by Max Turner
Maybe. And jumping from the shadows.
“That door won’t hold them long. Can you stand?” he asked.
I tried to rise.
When I came to, he was dragging me again. “No,” I said. “Not here. Anywhere but here.”
We were in a long rectangular office. One wall was a wide mirror flanked by windows. A couch sat opposite. Adjacent to that was an oak desk. Around the room, antique busts, weapons, armour, masks, vases and statuettes were on display, as well as an old oil painting of a Spanish battle that had once belonged to my grandparents. The sight of it filled me with a cold dread. This was Maximilian’s office, where he had betrayed me to Vlad the Impaler. Later, I’d burned alive saving Luna. There were nothing but bad memories here.
“I don’t want to die in this room, Charlie. I want to die outside.”
He leaned against the wall to rest. “Don’t talk that way. Nobody’s going to die.”
I started crawling towards the desk. Charlie stumbled past me. A pair of sconce lamps were mounted on the wall to either side of the painting.
“Which one is it?” he asked.
“The right one.”
He pulled the right lamp down. A secret panel in the wall opened. It was where Vlad had been hidden the night my uncle sold me out. I started hyperventilating again.
“Come on. On your feet. We’ve got to get back to the girls.”
He scanned the desktop and started opening drawers. “Where is it?”
I had to answer in between gasps. “Top right.”
He took out my uncle’s automatic pistol. “Is there a way upstairs from here?”
I was struggling to get onto a knee. “I don’t … know.”
He helped me to my feet. “Deep breaths. You can do this.” He inspected my armour. “Do you have anything to fight with?”
I shook my head. “If you take off my boots I could throw them.”
“And unleash that foot odour? You’d kill us both.” He tried to laugh, but it turned into a coughing fit. Then, with him grunting and me groaning, we hobbled into the dark.
CHAPTER 12
SON OF THE BEAST
WHEN WE STEPPED through the secret door, it closed behind us, leaving us in total darkness. No shadows. In the end, that saved us. And Ophelia. Always Ophelia.
“What the devil?” she said.
Charlie jolted in surprise and let go of me. I slipped against the wall and the impact knocked me out again.
When I came to, Ophelia was hunched over me, rapier in hand. The blade was bloodied right down to the hilt. She was furious. “I told you to wait in the control room!”
Despite her anger, the sound of her voice was like a balm. Relief flooded every limb.
“Where did you come from?” Charlie asked, coughing.
“Never mind that. Where did you come from?”
“Upstairs,” he answered.
“Charles Rutherford, don’t be coy with me. How did you get down to this floor?”
“We took the stairs.”
“The stairs! Have you two lost your wits?”
Before I could say yes, something moved behind her. Uncle Jake emerged from an opening in the wall. There was a gun perched on his shoulder large enough to have been torn from the deck of a battleship. The barrel was slightly wider than a bazooka and stank like a firecracker. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of night-vision goggles. The right sleeve of his leather coat was shredded and the front of his T-shirt had a burn hole in it.
“Charlie, of all the idiot moves! Why can’t you ever do what you’re told?”
“Nice to see you, too, Dad.”
His father growled, then lowered the gun from his shoulder, reached into the space he’d just vacated and pulled a metal case into the room. It was the photon torpedo.
“What’s that?” Charlie asked.
“Later,” his father answered, handing it to him. Charlie shouldered it with a grimace.
“Does this mean the others are alone?” Uncle Jake asked. Then he swore. “We need to keep moving.”
“We can’t go back that way,” I said. “We’ll never make it.”
“We don’t have to,” Ophelia said. She moved to another section of wall, then pushed something. The panel beside her slid up. At the same time, another closed, sealing the wall where Uncle Jake had emerged.
“How many secret doors does this place have?” Charlie asked.
Ophelia raised a finger to her lips, then ducked into the new space. A set of spiral stairs rose into the darkness.
