Children of Blood (Kat Drummond Book 13)

by Nicholas Woode-Smith

  I turned a corner and peeked through another window. Crusaders fought rioters and attackers in a melee. How many of our detractors had come here?

  This was less and less looking like opportunistic bounty hunters or mercs. This looked like reprisals. Revolutionaries storming the Bastille. Which would make us the Ancien Régime. Frankly, I didn’t care.

  Hah. I was becoming more like Kat already. History references and not caring what others thought.

  A few police fought alongside Crusaders. It seemed they preferred us. Good.

  Something dropped further in the hospital, clattering.

  I aimed my pistols down the hall. A light flickered. At least the lights were on at all.

  Carefully, I walked down the hall. It was eerie. Quiet. Most of the Crusaders were either on the roof or bottom floor. We didn’t want anyone getting even close to Kat. But that meant that I was most likely alone on this floor. Well, not alone…

  The light buzzed as it flickered. A mechanical hum. As I got closer, I saw what had made the noise. One of the bulbs had fallen out of its socket. Peculiar.

  I stepped forward and stopped. The hum filled the air but, as the light flickered, so did the noise. Letting me hear other things.

  The problem with vampires is that they don’t need to breathe. But many still do. A habit which was hard to break. And the problem with breathing is…it gives away your position.

  The light went out as the vampire dropped from the ceiling. I spun, opening fire with both my pistols. The flashes revealed a dark-skinned vamp with red eyes and a satisfied grin. He held two short assegais like daggers, aimed for my neck.

  He missed, as my bullets found homes in his chest. He grunted as the silver rounds hissed in his chest and his feet hit the ground with a crunch and a thud. But that didn’t stop him. Before I could get a clean shot, he lashed out towards me in a blur, cutting a gash into my arm.

  I fell backwards, landing on my back as I fired. He dodged one shot, but I heard more hisses as the next hit him.

  He fell on me as I rolled, his assegai piercing the tiled floors. I stood, fired another shot and kicked out towards his other hand, deflecting the blow.

  “Brett!” I yelled, warning him, before crying out in pain as an assegai cut a score across my thigh.

  The vamp moved like a whirlwind, as I tried to keep pace, trying to get a shot off. But we were too close. And he was fast. Too fast!

  He ploughed his shoulder into my chest, winding me and sending me into the wall.

  I lay limp, as the vamp advanced. He licked the blade of his assegai with a long, serpentine tongue. I stayed still, just until he was in striking distance.

  I pulled up my pistols, point-blank, and fired the rest of the magazines into his chest until I was rewarded with clicks. Smoke emanated from the holes, as the silver burnt him from within. He took a step back, gazed at the holes in his chest, and grinned.

  I dropped my one pistol as I tried to load the other. His assegai flew into my hand, pinning it to my vest. Fortunately, the plate underneath stopped it from going any deeper.

  “Finished, little Blood Hunter?” the vamp said in Zulu. He licked his lips, one final time, as a shimmering spear flew into his head, skewering it. He looked shocked, for just a second, then fell.

  Themba stepped over the body of the vamp and pulled out the spear, before driving it into the vamp’s head again. He spat on the corpse.

  “That’s for Transkei!”

  Bongani crouched by my side. He held a vial of reddish liquid. The other Blood Hunter stood watch, another throwing assegai at the ready.

  “Drink, brother.”

  I did and felt the pain in my hand diminish. Bongani pulled out the assegai. It was still painful, but no blood poured from the wound.

  “I hope that hand wasn’t important. Will take time to heal fully. But Silumko taught you that.”

  He stood and offered me a hand, I accepted with my unwounded one.

  “Thank you, brothers. Do you know what’s happening?”

  Bongani nodded, then shook his head. He looked at Themba.

  “The rioters lured the guards away from the tunnel, I suspect. Was good enough a distraction that the vamps could sneak right past.”

  I frowned. If only Pranish had managed to ward the place a bit earlier!

  Before I could say anything, gunfire erupted on this floor. From where I’d come.

  Oh shit!

  “Brett!” I exclaimed and broke off into a run.

