by Daniel Ruth
“Great, I am being mugged by a vampire hobo,” I muttered to myself. This would not go in my memoirs. I thought I would put my best foot forward. “Do you need something? I am afraid I don’t have a spare bag of A positive.”
“Not at all. I think you have a great deal more than that to spare.”
“Just to be clear, you're attacking me,” I asked as I got off my bike. I wasn’t worried about a single vampire. Only Sebastian had ever given me a challenge.
“Not me,” the vampire assured me with a sickly grin. “We are.”
Twelve more vampires slunk out of the alley and stood behind him. To my rear, I heard the shuffle of more feet. Glancing behind me, I saw eight more undead blocking the path behind me. They all looked just as haggard and bedraggled as the first. I was guessing that these were vampires that had given into the influence of the new god. To be honest, they actually looked much more like the undead from my home dimension. Unkempt, bloodshot eyes, rabid fangs; I think they were growling too. Moments like this made me wonder why I wanted to get back home. Everything dangerous and disgusting made me feel nostalgic.
“So twenty vampires walk into a bar,” I began as I stretched out my arms to the sides. “The barkeeper asks ‘What will you have?’ and the...”
“Just die,” the first shouted and leaped towards me. I didn’t mind too much being interrupted. I actually didn’t have a punchline. My rambling did delay them long enough to allow me to summon my blades.
Energy flickered and then coalesced in my hands, forming huge blades of shimmering psionic light. Each was over six feet long and frankly, unless I grew to a larger size, were simply absurdly outsized for my form. Never the less, they were flamberges of coherent energy and as I brought them together I trisected the charging vampire. The inanimate body parts fell in front of me, already dissolving into a greasy mist.
“Alright, who’s nex... ack”, at this point nineteen remaining vampires bum rushed me.
I bisected the one in front of me, kicked another into the three behind him and then was dog piled by fifteen feral undead. I suppose it was fortunate that the sheer number of them made it impossible for more than a few to actually reach me over the writhing forms of their compatriots. Their scratching and biting didn’t do much more than sting a little. Being supernatural themselves they were able to harm me more than a mundane but frankly, there’s a hierarchy in the supernatural world and they were not on top.
Roaring in outrage, I increased my size to my maximum, just short of twelve feet and raised my effective mass as far as I could. While this gave me a lot more stability, I still was buried under a pile of undead. I staggered to my feet and swung with a blade. I had three vampires hanging from my right arm but they weren’t braced on anything, so I was able to swing it fairly easily. One of the nice things about being surrounded by enemies is that there are targets everywhere.
I beheaded another and I am pretty sure a goodly number of the crowd had lost limbs. That was the good news. The bad news was that vampires still bleed. They were presently bleeding all over me and each other. If my clothes hadn’t been ruined before they certainly were now. Wait, vampire blood was self-cleaning. What a waste. My other arm was pretty well tangled in vampire bodies and they had managed to brace against each other and me too, if not to trap my arm then at least reduce my leverage to something negligible.
During this entire time, my precognition was warning me. Yes, I know, danger. It spiked for a moment and I tried to turn around to avoid something I knew was coming at me. Agony blossomed through me as something pierced my back. I hadn’t felt that much pain since my fight with Vatapi.
I spun away from the terrible pain. The sensation lent me strength. I was able to twist away from it, dislodging a familiar dagger. “Sebastian. You bastard, I should have killed you.”
“Indeed, you should have,” a laughing voice replied. There he stood, casually leaning against a wall. A bloody dagger in one hand and the other on his hip. Strangely, he wasn’t dressed in his combat clothes but wore his black and red suit. “However, you didn’t and my master and I are ever so grateful.”
“How does it feel to be a sock puppet for Cthulhu,” I asked. The minions had temporarily backed off, giving us some space to banter.
