This was turning into a massacre. Shit, the press would have a field day—heavily armed SWAT team mowing down unarmed students wouldn’t play well on the news. I could almost see the headlines.
“What the hell are these kids on?” Rodney said, his voice shaky. “Could it be meth or bath salts?”
I recalled the story of a drug addict, high on so-called bath salts, who had chewed a homeless man’s face off in Miami. Is that what had transformed regular college kids into blood-thirsty monsters? Anything was possible in the crazy world we lived in nowadays.
I pushed back my dark thoughts and pressed onward.
Reaching the fourth floor I peered down the corridor, first to my right and then to my left. Hallways stretched into darkness on both ends.
All clear.
I was about to climb the next flight of stairs when I saw waves of green light radiating from one of the doors at the far end of the hallway to my right.
“What the hell is that?” Frank asked.
No one ventured a guess or offered up some half-baked theory, our attention focused on the glowing hallway.
I shrugged. There was only one way to find out.
I made a quick decision and eyed Tia and Frank. “You two are with me.” I turned to Taylor and the others. “Stay here, but keep your guard up. Make sure no one sneaks up on us from behind.”
Frank nodded and said, “You got it, boss.”
“We’ll be back in a minute.”
With these words, I rushed down the hallway, Tia and Frank right behind me, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.
As I closed in on the glowing doorway, I spotted more corpses. Lifeless eyes fixed into nothingness, lives struck down in their prime. I’d seen too many dead kids, lost too many friends, in two wars. At least the Marines I’d fought beside had sacrificed their lives for a cause they believed in, warriors and heroes. These dead College kids were just collateral damage. Dammit, what a waste.
My throat tightened with growing anger. When I found who did this, they would pay.
My MP5 leveled, gloved hand ready to squeeze the trigger, I reached the strangely glowing door. Ghostly light washed over the visor of my helmet as I cautiously entered the apartment. The eerie light was everywhere, and an instinctive, primal part of me wanted to turn on my heels and run.
Don’t go into the light, Carol Anne. The line from Poltergeist echoed through my mind as I kept setting one foot in front of the other. Only my training was preventing me from taking off in the other direction.
The glowing light was blinding, and I blinked a few times. Finally, my vision adjusted and details jumped into view. Bodies lay sprawled across the apartment’s living room floor in pools of gore.
My right eye started to twitch. That generally happens when bad shit goes down. And this was a textbook example of bad shit. I hadn’t encountered such a grisly sight since dealing with IEDs back in Iraq.
My gaze traveled from the bodies to the glowing five-pointed star etched into the living room floor. The pentagram appeared to be the source of the spectral light.
What sort of fucked up ritual had these kids performed in here? And why the hell was the symbol glowing like that? I didn’t see any blacklights.
I edged closer, gun ready for the slightest hint of movement or provocation of any kind. I was almost itching for a confrontation.
“What is all this shit?” Tia said, unable to hide the fear in her voice as her gloved hand touched the crucifix she wore around her neck at all times. I wished I had an explanation for the madness, but I didn’t. None of this made sense.
My pulse quickened as I continued to search the apartment. Further inspection of the place revealed all kinds of funky occult paraphernalia. An overturned chalice sticky with blood and an ancient looking dagger rested outside the circle. The walls were lined with books on witchcraft and ceremonial magic, the titles peppered with disturbing keywords such as Maleficarum and Daemon. Not exactly light summer beach reading.
A clap of thunder erupted outside, and even the toughest among us flinched.
“This is nuts,” Frank said.
“You think the people who attacked us were part of some cult?” Tia asked.
I considered this possibility. I mentally played back the attacks, focusing on the details in my mind. The inhuman expression in my assailants’ eyes had rattled me to the core. Back in Iraq, I’d seen real evil, and I knew from years of experience what fanatics looked like. But I’d never encountered anything like those two rabid college kids before.
No, this was different. Worse.
