Bloodshot: Kingdom of Shadows (Kindle Worlds)

by Jonathan Janz

  Rising to his full six-foot-eight inches, Bloodshot peered over the crowd and spotted Eric and Jillian. If Bloodshot himself wasn’t in such terrible danger, he would have grinned at the girl’s spunk. She was doing all she could to impede Eric Westenra’s progress through the crowd. Most of the vampires they passed were giving them a wide berth, no doubt in deference to Eric’s position in the vampire society. But Jillian was actually latching onto the vampires who didn’t get out of the way in an attempt to slow Eric down. If not for the gravity of the situation, it would have been a comical sight—a vampire would venture too close, Jillian would snag one of its limbs, and then both the vampire and Eric Westenra would tussle with her until her grip had been broken. After one particularly lively battle, Eric Westenra reared back and struck Jillian a glancing blow with a flat palm. Bloodshot heard it even above all the growling and snarling of the vampire horde. Jillian’s head snapped back, her scarlet hair fanning out, then she slumped forward in a daze.

  Bloodshot gnashed his teeth together.

  Enough of this, he thought.

  With a roar he lunged sideways into the crowd to get some room to operate. His right arm free, he yanked out the MAC M10 semi-automatic pistol Danks had reluctantly loaned him from Lou Carboni’s private weapons cache. Bloodshot squeezed the trigger, sweeping the crowd with .45 rounds and sending two dozen vampires pirouetting backward in a haze of blood. At the harsh whir of the M10, the vampires behind him had hesitated, which gave him all the time he needed. Pivoting, Bloodshot placed the Ruger against the forehead of an astonished vampire and blew its brains out the back of its head. A vampire next to it opened its fanged maw, perhaps to frighten Bloodshot into flight. Unhesitatingly, he fitted the Ruger into its mouth and pulled the trigger. A brilliant splash of gore showered the vampires behind it.

  The horde finally started to retreat. Bloodshot helped it along, marching forward toward Eric and Jillian and picking off the vampires who didn’t move out of his way. He heard the furtive shuffle of a small throng of vampires behind him—man, they didn’t stay scared for long—whirled, and mowed them down with the M10. But the clip was soon exhausted, and Danks hadn’t furnished him with a backup.

  Eric and Jillian had mounted the stage and were nearly to the door. Bloodshot had no idea what lay on the other side of that door, but he didn’t intend to find out.

  A vampire shambled toward him, its orange eyes deranged with hunger. Bloodshot staved its head in with the butt of the M10. Tossing the M10 aside, he unholstered the only gun he hadn’t used, another of Lou Carboni’s Rugers. He fired four rounds into approaching white faces. Four vampires fell. He had no idea how many he’d killed or how many would come back—if Danks’s story about the crowbar was true, they had to be stabbed through the heart to be destroyed—but one thing was certain.

  He was running out of ammo.

  Bloodshot caught a blur of white coming from both directions. Crossing his arms, he shot both vampires in the forehead. They dropped like blood-spattered sacks of flour.

  Eric reared back, dragged Jillian toward the door. Jillian resisted. They were still twenty feet away from Bloodshot, and on a stage five feet above him.

  Bloodshot fired at another vampire from point blank range, sidestepped another, and took three powerful strides. He jumped with all his might, his feet rising to the level of the vampires’ venomous faces.

  He wasn’t going to make it.

  Jerking his right foot sideways he planted the toe of his boot on a vampire’s shoulder and shoved. His left foot came down on the curly hair of a female vampire. He shoved down, jumped.

  And landed on the stage. Whirling, Eric Westenra bared his fangs. Jillian glanced up at Bloodshot in naked hope. Bloodshot bolted straight at Eric and dove. He smashed into the red-haired vampire like a steam engine. They went crashing to the floor in a struggling heap.

  “You killed my sister,” Eric grunted.

  “Your sister shot at me.”

  “You’re a stupid …” Eric punched him in the jaw. “… machine.”

  Bloodshot backhanded him in the mouth. “And your master should have let you die.”

