The rays of the sun flowed down 12 Street and filled the front of the van, falling across Walker’s hands and left cheek. His skin sizzled. He turned the steering wheel to the right and raced down the ramp until it merged into the shadows. Walker looked at his hands. The tops of the fingers and knuckles were seared black, and flakes of burnt skin had begun peeling off. At least the pain subsided. When Walker glanced into the rearview mirror, he saw the line of sunlight creeping down the ramp. At street level, two squad cars maneuvered through the wreckage left by their busting out. He needed to hurry.
Walker brought the van to a halt by a drainage sewer at the bottom of the ramp. He jumped out, ran over to the metal grate, and yanked it off. The opening measured only two feet square, but provided enough room for them to escape through. The others climbed out of the van and gathered around. Melinda went through the drain first, followed by Treja and the two vampires. Walker passed Toni through to them and followed.
By the time the two squad cars arrived at the opening to the storm drain, the undead had disappeared into the depths of the sewers to mend their wounds and hide out until darkness fell once again.
Drake reached the first-floor door to the stairwell just as all hell broke loose outside. He surmised it probably had something to do with the masters that had retreated from the exhibit hall. He hoped they would not make it very far.
Whipping open the door, he noticed holy water-laced tear gas filled the stairwell. He couldn’t wait for it to dissipate. Taking a deep breath, Drake ran into the stairwell and climbed the stairs two at a time.
From their perch on top of the museum’s roof, Jessica and Reese were so enthralled with watching the battle play out before them that neither noticed Chiang Shih emerge from the stairwell onto the lower roof. With a single, effortless leap, she jumped onto the outer roof, landing with a heavy thud. Startled, the two humans jumped back.
“Who are you?” asked Jessica.
“I’m Chiang Shih.” She walked toward them. “Give me the Bible and I’ll let you live.”
Reese glanced over to the east. The sun already had risen, but still remained hidden behind the Department of Energy building across Independence Avenue.
“Don’t count on the sun, human. It won’t help you.”
Jessica pulled out her stake and attacked the master, aiming for her heart. Without breaking stride, Chiang Shih grabbed Jessica’s wrist in her right hand, wrested away the stake with her left, and shoved the human to one side. Jessica tumbled off the edge of the roof and fell onto the lower level, hitting the cement face first. She lay there, unmoving.
Chiang Shih quickened her pace. Reese backed away, trying to escape while keeping an eye on the approaching master, and nearly stumbled over the pile of scaffolding poles. Chiang Shih used that opportunity to rush forward. Reese ran backwards and slammed into the stack of wooden planks. Before he could react, Chiang Shih lunged. Clutching his neck in her right hand, she pinned him against the wood and tightened her grip.
“You should have given me that Bible when you had the chance.” She squeezed hard, causing Reese to gasp. “Now I’m going to kill you.”
“Don’t count on it.”
Still pinning Reese to the planks, Chiang Shih spun around. Drake stood beside the stack of poles. He clutched one in his hands, holding it horizontally and aimed at her chest. Drake charged. Chiang Shih tossed Reese to one side and tried to stop the attack, but was not quick enough. The end of the pole struck her in the chest, piercing through the skin and penetrating the heart. Drake continued pushing, driving Chiang Shih back into the planks. The shock nearly knocked the pole out of his hands. With a final burst of strength, he shoved the pole deeper until it became imbedded between the wood. Chiang Shih could not move.
At that moment, the sun crested over the Department of Energy building, flowing across the roof of the Freer Gallery and washing over Chiang Shih. She arched her back and opened her mouth. Drake anticipated an anguished howl to accompany her death throes.
Instead, she laughed. A deep, hearty laugh.
Even more startling, the sunlight had no effect.
Chiang Shih walked forward. Her imbedded torso moved along the pole until it slid free. Instantly, the wound healed over. Drake attempted to back away, but the master surged forward. She lodged her right hand under his neck and squeezed, closing his larynx and cutting off his supply of oxygen. She pulled Drake close until their faces were only inches apart.
