by Megan Hawke
Crosses and churches didn’t bother zombies. Nothing bothered zombies. But zombies could be hacked into pieces or blown up. Destroying their corporal bodies was the only thing that stopped a zombie.
I actually spoke with Antoinette, Vanessa, and Tara during the day. All were extremely upset, but were more keen on calming tempers and getting out of the public notice than they were about revenge. Antoinette, though, said she was doing me a favor by not seeking retribution, and so expected a favor from me. I never agreed to it. She said it and hung up.
Heidi thought I was committed to returning the favor. I disagreed, but it was troublesome. The Trudeau favor I owed and agreed to was weighing me down enough. I didn’t need to owe another powerful vampire.
"Vamps are big on patronage and favors," Heidi said. "Didn't Boney tell you? He told me to be careful of accepting any favors from any vampires. For vampires, to accept a favor is to accept owing them a favor in return."
"I know. I’m so fucked."
Tara actually demanded I resolve the issue posthaste. Yes, she used the term "posthaste." When I spoke to Vanessa she also mentioned she was doing me a favor by not seeking vengeance, and expected a favor in return. I heard Antoinette in the background coaching her on what to say, which broke my heart. I just said thank you and hung up.
Okay, I owed them favors. I couldn't refuse the favors, and chance pissing them off. Antoinette might seek vengeance on my family for the two burnt down businesses. So favors were owed, and I couldn't even imagine what Antoinette would demand without bile rising in my throat. She'd also have Vanessa's favor to use against me.
The most exciting development was the arrival at the church of Piers and the whole Black Moon Pack. The best I could understand, the pack was humiliated by Charlotte’s murder, and they were there to redeem their honor. The people in the church were a bit freaked, but they grudgingly accepted the help of the werewolves. The vampire and zombie threats were even scarier than hobnobbing with werewolves.
Come twilight, Heidi and I were racing towards the church. We arrived just in time, too. Other vampires began to assemble, encircling the church. We counted ten, eight men and two women. None of them were familiar.
As vampires, neither of us could go past the forest of crosses standing all around the church. In fact, we really couldn’t look at the church. We had to keep our backs to it.
Off in the distance, standing atop buildings, I spotted other vampires. Familiar vampires. Henri and his son André had the closest vantage point. Antoinette, accompanied by Vanessa, Angelique, Lorelei, and Lolita, was atop another building. I spotted Otis Green with Henry Moonwalker and Rod Huff. Other council members I saw including Yuan Kwang, Viktor Vasilevich, and Tara Voorhies. It wasn’t everyone on council, but enough.
"What’s up with all the vamps on the roofs?" Heidi said, scowling at Antoinette’s group.
Heidi only knew a few council members on sight.
"Council members, with a few lackeys thrown in," I said. "I suspect they are here to watch. I hope all they do is watch, because I don’t see any of them fighting on our side."
Two semi-tractor trailer rigs were headed for us, and started to slow down. There were a few similar trucks on the road, since it was a fairly busy thoroughfare. But I didn’t feel any living man driving them, and only one mortal within the second trailer.
"I think our zombies are here," I said.
"The trucks?"
With more scrutiny, I spotted the drivers – Jeff and Ben. They braked hard and skidded to a stop. Ben’s rig almost jackknifed. The zombies wouldn’t have cared, but the mortal man in the back might have. The back doors swung open even before the rigs came to a stop.
"You called that one right," Heidi said.
We were both still dressed in the same outfits as the night before. Still armed with the same weapons. Heidi also had a sword, but little training using it. We needed the swords because they were the best weapon against both vampires and zombies. Like vampires, hack off a zombie’s head and he was out of the fight.
Light weapon fire erupted from the church. Most of it was the heavier .50 Caliber and M60 machine guns Gabe provided. I was pretty sure that both were illegal to possess without special license, and I was just as sure no one there had said licenses. Someone would be in trouble come morning if licenses really were required. And I wasn't sure those church people would lie for Gabe.
The cabs of both rigs took enormous fire, all bullets were blessed silver. Jeff and Ben were in a world of hurt just then, though nothing was life-threatening. The .50 Cal and M60 left bit holes in the zombies flooding out both trailers, but except for the one zombie whose head was shot off, the wounds sustained were not stopping them.
