The Vampire Hunters (Book 2): Vampyrnomicon

by Baker, Scott M.

  Melinda heard the sounds of police sirens approaching down Independence Avenue and figured they were heading for the Freer. In anticipation, she moved away from the front entrance and closer to the sidewalk. Falling to her knees, she willed herself to cry. By the time the squad car came to a stop behind the white van, she had worked herself into a state of feigned anxiety.

  Two cops stepped out of the squad car, each placing a hand on their service revolvers. At first, neither of them noticed Melinda, their attention fixed on the van. A lanky Asian stood by the van’s left rear quarter and provided cover while his partner, a middle-aged guy with a sizeable paunch that strained against his blue shirt, moved over to the passenger side window and looked inside the vehicle with his flashlight.

  “Help me,” Melinda wailed.

  The two cops raced over to her. The Asian cop knelt down. His fat partner took a few steps beyond them and stopped, searching the area for any immediate danger, his gaze drawn to the shattered glass door of the museum.

  “My name’s Tran,” said the Asian cop, trying to comfort her. “Are you okay?”

  She sobbed and nodded her head.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Three mean-looking men grabbed my mom. They broke the door and took her in there.” Melinda pointed to the gallery. “I’m afraid they’re going to hurt her.”

  “Everything will be fine,” reassured Tran.

  “What were you and your mother doing out here at this hour?” asked the fat cop.

  “Pleeeease,” sobbed Melinda. “Help my mom.”

  “We will.” Tran shot his partner a disapproving glance and mouthed for his partner to call for backup.

  The fat cop reached up and pressed the talk button on the microphone attached to his shoulder strap. “Headquarters. This is unit twelve. We have a situation down here by the Freer Gallery. Looks like the alarm was tripped by—”

  As the fat cop called in for support, Melinda wiped the tears from her face. She looked up at Tran, a distraught little girl who desperately needed comforting. “Will my mother be all right?”

  “Yes.”

  Melinda wrapped her arms around Tran and hugged him tight. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Cross your heart?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “And hope to die?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  Tran never knew what happened. The hands that hugged him suddenly tore into his back, digging into the flesh and muscles. He tried to pull away, and when he did chunks of skin cleaved off his back. Tran opened his mouth to call for help, but Melinda clasped him tighter, forcing the air out of his lungs. She plunged her fangs into his neck, pressed her cold lips against his skin, and drank his blood.

  “—need a trauma unit for the girl. Hang on a minute.”

  Hearing the noise behind him, the fat cop turned around. His eyes widened in shock. “What the fuck?”

  “What’s wrong?” asked the dispatcher.

  He did not answer. Nor did he remove his hand from the talk button. “Get the fuck off him!”

  Melinda ignored him and continued to feed off of Tran.

  “Unit twelve, what’s going on?” asked the dispatcher, more frantic this time.

  The fat cop pulled his service revolver from its holster. He lowered it toward Melinda’s back, his aim shaky.

  “Leave him alone or I’ll shoot.”

  A loud crunch echoed off the stairs and glass doors as Melinda twisted Tran’s head at a ninety-degree angle to the right, snapping his spine. Tran’s body went limp.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!”

  The fat cop panicked, squeezing the trigger repeatedly until he emptied the chamber. All six rounds were fired erratically, slamming into Melinda’s back in a scattered pattern rather than a tight cluster. The wounds had no effect. She stood and faced him.

  “You’re too fat to be a cop,” Melinda snarled. “You need to lose weight.”

  Melinda slashed her taloned fingers across the cop’s expansive stomach. A long slit formed horizontally across his shirt and widened, revealing a razor-thin gash. The gash widened, starting at his navel and spreading outward, slowly at first but soon increasing speed until his entire abdomen broke open. The cop’s viscera twisted out of his body like some hideous octopus squirming along the ocean floor, and dropped to the pavement with a sickening thud. He stared at them, leaking blood and gore onto the ground. With a final, stunned gasp, the cop’s eyes rolled into his head and he collapsed in front of Melinda. Only then did his finger move off of the microphone talk button.