No one spoke. Through the walls, we could hear vampires scrambling in search of us. After a mercifully short climb, we reached the top landing. A keypad was mounted in the wall. Ophelia punched in the right code and a panel slid open. She walked into the hall and stopped dead.
“Dear Lord …”
“What is it?” Charlie whispered, leaning forward to see past me.
The hallway was a bloody mess. Bits of clothing and hair and things I had no wish to identify were plastered across the floor and walls. The air was so thick with the smell of blood, each breath went down like a small meal. Charlie stepped around me for a better view and his foot slipped on something that might have been a glove with a hand in it.
“Wait here,” Ophelia said. She slipped ahead to the control room, her sword dangling loosely in one hand. Her feet made squelching noises on the floor. “Luna? Suki? Vincent? Is anyone in there? Can you hear me? Open up.”
The door buzzed and the lock disengaged, then I heard Luna’s voice. “Thank God!”
She stepped aside to let the others past, then picked her way over towards me. The Optimus Prime gun was hanging from her shoulder. Judging from the smell of burnt gunpowder, she hadn’t been shy about using it. She stopped with a good inch of space between us, which was good, since I probably would have shattered from the impact. My armour was holding me together.
“What the …?” She reached up to touch my head but stopped short. I winced anyway. “Your ear’s missing.”
I hadn’t realized that, but it helped explain my headache. “The hall … What happened?”
“Vincent happened.”
“He did this?”
“Yup.” She looked around at the mess. “We got stormed. One of them came right up through the floor. I’m not kidding. Like a ghost. It was freaky. Ugliest vampire I’ve ever seen.”
“White face? Fat neck? Boils everywhere? Mark on his forehead?”
“That pretty much describes him.”
“Pestilence. The guy from my dream. Did Vinny get him?”
“No. He was too fast. He just appeared, opened the door, then sank back into the shadows. The hall was full of vampires. They rushed us. That’s when it really hit the fan.”
I glanced around. Hitting the fan was an understatement. It looked like a whole brigade of vampires had taken turns jumping through a wood chipper.
“You look terrible,” Luna said.
“I feel terrible. If it weren’t for Charlie, I’d be in pieces right now. I was useless.”
Uncle Jake poked his head into the hall. “Here.” He held up a blood donor bag, then tossed it to me. Luna caught it after it bounced off my shoulder.
“Drink up,” he said. “We’re getting out of here.” He stepped out and handed me another broadsword. “No sense in leaving this behind.”
I took it, thinking it might serve me better as a cane. Everything but my hair was hurting. I felt terribly sorry for myself until Ophelia stepped from the control room. Vincent was draped over her back. I didn’t see any injuries on his body, but he was unconscious, and his skin was a sickly grey. “Is he okay?” I asked.
“He might be out of commish for a while,” Luna said. “He was out of control after he cleaned house. I had to hit him with a pretty big dose.”
I glanced down at her belt. Hanging from it was an aerosol can. It contained a pungent extract that Ophelia distilled from monkshood, or wolfsbane, tiny yellow flowers that were extremely p
oisonous. It was the only substance we knew of that could turn Vincent quickly from a beast back into a boy. He got sick if the dosage wasn’t right, so we used it only in emergencies.
“Can we flip on a light?” Suki asked.
Charlie was leading her into the hall, her arm in one hand, the other cradling the case on his shoulder. They moved awkwardly. She was carrying enough guns and ammo boxes to outfit a small militia. “Trust me,” he said, “you don’t want to see any of this. Bad enough we have to smell it.”
“No lights for now,” Uncle Jake said. “We have to keep it dark.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“They have shadow-jumpers with them.”
I thought he might explain, but instead, he waved for us to get going.
“What is that thing?” Luna asked him, staring at his shoulder cannon.
“Canister gun. Zack’s father designed it. Best defence against smokers.”
“Because cancer’s not fast enough?” Charlie said.
His father sighed and shook his head. “A smoker is what Zack’s father called a vampire who can assume a gaseous form. The canister gun forces them to solidify. Then you can take them out with conventional small arms.” He shouted ahead to Ophelia. “Can you see anyone?”
