by Jeff Gunhus
“I see you’re enjoying the sights of Paris,” Pahvi said, stopping ten feet in front of us. He didn’t shout, but somehow his voice pierced through the storm, cutting through the howling wind so I could hear him perfectly. There was great power behind the voice, completely different from the fake one he’d adopted when we met him at the catacombs. I reminded myself not to underestimate the Romani vampire. There was clearly more to him than I’d thought.
“Where’s Eva?” I demanded.
Pahvi looked to either side of him and motioned for his four companions to lower their hoods. The first was one of the Germans from the catacombs. He scowled at us, his eyes filled with hate. Red gouges in the side of his neck showed the recent bite that transformed him.
I felt a surge of panic. What if Eva was under one of the hoods, transformed into a mindless vampire and ready to fight against us? Pahvi grinned, clearly enjoying the game. The other three flipped over their hoods with a flourish. I recognized one girl from the party in the catacomb, and the other two were dark-haired Romani that I’d seen there as guides. I tried not to show any emotion, but my facial expression must have betrayed me because Pahvi laughed and shook his head.
“No, she is not here,” Pahvi said. “One like that must be turned carefully. She must be wooed. She must be seduced.” He said the last word suggestively and, even though I knew he was trying to get under my skin, I seethed. I felt like taking a run at him that second, but I knew I would just slide off the roof if I did. I took some comfort knowing that Eva was still alive.
“I want her back,” I said.
“We want her back,” Daniel corrected. He jumped over to an empty statue platform on the other corner so that we stood side by side.
Pahvi looked Daniel over as if just noticing him there. He seemed amused. “The Black Watch just isn’t what it used to be, is it? Real, grown men once came to do battle with us, not schoolboys with their adolescent crushes.”
Daniel leaned toward Pahvi, raising his sword. All five vampires bared their teeth and hissed. Lightning lit up the sky around us as if the storm was reminding us all of its presence. I grabbed Daniel’s arm and tugged him back. “Not yet,” I whispered. I turned to Pahvi. “There’s a reason you’re here,” I said. “And a reason you haven’t attacked yet. What is it?”
Pahvi only slowly shifted his eyes from Daniel back to me. “There’s someone who wants to meet you. Against my better judgment, I’m going to take you to her.” He pointed to the bag at my side with the cylinder in it. “But first you need to give me what you found up there.”
I protectively put my hand over it. “See, that’s just not going to work,” I said.
Pahvi shrugged. “Have it your way. She said to bring you to her alive. She didn’t say anything about keeping you uninjured.” He waved the other vampires forward. “Take the tall one. Throw him off the roof. Feed on him if you want.” He pointed at me. “This one’s all mine.”
The four vampires crouched down low to the roof, teeth bared, hissing and licking their lips hungrily. They crawled toward us, but their eyes were only on Daniel. It was clear they intended to accept Pahvi’s invitation to feed.
“Is that weapon you found going to be any use?” Daniel muttered under his breath.
I shook my head. “I don’t even know what it is. Or how to use it.”
“Then this should be interesting,” he said. “Looks like we’ll have to do this the old fashioned way.” With that, he beckoned to the approaching vampires. “Come and get me, you worm-ridden, foul-smelling, blood-suckers.”
They surged forward in response. The German launched himself through the air, snarling, his arms and legs flailing about like he wasn’t quite sure how to control his vampiric body. He’d never have the chance to master it because a great sweep of Daniel’s sword tore the head from his body and sent it sailing through the air.
Then Pahvi attacked me. I used my climbing hooks to deflect the first blows and landed a solid punch to his face. I crawled back into the stone arch behind me for cover, but he anticipated the move and cuffed the back of my head with his fist, sending me sprawling on the small floor inside the spire’s base. I rolled back to my feet, facing him with the climbing hooks on my wrists and elbows outward.
A scream came from behind Pahvi as Daniel made short work of the other newly transformed vampire. I knew the two Romanis were going to be a different matter, but the odds shifting from two against five to two against three in the first seconds of the fight felt good.
