Wight

by Dorien Vincent

  Tset turned cold, but he managed to shout, "Tristram! No! Get the fuck out!"

  Tristram was a goon, what sort of chance did he stand against the supernatural undead?

  Following advice as much as could be expected, he gave Tset the bird, stomped the blaring radio up to 11 and hopped into the back of the truck.

  The vampires, fierce, destructive, godly, were stupid. The barrels on the gatling gun, which Tset realized was the one of fame jocularly titled a 'minigun' were already whining before they tried to rush in, from one side, in a tight packed group.

  They were shredded apart and thrown to the four winds.

  Tristram swiveled the gun, rattling with the recoil. Tset winced as a side was carved out of the earth very near him.

  But the bullets, tiny magnum rounds, probably eight millimeters, pounded out a buzz saw cadence and slashed through anything still persistent enough to be around.

  Tset dove to the truck just as a blackguard descended on Tristram from behind.

  It choked as Tset's lethal grip tightened around its neck and slapped and scratched to get away.

  Tset held it up and then brought it down against the silver siding of Tristram's vehicle. The truck rocked.

  Half of a minute later the only sound was the percussive beat of the vampire's head coming against the gore-slicked side of the truck, or against anywhere else Tset deigned to smash him; the CD had ended.

  It dropped with a wet thud and Tset went to work with his boot, soon arrested by Tristram, "Hey! Hey! Hey! Tset! Give my upholstery a rest, man. You think you're going to be the one to scrape Sneaky Shoes The First And Last off of my seats, floor, dashboard..." Tristram looked around, "...roof?"

  Tset was out of breath, hitching around a punctured lung, "You, my friend, are..." Tset stopped short and started coughing, he was wracked as his rib extricated itself.

  "Aw, gimme a hug." Tristram reached out to embrace the dripping Tset but then almost tripped him instead, attention diverted. "Who's the hot thing in the skirt?"

  Tset recovered himself from Tristram's embrace, still gasping for breath. "That's the reason I'm out here. Kate, come here. We can go." A few vampires who'd fled earlier, and had reconsidered, fled again when Tset looked to where they stalked behind the altar.

  Kate looked for a way down, but Tset was there, ungloved and clean hand, helping her lightly to the soft grass.

  He still had a wheeze in his voice when he said, "Kate, meet Tristram, my supplier." She nodded, she would've smiled but the murderous activities had put her off very much. Tset, caught in the moonlight, smashing and killing...

  "Tristram, meet Kate, professional damsel in distress." This got a slight twitch from the corner of her pallid lips. "I'm changing professions."

  "Just so long as I get other reasons to run over more shitheads like these, that's fine with me." Tristram shook her hand - he was wearing studded knuckle gloves.

  "Tset I woulda brought your bike, but she's indisposed."

  "Dude, shut the fuck up and drive, okay? Too much in one night."

  "Yeah fine, I got a tarp in the back."

  And so they left the park, tarps over the seats. Kate and Tset held hands though Tset was entirely unconscious, his head over the headrest, bobbing and rolling to the tempo of the terrain.

  But he was warm, and soon Kate was curled up under his limp arm, fast asleep, relaxed again, even though he smelled like a slaughterhouse.

  Tristram was enjoying the night air streaming in his window, thumping his foot to a beat only he heard when his cell phone buzzed.

  He picked up. "Parcheezi's?"

  It was Yonotan. "I need to talk wiz Tset."

  "Sure, he's napping but I'll get him." He threw the phone into the back seat. "Sleeping ugly! Wake it, don't shake it! Your other love interest is on the phone."

  "Why would you call me from the front seat?" Tset rubbed his eye under his glasses and recovered the phone.

  He yawned. "Hello?" A slight cough.

  "Yonotan 'ere."

  "Yo, what's new?"

  "Not'ing. Jus' checkin' in wid you. 'Eard you were dead."

  "As a fuckin' doornail, dude. But a little gin and tonic and I was back on my feet."

  "Can' say so much for de res' o' de gang, eh?" Yonotan sounded calm outside, but the emotional broil was clearly manifested otherwise.

  Tset wasn't so calm. "I'll get 'em, Yonotan. I promise. I need you to do one thing."

