Success. Our plan was horrid for vampires, but great for Italians. We fled down the corridors, determined to use every second of their confusion.
Exhilarated, we ran.
Reeking of garlic, we dared not breathe on each other. Potent as a dragon’s breath, the stench of our passage left a great deal of empty space behind us. I felt weirdly victorious and sneaky, all the same. Time. We gained time and we needed every second.
Slowly, the pack of red glowing eyes behind us grew. Never getting too close, the vampires were still ferocious and deadly. The stench just meant we had a chance to reach what was left of their human minds, before their animal instincts rage-killed us.
Nevertheless, the monsters were coming.
Nothing we did could stop them now. They knew we were here. As feral as they were, the newborns’ bloodthirsty hunger would not allow two living humans to escape. Sure, they might have to put us somewhere for a couple of weeks until the garlic passed out of our system. But then—we were definitely dead.
Turning into Peggy as if we were out on the beach taking a stroll, I remarked casually, “Now or never, right?”
She didn't have to say anything in reply. We both knew.
There was only the one goal: save Celestine tonight or die trying. That was our agreement.
“Here,” she said, with some amount of certainty in her voice. “This might work.” Reaching over her head, Peggy handed me a weapon that had been decorating the wall. I hadn't noticed it before.
I certainly did now. A long smooth shaft filled my palms. The wood was old and stained black. The weapon was like a spear but with an axe on the end of it.
“It's called a halberd, a polearm” she informed me, “Sharper than a katana and twice as deadly. This one especially—the haft and the blade have spells embedded in them.”
“Spells?” I asked, looking like an idiot.
It took a moment for my brain to catch up to the facts of the vastly different world found myself in. First off, there were vampires—that simple fact had upended my life.
Obviously, they had to have been made somehow, right?
“Wait,” I felt like my rational mind was grasping at anything to avoid going mad. “You're saying that there are things that act like spells? Like out of fairytales? Does that mean there's wizards and witches?” Doubt lay thick across the words. I tried to understand. Some things were just too much to easily accept. Seeing is believing.
For sure, I had seen vampires.
The rest of it? I wasn’t so certain.
I tried to understand precisely what I had learned so far. These things are true: “Okay, so there are creatures out there that suck human blood.”
Suddenly, the halberd started to feel like a security blanket in my hands. Might be the only thing to stop the nightmares that were coming. Peggy watched as I hefted the weapon over my shoulder and back, twirling the pole like a Chinese qiang. It was incredibly well balanced and felt like silk when it cut through the air.
Peggy nodded her approval at my lance training. “Most supernatural beings will kill you as soon as look at you twice.”
I added, “Not unlike some asshole humans I’ve met.”
“Yeah, those.” Peggy agreed. “A monster is a monster is a monster. And it was always a choice. We are what we choose to be, not our limitations.”
I had to agree. Planting the halberd on the marble floor, I struggled with what to do with a weapon this deadly. There was too much I didn’t know.
My focus was recovering Celestine. I had the chain. Did I need the polearm? And the spells wrapped in its metal blade?
Peggy led the way into the dark winding tunnels. We kept moving.
We were what the world made of us.
Everything had a place in the food chain. Made sense. Vampire bats, tigers, sharks - you didn't have to watch much of the television cable channels to come across a whole range of horrible creatures that could maim, kill, and eat a human body in seconds. Yeah. “The world’s a hard place. Obviously, well, apparently, there could be creatures around that I have never imagined.”
“Homo Sapiens Immortalis,” Peggy concluded. “That’s a starting place.”
I'd been joking but she was not. “Immortalis?”
“Vampires are just the tip of the iceberg, Tristan,” Peggy started to explain.
Then she stopped, reconsidering. “Let’s save Celestine and you can ask her. She knows the stories far better than I.” My companion shrugged, “Wouldn't want to do you the disservice of not sharing the whole truth. Back to your original question. As you can see, this weapon...”
Peggy reached out her hands and lifted off the ground the eight foot long halberd. The whole hallway filled with a whooshing sound.
Something had awoken.
“Did you feel that?” I asked. There was no doubt that she heard the sound. No one could miss the vibration and the clanging of distant invisible bells.
Standing there, Peggy held the halberd in front of her, careful not to touch the metal blade. She tried to be brave even though her hands shook. And there was a terror in her eyes that I didn't understand.
“What's in the hell does this thing do?” I asked, my voice low. But the time for explanations between us evaporated like water on a hot skillet.
Over her shoulders, a line of red-eyed creatures gathered. No doubt they came from every direction. I could almost feel their hunger digging into my exposed neck and back. Row by row, they stood there, just out of reach of the bags of garlic we had transformed our bodies into.
With one step, the undead crowd to the left moved forward.
We stepped back.
They moved again, in a glaring, angry, hungry, clever wall.
We retreated a second time, no longer the master of our fates. Not if the monsters got their way. I wanted to take the halberd from Peggy’s shaking hands and set the formidable weapon between the fangs and our human bodies. Unfortunately, I held the chain of Icarus which made any other weapon impossible.
