“Confrontation is what we do best,” Ming said.
“I see something,” the pilot shouted back to them. He was half enchanted by Celeste and the other half was drunk, but he had still managed to set up the flight and get them to the mountains faster than Jerusa would have thought possible. “There’s a helipad up ahead, but it’s covered in wreckage.”
Alecto climbed into the cockpit and surveyed the landscape. She pointed at a structure just beyond what looked to be the wreckage of two helicopters. “There’s the hangar door,” Tisiphone said. “Increase the speed as much as possible, aim us directly at the door.”
Megaera stepped up to the door in the side of the jet, and with a firm kick, knocked it from its place and sent it vanishing into the night air. A violent wind rushed inside, deafening them as it tried to rip the fuselage apart.
“What about the pilot,” Jerusa said. “We can’t just let him ride this thing into the mountain.”
Ming and Ralgar rolled their eyes, and even the Furies seemed a bit put out, but Taos jumped up. “I’ll get him. Put it on autopilot,” he told the man. Once that was done, Taos ripped the seatbelt away and threw the man over his shoulder. “Let’s get this over with. I hate heights.”
Ming pressed through the rampaging wind to Jerusa. “You do your part, I’ll do mine. Deal?”
“Deal.” Jerusa stepped behind Ming and wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. She took one last look at her fellow vampires before she and Ming jumped from the door of the jet.
Without hesitation, the three Furies leapt from the door, followed quickly by Celeste, Taos and the pilot, then finally Ralgar. The nine of them tumbled through the frigid air, consumed by the night. The stars spun in a sickening kaleidoscopic effect and the mountain reached up to crush them.
Alicia appeared behind Jerusa, her spectral hands pressing into her back, slowing her decent. She vanished and appeared again, ten feet lower. Ming raised her hands, catching the other six vampires and one human in her telekinetic grip. They continued this pattern downward until all of them slammed into the side of the mountain, battered, but alive. The jet impacted the large hanger door and exploded in a brilliant flash that sent a pillar of smoke high into the stratosphere and shards of metal for a mile in all directions.
“Move,” Ming shouted. There was no time to lick their wounds from the rough landing. The wrath of the Crimson Storm had come to Purgatory. “To the hanger door! Kill them all!”
Ming, Ralgar and the three Furies sprang across the rocky terrain, running for the now burning hanger with preternatural speed. Taos dropped the human as he and Celeste quickly followed. Jerusa touched the man’s shoulder and he twitched as if awakening from a dream to find himself amidst a real life nightmare.
“Run away,” Jerusa said. “Find the road leading down. Be safe.” His racing heart caused the thirst to quiver within her, so she fled before it could take hold of her.
Jerusa maneuvered around the scorched remains of the two helicopters and the burning remnants of the jet, darted across the helipad, and joined the others. The jet collision had buckled the door, but it still held in its frame.
“Hit it with everything you have,” Ming said to Ralgar and Taos. They each conjured a blast of fire and bombarded the door. The metal groaned beneath the heat and pressure, but still, it held. Ming closed her eyes and raised her hands, twisting them this way and that, as though she were solving some invisible puzzle.
Alicia, Foster and the ghost army appeared on the helipad. “Get inside. Scope the place out. Find the best path to Shufah. The umbilicus are in there, as well as people. We don’t want to fight if we don’t have to. Let’s just grab Shufah and get out.” Foster nodded, then turned and led the ghost army through the hangar door, which was now glowing red hot. Alicia remained where she was. “You go too. We need all the eyes in there that we can get.” The ghost in the blue prom dress crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. She pointed a thumb at her own chest, followed by a finger at Jerusa’s. I go with you. “Okay, fine. I don’t have time to argue.”
The hangar door gave a great metallic groan as it broke free of its frame. Ming clasped her hands together and the giant hunk of glowing metal crumpled. She tossed her hands over her head and the ruined hanger door tumbled over the side of the mountain. “Lead us in,” Ming said to Jerusa.
Jerusa rushed inside, blinded, a moment, by the thick, acrid smoke. Red lights strobed in the ceiling, while a shrill alarm echoed throughout the compound. Inside, Foster waited for her while the other ghost filtered in and out of the walls like a swarm of angry bees. The room was empty and no attack came, so Jerusa followed Foster deeper into Purgatory, with the other vampires close on her heels.