  "Anyt'ing."

  "They used Francois as bait. Don't fall into the same shit. I will come find you, no matter, but they're not so friendly as to let a happy ending..." Tset broke off. Kate had woken up and she hugged him now, feeling some fraction of what he was. He shook with hatred.

  "I unnerstan' Tset. Don' you worry. I be hidden. I have my fingers in enough o' deir pies to know when dey be comin'."

  "So long, Yonotan. I hope to see you again."

  "You too, fren'."

  Beep.

  He closed Tristram's phone and handed it back to him.

  "We're almost home." Tristram said, somber himself now.

  "Thanks, T, wake me when we're in there."

  "Sure thing."

  Alexander and Solomon

  Act I

  A Short Prelude

  They arrived at the mansion, Tristram pulled into his underground workshop, which he'd begun installing during Tset's outdoor activities.

  Tset was surprised to see several vehicles, including his car. Tristram had a new vault, as well.

  "Nice set up Gregory gave me. He thought since you were my sidekick we should live in the same joint."

  Tset nodded, the barest of smiles interrupting the line of his lips.

  Kate was still asleep, so when they'd gotten back into the main house, through an elevator and more armored doors, Tset lay her down in his bed and went back downstairs to the living room.

  "Tristram?"

  "Yeah buddy, don't kill me."

  Tset came through the door and there was his motorcycle - strewn, like rubble, all over the couches, shelves, TV cabinet, everything. A leaky oil pan lay on the priceless throw-rug, nuts and bolts soaking in a black acetone solution.

  "The hell you think you're doing?" Tset was angry, to yelling, but not quite raising his voice.

  "She needed a cleaning! I swear! And fixing! You torqued the frame and the shocks and..."

  Tset calmed himself down. His emotions were not entirely in his control. Evenly, like a razor, he said, eyes closed, "Okay, I need your help on something else, then. In exchange for your life."

  "Sure thing." Tristram got up from where he was scrubbing a loose sprocket with Brasso and Tset's tooth brush. He threw the sprocket into another tub of water.

  "I'm sort of melted to the remnants of this suit and I can't get the shirt off."

  "Eugh."

  "Full body burns."

  "So what do you want? A stiff drink? Some paint n' make it look like your skin?"

  "Drink, later, but I need you to help me get the jacket off."

  "Oh, no way, man."

  "Then you're going to drink your acetone bolt cleaner." Tset wasn't sure if he was joking. But he liked Tristram, so he probably was.

  Tristram wasn't sure either. "Okay, unzip it. But just your jacket, your pants you can handle yourself. I ain't goin' that far." He muttered something about Kate.

  "What was that?" Tset had unzipped the jacket, and, as he feared, it was stuck fast to his flesh.

  "You handle the pants, 'cause I have a date."

  "Bullshit, but just peel it off my shoulders at least."

  Tristram grabbed and gently pulled. The sound was disgusting and he gagged. "Oh man. Man oh man."

  "Just get it started and I'll get it the rest of the way off."

  Then the smell hit them.

  Tristram described it best. "Augh! You smell like pork in a gym and feet! Fuck!"

  "Just-"

  Tristram preempted him and pulled the jacket down off his back, taking st
rings of meat with it.

  Tset yelped then bit his hand. This was hard as the jacket lowered his maneuverability and the zipper cut into his softened stomach.

  He tore the jacket off and threw it to the ground angrily.

  Then he put his hands on his knees and bit down on his lip, bending over and doing some half-squats, squeezing his eyes very tightly shut, standing, bending, standing, bending.

  Tristram, "Dude. I'm s-" Tset held up a finger to cut him off.

  Tristram waited.

  After a minute or five of agony, Tset straightened up. His pain and outrage was a hiss that lasted for quite a while - like an extended climax on a soda commercial.

  After he was done he looked back to his compatriot and held out his hand. "Thanks."

  Tristram grabbed it. "Yeah, no problem. You sure, though?"

  "No, best way. I'm just a walking scab right now, slow's deliberately painful - just gotta be quick in these situations."

  "You're mumbling."

  "Yeah - I need some rest and a shower."