She peeked out the door to the main stairwell. “No. But that doesn’t mean we’re alone. We’ll have to chance it.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “There’s no one out there.”
She responded with a flat stare. So did Luna.
“It’s something in the air,” I explained. “Like an aura of malice. It just feels wrong when they’re around.”
Ophelia paused, thinking. “You can feel it?”
“Yeah.”
“Strange that I cannot.”
“Maybe it’s got something to do with the bounty,” Charlie said. “It’s Zack they’re after.”
Ophelia’s eyes were troubled. “I suspect it has more to do with his heightened sense of empathy, but mark my words, Charles, a sinister force is at work here, and it goes well beyond money. The man who showed up last night ran off when you two turned the tables on him. It wasn’t worth it for him to stay. No reward would have changed his decision. But this mob, did any of them show the slightest interest in self-preservation?”
“No,” I said.
“And that makes no sense. A vampire’s instinct to survive is stronger than any other. The thoughtlessness of these intruders, it defies reason. Your foray onto the stairs—it’s a miracle you two survived.”
I didn’t owe my life to any miracles. I owed it to Charlie. Before I could say so, Vincent started to groan. His eyes fluttered open. He looked around, then managed a weak smile. “See?” he said. “I told you Charlie would take care of things.”
CHAPTER 13
PLAN B
CHARLIE AND I fed before leaving the hall. When the rush had passed, I nodded to Ophelia. There was nowhere to go but up, so she led us to the rooftop exit, deactivated the lock, motioned for us to stand back, then pushed the door open with her foot. A draft carried the smell of pool water onto the landing. The sight of the night sky and the cool air on my skin brought a feeling of instant relief. It wasn’t to last.
“Why isn’t anyone up here?” Luna asked.
“We’re not sticking around long enough for it to matter,” Uncle Jake said. He removed his night-vision goggles and started to get angry. I could smell it, even before he opened his mouth. “Where’s the helicopter?”
Luna and I looked at one another. Charlie shrugged. “What helicopter?” Suki asked.
“Maximilian’s Battlehawk. It’s supposed to be on that landing pad.” He pointed to the pavement beside the pool. There was a circle drawn in the centre of it. “Why didn’t you tell me it wasn’t here?” he said to Ophelia.
She glared at him. “There’s never been a helicopter here. Perhaps if you’d asked …” The steel edge to her voice raised the hackles on my neck.
Uncle Jake seemed oblivious. “How in the seven hells are we supposed to get away now?”
“Don’t you have a Plan B?” Charlie asked. “Hang-gliders, maybe?”
I thought his father was going to throw him from the roof.
Ophelia waved me over to the edge, then looked towards the apartments across the street. “Do you think you and the others could jump across?”
“No,” I answered. “Without jetpacks, we’d just end up ruining the sidewalk.”
“Does this mean we’ll have to go back in and fight our way out?” Charlie asked.
Uncle Jake looked as if he was about to say something, but he was cut off by a gigantic explosion. Glass shattered. Chunks of concrete and steel shot from the innards of Iron Spike Enterprises. A burst of flame lit up the windows of the neighbouring buildings. It was as if we were suddenly standing inside a giant propane barbecue. Then the earth groaned, the floor lurched and the building started to crack.
I was too young to remember the day the Twin Towers went down, but like every kid on the continent I’d seen the footage and felt my mind go numb trying to understand all the whys and wherefores. Just like those massive buildings in New York City, Iron Spike Enterprises didn’t collapse right away. If it had, we’d have been finished.
“Anyone have a rope?” Uncle Jake asked.
Charlie looked around as though he might find one hidden in the mess of last night’s dinner. “We need a grappling hook. Where’s Luke Skywalker when you need him?”
“A grappling gun would be better,” his father said. “Maximilian must have one someplace.”
“Does it look like this?” Luna asked, holding up the Optimus Prime gun. There was an attachment at the bottom with a spearhead sticking out.
