Descent

by Phil Maxey

  In the distance I could hear sirens. Frank looked even more confused and his hand started to lower. But then sanity returned to him. “Maybe you read it in on the interweb. I do not know! Stay and be arrested or leave!”

  I looked at the staircase and wondered if I could make it up the twelve floors before the law officers of the principality got to me. But even if I did, I didn’t have my room pass. I looked at the entrance, leaned back on the counter and folded my arms. “Good. I’ll wait.”

  *****

  I sat on a small bench in the prison station’s cell, going over the events after I left the casino. The police promptly placed me in handcuffs on arriving at the hotel despite my protestations of innocence. And drove me the short distance to the main station. Not having ever bothered to learn French I stated my case in English, no matter how insane it sounded, but was met with derision and laughter. Now, here I was in a cell with five others wondering if I had truly lost my mind.

  I slid my hand over my neck again. There were two puncture wounds, pretty deep ones by how much they stung, but my neck rather than being swollen was just… thicker. The same was true of my arms and thighs. I stood and turned towards the wall, then pulled my pants away from my abdomen.

  “Okay… Everything’s bigger.”

  I froze, being quite sure everyone in the small space was looking at me, and turned around with a big smile.

  French words drifted into the sweat filled air, some I recognized as being not so nice.

  I sat back down heavily making the bench creak. I never followed what was happening in the world of medical science, but some kind of scifi must have been used to change my appearance and body without any scars or pain. It was an attempt to take over my company, I was sure of it. But why not just kill me? What purpose did it serve to change my appearance?

  A few of the prisoners moved to one side as another stood. His tattooed bald head almost touching the ceiling. I averted my eyes from his, but he walked forward and stood a few feet from me anyway.

  “Look buddy—”

  The ogre of a man grabbed my arms and went to lift me then stopped on noticing I wasn’t going anywhere. He looked confused. So did I. He tried again. Same result. He swung his fist back and brought it flashing across my jaw. The strange thing was I knew the impact was coming. Sensed the air pressure change, but I was still so taken by the fact that he couldn’t move me that I just sat there.

  “Aghh! Merde!” he shouted, grabbing his hand and bending over. He went to try again, this time with his size fourteen boot, but I wasn’t about to take that kind of hit, so an inch from my nose I flicked out my hand and caught his foot, then with the slightest of pushes, sent him flying through the air. He crashed up against the far wall and slid down it like a cartoon character.

  The others in the cell looked at me, their eyes wide, while I looked at my hand.

  “American!” shouted a voice from outside the bars. We all jumped a little, waking us from the daze we were all in at what just happened. Some in the cell started whispering to each other and I heard every word, understanding none.

  A portly policeman appeared on the side of freedom, and looked at the heap of a man at the wall, sighed, then looked at me. “You. You are free.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Date: Now.

  Location: Shadow infested NYC alley.

  I threw my hand out towards the woman I had briefly met months earlier. A piece of chow mien flopped from my finger, which I angrily tried to be rid of. “You!.. did… this… to… me! Made me into a vampire! I lost everything!”

  “I’m sorry, but we don’t have time to discuss this right now, we have to leave! They’re coming!”

  “What?” The pasta string had now flicked from my hand to my beard, making it harder to remove. “Why are you here! How did you even find me!”

  “I’ve been watching you.”

  “What!”

  “Please, I have to take you to the professor.” She looked behind her to the other end of the alley, the large man, the one who kept taking swings at me was almost out of sight, when suddenly he stopped, standing completely upright as if he had just remembered he had left the oven on.

  “They’re here!” shouted the woman.

  “What? Who’s here?” I finally managed to claw the pasta out. “We are the only people…” The silhouettes of a new man and woman appeared at the end of the alley. I turned back to empty space where the mysterious stranger was just standing, then realized she was scrambling up a fire escape.

  “Oh, you’re not getting away that easy. You owe me!” I jogged forward and leaped up the ten or so feet landing on the bottom rung of the rusting ladder and climbed to the next level. Heartbeats, lots of them were now filling the alley. I looked across its length. A small crowd was converging on where we were.

  “They are coming for you!” she shouted, now a few floors above me.

  I scanned the faces eclipsed by the shadows, another trick my new eyes enabled me to do. ‘Cat vision’ I called it, which combined with my heightened sense of smell. From the sweat they were putting out I could tell they were definitely angry about something. I shook my head. “It’s just some people cutting through—”

  One of the horde tilted their head up as they moved into the glow of a light above a door. Eyes as black as coal sat above a spiked nose and chin.

  Bit early for Halloween masks…

  “Sebastian!” came from the rooftop above me.

  I looked up, shocked. “You know who I am?”

  “Yes!”

  I glanced down. A woman dressed in a pantsuit straight out of Wall Street smashed her left hand into the base of the wall below me, sending masonry to the ground. She then drove her right in as well and started scampering upwards.

  “That’s something you don’t see every day…”

  “You don’t understand what they are!”

