by Max Turner
That wasn’t going to solve our problems. “Don’t you understand? It has to be me!”
“This isn’t your fault,” Charlie’s father said. “Vampires in every corner of the world were waiting for Vlad to show a sign of weakness so that they could replace him. This fight was centuries in the making. The best thing right now is to stay out of the spotlight. I’m going to take care of things.”
“I’m not going to sit on my hands while you take all the risk.”
“I’m not sitting this out either,” said Charlie.
“Yes, you are,” his father and Ophelia said at the same time.
Luna started walking away from the table. “Well, this is productive.”
“Where are you going?” Suki asked.
Luna didn’t get to answer. A white strobe started to flash above the door, then something in the room beeped. Ophelia pulled out her cell. Her eyes ran quickly over the display.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Trouble,” she answered. “I’m patched into the building’s security system. Someone has just broken in.”
CHAPTER 10
INVASION
OPHELIA SHUT OFF the alarm. It started beeping again right away.
“What does that mean?” Charlie asked.
“It means there are break-ins at several different locations.”
Charlie pulled out his cellphone. “When you said a legion was on its way here, I assumed we had a couple of nights.”
“So did I,” said Ophelia. “And I would have thought the bounty would discourage co-operation.” She shut the alarm off. It started beeping again. Her eyes were frantic as she read the cell display. “We need to move. You kids get upstairs to the control room. It’s the safest place at the moment.”
“Does anyone know how to monitor the security cameras?” Uncle Jake asked.
“I do,” I answered.
“Someone needs to get Vincent,” Ophelia said.
Charlie was already dialling. “I’m on it.”
I jumped over the table and grabbed Luna’s hand. She was pulling Suki towards the door. “We’ll take the stairs. It’ll be faster.”
“We’ll all take the stairs,” Ophelia said. “I’m shutting down the elevators.” She and Uncle Jake shared a quick look, then moved for the door.
“Where are you going?” Charlie asked.
“To the equipment room,” his father answered. “We’re going to need—”
The shrill beep of the alarm drowned out the rest of what he said. He waved for us to get going. We headed up. He and Ophelia headed down. Before he was out of sight, he pulled an automatic from his belt. “Keep your cellphones handy. We need to know how many, and where.”
Charlie tossed me his cell and had Suki jump up onto his back. “Vinny’s not answering. You keep trying.”
He started bounding up the stairs a half-dozen at a time, with Luna and me right behind him. When we reached the twenty-seventh floor, he and Suki headed for Vincent’s room. I still hadn’t gotten an answer. I kept trying until Luna and I reached the control room, three floors above. This was the nerve centre of the building, where all of the security cameras were hubbed. Luna placed her hand over the palm-scanner while I keyed in the code to unlock the door.
Inside, dozens of monitors were set into the wall. Facing these was a desk covered in dials, switches, keypads and buttons. There was also a small fridge that Ophelia had stocked with blood and other essentials. We weren’t inside for a second when all of the monitors fizzled to a flat line, then went black.
“What just happened?” Luna asked.
“Someone shut down the power.”
“What do we do?”
“We stay cool.” I took a deep calming breath and reminded myself that Ophelia had been doing this sort of thing for centuries. “The emergency generators should kick in any second.”
Charlie’s cell buzzed. I picked it up and his voice crackled in my ear. “What’s going on?”
The lights flickered back on. So did the monitors.
“Someone cut the power,” I told him. “We’re running on backup generators.”
“Perfect.”
“Is Vincent okay?” Luna asked.
I repeated the question to Charlie.
“Yeah,” he answered. “He’s on his way up.”
I set the phone down. “Okay. Everyone will be here soon. We’ll be fine … really.”
“You think?”
“How bad could it be?”
I got my answer when I started flicking switches to see what was happening on the floors below.
“Oh my God!” Luna’s eyes jumped from monitor to monitor. “They’re everywhere!”
I stared in disbelief. Hundreds of vampires swarmed the halls and lower rooms. Baoh hadn’t exaggerated when he’d said the pathogen was out of control. “This is crazy. Every vampire on earth must be here.”