“I’m going to enjoy watching you die,” she hissed.
“Daywalker.”
Chiang Shih looked over her shoulder. Reese stood along the northern edge of the roof. In one hand he held the Bible by its binder and, in the other, a lighter. He flicked on the lighter and placed the flame against the Bible’s bottom edge. Wisps of white smoke welled up from the pages, the edges of which began to char. The flames leapt from the lighter to the book and burned their way along the cover. Chiang Shih hissed at Reese.
“Your choice,” said Reese as he switched the lighter to the Bible’s other corner, setting it on fire, too. “The hunter or the Vampyrnomicon.”
Releasing her grip, Chiang Shih let Drake fall to the roof, where he gasped for air. She charged at Reese. He waited until she had closed to within a few yards, then flung the Bible off the roof so it would land in the memorial garden beside the museum. Reese dropped down to present a smaller target, though he didn’t need to. Chiang Shih’s attention was focused on the Bible. She jumped off the roof, caught the Bible in mid-air, and landed in a crouch in the garden below. Patting down the Bible, it took only a few seconds to extinguish the flames. The edges were burned and most of the pages singed, but when she opened it she could still read the text.
When Drake and Reese stepped up to the edge of the roof and looked over, Chiang Shih glared up at them with a hatred the intensity of which made Drake’s blood run cold. For a second, he feared she might come after them. Fortunately, the police closing in from the front and rear of the museum threatened her possession of the Bible. She spat a defiant hiss at the two men and disappeared into the garden. Within seconds, she disappeared from sight.
“Looks like we won,” said Reese.
“For now. But this is far from over.” Drake patted his friend on the shoulder. “Thanks for saving me. I just wish you didn’t have to give them the location of the Vampyrnomicon to do it.”
“You’re not that important.” Reese smiled and pulled aside the flap of his jacket. He reached into the inner pocket and slid out the folded memoirs. “I pulled them out while she was strangling you.”
“You brilliant son of a bitch.” Drake wrapped his arm around Reese’s shoulder. “We’ll make a hunter out of you yet.”
From the lower roof, a painful moan rose to greet them. Slowly regaining consciousness, Jessica rolled onto her back and tried to get up, cursing the entire time.
“Come on,” Drake said to his friend. “Let’s check on the others.”
14.
Within fifteen minutes of the last vampire having fled the Freer Gallery, paramedics and police swarmed through the building and the surrounding streets looking for the intruders and the wounded. Excluding the two cops and the night guard who had been murdered near the rear entrance, the humans had fared pretty well. Five D.C. Police officers would be treated at nearby hospitals—the three who were assaulted by the undead and two who had taken 12-guage fragments during the shootout with Treja. None of them would spend more than a full day in the hospital before being released.
The hunters made out only slightly worse. Jim’s wounds looked far worse than they were. The paramedics triaged him with an IV, a blood transfusion, and a healthy dose of painkillers. By the time the ambulance got Jim to the hospital, he was coherent enough to ask the doctors who prepped him for surgery if he would be able to bench press two hundred pounds after the operation, and when they responded yes he wisecracked that he could not bench press two hundred pounds now. The bad humor reassured Drake that his tec
h wizard would pull through all right.
Drake drove Alison and the others to the same hospital where the paramedics had taken Jim. The emergency room stitched up her Alison’s hand and gave her painkillers. She had lucked out. The dagger the master had driven into her hand missed the bones. It would hurt like hell, but would heal within a few weeks and leave behind no appreciable scar or loss of movement. The rest of the hunters suffered from a variety of bruises and abrasions that only just now were beginning to hint at the pain that awaited them tomorrow morning. Only Reese made it through the ordeal unscathed. But the battle had taken a toll on his psyche. Once the adrenaline had shut down, he became morose, replaying in his mind the horrors he had witnessed earlier that night. Reese had not spoken a word during the ride over to the hospital or in the private waiting room.
