Honor at Stake (Love at First Bite Book 1)

by Declan Finn

  Marco gave the vampire a feral grin. “Is this entertaining enough for you, jackass?” He gave a little twist as he jerked it out of the vampire. To say the vampire's final facial expression as he turned into dust was shocked would be a bit of an understatement.

  The first vampire hadn't turned to dust before Amanda leapt on the vampire to the right of the formation. They went down in a tumble of arms and legs, with Amanda landing on top. The vampire beneath her punched for her face. She deflected it, grabbed the arm, and twisted it so that it went snap, crackle and pop, turning into gravel. Amanda kept the arm and pushed down. The stake hidden up her sleeve went through the vampire and into the ground.

  As the first vampire turned to ash, Marco held onto the jacket. Now he threw it at the vampire to his left, covering his face. Marco followed up with a kick to the vampire's groin.

  The vampire wouldn't be taken out so easily, and charged into Marco, ramming him against the tombstone. Marco tried to stab down with the knife, but the angle was awkward. The wood of the knife hurt, but didn't stop the vampire.

  In fact, the vampire came up, threw off the jacket, and he looked annoyed. He also looked terribly disfigured. His fangs came out.

  “I’m going to enjoy ripping your throat out,” he growled.

  Two hands came up and boxed the vampire's ears in with enough force to crush rock. The hands held on, and lifted the vampire off of his feet, then slammed him face down onto the dirt.

  Amanda stood over the vampire. Her eyes were literally glowing with rage as she broke the top half off of a tombstone, raised it above her head, and brought it down on the vampire with all the strength in her body.

  Marco looked down at the vampire. The shoulders and part of the upper body had been driven into the ground by the impact. “I didn't know that you could kill them with a rock. Where'd you learn that move? Wile E. Coyote?”

  Amanda smiled. “Smushing them could be considered decapitation, you know. “He reached for her hand. She took it and pulled him off the tombstone slab they were warming up only a few moments ago.

  They stood there in an awkward silence for a moment. Marco blinked. “When did your eyes start glowing?”

  She blinked, and the glow faded. “Hmm?”

  “Huh. Funny, they were like amber headlights for a moment.” He shrugged, and looked over the clothing of the dusted vampires. “Oh well, at least we know that it worked. We got a reaction from them. Would have liked one alive, but, eh.”

  Amanda nodded, then sighed. “Da. But I would have thought there would be more than just three of them. Why only three, and not the standard five man formation?”

  Marco's eyebrows briefly furrowed with thought. “You think it's possible that the bartender was jerking us around about Mount Olivet?”

  Amanda shook her head. “I doubt it. Seemed like an honest fellow.”

  Something shifted. The sound of stone on stone. Something was moving deep in the cemetery. Something heavy.

  The sound of a crypt opening.

  Marco looked around, and it was closer to the middle of the cemetery—less towards Elliot Avenue, and more towards Metropolitan, at the opposite end of the cemetery from Merle's blind.

  “I think we have a location on the others,” Marco said.

  Then a noise came from another direction, somewhere off to the right.

  Marco arched a brow. “I guess we have a second location.”

  A third source of sound came from off to the left, and a fourth from the cemetery next door.

  And then, there were sounds of groaning stone and metal from all around. Marco slid behind Amanda, going back to back with her. “This is why I hate fishing expeditions.”

  Amanda nodded as she kept a sharp eye out for the forces coming to kill them. “Da. It always ends badly for the bait.”

  Chapter Thirty: The Battle for Queens

  April 16th, 12:15 a.m., Mount Olivet Cemetery, Queens, NY

  Marco prided himself in being able to find the humor in almost any situation. His life was something he was only vaguely interested in, so he could abstract humor from nearly every situation. If Horace Walpole was right, that “Life is a comedy to those who think,” then it was a good thing that Marco thought all the time.

