The Vampire Hunters (Book 2): Vampyrnomicon

by Baker, Scott M.

  “Jim, you stay here and guard the tunnel while Alison and I check out the nest.”

  “I like that plan,” Jim said enthusiastically.

  “Kill anything that tries to get in or out.”

  “I don’t like that plan.”

  “I’m serious. We’re too close to wiping out this nest to let one slip through now.”

  Jim grew somber. “Sure thing, boss.”

  “And stay alert. You never know when we’ll have to bug out of here in a hurry.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Drake patted Jim on the shoulder for reassurance. He used the laser/light on his Glock to illuminate the basement, looking for the way out, and for the first time got a good look at his surroundings. Desiccated and decaying corpses lay scattered across the floor, in particular one shriveled corpse of a young girl in the far corner that looked as it had been drained of blood only a few days ago. The nest was still active.

  Turning to Alison, Drake asked, “Ready?”

  Alison switched on the laser/light to her shotgun and pulled back on the slide to chamber a round. “Let’s rock.”

  A police cordon had been set up blocking both ends of the street on which sat the abandoned row houses. As Stewart slowed the Monte Carlo, Jessica looked around, amazed at how much fire power had been arranged for a single raid. She counted eleven squad cars, a tactical communications vehicle, and between thirty and forty police officers, a dozen or so replete with body armor and M-16 assault rifles. God only knew how many more were located at the other end of the street or stationed in back of the row houses. It looked as though the police were preparing for war.

  A pair of sawhorses blocked their path. A policeman in a yellow and orange reflector vest stepped out from behind the sawhorse and motioned for Stewart to roll down his window. He complied.

  The policeman leaned over to look into the car. “This area is off limits to the public.”

  “I’m Jessica Reynolds and this is Stewart Niles. We’re with The Washington Standard. Captain Roach is expecting us.”

  “Do you have identification?”

  Jessica and Stewart produced their driver’s licenses and passed them to the policeman, who compared each photograph with its owner. After a few seconds, he ordered, “Wait here.”

  The policeman stepped away and turned to one side to speak into the chest-mounted microphone without being overheard. He held up the licenses and read the information off of them. A brief conversation ensued, after which the policeman nodded and came back to the Monte Carlo. He handed back the licenses.

  “Captain Roach is waiting for you at the command center, ma’am. Park your vehicle back down the street, then meet him at the tactical communications van.”

  Five minutes later, Jessica and Stewart stood outside the tactical command vehicle being used as a command center. Roach chatted with an officer arrayed in full tactical gear. When the officer stepped away, Roach looked over at Jessica. As he came over to greet them, Jessica could tell that he was not happy to see her.

  Jessica stepped forward and offered her hand, hoping to disarm him with kindness. “Captain Roach, thank you so much for inviting me.”

  Roach did not take the offered hand. “Don’t bother thanking me. The only reason you’re here is because you’ve dealt with these people before. You’re an advisor.”

  “That’s unusual,” Stewart said to Jessica. “Usually you’re a suspect.”

  Neither Jessica nor Roach appreciated the comment.

  “We’ll be moving in when all our units are in place. That should be in a few minutes. So stay close, and stay out of the way.” Roach walked back to the command center.

  “You’re well liked,” said Stewart.

  “Yeah,” Jessica responded absentmindedly. Right now she cared more about whether or not Drake was all right.

  Rodriguez led the way down the sewer, trying to maintain a calm demeanor for his men, although inside he was as nervous as hell. As he should be. Patterson had given the police a detailed account of the things that murdered his partner and, as unbelievable as it sounded, Rodriguez believed it. He had seen the security camera footage from the morgue the night Dekker had been butchered. He had read the eyewitness reports of the Metro attack. None of the brass gave these accounts any credence, or at least admitted as much in public. Not that it mattered. Rodriguez knew what they were about to face, and it would be far more dangerous than a pack of vagrants or cokeheads.

