Vampz Macabre

by N. R. Larry

  Almost right away, I homed in on a sheet of black hair. Bao.

  My heart hammered.

  I let go of the tree and shot toward the ground, landing lightly on my feet. She was about one-hundred feet in front of me. I held my breath to keep as quiet as possible and crept up the trail after her. Within seconds, I was close enough to grab her.

  Just as I was about to pull her into my arms, someone snatched me up from behind and carried me off into the woods.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The wind rushed by fast—much too fast. My stomach twisted into knots and my eyes watered. For a moment, I couldn’t think past the impossible speed at which I was moving. My eyes narrowed.

  At which he was moving.

  The smell of wood shavings, blood, and leather wafted up my nose. It was Ryland’s signature scent. As soon as I realized it was him, I bit into his hand and tasted blood.

  He hissed against my ear. “Damnit, Mal.”

  I jumped and tried to take off, but he dug his feet in, acting like an anchor. Clenching my jaw, I let out a low groan, leaned back, and then smashed my head back into his face.

  He hissed and muttered a stream of undignified words.

  When I spun around, he had his hands over his face. His eyes were narrowed at me. I matched the scowl on his face, and charged at him, grabbed him around the waist, and flew him into the nearest tree. The trunk split down the middle with a loud crack, then started to fall. Ryland huffed, lifted a hand and caught one half of the tree, tossing it over his shoulder. Then, he came at me.

  I shook my head. “You don’t want to do this right now.”

  “Mal.” His eyes widened and he stopped a few feet away from me. “After all this time, how can you not trust me?”

  I laughed. “Really? You’re bringing up trust after you went behind my back... Twice?”

  His jaw clenched and he sucked in a deep breath. “The only reason I didn’t tell you about it is because you aren’t exactly level headed when it comes to those kids.”

  I stared at him and tilted my head, considering his words. “Huh. Did you just call me irrational?”

  “No, I’m sorry.” He flashed a dangerous grin. “I forgot to add that you’re acting like a child.”

  I smashed my fist into his jaw, not bothering to pull the punch. The bone snapped, cracking like thunder, and he went flying into the air faster than I would have thought possible. I flipped my hair off my shoulder, and then gave him a finger he wouldn’t be able to see, before turning around to go after Bao.

  Something dark flashed across my vision, and then impossibly, Ryland was blocking my path. He clicked his tongue and rubbed his jaw. Somehow, it had already healed. “Can’t let you do that.”

  My mouth gaped. I glanced toward the sky, and then back him. “How the—”

  He shrugged. “Ever since I fed on you, my vamp game is... what’s the new term Felicia is trying to get me into? On fleek.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Ryland, you were born in the late 1700’s, why would you want to talk like some uncultured idiot?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Fine, on point, then. I have to keep up on the lingo.”

  I shook my head, annoyed that I was so easily distracted. “Doesn’t matter.” I stepped forward and slammed my foot down onto his. There was a loud crunch. He winced. “You’ve never been able to stop me.”

  His eyes flashed again. “That’s because I’ve never really tried,” he hissed. “So, why don’t you listen to me, and we won’t have to go there.”

  I reached for my knife when a twig snapped behind me.

  Ryland raised an eyebrow. “What are you guys doing here?” he growled at someone over my shoulder.

  I spun around. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  Amir crept forward, waving a white wife beater at the end of a stick. A truce offering. “Just, stay cool.”

  “Stay cool?” I hissed. “I told you guys to stay at the house and watch over D—”

  “Yeah, about that...” Darnell stepped forward and flexed. “Darnell is fine.” He smiled that bright smile that always made him look so innocent. “You should know better Mal, can’t no one keep a black man down.”

  “We came to back you up,” Amir said. “And, we’re not alone.”

  I lifted an eyebrow in his direction. He grinned and whistled. Seconds later, footsteps trailed toward us. Jaylen and Felicia appeared from behind a nearby tree. I glanced at Ryland, who shrugged. “I didn’t have shit to do with this.”