  “You’re right I don’t, but I’m curious to find out,” I said under my breath. CEO lady climbed like a bat and then in one swift jump landed on the metal cage below me. She looked up. Her mouth looking too big for her face, which then opened wide like a snake, revealing rows of shark-like teeth.

  “What the hell are you? Another vampire?” I said to thing below me.

  Is that what I’m going to become...

  She smiled, or maybe it was a snarl, but she sprang upwards, her clawed fingers aimed directly at my lower half.

  A whooshing slid past my face and slammed into the creature’s forehead, felling it instantly. I looked up at the woman standing just above me, with another blade in her hand.

  “That’s on you! She didn’t need to die! They’re just damned!”

  “damned?”

  The woman above groaned, grabbing the back of my black leather jacket and yanked me upward to the next landing with surprising strength. As she did more explosions of brick and mortar echoed out as the other ‘damned’ followed the first. Like spiders, they clambered up the sheer vertical surface towards us.

  Now I was moving with the woman, climbing upwards, taking six rungs of the ladder at a time, until we arrived at the topmost level and stepped out onto the roof. The moon gave everything a blue pastel hue. I looked back down at the dark forms getting closer, then spun around to the cloaked woman. “Why is it bad things happen to me every time you’re around?” I shouted.

  “I know this is confusing for you, but we can’t stay here. The damned will not stop, and soon they will be joined by far worse things. There’s a place, a sanctuary where you will be safe. I can take—”

  I moved forward, becoming just a blur and grabbed her by the neck. My speed shocked her but she immediately twisted my hand, then gave me a hefty punch to my stomach, sending me skidding backwards. I hit up against the outside wall, dislodging a block of concrete which promptly fell, taking out one of the spider people on its way to the ground. “Sorry!” I shouted over the wall, then looked back at the vamp. “You need to pay for what you did to me!” I didn’t
care what half-baked reason she came up with. I just wanted to know how I could return to being my old self. Failing that I’d take cash. Maybe Bitcoin.

  “I saved your life!” She sauntered forward. “How’s it going, trying to get your old life back? The Hell-Lock board members believe you? Or maybe that woman in your old apartment will let you move in with her?”

  “How the fuck do you know about any of—” My eyes widened. “How long have you been following me?”

  A clawed hand appeared above the missing brick and tried to climb higher. I slammed my fist into the thing’s face, which sent it spiraling through the air. Others were not far behind it. “Those suckers really don’t give up do they.”

  “Look, my name’s Alyssa. Stay here and fight the damned or follow me. Your choice.”

  Groans and growls came from just below the lip of the wall.

  I was trying to control my anger, but it was building inside me, threatening to explode into something worse. In three months my life had gone from high school jock good to steal your lunch money bad. And it was her that caused the transition.

  Shit.

  I had nothing to lose. “Lead the way, Alyssa.”

  *****

  After clearing a further four rooftops, we descended through the middle of a final building which was abandoned. The things that seemed so enthusiastic to initially pursue us gave up after the first fifteen foot jump between roofs. She walked on ahead, her cape sweeping left and right, and we descended further past scaffolding and leaking pipes into the bowels of a former school. Victorian by the looks of the arches and tiled walls.

  “I think I went to rave down here about ten years ago,” I said, my words echoing off the damp surfaces. We kept on moving lower though, through tunnels that looked older even than the building above. My former self would have been slamming into the walls in the complete darkness, but my night vision enabled me to navigate the maze of corridors, just about keeping up with the woman ahead. A glow appeared at the end of what I hoped was the final stretch, along with music. A symphony of some kind was filling a room beyond a door, which light seeped from.

  The woman knocked and the music was silenced. She then produced a different arrangement of raps and waited. Bolts were moved and the door opened.

  A slim elderly man with a receding hairline, and a patterned waistcoat looked at us both, and then only me when she stepped back.

  “You got him…” he said with an English accent.

  She nodded. “The damned almost got us. I had to kill one…”

  The man put his hand on her shoulder. “You know they are lost forever when they are taken, it was a mercy.”

  “It’s getting worse.”

  He nodded, and she walked past the man whose eyes were still locked on me. He stepped back. “Please come in. Welcome to my home.”

  I walked into a sea of bookshelves, chairs, a fireplace against a wall, and a table on another. The walls were partitioned by pipes and in the spaces were charts, maps and the occasional painting.

  “I know it’s a bit of a mess.”

  “Beats the oil patch behind McClusky’s,” I said.

  The elderly man closed the secure looking door behind me and offered me his hand. “I’m Fortacan Groves.”

  “He’s the professor,” said the vamp.

  I looked around at statues, small chests, scrolls, bottles, glass and metal. “Right... a professor of?”

  “Ancient manuscripts is one of my specialities.”

  “That’s real great.” I looked at both of them. “So I’m here. Somebody start talking.”

  She looked at the old man.

  “Why she did what she did is not important for now,” said Fortacan.

  Okay, getting angry again. “I don’t know what weird thing you two got going on here, but I need an explanation of why she turned me into a freak, why she’s been watching me… and why are people or whatever the hell those things are, chasing me?”