“It feels good,” he nodded to me. “It feels like freedom. You are about to give me, even more, freedom.” He lifted his bloody blade and slowly licked the blood from it. “Ugh, disgusting. It doesn’t taste remotely human.”
“Well, if you didn’t want it, you shouldn’t have...” I paused in thought. “Ah, I see. My blood is the point. Being a sock puppet has made you smarter, or rather whoever is playing you is smart.”
“Yes, indeed. Thank you again.” He flashed another smile and leaped up several window ledges to the top of a building a hundred feet above us. “I will leave you to my minions. Did I mention how much I like having minions? I think I can get to like this new world of ours.”
The wound in my back was closing rapidly. Relatively speaking. It wouldn’t be significantly healed before this fight was over. Still, I appreciated that the blood had stopped and the wound was sealing. It was ironic, I had known the danger of leaving an artifact level weapon in the hands of someone with suspect goals. At the time I had needed to deal with Edward Prince, so it was a calculated risk. It was also a bet I had lost.
I looked up at Sebastian, ignoring the vampires surrounding me, and pointed a sword at him. “It’s not that easy, I won’t forget this.”
“Scary, but I think I’ll survive...” was as far he got. I swung my other blade in a strong downward strike at the empty air in front of me. Meanwhile, I focused my mental energies and projected myself up onto the ledge next to Sebastian. There was a moment where I could feel conflicting forces pulling me in two different locations. I bore down harder on my focus and in that instant, I was up on the ledge and Sebastian was in front of me, my sword whistling towards his face.
I had almost forgotten how agile the undead creep was. The edge his native agility gave him, combined with his martial arts skill could not be understated. A blow that would have cleaved him in two was avoided with a shift of his stance. Still, I had literally appeared with the blade inches from his head. There was no way to completely avoid it. He saved his head, but my strike came down slightly off center and removed his arm from his body even as he somersaulted away.
“We’ll see if you survive. We’ve just begun and you’ve lost the only thing you had that could hurt me.”
Sebastian looked remarkably well for someone that just lost an arm. An arm that was still holding his prized dagger. “I still have my little horde. They will be up here in a moment.” His tone had shifted from the condescending sneer, yet he obviously didn’t have the confidence he had displayed a moment before.
“Your undead creepers are just a nuisance,” I mocked him. Not quite true, but it would take more than twenty fresh vampire minions to threaten me. In our first fight, he had dominated the combat with his agility and martial skills, combined with his dagger’s ability to parry my blows. Aside from my surprise strike I still may not be able to land a hit on him, but now he couldn’t do any significant damage either.
“I see. Well, I suppose we’ll call this a draw,” he scowled. I looked at him blankly and then back to his dismembered arm and magic dagger.
“Seriously?”
He ignored my disbelieving response and continued. “I have what I needed and the dagger was getting uppity anyway. I’ll retrieve it the next time we run into each other. When I meet my master, he will provide me the power to best you.”
“He’s on my list things to fix. I imagine he won’t be more of a problem than a greater demon,” I attempted to project confidence. I actually wasn’t too sure of this. From what I have heard, demon lords can be comparable to lesser gods. I wasn’t sure if I could get a god the stand in a portal for another kinetic strike with an indestructible object. Sure, would be nice, though.
“Next
time,” Sebastian nodded and leaped away. I was tempted to follow but I needed to deal with the dagger and small horde of undead that were on their way up to meet me.
Quickly kneeling on the ground, away from the building edge, I took a ceramic plate out as well as my runed tooth. Reaching around with the fang I dabbed on a bit of the fresh blood from my back and began to etch my favorite ward into it. It was a variation of the more effective circle. I took a deep breath and concentrated on forming the lines, despite the scrabbling I heard from over the building’s side.
A head peaked over the ledge and the first undead pulled himself over the side. He completely lacked Sebastian’s façade of charm and grace. Truly, he fully embodied the new generation of feral vampires. I ignored him to continue to etch my blood on the ceramic.