This place was an endless labyrinth of hallways, doors, and stairs that could put the Ice Sanctuary to shame. Thankfully, she had her ghosts, otherwise, they might end up searching this place for a month and never find their way back out.
Every room the ghosts led her to was filled with all manner of equipment, from forty year old electronics to devices that looked like they were from forty years in the future. Yet, every place they went was void of life. They were five floors down before they found the first body lying in a puddle of its own putrescence.
The body count continued to grow the deeper they went. Some corpses were fresh, perhaps a day or two, while others had been there long enough to leave only bones. But they all had the sickly sweet stink of the umbilicus on them, a scent she knew too well from her mother.
They passed through several doors that looked to be high security, yet nothing was locked. Jerusa wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. The swarm of ghosts stopped the vampires at a large door with the word CONTAINMENT LAB written on it. The ghosts were more agitated than ever, seemingly arguing about something. Foster pointed to a display monitor fastened to the wall. A clock with just under twenty minutes was displayed, and it was counting backward.
“Oh, that can’t be good,” Taos said.
“No, it’s not,” said a familiar voice that sent an icy chill through all of them. Heidi, of the High Council, stood at the end of the corridor, with a Hunter on either side of her. “You triggered some sort of self-destruct mechanism. I’d turn it off, but I don’t know how.”
“What?” Jerusa said. “Those really exist. I thought that was just in movies.”
Heidi shrugged. “Americans and their military research labs. I’m surprised to find you alive, and keeping company with the Furies, as well. Ming, Ralgar, Celeste, destroy them and all your treachery shall be forgiven.”
Ralgar turned, without hesitation, dark pleasure seeping from his eyes, and cast an orb of fire at Jerusa. Taos intercepted the fireball with one of his own, creating a thundering explosion.
Ming held up her hands, her face twisted and ugly. “I’m sorry.” She clenched her hands into fists, spun in a tight circle, away from Jerusa, and hit Ralgar with a telekinetic blast hard enough to send him tumbling down the hall. At the same time, with the other hand, Ming sent a wave of destruction toward Heidi and the Hunters, blasting them off of their feet.
After that, all was madness.
Ralgar and the Japanese Hunter came rushing through the cloud of dust like demons from the pit. Taos ran to meet them. Fire whipped in all directions, igniting everything. Ming and the black Hunter lashed at each other with telekinetic hands, made visible by the ripple of air and a hurricane of debris formed as they clashed.
The Furies moved through the melee with a slow, sultry swagger, occasionally ducking to avoid a wave of fire, or sidestep a telekinetic blast. “We’ve dreamt of this moment for a long time,” Tisiphone said to Heidi.
Heidi walked toward the three, dusting her hands nonchalantly. “It was a mistake to come here. You should have stayed in whatever hole you were hiding in.”
The three came at Heidi at once, Megaera and Tisiphone flanking her, while Alecto jumped over her head and attacked from behind. The small blonde vampire moved with a sp
eed Jerusa had never seen before. There wasn’t even a blur for her vampiric eyes to track. Heidi was in one place one moment, in another the next. The Furies did well to keep up with her, landing blows that would kill a fledgling vampire, yet Heidi absorbed them with a rolling laugh.
Jerusa started into the fight, but Celeste caught her by the shoulder. “No, they’ve got this. We’re here to find Shufah, not fight. She’s with the umbilicus, so we have enough to worry about.”
The lights flickered, the ground quaked from battle, and a deep hum seemed to overtake Purgatory, as if a giant were waking from his slumber. Jerusa and Celeste moved through the door marked CONTAINMENT LAB, down another set of stairs and into a large room filled with what looked to be glass cages.
All the cages were dark, except one, which was filled with a dull purple light. Inside, Shufah writhed on the ground as the twin umbilicus smashed at the large window with their fists. A small, frail man sat in the corner, a mad sort of fear fixed upon his face.
“Get away from her,” Jerusa shouted as she slid to a stop.
The umbilicus turned, each with a toothless grin. “We remember you,” one of them said. “We’ve been dreaming of you,” the other said.
