by Alex Dire
“Father,” shouted one of them.
The other two repeated the word.
Norman slashed out with Bronte’s blade. Rolph easily slid to the side, dodging the attack. As he maneuvered, Norman stabbed with a second strike. Rolph jerked back, avoiding that motion as well. He’d drank deep and only moments ago. His renewed strength took Norman by surprise.
Norman’s surprise doubled when, before he could position himself for another attack, he felt a massive kick to his stomach. He reeled onto the floor. Vampires stepped all over him lunging and grabbing at his friends.
Norman struggled to protect his face from the boots that pounded all around him. He rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his knees. Then he heard the high-pitched signature of Matt’s vampire killing weapon. A crack sounded. Norman looked up to see Rolph blur out of the way. The projectile ricocheted off the wall and bounced along the floor. It fizzled for a moment and then fell still.
Norman wondered if it was a dud. An answer came an instant later as the orb began to glow. For a fraction of a second, it shone a dull red, then, an instant later it erupted in intense yellow light. He shielded his eyes from the searing sunlight that filled the room. He heard the anguished screams of burning vampires around him. Their bodies partially shielded Norman with shade as he writhed on the floor. He smelled seared flesh and nearly vomited. The loudest scream of all came from Rolph who stood closest to the weapon.
The vampires nearest the door stepped blindly away, attempting to escape. The ones nearer the blast crawled across the floor in flames. Some sunk limp onto the concrete, overcome by pain and damage.
In a moment, the bright yellow glow began to fade. Norman knew the weapon’s effective time had nearly run out. He shot up. The remaining glow sent searing pain into Norman’s exposed face. The intensity decreased by the moment. Rolph, charred and on his knees, struggled to rise up. Smoke billowed from his body and fluids leaked from cracks in his crisp skin. He saw those cracks begin to mend themselves together as the light from the orb faded to nothing. If Rolph hadn’t so recently fed, he’d surely be dead or at least unconscious by now. In a moment, he’d heal enough to stand. A moment after that, he’d be ready to fight.
Before Rolph’s body could recover, Norman darted at him. As Rolph struggled on his hands and knees, Norman kicked him in the gut with savage force. Rolph flew against the wall and slid down. Glistening pieces of charred flesh made a smear down the wall leading to the lump of Rolph’s body.
Rolph moved to stand up but Norman prevented his recovery by kicking him once more, this time in the face. Burnt flesh tore from his face and two teeth clicked along the floor as they scattered. Rolph slumped to the side.
Norman looked down at his unmoving enemy. Down for the count. He quickly turned to survey the damage and see how the situation stood. However, before he could register the scene, he felt a grasping on his leg. He looked down to see Rolph’s hand digging its nails into Norman’s calf. Norman shook his leg, but Rolph grasped too tightly.
Norman shouted at the mutilated figure. “Rolph, end this. We didn’t come to fight. No one else needs to die.”
Rolph answered by yanking Norman’s leg, bringing him to the ground. His back slammed to the floor and two incisors tore into his leg. Norman screamed in pain. Rolph tore a chunk of muscle tissue from Norman’s leg. His face had continued to heal. The black crust now appeared dark red, spotted with white oozing blisters.
“You’re wrong about that,” hissed Rolph. “Someone else has to die.”
Norman wrenched his leg back as Rolph spat the gristle and muscle he’d just torn from Norman’s calf.
“So be it,” said Norman, grunting through the pain. Rolph had nearly made it to his feet when Norman lunged at him with Bronte’s blade. The knife found its mark, slashing deep across Rolph’s throat. A spray of blood showered Norman. Rolph fell back and covered the gash with his hands.
Norman raised his fist, tightly clenching the knife for one final blow. He looked into Rolph’s eyes to see what they displayed in his last moments of life. However, he saw no sign of fear. In fact, a tiny hint of a smile crept up the corners of his mouth.