Pahvi attacked. He was like a blur, moving with unnatural speed. I held up my arms in defense, but he battered away at them. His strength was amazing. I counter-punched and landed a solid left fist to his nose, followed by a vicious right hook, striking him square in the face with a climbing claw. I hit him just about as hard as I could exactly where I wanted to. I expected him to stagger back, maybe even show signs of an injury. But it didn’t even faze him. Worse, my left hand throbbed like I’d broken half the bones in it. Pahvi grinned because we both knew the same thing. I was in trouble.
He immediately swept my leg, dropping me to the spire’s floor again. I felt his hands groping for the bag with the cylinder, so I rolled away to protect it.
Pahvi grabbed my leg and dragged me back. I kicked hard and felt the climbing crampons on the toe of my boot sink into his thigh. He roared, more in anger than in pain, and his grip on my leg loosened for a second.
It was all I needed. I wrested my legs away from him and heaved myself over the spire’s low railing onto the steep roof. Lying on my back, I slid downward, rocketing away from him. My relief of getting away was short-lived. I gained speed way too quickly, and the end of the roof rushed up toward me. I rolled over and dug my crampons and climbing hooks into the slate shingles.
The metal screeched loudly against the wet stone. I slowed but there was no stopping my descent completely. I curled up just before I shot off the roof and slammed into the railing on top of the foot-high stone wall. I hit hard on the railing’s top edge, and my forward momentum rolled me over. At the last second, I hooked the edge with one of the climbing claws, nearly jerking my arm out of its socket. I hung there, dangling thirty feet off the ground below.
Quickly, I pulled myself up, knowing Pahvi wouldn’t be far behind. Sure enough, as I looked back up the roof, I saw him running toward me, somehow able to keep his balance on the pitched surface. Higher up, clinging to the side of the spire, I saw Daniel doing battle with the two Romani vampires. He was holding his own, but they were not going to be easy marks like the first two. They might be more than he could handle, but I didn’t have any way to help him. He would have to fight alone.
I turned to my left and saw the bulking shadows of one of the cathedral’s bell towers at the far end of the roof. The stone railing ran in a straight line all the way there. If I stayed out here in the open, I would be no match for Pahvi. If I could make it to the tower and get inside, there was a chance I could find a weapon. Perhaps even buy myself enough time to open the cylinder and figure out how to use whatever was in there. I took off running along the railing’s flat top.
As I did, my radio crackled to life. Only bits and pieces came through the static. It was Will.
“…didn’t understand…are you…down…front of cathedral…”
I risked slowing down a bit to hit the transmit button. “Will, I need your help. Go to the south bell tower if you can hear me. I need you to—”
My transmission ended the second I smashed into Pahvi. Somehow, he had not only caught up to me, but passed me and had taken a position on the railing top in front of me.
I bounced off him like I’d run into a wall, which is what it felt like. I fell off the roof and would have dropped to my death except for Pahvi grabbing my arm. He tossed me like a ragdoll back onto the roof. I landed with a thud and slowly slid back down, coming to a rest against the railing. I remained curled up, pretending to be seriously hurt.
“Honestly, I don’t see what all
the fuss is about you,” Pahvi mocked, walking up to me. “Or why Shakra wants to meet you so badly.” He nudged me with his foot. “Get up.” I didn’t move. “I said get up,” he said angrily. This time he gave me a swift kick in the ribs. Pain flashed through my body, but I forced myself to remain still. I waited until I felt him lean over me before I slammed both feet into his midsection and kicked as hard as I could. Just as I hoped, I caught him off guard. He lost his balance and toppled over the railing.
I scrambled to my feet, not quite ready to believe I had done away with him. I looked over the edge and saw him spread out on the concrete sidewalk below, his arms and legs bent out at odd angles. Motionless. I let my shoulders relax, relieved to have the strong vampire out of the way. I relaxed too soon.
