Reborn

by Thomas A. Watson

  It was around three when Kenneth pulled the map out and turned it over, reading what Xu had given him. “Let’s hope the leather blocks scent as effectively from werewolves, as it does from vampires,” he said as Tiffany and Besseta leaned over, studying the map.

  “I want to know, how in the hell Xu got a diagram of an underground base?” Besseta declared in awe.

  Studying the map, Tiffany shook her head. “There is no way the cubus only built that with one entrance.”

  “Of course, but it would be secret and those aren’t labeled,” Kenneth grinned and Tiffany reached over, popping his arm.

  Glancing out the window, Besseta took a deep breath. “Well, it will be dark when we get there. Let’s do this.”

  As everyone grabbed their case, “If we get separated, meet up in Dallas,” Kenneth reminded them, and they both nodded.

  Walking out of the hotel, Besseta grabbed Kenneth’s hand. “If it gets bad, we are leaving,” she told him.

  “Hey, I’m the one that threw both of you over my shoulder last time,” Kenneth said as they reached the bikes. Stowing their gear, the three looked at each other and smiled. “Stay in our line, and we will get through this and be back home in a few days.”

  Pulling on their helmets, the three cranked up and stopped just outside the city limits and hid their backpacks. Satisfied with the packs concealment, they left Albuquerque, heading north. Driving the speed limit, the three rode up into the mountains while scanning for trouble. Ten miles south of the town of Dulce, a lone building sat in the middle of nowhere, with a sign that read, CASINO, in bright neon lights.

  ‘I smell werewolves,’ Besseta said in their minds.

  ‘Yeah, felt their thoughts the last thirty miles. They are watching the woods. That’s why we needed to take the road. No self-respecting vampire would drive a car,’ Kenneth replied as he pulled into the casino. ‘Only take your helmet off when we get inside.’

  They parked out front and only saw one car in the parking lot. “Busy place,” Tiffany noted as she climbed off.

  “Be ready to start when we enter,” Kenneth mumbled, heading for the door.

  A security guard saw the three come in wearing motorcycle helmets and tensed up, then relaxed when the three pulled them off. Walking past the security guard, Kenneth smiled at the bartender who was pulling out a cellphone. “Tiffany,” Kenneth said, ready to charge the incubus behind the bar.

  Tiffany looked at the man and started grinding her teeth while the incubus lifted the cellphone. “Like I didn’t know he was an incubus,” Tiffany panted, fighting to keep the man locked up.

  “Besseta, knock the security guard out,” Kenneth said, walking past the one customer playing video poker. Kenneth thumped the man on the side of the head and watched him hit the floor unconscious.

  “Kenneth, I don’t want to hold him all day,” Tiffany grunted, with her face breaking out in a sweat.

  Jumping over the bar, Kenneth took the phone and the incubus cut his eyes at Kenneth. “You would’ve spoiled the surprise,” Kenneth smiled, putting the phone in his jacket. Casually, Kenneth then punched the incubus in the face. The incubus flew back and hit the wall so hard, he embedded in the sheetrock. “Besseta, security room,” Kenneth pointed. “Someone is trying to call the cops.”

  Besseta vanished, kicking open the door to see a wall of monitors and a man holding the receiver to a phone in his hands. “When you wake up, you’ll be thankful you didn’t call. Otherwise, we would’ve burned the place down,” Besseta smiled and lashed out with a kick, sending the man into the bank of monitors.

  Reaching down, Besseta ejected the disks and crushed them up.

  Walking back into the bar, she saw Kenneth had the incubus in a full nelson. “Rip his head off, please,” Kenneth asked politely.

  Tiffany reached the incubus first and grabbed on his head, cranking it to the side while she pulled. The incubus regained consciousness, just as his neck broke and his body went limp. Continuing to crank the head, Tiffany continued pulling until the head separated from the body.

  “I thought that’s what we had swords for,” Tiffany huffed, dropping the head.

  “So, he had some power?” Besseta asked, watching Kenneth drop the body and lay the phone on the counter.

  Nodding, “Yes, but he was trying to cloak, and that really makes it hard to hold someone,” Tiffany said as Kenneth laid his phone next to the one he’d taken from the incubus.