  "I miss the Frenchy, too, man, but you got Kate, right?"

  Tset sighed. "Yeah, I do. You know we've barely met?" He tried to push his loss aside in place of his gain, and couldn't.

  "I had that feeling, it's sweet."

  "You know, what I really need is to get the bastards that done it."

  "Yeah, till then let's get you patched up." Tristram had slid the first-aid kit out from underneath the couch and was pulling a length of tape off of a roll.

  "You do what you will, but I'm tired." Tset swayed on his feet, he was mumbling.

  Tristram, tape in mouth, watched, somewhat horrified, when Tset toppled over onto the hardwood.

  A few minutes' grunting and muttered encouragement later, Tristram had manhandled Tset up onto the couch.

  He proceeded to bandage him as best he could but was getting tired himself - he at least had bandaging on his neck and chest. An Ace on his swordarm.

  Tristram saw the blood seeping into the couch cushions and rolled Tset over - there was some heavy abrasion on his back where the jacket had torn.

  "Awright, not gonna half-ass this."

  Tristram jumped when Tset asked, "What?"

  "Just shut up for a minute, fixing your back."

  Tset grunted, "Anytime."

  When he was asleep again, Tristram put gauze and tape on the deepest holes. This took a few minutes.

  He stood back to admire his handiwork, "Fuckin' Mum-Ra."

  He yawned, hugely, and went to go sleep in his truck cab, but he was interrupted before he reached the hidden stairs to the garage.

  "Tristram!" It was a bellow, a howl, but sharp, almost quiet for its rumblings.

  "What?" He yelled back, at Gregory.

  "I've almost got everything ready for Tset, please pardon me to him and tell him to put off his rest just a few moments longer."

  "If he were awake, Greggy, he'd hear you. But he's not."

  A harumph, from the top of the stairs, "Wake him up then."

  Tristram looked up, to see Gregory's monstrous form shrouded in frightening shadow, "No can do. Have you seen him, Greg?"

  "Well, no." The nightmare looked perplexed.

  "Looks like a corpse. Let's give him a nap."

  "Fine, in the morning then." With a flourish of cloak, Gregory returned to his study.

  "Is he gay? I really wonder how something so fuckin' big can be so girly."

  Tristram continued across the great room, eventually heading down through the secret panel and into the garage.

  He felt like he'd just closed his eyes when he heard a familiar call. His eyes snapped open and he leapt from the truck cab, scrambling around back, rubbing the sleep from his face. Only two people would use that name at this time in that voice. 'Shit!'

  He dug and found Tset's Mossburg. He checked the load, though he knew he didn't have to if it belonged to Tset.

  He wavered, cursing himself, wondering. Almost immediately he turned himself, squared his stance, and, resolute, he trudged forward up the inclines and declines of the roadway.

  He could have wavered again, but he did not, leaving through an access hatch near the main door to the garage.

  Gregory came down the stairs after Tristram had gone, he held one piece of paper in his hands.

  Tset woke and started at the looming figure, "Jesus, Gregory, let dead men tell no tales." He dropped his sallow arm over his eyes.

  Gregory laughed, deeply but quietly, honoring Tset's delicate status, "I was wagering over whether to wake you with this news and if you would appreciate it in your state."

  Tset, groggy, "What is it?"

  "The names."

  "Of?" But Tset made the connection, and was upright, grasping the letter in hands and reading over it.

  He finished it before Gregory identified the piece of paper as the one he'd carried with him.

  "They're dead. Help me up." Tset held out his arm and dropped the letter to the carpet.

  Gregory chuckled again, "Sleep, Tset. They're looking for you now, and you're safe here. Recuperate, train, and then plan. Then kill."

  Tset was wracked with coughs again. After a minute, "That's too many steps. I only spell kill with one L to save time and I can't be buggered to... sunovabitch, Greg, what's happening to me?"

  Tset did not mean his body and his wounds.

  "It's called combat fatigue. I wasn't willing to admit it truly existed until I saw you laying on my couch only this minute. Give your body time to rest and your nervous system time to reconnect, and you should be good as new. You're just tired. Even when I get tired I get grumpy and somewhat illogical."