Below, Pahvi slowly rose up to his knees and sat there with his head hung low to his chest. Limb by limb, he cracked his broken bones back into position, jamming his joints into place. Soon, he stood up and faced me. It was hard to make out his expression through the pelting rain, but what little I could see told me everything I needed to know.
I’d just made him really mad.
Chapter Nineteen
In a burst of energy, Pahvi ran toward the cathedral wall nearest him and climbed up the side like a spider. I didn’t wait around. I turned back to the bell towers and ran as hard as I could. I wasn’t sure how the towers were going to help me, but I knew I was dead if I stayed out in the open with no weapon and faced Pahvi directly.
I pumped my legs hard, trying to ignore the slippery surface beneath me and the knowledge that one false step would either send me over the edge to my left, or send me sprawling onto the roof to my right, slowing me down and allowing Pahvi to catch up with me. Both would result in my untimely and grisly death. One by concrete. The other by a really angry vampire.
Before my Change, without the strange evolution my body went through right before my fourteenth birthday that gave me extra strength, there was no way I’d have outraced the vampire. But with it, I reached the bell tower before Pahvi, ran up a section of the roof, then leapt into the air and cleared the six foot high wall as I soared through the arch of the tower.
Only toAnd smashed into heavy wood slats blocking the arch. I hadn’t seen the barrier in the dark and I struck it full force, nearly knocking myself out.
Grabbing hold by reflex, I kept myself from sliding backward for the couple of seconds I needed to clear my head. I looked up and saw that the arch had these slats from top to bottom like giant blinds on a window. It made sense so that the rain would not blow right through the tower and soak the bells inside. The spaces between the slats were covered with chicken wire to keep the birds and bats out, but the metal was old and broken in several places.
I knew Pahvi was right behind me, so I climbed up the slats as fast as I could and crawled in through one of the holes in the wire. I fell ten feet down into the tower, hitting a wood floor. The vicious lightning storm flashed all around the cathedral and lit up the inside of the bell tower like a broken strobe light.
I took quick stock of my surroundings. I’d expected the inside of the tower to be stone like the exterior but, surprisingly, it was a latticework of wood. From top to bottom was at least the height of a five-story building with a patchwork of wood scaffolding, walkways and support beams around the edges. Nine massive bells supported by huge beams filled the center. I half-expected Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, to come around the corner demanding to know what I was doing there. But instead of a kind-hearted hunchback, a vampire showed up instead.
Somehow, Pahvi had accessed the tower nearly at the top. Lightning blanketed the sky outside and silhouetted the outline of his body. I crouched back into the shadows, knowing full well that the vampire’s heightened senses would enable him to see me in the dark. Pahvi spotted me, snarled, and jumped into the tower.
I looked around desperately for a weapon as he leapt from one side of the scaffolding framework to the other, working his way quickly toward me, making huge advances with each flash of lightning. Without a weapon, fighting in the dark, and only able to see when lightning flashed, facing a vampire of enormous age and strength, I realized I was in a hopeless situation. I braced myself with my hands up like a boxer, determined to go down with a fight.
Just then, I saw the most beautiful sight. A vortex of tiny light particles rose from the scaffolding below me, caught by the wind from the storm that swirled through the tower. Soon, the tower filled with the luminous specks, taking away Pahvi’s biggest advantage. I knew the light could only come from one thing – Xavier’s glowing spray-paint.
“Xavier!” I called. “Where are you?”
Xavier, Will and T-Rex stuck their heads out from the scaffolding farther down in the tower. They all smiled on seeing me, but their expressions immediately turned to terror. I went off their reaction and jumped from my spot without hesitation. I felt Pahvi scrape the skin on my back, but I flew clear of him just as I heard the wood scaffolding splinter and crack behind me. I jumped on top of one of the bells and used it as a stepping-stone to get to the other side of the tower. I spun around and saw Pahvi pick himself up, glaring at me.
“Jack!” Will called from below.
