Blood Work

by L.J. Hayward

  Chapter 2

  If I thought the reflected light of the outside lasers was bad in the previous room, I clearly didn’t know the meaning of the word.

  The game room spanned the entire floor of the building, broken up into a maze of dead ends, killing grounds and narrow passages. Only a few of the walls were permanent, most of them were moveable, shorter than the fixed ones so that there was an empty space below the ceiling. Grey clouds produced by smoke machines drifted about up there, tinged different colours by the flashing lights.

  There were several paths through to the exit and the aim of the game was to be the first team to get there, while ‘killing’ as many of the opposing team as you could. This already difficult task was further hindered by loud music, flashing lights and sporadic bursts of lasers. Shadows moved as if they were alive, drawing the eye and quickening the pulse in a surge of adrenaline.

  I honestly couldn’t understand why people did this for fun. But like Roberts kept reminding me, they needed a bit of danger—even the utterly bland sort of laser-tag—in their otherwise normal lives. Some people pretended to shoot each other, others jumped out of planes or swam with sharks. Nothing so tame for me. No. I got my kicks hunting supernatural monsters.

  There were three options in front of me. Right, left and straight ahead. When I’d done my walk through, there had only been two, right and left. In his panic, Barry had forgotten to tell me he’d changed the layout, and to give me directions to the only exit.

  Making a decision was taken out of my hands, though.

  A scream, high, scared and definitely female, cut through the loud music. I spun to the left, Eagle at the ready. All I saw was a smoky, narrow corridor, fluorescent shapes painted on the walls glowing in the intermittent light. Another scream, not as loud or forceful. She was weakening, or being dragged further away from me.

  The door crashed open behind me. Whirling, I pointed the gun, finger tightening on the trigger even as I recognised Roberts barrelling into the room. It was too late. The trigger depressed and the gun bucked in my hand.

  Roberts staggered backwards, dark fluid spraying across his chest. He hit the door, slammed it shut, and slumped down in surprise as he stared at me, mouth agape, reaching blindly for the sticky mess on his shirt.

  “You shot me,” he moaned, the whites of his eyes flaring for a moment as a blue light flashed around us.

  I barely heard him over the music, but I got enough to understand. “I wasted a shot, yes,” I shouted back.

  He looked at his hand, at the smear of liquid. “You shot me!” A faint whiff of garlic rose from him.

  I waggled the gun in front of his face. “Just be thankful it’s the replica Desert Eagle paintball gun and not my Barretta. What are you doing in here anyway?”

  “I came to tell you we got all the kids out downstairs. Told them there was a gas leak.” He got back to his feet, holding his jacket out to display the mess of green paint on his silk shirt. “I didn’t come up here to get a three hundred dollar shirt ruined!”

  Turning back to the left corridor, I shouted, “Could have texted. You realise you can’t leave the way you came in, don’t you?”

  There was a moment of silence behind me, then furious rattling of the door.

  “Damn you, Hawkins. I only came up because Barry was annoying the living crap out of me, and now I’m trapped in here with you and a bunch of blood sucking losers. And I don’t know who I’m more worried about, them or you!”

  “I’d suggest them.” I closed my eyes, listening for more screaming.

  “Yeah? They haven’t cost me three hundred bucks.”

  I ignored his griping and concentrated.

  Successful monster slaying isn’t accomplished through cool replica guns and sweet cars. Sure, it helps to look hard-arse and committed, but the majority of supernatural freaks aren’t just packing fangs and or claws. Most come equipped with honest to God mental powers. Bend a spoon, pick a card, any card, cluck like a duck type psychic abilities. The only defence against such things is fire. As in, fighting fire with fire.

  I focused on the music. On the heavy base beat, the chaotic rhythm, the undecipherable lyrics. It filled my head, suffused my body until it was the only thing I knew. Then I blocked it out. Everything went quiet. Without the pounding distraction of the music I could now hear and feel everything else.

  Behind me, Roberts was a heartbeat and soft breaths. I felt it as he rubbed at the wet patch of paint on his chest, sensed his nose wrinkling as the garlic I mixed with the water-paint made itself known. He didn’t want to be here, but he was, for me and he knew that I wouldn’t let him get hurt.

