“Why are you here, Claudia?” she asked.
“To set you free,” Claudia said.
“How can you possibly set me free? That does not make any sense,” Chiho said.
“Claudia is here to fulfill her destiny,” Osric told her. “As are all of us in this room.”
“You used me to get Claudia here,” Chiho said. She was careful not to look at the vampires directly. Instead, she noted their positions through her peripheral vision. A human servant was fifteen feet away, holding an H&K assault rifle. Chiho decided the weapon would be her best chance.
As if sensing her thoughts, Osric waved the humans out of the room. Chiho despaired.
“However she came to be here, here she is,” Osric said. “She wishes to speak with you. I suggest you listen, for time grows short.”
“Chiho? If I give myself to them, then you get to live,” Claudia reached out and touched Chiho’s face. Chiho turned toward her. Tears glistened in her eyes.
“Oh, Claud,” she said. “They only told you that. Of course they will not let me live—you must know that.”
Claudia wiped away Chiho’s tears, even as her own eyes grew moist. Deep down, she knew Chiho was right.
“Whatever they need me for,” she told Chiho, “I’ll only give it to them when you’re safe.”
Claudia felt Chiho’s despair, wave after wave of regret and misery that slammed into her like the Pacific Ocean. And then suddenly, a predatory calm descended upon her, as surprising as an Arctic gale slicing through a balmy summer day.
“I love you, Claudia,” Chiho said.
Claudia suddenly understood as her own tears spilled over. Was it the only way? At that moment, she found a hidden cache of strength, and it no longer mattered.
“Oh Chiho,” she whispered.
Using every ounce of speed she had, Chiho launched a lethal blow that would shatter several of Claudia’s cervical vertebrae and end her life. But fast as she was, she was no match for Rodrigo and Stahl. They seized her wrists and lifted her off the floor. Chiho screamed, slashing at them with her feet, and even landed a blow that was strong enough to crack a couple of Stahl’s ribs. It would have driven a normal man to his knees, but Stahl wasn’t fazed in the slightest. He grabbed her head in one oversized hand and forced her to look at him.
“Sleep,” he intoned. “Einschlafen!”
Chiho went limp in their hands. Rodrigo nodded to Stahl, and the bigger vampire handed her to him. Rodrigo hefted her in both arms, holding her like a sleeping child.
“How unexpected,” Osric said. “She intended to kill you.”
Claudia hugged herself and sank to the floor with a sob. “Please… just let her go. Please.”
“Then give yourself to me!” Osric roared. There was no lightness in his voice, no boredom, no fecklessness. The time for negotiation was past. All that remained was for the deal to be struck.
Claudia wept as she nodded. The last embers of strength she had felt only moments ago burned away into nothing. “Yes… whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. Just let her go… and let me feel the passion.”
Osric smiled and bent over her. He guided her to her feet and nodded to her.
“Chiho will not be taken by me. She will be safe. And you will feel the passion, the passion that only one of the Ancient Ones can give to flesh such as yours—”
His words were cut short as something exploded outside with such force that the entire mansion shook.
24
Acheson accelerated down the street when Ellenshaw signaled. He wore his night vision goggles and left the Excursion’s headlamps off as the big truck hurtled through the darkness, its prow-like grille aimed for the thick wall that surrounded the mansion. He backed off the accelerator at the last moment and shouted into his headset’s microphone.
“Robert, now!”
“Roger that,” Ellenshaw responded. Acheson squeezed his eyes shut as the academician triggered the charges he had planted on the wall. The sudden flare of light penetrated his eyelids, and Acheson saw coruscating orange light for a brief instant before the shockwave slammed into the hulking SUV. The black Excursion danced from side to side for a moment as Acheson opened his eyes and fought the steering wheel. He tapped the brakes once, twice, and the vehicle straightened out. He stomped on the accelerator again, and the Excursion hurtled through the hole in the wall, its big V-10 engine bellowing, its four-wheel drive system propelling it over the rubble and tangled vegetation that had survived the detonation. The vehicle went airborne as it crossed the threshold, engine racing even higher as it sailed through the night air. Glass tinkled as the mirror on the passenger door struck the ragged edge of the wall and was ripped off the truck. The Excursion slammed onto the wet lawn. Its knobbed tires bit into the rain-slick ground, and it accelerated toward the mansion.