Charlie’s father accepted the weapon from her, gave it a rapid inspection, then smiled his approval. “Luna, I’m going to have you canonized.” He took aim at a steel door on the roof of the apartments across the street. The harpoon shot out with a dull pop. This was followed by a short whooloop kind of noise as the thin cable uncoiled, and it ended with a metallic clink. “Let’s hope that holds.”
While Ophelia secured the near end of the line around the pool fence, Uncle Jake showed Luna and Suki how to slide down using an assault rifle, with one hand on the barrel and another on the handle.
“Boy, you two really trashed this place,” Ophelia said, eyeing the table and broken sections of Plexiglas.
Charlie shrugged. “Hardly matters now.”
A second later, the building groaned. Ophelia herded us to the edge. “Suki and Luna first. Move it!”
I held my breath as Luna slid down. She wiped out when she hit the roof, but the cable held. Suki was next in line.
“I’ll carry you,” Charlie said.
“No,” she replied. “I can do this.”
Ophelia smiled and Suki disappeared with a whoop. Luna was there to catch her.
Charlie stepped up next with Vincent on his back. “Geez, Vin,” Charlie said, “what you been eating, bricks?”
Vincent looked like a corpse. He managed a weak laugh, then the two slipped from the edge and shot across the street.
Uncle Jake handed me the large silver case and motioned for me to hurl it to the other building.
“Won’t that wreck it?”
“I don’t think a nuclear bomb would damage that case. For all his faults, your Uncle Maximilian was not a man to take chances.”
“What’s in it?” I asked.
Ophelia cut me off with a wave of her hand. “Later. Get moving.”
For its size, the case was extremely light. It sent up a shower of pea gravel when it hit the far roof.
Ophelia quickly handed me one of the metal posts from the pool fence. She’d torn it loose and bent it in a V—a perfect handle for our makeshift zip line. I stepped to the edge of the roof and paused. Something in the air wasn’t right. The discharge of the explosives had given everything a burnt odour, but my nose caught something else. It was foul. I turned to ask Op
helia if she noticed it too, but as I started to speak, a lean white figure covered with pustules rose up from behind her and attacked.
CHAPTER 14
CASUALTY
ON OUR TRIP down the stairs, neither Charlie nor I had been able to figure out how we’d been swarmed so quickly. He’d made an offhand comment about vampires phasing through the walls. This wasn’t too far off. Pestilence actually climbed out of Ophelia’s shadow, as though the dark space was a hole in the floor. His speed was shocking.
Ophelia managed a surprised yelp before he put a hand on her face and pushed her into the ruins of the dinner table. I was still holding the metal fence post. As he charged me, I swung it at him like a baseball bat. It struck his neck. For all his fat and boils and pustules, his body was like a piece of iron. He didn’t stop, but the blow moved him sideways just enough that instead of plowing me off the roof he hit my shoulder and spun me like a turnstile. He flew past the edge. For a fleeting instant, I thought I was going to be okay. Then he grabbed my collar and pulled me off.
I let go of the post and reached for the cable. I missed. Then I hit the ledge of the top-floor windows and managed to hook my hands over. A wrestling match followed. Pestilence yanked at my collar, laughing, blood gargling in his mouth. I held on for dear life.
My struggles would have been short-lived if Uncle Jake hadn’t leaned over the roof and started shooting. Bullet number one hit Pestilence’s wrist. Number two hit his shoulder. He let go and fell. The drop lasted a good four seconds. I risked a glance down, expecting to see a gruesome splat on the sidewalk, but he plunged into the shadow of a garbage can as if falling into water.
Uncle Jake reached down to help me up. Before I could grab his hand, Ophelia appeared at the roof edge and yanked him sideways. The sounds of metal on metal followed, and more gunfire. Luna and Charlie started shouting to me from the apartment building across the street. Their voices were drowned out by the shattering of glass. Iron Spike Enterprises was shifting. A row of windows cracked. Then another. Charlie pointed frantically. “Get up there!”
