Wight
Page 39
Tset hesitated.
"And also you don't want to be out-dressed by a coupla chicks, do you?"
Tset shrugged.
He ran Papillion down the seams of his stealth-suit pants and they fell off of him, already loosened from his flesh by violent combat, leaving him wearing some harried-looking underwear.
"You're going to have to teach me that trick." Tristram said.
Tset took his clothes and was adjusting the silver tie in under forty-five seconds, fully dressed. He straightened the collar of his black blazer and then fixed his hair in the reflection provided by the smashed glass top of the coffee table while stepping into his boots.
"You're going to have to teach me that trick, too."
Tset grinned and Tristram grinned.
He lifted Papillion and hid her away in her sheath. The rifle went over his back and he blew a kiss to where Kate may be - his lips still too freshly healed for contact even if she stood near.
Gregory had a huge pair of glass and wood doors on the front of his house.
If anyone ever managed to find the mansion, the off-white color of the paint, the gold-gilding and the frosted (bullet-proof) glass always surprised them in its classic and simple beauty.
Tset reduced both doors to debris when he exited - leaping and charging after the Rolls-Royce that was speeding away down the small, winding hill roads.
Tristram read some of Gregory's note.
"Hmm. Greggy, gotta question for you."
Gregory, "Yes?"
Tristram looked up, "What the fuck you been putting in his food?"
Gregory grumbled a snicker and shook his head, "Do you remember Rike?"
"Big whiskery bastard."
"Yes. He'll know. Needless to say, when Tset was first on the scene, soon after he claimed his name but before he made it, he fought a half beast half man in the ring. The beastman was vicious - one of the largest and most powerful fighters ever seen by any regular man. Tset defeated it in open combat, on unequal footing."
"Would Beastman stand a chance against these guys? I doubt it."
"No, of course not - now, the beastman would've been trounced by Tset if even it had time to attack him. He's come a long way... Rike will know more."
Tristram mused on this, rubbing the scruff on his chin. Finally, he turned towards the gutted doorway, "Be safe, you hear."
He saluted.
A short while later, now deep in The City, unnoticeably tracked by a predator worthy of the name, Solomon screamed - the stump underneath his leather coat was rough and broken. Papillion had only done a sliver of the job - the rest of the abuse had been incredible torsion.
Alexander was muttering loudly, "We get reinforcements. The Lords didn't say bring him back alive, didn't say even to let them know we'd found him."
Solomon spoke then, unevenly, jagged, his breath hissing in and out as he tenderly touched the sealed mess of his shoulder, "It was our idea to bring him back, yes, you're right, skip formalities. Smash him while he's weakest."
Then he noticed Alexander was still bleeding from his bite wound, "Pull up at this light, you're still bleeding, I want to see it."
They did, a monorail train crattled by.
Solomon was sickened - if this wound ever did heal, Alexander may end up with a speech impediment.
Tset, tracking their scent, was running down, tired and hurt. He'd lost the car, but they were heading to the heart of The City.
A monorail passed overhead and he leapt from the street and dug into its side. Invisible to the passengers within, they had no idea what the impact had been. Big bird?
The scent became stronger - he was on the right path.
After a mile, at a stoplight, there was the Rolls. He jumped...
"Alexander, the bleeding is getting worse. Why is this wound still open?"
"I don't know! He-" Something landed heavily on the roof of the car, something in black Italian boots with a score to settle.
Before they could react, a fist came in through the bullet proof driver's side window and Alexander was pulled out. Blood, Tset's, dripped from the shards.
Atop the car Alexander's fight was feeble compared, the blows were knocked aside before Tset bounced the car off the two front wheels with a solid punch to Alexander's lovely and cementine throat. The double windshield cracked and the roof bowed.
Papillion came down and hammered through ribs, organs and the car's bullet-proof paneling.
Inside the car Solomon, in a dash to the driver's seat, was sliced in his working shoulder by the sword and he recoiled.
The blade vanished and Solomon, in his panic, made another attempt.
But Papillion was back, winking in the street light, then again and again, like a flickering specter in strobe, she appeared and disappeared - the blood ran freely down through the roof and rained into the interior of the car, pouring in crimson ribbons down the outer windshield.
Tset was murdering his foe.
Seven wounds - Liz, Francois, Tyler, Don, Elkin, Jessica, and one for spite. When he finished he put his boot's heel against the pain-warped remains and kicked.
