by Ben Zackheim
Shadows filled the sky, but not as many as I’d expected. They either didn’t know about the attack, or they were trying to give us a false sense of confidence and draw us out. Either way, I waited for Osiris’ troops to make their move.
After five minutes passed, I got worried. I opened the comm.
“Nickolas, do you see anything from your position?”
“We’re just waiting for the first signal and Rebel’s breasts are amazing. DAMMIT! Sorry. Sorry.”
Rebel just shook her head.
“Let us know if you see anything.”
“Roger that.”
Ten minutes passed. I felt helpless. What was Osiris waiting for? It was so dark, I couldn’t make out where the skyscrapers ended and the sky began. The cloud cover was thick. The moon was nowhere to be seen.
Twenty minutes passed. I opened the comm again.
But before I could say anything, I spotted something from the corner of my eye. Something that didn’t look right.
“Did you see that?” Rebel whispered in my ear.
The moon had found a tiny slice of space to shine its silver light onto our world. In that instant, something above us was revealed. But the darkness had returned. I studied the movement of the clouds as they slowly drifted eastward. A slim blue line, the edge of a cloud, told me that we were about to get another flash of light from the moon. The rays slipped through. We all looked up and squinted to make out what the hell we were seeing.
It was a black mass, as still as the buildings it loomed over.
The scale was so extraordinary, I had a hard time calculating what I was seeing.
It was the shape of a man.
Set was waiting for us. Set was waiting for me.
Chapter 40
“He’s bigger than he was the last time we saw him,” Rebel said.
The moon faded away as a cloud moved in the way. I was left with that eerie silhouette burned into the mind’s eye.
Nickolas’s voice broke into the comm.
“Did you see the giant guy? What do we do, Kane?”
“First you should breathe. We stick with the plan and let Osiris be the one to make the first move.”
I didn’t like the silence that followed, but I didn’t push it. Nickolas was a smart kid. He’d hold the line.
“That huge fucker knows we’re here,” Dino whispered, with his standard doom-and-gloom.
“We don’t know that, troll,” Rebel said for me. “He may suspect something. But he doesn’t know when we’re going to make our move. Besides…”
A distant whistle silenced her. Over a few seconds, the noise got louder and clearer.
“Here they come,” I said.
I thought the night had been dark before. But what I saw coming at us from the river was a whole new level of darkness.
Osiris’ troops filled the sky. There were so many of them, it appeared to be a massive blanket slowly covering the world. I watched the edge of this blanket of hemogoblins cover the black of night with an even darker black. All we could do was listen. There was no light to see.
Our vampires’ battle cry mixed with a new sound. A closer sound.
“Set’s army is flying up to meet them,” I said over the ear-piercing screams.
“So now we wait for…” Dino was interrupted by a falling object. It landed with a thud and rolled to our feet. It was a vampire’s head. Its jaw still snapped, so I kicked it back out into the street. “Now we wait for the first set of explosions,” he finished.
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Rebel said, as the sound of wet body parts and puddles of blood started slapping the pavement.
The three of us huddled further back in the arched entrance, but there was no escaping the torrent of blood as thousands, probably tens of thousands of vampires tore each other to pieces high above our heads.
“Come on, Osiris,” I mumbled. “Phase two. Give my troops something to do besides wipe guts off of their faces.”
I didn’t hear the footsteps until it was too late. The vampires were right in front of us before I spotted their movement on the street.
“We wait here!” a male voice yelled. “Our orders are to attack from below on Set’s command.”
Dino used the comm first.
“We’ve got a problem, Kane.”
“You think so? Keep quiet. The blood storm is hiding our scent, so we don’t attack unless attacked. Rebel, do you have a spell that won’t light up our location?”
“I could try to melt the pavement under their feet. Keep them grounded.”
“Get it ready to go.”
“Is that the Sticky Pavement Spell?”
Dino’s sarcasm was easy to read, even over the comm.
“Melt Spell. I can show you how it feels if you’d like, troll.”
“Maybe when we get out of this mess, sweetheart.”
“Shut it, you two.”
From the sounds of it, the vampires were settling and waiting for their orders. After a couple of minutes passed, I was confident we could wait out this close call. The gore-storm of guts ended up being a gift. I let myself relax. Until an unbelievable stench zipped up my nostrils.
“Do you smell that?” a vampire asked his comrades.
The sound of a hundred sniffing noses surrounded us in the archway.
I opened the comm.
“Dino! Did you fart?”
“No.”
“Dino!”
“Yes.”
“Rebel. Cast the spell now, or forever be in pieces!”
The smell of troll fart gave way to the stench of hot asphalt. We couldn’t see what was happening, but the heat was too much to take. I felt a large arm wrap around me and pull me off the ground. The next thing I knew I was standing in the bank with a wall of broken glass behind me.
“Give us some light, woman!” Dino yelled.
Rebel cast a faint Light Spell. Dino had picked us up and busted us into the lobby.
“What the hell are you doing, Dino?”
“Saving our asses, buddy. We can defend ourselves better in here. Rebel, keep the light on so we can see, but keep it low.”