"Sweet. The machine guns keep knocking the walking corpses down," Heidi said.
"Yep, but they can’t keep up that level of fire for long," I said. "They’ll run out of ammo too fast."
As if on cue, all gunfire ceased. It seemed awful quiet after the thunder of multiple machine guns. The only sound were bats.
"Here come the vamps!" I cried.
Three bats swooped down.
Heidi and I stepped away from each other, to get more room to swing our swords. With the forest of crosses just a few feet behind us, the incoming vampires were half-blinded. They came anyway, vicious and ferocious.
"Hack off their heads!" I cried, swinging at the bat coming at me. A split second before my blade bisected him, he swerved right and morphed to human. He landed to my side and whirled on me as I swung at a second bat that also turned into a young man.
"Wahoo!" Heidi cried. "I did it! I cut off her head!"
"Shut up and fight!" I cried. I thrust my silver-cased katana through the heart of the second vampire to land beside me, between Heidi and me. His eyes bugged out, surprised by the pain of blessed silver casing. "Ouch, bet that hurts."
The first vamp attacked. I ripped out the sword even as I lashed out with a foot. He caught my foot and held on, laughing. He stopped laughing when the sword slashed across his eyes, pulping them.
"Aaaiiie!" he cried, both hands to his face.
I kicked him and he stumbled back into the forest of crosses. It would take just a few minutes for his eyes to heal, but that was more than enough time. Dane raced out with a stake in hand. The vamp bounced off the hotter-than-Hell crosses, at least to him, crying out with pain and surprise. Dane thrust the sharp stake through his heart.
"Good job, Dane!" I cried.
Gabe, Desiree, and Sabrina were running out, with bags of wooden stakes and small hammers. Each was carrying an AK47 with drum magazines of silver bullets, too.
I was squared off with my second vampire. He’d learned wariness.
"Heidi, just get the vamps into the crosses, and they will stake them," I said.
"Black Heart, you will die for this!" he cried.
Heidi thrust her silver-cased sword into his back. His eyes went round, arms flew wide. I stepped up and decapitated him.
"You won’t be collecting," I said.
The zombies arrived. It became butcher’s work after that. We went for their arms and hands first. It wasn’t too hard, since they just came at us fearlessly, arms extended in their attempts to grab us. If one of them grabbed you, that was the end.
With the arrival of the zombies, the majority of the men within the church came charging out with a few swords, but a lot of machetes and axes. I saw my father and Reverend Saxon side by side, hacking away as they prayed aloud. The Black Moon Pack charged out, too.
The werewolves didn’t stay within the forest of crosses. They felt safer than the normal humans. The few alphas fought as wolfmen, while the rest savaged the much slower zombies as four-legged biting machines.
A hysterical scream came from my right. I looked just in time to see a member of my father’s church, Mr. Pickens, caught by a zombie. Two more zombies were on him in seconds, and within thirty seconds Mr. Pickens, single father of three teenagers, was dead, his throat ri
pped out.
That shocked the church members. I think they truly believed God was going to protect them from the zombies and vampires. At that moment they understood they were on their own, and it scared the crap out of them. The level of fear in the air ramped up. Then three more mortals got caught, two men and a woman.
"Don’t let them grab you!" I cried.
"Sable!" Jeff cried. "I’m going to kill you!"
I turned just in time to get punched in the chin. Jeff’s blow was so powerful my head flew back, my feet came up off the ground, and I flipped completely over. I, of course, lost the sword.
Jeff found it.
"Ugh!" I cried, the sword thrust into my back, straight through my heart. "Bastard."
"Sable!" Heidi, Dane, and Gabe all cried in unison.
Jeff dragged me to my feet by my hair. The sword was still through my heart, burning white hot and sucking all my strength. I could only gawk at him slack-jawed, knowing I was about to die.
"This stake has your name on it," Jeff said, holding up the foot long length of sharpened wood. He was right, "Sable Hart, The Black Heart" was burned into the wood. "I made it myself. Now die."
"No!" Heidi cried.
