BloodStar

by Montoya, Cassidy

  Someone yelled, "Vanguard" just as the first wave of agents managed their way into the upstairs room. Sabian, back to the wall, looked frantically for another way out. His fangs shot out like a switchblade, and the glow beneath his skin ceased.

  "I don’t have time for this," he yelled, but his hands flew with skill and within ten seconds he’d snapped the necks of five Vanguard agents. Roman remained passive, comforting and soothing those sheltering on the couch.

  The stairs were the only escape, and Sabian knew he might as well have a bull’s-eye painted over his heart. He looked to the shattered window, and back to the stairs again. More agents were ascending, and contemplation ceased.

  "Roman, this way." After all was said and done—advice doled out, mind-fuck accomplished, and more yielding than Sabian would ever be comfortable with—there was no chance he was leaving his sire to the agents. If Sabian wanted to live through the night, Roman had to survive.

  Roman shot to the window where Sabian stood, and they drank in the bedlam below. The second wave of agents had reached the stair landing. The two vampires jumped from the window, one after the other, and landed in a crouch amidst a slippery mess of black and crimson blood.

  The Vanguard had come out in force. More than one hundred agents swarmed the vampire rave dressed in their Sunday best and equipped with weaponry Sabian had never seen before. Automatic guns were retrofit in bayonet fashion so deadly wooden spears could be mounted for close combat. Wooden bullets flew everywhere. Those Sabian had known about, but the Vanguard had obviously advanced their understanding of the aeronautics of these little death pellets designed for long distance staking. Some of the other weapons looked like something out of Predator with an obvious function of point blank dismemberment.

  "Christ, Roman, keep your back to the wall," Sabian shouted as they moved to the side of the warehouse. The last thing either of them needed was a miniature stake through the heart. They could see the bullets coming at their front easy enough, and dodging or batting the ammo away wasn’t an issue as long as there weren’t too many coming at once. If either vampire took a hit to the heart, they might just be incapacitated long enough for one of the Vanguard to separate their heads from their bodies with one of the machetes or sickles flashing against the strobe lights.

  Rave music continued to pound away at the night, the perfect soundtrack to the anarchy. On the floor lay bodies, whole and severed, bloody pacifiers that only minutes before were charming accessories of the rave culture (some were even glowing), and thousands of shells spent as Vanguard unloaded their machine guns.

  They moved toward the main doors. There had to be another exit. The main floor was crawling with chaos, swarming with a shit-storm of bodies stampeding toward the doors. Sabian saw no way out along their wall, and frantically searched until he spotted a tiny exit sign across the room. A few had come to the same conclusion, but the rest of the hive-minded collective continued trampling any and everything that stood between it and the main doors.

  "This way," said Sabian, actually grabbing his sire’s hand and dragging him diagonally across the cavern. Up ahead on their left was a vampire who had been shot through the heart with a wooden bullet. He was face down, and with his back exposed, they saw that there was a sizeable exit wound. The vampire was stirring by the time they came up along side him.

  "Derrick, are you alright?" asked Roman. Sabian had never met this vampire, but it wasn’t surprising that Roman had. Roman was a keeper of vampire numbers, noting and meeting all new childer whenever possible.

  "Yes, the bullet passed through me. I’m healing, but it goddamn hurts."

  "Roman, no time!" roared Sabian, and the old vampire left Derrick to squirm his own way to the exit.

  There was pandemonium on all sides, and they were only half way there. Vampire’s lay staked in haphazard positions, completely paralyzed until a Hunter happened along and plucked their head in time to the bass drum pouring from the huge speakers. The poor sons of bitches could still see and hear, only paralyzed from the neck down, and they screeched bloody murder as Vanguard swords sliced through their necks like butter, dividing heads from bodies in the real-kill.

  The Vanguard, although skilled warriors, were unable to stake and slice every vamp in the room. Many Hunters fell. When an agent went down, crazed Kindred descended like tornados, sucking up spilled blood and leaving nothing behind but the body, just like a twister left only the foundation of a Midwestern homestead in its wake.