  “Nope.” Fiona squared her shoulders and smiled. “This was all us.”

  Felicia raised her arms in the air. “What’s up, nizzles?” She pounded her fist into her open palm. “We doing this or what?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. A growl in the distance interrupted our supernatural, Hallmark moment. Ryland held up a finger, then stepped closer to me

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Two of them.” Ryland sniffed the air. “Bao isn’t with them.”

  “Well, we gonna take them, or what?” Jaylen asked from behind Ryland.

  Ryland shook his head. “You have no idea what they’re capable of,” he hissed. “We need an advantage of some kind. Some kind of—”

  “Cover?” Sergio asked.

  I turned to him and lifted an eyebrow.

  He raised his hands in the air and winked. “Cover is kind of my specialty.” He nodded at me. “Everyone, hold on to something. It’s about to get real.”

  Before I could protest, the dark of Sergio’s eyes clouded over and he closed them. When they opened again, they burned like the eye of a storm. Then, he turned that powerful gaze toward the heavens as lightning split the sky in half with a bolt of electric blue.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thunder boomed, an unseen god punching the earth. The sky blackened like the bowels of an endless cave, so dark that even the light from the stars couldn’t blink through. Silence landed thick in my ears. Even the pounding of my own heart seemed nonexistent. A bolt of lightning sliced through the air, and then, a fog rolled in. It coated everything around us. When I glanced up, not even the tree lines or the sky was visible.

  The quiet in the woods seemed to stretch on for miles. Just as the stillness seemed like it might stretch on forever, Sergio chuckled, and the fog between each of our bodies thinned enough for us to see one another.

  Felicia gasped, and then whispered, “What the fuck is this shit?”

  “Lil, sis,” Sergio said as bluish-silver light danced across his irises. “How about one of those shields?”

  Fiona stepped forward and grinned. “You got it, bro.” She clapped her hands together. Golden light shot out between her fingers. The red of her hair darkened until it was so deep red it was almost black. As she pulled her hands apart, the golden light inside her palms expanded until it enveloped all of us.

  Felicia darted her gaze this way and that. “For real. What the fuck?”

  Feeling light headed, I cleared my throat. “Sergio is one of the Acalica,” I told her. “He’s a weather fairy.”

  She snorted. “Awe, girl. He ain’t no fairy.” She winked. “At the most, he’s what? Metrosexual?”

  Sergio lowered his lightning filled gaze to her and rolled his eyes. “I can control the weather.” He looked at me. “Which comes in handy when you need cover.”

  Some part of me still wanted to protect them. I wanted to make Sergio pull back the dark cover of night and the fog and go home. But, there were two vampires out there that just lost the advantage of knowing the grounds better, and I couldn’t deny that one of my kids had given me the chance to take them out.

  I also couldn’t help the fact that I was proud of him.

  I took in a deep breath, and with a slightly clearer head, a plan came to me. I looked at Amir. “Can you draw them toward us?”

  Amir stared into the fog. His rainbow gaze began to flicker, turning violet, and then blue, and then finally, yellow. Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah, it won’t be a strong
siren call, but I can get them close.”

  “A siren call?” Felica asked. “What the hell is a siren call?”

  Ryland sighed and his jaw clenched. “The kid is a unicorn. His horns can be played to lure people to him. And now, I’d like you to ask fewer questions.”

  Felicia scoffed. “Whatever.”

  Ignoring them, I nodded at Amir. “Fi,” I said as I stepped out of the protection of her golden light. “Keep everyone wrapped up? Okay?”

  She nodded her head and the dome of light sparked before burning even brighter. My heart punched against my ribcage like a beast that wanted out of its cage. There was a time when Fiona had been afraid to cast the most basic of spells for fear that her family would find her. Now her she was, casting pretty impressive magic for fear that if she didn’t, her family might get hurt. The kid had stones.

  Beside me, something snapped. I turned to Amir. He was sculpting his horn with the edges of his fingernails. When he finished, he glanced up and nodded. I turned my knife around in my hand.

