“We need to make it to the Charger.” I said.
“Leave it; we will make our way on foot. It’s not wise to let ourselves be cornered in a car by beings that will be able to run faster than we can drive on the city streets.”
“Race you?” I asked. She all but snarled back at me.
“Get serious, John! This isn’t a game, we need to run! Now!”
She yanked me by the arm as we took off, and I spotted the cause for her sudden alarm in a quick backwards glance. We were being followed by vampires pouring out of the club, and a lot more than the original five vampires had joined the hunt. I supposed that those five had told their buddies in the club, and they had decided that a good way to finish off the evening was to chase down a vampire hunter. “Splendid.” I thought bitterly.
*****
We hadn’t been running for three minutes before I felt like more of a burden to Lily than a two-ton ball and chain. She darted effortlessly between people in the street while I barreled inelegantly through the crowd, and the vampires behind us kept much the same pace and effort as her. I had the sinking sensation of a prey animal being run to death by a pack of wolves. With a few more minutes of flat out running like this and I would need to stop. This was no leisurely PRT run; I was running hard until my lungs burned with thin fire and the only thing I could smell was car exhaust.
I didn’t see how I had any choice. Running through the crowded city streets was taking more time than Lily had, certainly. It wouldn’t be long before the horde of vampires chasing us decided to use less subtle means to catch up to us before the sun rose. The eastern horizon already had the pale grey quality that came with imminent sunrise. I sprinted, ignoring the pain in my thighs and shins and caught up to Lily and grabbed her arm. She twisted in my hand and gave me an inhuman snarl, fangs bared and her right hand raised in a claw, but calmed instantly when she saw who I was.
“Lily, rooftops!” I gasped out. She looked at me, and I saw the fear in her eyes flow like a living thing and etch hard lines into her flawless face. She nodded and I followed her around a corner onto 5th Avenue where she leapt at a building, her fingers sinking into the brick and mortar wall leaving tiny cracked holes as she clawed her way up. “Christ…” I thought, thoroughly impressed. There was no way I was going to have the agility or strength required to scuttle up a wall like a spider, but I could do the next best thing.
I dodged into the next alley and saw what I was looking for; it was a gamble, but I’d found an old rickety-looking fire escape. I called up my power. The pure ecstasy and accompanying rush of exhilaration twisted my features into an unconscious rictus of grim elation. The acrid stench of smoke and urine that was the telltale mark of alleys became briefly stronger, and then clearer but not quite overwhelming as my senses were honed to predatory sharpness—my muscles tensed with fierce strength that ached to be released. It was like the best drug in the world.
I leapt into the air and grabbed onto the fire escape and swung myself up and over its bars. The thin and rusted iron bars were a lot more rickety than I had expected, and the whole thing swayed worryingly as I scrambled up the metal ladders to the roof. I was glad for solid brick and mortar when I stepped off it, and I ran to the side of the building farthest from the street and sprinted to the edge and leapt to the next building.
It was exhilarating in a white-knuckle roller-coaster kind of way. I knew I could fall the several stories from the top of any building, but that I would likely be unharmed if I did so. I let out a wild yaulp as I flew through the air and landed lightly on the roof of the building. As I ran to the other side I saw vampires swarm to the top of the building I had just leapt from. “Not good,” I muttered, and poured on the speed, leaping to the next building. I had a straight shot at our hotel along 5th Avenue; it was about a mile and a half away, I just hoped that wasn’t a mile too far.
The vampires behind me resumed the chase in new and startling ways. Some seemed almost to glide along the rooftops like ghosts, some dropped to all fours and dug their fingers into the roof as they put on more speed, their faces a snarling grimace of hatred. Even more seemed to perform spiderlike acrobatic moves as they flew over the obstacles in their path and flung themselves through the air, twisting and whirling in ways that would make Olympic gymnasts cry. I soon saw why they took such a showy method of travel.
