by Simone Lari
"Hey, you two" began Jude. "When we entered the villa, I heard you talking about an interrogation. Given that we're in this up to the neck, how about telling us what it's all about?"
"Oh, that's alright by me. After which, though, you tell me all about your tete-a-tete with the vampire" Vans retorted bitterly.
"It doesn't concern you!" she barked offended, crossing her hands over her chest and throwing herself heavily against the seat-back.
"But it does concern us though" Nina argued, with an inquiring gaze.
"What on earth got into you to go with that joker?" Angelique rebuked her, shocked.
"I see that no-one suspects that he forced me into it, using his power on me" she asserted annoyed.
"Why, did he?" asked Nina, unconvinced.
"Well, no. It was my choice and I'm not going add half a word more, nor am I going to try and justify myself with you, or with that idiot at the steering wheel!"
"She goes with a monster and I'm the idiot" muttered Vans.
"Don't you think you've already been quite rude to her, and not just to her?” asked Gabriel, but got no reply.
Gabriel's words caused Nina to make a fast association of ideas. Vans was rude, yes, but also arrogant and reluctant to explain things as they were, for the simple fact that he believed all three of the girls to be without brains, unable to discern a diamond-cut vampire from a real one. She couldn't stand it when others concealed basic truths from her, because it made her feel undervalued. She was an adult, even more mature than her age, and she was involved, therefore she was entitled to know every aspect of the matter. She forgot about her friend's sexual prowess, which she would have to account for later, and stated: "In fact Jude isn't totally wrong. Seeing you've got us into this, shouldn't you tell us everything?"
Vans sighed, allowing himself a short pause, and finally replied: "Sad eyes and matchstick head, together with the dominatrix, have captured a Duergar, and they kindly asked me to get some information out of him."
"Why did they ask you?" objected Angelique, astonished, "They don't seem to be types who'd have problems dealing with a prisoner."
Vans chuckled quietly. "Well, let's say that many of the means of persuasion that have the greatest effect on a vampire can't be adequately used by another member of the same race, understood?"
"I think… I think I understand" confirmed Nina.
This was followed by several minutes of silence.
"In short, it's part of my job, but it's a part that I don't like" admitted Vans, spontaneously. "I mean to say, sometimes it's not a bad thing to make those monsters pay; however I wouldn't want that behaving like that turns me into a monster too."
Nina looked at the right side of his face, unusually sad and downcast. She would have liked to cheer him up, make him talk about the thing that was worrying him, but she realized that it was not the most suitable moment or place.
Vans appreciated the fact that nobody asked for further explanations which, in any case, he would not have provided.
"And now where are you taking us exactly?" asked Angelique.
"We're on our way to our safe house. Our coordinator Jared's there. He'll make sure you're safe" explained Gabriel.
"I seemed to understand that there were other hunters in your safe house, not just one" Jude said, acidic.
"He'll be enough" finished Vans, without elaborating any further. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Nina's frightened eyes. "Anyway, don't worry, Kira's there" he added with a small smile.
"And who would that be?" asked Nina, putting her hand on the Trequetra.
"It's his cat" Gabriel cut short.
"Well, she's special! She has an uncanny sense of smell."
"Come in please" said Vans, opening the front door.
The three girls went hesitantly into the chalet, looking around curiously.
Even though Jared had given it a good clean and had tidied up somewhat, you could see that the house had not been lived in for a long time.
"So these are the girls I have to baby-sit?" he said, a little grumpy.
"So this would be the hovel where we're supposed to be safe?" Jude retorted.
"Don't be rude!" Angelique promptly rebuked her.
"Thank you for your hospitality, I am confident that we'll be safe here" concluded Nina, with a smile.
"Hmm" the man remarked noisily.
Prancing down the stairs, heedless of her handicap, Kira joined the newcomers.
He carefully inspected them, walking around them and sniffing them for a long time, tail straight and eyes bright.
"Is this your cat?" asked Nina, squatting down and putting out her hand for the cat to smell it.
Kira quickly went over to her, sniffed it cautiously and gave her a good look up and down, then rubbed her head on Nina's hand and let herself be caressed.
"More than a cat she's an anti-monster alarm, I'd say" replied Jared, before the boy could.
"What does that mean?"
"As I was saying before, she has an uncanny very special sense for smelling ghosts, vampires, and monsters in general” explained Vans.
Gabriel put a hand on his shoulder. "We must go now. I'm not happy about leaving Lynn with those vampires."
"They're the ones who should be worried" he comforted him.
"Be careful, guys, I want you to come back alive and well" muttered Jared, barely concealing his concern.
They nodded.
"Yes, be careful" added Nina, worried.
Vans gave her a little smile with a quick sideways glace.
Nina felt the irrepressible urge to embrace him, an instinct which she did not want to resist. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled his face close in a gesture that even she didn't know how to explain, just as he could not understand why she couldn't let him go.
Vans was speechless, as was everyone present except Jude who made a malicious smirk, and he stood still with his arms open. Then he swallowed and slowly put his hands on her hips.
