“Hello, little brother,” came his deep lilting greeting.
“Hello,” Juno replied. “I’m shocked to find you out this far, Alain.”
“Are you?” A slight smile pulled at the edges of Alain’s lips. “Then, do you know why I have come?”
“I assume it has to do with my houseguests. What else would pull you away from your tiresome responsibilities? For the last hundred years you have yet to find your way this far out, at least to visit me.”
Alain revealed nothing in response to Juno’s verbal daggers. Instead, he stared down at his younger brother with scalding eyes.
It’s amazing how he does that, thought Juno, considering he is shorter than me.
“As I’m sure you know, I have come for Madelin and Roger. Turn them over and we will allow you to partake in tonight’s entertainment,” demanded Alain with a grin.
“You know I cannot do that.”
“Juno, why must you be so stubborn? You are shaming the entire family with your pathetic attempts at rebellion. How can you stand against those who have bled with you?”
“It is easy when those same people turn on the traditions of old, disrespecting everything our family has stood for.” Juno’s words grew heated, tinged with hatred that had stewed inside him for years.
“You know nothing of our traditions or what we stand for,” screamed Lord Alain, his cool composure breaking under his brother’s accusations. “If you refuse to abide by the laws that bind us, brother, you are no better than those you protect.” Alain took hold of his anger and focused it into a calm furnace.
“If it is between your tyrannical rule, and those that defy you, I consider myself honored to stand next to your victims,” replied Juno.
“Then, so be it,” shouted Lord Alain. Turning to those at the forest edge, he announced, “Lord Juno has chosen to violate the sacred laws of our family. As such, the consequences due to those of the Selected now extend to him and all who stand with him.”
A smile crept up his lips as he turned back to Juno. “I have waited for many years, but finally the day has come. You’ve been a thorn in my side for far too long, little brother. It will end tonight.” With those hate-laden words, he turned and marched back into the night.
Juno barred the door and confronted the silent room. “I believe it is now official.”
Madelin smiled with reassurance. “Don’t worry, Juno, we’re here for you.”
Juno returned her smile, but it failed to reach his eyes as his act of betrayal sank into the depths of his mind. He had little time to consider the consequences of his choice, though. The howls escalated into hunger-induced ravings and murderous screams for blood. Within seconds, a barrage of thunderous blows rained down upon the door. Cracks formed as the Traditorian Vampires tore at the thick wood.
Juno stepped back and pulled his sword from its scabbard. The room erupted in booming waves of gunfire. The men aimed at the glowing targets as floods of vampires streamed down the garden walkways and over the rock walls lining the plant beds. Chaos reigned as the bloodthirsty creatures attempted to reach the house. Bullets lodged in the bodies of ravenous vampires and a few found their victims’ hearts. But so dense was the assaulting wave that even fewer found their targets.
Daniel slid his pistol through a slat in the window and fired, hitting a glowing jar on one of the garden walls. It exploded, thrusting metal scraps and nails into everything around. A young man and woman, who might have been hundreds of years old, were passing by when the jar detonated. Shrapnel embedded itself in their bodies. Pieces found their way into their hearts and necks. Their faces contorted as their bodies fell writhing to the floor. Others around them screamed in pain, but continued their rampage. Within seconds, the two vampires were crushed beneath the feet of the assaulting army.
Gunshots rang out and explosions sounded from other sides of the house. The battle has begun, thought Juno. After so many years of being shamefully thrust aside, I will finally emerge from the shadows to take a stand. As hands began tearing through the door, the time for thought ended.
Juno swept his father’s sword across probing hands and forearms, severing them from their owners. As the wounded retreated, they were replaced by others. Juno cleared the doorway time and again until the attackers burst through. The front door finally disintegrated, sending splintered shards flying into the room. He assumed the defensive position his father taught him and prepared to meet the assault. Most of the assailants fell inward, impaling themselves on the tip of Juno’s sword.
