by Kris Greene
“The Nimrod forms an almost unbreakable bond with its wielder. It had formed such a bond with the Bishop before he was consumed by it.”
“What do you mean, ‘consumed’?” Gabriel stared at the trident cautiously. Even though it was wrapped in the jacket, he could still see it perfectly in his mind. It was glowing and calling to him. The call was so intense that he had reached out and touched the jacket before he realized he had even moved.
“Exactly what it sounds like, the Nimrod was not only the Bishop’s weapon, but it ultimately became his prison. Trapped within the trident is the soul of the Bishop,” Redfeather explained, but Gabriel was only half-listening. “Gabriel?” Redfeather’s voice fell on deaf ears.
The Nimrod had begun to pulse hard enough for Gabriel to feel the vibration through the couch. De Mona must have felt it too, because she looked at the wrapped jacket like it was a poisonous snake. “The power is in the blood, the blood restores all,” the voice whispered in the back of Gabriel’s head. He looked to see if De Mona had heard it, but she was still staring at the wrapping. “The power is in the blood,” the voice said more sharply. Gabriel went to cover his ears and realized that he was now holding the dagger. “The blood restores all,” the voice repeated. Gabriel was confused at first, but when he looked at the faint glow that was emitting from the dagger he understood what needed to be done.
“What are you doing?” Redfeather moved to stop Gabriel, but it was already too late.
Gabriel watched his hands move of their own accord and placed the blade of the dagger in his right palm. A thin line of blood welled in his palm and dripped along the edge of the dagger. He watched in wonder as the blade absorbed his blood and the rust began to fall away. When the transformation was complete, it was as beautiful as it had been when the Hunter had wielded it.
“How in God’s name did you do that?” Redfeather bent to inspect the dagger, but not close enough to actually touch it. In all the years he’d kept the thing it had never answered to his touch.
“I wish I knew.” Gabriel started at the dagger. “These things, or whatever is empowering them, are speaking to me. Haven’t either of you felt it?” He looked from De Mona to Redfeather, who were staring at him as if he were losing it. “Don’t look at me like that,” he snapped. Gabriel suddenly had a theory and picked up the jacket concealing the trident. “If the dagger responded to my blood, I wonder if the Nimrod will.” He unwrapped the fork.
“Gabriel, you mustn’t; we can’t risk it binding itself to you further,” Redfeather tried to caution his grandson.
“The blood is the restorer,” the voice enticed Gabriel. Nervously he touched his bloody hand to the trident, and the room was flooded with light.
De Mona was the first to recover from the blast. A powerful wind whipped through the room, soaking both her and everything in it in rain, but there were no windows in the basement. It was as if a storm had materialized out of thin air. She looked for the humans and found Redfeather on all fours in the corner. Like De Mona, the blast had knocked him senseless. She peered through the increasing rainfall, trying to see what had become of Gabriel, and her eyes went wide. Not only was he unaffected by the freak storm; he was also the source.
He was standing in the middle of a vortex of wind, with papers and books swirling around him at an incredible rate of speed. In his hands he held the Nimrod, which had returned to its full jeweled brilliance. Lightning jumped from the trident and traveled through his body before dispersing at his feet. She tried to move to help him, but every time she tried to get up from behind the sofa the wind threatened to carry her away.
“It’s the Nimrod!” Redfeather shouted over the wind.
“I know what it is, but how in the hell do we shut it off?”
“We must break the connection,” Redfeather said, pulling himself along the bookshelf. He had almost made it to Gabriel when the young man turned his eyes on his grandfather, eyes that were not his own.
“The Hunters.” Gabriel let out a demonic-sounding cackle. “Your lot were always the most selfless and most foolish of us.” Gabriel slowly raised the trident and aimed it at his grandfather. The power flared between the broken points and died as De Mona broke a chair over Gabriel’s back.
The reptilian eyes that had been watching the Redfeather brownstone from the shadows squinted against the blinding flash that had just consumed the lower level. The Stalker’s natural instincts bid it to flee, but the greater fear of its master rooted it to the spot. The flash only lasted a few seconds, but the mystic print it left was a very distinctive one. The Stalker would be well rewarded when it took the information back to its master.
