by N. P. Martin
"Dead," Frank said, beads of sweat running down his face. "Did you kill the other one?"
"Don’t look so surprised."
Frank smiled and shook his head, then pointed with his blood stained machete at the vampire writhing on the floor. "Care to do the honors? I’d say you need the practice."
Standing over the vampire, I raised the machete with both hands, then brought it down on the vampire’s neck. The blade clanged off the floor as it sliced right through. Once again, I was struck by how easy it was to cut off a head.
"See," Frank said. "It’s not that hard, is it?"
Had I not known better from my mother’s journal, I probably would’ve agreed with him, because right then, it sure didn’t feel that hard.
Frank pointed down the hallway, to a wide opening. "The head vampire is in there," he said quietly.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"Twenty-plus years off experience." His gaze lingered on me. "He’ll be expecting us, so be careful, and as before…stay close!"
I gripped my gun tighter as I exchanged the mostly depleted clip for a ready full one, and tightened my grip on the handle of the machete. "Okay."
As soon as we neared the opening, another vampire sprung out of the darkness. Frank, with reflexes like I’d never seen before, swung his machete at the leaping vampire, separating it’s head, so that two pieces landed on the ground, spurting dark, viscous, and sickly looking blood that was more reflective of tar than anything else, after which he looked at me as the blood dripped from his blade, as if to say, "That’s how it’s done."
The room we walked into next may once have been the heart of the factory. Huge machines filled most of the massive space, filling it with an oily smell which did little to mask the stronger stench of rot and decay.
It smells like death in here.
That was the only way I could describe it, especially when I noticed the dead body lying on the floor between the tall machinery. It was the body of a woman, stripped naked and horribly mutilated. Bugs of some sort crawled over the woman’s dead skin.
Jesus Christ…
Frank tapped me on the arm then, causing me to jump slightly. He motioned me to follow him toward the back of the room where there appeared to be less machinery taking up the floor space. Maybe he thought the vampire he was after was hiding over there somewhere?
I kept looking around as I followed behind Frank, expecting more of the head vampire’s pets to come jumping out at us, but none did. Perhaps the rest were out finding food for the nest, as Frank had said on the way over? When we came to the end of the machinery, he peered around the corner as I stood behind him, waiting on him to give the all clear.
A noise above me raised my hackles, like something flying through the air. A pigeon maybe? No, there were no pigeons in this place.
The noise came again, and this time I saw a dark shape land on top of one of the machines, but it was too dark to make out what it was. My first instinct was that the shape was another neophyte vampire getting ready to attack, but then the shape spoke in a deep, almost silky voice.
"You made a mistake coming here, Watchers," the male voice said. "I will kill you both and feed you to my children, starting with the pup, so you, Frank, can watch and know what sort of mistake you made in bringing her here." He smiled. "Oh, don't look so surprised Frank, even from my coveted position I have heard the Darkness speak your name. Once it learns of your death, it will surely reward me."
"Yeah…I don’t think so," Frank said loudly. "Your children are all dead, by the way."
"I will make more," the vampire replied. "Perhaps I will even make you two my children. Would you like that, Watcher?"
Frank’s response was to fire a few shots at where the vampire was sitting, but he jumped away before the first bullet even got near him, landing somewhere else in the darkness where we could no longer see him.
Frank moved out into the empty space behind the machines, and as I followed him, I noticed a girl lying on the floor, naked and unmoving. It had to be the Senator’s daughter, but was she even still alive?
Without thinking, I ran over to where the girl was to see if she was all right, but when I got there, I suddenly felt a rush of wind near me, and then a sinewy arm was around my neck, holding me tight against a hard body…a slab of cold meat.
Oh fuck…
"You make it too easy," the vampire hissed in my ear as he took the machete out of my hand and dropped it to the floor. It took me a second to realize I still had my gun, but because of the position I was in, I didn’t really know how I was supposed to shoot it. Besides which, the vampire’s grip on my neck was so tight, a wooziness overcame me within seconds. I soon felt the gun get pulled from my hand, and then I was spun around quickly, and I saw Frank standing a few feet away, his gun aimed at the vampire holding me.
"Let her go," Frank said, his voice calm and controlled.
"Or what, Watcher?" the vampire said smugly. "You’ll shoot me?" His laughter was cold, and his chest heaving against me made me shudder.
This is it, I couldn’t help but think. This is where I die, having not saved Josh, having let my parents down, having let myself down by making such a stupid fucking mistake…
"We just want the girl," Frank said.
"The girl? You mean my pet? She’s mine now. I will turn her soon, and she will become one of my children, like this little one…" His cold cheek rubbed against mine, and I squeezed my eyes shut against his touch.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw Frank was staring right at me as if he was trying to communicate something, though I wasn’t sure what. Then he shifted his gaze to the vampire again. "You know, I think you’re forgetting something."
"Am I?" the vampire said. "What?"
"We’re Nephilim, you can’t turn us."
Frank caught my eye again at that point, and he briefly shifted his gaze downward for a second, as if looking at something on my leg. My head was still woozy, so it took me a moment to work out what he was looking at, which was the Watcher Knife strapped to my lower right leg. I felt like a dupe when I realized, but I guess that’s inexperience and too much adrenaline for you.
