by Derek Gunn
The vampires laughed and shrieked their pleasure as they tore into the fleeing humans again and again and left decapitated and bleeding corpses behind them with each attack. Tanya cursed and turned her attention back onto the camp. She heard her name shouted over to her left but she ignored it. There was no way she was leaving without her children. She ran on, the sea of faces blurring in her haste.
There! She raced through a group of five people as she saw the small frame of a child. She barrelled into people and sent them sprawling to the ground, but she didn’t care. The child was facing away from her but the build was right. The hair was long, as everyone’s was, but the figure was definitely male. She grabbed the child and wrenched it toward her. “Mark,” she cried out, her heart beating fiercely. It wasn’t him. She pulled the child to her regardless, her automatic instinct to protect a child taking over. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Where were they?
She grabbed the boy by the arm and dragged him behind her as she pushed her way through the press of bodies.
“Tanya!” The shout was closer but she ignored it. Harris would only make her leave. What if he had found them, though? Her mind raced. Dare she answer him and risk being pulled away? She pushed on. Faces streamed past her as she pushed her way on. Screams filled the night outside the prison as the vampires’ numbers grew. She looked up briefly and saw six of them in the air now. Shit. Where are they?
Red curls. Did she see red curls or was it a trick of the pale light? She pushed forward and then, suddenly, her arm was caught by a grip that made her pull up short.
“Tanya, we have to go,” Harris screamed at her as she tried to pull away, but his grip was firm.
“Let me go!” she screamed, frantic. “I see Emily. I see her.”
Harris hesitated for a second and she took her chance. She wrenched her arm free and raced through the bodies. “Take care of the boy,” she shouted behind her and then disappeared.
“Shit,” cursed Josh Harris. He watched the space where Tanya had been a second before suddenly fill with shuffling bodies. He looked down at the boy and took his hand with surprising gentleness. “Come on, then,” he said to the near comatose boy. “Let’s go find the crazy bitch.”
He had suspected that she would do this but had been prepared to take the chance. He hadn’t factored in the vampires coming out though, and that really fucked everything up. He had already sent the other two on. He couldn’t ask them to throw their lives away with the vampires around. He sighed deeply. Women! He pushed his way through the bodies. Women will surely be the death of me.
Kavanagh smiled as he saw the first of the humans gush over the rubble. He had been fairly certain that, if he gave the humans the opportunity, that they would run this way. It was the path of least resistance, after all. The easiest incline and the most obvious. He had certainly been lucky with the weather, though. He had expected to have to wait until tonight to gather up his supply of untainted blood. Now he and his followers could sweep down and whisk them off to his new quarters far from here and have them safely locked away before Von Richelieu was any the wiser.
He thought briefly about searching through the camp for Von Richelieu, but the ancient vampire always slept in a different place each day. He would only waste precious time looking for him with no guarantee that he’d ever find him. He looked up at the sky. The snow was still heavy but he could already see small patches where the sun was beginning to burn through the heavy cover. He would have to seek shelter soon or risk the sun’s caress. He had much to do still though.
The fact that some of Von Richelieu’s brood were in the air didn’t worry him too much. Von Richelieu, or any of his main supporters, were not here. There were only a few vampires that had risked daylight and they were far too busy slaughtering the humans. This might just work out better than he had thought. He had expected to fight for his supply and be forced to expose his treachery far sooner than he would have liked. Now, though, it might just be possible to spirit away enough humans secretly and still come back in time to help with the cleanup and remain a ‘loyal’ subject. Once he had flushed the tainted blood from his system he would then be more confident in taking on Von Richelieu.
All he had to do was take care of those vampires in the air. He had twelve vampires with him. Just like Jesus, he thought, and laughed at his pun. He ordered five of the vampires to continue collecting the humans. They would take them to the cavern they would use to keep them secure. He called the others to him and they launched into the air. They might even be able to take out most of the vampires in the first sweep if they were lucky.
“Remember, no biting and use weapons rather than claws. We must make it look like they were attacked by the humans, or even better, by the thralls.”
Tanya Syn pushed her way through the drugged people heedless of the wake of bodies she left behind her like broken skittles. The faces, skin colour and ragged hair were all different, but they all had two things in common. They all looked through her in a serum-induced glaze and they were all adults. Were all the children dead? She knew she had seen Emily, though. Where could she be?
Snow continued to fall heavily and her body was well past being cold. She wiped a hand across her eyes to clear the tears and she felt the ice tear at her skin where the tears had frozen to her cheek. She stumbled, only barely keeping herself on her feet by grabbing onto the body of an older woman who tottered and fell to the ground without a whimper.
Tanya cursed. Her feet were so cold that she couldn’t walk properly. She hadn’t felt her toes in some time and her feet felt like they were in giant moon boots. Her rational mind tried to convince her that she would serve her children no good if she died here, but her instinct drove her on. She hadn’t held her children in two years and she couldn’t leave them now, whatever the consequences.
