“Here, Brett. Unlock Garin,” A ring of keys looped over the head-rest to land in Brett’s stomach. “Buckle up.”
Branoc stamped his boot into the accelerator. I clung to the seat belt. Tightening it at every curve. I don’t think any of the turns the tires actually remained in constant contact with the road. We skidded around every corner, floating on compressed vapor from the smoking rubber. Absentmindedly Branoc touched a switch on his dash and the flash of police lights bounced back at us from every reflective surface on the streets – a red and blue lightning sparking across the city. The police siren oozed out of the gaps between the body works fleeing the ferocious engine growling inches from my feet. We launched through intersection after intersection. Bursts of tire squawks as the otherwise smooth undulations of the road turned into ramps that skipped the car like a stone on the black water of the asphalt. The yellow line sucked under the nose of the black car as we overran the siren. Branoc swerved around dazed drivers as we powered ahead. I only peripherally heard the clinking of chains falling to the floor off Garin.
Garin said, “You’ll have to introduce me to your mechanic. That’s not a stock engine in there.”
“Sure.” Then Branoc glanced in the rear view mirror at Brett, “When did you tell them Garin is a vampire?”
“I only told my father when I suspected it.”
I glared at Brett.
“Shquirpted … shquirpted … rugtgtl rupplweet quellteiniss … shuirpted.” Branoc hit a button on the dash. The volume on the radio rose above the engine, “Repeat, dispatch?”
“– explosion reported at address 4096 Court Street.”
“I’m near. Suppress the regular police and send me some backup.”
“Yes sir –”
Stupidly brave I asked Branoc, “Did you kill them? The guys back there?”
“I should have,” and like emphatic punctuation Branoc clutched and slammed the shifter into the car’s highest of eighteen gears. I cinched the lap belt tighter as the acceleration thrust my body deeper into the seat cushions. The machine growled in response to its latest lashing and it lurched – clawing into the wind.
-:- Thirteen -:-
The main road to my sister’s subdivision rolled like a drunken roller coaster at these speeds. Branoc slowed the car. He cut the siren and the lights and for the last mile, we rode in silence only pierced by the panting engine and the down shifting. He bumped the accelerator and without touching the clutch, popped the transmission into neutral. We glided under the dark shade of old trees like a hunting falcon flipping a wing tip as he wheeled us into streets that lined up behind my sister’s subdivision. We came to a stop next to a neon yellow newly sided ranch with bright white trim and sharply cut landscape.
“Anna and Brett. You stay here in the car. I pointed the car so you can see the house.”
“And so they didn’t see your brake lights.”
“Right.” Branoc said. “But I also used the stealth switch to cut them.” Branoc looked at Garin, “You can stay too,” he flipped open the center console and took out his black semi-automatics and slid a canvas bandoleer full of populated clips over his head. “Garin, pull down the center armrest, if you want to go.”
Garin pulled down the seat armrest exposing a black hole. He fished around and came out with a Wakizashi sword and another semi-automatic like Branoc’s.
“You know how to use the gun?”
“Yes.”
Branoc twisted a catch in the headliner and a hidden compartment opened dropping a sheathed Katana into his open palm.
“Don’t let the door bang when you get out.”
“Of course.”
My sister’s house burned hot. The bedrooms flamed in a charred mess. Bricks from around the front of the house embedded themselves in the plastic siding of the neighbor’s houses and half a dozen cars parked in the street. I heard short bursts of assault rifles on automatic. Flames from the tips of gun barrels around the decks and planters of the neighbors under these old trees. A huge ash tree on the next door neighbor’s, killed by the ash borer beetle half a dozen years before but too big to take down without a mortgage, and burned like a torch.
Little heads and eyes watched furtively from the neighborhood houses. The report of gunfire kept them from congregating in gossiping groups. Surprising that no fire engines or other police cars showed up yet, unless you knew about the Vampires.
