"Yes, I've heard," replied Avril archly. "I'm surprised there haven't been complaints from halfway down the street."
Sonia hit her friend on the shoulder. "You're not supposed to mention that sort of thing."
"If the ladies have finished gossiping, we need to go this way," murmured Uri quietly. "Please refrain from talking and if we must speak we should keep our voices as low as possible. Sound travels far in tunnels and if there are more vampires they will hear the slightest whisper."
They set off with Uri and Charli at the front and Roanne protecting their rear, pressing close to the tunnel wall in case one of the overnight freight trains came through.
There was a glimmer of light ahead and Uri suddenly hugged closer to the wall waving his arm against the grey glow to indicate that the others should do the same. "What is it?" Moon whispered, urgently.
"A doorway in the wall with two guards."
"Are they...?" A snarl, from above Moon's head, answered his question for him. They were vampires - nothing human could scurry up a wall like that.
Charli reached up calmly from the other side of Moon and ripped the head off the woman that hung above them in mid pounce, leaving Moon brushing ash and embers out of his hair. "They're only fledglings," she hissed through her fangs. "Cocky and inexperienced; no great threat unless they catch you by surprise."
"Allow me," said Avril enthusiastically. Stepping away from the wall, she ran towards the other vampire, who was approaching more cautiously, she performed a perfect side kick through its chest. She jumped back frantically shaking embers from her foot. "Whoa! That was hot!"
"Yes, and what you did was very stupid," said Uri coldly. "You're lucky you caught him by surprise. Please, Miss Avril, don't tackle the monsters on your own. You don't know what you're up against. At best you'll end up dead but, more likely, you'll end up one of them."
"Well, being a vampire might be pretty cool," replied Avril, her eyes still bright with adrenalin.
"Don't devalue your humanity so," counselled Charli. "You lose the comfort of family and normal human relationships. You are unable to have children and your entire life you have to fight to suppress the instincts of the killer beast raging within you. We may joke about bringing others over but the truth is that we have not made one more vampire in the five centuries since we made our pact to resist the evil that dwells within us. We would wish this terrible travail on no one else."
"This must be our way in," whispered Moon from beside the reinforced steel door. "Uri, do you sense anyone else nearby?"
Uri stilled and cocked his head from side to side. After several seconds he replied, "Not nearby, no. But Rurik is definitely in there, I can feel his stinking presence almost as strongly as I did when he was my master all those centuries ago."
"Can you get through that?" Moon nodded at the door.
"Not on my own but there are three of us. My ladies, your strength is needed here!"
The three vampires braced themselves against the heavy metal door and pushed hard with their shoulders. The steel held for a second then burst inwards with a mighty crack and the screeching of twisted metal against the tunnel walls.
"I suppose our presence here's no longer much of a secret," commented Avril into the following silence.
Like a bull in a china shop, thought Moon to himself, shaking his head in the darkness. "Avril's right,” he said out loud, “we will need to be twice as careful from now on. What do you think, Uri, a triangular formation with you and the girls at the points?"
Uri thought for a moment. "Yes, that should work. I'll take the point and Charli and Roanne the two rear apexes. Good thinking, Moon, we'll make a tactician of you yet."
They got into formation with Moon behind Uri and Sonia side to side with Avril in the middle. The concrete-lined corridor was just wide enough to let them pass. "This looks like it must have been Ministry of Defence," whispered Sonia, peering into an open doorway through which rusted army bunks lay in disarray, looking like steel skeletons in the dim illumination afforded by the sparse light of the widely placed electric ceiling lamps that ran the length of the gloomy corridor. "World War II, do you think?"
"Cold war more likely," replied Moon, kicking aside a yellowed page of newspaper. The date was almost unintelligible but he could vaguely make it out: "'...th Mar.h.962'… Nineteen sixty-two - Cuban Missile Crisis - that would be about right. I wonder what they used this place for."
"Probably a command bunker." Uri pointed out what looked like a control room with a fading world map on the wall and ranks of radio consoles on wooden desks aligned down both sides of a central aisle.
"Would make a good news story." Moon poked his head into the room and gazed around with interest.
