Bloodshift

by Garfield Reeves-Stevens

  Weston was looking into the snarling face of Adrienne St. Clair.

  In the basement, they had fed from him. Depleted, drained, and forced to endure horrors worse than any childhood fancy, Granger Helman was led up out of the darkness to meet with Diego. His eyes wore the vacant expression of the damned. They did not wish to see further. His blood ringed the lips of the children who walked beside him and discoloured the fangs of the women who remained in the basement. He bore many wounds that were not on the veins of his neck.

  The children of his sister took him gently by the hands and brought him in to meet their new father, Lord Diego.

  Faced with the presence of the monster who had destroyed his life, Helman felt empty. Everything around him which he had cherished, they had taken from him. Everything he held tightly within himself as his strength and identity, they had exposed and crushed. He had no more capacity to loathe Diego. There was nothing left to him that mattered. There was nothing.

  But Diego was ecstatic. Clement and the betrayer assassin both in one night. Only the girl was required now, and from the sounds of the fighting, her capture appeared to be imminent.

  “So, children,” he beamed through his fangs. “You have finally brought your uncle to meet with me again. It seems like such a long time since I spoke with him in New York. Don’t you think so, human?”

  Helman stood silently. Nothing.

  “My friend, Father Clement here, has finally come to his senses, human. He wants to be my familiar again as he did so many years ago. Would you like to be my familiar also, human? Stay with your charming nephews, forever?”

  “Please, Granger. Please do it. What he says,” the children said.

  Helman looked down at them. Their faces so familiar, so monstrous. He said nothing.

  “Watch how easy it is, human,” Diego said and moved toward Father Clement.

  The yber who had kept a grip on Clement since his arrival let go and moved away. Clement filled his mind with prayers. The hand grenade was cold against his belly.

  “Father Clement here will make an excellent familiar. His mind is disciplined. Difficult to peer into.” Diego stood in front of Clement, eyeing him like an insect about to be crushed.

  “You, on the other hand, human, have a weak mind. There were too many things that you cared about. It made your mind open. Some yber are trained in such things. Like the women in the basement. We know all your dreams, human. But for you, Clemencito … what is it that you dream of?”

  Diego spread his arms like some hellish bat enwrapping its victim. Clement’s hands moved up to his neck and worked at removing his cleric’s collar and opening his robe and shirt.

  Diego hugged the Jesuit closely to him and looked within his eyes. Helman watched impassively. The other yber in the room was entranced by the sight of a Jesuit giving himself freely to his Lord.

  “What are your dreams?” said Diego. He brushed his lips against Clement’s face and bent his head toward the exposed neck.

  Father Clement’s hands moved between them.

  Diego stiffened.

  Catlike, his clawed hand jerked in between them, clutching at something Helman could not see.

  Clement clenched his eyes shut.

  Diego’s opened in surprise.

  With one hand he lifted Clement into the air by his neck and with the other sent him shooting through the open doorway.

  Father Clement’s body was engulfed in midair.

  The room shook with the force of the explosion.

  Helman was blasted back against a wall and slumped against it. His nephews curled up on the floor. The yber guard stumbled backward but did not fall.

  Clement’s body had directed most of the explosion back into the room. The doorway had focused it on Diego. He turned slowly to face the others in the room. His face was a mass of dark welts and rivulets of thick, white liquid. His black jumpsuit was shredded. But he smiled. Delighted.

  “How unexpected,” he said.

  His face and the flesh of his upper chest where the shrapnel of the grenade had torn through it was literally creeping before Helman’s eyes as the accelerated metabolism repaired the damage.

  Diego turned to Helman.

  “And what tricks do you have ready for me before I rip out your throat?” he snarled.

  Helman didn’t raise his hands to protect himself.

  He didn’t even wonder what it would be like.

  He just knew it couldn’t be worse than what had happened in the basement. He could accept anything else.

  Diego came closer.

