Hell Is Coming (The Watcher's Series Book 1)

by N. P. Martin

  He pointed with his machete towards a set of swinging doors to the right of the corridor. “In there,” he said. He moved towards the doors and I followed him, wondering what sound he had heard because I heard nothing. Maybe he just sensed the presence of a vampire, I didn’t know. I just know that as we walked through the swinging doors my heart was pounding so loudly in my chest that I was sure any vampire nearby would be able to hear it.

  The room we ended up in used to be some kind of storage area. It had racks of shelves in it, some of which still held boxes, though I didn’t know what was in them, nor did I care. The only thing on my mind at that point was staying alert and sharp enough so I wouldn’t get killed. As we shone our torches around the room, my eyes widened and I felt a rush of adrenaline when I noticed a face and two burning red eyes in the light. The creature snarled in our direction for a second, showing its fangs.

  Holy shit. So they really do exist.

  The vampire didn’t look like I expected it to. I always thought vampires kept their human appearance but this one didn’t. It looked more like a creature than anything human. It was completely naked for a start, with waxy white skin that reminded me of the fat on a cut of beef. Underneath the skin I could make out blue veins like dye had been poured into the things blood stream, causing every vein to stand out in the light. There wasn’t a single hair on its head either and its mouth seemed too big for its face, stretched grotesquely to accommodate the multiple rows of sharp teeth in there. Some sort of fluid also dribbled from its mouth, maybe saliva, I didn’t know or care. The thing scuttled out of the light and I heard it hissing as it retreated.

  Frank and I shone our flashlights into the room, trying to locate the creature again as we stood with our machetes at the ready. I swore to myself that if that thing came near me I would cut it to pieces rather than let it touch me. The light being was straining within me and I took comfort from it, despite the fear that made me shake like a person on a narrow ledge a thousand feet up.

  “Look out!” I heard Frank’s voice and looked around me in a panic but couldn’t see anything. Something made me look up and there was the vampire crawling down the wall towards me like some grotesque spider, its huge mouth open and drooling, its razor teeth bared. I looked into its fiery red eyes and froze as it detached itself from the wall and jumped down to land in front of me in a crab-like position, its long talons clacking of the hard floor.

  Before I could even think about raising my machete I felt a rush of wind and saw Frank’s machete swish past my face, missing me by inches. His blade connected with the neck of the vampire, slicing right through until its head fell from its shoulders. I could only stand in shock as the headless body fell to the floor in front of me, blood pumping from the stump where the head used to be. “You alright?” Frank asked.

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “Stay on guard, there’s probably more of them.” No sooner had the words left Frank’s mouth than the swinging doors burst open and two more vampires came running into the room. The creatures both looked nearly the same except for their decrepit genitalia. Obviously one was a man, the other a woman. Both had burning red eyes and bared teeth. So many teeth. If they managed to get a bite in they would do major damage.

  Frank immediately rushed forward and swung his machete at the two vampires, one of whom—the woman—climbed one of the shelving units and crouched on top of it, staring down at me like an angry gargoyle. I knew it would pounce, so I took a defensive stance, raised the machete over my head, and prepared myself.

  The vampire launched itself off the shelving unit, hurtling down towards me, its arms outstretched with clawed hands ready to grab and tear me to pieces. I jumped back as the vampire landed in front of me. “You’re dead, bitch,” it snarled in garbled growl, all those teeth making it hard to even talk, then it stood up and ran at me. Instinctively, I stepped to the side and swung my machete high and fast, felt it hit something a second later with a squelchy thud followed by an inhuman screeching sound that made my ears hurt. Frantically, I shone the flashlight into the gloom looking for the injured creature. I spotted it crouching in the corner like a wounded animal, blood pouring from a deep gash in its neck.

  I didn’t think. I charged towards it and brought the machete down hard on the creature, hitting it with a downward slash that connected with the open wound in its neck. The machete went half way into the vampire’s neck and it screamed again, its claws swiping at me as I kicked it in the chest to keep it down. Pulling the machete out, I took another swing and finally took off the vampire’s head before staring half in shock at what I had done, adrenaline blasting through me, my stomach heaving at the bloody carnage I had inflicted. It was the first time I had ever killed anything and my mind struggled to deal with the fact.

  “Leia, you okay?” Frank appeared beside me, blood splatter on his face.

  “I’m okay,” I said, still trying to decide if I was.

  Frank put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Good job. The other one is dead as well.”

  I looked over and shone the torch to see the other vampire laying dead on the floor, dark blood still spurting from its headless body. “This is fucked up, Frank.” I was wired with adrenaline and Light Energy, my eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. I’d never felt so switched on, so anchored in the present moment. As scared and confused as I was, I was also exhilarated. I realized then why my mom was so into hunting monsters. Aside from the bloodletting the hunt was the biggest thrill I’d ever felt in my life.

  “You’ll get used to it,” he said. “Let’s go. We have to find the senator’s daughter and the head vamp.”

  Frank moved out of the room. I followed behind, the floor awash with blood, so much so that I slipped and almost fell, the wall saving me from tripping and getting covered in vampire goo. Frank stopped, threw me a look, and then carried on out the door.