Rooftops are crowded with various apparatuses and structures that make running in a straight line impossible. Air conditioners, vents, stovepipes, electrical boxes, even raised rooms and peeling tiles conspired constantly to trip me up and send me tumbling off the nearest ledge. The most efficient way to move would be to go up and over objects in your path rather than sacrificing speed to go around them. So I followed suit, and remembering “free-running” parkour videos I’d seen, began mimicking the same acrobatic maneuvers I had seen.
I had thought it would be difficult to perform such nimble feats. I suppose without my power they would have been, but with my body being supercharged as it was it was the easiest thing in the world to tumble effortlessly over every obstacle in my way, and I lost little in the way of speed. I couldn’t help but laugh as I twisted through the air, though I’m guessing most of my stunts were less acrobatic and more like clumsy feats of strength, especially leaping to the next rooftop. The vampires behind me were surely not impressed, and were slowly gaining ground.
I felt a surge of panic when I saw that they were a single rooftop behind me, the quickest among them even landing on the same roof at the same moment that I leapt to the next. I could see their auras now—all twisting varying shades of red. None of them gave off the light-sucking aura of the most ancient vampires, and I took some comfort in that. It was likely that they were new enough to be overconfident in their abilities, and would ignore the approaching dawn in the heat of their rage until it was too late. Of course, I too was new enough to my power to be overconfident, and I realize that now in retrospect.
I knew then that I would make it to the rooftop of the hotel, but they would be on top of me by then. The sun couldn’t rise fast enough; the golden red glow of its approach was painted across the eastern sky, though the west was still dark. If circumstances had been better, I might have stood still to appreciate the beauty of the scene. It struck me then that I hadn’t seen Lily the entire time, and I had to assume that she had already arrived at the hotel and was waiting for me. I doubted that she would or could wait much longer. I covered the last two buildings before the hotel with nauseating speed, but it wasn’t enough. I leapt to the roof of the Hilton with grinning vampires on either side of me.
I landed and rolled, springing to my feet with my almost forgotten fighting knife drawn in my right hand. Smirking vampires landed all around me in a wide circle, many of them cackling to each other. I felt like a rogue lion surrounded by hyenas—that rarely works out well for the lion. Many of the vampires were pitifully young though, and even held knives. I was surprised, because I didn’t think vampires would see the need for weapons when they had such horrifying natural ones.
At that moment an earsplitting shriek rent the air and Lily flew onto the roof, her countenance one of heart-stopping fury. I saw her aura for the first time, and it was a bright ruby nimbus that trailed every motion. It seemed to throb with the raw power fueled by her fury, and for a moment I was truly frightened, like a child being confronted by an angry parent. As she had leapt onto the roof she had impaled two young vampires through the chest with her hands, letting them burn while suspended from her arms. The roughly twenty other vampires acknowledged her presence with wary glances, but for most of them I was the narrow focus of their spite.
In a whirl of motion they struck. Fangs, claws, and glittering blades hooked and slashed through the night air. I felt several heavy impacts as the youngest vampires got close enough to throw punches. Lily twirled with lithe grace and decapitated a female vampire with a swipe of her hand, but she took several blows that sounded like someone hitting a barrel with a hammer.
I hadn’t thought of her as weak before, quite the contrary, but this battle was one of attrition and we just didn’t have the numbers to handle them all. I wished silently that my uncle was there.
After a few chaotic moments the vampires withdrew to take stock of their handiwork. Lily’s left arm was twisted awkwardly, and her clothes were torn in several places. Patches of blood stood out on her skin from wounds that had already sealed since she received them. She grabbed her mangled arm and pulled on it sharply, and the bones set with an appalling crackling sound—she didn’t even flinch. My wounds were much worse. Several knives had shallowly struck home on my arms and one left a ragged bleeding tear along my chest. The rest of my body was covered in dark bruises, the pain muted by the power I had conjured up. I probably wouldn’t survive the next fray.
The vampires had lost a couple of their number, but for the most part remained unscathed. I looked anxiously to the east at the growing light of dawn, and was struck by inspiration.
“Lily, get out of here,” I said as the vampires moved in a slow circle around us. She didn’t respond.
