Succubus

by Brandon Varnell

  Christian didn’t wait to see if they would hit. The moment Catherine ordered her squads to fire, he dashed out from behind the trees and rushed toward Lilith. In his peripheral vision, he could see the two dozen missiles trying to track their target, who was proving to be extremely elusive, weaving between the missiles and making it look easy.

  He knew this wouldn’t be as simple as everyone else thought it would be. Damien had probably sensed the life signatures of multiple humans surrounding Lilith. It wouldn’t have surprised him if the monster was prepared for an ambush even before everyone had gathered together for this assault.

  He was at Lilith’s side in seconds. The girl looked mesmerized by the aerial maneuvering of the No Life King. The missiles tried tracking Damien, but were unable to get a lock. The ancient vampiric monster confused their tracking systems with a series of twists and turns, causing them to crash into each other or slam into the ground, igniting in brilliant plumes of fire.

  “Lilith,” he shouted over the din of explosions, grabbing her arm and trying to get her attention. She turned to look at him, her eyes wide.

  “Christian…”

  “We need to go. Run toward the trees! I’ll cover you!”

  His commanding words prompted Lilith to snap out of her trance. With a quick nod, she ran off the way he had come, sprinting toward the copse.

  “NO!” A shout came from above.

  Eyes narrowing and a snarl ripping its way from his throat, Christian spun around, Phanuel and Gabriel flying out of their holsters. His fingers pulled the triggers, creating a stream of fire that was almost inhuman. Within the first second, he unloaded all the ammo in both magazines, forcing him to hit the release that caused the cartridges to slide out.

  His plan for this action had been to force Damien to dodge, moving away from him and Lilith to avoid the hail of bullets. That was not what happened. Unfortunately, he was unaware of Damien’s resolve and the lengths that the No Life King would go to in order to recapture Lilith. Rather than avoid the barrage of liquid nitrogen bullets, the powerful vampire took the storm head on, arms crossed in front of his face to keep the most important organ protected.

  Holes appeared in Damien’s arms and shoulders. Blood flew out of the numerous bullet wounds as the gunfire did its damage. Then each hole froze over as the nitrogen within the bullets activated. Damien wavered in his flight but didn’t slow down. The barrage soon ended and he uncrossed his arms, dive-bombing toward Christian.

  “YOU WON’T TAKE HER FROM ME!”

  Gritting his teeth, Christian was forced to make a choice. Move out of the way and let Damien get a clear shot at Lilith, or stand his ground and prepare to take this monster head on.

  What a simple choice.

  Holstering his guns and unsheathing his blades, he prepared for a head-to-head confrontation the likes of which he hadn’t seen since facing off against Abaddon. Within seconds, Damien was upon him, claws out and set to rend the flesh from his bones. He responded to this by thrusting Michael at his foe, forcing the over-powered vampire to dodge and avoid being impaled through the head. In the next instant, Raphael was there, slicing toward Damien’s shoulder.

  The stroke missed. At the very last instant, Damien dodged it by twisting into a corkscrew, coming out after flying past him. Upon realizing that he had missed, he sheathed his swords and brought out Gabriel and Phanuel, loading them in less than a second, then unleashing a hailstorm of gunfire.

  Most of the bullets went wide of his target when Damien swerved to the right, pulling up into the air, but a few still hit the vampire’s back. The No Life King’s pained grunts were drowned out by the clapping thunder of gunfire. In spite of the injury, Damien wasn’t slowed down in the slightest.

  After leveling off, the vampire dove right back down toward him. Like some kind of Kamikaze pilot from World War II, Damien descended on him at speeds that created a sonic boom. The air was displaced and large drafts of wind kicked up, causing dust and dirt to erupt from the ground in a massive spray. Several grains struck his left eye, causing him to close it out of reflex.

  That was a mistake. With his left eye covered, his aim was off. His next barrage went wide, and not because Damien had dodged. The vampire flew straight and true, aiming to take him out of the fight by impaling him upon sharp claws.