  Something moved in the doorway.

  “Eduardo.”

  The voice from the doorway burst upon Helman’s mind like a wave. He looked past Diego. Diego recognised it also and spun.

  In the doorway stood Adrienne St. Clair. Behind her was Major Weston.

  In her hands she held a Nevada gyrojet.

  Diego opened his mouth as if to say something.

  The gun erupted.

  The explosion flowered from Diego’s midsection. He flew backward through the air. Helman felt the intense heat of the explosion as the fiery body rushed past. Diego’s legs, severed in the explosion, lay before Helman. They twitched once and then, like paper consumed by fire, fell in on themselves and were dissolved.

  The yber guard was disintegrated by Weston’s gun.

  “Adrienne,” Helman said. Something had come back to him.

  She ran to him. Put her arms around him.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “We’re going to get out of here. There are too many yber here for the location sense to work clearly. They aren’t able to detect me. Weston told me everything.”

  “You believe him?”

  “If you believe him, that’s all I care about. I saw them taking you here. I thought you were gone.”

  Helman felt life returning to him. He looked up at Weston.

  Weston’s face was frozen in horror.

  “Diego!” he screamed.

  A clawed thing dug into Helman’s leg.

  The maniacal face of Diego snarled up at him. One hand held Helman’s ankle. The other clawed arm stretched up for his neck. It snared on the weapons harness and began digging in, ripping through even the Kevlar armour, tearing for Helman’s heart.

  Adrienne fell back. The explosion had not reached Diego’s heart. He was little more than a torso with arms, hut he lived. She grabbed at the bayonet sheathed on Weston’s leg. Helman struggled frantically against the half-monster that crawled inexorably up his body.

  Adrienne attacked. She jabbed the bayonet into Diego’s back. He screamed and fell back from Helman. She did not release her grip on the blade and it slipped from him.

  She went to slash at him again. Weston desperately tried to reload the gyrojet with his trembling hands. Helman ran to help him. His nephews stared at the struggle in confusion.

  Diego swung his arm savagely at Adrienne, catching her on the knees. She was down. He crawled on her.

  Helman couldn’t fire the reloaded gun without hitting her.

  He kicked out and caught Diego on the temple.

  Without his full weight to stabilise him, Diego rolled off.

  Helman aimed.

  Adrienne jumped up in front of Helman’s line of fire and began hacking at the writhing torso of Diego. She screamed hysterically. All she could see was Jeffery writhing in the sunrise where Diego’s emissaries had chained him.

  She slashed again and again. Diego bled white blood like a burst infection.

  “Go for his heart,” Helman screamed at her. “His heart.”

  Diego was almost out of the door onto the balcony. Helman reached out and grabbed Adrienne’s shoulder to push her out of the way so he could fire at Diego.

  She snarled at Helman. “He’s mine. For Jeffery.”

  She turned back to Diego. He was gone.

  She ran out on the balcony. He was crawling away, Helman ran out after her.

  “Face me, Eduardo,” Adrienn
e screamed.

  Diego twisted on the floor.

  The bayonet arced down for his neck.

  At the last instant he contorted his half-body.

  The bayonet sliced cleanly through his right arm. It dissolved before it hit the ground.

  Diego roared. He rolled and tried to push himself up with his left arm. Adrienne thrust the bayonet into the middle of Diego’s back so violently he crashed through the balcony railing and whirled down onto the solid marble floor of the entrance hall. There was a solid thud as he hit. Then a final, hollow gasp of breath. Then silence.

  In the near-darkness, there was nothing left. Helman went to her. “We’ve got to get back to cover. There are still more of them around.”

  She turned to him. In the dim light of the emergency fire lights he saw the animal look of hate fade from her features.

  “He’s gone,” she said.

  “He’s gone,” Helman agreed. “Now let’s get back to Weston.”

  She turned once more to look over the railing into the darkness.

  “Come on,” Helman said.