  I had to keep my focus. Get through them, get to Bao, and get everyone home safely. Amir lifted the horn to his lips. When he played, his eyes began to swirl. My knees buckled, but I managed to stay on my feet. I crouched beside him as he sent his tune out through the night, and sharpened my senses. Amir widened his eyes at me, then made a show of stepping forward. I nodded, kept my gaze ahead of me, and followed suit. We crept along the trail that led up to the cabin until Fiona’s golden light was no longer lighting the path ahead of me.

  Silence so intense that Amir’s breathing sounded like a roar, closed in on me. I knew they wouldn’t be able to hide in that kind of quiet. It was like a microphone had been pressed up against every leave that rustled, every twig that snapped.

  In the distance, leaves whispered against each other. I peered up and squinted at a thicket of bushes. I turned to Amir, then nodded at the bushes. He closed his eyes and continued to play.

  I inched forward with light steps. The leaves on the bush shivered as if swept by the wind. There was a series of hisses, and then finally, a low whimper. In another situation, I might have laughed about a monster huddled in a bush, whimpering. But I was too tense. Every muscle in my body was tight, ready to spring into action.

  When I was close enough, I reached out and swept the branches to one side. A bright blue gaze snapped up toward me. Its eyes were wide with some internal agony. I whipped my knife around and dug the blade into the vampire’s flesh, just below the collar bone. She thrashed around, reaching for me with both hands, and hissing, while thick, black drool rolled down her chin. With a grunt, I lifted my free arm to block her and slid my knife up through her flesh, splitting her up the side like an undead watermelon.

  She let out a scream. I pressed a hand over the thick, black opening that was her mouth and continued to drag my blade through her skin. As I did, the metal vibrated, my mother seemed more than eager to add another undead soul to her collection.

  I narrowed my eyes. “My Mom,” I muttered, slicing the blade through to the middle of her neck. “Wants to meet you.” With one more jerk, the vamp’s head was clean off her body. I held her up by her stringy hair and then darted back to Amir, who was knelt in front of another vampire, a manic look in his eye as he played furiously on his horn.

  An electric current ran across the surface of my skin. It felt like a warning. Like there was something in the air that wasn’t quite right, and I knew somewhere in the back of my skull that Amir was causing it. The vampire was on his knees in front of the kid, his hands clapped over his ears, pronounced features stretched in pain.

  Shaking off dread, I turned my attention to the vampire. I lowered myself to the ground and peered at him. His eyelids fluttered, and he fixed that pained, bright sky-blue gaze onto mine. I clicked my tongue and wiped the blade of my knife off on his ill-fitted, faded tan khakis, leaving a thick soot up the lining of his pants.

  “Interesting,” I said, wrapping my hand around his neck. “You don’t look jiangshi.”

  His fangs shot out over his cracked lips as he hissed.

  I tightened my grip. His eyes began to bug out of his sockets. I smiled. “Can you speak?” I asked, slapping my blade across his check, leaving a smear of blood across his sharp cheekbone.

  Amir scoffed. “What kind of question is that?”

  I kept my focus on the vampire. “For some reason, all of them except the woman—Mo,” I said even though I knew he wouldn’t know who I was talking about. “Ever spoke.” I smacked the blade across his face again. “If you can talk, I’d let me know right now. Might give you an extra few seconds.”

  He hissed again. “I can now,” he slurred in an almost sloppy, robotic tone.

  I narrowed my eyes. “What does that mean?”

  He smiled, flashing the black sludge and chunks of pink flesh between his teeth. “It means, now, I speak.”

  “Why now?” Amir asked before playing another soundless tune on his unicorn horn.

  The vampire smashed his hands over his ears. “Because!” he snarled, swiping his hand in the air in front of Amir, who danced just out of his reach. “Because she speaks through us.” He dragged his nails along his face and turned an angry gaze onto me. “She has allowed us to speak.”

  I frowned. “Where is Bao?”

  A manic smile curled his lips.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Where is she?”