But how was I going to get to it without the vampire noticing?
Frank advanced forward a step, and seemed to focus his aim.
"You might as well put your silly toy away," the vampire said. "Bullets can’t hurt me."
"No, but they can slow you down."
Frank fired twice, presumably at the vampire’s head. I couldn’t exactly see, and I was too focused on reaching down to get the Watcher Knife anyway. The two headshots had weakened the vampire’s grip just enough for me to break free. Then, holding the knife with both hands, I spun around quickly and plunged it into his chest. A shout of effort left my mouth as I jammed the knife in, burying it to the hilt between its ribs, before letting go of it and stepped back.
The tall vampire stood holding the grip of the knife with both hands as he tried to pull the blade out. I knew, however, that he wouldn’t succeed. Once a Watcher Knife went in, only a Watcher could pull it out again.
As I watched, I was surprised by how human he looked, compared to his "children" anyway. You might even describe him as handsome, if it wasn’t for the two holes in his forehead oozing blood, that is, or the big fucking knife sticking out of his chest.
"No…" he said as he staggered back, a look of pure fear on his face as his eyes burned red and his huge fangs were revealed.
I watched in part horror, part fascination as the vampire then appeared to break apart from the inside, as beams of brilliant white light burst out of him. His mouth opened to scream, and as he did so, more light poured from it.
A second later, he exploded.
Or at least, that’s how it seemed. Whatever the light or energy shining from him, it could surely only be grace. It seemed to reach a critical mass, then all but disintegrated whatever remained of the vampire at that point: not too dissimilar from a star’s mass going super
nova, where he was then wiped from existence in the next blink of an eye. The explosion of light was so blinding, that I had to shield my eyes against it for a moment. When I next looked, the light had disappeared, and the Watcher Knife lay on the floor as particles of vampire fell around it.
"Jesus Christ," I said looking at Frank.
Frank smiled. "No," he said. "Just us."
It was then that I felt a slight depletion of my grace, and I realized the Watcher Knife had effectively channeled it from me in order to destroy the vampire. So not only did direct use of grace by way of strikes and energy blasts use up reserves, so too did various magically imbued blades and bullets, all of which relied upon grace to channel their power.
Another lesson learned.
With many more to come, no doubt.
19
We dropped the girl off to her father, at their sizable home in Belmont. The girl didn’t utter a single word the whole journey, and it was blatantly obvious she was massively traumatized by the whole experience of being held captive by a sadistic vampire of all things. Who knew what depraved shit he did to her?
Only she knows that now.
The girl undoubtedly needed medical assistance, but when I broached the subject, Frank insisted it wasn’t on us to sort out the girl’s aftercare. Her father would take care of that, and would probably do so privately to avoid awkward questions being asked in any hospital.
While Frank carefully walked the girl to her waiting father, I sat in the car and stared out the window. Whilst Frank's outward indifference was apparent, my own empathy was impossible to shut off. When Frank had moved off to recover our weapons back in the factory, after asking me to rouse the girl due to her necessary modesty, unbeknownst to him I had made a shortened effort at channelling my grace through her. As I watched some of her minor surface wounds like cuts and abrasions close up, it was impossible to say what it had done to any internal injuries, other than to recover her consciousness. I hoped for her sake that at least a good start on the healing of her physiological injuries was made.
My mind also went inevitably to the memory of me stabbing the vampire with my Watcher Knife.
I’m a killer now, I thought, a thought that seemed to brand itself on to my brain, so I would never forget it. The creatures I killed may have been vampires—monsters even—but I couldn’t escape the fact that they were once human as well.
They were dead the moment they were turned.
Yes, perhaps. What irked me the most, however, was the inescapable fact that I was mostly okay with everything I had done. We were saving a girl’s life after all. I didn’t need to feel guilty about that.
When Frank arrived back in the car he sat for a moment, as if to gather himself. "That is one grateful father," he said.
"How grateful?" I asked, a half smile on my face.
Frank smiled back. "Time will tell."
I shook my head. "That poor girl. I doubt she’ll ever get over what happened to her."
"People are more resilient than you think. She’ll find a way to live with it." He looked at me then. "Just like you did."
"I guess."
"You did well tonight. Your mother would be proud."
I smiled vaguely and nodded. "Maybe."
"She would be. You clearly have her genes in you."
"I could’ve been killed."
"But you weren’t. Trust me, with every mission you go on, your life is always in danger. It’s part of the job."
"Have you ever wanted to do anything else, Frank? Professional poker maybe. With that face, you’d never lose."
He snorted a little, then shook his head. "This is all I know. It’s in my blood. It’s in your blood as well. Tell me you don’t feel it."
"I feel it. It’s like a guiding force that doesn’t want me to deviate from the path. It kinda feels like I’m locked in now or something." I smiled and shook my head. "There’s no escape!"
"It’s part of our DNA," Frank said, smiling himself. "Samuel, the Archangel who created our race after all the original Nephilim had been wiped out of existence, wanted warriors who didn’t waver from their ultimate purpose, so once a Nephilim comes of age, that driving force kicks in, and there’s no stopping it."