  As he saw vampires crawl out from every crypt and mausoleum, from behind almost every tombstone and rock, he didn't see hundreds of vampires. Marco could see the death of every single man, woman and child in Queens. The young and the old would be drained and discarded, their bodies dashed against the sidewalks and left as carrion. The later teens and adults would be eaten and turned into vampires for the legion. There wouldn't be riots and blood in the street, for the blood would be consumed and there wouldn't be time for a riot to form. All Marco saw was a vampire apocalypse

  This wasn't even an army. This was a biblical plague sent to destroy and ravage anyone who got in the way. After slaughtering a city of eight million, what would stop them after the scattered to other cities? Other countries?

  This was the end of everything. And the only people between these vampires and the rest of the world happened to be Marco, Amanda, and a handful of Vatican ninjas.

  Where the hell did these guys find an entire fricking army? Marco thought. “If this goes badly,” he said, “I want you to know that it's been fun.”

  “Oh,” came a voice to their side, “I wouldn't worry about that.”

  Amanda and Marco glanced to their side. Merle Kraft stood there, calm in his dark blue windbreaker, rubbing his nails on his jacket as though he were in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

  Even the encroaching vampire horde stopped about fourteen feet away. Even they were wondering where the hell the short man had come from, and why the hell he was so cocky when this was going to be three against hundreds.

  “Hi, everyone,” Merle said to the vampires, not concerned with the math. “I guess you're all wondering what I'm doing here. How are you doing, fellows? My name is Merle, and I will be your executioner this evening.”

  The vampires looked around at each other.

  “Now, I know what you're all thinking,” Merle continued. “'Who is this guy and what does he think he's doing here?' After all, there are only a few hundred of you, and only three of us. Granted, we're all good at this, but still, numbers matter. Why would I possibly think I had a chance of slaughtering every last one of you?

  “Well, religion is a funny thing. There are interesting rules.

  “For example,” Merle said, making sure to look at the group like a good public speaker, but looking at the middle of chests, not the eyes, like a good vampire hunter, “holy water. Did you know that holy water doesn't need to be constantly blessed over and over again? As long as there is a certain amount of holy water in the bottom of the container – a mere two tablespoons – all a priest needs to do is to pour water into it and it all becomes holy water. Doesn’t even need to be a priest doing the pouring. Anyone can take a gallon of water, and pour it in. Congratulations, it's all holy water.”

  Merle smiled, taking his time. “Now, if you should take a fifty gallon drum of holy water and connect it to a fire hydrant, with a fire hose on the other end…well then, that would be something to worry about, wouldn't it? I mean, if you’re a vampire anyway.”

  The vampires, as a whole, looked behind them, unsure if this lunatic was bluffing or if he was a threat.

  The vampires at the top of the hill, with their backs towards Elliot Avenue, noticed the first Ninja, the redheaded Irishman that Ibrahim was talking to the night the mafia came to visit Marco's father at the hospital.

  The redhead gave them a smile and a little wave, and then he opened up with the fire hose.

  A standard fire hose utilizes pressures nearing one thousand PSI, enough to blow through a plate-glass window. They could be used for crowd control because it could blast people off their feet and push back the masses with little problem.

  In the case of these vampires, getting blasted with holy water from a high pressure hos
e was like firing at a human being with a high-pressure water saw filled with the most corrosive acid known to man.

  “This is the equivalent of heavy artillery, fellas,” Merle concluded with flair.

  Amanda Colt grabbed both Marco and Merle, dragging them both to the ground behind a tombstone with a cross on it. The stream of water cut through the vampires and split the air in front of them. The cross on the tombstone kept the swarm of vampires from getting too close.

  They swarmed down the hill, fleeing the fire hose in the direction of Grand Avenue.

  Then ran directly into the path of the flamethrowers wielded by the three Vatican ninjas at the bottom of the hill.

  The smartest vampires, and the ones who were able to stop fast enough to avoid the flamethrowers, did not go down the hill, but sideways, heading towards the row of residential brownstones near 65th Street, and towards 69th Street.