  Sabian and Roman had almost reached the doors, but as more and more kills were made, they were exposed with less variables moving around the room. Sabian was a couple steps ahead of his sire, three feet from the exit, and still had hold of Roman's hand when the old vamp's body stiffened like someone pressed pause in the middle of a seizure. He'd been staked through the heart so viciously from behind the spear stuck out through his chest on the other side. Sabian caught Roman’s planked body as it fell forward with momentum, and looked up at the Hunters before him.

  It was Solis, panting and crazed in the heat of battle, and behind him, Teichmann stood rock-solid still, with his gun trained on Sabian, a Titan facing off with his God.

  "Where’s Halac, you bloodsucking mother fucker?" shouted Solis over the din.

  Sabian closed his eyes as his bioluminescence spiraled outward from his abdomen. He could actually feel the process now, silly-string exploding from his bowels and curling itself through his tissue in the same process that spun galaxies. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling; the silly-string was heavy and the explosion and subsequent twist it wound through his torso felt like a stop-motion, low-grade electrocution.

  Sabian opened his eyes again, and a neon sheen had settled over them. He looked at Teichmann, and the junior Hunter shook his head as though a bee had buzzed his ear and he had no free hands to swat it away.

  "What the fuck? Ahh…" The gun flew out of Teichmann’s hand, ricocheting off the wall just next to the exit and spinning before coming to rest.

  "Back off," said Sabian to the two wild-eyed Vanguard agents. Neither faction, Kindred nor Hunter, had ever seen a vampire do what Sabian had just done. He supported Roman with one arm now, and held his other hand out in front of him, palm outward as if he were directing traffic. "I have no reason to hurt you unless you give me one."

  "Fuck you, BloodStar," said Solis. "I can’t take you, but I won’t let you have Halac without a fight."

  Sabian’s hand fell and his face mirrored the look of astonishment the Hunters wore. "Halac is looking for me?"

  Teichmann, rubbing his trigger hand with his other one as if trying to relieve a cramp said with sullen bite, "When isn’t he looking for you?"

  "We know he was in Colorado," said Solis. "We know he found her. We’re not going to let you leech him, goddamn it."

  "Son of a bitch," said Sabian as the neon bled from his eyes and the glow ebbed out of his skin. He looked down at his sire—still stiff as a board, still staked, but able to hear everything.

  "You know what to do," whispered Roman. Sabian understood. He looked back at the two Hunters with wicked purpose in his eyes. The glow was back. His face contorted with mental exertion, and both Hunters grabbed their heads and doubled over. Solis’s gun fell to the floor.

  Sabian hoisted Roman up under his arm and maneuvered out the exit.

  A few seconds after the vampires fled the warehouse, Solis and Teichmann recovered.

  "What the fuck?"

  "I don’t know," said Solis as he crawled on hands and knees for his gun.

  Teichmann fumbled for his two-way, and finally found it secured to his utility belt. He loved that belt—only got to wear it on raids, and raiding a vampire lair was an infrequent pleasure. It was extremely hard to catch a vampire distracted enough to infiltrate en force. He pressed the button, and said, "BloodStar on the move. Teichmann and Solis in pursuit."

  A man’s voice crackled back: "Copy that. We’re gonna burn this bitch down."

  "Copy," said Teic
hmann. "Thanks for the memories."

  The two agents were on their feet now, but Sabian and Roman had at least a half-minute head start. Solis crashed out the door, Teichmann on his heels while behind them, the last of the carnage continued and Vanguard agents doused the warehouse with gasoline.

  The night air was more than brisk—it was downright frigid, but neither agent felt it. Just as they got their bearings, they heard the sound of screeching tires. The agents whipped their heads around to the left, and saw Sabian pulling out of the driveway of the parking lot adjacent to the building in a cherry-red Dodge Viper, rocketing into the frigid night. Teichmann thought the car and color were just a tad too cliché for reality, but then again, he was a fricken vampire Hunter. Who was he to judge?

