Of Man and Monster

by Saje Williams

  They all met in front of the hole, a large, ragged, semi-circular pit in the canyon wall like the fanged mouth of some great subterranean beast. The plan was for the vampires to precede the others inside, to scout the territory and eliminate any threats they came across.

  The Marines would go as the second wave, with Rachel and Amanda bringing up the rear. Amanda saw no problem with that. She could play rear-guard as well as any other position. She was just glad she didn't have point. That went to Gina—easily the fastest of them all.

  Gina, Jason, and Cory had just stepped through the aperture when a ragged howl rose from the cliff above them. Amanda spun in concert with the others to see a mob coming up the canyon at a dead run. She called up her magesight and the darkness burned away as the gently glowing streamers of mana cast a shadowy light through the ravine.

  Cory and the other vamps burst out of the hole, moving so quickly they were mere blurs of black and white as they streaked toward the mob.

  * * * *

  Rachel recognized Binks in the front of the crowd, a shotgun cradled in his hands. He tried to bring it into play but Cory sidestepped and tore it from his grasp, coiling back and slamming it back into Binks’ stomach hard enough to send the man to his knees.

  Gina and Jason veered to each side, hurling the attackers back and ripping their way deep into the throng.

  These weren't mindless zombies, despite their numbers. These were intelligent, aware, and much stronger and faster than they should have been. Rachel saw Jason go down beneath several assailants swinging short clubs.

  They couldn't quite get a grasp on Gina. She simply moved too quickly, dodging and darting between the swinging weapons with astounding agility. A touch of her hand, a sweep of her foot, and her attackers were striking one another rather than the supple creature seemingly dancing through their midst.

  * * * *

  Cory yanked Binks up by the scruff of his neck but lost his grip as the former cop fired a punch into his jaw. The force was enough to snap his head back and send little sparklers rattling through his brain. The man was fast! Cory avoided the kick that came after more from sheer luck than any innate skill. After a few feints, a couple narrowly avoided punches and kicks, Cory realized that he was way out of his league. Binks had skills he'd never learned. All the speed and strength in the world didn't matter if your opponent could damn near match you—and had the knowledge to back it up.

  * * * *

  Rachel drew her Glock, tried to draw a bead on Binks. She swore. They were moving too fast. She couldn't risk a shot, even though a bullet through Cory's torso or limbs wouldn't—couldn't—kill him. But if the bullet ricocheted ... She just couldn't bring herself to take the gamble.

  * * * *

  Use the magic, Cory! Amanda had her own Sig-Sauer in hand, but she wasn't trying to aim at anything. She had it pointed at the ground as she chewed her lower lip. What was wrong with the boy? Couldn't he see he was overmatched here?

  She pawed at the air, pulling a thread into her grasp and forcing herself to focus her intent despite the gnawing in her gut. This had gone so wrong so quickly. Where had all these people come from? They're as strong as the vampires!

  Jason surged upward, tearing himself free of the hands that tried to hold him. He dived out of the dog pile, thrusting with one foot against one of his assailants’ backs. He hurled himself upward, tucking himself into a ball and spinning away from the throng.

  He landed in a crouch several feet away, lips curled back and his fangs distended all the way, lending himself a bestial, almost feline look.

  * * * *

  Cory hurled himself back into a round-off, snatching a strand mid-flip. He landed lightly and felt the thread coiling through his fingers as he crouched and waited for Binks to make the next move.

  The former cop pulled himself up, towering at least half a foot over the teenage vampire, and gave a savage grin. “Not bad, kid. You can't bumble your way to victory though. Doesn't work that way."

  "You're probably right,” Cory replied. He thrust his hand out toward Binks, saw the thread uncoil itself, and envisioned it as a length of spider silk. It shot between them, wrapping itself around Binks’ neck. It materialized into a solid reality and he gave a strong tug. The former cop—the traitor—stumbled forward, going to one knee as he clawed at the cord wound tightly around his throat.

  Cory rushed him, bowling him over with a single kick, and then drove a solid punch into his solar plexus as he threw himself on top of him. He snarled, rearing back so his knees rested on each of Binks’ arms, and slammed his fist into his face a couple of times.