My attention returned to the occult collection in the apartment. If not for the dead bodies, it would have all seemed pretty ridiculous to me. But then there was the matter of the glowing pentagram. Phosphorescent light enveloped my team and me as we drew closer to the eerie circle. I crouched over the shimmering symbol, hoping to gain a better understanding of what I was looking at.
But the answers would have to wait as muffled gunfire rolled into the creepy apartment. It was coming from the hallway.
I swapped a look with Tia and Frank.
The team was in trouble.
2
We retraced our steps down the hallway, weapons ready. The air was thick with the smell of cordite and copper.
“What the hell is going on out there?” I shouted into my mic.
The only answer was hissing static.
Moments later, Tia, Frank, and I reached the landing where we had left the rest of the team.
At first, I couldn’t understand what I was looking at. It was like a bomb had gone off, reducing my team to piles of Kevlar soaked in gore.
“Oh, Jesus, oh my God…” Taylor stammered, verbalizing what we were all thinking.
I stepped toward the elevators, my boots leaving bloody footprints on the landing’s cheap carpet as I tried to make sense of what my mind refused to accept. My men were dead. All seven of them. It couldn’t be. I knew these people better than I knew myself, spent almost every day with them, trained and tested them. They were the best of the best, the elite, the LAPD’s tip of the spear.
But more importantly, they were my family. Just the other day, we had all let off some steam at Moe’s, a cop bar near the precinct. There had been laughs and beers and…
I choked up.
They were all gone.
Shock gripped me, and icy waves of dread spiked up my spine.
Who could sneak up on a SWAT team? The crazies who had attacked us posed a threat, but they were no match for the firepower of my team. So who could have done this?
“They did it,” a female voice hissed. I whirled, blood roaring in my ears. Where had the mystery voice come from? My eyes bored into the encroaching darkness.
“Tia and Frank. They betrayed you! And now they will kill you too!”
I swallowed hard. This time there was no doubt—the voice wasn’t emanating from the adjacent corridors. The voice was inside of me.
“Act now before it’s too late! Shoot them before they can shoot you!”
I whirled toward Tia and Frank. They were both raising their MP-5s at each other. A part of me wanted to do the same, to kill them before these treacherous bastards could gang up on me. But the rational part of my mind, the man who trusted my team members implicitly, refused to heed the persuasive call for violence.
“Fool! They will kill you,” the shrill voice shouted. “Destroy the bastards before they can destroy you!”
No…
I raised my MP5, hands shaking.
You have to fight this, I told myself over and over again. FIGHT IT!
A scream erupted from my throat as I emptied a full magazine into the nearest wall. Bullets chopped mortar. Plaster and smoke choked the air. The click-click of my finger reflexively depressing the trigger echoed like a metronome in the hallway.
I had stopped myself. But Tia and Frank weren’t so lucky. They brought up their submachine guns and fired at each other. Bullets shredded th
eir body armor and found the unprotected flesh below. Blood sprayed as they both went down.
Driven by pure instinct, my training taking over, I ejected the empty magazine and replaced it. Numb to the core, I advanced, gun pointed at the floor in case I succumbed to the incessant whispers in my head. Even though Tia and Frank were already down, a part of me wanted to join the killing and unload my weapon at my fellow SWAT officers. I had never felt anything like this dark compulsion before.
“Do it,” the voice urged. “You failed them. You let them die. Turn the gun on yourself.”
Those were not my thoughts. What was happening to me?
A sound above me momentarily provided a distraction from this latest horror. My head turned toward the landing’s ceiling, and my breath hitched in my throat.
A woman was looking down at me from above. She stood suspended, upside down, unaffected by gravity. The sun-kissed beauty was naked, her almond-shaped blue eyes locked on me. A mane of straw-colored hair spilled down her shoulders and pointed toward the ceiling, not the floor, defying the laws of gravity and physics. Her breasts were perfect, the golden skin of her curvaceous thighs inviting. She was both a vision and a nightmare, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
The interest appeared to be mutual. The woman licked her lips and shifted slightly, beckoning me.
