by Ben Zackheim
The kitchen. Four bedrooms. Two baths. The gym. Doesn’t sound like much of a mansion, I guess. But there’s one more room that makes it huge.
My favorite place in the world. The library.
It’s at the center of the house, pulling people into its core or, at the very least, keeping us in its orbit. I cook to the smell of books. I sleep with one million stories as company just down the hall. It’s the heart of the home which is why I also built a stone hearth the size of a house right in the middle of it. It’s surrounded by leather chairs, even a hidden recliner or two when I really need to escape. The bronze and wood details compete for attention with a deep shine that lines the staircases and the three stories of volumes, spines out.
The house sat on top of a hill surrounded by a mile of hills in every direction. Rolling green seemed to go on forever in some places, only ending at the faint line on the horizon. Darkwood Forest, originally named by my dad.
So with all of that land surrounding my home, it was easy to see if someone was coming. If you were listening you could even hear a car five minutes before it arrived.
“There,” Cassidy pointed. All four of us stood on the top of the roof, over the control center. It was night so he handed me the infrared binoculars.
A lone figure walked toward the house. His long strides showed me he was confident. I didn’t know what his intentions were but my guess was they weren’t good. He wore a long coat over an armored chest plate. He had a rifle in his back holster that rose a few feet above his head. It looked like a musket. One-badass looking thing.
“He’s on your property,” Rebel said, getting pissed. She had a talent for talking herself into a tizzy.
“Settle down,” I said. “I’ll go check it out.”
“Not without me, you won’t,” Rebel said, following me down the stairs to the garage.
We hopped on our Honda RC213V-S bikes and revved the engines too loud. Rebel shook her head and hollered at me. I couldn’t hear her over the din, but I knew she wanted me to take it easy. She knew I wasn’t at 100%. Fair enough. But I still floored it, race or not. I needed to feel some speed.
I shot out ahead. It felt incredible. I’d been cooped up inside for too long. I felt like I could handle anything at that moment. Fresh air and g-forces can do that to a guy. But I didn’t know the half of it.
I’m still surprised I made it through the next five minutes alive.
As we approached our armed guest, I started to get a bad feeling. Like maybe I should turn back and think about this for bit. That itchy thought started to bubble up. I pushed it down. It was paranoid. But as the stranger came into view under the bike’s brights I noticed he wasn’t alone anymore.
Now he was walking with a giant. The guy was ten feet tall. Each step he took was equal to four of mine.
“No way,” Rebel shouted over the engine noise.
I hit the brakes. She pulled in next to me.
“Demon?” she asked.
“I think the spikes on his head and the three eyes are the best clue.”
His head was a helmet of small spears. They slithered around his head.
Demons hadn’t been common since the 1920s. Back then, they had been summoned by other supernaturals to fight humans in Europe. It ended with the Battle of Wolves on the grounds of Montfort-l'Amaury, just outside Paris, France. Mankind barely won but took out enough of the werewolves and demons to grab the initiative. The demons had crawled back to wherever demons go.
“Stop there!” I yelled. They did. “What do you want?”
The small guy took a step forward. I pulled my pistol and got a bead on him. The demon growled, but a look from his smaller partner cut it short. He raised both hands and I could just make out a smile on his pale face. He was a Vampire all right. “The sword,” he said simply.
“Would you like it in the chest or up your ass?” Rebel said while pulling off her gloves,
“You can’t protect it,” the Vampire said. “Vampires will have it before the end of the night.”
“You know who I am,” I said.
“You’re the guy with the portable storage unit. You die, the sword is gone forever.”
“So what chance do you have to take it from me?”
“Take it?”
And with that we heard a whistling sound over our heads. Rebel and I knew that sound too well.
“It’s a trap!” she yelled, revving her engine.
Chapter 13
They attacked from above. The sound of a human-sized body catching air is unmistakable.
The fluttering of cloth, the low hum of air pushed aside.
One Vamp managed to fly past me and removed a chunk of my jacket with its claws. The next one would have a better bead on me so I got the hell out of there. Rebel and I tore off in the other direction, back toward the house.
“Rose, activate the Perimeter Ring,” I yelled as I hit the gas.
“Roger that, sensei.”
“Tell Cassidy to monitor the hell out of it,” I continued, ignoring her. “I don’t feel like blowing up the Hudson Valley today.”
“You got it, jefe.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You got it, kimosabi.”
I heard both twins laughing so I shut the stupid ear-piece off. They knew what to do. We’d practiced a thousand times. By now it was almost a habit to activate the property’s defense system. The Perimeter Ring was a circle of protected land and sky. It lay 100 yards away from the house and surrounded everything and everyone dear to me. If anything or anyone tried to get past it, they’d run into a hail of lead, silver, holy water, and explodey things. It was an arsenal that could take out every kind of supernatural known to man.
I pulled up to the garage just in time to see Rose running around the roof. She was checking the generator control panels to monitor the stability of our system. She spotted me and gave me a big thumbs up. Her white teeth glistened in the sun. So charming from a distance.
Rebel and I ran inside to watch the monitors.
We didn’t like what we saw on the infrared.
