Wight

by Dorien Vincent

  The blade was also thicker and heavier than a regular Katana's; fine, and pure white, "No kidding?"

  "No. But you gotta test it, man. Before you break in a ninja sword like that you gotta test it." He held out an priceless and gold-gilded silk kerchief, "Here, hold the sword out, cutting part up."

  Tset did so. Tristram threw the scarf up, and missed. He excused himself with a chuckle, picked it up and tried again.

  He missed again, or didn't, the blade just didn't stop the kerchief's descent, it spun like a butterfly halved and nestled into the dust.

  "Them vampies is gonna have something new on the street to worry about."

  "Wow. This is a knife, and fuck Dundee."

  "Whatcha gonna name it?"

  Tset thought of something metaphorical, Japanese, then of the kerchief. "Papillion."

  "Papi? What?"

  "Means butterfly in French."

  "Aw, man, don't let Francois rub off on the sword."

  "Ha, this sword's not for his blood."

  "Okay, dude, anyway, it's yours, you gotta go, so, jam, but let me know how the thing works out."

  Tset sheathed it, looked at Tristram evenly, "Thanks for thinking of me."

  "Not a damn problem. You're a bit like my brother, so, I think I should help you."

  "How's that?"

  Tristram checked his watchless wrist, "Oh, time to go, get the fuck out."

  "What's ziss? A sword? Let me see."

  Tset pulled on a pair of black lambskin leather gloves that barely covered his wrists, leaving that white space beautifully exposed when he made fists, popping his knuckles. "Nope, Japanese killer's code says if I unsheath it, I have to cut someone in half. Just hope that if you see it in action, you live to tell about it, yeah?" He flicked the sheathed blade up, spinning it crazily from hand to hand.

  "Zat was a bit grave... don't you sink?"

  "Not with what this blade's for. Let's jam like Sam."

  The plan became to have Tset and Francois enter the building pretending to be official government agents doing an inspection.

  This would be very suspicious as Frederique had his insectile feelers far enough into any division above him that any inspection would be coordinated. Tset had a back up plan, a duffle bag. And if it went correctly, the bodycount would raise no eyebrows.

  The two men marched, from the street to the door guard. They flashed their badges. "Oh, come right in, sir!" The guard was apprehensive and already reaching to radio control through the two-way unit in his gas mask.

  As Tset was passing he jammed his fifteen-inch stiletto into the space between the man's left shoulder and his jaw line, puncturing the heart, but spilling no blood. Tset assisted the dead man, very smoothly, to sit upright in his chair again. He looked as though he were still on watch, and not a corpse. Tset hadn't even broken stride.

  Tset put the stiletto back under his jacket. "You are very smooze." Said Francois.

  "Like good bourbon." No emotion. Tset was at work.

  They continued on. The desk guard, which they hadn't expected, with his bank of monitors, buzzed the entry door open, but then, remembering himself said, "I'll need to see what's in the bag."

  He was not in a mask like the one outside, if he died, someone would be able to tell. 'Not by much.' Tset thought.

  Tset placed the duffle on the desk, unzipped it, and removed his .45, which had a silencer just under a foot long already in place.

  Tset pulled the slide back as the guard, wordlessly, agape, reached for the silent alarm button. Tset shot him in the bicep, then, as the guard uttered the first leg of the letter H in the word Help, Tset shot him in the face.

  The mustachioed man hit the ground behind his chair. Francois' throwing knife quivered in his hand, unthrown.

  Francois was incredulous - he had factually never seen Tset operate and though the man spoke like an idiot, he worked like he dressed - sharply, but strangely at ease.

  Tset slid around behind the desk computer and plugged a small USB drive into the ports in the monitor.

  In a few minutes, the building lights flickered, then resumed.

  Francois had come around back to watch Tset, "What eez zis?"

  Tset held up a finger, then tried to reboot the security systems.

  They stayed off. The monitors did not flicker.

  Then he checked the directory - the last month's footage had been burned and scoured, everything not backed up on their tape drives.