Peggy shook—half in determination, half with fear.
Worried, she looked at me and I understood: the vampires were going to herd us into a secured room, using the pincer movement. “Like cattle to the stockyards,” I stated the simple fact.
They were clever. They lived forever. The monsters would not let us leave their crypt alive. They would wait. And when the noxious herb had left our bodies, we’d die. Like sniper scopes in a line, the red eyes floating over Peggy’s shoulder never blinked.
Neither did Peggy.
Stone cold, her voice reached through my fear. “We still have a chance. This is the halberd of the Heavens.”
“The Heavens?” I asked, questioning such things. “What...like Apollo and Diana? Is everything around here named after a god or goddess? Wait. Are the gods and goddesses real?”
“The elements are real and so are the mental abilities some call ‘magic’. That force is used to control those elements. There are people who can and will manipulate the elements and the forces that bind them together. That binding can last a minute or centuries, depending on the mastery of the spell casting. There are some masters of element and force who have moved beyond the human realm. Bastet is one of those. Whereas, the Heavens represents many cultures’ concepts of god. Apollo is a kind of light—specifically: it's the power of sunlight.”
Stepping closer, Peggy beckoned to me.
She hefted the weapon, testing the weight of it.
Lifting it, even as she shook from the effort, the vampires all around us fell back, out of the halberd’s devastating reach.
Satisfied at their reactions, my strange companion continued, “There's sunlight stitched into the middle of that—the kind of power that can open any lock. It was made by an ancient and revered scholar blacksmith for soldiers going away on a long and dangerous mission. This. And its power. May be the answer. With it, we might get through the crypt.”
“Back to Celestine,” I finished what she didn't say. �
�What are you waiting for?” I demanded. “If this is our ticket, let's punch it. There's only death behind us. And only one path forward.” I finished with a sweeping gesture, “After you.”
Peggy swept the long wooden shaft of the halberd in an arc, determined to keep the monsters at bay as long as possible. The neon lights of the underground lit the sharp edge of the blade.
“No,” she insisted, her face pale, her confidence completely shaken. “After you, Tristan.”
Peggy kept an eye on the vampires as they formed a wall that pushed us farther and farther down the hallway. Cowed by the wicked glimmer of the halberd’s blade and the horrible stench of our bodies, they never came too close. We weren't in any immediate danger. Not yet.
That wasn’t much comfort.
“How much further?”
I whispered, but my words must might as well have been a shout. There was no other sound to mask the echo as it bounced down the hallway over the heads of the vampires who dogged our every step.
I needed some inspiration. Martial arts training made my body strong. A belief in actual goodness kept me sane, as it had even at the lowest moments after Marian’s death. I was capable of facing most human opponents, but these?
These monsters? Long-vanished gods? Spells? Ancient weapons of unknown powers? How could I possibly adapt fast enough to not be caught in a trap beyond human knowledge?
That remained to be seen.
Meanwhile, the chain of Icarus glimmered in my hands.
As cold as the skin of a vampire and far more dangerous, the artifact could save her. Right now, I clung to that.
They didn't stop. Neither did we.
Down long hallways, the vampires moved as one.
It was all that we could do to keep the halberd of Apollo’s light between us and their wicked fangs. If we hadn't use the garlic to make our very blood poisonous, we wouldn't have survived, not even five minutes. As it was, it was quite uncomfortable. My stomach kept doing flips, wanting to vomit up the nasty oil.
She and I, marching in step, pushed against the enclosing wall of fangs and glowing red eyes. In the dark, I was disoriented. Thankfully, Peggy knew where the crypt was. Her sense of direction stayed true.
Which was good because as the bloodthirsty monsters closed in around us, my fight or flight instinct kicked in.
All I wanted to do was run.
That said, I babbled, trying to reach the unreachable.
“We fought together,” I begged the creatures to access memories lost in blood lust. “We’re your friends, remember us?” I must have said a hundred things like that. Like a flood in the springtime, the monsters flooded the available spaces all around us. I still tried to reason with the dead. “Last night, remember? We're here to help Celestine. Just like you.”
But unlike Peggy, the vampires knew no loyalty other than to their mistress. They didn’t listen to me, not in any way that mattered. They possessed only two things: the venomous ties that bound them to their maker and the irrational hunger that came from being turned. Transformation triggered that focused thirst for bright red, mortal blood. They couldn't fight it. Even if they wished to, newborn vampires could scarcely change their very nature.
Finally, we turned a corner.
Peggy whispered. “There,” she pointed to a simple stone door ten feet down the hallway.
Every single foot of that hallway was filled with vampires.
They had no intention of letting us reach the door. It was them or us. And I chose again like I had in the movie theater up above.
Some sacrifices are worth making. These creatures are what they are.
But Celestine… she was different. Right? I had to believe that. I’d looked into her eyes. She didn’t drink my blood when she was dying. She didn’t kill me when given the chance. I knew that. With Peggy and Celestine, perhaps we could change—maybe the vampires could change. At least, that's what Peggy seemed to hope for.