  "Grumpy." Tset snickered and lay back down, "Grumpy Greg."

  "Hey, what if they come for me?" Tset asked, curling a hand under his chin and closing his eyes.

  "You can't fight them, and they can't fight you. They daren't trespass in my house."

  "Oh..." This made no sense to Tset at all.

  When Tset was unconscious once more, Gregory went back upstairs to his study.

  After an hour or so, a high whine came to him, and he flicked his ears at it, sipping his midnight tea.

  'That's supersonic... curious.'

  But it was sourceless, and Gregory was distracted. He was beguiled and paid it no more mind, returning to his studies and turning up the Beethoven just slightly to block it out.

  Tremulous strings sang to him, and horns moaned, Gregory swayed and his fingers danced across his keyboards as he sought.

  Soon his eyelids grew heavy...

  Tset slept, dead gone. He felt nothing and knew nothing, save a red light. It seemed to come to him in raging pulses - slow downbeats, powerful downbeats. Each carrying with it two names.

  Alexander. Solomon. From the letter.

  In contrast, or in parody, the powerful hatred was accompanied by projected images of two stately, pale men. One stark white, one ashen bronze. They beckoned, they called for Tset. They graced him with their notice.

  At those smiles, flashing teeth and batting eyes, veins began to stand out all over Tset's snowcream skin - blue and green traceries of vital life straining to be released to do as it must. The muscles in his jaw came together and tensed and tensed and tensed.

  In his sleep, and by this rage, he began to heal, his temperature shot up - blood pressure too high, and muscles, bones and skin repairing and mending, burning stores they did not have.

  He was cooking his own brain inside his skull, when a calming word came to him and pulled him back, down, cooled him; a voice called him from long ago and closer still, "Aurel..."

  It was sonorous, deep.

  'Another tactic.' Was his broken decision.

  He felt his tired, fever-baked muscles threaten to seize at the very idea of standing up, and seize they did, causing him to stumble against the coffee table. He caught himself on a familiar wooden length, slightly curved. Papillion's sheath. An inch of her blade, soft white...

  He may've die
d if her gleam hadn't brought him to lift her and bring her.

  The voice called again, lulling him further, "Aureell."

  "N'm'name'n'more." He muttered. But it was a familiar name, his fingertips twinged with recognition, though he'd never heard it. The contradiction went unheeded, but why he followed the call was regarded with suspicion.

  He was walking outside, towards the doors to the house. He bumped against the doors and slapped the handle down and open. The catch popped and he stumbled, only slightly, into the freezing premorn.

  Two things happened - the air cleared his head and gave him a start, the gauze of sleep and hypnosis pulled from his soul. And he dropped Papillion.

  He slipped up in his attempt to grab her up and she sliced his palm wide. An intake of breath, a hiss, from him, the blood, unstaunched, flowered across his palm to run in swollen streams down his arm. He shot a glance to the blade, and she seemed to smile in her curve. He was observing his spattered arm, still somewhat confused, when, from without, another hiss.

  His head snapped up and his fist took Papillion in its slick iron hold, his blood slipping gently down the blade as he pointed it.

  This time he growled what he saw, "You."

  Alexander and Solomon

  Act II

  Finale

  It was them - he knew it immediately from his dreams, and from their leers.

  One, Alexander, had nearly platinum ringlets framing his pearl visage. His features were exquisite and made the age at which he'd halted impossible to determine - needless to say, he would be godly in the eyes of any mortal besides the one he confronted.

  Under the black leather coat he wore, he had a white silk shirt, unbuttoned at the collar and one lower. He wore black denims with a wide belt and heavy military boots below this.

  Solomon stood several inches taller. He was that ashen coppertone, with Egyptian stylized eyes and a belittling smile that set Tset's teeth more on edge. His head was shaved clean.

  His dress was more gaudy - his coat had epaulets, his shirt was of dark navy blue linen and his pants were nearly jodhpurs, tucked neatly into a pair of folded-down leather boots.

  Alexander laughed, "You look tired. Too much combat in one night?"

  'You can't fight them, and they can't fight you. They daren't trespass in my house.' Gregory had said.