by Ian Hall
“Yes, and I’ll be the end of you, gutter-trash!”
Still grabbing my wrists, she spun, and of course I spun with her. Somehow she landed on top of me on the carpet. She let go my right wrist, then with both hands, twisted and snapped my left.
“Argh!” I screamed in her contorted face. Swinging wildly, I hit her face again and again, but to little consequence.
“How could you do such heinous crimes against your own race?” I screamed at her.
“I am not like you!” she screamed.
With all my strength, I pushed her off me. She flew through the air, and landed about ten feet down the corridor, but to my dismay rose almost immediately. Her eyes scanned from side to side to determine my position.
I got to my feet slowly, nursing my broken wrist.
“So you can stay invisible on your own, huh?” She advanced towards me, arms wide to stop my escape. As if I had any thought of leaving. “Imagine what Howard will think of that trick.”
I shook my head and allowed myself a grin. “Now I have two reasons to kill you.”
I shouldn’t have spoken. As quick as any vampire I’ve ever seen, she darted at me, hitting me square-on, knocking me to the ground. “You’ll never get the chance!” She caught hold of my broken wrist and twisted again, crushing bone and sinew.
This time, although the pain felt incredible, I knew my tactic. Hitting her square in the throat, I knocked her back again, away from me.
She backed slowly down the corridor. “Imagine our Helsing armies, made invisible by those emotionless girls. Imagine their worth. Imagine the highest bidder, placing money for their skills.”
I stepped forward, swinging my fist at her neck again, and she reeled against the invisible blow. But at my second attempt, she grabbed my fist, and came in close, her teeth slashing near my neck. I got slammed against the wall again, and I reciprocated, this time smashing her body through a doorway into one of the deserted apartments.
We tumbled along the floor, my broken wrist seemingly hitting the ground below us at every turn. Blinding flashes of pain disorientated me as I tried to block the rain of blows that she somehow managed, despite tumbling together.
With fear rising in me for the first time in many months, I began to realize that I had met my match physically, and already impaired, I might not win this fight.
My signature move required two hands, so that wasn’t going to happen.
Suddenly, she lifted off me, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
But then above me, a large computer monitor headed for the ground where my head lay.
Man did I have to move fast.
That was the last straw. I had to win. And I had to win in silence. Damn. Mandy Cross had to shut up for once.
The monitor smashed on the wooden floor, sending shard of glass in all directions. I stood to one side, watching her try to regain the advantage.
“What’s wrong, Mandy?” she sneered. “Sore wrist, baby?”
I stood to her side, breathing heavily. I’d just been blown up, and now the bitch was poking fun.
“Fuck you,” I said, then instantly dashed round the room.
Miranda slashed at the spot where I’d been. “First I’ll take you out!” she shouted as she thrust. “Then your pretty boyfriend in Chicago.”
I flashed a karate kick at her, hitting her again in the throat, sending her tumbling into the corner of the room. When she rose to her feet she looked slower; I had created a weakness, and I felt determined to capitalize on it.
“I might even jump his bones before I finish him off.”
I kicked her again, slamming my foot into her Adam’s apple. But she recovered quickly this time, swinging her arms in wide arcs. “Oh, and that old body you gave us? The one that hadn’t decayed? I’ll make sure it burns in a thousand pieces!”
Jackson!
“No!” I roared.
The room was so small, I couldn’t get out of the way. Bam. Right on the chin. I sprawled backwards into the kitchen, but at least she hadn’t followed me. Boy I had to get some advantage.
Advantage.
I got to my feet, and grabbed a handful of cutlery, throwing them at her in twos or threes. The sharpest knife I kept to myself.
I grinned as I advanced, slipping to one side. Then I struck.
Bam! One eye.
Bam! Two eyes.
She screamed like a demon, one hand clutching her bleeding eye sockets, the other feeling in front of her, trying to catch a grip of me.
At last I’d gained the initiative. Blood flowed out of her sockets, down her face. I hit her on the throat again, but she hardly reacted, still using one hand to cover her eyes.
