by Ryan Attard
As the vampire experienced the mother of all toothaches, Abi spun around, grasped the metal pole and forced the vampire to the ground. Pausing to catch her breath, she pulled back the slide of her gun and aimed at the vampire. Like a striking rattlesnake, his hand reached up and covered the barrel of her gun, upsetting her aim. The bullet tore through his hand, reducing it to a bloody stump. But hollow-point bullets aren’t designed for penetration. Their job is to lodge in the target and expand into a large chunk of metal inside the body. They were perfect for stopping power and ripping through the hardened, armored flesh of most supernatural beings.
She quickly readjusted her aim and would have managed to reduce Scowl into dust, if not for the second vampire, who crashed into her and threw her off his companion. She hit the ground hard, her breath knocked out of her body, and struggled to get up. Both vampires were already on their feet, shakily taking their first steps. Wrench walked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the left side of his face a raw lump of flesh and his left arm held close to his side. His torn collarbone wouldn’t allow him to move his arm as he pleased. Scowl, on the other hand, looked more pissed off than injured. His right hand was gone, leaving a stump halfway up his forearm. The bullet had torn into his left shoulder, but it was only a superficial wound. He let out a primeval hiss, and it was clear that he had lost some teeth. Or in his case, fangs. His beak-shaped nose was broken, twisted comically to the left.
If this were a movie, the vampires would quickly regenerate and go back to being pasty-faced supermodels with too much sex drive. But this is reality. Blood begets blood — that was the vampire’s way of life. They couldn’t live without blood, nor could they heal or exhibit any of their supernatural powers. Which is why their hunger for my apprentice doubled. Her blood was the alleviation to their pain and the regeneration of their limbs.
Abi stood up and held her weapon aloft. She had just a few shots left, not enough to stop both the vampires. She thought she could at least try to take down one, and aimed the gun at Scowl. She pulled the trigger and nothing happened. The gun let out that heartbreaking click of jammed metal, which meant the weapon was nothing more than an expensive paperweight. Scowl gave the apprentice his trademark expression in acknowledgement of her second attempt on his life. Abi’s expression became one of horror as she realized that she was going to have to defend herself up-close and personal. Fighting in close quarters with a vampire is the worst possible scenario – they have claws, teeth, and heightened senses, allowing them to be man’s perfect predator. We have soft, juicy flesh, bone with the strength of twigs, and internal organs that are about as tough a barrier to a vampire as foil wrapping around a chocolate bar. But my apprentice had an edge over your average Joe. She wasn’t omnipotent, although she makes that mistake sometimes, unlike yours truly, who is so humble. But she did have magic, and she was trained by one of the best monster hunters in the world (there goes that humility again). She waited until they were only a few feet away. In an instant she inhaled, filling her lungs with air, and let out a shriek in a sudden, quick burst.
There is an arcane form of martial arts, practiced by monks who spend their time learning how to destroy people with every part of their body, as well as meditating on how precious life is. Kiaijutsu is the art of yelling and channeling your internal energy for a devastating effect. Only the most senior of monks are allowed to practice this form of combat, and it requires decades of self-discipline, meditation and practice. My apprentice had none of the above. But her natural powers allowed her to easily manipulate the senses of others. When you think about it, all senses lead directly to the brain, and to someone like her, that was a virtual playground.
What Abi just did was kiaijutsu on steroids. Enhanced by her magic, the sound blast was enough to send Scowl flying backwards and crashing into my car. Wrench spun wildly, as if he’d been slugger punched with a sledgehammer. Every car alarm on the road went off, filling the ungodly morning hours with a chorus only attractive to a banshee. Windows of nearby houses shattered. The one car door window the vampires had left intact met its doom as well. Even the office window, behind which Amaymon and I stood, vibrated and a thin crack slithered down its length.
