Nerves of Steel

by Lee Hayton

  “We do with the right weapons,” Miss Tiddles said. She gestured for me to follow her down behind a line of shelves. “I know my way into quite a few tight spots in this city, and I think these should help out our cause.”

  The arsenal that Miss Tiddles had unearthed was mainly crossbows, some manual, most automatic. Point and shoot, with the only requirement being that you had some degree of aim. That suited me. Pete could chance it with the manual ones—they would fit with his broad chest better.

  “That’s a lot of stake power,” I observed. “But there’s only three of us.” I looked from Miss Tiddles to Pete and back again. “Even if Gwen throws her lot in with us, that’s four against a hundred times that much.”

  “There’re enough weapons for forty men here,” Miss Tiddles said. “Mike wouldn’t have told you, but there’s also a stock of weaponry hidden in a sliding wall in his office. The firepower won’t kill the suckers, but it will pin them down.”

  “The number of weapons doesn’t matter if we haven’t got anybody to wield them.”

  Pete frowned and looked over at the cat. “I thought you said we’d have the whole pub on board.”

  “We will,” Miss Tiddles agreed, “just as soon as Asha works her magic. She’s just dragging her heels now because she’s not thinking straight.”

  I held my hands up, puzzled. “What am I meant to do? Cajole them with my baby voice?”

  “No.” Miss Tiddles reached over and picked up an automatic stake powered weapon, thrusting it at my chest. “You’re meant to go up there and twist their brains until they think the attack is the best thing since sliced bread.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what your boss told you—"

  “He told me you mess with people’s brains until they do what you tell them.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Nothing ever is,” she said, licking her lips. “I’ll tell you what, though. Gwen told me she’s only ever seen Mike scared once, and that’s after he was talking to you.”

  She pointed upstairs.

  “There’re at least fifty men upstairs, and some of them are sober enough to still be standing. Get up there and do your magic. As you so rightly observed, we need more people on board.”

  There were so many things wrong with her assessment. So many items that Miss Tiddles would never know because I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her.

  “If I do a cold mind bend on those people,” I said. “Half of them will go screaming into crazy town. It takes time and finesse to get it right.”

  “They’re drunk,” Miss Tiddles said, placing her hand on her hip. “You could use a bludgeon on their heads and half of them wouldn’t notice.” She dropped her voice. “I know what you can do. I know what you’re capable of. I also know that you’ve never made a mistake.”

  “That’s because I didn’t try to bend the minds of a roomful of people, all at once.”

  Miss Tiddles took a step back, folding her arms and raising her eyebrows at Pete as though to say, Can you believe this shit?

  “You don’t need to do all of them,” she said, speaking slowly like I was the idiot. “Get a couple on board, some of the shorter and older ones, and the rest will trip over themselves to join up to prove they’re more macho.” Miss Tiddles arched an eyebrow at me. “Do you really know this little about human psychology?”

  The quest was dangerous, the risks were great. For some reason, when it was just me thinking of going along to the planned attack, I hadn’t felt afraid. Now that the weight of all those minds above me was in my hands, and they were so heavy I feared I would drop them.

  “Just do one, to prove to yourself you still can,” she said. “Surely, it’s not as difficult to get a drunk man riled up to go into battle as it is to get a couple filled with hate to fall back into love.”

  She jerked her head up at the ceiling. “Half of that lot up there are spoiling for a fight already. You know damn well, there’ll be a dozen fights before closing. Use that. Push them a little and let’s get this shit locked down.”

  A dozen more protests shrieked inside my brain, but I didn’t bother to say them out loud. No one would take notice. They all led back to the same thing—I didn’t want to use my magic in this way again.

  Once upon a time, a little girl had a small talent for magic that her granddad built into an asset. The government had used it like that for a while, then turned her into a drug, then into a weapon.

  The things that she’d done could never be taken back, but when she woke up to the harm she’d caused, she refused to do them ever again. To turn those men upstairs, that was to send innocents into battle. That was against their will. I know all about doing things against my will, it’s not something I can stomach doing to anyone else.