He was right. The low light from Rebel’s spell wasn’t bright enough to be seen easily through the bank’s windows. But my momentary relief at the troll’s good idea gave way to the reality of the vampires at the door.
They were filing into the bank, and they looked hungry.
Chapter 41
Seventeen 9mm rounds, 17 jawless vampires.
That was easy. But what was I supposed to do with the other 500 vampires?
I’d prepared for a long-distance battle, not hand-to-hand.
So I ran.
The wide stone staircase on the north side of the bank led to a balcony that overlooked the massive lobby where the action was going down. When I reached the top I got a good look at just how much trouble we were in. I could see a street filled with vampires outside the shattered plate glass window. There weren’t a hundred, or two hundred. Actually, I couldn’t see an end to them. Most were trapped in Rebel’s tar pit, but the others were catching on and flying over their comrades to get into the bank. The only thing holding them back was the size of the window. The rush of undead would snap the window frame soon enough.
“Get to the high ground you two!” I yelled.
Dino and Rebel turned and ran in two different directions. Rebel took to the air and floated above the middle of the lobby. Her Fire Spell was a favorite of hers. But I couldn’t help but notice how weak the flames looked. So when she cast the Soundtrack Spell, I was pissed off.
“Damn it, Rebel! Don’t use the Soundtrack Spell when you’re already exhausting yourself.”
Her Soundtrack Spell was a relic from the olden days, when she and I hopped from country to country picking fights and re-deading the undead. Her favorite was ‘Ride of the Valkyries’. But she’d chosen Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’ for this last stand. She ignored me and threw a few weak-ass fireballs. It was enough to keep the va
mpires off their game, but it wouldn’t last forever. There were too many of them.
Dino was on the balcony across from me. He had his machete dagger out. It was making sausage out of any vampire who got within his wide swing radius.
They hadn’t spotted me yet. It was only a matter of time before they did. I opened my Vault Portal.
“Sir?” the lamassu asked. “It sounds like you’ve found trouble.”
“Nothing we can’t handle. Hand me a Colt M4 Carbine, please. It’s the big gun right there.”
She looked off to her right and lifted the weapon into view. Then she jumped through the portal and handed the firearm to me.
“How may I help?” she asked.
I’m not sure how I managed a smile, considering the circumstances, but the idea of having some help was welcome.
A few dozen undead flew at us. They must have noticed the glow of my portal.“Kill vampires!” I yelled.
“Gladly,” the stone beast said.
She stood in front of me and acted as a shield. The vampires smashed into her with enough force to crack their heads open. A bright fireball from Rebel made the enemy hesitate. It was all the opening I needed.
I aimed the semi-automatic rifle at the vampires swarming the lobby below. “‘Rebel! I’ll go low, you go high!” She nodded and concentrated her next volley at the airborne vampires, as I squeezed the trigger.
If you’re not familiar with the M4, it’s a beast. Loud, hard to empty, and awesome in its destructive abilities. I’d grabbed it during my visit to my home a few hours earlier. I figured it could come in handy in a pinch. Being in a closed space with thousands of vampires streaming in totally qualified as a pinch. The vampires in the line of fire went from healthy, unhappy hemogoblins to who-the-hell-could-tell-what-they-were. They just disintegrated. The shock of the lead shower made the survivors freeze.
Unfortunately, the noise of my little target practice session had drawn some attention.
The window outside went black from the rushing mob. The huge picture window frame bent and then snapped into pieces.
“I hope you have a lot more ammo!” Rebel yelled.
Chapter 42
Then the explosions started.
Like I said, Osiris always found a way to deliver when everything was on the line. The bombs lit up the city outside, sending a momentary flash of yellow light through the skylights of the bank.
It wasn’t the fireworks phase. That was phase three. These explosions were at ground-level. It was bright to me, Dino, and Rebel.
It was blinding to our guests.
Phase two had begun.
“Get back in there, Yit!” I yelled at the lamassu. “And thanks.” She bowed and backed into the Vault Portal before it closed.
“Lets go!” I yelled, not bothering to use the comm. Rebel swooped down and lifted me into the air. Dino jumped from the balcony and crushed a couple of former vampires. He plowed his way through Set’s blinded soldiers, sending them soaring across the bank like flailing rag dolls.
The advancing vampires outside the bank were either writhing in pain from the molten asphalt, blinded, or had taken to the skies.
When we got outside, Rebel ascended fast to get a lay of the land. Another explosion rocked the east side of the city. Its fireball reached high enough for me to watch it consume a bunch of low-flying vampires. It also revealed what we were up against.
“Ohhhhhhh, shit,” Dino said for me.
There weren’t just thousands, or even tens of thousands of vampires in the skies above New York City. There were easily a million. They blanketed every square inch of space above our heads. Their movement was frantic. The giant god they served stood just to the north of us, surveying the battle. Likely looking for me, too.
“They’re confused,” Dino said from behind me. He grabbed an attacking enemy and slammed him into the curb. “They don’t know which direction to attack.”
“Some of them are blinded, too. It won’t last. You ready for phase three, buddy?”
“A little nervous, to be honest.”
“You’ll do great.”