"My father managed to stop it, did he not?"
"For the most part he did, yeah, though I’ve no idea how."
"For the most part?"
"He still did his duty, when he had to. Sometimes he would help your mom out, and a few others."
"How many of us are there then?" I asked him.
"Not as many as you’d think," Frank said. "Our numbers have dwindled over the years for different reasons."
"Such as when demons kidnap us?"
"Yeah."
"You still don’t know why, do you?"
He shook his head. "They need us for something they’re planning…some of us anyway. That’s all I know."
I sighed as I stared out the window. "It’s been weeks since I heard from Josh. I’m not even sure if he’s still alive."
"He’s alive, trust me."
"How do you know?"
He shrugged. "I just know. My instincts are rarely wrong."
Not very convincing, Frank, I thought. But I’d take it. What choice did I have anyway?
"At least tell me you’re getting closer to finding him," I said.
"One of my more knowledgeable contacts has finally arrived back in town. If anyone knows what’s going on, it’s going to be him."
"Who is he?"
He started the car and pulled off down the street. "I’ll take you to see him tomorrow."
I nodded, thinking I had better go and check in on Kasey tomorrow as well.
If she was even still talking to me, that is.
When we got back to the cabin, Frank stopped before he opened the front door, cocking his head slightly as if gauging the air.
"What is it?" I asked him, frowning as I stood behind him.
He shook his head. "I don’t know, something…doesn’t feel right."
He opened the door and stepped somewhat cautiously inside the cabin, flipping on the light to the living room. Then he stood looking around for a moment.
"Where’s Bane?" I said. "It’s a bit late for him to be out."
"I agree." Frank searched the cabin, calling Bane’s name as he did so. There was a doggy door that allowed Bane to come and go as he pleased. He could’ve just been hunting out the back, though something told me he wasn’t. I was beginning to pick up on the heavy vibes in the air, though I wasn’t quite sure what they meant.
Frank opened the back door and stepped outside. "Bane! You there boy?"
I stood beside Frank and waited for Bane to appear, but after a few moments, it became clear that he wasn’t around anywhere.
"It’s not like him to go off at this time of night," I said. "He’s usually sleeping, right?"
Frank nodded. "Yeah, but sometimes he takes notions and goes for walks. Still…" He trailed off, clearly on edge.
I decided to walk toward the trees to see if Bane was off hunting in there somewhere, though I knew he wasn’t, or I would’ve heard him rustling by now.
I was halfway across the clearing when I stopped, something having caught my eye. When I turned to see what it was, I gasped in horror. "Oh, Jesus, no…"
"What is it?" Frank ran over to me and stopped dead himself when he saw what I was looking at. "No…"
It was Bane. He was hanging from one of the trees, his big head jammed in between two lower branches. His underbelly was slit open, from his crotch to his gullet. Ropes of intestine hung out from the gaping wound, leading to a large pile of steaming guts on the grass below, which even I knew meant that Bane was killed very recently.
"I’m sorry, Frank," I said after doing a quick check of my surroundings, just in case there were any demons still around. If there were, I couldn’t see or sense them.
Frank kept shaking his head as he walked over to the dead dog. Then I saw him look at something on t
he trunk of the tree Bane was hanging from. When I looked myself, I saw words written on the bark in Bane’s fresh blood:
WE WANT THE GIRL
It wasn’t hard to work out who wrote the words.
"Fucking demon fucks!" Frank shouted, as he then lifted Bane out of the tree, gently laying his body on the grass, stroking the dog’s pelt as he remained crouched over him.
I couldn’t help but feel a massive rush of guilt after reading the words written in Bane’s blood. The demons had come for me while we were out. It was my fault that Bane was dead.
"I’m really sorry, Frank," I said, as the welling water in my eyes finally breached, a few tears either side escaping their reservoir. "This is all my fault."
Frank sighed and shook his head. "No, this isn’t your fault, Leia."
"They were here for me. They want me."
Frank said nothing for a moment, then he seemed to examine Bane’s mouth. "Looks like he took a chunk out of one of them anyway." He half smiled as he stroked Bane’s body again. "Good boy…"
Tears continued to sting my eyes, so I decided to go inside before they really came on. As I was walking away, Frank called out to me, and I turned, hardly able to look at him. "Yeah?" I said.
"I meant what I said. This isn’t your fault. None of it is."
I forced a smile. "Thanks Frank."
Though I wish I could’ve believed him.
20
The next morning, I found Frank outside, standing over a patch of freshly dug earth at the edge of the woods. He barely glanced at me as I approached. "He saved my life once, you know," Frank said, staring down at the ground, which is where I assumed he had buried Bane.
"Really?" I said, folding my arms against the cold. "What happened?"
"It was a werewolf that used to drag people into the woods near here. It wouldn’t kill them, not at first anyway. When I found its lair, with Bane’s help, I counted over a dozen bodies."
"What did you do?" As if I needed to ask.
"I staked out its lair. Bane and I waited two days on the werewolf to show up again, which it did, dragging another half dead victim with it. As soon as it detected our scent, though, it bolted."