  Idiot, Leia.

  Out in the corridor, we made our way carefully to the heart of the factory, which turned out to be a large open space full of huge rusty machines that were all cogs and gears and levers, the kind of machines you couldn’t help but be awed by for their size and feat of engineering. Like the rest of the factory, the room was deathly quiet, not even any animal noises. My gut told me the head vampire was holed up in there somewhere. I gripped the machete tighter, especially when I heard faint scuffling sounds in the room, like something was moving around in there, stalking us.

  Frank and I both acknowledged the noises in the background and he nodded for me to stay on guard. I followed behind him as we did a search around the perimeter of the room first, finding nothing. Then we moved between the machinery, Frank checking every machine: under it, over it and in it.

  I was about to say to him that maybe the head vamp dude was hiding somewhere else when a screaming vampire jumped out of one of the machines beside Frank and leapt on his back, clawing at his face, causing him to drop his torch. “Frank!” I raised my machete, ready to strike.

  “No!” Frank shouted as he tried to get the creature off his back and I realized it was the senator’s daughter clawing at him, the girl’s wild mane of hair whipping into Frank’s face as he tried to get a grip on her. The girl still looked human, not like the other vamps we killed. I didn’t know what to do as I stood and watched Frank struggle with the fledgling vampire girl. Finally, he flipped her off his back and slammed her down on the factory floor. He then pulled a bottle out of his coat, quickly popped the cap, and threw some sort of liquid that I guessed wasn’t whiskey all over the girl vampire, who screamed like she had just been burned by acid before scurrying off like a cockroach under one of the machines and out of sight.

  Frank breathed hard as he bent down to pick up his flashlight. His face was scratched and bleeding, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Holy water,” he said. “Never leave home without it. Now we just have to find…”

  I frowned when he stopped talking and his eyes widened in shock.

  “What...?�
� I asked, but I knew.

  I felt the creatures cold presence behind me.

  The head vampire.

  Before I could even turn, a sinewy arm snaked around my neck and I was pulled back and pressed against a hard, cold body that felt like a hunk of hung beef. I felt the vampire’s hot stinking breath by my face.

  This is it. I’m going to die.

  The vampire tore the machete out of my hand and tossed it away. I heard the blade clang against one of the machines before hitting the floor, the sound echoing around the room.

  Frank stood, seemingly calm, his torch pointing towards me and my captor. I kept wondering why he wasn’t panicking more, as if panicking was going to help me. “Don’t hurt her,” he said. He placed his machete on the floor. “Let her go. Take me instead.”

  “You’re in no position to make demands, Watcher,” the vampire said in the most guttural and god damned scariest voice I had ever heard, a voice that chilled the blood in my veins. The closeness of it made me shut my eyes as fear tightened its grip on me. All I could think about was that I was going to die and then I would never be able to save my brother. “You killed my children, so first I’m going to turn this child here, then I’m going to tear you limb from limb, Watcher.”

  I could see the panic in Frank’s eyes now, even in the dark. Terror gripped me and I felt tears roll down my cheeks. I was screwed, I knew that.

  I’m sorry, Josh.

  The vampire’s other cold and waxy hand took a hold of my face and turned my head to one side, exposing my neck. I looked up and got a glimpse of the creature’s face. It wasn’t pleasant. You could tell it was human once. It still had the same features of eyes, nose and mouth but that’s as far as the similarities went. Its skin was a gray blue color, like a corpse under mortuary light. The creature’s eyes were sunk into its face and burned a deep scarlet color. The mouth was massive, that was the worst part for me, knowing that all those teeth were about to chomp down on me and infect me with their virus. “Frank,” I whimpered just before I felt the shock of the vampire’s teeth sinking into my neck. I cried out in pain at first, but after a second my neck went numb as the vampire kept its mouth clamped there, sucking the blood from my carotid artery. My head went light and I slumped down, the creature the only thing holding me up.

  Consciousness was slipping away when I heard two loud bangs that caused my body to buck reflexively. I saw two bright flashes of light where Frank was standing. The vampire holding me cried out and the next thing I knew I was released and dropped to the floor. Frank ran past me at that point. I heard him roar some kind of battle cry, then I heard a heavy thudding sound as something hit the floor behind me.

  That’s when I blacked out.

  The first thing I saw when I came to was a bright light shining in my face. The light moved to the side as I recoiled at the glare. “What…” I started to say.

  “It’s okay.” Frank’s voice. “I’m here. You’re going to be fine, don’t worry.”

  “You’re alive,” I said, sitting up.

  “And you’re not a vampire,” he said. “It’s all good.”

  “What happened?” My head was groggy and there was a weird tingling sensation in my neck. I instinctively rubbed my neck and felt a number of small holes there, slightly raised around the edges.

  “You were bitten, but you’ll be fine. The head vamp is dead.”

  I looked around behind me and saw nothing but a pile of dust on the floor. “Where’s the body?”

  “Disintegrated after I killed it. I shot the son of bitch twice in the head after he bit you. That bought me time to get close enough to use the machete. It was a close one, I can tell you that.”

