Blood Demons

by Richard Jeffries

  “Your ‘will’ is tomorrow.” Mahasona’s words were glass shards in his brain. “Your problem is today. You will stop ‘trying’ to clean up your problem. You will eliminate your problem, now, or you will become part of it.”

  Craven felt his gut lurch and the shards in his brain turn to lightning.

  “Yes!” he screeched. Then his bowels emptied, and the lightning was no more.

  When he could see again, his master and his companion were gone. But still, a few of his master’s words lingered.

  “Your mess must be cleaned. Whatever—whoever, wherever—the cost.”

  Chapter 7

  Nichols tried getting the fifty kilometers from Dera Baba Nanak to Amritsar even faster than she had before.

  Their first stop had been to the friendly, talkative, eager, English-speaking Dera Baba Nanak mortician who had sent them to Sujanpur in the first place. Their second stop was at the nearby home of the couple who had brought their supposedly bloodless child to the mortician, also in the first place.

  Now they were racing to the spiritual and cultural center of the Sikh religion because that was where the “special school” the couple’s daughter had been recruited to was located. It was a staggering story that, in retrospect, was so obvious that Nichols wondered why no one had investigated it before.

  “No one investigated it,” Key had told her, “because no one saw reason to.”

  All three were shaken by their visit to the small apartment at the end of Dera Baba Nanak Road, where an all-too-calm young mother, wearing a blue kurta tunic over cream canvas pants, had welcomed them into her plain but clean living room—using careful, but fluent, English.

  Although Key had made it clear that they were CID agents investigating her daughter’s death—and all three were tense to say the least—the woman insisted on offering them cups of chai tea. And a very slow offer at that.

  Both Daniels and Nichols had given Key a raised eyebrow—the former with ‘what’s this about?’ sarcasm and the latter with concern—as the woman had unhurriedly moved into the tiny adjoining kitchenette, but Key could only shrug at them with a certain amount of helplessness.

  “What can I do?” he had mouthed at the others. “Snap my fingers and hope she comes out of it? Study her. We may need detailed descriptions soon.”

  The more cautiously the mother went, the more agitated most of her visitors became. Even before she reappeared, carrying a tray of small cups that gave off a soothing aroma of cardamom, ginger, and cinnamon, Key had already asked her another question.

  “Were you the one who found your daughter?”

  “I smoothed the chai with milk and sweetened it with honey,” had been her reply. “I hope that is all right.”

  “Fine,” Key snapped as she dreamily presented the tray to Daniels, then Nichols. Both had taken a cup as to not risk another delay. Finally she had turned back to Key. “Did you find your daughter?” he had asked her.

  “No,” she had said slowly, as if she was having some trouble recalling the fact. Key had been about to ask her another question but tightened his jaw when he saw that, once the memory was found, it flowed from the woman’s brain to her mouth like a undammed brook. “I-I was called by the school. They said she had an accident.”

  “What school?” Daniels had blurted, then winced at his interruption. But, thankfully, the babbling brook of the mother’s mind was picking up speed.

  “A-a woman,” she had stammered as if truly seeing her memory for the first time. “There was a beautiful woman who came here.” She pointed at the door as if it was appearing from mist. “She said my daughter was special and had been chosen.”

  Nichols had leaned forward as if to ask for details, but Key had sharply made a stopping motion out of the mother’s sight.

  “Chosen,” the mother had continued, her eyes getting clearer and her voice thicker. “For a scholarship, a full scholarship, to a special school. A private school—in Amritsar.” The woman had said the name of the city with reverence. “Amritsar,” she had repeated, threatening to go back into her reverie, but Key had seen that the vision of that golden city had been quickly usurped by renewed memories of her daughter. “So I let her go. I trusted them to love her as I love—loved—her.”

  Large, clear teardrops had started to fall out of the woman’s widening eyes, like diamonds dropping out of a vault. She turned her slowly collapsing face to Key. “I didn’t see her again—until they called about the—the…”

  Key had been certain that the woman would not remember the school’s name and address, but he was pleasantly surprised—at first, then justifiably concerned. He had expressed his concern to the others—then Lancaster, with Gonzales and Safar listening in—after they all returned the teacups to the tray, unsampled.