  Transforming back into her human form, Melinda waded through the pile of organs and intestines, leaving a trail of bloody footprints back to the museum entrance. Once inside, she made her way to the rear of the small corridor leading to the guard room where she could remain out of sight. She crouched down and waited for the police backup to arrive.

  Breaking out of the emergency stairwell into the basement, Jessica and Reese looked around for the exit. They found it ten feet down the corridor to the right. Jessica raced to it, pressed the bar to unlock the door, and slammed into the metal.

  “Shit, it won’t open.”

  Reese tapped her shoulder and pointed to a red sign attached to the center. It stated that federal law required the door to be unlocked during business hours, but that it would remain locked when the museum was closed.

  Jessica sighed. “What do we do now?”

  “Find another way out.”

  Akers stood at the bottom of the stairwell on the basement landing that led either to the museum archives or the remainder of the basement, utility rooms, and access areas building maintenance, trying to remember the basement floor plan he had studied in the guard room. He pushed open the door to the maintenance area and headed off down the dimly-lit corridor. If he calculated correctly, the emergency exit that led from the exhibit hall should be at the end of the upcoming corridor on the right. He just hoped that the professor and the reporter had not already—

  Jessica and Reese turned the corner and ran into Akers. Jessica let out a squeaky gasp and splashed him with liquid from a flask. At first he feared it might be acid. Instead of searing pain, he felt wetness.

  “What the fuck?” he asked, wiping his hand across his face. “What was that for?”

  “Sorry.” Jessica sounded embarrassed. “I thought you were…. Never mind.”

  “Who are you?” asked Reese.

  “The night cleaning crew,” Akers lied. “I was down here working when all hell broke loose upstairs. I was trying to find a way out when I ran into you two.”

  “You won’t get out that way.” Jessica pointed over her shoulder at the locked emergency door.

  “Any suggestions?” asked Reese.

  “Yeah,” said Akers coming up with a scheme to trap the hunters. “Follow me.”

  Jessica raced after him. Reese followed, but not as compliantly. “Where are we going?”

  “There’s a stairwell over here that leads to the first floor and to the roof.”

  He led them back to the main stairwell. Opening the door, he stepped aside and held it open for the others.

  “Aren’t you joining us?” asked Reese.

  “After you.”

  Reese pulled Jessica out of the doorway and stepped back a few feet himself, clutching the Bible tighter against his chest. “You know the way. You lead.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. We don’t have time fo—”

  A vicious growl emanated from the direction they had just come. The hooker vampire stood at the intersection of corridors where Jessica and Reese had run into Akers. It bore its fangs and charged. The runaway vampire turned the corner a second later and joined the attack.

  “Shit,” muttered Reese.

  “Hurry.” Akers shoved Jessica into the stairwell. This time, Reese followed.

  Akers slammed the door shut behind them.

  The hooker slid up to the s
tairwell, slamming her fist against the door. “You fool. You let them escape.”

  Akers shook his head. “This stairwell has only two exits. The first floor and the roof. They have nowhere to go.”

  The runaway reached the door. “Let’s get them.”

  “No,” said Akers. “You keep them trapped in there. I’ll get Chiang Shih.”

  Reese turned to make sure Akers made it through. Instead, he saw the little bastard slam the door on them. He looked around to assess the situation. The door to his right led to the archives, but he knew there was no other exit from that area that did not lead back into the underground corridors and to the two vampires they just escaped. Besides, being the employee stairwell, all the doors allowing entrance to the office spaces required a key card and access code, neither of which he had. That left only one alternative. Reese began to climb the stairs.

  “Come on.”

  “Where?” asked Jessica.

  “The roof. The sun will be rising soon. It’s our safest bet.”

