by Declan Finn
When Marco’s life was on the line and they had been separated by a wall of fire in a burning house, she had effortlessly turned into mist. She’d circled around the fire, picked up Marco, and they both got away. Amanda moved more quickly than ever before and had kept her clothes through the transition as well. These were tricks that she had only seen powerful vampires pull off.
Perhaps her love for Marco added to her power. There were plenty of paths to God…and if romantic love weren’t one of them, then what was marriage a sacrament for, anyway?
When they were done with their mind-meld, Marco blinked. His little Scaramouche smile widened just a hint. “Perhaps we should test the theory.”
Amanda smiled seductively. “Sure it’s safe?”
Marco’s eyes became hooded, almost lazy. “Of course. How crazy do you think I am?”
“Marco… has that yet to stop me?”
“Um…”
She kissed him again.
Marco held onto her, kissing her for all he was worth plus a little interest. He broke the lip lock only a moment, kissing her cheek, her jaw…
“Why didn’t we do this earlier?” he murmured between kissing her ear and her neck.
“I was scared…” she murmured between kisses of her own.
“I want you so much, I don’t want to let you go.”
She whispered in his ear. “You have to, eventually. If only to take our clothes off.” She bit his earlobe lightly, maybe even using her fangs.
A third party stated, “I’d tell you to get a room, but you won’t live that long.”
Amanda and Marco whirled as one, turning to see a vampire the size of a professional wrestler, with a face that resembled a victim of smallpox. The deformation was a clear sign that this vampire was more than one of the usual rank and vile—more like a high ranking member of the army of darkness.
And me without a chainsaw, Marco thought.
“He is not bad,” Amanda commented. “I did not even smell this one coming.”
Marco grinned. “You were busy.”
Marco flicked his wrist, and his hand shot out, throwing a wooden knife at the newcomer’s chest. The vampire didn’t even move, merely swept his hand to one side, knocking the stake into the air. Marco didn’t even bother trying again. Even Amanda sidestepped away.
“Even your whore knows better,” the vampire growled.
Marco’s eyes became as cold as arctic seas and as menacing as a mushroom cloud. This was what he had previously hidden from her, from everyone—a part of his very self, the part that could kill mercilessly if anyone hurt his people.
The vampire leaped, punching out at Marco. He used all of his advanced strength, and Marco pushed the blow aside with a left palm strike. Marco then caught and held the vampire’s fist with his other hand. Three seconds later, the hand started to smoke and smolder, causing the newly arrived vampire to jerk away in agony.
The vampire growled and leaped at Marco again. Marco did the unexpected, and jumped at him, wrapping his arms and legs around him, gripping him like a starfish onto a rock. The vampire became suddenly weak as pain burned all over his body. Unable to support his body weight and Marco’s, he sunk to the ground. He no longer felt physical pain, because all his nerve endings had been burned away.
The human dismounted him and stood, reaching behind his back. With a little rip of Velcro, he pulled down a wooden sword—the crossbeam had been at the small of his back, under the shoulder blades.
“Wooden swords… loser,” the vampire coughed.
Marco smiled and flipped the sword upside down. He grabbed the blade by the hilt.
The vampire suddenly realized it was a wooden crucifix with sharpened edges. And that wasn’t all Marco had done to him. The human had rosaries around his wrists, neck, ankles, and waist.
The massive vampire thought, It was a trap, right before Amanda ripped his head off.
Marco slid the crucifix away. “I think he got the point.”
Amanda nodded. “I hated sitting back while you killed him by yourself.”
“I just wanted to test the rosary plan, see if it would work. He didn’t notice a thing until it was too late.”
She smiled. “I need to walk off the adrenaline a little.”
Marco blinked. “Oh. Um. Okay. How about we try patrolling a little? Eh?”
“Worried about being alone with me?” she teased. She leaned forward to whisper into his ear. “I only bite when you ask me to.”