“Look out, the door gave way!” shouted the rebel as he fought off the seemingly inexhaustible supply of vampires. Bodies piled up on his doorstep, but still more came. Distant relatives, cousins, and even children swarmed over the pile, but Juno fought on. His sword flew over the chasm of bodies to behead a distant cousin, whose fangs glinted in the lamplight.
Blood flowed over the wooden planks that had been his floor. Pools of crimson spread out from the mass of dead and dying, enveloping his feet and everywhere he tread. It ate at his heart to watch his hands at work, but he could not bring himself to stop.
Madelin watched as Juno held the door. He moved like the wind, flowing in and out of reach so fast that she caught nothing more than a blurred glimpse. His sword swept around him, laying waste to people they had seen walking through town the day before. Old friends and family alike fell at his hands. Blood blossomed in small spots that made his black pants glisten. His crimson essence mixed with the blood of his victims, coating his regal clothes, but he slowed for no one.
More explosions erupted outside, and she caught sight of Roger reloading his gun. While preoccupied with the weapon, a hand with talon-like nails reached through the window and dug into his chest. Roger jumped back with a painful start and flung the chamber closed. He leveled the gun on the vampire’s neck and pulled the trigger. The recoil flung his hand back, but the muzzle soon sought out the vampire again. With a final, reflexive pull of the trigger, a large caliber bullet severed the man’s head.
He took aim out the window and fired again, and again, hitting another glowing target. The Cajun ended the lives of more ageless entities as the explosion rocked the house’s foundation. Still, the flow of attackers grew. They swarmed the back door. While Roger struggled to hold it shut, Madelin ran to join him. Sword at the ready, she positioned herself behind the door, as Juno had taught her.
The front door had been made of sterner wood and the kitchen entrance was shredded in seconds. When the bull strength of the assailants brought down the door, Madelin struck at the nearest exposed chest. Those in back pressed forward in ravenous hunger and the vampires up front were forced into the room. Madelin’s rapier skewered them with swift justice, but others took their place. Madelin fought for life itself, but the vampires, young and old alike, were too much for her limited training.
One deft Traditorian youth swept under her plunging blade and angled for her. She leapt back in time and thrust the rapier into the snarling child. The attacker’s momentum plunged the sword through his body, stopping when its hilt thudded against the child’s sternum. There was no time for emotion, but something inside her broke.
Roger turned his smoking muzzle on the doorway and unloaded on the oncoming rush of people. “Back off! Get a jar!” he roared over the gunfire.
Madelin came to her senses and leapt back, kicking the youth off her weapon. She pulled a jar from the leather bag at her feet and rolled it toward the nonexistent back door. It found its way through the doorway before someone chanced on it. The explosion cleared the entry and sent shrapnel flying into the opposite wall of the kitchen. Bodies fell in murky red tides that were soon hidden by others racing up the back steps.
Madelin readied another explosive and hurled it at the approaching mob. Ducking out of sight, she narrowly avoided the jagged pieces of metal flying through the air. More vampires swarmed across the yard.
“Jedd, how’s it going?” she shouted as she readied a third jar. Gu
nfire answered from the study.
“They’re everywhere,” Juno replied over his family’s blood curdling screams.
“Fall back, everyone,” Daniel cried as his hand cannon gave a hollow click. He pulled the trigger once more, but got the same effect. Stuffing the smoking gun in his pocket, he grabbed a glowing iron rod from the fireplace and backed up to Juno. He plunged the steaming iron into the first person to step through the shattered window frame. The woman screamed in horror as the blazing poker cauterized her chest. She clawed at the protruding iron, but fell to the floor after Daniel pulled it free.
“To the study,” cried Jedd. “We can’t keep this up. We’ll have to move.”
Daniel and Juno sidestepped the bodies littering the doorway and inched into the room where Jedd was flinging their makeshift mines out the window. The garden was peppered with bodies and metal shrapnel.