  I pushed past him, widening my reach. As I’d thought, there was a girl just around the corner. Fast, panicked gasps; heart beating a frantic, terrified race. She was bleeding, puncture wounds in her wrist, which was also broken from the strong grip of the vampire towering over her. It was male, tall, lean, powerful. His heart was also racing, but in excitement, lust, desire... hunger.

  Shit. The mob had finally realised what they were, what they needed to satisfy them.

  They were young. That much I had worked out from Barry’s descriptions of their attacks. Turned less than a month, I guessed. I didn’t have a lot of experience with vampires that young. They’re mostly kept within the clan, hidden away until they’d finished the transformation from human to monster. In those first few weeks, they’re incredibly vulnerable. Physically weak and mentally compromised as they try to reconcile their past as normal people with normal wants and needs, with the creature they’re becoming. At about the same time the blood lust became overpowering, their memories of being human faded and their psychic abilities kicked in, leaving nothing but the predator, the insatiable hunter. Everyone around them becomes food. That’s when they’re let out of hiding and set upon an unsuspecting world.

  This mob, however. According to Barry they couldn’t mesmerize their prey, were strong but not pull-limbs-from-sockets-strong, were fast but couldn’t blur out of sight and, most importantly, hadn’t tried to suck the blood from any of Barry’s patrons.

  Until now.

  While I was in the zone, I reached further still. Feeling my way through the maze I found six more humans—the players plus the attendant—and eleven more vampires. An even dozen.

  I came back to myself, the music slamming in around me with an almost concussive weight. I’d never gone up against so many vampires before. Even young ones like these.

  I needed my partner, and I needed her now.

  The girl screamed again, her cries were twisted by pain, mixed with pleas and promises. Yup. These vampires had finally figured out what food would ease the ache in their bodies. Just as clearly, they hadn’t yet mastered the art of psychically subduing said food so it didn’t struggle, or feel pain.

  I raced down the narrow corridor, Eagle at the ready. Roberts pounded along behind me. I didn’t slow at the corner, just barrelled around it and snapped the gun out. Thanks to my psychic recon, I knew exactly where the bastard would be and I snapped off a shot before he even realised I was there.

  The paintball missed his left shoulder by a tiny margin, exploding in a splatter of green against the wall. The vampire jerked back, probably more in surprise than anything else. He dropped the girl he’d pinned to the wall and she hit the floor, falling to the side with a soft moan. Ignoring her for the moment, I trained my laser-sight on the vampire.

  In the shifting gloom and flashing neon, I couldn’t get a good look at him, but at a very rough guess, I figured he was no more than eighteen years old, a surfer by the broad shoulders, trim waist, dreads of sun-bleached hair and rock-hard abs. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but had on board-shorts and, I kid not, flip-flops.

  His only other adornments were a blood-splattered chin and neck, and two very long fangs jutting down from his top jaw, adequately displayed as he hissed at me.

  I took aim and put the next paintball in his mouth.

  Smoke poured out
from between the vampire’s green smeared lips. His eyes rolled wildly as he tried to scream but the paint had already eaten through his tongue and throat and all that came out was a wet gurgling. He clawed at his face, only helping the process as great clumps of steaming flesh peeled off in his hands. Within seconds, he hit the ground, limbs jerking in spastic motions, then he was still.

  A flash of white light blossomed around us and I saw the remains of his face.

  I’d been working on my garlic-Holy water mixture. Adding it to paint had been a fun, yet trying, experience. But seeing the gaping cavern in the front of that vampire’s head, looking right into the gooey remains of his brains—there wasn’t much, which said something about either the strength of my mixture or the state of the youth of today—made the frustration worth it.

  The vampire twitched once, then with a stinky little sigh of air, deflated and degraded into his constituent parts, oozing over the black floor.

  Neat.

  Now he was the cleaner’s problem.

  And the remaining eleven vampires were mine. Well, mine and Mercy’s. If she ever deigned to show up.