I quickly checked the monitor for the sixth floor hallway. Dark shapes shot past the camera and it went fuzzy. I started flicking switches for the lower and middle floors. One by one, the monitors blinked out. Soon we were looking at nothing but static.
“They’re smashing all the hall cameras,” Luna said. “We’re blind.”
Blind and woefully outnumbered. Unless Buffy showed up with the cast of Twilight, this was going to end badly. “We’ve gotta grab the others and get out of here.”
“What happened to we’ll be fine?”
“That was before. Now I’d say it’s time to panic.”
Luna flicked the switch so we could see inside the weapons depot. Ophelia was hastily removing the long silver case from its housing.
“Why do they want the photon torpedo?” Luna asked.
“I have no idea. Has anyone figured out what it’s for?”
“You mean it’s not a bomb?”
“I don’t think so. It just looks like one. Didn’t you watch Star Trek as a kid?”
She looked at me as though the answer should have been obvious.
On the monitor, Uncle Jake moved for the door, an assault rifle in his hands.
“We’ve got to warn them,” Luna said. She reached for Charlie’s cell.
“Wait,” I said. “We’ll use the intercoms.” In front of me were a row of switches that my uncle had installed before everyone and their dog owned a cellphone. That way we could talk, while both Uncle Jake and Ophelia kept their hands free. I found the one for the weapons depot and flicked it down. “Get ready,” I warned the two of them. “There’s a swarm on their way. They’ll be kicking your door in any second.”
Uncle Jake started shouting. I pushed the switch the other way and it cut in, mid-sentence. “… many? Over.”
“We can’t tell. They’ve smashed the hall cameras, but there are hundreds here.” I pushed the button back to listen.
“Why is the fire alarm ringing? Have they set part of the building on fire? Over.”
Luna glanced down at a row of red lights on the console. One of them was flashing. In all the confusion, I hadn’t noticed. “Yes,” she answered. “In the garage.”
Uncle Jake swore so loudly I’m amazed it didn’t set off one of the thermite bombs in the crate beside him. Ophelia carefully set the long silver tube on the floor. I wondered what was in it that it would be so important. “Stay in the control room,” she told us. “No matter what.”
She removed a rapier from a rack beside her and drew out the blade. The image on the monitor started to get cloudy. Something was pouring out of a vent in the adjacent wall.
“Is that smoke?” Luna asked.
“Yeah.”
Her face knotted up. “Why is it dropping? Isn’t smoke supposed to rise?”
It was. But I sensed this wasn’t ordinary smoke. “Uncle Jake, behind you! Something’s coming through the vent.”
Charlie’s father turned. The barrel of his gun flashed. Then the camera winked out and all we saw was static.
CHAPTER 11
DESCENT
I STARED AT the fuzzy monitor, muscles jittery, eyes restless, heart pounding at a fight-or-flight tempo. When the palm-scanner beeped outside the door, I snapped my head around so quickly I’m amazed my teeth didn’t fly out. Suki and Vincent hurried in. My relief at seeing them quickly fizzled.
“Where’s Charlie?”
“Didn’t he call?” Suki asked.
“I have his phone,” I said.
“Yeah, but he has mine.”
A heartbeat later his cell buzzed. Luna answered. Charlie’s voice was faint but frantic. “Where’s Zack’s armour?”
It was in the penthouse. Charlie must have gone up to get it. “Are you nuts?” I shouted, accepting the phone. “Get down here before you get swarmed.”
“Where is it?”
“Beside my bed.”
I turned to a cabinet in the wall and flipped a release switch. A panel slid up. I punched in the security code. A second later, the metal doors unlocked. Behind them was a small arsenal. Vincent let out a slow “Coool.”
I pulled out a broadsword, then reached for a gun that Optimus Prime might have used. It had a spear sticking out the bottom and a grenade launcher on one side, and it fired about six hundred rounds a second. I handed it to Luna. “If anyone comes in …” I wasn’t certain how to finish, so I pointed to a dial on the console. “That electrifies the door and the hall outside. It should keep you safe until I get back.”
