Not catching sight of any vampires comforted me. I blasted into the opening lines, and the crowd greeted my voice with another wave of approval. As we moved through the song, I was shocked at the audience participation. Fans were waving, whistling, and pumping their fists. I’d never before experienced this level of excitement from an audience before. We were a new band. Those cheering us on didn’t know our songs, didn’t know our personalities, didn’t know our level of musicianship or what we might be able to offer them.
Then again, someone had posted our performance from the other night online. Given that circumstance, anyone with an Internet connection had the opportunity to watch our show multiple times. The idea that anyone would seek us out online to see us on stage put a smile on my face, but when I looked into the crowd again and saw some people smiling while others sang along with me, an outpouring of joy whipped through me, sending a jolt of adrenaline into my veins.
The song ended, and we launched into the next song from our set list, this one titled, “Firestorm.” With no vamps in sight, I felt liberated, able to focus on giving my all to the crowd. Perhaps, we’d overestimated how badly Darius wanted to kill us. Soon enough, I was overcome with utter amazement at how great the band sounded.
Kendall, with her long bangs shading her face, shifted from one foot to the other while standing in place, no doubt in anticipation of when she could no longer restrain her vigor and whip the crowd into a frenzy. Her rumbling bass matched Brandon’s pounding drums and cymbals. Nolan tapped a foot to the beat at the front of the stage and leaned back as though he had difficulty remaining upright when delivering such a vicious solo.
When we reached the last song in our set, as undiluted gratification surged through my system, I raced across the stage, throwing my hands into the air, raising the intensity with which the crowd reacted to the band. I’d never felt so happy or so fulfilled. I wanted the moment to last forever.
That’s when I spotted a vampire pushing his way through the crowd on the right side of the room. Bystanders stepped aside without quarrel. Another vampire, this one roving through the left side of the crowd, headed for the stage.
After a momentary fright, I spun around to alert my bandmates. They were already watching the vamps approach us. I swung back just in time to see the vamp on my right approach the heavy iron gate.
A pair of security guards had watched him advance to the front. They headed over to warn the vampire not to encroach upon the gate. The vamp smirked at them, grabbed their heads, and slammed them together with such force that they bounced backwards from the blow and lay motionless on the ground. The fans around the vamp backed up, shocked and appalled by his behavior.
Given so much room to move, the vamp jumped the fence, pushed off the ground, and leapt into the air, hurling himself through the air and toward the stage. Just as he neared me, I kicked him in the head, and he shot backwards and crashed into the gate.
His partner on the other side of the stage approached the other two security guards, both of whom had raised their batons, only to have the vamp bash his fists into their arms, knocking the wooden sticks to the ground. The vamp hurdled the iron barrier and vaulted onto the stage.
Kendall had watched his progression. She sped over and swung her bass guitar into the man’s neck with such force the guitar cracked in half. The vamp fell, but shook off the wallop as though she’d merely slapped him. He grinned and surged forward again.
Kendall stared at the loose strings that wiggled across the splintered guitar’s fretboard, and a dismal expression appeared on her face as the other half of the guitar hit the ground. A moment later, tormented that she’d destroyed a cherished instrument, she unleashed a furious growl and rushed the vampire.
He threw a roundhouse right.
Kendall ducked and drove her fist into the vampire’s chest. She pulled out his bloody heart and looked as though she planned to stuff it in his mouth, but before she could try, the vampire burst into dust. Knowing that his heart would soon rupture as well, she hurled it toward the upper deck, but before it reached the balcony, it exploded into dust.
The crowd erupted as though watching a blockbuster film laden with lifelike visual effects.
The vamp on the other side of the stage grimaced at his comrade’s downfall. Then he darted toward me, but Kendall had snatched the busted guitar, and sprinted toward him. She then cranked back the guitar and slung the spiky end of it at his chest like a javelin thrower.