  The Blood Hunters and Themba followed. I reached for a magazine as I ran but found none. Keeping pace, Bongani offered me an assegai. I accepted, just as we rounded the corner.

  Krieg lay in a heap, dead vampires surrounding him. He had a trail of blood behind him. I didn’t stop to see if he was okay. I tore into Kat’s room.

  Brett stood above Kat, shielding her with his body as a vampire crunched its mouth onto his bloodied, raw arm. He held another by its throat, as it raked his side with its claws.

  I ducked, letting the Blood Hunters throw a spear over my head. It skewered the vampire, sending it reeling to the floor and releasing Brett’s arm.

  Even bloodied and chewed, Brett brought his free arm over the other vamp’s head as he pulled it into a chokehold. It scored major gashes into his arms as it raked him with its claws.

  I leapt on the creature. It looked more like a bat-thing than a man. Not the type of vamp the Izingane Zegazi let the public see often.

  The creature lashed at me, letting out a warbling growl as Brett tightened his grip. Bongani charged, driving a spear into the creature’s gut. Before he could twist the shaft, claws burst out of the creature’s boots, raking Bongani across the face.

  He cried out, releasing the spear shaft. I grabbed on, wrenching it to the side and pulling out flesh and translucent blood.

  The creature strained against Brett, as Themba and I danced around it, slashing and stabbing with our weapons.

  Shouting and gunfire awoke within the building. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be able to come up to us in time. So, we had to do this on our own.

  I jumped forward, coaxing an attack from the creature, as Themba attacked from the other side. Its eyes darted between us, as it deflected both of our attacks, before a deafening crunch made it go limp.

  Brett released the corpse, letting it fall onto the floor. Blood poured from his arms. They’d been lacerated to smithereens. I could see bone. How was he still standing? The Corps made them tough!

  The other Blood Hunter offered him a swig of medicine. Brett complied just as dark figures smashed through the windows.

  I brought up my assegai in time to deflect a blow from a shadowy blade. A hazy, vampiric visage flashed a fang from within its dark miasma, before kicking me in the leg. I let myself fall, before catching myself and tackling him in his midsection. He dropped his shadow illusion as I drove my assegai into his chest, again and again.

  Another vamp pulled me off his unmoving comrade, just as Brett punched it in the face with his destroyed, but still somehow functional, arm.

  He helped me up from the vampire corpse, gritting his teeth, as more vamps poured into the room. Bongani, still rubbing blood from his eyes, cried out as he fell. Themba lashed out at them, crying out: “Transkei!”

  I charged into the fray, Brett at my back. We fought hand to hand. Club, assegai, blade, shadowy sword. Or just our fists. Even if I had had ammo, we wouldn’t have been able to fire anything in these close confines. Kat’s bed was jostled as we stood between her and the vamps, our wounds going numb and our hearts aching from the exertion.

  It all seemed a moment and yet a lifetime. Claws raked across my back. I drove a blunted, shattered assegai into a vampire’s skull. Brett held off vamp upon vamp, destroying them with what seemed to be rage and sheer determination only.

  Somehow, we managed to thin the vampire’s ranks. Hope rose from within and, with renewed vigour, I drew my weapon from its corpse-sheathe and held the line.

>   Until, a vamp broke through, lunging towards Kat with his shadowy blades. He was fast. Too fast. Bongani lashed out at him. Missed. I tried to tackle him. Too late. He blurred past me, weapons aimed at the Last Light…

  Brett cried out, and dove not towards the vamp, but to cover Kat with his body. Everything went silent within my head as the blades skewered my brother. He exhaled, and then went still.

  Time slowed, as something built up within me. rage. A hate.First, a wordless feeling that I couldn’t describe. But then it heated up, as I felt a desperate rage consume me.

  The sound returned like a sonic boom. Despite all my pain and fatigue, I charged the vamp with a bestial roar. I grabbed his arm and snapped it. He dropped his blade and howled in pain. I caught the hilt and drove the blade into his head, just as another vamp lunged towards me.

  Before I could pull out the blade, its previous owner grabbed my wrist, and grinned, blood covering a maw of only fangs.