“Where are you going?” Luna asked.
She already knew the answer. Charlie was alone. And there was no way Ophelia and Uncle Jake were going to make it up here without help.
We heard footsteps outside the door, then someone started pounding against the metal. Suki yelped. Luna nearly shot a hole through it.
“It’s me,” said Charlie. “Open up.”
Suki undid the lock and my friend tumbled in, a suit of armour draped over each shoulder. “Did someone die?” he said. “You guys look like the world’s about to end.”
“It might if we don’t get moving,” I said. We started suiting up. My hands were shaking. “There have to be hundreds here, Charlie. I was about to go get you.”
He stopped and stared at me. “So this is what Entwistle was talking about … the army?”
“Looks like it.”
“We making a run for the roof?”
“No,” I said. “There’s trouble downstairs. Your father and Ophelia need some backup.”
“This is insane,” Luna said. “You’ll never make it.”
Charlie opened the fridge. “Not without some fuel.” He tossed me two blood donor bags.
Suki stepped in front of Vincent and clapped a hand over his eyes. “Is that really necessary? You know better than to pull that stuff out around him.”
Charlie grabbed two more bags, then opened the door to the hall. “Sounds like we’re going to need all the juice we can get.”
“Are you supposed to take that much?” she asked. “What if you go crazy, like in the movies?”
“A little crazy wouldn’t hurt at the moment. If anyone gets through that door, you feed some to Vinny.”
She looked uncertain. Vincent never fed without being chained in the Vault.
Charlie winked at him. Vincent smiled.
“If anyone threatens you or the ladies, Vin, it’s feeding time, you understand? Don’t be afraid to turn, because if you don’t, they’ll kill all of you.”
Vincent’s smile vanished.
Is he for real? Luna asked me. Vincent can’t control himself when he turns.
That’s why you need to stay.
“I’m coming with you,” she said aloud.
Charlie started grabbing weapons from the cabinet. He handed two pistols to Suki. “You can’t all leave,” she said.
Luna scowled.
Charlie pulled me out the door. “If there’s as many as you say there are, without armour, it would be suicide.” As he closed it behind us, I heard Vincent speaking to her.
“Don’t worry. He’ll be with Charlie. No one messes with Charlie.”
OUTSIDE THE STAIRWELL, Charlie poked a hole in the first bag of blood, drained it, then polished off the second. I did the same with mine. Our eyes glazed over and our teeth dropped as the rush took hold. Once it passed, Charlie double-checked his belt. It was loaded with everything he could carry. Flash grenades, fragmentation grenades, incendiary grenades, tear-gas canisters, a pistol, a knife, even a gas mask. He pulled back the bolt on his M16, his pupils so wide he looked more shark than human. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“No,” I said, unsheathing my blade. “But the coast is clear—outside the door, at least.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” I could feel Luna’s frustration behind me in the control room, but for the first time, I could also sense others closing in from below.
What is happening? Luna asked. I’m losing you. Her voice was faint. Her presence was fading. I wondered if it might have been because of all the vampires nearby. The air was charged with anger. It was overwhelming.
Charlie paused at the door to the stairwell. “I know you, Zack,” he said. It sounded like a criticism. “You don’t want to hurt or kill anyone. That damn near got everyone wasted when we faced Hyde. These freaks are here for one reason: to kill you. And they will, if you don’t turn up the whup-ass. I’m talkin’ full bore.”
He kicked the door open. “You need to show these Horsemen what it means to mess with the Chosen One.”
I was bigger than Charlie. Stronger and faster, too. And I could beat him with anything but a deck of cards. I just wished I had a fraction of his confidence.
He jumped down the stairs. I was right on his heels. At the next landing, I stopped to test the air. A vampire was approaching. I sensed him before he leapt over the railing. Others followed. The first rushed forward, a dark blur of leather and long hair, his face twisted with rage. I swung my sword, but he reached up with one hand and caught my wrist mid-stroke. The other hand clamped around my throat and squeezed. My vision started to go spotty.
