by J. Morgan
If only there was some way to get out of this.
But, there is, the voice said stronger than ever. Give in to me and you can save them all—Luna, the monkey, everyone. All you have to do is let me out and all this will be over.
"What do you want from me?” Breathred screamed.
Lewis stopped dragging him and looked down at him like he was crazy. At this point Breathred couldn't be sure he wasn't totally bonkers. He'd ask the voice. It seemed to know everything, anyway.
"All right, put the virgin down and nobody gets hurt!” Stud yelled, stepping into the room.
Breathred couldn't believe his eyes. Luna and Stud had come to the rescue. He might just make it out of here after all. That wellspring of hope died when he saw Leopold slip around behind them. Breathred screamed out as the vampire grabbed Luna and pulled her back to him. Stud jerked his head toward them, but it was too late. The golden knife was at her throat.
It's not too late. I can save her, the voice cooed in his ear.
"What do I have to do?” The question a near silent breeze from his lips.
Just let me take care of everything. That's all, the voice promised.
Breathred held his breath, not sure he could trust the voice, but he couldn't let Luna die, either. He watched Leopold play the knife across her throat. No, she wouldn't die, if there was anything he could do about it. He'd bargain with the Devil, himself, to save her.
"Do it,” Breathred said to the voice, and in the darkness of his mind the voice smiled.
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Fifty Six
Just when you think you got vampires figured out, they go off and do something really throws you for a loop.
Seeing Leopold in action, Lewis regretted telling him not to wear the Gary Oldman Dracula wig. It would have looked good with his red Kimono with the black dragons copulating on the back. The young vampire was so distracted by the sight of his master and the girl he didn't even notice Breathred had slipped away.
"Let her go,” Stud demanded.
"I don't think so, monkey boy.” Leopold stuck his tongue out at the chimp. “See, I have the big knife, so I get to do what I want."
"Well, I've got the big hairy monkey, Wormy Mc Worm. So, you can suck it, Asshole,” Stud shouted back.
"Stud, shut up. You're not helping matters.” Luna screamed. Even Lewis winced as Leopold jerked the knife tight against her throat, pulling the flesh tight enough to make a pink indention in the skin.
"Yeah, back off before I slit doggie girl's throat. Now, shoo.” Leopold shook his toe at Stud as he backed away from the chimp.
"You hurt her and I'll—” Stud warned.
"And you'll do what? Rub your dirty monkey butt on me? Go away. I will not have monkeys at the Mother's rebirth,” Leopold snapped.
Stud made a move toward the vampire. His legs felt like lead weights as he moved to take a second step. He knew instantly D'brea had taken control of his body again.
What are you doing, you crazy bitch? he thought at her.
If you try to help her, all you'll do is get the both of you killed. D'brea answered, her voice a pale whisper in his head.
The chimp could tell the vamp was using too much of her already-depleted energy to keep him in check, and it showed. Even holding him in place was taxing her. If D'brea didn't get back to her body soon, he wondered what would happen. Would she find herself roaming around for all eternity without a body—or worse—be trapped in his body? Stud felt her doing the same as she shared his thought.
D'brea's trick had given Leopold enough time to get Luna closer to the altar, and out of his way. With a sigh of relief Stud felt her let control of his body go back to him. From their contact he felt her thoughts and knew if D'brea had a body, she would have been covered in sweat from the effort. As it was, even her spectral body shook from the effort, and he could feel her drifting away. Then the connection was gone and he couldn't feel anything from the woman.
Stud let out a strangled gasp as he felt D'brea exit his body and instantly felt the empty place inside himself where she had been. His feelings weren't hurt by it, either. He just knew she had planted flowers or something equally girly in his Super Id. He knew for a fact the ghost had been painting clothes on all his dirty dreams, so she was liable to do just about anything.
Whatever D'brea had on her freak-on-a-leash mind was not important now. He had to get to that floor-flushing vampire who had Luna. Stud didn't know what D'brea was up to, but it had better not screw up them saving Breathred. Dead or not, he'd go to hell and kill her ass for a second time, if she did.