The next explosion was at street level further north. The red boots of our allies zipped by. There weren’t many of them. A couple thousand. But they soared in perfect unison, like waves of starlings. The explosion’s glow dimmed and the city went dark again. But it didn’t matter. It showed me what I needed to see. We were outnumbered 500 to 1. We’d expected to see the skies get swarmed by vampires, sure. But it was still an astonishing sight.
“Our boys and girls should be getting ready to…” I started to say before five streaks of burning rocket fuel cut through the low clouds. Rebel had flown ten soldiers up to the top of 7 World Trade Center when we arrived at the docks. Five of them carried the missile launchers, and five others carried three missiles each. They’d been instructed to fire on the enemy during phase two, just to add a little color to the night.
And a lot of confusion.
The explosions that hit Set’s army were mostly purple and orange, but every color in the spectrum had some representation somewhere in those plumes. A massive chunk of the flocking undead had been taken out in an instant by the missiles. I watched in awe as the blanket of vampires split in half above us, with one half soaring to the west where Nickolas’s troops were fighting their guerrilla war. The other half flew east toward Kelly’s troops. If all went to plan, our soldiers would fire off all their missiles and take advantage of the clustered vampires to eliminate a huge chunk of their forces. My orders were for them to retreat into the building and escape. They all knew it was likely a suicide mission, but every single one of them volunteered. I could see the thirst for revenge and justice in their eyes. To them, a chance to take out thousands of heomgoblins was worth dying for.
I understood the feeling.
“It’s working,” Rebel said a bit too loudly. “They’re splitting up!” Several more billowing, fiery rainbows erupted over our soldiers’ perch. They were loosing the missiles upon many, many undead asses.
Another explosion, this time from the west side of the city, near the Hudson River made us turn to look. My eyes got distracted by something else. Something that had been lit up by the big boom. It was Set.
He was looking right at me.
When I’d fought him in Set’s Wound, he’d been large. He was three times larger now. He observed the battle from a vantage point higher than any nearby building. His black body still undulated like liquid shadow. His eyes were black, too, but with a thin circle of silver around the irises that made him look like an animal with eyes dilated from rage.
“Hello, asshole,” I said under my breath. Rebel heard me. “Set sees me.”
“What do we do?”
“Fly.”
Rebel and I were flying south before I could finish saying the word. She stayed low to avoid the mass of vampires tearing into each other above us. It was a good plan right up until a vampire landed on her back. Rebel lost her balance and flipped forward. The three of us spun in circles headfirst before she got her bearings. I still don’t know how she did it. My whole world was swimming.
“Drop me!” I yelled.
“No way!”
“If he get his teeth in you, it’s over! Drop me! I’ll be fine.”
She dropped me.
We were only a hundred feet up. I forced some calm into my head. It was just enough time to open the Swap Portal below me. I fell in and swapped with a vampire high above where I’d been falling. Now I was about 1000 feet above the streets of New York. I was above the low clouds so I had enough moonlight to see who was flying nearby.
I spotted a red-booted vampire below me. I tilted my body to slow my descent and get the correct angle.
Then I went flat.
I dove so fast I had a hard time seeing through the tears. I lost my target for a few frantic seconds, but the glint of his obnoxious boots caught my eye when I was almost on top of him. I may have landed on his back a little too hard. H
e screeched and twisted his body in an instant. I got him in a chokehold just in time to avoid falling.
“I’m on your side!” I yelled over the wind. “I’m Kane Arkwright!”
The vampire stopped struggling and grabbed onto my forearm. He slowly turned rightside up, bringing me with him.
“Hold onto the front of my belt, Kane Arkwright,” he said.
“I just met you. Don’t you think we should get to know each other first?” He didn’t respond. Fucking hemogoblins. I grabbed onto the front of his belt and he dove toward the buildings below us. He slowed down and hovered over a rooftop. He made sure I got my feet under me before he settled down.
I nodded at the creature who would have been my enemy in any other circumstance. His goggles covered half of his face. He nodded back and took flight. “Wait!” I said. He stopped his ascent and drifted over me. “How’s our side doing?”
“That depends on how you do.” He flew off.
“No pressure,” I said to no one, as I looked for the fire escape.
Chapter 43
The Wall Street bull was a bloody mess.
Not in the British ‘bloody’ sense. In the blood and guts sense. And, as if Fate herself wanted to stress that this was a violent fucking evening in the Big Apple, one of the statue’s horns had a head impaled on it. The other horn pierced a poorly-defined body part. The storm of gore had moved to another part of town, but I still had to stand in a bus stop to avoid getting pelted with falling remains.
I waited for Rebel and Dino. We’d agreed to meet there over the comm.
I could hear the hand-to-hand battle raging overhead. The distant gunfire let me know that our troops were still alive and kicking ass. I just had to hope that the third phase would wait a couple of more minutes. I didn’t want to be on my own for the grand finale. I needed Dino to be there.
Suddenly, the world went quiet. The light from the battle dimmed. I heard massive footsteps flattening bodies and cars and concrete. Set was coming. I couldn’t see him. Maybe it was his size that made my brain short out. I just couldn’t fathom the giant thing. I waited for the next deliberate footstep to land on my head. All I got was silence.