There! She saw a glimpse of red curls just ahead. Then they were gone and she shouted out her daughter’s name. Blood pumped through her veins, adding heat to her frozen extremities. She pushed frantically forward, and then suddenly Emily was in front of her. For a moment she was so surprised that she couldn’t move. Her body began to sag with exhaustion as the adrenaline seeped from her muscles, and she began to cry with relief.
Emily had grown in the last two years, her red hair had darkened somewhat and her face now sported a mass of freckles. And then she swept the girl from her feet and hugged her as tight as she could. The girl looked ahead with a glazed indifference and, at one level, she was disappointed that the girl did not somehow recognise her. She knew how debilitating the serum could be but she still felt that their bond would somehow overcome the effects. She struggled to her feet with Emily in her arms and then Josh was beside her.
“I’ve found…”
He grabbed her firmly and forced her to look into his eyes. “We have to go now!” he shouted each word slowly so she would hear him clearly.
“No!” she screamed into his face, “I have to find Mark…”
“Do you want to die here?” His eyes burned with an intensity she hadn’t seen before and she stopped struggling as his words began to filter through her crazed mind.
“But…”
“I will find him and bring him to you,” Josh continued, “but not now. Now we have these two to get to safety before it’s too late.”
Tanya heard his words but the image of Mark as an eight year old was burned in her mind and she couldn’t leave him to the vampires.
“I give you my word, Tanya,” Josh insisted. “But you have to come now. Can’t you see what’s happening out there?”
He forced her to look through the prison walls, and she was shocked to see the number of bodies that littered the clearing.
So many.
She saw the vampires gleefully swoop again and again into the fleeing humans, tearing and ripping in a frenzy of violence and lust. Oh my God.
“We have to go,” Josh insisted again and then pulled her firmly as he pushed his way toward the gate. Every instinct screamed a
t her to pull away and keep looking for her son, but the shock of so many bodies had knocked some sense into her and she knew that she had to save Emily for now.
I’ll come back for you, Mark. I promise. She didn’t speak the words but she hoped that her thoughts would somehow cross the distance to wherever her son was and give him some comfort. She would be back. If she had to walk through hell to get here, she would be back. She would never rest until she had her family back. She gripped her daughter’s hand in hers and rejoiced on one level that she had found her. But her thoughts were with her young son, and always would be until she held him once again.
Josh finally pushed his way out past the gate and into the clearing with a huge sigh of relief. And then he remembered the vampires and he considered going back in and hiding among the serum junkies. Jesus, what am I doing? He scanned the sky. The clouds were still too heavy for the sun to burn through and the vampires were revelling in their carnage. In fact, the only thing that was in their favour was that the vampires were lost to their lusts. They attacked their prey with no conscious thought. They flew high in the sky and then dropped with shouts of joy into the mass of fleeing humans.
He turned to Tanya and grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look into his eyes. “Are you with me?” She nodded but he held her firmly. “Tanya, are you with me?” She nodded again, more slowly this time, and Harris could see that the wildness had gone from her eyes. “Stay with me. I can’t come back for you again, Tanya. This is our only chance. Okay?”
“I’m okay,” she whispered and he could see the truth in her eyes. She was devastated in not finding her son, he could tell but she was in control again. He nodded and abruptly turned, picked the boy up into his arms and began to lope toward their escape route. Most of the other humans had already made it to the rubble that surrounded the huge clearing and the space they stood in now was relatively empty. While this let them make good time, it also made them stand out quite a lot as they were heading in the opposite direction than everyone else. Would they be seen…?
He heard a screech that sounded far too close and he dived to the ground on instinct, twisting as he fell to protect the boy. He landed hard but ignored the pain as he felt, rather than saw, the vampire flash past where he had stood a moment before. He rolled, letting go of the boy as he came to his feet.
The vampire shrieked his anger as he soared back into the sky before pivoting slowly and beginning his approach again toward him. The vampires were fast as lightning on the ground, but in the air, they still had to obey basic physics. They could only drop as fast as their weight allowed so Harris waited as the creature drew closer.
He could see the wildness in the creature’s eyes as it drew closer, and, just before it tore into him, he moved. The vampire shrieked in frustration and Harris pushed Tanya and the others ahead of him. “Go!” he shouted. “Get them to safety.” Tanya hesitated for a moment but then nodded and grabbed Emily and the boy and began to run.
The vampire wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t realise that he would not catch his prey from the air. He flowed gracefully back to the ground and Harris watched in amazement as the creature morphed. Wings folded neatly behind him, arms seemed to shimmer and grow from the stumps of its wings. Muscles and bone cracked and broke as the creature regained its human form, and then, in a blur, it was suddenly beside him and smiling wickedly at him.
Harris felt himself flying through the air and, by the time he hit the ground, the vampire was there again, laughing at him. It picked him up again and threw him further back the way he had come. He hit the gate of the prison he had exited only a few minutes ago. Serum-controlled humans still wandered aimlessly around him, seemingly oblivious to what was happening. He rolled away from the gate and cried out as a shard of wood cut deeply into his back.