It speared his heart. The incredible force with which she threw the guitar sent him reeling backwards until he fell off the stage, but his body erupted in a haze of dust before it collapsed to the concrete.
All the while, Brandon kept hammering against the drums, and Nolan continued with a heavy riff, both men carrying on the song as though they’d staged this predicament for tonight’s gig. Kendall dashed off stage and reappeared a couple seconds later with a second bass. She raced around the stage and set things up so whatever chords she hit would rumble through the amps behind her.
I looked out at the cheering crowd and saw four more vampires darting their way through the spectators, two on each side, knocking their arms aside. I would have loved to fling fire at them, but I couldn’t guarantee the safety of so many harmless people, so I didn’t dare try it.
The crowd let out a furious barrage of screams. As much as I wanted to take in their adulation, I set my sights on the vampires in the crowd, noting their hostile expressions. I turned to Brandon and Kendall and spun my wrist, indicating they should begin another song. A moment later, they settled into a furious groove as Nolan’s guitar work screeched throughout the room. I turned back toward the crowd.
Now that I had a moment to concentrate on how to handle the situation, I would have loved to tell the crowd to exit the facility, but I couldn’t yell “vampires” without getting laughed off the stage. I could shout “fire,” or “bomb” or “shooter,” but after the fire department, bomb squad, and/or police arrived to find sign of any of those three options, the cops would visit my home later to arrest me. With no safe way to force the crowd to leave in an orderly fashion and with great haste, I had to deal with the vampires closing in on me.
I tried not to tip off the vampires that I was unprepared for the assault or that I had a bum leg.
The first vamp, wearing a teal Hawaiian shirt tucked into beige slacks, leapt onto the stage, I punched in him in the face, ducked his follow-up fist, and then elbowed him in the face. He staggered in place for a moment, so I used that moment to pull in the energy around me. Once I had a decent amount of force inside him, he rushed me and threw an uppercut that I sidestepped. I grabbed his shirt and pushed the energy into his chest with all my force.
A dozen snaps erupted from inside his chest: I had cracked his rib cage. As he hunched over, I kicked him, and he slid to a stop near Nolan, who leaned his guitar against the wall beside him and then knelt down, placed his hands around his the vamp’s neck and choked him, all the while powering up.
The next vampire jumped over the gate, hit the ground and sprang onto the stage. He fired off a dizzying amount of punches that I either side stepped, ducked, or otherwise avoided. Then he kicked me in the right leg, and pain sizzled through it. I went down.
A second later, he threw himself on top of me. While squiggling in every direction, I saw a third vampire accost Kendall with such amazing speed that she hadn’t enough time to avoid getting punched in the face. The bass guitar fell from her hands, issuing a loud thrum through the PA system, and she fell a few feet away.
As I finally managed to swivel my body and spin away from the vamp that knocked me down, I heard Brandon’s pounding drums as the only instrument on stage. For someone who never felt he earned enough time in the limelight, he now became the focal point—for those people who weren’t watching the extra-curricular activities going down on stage.
The vamp tried to slam a fist into my right knee, but I slipped away from it, and his fist slammed into the har
d floor. Issuing a loud grunt, he cringed in pain. I didn’t waste a moment in an attempt to use his pain as my gain, and knowing that window of time could close at any moment dialed up my anxiety, which in turn, caused a great deal of heat to shoot through my body. When I felt the requisite amount rush into my hands, I pressed my palms to his back…and lit him on fire.
He wailed and flipped around on stage like a fish out of water. He had enough common sense to drop and roll his body around on the stage floor, but without anything to dash out the flames, he simply spun around like a log. Thankfully, the owners of the venue had probably used some type of compound treatment that prevented the wood we stood upon to catch fire.
While he did that, I rushed over, bent over and felt my damaged knee almost give out, but I managed to grab my cane and remove the handle. I stood upright, tilted the cane to the side, and the Soul Sword slid out. I dropped the cane, hobbled over to the vampire who had now gotten to his feet, and swung the sword across his neck, decapitating him.