My sister’s refrigerator had been spun around and tipped over in front of the kitchen island with the stove lifted and tumbled on top – obviously to deflect both the broken water pipes spraying the kitchen and providing additional cover from the terrorist rifles. The metal barrier stopped most of the bullets. Good that my sister had gotten the full stainless kitchen set when they remodeled rather than the plastic faced simulated stainless look – but who could have guessed a need in buying appliances for their defensive shielding ability? The kitchen protected the stairs into the basement, lit by camping lanterns and frightened flashlight motion. The militia must have them there.
How long before the water, pouring out of the broken water pipes, filled the basement where they hid my sister and her family? I remembered only a single drain in the laundry room because the kids had a propensity to hide toys there. My sister found out about that after the washing machine overflowed revealing the plugged drain.
A pair of militia bleeding from shots to the shoulders and legs dragged their fingers across their triggers. They shattered the terrorists’ cover as they slithered closer to the house.
Another terrorist three houses down raised a long rocket mortar to his shoulder. I saw a flash of steel and the mortar flipped in the air along with the head of the vampire that had been holding it. Even vampires have reflexes or maybe tight timing. The rocket shot over the tops of two houses and the main street outside the subdivision and into an industrial warehouse across the street. Fire and plastic toy soldiers stored there for delivery to the local toy mart rained into the sky. Garin eased around a bushy witchazel but the terrorist heard him and the two flashed in strikes of arms and legs and metal blades. I couldn’t watch.
Branoc inched around the corner of a wishing well and leaped on top of the neighbor’s deck to knock the terrorist down. The two of them fought over the rifle. Shots burst up the siding of the house and sheared through the security camera mounted under the eaves. Branoc punched the face of the terrorist knocking the vampire’s head aside. The terrorist kicked up to hit Branoc but he had turned and the vampire swung through flipping to his feet. Branoc had the rifle and pressed the trigger into the vampire’s belly. The force of the rounds pushing him back against the house wall. Then, like connecting the dots, Branoc brought the shots up the vampire’s torso and blasted through its neck. Blood splattered across the pale blue siding punctuated with holes like a colander. Branoc held the rifle to his shoulder and spun to sight across the yard.
Garin traded sword strikes. A single report from Branoc and a bullet hit the terrorist’s head. The vampire’s head snapped back from the striking round. It would only distract the vampire for a moment. Garin used the time to whip his sword around and slice through the vampire’s neck.
The militia members behind the refrigerator renewed their firing having reloaded and watched how Branoc and Garin stopped the three terrorists that pinned them down. They recognized vampires too easily and fired at Garin and Branoc.
Garin and Branoc dove behind the garage and around a remaining brick wall standing loosely at the back of the house.
“Garin, go that way and draw their fire. Use these fresh clips.”
Garin clicked the releases on the clip in his gun and slammed in the replacement, “Good, that other one jammed.”
“That brand does it from time to time. That’s why I switched and those are only my trunk backups now.” Branoc added, “You do well with a sword.”
“My uncle taught me. Told me a vampire needs to live to survive.”
“Good uncle. Now run when I fi
re.” Branoc put his gun around the edge of the broken bricks and squeezed the trigger. The bullets thunked against the refrigerator in a tight dimpling pattern in the stainless panels. Garin remembered how a jacketed wine fermentation tank looked like that dimpled stainless refrigerator. An industrial look that might catch on.
Garin reached the edge of an old apple tree that burned next to the master bedroom. It gave him cover to shoot across the house at the kitchen. His shots busted ceramic off the flooding sink and gouged the top of the granite counter top to strike a two-by-four dangling from the collapsing ceiling and wrench it free of the nails above. The nail-filled board dropped on the heads of the militia members behind the refrigerator.
A bullet zipped by Garin’s ear like the angry buzz of a hornet.
A half dozen terrorists appeared in the glow of the neighbor’s automatic security light that flashed at their approach.