The night sky was swarming with Vampires. Most of them had landed while the rest circled just outside the Ring. Our spotlights fired up and covered the area in full UV light. The monitors switched to normal view and we could see them squinting and backing up to the edge of the light. They wore the traditional Vampire garb — long white coats and black everything else. It was supposed to signify the battle within each Vampire to contain their darkness. They never did a very good job of that.
I switched my mic to all auxiliary channels.
“Get off my land, assholes.” My voice boomed all around us.
It was a woman’s voice that shot out of the darkness.“Give us the sword and we’ll let you and your loved ones live!” She stepped into the light. Her white helmet was covered in a black visor that stopped her from burning up.
“You have five seconds,” I shot back.
She gestured for someone behind her. Another Vampire crept into view and handed her what looked like an RPG-7 missile launcher.
“We have a problem,” I said as we watched her mount it to her shoulder and fire. We heard the explosions above our head. The monitor went dark again. She took out some of the spotlights.
“We need to draw them into the ring. Assume they have a lot more of those things and act accordingly.” The twins and Rebel looked at me. “This is it. We fight them off now and they’ll know they can’t intimidate us.”
“We should call for backup,” Rose said.
Rebel gave me one of her annoyed looks. “Skyler.”
“Not yet.” I ran for the roof. Rebel followed me. “They know about the Perimeter Ring. They won’t walk into it until they take out our firepower.”
“How are they going to do that?”
“I don’t want to find out. So you need to start Plan B, Rebel.” She didn’t look happy about it. What else is new? But she knew I was right. If the Vamps were going to attack
us from outside the Ring then we had to push them into it. I watched her storm down the stairs.
I knew she’d pull it off. It’s just who she was. She always made the plan work even if she had to bust the plan wide open to do it.
I got to the roof and pulled out the AR-50 sniper rifle from its hiding place. It was too quiet out there. The Vamps were up to something. But every second they held off attacking the house, Rebel was closer to her target. After a couple of minutes, my earpiece clicked.
“I’m there,” Rebel said.
That’s when I saw the smoke trails in the night sky. They were lit by the remaining spotlights. Whatever they’d lobbed at us they were forming perfect arches of exhaust.
And they were all coming right for us.
“Hold, Rebel,” I said. I knew she’d be ready to spring but it was too early. We’d take the damage we had to take, then she could do her thing.
I found some Vamp targets in my scope. I focused on one. No wind. Clear shot. I held my breath. I squeezed the trigger. The kick knocked my eye off the scope but I quickly found it again and took out Vamp number two.
I lined up a third shot and was about to get it off when the incoming missiles hit. They were actually massive globes, about ten feet in diameter, with spikes meant to tear and terrorize.
One landed behind me on the roof. A dozen more slammed into my home. One took out the cherry tree right below. That pissed me off.
The last fell over my head and slammed into the roof of the control center.
It broke through the house like it was clay.
I ran to the edge of the crater. “Cassidy!” I yelled.
There was no answer.
Chapter 14
“Rebel, go,” I said into the mic.
“On it,” she responded.
The control room was a cloud of dust and broken tech. I couldn’t see Cassidy anywhere. He was either under the spiked ball or…
“Holy shit,” Cassidy said from the control room door. He had a Snickers in his hand. Half the chocolate bar dropped out of his mouth as he looked at the room wide-eyed.
“Dammit, Cassidy! I thought you were under there. Why did you leave your post?”
“What? I needed a snack that’s like a meal! You wanted me to be under that? ”
“No! You’re supposed to… Never mind. That cannonball took out our monitoring system. See what you can do to keep the Ring under control.”
“Pray?”
I think I growled. He got the point. He stepped over some expensive servers, now junk, and wiped his chocolatey hands on his pants.
I knew Rebel would let me know what was going on as soon as she could. Communication is critical to keeping control. But I found it tough to stop myself from using the walkie. As I watched the second volley slam my house to pieces I realized that we wouldn’t survive another round.
“Come on, Rebel,” I said without pressing the Talk button.
The gunfire erupted from the darkness. She’d started. It was up to her to drive them into the ring where we could overwhelm them.
Whether she kept her mic on on purpose or not doesn’t matter. But I got to listen to what happened next. First, there was gunfire. She grunted. She’d been tagged. I knew the sound of Rebel getting tagged. It had happened a few times before. That year.
“That’s all you’ve got?” she yelled. I could hear the screams of bullies who knew they’d bullied the wrong chick.
I heard her roll through them. “You’re cute. Sorry. Oh no you didn’t! I’ll take that. Okay, that’s gross. Where did you come from? Yeah, that’s right. Run!”
“Rebel. Just do it already.”
She didn’t pay any attention to me. “Oh man, you just shot your own guy! That was an accident right?”
Four shots followed by a lot of grunts and hollow thumps.
Her laughter was all I needed to know. She’d scared the last of them off. Not an uncommon occurrence.
“Give me one minute,” she said to me.
“We don’t have one minute. One more round of those spiked balls and we’re dead.”
“If I had a nickle for…”
“Rebel!”