  “I love it when they make it easy,” he grinned as the phone was copied. When the copy was complete, Kenneth broke the incubus’s phone and looked at the girls. “We won’t have much time to get ready. Ten miles up, the dirt road that turns off the highway is our destination. I say, we haul ass right up there.”

  “Didn’t come all this way to make friends,” Besseta smiled, but felt nervous.

  Walking back outside, they pulled off the guitar cases and tossed them to the ground. Opening them up, each pulled a sword out with a sheath that had shoulder straps, then they each grabbed a heavy gun belt. Strapping on the heavy belt, Besseta buckled the holster to her thigh and checked the two spare magazines. Watching Kenneth and Tiffany yank off their gloves and throw them in the guitar cases, Besseta yanked hers off. Pulling the shoulder straps to her sword on, Besseta patted the Liberty III pistol, then closed the guitar case.

  Besseta reached behind her head, pulling out the double-edged sword. The blade was only three inches wide, but was over half an inch thick. And the handle seemed just a bit too long, but Besseta loved it. Each of their swords looked the same. The only difference was the length. Besseta’s entire sword was only thirty-nine inches long. And at the other end of the spectrum, Kenneth’s blade alone, was thirty-six inches.

  Looking the blade over, Besseta gave a sigh and stopped before she slid it back into the sheath. Moving the sword to her left hand, “Nope, going in with a shiv in one hand and a gat in the other,” Besseta stated, pulling out the pistol.

  “It wasn’t that long ago, and you didn’t even know what a shiv or gat was,” Kenneth commented, pulling his pistol out. Like Besseta, he had his sword in his left hand and gun in his right.

  “Well, momma knows now and when this is over, momma and daddy are taking a vacation,” Besseta informed him.

  Twirling her sword in her left hand, “Can we go to Vegas and get a house and see some shows?” Tiffany asked cheerfully.

  Turning to look up the dirt road that ran up into the mountains, Kenneth gave a nod. “Tiffany, I will take you and Besseta to Vegas and reserve a penthouse suite that will make the one Maliki had seem like a broom closet, until we find a house you like. Then, we will go watch the black knight get his ass kicked.”

  Pulling her pistol out with a huge grin, “Let’s get gangsta on some ass,” Tiffany told them and moved off up the dirt road. Besseta fell in behind Tiffany, with Kenneth pulling up the rear. When they were several hundred yards from the casino, Tiffany picked up speed when she smelled werewolves getting closer. Being the slowest, Tiffany had the lead because they couldn’t get separated and had to fight back-to-back.

  “They’re coming,” Besseta called out with dust flying up behind them, as the trees in her peripheral vision blurred.

  Coming around a curve in a small valley a mile from the compound, Tiffany skidded to a halt, raising her pistol as a wall of werewolves charged her. ‘Rhhht’ Tiffany’s pistol chattered as she squeezed off bursts.

  Before she skidded to a stop, behind and to the right of Tiffany, Besseta’s pistol was sending bursts into the wall of werewolves. She watched the bullets impact the werewolves, and the ones shot only took a few steps before collapsing, but there were just so many of them. “Oh, yeah. Take this,” Besseta growled, holding the pistol steady and held the trigger down.

  The continuous chatter of Besseta’s pistol sounded over the valley as she just raked the wall of wolves, breaking the wave of bodies. ‘Triangle defense with the base toward the compound,’ Kenneth shouted in their minds. />
  Even with the shout, Besseta barely heard him in her mind over the roars of the werewolves. Tiffany moved back even with Besseta, and they formed a triangle, with Kenneth behind them at the point, aiming down the road they had just run up.

  Shoving the tip of her sword in the dirt, “Reloading,” Besseta called out, popping the rotary magazine off and slapping on another. “Ready,” Besseta called, aiming at a werewolf lunging through the air and hitting him three times in the face. Swiveling her aim and dropping down as the werewolf sailed over her head, Besseta squeezed off bursts as werewolves continued to charge them.

  Reaching back, she grabbed her sword she had shoved in the dirt as Tiffany called out, “reloading.” Besseta eased back, widening her field of fire and heard the whoosh of a sword through the air and the impact of a blade on flesh.

  Risking a glance, Besseta saw the lower half of a werewolf run toward her for several yards, before tipping over and the upper half of the body crashing to the ground beside Tiffany. Seeing Tiffany getting swarmed, Besseta spun and started shooting the werewolves closest as Tiffany slapped on a new magazine, still holding her sword.