Both head and body dropped to the ground. A moment later, he burst into dust.
The crowd issued their approval by screaming, clapping, and raising the metal sign.
I spotted another vampire tussling with Kendall. I tottered over to her, flinching from the pain in my knee, which now throbbed in agony. The vampire punched Kendall in the stomach and then lashed a wicked elbow into her face, sending her to the ground.
Just as he took a step toward Kendall, he must’ve sensed me behind him because he whirled around and locked eyes with me before darting toward me, only to find that I held the sword out in front of me…just a little too late because it slipped right through his stomach. His eyes grew wide and his mouth twisted in anguish, but a second later a cloud of particles erupted around me.
Feeling the vibration of footsteps charging toward me through the soles of my shoes, I spun around and watched as a fourth vampire dashed toward me while he unleashed a primal scream.
Nolan rushed through a haze of dust—he’d obviously just killed the vampire he’d been leaching power from—and collided into the vamp, knocking them both off the stage. Nolan fell on top of the bloodsucker, and although they rose at the same time, Nolan punched him in the chest and extracted his heart. He tossed it to the ground. A second later, dust particles erupted across the first few rows of the standing room only crowd who now jumped up and down, their cheers grew to an even louder pitch than before.
I heard Kendall’s bass thunder through the amps, and a moment later Nolan hopped onto the stage, grabbed his guitar, and picked up right where he’d left off.
The band had apparently forgotten that Darius had yet to make an appearance.
I stood on stage holding the Soul Sword in my right hand, examining the crowd for any sight of him. It only took a few seconds to spot him.
Darius stood in the middle of the lower level. He made his way toward the audience, slipping into pockets of space with ease. When he saw a man kneel down to tie his shoe, he sprinted toward him, and used his back as a launch pad that allowed him to soar ten feet over the heads of the audience, while traveling twenty feet in distance with his arms out at his sides as though invisible wings supported his flight.
Since he headed straight toward me, I backed off and cringed in pain as spasms roiled my kneecap.
Darius landed on the stage like a skydiver who touched down on the ground without the least bit of effort. He noticed me favoring my right knee and smiled. Then he darted right toward me.
I swung the blade toward his head, hoping to remove his head, but Darius had slipped the maneuver. I spun around and slashed at gut-level, but the sword swept through air. Sensing him behind me, I shoved the sword in that direction, but again, I failed to make impact.
Kendall and Nolan hadn’t attempted to approach him, probably fearing that I’d accidentally slice them in half. I appreciated their logic, especially when I saw a look of pure hatred on Kendall’s face. She looked like she wanted revenge so badly she might allow that emotion to override common sense.
The band continued a ferocious jam by relying on a heavy groove that the crowd appeared to appreciate because they’d somehow managed to elevate their frenzied applause. A few dozen hands raised camera phones up in the air to record our performance.
Darius circled me, since the pain in my knee made it difficult to shift in any one direction. He punched me in the temple before I even had a chance to sling the blade toward him. I skittered to the ground and bounced up, although so much stress on my knee almost made me collapse again.
Grinning, Darius faced the band to keep an eye on Kendall and Nolan. He notched his eyebrows.
Knowing that Kendall and Nolan were prepared to join the fight, I extended my arms to either side, calling them off. I didn’t trust either of them to deal with Darius. Kendall desperately wanted revenge and Nolan might not be able to control the rush of power that had inundated his body. For those reasons, they were less likely to concentrate on defending themselves, only trying to unleash their aggression. It seems they took out their frustrations on their instruments, because the speed with which they played intensified to a furious tempo.
Darius charged. He punched me in the gut, sending me to the floor once more. The blow knocked out so much air from my body that I dropped the sword, but suspecting that my opponent would attempt to snatch it, I kicked out hard and sent it behind me…and probably behind the drum kit.
Darius darted toward me and, just before he barred down on me, I fired off a roundhouse left.