I kicked her legs out from her, and watched as she fell to the floor. Then I jumped as high as the ceiling would allow, and landed with both feet onto her chest, crushing her ribcage and driving the wind from her.
With her hands trying to grasp my ankles, I crouched and hit her hard on the chin, snapping her head upwards. Man, I hit her so many times on the chin, my knuckles ached.
Then I rammed my fingers into her mouth and forced her head away from her body.
“No!” she screamed maniacally through my fingers, realizing my intent. Her teeth closed on me, and I knew I’d lose them. I gave one last powerful thrust, and her neck snapped.
I roared in pain, and releasing my hold, her head flew from my grip and rolled awkwardly into a corner.
With the pain in my hand, I knew parts of my fingers had gone with it.
“With one hand tied behind my back,” I snarled at her distorted face.
Panting, I stood up.
There wasn’t much light in the room, but I could discern her body, crumbling inside her clothing.
Miranda Vasquez was well and truly dead.
The campus looked like a war movie.
Fire trucks arrived, police units, more ambulances than I could count.
Helsing ambulances had been standing by, taking the bodies from our vans.
Pure bedlam.
Brennan crouched beside Valérie, looking up at me. “You’ve got to round up as many Helsings as you can find,” he said, binding the calm ninja. “We have to move fast. Get everyone out of the area before somebody locks it down. Find Hideo.”
Easier said than done in a melee of emergency teams, crazed vampires, and our lot.
One by one, I found members of our teams, and got the order through.
Pull out. Short and simple.
On my last run around the burning Alucard West Building, a hand gently tapped me on the shoulder. “Hi, Lyman.”
I, of course, just about shit my pants, but grinned wildly at her calm demeanor. “Hi, Finch, you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Valérie got hit pretty bad.”
“I know; I saw her. I’ve been hanging around you for the last few minutes, hoping that Mandy would appear.”
Mandy. Tears welled up behind my eyes as I scanned the building.
Firefighters had two ladders in place with hoses shooting water through broken fiery windows. Police were trying to round up the onlookers, but there seemed to be hundreds of us, and they weren’t having much luck. Ambulance teams were still pulling people out of the building.
Of course, none would be Mandy, there wasn’t even any point in looking.
No one would be looking for an invisible victim.
“We should get back to the van,” Finch said. “Hideo’s got all the bodies from the stairwell. You did good, kiddo.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Yeah.”
Never has turning away from something felt so difficult. But with an exaggerated swing of my head, I turned back in the direction of our van. My feet felt heavy, and I looked back regularly.
When we got to the van, we could hardly get inside. Body bags piled high against one side. Every face in the van looked very concerned.
The driver slowly made his way out of the parking lot, weaving between rubberneckers and emergenc
y vehicles. Then a policeman waved at us to stop.
“You can’t leave,” I heard him say.
“Well you better tell that to the sergeant back there.” Our driver laughed out of his open window. “He told me to get my bucket out of here pronto! Told me I was holding up rescue proceedings.”
The officer paused. “Okay, well get on out then.”
He hit the side of the van twice, and we were off.
Just as well, we had dozens of dead bodies in the back.
We had no windows to see out of apart from the doorway to the front cab. I felt oppressed, looking at the pile of body bags.
“Still no comms?” I asked, crouching forward, poking my head into the cab.
“Nothing,” the driver answered. “Have you tried your cell phone?”
No, obviously I hadn’t.
There was no reply on Mandy’s phone.
Amazingly, Valérie picked up on the first ring. “Yes?”
“Have you guys left yet?”
“Yes, we’re out, heading back to Gregor.”
“Mandy?”
“She’s here.”
Holy crap! “She’s with you? Is she okay?” I blurted quickly.
“She’s here, she’s alive.”
I felt a surge of relief, and I’m sure I let out a great sigh. “That’s great. Can I speak to her?”