  Christian did his best to avoid the attack, twisting out of Damien’s way, but he wasn’t fast enough. As Damien passed him, four lines of blood were drawn across his left arm. His body spun like a top from the momentum caused by Damien’s immense physical strength. He tumbled to the ground, rolling across the grassy field, and then slammed his uninjured arm against the earth, using the resulting buildup of kinetic energy to land back on his feet.

  His right hand went to his injury. The four bloody gashes were deep. Damien’s claws had torn straight through his muscles, all the way to his bone. It hurt. He felt pain. But he ignored it. Shunted it to the side. If he let this pain overcome him, then it was all over.

  “Christian!”

  Eyes going wide, Christian’s head snapped toward Lilith, who stood several meters behind him.

  “What are you still doing here?!” he shouted. “You were supposed to run!”

  “Christian, behind you!” she screamed.

  Reacting to her words on instinct, Christian turned around to see Damien not even two feet from him and closing. It was like watching a movie in slow motion. The vampire’s sick grin grew larger as he closed the distance between them. His hand was already being thrust forward to impale him through the chest―

  “NO!”

  ―Only for Damien to inexplicably miss.

  Christian blinked several times as Damien flew past him, just barely grazing his left cheek and drawing a thin line of blood. Out of instinct, Michael came out in a vertical swing that sheared off the creature’s left wing in a spray of gore, which splattered along the ground like a bucket of crimson paint thrown across a canvas by mad painter.

  An agonized roar ripped from Damien’s throat. Without both wings, the No Life King couldn’t remain aloft, and crashed face first into the ground. He then tumbled along the dirt like a rag doll tossed aside by an angry god.

  “Lilith,” Christian snapped to get her attention. “I need you to get out of here!”

  “But I―”

  “Catherine!” he shouted to the female officer, who had run up to them sometime during the fight. “Take Lilith and run! Get her to safety while I deal with Damien!”

  “Right!” Catherine nodded once before grabbing Lilith by the arm. “Come on, let’s hurry up and get away from here.”

  “What?” Lilith looked at her in surprise before trying to struggle out of Catherine’s grip. ““I can’t leave! I have to stay here with Christian!”

  “Right now, all you’re going to do is get in the way,” Catherine snapped at Lilith, making her flinch. “Come on! Christian needs to concentrate on this battle, which he can’t do if he’s constantly worrying about you!”

  Lilith bit her lip, looking between him and Catherine. A little way off, Damien struggled to get to his feet. Christian’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Lilith, a silent plea that caused her to relent. She nodded at him, and then allowed Catherine to pull her toward the copse, where she would be protected by Omega squad.

  “Do you really think I’m going to let you take her from me?!”

  Damien surged to his feet and attempted to chase after them, but was intercepted by Christian, who came in with swords swinging. Damien leapt backward to avoid having his throat slit by Michael as the blade soared in from his left.

  Rather than give his opponent time to recover, Christian continued with his swing, moving in a complete rotation. Raphael soon appeared near the ground, the blade moving in a vertical swing that was set to bisect Damien from left hip to right shoulder. That attack was blocked by the vampire’s left hand intercepting the blade, sparks flying as Orichalcum met razor sharp nails.

  I see, so Damien is
so strong that he can even block a sword made of Orichalcum.

  Narrowing his eyes, Christian went into a flurry of sword swings. Michael and Raphael became mere flashes of light as moonlight reflected off their polished surfaces. A downward stroke from Michael cut the air with an almost shrill whistle. The lightning quick slash was dodged when Damien sidestepped to the left, feet gliding across the ground like they were hovering.

  The powerful vampire would have returned his attack with a counter, but then Raphael was suddenly there, blurring toward the vampire with unerring accuracy. Damien took a single step back, black hair following a second later. The attack, while not quick enough to injure Christian’s adversary, did manage to slice off several strands of hair, which fluttered away in the breeze.