He gathered himself and shambled towards me. I was in an almost trance-like state, as the wards demanded, but the feathery touch of worry drifted into my mind. If he actually touched me I would be most hard pressed to keep my concentration.
He was actually a mere hands breath away when I completed the ward and empowered it. The vampire was so young that it simply flashed into ashes without a cry and without a trace. Sighing, I leaned back and waited. In ones and twos, the undead climbed over the ledge and flashed into silent nonexistence. After a few minutes, there was just me and the dagger held in a smoldering arm as its older flesh slowly evaporated.
I sat there for a moment thinking. There was a dark god roaming in the chained worlds and he apparently knew enough about current events that he knew how important my blood was. As far as I knew supernatural creatures were barred from entering the linked portals unless they had Vatapi’s blood or my own. Now Sebastian was loose, doing some entity’s bidding and the ability to pass through any portal he wished. This could be problematic.
I reached over to pick up the dagger and my psychic barriers flared with the feeling of rage and anger. The dagger was apparently intelligent and not very happy. Strangely enough, it wasn’t angry at me. No words were exchanged but I got the feeling that this artifact wasn’t happy with Sebastian soul’s change of ownership.
Examining it once more, I took note of the runes running up and down the length of the blade. Likely dwarven make. Other than gods they generally are the few that dabble in rune magic. It is, after all, risky business. There are scary things out in the multiverse that hunt people like that.
With Sebastian ‘alive’ there wasn’t much I could do with it except stab creatures with it. Artifacts of this type generally bond with their wielder until death. Any esoteric abilities it had would only be shared with its true owner. However, there was no doubt that short of my anchor stone through a portal this was the most damage dealing weapon I possessed. My claws were fun to use but my psi blades did more. My tooth was more of a tool, though in certain circumstances it could be devastating.
Frowning at the dagger, I contemplated fighting a god with it. There was no way that could end well. Placing the dagger into the pouch with my other components I looked over the ledge to confirm the vampires were all gone and that my transport was still in one piece. Thankfully it still was.
Stepping off, I fell the several stories to where the bike was. The damage to the duracrete road was negligible. Apparently it's sturdy stuff. Hopping onto my bike, I continued towards Purgatory still mulling over gods, demons, and dragons.
Chapter 9
The fancy Las Vegas style facades and lighting were dark. The lack of power wasn’t the only difference from my previous visit. Well-dressed bodies lined the street. Some were corpses of mortals. Apparently, they just lay down and never got up again. Starving to death right out in the open.
Fortunately, these were the minority. Most in the street and I assume the buildings were supernatural. The vampires were skeletal corpses. Some were older, more powerful and I could see flesh and skin visibly forming. These last few weeks must have been a constant cycle of burning into a vapor in the light of the sun, only to reform during the night, to begin the cycle anew in the morning dawn. Wow, Sulayman really created hell on earth for vampires. I suppose I should have felt something, but considering most of the vampires were now serving a hostile alien entity... I was pretty okay with it.
There were also a lot of what must have been shifters. These people were alive, but not much else besides skin and bones. It was fairly disturbing, far more than the vampire’s cycle of death and rebirth. I shook my head to myself as I yawned. If only I had gotten here sooner. I didn’t really feel guilty but it was a waste.
I gave another mighty yawn. Then I noticed that I was sitting on the steps of Sulayman’s main building. When had that happened? I was torn between closing my eyes for a moment and doing something. It had been a while since I had slept for a week or two. Maybe I could nap here without any dreams?
I shook my head as I fought to concentrate despite my murky thoughts. With suddenly clumsy fingers I grabbed up my pouch and rifled through it for a bowl. The ignominy of wearing a bowl temporarily overshadowed by the thought of being stuck here asleep until a vampire god or a demon came for me. After a few nicks and cuts from my fang and the new dagger finally latched onto the bowl and shoved it onto my head. I sighed in relief as the need to sleep ebbed to the normal faint tiredness I had begun to consider my default state unless I was standing in a portal.