“Not right now. Doctor Brennan is treating her. She got hit pretty badly by the explosion.”
“Oh.” I wanted to ask all kinds of questions, but quickly realized that I may not want to hear the answers. I recalled Valérie’s injuries.
“Don’t worry, Lyman. We heal pretty darn quickly. She’ll be back to normal in a couple of days.”
Of course. She’s a vampire, I thought to myself, calming my nerves with the idea.
“Okay, pass on my love and I’ll see you in Gregor.”
“Will do.”
Pass on my love.
What the fuck had I just said?
I’d said something that my grandmother would have said. Pass on my love? WTF?
I sat back on the bench and forced myself into some semblance of calm.
“Can we stop at a Quik Trip or something?” I asked into the cab.
“Sorry, we got orders, no stops, no chance of camera surveillance until we get into Unicorps.”
Hmm. It made sense. No camera trail. No evidence of another hundred souls vanishing from the earth. Not that they had souls. Well maybe.
What the hell did I know?
There seemed no way round the roaring flames, so I knocked a window out, and climbed down a drain pipe.
Difficult to do with one broken wrist and the other missing some fingertips, but I did it.
Weaving past the crowd of people who hung around the building, I slowly made my way to the van. The Helsings seemed to be getting ready to leave, and I climbed onto the back, pulled on Valérie’s sleeve. “I need to be made visible,” I whispered softly into her ear.
She grabbed my arm, and pushed me back out of the back. Yup, I hit both my broken wrist and my fingerless hand on the door as I went. Then she winked me back.
“Hey, Mandy?” she said with a smile, just like she could see me. “Where did you come from?”
But her smile faded as she pulled me back into the van. Her eyes roamed over my face and head, then she seen my hand. “Oh, my.”
“Is it bad?”
Doctor Brennan had been sitting in the passenger seat, and looked back into the van. The shock on his face and the speed he whisked to me side told me the severity of my wounds. “Are you in any pain?”
“Not really. I’m just all kinda numb.”
He grabbed his medical kit, and began to get wipes and liquids on gauze and other such stuff.
The driver popped his head in the back door, and stepped back two feet. “Holy fuck.” His face contorted into complete shock and revilement. “Sorry… Have you seen Doctor Vasquez?”
Miranda Vasquez. Yeah, I can remember seeing a name badge once. I shook my head. “Nothing.”
He slammed the door closed. “Well, we can’t wait much longer.” I heard his voice go around the van.
As it turned out, we didn’t wait any longer. As soon as he’d sat down, he started the van up.
Getting out proved trickier than we’d envisaged; we had to run over a curb twice, and the pile of bodies shifted both times. Brennan fussed over me continually.
Then Valérie’s phone rang. “Yes?”
She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Lyman,” she whispered, then lifted her hand again. “Yes, we’re out, heading back to Gregor.” Pause. “She’s here.” Pause “She’s here, she’s alive.”
She covered the handset again. “Do you want to talk to him?”
I shook my head. Man, the last thing I needed right then were Lyman’s puppy dog eyes on my repulsive face. I needed a mirror. The fear of what had happened to me was beginning to set me into panic mode.
“Not right now. Doctor Brennan is treating her. She got hit pretty badly by the explosion.” Pause. “Don’t worry, Lyman. We heal pretty darn quickly. She’ll be back to normal in a couple of days.” Pause. “Will do.”
She hung up. “Lyman passes on his love.” She gave a wry grin.
“Yeah, he loves the Mandy he used to know.” I looked around for any reflective surface. Nothing. “He won’t want anything to do with this Mandy.” I pointed at my face.
Valérie smiled. “We women and our vanity. You’ll be back to normal in a few days.” She brushed at my hair. “You’ll have to do something about a change of hairstyle for a bit though.” She gave a slight pull, and tufts of scorched hair came away in her hand.
Oh fuck. I needed a mirror.
I’d lost the tips of three fingers, and my left wrist still flopped around like only the skin kept it on.