  “I’m not touching that,” Daniels had whispered to Nichols on the way back to the SUV. “Whatever that woman’s on might be in there.” The big man and the redhead had also been incredulous of the woman’s credulousness, but not Key.

  “Can you imagine what the mind-coating power of that naked vampire and the angel kid would be like in the form of a beautiful woman?” he had asked before requesting Lancaster find some hypnotism specialist to visit the poor woman. Then he had demanded that Daniels get in touch with Lailani, as Nichols gunned the Ford toward “The Golden City.”

  The SUV’s comm-link was on speakerphone so everyone in the vehicle could hear, and speak to, the former escort Daniels had “met” in Oman.

  “There are many ‘first’ vampires,” Lailani said.

  “’First” vampires?” Nichols asked Lailani, intent on the traffic, but also wanting to glean as much information as they could in the short amount of time they had.

  “The ones that are supposedly the original creature that inspired the legend that became Dracula,” Lailani answered, sounding as if she were discussing the weather.

  Daniels looked at Key with a “who would’ve thought?” expression, which Key returned with an “I did, which is why I wanted to talk to her in the first place” look. The Filipinos he had known had all been well-versed in their mythology, which they seemed to think of as reality.

  “We would talk about them during our off hours,” she continued, referring to her fellow escorts at the club in Qurum, Oman, where Daniels had met her. “And every single story came from our families. But we kind of stopped after what happened to the—pinays.”

  Key could understand that. Those transgender lady-boys had been infected with the blood-detonating disease transmitted by the Idmonarachne Brasieri that Cerberus had managed to destroy. It seemed like years ago, but it had actually been only a few weeks.

  “What are the top ones?” he asked her.

  “Aswang,” she said immediately, which made Daniels snigger—eliciting a look of warning from Key, but Lailani had already heard him. “It means ‘demon’ in your language, not ‘ass’ and ‘wang,’ you big ape,” she continued. “Most famous in Philippines, Joe. Most famous everywhere in east. Shapeshifter—could be vampire, witchwarlock, or even werecreature.”

  “Witchwarlock?” Nichols interrupted again.

  “Yes, good catch,” Lailani encouraged. “Aswang tik-tik, wak-wak, sok-sok, kling-kling.” Key looked nonplussed until Lailani explained. “Means both boy and girl, Joe.”

  “Christ!” Daniels exclaimed. “Werecreature? Are monsters getting politically correct now, too?”

  “You imperceptive ape,” Lailani said affectionately. “Not ‘p.c.’ It means what it says. A werewolf is wolf. Aswang could be many beast—bat, bird, boar, cat, dog, others.”

  Key jutted his chin at the comm microphone/speaker. “How do you kill them, Lailani?” Key asked.

  “Same as Dracula sometimes,” she unhesitatingly answered. “Cross, church water, garlic, head-chopping. But best with a whip made from stingray’s tail.”

  Dani
els’ mouth twisted. “Well, that’s pretty specific.”

  “Probably with good reason,” Key retorted.

  “Buntot pagi,” Lailani said, translating the weapon’s name. “Aswang not so much scared by whip, but by whip’s noise. Also agimats amulet.”

  “My vocabulary is growing by animal leaps and bounds,” Daniels remarked.

  Although Key didn’t appreciate Daniels’s interruptions, he recognized the difficulty of taking all this in, and fully comprehending it. Giant prehistoric spiders might be frightening, but they were certainly more tangible than hypnosis, brain-washing, or whatever else their new adversaries were using. He checked the Ecosport’s navigation screen and saw they were running out of time.

  “Give me the top five, Lailani, name, powers, weaknesses.”

  “Top five?” she complained. “But there are so many, Joe.”

  “Try.” He looked at Nichols, who held up five fingers. They were five minutes from arrival.

