work this out," he told her.

  "Oh really? How?"

  "You give me the relic, and you're free to leave. All of you." He grinned and his fangs appeared. They were the biggest, sharpest fangs she'd ever seen. She grimaced.

  "Oh, the relic?" she then said with a casual laugh, breaking the spell. She reached into her pocket and whipped it out. "You mean this thing?" she asked any semblance of a smile vanishing from her tired, dirty features.

  Leviah's eyes widened. Trixie rolled the relic tantalizingly back and forth between her thumb and index finger, goading him.

  Leviah lost his cool. His eyes whirled with eagerness "Yes. Give it to me!" he demanded, holding out a shaking hand. "You've no clue what that is!"

  Trixie raised a contemptuous upper lip. "No can do, Jack!" she said before throwing it down on the floor.

  Then Vincent's eyes widened. "Trixie! No!"

  But, Trixie didn't listen. She ruthlessly raised her remaining boot and stamped it down hard. The relic crushed under her foot.

  Vincent gasped in horror.

  "No!" Leviah wailed, grief-stricken. He dropped to his knees with a loud thud, his hands curled in front of his face, his eyes fixed on the crushed relic; it was just a small pile of dust.

  Trixie then aimed her dart gun at him with menace, her face a wild-eyed glare.

  Leviah flinched toward the dart gun. He stared up at her, hate brimming in his eyes. He parted his lips, his fangs clenched together in sheer rage.

  "Trixie!" Vincent then shouted out. "You can't kill him. He's a son of Moroz. You mustn't do it!"

  Trixie kept her dart gun aimed at Leviah. She then flicked her eyes over to Vincent's pleading face, then back to the enraged Leviah. A surge of anger rushed up her chest. "I'm not gonna kill him," she declared, her stare never leaving Leviah. She then threw her empty dart gun to the side before dipping both hands into her belt and pulling out the two sonic booms she had stashed there. With a quick flick of both thumbs, the sonic booms were activated. She threw them behind her toward the windows.

  Leviah watched her with a bemused frown, his eyes darting left and right following the sonic booms. A second later, an intense, high-pitched wail tore through the room, assaulting the eardrums of all the occupants bar Vincent. Leviah threw his hands up to his ears, his face contorting in pain. Trixie already had her ears plugged, protecting her from the infernal noise. She raced over to Dom; his head was snapped back in agony, the veins in his neck like chord, his tied hands stopping him from protecting his ears. Trixie did it for him instead; she clasped her bandaged palms over his ears and squeezed. Vincent just watched on in bemusement, the only thing audible to him the groans and screams of the others.

  The sonic booms hummed and vibrated on the floor less than a foot from the windows, the ear-splitting noise reaching an agonizing crescendo. The tinted glass then began to tremble and vibrate alongside them. Vincent watched the glass with a slack jaw. His eyes bulged with horror. "No!" he shouted, just as the windows finally succumbed to the pressure. They exploded outward, glass showering down to the ground ninety-seven stories below. A sudden flood of glorious dawn sunlight washed over everything in the room. Including Leviah.

  Leviah froze as if the light had turned him to stone.

  He then released a massive gasp of unbridled terror (or was it unmitigated awe) as
the burning sun lit up his irises. "Uh!"

  Before he could even attempt an escape, his arms were flung back, his chest thrown forward, his silk robe rippling on the air behind him like a cloak. His hands curled up into juddering claws that tremored alongside his chest. His jaws then snapped open, his fangs gleaming in the morning sun for the first and last time.

  He became still for half a second before releasing an almighty scream that drowned out the unyielding screech of the sonic booms; it rocketed off all the walls of the chamber and back again. The cacophony was severed once his entire body combusted in an intense conflagration as if he'd been doused in gas and a match thrown his way. The flames ravaged him like greedy leeches, the entire chamber glowing orange-yellow. He engaged in an exotic dance of compulsive hip shakes, while flailing his arms in a futile attempt to extinguish the blaze. It just grew stronger. He wailed in a hot mix of pleasure and pain.

  Trixie held firm, protecting Dom's hurting ears; she watched on in with a morbid fixation as Leviah melted before her very eyes, the acrid stench of smoldering, putrid flesh bombarding her sinuses. She turned away from the horrific spectacle while still shutting off Dom's ears.