The vampire strode toward him, laughing. On one level his mind thought about why the creature would play with him like this. Had it never seen a movie? The hero always won. He laughed as he struggled to rise and then collapsed again as the pain sapped at his strength. The creature loomed above him and Harris had just a moment to see Tanya and the children disappear over the rubble mountain in the distance. At least they made it, he thought. He felt the vampire grab him but his mind still worked furiously. There was something about the fact that he could see Tanya at all but …pain suddenly exploded in his back as the shard tore from the gate was driven deeper into his flesh.
He struggled to hold onto consciousness as the waves of pain washed over him, but agony gave him something to focus on and he grabbed at it in desperation. Something was niggling at his mind, something important, but the pain was just too much to concentrate…
Then, suddenly, his mind cleared. The light. Shit, if I can see Tanya…the clouds above began to break apart and the sun’s light filtered through like small lasers, stabbing down and illuminating the carnage around them. The vampire hesitated for a moment as he saw the light and Harris groped at the shard in his back. He missed it the first time as his hands slipped on the blood-soaked wood, but he kept trying. Finally, he managed to get a grip on the sliver and he screamed as he tore the wood from his body. He almost lost consciousness but somehow managed to hold on. The vampire returned his attention back towards him and its mouth seemed to grow huge as it prepared to tear into his throat.
Harris screamed as he drove the wood into the vampire and felt himself falling. The vampire laughed as it looked down at the shard. It had dropped him more from surprise than injury and it plucked the small shaft from its stomach and grinned.
“Did you really think…” it began, but then the clouds above suddenly broke apart and light washed over them. It was weak and there was no heat in the pale sun, but the effect was instantaneous to the vampire. It shrieked and launched itself into the air, changing as it leapt. Flesh began to burn as it flew; boils appeared and burst, only to appear again. The vampire shrieked in pain but it soon flew into an area where the sunlight had not yet reached and it began to heal almost immediately. Harris struggled to his feet and looked up at the sky. Clouds roiled above him like agitated water. There was still no certainty whether the clouds would work for or against him.
He had a reprieve; that was all. He began to run as fast as his wound would allow him, but the vampire dogged his every move. He remained within the light but his route would take him back into a large area of cloud cover soon and the vampire would have him then. He stumbled and fell into the snow and the sudden cold on his wound made him cry out. He pulled himself to his feet and felt the colder air as he passed from the pale light into the cooler shadow. There was still enough light around him to keep the vampire away, but only just, and the rubble in the distance was like a dark mountain in the gloom ahead of him.
There was no way he could make it. The vampire shrieked again, and he was about to curse it for its taunting when he realised that it sounded in pain. Was the sun burning it again? He looked up and stopped in shock. Another vampire was attacking the first. He watched in fascination as the second vampire repeatedly attacked the first with a sharpened pole. The vampire who had stalked him turned in the air to defend itself but the second vampire had the advantage and it pressed it home relentlessly. It didn’t take long before the vampire fell from the sky and landed in a heap on the ground.
Harris watched in awe as the second vampire landed close by and then slowly approached the injured vampire. It looked over at Harris but ignored him. Instead, it walked over to the wounded vampire, raised the pole and drove it firmly down into the creature’s heart.
What the hell is going on? Harris thought as he watched the victorious vampire. For a moment it seemed to consider coming after him but then the sun broke through again and the moment was gone. The vampire launched itself into the air and disappeared into the darkness.
Harris looked at the dead vampire in confusion. A war between the vampires was just what they needed to take the heat off them. He began to stumble toward the rubble again while his mind churned w
ith the implications of this development. He had no idea what was going on, but anything that distracted the vampires was good news for them.
He looked back toward the pens that were still filled with drugged humans and took note of the many bodies that littered the snow-covered ground. Each body was surrounded by a vibrant splash of red that was impossible to miss, even in the dull light. They would return here, he vowed, and when they did it would be the vampires they would leave helpless and bleeding.
Chapter 22
“An explosion?” Carter glared at the thrall with a scowl that had the soldier shaking. “But that’s impossible. Von Kruger wouldn’t…Shit. It hadn’t been the vampire at all; it had been the humans who had attacked the convoy.” The sudden realisation struck him like a slap and his mind struggled to consider the implications.
Fucking humans, he raged. Everywhere I turn those damned bastards are there before me. He forced himself to calm down as he dismissed the hapless messenger who bolted gratefully for the door. Okay, he calmed as he thought through the situation. If the vampires weren’t involved, then it was probably safe to assume that there would be no attack after dark. That was a relief. The waste spill was still a major issue, but at least he didn’t have to worry about the fucking vampires, as well.
The pilot had reported that the explosion had ripped the waste container to pieces so it was safe to assume that the radiation was already airborne. It had begun to rain heavily over an hour ago but there was a strong westerly wind to consider as well. That would carry the cloud right over them. He just didn’t know how far the waste could spread in such weather. Was he already dying of radiation or would the rain keep it localised around the crash? He just didn’t know. He put the thoughts of radiation out of his mind for now. He could address that problem only when he had enough information. For now he had to deal with the humans.