Without missing a beat, she flung her gun at Wrench, using a small burst of power to direct the awkward missile straight into his groin. Vampires may be dead, and they do have supernatural resistance and all that, but the nerve endings remained intact even after their natural life is over. And no guy on Earth, living or dead, is above getting hit in the nuts. Wrench doubled over, clearly not expecting the cheap shot. Abi reached to her side and unclipped a folding knife. Using her thumb to flick the knife open, she lunged at Wrench, grabbed his head, and she dug the knife in, trying to hack the vampire’s head off.
But magic has its cost.
Try as she might, Abi could not muster the strength to saw through the vampire’s neck. She sagged and looked like she was going to be sick. Wrench had recovered, and he swung his good fist into her ribs. Abi went flying, still holding the knife uselessly. From the way I heard her wheeze I was pretty sure Wrench had broken at least one of her ribs. I dug my hands into the windowsill, trying hard not to rush out of the door and end my apprentice’s torment. But I had to let her suffer. It was evil of me, and I hated myself for it. But this was our reality, and she had to learn how to deal with situations like this herself. The next Sin just might manage to kill me. And the worst thing I can do to her is let her depend on me every time her life was in danger.
Meanwhile, Scowl had made his way to being bipedal again. His expression looked hazy, and blood streamed from his ears. But both vampires made their way toward the fallen succubus. This wasn’t a lesson anymore.
“Erik,” warned Amaymon. The vamps got closer and Abi stirred. She tried to push herself off the ground, and failing that, began kicking herself away from the looming monsters above her.
“Erik,” called Amaymon again, his voice with an edge of panic.
“Go,” I replied quickly. From my peripheral vision I saw the cat vanishing out the door.
I looked back out just in time to see the vampires swinging back their arms in unison and preparing to tear into my apprentice. Their claws fell inches away from Abi, who had her eyes closed. Before breaking the first layers of her skin, the claws dissolved into ash. Both vampires remained immobile as their bodies cracked and flaked off into the light breeze.
All, except their heads, which were no longer attached.
Amaymon emerged from behind the car as a broad-shouldered teenager wearing all black, the ruby pendant around his neck - which was usually attached to his collar, and his unchanged feline eyes glowing an ominous yellow. In each hand he held their heads. Scowl’s head blinked several times, trying to make sense of the situation. Amaymon turned his palms, forcing their eyes on the back of my wrecked car and then back towards him.
“Engine’s at the back,” he said maliciously. He grinned, exposing his serrated, shark-like teeth and putting the vampires’ fangs to shame. “You sad pieces of shit.”
He brought the heads to eye level and calmly pressed both his hands together. With sounds that would make a seasoned surgeon throw up, he squashed the heads together, putting into it as much effort and thought as one would when squashing an orange. The whole thing took less than ten seconds but the image of Amaymon slowly squashing two severed heads together, with bone, teeth, blood and, worst of all, brain matter dribbling between his clawed fingers as he smiled maliciously, will haunt me for the rest of my life.
He rubbed his hands together, as if washing them in the soup of blood, ash and brain, and offered a gore-splattered hand to Abi. She looked away sharply and made an effort not to throw up. Amaymon looked from her hunched position to his hand.
“My, my. I wonder which one of us really deserves to be called a pussy,” he said disappointedly, before leaving her in the middle of the street and walking back toward the office. Halfway there, he began licking his hands clean, and he
winked at me. That’s when I almost threw up. Taking in deep breaths, I pointed at the shrubbery and watched him revert back into a feline. He dug his stained paws in soil and entered the door I opened for him. I ignored the mud he left on my wooden floorboards. Anything was better than vampire brain-matter paw prints.
6
“Try to hold still.”
She winced every time the thick point of the whiteboard marker came in contact with her skin. Although it might have had something to do with the small protrusion coming from her ribcage where the bone was broken. Abi’s injured side was covered in small, one-character symbols spanning from her left hip up toward the ribcage. She stood inside a circle of candles, holding up her shirt from the side. Larger symbols were drawn between each candle. That had been the easy part. The trick was drawing the minute energy-channeling symbols that had to cluster around her broken rib. Screw one up and I would have to start the whole thing over.