Solomon saw the pause and he leapt to action - a moment's one-armed fumble and Solomon had the car back in gear.
In the headlights Alexander landed and bounced off the hood, broken and twisted. In the street, where a pool formed, while blood ran down the windshield in a river and dripped through the cracks, Alexander lay still, his eyes open and sightless. Doe's eyes.
The pedal slammed down and Solomon heedlessly drove over the body of his dead brother.
Tset was thrown off of the car, but his smirk was harsh - he had them, and all he needed now was to make his message clear. He brushed himself off and grabbed the collar of the limp vampire, hoisting him up and dragging him like luggage-on-wheels. He laughed harshly, once. It carried and echoed.
Whatever it was Tset had for adrenal glands were nearing shot - his gait was uneven underneath the weight of the sopping corpse.
Solomon couldn't drive, being partially armless, and so he was still in first gear when he pulled erratically into the lot of his destination - a BlackHawk temple, a tall shadowy block of windows and a sanctuary to Solomon's kin.
But Tset was still near and Solomon could feel his hateful eyes on him.
He rolled and sprawled from the car as other brethren of his came to see what was happening.
"Help!" Cawed Solomon. "He's-!" But a high-impact round blew one of two advancing vampires apart.
Another cut through Solomon's hip, and left him crippled. It would have removed his leg, but he was too powerful for that.
Tset sauntered, favoring one leg, out of a shadow and across the lot. His silver-on-black tie, his sunglass frames, his toothed smirk, flashing. Alexander appeared to wriggle along behind him.
The remaining vampire went out like a lightweight in a heavyweight ring - a fist, flesh frayed, smashed his face, splitting his lips, breaking his teeth, opening one sinus up to the corner of his eye, putting him down.
Tset violently kicked the incapacitated vampire out of his way without breaking stride - tossing the body a length to land bent somewhere in the shadows.
As he approached, Tset unslung his hot-barreled rifle and tossed it into the front seat of the Rolls.
Solomon, he squatted and cried like an animal in pain when Tset came near.
An animal he was.
Tset looked up into the blank, eyeless windows of the temple, gripping Solomon's chin - four fingers painfully pressed into the soft meat of the jaw, yanking backwards, while Tset's left hand brought Papillion's subtle curve to glide through Solomon's meaty neck. She touched against bone and slid free.
Solomon, bled out, tired and horrified, merely folded when he died, laying down, head askew, eyes wide and pleading to the distance.
Tset replaced Papillion and lit a cigarette with his free hand. He stood for a moment, taking that first puff, quiet and calm.
He snapped his lighter shut.
He glared back at the face of the building and pointed with his left, cigarette in fingers, a challenge and a warning. The two dead lay entwined at his feet.
He walked away, the spreading crimson lapping at his studded heels, and got into the Rolls, calmly putting it into gear and turning it around, closing the door as the black beast slunk through the exit. A red tread and black bootheel breaks marked his passing.
None were brave enough to follow and no Master was there to tell them to. Not knowing who he was, all inside assumed Solomon and Alexander had simply picked a fight with the wrong wandering vampire.
One who smoked hand-rolled cigarettes.
Epilogue
In the car, in the breeze, Tset's eyes fogged, "Oh, come on," He wiped at his face, "Why now?"
Because; being hunted, hounded, hated, secreted against and then hunting and hounding and hating - finding, defeating, destroying. His lips curled devilishly, and his teeth gritted. The engine revved higher and higher.
He slowed soon - what about the loss of those he'd loved? All for naught. He remembered their faces and little snippets of memory.
He pulled up to a light and stopped the car, looking through the cracked windshield but thinking elsewhere.
The memories were mostly pleasant and all just a glimmer of the people they were tokens of.
Jess, with her cute, girlish smile and demeanor. And her care, buying him fast food when he couldn't order for himself.
Tyler, with his cocky grin and quick mouth. Showing Tset the ropes and making sure he got on okay, even though Tset was outwardly freakish.
Don, probably Irish, from Denmark. Friendly and smart even though his face and muscles had made him look mean and stupid - Tset specifically remembered Don, drunk himself, helping Tyler out of a trash can he'd gone into head first while vomiting. Don had been laughing too hard to stand and Tset had laughed with him.
He also remembered when Don came and apologized that his passport had been burned - Tset hadn't even really thought of it until just now. That probably had his real name and address on it, come to remember, Aurel. His childish logic before had been 'My name is Tset, not that.' Either way, Tset wouldn't have been upset.