Charlie’s gun rattled. The vampire used me as a human shield. Several rounds slammed into my back, each like a blow from a pickaxe. Other bullets made it past. One pierced his neck. He stiffened. Charlie kept shooting. When my vision cleared, I saw blood splattered on the walls and pooling on the floor. A row of bullet-ridden corpses lay unmoving in the centre of it. I backed away and started hyperventilating.
“Snap out of it,” Charlie said, pushing me against the wall. “What’s the matter with you?”
How could he even ask? He’d just killed half a dozen vampires. My insides railed against the wrongness of it. Even if I’d known how to put it into words, I couldn’t keep enough air in my lungs to speak.
“Are you having a panic attack?”
My breath came in spurts. I was about to pass out. “Maybe …”
“You need to visit the light, pronto.”
I closed my eyes. Instead of the warm glow of the tunnel, though, all I could see were dead faces twisted in hatred. My head started spinning. “It’s not working.”
Charlie snarled and pulled me ahead. He was turning to jump down the next flight of steps when a lean arm reached up through a shadow on the floor. The fingers were covered in pustules. The air froze in my chest. Pestilence was here. But this was no dream.
The hand closed around Charlie’s ankle and upended him. He dropped his gun and it clattered down the stairs. Then a tall vampire with jet-black skin appeared at the top of the landing. I stumbled into her. It bought Charlie enough time to stand up.
More vampires appeared, some from the adjacent hall, others from below. I was moving beyond panic, into a kind of shock. I couldn’t see anything but the black mass of enemies all around us. They were frenzied, like starving animals. There was no way we were going to survive this.
Then the dark-skinned vampire caught fire. In an instant, orange-yellow flames covered every inch of her skin. I thought Charlie must have tossed an incendiary g
renade, but the woman had done it to herself. She didn’t scream. There was no expression of pain on her face, not even a whiff of burnt flesh, just the faint odour of dry air. The heat forced me to turn away. She reached out to grab me, but Charlie hauled me backwards and lobbed something past my ear. It hit the wall with a clang. An explosion followed that nearly deafened me.
The blast sent us sprawling down the stairs. Vampires screamed. I rose to my feet and a bullet took me flush in the chest. More shots followed. My armour stopped the rounds, but the impact knocked me back down. Someone kicked the sword from my hand. Charlie tripped over me. He was trying to keep a vampire from ripping out his throat. Another vampire crawled over and started pulling at his belt. He loosened a grenade. It tumbled to the floor, pin missing, and rolled in my direction. I had no time to rise. Several vampires swarmed over me and tore at my arms and face. More than their weight, it was the feeling of them that crushed me—their senseless, mindless anger.
I was freed by a concussive shock wave that hit me like a battering ram. The security doors beside us blew apart and a blast of hot, angry air sent me rag-dolling down the hall. Ribs broke. Vertebrae broke. Even my teeth. Had it not been for my Kevlar suit, there would have been nothing left of me but a crimson stain and a bit of hair. I tried to raise my head, but I couldn’t move.
A blurry shape appeared above. “Come on, lard-butt, get up.” Charlie took my hand. Thankfully, he had enough sense not to yank me to my feet. It would have pulled me apart. “Holy hamburger, Zack. You’re a mess.”
I groaned.
“Come on, we gotta move.”
I tried to stand and passed out. When I came to, Charlie was dragging me across the floor. His face was covered in burns and scratches. The rest of his skin was chalk white. I heard the beep of a palm-scanner and a door closed behind us. He put his back to the wall, slipped to the ground and closed his eyes.
“We have to go back,” I whispered. “We have to get Ophelia.”
He opened one eye. “Zack, we made it down three flights of stairs. Three! There’s almost twenty more to go. We’re dead if we go back. There’s too many …” He ran out of breath. “How did they come at us so quickly? Were they phasing through the walls?”