  “Don’t know how she did that,” Besseta mumbled, spinning around and gave a startle, seeing werewolves twenty yards away. With speed a human could never match, Besseta moved from target to target in a blur, squeezing off rounds and dropping the advancing ranks.

  The gunfire stopped behind her and Besseta wanted to glance back, but her gun ran empty and she brought her sword up and sliced the arm of the closest werewolf when it reached for her. Dropping under the other arm, Besseta slashed out and chopped the right leg off just below the knee.

  She didn’t have any time to adjust as four closed in and Besseta lashed out with the sword, slicing the belly open of the closest. Spinning around him, Besseta jumped up into the air still in a spin and swung the sword out, taking a werewolf’s head off. Landing on her toes, she heard Kenneth shout, “Simon says, die!”

  “He’s playing too much with Mickey’s kids,” Besseta mumbled.

  Dropping the other two, Besseta heard bullets whizzing around her and the werewolves charging her dropped down. As Tiffany covered her, Besseta changed magazines while holding her sword. “It’s easy to change magazines with a wall of death coming toward you,” Besseta noted, turning to check on Kenneth.

  “Whoa,” Besseta gasped at the bodies dropping in a twenty-yard circle. The bodies fell without arms, legs, a head, or the torso separated from the pelvis. Kenneth was moving so fast in a circle, Besseta couldn’t even see him. “Never seen anyone move that fast in such a tight circle,” Besseta admitted, lifting her pistol up and pushing the wave of werewolves back from Kenneth.

  Kenneth appeared, standing over a mass of bodies and changed magazines. “We have to move to new ground. There are too many bodies here for us to fight them hand-to-hand,” Kenneth panted, slapping in a new magazine.

  “Moving,” Tiffany called out and Besseta took the lead, clearing a path as Tiffany changed magazines. Moving her aim from side to side, Tiffany tried to keep the werewolves from closing in, then felt a jarring impact on her right side.

  Leaping over bodies, Besseta barely made it a hundred yards when she heard an impact behind her and Tiffany let out a grunt. Spinning around, Besseta saw Tiffany flying through the air with a werewolf on her. Before Tiffany hit the ground, she put the barrel on the werewolf’s back and squeezed the trigger.

  Feeling danger, Besseta spun around while lashing out with her sword, and sliced through the abdomen of a werewolf as it grabbed her. The werewolf let out a whimper as his weight continued on and landed on Besseta before she could move away.

  Besseta felt her right knee pop and a sharp pain radiated out when the werewolf’s massive weight landed on her, driving her into the ground. Leaning up, Besseta latched onto the werewolf’s chest and the whimper turned into a painful wail. Pushing the body off, Besseta flipped up, almost falling back down when weight was put on her right leg.

  Swiping down with the sword, Besseta took off the top of the werewolf’s skull, cutting the wail off. Lifting her pistol, Besseta moved from body to body, trying to push the waves back. Unlike before, the werewolves were spread out and staggered as they charged in. Lifting her right hand to help focus her mind, Besseta watched as three werewolves collapsed when their spines snapped between their shoulder blades.

  Kenneth darted over and yanked the body of the werewolf off Tiffany. Her leather jacket was shredded to nothing, and he saw her left arm was bent at the bicep, like she had two elbows on her left arm. But Tiffany still held the sword tight in her hand. Shoving the tip of his sword in the ground, Kenneth grabbed Tiffany’s right shoulder, lifting her up as he spun around, shooting the charging figures.

  “EEEEEeeeAhhhh!” Tiffany screeched as pain intensified in her left arm as soon as Kenneth had touched her. She felt her bone snap straight instantly when Kenneth picked her off the ground. When her feet touched the ground, there was still pain, but she had use of her left arm. However, she raised her right and continued shooting.

  They moved back to the road with Besseta shouting out, “Reloading!”

  “Cubus!” Kenneth shouted and spun around, extending his right arm to see a woman charging Tiffany, with hands outstretched. Kenneth squeezed the trigger and watched three bullets hit the woman in her chest, barely making her stumble.

  Thirty yards away, the succubus crashed to the ground, sliding like a major league baseball player until she hit the stack of bodies around them. “Takes a little longer on the cubus,” Kenneth mumbled, shifting his aim to his area behind them.