So polite, Don was.
Then an odd one - Ricky. And the way he'd gone out. Tset hitched a snicker in reminiscence.
Then Francois - when they first met and how his exterior had been cold and aloof, but how later during the Stinger run he'd opened up, but like an onion it had only been a different hue of cold aloofity. The sound of Francois' voice made Tset laugh openly.
Then Elkin - he'd never met Elkin, really. But the shocked expression that had been on his face not once, but twice, due to Tset's suicidal rampage across his path was also humorous. And he'd respected Tset, Tset had felt the awe.
And Liz. Tset's first love, he guessed - her beauty and her grace. Even though they'd been together only such a short time, she had cared for him properly, as a woman should.
Not just physically, that hardly mattered, he found rock music more important than copulation, though both were necessary details to living, but her care was, in fact, Tset couldn't find words - she inspired him and gave his life more definition. She'd affirmed a gentlemanly demeanor and given to him that virtue... until she sacrificed herself so he could live, and turned her coat back against his gathered enemies.
Tset felt fresh emotion at this - the solid realization his friends had died for him and there was nothing he could do now to change it. Of the few he had, even fewer remained. His small world, possessing not a knowledge of soul, or many he knew, had been cut down and broken more than he'd known.
Though, God knew he'd risked it for Kate now twice. And Tristram. And Jessie, and then he'd avenged those he hadn't been quick enough for so they'd rest easier if that's what they did when their eyes closed like they had. However cocky and self-obsessed Tset seemed...
And there was still Kate. Waiting for him at home.
His princess? Something more?
Someone interrupted his thoughts and he snapped his head up to look. There was a girl standing on the sidewalk a few feet away peering in at him. "Sir?"
He rubbed his face gently, not wanting to aggravate it, but also wanting to get rid of the tear streaks. "Er, yeah? Yeah? What?"
"Sorry, I just wanted to make sure you were okay - did you have an accident?"
Tset looked out over his car - the inside was covered in blood, his door was covered in blood. The hood and windshield and tires were all soaked in it and dented or broken or smashed.
Glass stuck out of his window edges in small pieces.
"Oh, ah, no. I'll be fine."
"You sure? I can call an ambulance. It looks like you maybe got a concussion... asleep at the wheel."
Tset looked forward, searching for an explanation. The girl stood by and bit her lip.
"You know... thank you. But I think I'll be okay. Rough last coupla days."
She nodded, looking thoughtful. "Yeah, looks like it."
Tset snorted, "Oh this is nothing, this is just a bit of closure."
The girl was uneasy now, not sure what she'd gotten herself into. Tset smiled winningly at her. "I'd offer you a ride, but you'd probably be safer with anything else that might possibly happen to you." The joke was obvious and somehow melted some of the girl's concern. She laughed a bit.
"No, it's fine, I've got my car behind you."
"Oh, shit, sorry." Tset checked over his shoulder, to the Civic behind him and put the car in gear, he waved, "Thanks again!" And sped off. Embarrassed now, or realizing he should be. The girl slightly relieved.
One last thought and decision occurred to him as he sped away...
The past was behind him.
The future up ahead.
'Face it as I may.'
He started laughing - that sweet release again. Fresh life flowed through his cells like elixir.
He was exhilarated.
Whoever his true enemies were, 'They'll face it as they may, too.'
This brought on great, cleansing waves of laughter as he sped through the hills towards home.
That was new, too. He had a home to strike from.
"Yesss."
~THE END
About the author:
Dorien Vincent grew up across America and Europe, living out of suitcases and sleeping on sofas and floors. He was quadrilingual by the time he was four, and taught himself to read English at age six.
He wrote his first short story at age seven, inescapably beginning every sentence with the word 'Then.'
When he was ten, he dropped out of school to pursue his own interests, citing 'educational differences.'
Dogged in numerous novel attempts by stolen computers, crashed hard drives and eventually a failed marriage, this is Dorien's first published work.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Interlude Chapter One
Interlude Chapter Two
Interlude Chapter Three
Interlude Chapter Four: The Yakuza and Pelican
Interlude Chapter Five: Yoto-Oro
Interlude Chapter Six: The Assassins' Council The Chrome Magnum
Interlude Chapter Seven: The Death of Jacqueline
Interlude Chapter Eight: Separate Ways
Interlude: Chapter Nine Method of Payment
Epilogue
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