  The parking lot was filled with expensive sports cars, but peppered here and there with big-screen quality muscle cars, too. Vampires loved to go fast, and they’d all deposited their rides here, next to their little Halloween event.

  The agents wasted no time, heading for the first car they saw. Their ride over had been in the back of a Vanguard van, and there was no way one of those boxes could keep up with a Viper. The emblem on the ride they chose suggested an Acura, but it had to be a concept car. It was seamless, and to Teichmann looked like it came right out of the future, maybe something George Jetson would have driven, the model released just before cars could fly. As Solis reared his elbow back, preparing to crash through the window with his weapon, Teichmann shouted, "Wait."

  There, one row over and a couple cars down, was their car. There was no way they were engaging in this once in a lifetime chase with some foreign, who-knows-what-car. Not when he was looking at a 1977 Pontiac Trans Am a la Smoky and the Bandit. It was so shiny in it’s blackness he thought he might shed a tear. It was even embossed with the golden eagle over the hood. Whoever this vamp was, Teichmann thought he might give him a pass just for his automotive style.

  When Solis poised to destroy the Pontiac’s window, Teichmann said, "Wait, man. At least try the door first." Solis did, and it opened. "Told ya," said Teichmann with a grin on his face.

  It was nothing to get the ride started—agents could jimmy just about anything except some of the new, DNA protected hot rods.

  And the occasional run of the mill hybrid.

  And it was only once, and not his fault, no matter what Solis said.

  "Slide over," said Solis.

  Teichmann looked at him as though he’d just gotten off the boat and didn’t speak a lick of English. "Uh, no, this time I’m driving." Solis only stared, a look of wrung out patience on his face. "Come on. I’m the one who found the ride, got it started. You take shotgun."

  Solis stood outside the car, silent, and they could both hear tires squealing as somewhere on the streets, still very nearby, the vampires made their escape. Teichmann recognized the look on his partner’s face. If it wasn’t so frustrating, he might have laughed. Whenever Solis went into obstinate-mode, his expression reminded Teichmann of Sam the Eagle, that grumpy-looking motherfucker from the Muppet Show: eyebrows all furrowed, eyes beady, and mouth set in the same disapproving downward slant—practically a beak. Once that particular set of features came together, there was no arguing. Teichmann slid over before the vampires found themselves with a full minute head start.

  Sabian calmed himself. His mind was a gyroscope, playing and replaying what just happened. He wasn’t the least concerned about his fallen brothers and sisters. The spin was all about the telekinesis sideshow back in the warehouse.

  The night air was bitter, a preview of the storm approaching from the west. He saw a few scattered snow flurries in the air—nothing to be concerned about yet. If he didn’t shake the Hunters and finish his business with Roman soon, he faced the possibility of restricted air travel.

  They were a block from the warehouse on a parallel street when a huge explosion ripped the darkness in half, revealing a scorched sky a hundred feet above the wasted building they’d just escaped. A significant proportion of the North American vampire community was gone, just like that, anonymous on some grimy warehouse floor amidst charred vomit and the melted plastic of decorative pacifiers. With flames licking the sky in his rearview, Sabian's attention was divided between the wet streets before him and the carnage behind him. Again, he wasn’t crestfallen, didn’t feel a duty to avenge his Kindred, and wouldn’t have bothered even if he did.

  Solis jammed his foot against the accelerator and jumped the curb. The Trans-Am responded to the not-so-subtle persuasion—agents knew how to wield their rides. Most Hunters had an affinity for old muscle cars, shirking newer, sleeker models for the rev-and-ram action.

  At almost the exact moment their wheels hit the pavement, the warehouse erupted into a wall of flames. They just caught the sounds of their cohorts outside, whooping and hollering at the collapsing building, their whistles and shouts of justice almost completely engulfed by shattering glass.

  The vampires had a two-block lead on the Hunters. There were drunk, costumed bodies still doing the swerve-and-curve only those that go the distance understand. They were heading North out of Brooklyn and toward La Guardia Airport by the most direct route Sabian could remember. He’d spend plenty of time in New York City, knew it like the back of his hand as did most vamps (cultural center of North America and all), and things didn’t change over the decades so much that he couldn’t pick his way through the boroughs.