  The ringing of the telephone on the nightstand shattered the stillness, startling Roach out of his sleep. Late night calls were commonplace in his line of work. That did not mean he had to enjoy them. Sitting up in bed and leaning back against the head board, Roach picked up the receiver and held it to his ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Sorry to wake you.” Preston sounded obnoxiously chipper for this hour. “But we have a clusterfuck of a situation on our hands.”

  What else is new? Roach thought. “Fill me in.”

  “Someone tripped the alarm at the Freer Gallery less than an hour ago.”

  “Big deal. It happens all the time.”

  “Dispatch called the night security guard, but got no answer. So they sent out a unit. They reported finding a little girl out front who claimed that three men had dragged her mother into the museum. Halfway through the call, the dispatcher heard an animal’s howl, one of the cops emptying his revolver, and a scream. Then the connection went dead.”

  The latter caught Roach’s attention. “Dispatch all available units to the Freer.”

  “I already did. I’m heading over there myself. I thought you’d want to meet me.”

  “Damn straight.” Roach jumped out of bed and headed for the closet. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t have any units enter the museum unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “Roger that.”

  Rodriguez pushed back against the bald vampire, his hands wrapped around its neck. His muscles strained and his arms grew weak. The vampire’s head inched closer to his neck. He could feel its cold breath against his skin. At best, Rodriguez had seconds to live.

  Something glistened on the floor and caught Rodriguez’ attention. He turned his head to see a large, triangular-shaped piece of glass from the broken display case. A long shot, but at the moment he had only one. Stiffening his left arm against its neck, Rodriguez let go with his right and reached for the shard. As expected, he could not hold it back with just one hand. Rodriguez’ arm collapsed, and the vampire fell on him. He cried out as it plunged its fangs into his neck, and his stomach went sick as he felt the thing begin sucking his blood. Feeling around for the shard, his fingertips brushed against it. Rodriguez clutched the shard and drove it into the vampire’s neck. The pain that ripped through his hand nearly caused him to black out as the razor-sharp edges dug two huge slices along his palm and fingers.

  The shard hurt the vampire far worse. It embedded in the vampire’s neck, entering on the left, ripping through the larynx, and coming out the other side. The vampire sat upright, clutching at its throat and gurgling. With a single yank, it pulled the shard out of its neck and tossed it aside. Blood fountained from the wound. It stumbled to its feet, trying to escape. Rodriguez rolled to his right and knocked the vampire’s legs out from under it. As it sprawled to the floor, Rodriguez scrambled to his feet. Grabbing the vampire by its jacket collar, he lifted it off the floor, dragged it over to the broken display case, and dropped it neck first onto a vertical pane of broken glass. Placing one hand on its collar and the other on the back of its head, Rodriguez sawed its neck back and forth along the glass. With each pull, the glass dug deeper and deeper into its neck. The snuffy panicked, flailing its arms over its head. Rodriguez sawed more furiously, pushing down harder with each thrust. Suddenly, the edge of the glass ripped through the back of the vampire’s neck. Its head dropped to the floor, exploding into a ball of ash. Blood gushed out of the severed neck, splashing onto the display case. Its body began to crumble at the neck, then spread across the shoulders and down the torso and arms.

  Rodriguez stood in disbelief. He had come to believe in the existence of the undead, but this was different. He actually had seen one up close, actually had killed one. Now that he had experienced the hunt, there could be no going back.

  He looked around the exhibit hall for another one to kill.

  Having slashed open Treja’s throat, Alison was about to advance on the master and finish it off when something slammed into her from behind, sending her sprawling. She slid across the debris-cluttered floor and banged into the rack. Though stunned, intuition told her not to waste precious seconds trying to regain her senses. Alison struggled to her feet, placing one hand on the rack for support.

  Toni stepped up and stabbed one of the daggers through her palm, impaling Alison’s hand to the wood. The pain radiated from the wound, up her arm, and through her body. She cried out despite herself.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” asked Toni as she stepped around in front of Alison.

  “Fuck off.”