  “Okay, for you, Joe, I try. Also for you, big ape.” Daniels smiled as they heard Lailani take a big breath, then launch into her list. “Aswang, number one. Two, Ekimmu—drink blood, take soul, control minds. Need Spirit Bowl for protection. Three, Penanggalan—beautiful woman who suck blood of pregnant women and children, need thorny leaves for protection. Four, Gyonshi—drink blood, decapitate. Spell paper stop them, fire destroy them. Five, Riri Yaka, Blood Demon—can change into nine forms, eats flesh and drinks blood, killed by fire or brass knife.”

  Lailani took a breath as Nichols held up her forefinger to let Key know they were almost at their destination. He looked out the windshield to see a huge, beautiful city, anchored by the Harmandir Sahib, which translated to “the abode of God,” and was more commonly known as The Golden Temple. It was the most popular destination for non-residents in all of India, and was always mobbed by thousands. Thankfully, the address of the special school, was, not surprisingly, on the outskirts of the city.

  “So many more, Joe,” Lailani complained. “So much more. Details, details.”

  “Salamat, Lailani,” Key said, using the Filipino word for thank you. “I wish we had more time.”

  “I send you links, Joe,” she promised. “More information. Much, much more information.”

  “Salamat, babydoll,” Daniels interjected, punching Key’s shoulder and beginning to pull himself toward the SUV’s storage section. “We got to go.”

  “And pakingshet pakyu, foolish gorilla-man,” she replied pleasantly, telling him “fuck you.”

  “Not the time and place,” he immediately retorted, before breaking the connection. “She’s a sweetheart, ain’t she?” he commented honestly. “Married some businessman in Dubai, I heard. Maybe even an Indian guy.” Daniels’s words seemed to bounce off Key’s ears, so the former Marine doubled down. “All this vampire stuff is for shit,” he emphasized, yanking up the dart guns from their cases. “These human monsters’re just making little suicide bombers.”

  When Key still didn’t respond, it was Nichols who picked up the gauntlet, steering the SUV into Dhaul Kalan village in the southwest of Amritsar. “It’s not the ‘what’ that concerns me as much as the ‘how,’” she said distractedly, placing most of her attention on the stone and cement walls of the colorfully accented blockhouses that made up the tree- and field-lined suburb.

  “Let me know when we’re a block away,” Key instructed. “Probably best to park a few doors down.”

  Nichols nodded as Daniels handed Key the automatic dart gun Gonzales had specially fashioned for him. Normally dart guns are for shit; inaccurate and ultimately ineffective, but, according to the Hispanic mechanic, not this one. Nor the dart submachine gun Daniels was hefting.

  The handgun was modified from the famed 1962 Walther LP53 air pistol, which sold at auction for half a million dollars. The machine gun looked like the rare Japanese Masudaya Thunderbolt target rifle, complete with its wicked shark-like shape, futuristic rocketship-style stock, and interlocking, dovetailing double barrel. And inside each were new darts, designed in the tradition of wax bullets, and packing an enhanced venom that Gonzales promised could take down an elephant in a heartbeat.

  “We’re getting close,” Nichols announced.

  They studied the narrow block. On one side was the white brick wall of an estate. On the other were three buildings, each behind a different gate. The first was a bronze fence made up of spears, topped with a fleur-de-lis trident. The second was a series of moon walls, with round, decorative inlays. The third was the charm.

  They driveway entry was flanked by two square-shaped, multi-colored brick columns, separated by a black and red wooden gate. On either side was a twelve-foot marbleized cement wall with atrium-like decorations. Behind it was a three-story, marbleized cement building that gave the impression of a chopped-off pagoda.

  Each floor was wider than the one before, each sporting a balcony that encircled the building. The second floor’s balcony had an inlaid brick balustrade, while the third had a wrought-iron one. None of them could see the first story through the wall, but Daniels already had a small camera drone in his palm. It looked like a cocktail-umbrella-topped ball, only the cocktail umbrella was black and made of space-age polymer.

  Key handed Nichols a dart gun, and both slipped on the double shoulder holsters—their Sig Sauer in one sheath, and what they were now calling the “Gonz-gun” in the other.