They attacked without warning, covering the distance in a blink. Jerusa launched forward, but it was like trying to stop the moon from crossing the sky. The umbilicus slammed into Jerusa and Celeste, bulling them off their feet, and pinned them to the wall by their throats.
Alicia appeared between them. She pressed one hand to Jerusa’s chest, the other to the umbilicus’s face. “Hit him,” Jerusa struggled to say. The surge of spectral energy filled every part of her. The world was wiped white, and only pain remained. The universe decayed and was reborn in the time Jerusa was trapped in the limbo of agony. When the world returned, Jerusa found herself still in the grasp of the umbilicus.
“I like this one,” he said to his twin. “She’s not like the others. She’s special.”
“I want her then,” the other said.
“No, she’s mine.”
“Share her then.”
The ceiling above exploded, interrupting their childish argument. Ming and the black Hunter tumbled through the hole, hitting hard on the concrete floor. Taos leapt down, barely escaping a combined blast of fire from Ralgar and the Japanese Hunter. Heidi followed after them with the Furies snatching at her in midair.
Taos turned toward Jerusa, the flaming bow in his hand. He sent a barrage of fiery arrows at the umbilicus. The arrows found their mark, piercing the creatures’ backs and causing them pain, but the fire did not consume them.
Ralgar hit Taos in the back with a fireball, which sent him tumbling to the ground in flames. The Japanese Hunter sent a wall of fire washing over Ming, which freed up the black Hunter to smash the Furies up against the wall with his telekinesis.
“It’s over,” Heidi said, her voice rattling the room. “You are beaten.” Taos and Ming rolled on the floor, putting out the remains of the fire that had burned away most of their hair and skin. The Furies lay in a knot of broken bones and blood, healing quickly, but their advantage had been stolen. “I’m disappointed in you, Ming. I wish I had time to watch you all die one by one, but I’m afraid that can’t happen.” She looked to Ralgar and the Japanese Hunter. “Burn them all.”
A high pitch alarm, different than the one ringing through Purgatory, began to sound. The mad looking human in the corner began counting backward from sixty. The whole room paused to look at him. Even the umbilicus turned.
As the man passed forty-five, he began to laugh. When he reached thirty, it was a thunderous belly-roll. By fifteen, tears were rolling down his cheeks. When he hit zero, the door to the glass cage exploded outward as Shufah burst forth.
Shufah tackled Heidi, knocking her feet out from under her, and driving her to the floor, hard enough to crack the concrete. Shufah plunged her fangs into the side of Heidi’s neck, tearing side to side like a rabid dog, and gulped at the great spout of blood that gushed out.
“Kill them,” Heidi said, gargling on her own blood. “Kill them all!”
Shufah drove her fist into Heidi’s chest, piercing her straight through at the heart. She stood up, the damage from the UV light already healing, her gore covered fist sticking out of Heidi’s back. Heidi quaked as death spasms overtook her. Shufah whipped her arm and sent her flying into the midst of the glass cage. She slammed the door and pointed at the man. “Lock it.” He immediately started ripping wires from the console. She pointed a bloody finger at the umbilicus. “Drop them right now.”
“What have you done?” Ralgar screamed, running for Shufah, flames kindling in his palms.
Ming swatted her smoldering hands to the side, smashing Ralgar against the wall with a blast of telekinetic energy. She reached out with the other hand, preparing to grind him into pulp, but the Japanese Hunter covered Ming in a wave of fire so hot, it singed Jerusa’s eyelashes from across the room. Ming cried out, tried to crawl away, but the fire consumed her and she disintegrated into a pile of glowing ash.
Ralgar regained his feet, the fire, once again, in his hands. Taos rushed forward before he could attack. Ralgar spun on his heels, murderous hatred fixed in his eyes. Taos slapped his hands together and a flaming broadsword appeared in a brilliant flash and a hailstorm of sparks. Taos swung downward from the right to the left, cleaving Ralgar from his left shoulder all the way down to his right kidney. The burning blade blazed hot as tendrils of fire greedily devoured Ralgar’s flesh.
“How…? How did…you do that?” Ralgar managed to say before the sword reduced him to cinders.