"Yeah, and it would probably get you locked up," observed Sonia, grimly. "This is government secrets kind of stuff... makes me feel like I'm committing treason just being down here."
"We have worse things to worry about than the government," said Roanne. "I think we're getting close." She nodded at a set of double doors that stood slightly ajar a few paces ahead of them. "I can definitely feel that there’s something big and nasty waiting through there."
They approached the doorway with caution. "Why's there no guard?" Avril whispered, glancing around uneasily.
"Perhaps Rurik doesn't think we're much of a threat," replied Uri.
"Well, let's show him different then!" snarled Avril, squaring her shoulders for a fight.
They burst through the double doors into what must have originally been the installation's canteen. Chairs and tables had been stacked on either side to clear a large, roughly square, area of tiled flooring around which stood about thirty people dressed in normal street clothes. This somehow insulted Moon's sense of propriety; if you were going to be part of a sinister cult you should at least have the common decency to wear a black hooded robe.
In the centre of the floor, spread-eagled on what looked like a stainless steel serving counter, Ellie was bound naked struggling. Her hands and feet were secured at the corners with rope and she looked tiny and vulnerable; dwarfed by the size of the monster which stood at her feet.
"Ah, Uri." Rurik's voice was a low, gut clenching growl. "I am so glad that you made it here in time to see this". The hulking vampire turned his dark red eyes to regard his former vassal. "You know, this is the first true meal I will have taken since the one you robbed me of so long ago." Rurik was also naked. He towered over his cronies by more than half the height of a tall man. A shaggy black mane of hair covered his head, neck and most of his torso. The bare skin that covered the rest of his hugely muscled body and the great, bat-like wings that spread out at each side, was mottled purple and red. His face was like the mutant offspring of a mating of man and bat, with giant shell-like ears and a dripping, wrinkled, pushed back nose, which twitched incessantly over a slavering fang-filled mouth. From between his legs, throbbing and erect, thrust an equally ugly penis. "First, I will have her and then I will feed off her and this time you can do nothing to prevent it, you tender hearted weakling!"
Chapter 27
Rurik's lurid words spurred Ellie to struggle more ferociously against her bonds. She screamed furiously against the gag in her mouth. The sound that she was making transformed into something close to an angry roar as she fought desperately to break free. Moon realised with a kind of pride that she was more furious than afraid.
"You don't expect me to stand by and let you destroy someone in my care, do you, you overgrown arsehole?" shouted Uri. The vampiric power began to flow into him from wherever it normally lay hidden. As it unfolded through him he appeared to grow in size and his face contorted into a snarling mask. The girls moved in on either side of him so they could present a combined front to the ancient vampire lord, their own sleek bodies rippling with barely contained power.
"Shit!" commented Avril, her face a picture of unveiled astonishment. "Is that what they really look like?
"No," Rurik replied to Uri's rheto
rical question, a sly smile passing over his face. "I expect you to help me!" Then his massive brows knit together in concentration as he summoned up the full force of his evil will.
Uri groaned and half turned towards Moon, hands grasping the air as he fought to restrain himself. "Sorry, my friend," he gasped through gritted teeth. "I should not have come here… I forgot..."
"Yes!" laughed Rurik. "You forgot that you belong to me body and soul. Forgot the liege-hold I had over you even before we became what we are now. You have grown stronger since we parted, Uri, I will give you that. The old Uri could never have dreamed to resist me as you do now, but you'll never break the rightful hold I have over you and your bloodkin."
Moon risked a quick look around. Charlie and Roanne also struggled desperately to prevent themselves from attacking their friends.
"Seize them, my people!" Rurik roared to his cultists. "Their blood and bodies will be yours tonight, I promise you. Fear not the vampires for they are entangled in my will like flies caught in a web."
There was a moment's hesitation then Rurik’s fledgling brood swarmed around them like a pack of wolves. Obeying their master’s command, they ignored the vampires and went straight for the humans.
There was an agonised groan from Moon's right and one of their attackers, a short, flabby man, crumpled to the ground clutching his knee. The foreleg beneath was twisted at an unnatural angle, which made Moon wince involuntarily. That had to hurt!