Garin spilled to the ground and scooted between the base of the burning apple tree and the cement foundation of the house. He aimed carefully and squeezed a round into the center of the throat of the front attacker. The shot sectioned his spine and the vampire fell to the thick grass of the heavy chemical growth-induced and poisoned neighbor’s lawn. More chemicals here than any farmer could have afforded yet they got the blame for polluting the rivers.
His second shot dug into a terrorist’s eye while his third shot collapsed a vampire’s nose. Garin clicked out the empty clip and slammed in a fresh one.
Street pressure released from broken bathroom fixtures shot to the sky like fountains dousing a portion of the fire. The water ran below the floor and pooled in the basement. Automatic rifle fire buzzed through the dirt and across the apple stump and ricocheted off the cement foundation or sunk into the wood siding below the floor as the rounds sought his flesh. The terrorists scattered behind a cement statue and a pile of landscape boulders.
Another group of terrorists pinned Branoc between the garage and the broken brick wall. He huddled with the cast aluminum grill and a table he tipped over across it. Stray bullets still struck through his leg and arm. But his vampire constitution sealed the holes quickly and the bullets ejected from his body in little bloody plops onto the deck. The militia pair behind the refrigerator shot across Branoc’s position and into the new terrorist group that held behind the garage wall.
“What are you doing?” I asked Brett. My fingers dug into the vinyl seat cushion. He rummaged inside the trunk with his arm through the arm rest port.
“Seeing what’s back here. I’m looking for another weapon,” his head turned to me, “they need help.”
“Not from you or me.” I looked in the center console, “That’s a vampire battle and we don’t stand a chance.”
“I could distract them for a moment.”
“And you’ll die.”
“There’s a chance.” He turned his attention back to the black hole between the rear seats shoving his arm as deep as his shoulder. His knees stretched across the seat cushion. His butt wiggled in my face.
I turned to my own search but I didn’t find anything in the center console, “They can come back from the dead.”
“They are not really alive are they?” he grunted, “Nothing about coming back. They hobble along in a never ending death and terrorize the living.” He moved heavy cases and things that clinked like chains.
“Don’t be brave or show me courage. I’ve seen what they can do.” I needed to calm myself. I saw too closely, what vampires could do. “You’re staying here.”
“And if Branoc and Garin get killed then who will save us hiding here?”
A point I couldn’t argue. I closed the empty center console and searched the glove box. I’d grope under the seat next.
-:- Fourteen -:-
Branoc pushed two more clips from his bandoleer and yelled, “Garin, catch these.” A blur of motion. The clips launched across the burning debris and Garin snatched them from the air. The terrorists inched closer covering each other with bullets. Green apples plopped like little grenades to the ground at Garin’s feet. Strips of wood flicked off the siding from the bullets striking the house exposing the fire-damaged wall behind him. Leaves and twigs filtered through the branches to land on his head. The tree trunk vibrated against Garin’s back as the rounds dug into the apple wood. The terrorists fanned out around the neighbor’s yard as they approached. Quickly they would have an angle around both sides of the tree leaving him no cover.
Branoc rolled flat on the deck and between a corner of the table and tipped over the grill. He sighted along his pistols and fired two precision shots. His bullets cut through the necks of two terrorists leaning too far out from behind the corner of the garage. He twisted back behind his limited cover. The remaining terrorists behind the garage sprinted for the air conditioner unit to get them closer and afford a better attack angle on his position.
“Mistake.” Branoc whispered. He spun to the side, “Those aluminum cooling fins are like metal gauze.” Both of his guns puked out their rounds. His vampire strength countering the recoil – keeping the guns in the exact position he intended. Three shots ricocheted off the poured concrete foundation slicing into some of the terrorists – spinning them around. Other shots ripped through the condenser unit folding over aluminum fins and scraping chunks off copper cooling lines. The bullets and explosively pressurized refrigerant shocked his attackers back. He scooted forward getting the angle he needed to cut through the necks of the four nearest attackers, but getting that angle exposed his body. The militia members in the kitchen fired across their barrier and the broken walls around Branoc like gnats buzzing close to his ears. He dropped from his knees back to the deck and squirmed toward the corner of the garage. His Katana stayed tight to his leg where it hung from his belt. More terrorists hid behind the shielding wall. He couldn’t see his car from here. Did those kids stay put?