I heard a sound behind me, and a second later, there was a deafening boom, followed by the sensation of a monstrous force slamming into me as bullets pockmarked my Kevlar vest. The impact sent me flying, and I crashed to the ground, the dead bodies of my slaughtered team members staring back at me from every angle.
More bullets ricocheted around me, and I crawled on my belly in a desperate attempt to escape the gunfire. Two shots missed me, but the third one crashed again into my vest, sending a renewed burst of pain into my chest.
My gaze landed on Tia. She was on the ground, her face a scarlet mask twisted with homicidal rage, the barrel of her submachine leveled at me. She must have been barely clinging to life, but apparently Tia was determined to use her dying breaths to end me.
Fuck, I had to get off the landing. Now.
Fueled by desperation, I hurled myself toward the red-streaked stairs. Bullets detonated around me as I rolled painfully down the concrete and metal steps. I wanted to scream but lacked the strength. Thankfully I was still wearing my helmet and armor, which offered some protection as I crashed down the staircase.
I finally came to an abrupt stop and stole a glance upward. I saw Tia peering down at me, her gaze empty. She had crawled all the way to the edge of the staircase, still trying to kill me even as she finally succumbed to her injuries.
For a moment, I wanted nothing more than to shut down. I was a Marine and a SWAT officer, but this was pushing me to my very limits.
Get up. Run. Survive. A voice inside of me spoke up. Not the eerie hiss that had invaded my mind, but something deeper, more authentic.
And I tried. I swear to God I tried.
Before I could haul myself to my feet, another figured stepped to the edge of the landing above me and peered down. It was the woman from the ceiling. She loomed over Tia’s corpse, her features strangely serene, as if she existed beyond pesky human emotions. Once again, I couldn’t help but notice how perfect the woman was. Six feet tall, her body both athletic and curvaceous, breasts firm yet soft, a thin film of perspiration trickling down her taut stomach, her sex inviting—
Snap out it! I scolded myself. How could I be thinking about sex at a time like this? This thing, whatever it was, had somehow wiped out my team by making us all turn on each other. I had no doubt that she was the source of the madness.
I fought back my attraction, sensing that this woman could affect thoughts in more ways than one.
“Why do you resist me?”
I shook as the question cut through my thoughts.
“Get the hell out of my head,” I growled under my breath.
The naked vision started descending the stairs, her movements lithe and sensuous but also filled with malevolent intent. I tasted fear in the back of my throat. This woman was both a goddess and an angel of death.
And now she was coming for me.
I had to get the hell out of here.
One of Tia’s bullets had torn into my arm, and the wound was bleeding profusely. Blood loss could become a life-threatening problem as the seconds stretched into minutes. I desperately stumbled back to my feet, every part of my body screaming with agony, and that’s when the naked goddess launched herself down the staircase.
A whistling sound cut overhead, and she landed right in front of me with superhuman grace. Before I could respond, her perfectly shaped arm snapped out at me, long-nailed fingers closing around my throat in a viselike grip. She effortlessly lifted me into the air, my booted feet dangling off the ground and kicking at thin air. She might look like she only weighed a hundred and twenty pounds, but she possessed the strength of goddamn sumo wrestler. I desperately gasped for air.
“You’re foolish to resist me, human!”
“Go to hell,” I spat, struggling to escape her grip.
“Oh, it’s far too late for that.”
Scales rolled over her perfect skin, her mesmerizing eyes narrowing into animalistic slits while horns exploded from her mane of untamed hair. Was this what she really looked like?
Despite the fear, pain and lack of oxygen, rage bubbled up in me.
This monster had wiped out my team. Murdered my family.
My rage exploded, and I reached for my Sig Sauer 9mm. With a snarl frozen on my lips, I brought up my handgun and pointed the pistol at the creature’s head. Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger.
