Slowly they turned round and came face to face with a vampire. It smiled and attacked with a deafening roar. The squat man brought his gun up to fire, but it was a fraction too late and he was hit by the demon. He landed, winded, the vampire crouched over him.
It lifted its hand to deliver the killing blow. BANG. The beast’s head pivoted towards the hold in his hand and on then to the wiry man who had put it there.
‘Get off him you…’
But his words were cut short as the vampire’s other hand grasped his neck. The speed was amazing. The creature stood and lifted him in the air with its left hand then looked again at the still smoking hole in his other. Already the tissue had begun to repair itself, the hole slightly smaller, the blood bubbling; congealing. It moved its fingers. Then slowly its gaze returned to his soon to be victim. It cocked its head to one side intrigued.
‘Why do you do it? Why do you fight when you must know you cannot win?’
The sharpened pole, driven from behind and through its left thigh, arrived by way of an answer.
‘That’s humans for you,’ said the squat man as he twisted the barbed pole, the vampire dropped to one knee, leaving the wiry man to crash limply to the ground.
‘So you do feel pain.’ As if in answer the vampire stood in one quick motion and snapped the pole in two, pulling the two ends from his leg with a roar.
Jake, still with Max, Father Matthew and Megan, moved through the derelict streets. Every now and again they’d come across the enemy and open fire. Then suddenly out of nowhere a vampire, his hood covering his face, landed to their right and they were running again, Jake firing blindly over his shoulder.
Then the figure disappeared and they slowed, searching all around. Then it landed once again, this time directly in front of them and once again they were running, taking a different turn. Jake had a feeling they were being herded, it was a feeling he’d had once before, when he was no more than a small boy.
‘What now?’ screamed Megan.
‘This way,’ yelled Jake. As they ran, behind him Max doubled up in pain, then fell to the floor and threw up. Realizing, Jake shouted to Megan to continue as he ran back to help his brother.
‘Max, are you okay?’
‘You know what, Jake?’ replied Max through gritted teeth, ‘That’s a bloody stupid question.’
Despite the situation both brothers smiled. Jake helped Max to his feet and they ran on, catching the others up. Up ahead the vampire landed in the street and the four of them dived into an old warehouse, smashing doors open as they made their way through the maze of old, unused corridors. They hit the open air, skidded to a halt, panting hard, their breath clearly visible in the cold air. They scanned the area.
‘It’s clear.’ They broke cover and darted across the open space.
From the shadows above, Zidtool watched the four figures as they exploded into view and allowed himself a thin smile.
Jake, Max, Father Matthew and Megan reached the doorway to another warehouse across the open ground, when a shadow flickered across them. They turned just in time to see Zidtool hit the ground ten yards behind them. Max’s eyes closed as an intense pain flooded through his whole body. Jake pulled the shotgun from his shoulder.
Zidtool smiled and wagged his finger, admonishingly, ‘Now, now.’ He said in his strange high pitched and grating voice.
‘Choke on this.’ Jake fired the gun, the first round missed Zidtool as he dodged left in a blur, and then he was closing, eight, six, four yards, when the second round hit him in the centre of his chest. It hardly slowed him at all as he leapt into the air hitting Jake and Father Matthew hard, lifting them off their feet, smashing them both through the rotten wooden door.
Inside the empty warehouse Jake landed awkwardly, pain burning through his shoulder, Zidtool on top of him. Beside him an unconscious Father Matthew crashed awkwardly along the floor and into the wall.
Jake and Zidtool skidded across the empty floor. Shafts of dull light crisscross the warehouse through the various holes and cracks in the walls and ceiling. Behind them Megan stood in the broken doorway, her eyes wide in terror. In the distance she could hear the vague sounds of battle as they washed over her.
‘Jake!’ She screamed.
Pinned to the ground, Jake could smell the stench of the beast on top of him. Zidtool’s mouth opened, his face contorted, his teeth long and deadly.
