A loud crack echoed through the building as a seam in the protruding wall split down the middle. Several Wilderings tumbled into the room. Hoss’s followers quickly dispatched them, then pushed the seam back together, propping the wall up with whatever was at hand––boxes of equipment, fuel cans, the bodies of headless Wilderings.
“Won’t hold for long!” Hoss yelled.
Of the dozen FBI agents who’d shown up with Abercrombie, six were still alive. Terrill saw Callendar conferring with Jeffers. They looked as if they were arguing, but in the end, Jeffers lowered his head in assent.
“Agent Jeffers is staying; the rest of us are coming with you,” Callendar announced.
Terrill nodded.
He looked over at the hole through which Jurgenson had disappeared. He’d been watching the opening warily, but the Wilderings hadn’t found it. If they could manage to sneak out and outflank the bulk of the enemy forces, they might be able to stem the tide for a time.
Terrill moved toward the breach and heard the clatter of body armor and weapons as the agents followed him. He pushed aside the rock that Jurgenson had left against the building and poked his head out. There were a few Wilderings on this side of the Armory, looking for ways in, but it was obvious that most of them were on the other side of the building.
“Take out any of them who see us emerging,” he said to Callendar. “We don’t want them finding this entrance.”
They ducked into the hole and out the other side, catching the nearest Wilderings by surprise. One of the FBI guys had a silencer on his rifle, and he fired at their heads. Clarkson moved in a blur to the downed vampires and sliced their heads off with a slash of her claws.
They moved around the side of the building, slaying three straggler Wilderings they found, and then around to the front.
Terrill stopped in shock. There were hundreds of vampires, some of them climbing on others, all of them pushing against the sides of the Armory. The agents opened fire, toppling the vampires who were leveraging pressure from the top, and then firing into the dense crowd at the bottom.
The crowd broke up under the gunfire, then turned en masse and charged toward them.
Clarkson and Terrill let the agents take care of the first and second waves, but as the Wilderings grew closer, Terrill signaled the agents to stop firing their automatics and waded into the charging vampires. By then, the FBI guys had drawn their pistols and were firing at individual vampires instead of into the crowd. Terrill felt one of the bullets whiz past close to his head, and he turned back for a second to see if that had been on purpose.
None of the FBI agents were looking at Terrill; they were all fighting for their lives.
It became clear as soon as the fight started that Clarkson and Terrill were faster and their blows were harder than the Wilderings’. The Wilderings paused, as if confused that they were being attacked by their own kind, then started retreating. As soon as they did, Terrill waved at Clarkson to get behind the line of FBI agents and told Callendar to fire at will.
And then the line of agents was slammed into from behind. A new wave of Wilderings had come out of nowhere, and within seconds, half the agents were dead. The last three were fighting back to back to back. Clarkson was surrounded and taking wounds.
Terrill didn’t have time to think about what had gone wrong; he was fighting just to keep the space around him clear. These new opponents seemed more disciplined and were working together instead of getting in each other’s way.
Standing off to one side, as if directing the battle, he saw a dark-haired, young-looking vampire wearing black-rimmed glasses. The glasses were strange enough––a vampire had better vision than any human––but it was the smirk on his face that made Terrill realize he was looking at the leader of these Wilderings, perhaps the one who had begun this epidemic in the first place.
The sight of his enemy energized Terrill, and he moved faster than ever. He threw off the attacking vampires and ran toward the glasses-wearing vampire, who looked alarmed for a second, then smiled. Too late, Terrill saw that he had a crossbow in his hands. He fired a bolt into Terrill’s heart.
Terrill felt as though his body was disintegrating. The pain in his heart was the whole universe––nothing else existed. He felt himself falling. He was amazed that it was a Wildering who had finally brought him down.
Then he was even more amazed to find himself still alive, lying on his back, staring at the sky. He could feel the wooden projectile––which had just missed the silver cross on his chest––in his heart, but the organ kept beating. He was weakened, but he wasn’t dead. He was looking up at dark clouds, and there, on their edge, he saw a patch of blue sky that was steadily expanding. He could see rays of the light behind the clouds, and it seemed to him that it would be mere moments before the sun emerged.
Too late for him, but the others would be saved. He found himself strangely content. Sylvie would live; Clarkson and Michael would carry on. It was a better result than he’d expected.
“Golden blood?” Stuart was staring down at Terrill. “What are you?” he asked. “Whatever you are, I want some of it.”
The Wildering dropped down on top of him and Terrill felt fangs sink into his neck. “Oh… my… God,” the other vampire breathed. “This is the best-tasting blood ever!”
After he had fed, Stuart got to his feet and wiped his mouth, smearing the golden liquid across his chin.
Terrill felt the wooden bolt being pushed out of his heart. It popped out of his chest and clattered to the pavement. He sat up.
The other vampire backed up a step, surprised. “What the hell are you?” he repeated. His words slurred at the end as the golden blood on his mouth and chin started to steam. He put his hand to his face and cried out as the gold liquid transferred to his fingers and began to burn.
Stuart jerked, then looked down at his hands, which were starting to curl in on themselves. He stood there shaking so violently that his image seemed to flicker in and out of focus. Then his body stiffened and his eyes rolled back in his head. He went crashing to the ground, his head hitting the pavement with a loud thump. He arched his back and screamed.
Everyone––Wildering and human alike––was backing away from him.
Then he exploded. His guts came flying out of his torso, his arms and legs split off and landed yards away, and his head shot straight up into the air and burst. The rest of his body turned into embers, then into ash, and a wind came out of nowhere and blew him into the sky.
At the same moment, the sun came bursting out from behind the dark clouds, and the vampires who were caught in the open began to scream. The flames started in their hair and quickly enveloped them from top to bottom. They fell to the ground and curled up as if going to sleep. By then, they weren’t making any sounds. Across the city, there were more explosions as cars and houses caught fire, ignited by burning vampires.
Terrill and Clarkson looked at each other with trepidation, but they felt warmth, not pain, from the sun. Clarkson’s eyes were wide and frightened, but the fear quickly turned to amazement. She held out her bare hand and examined it as if it was some kind of marvel. Her hair had turned from the white-blonde of her earlier incarnation to a soft yellow; her skin was as tanned as if she was a beach girl who had spent the summer basking in the southern sun.
Terrill laughed joyously. Behind him, the door of the Armory opened and the humans started venturing out. He could see Hoss and his followers staring out from the shadows, staying well away from the sunlight.
Sylvie ran to him and he caught her in mid-leap.
“It’s over,” he said.
But even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true.
Terrill’s story continues in Blood of Gold, the third book of the Vampire Evolution Trilogy.
About the Author:
Duncan McGeary is the owner of the bookstore Pegasus Books of Bend, located in downtown Bend, Oregon. He is the author of the fantasy novels Star Axe, Snowcastles, and Icetowers, an
d the author of several horror novels, including Led to the Slaughter and the Vampire Evolution Trilogy. His wife Linda is also a writer; together they attend an Oregon writers’ group. Duncan has two children: Todd, an artist, and Toby, a chef.
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The Vampire Evolution Trilogy (Book 2): Rule of Vampire Page 23