  Dr. Norton gave a corrupted little mewl of warning, and a prompt came up, declaring, "Norton AniTvrsuss%$#@1134 Autonur.niin "OP(CC;;: Brown_Pants.exe"

  Tset could click '%KO.'

  "I love computers," he laughed softly.

  He swiveled his chair, facing a somewhat pale Francois, "If this house is a'rockin', don't bother knockin'."

  "W-what?"

  "Time to make some noise, Franky."

  "But, what?"

  Tset let out a dark chuckle, "I don't know shit code, but I know people who do. This little drive I got just killed anything resembling a .dll or video file in relation to their security systems, and all I had to do was plug it in and cute little autorun.ini did its magic."

  "... What?"

  "Fuck it, we've gotta move. They probably still have phones."

  Francois nodded and stopped trying to figure out what Tset had done.

  They divided the equipment. Francois got an AR-40 and his Beretta.

  Tset got his Colt Commando carbine, his other .45, including another silencer, one of his Mac10s with a large drum silencer, and Papillion - he wore her across his back, at his belt line, secured with black silk ribbon. She was short enough that she didn't lower his maneuverability.

  They both placed their encrypted ear beads.

  Tset also took the rest of the contents of the bag - about a megaton's dose of plastique, specially mixed by Francois to 'geev more keek and more flavor, oui?'

  The carbine went over his back - making an L with the sword - and the .45s both went under his jacket and the Mac was in his right fist, while his left hand was lain with gentle ease over the handle of his blade.

  The bag he just kept over his other shoulder. "Rock and roll?"

  Francois regarded him from head to toe, "Eh, I sink you will cover bos' of zese fine, I will do some, ah, Country Western?"

  Tset's lips spread to grin, and he nodded his head before taking off down his own hallway, walking and watching.

  Francois was running down a hall, silenced Beretta in hand, rifle over his tweed-suited back. He was searching for Stinger while Tset was making noise downstairs attracting, by the sound of it, unending automatic gunfire.

  In his travels through this floor of the compound he had shot many a crooked cop and was running low on bullets. He actually had picked up some Swiss AP slugs, in 9mm, and so the riot masks of the police did nothing to stop him.

  He came out over a catwalk and spotted one of the snipers, but he had a bead on someone not Francois, and so Francois looked.

  There was Tset, creeping to a door in plain view.

  Francois' mouth opened, shout a warning - the body armor they had would not stop this caliber round - Tset was out of luck.

  The rifle went off, the wall behind Tset was in blood, Tset went down on one knee, back against the wall and sliding.

  There was only a slight pause: He'd pushed himself back up with his elbow, Francois was frozen. 'What?'

  The sniper had the same sentiments, but he was too slow on the bolt, and the .45 round punched a hole in his Kevlar gorget, leaning his head, rough-hewn, at a crazy angle.

  The sniper slipped, dropped, fell, hitting the ground with the squeal of hardened plastics meeting cement with force. Tset regarded the corpse coldly. He did not bleed and his regenerative and cohesive armor covered up the patch of otherwise bare skin that had been exposed by the sniper's bullet below his chest.

  He looked up, "Hey, Francy! Next time a sniper's got a bead on me, you want to kill him before he fires
? They don't normally miss like that." This came angrily over the comm-link.

  "Meese?"

  Tset looked behind him. There was quite a patch, he turned back, "Well, a graze is still a miss."

  A pause, "What ze fuck are you, Monsieur Tset?"

  "I'll tell you when I know. For now, you go up, I go down. No sign of Jimbo."

  "Jeembo?"

  "Jim! Dammit, whatever his name is. Fred."

  Francois was still staring at the wall behind Tset, but he could feel the weight of Tset's glare from through his mirrored lenses, after a second, he loaded his weapon. "I weel be paying more attention for snipers."

  Tset nodded and headed off again, kicking down the nearby door and killing a number of SWAT 'officers,' both guns drawn. There was no effort in his stride or his motions - only smooth operation, and he was too fast for the thugs to lift their rifles.

  Francois headed upstairs, sneaking, he shot one guard, then headed through some double-mahogany doors.

