“Vampires? You have got to be kidding me.”
He didn’t realize he’d said it out loud until the thing hissed at him. He shot it twice in the face. The young woman screamed again as the vampire collapsed onto the railing. Michael motioned her toward the door. She didn’t need to be told twice.
He stepped forward to examine the creature, but a low moan from his right drew him up short. He turned to find the source. An old man lay crumpled on the ground. Another man attacked him from above. The assailant lacked half his left arm. His face was rotted – literally rotted. He shuffled toward Michael and moaned again.
“Vampires and zombies? That just isn’t right.”
He didn’t know if he’d actually need a head shot to kill it or not, so he decided not to take any chances. He took careful aim before shooting. The first round hit the zombie dead between the eyes. It crumpled to the ground. He kicked it with his toe, relieved when it didn’t move.
He turned back to the vampire he’d shot earlier. It lay on the ground, unmoving.
What the hell? He asked himself. Bullets shouldn’t have taken out a vampire.
Another creature screeched and slammed into him from behind. His Glock went off as he stumbled. Fortunately he managed not to shoot himself. The bullet lodged harmlessly in the granite floor. Still, he cursed himself for poor trigger discipline and struggled to face his attacker.
The vampire sunk its claws into his chest, tightening its grip. Michael thrust himself backward, hard, and continued until they slammed into the wall behind them. He heard a gurgle and felt a sticky wetness spray over his head – blood, he supposed. Its grip didn’t weaken.
He peppered it with elbows thrust behind him. He twisted his hips hard with each blow. But with the creature locked onto his back, he found it nearly impossible to gain leverage. He raised the pistol above his head, pointing it behind him. Before he could pull the trigger, the creature smacked his forearm with inhuman strength. Massive pain shot through his wrist as the weapon spun out of his grip.
He slammed backward again, crushing the creature against the wall, and then dropped to a knee. Its grip loosened slightly. He tried to reach for his backup pistol in its ankle holder. His attacker kept him gripped tightly, however. The pistol remained just out of his reach. He felt saliva and warm breath on the back of his neck.
Just as the creature’s lips brushed Michael’s neck, it spasmed and screamed. He scrambled away as it let loose of him. In the dim light, he could just make out a metallic point sticking out from the vampire’s chest. The screams died with the creature.
James Covington casually withdrew his cane from the creature’s chest. With his other hand, he brought down the red fire ax and decapitated the corpse on the floor. Then he turned and showed Michael the cane.
“Metal point helps penetration. The wood through the heart kills ‘em dead. Decapitation is the best way to be sure, though.”
Michael grunted acknowledgment. He completely failed to muster any surprise that Covington was prepared for a rematch with the undead. He wondered what other tricks the old man had up his sleeve. He pushed to his feet and brushed himself off. After a moment of searching, he retrieved his gun from the floor.
“Bullets will only slow them down,” Covington continued. “The wounds won’t actually kill them.”
“Seemed to work on that one,” Michael countered, pointing to the nearby corpse. Covington knelt and examined the remains. The old man responded with a quiet curse. Distant screams reminded them of the remaining altercations.
“Let’s go,” Covington nodded toward the stairs. They stepped back inside and sprinted across the ballroom. For an old man with a limp, Covington moved surprisingly fast. Michael took the lead down the stairs. He stopped at the bottom and peeked around the corner at the grand foyer while he waited for Jim to catch up.
“Two vampires right, three zombies left,” he whispered when Jim tapped him on the shoulder. He raised his pistol to a high ready position. “I’ll take the zombies.”
“Copy that,” Covington acknowledged, tapping his cane.
Michael caught the first zombie with a double tap to the head. Closing the distance, he drew a bead on his second target and fired off another pair of rounds. His first shot found its target. His foot found a wet spot on the floor, just as he squeezed the trigger on the second. It went wide and high, shattering a light fixture as he slammed into the ground.