  “Get over it. Your wounds will heal.” Toni cackled as she crouched down in front of Alison. Her voice seethed with hatred. “My scars, on the other hand, are permanent. Thanks to you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Alison gasped through the pain. “Let me know if I can make you any uglier.”

  Toni raised the other dagger in front of Alison’s face, twisting it back and forth so the light reflected off of the blade. “Joke all you want, huntress. It’s payback time.”

  “Then make it quick.”

  The demented laugh again. Toni placed the tip of the dagger against Alison’s cheek and ran it up and under her right eye, just lightly enough so as not to break skin.

  “I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to carve you up until you’re as hideous as me.”

  Toni stood, grabbed Alison by the hair, and yanked her head back.

  Stuck on his back with Walker’s foot pressed against his chest, Drake could not move. After the physical pounding he had endured the past few minutes, he did not have the energy to roll to the side and push away the master. However, with the halberd’s spike dangling over his face, he needed to think of something or his day would get really bad really quick. He reached into his leather jacket pocket.

  “See you in Hell, hunter.”

  “Don’t wait for me.”

  Drake pulled out the stun gun, depressed the trigger, and shoved it into Walker’s crotch. Even the undead can feel 1000 kilovolts coursing through their testicles. Walker’s body convulsed and his eyes rolled into his head. Drake felt the pressure on his chest lessen. Walker released his grip on the halberd. Drake rolled to the side just as the spike fell to the floor, burying itself into the wood. Continuing his roll, Drake knocked Walker’s leg out from under him, throwing the master to the floor. Once he felt reasonably certain of being out of imminent danger, Drake struggled to his feet.

  Walker flopped around, holding his crotch and emitting an agonized groan through clenched fangs. Good. Now to finish him off. Drake removed the remaining Glock still loaded with a full clip and stumbled over to the master.

  He heard Alison cry out.

  Turning, he saw Alison kneeling by the rack, her hand stuck to the wooden frame by a dagger. The deformed master hovered around her, flashing a dagger in front of Alison’s face and running the tip along her skin. Then she stood and yanked Alison’s head back.

&
nbsp; Drake raised the Glock and fired off six rounds at Toni. The first two missed and the third barely grazed her arm. The fourth struck Toni square in the forehead. The hollow point collapsed on impact with her skull, the flattened metal chunk gouging its way through her brain. Tiny streams of holy water trailed behind it, searing every exposed surface it touched. Exiting through the rear of Toni’s skull, the round punched a fist-sized hole through the bone and dragged shredded tissue and brain matter with it. Toni collapsed to the floor, thrashing around, clutching her ravaged head, and wailing.

  Satisfied the female master posed no threat to Alison, Drake swung the Glock back to the master he had been fighting, only to find he had moved.

  As the effects of the stun gun began to wear off and Walker could again concentrate on the battle, the magnitude of their situation suddenly struck him. Three masters and four vampires easily should have been able to take down four humans, but that had not happened. Their losses were extraordinarily heavy. Three dead, with one vampire and two masters wounded to the point of not being able to fight effectively. Which left only himself. In his condition, he did not feel confident he could win against the three humans still left standing. It infuriated him that in all his centuries as a master, he had never lost in combat before today. To humans, no less. But to die needlessly was also a disgrace. The coven would encounter the hunters again, and next time the humans would not be so lucky.

  Walker staggered over to Toni to get her to safety.

  Drake scanned the area and saw Walker making his way across the exhibit hall. He only had three rounds left in the magazine, which should be enough to stop him. He centered his sights on the master when a growl to his right got his attention. Drake glanced over to his right to see the master with the sliced open neck and the throatless, one-armed vampire flanking him. Drake swung his Glock in their direction. The two stopped but refused to back down. Sizing up the situation, Alison reached out for a broken piece of display case leg on the floor beside her, stretching because of her immobilized hand. The dagger strained against her skin, but she grabbed the makeshift weapon and brandish it like a stake. Rodriguez stumbled over to Drake and pulled the halberd out of the floor. He stood beside the hunter, weak and unsteady, but ready for the final fight.