THE
LAST
STAND
BOOK III OF THE BLOOD WAR TRILOGY
Copyright © 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book or the stories herein may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover art is by Kari Klawiter.
This book is dedicated to everyone who has supported me throughout the years. To everyone who has bought a copy of one of my books, in particular this trilogy of novellas.
It is especially dedicated to those who could be bothered to take the time to write a review of my work. That means more to me than anything else.
Thank you.
BLOOD WAR TRILOGY
Book’s I and II available now on amazon.
THE
LAST
STAND
ONE
Marietta, Cobb County
Georgia, USA.
The windshield popped clear of its housing and skidded across the sidewalk when he wrapped the Chrysler around a lamppost on the corner of Roswell and Park Streets, not far from the Big Chicken. The hood folded back against itself, the vehicle’s wings almost touched, and the engine pressed through the firewall. The airbag engaged, and the window in the front passenger door shattered into tiny slivers.
A mortal man would have died upon impact—at the very least would be slumped in the seat with his brain struggling to function. That didn’t happen to William Sherman.
He groaned and blood trickled down the bridge of his nose from a cut above his right eye. He moved his legs to make sure they weren’t trapped beneath the pedals. Pushing the deflating airbag out of his view, William looked across the distorted bonnet.
The body lay on the sidewalk, the windshield about twenty yards beyond it. Night hadn’t yet developed into the black veil it would become, and he could clearly see the figure despite its dark attire. His assailant—who had been sprawled across the car’s hood, clinging to the wipers prior to the crash—wouldn’t be dead either. Car wrecks such as this didn’t kill a vampire.
William reached down and pressed the button to release the seatbelt but the clasp didn’t disengage. He pressed harder but nothing happened. The figure on the sidewalk stirred, raising itself onto its arms. The vampire shook its head to disperse the effects of the accident. William grabbed the belt’s buckle and wrenched the bolt loose, then removed himself from the safety device. He tried the door but it wouldn’t open.
“Jesus Christ.”
Swiveling on his rump and lifting his legs, William kicked the door off its hinges. He no longer had the agility he’d once had perhaps two hundred years ago, but he was glad he’d retained his hybrid strength in spite of his lack of commitment to the war effort.
By the time he’d hauled his overweight body from the vehicle the vampire had staggered to its feet.
William glanced up Roswell Street, towards the junction with Cobb Parkway. He’d been heading for the KFC, the big red chicken everybody knew about, because there he figured he’d find some form of sanctuary. The joint would be busy this time of evening, but the cops wouldn’t be out in force for a while. The vampire could just wait until closing time, but the Big Chick had been William’s only chance.
He had no desire to fight anymore; thought he’d hidden himself perfectly—he couldn’t believe they’d found him.
He’d last fought in the war about one hundred years ago, repelling a small flock of vampires in downtown Budapest: the night he’d disappeared, fed up with the slaughter and his anger. No longer interested in how many vampires and werewolves he’d slain over the years, the war hadn’t been his fight. Having been born a hybrid he was expected to do battle. The fact he’d survived three hundred years of conflict amazed him, and that night in Hungary—when a vampire tore a large part of his cheek away with the tip of its sword—he knew his luck had started to run out. He needed to disappear and escape the war or end up being another forgotten casualty.
William moved to Vietnam first and hid in the jungles, before following a trail further south to Indonesia, then the Australian Outback—anywhere sparsely populated somewhere many miles from the darkened war that haunted his memories. He led a lonesome life, always moving on before people began to wonder why he never aged. Mortal friends became diseased and died; women he loved grew old and haggard. He’d chosen that existence however, a forlorn one as opposed to one filled with carnage and monsters.
Somehow William knew it would end one day, he just didn’t think it would be like this. If he were honest with himself, he expected hybrids to track him down and force him back into their conflict, but he never thought in a mortal lifetime his eternal enemy would come calling instead.
William had fallen prey to a human lifestyle—he smoked thirty cigarettes a day, drank alcohol every night, and slept with prostitutes on a weekly basis. He was no match against the nimble being before him. He hadn’t seen a vampire in a century, and the one on the sidewalk terrified him.
How the hell did they find me? How the hell did they know who I was?
“Hey, buddy,”—someone behind him,—“are you okay?”
William didn’t answer.
A thousand yards away, the Big Chicken loomed on the junction. Its yellow beak opened and closed, black eyes rotating in its large white sockets. A crowd had gathered outside the eatery, although even from this distance William could tell something wasn’t right. About a dozen people—maybe as many as fifteen—piled onto the street, emerging from the trailer park behind the restaurant, and began fanning across the width of the highway, walking towards the crash scene.
The vampire glanced over its shoulder, following William’s gaze, and a smile turned its lips.
The concerned motorist behind William must have sensed trouble too, as his car door slammed and automatic locks engaged. It sounded loud in William’s panicked brain.