  Themba tackled the lunging vamp to the ground but, before he could drive his assegai into the creature, it kicked him away with the force of a horse, sending him reeling into the wall. He coughed blood and went limp.

  I strained against the vamp’s grip, as its comrade stood. But it was no use. The vamp who’d annihilated my cousin advanced like a predator, licking its lips. No one else was here to stop them. They could enjoy me…

  Golden light incinerated both vamps and those surrounding Bongani. They cried out, attempting to flee, as Cindy held her glowing hands aloft, circles of power surrounding her as her eyes glowed with holy fire. The vampires screamed at the sight, covering their eyes as their blood boiled and peeled off. Cindy released her spark, exposing the goodness within her to these creatures of malice. It was purification in its essential form. And it was beautiful. She was beautiful!

  I let go of the vamp’s blade as Cindy ended her spell. I tried to smile, but the pain stopped me from doing anything. I limped forward, then fell. She caught me, her hands glowing and warming me up as she muttered assurances and pleas.

  I brought up my wounded hand, and stroked her cheek, leaving a smattering of blood, as tears cascaded onto my face.

  “I’m…not going anywhere, Cins…”

  She smiled, despite her tears, and then looked up at Brett.

  “Is he…is he dead?” I asked, the words making me feel sick.

  Her eyes flashed. “No, but he will be if I don’t help him.”

  With my major wounds healed, I helped move Brett onto the floor. I couldn’t help but wince, as panic set in. I trusted Cindy, but I couldn’t see how my brother could be saved from this.

  “Go help the others,” my wife said, as she started incanting. I saw the concern in her eyes. Not for Brett. But for me. She knew me better than anyone. And she knew that I was holding on by a thread.

  I turned to find the Blood Hunter helping Bongani. They both looked spent, but alive. That left my cousin…

  I peered into the darkness, towards his huddled body, as the floor underneath him crumbled. I almost fell, just as I caught onto a chair, that then fell anyway. I caught myself before colliding with the vibrating ground. I looked up. Bongani and the Blood Hunter steadied themselves, moving towards me. The building shook, as the ceiling was ripped away from over us. Cindy did not stop her incanting, even as the sky was exposed above us, writhing in purple and dark fog.

  But that was not what caught my eye. Flying high above us, standing on top of a pyre of dark, pulsing energy, was a man wearing the red coat of an Izingane Zegazi. And on his head, he wore a crown of teeth.

  Nkosiyabo. The King of Blood.

  Chapter 22. The Blood Remembers

  Despite all my pain, exhaustion and terror, I pulled myself to the edge of the now exposed hospital room. Fires lit up the night sky, even as an unnatural murkiness began to infuse the world. As if the black pillar, like a pyre of darkness, was sapping all the light from around it.

  I looked over the lip of what was once the window pane. Holdouts of Crusaders fought with the vampiric assassins. Kyong defended a group of purifiers and police, but even he was flagging. The vamps were masters of shadow and darkness. And Kyong couldn’t destroy what he couldn’t see.

  Even the usually reassuring howls of Trudie’s pack were muffled by the evil resonance of the dark pyre.

  A hundred thoughts went through my mind. My wife, Brett, my cousin, Kat…but they all ended as a voice entered my head.

  It dripped of power. A dark, primordial power. It was like listening to the wind. No, not the wind. The wind held no malice. The wind could not be evil.

  But this, this was evil. This was destruction for its own sake. Consumption for its own sake. Darkness, never ceasing.

  The voice spoke within our minds, and I saw from the faces of even my wife, shocked from her spell, that we could all hear it.

  Nkosiyabo spoke, and the world listened.

  “Cattle are not meant to slay their keepers. It is the place of animals to exist for their betters. It is the place of livestock to be consumed. To die gracefully. To be sustenance for…us.”

  I couldn’t move. None of us could. As he paused, vibrations went through our bodies.

  “But you are not cattle. You are less than cattle! You are insects on MY world. Ants on this rotting carcass that I am trying to tame for my kind. When I was forced here, all I had were my brothers. We made a life here! And you took that from me, Blood Hunter! You took my brothers. You took the only things on this carcass that I cared about.”

  Dark lightning flashed, bathing the ruins of the enflamed hospital in a crimson hue.