  I slowly got to my feet, Frank lending me a hand. “I’m okay, you don’t have to hold me. What about the girl?”

  “She’ll be around here somewhere, probably wondering what the hell is happening.”

  “She’s not a vamp anymore?”

  “Nope. The master is dead. She’ll be normal by now. Let’s find her.”

  Frank started to call the girl’s name, his voice echoing around the room. A few moments later the girl appeared around one of the machines. She looked frightened and confused. “What’s going on?” she asked in a small voice.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Frank said. “We’re here to take you home to your father.”

  “My father?” The girl’s confusion soon turned to tears. “Father...”

  I went to the girl and tentatively took her by the hand. She was only sixteen, just a kid. “Come on,” I said as gently as I could. “We’ll take you home.”

  We escorted the girl out of the factory and put her in the back of the car. I was never so glad to be out of anywhere in my life. I didn’t even feel like I could breathe properly again until Frank was driving away from the factory, heading uptown to where the senator lived.

  I sat in the car while Frank brought the senator his daughter. A grey-haired man dressed in a dark suit, the senator hugged the girl tightly and they both cried on each other’s shoulder. He gave Frank a grateful look, uttered a few words to him, and then carried his daughter into the house, closing the door behind him.

  Frank wearily walked back to the car. “How’s the neck?” he asked.

  “Fine as far as I can tell,” I said. I had already checked it out in the mirror. All those holes looked nasty, but it felt like they were healing already thanks to the Light Energy that I could feel pulsing around the wound.

  Frank checked out the scratches on his face in the rear view mirror. “My good looks have been ruined,” he said.

  “I think it’s an improvement.” I smiled at him and he gave me a small smile back.

  “You did good in there.”

  “I almost became a teen vampire. Hardly good.”

  “No one said it was easy. Shit happens. You did good anyway.”

  I nodded, allowing myself to feel a trickle of victory. Despite nearly getting turned into a vampire, we did manage to save the girl. Now she was home with her father, who clearly loved her very much. That made me feel good, but, a little sad because I didn’t have a father to hug me anymore. But still, I had actually helped save someone’s life and that felt good no matter what. As Frank drove us back to the cabin, I thought that maybe there was some merit in being a Watcher and I started to see why my mom sacrificed so much in order to do the job.

  The question was, what would I end up having to sacrifice?

  Chapter 10

  The next morning I got up late, having spent most of the night fretting over Josh. When I did finally drift off, I dreamed about the vampire that almost turned me into Eddie Munster’s big sister at the old factory, but instead of turning me, the vamp ripped my throat out with its teeth in front of Josh and my mom who just stood laughing as blood gushed from my wound. Waking up in a cold sweat, I watched episodes of Charmed on the laptop until I was tired enough to sleep again, which was almost dawn.

  When I got up, Frank was in the living room reading a book with Bane by his side on the floor. He made me coffee and I sat with him as I stroked Bane’s head. “I never thanked you for saving my life,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Frank just shrugged as he drank his coffee. I got the impression he wasn’t good with praise, going by his awkwardness. I’d no doubt he was one of those people who felt they didn’t deserve anything good in their lives because of all the bad they thought they’d done. Every day was a process of atonement. “Just doing my job.”

  “You’re good at it. I hope I have your confidence one day.”

  Frank raised an eyebrow at me. “You planning on staying in the game then?”

  It was my turn to shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe. Not sure I have much choice.”

  “There’s always a choice. Making the right one, that’s the hard part.” He looked out the window, regret written all over his face.

  “The only choice I have right now is to get Josh back,” I said, curling my legs up under me. “I feel like I’m goin
g to fall apart every time I think of him. Have you heard anything yet?” I could feel the now all too familiar anxiety coming back just thinking about my brother.

  Frank shook his head. “Not yet, but I’m going to see some people today, find out what they know. Whoever is doing all these kidnappings is keeping a low profile, that’s for sure. Either that or people are too afraid to talk.”

  “You said other Nephilim kids have been taken. Has this ever happened before? What do think it’s about?”

  “I’ve never heard of it happening.” He thought for a second. “My guess is some demon is trying to weaken our ranks by taking the next generation of Watchers.”

  “But wouldn’t they just kill them instead? Why kidnap them? They must be being used for something messed up.”

  “Good point, I suppose.” Frank stood up and brought his empty coffee cup to the kitchen. “One thing’s for sure—if we’re dealing with demons, there’s always something sinister going on. There’s a plan of some sort.”

  I didn’t know how to take that. My anxiety increased as I fretted about Josh being used for some nefarious purpose. “It’s been four days now, Frank.” As much as I tried, I couldn’t keep the emotion out of my voice. “It just feels like we’re doing nothing. Josh might even be…” I trailed off as tears rolled down my face. I was tiring of the constant emotional turmoil, sick of crying all the time.

  Frank stood in the kitchen, his arms folded, unsure of how to handle my emotional leakage. “Look, if demons took your brother they took him for a reason, not to kill him. Demons always play the long game, we have that going for us.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better. I wiped the tears from my eyes. “I just have to do something soon, Frank, or I’m going to crack up. Somebody must know something, for Christ’s sake.”