Fanghunters (Book 4): The Claw Order

by Leo Romero

  “Stay away from him!” said Karim.

  “Don’t bite him. His blood will kill us!” Ram warned.

  “Where are the damn guards?” Annit sneered.

  “Probably sleeping on the job!” said Seth, his wide eyes not leaving Rufus.

  Rufus sensed their fear; they reeked of it. He pretended to leap toward them and they flinched back. Rufus grinned. He enjoyed tormenting them. He took up a fighting stance and curled his fingers inward, egging them on. Come on, who wants it?

  Which one of you is brave enough to take me on?

  The vampires all gave one another nervy glances. None of them wanted to go near him. Instead, they kept their distance, moving in a wary circle. Rufus eyed them with caution. He realized what their game was. They were trying to circle him like hyenas entrapping a lion. Like the cats in the corridor. They edged their way across the chamber, Rufus taking sidesteps to the left along with them. He made sure to keep them all in his view, he didn’t want to get jumped like that time with Blacklake many moons ago. But, they were clever. Before he knew it, they’d forced him further into the chamber away from the exit. Annit now blocked it, her brothers flanking her. Rufus took more sidesteps and he found himself near to that pile of severed limbs. The stench of rot and decay struck his sinuses and he gagged. He covered his mouth and nose with his forearm.

  “What’s wrong, holy one? Don’t like the smell of fresh meat?” Seth said, licking his lips.

  The other vampires laughed.

  From over the top of his forearm, Rufus watched them. They had him trapped in the chamber, right where they wanted him.

  What am I gonna do now?

  His holy water dart gun was way out of reach. The tranqs did nothing against them.

  Then, he remembered. The sun cannon. He glanced over his shoulder. It was still strapped to his back.

  Use it on them!

  He reached back and pulled it off his shoulder. He gripped the thick barrel with one hand and got the finger of his other hand on the trigger. He glanced down at the charge bar. It was well in the red, meaning it was fully charged. After making his way across the desert under that blistering sun, it had to be. Now, all he needed to do was unleash the beams and light this place up.

  He aimed it at the vampires, loving the shocked and confused expressions on their faces.

  Say hello to my little friend!

  Rufus jammed the trigger.

  At the same time, a flood of cats came rushing in the chamber from the corridor outside. Alarm bells exploded in Rufus’ mind, his attention zoning from the vampires onto the cats. On they came, galloping like a pack of wolves toward him, their eyes glowing. Before Rufus had a chance to even ready himself, the army of cats descended on him, ready to rain down in a storm of claws and fangs.

  The frontline leaped into attack.

  Rufus staggered back. His focus was solely on the cats leaping toward him. He raised his hands in defense, just as the first of them was about to make contact with him. He closed his eyes, expecting to have those claws dig deep in his flesh and scratch him to ribbons. Instead, he stumbled, and lost his footing completely. The floor vanished beneath him and his stomach leaped up into his chest. Gravity took hold and he plummeted downward. His eyes opened in shock. Everything was pitch black. With acute horror, he realized what happened. He’d fallen down the hole in the ground Seth had been throwing limbs into.

  Rufus plunged down a thin, slippery shaft to an unknown destination.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The leader was back on his smartphone. That meant bad news. Dom watched him carefully, dread rising in his stomach. It was Russian roulette; any one of them could be next. And that was part of the torment.

  The leader lowered his smartphone and pointed over in their general direction. Dom’s heart skipped a beat. He yapped something in Arabic and a guy marched over to where they were all lined up. He made it to Trixie and Dom’s eyes widened. He thankfully moved past her, but was now behind Dom. He waited for the inevitable grab under his arm to drag him to his feet, but it never came. Instead the guy went past him and toward Nixon and Faisal. Nixon glared up at the guy with his face all twisted. The guy just marched past him and stopped behind praying Faisal.

  Dom’s heart sunk. The guy leaned down and grabbed hold of Faisal under his arm. Faisal started, his eye popping open.

  Dom threw out a hand. “No!”