  Of course, not everyone was as pleased with the results of my paintball as I was. Behind me, Roberts made gagging noises and beside the puddle of vampire-remains, the girl stared at the mess for a moment, then took a deep breath, and screamed.

  “It’s okay,” I shouted, crouching next to her. “Look at me. Hey, look up here. Not there, at me.”

  My words got through to her slowly and she eventually pried her shocked gaze off the stinking ooze and met my eyes.

  “You’re all right, now.” It’s hard to sound soothing while shouting, but I did my best and it seemed to work. “It’s dead. Come on, get up. I have to keep going, get your friends.”

  She stared at me for a moment longer. Like the vampire, she was a teenager, probably around fifteen or sixteen. As well as her T-shirt, shorts and sneakers, she had on the laser-tag vest and elbow and knee guards. At least she had more substantial shoes on her feet than flip-flops. Then she nodded and reached for me.

  One hand under her arm, I helped her up, unwilling to put the Eagle away. I still had my senses extended and was vaguely aware of where the other vampires and kids were, but I didn’t want to take a chance that I wasn’t all-knowing and all-seeing.

  “Roberts!”

  He was there instantly, taking the girl from me. She curled into his side, sobbing and shaking. I rummaged in my many pockets until I found my small first-aid kit. Passing it back, I left Roberts to bind her wrist while I scouted ahead.

  Corridors branched off at irregular intervals. I glanced down them, seeing not much more than shifting smoke, spurts of laser-light and glowing neon. The next closest vampire was a couple more turns away.

  “What now?” Roberts asked as he caught up.

  I glanced back, saw the girl behind him, clinging to the back of his jacket. She was trembling and wide-eyed. Roberts had roughly bound the bite wound on her wrist, though there was a faint smudge of blood creeping through the layers of white bandage.

  “There’s six more humans in here. Eleven vampires.”

  Roberts could do the math as well as I could. He swallowed hard, but nodded grimly. I pulled out a spare mag and handed it over.

  “Use the paintballs if you have to. Protect the girl, and the others when I bring them to you.”

  “Where do you want me?”

  I pointed to one of the off-shoot corridors. “It dead ends. Keep your backs to the wall.”

  “What about Mercy?” There was a touch of doubt in his words. Roberts liked Mercy but he didn’t exactly trust her.

  “I’ll call her right now.”

  “You know you shouldn’t have to. She should have been here already!”

  I glared at him. “Keep an eye out.”

  Of all my psychic tricks, contacting Mercy was easiest. The bond between us was the first thing to develop when she crashed head-long into my life, and it let us speak in that cool mind to mind way. It was strong and snapped into line with little effort.

  “Matt!”

  Ever had a little girl squeal excitedly in your ear? Yeah? Well, make her a little girl with the ability to scream supersonically, with a trained singing voice that could move from the low, sultry tones of a classy blues crooner to the powerful resonance of some uber-opera type, and then transplant her scream from outside your head to inside it.

  See if your legs don’t give out from under you.

  “Matt! You hit?” Roberts stared at me, sprawled on the floor at his feet.

  I fumbled about, looking for my gun, my balance and my eardrums. I managed to haul myself upright, weapon and legs only shaking a bit. Two out of three ain’t bad.

  “Fine,” I shouted back. “Just on the metaphysical phone.” Then to Mercy, I thought, “Where the freak are you?”

  Her thought came back with a slight timidity. “Across the street, where you told me to watch Barry’s from.”

  Gah! Of course. I had told her to do exactly that. I hadn’t told her to follow the mob of vampires into the building. Just to watch for them. I hadn’t even told her to tell me when they arrived.

  It was my fault. No doubt about it.

  “Good girl,” I sent. “Could you now come over here and help me with these vampires, please?”

  Her mind did a little shiver against mine, as if she was deciding whether or not to do as I asked. The hesitation made me think of Roberts’ earlier comments regarding her trust-worthiness, but I pushed those thoughts aside before they reached her. She didn’t need his—or my—doubts confusing her.

  “Okay,” she replied and then her touch blurred and faded.

  She was on the move.

  Reeling my thoughts back in, I took a moment to nod to Roberts and motion him into the corridor I’d chosen for him. Then I was off.