Smith met the hunters at the hospital, fully expecting he would have to run interference with the police. Surprisingly, there were no arrests this time. After what the police had witnessed, they would have been hard pressed to find any charges to bring against Drake and his crew. Roach and Preston showed up to check on their wounded men. Drake overheard them arguing outside the ER about how they intended to explain what had happened. Roach pulled rank, stating that the official story would be that a gang of addicts broke into the Freer Gallery to steal paintings to sell for drug money, and the explanation for their seeming imperviousness would be due to their wearing body armor and being hopped up on meth. Preston stormed off, muttering something about a bullshit story that no one would buy. Not that Drake could blame Preston. The story sounded absurd. He could tell by Roach’s tone that not even he believed it.
Now, two hours after the battle, as they passed the time in the hospital’s private waiting room to find out how Jim’s surgery went, Drake found the events hard to believe himself as he related them to Smith. Alison, Jessica, and Rodriguez sat around the two men, each nursing along a soda or cup of coffee and filling in gaps in the story when necessary. Reese sat in a chair off to one side, his head lowered, unusually quiet.
When Drake finished telling about the Asian master impervious to sunlight and stakes, Smith was speechless. The stunned look on his face echoed their concerns.
“Let me get this straight,” Smith finally said. “This uber vampire you encountered on the roof wasn’t fazed by the sunlight?”
“Not a bit,” replied Drake. “She literally laughed it off.”
“And being staked didn’t kill her?”
“It didn’t even slow her down. I drove that poll right through her heart, but she pulled herself off of it and healed instantly.”
“Christ,” muttered Smith. “What type of vampire are we dealing with?”
“A daemonium merdianum.” The answer came from Reese who had not spoken in over an hour.
“A what?” asked Smith.
“A daemonium merdianum.” Reese looked up at the others. “Literally, it means noon-day devil. More commonly known as a daywalker. A vampire that can survive in the sunlight.”
Drake became short tempered, partly because of his aching body. “You knew about these daywalkers and never warned us?”
“One daywalker. And until tonight, I thought it was just a legend.”
Jessica rotated her shoulder. “For a legend, it packed one hell of a punch.”
“You’re lucky to be alive.” Reese stood and joined the others. “The legends describe the daywalker as the first vampire, the one from which all the others were created.”
“How old is she?” asked Alison.
“No one knows. Some accounts place her as far back as the pharaohs. Most place her birth sometime during the late Roman Empire. I’ve never put stock in any of them because daywalkers have never been mentioned in any of the vampire-written literature. All accounts have come from medieval hunters. Even these differ except for one main theme. The daywalker is the strongest, smartest, and most evil of all masters. Sunlight and holy water don’t bother it. The traditional ways of killing a vampire won’t work on it. And it has instantaneous regenerative powers.”
“In English,” prompted Rodriguez.
“Cut off its arm, it’ll grow back in seconds. Smash in its head, it’ll heal immediately.”
“So there’s no way to kill it?” asked Smith.
“According to legend, there’s only one way to kill the daywalker.”
“How?” asked Alison.
“I don’t know how, but I know where I can find the answer”
Drake shook his head. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but where?”
“The Vampyrnomicon.”
* * *
“Damn the hunters!” Chiang Shih tore the Bible in half lengthwise and flung the pieces across Walker’s hotel room.
“Calm down,” admonished Walker from his seat on the sofa. “The last thing we need is the hotel staff coming up here to check on the noise.”
Chiang Shih glared at him, but knew he was right. They had suffered too many setbacks and could not afford to expose themselves.
After escaping from the Freer Gallery and eluding the police, Chiang Shih had made her way to the hotel and let herself in, then spent all day reading through the infernal book for a clue on where to find the Vampyrnomicon. Akers had met her in the afternoon after having snuck out of the Freer among the throngs of police and paramedics. The masters joined her later that evening, sneaking in through the hotel’s rear entrance so as not to be seen. Only after reading through the entire Bible did she notice the makeshift pocket in the front cover, surmising what must have been hidden there.