When the Stalker turned around to leave, a massive hand grabbed it about the neck. With enough force to shatter nearly all the bones in the creature’s back, it was slammed to the ground. The Stalker clawed frantically at the meaty forearm of its attacker but found that the skin was rock hard. Gray eyes stared out from a face that was almost entirely covered in thick red hair, and the creature knew that its time within the host’s body had come to an end.
“Spawn of hell,” the bearded man said in a Bostonian accent, laced with a bit of his mother’s Irish heritage. “In the name of my Lord and my family, I cast thee back to the pit which birthed you!” With a swing of the bearded man’s massive arm, he slammed his jeweled hammer through the Stalker’s skull and webbed the concrete below.
The bearded man spat on the rotting corpse of the Stalker’s host body. “May your black-hearted master punish you for your failure.” He pulled the hammer from the ruined mass of the body’s skull and examined the black gook that now coated the head of his hammer. Before his very eyes the hammer began to absorb the substance. No matter how many times he had seen the feat, it always amazed him.
“Another one down,” he said into a two-way radio’s headset.
“Good riddance,” the metallic voice squawked back. “Any sign of more shitheads?” This was a term the bearded man and his partners used when referring to Stalkers. Their favorite method of incapacitating Stalkers was by crushing their skulls. Whatever it was that passed for their brains always looked like shit when it oozed out.
The bearded man looked around before answering. “Not that I can see. Satan’s little ass kissers have probably scuttled back to whatever holes they crawled out of.”
“I’m still gonna have Jackson look around to make sure. Morgan, you might still want to make a quick sweep of the block,” the voice said.
“Not to worry, Jonas. If there are any more lurking about, Jackson and I will make short work of them, you can bet. Any idea what the hard-on is about that they have for the cute couple?”
“Not just yet. All we’ve got to go on is the fact that the shitheads jumped them in the parking lot. They don’t usually just attack out in the open like that. Someone sent them to pay that visit. My gift doesn’t come with video feed and you guys arrived at the scene too late to actually see what happened. All we can do at this point is speculate, or ask them what happened.”
“In a pig’s eye, my friend,” Morgan replied. “What would you do if a six-five Irishman and a reject from the movie Colors come calling about a run-in you had with a pack of zombies?”
“They’re demons who have taken possession of corpses,” Jonas corrected him. “You may be right about the direct approach. What I really want to know is how in the nine hells did they manage to escape? There were at least two shitheads and a demon that I haven’t been able to identify yet.”
“Maybe they told him they were going to call the police,” Morgan said sarcastically.
“I seriously doubt that. We’ll keep an eye on them for now until we find out what their angle is.”
“We aren’t the only enemies the demons have out there. What if they’re working for another nasty faction of this little dance?”
The line went silent for a few beats before Jonas’ distorted voice came back. “We kill them.”
From the shadows anothe
r set of eyes was watching the turn of events. Only when he was sure the bearded man was gone did he come out to assess the situation. Casting an expressionless glance at what remained of the Stalker, the old man wrinkled his nose.
“Poor soul,” he said to no one in particular. “I would beg the Lord to have mercy on you, but I’m afraid my prayers would go unanswered. There is no salvation for the servants of Belthon.” The old man looked in the direction of the Redfeathers’ brownstone and smirked. “Be wary, young Hunter, for the Bishop sleeps no more and his thirst for vengeance is all consuming. Keep to your faith, for only it will save you from what lies ahead.” The air around the man rippled once before he vanished.
CHAPTER NINE
“You fool girl, you could’ve killed him.” Redfeather picked his way through what was left of his study. Furniture was smashed and books that contained centuries of knowledge were now ash resting on what was left of the massive bookshelves. The Nimrod had shown its might.
“If I recall correctly I stopped him from killing you!” De Mona shot back.
Redfeather ignored her, and continued on to his grandson. Gabriel was lying in a heap, with his clothes smoldering. The Nimrod had vanished, but the air was still thick with magical residue. When Redfeather went to check for a pulse, he jerked his hand back. Gabriel’s skin was almost too hot to touch.