Standing up, I looked around with a new appreciation. What a lovely trap. Turning up the stairs, I went to the doors. The electronic systems were down as were the doorman. Literally, they were comatose right next to the doors, parchment skin was drawn tight against bone. Still breathing, though.
A firm push broke the locks, yet no alarms sounded. I felt the vague sensation of magic as the threshold wards attempted to revert me to my natural form. They failed, of course. However, the mere fact I could feel them through the negation ward was beyond impressive. I paused in thought and reached into my pouch to grab my tooth, ensuring the rune was in contact with my skin and took off my ward of negation. Instantly I felt the press of conflicting energies. One trying to revert me to my dragon form, the other keeping me human. My chest tightened and my breath came in short gasps before the magics once again reached a new equilibrium.
How disappointing. The last time I was here the conflict nearly broke my ribs. Yet it had also loosened the restraints the ‘human’ rune on my chest bound me to, allowing to reach up to twelve feet tall and assume some of my less human features. This time I could tell that while there was a slight shift it wasn’t very significant. I would guess that perhaps I could extend another foot. Well, one step at a time towards freedom.
As before, the entrance opened up into a reception area and then the main dining area, with the graceful sweep of stairs leading to the second floor. It was dead. Literally. Quite a few of the guests here had been human and combined with the rotting cuisine on the tables the stench was overwhelming. I saw movement in several places but realized it was just masses of insects feasting on the dead. Once again I was thankful that dragons had senses more in the normal range, as compared to shifters and vampires that shared enhanced smell.
Stepping over the comatose and dead, I made my way up the stairs. I actually activated my force field at minimal strength to keep the swarms of flies away. Tucked away at his isolated table in the back sat Sulayman. He was unchanged from my last meeting with him. A dusky skinned man with a thick silvered beard. His head lolled backward and flies landed over his face and mouth as they devoured the spoiled dishes laid out before him.
He was alive. In fact, he was in better condition than anyone else in this lotus den. Perhaps he didn’t need to eat either. His companions didn’t share his condition. Two of his dinner guests were rotting corpses. The dresses they wore the only clue to their previous lives. The skeletally thin woman next to him was alive but the insects almost clogged her mouth and nose causing the breathing to come in gasps. The woman in almost pristine condition wasn’t breathing. I assumed she was a vampire.
&
nbsp; “Here goes nothing,” I muttered to myself as I placed one of the other bowls on Sulayman’s head. His body shivered and then abruptly sat up, his eyes opened wide and his mouth gaping in a soundless scream. “Welcome back.”
“No,” his hoarse voice whispered. The man’s eyes slowly registered the scene before him and a deep groan of anguish escaped him. “No. I have failed again.”
“There, there,” I said awkwardly. This wasn’t a situation where I knew how to react. The man’s own magic had basically killed or disabled everyone he knew. It would be as if I had accidentally vaporized all my friends instead of stumbling on the ward that vaporized vampires.
I suppose it would be the right thing to do to comfort him. I reached into my pocket and got out a handkerchief that had somehow survived my close encounter of the undead kind. I reached out and brushed the dust and insects from his shoulder and patted him there. “There, there,” I repeated proudly. I quickly pulled back my hand and wiped it on my tattered jacket.
“You failed,” He turned his piercing glare towards me.
“I prefer to think of it as ‘we’ failed,” I offered after a moment of thought. “However, now you're awake perhaps you can awaken your subjects.”
“You have a bowl on your head,” he stated irrelevantly. “And your clothes are barely hanging together.”
“So do you,” I pointed out his own head gear and maggot infested suit with a finger twirl. “I won’t judge if you don’t.”
“What?” He exclaimed as he moved to take it off.
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said, as I halfheartedly moved to stop him. The man was disgustingly unclean. At least my clothes were merely shredded. Vampires were, after all, self-cleaning.