Norman hesitated. What's he smiling about? Sudden panic gripped Norman. He twitched his neck around to see behind him. Before he could finish the motion, an intense, cool pain sliced across his raised arm. Blood flowed in spurts out of the stub of Norman’s shoulder. He heard the wet smack of his arm hit the floor and the metal handle of the wooden blade clink as it hit the concrete, still gripped in Norman’s detached fist.
No! Norman tried to turn, but a second pain pierced Norman’s back. A shiny blade point erupted through his abdomen covered in red gore. It slid back out and his blood flowed out the gash and down his legs. He fell to the ground and twisted onto his back.
“Too bad is only steel, eh?” said Petre looking down the gristle covered butcher’s blade.
Norman clutched his bleeding stump of an arm and attempted to rise to his feet. Petre kicked him in the face. The cartilage of Norman’s nose fractured as he reeled against the wall next to Rolph.
Petre fell down onto him, plunging the knife into the center of his chest. Blood spurted around the edges of the blade. Norman’s vision began to blur with the loss of blood. He made pathetic grasps at Petre, but his arms grew limp and blackness encroached the periphery of his vision.
Petre bent over Rolph, grasped at his arm and looked into his eyes. Then he moved over to Norman’s severed arm. He pried the wooden blade from the still grasping fingers. He stood to his full height and towered over Norman, gripping the assassin’s blade.
Norman’s arm had stopped bleeding as the wound began to heal but his loss of blood had been great and he struggled to keep from blacking out. He twitched his eyes about the room, frantically looking for help. Bronte had tackled the three new vampires who’d just entered the room. Georgios swung a sharpened wooden pole at a circle of vampires whose circumference slowly closed in around him. MacManus stood in front of a kneeling vampire and beat him with his own severed arm. He saw no sign of Matt.
“No steel in this knife,” said Petre. “Too bad for you, eh?” He raised the wooden blade over his head. A perverse smile wrapped around his face. Then his lips tightened as his muscles flexed to deliver the blow. His eyes turned to slits for just a moment. Then they relaxed again. His mouth released its grip on his face. His muscles sagged and his raised arm drooped down to his side. The knife clattered to the floor. His lips quivered and a trickle of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. Norman lowered the arm he’d raised to shield himself from the aborted lunge. Petre’s mouth opened wide and he vomited a death scream, falling forward onto Norman.
He landed on Norman’s lap, a crude wooden stake protruding from between his shoulders. His fall revealed Alina, breathing heavy gasps of anger and relief behind where he'd stood.
Norman shoved the body off him with his good arm. Alina quickly approached and helped Norman to his feet.
He hardly knew this woman. Yet he owed her his life. “Thank you.”
Alina nodded once. Then she looked down at Petre’s body. Tears of rage filled her eyes. She spat her fury in a gob of mucus and saliva into Petre’s dead face. Then she reached down and slid the assassins knife from his limp fingers and walked over to Rolph who struggled to push himself up the wall. She stood before him and looked down without pity.
“I gave you a home,” said Rolph, summoning an air of confidence.
Alina’s voice erupted in short staccato words, spoken in a language Norman did not understand. Then her fangs shot out, her eyes tightened and a hiss spewed from her mouth. She gripped Rolph by his shirt and slid him up the wall. When she held him at eye level, she hissed once more and bit savagely into his neck. Rolph grunted in pain. Alina removed her mouth from his throat and spat his blood back in his face. Then she plunged the knife into his chest.
Rolph's eyes widened and his face twisted. His whole body became a wretched scream as Alina rele
ased him and he slumped back down to the floor, lifeless. She roared a sound that seemed impossible for a figure of her size. A vengeance Norman could not understand.
As the sound faded from Alina’s mouth, it gave way to a silence in the room. The combat had subsided. The junkie vampires all stared at the back of the room where Rolph lay in a heap on the floor. They stood motionless, puzzling through the new circumstances.
Norman thought that their disorientation could easily turn to rage. That would not end well for him. The vampires looked to one another.
Before a silent consensus could emerge among them, Alina spoke in a commanding voice, very different from the one Norman had heard on the trolley when she’d picked them up. Her strange words were brief. However, when they’d concluded, the junkies in the room slumped, deflated. They lumbered around helping each other up and left the room. Some looked back at the lifeless form of Rolph before turning their backs on him.