He smiled again. “I’m not worried about you; I’m worried about me.” He touched her face with two fingers and pushed a strand of hair over her ear. “That was always the problem.” He shrugged. “Come on, let’s kill something.”
Chapter 11
Bankrupt
Officer Donald “Duck” Tolbert, of the New York City Police Department, stood in his pristine uniform in front of yet another dump.
He was a tall, light-skinned officer of Jamaican heritage, two generations back, who not only worked in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, but lived there. This proved a problem at times because he started to get a knock on the door from his fellow parishioners every time they wanted police action. They often decided coming directly to him was quicker and easier than calling 911. Yet another reason to take the night shift.
Tolbert decided that if anything went bump in the night, he would bump back.
Most vampires generally stayed low key. It was a tossup between what would be worse—to have dozens of centuries-old vampires coming down on them, or if the standard human population decided that they were going to hunt them all down and kill them. In the daylight, with crucifixes, torches, and pitchforks. Of course.
Tolbert looked around the dimly lit street without fear—there was no one else around. It was an area of Brooklyn where the property values could have improved drastically if they just invested in upkeep. It was just off of Manhattan Avenue, but it looked nothing like Manhattan. Interlinked residences lined the darkened streets, and the local idea of a doorway must have come from designers who forgot to plan for a door. Rather than a real stoop, the builders just pounded a slab of steel into the wall. The flexi-mesh and steel bars gave the area an unearned industrial feel with a side order of heightened paranoia. He quickly found the anonymous toughened barrier he wanted.
Tolbert knocked, then kicked the door with a loud metallic gong.
To his surprise, it popped open.
Wow. I didn’t expect Marco’s trick to actually work.
Tolbert cautiously entered and wasn’t surprised at the interior. The place looked unfinished, with raw wood floors and exposed brick face. However, it was devoid of human detritus—no one had added to the mess by leaving their belongings lying around.
Around here, you don’t know what critter is going to drag away your possessions if they’re not nailed down.
The furniture was obviously secondhand, but serviceable. The only complaint the officer had was the sporadic lighting. Occasional lights plus a few blinking strings from last Christmas did not cut well into the nest of confusing hallways. Tolbert liked to see what might be coming for him. In this case, he suspected rats the size of dogs.
Tolbert moved in while ignoring filthy surroundings. He’d had to clean worse crap off his uniform than what was lying around here.
A short and sturdy bald fellow walked into the living room. A green Chinese water dragon tattoo adorned his scalp. He’d expanded it with an incongruous breath of flame from the dragon’s mouth.
Tolbert was so, so close to explaining why that was inaccurate, but decided not to waste his time. The leader of “the Dragons” street gang probably thought it looked cool. It even matched the logo on the back of his leather jacket.
Zeng Nyugen raised his hand in a brief wave. “How you doing, Don?”
Tolbert nodded at him. “I’m good, Zeng.” He looked over Zeng’s shoulder, looking for the current leader of “Los Tigres.” “Where’s your lesser half?”
Zeng shook his head. “Slee
ping. He hasn’t been right since he lost Vega back in September.”
Tolbert frowned and looked at the shorter gang leader. When the hospital that Robert Catalano ran had been blown up by the demonic suicide bomber, he didn’t recall Hector Vega being among the deceased. “Really? Was Hector lost in the hospital bombing? I hadn’t heard.”
Zeng shook his head. “We lost Vega in an attack in the sewers before the hospital thing happened. He was on spears and got too close to the Molotov cocktails when the vampires were lit up. He got cooked.”
“Like I said, you lost Hector.”
Zeng sighed. “No. We lost Vega, Hector’s cousin. Hector is still running the gang. Such as it is.”
Tolbert arched his brows. “Wait, you guys called him Vega, even though they have the same last name? Wouldn’t that get confusing?”
“Nah. Everyone calls Hector … Hector, and his cousin was always Vega. Ever since he played Street Fighter.” Zeng shrugged. “Though I guess it was a good thing for Hector that he lost his cousin.”