  And just as prim as you please, there was his brother, at a desk, in a black tactical police uniform, looking up somewhat questioningly as Francois entered.

  "Frederique."

  His brother's smile was twisted, evil, showing the light within to be tainted, "Francois. We meet again, and on what unhappy terms. Nice job on my security systems. I've been blind for a half an hour." His accent was slight.

  Francois merely looked stern and gripped his rifle.

  Frederique dropped the English, "You're an idiot. You have no idea what I've become and now you expect to strike me down, after all these years of having failed?"

  Francois shook angrily, "No! It's not that. I've owed you this for a long time."

  Frederique laughed then, a great laugh, bellowing, "You fool! You think I even care anymore? You really do have no idea." He laughed again. Francois shot him, through the chest, wiping the smile and laugh from his brother's face.

  Frederique looked down at his shirt, then looked up, he smiled again. "Now, you learn..." And Frederique was there, fingers of steel gripping Francois and throwing him away.

  Tset fired and fired and fired. This was his sort of mission, 'No sneaky shit, no waiting, and I can smoke,' he lit up with his Zippo while exchanging magazines behind a door hanging on a hinge, 'Just a bunch of goons and the comfortable feel of recoil.'

  Then he felt something else, a coldness below the heated muzzles of the living and the dead. 'What's this?' He glanced around behind him, spotting what was the source.

  Tset approached the large wooden door the chill was emanating from, and then pushed against it, but a cop stirred, a bullet wound in his leg. Tset accessorized it with one to the face, then he pushed against the door again. It swung with a vile wood-on-wood howl.

  Inside, a sitting room, a coffee table, eerie lighting, a couch, and three feral men, eyes aglow, in black cloaks, carrying staffs. They had arranged themselves on their couch, smiling at Tset. "Finally! They bring the food!"

  "Now you learn, brother! What I have become!"

  Francois was forced to destroy the oak desk, he felt sharp blasting pain from his spine. "You are a mere mortal, you could never understand!"

  Francois looked into the maniacal face of his brother, the hatred that shown there, then, suddenly, pleasant vileness. "Of course, I have been considering turning you when we finally met, to the winning side."

  Francois spit blood, "Fuck you and your gods, whoever they may be. You are a creature and a shell and a-" He was cut off by a kick across his jaw, which broke many of his teeth. "You are an idiot!" His brother roared, angrily.

  He had to think - this thing was fast, it was unreal, it was his brother who had let the whole Archembeaux name down and had a dance on it, not counting his apparent demonship. There! Glinting, a letter opener, knocked free from the desk, Tset had mentioned silver and 'special targets' - maybe this was one of them?

  The letter opener slipped with ease into the junior's thigh, drawing blood. His brother had been laughing again, now he looked down. "Are you stupid enough to think I would keep silver at my desk? You truly are a fool, never mind the turning..." Francois narrowly avoided the next kick, jumping lithe as a cat and arming his rifle. The recoil made him hurt he was so wounded, but the kick of the rifle on the other end was far greater than that of the mule on the former. The vampire fell back, blood splatting around.

  Francois gripped a cigarette in his mouth, lighting it, "Die brother." And he fired another shot from the hip.

  "Sorry, people, not food."

  The men rushed him anyway and Tset fired his heavy lead-kickers at them, the shots slowed them, but then they were upon him, tearing and pulling.

  Tset kicked, wishing he had his boots. Vampires! And not a single silver slug on his person, what to do?"

  'Run.'

  Tset did so, moving down the hall at a blurring sprint. The things would outstrip him on the run... and they did, suddenly on him faster than he would've thought.

  His rings grazed one as he spun off kilter. It laughed at this, smashing him to the ground with its staff.

  Tset spit a tooth that'd been punched through his tongue. He was on his back now, looking up at three looming blackguards. These were faster than he knew and laughing at his silver rings, on top of this, Tset was laying uncomfortably on something.

  '... Papillion.'

  She flashed, and before recognition did in the eyes of the men, Tset was on his feet and one was split - blood spraying as it screamed in horror.