  “They want to fight,” Miss Tiddles repeated as though she could pluck the words straight out of my mind, “give them a reason to and point them in the right direction. It’s not changing their minds, just giving them enough impetus and information to make them up.”

  I clutched the automatic weapon to my chest—liking the cold steel of its frame, the way it warmed to my touch.

  “If they don’t want to, I won’t force them,” I said, giving in. Miss Tiddles nodded, gracious in victory. On the stairs, she paused at the side to let me pass her and walk ahead.

  “Listen to me,” I said, jumping up onto a table and raising the weapon above my head. “There’s some shit going down on the other side of town, and we need your help to stop it.”

  The roar I heard inside my head transformed into a tiny squeak as it exited my mouth. With panic rushing through my bloodstream, my vocal cords had tightened so no matter how hard I tried to force my voice out in a scream, it ignored me.

  The tables of patrons barely noticed me. Just another blonde bimbo dancing on the tabletops. I leaned down and picked up the man closest to me, pulling him up to join me on the table. While more people turned to look, I plucked the bottle from his hand and smashed it against my leg, turning it into a weapon.

  As I held the shards to the man’s throat, more people turned, eyebrows raised at the show.

  “Listen up!” I repeated, kicking the man’s legs out from under him, driving him to his knees. The beer bottle drew some blood as I pressed it closer. Not enough to hurt, just enough to punctuate my threat.

  Heads turned, eyebrows raised, and the din in the room dulled to a murmur as they waited to hear what I’d say next.

  “There’s going to be a mass attack by vampires. They’re planning on hitting the joint prom in the conference center and turning the children there into creatures of the night by force. We need to stop them, kill them if necessary.”

  With the crowd attentive, I reached out for some of the loosest minds, the ones that would be easiest to tip. For a second, I got caught up in the rush of my own adrenaline and almost pushed too far. I backed off, waiting. While my mind reset, I called out the bar patrons again.

  “Those of you who know children attending the event, you should call and tell them to stay away. Those of you with friends at home who can join us in the fight, call them and have them meet us there.”

  I paused again, then nudged the easiest targets into agreement, rewarding them with a rush of ecstasy when they committed to the cause. Others, I pushed into a heightened state of fear. They’d get their children to stay home, or die trying.

  As more of the group cried out in assent, the mood of the room shifted.

  Quick! Take advantage!

  “These vampires have escaped captivity and the only thing on their minds tonight is seeking revenge.” Skirting the truth made for better theater, when I punched my weapon high into the air, the crowd roared.

  “Grab your weapons from beside the bar, and follow me. If we hurry, we can be across town in ten minutes.”

  Pete stepped forward, obviously tutored by the cat. “I’m with you,” he shouted. “Where do I get my crossbow to kill the disgusting creatures?”

&n
bsp; I pointed to the pile that he’d just helped bring up and he roared and grabbed a weapon from the collection, handing it to the man standing beside him. Within minutes, the stockpile was handed out. Those who didn’t get a weapon I riled up into a higher state of excitement. They cracked apart the chairs and tables, ready to use them as stakes in the fight.

  The power of controlling the crowd was heady, delicious. I felt like a god rising above her people. Delirious with the rush.

  “Follow me,” I cried. I pushed away my victim like the stage prop he was. After jumping down from the table, I ran toward the door.

  The crowd parted to let me through and then formed into a stream behind me. I burst through the doors, and our feet pounded along the roads. I glimpsed pale, frightened faces staring out at us from driverless cars. I roared again and waved my weapon as a flag, my drunken and motley crew eagerly following along behind.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Death had come for me once. It had swished through the air, hunting me down like it was a hawk and I was a fat mouse who couldn’t sprint. It had twisted a motorbike’s handlebars out of my grip and sent the wheels skidding on a thin layer of greasy condensation, sliding at an impossible angle until I fell.