  A thug slapped him on the back of the head in response. Dom whipped his head around to be met with those distant, glazed eyes embedded in that masked face. He wanted to just leap to his feet and smash that guy’s head in, but the gun in his hands was no joke.

  By then, Faisal had been pulled to his feet. The guy accosting him pushed him forward like he was a piece of dirt. Faisal staggered across the sand, almost stumbling.

  That’s no way to treat the old guy. These assholes are gonna pay!

  The masked thug grabbed hold of Faisal’s upper arm and pulled him along to the front. As he was dragged by, Faisal glanced at Dom over his shoulder. Dom stared at him in despair; he didn’t know what to say or do. He was helpless. Faisal just gave him a prolonged blink, a small, solemn smile lifting up his lips. The sight of it wrenched Dom’s heart to pieces.

  Faisal gave him a small nod before facing the front again.

  Dom’s head slumped between his shoulders. By the time he had the strength to lift it, Faisal was before the cameras, his knees on the bloodstained sand. He looked up and around him with his remaining eye wide, brimming with fear and bewilderment.

  Dom’s eyes welled up. He glanced to the side. A tear slipped down Trixie’s cheek. Her top lip was curled up in anger as she watched on, her gaze fixed on Faisal.

  Faisal raised his face to the sky and began muttering. The big guy with the blade stomped up behind him. Daggers stabbed at Dom’s heart. Pity swelled inside him like a water balloon. He wished he could do something. Anything. The helplessness was debilitating.

  The brute raised his bloodstained blade and swung it back behind his shoulder. Faisal finished his mutterings, and sparked into life. He swung his head left and right and began sneering in Arabic at the masked guys around him. The veins in his neck popped. The old guy was giving them a final piece of his mind. After a few seconds, he slipped into English.

  “In the name of Allah, may all your souls burn in the fires of Hell!” he said through clenched teeth, his eye fixed on the masked jihadis surrounding him. He finished his rant and faced the camera ahead of him. He straightened his back, making himself as tall as possible, keeping his chin held high. The leader gave the brute a nod.

  Faisal closed his eye. He barely had time to suck in a final big breath when that razor-sharp blade cut across the air.

  Trixie gasped. Dom slammed his eyes shut, before opening one halfway, his face pinched. The mighty blade sliced through the back of Faisal’s neck like a ham at a delicatessen counter. His severed head bounced across the sand with a series of dull thuds, leaving a trail of blood. Victory cries filled the air as his decapitated body slumped, blood gushing from the stump of the neck, turning the sand red, the scent of fresh gore on the air.

  Dom’s body juddered in revulsion, fear, and anger. He bowed his head, closing his eyes and breathing deep. The savage roar of delight from the maniacs surrounding him echoed through his mind like rats caught in a tunnel. His heart was splayed. Faisal didn’t deserve such a disrespectful demise. The old guy had saved them and Dom hadn’t been able to return the favor. He finally looked up. Faisal’s head lay on the ground, caked in sand, his surviving eye staring at him from beyond, bloodshot and glazed.

  So long, buddy, Dom thought to himself in despair. So long.

  They dragged Faisal’s headless body away. One guy went and picked up his head and began playing catch with some other asshole. Dom watched them desecrating Faisal’s corpse in disgust. He hoped they rotted from the inside out.

  They finally moved away and the leader got back on his phone. After getting h
is instructions, he barked at the others. He clicked his fingers to grab the attention of one of his guys.

  He pointed at Dom.

  Dom’s chest seized. His head twitched left and right. He caught glimpses of Nixon’s bulldog face and Trixie’s desperate expression.

  Me? My turn? Me?

  Fear bombed into his limbs, causing them to judder. Before he had a chance to say a thing, rough hands grabbed him under his arms. He was pulled to his feet and dragged toward the bloodstained spot ahead of the cameras.

  “No!” Trixie screamed, tears jumping from her eyes.

  Dom gave her a scared glance over his shoulder. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t real. None of it. It was a bad dream, had to be. The worst nightmare he’d ever had. He’d wake up at any moment and he’d breathe a sigh of relief and go grab himself a coffee.