Tolbert frowned. “Why?”
“Right before the attack, Hector was hitting on Amanda. Since his loss, no one has brought it up again.”
The cop cringed. He had seen what was left of some of the human beings who had offended Marco. There was one particular YouTube video that left him cringing, mostly because Marco didn’t kill him. It would have been better for everybody if he had. The PA student had crippled a large, healthy college athlete. And all because of a random stranger that Marco had decided to protect. Tolbert didn’t want to see what would have happened to Hector if Marco chose to come to Amanda’s defense.
“You know that Marco is actually back in town, don’t you?” Tolbert asked.
Zeng cringed and took a step back. “Does he know I helped you guys in the whole hospital attack last month?”
Tolbert nearly laughed. The next attack on the hospital had taken place with a collection of vampire minions, armed to the teeth with full-on military gear, including rocket-propelled grenades. The NYPD had to call out its own heavy weaponry to finally finish the attackers. Zeng had been vital to the defense by throwing his own Molotovs from the top of the building across the street. “I don’t think I even told him that I was involved. He’s spent the last few weeks since in his own hospital bed, and only got released in the past day or two.”
Zeng gave a weak smile. “Is he still scary, you think?”
“You want to bet against it?” Tolbert took off his hat and put it in the crook of his arm. “But now that he’s back, I figure trouble will be hot on his heels. And from what I’ve heard, we’re going to need to be prepared.”
Chapter 12
Love in the Ruins
Amanda smiled as she walked through the night air, almost skipping along the street outside of Central Park. Marco said he was going to scout ahead and be back in a few minutes. But she didn’t care. She liked knowing that life would get so much more interesting with him. As she unclipped her cell phone from her belt, the damn thing slipped out of her grip and slammed on the pavement.
She sighed at the Nokia. “Stupid Japanese crap.” She muttered to herself as she bent down to pick up the phone from the sidewalk.
As she bent over, she felt a blazing heat streak across her back. The mailbox ahead of her spontaneously exploded and vaporized.
“Blyad!” she swore, feeling the fire on her back. She dropped her legs and allowed herself to fall flat on her back, putting out the small line of flames.
Amanda rolled to her feet, scanning the area. She almost instantly found the source.
A vampire built like Mikhail the Bear.
Unlike the now-totally dead vampire, this was … something else. He looked handsome and suave, almost as if he were a dark angel. He had black hair, matching eyes, and a chin so strong he could use it to break blocks. The man exuded sensuality. Except for one distinct scar marring his face— an old crescent-shaped wound, like a bite mark in his cheek.
He wore black pants, boots and a top that looked like a Tsarist cloak meets GQ magazine. The devil had stumbled into Armani and gotten a makeover— apparently, the Devil had given up Prada. Normally, Amanda’s first thought would have been that she was in trouble—if this thing could cast fireballs that vaporized mailboxes, taking her out wouldn’t be all that much harder.
But it was much worse when he spoke her birth name.
“Hello, Alina,” he said in a deep, melodic voice…and in Russian.
He cocked his head and smiled. No amusement touched his cold black eyes. Amanda had seen eyes like that in the bottom of her Christmas stocking one year when she had been a bad girl. There were still whites to his eyes, but little else offset the darkness.
“So,” he said, in a voice as cold as the ninth circle of Hell, “we meet again. Funny, considering how long it’s been since we last met, I’d think you would have become a little more…intimidating.”
Amanda smiled, trying to look casual as she leaned against a wall with one hand. She grabbed a vile of holy water with her other hand. “Only because you have not seen me in formal wear.”
I hope his reflexes are not very good…besides, if those fireballs were so easy to make, why didn’t he try again after the first one missed? The question, of course, becomes: how did he make that one? “It is good to see you are still alive, Misha. I wanted to kill you myself.”
He smiled broadly. “You remember me!”