  He spat black tar onto my shoes. Feeling at the edge of my rope, I patted him on the shoulder like we were old friends. “What’s your name?”

  No reply.

  I pressed my fingers into his cheek, caving in that side of his face. “Listen, I’ve had a really shitty couple of days.” There was the wet snap of bones breaking. “Name, please.”

  He cried out in pain. “Mark!” Another hiss. “Just call me, Mark.”

  “Mark,” I repeated, placing my blade on the ground in between us. I wanted him to see it. Maybe, that would let him know I wasn’t playing around. The blade rattled on the ground like a starving fish. Mark’s eyes darted toward it. His tongue nervously flickered over his bottom lip.

  “Either way, I’m about to relieve you of your second life.” I tilted my head to the side. “Now, you can go easy, or you can go hard.” I shrugged. “Depends on how cooperative you are. Now. Where is she?”

  A low growl trickled out of his throat.

  I grabbed his hair and jerked his head backward. “Where is she?”

  The vampire scoffed. “In here, with us.”

  Slowly, I pressed down into his face. “Looks like it’s going to be the hard way, huh?”

  He snarled. “Clueless, Malcolm,” he said, robotic like. “Crush things. The answer to everything.”

  “Where,” I grunted, pressing down until his bone snapped again. “Is she?”

  The vampire jerked away from me and then lunged. I snatched up my knife and buried it deep into his chest. “Close your eyes,” I muttered to Amir, my gaze still locked on Mark the vampire. “I’ll ask you one more time,” I said through a tight smile. “Where is Bao?”

  “It’s me, Mom,” he growled, turning his head at an unnatural angle. “This is just my puppet.” He jerked toward me and I punched my way through his chest, dug my fingers into his heart, and ripped it out past his rib cage. He flopped to the ground. I squeezed his heart and let the muscle ooze between my fingers.

  Tossing him onto his back, I pulled my knife out of his sunken chest, and then stood

  Amir whistled. “Rahimakallah,” he muttered, his gaze on the vampire.

  I wiped entrails off onto my jeans. “I told you to close your eyes.” Movement blurred through the side of my vision. I reached for Amir, tucked him under one arm, and sliced my knife through the air with my free hand.

  Their movement slowed down enough for me to make out Ryland. He jumped onto the back of a gray-haired vampire, hissed, and then ripped his head off his neck. With a throaty growl, he tossed the head off to the side, slid to the
ground, then straightened his silver tie.

  A thrill raced through my blood, which I quickly shrugged off. I let go of Amir but kept him closely tucked at my side. Hisses and growls echoed from every corner of Discovery Park.

  “Shit,” I muttered as Ryland zipped over to stand at my other side.

  “What do you think he meant?” Amir asked. “That he was just Bao’s puppet?”

  Without looking at him, I gritted my teeth. “I think he meant exactly what he said.” I turned to Ryland. “Whatever is happening to Bao. I think she’s controlling these vampires,” I told him in a low voice. “I think she’s using them to try and kill us.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Before anyone could respond to what I’d said, there was a whistle in the distance.

  “What the hell?” Ryland muttered as he turned around. I followed his gaze. Another vampire came sauntering into the clearing. My knife responded to her presence, shaking in my hand like something about to explode. Because the handle was slippery with vampire blood, I could barely keep my hold on it. “Take the kid, get back to the others,” Ryland said, stepping forward.

  I stared at him and was about to respond when the vampire zipped forward, stopped a few inches away from us, and tossed a curtain of raven hair over her shoulder. She let out a raspy laugh. “No, Ryland. You, go back to the kids.” Her gaze homed in on me. “You stay here. We need to talk.”

  Ryland snarled. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

  I nudged him in his side. “Just go.” I glanced at Amir, and then back at Ryland. “I got this.”

  His lips parted and I lifted a hand to halt whatever he was about to say. “Listen, Ryland. I know you’re about as old as old school gets.” I managed a smile even though there was the chill of fear icing my bones. “But, I’m never going to be a damsel in distress.”