  He looked over his shoulder at the rest of his team. Team? What a fucking laugh. Himself. Mike Bannon, one of the old time street cops. A good cop with too much time in the force and too much fat around his mid-section to still be walking a beat. And Joe Pantolini, the rookie, a kid with more enthusiasm than common sense. The three of them were more than enough for their nominal assignment, which was to arrest anyone who tried to escape the mansion through the tunnel. But if what came down that tunnel was what Rodriguez expected, than his team would be overwhelmed within seconds.

  Turning back to the front, Rodriguez continued until they were approximately one hundred feet from the tunnel. He held up his hand to stop his team. Bannon and Pantolini gathered around.

  “Listen up. Our job is simple. When the shit goes down up there, we’re to make sure that anything that tries to escape is detained.”

  “You mean anyone, right?” asked Bannon.

  “Yeah. Anyone.” Shit, Rodriguez. Watch yourself. “Take up your positions. I’ll let Roach know we’re ready.”

  Drake led the way up the stairs to the kitchen. He clasped a Glock in his right hand. His wrist rested on top of his left hand, which held a stake pointed forward. The barrel-mounted laser/light lit up the doorknob. He turned to Alison, who stood two steps below him.

  “Are you ready?”

  “No.” Alison raised the shotgun to eye level and aimed it at the door. “But let’s do it.”

  Drake grabbed the doorknob in his left hand and turned it until the latch clicked, and the pushed it open. The creaking hinges rumbled like thunder through the deserted kitchen. He expected a swarm of the undead to descend upon them. Instead, the only movement came from a rat that scurried across the kitchen floor. Drake followed its path along the baseboard of the counter until it disappeared into a gnawed hole in the floorboards.

  Drake climbed the last few steps and peered in, swinging the light from one side to the other. The kitchen seemed like any room of an abandoned residence. No furniture. Chipped and faded paint. Cobwebs and layers of dust. Scattered rat droppings. The familiar stale and musty odor of not having been lived in. Only the windows along the opposite wall that had boards nailed over the wooden frames and the glass underneath painted black provided any indication that someone lived here.

  Drake gave the kitchen one final sweep with the light. “Clear.”

  Alison climbed the rest of the way up the stairs and joined Drake, standing beside him but facing in the opposite direction. Drake moved across the kitchen to the door leading in to the row house. Alison followed, walking backwards to cover their rear. They paused by the open door to the pantry. Drake shone the light around the pantry. Nothing. Motioning with his head, he led them down the small hallway and into the main section of the row house.

  The two hunters stood in the foyer. Their laser/lights danced across the soiled hardwood floor encrusted in years of accumulated dirt and dust. Dozens of candle stubs dotted the floor along the wall. Drake’s light fell on the balustrade of the winding staircase. He ran it up to the second floor, then along the landing and up to the third floor.

  Alison backed up until she bumped into Drake and spoke softly. “We could still walk away.”

  “I wish. But we have to clean out this nest.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Me too.” Drake turned slightly. “Let’s check out this room to my left.”

  “You first.”

  The two sidestepped across the foyer to a set of double doors, the right ajar. Drake walked th
rough and quickly swung the laser/light from the far left corner to the far right. He saw nothing in this room except for the boarded and painted-over windows, a dust-covered mahogany table in the center of the floor, and more candle stubs.

  “Clear,” said Drake.

  “Thank God.”

  Drake stepped back into the foyer and crossed over to the first of two doors on the opposite wall. He grabbed the doorknob in his left hand and slowly turned it until the tumblers clicked. He turned to Alison. “Ready?”

  Alison raised the Remington to chest level and nodded.

  Drake pushed open the door and stepped into the room, scanning it with his laser/light. Alison followed him but veered right, placing her back against the wall, ready to provide cover if necessary.

  “Oh, Jesus.” Alison shook her head.

  Even Drake found the stench overpowering. In addition to the usual covered windows and candle stubs, this room contained a mattress heavily stained in blood and infested with cockroaches. The stench came from a pair of corpses discarded against the far wall. One body appeared mummified, as though it had been there since the founding of the nest. Its skin had turned gray and leathery, tightening around the skull and ribcage and receding around its mouth to expose its teeth. Drake could not even guess at its age or sex.