Nina's hot body and her unexpectedly strong hold on him freed him from the fear and concerns which he would never have admitted that he was feeling.
Inspired by her friend, Angelique stared at Gabriel, who returned the look with an embarrassed smile. For a moment she thought of embracing him but restrained herself, blushing visibly at the thought of what she would have liked to do.
When the union between Vans and Nina continued to the point of embarrassing the others, Jared mumbled: "Uh, my boy, I'm sorry to hurry you, but you really should go now."
He broke the embrace, and she did so immediately after.
They looked into each other's eyes, filled with strange confused and unspoken thoughts.
Vans gave her a little smile.
"Well, my uncle is right. I'll be back soon, and in one piece."
"Is that a promise?" she pressed him
"I don't make promises, but when I say I'll do something, I always try to do so" he admitted, determined.
He pushed Gabriel out the door, and got into the car taking off at speed along the street in front, becoming lost in the night.
At the Black Sun, the car with the three vampires and Lynn was there waiting for them.
They pulled up beside them and lowered the windows.
"We'll show you the way" said Sting, starting the engine.
The two vehicles left the city complex and continued along a side road which went deep into the surrounding countryside.
Sting stopped the car at the end of the road, a couple of hundred yards from the gates of a large Victorian-style country cottage.
Vans stopped his mini-van immediately behind.
Vampires and hunters gathered on the edge of the path.
A light cold wind slapped timidly against their tense faces.
They opened the trunk and Vans, Gabriel and Lynn armed themselves to the nines. Vans was about to turn on a led torch, when Alyna grabbed his wrist firmly.
"It's not a good idea."
He gazed at her, making out the contours of her face, weakly illuminated by the crescent moon. She could see his features much more clearly: hard and determined, something that she was beginning to appreciate.
"Follow us, quickly and in silence" ordered Christopher putting a katana over his shoulder.
He and Sting went to the gates, devoid of surveillance and alarms.
"It seems just too easy" commented the latter.
They each seized a bar and opened a gap.
"Please, humans first" said Sting with an eloquent gesture.
The six of them crept inside the fenced property and stopped in the shelter of a tall hedge in front of the facade: two vampires armed with katana and a gun in the holster were patrolling the entry.
Lynn took up her trusty crossbow, as Alyna drew out a throwing knife with some runes engraved on the blade.
They exchanged a rapid glance of understanding and, pre-empting the others, hurtled onto the guards like panthers on the hunt.
From the short distance away, the quarrel plunged into the heart of the vampire on the left, at the exact moment that a knife stuck in the other, while the second Zmeu was rendered harmless by a joint hand-to-hand attack. As if in a synchronized dance, Lynn split one heart open with a hunting knife, as Alyna tore the other apart with her sharp fingernails. Their screams were contained, thanks to the surprise effect: fast and deadly as lightning, their attacks had not allowed the opponents any time to conceive their pain.
Vans and Christopher exchanged a stunned look. Gabriel urged them to continue: "Well, don't be too surprised; in today's world it's the women who solve most problems."
"Or create them" added Sting.
"What's really amazing is how they managed to coordinate like that without ever having fought together" murmured Vans, inspiring a small pleased smile from Christopher.
While the Duergar frothed and turned into effluent, Alyna recovered the knife, and then, without caring too much about strategy and still focusing on the surprise factor, she and the group burst into the villa.
The large atrium in front of them was deserted. Two corridors gave onto both sides of the house, while a large staircase in the center led to the upper floors.
Two Zmeu appeared at the top of it.
With katanas drawn, they descended the long ramp of stairs in large bounds. One of them charged at the Morlands while the other, sniffing human odor, confronted the hunters.
Vans planted two gun shots at their hearts, felling them instantly. When they realized they had missed one, Gabriel rushed hastily and planted his spike in him, opening the way to liquefaction.
Christopher waited for his opponent to pull out his sword; the metals of the blades screeched against each other, producing sparks and crackling.
While they dueled, Sting went behind the enemy; very fast and precise, he dug the spike in his back.
He fell to the ground, ready to be finished, but Alyna stopped him: "Wait!"
While the vampire struggled to get to his feet, she cracked her whip, wrapping it around his neck, and stuck him to the floor with a knife. Then she looked hard at the others saying: "Hear that?"
"What we should hear?" Vans replied.
"We don't hear a damn thing" stated Christopher, with his ears directed to the upper floor.
"Someone is running" added Sting, suspicious.
"And there can't be only four of them!" exclaimed Lynn.
"I was thinking about a larger group too" Sting remarked, "but considering the two in the alley and the three we've eliminated at the clinic, it's more than likely that there aren't any others."
"In such a big house?" Gabriel pointed out, puzzled. "And their elder?"
They exchanged a series of anxious glances until the Duergar, getting to his knees, put his hands on the whip trying in vain to break free, and all attention centered on him.
"Perhaps we should ask your little friend?" Vans suggested to Alyna.
The vampire answered with an evil delighted smile and gave the whip a tug, landing the unfortunate victim on the floor.