By the time I looked down, he’d already thrown my sword up into the air toward me. I sensed movement across from me as Pahvi launched himself through the air. I jumped down, catching the sword in midair, and landed on top of the next lower bell. The weight of the sword in my hand had never felt better. With a flick of my wrist, I snapped the sword down and struck the outside of the bell, producing a sharp note that filled the tower. It was unnecessary, cocky even, but I’d been running from the vampire for long enough. The odds had turned. I could see. I had my sword and my friends. And I was every bit as angry as he was.
I was a monster hunter. And I was done running.
Pahvi took notice of the change. He paced back and forth on the woodwork above me, more wary, but looking like a caged animal. He licked his lips as if he could already taste my blood.
“I was instructed to bring you back alive,” he snarled. “But I never was very good at taking orders.”
I shrugged. “Pity, kind of tough-sounding. Not too bad for last words, I guess.”
Pahvi roared, pulled his sword from his side, and leapt through the air at me.
I had counted on him doing just that. I sliced through the rope holding up the suspended bell and jumped away to a wood platform in the same motion. The bell crashed down behind me in a wild-sounding crunch of wood and metal. Pahvi tried to adjust mid-air, but it was too late. He followed the bell down.
I jumped after him, hoping to capitalize on even a second of disorientation. I landed near him, next to the bell now lying on its side. But he was already on his feet and on the attack.
His fighting style was unlike anything I’d faced before. Short, jabbing thrusts mixed with elaborate combinations. It was all I could do to fend him off, stumbling backward as I did. I felt a wood post behind me. I spun around it and heard Pahvi’s blade slam into the wood where my head had just been. I knew it would stick there, if only for a second. I crouched low and swung my sword at the vampire’s legs. But he jumped easily over my blade. My lunge had me off balance so I continued my forward roll off the platform to the next level below.
I misjudged things and banged painfully off one of the bells with a dull clang. I continued to fall until I hit the lower level’s wood floor that covered most of the area except for a few trapdoors. I looked up in time to see Pahvi slice the rope holding the bell right above me. I rolled out of the way just as it dropped and blew a hole through the floor next to me in an explosion of wood and splinters.
I clawed my way to my feet, panting for breath, every inch of my body in pain. I reached up to a painful spot on my head, and my hand came back covered with blood. It wasn’t serious, but it hurt. Pahvi jumped down and landed gracefully on my level. He grinned and spun his sword in his hand, barely breathing hard. This guy was
really starting to get on my nerves.
Two more figures dropped to the floor next to me. At first, I thought it was the other Romani vampires and that they had defeated Daniel out on the roof. Instead, it was Will and Xavier. They took positions on both sides of me, Will with his sword raised and Xavier with one of his projectile guns we used for climbing. Arriving last, out of breath and red-faced, T-Rex took a position next to Will. Pahvi bowed his head to them as if welcoming them to our private party.
Another thump sounded and Daniel landed directly behind Pahvi. Even with the rain outside, there was still blood on his face from the fight with the vampires. I couldn’t tell it if was his or theirs. He spun his sword in his hands, mimicking Pahvi from moments before.
“What kept you?” I asked.
Daniel shrugged. “Those other vampires just wouldn’t stay dead. Very annoying. I took care of it though.”
For the first time, I saw a flash of concern in Pahvi’s face. One on one, I’m sure he would be able to handle us, but with five of us I could see he was weighing his odds. He slowly pulled a dagger from inside his cloak so he had a weapon in each hand. The message was clear – he intended to fight.
Will led the charge. With a yell, he thrust right at Pahvi’s chest. He was easily parried, but Daniel timed his attack perfectly from behind. Any natural opponent would have been chopped down, but Pahvi’s dagger appeared from nowhere and knocked the blow aside. In a whirl of his cloak, he spun forward, low to the ground, sweeping Xavier’s legs out from under him and launching a simultaneous attack against me and Will. We desperately defended ourselves knowing Daniel would soon join in.
When he did, Pahvi leapt up in the air, kicked T-Rex in the chest, grabbed a support beam, then flipped backward over Daniel’s head. He landed facing us, now in a better position with no one behind him and with Xavier’s projectile gun lost somewhere on the floor.