Behind it, Ellenshaw left his cover and ran toward the hole in the wall. Crouching at its edge, he shouldered his M-4 and fired into the house on full automatic, raking the windows. Someone with a rifle appeared in one window, and Ellenshaw rewarded him with a burst that sent the man spinning back into the house.
In the Excursion, Acheson unfastened his seatbelt. He lined up on the mansion’s thick wooden doors, flipped on the truck’s fog light array, and dove out the driver’s door. He hit the leading edge of the circular driveway with a slap and roll that tore the night vision goggles from his head and ripped the wind from his lungs. Concrete tore his cheek, and then he slammed into one of the parked cars in front of the house as the Excursion thundered on. Acheson blacked out.
Inside the house, one of the human servants ran toward the thick wooden doors that led to the front porch, assault rifle at the ready. Four vampires followed, leaping across the entry hall’s black-and-white floor like grotesque frogs. As the man reached for one of the elegant doorknobs, light flashed through the ornate windows atop the double doors. In an explosion of splintered wood and twisted steel, the Excursion blasted through the doors and into the man, tearing him almost in two as it dragged him across the marbled floor, leaving a trail of gore in its wake. It overran one of the vampires as well, but the creature fared better as only one of the spinning tires passed over it, collapsing its rib cage like dry kindling. It clawed at the tire with talon-like fingers, and succeeded in causing it to blow out. The Excursion drifted, tracking to the right, where it slammed into the right sweep of the double staircase that led to the mansion’s second level. The opulent wooden banister exploded, and the Excursion’s front fenders and thick bumper imploded. The airbags deployed and sent the vehicle’s windshield hurtling through the air. It spun like a shimmering blade, beheading one vampire as it tried to leap away. The Excursion bounced up several stairs before the staircase collapsed beneath its multi-ton weight. The vehicle sagged into the wreckage as its radiator exploded, filling the entry hall with foul-smelling steam. The SUV’s engine hitched once, twice, and then stalled into silence. The only sounds left were rainwater slapping across the marble floor through the ragged hole the vehicle had left behind and the ticking noises of cooling metal.
Stahl led several vampires onto the landing overlooking the entry hall. With a great leap, the huge vampire dropped to the wet floor and advanced toward the vehicle. The rest of the vampires converged on it also, some creeping down the walls like spiders, others darting toward it like charging bulls. Stahl tore open the driver’s door. He pulled aside the deflated airbag and found little of interest. The rear passenger door wouldn’t open, for the SUV’s frame had bent, locking it in place. Stahl snarled through clenched teeth. Grabbing the door’s frame, he ripped it right off its hinges. Again, there was nothing inside other than some shipping cases, none of which were large enough to hide a human. He sniffed the air; he could smell prey.
“Search it,” he said to one of the lower-caste vampires, a Latin girl with scraggly hair that had been bleached white. As she darted toward the vehicle, Stahl saw a flash of light from the corner of his eye. Simultaneously, a good por
tion of the female vampire’s head exploded toward him, and Stahl grunted as the remains of a silver-jacketed bullet buried itself in his shoulder. The headshot vampire sank to the floor, twitching as if in the grips of a powerful seizure.
And from the back of the house, three explosions came in multiple succession, one right after the other. They were powerful enough to make the massive, decorative chandelier hanging above the entry hall swing back and forth.
Light winked again from the dark murk at the front of the house. Stahl snarled and convulsed as three silver-jacketed bullets tore through his chest.
“Check the rear,” Stahl ordered the rest of the vampires. “I will take care of the front. You…” Stahl kicked the twitching vampire at his feet which was already recovering from the headshot, “make sure there is no one in this vehicle!”