  Not so the other corpse. Drained of all blood, this one was a week old at most. Its eyes, though shriveled, were still intact, and its lips had yet to pull back over its teeth and gums. Although decay already had started to claim the body, the corpse could still be identified as that of a young woman. Maggots swarmed in the decayed bite wound on her neck and in the tear in the body cavity where the abdomen had expanded and burst due to the gases generated during decomposition. A dozen cockroaches swam across a pool of dried bodily fluids.

  “This is a good sign,” said Drake.

  “You’re joking.”

  “No. It looks like the body has been here only a week at most. If the vampires are draining their victims for food rather than turning them, then the nest may not be as large as we thought.”

  “Small comfort.”

  The hunters continued their search.

  Stewart stood against the police barricade, taking photos of the row house. Jessica hung around the command center, hoping to pick up some tidbit of information to flesh out her article. Unfortunately, everyone hustled around too much for her to pick up more than a few fragments of conversation.

  Jessica saw someone in a suit exit the tactical communication vehicle and head over to Roach. She had never met him before, but from photographs knew him to be Joel Preston, Roach’s special assistant. Preston stepped up to the chief and whispered something in his ear. Roach nodded and patted Preston on the shoulder, then turned to face the others.

  “All right, people. Let’s move out.”

  The policemen by the barricades pulled the structures to one side while most of their companions climbed into their squad cars. Roach followed Preston into the back of the tactical communications vehicle. Within seconds, a dozen police vehicles were racing down the street toward the row house. The squad cars pulled into a semi-circle in front of the targeted building, the police inside jumping out and taking up firing positions behind their vehicles. The tactical communications vehicle stopped behind the semi-circle of squad cars. Within a minute, enough fire power was brought to bear on the row house to take down a small army of humans.

  It was still not enough to take out a handful of vampires.

  Stewart walked up beside Jessica and motioned for them to join the others. “It’s show time.”

  The search of the first two floors had turned up nothing but several darkened rooms. Rather than comfort Drake, it served only to further place him on edge in anticipation of an inevitable attack.

  Reaching the top of the stairs leading to the third floor, Drake walked down the landing to the first door on the right and swung it open. He and Alison raced into the room. Again, nothing. This room looked like all the others, except that one of the windows along the front of the room was broken, allowing a small shaft of sunlight to filter in. The broken glass also allowed in sound. Drake and Alison heard a commotion outside. Moving over to the window, Alison stood with her back against the wall as Drake looked out onto the street below. A dozen police vehicles sat out front of the row house. As Drake watched, policeman climbed out of the vehicles and took up firing positions.

  “This isn’t good.”

  “What?”

  “The police are launching a raid. There are at least twenty to thirty cops down there.”

  At that moment, someone who at this distance looked like Chief Roach raised a bullhorn to his mouth. “This is the police. You have five minutes to come out with your hands over your head.”

  Drake stepped away from the window. “I think we better get out of here.”

  “That’s the best idea you’ve had all day. Let’s go.”

  The two hunters headed out when a figure in a Georgetown University sweatshirt suddenly appeared in the doorway. It crouched in preparation to lunge, snarling. On instinct, Drake raised the Glock and fired three rounds. The vampire ducked back behind the door jamb, causing all three rounds to slam harmlessly into the wall across the stairwell.

  “Shit. I miss—” Alison kicked Drake’s legs out from under him, knocking him backwards to the floor.

  Jessica involuntarily crouched when she heard the gunshots coming from inside the row house. It told her that Drake was inside, and in the line of fire.

  From three cars down, a policeman issued a single command.

  “Fire!”