His jujitsu training kicked in instinctively, but even with a proper break-fall, hitting solid marble hurt like hell. He felt something slimy on his left hand as it slapped the floor. Fluids and gooey bits dripped off of it as he lifted it for a look. Is that brains? He shuddered.
The third zombie loomed over him, moaning as it shuffled forward. He rolled onto his back and raised the Glock. He fired another round, but haste threw his aim off. The bullet sliced through the creature’s right ear, spraying stale blood everywhere. It reached over him, grabbing his gun hand.
Michael rolled his body and pried his elbow toward it. On a normal human being, the move would have turned his whole arm into a lever, easily prying it out of the grip. With the soft, rotting tissue of the zombie the result was wholly different. Its hand ripped right off of its arm, fingers still tightly wrapped around Michael’s wrist in a literal death grip.
He managed to work his left knee in between him and the monster, and pushed. It bought him enough space to shuffle sideways and squeeze out. He rolled twice more to get clear and then brought the gun around. Two more rounds at point blank range finished the job. He closed his eyes to keep bits of exploding skull out of them.
He clawed at the hand attached to his wrist. The flesh was soft, but it was strong. It took him a minute to get it loose. In the end he mostly scraped the rotting flesh away. He tossed it on top of the now motionless corpse and rose up onto one knee.
Covington had dispatched one of his opponents, but the other had managed to disarm him. They grappled across the room in a match of their own. Michael gave the floor a quick pass, but he didn’t see Jim’s cane. He raised the pistol, hoping he could buy Jim a little space to get free. He couldn’t get a clean shot.
Desperate, he searched the entryway for anything that might come in handy. Even in the dark, the massive portrait drew his eye. Inspiration struck as he followed the portrait downward. He holstered the Glock and leapt toward the wall. It took a moment to yank it off the wall.
His martial arts training took over as he cleared the three steps back to the scuffle. The vampire straddled on top of Covington, raising his head just as Michael closed in. He swung perfectly. The severed head bounced and then rolled about three feet away. He bent down to help move the twice dead corpse. James Covington looked up at him.
“I see you put great-great-grandfather’s cavalry sabre to good use.”
As Michael helped him to his feet, another scream rang through the house, familiar this time. Jim went rigid.
“Abby,” he whispered.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Michael reached the basement stairs first. He took the steps three at a time. At the bottom, he tripped over an unexpected lump in the floor. He slammed his shoulder into the far wall as he fell. The lump groaned at him.
“Peter?” He recognized the groan from jujitsu practice.
“Hallee,” his friend mumbled at him. Michael couldn’t understand him.
“What?” he asked.
A boot swept out of the darkness, smacking Michael in the face. His head snapped back as he keeled over. His head spun, but he rolled himself onto his back. He raised his hands and knees into a ground guard position. The sabre clattered to a rest somewhere off to one side. The scabbard rattled off to the other.
He took quick stock of his situation. Michael had spent long minutes in a house plunged into near total darkness. Now bright light spilled out of the wide open door to the panic room, painfully blinding him. In a moment, his eyes would adjust. If he had a moment.
A figure ste
pped into the doorway. Michael couldn’t make out any features, but the silhouette looked familiar.
“Khalid!” Peter finally managed to get it out forcefully, before groaning again.
The dark shape closed, throwing kicks at him. Michael rolled to his right to dodge it, completing a full rotation before coming to rest propped up on his left elbow. He thrust a leg out in a solid heel kick at knee level. He still couldn’t see well, but he felt his foot connect. Unfortunately, he caught the knee at the wrong angle. Instead of crumpling to the ground, Khalid merely grunted.
Blessed with a better angle in the harsh lighting, the foreigner darted to the side and closed in. Michael tried to spin to compensate but his woozy head slowed him. Khalid rained blows down on him. Michael brought his forearms in to guard his head, but his ribs took a beating.
A sudden crack rang out in the air. Khalid grunted and dropped to a knee. Michael felt a piece of wood fall and hit him in the chest. Jim Covington stared down at them. His newly broken cane lay across Khalid’s shoulder. Michael scrambled backward quickly and snapped off another kick. This time he caught Khalid square in the chest. The oil heir went down.