  Binks lapsed into semi-consciousness and Cory leaned down to drive his fangs into the side of his neck. He drank deeply, not draining him all the way, but enough that Cory felt a rush of power along with the hot ambrosia of the blood.

  He felt hands tearing him away. He fought for only a second, and then allowed the hands to stand him up again, dematerializing the silken cord.

  "You're not a killer, boy,” Scorpius's voice murmured in his ear. “Even after being turned into a creature that must feed off the lifeblood of others you're still not a killer. I know you hate him. I know you want to pay him back for trying to kill your mother. Leave the killing to the professionals.” Face blank as a stone slab, Scorpius drew his sidearm and shot Binks in the chest point-blank. “Now see to the others."

  * * * *

  With Binks gone they made short work of the others. It was like some vital communication link had been severed. The others still fought, and fought well enough, but listlessly, without any sort of coordination. Not like they meant it.

  Binks was also the only one they were forced to kill. They stunned or otherwise disabled everyone else, then efficiently bound them and stuck them in a crevice some distance down the canyon. If they were being controlled on any level, Rachel didn't want them dead.

  They didn't know the limitations of Veronica's power. Cory was almost certain that these people had more or less given themselves away to her. Blood bound, he had said. Thralls, he'd called them. Men and women who'd agreed to serve the vampires for the promise of immortality. Not immortality itself, but the mere promise of it.

  The thought made Rachel vaguely sick to her stomach. Giving yourself deliberately into bondage was a concept that completely escaped her. She shook her head in disgust as she watched the Marines finishing stowing the prisoners into the crevice.

  * * * *

  Cory crouched in the blackness, his hyper senses reaching out ahead of them. Nothing stirred in the depths. Nothing he could detect, anyway. He could smell his mother and the others some distance behind him and the other vamps. Their fear rose from them in a stinking cloud.

  These caves were far more extensive than he would ever have guessed, though he really shouldn't have been surprised. Local legends said that the earth beneath them was riddled with cave systems stretching all the way from the Cascades in the west all the way to Prineville in the East. Some even whispered that the Ice Caverns south of Bend and LaPine linked up with them, though cavers who explored those vast subterranean regions had never found anything of the sort.

  It was doubtful that sort of thing was what Veronica was after. And Cory definitely had the impression that the woman was after something specific. She wasn't doing this for the fun of it. One didn't take over a whole town and create an army of mindless slaves to tunnel for the fun of it. They'd all discussed this question and none of them had the faintest idea what she was after.

  It had began to crawl beneath Cory's skin. There had to be some sort of method to her madness. Where was she? And where were the rest of her minions—her Get? It didn't make any sense that they'd delved so deep and found no one and nothing of note.

  It was like the place was deserted. It didn't make any sense at all. Where was everyone?

  He followed an abrupt right hand turn and walked into a well-lit cavern filled with a steady hum from a generator he couldn't see. The signs of habit
ation were everywhere. But nothing moved but them.

  A row of crates sat against one of the sloping walls. After a quick discussion the vampires were sent to open them up. The first crate that Cory opened held an assortment of old, moldy clothes. He gave a snort of disgust and gently closed the lid.

  Jason opened the next one in line and nearly jumped out of his skin. “Holy crap!” he hissed, leaping backward.

  Cory trotted over to look in the box. “What the hell is that?” He could see it, but his brain couldn't seem to make any sense of what he was staring at. Then, after a few seconds, the image began to make sense and he wished it hadn't.

  It was a desiccated corpse folded into a small leathery parcel. A shiny white globe stuck out from beneath the package. Wincing, Cory reached in and slid the grisly bundle aside. The globe was a human skull. A small skull, obviously that of a child. Cory hissed and jerked his hand back. “Christ on a stick.” He shut the box and straightened. “You don't want to see this,” he told the others in a tight voice. “Vampires don't dream. We don't have nightmares.” He turned and walked away from the boxes. He didn't want to look in any of the others.