  He was dumped on the ground. Blood-soaked sand greeted him. Faisal’s blood. He grimaced. He looked up at the sun. The blinding heat told him that this was real. So real.

  The big guy with the blade stomped up behind him. His body odor filled Dom’s nostrils. It was hot, rancid. The stench fit him like a glove.

  The watching crazies fizzled with bloodthirsty delight and anticipation. The anxiety and fear of the other prisoners emanated from each of them like wifi, turning the whole scene into a mish-mash of extreme emotion.

  The executioner gripped his sword tight with both hands. He steadied his stance, then aimed his blade.

  Dom turned his head to the side. Trixie’s terrified stare met him. Her chest heaved as tears spilled from her eyes like water sprinklers. Her lips quivered. Dom stared at her with sullen, resigned eyes, his mouth drooping. He made sure to lock onto those gem-like eyes, those emerald eyes. It was the last time he’d ever gaze into those beautiful green eyes. He soaked in the moment, making it last for as long as possible. They’d been through so much together, but it ended here in the swipe of a sword.

  A warmth bloomed in his heart. It battled against the outright fear frazzling through his veins. The two clashed inside him like titans battling for supremacy. They grappled and scrapped like heavyweight boxers, each one determined to destroy the other.

  As he kept his stare on Trixie, sharp, cold steel touched the back of his neck. He shuddered under the sensation, but made sure to keep his stare on those eyes. Those eyes he’d first locked onto back at that house in a Chicago slum while hunting a vampire called Drake, all that time ago. Those eyes he’d looked into since and wanted to say something to, but never had the nerve. And now ironically, his nerves in that regard were like steel. In the face of death, nothing really mattered any longer. There’d be no consequences to face for saying it, except to suffer an eternal regret for not saying the words when he had a final chance to. The time was now, this was it, if he didn’t, the consequences were worse than death itself.

  He sucked in a deep breath, opened up his lips, and in a strong, deep voice said, “I love you.”

  Trixie shook her head. “I...” She glanced down. Then met his stare. “I love you too.”

  The executioner pulled the blade off his neck.

  Dom narrowed his eyes, gazing at Trixie for the last time. Trixie began shaking her head. “No,” she uttered, tears streaming down her cheeks. “No, no, no,” she began yelling, shaking her head more vehemently. “No!”

  Dom closed his eyes. Her cries registered somewhere far away in his mind. For the first time ever, he’d actually managed to make his mind go blank, blissfully blank, and at just the right time. It would all be over in a second. The blankness would be permanent. He’d said what was needed. No regrets.

  Now, he could go in peace. He’d done his best.

  A faint smile spread across his lips. He popped his eyes open. He puckered his lips and sent Trixie a kiss across the air. He rolled his eyes upward. “Okay, assholes. Let’s get this over with!”

  The executioner raised his mighty sword high into the sky; it glinted in the sunlight. He yelled, “Allahu akbar!” his voice tearing across the sand.

  Trixie screamed, just as the blade whipped through the air, and at that brief moment, something did pop into Dom’s mind: a pair of eyes. Emerald green eyes.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Rufus slid down that dark shaft, unable to stop himself. Panic gripped him. His stomach shot up into his chest like he was on a slide at the water park. The ride itself was over before it even got started. He reached a wider opening where he became airborne. He fell through the air, his arms flailing. He smashed into the sandstone floor, pain erupting across his back. Before he had a chance to recover, the sun cannon swiftly followed up, landing on his chest and bouncing away.

  Ow!

  He doubled up, the blow piling on more agony. He writhed like a worm for a few seconds while the pain subsided. As it did, he zoned in on his surroundings. It was another dim-lit chamber. The ceiling was smothered in more hieroglyphs like tats covering a prisoner’s back. He turned his head to the right. A wall covered in carvings stared back at him; Horus, Ra, phoenixes, the usual fare.

  A hot, rancid stench suddenly hit him like fetid rot and old sweat. He gagged, covering his nose. The smell was disgusting, but at least he was safe from the vampires and cats. He needed to get out of there before they came looking for him.