‘I’ve waited a long time for this.’ He hissed ‘and after you, I’ll have fun with her.’ He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, without taking his eyes from Jake.
The baseball bat actually shattered on contact with the side of Zidtool’s head. He turned, dazed, his vision slightly blurred. Megan stood facing him, breathing hard and holding the remains of the broken bat in her hands.
‘Get off him you bastard.’
Distracted, and still slightly stunned, Zidtool missed the movement below him as Jake brought the ten inch Bowie knife up into Zidtool’s throat. Zidtool slipped backwards, staggered to his feet, the knife sticking out from his throat like some obscene metal tongue.
Despite the pain that coursed through his body, Jake lunged, trying to take the advantage. He hit Zidtool, driving him to the ground and landed on top of him. Zidtool was still stunned as Jake pulled the knife from the vampire’s throat with a deep sucking sound and severed the top strap securing Zidtool’s body armour. Then grabbing the edge of the armour, Jake wrenched it to one side, raised the knife over his head and struck down with all his force. The knife plunged, but didn’t connect as Zidtool hit him with his open palm, knocking him backwards.
The Vampire half gurgled, half roared as Jake flew back across the room tumbling end over end across the floor, before his journey was stopped suddenly and decisively by the wall at the far end. Plaster rained down on him like snow.
Megan, terror in her eyes, stepped back as Zidtool stood. He grabbed the hanging body armour and ripped it off. Throwing it to one side it clattered across the floor.
He took a step towards Jake who was trying to clear his head and refocus. Megan held the broken bat up helplessly, but was flicked nonchalantly into the wall with hardly any effort from Zidtool.
‘Why? Why do you bother? Don’t you understand that it’s simply futile?’
Jake tried to pull himself up onto all fours but his arms gave way and he crashed back down, his head spinning.
‘It could at least have been quick…but not now.’ Zidtool hissed, with a strangled gurgle. Jake couldn’t take his eyes off of the loose skin that flapped at Zidtools neck wound when he spoke. Then Zidtool roared again.
Behind him to his right, Megan looked to the shotgun that lay only a few feet from her.
‘You want to know why we bother?’ shouted Jake. Unsteadily, he stood, facing his enemy like he had done so many years ago. ‘The fact that you don’t understand, is the reason why you’ll never win.’
In one smooth motion Megan grabbed the pump action shotgun, racked the next round into the chamber and threw it to Jake. Zidtool charged as Jake caught the weapon and fired once.
The sound was deafening inside the building and a solid slug ripped into Zidtool’s shoulder as he tried to twist away, too late. BANG another round hit him in the thigh taking him to one knee.
‘No body armour?’ Jake queried, ‘Does it hurt?’ He racked another round into the shotgun. ‘So let’s see how tough you really are.’
Zidtool looked up, evil personified and smiled. Something familiar burned across Jake’s mind and deep into his soul, something resembling recognition.
‘Kar!’
Jake’s finger tightened on the trigger when suddenly a dazed and winded Megan crashed in front of Zidtool, right in the line of fire. Jake relaxed his grip on the trigger as his head span to the left, but it was too late, as Max, saliva dripping from his mouth, hit him hard.
‘No!’ Screamed Megan as the shotgun clattered away into the corner. Zidtool grunted as he clambered to his feet.
‘Se
n!’ he hissed.
Jake lay pinned to the ground by his brother unable to move. He tried to turn his head away from the drip, drip, drip of the saliva that pattered onto his face. Max’s distended jaw opened as teeth that were much longer than they should have been edged closer.
‘I said, SEN!’ roared Zidtool.
Max, or whatever was left of him, turned towards his new master.
‘You know, I was going to take great pleasure in ripping you apart a piece at a time.’ Zidtool said as he absently touched his throat, which was already beginning to heal. ‘But you know what?’
Jake struggled under Max, but Max was already far too powerful for him.