The anger and malice seemed to dissolve from this bizarre underground dwelling as its agent of control had been dispatched. Alina and Norman moved about the room, helping up his friends who gathered together and checked their wounds.
Matt emerged from under several bodies and spotted Norman. “What? They fell on me.”
Alina helped him up. She addressed the group. “We go to Worms, now.”
18
Ancient One
The woods grew thick with prickers and undergrowth. Moving through proved slow and laborious. Norman’s skin showed red dots of blood where the tiny spikes on the brush had pierced him. New dots popped up faster than the old ones could heal.
It turned out Alina had proven to be a much greater ally than they could have hoped for. Through mispronounced words and phrases of broken English, Norman had managed to piece together her story. She had found Rolph shortly after the last days of the short vampire war. He’d been nearly burned to ash by the sun. She healed him and brought him down to the subterranean home of dying humans and the frightened, junkie remnants of the once proud heart of vampiredom. Over time, Rolph had organized the chaotic ramble of vampires into a tight collective, operating by consensus. He soon bent the group to his will. After a short time, Petre had proved a loyal “lap dog.” Those were words that Alina seemed to pronounce perfectly. As a reward Rolph gave Alina to him.
Alina did not fill in the details of her relationship with Petre, but Norman gathered from her face the abuse she suffered at his hands. Norman hoped she would remain with them after they left this place. However, sneaking an extra vampire back to the United States might be tricky. They’d only made arrangements for themselves.
Norman turned to Chip. “Well, that didn’t go as planned.”
“That was shite,” exclaimed MacManus, emphasizing the long “i” with his Irish brogue.
“I guess I’ll be downgrading their loyalty rating,” replied Chip in an attempt to hide his frustration.
Gracie snorted and grunted as she sniffed around the ground.
Matt Barnes moved more carefully through the briars as his pricker wounds did not heal so quickly. “Am I the only one thinking that we need to hurry? The sun will come up before we have time to return.”
“You can’t rush Gracie,” said Georgios.
“You know, I’ve got all the time in the world,” replied Matt. “In fact, I’m kind of surprised I’m the only one keeping track of time here. I’m not the one in danger of exploding when the sun comes up.”
Gracie snorted and grunted as she dug her nose around the decaying leaves, pine needles and scattered bits of rotting branches, smelling for the mushroom Georgios had fed her from Rolph’s little jar.
A forest was always a difficult place for a vampire: all that wood. A little carelessness could turn a playful romp into a deadly encounter with its myriad woody sentinels.
The minutes ticked on as Gracie searched the forest floor with her nose. Norman had little to do but contemplate his situation as the pig did all that needed doing for the group. “Georgios, why can’t we smell the mushrooms? Why do we need a pig?”
“We can,” replied Georgios. “Don’t you smell them now?”
Norman closed his eyes and smelled. The air was filled with the scents of conifers and a ubiquitous underlying rot. All forest was mostly rot. In fact, it was from rot that the very trees that composed the forest sprung up each year with new life. “I smell decay.”
“The Fungi odors are mixed in with that,” said Georgios. “We can smell it, but we can’t differentiate it. We can’t separate the signal from the noise. Gracie can.”
“Whatever you say,” said Bronte expressing her frustration and boredom with the search. She clearly preferred a fight to this meandering walk.
Then the leash in Georgios’ hand tightened. He griped the end too late and it slipped from his fingers. Gracie waddled away, snorting excitedly along the forest floor. The group picked up speed to keep up. The pig stopped at a small clearing and dug her nose into the ground, pushing aside a layer of partial decay.
Norman tuned his keen eyesight into the patches of ground that Gracie’s digging revealed. Finally, she stopped shifting her head from side to side and chewed at a spot in the earth. The group formed a circle around her and watched for a moment. Georgios approached and pushed the debris aside. He dug his fingers into the rich soil and brought them up to his nose. He closed his eyes and inhaled their smell. Then he placed a finger into his mouth and moved his mouth like he was sampling wine.