  She stiffened.

  From the other side of the entrance hall, a shriek of triumph rang from the balcony opposite.

  “Death to the daughter of Satan!”

  Adrienne lurched back against Helman, her eyes open in shock. A crossbow bolt was imbedded at the edge of her shoulder. Her mouth opened to gasp for air and a slimy gout of white blood vomited out.

  Adrienne clutched at her chest. Helman saw a Jesuit reloading his crossbow on the far balcony. He levelled the gyrojet and the Jesuit was consumed in the explosion.

  He carried Adrienne back to the room where Weston waited. Campbell and Steven crouched in a corner, whimpering.

  Helman tried to pull on the arrow. Adrienne stopped him.

  “It’s too close,” she choked. “Touching the heart. Mustn’t force it.”

  “What happened to your armour?” Helman asked uselessly.

  “I’m wearing it, Granger.” She tried to smile. “Slipped by on the shoulder.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I need some quiet. Can’t concentrate on healing like this. Got to work it out a bit at a time. Heal it slowly.” She stopped with a gurgling series of coughs. More white blood trickled from her mouth.

  “It’s almost sunrise,” Weston said. “It’s got to stop then.”

  “Don’t count on it, Major,” Helman said. “She’s told me about the offices they run in Zurich. As long as they’re protected from the sun, they just keep going.”

  “I’ve got five charges left for the gyro. Maybe there aren’t more than five of them left,” Weston said and crouched in the doorway, keeping guard.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Helman asked her.

  “Just hold me,” she said. “It helps me concentrate.”

  He held her.

  In the corner, the two children, only two days from their Communion, sank into the dreamless sleep of day.

  Outside, the sun was rising.

  By two hours after sunrise the sounds of fighting were sporadic. Few screams were heard and the last two explosions had been Weston’s. Two black-suited yber, wearing the dark mirrored helmets that had protected them from the banks of UV floodlights had dissolved.

  One narrow shaft of sunlight shone brilliantly through a parting of the immense curtains that covered the hung-glass wall that faced the rising sun.

  Weston had fired his gyrojet at them much earlier. The drapes were not substantial enough to cause the small rocket to detonate. It had torn through the fabric and shattered the glass behind it. Only a narrow beam of light showed where the explosion had taken place.

  He had fired another at the centre of the massive track that supported the curtains, but it too had been reinforced as a precaution against earthquakes.

  Adrienne, Helman, and Weston stayed protected in the room off the balcony that Diego had made his headquarters. They had only one charge left for the gun. And in the dim scattering of sunlight, they could see that there were still Jesuits on the balcony and yber down below. From time to time they called out to the trapped humans above. The Jesuits would answer with a salvo of arrows which would clatter uselessly on the floor. The yber would howl with delight.

  “How’s she doing?” Weston asked.

  “She is doing fine, Major,” Adrienne said. “I’ve got about two inches of it out so far, but I’m feeling resistance. I think it has a barbed tip. If I pull on it any more it will tear through the muscle of the heart. I’m going to have to leave it where it is.”

  “Is there nothing you can do?” Weston spoke with his back to them as he watched the developments in the entrance hall.

  “If we don’t have to hurry, I can walk. If I can get to a doctor all I need is to have my chest opened up above the arrow and have it lifted out from above. It will heal in a single night.”

  “Think we can walk out of here by tonight, Major?” Helman asked.

  “I don’t know. But take a look at this. Those Jesuits over there are up to something.”

  Helman crawled toward the doorway and lay down beside Weston. Weston’s voice was weak and quavering. Helman had seen him give himself an injection. He had been rapidly looking worse ever since. Helman was familiar with the effects of many chemicals. Even if he and Adrienne were able to walk out of the mansion that evening, Helman doubted if Weston would be alive to join them.

  “Those two over there,” Weston said, pointing with the barrel of the gyrojet.