  Tset knocked its head off with a backhand. He held his sword forth, his clothes in rags, "Meet my butterfly." The things tried to keep their distance now. This food had teeth! Or tooth, as Tset would have corrected them in conversation, 'This food has a tooth.'

  The doors slammed open with a fury. The brothers looked to where Tset leaned against the doorway, blood running from staff-inflicted puncture wounds, he was not healing and his vision had a darkened metallic sheen. He was unable to make out faces. Francois' rifle was destroyed and Frederique had him by the neck again, holding him up easily, like the man were a kitten.

  "Show's over! Your buddies down stairs already-" Tset choked, spit something, 'Always spitting,' he thought, "-already know the score and I'm not even fucking warmed up yet!"

  He couldn't actually see who was who, but he assumed by the vague notion of coloration he picked up and by respective positions that his target was the two-foot shorter one on the left and not the one who seemed to sort of float and not float.

  Frederique dropped his brother, who gasped for air. "A slayer? In my compound? I may've been worried before, monsieur, but you look a bit, ah, worn out."

  Tset held his sword like a samurai, "Worn out?" Then he stated, not like a samurai, "I'll wear you out!" The double entendre ringing in his cracking voice.

  The vampire simply walked over to where Tset's sword had begun to shake in his hands. "My 'buddeez' seem to have roughed you up a bit, sir, care for a drink?" The vampire smiled.

  Tset, sensing sarcasm and an idiotic attempt by the vampire to be humorously deploring and in control to his food, dropped his sword to his feet and nodded, "Boy, mister, would I ever!" He thanked the eternal god of irony for the possibility to employ his next tactic and hoped to Lady Luck that it would work, fingers crossed.

  "Me too." The vampire hissed, drawing in and lowering his drinking fangs to Tset's neck. Tset fainted then, outright, dead, fainted away, falling backwards.

  The vampire was slightly off balance and came down with him, holding him up before he hit the ground, his teeth lightly tearing sweet flesh.

  Then he felt a grinding in his whole being. Papillion, in clutching fist, had come around to puncture Frederique's heart from behind, then she twisted.

  The vampire howled and began hitting Tset, the blood sprayed out of his back and down into Tset's own, open, wounds.

  As near-death as he was, getting hit in the face made Tset angry, so he returned the favor, slamming his ringed fingers into Frederiq
ue's head - with every blow came a slight change in shape and the vampire's own blows soon became whimpers and slaps, and eventually all Tset could feel were droplets landing on his cheeks.

  Francois came awake he knew not when, he looked over, and there was his brother, drinking from Tset.

  But there was that sword handle, sticking incongruously from his brother's back in a meaty hole. No motion.

  Francois stood, his hip popping, "Aye merd!" He swore, quietly. He limped to Tset, "Monsieur Tset? Are you still alive?"

  Tset's hand gripped his ankle painfully, bruising with steely fingers, Tset was visibly enraged. Through gritted teeth, "Another tip: Next time we go to kill your siblings, let me know when one of them is demonic, yeah? Just might help a bit in the planning stages."

  "Ah! You are-!" Then a bullet cut through Francois, he dropped.

  He awoke again in a hospital bed. He tried to sit up but he hurt too much.

  Tset was sitting next to a no smoking sign, enjoying a cigarette, waiting for Francois to wake up. Papillion was across his knees to ward off sign-enforcing nurses and hospital staff, "Jesus, man, sleeping on the job?"

  Francois was undeniably relieved to have his friend there, though he was French, "I could've said the same to you when you were resting in my brozer's embrace on his office floor! Like a secretarie - I expected more from you, Tset!"

  Tset laughed loud. "Sorry man. Couldn't help it, and all for the good of the mission - he's dead."

  "So, mission accomplished?"

  "Not really, we're outside town right now, getting you healed up. I blew the whole fucking place sky high when the police popped in for a quick nine millimeter automatic chat."

  "Mon dieu! You didn't keel zem, did you?"

  "Not a one, they were outside, only your brother's goons in. I managed to drag you up in my arms and run. I came to a window I couldn't safely break with your sliceable self in my grasp, so I kicked a filing cabinet out there."

  "Oh yes?"