  The sun-induced inferno continued to eat Leviah alive. His skin blistered and popped, his flesh sizzled like barbequed meat. His hair frazzled away in a rash of intense flames, his face now a mask of fire. Within the combustion, his bulging eyes still burned with agonized life. But not for long. The pressure from within built up to boiling point. He released a final piercing scream, just as his eyeballs exploded under the pressure; they burst out of his skull in twin jets of blood. His body then slumped forward; he hit the floor with a massive thud. The fires continued to lick away at every little piece of him. Whatever charred flesh remained was singed away into the air, the bones beneath becoming exposed. They rattled and danced as if alive.

  The bones continued to jangle and chatter before they began to give way, melting from the marrow out. A green/black putrid substance like tumors oozed out alongside any dissolving cartilage; it thinned to a sticky pool that spread across the floor. The liquid then heated and sizzled like boiling milk before evaporating into small wisps of smoke that stank like grilled rotten meat.

  What remained of Leviah's bones then rapidly dried and cracked under the heat as if the chamber had been turned into an oven. The sun was unrelenting with its onslaught; its power managed to dissolve the desiccated bones to fine dust as if time had been sped up by a millennia. A gust of wind blew through the smashed windows; it picked up the bone dust and swept it away, leaving just a dry, dark green patch and Leviah's massive fangs. They sat there like tusks, the only remnants of the head of the Blood Order.

  The mighty Leviah was no more.

  And then everything went calm.

  The sonic booms cut out, releasing Dom from their agonizing din. The chamber fell silent; only the ubiquitous snoring of General Nixon audible.

  Trixie puffed her cheeks. "Well, that was pretty gnarly," she said, her chest heaving.

  Vincent looked from the remains of Leviah to Trixie. "Oh, Trixie, what have you done?"

  "Saved your ass," she answered, staggering over to him. She untied him from the chair.

  Vincent stood up with a groan, grabbed her, and gave her a hug. She wanted to hug him back but was way too exhausted.

  Tears began streaming down Vincent's face. "I love you," he declared.

  "I love you too, Daddy," Trixie whispered.

  Vincent pulled back.

  "Now, excuse me while I just die," Trixie said and then collapsed.

  Vincent caught her just before she hit the deck. He stared at her face; she was zoning in and out of consciousness. Vincent gazed upon her with a heavy heart. Her face was covered in tiny scratches, her neck bruised purple. Her shirtsleeve had been torn off, her exposed arm lined with red raw scratches. Her hands were wrapped in ragged bandages that were soaked red.

  "Oh, Trixie..." he said with a sorrowful shake of his head. He laid her down on the floor with tender care before darting over to Dom. "Are you okay?" he asked him.

  "No..." Dom replied, his head lolling. "But, I'll live."

  Vincent began untying his binds. "I told you to have faith, didn't I?"

  Dom gingerly got to his feet. "I guess you're right," he said, nursing his ears. "Man, I could do with a nice cold Bud."

  "I'll buy you a whole crate when we get back," Vincent said, giving him a pat on the back. He then headed straight back to Trixie. He bent down and gave her a gentle kiss on the top of her head. "She's in bad shape," he stated.

  "We better get her out of here."

  "Agreed." Vincent's eyes then fell upon the small splat of dust on the floor that used to be the relic. His heart sunk. He rubbed his head. "Why oh why did you have to destroy that relic, Trixie?"

  "Don't sweat it... Daddy," Trixie replied, her eyes closed. "That wasn't... the real one. That's back at... the mansion. That one was... just a piece of chicken poop."

  Vincent frowned. "You?" He stared at her, then at the dust, then back at Trixie again. He then began laughing. "Clever girl!" he exclaimed.

  Something then caught his eye. He stared at Leviah's fangs in disbelief; he never thought he'd witness the day of the vampire's demise. He hopped over to those fangs. With a groan, he bent down and snatched them up. He held them up in his palms and stared at them, fixated. They were the biggest fangs he'd ever laid eyes on. "These will look great in the collection," he said with a morbid grin on his face, forgetting where he was.

  A giant clap of thunder then echoed through the room, snapping Vincent out of his fugue. He ducked on impulse, before heading for the broken windows. Black clouds were swarming the sky like a Biblical plague. Lighting lit up the abrupt onset of darkness, and then the rain began to fall. Hard. Angry rain. Vincent gazed up at the ominous sky with concerned eyes. He turned to Trixie. "Oh, Trixie I know you saved us, but you've also inadvertently triggered off something which cannot now be undone." He stared up at the menacing clouds in fear just as a bolt of lightning split the oppressive sky in two. He flinched back against the bright light. He then turned to face the others. With a grave look on his face he declared:

  "The Great Unveiling has now begun."

