by Ted Minkinow
I raced back to my friends. Sister Christian was down but appeared alive and only stunned. I could see her struggling to regain her feet. Watanabe—the Harvard genius formerly known as David Smith—maintained his karate pose and let out a couple of more yelps. Always helps to add more confusion. I saw the Prince engaged in a fierce back and forth battle with a garbage can next to the concrete wall at the opening of the stairwell for track 3.
The five demons ignored my friends and focused all of their attention on me. Occasionally I do get to be the popular one. Probably thought if they eliminated me the rest of my friends would end up starving to death doing stupid things in that plywood tunnel. I needed to make sure that didn’t happen.
When fighting for yourself you turn every opening into a means for disabling your enemy or escaping. Works well for normal humans, only marginally for demons. But I was fighting for my friends. And that negated some of my unique advantages.
If it were only me I’d pull a Sparky at the first opportunity and depart the fix with blinding speed. The demons would get a fleeting glimpse of my elbows, shoe soles and my butthole as I did the Usain Bolt. Tonight? I’m pretty sure that option would result in four open positions at the commissary.
My five new hellhound friends circled us. Demons don’t follow human logic, but they do sometimes display human emotions. I was pretty sure I saw a bit of gloating going on among the five but I may have been the way the low-wattage, environmentally-friendly German public lighting reflected off their ravaged complexions. You are allowed forays into the harsh side of the PC scale when discussing demons.
Not sure if I mentioned that demons can speak. Kind of creepy when they do. You have the high-voiced demons and low-voiced demons and nothing in between. Speaking must take more than a little effort for them because it always sounds like they’re straining on the toilet.
“Back away vampire,” the one with a face the length of a yardstick said.
Did everybody know my secret? Now even my bagger buddies would demand an explanation or two because of Chief Long Face’s big mouth. Long Face belonged to the low voice tribe. Based on the level of straining involved to get the words out, I halfway expected see a brown pile on the ground behind him. It might have improved the smell.
Long Face’s appearance came off as mostly human—if you liked horse-faced people and ignored the additional eye hanging from a sinewy string on the side of his head. But as long as he kept his trash separated into the proper recycling containers I don’t think the Germans would have noticed anything odd about him. The other four? Different story.
Imagine yourself in a European art museum. Go to the section housing paintings from the middle ages. Almost all religious overtones. Check out the paintings of hell. Have a look at the demons frolicking about. Bingo.
Long Face’s four amigos may have modeled for a couple of those paintings. I considered asking them for their autographs but decided it might be awkward given they were there to kill us. And as long as the demon mini-horde concentrated on yakking they didn’t move on to the next phase of whatever they intended, like maybe ripping my hands off and scratching their butts with my disembodied fingers, things were OK. BTW, I’ve heard baboons do that ripping and scratching thing.
Back off, huh? I’d been told to calm down and back off one too many times. I saw Sister Christian make it to her feet with a little help from J-Rod. I wondered if he’d give the demons a sampling of his fake Latino homey thing but his mouth was clamped in a nice oyster imitation. Other than one missing braid and a bit of wobble in her step, Sister Christian seemed OK. Watanabe maintained the karate pose but I could feel his eyes bouncing between Long Face and me. Don’t blame him because I wished I didn’t have to look at the other four trolls.
But monitor them I did, and closely. I refused to fall for the “me talky with you while my friends kill your friends” routine. Sparky gone, Sister Christian and Watanabe OK, and J-Rod doing his best to imitate a Latin statue. Where was the Prince? I caught sight of him talking smack to the overturned trash can. All of us still alive. I needed to get the gang out of there in the same condition. Didn’t have a clue how that would happen. I needed more time.
“Back off from what?” I asked.
An honest question. I really didn’t know what the demon wanted me to back away from or why anyone else wanted me to calm myself. Long Face responded with a kind of hacking, barking laugh. Was he related to Herr Doktor? The other demons joined in. As I said, either soprano or bass, nothing in between.