Their retreat into the depths of the house inspired their attackers. Gleeful smiles lit the attackers’ faces and razor-sharp canines glinted in the moonlight. One hungry adolescent dove through the dining room window and barely missed a glowing jar as it flew past his head and into the yard. Jedd raised his pistol, but the vampire slapped it away and leapt onto him, fangs bared. The man’s frilled cuff covered Jedd’s ear as a fierce hand jerked his head to the side, revealing the programmer’s pale neck. The attack happened in an instant.
Oh God! thought Jedd.
Without further thought, he plunged his deadened arm into the vampire’s open mouth, cupping his lower jaw. Elongated fangs dug against his blackened fingers, but could not break the skin. Jedd sunk his thumb up into the man’s chin and lifted him from the ground. Blood coursed down Jedd’s arm. The man tore at the programmer’s face and anything in reach, but Madelin’s godfather failed to notice. His anger now had a target. His teeth ground together as any fear he possessed fled. Jedd slammed the flailing man into wall after wall, eventually finding the widow and ejecting him from the house.
“Jedd, you okay?” asked Daniel as they fell back to the study. Blood streamed down Jedd’s cheek and his sleeve was shredded where the man’s fingers had found purchase. “That sucker’s fingers went deep,”
“Fine,” Jedd answered with a grunt and flicked his blood-coated hand. A spray of crimson coated the wall as though suddenly infected with chicken-pox. Spotting another group of fanged men sprinting toward the window, he grabbed a jar from the table and flung it into their faces before ducking behind the speckled wall. The deafening explosion echoed through the room.
With a nod, Daniel turned back to Juno and shouted over the torturous explosions, “Hell, Juno. You sure you don’t have more than two-hundred relatives out there?”
“The family’s grown a bit over the last four-hundred years,” Juno replied with a sadistic smile.
Madelin and Roger grabbed the remaining bag of shrapnel grenades and ammunition. Before leaping into Juno’s converted study, they flung two jars out the rear entryway and kitchen windows. They ducked as metallic slivers penetrated the kitchen ceiling. The shards stood vibrating in the walls, reflecting the moons’ rays into the smoke filled room.
“Stock up! We’re moving,” shouted Roger as he leveled the hand cannon at the few vampires struggling through the explosions.
Madelin grabbed an armful of jars from the table and deposited them into the bag. The remaining assailants swept through the kitchen doorway and the .44 sprung back to life, echoing in the confined space like the voice of a god. Bullets flew from its muzzle at the two approaching giants and embedded themselves in one man’s chest. The vampire howled in pain and stumbled backwards into the wall. His friend swept past with the nimble agility of a cat, while the first recovered. Roger’s gun spat round after round as the few feet separating them diminished. The bullets found their hearts and the two fell to the ground with a resounding thud.
After finishing them off with a thrust of his sword, Roger glanced into the kitchen in time to see a slender woman leap over the shattered windowsill. She was dressed in a high-collared jacket and her coat tail rippled in the wind before settling around her.
“My goodness,” came her enchanting voice. It was laced with the natural accent of the older Traditorian family. “You look simply delicious.”
She stood tall, her gaze dark and haunting like Juno’s, but as she stared him down, she licked her lips. At any other time, the gambler might have relished the sensual thoughts it brought to mind. Her gaze was immobilizing and she swept toward him with a seductive stride. He stood in stunned silence, the muzzle of his magnum falling to his side. The air throughout the kitchen had stilled in her presence, but whipped up around him as she darted forward, intent on the kill.The gambler was startled by the move, but more at the words that erupted from behind.
“Wake up, Roger!” shouted Madelin just as the dark woman advanced. Flitting in from behind, Madelin interposed herself between the two and thrust her sword at the greedy woman. Roger came to his senses and scanned the room, searching for the glorious vision that had enthralled him, but Madelin was in his way.
The Traditorian woman spun past Madelin’s blade and knocked it aside. She then paused to assess her new opponent. The woman ran a bloody tongue over her lips in anticipation of the night’s entertainment, then shot Madelin a maddening smile. She grasped the hilt of her own sword and pulled it free. The curved tip gleamed as she drifted in and out of the luminescent light filling the room. She shifted from foot to foot, like a viper waiting to strike.