I turned in time to see her throw her sword at Jeff. Before she finished the follow through, Ben Rothschild thrust a stake through her heart. I watched as surprise, then realization filled her face. Then her eyes rolled up and Heidi collapsed at Ben’s feet.
"Your turn to die, Black Heart," Jeff said.
"No," Dane cried, reaching my side. He brought his own sword down across Jeff’s wrist, severing the hand clutching the stake. Jeff wailed and fell back into the crowd of zombies. "Fall back, Sable!"
I fell to my knees instead. The sword’s holy power was too much for me. It might be enough to end my existence. The sword felt like it was burning away my heart.
"You can’t get away from me that easy," Desiree said, and pulled the sword out. She tossed it in front of me, my blood staining half its length. "Now stop shirking and get back into the fight."
"I ought to bite you," I said, but feeling my strength returning.
"Yeah, promises, promises," Desiree said. "After tonight, you better do more than just bite me, babe!"
I looked all around. Dane and Desiree were pushing the zombies back before me. I had a brief respite to take stock of the battle. Most of the mortals were pushed up to the edge of the crosses, with some venturing out into the vampire’s killing zone. Numerous armless and/or headless zombies stumbled around uselessly, most within the forest of crosses or pressing up against the church doors and windows, still trying to reach their ultimate objective, the church’s interior.
Council members were still watching from a distance.
"Bastards," I muttered, glaring at them.
I could count a dozen dead just from my father’s church. More were seriously injured and crawling back towards the church. Vampires had joined the zombies on the ground, and the tide of battle seemed to be turning against us. Then I spotted Heidi’s crumbled, trampled body.
"No. No," I said.
Snatching up the sword, I charged toward Heidi. There was a thick press of zombies all around her, pushing hard for the church. The mortal line of defense was starting to thin and crumble. I hit them in the flank, and slashed left and right. I took off arms, legs, and heads. My attack was so savage the zombies wavered, and the mortals began pushing them back.
"Heidi," I said, dropping to my knees beside her. The stake between her breasts looked obscene. I pulled it out. "Heidi?"
"Son of — Oooh, God, that hurt," Heidi groaned.
"The church is on fire!" Daddy cried. "Get the women and children out!"
I thrust the stake I’d taken out of Heidi under my belt, at the small of my back. With the katana in my right hand, and a Glock 31 in the left, I extended my wings and stood up.
"Jeff Howell! Where are you?" I cried. "Stop hiding from me, you soulless pig!"
Leaping into the air, I rose up a good fifty feet and surveyed the battle. Then I swept down where it looked the worst, and started blasting the zombies with silver bullets in the top of their heads. That rattled them, but didn’t stop them. It was usually enough to turn the tide there. When that didn’t work, I dropped down in their midst and lashed out with foot and sword.
Once the good guys got the upper hand, I flew back above and looked for the next danger spot. Unfortunately, from that height I spotted a number of mortals caught and slaughtered by Jeff’s vamps, their blood greedily sucked down to the horror of the church people.
"Black Heart!" Ben cried below me.
He was directly below me, Amber Chase within his arms. Her throat was ripped out. Her sightless eyes stared at the heavens. He laughed, face a mask of blood and insane eyes.
"You," I growled, remembering how he staked Heidi. Remembered he killed Timmy's wife and child.
Before I could react, Ben dropped Amber and flew straight up at me. It was like a surge, only straight up.
"Aaaii," I cried as his arms wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my side, and then his fangs sank into my throat.
Ben did something totally unexpected. He pulled me out of the sky. Not gravity, but some other more powerful force. He did a reverse surge, of sorts, and pulled himself back to the ground. Just before his feet hit the thick grass of the church yard, Ben flipped over so that I hit first and he smashed into me.
"Ha! That was fun," he said, leaping to his feet and kicking me in the chin. That left me dazed and weak. I felt him pull the sword and pistol from my hands. "You killed Valerie, so I promised I would give you to her. So she can return the favor when she rises again. Which shouldn’t be long now."
"Too long for you," I said and drove a long stiletto heel through his left shin. Ben howled with pain, hopping away.
"Get her," he called.
