The vampire seemed to realize I was being as flashy as possible. “What, you think people don’t already know there’s a superior species among them?” He held his arms out to his side, in the classic come at me, bro pose. “It’s Brazil’s most open secret. Everyone knows. These people are cattle to us. We own them. When we want, we take, and there isn’t anyone who can do anything about it.”
I barked a laugh at his speech. Not only was this guy a standard evil villain, he had a thing for monologues. All he needed was a velvet cape to complete the package for stereotypical asshole vampire., but I let him speak. Hell, I wanted him to brag, because it meant he was focused on me.
And the women were moving, free of his notice.
I knew he wouldn’t kill me. He could hurt me, but pain was fleeting.
“Big words from a guy with a scorched eyeball.” I darted under his guard and branded my hands into his chest. He screamed, windows cracking all the while, but I kept my hands where they were until he shoved me across the car. I landed against the door the women had used with an audible thud and sank to the floor. Landing against the metal door had dazed me, but only for a second. With any luck, the dent I’d left in the door had rendered it useless. If I couldn’t get through, there was no reason Fangboy should be able to get through either.
I rolled out of the way just in time to dodge a vicious kick to my ribs. My opponent tried again, but this time I caught his foot and sent him flying backward. For sheer pleasure, I laughed at him, seeing the rage boil anew on his twisted features. I launched myself at him, not willing to let him chase after the women.
He snarled and scrambled to his feet, swaying. His condition was either feigned or an opportunity, and I couldn’t let the chance to hurt him pass me by. When the first punch landed to my stomach, I knew it was the latter. Pain exploded from my middle and radiated outward. If I’d been human, I’d have internal bleeding. The blow would have been fatal. To a human.
I wasn’t human.
I siloed the pain and straightened up. I didn’t want to flood the car, and I didn’t have enough control over my earth ability yet to use it in here, but fire definitely had an effect on him, and my control over that element was nearly perfect. I aimed a small fireball toward his teeth and let it fly.
It was a gorgeous strike, splitting his teeth like broken tiles and searing the soft palate and throat. He spat, coughed, and shot fluids out in a series of putrid gobs that made my lips curl in pleasure. Could vampires starve? I didn’t know. If the prick lived through this fight, let him try gumming someone to death.
He let out an inhuman moan and grabbed for my arm, claws grasping in twitchy desperation. I tried to avoid it, but there was only so much I could do. He pulled me toward him and tried to latch on, but it was useless. He had no lips. He couldn’t bite. I might have even blown off part of his jaw. His whole face was a mangled mess. I couldn’t see much detail in the glorious carnage of his face.
He would heal. I knew that much from experience. I also knew it would take time. Right here and right now, I’d effectively neutered him. My smile, unlike his, was toothy.
7
He kicked me back into the door to the next car, howling with frustration and pain. This time, I landed hard enough to knock the wind out of me. I heard the collective gasp from the people in the other car, shocked and appalled at the force with which I’d hit. I’d have been horrified too. Any one of them would be dead.
I wasn’t dead. I didn’t have the time to lie there and gasp for breath, either. I pulled myself back up by grabbing onto the nearest chair. My whole chest hurt, and later on I’d have to take some time to rest and heal. For now, I just had to deal with it.
Pain is temporary.
If I kept telling myself that, maybe I’d work myself up to believing it.
I did my best impersonation of a Roman candle, shooting a stream of tiny fireballs that seared him like a spray of heated bullets. He twisted and leapt, but I poured it on. Every fireball struck home, since we were at point blank range. All I could do—all I wanted to do—was to keep him distracted if I couldn’t end him completely.
He snarled. He still had enough presence of mind to dance out of the way of the miniature infernos, though their velocity was such that they still hammered home. He danced like a victim in an old western, the villain firing into the ground while telling them to dance.
You think you can win this? You can temporarily harm my body, but you can’t really hurt me. Since the vampire couldn’t speak out loud, he used his mind to speak directly into my head. It was an unsettling feeling, violating. I wanted 8000 baths now, and I knew none of them would be able to wash the filthy feeling away.
“I don’t have to kill you,” I said, desperately thinking of a way to kill him. Everything could be killed with the right tools and enough time. I just didn’t have enough of the latter to figure out if I had the former. “I just have to make it too much of a pain for you to take me or the others.”
No one cares about your Ferin whores. They’ll be exterminated like the others. If you cooperate, they can be exterminated quickly. If you don’t—
I boiled his other eye to shut him up. He shrieked with pain, but neither the pain nor his sudden blindness stopped him from pouncing. He had no trouble grabbing me. You thought I needed eyes to see?
To my horror, he moved the remains of his mouth down to the cut across my chest. He couldn’t manage to do much, with his mouth destroyed as it was, but he got enough painful suction to suck some of my blood. It was like a thousand knives being drawn out through my veins. My body threatened to yield to unconsciousness.
I ignited the blood instead.
The enemy seemed prepared for that. He sprang back and wiped at his newly healed mouth. “The blood of a Ferin.” He chuckled, low and dirty. Behind me, at least a hundred people screamed. “There’s nothing quite like it. I would recommend it to you, but it would be useless. You thought you were clever, attacking my mouth. That’s cute. I do so love it when prey tries to be clever. It makes the hunt so much more enjoyable. Things tend to become stale after a thousand years or so.”