  Of the residential homes, three had sold out their top floors, and made for great sniping positions for three Vatican ninjas, one of whom was Ibrahim Javaherian.

  At the other end of the cemetery, three Vatican ninjas were stationed on the street.

  All six were armed with heavy, .50-caliber automatic weapons, and Desert Eagle sidearms. The heavy caliber was bad enough, from the vampires' point of view, since the .50 caliber could literally blow someone's head off. Even worse for the vampires, the bullets were silver hollow points, which had all been filled with holy water and sealed with wax from church candles.

  At the moment that the vampires had first approached Marco and Amanda, police cars had been called in to secure the area. They were all Officer Donald “Duck” Tolbert’s Craigslist pals.

  In short, the Vatican Ninjas had secured themselves a perfectly quiet free-fire zone. Even all of the automatic weapons had sound-suppressors attached.

  “What the Hell is going on?” Marco growled at Merle over the sounds of vampire's screaming.

  “We followed your plan,” Merle said.

  Amanda blinked and looked at Marco. “What does he mean?”

  Marco took a moment, and arched a brow. “I submitted a plan to Rodgers a few months ago, not long after we heard the tip about Mount Olivet.” His eyes shot to Merle. “You implemented my plan with us as the bait?”

  “Sure. It's a good plan. Why not?”

  “Because it's not a good plan! It relied heavily on Mount Olivet being the only position held by the vampires. It didn't take All Faiths into consideration, and St. John's cemetery is only a few blocks from here. Assuming that these are the only vampires leaves anyone on the outside of the box vulnerable.”

  * * * *

  The redheaded, Irish ninja with the fire hose had barely heard the movement behind him. He looked over his shoulder in time to watch the vampire grab the fire hydrant feeding the hose.

  The ninja, whose name was Timothy Dougherty, turned with the fire hose as the vampire pulled back on the hydrant. The hydrant came out of the ground like a champagne cork just as the final blast from the holy water hose thoroughly drenched him.

  The vampire died quickly enough, but the water pressure in the hose fell off sharply.

  Dougherty quickly reached for his shotgun, filled with silver buckshot.

  It was obviously time to get out of there. He looked back down the hill. There was nothing between him and the trio in the middle of the cemetery. It seemed like as good a rally point as anywhere else.

  At the bottom of the hill, the ninjas in charge of the flamethrowers were already moving into the cemetery. The flamethrowers, after all, only had a limited range–almost point blank.

  When they heard the crunch of shattered glass and the whine of a dying police siren, two of the three men with the flamethrowers stopped firing and turned around, keeping an eye on the street while the one in the middle moved along the ground, kept an eye out for any vampires who may have hidden behind the tombstones.

  On the street level, Robert Hendershot was in charge of the shooters and also heard the dying sounds of a destroyed police car. They were a little quicker on running into the cemetery.

  By the time that Dougherty, the flamethrower team, and Hendershot's group had come to the middle of the hillside of Mount Olivet, one thing was perfectly clear.

  They were the ones surrounded.

  * * * *

  Marco Catalano, Amanda Colt, and Merle Kraft got to their feet by the time the ninjas had gathered around.

  Marco frowned. “Anyway, if Merle is now quite finished trying to get us all killed, I think we can consider a plan B.”

  “Your plan worked.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes at both of them. “Captain Hendershot, do you have a protocol for this?”

  “Depends. If there are a few dozen, we should be in good shape. If there are a few hundred, then we are in trouble.”

  Marco motioned towards the homes. “The sniper teams in the brownstones should be perfectly safe, as long as the vampires don't get around to burning them down.” He pointed to an area down the hill by the gate, and up the hill, maybe twenty yards up. “There are two lines of tombstones with crosses. The vampires could come and destroy them, but that would take time, make them sitting ducks, and take away one of their biggest advantages. We fall back against the gate separating the brownstones from the cemetery, and those crosses will force them to come at us from one direction. They can't come in from behind unless they want to have Bram and his team cut them to pieces.”