  THE CHAOS ORDER: FANGHUNTERS BOOK THREE - EXCERPT

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ramon Escobar was about to meet her. Magdalena. La Madre Impía, the Unholy Mother.

  The Jeep went over a bump, snapping Ramon out of his drug-induced sleep. He swung his head left and right; behind his blindfold, the world was a hot, dark mystery, his location unknown to him. Where the hell am I right now? he asked himself in his world of darkness. Honduras? Mexico? The plains of Guatemala? The mountains of Peru? The forests of Brazil? He had no clue. The Brotherhood had sedated him back in El Salvador before transporting him to the temple of Magdalena.

  The sacrificial ceremony was over. Now it was onto the hidden temple, where he'd be united with the Unholy Mother and finally anointed Don. What he'd spent his whole life striving for, surviving the streets of San Salvador for, where he'd engaged in petty crime, moving up through the ranks of Los Niños, leaving a trail of bodies to burn. From soldier to sergeant to captain, and now to Don. El Jefe.

  He licked his dry lips. For the first time in his life, he was nervous. Something was swirling and fluttering in his stomach, something he didn't like. It made his body tense like a taught guitar string. Made every bump in the road feel like an explosion. He'd be lying if he said he didn't feel like he was about to shit his pants any second. It was funny to him; he'd had the business end of guns shoved in his face, been chased by cops--who were more like a military unit--across dusty streets, even thrown in a cage filled with hardcore bangers from rival gangs, but none of that ever made him feel like this. This was something different. It was fear. Pure and simple fear. And he didn't dare let anyone see it on him.

  He stiffened his back, wanting to be rigid, like a piece of steel. The two bodies sandwiching him were silen
t, except for the occasional cough or clearing of throat. Sometimes they'd spit out of the window or pass gas, letting rip and sharing their stink with Ramon whether he liked it or not. They smelled of dry sweat, burned tobacco, and cheap cologne. The heat emitting from their bodies was suffocating, the crappy air con doing a shitty job of cooling him. Sweat poured down his back, sticking his shirt to his skin like glue. He wished they'd put some music on the radio; some Latino, hell, even some gangsta rap would do, hombre. Anything to break the tense ambience.

  They moved on in silence, the journey seeming to last an age. Where were they going, the center of the earth? The temple location was a deeply held secret, its whereabouts known only by highly ranked and trusted members of the Brotherhood. But, after today's encounter with the Unholy Mother, Ramon would earn that trust. She would kiss him, bestow him with eternal life, and he would finally be Don of Los Niños, Don of El Salvador. From there, he'd be vaulted into the Inner Circle; those who ruled the lands of Latin America with an iron fist.

  The sense of anticipation was overwhelming; suffocating. He wanted the moment to arrive already. He wanted to feel her caress, to have her blessings flowing through his veins, to be taken to the higher level where he'd take his rightful place among the chosen. They say that only those with unclean blood can survive an encounter with the Unholy Mother and ascend to the rank of enlightened. Was his blood too clean for her? Were his sins and the sins of his forefathers worthy of her dark embrace? The Brotherhood had faith in him; he'd been the one selected amongst all the other scum to lead them to the promised darkness. If they believed, then so did Ramon. All that mattered now was what Magdalena made of him.

  The Jeep came to a rough stop; Ramon's heart skipped a beat. We're here?

  Car doors were flung open, and he was finally relieved of the fat, sweaty guys squeezing him either side. His head rolled in its socket, the world still a dark mystery. A hand grabbed him under the arm, making him flinch. He didn't like being touched like that; he was about to be made a Don. He wasn't some punk off the street. The hand yanked him across the seat. Ramon played it cool; this wasn't the time to start any shit. Not a word was spoken as he was guided out of the Jeep. He stood to attention, weird sounds and sensations all around him. The sudden humid atmosphere clung to his skin like hot gas, sending his body temperature soaring. Somewhere in the distance a river ebbed and flowed; above him, exotic birds cawed. Wild animals rustled bushes as they darted left and right.