A small taste of my blood had been enough to heal all the damage I’d done to his wretched jaw. I thought I might be sick. What was it about Ferin blood that made it so potent? I wasn’t going to ask him about it, though. I made a spear of flame and stabbed him in the knee with it.
He screamed and went down, clutching the affected limb.
“Where is Patagonia?” I asked.
“You don’t need to know now. You’ll find out soon enough, little degenerate.” He snapped his hand out and grabbed my ankle. His dark head darted toward my leg, looking for more blood, but I kicked toward his ruined eyes and jumped back again.
“You’re awfully confident,” I said. The more time I could keep him talking, the more time the girls had to get away. “Especially for a guy who couldn’t manage to kill one Ferin, never mind a clutch of us. What’s The Culling?”
He scoffed and turned his face toward me. “Now I know you’re not that stupid. It’s all in the name, genius.”
Okay, there went that line of stalling. He was right, it was all in the name, but I had to try.
“You arrogant little rats think you can stop what’s to come. You wouldn’t even exist except for an accident of fate. Humans weren’t meant for immortality.” He grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back, turning me around.
I used his momentum to break his hold and elbowed him in the sternum. It wouldn’t have the same effect as it did on humans, but it got me away and let me get another punch in. I smashed his burned scalp. Apparently, the vampires could feel plenty of pain, and I didn’t feel at all bad about wanting to make him suffer.
“Weren’t all of you human once, too?” I asked. I tried to hide how winded I was. My breath returned slowly from his previous blows, and my ribs were still cracked. I’d probably cracked a few more, too. Besides, I was right. Greed was certainly a human reaction. And the on
ly animal that hated this much was the human.
The monster scoffed. “We might have been born into human bodies, but our maker recognized what we were. We were chosen.”
He slashed out with his claws extended, but I blocked. It didn’t hurt as much this time. I didn’t know if it was the endorphins or blood loss from when this thing fed on me, and I didn’t care. I went with it.
“No one chose you, Ferin. You just happened. You were accidents. What were you before you were suddenly gifted with eternal life? Some nobody, plodding away in an office and waiting to die. I was a warrior. I commanded the fear of my enemies. No one dared to cross me, and Malfas himself judged me worthy.”
I fought the urge to laugh, because his bragging was out of control. I supposed the guy was powerful enough for it to make sense for him to be a First Blood, but that didn’t mean his ranting was any less annoying.
“No one judged you worthy of anything beyond being a meal,” he continued. “That’s the most useful you could ever have been to anyone. That’s all. Your whole value in life. But somehow, you managed to become immortal—a Lifebringer even—when you should have become worm food.”
“Wasn’t my choice.” I punched toward his eyes.
He ducked away at the last minute.
Overextended, I found I’d left my right side open. He punched me twice in the ribs, and I felt them splinter completely in a white flash of agony. “Believe me. None of us signed up for this.”
“Then why won’t you just die?” He went for my throat again, but I skittered out of the way and blasted his legs with fire.
Now that I’d been fighting him for a little while, I had a better idea of his strengths and weaknesses. The vampire was a First Blood, and he was strong, but he was a hammer, and that meant he saw me as a nail. His mind control power and comparative immunity to fire were what made him scary. He wasn’t a particularly great fighter. He wasn’t Dalmont. I was more than capable of holding my own against him.
He had those preternatural abilities, but not to the extent of other vampires. I suspected he hadn’t had to practice with them the way other vampires did—or the way I had. He probably used his mind control abilities to get what he wanted out of humans and didn’t have to fight often, if at all.
“Does that mind control thing you have going on work on vampires, or just humans?”
He blinked at me, even though he couldn’t see. Some instincts died hard, I guessed. “What?” he hissed.
“You used your mind control power on the humans, to get rid of them and get them out of the way,” I said. “Does it work on vampires too? Because it obviously didn’t work on Ferin. None of us felt the slightest inclination to get up and obey you.”
The kernel of an idea formed in my head. I still had to flesh it out a little, but I would get there soon enough.
“All minds are mine to own. Even yours, so-called Lifebringer.” He stood up straighter, in triumph. “Surrender.”
I punched him in the jaw, hard enough to snap his head back.
“I told you to surrender.” He spoke in that deep, hypnotic voice again.
I punched him in the jaw again, harder this time. He flew to the middle of the car. This was my opportunity.
I focused on a spot exactly between him and me. All it took was a little nudge, and a spinning disc of flame took shape. It started out small at first, but as it spun, it bloomed. It grew quickly until it took up the whole area of the car, leaving maybe half an inch on any side. I didn’t want to cause any real destruction, but I wanted to make a barrier the vampire couldn’t get through.
“You think you’ve thwarted me?” the vampire shouted. “You’re nothing. We’ve already established that I’m immune to your fire.”
He stretched a hand through the disc, or at least he tried to. Flames fully engulfed the hand when it emerged through to my side, and I smirked. “Enjoy that,” I told him.