“Some mushrooms are poisonous, you know,” warned Matt.
Georgios glanced at him raising an eyebrow.
“Oh,” said Matt. “Right. Never mind.”
Georgios looked over at Chip. “We have arrived.”
Alina’s eyes widened in anticipation. She mumbled something that sounded like a prayer with words Norman could not decipher.
Bronte was the first to stick her shovel into the ground. “Time’s ticking and the sun won’t wait. Let’s get this done.” She dug with deep, mighty strokes. MacManus joined her. They removed the dirt quickly. “How deep do we go?” she asked.
The group all looked at each other. Their glances finally settled on Georgios who shook his head. Collectively, they had very little experience with Worms.
Their hole had reached a depth of seven feet. Its perimeter left only enough room for Bronte to dig. She took a break, wiped her forehead and looked up at the group from the neat gouge she’d made in the earth. “There’s nothing down here.”
Chip paced and circled the hole. “Keep digging.” His voice betrayed frustration, spiked with a shot of fear, a rare departure from the politician’s demeanor. Chip typically radiated a sense of confidence, as if he knew exactly what to do and it would all turn out all right. That trait had served him well in his rise to chancellorship. Well, acting chancellorship.
“How will I know when I’m there?” asked Bronte.
Once again all looked to Georgios. He appeared as puzzled as the rest. Georgios was an expert in Kingdom Fungi not in Worms.
“You’ll hit a coffin?” Georgios wondered.
Bronte turned her head back down and raised her shovel for another stroke into the earth. The blade dug deep, burying itself and a portion of the handle in dirt. Her shoulders tensed as she prepared to heave another load of dirt from the ground. However, the dirt didn’t move.
“Must have caught a root,” she said. She heaved again. The shovel didn’t budge. She let go of the handle. It stood erect from the bottom of the hole in the dirt. She looked up at the group seven feet above her. She chuckled. “Reminds me of a time I got a meat cleaver stuck in the skull of this asshole Corps. V. I had to hack it out with another blade.”
“Hysterical,” said Norman.
Suddenly her eyes grew wide, and her head darted back down to the bottom of the hole. The group jumped back. Norman remained looking over the side of the hole. Bronte tugged her foot up. It remained stuck to the floor. A soil covered hand protruded from the earth and clung to
Bronte’s leg. Her tugging and kicking barely budged it.
A moment later, the shovel seemed to push itself out of the earth. Another hand clasped the blade. A clump of dirt pushed up out of the ground between the two hands. It shook. A face emerged, smeared with grime and rot, it’s eyes closed. Bronte fell against the side of the hole as the hand yanked at her leg. The rest of the form emerged from the earth covered in the remains of trees, leaves, insects and many millennia of decomposed life.
The dirt-covered figure stood in the center of the hole. It sniffed with its nose and looked through closed lids at each member of the group.
Alina dropped to her knees, slapped her hands together in front of her face and continued to mumble half-whispered words to no one in particular.
The form’s dirt crusted face turned to Norman. It waited for what seemed like minutes. Then, without warning, it’s eyes sprung open. They shone like light through the dirt and decay that covered the rest of its body. It’s mouth opened like an old door with hinges that had grown stiff from lack of use. A raspy whisper escaped its lips. “Why have you awakened me, Norman Bernard?”
Norman began to ask himself the same question.
19
Roots
The Worm disappeared, the subtle whooshing of air the only clue as to his method of transportation.
“He disappeared,” exclaimed Matt.
“No,” said Norman. “He’s run away.” Normans chin fell to his chest. The risk we took for nothing.
“Probably far away,” added Georgios. “This was always a long shot.”
A raspy whisper emerged from seldom used vocal chords. “Not so far as you think.” The Worm stood behind them.
They all turned to look at the figure they’d come so far and risked so much to see.
His whole body seemed encrusted with a layer of moist dirt. His gray stringy hair lay plastered to his scalp. The folds of his wrinkly face contained pockets of dirt. He wore leather clothing. However it had decomposed severely. Tatters remained.