“Poor, Juno, to have sided with such pitiful excuses for humans,” whispered the slender woman.
Madelin leapt forward and thrust her sword in rapid succession, but the elegant woman sidestepped the attack. Then, lifting her own blade, she began her assault. She struck with a hiss, her sword shimmering as it flew through the air. Madelin parried as Juno had taught her, but the swift attack caught her off guard. She controlled her breathing and drifted into the calm focus she had been trained for. Her blade flew up to meet the woman’s in large sweeping strokes.
Sweat flew down her back and under her lengthy overcoat as she struggled to keep her footing. It was all she could do to keep the vampire’s darting strikes from reaching her. The woman’s blows began landing closer and Madelin’s heart skipped a beat. When she came within arms reach, the demonic woman grabbed her arm and pulled her close. She launched herself at Madelin’s neck with bared teeth, but stopped inches away as Jedd’s goddaughter sunk her sword through the venomous woman’s blouse. A tremor ran up her arm as the rapier’s hilt slammed into the woman’s breastbone.
Madelin watched her face contort in mortal pain before disintegrating under the smoking muzzle of Roger’s gun. Remembering what his father used to say when he angered him, the gambler shouted, “And one to grow on!”
Madelin sloughed the woman off her rapier with disgust and watched her slump to the floor.
Roger knelt next to the deformed woman’s body as the wave of attacks slowed. He removed the Grosse Messer from the woman’s deathlike grip and unbuckled her belt. Wiping the blade on her thick jacket, he offered the hilt to Madelin. It was lighter than she expected, having attributed the woman’s speed and agility to her genetic evolution.
“Who the hell was that?” she asked, having picked up a few of Daniel’s choice words. She fought to catch her breath in the brief reprieve.
“Who?” shouted Juno as he cleaved a slobbering goat of a man in two. He turned and glanced at the sword in her hand. His eyes widened as his gaze slid down to the obliterated woman at Madelin’s feet. “That, was my sister,” he replied with a sigh.
Juno turned away and readied himself for the next onslaught. Understanding the need for silence, Madelin turned her attention to the oncoming wave speeding through the garden and said no more.
Jedd aimed at one of the remaining jars as more vampires tore through the beds of shredded vegetables and herbs. The jar exploded with his well aimed shot, scattering the pale-faced survivors and dropping th
e few unlucky enough to have been near. Others were closing on his position. Jedd heaved another explosive at the mob outside the window and ducked as it struck a man in the face. More vampires fell in the explosion; their murderous screams turning to blood curdling shrieks of pain. Those that escaped were missing limbs and had metal shards embedded throughout their bodies. Yet, droves of them continued to stream through the ruined garden.
“So, what do we do now, Jedd? It ain’t like they’re stopping,” asked Daniel over the roar.
He glanced at the vacant tree line he noticed before and gauged the distance from Leodenin’s approaching aura. “It’ll have to be quick, but we can squeeze out through the forest edge,” he replied, nodding beyond the garden.
“Is that the only way?” asked the veteran.
“The only one I see.”
Juno looked where Jedd indicated. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
“Grab your bags,” said Jedd, hefting his over his shoulder. “Ready?”
They each prepared themselves while eliminating the stragglers that wondered their way. “Yes,” Madelin replied after strapping the sword around her waist.
Jedd tossed a jar through the window and waited for the explosion to clear a path before leaping through. He rolled to his feet, pistol at the ready. Roger grasped the windowsill and leapt out, followed by Madelin. Juno and Daniel covered the entryways that were filling with vampires.
“Will you be okay?” asked the ex-mercenary.
Juno nodded.
Daniel leapt through the window with the others and formed a circle at the entrance to the garden.
In the brief suspension of battle, Juno lifted a wilting rose from a vase upon the mantle. He brought it to his lips before tossing it onto his sister’s mangled body.
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