  “Ready?” he asked everyone. Daniels and Nichols nodded. “Let ’er fly.”

  Daniels put his arm out the window and raised his hand. The little thing took off like a caged bird getting its freedom—sounding, to anyone’s ears, like a hummingbird. Too bad the hummingbird was not native to India, but the local sunbird made a similar enough sound not to raise alarms.

  Daniels thumbed what looked like a slide projector’s control stick, while Nichols and Key watched a dashboard screen as the tiny, powerful lens inside the mini-drone started sending back video images. The “school” was quiet and seemingly deserted. The patchy grass did not seem particularly overgrown, but that could have been native to the species. The grounds had no evidence of educational tools, or even a playground, but it did feature some red flowering ashoka trees.

  “Look in a window,” Key suggested, knowing that Daniels would let the drone do something he’d never do: be subtle about it. He watched as the screen image neared the small, dirty, caged window of the top floor. It showed nothing but an old, dirty, empty room.

  Daniels brought the view down to the second floor. They heard Nichols try not to gasp. They looked into a plain, but clearly once-occupied, room, with just a mat on the dusty floor. Lying on the mat was a Nahji doll—India’s version of Barbie.

  “Shit,” she said. “We’re too late. Looks like they cleared out.”

  “Good,” said Daniels, shifting in his seat. “That means we can search the place without interference.”

  “Wait,” Key warned. “Check the first floor.”

  Daniels did as he was told, although emboldened because he figured it would be as empty as the rest. The drone hummed around the entire circumference of the building, showing them four empty rooms, but also a trapdoor, complete with a big iron ring handle, on the far side.

  “Too bad there’s no basement windows to look in,” Daniels grumbled.

  “Morty,” Key barked. “Houses in India don’t have basements. Close-up on that trapdoor!”

  Daniels responded immediately, and all six eyes peered at the dashboard screen. Naturally Nichols saw it first.

  “Joe, those are wires. There are wires coming out of that thing!”

  Fuse wires.

  Chapter 8

  The Ford Ecosport smashed into, through, and over the driveway gate and then flew straight into the front door. The two thousand, eight hundred, and fifty pound vehicle turned the front entry into a pile of crumbled brick and kindling that it then
crushed flat, as Nichols brought the skidding SUV right beside the trap door.

  Both Daniels and Key were out before the vehicle even fully stopped—Cali-brake hoods and infrared goggles on—the former sergeant swinging open the heavy wooden obstruction as if it were made of cardboard, and the former corporal grabbing the end of the wires at the same moment he thrust his top half down through the opening.

  There was no time for subtlety. If they knew where the secret school was, the bare player might very well know they knew it—especially if the victim’s mind-fogged mother had managed to retain the address. Key had put himself in their adversaries’ place. If he had been them, he would have taken steps to leave no evidence. And if there were fuse wires involved, that meant those steps were explosive.

  As he had hoped and dreaded, there the bastard-monster was. The creature was no longer unclad. He wore a robe but was standing in the square pool of light the open trapdoor made, amid four heavy-looking, rectangular, low-to-the-floor cages. The man’s eyes glowed dully hateful in the greenish hue of the infrared goggles’ vision.

  Key thrust the Gonz-gun forward, wishing it was the less unwieldy Sig Sauer, as he pulled the wires back. His wire arm stopped abruptly. The wires were attached to something on the floor, ceiling, and walls. The robed man lurched toward the nearest cage, and Key shot him four times without hesitation—twice in the reaching arm, once in the chest, and once in the forehead.

  Key felt empty satisfaction as the first two darts made the man’s arm jerk away from what he was reaching for, and the next two made him lurch away while jerking his skull back. But Key didn’t wait an elephant-dropping second before he yelled.

  “Morty, Sig, perforate him!”

  As he was afraid, the tranquilizer darts, even enhanced by Gonzales, seemed to have no effect on the robed man. He didn’t seem to be even slowed down. Fully expecting the boom of Daniels’s gun to accompany him, Key held on to the wires as he let his body flip down through the opening in order to give the Sig Sauer a clear shot.