‘In many ways this is even more fitting; being torn apart by your own brother…’ he smiled that uneasy, lopsided smile of his ‘…just like you tore my own brother from me, all those years ago.’
Jake’s face showed a flash of confusion, followed almost immediately by recognition, his mind racing back to that fateful night, twenty years ago where a little boy and his brother stood beneath the remains of the Amato Theatre.
A young Jake stares at the vampire about to leap. Light catches its face, a face with a lopsided smile that resembles Zidtool.
Jake looked at Zidtool in the present and realised the truth. His head felt like it was going to explode and he hardly heard the beast bark another command.
‘Drakar. But then on the other hand… I’m not sure I could miss all the fun.’
Max pulled away from his brother, his head switching left and right, hesitating, confused. He scurried backwards, never taking his eyes from Jake and joined his new master, crouched on all fours.
Zidtool smiled, and then began to laugh, a maniac blood chilling laugh that seemed to slice through the air. Max’s eyes widened as he anticipated the kill.
‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...’ Jake slowly stood, took a deep breath, ‘...I will fear no evil.’
‘Well perhaps you should,’ countered Zidtool with a wry smile.
The vampire moved so fast he was almost a blur. He lifted Jake with one hand and hurled him across the room. Jake hit the warehouse wall nearly six feet off the ground and tumbled to the floor with a thud. A lump of plaster crashed on top of him, exposing the bricks beneath. Although he was covered in dust and debris Jake again struggled to his feet, defiant.
‘…for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me… May the Lord give…’
His sentence was cut short by the vampire who threw a lump of old timber across the room which hit Jake in the stomach. Jake buckled and fell amongst the splinters of the rotten wood that had shattered on impact.
‘Shut up!’ screamed Zidtool.
Max, blood and saliva dripping from his mouth watched, just waiting for the command.
‘…us the strength.’
His voice was drowned out by the vampire, this time roaring with rage. Jake staggered to his feet again, blood trickling from the cuts on his face. In his hand he held hidden a splinter of wood just over eight inches in length.
‘Come on then you bastard. I saw your brother die and he squealed like a baby.’
Enraged, Zidtool moved so fast that Jake hardly managed to raise the stake to his shoulder before he was lifted completely off the ground, the make-shift stake torn from his fingers by Zidtool. Jake hung in the air, helpless. He glanced to Max, hardly able to speak and his voice cracked.
‘Our father...who art in heaven... Max… I need you Bro.’
The vampire squeezed. Jake began to choke.
Behind him, as she pulled herself to her knees Megan continued the Lord’s Prayer.
‘Hallowed be thy name...’
Jake, his throat screaming in pain, joined in… his voice hoarse, ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…’
‘No. You can pray to your God, but it will be my will that shall be done. Now bleed for me.’
Max watched intently, confused thoughts crashing through what remained of his mind when the cross that hung from Jake’s neck caught a flicker of dull light. Zidtool’s hand moved in a blur, the stake striking down towards Jake’s chest.
Zidtool’s face didn’t have any time to register his surprise as Max smashed into his side. Zidtool slid across the room as Jake rolled away. Max was on top of the vampire, his eyes mad, head jerking, teeth trying to bite. Zidtool’s hand held him by the throat as they rolled across the floor together.
Outside the sounds of the vicious fighting had faded. Through a mist of gun-smoke Trent was leading an attack on the small group of turncoats that remained. They tried to surrender, but were cut down in a hail of lead. Unbeknown to Jake and Zidtool and against all the odds the resistance were winning, the tide had turned. Every last half-ling and every last vampires lay dead, their bodies scattered on the ground. It was then that Trent heard the scream of a vampire being killed as it pierced the air from somewhere in the distance. It was a sound that brought back memories form long ago and he smiled.
Inside the abandoned warehouse Zidtool lay dead on the floor, his throat torn out, and his dead eyes staring into nothingness. Above him Max slowly turned towards Jake and Megan, blood dripped from his mouth, his eyes were glazed. He raised a blood-stained hand to his mouth, looked almost quizzically at it, and then tasted the blood with the tip of his tongue. It was good.