“Gabriel!” Redfeather called out, but the boy didn’t stir. Frantically Redfeather rushed into the study’s small bathroom and wet a towel. When he first touched it to the young man’s forehead, steam began to rise from it. After a few moments he cooled off enough for Redfeather to carry him to the couch.
“What the hell was that?!” De Mona came to stand next to the sofa, where Redfeather was attending to Gabriel.
“That was a sample of the Nimrod’s power,” Redfeather said, still trying to rouse his grandson.
“Sample?” De Mona asked in disbelief. “Jesus Christ, that storm almost ripped this whole place apart!”
“Dear girl, that was but a drop of water in an ocean,” Redfeather said seriously. “In the right hands the Nimrod could level a city block, but in the hands of the Dark Order it could enslave humanity.”
“Is he okay?” she asked, noticing the faint smoke that was still rising from Gabriel’s clothes.
“I hope so,” Redfeather said, placing his ear to Gabriel’s chest. “He’s breathing, but I can’t wake him.”
“Is he in some kind of coma?” De Mona asked, cautiously making her way to the couch.
“No, I fear this is the work of the Nimrod and whatever dark designs it has for my grandson.” Redfeather raised his hands to the heavens and muttered something over Gabriel’s prone form.
“What was that, another spell?” De Mona asked.
“No, a prayer,” Redfeather said seriously.
“Yeah, we’ll probably need plenty of those,” De Mona said, examining Gabriel. When her eyes passed over his arm, which was dangling over the edge of the couch, her breath caught in her chest. “Holy shit!”
Redfeather looked to where De Mona was staring and his mouth also dropped open. The relic hadn’t vanished at all; it had etched itself into Gabriel’s arm. Where the skin had once been smooth and clear, there was now a tattoo of a trident in the center of a storm.
“Was it supposed to do that?” De Mona asked.
“I . . . I . . . This is most unusual,” Redfeather said, moving to get a closer look. The picture was raised and still glowing slightly, as if it would come to life at any second.
“What’s it doing?” De Mona asked, backing up.
“We won’t be finding out.” Redfeather wrapped Gabriel’s arm in what was left of a curtain. “We don’t need a repeat performance of what just happened.”
“This is unreal.” De Mona began pacing the floor, trying her best not to stumble over the debris.
“I’m afraid it’s all too real. I should’ve seen it coming; I should’ve seen it.” Redfeather slumped to the ground and placed his head in his hands.
“There’s no way you could’ve predicted that this thing would’ve come to your grandson, let alone come to life,” De Mona said.
“But I did.” When he looked up at her his eyes were glassy. “We are the last members of our tribe, and direct descendants of the great Hunter, but not all of us carry whatever spark it was that made our line so special. In all the years that I was in possession of the dagger it never answered to my touch, but it did for my son, Gabriel’s father. As it had been passed to me by my father, I gave it to him. In all the years I’d had it the thing had never so much as reacted to me, and I expected as much for my son. When the dagger reacted to my child I allowed him into this,” he motioned around the ruined room, “and it proved to be his undoing, as the Nimrod threatens my grandchild.”
De Mona studied him for a time. When she’d originally sought the Redfeathers out it was only to use them to gain the answers she needed to the mystery of the trident, but as she was coming to know them she saw the same goodness in the clan that her father always spoke of.
“We’re not gonna let that happen to him.” De Mona placed a reassuring hand on Redfeather’s shoulder. This time he didn’t recoil from the demon’s touch. “Maybe these Sanctuary guys can help?”
“That’s it!” Redfeather sprang to his feet so quickly that he startled De Mona. “Help me get him upstairs; we have to go.” Redfeather grabbed Gabriel by the legs while De Mona took him under the arms. In all truthfulness the Valkrin could’ve carried him on her own, but she allowed Redfeather to help.
“And where exactly are we going? We can’t leave him here alone,” she asked as they made their way to the upper levels of the brownstone.
“We won’t; I have a friend who I can call to sit with him while we’re gone. If anyone can make sense of what’s going on with my grandson, Brother Angelo can.”