Michael quickly regained his feet. He drew his Glock and trained it on Khalid while Covington helped Peter up. Khalid rolled over onto his back, greeting them with a massive grin and deep, full-throated laughter.
Peter took a step toward the panic room. He didn’t make it far. A pair of vampires burst out the door, screeching and clawing at him. He dove off to the side, snatching up the cavalry sabre in his right hand as he rolled. In his left, he collected the scabbard. Spinning rapidly, he brought them both up to the ready. Then his eyes went wide.
“Stairs!” he shouted. He lay into his attackers.
Michael looked over his shoulder. A wave of zombies shuffled down the steps. He couldn’t even make them all out, much less count them. He took a few quick steps backward, training his Glock on the stairs as he moved back to back with Peter.
Jim shuffled back to join them, but not quickly enough. A zombie closed in on him. Michael watched as the old man thrust the jagged, broken end of his cane through the creature’s eye. Its soft skull posed no barrier. The wood passed straight into the brain stem, bringing the undead assailant down. More followed it.
Michael fired off headshot after headshot as Covington fought to keep the horde at bay with his cane. Peter quickly dispatched the first vampire with the sabre. Then he switched targets to take down an encroaching zombie. The sword lodged in its skull, costing him precious seconds to extract. Finally, he returned to the second vampire and took it down.
Michael caught a glimpse of shadows heading toward the panic room. Khalid emerged, flanked by two of the creatures. One carried Abby slung across its shoulder. The mop of blue hair under the other creature’s arm had to be Faith. Khalid laughed maniacally at them and fled up the stairs.
“Abby!” Jim yelled.
“We’ve got to push through to the stairs!” Michael replied. Jim nodded. Peter grunted an affirmative. “Peter, take the lead!”
The young man moved to the front. He hacked at everything near them with his sword, and used the scabbard in his left hand as a kind of club. Michael realized that he’d never seen his friend truly let go. He’d known Peter was good. He hadn’t appreciated that the boy was this good.
He hung slightly behind Peter, letting the swordsman operate as a kind of bulldozer. The sword and stick routine cleared the way effectively, if slowly. Michael picked off anything that got too close to the group with his forty-five, but he used his ammo sparingly. He didn’t have much left. As they approached the top, the swarm thickened and pushed in around them.
The new noises sounded strange at first. But after they repeated he clearly recognized the sounds of suppressed submachine gun fire. Special Forces, he thought to himself, or hostage rescue.
Zombies fell around them. A minute later, a gap appeared in the mob. Glaring combat flashlights blazed around them, bobbing and weaving with the rifles they’d been clipped to. Michael caught a face he recognized. Major Daniels had brought the cavalry.
He heard Abby scream again, just as the mob thinned. He didn’t hesitate. He charged through the opening.
“Michael, wait!” Jim called out. Michael stopped. The old man fished some items out of a vanity against the wall. A heartbeat later, he passed over two full magazines and a heavy-duty flashlight. Michael nodded his thanks and resumed the chase. Peter followed closely behind.
They lost sight of Khalid, but Michael assumed that the Arab would make a run for his car. The valets had parked most of the cars in the rear parking garage along with Michael’s Subaru. But as Abby’s boyfriend, and a snobbish rich prick, Michael assumed that Khalid wouldn’t leave his car with the peasants.
“This way,” he called out.
The Covington estate included two attached garages with parking for up to seven cars. Due to the shape of the house, both garages opened into the same large, paved parking courtyard. Michael clicked on the heavy flashlight as they made their way down a pitch dark side stairwell. The banging and clanging noises around them lent support to his assumption. Then, they heard the heavy slam of a garage door being manually thrown open. They ran faster.
At the bottom of the stairs, Michael burst out the side exit. The gloomy darkness proved a sharp contrast with their arrival. The vast array of decorative lighting now sat dark, a victim of the power outage. Rain beat down around them.