“Let’s face it,” said Treja in a gravelly voice. His slashed throat had healed, but the holy water left a permanent scar on his neck and damage to the larynx. “We underestimated these hunters.”
“They’re the best we’ve gone up against,” admitted Melinda.
“Second best,” Walker disagreed.
“Enough,” Chiang Shih spat out the word. “What’s done is done. Next time we meet the hunters, it’ll be on our terms. And they’ll live just long enough to regret yesterday.”
“What do we do now?” asked Melinda.
“We need to get our hands on the Vampyrnomicon.”
“We could take the memoirs from them,” suggested Walker.
“They’ve either destroyed them or hidden them in a place we’ll never find them. Besides, I want the professor to find the Vampyrnomicon. Let him do all the work. We can take it from him once he’s found it.”
“Do you want me to keep an eye on him?” Akers asked.
“They’ve already seen you.” Chiang Shih noticed that Akers grew agitated. “Don’t worry. You’ve done an excellent job, and when this is over, you’ll be justly rewarded.”
A look of relief spread across the human’s face. “Thank you.”
“I have other plans for you.” Chiang Shih leaned back against the television stand and faced the others. “Until we find the Vampyrnomicon, nothing has changed. We’ll continue to build up the covens and amass an army of the undead.”
Walker looked uncomfortable at bringing up the next subject. “What about Antoinette’s coven?”
“You take it over since you haven’t started one of your own.”
“And what about Antoinette?”
Antoinette. Chiang Shih’s spirits sank. Pushing herself off of the television stand, she crossed the living room and stepped into the bedroom. Walker followed close behind. Toni lie spread eagle on the bed. Her arms and legs were secured to the baseboard with chains to prevent her from thrashing around, both to limit the noise and prevent Toni from hurting herself. A pillow case had been stuffed into her mouth and secured with duct tape wrapped several times around her head. The regeneration process had been extremely painful, causing her to flay around and cry out. The first few hours while they hid out in the sewers had been the worst. Thankfully, as the healing progressed, the violent spasms diminished. They stopped entirely a few hours ago, so the chains and gag were precautionary.
The healing process may have been over, but complete recovery would be impossible. The skull and brain had grown back, but the holy water had prevented a perfect regeneration. Toni bore a bullet-hole-sized scar on her head, and her hair would not grow back over the exit wound. However, it was too early to determine her mental state. The healing powers ensured the destroyed tissue would grow back, but the holy water that seared through her brain caused massive and irreparable damage. They had no idea yet of the extent. Toni might survive only to remain in a vegetative state, a burden on the coven that would have to be eliminated. Or she might become an uncontrollable psychopath.
Walker sighed. “I should have put her out of her misery in the sewer when I had the chance.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
Walker seemed taken aback by Chiang Shih’s callousness. “She’s in agony.”
“I know. But it’s a sacrifice Antoinette would be willing to make.” Chiang Shih’s voice betrayed no emotion.
“And what if she comes out of this viciously deranged?”
“I hope she does.”
“Why?”
Chiang Shih went over to the bed and sat beside Toni, gently stroking her head. “When we wage our war to take over this city, Antoinette will be my secret weapon against the hunters.”
* * *
A piping hot bath, two cups of hot herbal tea, and a pair of painkillers prescribed by the hospital helped ease some of Alison’s aches, but not by much. Like soaking up Hurricane Katrina with a sponge. As she crawled into bed with a glass of iced water and a bottle of aspirin, every muscle in her body protested. She could hardly wait until the morning when her muscles had a full night to stiffen.
Her muscles would not be the only thing worse in the morning. The more she thought about this new situation, with two new masters and a daywalker to contend with, the less confident she felt. Every time they took down a snuffy or a master, it seemed as though twice as many replaced them. Not the type of odds that inspired confidence.
The Vampire Hunters (Book 2): Vampyrnomicon Page 31