Leopold's shouting brought Stud out of his musing. “Lewis, what the hell did you do with my virgin?"
Stud looked around and saw Breathred was nowhere in sight. The big goob must have gotten away in the confusion. At least something was going right.
"Damned, if I know! He must have slipped away when you and the monkey were yelling at each other,” Lewis answered back, roughly.
"Don't take that tone with me, Playah. I don't care when he got away. Just find him!” Leopold screamed.
"Looking for me, hellspawn?” Breathred asked from the shadows that lay beyond the altar. His voice was cold and hard, sounding like a shadow rasping on the edge of the sun.
He stepped into the light. His hands were no longer cuffed behind his back, but were clinched into fists at his side. Stud barely recognized him. Breathred looked the same as always, but there was something different about him. Even his voice didn't sound like him. The chimp wasn't sure what was going on, but he sure as hell planned to find out.
"Breathred, are you okay?” Stud shouted to be heard over the quarreling vampires.
"Sub-creature, I am fine.” Breathred stated.
"Sub-creature! Who the hell, are you calling a sub-creature?"
"Breathy, what's happened to you?” Luna sobbed.
Breathred swung his head around until his dead eyes fixed on her weeping face. “Woman, Breathred is gone."
"What do you mean Breathred is gone?"
"He sacrificed himself to save you from the abomination. He is no longer here. Only I exist in this body,” the voice-made-flesh answered.
"Lewis, you broke my virgin!” Leopold pouted, letting Luna slip from his grip.
"And just who the fuck are you?” Stud shouted.
"I am the Antipaste, the fallen one.” Breathred/Not Breathred answered.
Time stood still as they all looked at each other. Vampire stared at primate. Primate stared at human—well not human, but we're not going to go into semantics. Needless to say they were all confused.
"Did he just say he was a pile of linguini that just fell on the floor?” Leopold leaned back and asked Luna.
"I don't think so, but at this point anything is possible.” Luna whispered back.
"What a crock of horseshit! Breathred, I don't know what these assholes did to you, but snap out of it.” Stud told his friend. He had to have to have a serious talk to the goob when this was over. All those comic books were going to his head. Antipaste indeed! Next thing you know, he'd want to be called Darth Breathred again.
"Sub-creature, be quiet, lest I deal with you as harshly as I will with the abominations,” the Not-Breathred snapped.
Stud shook his fist at him. “Friend or no friend, if you don't cut that sub-creature crap out, I'm going to slug you."
"So be it,” Breathred said, a slow evil grin slashing his face.
Lightning blazed from Breathred's hands and engulfed the chimpanzee. Energy crackled around his diminutive form. The smell of burning hair filled the air, as he writhed in the center of the ball of electrical hell Breathred created around him.
Okay this shit hurts, Stud thought.
*Feel free to jump to another point of view now. I think I'm going to cuss my ass off then pass out. Thank you very much for ignoring the fact I may soil myself somewhere in the middle of all the cussing.
"Breathred, stop it! You're killing him,�
� Luna screamed.
Non-Breathred looked at her. For one brief second Luna swore she saw a flicker of the old Breathred. She bit her bottom lip, waiting for her words to break through to him. They had to. On some level he must know they were his friends. Somewhere in there, the Breathred she loved still existed.
"Please, let him go,” she begged, as Stud's anguished howls filled the room.
Breathred blinked. Without a word, he lowered his hand. Instantly, the energy surrounding Stud disappeared, sending the chimp shooting through the air. He came down in a cussing, smoking lump against the far wall.
"Thank you,” Luna said, weakly.
"Milady,” Breathred said with a nod of his head.
"Look! I don't know what's going on here, but I will not have it. We are here for a simple virgin sacrifice. Is that too much to ask for?” Leopold shouted.
"Leo, chill out. You're kind of losing it and beginning to look like a total dweeb,” Lewis advised him.
"Dweeb! I am over three hundred years old. People my age do not—I repeat—do not look like dweebs!"