  Besseta paused her shots, realizing there weren’t as many werewolves charging them, but she was on her last magazine. “We need to move, so we can fight hand-to-hand,” Besseta shouted and glanced back to see Kenneth slicing a werewolf in half, and there were four huge slashes across his back that were closing up. Then, Besseta realized Kenneth’s jacket and shirt were gone.

  Glancing down, Besseta saw only the right sleeve of her jacket had survived so far. “Perverts,” Besseta growled.

  “Move,” Kenneth called out, lifting his pistol when seeing a vampire run out of the trees. Two of the three shots hit the vampire in the face, spinning him around and crashing to the ground.

  Feeling her knee slowly healing, Besseta fought through the pain and tried to use it. Every time her right foot hit the ground, she could hear and feel bones snapping and grinding. “Got ya’,” Kenneth said, grabbing Besseta around the waist and jumping over the bodies. Pain exploded from Besseta’s knee and she let out a scream, the moment Kenneth’s hand touched her bare abdomen.

  When Kenneth landed, following Tiffany up the road, Besseta stopped screaming and felt she could move her leg again, as it healed faster than she’d thought possible. Reaching a small knoll at the end of the valley, Tiffany skidded to a halt when her pistol ran dry. “Shit,” she mumbled and a vampire dove at her.

  Lifting the pistol up, Tiffany smashed it against his skull, shattering both the pistol and the vampire’s skull as it hit a seemingly invisible wall in front of her.

  “Use your sword,” Kenneth snapped, putting Besseta down and spinning around to shoot a vampire running between two werewolves.

  “I don’t have any more bullets, so I can use my gun to beat them to death if I want to,” Tiffany snapped and swung her sword while she dodged another vampire lunging at her. As the vampire landed in a roll, he let out a scream when an invisible hand crushed his pelvis.

  Noticing their attackers slowing down, Besseta holstered her pistol, hearing Kenneth curse. She turned to see another vampire walk out of the trees with several werewolves behind him. Besseta could see sparks flash ten feet in front of the vampire as Kenneth’s bullets ricocheted off into the night.

  “He’s shielding, Kenneth,” Tiffany announced, stabbing a werewolf on the ground that was missing both legs, in the head. Seeing another vampire skidding to a stop and starting to concentrate, Tiffany
tried to immobilize the vampire like Kenneth and Besseta, locking the vampire’s mind. Concentrating, Tiffany lashed out and watched the vampire’s head crush down like a black hole had been placed inside his skull. “Well, it kind of worked,” Tiffany mumbled, spinning and slicing a werewolf’s arm off.

  Holstering his pistol, Kenneth looked at the man with a grin and could feel an invisible pressure pushing against him. “I can show you a better trick,” Kenneth said, and vanished in a thunderclap.

  A second ‘Boom’ sounded on top of the thunderclap and Besseta saw the vampire that’d been shielding and the group of werewolves behind him, flying through the air. A figure appeared, leaping up as the vampire fell to earth and Besseta watched Kenneth slice the head off. When Kenneth landed he darted over, lashing out at the werewolves before they got off the ground.

  Besseta spun around and she dropped down, slicing through a vampire’s legs as he charged her with outstretched arms. Hearing the vampire hit the ground, Besseta saw a man charging her with a grin. “Bitch,” Besseta growled with a grunt, concentrating on the man’s legs.

  A scream split the night over the howls and moans of wounded on the valley floor, as the incubus collapsed to the ground with both legs bent backwards. Darting over, Besseta sliced his head off and felt an impact on her back that darkened her vision.

  Kenneth turned around to see a massive werewolf roll when it landed and stood, holding Besseta over his head. Holding Besseta’s head in one massive paw, the werewolf held Besseta’s ankles as he started to pull. Letting out a war cry, Kenneth raised his sword as Besseta twitched.

  Consciousness hit Besseta, feeling her body being pulled and pain radiating from her neck. Still holding her sword, Besseta swung it around, severing the hand holding her head. The werewolf let out a howl, looking at his severed arm while still holding Besseta by the ankles.

  Hanging upside down with the severed hand still clasped over her head, looking out between the fingers, Besseta saw Kenneth leaping through the air, holding the sword with both hands. Kenneth severed the arm holding Besseta at the shoulder. As she was falling, Besseta watched Kenneth spin in midair, slicing off the werewolf’s head and cutting the howl off.