  His face a rictus of hate, Eric slashed Bloodshot’s throat with razor talons. Bloodshot reared back, hammered Eric’s face with a granite fist. Eric’s head jerked sideways with the blow, but he was back on the offensive on the instant. He slashed at Bloodshot again, this time raking Bloodshot’s jaw. Curls of skin collected under Westenra’s nails and tumbled aside like discarded carrot shavings. Teeth bared, Bloodshot seized the front of Eric’s shirt and whipped his forehead down. Their heads crashed together like rams, but Eric got the worst of it. He howled in pain and covered his bleeding face with his hands, and Bloodshot set to hammering him in the ribs with short, merciless jabs. The wind gusted out of the red-haired vampire. His hands went away from his face, so Bloodshot cracked him in the nose. Eric cried out, the blood sluicing over his top lip. Bloodshot reached into his trench coat for the harpoon, but something walloped him in the side, knocking his hand off the steel rod. He looked up and beheld the vampires clambering over the lip of the stage, their orange eyes hateful. Bloodshot reared back, smashed one in the nose. It slumped sideways, but two more lunged forward in its place. They seized Bloodshot, dragged him toward the edge of the stage. He grabbed Eric Westenra, not wanting to lose his advantage, but that left him vulnerable. Unable to stop himself, Bloodshot tumbled off the stage. Westenra came with him.

  The vampires swarmed over them.

  Eric had ceased to put up resistance, but it no longer mattered. There were too many of the vampires now, jostling each other to get at Bloodshot. They climbed onto him in an unceasing tide. One sank its teeth into his calf muscle. Another clawed at the small of his back. “Get off me!” Bloodshot bellowed. “Get off or I’ll break his neck!”

  At least Jillian, he saw with a frenzied glance, had reached a spot on the stage where the vampires couldn’t get at her. That had been his mistake, Bloodshot realized. For whatever reason, they had to stay off the stage. But now that they’d dragged him down here, he was fair game.

  He elbowed the creatures, shielding his throat as well as he could. He glanced at Jillian again, saw that she stood a little ways behind the four vampires on thrones, just a few feet away from the door.

  “Go!” he bellowed. “Look for the flares.”

  He hoped Danks would follow his directions.

  Eric Westenra squirmed beneath him. Bloodshot cracked him in the nose.

  Evidently ready for more help, Westenra strained away from Bloodshot and bellowed, “RENFIELD!”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  * * *

  The creature that came through the door seemed so gigantic that Bloodshot was convinced he’d sustained a concussion in his battle with the vampires. And it wasn’t just the creature’s girth that awed him, it was the thing’s height as well. At least eight feet tall, with muscles that bulged over a thick, oak-like frame, the thing was shirtless, its dingy pants ripped to tatters. The creature wore a lurid red mask painted to look like the devil. He carried a steel pipe that was at least seven feet long and looked as broad as a light pole.

  Eric Westenra had grown still beneath Bloodshot, the vampire obviously as impressed by the sight of the creature as Bloodshot was. Bloodshot pushed to his feet and stared at the creature. The vampires below and on the stage had paused to watch the confrontation as well. Jillian, however, was gone. That was good, Bloodshot decided. Perhaps she’d gotten away, found Malcolm or the others in the darkness and—

  With a nasty jolt, Bloodshot realized that the three mobsters had disappeared as well.

  Leaving him alone with the legion of vampires. And this … thing.

  Westenra rose and flourished a hand at the creature, which stood as movelessly as some pale stone statue about twenty feet away from Bloodshot. “This is Renfield. Are you familiar with Dracula, Mr. Bloodshot?”

  Bloodshot stared up at the creature.

  “Renfie
ld,” Westenra went on, “was a devotee of the Count, but he never quite became what he wanted to become—a full-fledged vampire. That sometimes happens in our society too. A man will yearn for eternal life and will therefore offer himself up to us for conversion. Renfield here had already proved himself quite worthy. A former serial killer of prostitutes, Renfield agreed to strangle one of our enemies in prison. He did so. Spectacularly. We then arranged for him to be set free.”

  “How do you arrange that?” Bloodshot asked. “Wasn’t he in jail for life?”