The unholy thing, whatever it was, let go of me with a bone-chilling shriek.
I crumpled to the ground but somehow kept on firing. She unleashed wails of pain (or was it mere irritation?) as I unloaded a full magazine. Black blood sprayed where my bullets pierced her scaly flesh. Good. I had never hated someone as much as I hated this thing. It had taken everybody I cared about away from me.
The moment of victory proved to be short-lived. As I desperately ejected the spent magazine and reloaded, the monstrous woman wiped the blood from her face, her expression of pain transforming into a diabolical smile as she licked her own black blood off her chin. One by one, her gaping wounds sealed themselves. She regarded me with a mixture of surprise and annoyance. And there was some other emotion in those soulless eyes.
Fascination.
I guess she didn’t come across too many men who played hard to get.
As her damaged body continued to regenerate, I dragged myself toward the next staircase. One more floor to the exit. I didn’t know if I would be safe outside the building, but I had to try.
At least that was my plan for a split second before the woman launched her next attack.
Her arm snaked out, and she slapped me aside. The momentum behind the assault sent me over the railing and one story down to the lobby. I heard a sound of crunching bones and felt my arm snap like a twig as I landed. My helmeted head collided with the floor and a tidal wave of pain rippled through my skeleton.
Before I could even speculate about the extent of my injuries, I heard more footsteps. A group of young college kids surrounded me. Judging by their blank expressions, these kids were all under the woman’s spell. But unlike her, they were regular people, and bullets could stop them. I reached for my Sig Sauer 9mm and realized the gun was gone. I must’ve dropped it during my fall.
Fuck…
The next instant, the mad horde was upon me. Knives flashed, and cold steel sank into the unprotected parts of my body. Again and again, the attackers found their targets. I tasted copper and knew I would exhale my last breath on the blood-soaked lobby floor, the exit only a few feet away.
The mob clawed and bit me, knives sinking into the exposed parts of my anatomy. Shit, at this rate, the mob would tear me apart. I had to find a way out.
That’s when my blo
odshot gaze landed on the Sig Sauer. Only two feet separated me from the firearm. Without hesitation, moving on pure instinct, I made a mad scramble for the weapon. I gritted my teeth as I hurled myself at the gun.
I landed right next to the pistol, scooped it up in one fluid motion, and spun toward my ravenous attackers. I fired left and right, barely needing to aim. I knew I would soon run out of bullets.
With a roar that bubbled with blood, I got to my feet and staggered down the corridor which would lead me to the rear exit. I somehow reached the steel door that we’d entered through less than ten minutes earlier. The horde was right behind me, in hot pursuit, determined to not let their prey escape.
One thing was clear—once you entered the building, you didn’t get to leave. At least not as yourself. This building belonged to the black-blooded beauty.
I threw my whole weight against the door. It opened with a resounding clang, and then I was out in the wet alley. The night air tasted delicious as I took a deep breaths. Blood seeped out of me onto the rain-drenched asphalt. God, I was in dire need of medical attention.
C’mon, Marine. Get moving.
The steel door behind me flew open, and the horde spilled into the alley, eyes flashing with murderous intent.
Tapping into a last reservoir of strength, I sprinted down the alley at full bore—which wasn’t all that fast in my battered, hemorrhaging state. I was running on pure grit at this point.
I made it to the end of the alley, where another surprise was waiting for me. A male college kid armed with a sharp kitchen knife was lurking in a pool of shadows. I caught a flash of steel, and then the blade went through my chest. And this time there was no protective Kevlar to stop it. I exhaled blood, and spasms of agony seared my whole being.
I emptied the last two remaining bullets into my latest attacker and sent him sprawling back into the darkness.
The kitchen knife stuck from my chest as I hunched over. I sank to my knees, one hand tight around the knife handle, my fingers coated red. Reality swam out of focus, and I felt the night closing in on me. This was it. I had reached the end of the line.
Night Slayer: Midnight War Page 2