“You are hard to forget. However, last time we met, you did not look anywhere near this handsome, mudak.”
Misha smiled at the insult. “You may call me god.”
Amanda didn’t remember the delusions of grandeur. Wow, and some call Marco a narcissist.
He grinned, and slowly spread his hands wide, obviously ready for another attack. Amanda’s cell phone buzzed again and he flinched. A very large hole appeared where the cell phone used to be.
The instant he flinched, Amanda grabbed her phial of holy water and flung it at his head. The “god” didn’t even blink as he looked at the sidewalk, and a pebble went up and intercepted the tube in midair, and crushed it.
“Oh, crap.” Amanda flung herself to the side as Misha sent the next pebble at her. The impact against the wall where her head had been turned a portion of the brick to powder
Amanda rolled to her knee in a crouch, twisted, flung a stake at Misha, and then pushed off her feet into a run.
The stake flew past her ear, as she expected, and she also expected to hear the rush of a fireball coming for her. Instead, bricks from the buildings on either side of her exploded out from their moorings and came at her. The crossfire of bricks looked like Indiana Jones trying to escape from the poison darts at the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Well, it could be worse.
As she charged for Central Park, several trees exploded into thousands of tiny razor-sharp toothpicks and headed straight at her. Nuts.
She instinctively jumped, knowing that there was no way in hell she could dodge any of those needles. She closed her eyes, hoping that she would at least make for a very pretty pincushion….
Then she landed on the ground.
On her feet.
She blinked. I do not think I could have done that a day or two ago…Wow, as Marco would say, now I can leap over tall buildings in a single bound. And now, for faster than a speeding bullet…
She tested that theory as the street exploded behind her in a rain of dust and concrete. May the road rise up to meet you… What do Irish think with that blessing?
Pieces of curb rose up to meet her. She dropped and rolled as they crashed into one another, turning into concrete dust.
She needed time. A machine gun might have helped too.
I have to change tactics; this is going nowhere. He can make trees explode, but can’t make me explode… could it be because I’m wearing a cross? Or could he do anything else to me directly? Or does he need to throw things at me, like fireballs? And do I want to get close enough to find
out?
Maybe I can force the issue.
Amanda’s eyes fell on a nearby building in the park, and she banked left, narrowly missing a telephone pole that had been harpooned at her. She leaped up—narrowly avoiding a manhole cover that would have cut her legs off— and flipped over the rail iron fence. She promptly ripped off one of the iron rails.
How to force close-quarters combat…move into closer quarters.
She ran for the Central Park Zoo.
And almost into Marco.
Marco spun around and caught Amanda before she fell. “Where’s the fire? I was just about to call you. I think I have two potential bloodsuckers for us to kill. I mean, geez. Don’t these people ever learn? I know Giuliani left town, but it’s not like the rest of us have.”
He looked at the iron rail in her hands. “Something wrong, darling?”
Amanda smiled wryly. “Someone wants to kill me. You?”
The blond smiled an annoying little smile. “Not yet. But the evening is young.”
The ground vibrated where Misha hit the concrete behind them. The huge vampire smiled. “A human, how nice. They are so amusing, aren’t they, Amanda?” he boomed.
Marco narrowed his eyes at him. “Oh really? I try to oblige.”
Misha stepped forward. “Then be good little boy and run. I need to kill this.” He smiled. “I’ll catch up with you later, Marco Catalano.”
Marco nodded, wondering exactly how that this creature knew who and what he was. The voice wasn’t familiar though. He sighed and reached into the back of his belt. He pulled out a flask and unscrewed the top.
Both Misha and Amanda looked at Marco askance.
“You don’t drink,” she said.
Marco’s smile became a smirk. “For this, I’ll make an exception.” He took a sip. He offered to Amanda. “Drink?”
She smiled. “I generally do not drink … wine.”
Marco turned to Misha. “You?”
“Vodka.”
Marco shrugged.