  In the darkness, Helman could see three Jesuits crouched in a doorway off the balcony on the other side of the entrance hall, just as he and Weston were. They seemed to be preparing for something.

  Suddenly one of them burst off along the balcony toward the glass wall. The other two jumped to the balcony railing and fired their crossbows into the darkness.

  The third Jesuit leapt to the edge of the railing and dove off, straight into the curtains.

  At least five arrows hit him while he was in the air. He crashed screaming into the curtains and fell the twenty feet to the floor. Black shapes scuttled out of the darkness and surrounded his body. The Jesuits by the railing were recocking their crossbows, screaming at the yber in the shadows. They fired their weapons down at the creatures dragging away the body of their brother. Then two figures swung up over the railing where they had been hanging like bats and took them.

  The Jesuits’ headless bodies were thrown off the balcony. The yber below shrieked in victory.

  “It’s just a matter of time before they get us,” Weston said. “There’re probably half-a-dozen under our part of the balcony right now just waiting for the moment when they think our weapon is unloaded.”

  “And they’re using the Jesuits’ crossbows. They wouldn’t even have to get close to us.” Helman was thinking about what the Jesuits had tried to do.

  “There’s a way to do that properly,” Weston said.

  “Pull down the curtains?”

  “The secret’s not to get shot when you make the jump.”

  “How do you manage that?”

  “When you start your run, I’ll fire this straight in the middle of the floor down there. That will stop them just for the two seconds you need to rip those curtains off the track with the momentum of your body.”

  “My body?”

  “I can’t run, Granger. Where I’m laying now is where I’m going to die. I’ve taken so many stimulants and painkillers to get my lungs this far that this is as far as I go.”

  “What happens to Nevada?”

  “You’re Nevada. No one else is left. Some rumours will start soon when a few envelopes of our findings are distributed outside the States. But there’s no one else to do our work. Just you. And Adrienne.”

  “How? I only know what you told me yesterday.”

  “In your harness. In the pocket there, by the clasp. All the information you need. Go do it. Get the sun in here before they decide to rush us.”

  Hel
man crawled back to Adrienne.

  “I’m going to open the curtains out there. Bring in the sun.” He pulled up on the rug on the floor and covered her with it. “I’ll be back,” he said.

  “Granger—” she began.

  He quietened her with his hand.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

  He pulled the other half of the rug over the comatose forms of Steven and Campbell, then joined Weston back at the doorway.

  “No way the army is going to come and get us out of this one?” he asked.

  “The codes are in,” Weston said. “Nobody’s going to set foot here for days. The story’s already going out to the good people of Nacimiento that they’re just filming another movie up here. Somewhere in Washington the word is that there’s a biological weapons spill up here. It’s coded at such a high level that it will be days before any agency realises that nobody’s doing anything about it. We’re on our own.”

  Helman clapped Weston on the shoulder.

  “Get ready to fire then.” he stood up against the doorframe. The path down the balcony seemed clear.

  Weston forced himself to his knees. He was very unsteady and used both hands to steady the gyrojet.

  “Now!” Helman snapped and tore off down the balcony.

  The yber below shrieked and hooted like animals.

  Helman reached the end of the balcony. Weston lurched forward and fired straight down. The explosion flared within the darkened hallway. Helman leapt.

  Blinded by the flash, Weston heard more than saw the dark shape that rushed toward him.

  Helman made the jump easily. Not a single arrow came near.

  He slid about five feet down the fabric as he swung into it. The fold of cloth he clutched at burned like rope as it ripped through his fingers. But he dug in and his grip held.

  His momentum swung him one way, then another. The track buckled just a small bit and when he swung back the curtains parted for an instant and let in a killing shaft of sun.

  But then he swung back again. The shaft disappeared. And the track held firm.

  Then they found him with their arrows.

  Some hit the curtains where he hung. He felt others stop against his Kevlar vest. He swung himself violently on the fabric. His injured arm gave out. He hung by one hand.