The impact sent him flying ten feet in the air, off the stage, and onto the concrete floor below before smashing into the gate. He wiped a finger across a bloody lip, smirked. Without looking, he jumped backward and perched on top of the gate…and then he vaulted fifteen feet in the air, hurling himself toward me.
I’d jammed my bad knee onto the stage, but I feared that I wouldn’t be able to get to my feet. Even if I did, I wouldn’t have enough physical strength and mobility to rely on my martial arts abilities to defeat Darius. Therefore, I had to rely on my supernatural gifts to fend off his next attack.
I unfurled my arms and called upon all of the energy I could command. But seeing him soaring toward me with such confidence made fear and indecision peck at my fortitude. I called out for more energy, but once again, I couldn’t sense it pulling inward…until I latched onto a ribbon of power.
It came so easily, I dragged it toward me with desperation. Fright and uncertainty reappeared in my psyche, leading me to believe that if I couldn’t clutch onto that bit of power and thrust it at Darius, I’d never be able to defend myself. And the more I reigned in that shred of energy, the quicker it hit me. Soon enough, the thread of strength surged inside me so quickly and with such momentum that I once again felt as though I might burst at any moment.
In that instant, I knew how and why the intensity filled me so swiftly. Subconsciously, I’d called out for black magic, and it hadn’t let me down. At the same time, I feared my ability to reach out and collect it so easily. Would I seek it out whenever I needed a little power boost? In doing so, would I lose my ability to determine right from wrong? Rather than allow those worries to conflict me, I concentrated on the matter at hand.
As Darius descended, I extended my right hand and flung a burst of energy at him with such force that he drew inward while his body flew backwards.
Seeing that he might collapse into the crowd and potentially injure a group of people, I reached out with my left hand, this time drawing him toward me. Darius swayed back-and-forth and side-to-side for a few moments until I applied the necessary pressure to keep him stable.
He still levitated about fifteen feet above their heads, but when an exciting idea popped into my head, I raised my right hand, which in turn, lifted Darius another fifteen feet higher, so that I’d lifted him quite a bit above the crowd on the second floor.
When I held him steady at that height, I called upon a rush of heat, and a moment later, a string
of flames shot through the air and enveloped Darius. Screaming, he flailed his arms and legs as he burned. Each time I sensed that I overcompensated with too much fire, his body began to sink, but I wouldn’t allow his flaming body to crash into the crowd, which would result in at least a dozen casualties, so I balanced the amount of pressure until I hoisted his body upwards again. Darius continued screaming and kicking.
I’d maintained a steady stream of fire on a vampire before, and they always perished by this point, but each passing day where Darius’s blood remained untainted had increased his strength and the proficiency with which he utilized his abilities. I didn’t see a hint of blood where I’d slashed my sword across his shoulder. He’d probably fed in order to allow his healing properties to close his wound. Once the influx hit his bloodstream, it would dilute his blood, weakening him.
Earlier Darius stated that I posed no challenge for him. At least now, I had a better chance of defeating him. Furthermore, I’d managed to break his bones with such ease not only because I’d tapped into black magic, but also because I’d used one ability, whereas now, splitting my powers resulting in divided their effectiveness.
My head began to pound, and I felt something wet slip across my upper lip. I slid my tongue across that spot. It tasted salty and metallic: blood. Only I hadn’t endured a punch to the face, so I couldn’t explain why it leaked from my nose. When I paired that mystery with my headache, I realized that the pressure that I’d called upon was putting undo stress on my body.
I sent out so much energy I thought my body would soon collapse if I didn’t end my assault. It became hard to breathe. My arms felt leaden, weighted down. They began to sink. I felt lightheaded, but I was determined not to let up the pressure and allow Darius to slip toward the crowd, but despite my best efforts, he began to drift lower. I couldn’t allow him to fall and injure those below, so I pushed more effort into keeping him stationary.
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