  As soon as Raphael’s sharp edge was no longer in front of him, Damien charged forward. Raising his right hand, he blocked Michael, which attempted to slice off his head, then stepped into Christian’s guard. He moved so suddenly that Christian barely had time to react.

  A clawed hand moving at ungodly speed tore into Christian’s shirt and slashed through his chest. The wounds were not deep, but they most certainly stung as the cold night air hit them. Hissing in pain, he ignored the superficial wounds and spun to the left. A claw slash meant to gouge his eyes out was avoided when he leaned back. His return swing came in the form of Michael rising up from the right side of his body, moving diagonally across the air.

  When Damien took several steps back, Christian put Raphael in its sheath and whipped out Gabriel, unloading a barrage of bullets. Damien hissed in anger. His hands blurred, moving so fast that Christian couldn’t see them. When Gabriel clicked empty, Damien held up a hand to reveal the bullets between clawed fingers.

  He caught them with his bare hands?!

  “I hath truly grown tired of your continued interference!” Damien snarled. The bullets in his hands were sliced in half, the liquid nitrogen dripping off the nails and onto the ground, where they froze the grass. “I’m going to kill you for taking my Eve from me!”

  It was Christian’s personal motto to never share banter with an enemy, believing that doing so was degrading. There was no need to speak with someone who was already dead. However, in this instance, Damien’s words angered him to the point where he completely forgot himself and retorted without thinking.

  “Don’t talk about her like she’s some kind of object! She isn’t yours!”

  “She’s mine and only mine!” Damien roared as he charged at Christian. “If not me then who else could she belong to?! Only someone like myself could ever deserve someone like her!”

  “You’re delusional!”

  “You understand nothing! Just a foolish human! Fodder whose only purpose is to be food for those like myself! Eve is the only one who can resist the call of my blood! She is the only one worthy of being my Queen! And I will be damned if I let a brat like you steal her from me!”

  Their battle began again with renewed fury. Damien assaulted him from all sides, attacking with lightning-fast strikes that could easily tear his body apart if they hit.

  Falling back on his suicidal fake-opening style, Christian left a number of holes in his guard, which the vampire was more than happy to exploit. Or try to exploit. No matter how many times the No Life King attempted to land a decisive blow on him, none of the attacks struck. With apparent ease, Christian avoided or parried each hand-thrust and claw-swipe so that he received only minimal, if any, damage. To Damien, it must have appeared as if Christian was predicting where each attack would come from long before it actually happened.

  Christian dodged a hand-thrust set to spear his throat by spinning left. That same hand was also almost lopped off as Michael, already in motion before Damien had attacked, came screaming in, forcing the long-haired vampire to retract the hand quickly.

  Another slash from claw-like nails screamed at him, this time aimed at an opening in his torso. The move was so swift and powerful that it rent the air itself, producing a loud whistling screech. It, too, was avoided when he took a single step back and to the right, allowing it to pass by underneath his armpit. His return swing nearly sliced through Damien’s throat.

  Over and over again Damien attacked. Over and over again Christian moved as if he had the power of precognition. No matter what was thrown his way, he always dodged it. It didn’t even matter that each strike came in at speeds that no human should be able to see let alone match. None of them struck true.

  “Enough of this!!”

  Sick and tired of being incapable of destroying someone who was far beneath his station, Damien raised his left foot into the air, and slammed it into the ground with incredible force. The earth around them cratered. Large cracks spread from where his foot struck, and Christian lost his balance.

  The fake-opening style that Christian had created was capable of not only predicting his opponent’s next move, but controlling the very flow of battle. Its amazing abilities came at a price, however—anyone who attempted it put their own life on the line… which was why no one but Christian used it.

  However, while the style had very few weaknesses when looked at from the standpoint of a martial artist or a weapons user, it did have two major weaknesses: indirect attacks and area attacks. When Damien smashed his foot against the ground and caused it to heave with the force of a miniature earthquake, Christian was knocked off-balance and became vulnerable.