At least six members of the advancing crowd were smaller than the others with hair trimmed and styled. Long, black coats flapped around their legs. The others were taller, more muscled in appearance, either donned in denim jackets or leather ones with well-worn jeans peppered with holes.
William’s hybrid eyes recognized each species at once, and it sent a shudder rushing through his cold, undead body.
No—impossible!
Vampires and werewolves had fought against each other in a ferocious war for the better part of six hundred years, yet they stood side by side in an American city and seemed intent on slaughtering not each other, but him!
The vampire on the sidewalk used its right hand to draw back its long, concealing coat, and William eyed the sword’s hilt and the long scabbard containing the blade.
He turned and ran.
His ears picked up the sound of a car—perhaps his own—being dented as the vampire gave chase, and although he couldn’t hear the footfalls of the chasing horde he knew they were following. He couldn’t understand why they were making such a public effort to catch him; couldn’t believe any of this was really happening.
William should have foreseen it though—for the last four months he’d been losing his contacts: hybrids like himself who had deserted the war for a more peaceful life under the disguise of a mortal human. One by one they’d stopped calling and none of them returned his calls. Though he’d known all along something wasn’t right about th
eir mysterious disappearances, he never thought anything serious would happen to him. He realized now he’d acquired that trait from the human race—a naïve assumption that bad things happened to other people.
Now something bad—probably about as bad as it gets—was about to happen to him, and he’d never seen it coming.
Ten yards ahead of him to his right lay the National Cemetery. Twenty yards ahead to his left, vampires and werewolves emerged from the roadside.
The coattails of the vampire’s attire flapped in motion to their quick strides; looking as if they would become wings at any moment and turn the creatures into giant bats. Their pale faces were stern and emotionless, black irises almost filling the eye sockets as they prepared for battle. One of the werewolves removed his coat and one of its hands lost its human shape; appearing distended and awkward, with claws pushing from the fingertips.
Without breaking stride William jinked to his right and vaulted the stone wall surrounding the cemetery. For someone his size—stocky, weighing in at two-hundred sixty pounds—he shouldn’t have been able to leap two feet off the ground, yet adrenalin empowered hybrid muscles that had remained unchallenged for ten decades. He dodged a gravestone in front of him, and sprinted across the grounds.
The terrain sloped sharply upward and the numerous trees populating the cemetery cast twilight shadows that deepened the darkness within the grounds. Rows of white headstones stretched across the hillside and followed the curvature of paths and roads. He charged up the hill. Vulnerability slipped around William and hugged him tight. His forgotten enemy had forced him from the relative sanctuary of the streets and into a secluded area. Sunset had passed and the graveyard was locked and empty. Although traffic backed up along Roswell Street due to his wrecked Chrysler, any onlookers would find it hard to see the chase in progress due to the lay of the land.
He scrambled up the incline and risked a glance over his shoulder.
Vampires were quicker than the brutish power of werewolves and dark-clad figures fanned out on either side in an effort to encircle him. The creature that had clung to his vehicle followed directly behind him but it didn’t run, instead keeping pace with long, determined strides. William glanced to his left and spied a further group of supernatural beings leaping over the rubble wall and into the cemetery. The werewolf who had shed its jacket earlier now tore its shirt open; a thick pelt of hair visible in the waning light of a north Georgia evening. A growl escaped the throat of another werewolf, its human features beginning to dissolve into the countenance of a beast.
William knocked into a tombstone, feared he would stumble to the ground, but managed to maintain his balance. He looked down and noticed the simple inscription: Unknown U.S. Soldier.
William could have been buried in the cemetery. A Union soldier during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War, he had taken a shot to the head and been incapacitated for around six hours. If he’d been mortal he would have died instantly. The werewolves his fellow hybrids and he were following managed to escape in the ensuing battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Having been pronounced dead and loaded onto a cart, he managed to escape under the cover of darkness. That time in the army during that conflict had been enjoyable, and part of the reason why he’d chosen to settle in Marietta once he’d gotten tired of running from his supernatural war. He’d even adopted the name of the officer who’d commanded him under the Union flag.
An unfamiliar fear gripped his stomach and twisted his insides as he realized he could now meet his fate in the graveyard of those mortal men he’d once fought alongside.
Rushing up the cemetery’s incline, William hoped some earthly soul had phoned the cops. The police often checked the graveyard but he feared he didn’t have enough time.
Panting with exertion his heart thudded painfully with every beat. He would never enter a state of cardiac arrest, but obesity hindered his movements. Two hundred years ago he could have scrambled up the cemetery trees and maybe leaped onto the roofs of houses opposite, a route that could have offered him escape. Now his energy felt sapped, supernatural powers locked in a forced hibernation and unable to wake up. He wished he could shed his clothing in an effort to find greater movement and therefore more speed. Tearing the shirt from his chest would be easy enough, but he couldn’t stop or stumble while discarding his pants as the chasing foe would catch him.