  The helmet covering my head had smacked on the side of the road. The buckle under my chin had snapped, and it flew off. I’d been so proud of that buy—only five dollars in a lawn sale. If I’d spent ten, this tale might have worked out quite differently.

  Death had lifted my head into the air and smashed it into the side of the I-90 highway—the bit they call Highmoon Mountain Road. Pieces of my skull had shattered and turned into projectiles that burrowed deep into my brain. The rough tarseal had burned through the layers of leather, denim, and a fine cotton-polyester blend until they reached skin, flesh, and bones. The road had chewed the meat off my body and spat it back out in chunks that lay, cooking in the morning sun, until an ambulance crew picked them up and threw them into a plastic bag.

  I had lain on that road, staring up at the sky, determined not to close my eyes because death hovered, laughing. If I had closed my eyes, death would whip out the last blade and insert it deep into my chest, stilling my heart, starving what was left of my brain.

  On a highway, just before the desert, I had used my limited skillset to pump endorphins and adrenaline into my bloodstream. Anything, everything, to keep me awake.

  I had thought I was a rock star. I had thought I was a god. Death peeled the skin from my bones and shattered my skull into fragments that a surgeon spent eight hours picking out of my brain.

  Throughout the operation, I had stayed conscious, pushing back the drugs the anesthetist administered so I could keep my eyes open, focused on the ceiling above me. No one was going to send me to sleep, not against my will. Not even when the surgeon snipped through my sternum and my ribcage flew apart, spraying blood into the air.

  I had stayed awake for every stitch, every incision, every pulse of blood. Only hours afterward, when a surgeon had told me it was either sleep or die, did I close my eyes.

  Even then, death had continued to laugh in my ear.

  He was a pernicious bugger, but I’d beaten him once. Even in the long nights when I’d wished that I’d given in and said goodbye on that dirty road, I still experienced a rush of satisfaction that I’d triumphed in the fight. When they stripped everything else away from me— my clothes, my dignity, my mobility, my resistance—I retained that notch on my scorecard.

  Death zero. Asha one.

  In the first moments after we entered the conference room center in midtown, death flew toward me, laughing in my ear.

  I didn’t waste time on fear. This was a beast I’d vanquished once, I could do so again.

  The room was full of vampires. Each one glowing with the strange, pale light they possess. One-on-one, it’s almost invisible, but if you’ve ever seen a chain gang, you’d know. They reflect their pale skin off each other until white-silver light hangs in the air. Like moonlight but deadly. Until the silver chains wrapped around their wrists and secured their ankles, these beasts of the night were fearsome creatures. In that ballroom, they became so again.

  The lights had been shorted out—by plan or by luck. Pink eyes darted in the blackness of the room, accompanied by the silver glow of their dead flesh.

  Yeah, death was laughing at me. It grew hysterical as I aimed my weapon, pulled the trigger, and nothing happened.

  I backed up a step, shucking the bolt on the top of the barrel. Although housing a sharp stake instead of a bullet, the rudimentary design was like a shotgun. I cleared the chamber, refilled it from the spare artillery in my front pocket, snapped the housing shut, clicked around the bolt until it chunked into place, and tried again.

  The weapon was useless. Whatever piece of the design should have fired the stake, wasn’t working. As a pink-eyed bat attacked from my right flank, I swung the useless instrument in a roundhouse punch, connecting with the side of the vampire’s head. It howled and fell down, shaking its head for a moment before rising to its feet again.

  “Asha!”

  I turned toward Miss Tiddles, hearing her voice above the roars of confusion and bloodlust. She used her own weapon the same way I’d used mine, as a steel arm to hit with rather than a means to fire a stake into a heart.

  Death screamed in laughter, clutching its sides in case they split apart with joy.

  The weapons were useless.

  I backed up, retreating into the hallway. I only lasted there a second before the crush of oncoming bodies pushed me back into the ballroom.

  Nobody was firing. Most were losing precious seconds to wondering what was wrong. In those ticks of time, vampires lunged and staked their own claim.