She clenched her jaw, grinding her teeth. Determination shone from every muscle as she swung the nasty, gleamingly sharp edge of the halberd in front and to the side.
I pressed my body up against the wall, becoming as flat as possible.
With each step, I inched past her as she guarded my side.
Around us, the vampires scowled and refused to stop hunting us. That stubbornness lasted until the first one touch the blade and exploded into a burst of sunlight. And vanished.
There one second—growling and angry, demonic and ferocious, scary—every nightmare that every child has ever had. Nasty. Sick. Wretched.
And then, the next moment—the halberd’s blade touched its skin. Instantly, the vampire dissolved. Gone.
Before the three next to it could step away, the blade also touched them, making contact with their exposed skin. In the last one’s case, touching the back of its hand. The impact knocked the vampire upside the ear.
All three of them dissipated in an exploding fog of ash and venom.
Disintegrated. Unmade. That quickly, pure sunlight undid the undead.
Peggy's expression did not change. Neither did our caution. These monsters were determined to box us in and make us prisoners.
And we... We were determined to reach Celestine and then save ourselves.
Peggy took another step forward.
I clung to the wall behind her, overmatched by the supernatural creatures that flanked us on every side. Even the ceiling offered no safety as the creatures scrambled along above us, eager to gain any tactical advantage. They would disarm us instantly, given the chance.
“Careful.” My attention caught on a flash of movement above my head.
Motioning to Peggy, I pointed towards the ceiling.
Her eyes narrowed in response. That determination of hers was a powerful force, lighting a fire inside that would not be unanswered. Shaking her head, she refused to pause. The halberd swept overhead.
I could only follow behind, grateful for the thousand mysterious things that woman knew that I did not.
Five steps were left. Everywhere, death hung waiting for a mistake. Pushed back by the power of the mysterious halberd, the vampires did not flee the fight. Instead, they shifted uneasily, covering every surface in front and over and back and above us, never stopping, never repeating a pattern. The vampires were predators: cold, calculating, and hungry.
But they weren't stupid. They understood that Peggy held the weapon that would end them. But that didn't mean that they would let us go gently into the good night. Or that they would let us go at all.
Around us they danced, looking for the crack in our defenses, waiting for her to make a mistake. Monsters who could live forever, never tiring. We could not outlast that. Hungry predators patiently waited for a pattern to present a weakness. They watched the way she swung the weapon around.
No question—when a hundred lethal creatures are watching, any weakness is fatal.
Four more steps, that's all we needed.
Sweat dripped down Peggy's forehead along the line of her nose, each drop falling to the ground. Her hands shook. Adrenaline took its toll.
Exhaustion came next.
Three more steps.
“We can do this,” I whispered encouragement, bolstering my own flagging courage. “We're almost there. Steady. Keep pushing.”
Three vampires clung to the ceiling above us, hissing as they advanced.
Even then, they easily danced out of the way as the halberd moved close to them. The merciless blade cut through the air less than an inch from their dead bodies. They weren't angry. With a flash of their fangs, they dared us to concentrate on any one place too long.
Three more vampires moved in from the left. Two more from the right. And the hissing that filled the hallway sounded like a den of vipers.
“Two more steps,” I whispered to Peggy. “Two more.”
I clung to the wall like it was the raft of a sinking ship. I pushed and dragged my skin and bones across the rough surface as if it was the only land
in sight. She protected me from my own weakness. One useless, martial arts trained human. No matter my skill, I didn’t have their speed. Mortal, I couldn't fight a horde of undead.
The halberd's blade cut through the air. Again and again.
And again, unceasing.
I could hear Peggy swearing under her breath. Praying? Not sure. She muttered something about The unknown God, Taurus, followed by the mercy of Horus and something about Ankh. Whatever she intoned went on and on, sprinkled with a great deal more ancient words and dead languages I didn't even pretend to understand.
“Ready?”
Protected by her blade, I lunged for the door. It opened the second I placed the palm of my hand on its surface. Like the door expected me? Somehow the building knew my blood. Or, even gravely wounded, Celestine had prepared for the all possibilities.
Survival demanded considering all options. Celestine had survived when other vampires had not. Preparation I could barely imagine… that made sense.
I looked at Peggy, all mixed up with wonder and confusion. All I saw was the back of her body and the swish of the halberd.
“Go,” she called to me, demanding that I act. “Fix her and do it quickly. We only live if she does.” Right.
I stepped inside the crypt door.
5
Dancing With Demons
Tristan St. Denis
Everything looked undisturbed. Full of ornate statues and stone carvings, the place was the same as when we left it less than two days ago. Except for the fifteen vampires clustered around her crypt, guarding Celestine until the end of days. These weren't any newborn vampires, either.
I knew them all.
I realized that immediately, with a sickening drop in my stomach. Fifteen of my Dojo students, stood there, with red eyes glaring mad with hunger, bloodthirsty, and feral. They turned to me like a rapid pack of dogs ready to defend her. Eager to feed, they would never hesitate to rip anything or anyone to shreds. Entering the crypt was a death sentence.
I held the chain of Icarus in one hand.
I took another step forward.
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