Once again I must have missed the punch line—or the whole joke. But hey, that’s life. And I finally felt myself on level enough footing that I could began cobbling together an egress plan.
The far end of the tunnel led through the platform corridor to the exit that led away from town. Not the best choice due to the extra underground distance. And the parking lot on that side would certainly be deserted. A perfect setting for some demon love.
We could also climb one of the several sets of stairs that led to the train platforms. Again, probably not the best choice because we’d be trapped up there until the train arrived. Though, it would be fun to see Deutsche Bahn security challenge the demons for their tickets.
That left the direction of our entry, back toward the restaurant and—FYI—back toward my flat. I already knew that would be our exit, but I wanted to rule out anything else. If we made the breakout back towards town it would mean four more unexpected overnight guests. I thought about making things easier on me by letting the demons knock that number down by a couple. Not really.
Even the best jokes can’t keep the audience enthralled forever and Long Face and his buddies appeared at the end of their levity. They also started looking a bit hungry. Maybe it was my imagination. But imagination or not, I didn’t see any appetizer plates and the demon chorus looked ready for the main course. I hoped Long Face could control them for a few more seconds.
“A good answer,” said Long Face in his deep, strained voice.
“What?” I said. “Do you think back off from what is a good answer?”
My bagger mates began to get the picture and they edged closer to me.
Super-speed was out. I would need to open room for escape. Knock a couple of the grizzly uglies aside. Once my crowd exited, I’d need to stay behind to hold the door closed. That might prove painful. Perhaps not deadly, though.
“Oh yes,” said Long Face.
He smiled and I imagined I could see the others salivating. Well, that might be giving them too much credit because SOMEBODY—I’m speaking for the demon blocking the imaginary door out of the plywood tunnel—had no discernable face at all.
“Yes, indeed,” Long Face said.
Was he compensating for lukewarm mastery of the spoken word through use of repetition?
“Your refusal to cooperate allows us to proceed.” Long Face grinned. “And we are very hungry.”
One of life’s beauties is the opportunity to learn something new every day. Demons could eat. So scratch what I said earlier. Painful AND deadly. If they licked my bones clean, that is. I had the feeling this crowd would not hold back.
The conversation was going nowhere. It needed a little jazzing up. So I pivoted on my right foot and launched a supersonic fist where Faceless should have had one. I felt whatever yucky muck comprises a demon and worried for a second that my fist would travel all the way through with no affect. But something solid lurked in back and it provided enough leverage to send Faceless flying.
After that, everything came in blurs. I assigned the remaining demons numbers instead of names because I didn’t get a sufficient look at any of the rest. So Long Face and demons 3, 4, and 5 remained. I would need to take out demon three and hold off Long Face and the others once Sister Christian and my friends were clear. I hoped demon 2 would find something to interest him in whatever faraway place I’d just sent him and not return until everything was settled and I was griping about the additional houseguests.
&n
bsp; I turned my attention to demon 3. I feigned a swing at him with the same trusty fist that did the deed for number 2. No doubt he would react to my threat after seeing his buddy sent packing.
“Go,” I said and my own voice sounded as deep and raspy as that of Long Face.
Sister Christian repeated my command and that got the bagging team running. The only other time I’d seen them move that fast was when Captain Tickles let us all leave an hour early on a slow Monday night. Sister Christian made sure the others were in full flight and then paused for a moment. The shock I saw on her face broke my heart. Just a little, though because I was more interested in a horde of demons who wanted to break my life.
“Go,” I said again. A growl from my lips.
You might expect that my own redundant speech made me feel ashamed for making fun of Long Face. It didn’t. And it wasn’t only my voice that was changing. I felt the tooth thing happening. It’s the one vampire cliché that’s not really a cliché. They grew long and they grew pointy. It’s the lowers too, BTW. Not just the uppers.
