* * * *
“Max, we have friends here from Detroit,” said Nish. “I saw Nigel admiring my handy work. If he is here, so is Francis.”
“That wasn’t unexpected. Tammy’s little stunt with the car must have sent up flags in the system.”
“Who are these guys?” Blaise asked with a hint of concern in his voice. “What kind of crap have you brought with you?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Max said. “We set the hook now let’s see if they take the bait.”
“That’s all good for you to say,” Blaise fired back, clearly worried about the new players in the game, “you don’t have a stake in this; I do.”
“Blaise, I do have a stake here. How am I going to collect on this favor if you’re dead or ‘detained’? I’ll lead them on a chase away from here.” Max clapped Blaise on the shoulder and left as if the matter was closed.
As it turned out, the Dreadnaughts consolidated their operations to better defend themselves but this gave us our opening. Max had Nish snipe a few street dealers to squeeze them more. It took two days but we finally got them where Max wanted them, into an area that was mostly abandoned. Just after midnight, I had long since cast my two spells when Max gave the order to start the slaughter, and that’s what it was, a slaughter. There were maybe 150 of them left in an old mid-rise apartment complex. As the order was given Tammy stood up with a bright blue light shimmering around her. It was so bright I had to cancel my night vision spell. The Dreadnaughts opened fire on her from the building we were attacking. I was in such awe of her that I forgot to open fire myself.
I knew Tammy was casting a spell, but with all the noise from the firefight I couldn’t hear her. When she raised her hands above her head, the ground began to shake. At first it was barely noticeable, but as the shaking increased a roar could be heard. Small arms fire bounced off the shimmering blue shield. Suddenly she clapped her hands together; the clap could be heard over the cacophony of noise. The building collapsed in a cloud of smoke and debris. Max started yelling orders to evacuate the area before the dust cloud rolled over us. In the chaos of the aftermath, weapons fire from two previously empty building rained down on us. We were caught in crossfire and pinned down. I could see the golden light of Mathew using his magic. My mind went numb as an explosion went off near me. My ears were ringing so loud that all other sounds were muffled by it. The force of the explosion had knocked me down. As I laid there, I felt something warm and wet on the back of my head.
I felt someone grab the collar of my shirt, then I was being dragged somewhere. My mind was too numb to realize what was going on. The dragging stopped and an unfocused face appeared. After rubbing my eyes, the face came into focus. It was Clinton. Another explosion rocked the area and he covered me with his body. When he pulled back from me, he was yelling something but I couldn’t hear it through the ringing. If I could think past the fog in my mind I would have been scared. Then suddenly Clinton’s head snapped to the left and part of his face was missing. Blood poured from him as his body fell onto me. I could see a figure in the cloud and it let a howl that pierced the ringing and caused goose bumps to raise the back of my neck. That howl cleared the fog in my head as adrenaline pumped through me. I grabbed the rifle Clinton dropped and emptied it in the figure; screw the mantra. I was able to crawl out from under Clinton and made my way towards the figure. It was writhing on the ground alive, but in pain. I couldn’t understand how it could still be alive after I put all those holes in it. Sammy’s voice came screaming in my head: when in doubt, remove the head. I slit its throat; it grabbed at its neck and then stopped moving. I quickly removed its head and checked on Clinton. He was dead; there was no way for a human to survive that amount of damage. I grabbed Clinton’s unused ammo, three twenty-round round clips for the rifle. My hearing was still crap but my mind was working again, thankfully.
The smoke was clearing. Where I stood was going to be a killing field shortly. I moved quickly to a large chunk of debris. The Dreadnaughts were spraying the area with bullets. Luckily, the smoke was making it impossible for them to see me. I started moving towards what I thought was gunfire. I cast my night vision spell to help me see. Even though the smoke blocked most of the light, I was able to see where the fight was happening. I almost tripped over Todd; he had found a low spot on the ground. I could feel the smile creep across my face. His smile at seeing me matched my own.
“Todd, Christ, I wasn’t sure I was going to see you again,” I yelled at him. I’m sure it was more like a scream.
Todd was talking to me but I still couldn’t hear anything so I yelled at him, “I can’t hear anything Todd.” With a pause I added, “Something out there killed Clinton.” The words burned as I spoke them. Todd tapped my shoulder and motioned in the direction I was going.
“I was going to a building to clear it out,” I said as quietly as I could. Todd shook his head at me and motioned for me to lead the way. I started back towards the building with him close on my tail. The dust had thinned but when the building collapsed it took out the power so the only light was from muzzle flashes and a few stars that refused to be blocked by the dust and pollution in the air. I was no Erica when it comes to blades, but I was able to get around a guy outside the building and place my blade between his ribs and into his lung so he wasn’t able to call for help. Todd had four grenades; I didn’t have any. The door we entered led from one side of the building to the other. There were four apartments on each side with a stairway in the middle of the hallway. Two of the apartments facing the courtyard were had open doors. We could have stomped all the way to the first doorway and no one would have heard a thing over all the noise.