“Lily, get the fuck out of here. I’ve got this,” I snarled. She looked at me then, and her eyes were full of rage and despair fighting each other as her mouth worked noiselessly, her bottom lip quivering slightly. As she looked at me, though, she saw the approaching dawn and I thought she understood what I meant. She nodded.
“Lily, damnit, don’t stay and watch. Go. Now,” I said. She looked uncertain for a moment, and then leapt swiftly over the vampires and disappeared in a blurred streak towards the ground. The vampires around me looked nervous for a moment, expecting another shrieking attack from Lily, but their mouths stretched into grotesque, monster grins as confidence gripped them.
“Sorry, Hazel,” I thought for a guilty moment, and I reached into the depths of myself with an effort of will to pull out my maximum amount of power. I found the balloon-like bubble of my power—the pressure that lay deep in the recesses of my body and mind and heart that just barely held my power at bay—and I pushed against it. The result was immediate. My back tensed and my wounds closed as raw, untamed, blazing energy flooded my body. My mind felt like it was on fire for a moment, and then I could draw no more power. This wasn’t the most power I’d ever drawn, but it was substantial. A tingling along my spine reminded me of Hazel’s little spell. I thought of her limiting my power to keep myself out of danger. That had to be it; some kind of barrier to keep me from drawing a suicidal amount of energy. I was grateful, to be honest. This much energy was so overwhelming that the change in me was dramatic, messy, and chaotic.
The grins on the face of the vampires around me faltered as the roof itself vibrated from the rush of power coursing through and around me. My own expression was one of grim detachment. These vampires around me were pathetic vermin, unworthy of my attention. I felt like going back to the club and pounding my way through the basement, but something in my mind repeated over and over “three minutes.” I looked at the eastern sky and realized why. In three minutes the sun would peek out, roasting these vampires in their skins. The thought brought me a feeling of sickly satisfaction.
As if on cue, two young vampires rushed at me with drawn knives, their fangs bared in feral snarls. I observed their movements calmly; each step they took was lethargic and clumsy, as if they had accidentally stumbled towards me. They were so pathetically weak that I didn’t even blink as I casually swiped my knife in a backhand slash at them. Their bodies exploded in twin masses of swirling, dismembered gore that rapidly burned on the air, turning into a thin veil of ash before drifting to the rooftop. The sound as they burst was immensely pleasurable, the deep, twin beats of a bass drum followed by a crackling and hissing like the sound of burning leaves. I smiled at the rest of the vampires and sheathed my knife.
They all wailed and attacked in unison, raining blows with all their might against me, but in my eyes it was as if they were playing a kind of pitiful joke—every strike came in slow motion, as if they moved through water. I decided to toy with them for a while until the sun came up. I swung several of them around, smirking as I tossed them into each other. Bones crackled and snapped, but I was sure not to use lethal force on them, I wanted to see their pain as they were caught in the sun. “Two minutes.”
One vampire who had stayed near the back of the pack pulled a pistol from his pocket and pointed it at me. I felt oddly disconnected from the weapon, as if something so small couldn’t possibly hurt me. Shots rang out and I could see the bullets streak through the air and into my chest. Nine shots popped off in rapid succession, and a tight pattern of holes stood out on my shirt where my open jacket hadn’t covered. Each shot gave me a painless jolt and made a hollow thudding sound like someone punching a side of beef. The vampires stopped trying to fight me and backed away, looking tentatively and somewhat expectantly at me.
I tore through my shirt with a finger, and a cluster of nine holes seeped blood on my skin. I prodded them curiously; my mind somehow not able to comprehend what had just happened. Surprisingly, I felt metal just under the skin. I methodically pried the bullets from my chest as if they were no more than slivers. The skin sealed instantly behind them; they hadn’t penetrated the smooth muscle around my ribs. I smiled at the vampire with the pistol as he looked at me with shock, and flicked the tiny lead and copper mushrooms at his feet. “Just seconds to go now.”