Between the springs and cables keeping the seat cover tight on the cushions and the seat adjustment rails designed with sharp edges, piercing spring hooks, and slippery with black tar-like grease smeared on them – I found a leather holster and gun.
Brett yanked on something that didn’t want to come through the gap in the seats.
The gun settled heavy in my hand. Its black surface finely inscribed with 18-9 and in smaller print Pineville NC. The rough grip nestled comfortably in my hand.
“Check the magazine to verify it’s loaded.”
“How do I do that?”
Brett stopped wrestling the case out of the trunk, “Here, let me see.”
I handed the gun to him like giving someone a pair of scissors.
Brett took the weapon and twisted it in his hand. The magazine fell into his fingers. He slammed the magazine back into the grip and ratcheted the top of the weapon in a fluid practiced motion, “Now be careful. I loaded a round in the chamber and here’s the trigger safety,” His face became grave, “You ever shoot a handgun before?”
“No.” Then I never wielded a sword and never killed a vampire before either.
“Only point at something you want dead. Keep your arm tense to absorb the recoil. And don’t jerk the trigger or you’ll never hit anything. Too bad we didn’t have a date at a shooting range.” He gripped the case again, “Oh, you’ve got seventeen shots left in the magazine. Count them as you fire as I don’t see any additional ammunition boxes and didn’t spill any in the trunk that I could reach.”
“So that’s what the number eighteen is on the side.”
“Yep.”
“What’s in the case?”
“I don’t know but hoping it’s a rifle,” he tore at it and yanked it through the hole. A black plastic case with aluminum banding around the hinge line like one for musical instruments. It pulled through as hard as an extrusion die. The car shook from his wrenching and bouncing effort on it. Not that the neighbors would think anything indiscreet happened out here, they focused on the gun battle at my sister’s house.
The cratered kitchen a
nd broken ceiling and punctured roof revealed lights flashing up the stairs. I saw my sister pushed along. My nieces and nephews tugged at her hands while my brother-in-law carried their youngest. Her arms clamped around and squeezing his neck. Her hair covered her face. The whole family soaked wet. The flooding below must have pushed the militia’s plan. All of them forced up the last of the stairs at gun point by militia members. They stumbled forward into the driveway.
“Brett, they’re moving my sister to a van.”
A last grunt and the case popped free. Brett asked, “Where are Branoc and Garin?”
“Still pinned down.”
Brett snapped open the catches and flipped back the lid of the case. “Good. An assault rifle. Maybe we can use this to free your sister.”
“You know how to use that?”
“Same style my father uses. I’ve shot it a few times.”
“Any bullets?”
Brett lifted a pair of clips pocketed in the foam case. “Two clips.” He snapped one into the gun and clicked the bolt back to chamber the first round. “Ready.”
Garin squeezed the trigger and blasted into several exposed knees and elbows. The vampires receiving the bullets recoiled but Garin knew they would only renew their attack when the wounds closed up. He could not move from his location with their bullets still scraping the sides of the tree trunk. Blisters of bark bulged out on either side or thunked into the siding.
The bright lights of a van rumbled down the street. It halted in front of the house shining its headlights like search lamps against the neighbor’s driveway full of cars. Garin saw the reflected red eyes of a vampire peering through one of the cars. A newer leased Cadillac CTS. The owner of those eyes bashed the point of a gun through the window and fired cleanly across the car at Garin. It entered his bicep and exploded out his triceps muscle splattering blood on the siding. Garin’s gun fell from his fingers. The other vampires rushed at Garin seeing his gun in the grass. I watched Garin fall to his knees and reach for the gun but he held something else in his good hand.
The Vampires Of Livix Twin Pack (Volumes #2 & #3) Page 10