  * * * *

  Bigby ran. From behind him came the sound of pursuit, hissing snarls as the feral vampires loped after him, mindlessly hungry, thinking of nothing but his blood. He'd escaped his captors and vanished into the tunnels, slipping back when he thought it was safe.

  That's how he had overheard Veronica's conversation with her two vampire lackeys. She'd told them to release the creatures from the pit, the vampires who'd been turned yet never been allowed to feed. It had broken their minds, made them into little more than hunting beasts.

  His senses had finally awakened to his current circumstance. He could feel his way through these tunnels even in the pitch darkness. If he closed his eyes he could even ‘see” the tunnels that connected to this one. It wasn't a surprise. He'd been here before. A long time ago.

  He was running out of room. The sentient vampires were somewhere ahead, the feral ones somewhere not far behind him. If they caught him he'd have no chance to survive. They'd tear him to pieces fighting for even a sip of his blood.

  He loped to the next crossing, skidded to a halt, then shot down the passageway to his left. He ran for another dozen yards and stopped. Water dripped somewhere nearby. He crept forward slowly, emerging into a dimly-lit cavern easily ten times his height and so long he couldn't begin to detect the other end.

  Only the slightest sound from behind him caused him to leap aside, pressing his back against the cavern wall beside the entrance to the tunnel he'd just escaped. The vampire who strode through a bare instant later was one of Veronica's minions, one of those who could still think. If you call that thinking.

  He didn't hesitate. His arm shot out, his hand splaying across her face and squeezing as he slammed the edge of his other hand into the back of her neck. A sodden pop echoed through the chamber and she collapsed bonelessly.

  A scream of rage echoed from somewhere not too distant.

  * * * *

  Everyone froze.

  "Where'd that come from?” Scorpius asked, glancing wildly around the grotto, hands gone white from his grip on the shotgun.

  "Somewhere that-a-way,” Cory murmured, pointing to the east. Or, at least, what he assumed was the east. He'd already gotten turned around down here. Being a vampire with superhuman senses certainly didn't give him an advantage in orientating.

  That scream, full of fury, had put everyone on edge. As if they needed anything more than being in a dark hole full of vampires and who knew what other kinds of monsters to make them edgy.

  Out of a tunnel mouth on the other side of the cavern boiled a horde of howling monsters in human guise. Vampires, Cory realized, but not like him. Mindless, savage ... starving. “Protect the mortals!” he yelled, launching himself toward them.

  They hadn't ever fed. They should have been weak, easily tumbled, but feral desperation lent them strength he could have sworn they wouldn't have. Three fell on him as if he were a choice steak cast before a pack of hungry dogs.

  He couldn't even tell if they were male or female. They were filthy, dressed in the rags that were all that remained of their original clothing. Skeletal in appearance, eyes burning with a mad light, one long-haired creature sank teeth into his forearm.

  He punched it between the eyes. The shock hurled it away from him, fangs ripping their way out of his flesh. He flung his arm out, thrusting a second vamp away from him as he kicked out to shake one from his leg.

  Suddenly Scorpius was beside him, shotgun roaring. One of the vampires fell back, clutching the shattered remains of its face. The Marine kicked it away and jacked the shotgun to replace the shell in the chamber. He rotated it back into a two-handed grasp and sent another vampire staggering back with a second blast to the side of its head.

  Then Jason, Gina, and Shine were there beside them. The wild vamps must have numbered about twenty. Their hunger precluded any sense of fear, even though they were being cut down like wheat under a scythe.

  Bruised, bloody, and sick beyond belief, Cory watched the last vampire fall. Something warm and wet ran down the side of his face. He wiped it off and flung it to the floor. “I'm going to kill her,” he snarled.

  "She's already dead,” Shine pointed out. She looked about as revolted as he felt as she dragged her gaze over the carnage.

  "Yeah. As ‘dead’ as we are,” he said. “We're just going to make her more so."

  * * * *

  Bigby ducked into a hidden recess along one tunnel as a handful of the mad vampires rushed past him. His arm snaked out, snagged the last one in line by the back of his raggedy shirt. The creature that had been Detective Tooms hissed into his face, hands curling into claws as he lashed out at his former employer.