Jake backed slowly away, pulling Megan with him. Max, his head on one side, watched them go as he absently licked his fingers clean.
Jake, hardly recognized the thing that crouched on all fours in front of him as his younger brother now, but knew that somewhere deep inside Max had fought one last time to save him, to repay a debt more than twenty years old. A moment of sorrow flashed across his reddening eyes. Then Max stood, his back was stooped and he snarled a godforsaken sound. When he began to close on Jake, Megan’s eyes widened in terror. Slowly Jake raised the shotgun. He hesitated. Megan watched on, for a moment frightened that Jake couldn’t do what needed to be done. Then, as the thing that had once been his brother closed, their eyes met and Megan thought she saw a flicker of the old Max, pleading for release from the monster he knew he had become.
‘I’m sorry, Max,’ whispered Jake softly.
Max moved forward and Jake pulled the trigger. There was an explosion of sound and flame and the solid shot-shell hit Max, square in the chest. Max seemed to hang in the air before his knees crumpled and he slid quietly to the floor.
For a full minute Jake just stood, silently staring at his brother. Then he felt Megan touch his cheek, bringing his head round to hers. Her eyes closed as the tears fell unhindered, leaving long streaks through the dust that covered her face.
‘Let’s go,’ she managed.
She helped Jake across the room, where together they helped up a still dazed Father Matthew.
Outside the three of them stepped into the icy-cold air and into a heavy silence. They walked back towards the main street in a world that seemed to have abandoned them. All around dead bodies littered the ground. They felt a movement and Jake’s gun pivoted towards its origin. He lowered the weapon as a figure limped towards them out of the smoke. It was Trent.
‘Jake. Megan.’ He said. His voice even and calm as if he was just acknowledging an old friend in the street. He nodded to Father Matthew.
‘Hey Trent, what happened?’ asked Jake.
‘Well who would have thought it son, the bastards have retreated…’ he paused and a rare smile broke out over his craggy face, ‘… looks like we won.’
Jake smiled back, despite the horror of the past ten minutes, despite the pain he felt inside.
‘For the moment at least, but how long before they return, this time with more vampires, this isn’t the end and you know it’ He looked at the others. ‘I once believed that we could live in some kind of…’ he hesitated, looked down hardly seeing the dead resistance fighter whose dead eyes seemed to be starring back. ‘…if not harmony, then some form of acceptance. In the end they need us
and we can’t beat them… But I was wrong. They want us dead and they won’t stop until they have killed each and every one of us. It’s what they do. It’s what they are.’
‘Except for maybe one,’ cut in Father Matthew.
Jake stopped as the Priest took him by the arm. ‘Jake. I may be able to help. I came here on the request of a very different vampire who goes by the name of Drameer. He is truly different. He understands the need for us to live together, work together, in order for us all to survive. He might be able to stop the killing. He has the ear of the Overlord himself and he’s someone that Karick trusts implicitly.’
Chapter 20
A Battle Won
In their apartment in New York City, Kathryn watched in silence as Drameer paced back and forth.
‘Why do you grow so restless my love?’
Drameer looked over, tried to smile. ‘Because there is great unrest Kathryn, such unrest that I fear it will end Karick’s reign… and if that happened there will sure to be a vampire war.’
‘What will that mean?’
Drameer stopped and paused. He looked into Kathryn’s face, a face he had loved from the moment he had first seen it. Then he knelt before her, holding both her hands between his. His words, when they came, sent a cold chill down Kathryn’s back, like a knife of ice slicing through her very skin.
‘The beginning of the end; if a vampire war starts it will lead to a feeding frenzy. There will be unrivalled loss, a loss that will inevitably lead to the depletion of our food stock, in effect our lifeblood.’
‘But why? It makes no sense.’
‘It’s just the way we are.’
Dominant Species Page 16