I’ll give Brennan his due, though. Once he seen me shake it around, he soon had a splint and bandage on it.
I sat in silence for most of the journey back.
Once we’d pulled into the underground parking lot, I jumped down from the back of the van and took off. Blinding vampire fast.
Crouching behind another van, I got myself in front its side mirror.
Oh, fuck my soul backwards.
Half my hair was simply missing: not there. I had bright red burns over most of my face, but worse on the left side. Eyebrows gone. Eyelashes gone.
What was left of my face had been pummeled in the fight with Miranda, so it looked swollen and cut to pieces.
Tears came unbridled.
I shook my head and I ran.
Out of the Unicorps parking lot.
I headed out of Gregor, then I passed a liquor store. Closed of course.
Bammo. Smashed the front door. Grabbed two bottles of Grey Goose vodka, and I was off before the alarm had even started to sound.
I ran to the hills, and I ran until my feet decided to stop.
Jackson’s grave.
Just a hole in the ground now.
I sat on the stones and drank nearly a whole bottle of the vodka.
Quietly I lay down, looking up at the stars, tears streaming back into my ears.
I didn’t give much thought of the future.
Right then I looked hideous, and I determined that no one would ever see me as I was.
In fact, I had finished my contract one day early, but I’d decided that I was leaving.
Leaving Unicorps.
Leaving Lyman.
Leaving Arizona.
For good.
Vampires Don’t Cry
Blood Anthology
By Ian Hall & April L. Miller
Welcome to Vampires Don’t Cry: Blood Anthology
We’ve assembled all the backstories from the Vampires Don’t Cry characters, and added a few extras; solo pieces from April and Ian. We hope you like the collection.
The Backstories
The Rise and Fall of Tomas Lucescu (‘Bald Eagle’)
The st
ory of Donny Kelp (Jackson Cole)
The First Helsing: Howard Weeks (Head of Unicorps)
The Turning of Alan Rand (Alan McCartney)
Valérie Marneffe Berthier Lidowitz (From Vampires Don’t Cry)
Ivan's Story: The Fall and Rise of a Jesuit Vampire
(Ivan Vyhovsky from Vampires Don’t Cry)
The Extras
Behind The Masque
(A Cinderella vampire story, by Ian Hall & April L. Miller)
Succubus Song
(A story of Succubus revenge, by Ian Hall & April L. Miller)
Price of a Portrait
(Sometimes the price is too high. By Ian Hall)
Ten Thousand Tears
(Breaking blood ties. By April L. Miller)
The Rise and Fall of Tomas Lucescu
By Ian Hall & April L. Miller
The Lucescu Keep, near Moshny, Ukraine, 1699
At eighteen years of age, I became the last of my family line.
My parents and brothers all succumbed to the blood sickness before me. Though frail to the eye, it seemed I possessed a far stronger spirit, and it sustained my life that much longer. Even still, the cold touch of death’s hand reached ever closer. Were it not for Ivan’s intercession, I would have breathed my last that very night.
Though it pains me to say so, Ivan both saved the family line, and ended it.
He waited in the shadows of my bedchamber as I struggled through the first clutches of my changing. Every corpuscle in my body screamed and my head raged. When Ivan pressed the goblet to my lips and I tasted the warm, thick liquid for the first time, the pain relented. I looked at my reflection in the deep, red liquid in the pewter vessel.
Thicker than red wine.
Later, he knelt by my bed. “Forgive me, Tomas; I have never officiated a turning. I’m afraid I proved very clumsy.”
“What have you done?” I hissed, clutching the cup to my throat.
With a single swig I drained the remainder and, after months of atrophying in my bed, felt strength returning to my extremities – not a calm revival, but a surging of energy. My body shuddered as a hundredfold the vitality I had known before the sickness rippled through me. Lifting and swinging my legs over the edge, I found my beloved hound, Prince, limp at my feet. A pool of blood formed a halo around his head. The smell of it left little doubt as to the source of Ivan’s potent elixir.