A roar filled the world around him, emanating from his left. William glanced up, and staggered to a stop as a werewolf lunged from behind a tree. Claws tore at his flesh; the shirt ripped and hung from his shoulders. He managed to twist his body as the beast slashed him, and as he turned he pushed the werewolf away. It thudded into the turf, rolled, and slammed into a tombstone. The marble fractured.
Without hesitation the creature scrambled to its feet. William willed his body to change. Muscles flooded with blood, claws scythed through his fingertips, and his pants tightened around his legs as his body distended. His head felt as if it would rupture as his skull cracked and reformed, upper and lower jaw bulging forward into a stunted snout. His gums split as his teeth altered into fangs, tongue tingling with the taste of his own blood.
His first metamorphosis in ten decades hurt like hell. He screamed out, as much in agony as in rage.
The lycanthrope charged again, issuing a hellish roar, arms outstretched with splayed fingers tipped by talons. William dodged the assault and swung his right arm at the lunging creature. He connected with its head and bone cracked in the werewolf’s jaw. It howled in pain and tumbled down the slope, cracking one tombstone in half. It lay against a tree, its form almost obscured by thickening darkness.
Supernatural beings regenerated at an alarming rate: the monster was down but not out.
Must have been a fledging creature, William surmised. He doubted every attack would be so easy to defend.
Shadows swarmed around the graveyard: the pursuing horde of both vampires and werewolves closing on him.
He didn’t stand still; doing so would mean he’d be dead in a matter of seconds. He could feel their presence at his back, encircling him on all sides. With a panted breath trapped by a frantic grunt, William ran up the rest of the incline to the rostrum.
The white structure stood out against the black veil of descending night. Located near the centre of the cemetery, on the highest point in the grounds, the building reminded William of the Greek Acropolis with rounded pillars and arched entryways. He ran harder to reach it—once past the building the terrain sloped down towards Washington Avenue and he could take his chances in the surrounding suburbia.
At the summit he ran past the rostrum’s stone steps and skidded to a stop.
The main entrance wasn’t far away, at the bottom of the gradient in the north-western corner of the plot. The granite archway stood thirty-five feet high, an impressive structure which resembled architecture from ancient Rome; and the ornamental iron gates were closed and locked—not that it mattered. A line of supernatural beings ambled up the gradual incline towards the rostrum, stretching from the boundary with Washington Avenue to the cemetery’s edge by Cole Street.
In his altered state William’s nocturnal vision was excellent, and the sight caused panic to flash through his essence. Vampires transformed: their bodies thickening as blood filled their muscles, lips peeling back when fangs slid from the gums. The werewolves terrified him more; changing as they walked, clothes shredding as limbs extended and chests broadened, faces dissolving into wolfed demons. Their thick pelts reflected the final rays of daylight. Even the female creatures looked indomitable.
Movement filtered to his ears; somewhere close behind him. William turned with speed and located the form of a vampire closing from his left. William growled defensively. The vampire slowed and swung its sword in a wide arc. Why doesn’t it charge me? It kept him at a distance just beyond the tip of the forty-inch blade. William stepped towards the creature, but the vampire didn’t back off. It swept the weapon in an arc once more, its pointed tip passing W
illiam’s face close enough to cause wind to brush against his skin.
Scents rode the night air: the calming tang of trees in the graveyard complimented harshly by the foul stench of transformed werewolves. Vampires didn’t give off much scent, William realized, or if they did the odor of lycanthropes masked it. He could smell himself—a touch of sweat laced with panic.
William took off to his right, heading away from the slope leading down to Washington, deciding to take his chances with the mob behind him.
A roar reverberated in his brain and a creature exploded from the shadows. He hadn’t seen it lurking. The werewolf slammed into him and he lost his balance under the colossal weight. Slimy jaws closed around William’s throat and in that one terrifying moment he envisaged the beast tearing his esophagus out. William punched the creature in the back of its head. He grabbed a fistful of fur and pulled hard, trying in vain to tear the lycanthrope from him. He hooked his legs up, almost positioned his heels in the werewolf’s hips to push it clear, but the creature wriggled further onto him, its own claws digging into William’s side. He shrieked, his scream dampened by teeth slicing through his neck. The grass felt warm beneath him, heat from the sun lingering in the blades.
A subdued roar of triumph echoed from the surrounding creatures. Hands—some rough and edged with fur, others smooth and cold—gripped his arms and legs and pinned him to the grass. He fought against his entrapment but could do nothing except thrash on the ground.
A large werewolf stepped into his view. Laying on the ground and looking up at the creature, William’s position increased the perceived size of the lycanthrope, but the animal appeared immense. The werewolf changed, its head rocking back on its shoulders as if preparing to howl at the moon, before the form deflated as it took its human shape. Bones snapped in the cemetery’s still air, loose fur wafting from the body like autumn leaves dropping from trees.
The Last Stand -- Blood War Trilogy Book III Page 1