With that, he charged into the savage night, roaring like an enraged lion as more bullets flashed through his body.
***
Cecil fired a volley through the sliding glass doors that led to the poolside patio, dropping one of the armed servants before the man even knew the team was there. The glass door exploded, collapsing to the floor in a cascade of shards. Nacho, Julia, and Licht hustled toward the opening. They hurled three fragmentation grenades into the house and flattened themselves against the walls as Cecil pounded up behind them. The steep climb to the property had worn him out, and he was moving slower than he would have liked. It didn’t help that he was also humping an FAE on his back in addition to his regular gear. At times like these, being the team muscle had its drawbacks.
A triple header of explosions brightened the night and turned the room beyond into a kill zone full of whirling shrapnel that would decimate humans and cause even a powerful vampire some extreme inconvenience. Before the sound had faded, Julia edged to the destroyed doorframe and pivoted at the waist, bringing her MP-5 to bear as she fired a three-round burst into the smoke-filled room.
“Dogs,” Julia ordered, and Nacho let his dogs loose. They slowly entered the room, growling, teeth bared. Their hackles were raised, and they were reluctant to advance very far, despite Nacho’s urging.
“Whassup with them damn dawgs?” Cecil snapped.
“Totally freaked out about something,” Nacho said. “Not the vamps. Something else.”
“Push in,” Julia ordered. “Forget the dogs. If they’re not up to it, it doesn’t matter. Grenade!” she hollered as she tossed another frag grenade into the house, hurling it down a long hallway. It landed and rolled just as two vampires rounded the far corner—one lurched along the ceiling while the other bounded across the floor on all fours like a wolf. It didn’t notice the hand grenade that rolled beneath it. The device exploded, shredding the vampire’s torso and amputating all of its limbs. The vampire on the ceiling caught a load of shrapnel in its back, and it fell to the floor, writhing.
“Fight’s on!” Julia advanced on the vampires and fired her MP-5. She kept to the right and knelt as more of them appeared and surged into the hallway. Cecil took his place on the left side of the hallway and fired his SAW on full automatic, blasting away bits and pieces of the vampires as they advanced. Nacho and Licht guarded the rear, and Nacho checked his watch.
“Here it comes!” he shouted.
***
The vampire with the bleach-blonde hair slithered into the wreckage of the Excursion, nostrils flaring as it tried to separate the myriad scents inside: buffed leather, spilled coffee, human sweat and old flatulence, burnt radiator fluid and oil, high octane gasoline—and something else. The vampire searched its memory as it crept into the rear of the large SUV, trying to place the smell. It was somewhat sweet, somewhat pungent, somewhat oily—what was it?
Jet airplane fuel?
The vampire snarled to itself as it slapped at one of the metal cases in the back, tearing it open at the hinges. Inside, a tiny red LED stared back at it like an angry eye.
The vampire screamed.
***
Stahl stalked past one of the cars in the driveway when something tickled his senses. Snapping his head toward it, he smelled the human (Blood! his mind shouted) before he saw it as the man rolled into a sitting position fifteen feet from him. The man was battered and beaten, and from the sizeable dent in the passenger side of the car next to him, he had struck it at sufficient velocity. Stahl recognized him immediately: Acheson.
As Stahl gathered to leap, Acheson raised his right hand and fired two shots from the pistol he held. Both bullets passed through Stahl’s left cheekbone, and his head snapped back as he was flung to the rain-soaked ground. Shattered bone reintegrated while tendon and sinew snapped back into place and flesh knitted over the entry and exit wounds. Stahl launched himself into the air, spinning like a twister, roaring with rage. He was a great vampire in his own right, and he had learned the secrets of flight centuries ago.
Below, Acheson’s watch beeped. Stahl was confused when the man suddenly curled into a ball, covering his head with his arms. At the same time, the vampire in the wrecked vehicle shrieked an unintelligible warning.
Stahl swooped toward the ground. Just as his feet touched down, the bomb detonated.