  JFK was out of the question. He knew Hunters would be staked out there—probably La Guardia, too, but he’d known the Vanguard to ignore oversights before, and hoped they were too caught up in the raid to cover all ports of exit.

  The snow sprinkled the streets like sugar, and what had just been flurries got a kick in the ass and moved into second gear. In a matter of minutes, Sabian wouldn’t be able to channel his inner Mario Andretti anymore.

  Roman grinned as they passed a group of humans playing dress up. Vampires, of course. "You still don’t believe do you?" he asked in a wheezy voice. Roman was seated with his left shoulder leaning on the backrest, and the stake still stuck out on both sides. Sabian had forcibly folded Roman's paralyzed body into the Viper.

  It was, in Sabian’s opinion, the worst fate. A staked vampire could do nothing to defend himself, but could still speak. He’d heard too many of his Kindred beg for their lives all the way to the moment the steel flashed. Then the plea was always one of forgiveness. Sabian had long come to the conclusion that God suffered the same exact fate, only God’s head was severed not by steel, but by the sins of his beloved children.

  Sabian felt traction giving way to the slip-and-slide of the snow-lubed asphalt. "I believe you need to shut the hell up so I can get you out of here."

  And just then, as if to punctuate the thought, Solis and Teichmann exploded onto the scene in a rubber-burning right turn straight out of Dukes of Hazard.

  "There," shouted Teichmann, half holding on for dear life and half readying his heat. If they caught the bloodsuckers, there was no telling if it would be a long-range stun situation for the BloodStar or hand-to-hand. He thought probably the former. No sense fucking around with that entrancement bullshit.

  Solis hit the gas. "How about that parking lot. Ever see so many hot rods?"

  Teichmann had seen this before. For some reason, Solis almost always engaged in humdrum conversation in the middle of tense, exciting moments—especially during car chases.

  "Technically, none of them were hot rods."

  "Mr. Semantics over here," Solis said as he drove up on a curb and gained some ground, honking his horn to clear the way of the Halloween holdouts still on the streets at four in the morning. Teichmann just smiled and held on as his partner man-handled the big hunk of metal.

  This was what it was all about. He fucking loved this shit.

  Roman jostled all over the passenger seat. The Viper was a performance machine, but it wasn’t designed for comfort in case of high-speed pursuit. There was only a small area hollowed out underneath
the dash for his legs, and the leather provided his body no traction as Sabian railed around corners and ping-ponged left and right to avoid drunken Halloweeners.

  "You are a soul reader, you have the power of telekinesis, and you defy the sun. I mean, good God, you took those weapons right from their hands." Roman’s eyes were wide with exalted disbelief. "Sabian, childe, embrace the knowing. Embrace what you are."

  "What I’m knowing is with that stick in your heart, they’ll have your head without a fight, and if you die, I die, so save the propaganda and let me focus."

  The Hunters were still on their tail. Their Pontiac couldn’t take the tight turns like the Viper, so Sabian zigzagged his way North, aware more in his bones than by the dash clock that sunrise was creeping westward from the Atlantic with every passing second.

  "You’re not going to die," said Roman simply.

  "Without a living sire, I will. You know that."

  Slowly, deliberately, with only his voice to punctuate the comment through his paralysis, Roman said, "You are BloodStar—the BloodStar. I’d bet my head on it."

  "It might just come to that. Now shut up and let me drive."

  "Did you see what he did with my gun?" Teichmann all but bounced in his seat like a child.

  "Fuck yeah, I saw it," answered Solis through gritted teeth as he cut left, the Trans-Am throwing their bodies violently to the right.

  "Ever seen one of them do something like that?"

  "No. Now shut the hell up. This fucker can drive." Solis busted a hard right, falling further behind with every precision turn the BloodStar made. The Pontiac just couldn’t perform in tight confines like that Viper. They cut another left and turned out of sight. Another couple minutes of this, and the vamps would leave them behind in the suburban labyrinth of Brooklyn.