“I can’t, Erik. It’s an involuntary pain reaction,” she replied through clenched teeth.
I was about to reply with something sharper when Amaymon padded in silently. Abi gave him a look of both fear and disgust. After the Hannibal Lector stint with the vampires, I didn’t really blame her. Except I knew Amaymon, and there is a very good reason why I keep him on a leash.
“I can help,” he said, and got in between us.
Abi gave me a look, silently asking whether she should let him that close to her or not. I nodded. Amaymon’s nature was a strange one. He was a monster and relished the hunt and the macabre. And yet, he was also very loyal. I theorized it was because of the contract with me. It wasn’t as simple as signing a piece of paper and abiding by it. When I first got him, the demon was just that — a demon. He wanted death, destruction and chaos. And he wanted to do it in various imaginative and graphic ways. But demons like Amaymon, who are older than time itself, tend to be more than just harbingers of chaos. They were built upon a set of principles too, resembling more the deities of old rather than the horned depictions the Catholic Church tries to sell. It was thanks to those principles that Amaymon could serve so loyally under the Demon Emperor. Once he made his contract with me, willingly, that loyalty shifted to me. But it wasn’t as simple as helping me up when I fall down. His personality had changed, too. He had become more like me, as if someone had implanted my personality in his and removed all the inhibitors. And like his dual form, my familiar’s personality stretched to two extremes, one lusting after blood and gore, the other focusing on his role as my familiar. The problem was that sometimes these extremes were at odds with each other, and it was a psychological coin toss which one would win.
It wasn’t my life that was at stake when the vampires injured Abi, so he didn’t need to help her. The fact that he asked me, however, showed that he was becoming more… human. Or, at least, human-attuned. Which was a good thing. And he had technically saved her life. He just did it in his own graphic manner.
I nodded at her, certain that the cat wouldn’t snap and tear both our throats out. And besides, he had very little power now that I had placed the lock back on. That ruby necklace served as a link, a receiver so to speak, and if I channeled a little power into it Amaymon got temporary access to all his former super powers. In cat mode, he still had a few left, but none that could cause major damage.
I think.
Amaymon stretched his neck toward her ribcage and began licking her injury. The apprentice’s expression went from anguish, to repulse, to relief. The more the cat licked, the more relaxed the girl got, slowly closing her eyes in the bliss of pain relief. I made a quick association in my head — pain relief narcotics grow from good old earth. Amaymon is an elemental of Earth, although I suspect there’s more to it than that. He never discusses his power, always saying that I wouldn’t understand it, that humans cannot perceive power in the same depth that other creatures can. We were both creatures of magic, technically speaking. His was as pure a lineage as one can get, whereas my pedigree was more human than magic.
After a while, Amaymon stopped his ministrations and simply curled on his favorite spot on the couch. I applied the symbols, this time without the wincing and little jumps that threatened to jeopardize the entire spell.
“There,” I said once I had finished with the last symbol. “Sit in that circle cross-legged and keep your back straight. Just focus on channeling energy. The spell should take care of the rest.”
Abi obeyed every command to the letter, allowing only her eyes to move. “How long?” she murmured.
“Could be anywhere from a couple of hours to an entire day. Just sit still. You’re lucky to be alive,” I replied, and immediately regretted saying that.
Abi’s expression went from downcast to nearly tearful. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. It took all of her willpower not to hunch over and cry.
I felt bad. I hate it when women cry, especially if I have some sort of a bond with them. But some selfish part of me, the part born when I had to beat my own father to death, and hardened in the process of battling nightmares for a living, said that she deserved it. She deserved to feel bad. This world was no place for the weak, and twice in a row she needed either me or my cat to save her life.
I told that part of me to shut up and keep its opinions to itself. Doesn’t mean it was wrong. The next time she could die and, as much as I hated seeing her like this, I would rather she be sad and alive instead of in a body bag. This is it, I thought. This is where I had to draw the line. She was not ready to face the world where hillbilly vampires are considered to be puppy dogs. She was not ready to face her own weaknesses, let alone something as overwhelming as a demon. I had to cut her off. I would tell her that she could keep learning under me, and lessons will go as usual. But no more fieldwork. No more hunts. Not until she grew stronger.