"Yes, and there's more of the same for any of you bastards that try to come near me!" yelled Avril menacingly.
In the short pause that followed Moon aimed a regretful look at Sonia, who shrugged. "I think we're fucked," she said, her eyes searching desperately for a way of escape. She turned quickly and kissed him hard on the lips. "It was nice knowing you, Jerry Moon!" Then the enemy rushed them again and they were fighting for their lives. Four men surrounded Avril and managed to wrestle her to the floor, although one was unconscious and another was missing an ear by the time they had her pinned.
While he and Sonia tried to fight their way to help their fallen friend, Moon knocked one assailant aside with a roundhouse punch to the jaw and found himself face to face with the loony evangelist from Gloucester Road. She still looked crazy but now she had fangs. The surprise of seeing her free from custody must have shown clearly on Moon's face. "Oh, we has very good lawyers," she explained with a mocking grim. "Now the Master say I can 'ave you body an' blood," she hissed. "I not sure which I wants first!" she laughed and slashed at him with her knife. "Blood, I guess."
"Sorry, bitch, all mine!" shouted Sonia as she lunged past Moon and pierced the crazy woman's chest with the sharp point of a broken chair leg. Their assailant screamed furiously as she burst into flames. In a last act of madness, her knife snaked forward out of the engulfing flames and raked down Sonia's right arm, leaving a long dark gash from wrist to elbow. "Shit!" yelled Sonia as she tried to stem the flow of blood with her hand. Another vampire took the opportunity her confusion to blind-side her, felling her with a wildly placed blow behind her right ear.
Within moments it was all over. Partly stunned and bleeding, Moon, Sonia and Avril were held firmly by beefy disciples as Rurik paced smugly back and forth in front of them. "Well, Seer, your ragamuffin army seems to have failed you… So sad!" He forced his twisted lips into a mocking moue. "All that remains now is for you to die. But you have brought two most tasty morsels for tonight's repast. He gestured at Sonia and Avril. "So I think I will deal with them first." He gestured lewdly at his freshly aroused penis and Moon felt hatred rise in him like a cold tide. The intensity of the emotion astonished him and brought with it the stark realisation of how much he truly loved Sonia. "...After I've finished with our gallant Gregory's lovely gift of course," Rurik rasped hungrily as he turned back to where Ellie struggled on the makeshift altar. "Hold her," he ordered Charli and Roanne and, although tears of anger and desperation fell from their eyes, they were powerless to disobey.
Rurik
Ellie was far from content to play the placid victim, however. As the vampire moved to position himself between her legs, her struggles freed her left ankle, which allowed her to draw her leg back as far as it would go and drive her heel hard into Rurik's groin with a force that made Moon gasp. The monster howled and doubled over clutching his bruised balls. The resulting pain broke Rurik's concentration and freed Uri and the girls from his control. Snarling like enraged tigers, they turned on the surrounding cultists with angry vigour. Uri swooped down on Rurik before he had a chance to regain his composure and began kicking his former master repeatedly in the nuts. "That's the problem with returning to the flesh isn't it, Rurik? It hurts!"
"It will only add greater pleasure to what I intend to do to you," hissed Rurik painfully, raising himself from the ground with the tips of his huge wings. "A vampire can be tortured for a long, long time and never die." His mouth split into a jagged, fang-filled grin as he reasserted his will on the vampires, despite the obvious pain caused by Uri's efforts to keep him distracted. "I will hear you beg me for death ten thousand times before I tire of it."
Moon saw Uri and his ladies stiffen as Rurik's dominance robbed them of any hope they might have had for victory. "If you intend to call for aid, now would be a good time," a dark, earthy voice rumbled through Moon's mind.
"Yes, of course I need help!" Moon vibed impatiently. "Isn't it obvious?"
"Nevertheless, you must still ask," replied the voice. "It is the rules."
Moon realised that, whoever this potential saviour was, he wasn't very bright. "Alright," he replied, ducking a cultist's hurtling fist. "Help... Please!"
At Moon's silent bidding dark, blocky figures flowed lava- like out of the concrete floor. The ancient lino floor tiles cracked and burst aside as they rose like living statues into the flickering light of the candles and launched themselves violently at the cultists.