“Are you sure you want to do this right now?” I asked mockingly, my arms spread wide as if inviting a hug. “Aren’t you kids out past your bedtime?”
The vampires each looked east in horror as the first bright sliver of sun crept over the horizon, the rage and excitement clouding their judgments broken as panic crept up on them. They wailed in gruesome harmony as the sun scorched their skin. Several jumped from the roof to seek shelter, others stood in shock as the sunlight washed over them like molten metal from a blast furnace, peeling the flesh from them in twisting chunks of ruby flame. The wailing grew louder as they each burst completely into flames, one by one, and expired with hollow thumping sounds as their bodies exploded, spewing ash into the air. I held out my hand and felt the ash swirl around it before blowing away with an air of grisly gratification. Slowly, I let my power slip away back into me.
I didn’t feel nearly as tired as before, not even close, though, this time I hadn’t really exerted myself or taken the same kind of injuries. My chest did hurt though, as if someone had spent a few minutes banging on it with a claw hammer, but otherwise it looked clean and free from injury. I felt the faint pain of the wounds that had closed themselves when I increased my power, but all of my flesh remained knitted. Reality came back to me in a rushing wave as my feeling of aloof superiority faded and suddenly I felt vulnerable on top of the roof, and cold from the sea breeze. I looked around and found a maintenance door leading back down into the hotel. The door came open easily; someone was slacking on security. A distant siren from a police cruiser got closer as I slipped inside.
I made my way down the stairs and ducked into the nearest elevator, pressing the button for my floor. As soon as the door opened I sprinted to my room, pulling a keycard out of my wallet and swiping it three times before it finally worked and I rushed inside. I slammed the door behind me and leaned against it while I caught my breath. After a moment I burst into laughter, more because of adrenaline and relief than anything else. Lily charged from around a corner and almost broke the door with the force of her impact.
“Stupid boy!” She cried, and jumped into my arms she uttered a string of French words a few syllables at a time. Her cheeks were still wet from tears. Something in my mind recoiled, but I ignored it. I laughed and wrapped my arms around her, just for a few seconds. “I don’t speak French, Lily.”
“Shut up, stupid boy.” She said and kissed me fiercely on the mouth. I kissed her back, growling hungrily. I don’t know exactly what I was thinking. My biological imperative grunted and clobbered my brain for a few seconds until I pulled myself a
way from her and shrugged.
“Can’t,” I said. “Wouldn’t be right.” My throat felt very tight.
“How very chivalrous of you, darling,” she said. “One day you will outgrow your stereotypes. I’ll be here when you do.” She winked and sauntered to the bedroom.
Those words were more unnerving than the crowd of vampires that had just chased me throughout San Diego. I didn’t mean that it wouldn’t be right to take advantage of her. Far from it, in fact. But letting her think that was the reason was far better than telling her that, despite all other protestations, she was a fucking vampire, and I’m not big on cold skin and fangs. I went to the bathroom quickly afterwards and took an icy shower, and was surprised when I stepped out that there weren’t icicles hanging from my tackle. The weariness acquired throughout the day caught up with me, and I lay on the couch flipping through television channels until I finally fell asleep during an infomercial where the subject was something along the lines of improving one’s sex life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I woke up the next evening well after sunset. Lily was nowhere to be seen, which I was beginning to feel was going to be the norm. I didn’t know if she actually slept or not or just waited with her eyes closed until sunset. There were still so many little details I didn’t know. I lay on the couch for a moment, my thoughts were pleasantly still (despite the news droning on and on with brainwashing tailored for your viewing pleasure). A few minutes later I hauled myself off of the couch and took a shower. To my surprise, I’d missed a few spots the night before, and I scrubbed off scabs and the detritus of healed wounds and shaved with a disposable razor, scraping the thin beard from my face that had grown during my last few days of neglect. I had an uncomfortably hard time drying my hair. I had grown accustomed to just rubbing a towel over my head once or twice to dry it, now I practically had to wring it out, and it would still be damp.
The Chronicles of a Vampire Hunter (Book 1): Red Ashes Page 20