Not until I grew stronger.
I was about to verbalize all that when I felt someone staring daggers at me from the couch. Amaymon’s feline eyes locked with mine, and I had a sinking suspicion he was tapping into my thought process. He got up, in that lethargic way only cats can muster, and sat on the armrest of the couch.
“Don’t do it,” he said, his gaze still pouring into mine. “If you cut her off, she’ll just seek solace elsewhere. You really wanna throw out a budding succubus?”
“I’m not throwing her out. Just cutting her off from hunts,” I replied.
“Which is the same as cutting her off entirely. You can make that distinction, Erik. She can’t,” argued the cat.
“You were going to cut me off?” asked Abi. She looked at me, silently asking me to reassure her. To tell her I still trusted her.
“Yes,” I told her. “You’re not ready for this.” I might as well have stabbed her myself. It was the right thing to do, I kept telling myself. Then, my inner voice replied. If it’s the right thing, why does it feel so bad?
“Oh, now I’m not ready,” she said, no longer caring if she arched her neck. “Is that how it is? I screw up and I’m out?”
“You know that’s not true. I just don’t want to have to attend your funeral,” I shot back.
“Well, if I’m such a damn liability, why’d you take me on in the first place?” she yelled. In her tirade she had shifted her body so much I was almost sure she would break the spell.
She nearly knocked a candle over before Amaymon jumped on her lap.
“Hold still!”
Abi stopped her squirming abruptly. Her face contorted with effort as if she had trouble doing the simplest things like breathing. Amaymon was not a heavy cat - he was a magical cat.
“You’re gonna suffocate her,” I said, realizing what was going on. Using whatever power he had, the familiar had increased the gravitational pull on Abi, holding her in one place.
“It’s for her own good. Now, stop moving and just listen.” He hopped back on his perch. “Both of you nimrods, listen up.” He looked at Abi, who had shifted back to her original position and was in the process of throwing me
a dirty look.
“You,” he told Abi, “need to pull your head out of your ass. You screwed up twice in a row. Any other wizard would be dead and digested by now. You got lucky. You’re not powerful enough, yet. But you could be.”
He turned to me. “You,” he said, “need to grow a pair. Stop being afraid of your own power. It’s a part of you. So what if we don’t understand it yet? Here’s an idea, Einstein, why don’t you actually try tapping into it instead of taking the cautious road?”
“I might blow up someone by accident,” I said. “Or go all super villain.”
“Man, you constantly blow stuff up. And you always claim it’s an accident. And if you were a villain, you would have gone down that road when you first started. Your old man would have been a good role model.” He waited for me to say something. I remained silent, not entirely sure of what to say. Amaymon had a point. But his view of the world was not the same as a human’s. Demons were born with full power capacity. They were incapable of evolution. None of the hardcore creatures I’ve met so far were. That’s what makes humans so volatile – we can grow. Amaymon never understood the concept of a change of heart.
“What Abigale needs is to get stronger, and fast.” Amaymon never used Abi’s full name unless he was going to reveal something life-changingly important. “You guys can wait another couple of years and let her develop her natural powers. No doubt they would be somewhat impressive. But I doubt whoever was behind Lilith is going to give you guys a time out. So, she needs a game changer — a crutch, so to speak. She needs a boost so powerful that, with it, she would be able to hold her own against mediocre creatures easily.”
“Yeah, that would be impressive. Unfortunately magic steroids don’t exist,” I said. “Unless you live in a video game, power boosts aren’t an option. And the ones that do exist aren’t so convenient.”
“Of course they are, if you know where to look,” replied Amaymon. His tone of voice had that edge to it, which usually meant he was going to drive me up a wall. Curling his tail around himself, he turned and looked at the window where he and I had watched Abi’s bout with the vamps. I followed his gaze.