"What the hell are those?" Sonia's eyes were wild with anticipation of more trouble.
"Gnomes, I guess," replied Moon, realizing Sonia hadn't heard his silent conversation. "I think they're the cavalry..."
"Bit on the large side for gnomes, aren't they? And where're their pointy red hats?" asked Avril, who had broken free of her captors, leaving one unconscious and the other wishing he was.
She has some issues to work out, that girl, thought Moon, shaking his head.
"Racial stereotypin'!" rumbled a nearby gnome out loud as he bashed two cultists' heads together. "'Gnomes', as in 'spirits of Earth', yes? 'Sides we only wears the red hats fer weddin's an' foonerals. 'S a sign o' respec', see?"
"Okay," Avril nodded incredulously.
It was hard to tell how many gnomes were in the room because they seemed to blend in and out of each other as they passed, like soft clay, but Moon estimated about ten. They made quick work of Rurik's troops and two of them had taken on the vampire prince himself, wrapping themselves around him like a cage of living rock. As increasing numbers of their enemies were subdued, more of the gnomes left the fray to help contain Rurik, who was putting up a strong fight, snapping limbs off his captors and casting them away to prevent them from reforming. The gnomes were quickly running out of substance as they manifested replacement arms and legs. It wouldn't be long before they satisfied Avril's earlier expectations of size. "Hurry, seer," cried one, whose granite skin was shot through with veins of silvery metal. "We cannot hold him long!"
Moon cast a glance towards Uri. "If only we had the sword you used last time..."
"It would not work, my friend." Uri shook his head. "It would only kill the body he possesses. His foul spirit would live on as powerful as ever."
"Why don't you try ghost zapping him?" suggested Sonia, her eyes bright with desperate hope.
"Zap something as powerful as that monster?" asked Moon incredulously. He shrugged, "Well, I suppose can give it a try."
"Perhaps we all should," suggested Uri. A blue flame of ghost light snapped out from his forehead and pi
erced Rurik's chest.
Rurik laughed. "You will have to do better than that, you weakling!" he roared, snapping off random bits of gnome as he fought hard against his captors.
"Now! All at once!" shouted Moon, concentrating and sending a tendril of ghost energy lashing out against Rurik. Sonia, Uri and the girls followed in suit. Rurik growled in agony but he still wore the same triumphant grin.
"It's no use," yelled Charli in frustration. "There's too much of him!"
Roanne nodded in agreement, turning wearily to look to Moon for any other suggestions. Then her eyes widened with amazement. "What's happening with those?" she asked, pointing to the ghost globes, which were whirling and closing in around Moon's body. The vampire gasped as a pale nimbus grew between the tiny lights and Moon. "They're doing something to his aura!"
Rurik's laughter tailed off as he regarded Moon incredulously. "What kind of trick is this, Seer? Do you try to scare me with those tiny ghosts?" he laughed. "But... I eat ghosts!"
Moon could feel the individual energies of his small companions entwining with his spirit. He sensed their cold anger and determination as it engulfed him and stifled the wave of panic that was welling up from inside him. A feeling of clarity overwhelmed him, bringing with it a sudden realisation... "You know what, Rurik?" he smiled sardonically. "I think they're about to return the favour!"
Moon lashed out once more, a filament of pure, white flame extending from his body towards the vampire lord, who countered instinctively with his own red fire. The two threads of energy collided and entangled. Then, to Rurik's horror and astonishment, Moon's thread began to pull back, drawing pulsing red streamers of the vampire lord's stolen power along with it. Around Moon ghostly forms began to take shape: Connor O'Flynn, the navvy; Gordy, the hospital spook; Dominic and several others whom Moon did not recognise. Then Rurik roared in pain as other tiny pinpoints of light began to flow out of his body towards Moon, punching glowing scarlet holes through the vampire's distorted flesh. "You cannot do this! It is impossible!" he cried, as he fought to pull the little balls of energy back into himself with his massive claws.
Under a Ghostly Moon (Jerry Moon Supernatural Thrillers Book 1) Page 30