I wasn’t foolish enough to think my barrier would keep the bastard away forever. Vampires were crafty. They’d survived for thousands of years. They could find their way out of just about any situation, given time. All I wanted to do was give myself and the girls time enough to get away. If we could just get to the next stop, the next station, I’d be satisfied.
The vampire howled, but I was immune to his cries of pain. His suffering was nothing compared to the ocean of blood he was responsible for.
I had one more issue to worry about, and that was the state of the door to the next car. Two big dents had rendered it inoperable. I didn’t have to be a structural engineer to know that. I might have been able to go out the window, but stories of people doing exactly that and being decapitated by tunnels or by the trains themselves stopped me.
Only two things could kill a Ferin. Decapitation was one of them.
I was going to have to cut my way out of the foul-smelling train car. I didn’t have any welding tools or any training in how to use them. On the other hand, my abilities kind of made me a welding tool. I heated the end of my finger to the point where it was as hot as any metal-cutting torch and traced an opening in the door.
My finger became fire itself, and I drew the exit, as well as could be given my current broken ribs. The metal gave, and I sensed cooler air around my fingertip as molten metal dripped downward in a cascade of liquid drops. My door fell outward with a clang, spattering a shower of sparks. So much for not causing too much damage. I guessed it was better than setting an entire train car on fire. Now free, I passed into the next car, and drew my first deep breath in what seemed like an eternity. The answering pain was like lightning, and I turned to face the people I had just endangered.
8
No one would get near me when I stepped into the next car. I wasn’t surprised. They’d just seen me torch a man with my bare hands, cut through metal with a finger, and survive a beating that would have killed any one of them. They’d also seen the vampire heal his own mouth after I blew it to pieces, so it wasn’t like I was the only reason for their shock. I wasn’t going to stop and argue them into sociability. I didn’t have time.
I scanned the car quickly. My women always stood out in a crowd, and in a car full of frightened humans, they would stand out even more. It only took me a second to see they weren’t among the terrified people shrinking back from my presence.
Since these folks already knew who and what I was, I didn’t try to blend in at all. Instead, I pushed my way through the crowd as fast as I could to get to the next car. People gasped, shouted, and complained, but they noticed me. That was all part of the plan.
I wanted the attention. I wanted the chaos. Each shout of irritation that rang out was like a piece of armor on my back. The vampire I’d been fighting might have been an arrogant bastard, but he wasn’t likely to have been foolish enough to come alone. The vampires wouldn’t have bothered to clear the train car if they truly didn’t care about civilian eyes. They wouldn’t want to fight in front of a lot of people. The more people watching, the more people milling around, the greater chance we had of being able to disappear.
An older Ferin, one who’d been doing this for a hundred years or more, wouldn’t have thought of this. If I tried to explain myself to them, they’d try to argue me out of it. The need for secrecy was so entrenched in them that they couldn’t make themselves shake it, and I understood that. Secrecy had served them well for a long time. These weren’t normal times, and the time for hiding had passed. When the normal methods had stopped being useful, it was time to find something that would work.
Kamila and Tess were in the next car in the line, standing in the middle. There weren’t any available seats, and a couple of stocky, hairy men blocked the door to the connecting car. I frowned. I’d given specific instructions not to stop running, and they’d stopped after only one car. Had I seriously just risked life and limb, sacrificing my ribs, for nothing?
“I’m pretty sure I said not to stop,” I said, leaning down to speak directly into Kamila’s ear.
Sh
e frowned at the milling crowd. “You got some of those awesome mind control powers? These good folks ain’t moving. This car is packed enough, and plenty of the people from our car kept moving right into the next one. There’s nowhere to go.”
I looked through the window into the next car. Just as she’d said, the car was packed solid, standing room only. Moving through to the other car would be impossible, even if the other passengers would allow it, which I knew they wouldn’t. I grimaced, trying to imagine standing for the rest of the trip to Belém with my face in someone’s armpit.
As consequences for civilians went, this was pretty mild. Still, I had to feel guilty about it under the circumstances. What a miserable experience for the people involved.
“Did you kill him?” Tess asked, speaking quickly. Two bright spots of pink had appeared in her cheeks, and she leaned forward as she spoke. I knew she had to be concerned about the loss of her gun. I was worried about the loss of her gun too. Where had the damn vampire sent it, anyway?
“I couldn’t. Fire burns him, but it doesn’t kill him. I need silver.” An idea was building in the back of my head, but I needed more information. I didn’t want to play with people’s lives if I could avoid it. “Who’s got the map?”
Zarya passed it over. It was more or less indecipherable to me, being written in Portuguese, but I recognized a few words. I knew where we’d been—Santarém. I knew where we were going—Belém—and that it was still quite some distance away. One dot and one name stood out. We weren’t too far from a place called Uruará.
I had no idea where Uruará was, and from the way the map had been designed, I assumed it was a smaller town. I couldn’t be sure we’d find anything there but vowels, but it was large enough to be on the map. It would have to be good enough.
“Do we know anything about this place?” I pointed to the town on the map. I doubted anyone knew much about it, since none of us were overly familiar with rural Brazil, but I’d rather ask than not.
Forever Young - Book 3 Page 4