“Well, what do we have here?” Morgan leaned over the rooftop. When his pale hand touched the concrete rail it darkened, taking on the hue of the rail. “It looks like someone else has joined the party.”
“That’s not the same guy we saw her with earlier.” Jackson absently twirled a silver stiletto between his gloved fingers, stepping closer to Morgan. When Jackson moved, it was like watching a shadow. Peering over the ledge, his unnaturally sharp eyes spied their quarry leaving the brownstone.
“A brilliant observation,” Morgan said sarcastically.
Jackson flashed his diamond and gold teeth at his partner. “Don’t be a wiseass, Red. Who’s the old guy?”
“Why don’t you ask the wizard?”
“I heard that,” Jonas’ voice came in over Morgan’s earpiece. “Can you get close enough to get a visual for me to work with?”
“I could probably get close enough,” Jackson offered. He had the uncanny ability to move unseen when he wanted to. It wasn’t the same as becoming invisible, but you wouldn’t notice him unless you were looking directly at him, another unexplained side effect of what they now only referred to as “that night.”
Back then Jackson was a hard-ass teen born in the Bronx and raised by the streets of New York. In those days Jackson ran with a gang of vicious young punks who were the scourge of their housing projects. One night Jackson and his gang had chased what they thought were two rival gang members to a deserted section of Hunt’s Point. When Jackson’s gang finally managed to corner them inside a meatpacking facility they learned the ugly truth. The two men had been posers, and Jackson’s gang had walked smack into a nest of vampires. The creatures moved so fast that by the time he was able to scream his crew had already been wasted.
By the time Morgan came upon Jackson, there wasn’t much left of him. Jackson fought with all that he had and was rewarded by the vampires literally tearing him limb from limb before bleeding him out. As Jackson lay there, taking what he knew were his last breaths, fate threw him a bone in the form of a blinding flash of light. Most of what happened was a blur, as he was in and out of consciousness, but he
remembered flashes of a red beard and the sounds of screams.
The vampires were vicious but hardly a match for Morgan’s jeweled hammer. When the Irishman was done there wasn’t enough of them left for the morning sun to cook. His wrath was swift but, unfortunately for Jackson, not swift enough. His body was a mass of bruises, bloody gashes, and mutilated limbs. Morgan had assumed the man was dead until he started dousing him with kerosene, drawing a low moan from the broken body. Jackson’s breathing was faint but steady and the fire that burned in his eyes could’ve melted the polar caps. He was a man who wasn’t quite ready to die, and knowing this touched Morgan and he didn’t kill Jackson.
When Jonas found out what Morgan intended to do, he all but ordered him to finish Jackson off before the infection could take hold, but Morgan couldn’t do it. Much like the young man, Morgan too had once been a victim. The forces of hell had slaughtered his wife and children, leaving him to die in a gutter. As Jonas had done with Morgan, he would give the broken man a fighting chance. Gathering up the body and ignoring Jonas’ rants about the man carrying the infection, Morgan disappeared.
The first week was the hardest. The vampire infection ravaged the young man’s body. It was like watching a heroin addict go through withdrawal but ten times worse. Day and night Morgan watched over the young man, ready to dispatch him if he showed signs of the change. To Morgan’s amazement, he didn’t. Though his wounds were healing faster than anyone had expected, he didn’t seem to carry the infection. Morgan nursed the young man back to health, helping him adjust to being handicapped. Jackson’s mind seemed whole enough, but his body was still broken.
Jonas was irate and had even personally tried to finish Jackson off, but thankfully Morgan was able to stop him. He had seen too many young men and women fall victim to the dark to not give the stranger a fair chance. Not only did Jackson’s body fight off infection, but he also seemed to be healing alarmingly quickly. After three weeks Jackson was walking again and the worst of his wounds had healed. Jonas thought that it was a delayed reaction from the turn, but all Jackson’s tests had come back negative. He may not have been infected by the vampires, but something had triggered a biological reaction in him. A month later, Morgan presented the former victim with two gifts that would change his life.