  “I could explain try and explain, but I think it is best I just show you something…” said the old man. He walked to one of the shelves and pulled out an old leather bound volume which he needed both hands to hold, and placed it on the long table. On its cover was a symbol seemingly burned into it, a spiked circle with a key in the center. The old man carefully turned the cover over which revealed a front page with a coat of arms. Some memories pinged in my mind, which I ignored. “You have an old book, so what?”

  “This book was written by your grandfather…”

  “What?” I looked back at the vamp, then the old man.

  “Your grandfather was part of an ancient order of—”

  I held my hand briefly up. “This is some kind of scam, right? This all part of taking over my company?”

  Fortacan frowned. “No, not at all. But if you would just read the final passage—” He started to turn the pages. I could feel the anger building within me again. An emotion which came easily since Monaco. “What does this have to do with her turning me into a vampire!”

  Alyssa stepped forward. “Look asshole. You’re not a spoiled frat boy anymore. You’re not even human!” She started to poke my forehead. “Get… that… into… your… thick head.”

  I was starting to like her, but frowned anyway. “I believe that’s assault.”

  She rolled her eyes and turned away.

  “I know you must have a thousand questions,” said the professor. “And you are due answers for all of them. But we are running out of time. Our enemies are getting close to your family’s seal, and you may be the only chance we have of stopping them from destroying it!”

  He said the craziness with such sincerity that I burst out laughing. I was beginning to understand. They were both insane. I had been bitten by an insane vampire and her British dad.

  I turned around and started to walk to the door.

  “No, you can’t go. Now they have found you—”

  I turned around. “The damned? I admit. I don’t know what those things were, but this stuff about my grandfather? This is crazier.” I pulled the door open.

  “Let him go,” said Alyssa. “He can’t help us.”

  I walked back into the cool air, and pulled the door to the crazy person’s lair closed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I emerged into the city that never sleeps, making sure I hadn’t been followed. That vamp was pretty stealthy, and apart from that just… pretty. True to its name the sidewalks were still busy despite it already being three hours into the new day, and I needed somewhere to rest. Returning to the alleyway wasn’t an option, there was bound to be cops there by now. I had already had a few run-in’s with the law and now wasn’t the time for another. I also disliked the daylight, and it wasn’t too far from appearing.

  As I walked I kept to the shadows avoiding the occasional neon light. Since I stepped off the Maria Frenz three days earlier I had become good at that. Becoming invisible to humans. My speed helped but mostly if you looked like you lived on the street you would be ignored, and that’s what I needed for each man and woman that passed me by were bags of temptation. Luckily I only needed blood every few days and the last idiot that thought it would be fun to kick a homeless guy soon learned it wasn’t.

  Was my life destroyed by an insane creature of the night and an actual mad professor? It made no sense. My grandfather wasn’t an author, hell he wasn’t even much of anything, preferring to keep his distance from the rest of his family. At least that’s what I was told as a kid.

  I looked at the streetlights around me, then closed my eyes to quieten out most of the cacophony of sound which was invading my senses. A little trick I discovered I could do. After a month or so of only the crashing waves on a transatlantic cargo ship, my hometown was a bit overwhelming, especially as all my senses had been turned up to a twelve after my ‘change.’ Scents of donuts, pizza and refuse drifted past my nose, making it itch. I opened my eyes then continued towards my destination.

  A police car siren wailed in the dis
tance with twinkling lights. I stopped to make sure it was heading away, which it was.

  A row of hundred year plus old buildings stretched out on both sides of the street, one of them though had a strip of green wood panels, standing higher than I did, with ‘Work in progress’ on them. Sometimes the building was occupied, other times not. I hoped this would be one of those other times.

  I ran across the road, my appearance being a blur to any human that happened to be looking, and vaulted over the fencing and onto a concrete floor outside a basement. The door was already ajar, and I made my way inside listening for any heartbeats around or in the floors above. There weren’t any. I was alone. I moved past bags of cement and tools, and up the newly constructed stairs to eventually the second floor, and moved into one of the apartments that by the looks was ready to be used. There was no furniture but that was fine. I sat on the dusty floor with my back against the wall and took a breath. Images of my grandfather, mixed with the demonic faces from the alley, and words from the professor. I pushed everything from my mind. I needed to sleep.

  My eyes grew heavy…

  I awoke abruptly. It was still dark, so I couldn’t have been asleep too long. I went to turn over when a noise rang out from somewhere in the building below. My eyes flicked back open, and just for safe measure I stretched my hearing as far as I could. But there were no heartbeats. My eyes started to close again, when the sound repeated, this time accompanied with a creaking just outside in the hallway.

  I laid still as I could and listened again, but it just confirmed what I already knew, apart from me there was no one alive in the four-story property. I sighed then smiled. “I’m not afraid of no ghosts,” I whispered under my breath.

  The door to the apartment rattled as something tried its handle. I immediately scrambled backwards against the wall causing a small dent, then stood. I could hear cats fighting a block away, I could hear a couple arguing in the apartment across the street, I could even hear the rock band playing in the pub along the way but only silence came from just beyond the front door.