There were two guys that I could see. I signaled Todd what I saw. I chose the guy on the left, leaving him the guy straight down the hall. Before Todd could get around the corner, my target turned and noticed me while he was reloading. My heart was racing and my hands were shaking so it took four shots to drop him. Todd fired two rounds into his guy before he fell. Two more guys came out of a hallway leading off from the living room. We dropped both with two shots each and then we swept the rest of the apartment. We went to the main hallway and approached the next open door. As I looked around the corner, someone shot at me. Luckily for me, the person must have been tweaking and the shot went wide. I cursed myself for not making sure my shield spell was still up. Outside, when the explosion had happened and my mind had gone fuzzy, I’d lost concentration and my shield dropped. Mine wasn’t form fitting and shimmering blue like Tammy’s, mine was green and looked like the armor from HALO. Once my shield was up again I found out what it felt like to be shot with the shield up really quick. I rushed down the hall to the living room. Todd followed in my wake as I picked off the tweaker and his friend. Todd took out three more in the hall leading to the bedrooms. Nine dead on the first floor, we didn't know how many were left upstairs.
The smoke had cleared enough to see a large domed shield in the courtyard. It looked like Tammy but I couldn’t be sure. Todd grabbed a flashlight and started signaling the group. Someone replied back. I couldn’t see the message because I was covering the front door. My hearing was still crap so Todd mouthed the words, “We have to get out of here.” I gave an acknowledging nod and we headed towards the main hall. Todd signaled he’d heard some noises so I looked around the corner to see a group of people going down the stairs to the basement. I thought it was odd that they weren’t going out one of the side exits, but I watched until they passed out of sight. I signaled to Todd what I’d seen, but the ground started to shake and Todd pointed towards the way we came.
Once outside, I could hear the blaring of sirens over the ringing in my ears. We kept running while another cloud of dust rolled past and the ground stopped shaking. Todd grabbed my arm and pulled me to the left just in time to avoid a spotlight from a helicopter. The helicopt
er slowed to a hover and was parting the cloud like Moses parted the Red sea. The wailing of the sirens was nearly on us as we ran for cover in a nearby field. We were headed towards an old building. From the look of it, it had been a convenience store at one time. I hazarded a look over my shoulder and saw a figure in the helicopter’s spotlight open fire on the helicopter. They returned fire and the figure on the ground jerked several times as bullets ripped through his body before he hit the ground, dead. My attention was now clearly on escape. With all the big spells cast by Tammy and Allyson, the vampires were sure to be there shortly if they weren’t there already. Thankfully, Todd’s pace was easy to keep up with. When we got about three blocks away we felt safe enough to rest for a minute. The ringing in my ears was getting better but it still drowned out all but the highest pitched noises. Todd’s voice was hopelessly lost to the ringing.
It took us nearly two hours to travel the five miles to get to the rendezvous, including hiding several times to avoid police patrols and people on the street as I was covered in Clinton’s blood. We came out of an alley across from the rendezvous when movement caught my attention, a person leaving the building. They quickly broke into a run and I could clearly see it was Allyson. My spirits soared, knowing that she made it out of there. I had always liked Allyson, but it wasn’t until that moment that I knew that I loved her. I could hear enough to know she was yelling something but I couldn’t understand it. She nearly knocked me over as she collided with me, wrapping her arms around me. I put my hands around her and enjoyed the feeling of her in my arms. She broke the hug too quickly for my liking and placed her hands on the sides of my face, pulling me in for a kiss.
When I opened my eyes I could see her mouth moving but I couldn’t understand anything she was saying. I took my hands from her waist and cupped my ears. She stopped talking to me and discovered that Todd was standing there near us. She started talking with Todd and he gestured towards the building. She grabbed my hand as we walked towards the building. I felt better being inside the safety of the building. At a quick count, there were only about fifteen people inside. I didn’t see a person without smeared blood on them somewhere. I watched Allyson walk over to Mathew and bring him over to me. He placed his golden glowing hands over my ears and the ringing was replaced by mumbled conversations around the room.
“Can you hear me now?” Mathew asked.
“Dear god, Mathew, thanks for fixing my ears.” I pulled him into a hug and gave him a firm pat on the back before letting him go as per guy-code dictates.
“It was no problem. There is a lot of blood on you. Do you have any other injuries?”
I shook my head and said, “Most of it is some creatures, and the rest is Clinton’s.” I could feel several pairs of eyes on me as I said that.
“Where is Clinton?” Max said, appearing as if by magic.
“He was killed in the courtyard. That first explosion knocked me senseless. Next thing I know he is dragging me somewhere when some large creature killed him. I emptied a clip into it and it didn’t die. I remembered Sammy telling me if you’re not sure of what to do cut off the head, so I did. When I got back to Clinton he was dead.”
Max placed his hand on my shoulder. “Clinton was a good man. He will be missed.”
* * * *
Celine watched on the news as the copters circled the battle from a safe distance. The events unfolding on the screen looked like something you would expect to see in a third world country, assault helicopters killing people on the streets, but this was Pittsburgh. She wasn’t interested in the fighting. She was instead looking for some proof that HE was there. Then for just a second the camera panned over a golden glow in a cloud of dust. She knew she had to act fast; he would be gone soon; that she knew all too well. She was over two hundred miles away; she had to make it there before he disappeared into the wind again.
“Your powers are growing strong, my love, but I will find you before it is too late.”
###
About the author: After taking a 22 year oath of poverty I finally retired from the military. During that time I had exciting adventures around the country with two brief tours overseas. I’m a business analyst that dabbles in computer programming. My greatest accomplishment to date is raising my two sons to adulthood without screwing them up. They are both in college and plan on getting PhDs in their respective fields. I guess I should to give my wife some credit.
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[email protected] ISBN 9781476096063
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