Good, kind of. I might have additional explaining to do to my friends but fangs out meant I was ready for battle. A good thing, given Number 3 pretended he went for my feint in order to give Long Face time to smash some kind of club—obviously I never saw it because if I had, Long Face could never have smashed me with it—into the side of my head.
The blow threw me off balance, but in a fortunate way because I ended up sprawling across the path the demons would need to pursue my friends. Demon 3 tried to vault me and give chase to the bagger gang. Wrong move. My head rang like one of those gongs in a Chinese restaurant and my eyes watered. I’d like to say I saw everything in slow motion because a slowdown in events was just what I needed to shake off the blow to my bean. Overcoming diminished clear-thought capacity was a daily exercise for me so I easily tracked the steaming glob of demon doing the Baryshnikov just above me. I reached up and snagged one its six feet as it bounded over me.
I almost laughed when I when I saw the ridiculous pose Number 3 made as he stopped still in the air. But I’d save laughing for later because we all know the one about “he who laughs last.” So what do you do when you’re lying on the ground with a handful of leaping demon? Crack the whip. My horizontal position turned out an advantage as I snapped my wrist and cracked Number 3 against the cement floor.
A sickening noise like an exploding watermelon and I notched another bad guy. Temporarily. I already said you can’t kill those things, but temporary might prove sufficient. Three left. And in addition to the head-popping squish I might have heard something else too. I think Number 3 let one, but the overwhelming sulfur smell demons naturally radiate made the place a veritable free-fire zone.
Demons might not like working together, but that doesn’t mean they can’t work in concert. I think they realized I could take them all if they came after me one-by-one. And hey, I did feel indestructible. Except for the headache, but I’d deal with that later. So my teeth were out and I’d reached supernova vampire power. Great, but everything has a price. I’d need to feed, and soon. On the bright side I wouldn’t need to worry about feeding if the demons ate me first.
While I suited up for battle Long Face and his two pals were busy improving their tactics. The three inched closer to me—I was still lying on the concrete—none of them moved in to attack. They had time enough to deal with me and chase down my friends. They’d probably leave any Germans they encountered alone. Professional courtesy. I got to my feet.
That’s when Number 4 and Number 5 jumped me. Eight hundred pounds of angry demons smashed me back down into the floor. I heard and felt the concrete beneath me crack. Maybe not concrete. It might have been my ribs because for the second time that night I found breathing impossible. They pinned my arms and maneuvered me over on my stomach.
“Let him see,” said Long Face.
I was pretty sure it wasn’t because he’d hired a magician and was concerned I’d miss out on the entertainment. Two big hand things on my head and I felt them twist me Exorcist-style. It turned into a battle of vampire strength versus something other-worldly. My spine could snap. And if it did, I’d need a few hours to mend things if I wanted to move. I didn’t think they’d wait around comparing hand puppets or practicing origami while I regenerated. A severed spinal cord would mean a knockout in the third round.
Down goes Frazier.
I concentrated my strength and pushed against the extraordinary power of demon hands. Stalemate. My stamina could last all night. The demon recognized a lost cause and released my head. They had me face-down anyway and nearly defenseless to whatever they had in mind.
“Let me taste,” said Long Face.
His voice sounded—and smelled—closer, and I didn’t think he was talking about one of those hard, salty German pretzels. I felt the demons scuffling over me. Team play only went so far when a fresh victim lay beneath them. Something sharp bit into my leg and crushed my calf muscle with the force of an iron vise. Demon teeth.
The bite continued through my leg and stopped only when the teeth met somewhere inside my flesh. A brief tugging and Long Face ripped a large piece of me free.
I screamed in a voice not heard by humanity for millennia. I yelled the war cry of the old German tribes as we rained down to destroy the Roman legions trapped on the narrow paths of the Teutoberg Forest. I screamed not in fear of my own death, but rather as a warrior demanding entry into the afterlife and at frustration that this life would offer no further opportunity to destroy more of my enemies. I was human back in the ancient days of my German people. I was vampire and living in the days of what my people had become.