  Westenra smirked. “We have friends, Mr. Bloodshot. We’re relatively new in this country, but our reach is already quite expansive. We were able to stage Renfield’s death in his cell and then managed to transport him off of prison property. Unfortunately, the vampiric conversion did not go as planned.”

  Bloodshot eyed the creature. “That why he’s so big?”

  “That’s part of it,” Westenra allowed. “But he was already nearly seven feet tall. The pure blood given him by the vampire donor wasn’t as … pure as we would have liked.”

  An uneasy rustle went through the crowd of vampires below.

  Westenra shrugged in embarrassment. “You see, we couldn’t have endangered one of the Master’s chosen ones in Renfield’s conversion. The man was too unpredictable. Too … unclean. Do you know—and this is really quite an astounding fact, Mr. Bloodshot—do you know that Renfield here butchered over thirty-seven women before he was caught? Even then, he resisted arrest and killed three more police officers and a pair of police dogs before they were able to haul him in. The Master knew he could use someone like that in our army, but he also understood the risks. What if Renfield had acquired a venereal disease in his escapades? Many of the prostitutes had scratched and bit him. What if he contaminated the vampire donor during the conversion?”

  Bloodshot’s upper lip curled. “So he’s a rapist as well as a murderer.”

  Westenra waved a hand dismissively. “I hardly think that matters right now. What matters is this: Renfield is half-man, half-vampire. It is my contention that even a being with half the attributes of the vampire will prove superior to a thing like you, Bloodshot, who’s half-man, half-machine.”

  Bloodshot thought of Jillian, alone in the dark with the mobsters. Or worse, what if some of the vampires had opted to pursue her? She was tough—even tougher than he would’ve imagined—but she was easier quarry than Bloodshot. And guaranteed to provide good human blood.

  He had to hurry.

  “Half of you,” Westenra said to Bloodshot, “is weak flesh; the other half is unthinking, unfeeling computerized blood. That is hardly a—”

  “Shut up,” Bloodshot growled. He started toward Renfield. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Jillian felt like a coward for abandoning Bloodshot, but she knew they both stood a better chance of surviving if she could get a head start back to the surface. There was no way Bloodshot was going to kill every vampire, and that meant at some point he’d be fleeing too. That would make her extra baggage, and she was sick of being the one who needed saving, the one who needed protecting. She wanted to show the vampires—and the mobsters—that she could fend for herself. Most of all she wanted to show Bloodshot she wasn’t some quailing damsel who’d cower in the corner while he did all the dirty work. She was stronger than she’d shown thus far today.

  Jillian moved quietly through the door and stepped closer to the body pit. Easing herself down, she heard the door swing shut behind her. She made a face, angry at herself for forgetting to prop open the door that led back to the vampire theatre. At least with the door open there would be some light in here. Now it was too black to see, too black to do anything but move blindly through the body pit and hope she didn’t make some fatal miscalculation. Jillian took a steadying breath, began moving in the direction she thought the tube might be. Almost immediately her foot descended on something soft and yielding. A putrid stench enshrouded her, making her gag and press a forearm to her mouth. Jillian stumbled, threw out a hand to steady herself and felt her fingertips close on something that felt like cold mush. Hissing, she yanked her hand away and rubbed it on the seat of her skirt. The odor rising from the field of corpses was suffocating, inescapable. A palpable thing. She made a humming sound and bounced on her heels, willing herself not to panic.

  Concentrate, she reminded herself. Keep your mind on the job of getting out of here. Jillian screwed up her eyes, scanned the stygian gloom for something that might orient her. She doubted she could climb her way back up the endless tube that had delivered her to this stinking tomb, but maybe there would be a tunnel nearby that would contain a ladder. There had to be more than one way out of here.

  Didn’t there?

  She swallowed, doing her best to fight back the fear, but now, wading through a pitch-black field of bloated corpses, Jillian’s courage began to flag. She turned back and spotted, beneath the door leading to the theatre, a slender orange strip of light. It wasn’t much, but it was better than the unbroken blackness that had devoured her. Better than venturing blindly into—

  Something blotted out the strip of orange light. It appeared again, disappeared, then was only partially visible.

  Then she heard the footsteps.

  Someone was coming. One of the vampires?