***
Osric had commenced with the ceremony even as the battle raged outside the mansion on two fronts. So far, none of his children had perished. They had been wounded—that was to be expected—but none of the threads that bound them to him had been severed.
Claudia had been stripped naked and her flesh revealed to all. She would have made for fine feeding, Osric noticed: skin the color of porcelain covered a curvaceous figure that was soft in all the right places, and through her formidable bosom, Osric could see her heart pump rich blood through her circulatory system. Almost all humans could be used as food, but just as there were different grades of beef, there were different grades of humans. To a vampire, Claudia Nero was as succulent as a perfect piece of Kobé beef.
But such a valuable vessel was destined for greater things than feeding the ever-thirsty Undead. Tonight, she would be injected with the seed of an Ancient One, and in just six days, she would bear a son. A most perfect son, the one who would claim Earth as the next dominion of Hell, and in whose service Osric would remain bound. Claudia would perish in the birthing process, of course, but it was a loss so small as to be unnoticeable.
Three vampires remained on the second floor, overseen by Rodrigo. No blood offerings were necessary tonight; enough blood had been spilled in the name of the Ancient Ones. The offering of the twelve infants had bound them to Osric, and he to they. Their destinies were intertwined, and they would succeed or fail together.
Osric was surprised to find there was no need to put Claudia under suggestion. He told her what to do, and she did it: shed her clothes and lie before the dark mirror in total supplication. As Osric began the incantations he had memorized, he saw her vague reflection in the mirror’s muted surface. She had spread her legs wide, and her ample breasts heaved as she stared at the mirror in near-rapture. She was more willing and compliant than Osric had hoped.
“Aragatha, morikan’th surus bo teïcon…” The language of the Ancients rolled off Osric’s Undead tongue as if it were his own. He had spent the better part of a century developing the proper linguistic skills, practicing the entire evocation in pieces, again and again. Tonight was the only time he would speak it in its entirety, from start to finish.
In response to his words, the mirror began to thrum. Claudia gasped and spread her legs wider, thrashing her head from side to side. Rodrigo and the rest of the vampires stepped back as the candelabras arranged throughout the room sprung alight by themselves. The lights of Los Angeles dimmed and went dark, section by section, grid by grid.
Chiho moaned, even through the near-coma Stahl had put her in. Rodrigo regarded her with his characteristically flat expression, keeping a watchful eye on her. If she was to be his queen, he needed her to act as his servant first, and he wanted no harm to come to her.
The mirror�
��s surface trembled as if it were liquid. Ripples slowly radiated outward from its center. Claudia thrust her hips up and down while impassioned moans escaped from her lips.
Explosions tore through the lower floors of the house. Rodrigo turned away from the ceremony and hurried toward the thick doors that led to the landing beyond. He knew that now was the most inopportune of times for Acheson and his people to be launching an attack, and if they managed to disrupt the ceremony his Master had spent so many decades preparing for, then the results might be fatal for all, vampires and humans alike.
He opened the doors just as Hell exploded into being below his very feet.
***
The FAE went off as planned. The vampire sitting next to the weapon was atomized before it could flinch. The Excursion followed suit a nanosecond later, and the remaining gasoline in its fuel tank provided a momentary yellow blossom that heralded the FAE’s glaring white detonation. As the superheated shockwave radiated outward at almost three times the speed of sound, the marble floor began to melt near the point of ignition. Farther away, the intense heat forced the stone to fracture. Then the air itself caught fire as the FAE ignited the oxygen content. Those vampires still in the entry hall were disintegrated as the heat swept across them, followed immediately by the shockwave. The double stairway rolled back like flayed skin, and the expensive wall hangings in the entry hall were reduced to ash. As the great explosion continued moving outward in an ever-expanding white-hot sphere, structural elements of the mansion began to fail. Load-bearing members creaked, splintered, and collapsed. The roof sagged for an instant before it was blasted outward into the wet night. Composite shingles whirled through the stormy night like meteorites burning through the atmosphere. For an instant, the blast’s might was even greater than that of the storm.
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