  A barrage of gunfire burst through the front windows of the row house, sending a shower of glass and wood shards across the room. Drake rolled over onto his stomach. He had dropped the Glock when Alison knocked him to the floor. Looking around, he finally found it lying against the wall. He side crawled toward it when another snarl came from the doorway. The vampire in the Georgetown University sweatshirt had returned. This time it pounced, sailing across the room toward Drake.

  Drake forgot about the weapon. He rolled onto his back and started to raise the stake to chest level, but it landed with its knees on his abdomen, knocking the wind out of him. Its right hand pinned Drake’s stake hand to the floor. The vampire bent over to bite Drake’s throat. With his free hand, Drake grabbed it around the neck and pushed back. His muscles strained, and his elbow felt as if it would snap. He was not strong enough to hold back the vampire for long.

  Alison saw Drake in trouble. She began to get to her feet to go to his assistance when another commotion at the door caught her attention. A vampire in a denim jacket rushed out of the room to the rear of the row house and headed down the stairs, pausing just long enough to stare at the hunters. It jumped from the stairwell to the main floor. A second vampire, a female, followed but stopped when it saw Alison. Bearing its fangs and snarling, it rushed down the landing and burst into the room, aiming at Alison. Alison did not have enough time to bring the shotgun around. Instead, she fell forward and rolled onto her right shoulder, crashing into the vampire’s legs. It sprawled to the floor and slid into the wall.

  Finishing her roll, Alison came back onto her feet just as a stray bullet buzzed by her head, missing her by inches. She ignored the near miss, focusing her attention on the battle at hand. Alison turned to face the vampire. It rose to its feet directly in front of the window. Alison raced forward. The vampire arched its back and roared, ready for a fight. Instead, at the last second, Alison shifted her body and used the forward momentum to launch a sidekick to its chest. Caught off balance, the female vampire was propelled backwards, crashing through the boards and shattered glass covering the window.

  “Jesus Christ!” one of the policeman yelled. “Top floor! To the right!”

  The gunfire tapered off as everybody watched the body of a young woman come crashing through one of the top floor windows of the row house, presumably jumping to her death to avoid the hail of bullets. Ex
cept that she sailed backwards through the window. The instant she hit the sunlight, she let out an inhuman scream that drowned out the din of the raid. The body began to smoke and burn. When she finally hit the sidewalk three stories below, she exploded into a small cloud of ash.

  For a moment, the gunfire ceased.

  “What the fuck just happened?” asked a policeman standing beside Jessica.

  Jessica knew, but was not about to explain. However, she did have a plan for helping out Drake.

  “Chief Roach, shoot out all the windows in the row house.”

  “What the hell good will that do?”

  “Whoever these people are, they’ve spent so much time underground or shut up indoors that they can’t handle sunlight. Shoot out the windows and you’ll drive them to cover.”

  Roach pointed to the remains of what had just fallen from the third floor. “But that doesn’t explain—”

  Preston ended any further discussion by raising the bullhorn and issuing a new order.

  “Concentrate on shooting out the windows. Start with the top floor and work down.”

  After a momentary pause, the gunfire resumed with an increased vigor. It all seemed directed at Drake and Alison.

  Alison fell backwards as a pair of bullets whizzed by on either side of her head. One tore through the broken end of a board covering the window, showering her face with wood shards. She winced.

  Each of the bullets ripped away more of the covering from the windows. One bullet blew out a pane of painted-over glass, allowing a beam of sunlight to fall across the sweatshirt vampire’s face. It screamed and released Drake’s stake hand to cover its wounds. The vampire tried to run, but Drake grabbed the sweatshirt in his right hand, holding it in place as he plunged the stake into its heart. An animalistic bellow filled the room. Blood gushed from around the stake. The vampire tore at its chest, trying to dislodge the stake, but only succeeded in increasing the rate of destruction. The skin peeled off, slowly at first, then more rapidly. Peeling soon became disintegration. Ash fell on Drake from a growing cavity in the vampire’s chest. The larger the cavity became the greater the rate of disintegration, until its entire body turned to ash and crumbled onto Drake. Drake coughed, spitting up some ash that had fallen into his mouth.