A dozen zombies jumped on me. Literally, they dog-piled atop me. I wiggled and writhed, kicked and struggled beneath them. They weren’t particularly strong, but there were a lot of them. They grabbed hands and arms and hair and boobs. One of them wrapped his arms around both knees, immobilizing my legs. That said, I was faring pretty good, almost fought my way free of them.
"Not going to happen," a strange man said.
He was short. Maybe five feet three, max. A handsome little fellow, but not a nice one. He was a witch, with a ruby ring on his right middle finger.
"Get her, Charlie Joe!" Ben cried. "Hurry."
Charlie Joe pressed his ring to my forehead, and spoke a short spell. All strength was washed from my body as hellish cold consumed me.
"There you go. One sexy little vamp on ice," Charlie Joe said.
I was totally limp. I stopped breathing. My eyes stopped blinking. I just lay there in the cold, damp grass wide-eyed, staring straight up. I couldn’t even control my eyes.
"Don’t touch her," Charlie Joe warned. Ben was about to kick me in the head. "The spell is a precarious one. Any pain will break it."
"Can I stake her?"
"Sure, just make it fast," he said.
"Make what fast?" Valerie said. She just appeared, morphing from bat. She was, now, naked. "Oh, my, is that Sable? Helpless?"
"Enchanted," Charlie Joe said. "She is wide awake, can hear and understand us perfectly, but cannot move a single muscle."
"Sweet," Ben said.
"Very sweet indeed," Valerie said. "What can I do to her? What are my limits?"
"Make a circle around us," Charlie Joe commanded. The zombies moved to obey. "There, you can do anything you want to her now. Just no intense sensations."
"Pleasure or pain?" Valerie said. She was walking around me, looking quite pleased.
"Any intense physical sensation will break the spell," Charlie Joe said.
"I’ve waited a long time for this moment, Sable," Valerie said. She knelt beside my head, leaned over and pressed her lips to mine, for a long, lingering kiss. "Thank you. By killing me, you made my fondest dream come true. Jef
f Changed me. I’m a vampire." She looked up. "Hold her."
Ben grabbed both arms and held them over my head. Charlie Joe, grumbling, pressed my legs together and sat on my knees. Valerie reached down between my boobs and unbuckled the fastener. Freeing my breasts, she paused to fondle them a moment. Then she smiled down at me.
"I have never feasted as a vampire," she said. She licked my neck. "You’re my first taste of blood."
Valerie’s fangs sank deep into my throat. She missed both the jugular and the carotid. So she bit me again, and again. It took her five tries to find my jugular, and then she sucked greedily. All the while Charlie Joe pressed his ring into my belly, just below the navel, and repeated his spell over and over. That kept my strength sucked dry.
"Hmmm," I groaned, despite myself. It felt good. Real good. To a vampire, being bitten in the neck is the most erotic feeling imaginable. The feel of my blood flowing into Valerie’s sucking mouth was almost as erotic, and I felt my body changing. Moisture between my legs preceded the heady tingling that announced my arousal so well.
"Oh, my," Valerie breathed. She shuddered. "That was better than I ever imagined. Blood is delicious!"
Valerie kissed me, thrusting her tongue into my mouth. I tasted my own blood on her tongue. It was good. I wanted more. She kissed me long and hard, moaning and groaning. When she returned to my throat, to feast some more, Ben claimed my lips.
I don’t know how long it lasted, but Valerie and Ben swapped out between lips and neck three times. All three of us were pumping out pheromones like crazy, driving each other wild with lust. Ben was just reaching to unfasten my pants when Jeff showed up and broke up the party.
"Good, you have Sable right where I want her," Jeff said, leaning over to glare daggers into my eyes. Jeff showed me another stake. How many did he have? "Remember this? I’m fixin' to drive this through your black heart, then cut off your head. I bet seeing their leader’s head on a stake will knock the fight out of your family and friends."
I tried to move, but nothing happened. Jeff stepped over me, so that he was straddling my waist, and then he sat on my belly. I tried to morph into a bat. Nothing. He started fondling my breasts. I tried to morph into a wolf. Nothing. He placed the sharp tip of the stake between my boobs, right over my heart.