  I held my arm out, clenching the muscles until it formed a steel battering ram. In great, sweeping circles, I cleared a path forward, felling three vampires with one blow.

  Our men were helplessly outnumbered. Charging into a confrontation with beasts they didn’t understand, armed only with useless toys. The rearguard fared better, wielding their broken chair legs. At least they held a weapon that worked and that anybody could understand.

  The vampire to my right caught the edge of a stake in his neck. I swung my arm, detecting the end of the wood and plunging it deeper, into his heart. A scream, this time not from our side, and he turned into ashes. I picked up the stake, wiped it clean against my leg, and handed it back to its owner.

  The freshly turned victims formed their own line of attack. Changing before my eyes, they writhed in the pain of transition, hungering for blood. With no human thoughts left in their heads, they turned on the men who had run here by their side. Fingernails turned into claws that dragged their victims closer. Eyeteeth lengthened impossibly into fangs.

  From victim to attacker—the change repeated itself until most were consumed. Others escaped, pushing against the flow of crushing bodies to run free.

  I jumped, catching hold of the edge of a curtain rail and pulling myself upward. Standing on top of the window ledge, I launched myself across the room, catching a beam in my belly and clambering to sit astride it, looking down into the carnage below.

  These weren’t just the men who’d followed me. Dozens flowed through the open ballroom doors every second. Whenever it seemed that the flood would slow another glut of bodies would press through.

  A man ran into the room, a loudspeaker in his hands, calling for men to follow him. A new rush of fresh meat poured inside.

  “Asha!”

  The desperate tone of Miss Tiddles’ voice confused me for a second. A moment later, I homed in on the sound, finding her amongst the writhing, twisting crowd.

  She had one hand up, reaching for the empty air above her. A last-ditch effort to escape from the cascade of madness and blood-lust in the room.

  I jumped to the next beam, staggering as my balance deserted me. I tottered, pinwheeling my arms to keep my footing. As I regained my equilibrium, I dropped down to a crouch, stre
tching my hand down, reaching for the cat.

  Our fingertips touched.

  Then Norman moved across the room in front of me, mouth open, fangs gleaming a welcome to the throat of his selected victim. I jerked. In that instant, I saw him for what he truly was—a monster.

  If not for that split-second movement, I might have snagged Miss Tiddles’ outstretched hand. Instead, there was just one more fluttering touch before she disappeared, her body sucked down into the river of people—a tide pulling her down and under the crush of heavy boots.

  With my heart in tatters, and my mind reeling in shock, I screamed out, “No!”

  I jumped down, landing on the necks of men turned newly vampiric, their fresh pink eyes glowing violet in the flashes of light from the open door. I let my body be sucked down just as Miss Tiddles’ had before me. When the mass of bodies pressed me to the floor, I strengthened my back, turning my body into a suit of armor, a shield for a helpless cat.

  That was what she’d turned back into when I found her. Blood spilled from the corner of her mouth, staining the white bib that my fingers had once stroked while her head turned upward, her eyes closed as though in ecstasy.

  I couldn’t remember what I screamed as I picked up Miss Tiddles’ body. Her head rolled back, the neck limp and sagging. The eyes looked through me, a thin film already beginning the job of turning them opaque.

  The loss cut through me like a blade, stabbing and grinding into my organs, shredding holes in my lungs. I opened my mouth to let out another cry, but there was no air to propel the wail into existence. A man battered the side of my head, a vampire plunged his teeth into my arm, and I swung and bashed him against the wall to free myself.

  I staggered back, tucking Miss Tiddles inside my jacket and cradling my arms in a protective shield against any attack. Fingers clawed at me, a blow caught me on the side of the neck, forcing my head down.

  Light shone from an open doorway. It was within my reach if I could only keep moving forward. With my thoughts alternating between seeking help for the cat and knowing she was well beyond it, I slowly pressed my way through the crushing bedlam that stood in my way.