  He glanced at the biggest ninja there, armed with a flame thrower. The only other detail Marco could see through the ninja outfit was the dark brown eyes. “You, what's your name?”

  “Von Bieber, sir.”

  “Okay Von Bieber, stay behind us. If we need to fall back over the fence, I want one flamethrower with something left in the tank.” He looked at the other two ninjas with the flamethrowers. “I want you two at the outer edge of a semi-circle. You two will be at the front, with the shooters behind you. We're going to funnel the vampires into a bottleneck.”

  Merle arched a brow. “I think I know what's in the middle of the bottleneck.”

  Amanda nodded, catching on quickly. “Exactly. The three of us.” She blinked, then looked off into the darkness. A mist was already starting to roll in…but a mist that moved around every tombstone with a cross on it, taking a strange, winding path through the cemetery. “They are coming.”

  Marco leaned over to Hendershot. “Unless you really hate my tactical arrangements, get into position. I have one more play. Radio up to Bram and tell him to cover my sorry ass.”

  Marco turned towards the vampires and started to walk out into the darkness. Amanda reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “Marco, what are you doing?”

  “What I usually do. I'm just going to talk them all to death.” He took her hand in his, gave it a little squeeze, and then gently pulled it off of his shoulder. “Time to have fun.”

  Marco moved into the darkness slowly, but evenly. It was obviously not fear, but caution. His smile was in place, and his heart rate was so even, Amanda couldn't tell the difference between his heartbeat now and a resting pulse.

  He looked out and waited a moment before saying, in a firm, strong voice, “I'm looking for Mikhail the Bear. If he wouldn't mind, I want to have a chat with him.”

  The mist shifted. It stopped rolling across the graveyard, except for one, snakelike form that headed straight for Marco. It was visible at fifty feet, and when it closed to forty feet, Marco reached into his back pocket for one of his many rosaries, and threw it down on the ground. It landed about thirty feet away. The mist recoiled.

  “That's far enough, I think,” Marco said.

  The mist hesitated, and swirled. It slowly grew taller, and coalesced into the form of a large man. Mikhail the Bear topped out at six-one and easily 280 pounds. He was bald, with a face that was a rendition of Stephen King’s mind on hallucinogens.

  If the body of a vampire was the Picture of Dorian Gray, then Mikhail the Bear had participated
in a few acts of mass murder, and he was not merely “following orders.”

  “Marco Catalano?” he said in a thick Russian accent.

  Marco nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Mikhail.”

  “I have wanted to kill you for quite some time.”

  “Ditto.” He looked over Mikhail's black clothing and black leather jacket. “So, nice clothes. It's a cute trick. I've yet to see a vampire take his clothing with him.”

  “The strongest among us have many tricks.”

  Marco shook his head. “Maybe someone who's strong for the average vampire, but I suspect that if you were truly the badass you think you are, we would have all been dead by now. In fact, I suspect you would have killed Amanda instead of Lily.”

  “Lily was far more fun to kill. Especially after she had her way with six of my men.”

  Marco's smile didn't even flicker. “Lily always did have a bit of a hormone problem. Being dead probably accentuated her natural personality defects. I'm told it happens.”

  Mikhail did nothing for a moment. Then he cocked his head to one side. “You are most unusual for a human.”

  He shrugged. “It's the story of my life. I just have a different way of looking at things from everyone else. When possible, I try to understand people better than they understand themselves. Even when they're people I'd rather see dead. Now, in your case, I'm going to bet that, while you're pissed, you're not stupid. You've got men, but we have weapons, and we have the formations. We also have a few tactical advantages right now.”

  Mikhail grinned, bearing his teeth. “Yes, though while I may lose all of my men, I can make more.”

  “There's your problem,” Marco said. “You're totally reliant on the guys behind me being restrained enough to hold their fire while I'm talking to you. Otherwise, you're going to be a flambe before you can say 'Why, it's rather warm in here.' You understand me, Count Orlac?”