"Where are your companions? Talk!"
The vampire laughed scornfully and then, with the little breath allowed by the coil of the whip, retorted with indignation: "It doesn't matter because they will find you."
"Maybe, but we don't like to wait, so save us some time and we'll spare you some pain!" insisted Vans.
"Let's just say that at this moment they're dealing with the moths that came too close to the flame…"
He chuckled again, with rivulets of blood running down his face and from the corner of his mouth.
Incensed, Alyna cut his head cleanly off with a single twist of the wrist.
"What the hell does he mean about moths?" asked Sting.
Christopher and Gabriel both stared at him open-mouthed.
"The girls…" said the first.
"Jared…" murmured the latter.
Vans left the villa running, Lynn and Gabriel behind him.
The vampires went after them without thinking for even a second.
Chapter 20 - Surprise Counter-attack
"In other words you'd be going after vampires, right?" asked Jude, breaking a long silence that had lasted too long for her liking.
"Exactly" Jared replied, short.
"Are you a movement affiliated with the Church or what?" asked Angelique.
"The Church? You speak as if there was only one and especially as if it could be the remedy for the evils of the world and not the cause" the man replied, quickly silencing her.
"Why are there rival clans who fight among themselves? What's the point of it?" Nina asked hurriedly, to distract her friend from the man's gruff response.
"A sensible question at last" observed Jared, raising an eyebrow. "You see, girl, it's not only a question of clan, but also of races: there is not just one. There are the Pricolic, and the clan of the Morland is part of that, and are perhaps the lesser evil unless you're a young and attractive girl, I mean."
Nina suddenly felt called into question.
"Then there are the Zmeu, whose members include the Duergar. Those bastards are dangerous, they like to fight and claim victims. They're not content to drink blood obtained by artificial means, as do many clans these days. In short, every race has its peculiarities and its tradition, making it impossible to get on well together."
"Then each clan belongs to a different race?" suggested Jude.
"There are many different clans for every race. Sometimes they take their name from their founder, others from the region where they are gathered. You know, it's not that they procreate in the traditional way. At least, not as far as I know."
"They must save a lot in condoms, then" Jude said sarcastically, getting three nasty looks.
"What's the difference between the races?" asked Nina.
"Well, it depends. There are the vampires who are considered to be alive, like the Morland who have an almost regular heartbeat, or those with pulsations which are so slow they look more like walking corpses. They have several supernatural powers: one has hypnosis; another one may have a very developed speed or strength, and other stuff which would give you the creeps. Lastly, most of them nourish themselves by sucking blood, or feeding on it in some way, but there are some who absorb energy from the bodies of living beings."
"And how do you fend them off? Because the cross that I held against him didn't have much effect" admitted Angelique.
"Sacred symbols don't serve much purpose, but usually a quick little spike stuck in the heart, especially if it's silver, always does the job."
"What's special about silver?" asked the girl.
"It releases ions that cause a sort of extreme allergic reaction which, in turn, unleashes a chemical one. This latter one blocks the auto-regeneration of the tissues and, if prolonged, depending on the race, it can cause spontaneous auto combustion, total dehydration or liquefaction."
"And the spike?" said Nina.
"The spike is used to render them
harmless, as if they were in a comatose state, but you have to finish them off in another way and be very careful not to remove it if you don't want them to wake up. In the case of a Zmeu, you need one more because, after the mutation in vampire, they develop a second heart."
"And garlic?" asked Jude.
"Hey, red, if you had a very developed sense of smell, what would you do?"
"Ugh, I'd run away!"
"Unfortunately they don't always do that: garlic, as well as hawthorn, rose-hip and other herbs serve only to disorient them, or to cover other smells, they don't necessarily keep them away."
"If silver is fatal for them, when Vans shot him in the chest, why did the vampire come back to life almost immediately?" asked Nina.
"Well, one thing is a couple of bullets that penetrate the heart, as it can then regenerate quickly, but it's totally different having a piece of silver, like a spike, planted deep inside, you know?"
"W-well, I think it is different, actually…"
"And what about the sun?" insisted Jude.
"Prolonged exposure to the sun produces extensive and painful burns on them, until it leads to real combustion. It's as if it were an extreme form of photosensitivity. Some races are more resistant than others to sunlight, and they say that in very rare cases it can even be overcome."
"Other methods for demolishing them?" asked Jude, who was getting a taste for it.
"Cutting off his head always works. Even better if then you set fire to the remains or bury them in separate places."
"Does that really work?" asked Angelique, skeptical
"Little girl, even a Highlander dies if you chop off his head."
"A what?" she asked amazed.
"Heavens, but how old are you?" he replied frowning.
"Our old man here really knows a lot, he's a well of science!" cried Jude.
"Little girl, who are calling and old man?"
Kira suddenly lifted her head and got off Nina's lap, where she was comfortably curled up. She looked at the door with ears stretched back and her gaze fixed on it. With fur standing on end and tail bulging, she began to mew intensely.
"Oh, hell!" exclaimed Jared.