  Bigby punched him between the eyes.

  He went over like the proverbial pole axed steer. Bigby crouched next to him, opened his own wrist with a single slash of his pocketknife, and shoved the bleeding wound into his mouth. It took a few seconds, but Tooms reached up, wrapped his claws around his forearm, and started to suck like a baby at its mother's breast.

  His eyes snapped open and he stared up at Bigby, the light of recognition dawning in their dark depths. He pushed the hand away as he wiped the blood away with the remnants of his sleeve. “Boss?"

  "Welcome back, Tooms. You remember anything?"

  The Jamaican cop sat up, frowning. “The bitch got me."

  Bigby nodded. “Uh-huh. Turned you into a vamp. You ready to get back on the job?"

  "Ready Freddy.” Tooms shoved himself to his feet. “How'd ya do that, boss?"

  "Trade secret,” Bigby replied. “Let's get a move on before the rest of them come back. I don't think you're up to fighting a whole pack just yet."

  "Ya knows it,” Tooms answered. “Where's Maddie?"

  "I don't know,” the Chief answered honestly. “But we're going to find out.” He hoped they'd find his wife and their unborn child unharmed, but he had his doubts. He kept those doubts to himself. He needed Tooms thinking straight. If things went bad and Tooms wasn't all the way with him ... he'd never get out of here alive.

  * * * *

  Rachel watched her son with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. This couldn't be good for his state of mind. He was trying to maintain in the midst of horror. She could see it in his eyes. Guilt, and something that looked a lot like fear, weighed him down even in the midst of all this horror. Each dead vampire was like a stain on his soul.

  She feared for him. She really did.

  Right now he crouched in a corner, eyes scanning the cave restlessly. He wanted to be moving—she could tell. But none of them knew where to go from here. And even the vamps were reluctant to leave the light.

  She'd lost her son to the darkness. She made no mistake about that. He wasn't the child she'd raised anymore. The other vamps looked to him as a leader. Whether that was because he had some sort of ability
in that direction, or because he'd created them.

  He hadn't created Deb Shine, though. The former cop looked to him the same as the others—like he had something special about him that made them want to follow. She didn't see it, but maybe she couldn't. Even though she'd lost him as a son, she was still his mother. She saw the little boy who color coordinated his Legos, and poured his heart and soul into learning to play the piano.

  As far as she knew he hadn't touched the ivories since he'd been turned. Of course, when had he gotten the chance?

  ::I'm so sorry this happened to you, Cory. I really am. I'm sorry this happened to all of us.:: She didn't say anything aloud.

  She didn't have to for Scorpius to catch the thought out of the air.

  ::Nothing to be sorry about.:: His mental voice sounded as drained as she felt.

  ::Then why does it feel that way?:: she thought back at him.

  ::Arrogance? Ego?:: If not for touch of humor that passed from him along with the words she would've been offended. And, as much as she hated to admit it, he had a point. This hadn't happened because she'd been a crappy mother. On an intellectual level, she knew it. But on a purely emotional level she couldn't quite get over looking at it like that. If she'd only been more attentive, maybe.

  Or maybe not. This could have happened even if she'd been the perfect parent.

  Now you just keep telling yourself that. Maybe someday you'll believe it.

  Eighteen

  Veronica wanted to scream. Again. She'd stumbled one too many times. She'd allowed fools to compromise her plans. She regretted the fact that she couldn't control her mortal zombies with any more finesse than she did. She couldn't trust those who volunteered their services—idiots like that cop Binks, who'd told her he'd killed Rachel Flynn.

  Sure he had. That's why she was down here, helping to destroy her Hounds. She'd kill Binks herself if that bald guy hadn't planted a bullet in him. I'm surrounded by morons.

  She was so close. She could feel them calling to her. Just like they had been since she'd woken up that one night in Olympia—her heart no longer beating, breath no longer moving in her lungs, the remains of her spontaneously aborted fetus laying between her legs.