"Well, a jackass, then.” Lewis mumbled under his breath.
Leopold gave him a harsh look. “I heard that."
"I meant you to."
"I'm so sure you did, you mutha,” Leopold snarled.
"Shut yo mouth.” Lewis grinned.
"This is no time for your retro clichés. Get my virgin!"
"Silence!” Not-Breathred yelled.
Luna's mouth fell open at the sound of his voice echoing through the room. She wasn't one bit surprised to see the entire room fall silent or when every eye turned to the possessed Breathred. Luna knew shock was the least of the things running through any of their minds at the moment.
"There he is. Go get him.” Leopold whispered to Lewis, drawing a weak chuckle from her.
"You go get him.” Lewis told him. “I'm no fool. That whatever-it-is ain't the same nerd. You risk yo’ lily-white ass if you want to, but I ain't."
"This farce is at an end. Demon spawn, it is time to pay for your unnatural existence,” Not-Breathred said in his cold, empty voice.
Luna couldn't move. This was all wrong. She was torn between her love for Breathred and the realization he may no longer exist. What was she going to do, if he was truly gone like this Antipaste character said? Luna couldn't accept that. Uncle Joan had said she could save him. How to do that was what had her stymied.
Luna heard the sound of Stud moaning from where he lay against the wall. She had forgotten all about him. With everything that had been going on, she couldn't be expected to remember everything. The chimp was moving, so he couldn't have been hurt that badly. Besides, she always thought he needed shock therapy, anyway. As much as she would have liked to check on him, Breathred needed her more.
The world behind her exploded with the sounds of battle. Well, it really wasn't a battle. Maybe a one-sided ass-whooping would be closer to the truth. In any case, however you want to describe it, it didn't sound good.
She turned around just in time to see Breathred unleash a hail of lightning after the fleeing vampires. They barely dodged the bolts by jumping behind the altar. The lightning tore holes in the marble altar. Luna was happy to see, thankfully, D'brea's body missed a direct hit during the barrage. Luna would hate to see the vampire queen come to any harm. Aside from being a shameless hussy, D'brea was good people.
Everything was happening so quickly, she didn't know what to do. This sounded so simple back at Uncle Joan's apartment. Now, it was all going to hell in a hand-basket. Where were Uncle Joan and Brogan? Luna wasn't sure how much help they were going to be, but at this point anything was better than nothing.
"Fiends, there is no sense hiding. Your judgment is upon you.” Breathred's voiced boomed.
"Can't we talk this over? I might have been a little hasty about sacrificing you,” Leopold yelled, waving a lace hanky above the altar. “Perhaps, we could work something out."
Luna watched in horror as a lightning bolt shredded the hanky.
Leopold drew back the smoldering handkerchief. “Well, that was just rude. A polite no would have been enough."
"Breathred, stop this! This isn't you.” Luna pleaded.
"Woman, I said be quiet! If you cannot control yourself, I will do so for you,” Not-Breathred said.
Before Luna could say another word, Breathred flicked his hand, sending her sailing into the air. She looked around to see the far wall rushing toward her. Luna twisted her body at the last minute, but that didn't save her from the skull jarring impact that shot through her, as she connected with the wall.
Luna had five seconds of lucidity before everything went black. Disbelief splashed through her mind, as her consciousness faded. Her last thought was that Breathred wouldn't hurt her.
Stud smacked the smoke from his eyes at the sound of Luna's impact. He turned around just in time to see Luna's body crumple next to him. He slapped out the last of the embers from his head and shuffled over to her side.
Lightly moving the hair from her face, the chimp saw a thin line of blood ran from Luna's mouth and cascaded down her cheek. Stud held his breath, fearing the worst. The sound of his beating heart drowned out the fighting going on in the room around him. She had to be all right. He couldn't lose Breathred and her all in the same day. Who would pick up his dry cleaning? R.J. sure as hell wouldn't.