  “I will never forget what you took from me. The Blood remembers. Always.”

  The presence of the vampire lord in our heads disappeared, replaced by the renewed sounds of screams and combat.

  I looked at Cindy. I saw worry in her eyes, just before she returned to healing my friend.

  “What do we do, Guy?” Bongani asked, holding a broken spear in his hands. Its silver blade was covered in red.

  I looked to where Themba had been flung. I couldn’t contemplate his fate. Not now. Not yet. Mourning was a luxury for the survivors. I turned back to Cindy and the Blood Hunters.

  “We protect the Last Light.”

  That is all I could think that we could do.

  Kat had left me in charge. And perhaps, in better times, I could lead these people. But this wasn’t better times. This was the apocalypse. I was just a man.

  And I needed a hero.

  A car exploded as a bolt of dark energy from Nkosiyabo’s pyre skewered it. Fighting continued inside the hospital. Below us. But not much. There were more screams than gunfire.

  Was this the end?

  My body would have been on fire if it wasn’t so numb. I shook, but I wasn’t cold. My knees buckled, but I stood.

  I looked up towards the darkening sky. I felt the presence of dark creatures rushing towards us. Like we were a beacon. And we were. A last-ditch effort to stop the darkness.

  I laughed. What else had changed?

  Bongani handed me an assegai, bent, buckled and covered in blood. A dark fog, writhing with malicious intent, floated into the room. It came from below, scaling the walls and crossing through the shattered windows. And it seeped through the doorway from the hall beyond.

  The Blood Hunters and I encircled Kat, Cindy and Brett. We held our weapons ready, as figures emerged from the fog. Some pale as snow. Others dark as coal. Some with scales and rockhard hide. They had wings, and horns, claws and scythe-like arms. All had red eyes, and sharp fangs, dripping with the blood of our comrades.

  I had seen and killed many types of vampires in my time. And I saw most of them here. Alps, garkains, nosfaratus and draculs. And more. Many more. Vampire mutation sometimes followed trends. But, for every rule, there was an exception. And the Izingane Zegazi had finally revealed their full menagerie.

  We three Blood Hunters never expected to survive. It was the way of the world that we would die to figh
t the Blood.

  I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to wake up to the face of my wife. I wanted to drink with my friends and speak of good times. I wanted to build a home. I wanted to meet my children…

  I wanted to live.

  But the world didn’t care about that. And I had to do the right thing.

  I tightened my grip on my crippled weapon. It was broken. Just like me. But we were still useful.

  As one, we charged the beasts, cutting into them as they cut into us. I planted my assegai into the eye of an alp, tearing out its eye as I pulled my blade back to thrust into another vamp. The creature deflected my blow and kicked me backwards, prone alongside my friend and my wife.

  Cindy clenched her fists and stopped her incantation.

  “That will hold…” she whispered. “It has to.”

  Bongani and the other Blood Hunter were shoved back. It seemed the vamps wanted fresh blood.

  Cindy stood above us. Poised. Calm. At least, on the outside. But I knew her. Probably better than anyone but herself.

  She was afraid.

  I used the hospital bed to pull myself up, as I stood by my wife’s side. I reached for her hand and squeezed. Tears fell from her eyes, as she smiled at me. I smiled back, weakly, as the vampires advanced.

  My wife turned to the vampiric horde, and they stopped.

  “My name is Cindy Giles-Mgebe, Purifier-Paladin of Heiligeslicht, Apprentice to the Seraphim Zephon. I have held the gates of my world closed to Satan himself. I have banished dark gods and archdemons. I have made evil regret its very existence. Do you think you can harm me?”

  The vampires froze. Hesitated. But then grinned. They laughed, as if they had almost fallen for a prank, and then stepped over the threshold.

  Cindy didn’t need to incant this. She knew this spell well. For it wasn’t a spell in the way I understood it. It was her. Her essence. Her spark, unrefined and glorious.

  Looking at her, it was as if staring into the sun, but I couldn’t look away. The vampires screamed and crackled. I smelled the sickly-sweet scent of burning vampire flesh. I had once revelled in it. But now, it was just a relief.