  Damien had no issues against destroying an enemy while they were vulnerable.

  Eight sharp, blade-like nails penetrated Christian’s flesh, four in each shoulder. Christian sucked in a sharp breath as pain overloaded his senses, causing his vision to blur. When his eyesight came back into focus, it was to see Damien glaring at him with a look of complete loathing. A moment after that he realized that Damien was holding him several feet off the ground by the claws embedded in his shoulders.

  “I am going to kill you slowly,” Damien hissed. “Slowly and painfully. I am going to make you suffer.”

  Christian would have said something snarky, but his mind couldn’t focus past the pain. It wasn’t as intense or overwhelming as some of the other wounds that he had received throughout his years of service, but it was enough. The jolts of agony lancing from his shoulders to the rest of his body distracted him, leaving him unable to think up any snappy remarks, or think about much of anything, period.

  That pain turned into unbearable agony as Damien clenched his hands, causing the nails to curve their way into Christian’s muscles.

  “How does that feel?! Do you feel this pain?! This is the pain that I felt when you took my Queen away from me! I’m going to make sure that the pain I felt is returned to you a thousand-fold!!”

  With a quick yank, Damien pulled his claw out of Christian’s shoulder, making him grunt. That grunt soon turned into loud sucking sounds, as all the air was driven from his lungs after receiving a brutal hit to the ribs that cracked out like a gunshot. That single punch had done more damage to him than any other attack he’d received in the entire fight thus far. He could practically feel his ribs snapping under the localized assault.

  The strike also sent him flying backward. He flew through the air, his body moving in a straight line parallel to the ground. It was only after flying backward for several meters that he began losing altitude, his body eventually striking the ground. His vision blurred as he tumbled along the earth, his bones jarring each time they impacted against hard ground.

  Seventeen meters later, he finally came to a stop, lying on his back, gasping for breath. The act of taking in oxygen was almost impossible, however. He couldn’t breathe for some reason. Each time he tried, his broken ribs scraped against his internal organs, forcing him to grit his teeth, lest he end up screaming in agony.

  He ended up doing that anyway when Damien came up to him and stomped on his already broken chest. The power behind the attack was such that the ground underneath him turned into a large crater. Cracks spread out in an intricate pattern lik
e a spider web. The loud thunderclap caused by his body being crushed into the earth drowned out his agonized screams.

  And then Damien began digging a heel into his chest. There was no stopping the scream that tore its way out of his throat this time. He could feel the broken shards of his ribcage grinding against his internal organs. The No Life King seemed to know exactly how to maximize the pain he felt without making it fatal.

  “You will never go near my Queen again,” Damien snarled, continuing to grind his heel against Christian’s chest.

  Christian tried to grab Damien’s foot and push it off, but as a vampire, as a No Life King, the monster before him had strength that he couldn’t match on the best of days. And he wasn’t at his peak. The pain lancing through his chest overrode everything. He couldn’t act. He couldn’t think. He could do nothing except wail as Damien’s heel ground his bones, muscles, and organs into powder.

  Again Damien lifted his foot and stomped it on him with force. Again Christian cried out. He screamed and screamed and screamed, until his throat grew sore and hoarse. Even after he lost his voice, his mouth continued to remain open in a silent scream, as his entire world became immersed in blinding pain.

  Damien lifted a foot from Christian’s chest once more. Christian tried keeping the No Life King in focus, but his eyesight had become blurry. The figure above him faded in and out. Darkness crept on the edge of his vision.

  “Let this pain serve as a lesson to you in the afterlife,” Damien said as he raised his foot again. Christian knew in that instant that he was going to die.

  Chapter 28

  “Let this pain serve as a lesson to you in the afterlife,” Damien said, raising his foot once again. This time, he planned on crushing Christian’s skull in a single blow. It was more merciful than he would have liked, but there were more important things to do than mess around with this trash.