  Trembling, Jillian shambled forward into the gloom. She tripped over a corpse, nearly fell, but then caught herself and moved on.

  A voice behind her called, “What’s the matter, Red? You don’t wanna play?”

  Oh God, Jillian thought. Frankie Canelli.

  She shuffled ahead, hands out and groping like a blind woman, and wasn’t that what she was? She hadn’t possessed the foresight to snag one of the flashlights in the confusion. She’d spotted one in Malcolm’s jeans pocket, but he’d disappeared with Mina Murray before Jillian could reach him.

  “Let’s make up,” a voice said from just behind her.

  “Get away from me,” Jillian moaned and lurched forward.

  A hand pawed at her shoulder. Jillian wrenched away from it. She tripped on a body, windmilled her arms, but managed to keep her balance. Behind her she heard a surprised oomph and assumed it had been Frankie going down. The guy was far bigger than she was, which meant he took longer strides. But she figured she was the more agile of the two, and certainly in better shape. If she could only keep moving.

  A hand clutched her ankle.

  Jillian screamed, batted at the grasping hand, and for a wild moment was certain that one of the bodies had reanimated. Then she heard the low laughter and realized it was Frankie who had ahold of her, Frankie who had fallen and was now jerking her closer, climbing up her body, using her as a ladder to help him gain his feet. The mobster’s grimy hands pawed her as they came together. Jillian writhed in his grip and clawed at his face. Frankie gasped as she furrowed his cheek with her fingernails, and a moment later her head was snapping back as he punched her in the mouth. Jillian’s consciousness wavered. My God, the blow had been powerful, but even worse it had been so damned unexpected. She staggered on her feet, now supported by the mobster. He was drawing her closer, actually trying to kiss her now. She felt the brush of his wiry beard on her face, the eye-watering odor of tuna fish breath wafting over her. His wet, rubbery lips smeared saliva over her cheek. She remembered something from a self-defense class she’d once taken.

  Hit ’em where it hurts.

  She shot a fist at his groin, but he anticipated her, seizing her wrist and squeezing.

  “You aren’t gonna do that to me, are ya Red? When we’ve got all night to have our fun?”

  Beyond Frankie, in the direction of the theatre door, she sensed movement, and as she struggled with the mobster, who was squeezing her wrist now hard enough that she was worried he’d snap her bones, she caught a fleeting glimpse of two orange ovals in the darkness.

  Vampire eyes.

  Frankie was giggling now, the idiot in the throes of some sick adolescent fantasy, and as she fo
ught him their bodies bumped together and Jillian felt something in his right hip pocket.

  The snips.

  She craned her head around Frankie’s shoulder, glimpsed two pairs of the vampires’ eyes now. They were approaching fast.

  Desperately, she crammed a hand into his pocket, felt her fingers close on what he’d called his aviation snips. Before he could react, she jerked them out, swung them up to his left ear.

  “What are you—” Frankie started to say, but then the snips closed on the soft cartilage of his ear and Frankie let loose with a long, keening wail. He slapped the snips out of her hand, but not before she felt the hot blood trickle onto her wrist.

  “You … stupid …” he said, letting go her wrist and cupping his cleaved ear. She stumbled backward but before she did, she made sure she rubbed her bloody wrist and hand against his shirt.

  Her eyes had adjusted to the near darkness, and she could see him double over, his head bobbing with the pain. “I am gonna kill you, Red,” Frankie muttered. “But first I’m gonna have all the fun I want.”

  Jillian saw four sets of orange eyes open around Frankie.

  Frankie had rounded on her, not noticing the vampires. “I am gonna tear those expensive clothes off and—hey, now don’t do that!” Frankie’s panicked voice devolved into a horrible high-pitched squeal of terror. She saw Frankie batting at the vampires, who surged easily through his defenses. “Wait a minute!” Frankie screamed. “You were gonna make me one of you guys, right? You were gonna—awwwrreeeee!” Frankie’s scream became a wet garble. The mobster and the vampires became a swirling mass of dark limbs and blazing orange eyes. The sounds of tearing, of wet sloshing began to fill the body pit.

  Without a backward glance Jillian fled toward where she hoped the chute would be.