  He went to stand up when something to his left shifted.

  He frowned. There’s something in here with me.

  He rolled his head toward the sound. A huge, meaty hand came hurtling through the air, its chubby fingers like slabs of beef.

  Rufus’ instincts kicked. He rolled away as fast as he could. The palm of the hand slapped on the sandstone, sending ancient dust flying upward. Rufus came to a stop, and jumped up to his knees. With ragged breaths, he took in the scene ahead of him. He traced his eyes from that hand along a fat arm, the upper part chunky and pudgy. It was attached to a massive ball of flab; two huge man-breasts sagged toward the ground where they pooled like melted rubber. Protruding from the obese globule were two stubby legs, the thighs spreading out across the floor like eggs hitting a hot frying pan.

  Rufus’ face pinched. What the hell?

  He gazed at the thing lying on the ground ahead of him with a mix of disgust and wonderment as it tried to move toward him.

  What is it? What am I looking at?

  The thing shifted across the sandstone like a beached whale attempting to get back into the sea, its heavy limbs thrashing. A fresh wave of unwashed body odor permeated the air and Rufus covered his nose once more. As the creature moved around, a hairless, round head came into view, totally out of proportion to its body. Its dull, prune-like eyes stared off into the distance as if it was in a trance. Its mouth opened up and a feral mix of blood and saliva dribbled down its multitude of chins. It released a tortured groan. The noise sent shivers spasming through Rufus like violins played by asylum patients.

  As it did, its huge fangs came into view.

  Rufus jumped up to his feet. It was a vampire.

  The vampire let out another groan and swiped a pathetic hand toward Rufus. Rufus hopped back. The creature immediately tried again. Rufus evaded it with ease; it was too slow, too cumbersome. It let out another groan, this time it sounded like a groan of pain before it went into a fit of swipes, desperate to get to Rufus. It quickly ran out of energy and collapsed in exhaustion.

  Rufus circled around it, out of harm’s way. He stopped and surveyed the chamber. Bones and pieces of human limbs—fingers, toes, eyeballs—littered the floor.

  Rufus’ brow furrowed. He gazed up at the hole in the ceiling from where he unceremoniously entered the chamber. In his mind’s eye, he saw Seth slinging those hunks of meat down that hole in the floor. This is where they ended up. They were for this vampire to eat. To feed on.

  This thing just wants to eat stuff all day, Rufus realized with grim horror, the acrid aroma of rot becoming apparent again.

  How long has it been here?

  He dreaded to think.

  The
vampire gave it another shot. It shuffled across before it rolled over to face him once more. “Come… back. I want… to… eat you,” the creature groaned in a barely intelligible voice, its apathetic eyes now gleaming with desire. It released guttural noises as it put all its effort into shifting its own mass across the floor toward what it thought was dinner.

  Rufus took sidesteps around the vampire, causing it to moan in frustration once it realized it would have to move some more.

  Kill it, Rufus. Kill this creature and get out of here!

  The sun cannon was lying on the ground between them both. Rufus went and snatched it up before the vampire moved over it and blocked it from his reach. The thing let out an excited grunt as Rufus drew closer and bent down to grab the gun, its eyes flickering with hope for just a split second. Rufus was up and out of its reach by the time its latest swipe caught nothing but air. It collapsed in exasperation and dejection, exhaustion setting in. It gazed longingly at the ceiling, specifically at the hole where who knew how many breakfast, lunches, dinners, and snacks in between had fallen through.

  Rufus stepped back.

  He took up an attacking stance and aimed the muzzle of his sun cannon at the thing’s head. It just lay there on its back, its exhausted body rippling, its yearning stare fixed on that hole in the ceiling, its limbs splayed across the floor.

  Put this thing out of its misery, Rufus told himself.

  He was about to pull the trigger when something slammed behind him. He whirled around in a semi-circle.

  “Stay away from Daddy!” Ram sneered. Him and his siblings were clustered by a narrow doorway at the other end of the chamber. A pathetic groan emanated from the vampire now behind Rufus.