The channel went dead. I hoped that meant she was climbing back into the tunnels that ran underneath the house. Plan B, as I called it, meant she would sneak through the tunnels, emerge behind them, set a select few explosives in ideal spots behind the enemy and then open fire to cause confusion. The final step would let her do what she loved. Make big fire.
Explosion number one blossomed from the darkness with shocking force. It blew a dozen Vamps into the Ring. Rapid gunfire from the perimeter guns flooded the area. They didn’t have a chance.
Explosions two and three went off simultaneously and pushed dozens more toward the house and into the death zone.
But Rebel saved the real fireworks for last. Every color the human eye can see suddenly flashed all around us. It was like an electrified rainbow. There was a rage to the pops and hisses and massive booms. My home was covered in a charged blanket of energy. Chunks of metal and, well, other things flew into the sky.
Rebel and explosions. Like chocolate and peanut butter. And bacon.
“Tell me you’re okay,” I said.
“Was it a show?” she asked from somewhere in the safety of the tunnel.
“It was a show. Cassidy, how’s the Ring?”
“It’s almost spent. It took out 87 Vamps. Hold on.”
I waited for what felt like an hour. I checked the sky for movement.
“Monitors show no activity on the ground or in the sky,” Cassidy said, the glee seeped out of his word. “No red alerts.”
“Good job,” I said.
“Thanks, jefe.” Laughter. Idiot kid.
Moonlight gave me just enough to survey the damage. The billowing smoke would set off a few alarms with local officials in the morning. Nothing I couldn’t handle. I wondered how many dead were hiding in that mess.
“Jesus Christ,” I heard Rebel say from the driveway below me. She was on the ground level checking out the carnage. She looked up at me and shook her head. I shrugged. You mess with us and this is what happens. I’d rather not have gone to bed that night with so many undead deaths on my hands. But I also can’t let anyone get away with Excalibur.
“You got a close look. Who were they?” I asked.
“Hard to tell. They were decked out in riot gear under the white coats.”
“Let’s find some survivors and get some questions answered.”
“No way were there any survivors, Kane. It’s a mess.”
Which is when I heard a sound from behind me. The Vampire leader had just landed on the roof. Half her helmet was blown off and she only had one arm — which embraced an RPG-7.
Pointed at my head.
I flinched.
She jerked violently. Her exposed eye went wide. A human hand emerged from her chest with a sickening crunch. She convulsed, went limp and slid off the arm of a Vampire.
The Vampire we’d encountered on the motorcycles.
He kicked his fellow Vamp clear over my head like it was a rag doll. Her body fell from the roof and landed in the hands of his giant demon in the parking lot below. The demon took a sniff of her corpse and tore it in two with a roar.
“You didn’t like her?” I asked the stranger.
Rebel emerged from the shadows of the roof, calmly. The Vampire noticed her and nodded politely, then he turned to me.
“You are Kane,” he said. Somehow his voice sounded hushed even as it surrounded me. Vampire magic. It was used for intimidation, light hypnosis. But put a Vampire up against human magic and they tended to back off. That’s why I was happy to have Rebel standing by with a who-knows-what-spell.
“I thought we’d established that already,” I said.
Rebel clinked her nails together. That got his attention. His smile faded and was replaced with something much more serious. Much more ready for a fight.
“The offer I’m abo
ut to make is highly sensitive. I needed to be sure you are him. So. Will we be able to keep this civil?” he asked. As if he didn’t just roll onto my property with an army.
I stopped myself. I needed to keep my anger under control. He was trying to bait me. I wouldn’t bite. Winning a battle of wits with a Vampire is as decisive as one that separates limbs from bodies. I needed to keep that in mind as he tried to get me to act the way he wanted me to act.
“Hey asshole, you think…” Rebel started.
“Quiet,” I said. “I’ve got this. What can we do for you, kind sir?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call me kind, but thank you for the greeting. I apologize for the attack. It was not my doing. I came here to warn you about it, but it looks like that’s a job poorly done on my part.”
“We can take care of ourselves,” Rebel said.
“Are you sure? What if reinforcements are coming as we speak.” He gestured to the skies.
“Then why should we talk to you?” I didn’t know if that was a veiled threat so I steeled myself for round two.
“Maybe we should take him and throw him in the tunnels where he can feed on beetles for all eternity?” Rebel asked, not taking her eyes off of him.
“Good point,” I said. “Can you answer that, Mister…”
“Fox,” he said, bowing slightly.
“This is Rebel,” I said. He made eye contact with her and smiled. He bowed lower for her. She folded her arms. She didn’t want him to know that she was a sucker for a charmer even if the charmer was a sucker.
“Pleasure to meet both of you. To answer your question, you could take me. I’d put up a fight but I have a feeling one of you would succeed in getting a lucky shot in. Such is battle. Anyone can win on a good day. But if you did that then you wouldn’t learn why I’m here and what I offer.”
“Okay, lay it on us. What do you have?”
“It better be good,” Rebel said.
“I offer you friendship. An alliance.
“Why would I ally with you?”
“To defend the sword from my people.”
Chapter 15
There was no one-upping that. He’d surprised me. I’d never met a Vampire turncoat.