A garage door across the courtyard stood wide open. He and Peter raced for it. A Land Rover burst out at them. They dove to either side, clearing the way. Sensei Rogers would have been proud, as both of his students executed their rolls perfectly, even with weapons in hand. They rose to their feet smoothly.
Michael spun to follow the getaway vehicle. He took aim at the vehicle, hoping to catch a tire, but the huge luxury SUV was simply too far away for a clean pistol shot. He swore a curse after it. For a moment, Peter looked like he was going to try chasing it on foot. Then he turned and started running toward the rear guest parking and Michael’s Subaru.
“Peter, wait.” Michael dug in his pockets. The strange keys still adorned his keychain, along with the little electronic transmitter. He praised the Lord for Jim Covington’s generosity. “This way.” He clicked the button and led Peter toward another garage bay.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The six cylinder, three-point-six-liter turbo charged boxer engine let out a deep growl as Michael pressed the gas pedal to the floor. An all-wheel drive system and four fat contact patches on eighteen-inch tires helped transfer most of that power straight to the ground. Even so, the tires squealed on the wet pavement before they stuck.
The country roads just outside the Covington estate weren’t built for high-speed traffic. The hills and trees impeded visibility and provided plenty of obstacles that the narrow, winding roads made it difficult to avoid. Fortunately, Michael had spent his teenage years driving these roads at far higher speeds than sanity would dictate.
The wind and rain jostled them around bumps and potholes, but the Porsche Carrera 4 Turbo stayed locked to the pavement. Michael kept his eyes firmly fixed on the road. Through unspoken agreement, Peter watched for the Land Rover. It had enough of a head start to race well out of sight, and it carried an engine almost as powerful as the Porsche’s. But it also weighed twice as much and couldn’t maneuver along the curves of the country roads like the German sports car.
Their first challenge approached as the road ended into another unnamed county highway. They’d have to pick a direction. Michael prayed as he eased on the breaks and downshifted.
“There,” Peter called out, pointing to his right. Michael didn’t even look. Instead he simply threw the car into a hard right turn and gunned the accelerator again. As they power slid through the stop sign at a speed higher than the posted limit, Michael caught the flash of red taillights.
Peter slammed his fist into the dashboard in frustration as the ta
illights dipped under a hilltop about a quarter mile in the distance. But Michael knew these roads. This stretch would be almost perfectly straight well past the horizon. He pushed his foot to the floor. The engine roared as the little car gave him everything it had. The road hadn’t been paved in some time. At their speed, they felt every bump.
The car rocketed over the hilltop at a hundred and ten miles per hour. Peter gripped the sides of his seat for all he was worth, as raw speed carried them airborne for nearly twenty yards. They landed hard, but square on the wheels. They skidded for a moment on the wet asphalt. Then the tires found their grip and they rocketed down the road.
On every turn, the squeal of tires pierced through, even overpowering the sounds of the torrential downpour. Lightning occasionally lit up the sky. Otherwise, visibility was terrible.
“How can you see anything in this?” The nervousness in Peter’s normally unflappable voice stood out like a sore thumb.
“Last time I did this, I couldn’t even see this well.”
Peter’s eyes popped out of his head.
“You’ve chased a Muslim terrorist down these roads, at three times the speed limit, in the middle of a rain storm at night before?”
“You think he’s an Islamic terrorist?” Michael answered, genuinely surprised.
Peter winced as they entered a windy section of road. Michael rode the center line, which allowed him to navigate the turns as an almost-straight line. Peter didn’t want to think about what would happen if they encountered an oncoming car in the other lane.
As they pulled out toward the end, Michael caught a glimpse of headlights rising over a ridge and whipped hard back into his own lane. Peter knocked his head on the window and let out a groan.
“Well, I don’t know if he’s Muslim,” Peter allowed.
“As far as I know, he’s your typical non-religious, rich son of an oilman.”
War Demons: An Urban Fantasy Thriller (The Prodigal Son Book 1) Page 12