Stud wasn't even sure what had happened to her. One minute he was lit up like a Christmas tree, then the next he was doing his impression of a cigarette butt, which wasn't his idea of a fun night out on the town. He couldn't see Breathred, even if he wasn't possessed, hurting Luna, so that left the vamps. Dirty-ass bloodsuckers were bound to have done it.
A sound escaped Luna. Stud's eyes instantly fell to her. She still looked like hell, but some of the color was coming back to her face. Her chest moved with the slow rhythm of steady breathing. Stud let out a sigh, although he didn't want to let her see he was worried.
Her eyes snapped open to Stud's relief. She tried to get up, but he pushed her back down. “Don't even think about it. Now lay there and tell me what happened.” He placed his hand on her shoulder.
"He's gone,” she started sobbing.
"Who's gone, Sweetie?” Stud was confused, but a thousand volts tended to do that to you.
"Breathred,” she whispered; tears swelled from her swollen eyes. “He hurt me, Studie."
Stud's heart went cold. He could understand Breathred taking a swipe at him. You could only repress anger for so long, but Luna? Breathred would never hurt Luna. The idea was so insane Stud had problems even processing it. He would have still been sitting there with his mouth hanging open if she hadn't reached up and grabbed his neck. “He's not in there anymore. Th-that whatever it is, has taken him over.” Stud could barely hear her words through the sobs tearing through her.
He didn't know what to say. She wouldn't lie to him. The thought sent a wave of anger boiling through him. His Gilligan was gone. The asshole in his place had hurt the only other person in the whole flaming world he cared about—besides Estelle Getty—who wasn't returning his e-mails anymore, so she didn't count.
Stud wasn't about to accept that. One way or another, he would get his damn Gilligan back and, if any way possible, a Ginger. He knew just how to do it. The same way dear old mom would do it. He'd sneak up behind him and hit with something big and heavy, like a statue of a big naked guy with a little weenie. Which Stud grabbed as he put phase one of his plan into action.
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Fifty Seven
Don't go to the bathroom yet, this is the part you've been waiting for.
Slinking around the edges of the room, Stud kept his eyes on Breathred and the two vamps. So far, he had been able to get close without any of them noticing. Maybe they had forgotten all about him. Dodging lightning bolts and trying to electrocute your enemies kind of blocked everything else out, or at least Stud hoped so.
A stray bolt of lightning
raked down the room directly in front of him. Stud ducked and hit the ground. The slick statue shifted in his hand and he had to scramble to catch it before the thing went ballistic. Stud let out a mumbled curse. The last thing he wanted was to lose his only weapon.
From his floor-eye view, Stud could see Breathred was making mincemeat of the two vampires’ hiding place. A full-on blast rocked the altar from the floor up, cleaving the block of marble into two uneven pieces with the vampire mother's body thrown haphazardly between them. Somehow, either by blind luck or poor marksmanship, D'brea's body had missed any damage from the goob's barrage. If Breathred kept it up, that wouldn't last too much longer. The only other thing working in their favor was that Breathred was so intent on the two vamps he'd forgotten all about anyone else being in the room.
Chimps have a saying: He who turns his back on the baboon, has a shitty hairdo to show for it. Well, Breathred was about to get a pompadour from hell.
The chimp was about to make his move, when two shadows moved in the darkened doorway behind the fighting. Hunkering back down, a flash of scarlet lipgloss about six and a half feet in the air told him reinforcements had shown up. ‘Bout damn time too! Chimps were thinkers, not fighters.
He caught a glimpse of Brogan slipping away from the other man. Joan angled to the right. It was a classic flanking move Stud had learned from hours of video games.
The chimp scooted back. Why should he risk himself, when there were two humans more than willing to do it for him? The fact they had no idea what had happened to Breathred didn't even occur to him. The way Stud saw it, they'd find out soon enough. Well, he was just a little monkey. The minute he popped his head up to say, “Hey, the big human with lightning bolts shooting out his fingers is possessed,” he'd be a fire-grilled chimp. The safest thing to do was sit back until the two heroes were the ones getting their asses kicked, then sneak up and whomp Breathred upside the head. If he were lucky, the two vamps would be out of the picture before that happened.