The Japanese Hunter came at Taos from behind, the Furies smashed him into the wall with the force of a freight train. The three women fell upon him, tearing him to pieces with their bare hands. The black Hunter moved to stop them, but Taos cleaved him top to bottom with this broadsword. After the Furies were finished, Taos ignited the twitching chunks of the Hunter before he could explode with savage spores.
“They put on such a good show,” one umbilicus said to the other.
“I agree,” the other said. “It has been so boring here.”
“Put them down,” Taos shouted, blitzing the umbilicus holding Celeste. He brought the broadsword down with all of his might.
The umbilicus caught the blade with his free hand. The impact jarred Taos so hard that he stumbled to one knee. The umbilicus twisted the blade from his hand and it vanished as soon as his grip broke. The umbilicus kicked Taos in the chest, sending him high into the air, crashing hard into the opposite wall. He slumped down into a pile, his eyes glazed and distant.
“Goodalle,” Shufah said. “Tell your sons to release my friends.”
The scrawny scientist was chest deep in the bottom of the console. “Just…one…moment. I almost… There, got it.”
The electromagnetic lock in the door of the glass cage snapped shut with a loud pop, and not a moment too soon. Heidi, now fully savage, smashed into the door with a roar of rage. The door held. Heidi crawled along the large window, snarling and snapping, the gaping hole in her chest smearing the glass with greenish-black blood.
Goodalle climbed to his feet. “My sons, let them go.” He moved away from Shufah, toward the umbilicus.
“No father,” one said. “We are tired of feeding on humans.”
“We have waited long enough,” the other said. “The other vampires can flee if they wish, but we caught these two. They belong to us.”
“No,” Goodalle said. “There’s no time. This place will implode in less than five minutes. Leave them and come away with me. I will make this right, I promise. Please, my sons. You have to trust me.”
“No father,” the one holding Jerusa said. “You have fulfilled your purpose. It’s time to part ways.” He hit Goodalle with a powerful backhand that snapped the human’s neck with an audible crack. The scrawny, feeble man tumbled backward across the floor, landing in a twisted heap, dead at Shufah’s feet.
The umbilicus turned their pudgy, child-like faces back toward Jerusa and Celeste. Their stinging tongues flicked from their mouths, as their vile umbilical cords came slithering out of their navels.
“I don’t need to feed,” the one holding Jerusa said. “But you are too tempting to pass up.”
The Furies launched themselves into battle, but the umbilicus evaded the attack as though the three were children. Shufah rushed in, catching the two umbilicus by the back of their necks. The twins writhed for a moment, as though something horrible slithered beneath their skin.
“You will put them down right now,” Shufah demanded.
“We can dull the mind as well.”
The room filled with the sickly-sweet odor Jerusa remembered from her first encounter with the umbilicus in her mother’s house. Her limbs felt heavy, and she no longer had the will to fight. Shufah’s hands dropped and the umbilicus holding Celeste punched her in the face, knocking her across the room.
“We are stronger than you,” one said.
“We are gods,” said the other.
Thunder rolled through the containment room, as if a spring storm might erupt indoors. An inexplicable wind rushed all around them, whipping paper and debris around the room in tiny, yet powerful tornados.
Suddenly, without sound or warning, three people appeared in the room. One was a young, petite white woman with shoulder length blonde hair. The other was a tall Latino man with salt-n-pepper hair. The third was the most beautiful sight Jerusa had ever seen.
“Silvanus,” she squeaked out.
The woman looked at the Latino man. “Hector, will you do the honors?”
A broad smile stretched across his handsome face. He thrust his hand forward and from nowhere, a rushing wind filled the room. The Furies hunkered down, holding onto each other. Shufah grasped onto Taos. The feet of the umbilicus lifted from the floor, along with Jerusa and Celeste. A large piece of machinery floated in the torrent as though it were just a feather, and came whipping by, smashing into the umbilicus, separating both of them from their captives. The female Divine tilted her head and a massive bolt of lightning streaked across the room, cracking with deafening thunder as it collided with the umbilicus. They fell like twin comets, smashing through the large window of the cage that held Heidi. The structure collapsed, burying the three monsters under a ton of concrete, glass, wood and mangled equipment.
Perpetual Creatures, Volumes 1-3: A Vampire and Ghost Thriller Series Page 83