I was going to die. A death in battle, my friends defended and escaped. My father would smile with pride. His son, Gaius Teutoberg, Prince of the tribe and citizen of Rome, trades his own life for those of his comrades. That would be OK with me.
Chapter 17
There are fates worse than being eaten alive by demons, though I’d need a million years to come up with one. Long Face took another bite, this time from the fleshy part halfway between my knee and my bottom. I howled in rage. He was working me over like an ear of corn. I even considered initiating the doomsday sequence and putting some solid seasoning in my pants. You know, butter up that next bite.
If I’ve felt pain like that before I’m glad to have forgotten about it. Several things happen automatically when I reach fangs-out, full vampire mode. One of them: regeneration becomes instinct and not something I need to concentrate on to make happen. Don’t think that helped in any meaningful way because the size of Long Face’s bites outperformed the additional capability. And when his two friends eventually joined him at the Gare-trough? It was all over for me.
I didn’t just lay there and let the demons have their way, I mean, I’m not that easy. I struggled enough to push Numbers 4 and 5 off balance a few times, but they still kept me face down to the concrete, both of my arms stretched and pinned, and their bulk positioned far enough toward my knees to make my legs useless for fighting but great as appetizers for Long Face. Rage boiled and I screamed promise of revenge in the old German tongue.
Long Face didn’t seem to understand my accent because I sensed little concern as he smacked on his third piece of me. Muscles quivered in anger and I bucked hard enough to make Numbers 4 and 5 smack heads. Small victory, but a victory none the less. Another death-yell, another explosion of raw vampire strength and I managed to twist my body from belly to one side. Now I could see more than ground.
Long Face in my peripheral vision. Perfect. Now I had the video of both his feeding frenzy and his poor table manners. We locked eyes. His grin revealed bloody bits of me stuck between his teeth. I roared and twisted. My right hand came free.
I caught a flash of denim and orange, and at the same time I pulled my arm from under Number 4. Number 5 loosened up on his own. Long Face’s look changed from an evil sort of smirk to stupid shock. Served him right if he’d popped a crown. Or
maybe something happened to alter the course of the fight.
I threw Number 4 against the wall and glanced around as I got to my feet. What I saw frightened me far more than the notion of being eaten alive by five demons. Sister Christian, J-Rod, Bonny Prince McDonald, and Watanabe lined up like those selfie-stick photos you see on Facebook. Crap.
Turns out J-Rod and Watanabe combined their strength to heave a trash can at Number 5. Hence the orange flash. They’d beaned the big ugly fellow. Or maybe it was an big ugly chick. Not important. Demons aren’t used to humans fighting back, so the audaciousness probably stunned it more than the garbage can.
Watanabe tried a roundhouse kick. The shocking thing is that it looked like a real one you’d expect to see in cage fights. Unfortunately he missed Number 5 and clipped the Prince in the chin. Poor dude went down like an Iranian gunboat.
Long Face stood frozen and his lieutenants hesitated.
“Get them all,” he said, but I think his buddies had seen enough once they took a good look at me on my feet.
I don’t think they were afraid of me as much as they didn’t want to work more than anticipated for their piece of the vampire. Maybe Demon Union rules protect average workers from the management abuse of uncompensated overtime. Because except for Long Face, all the demons vamoosed.
My turn to smile. I stepped in front of my friends to prevent them from committing further stupidity. My voice came out as a growl originating somewhere next to my soul when I said, “Stay behind me.”
Nobody moved. If I’d been thinking about more than the destruction of Long Face, I might have wondered then what I’ve thought about since. Once my friends had a good look at Long Face and a good look at me…who frightened them more? The question would have broken my heart back in the tunnel. But then, how much would that have hurt compared to the large bites of missing flesh?