Dracula: Hearts of Fire (Dracula Heart's) (52 page)

    The frame
of bones threw more fire at Bao
and again he scre
a
med with the pain
as he was consumed. Half of the sheriff’s legs were showing bones before he commenced t
o heal. Wei kicked it and drove
it back several feet, only to set his own fo
ot on fire;
he danced around to put it out
, realizing
what agon
y Bao had endured
.

     “What the hell are we going
to do with this
thing?
”
Bao again attacked it but to no avail.

    The crow flew from j
ust
above the church’s entrance and
as it got over the street
the skeleton hit it
with a ball of fire
, exploding
several feathers
gently
floated down
. The skeleton showed s
atisfaction at killing the bird, it cocked its head as it appeared to concentrate.

   
The cathedral’s doors slowly opened as someone inside peeked out.
Jarman exited the cathedral dressed in a white
robe and attacked the skeleton. He threw
a net of ice over it but
he
was surprised when
it simply melted. He wa
s obviously a wizard but what Jarman
didn’t know was
that
the beast had been sea
rching for him. The skeleton
sensed his energy and had tracked him to the vicinity of the church but had been unable to zero in on him until now.
It fixated on the wizard as it created a ball of blue flame between both hands.
Jarman started to throw exploding balls of light at
it;
they exploded
in the air sending fragments of glass like fragments at it
and drove the thing back, but otherwise didn’t appear to hurt it much.
The skeleton blurred and knocked the wizard down
,
send
ing
him flying against the church door
,
and then
it
jumped on him, stealing his energy and burning him alive.
The sheriffs
had
tried hard to get the thing off of
him but there was nothing they could do.
When the flaming thing
stood up all that remained
of the wizard was a scorched sidewalk.

    Wei
turned to Bao
. “What is this thing?”

    Bao simply shook his head. “Something evil that was created by a
n evil wizard
. I wonder if that Jen
ny girl would have a spell to at least contain it?
”

    “You know what some are saying about her, that’s she’s Dracula’s daughter.”

    “I doubt that.”
Bao stared at it wondering what to do next.

    Vincent blurred into the area
. He was dressed all in black
and greet
ed the two sheriffs with a
nod. “What the hell is that?”

    Wei returned Vincent’s nod. “We have no idea.”

    Vincent pulled his gun and shot it three times, only the bullets were deflected and went off at crazy angles. He attacked it with his sword and was surprised when his sword went through it without any effect.
The red sheriff stepped back to access the situation. He despised magical creations as they could be the most difficult to defeat.

    While they talked the skeleton stood motionless as the space within its chest cavity, where its heart would ha
ve been, turned a dark purple
swirling mist.
Tiny skulls could be observed within the purplish haze
, it had taken some of the souls with it from Achak’s fire
.
Wei
’s
sword glowed a bright orange and he hit the skeleton with it and its right arm came off but then went right back on.
He thought that it was in some discomfort but couldn’t be sure.
He swung at it several more times but now the blade was going right through it
.
What had changed?
The creature spit fire at
Wei but the blade instinctively blocked it. It tried to blast Boa as well and that fire was thwarted by Wei’s magical blade. The thing then turned and blurred off so fast that they couldn’t follow it.

    Bao looked down at the spot where the wizard had been killed. “That poor guy.”

    “Bao, maybe we should go and see if Jenny can’t track that thing down and kill it.”

    “I don’t know;
she’s just a girl.”

    “
She’s far from just a girl.
” Bao looked at the expression on Wei’s face
and knew what was coming.

    “I hate it when they get
away! Hate it
!”

     “Believe me I know. I’ll be hearing this for months.”

    “Hate it!”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

   
    T
HE LEVEL OF DECOMPOSITION
was increasing. Keith and the bear were now deep in the forest stalking a family of four when the bear’s nose fell off.
The vampire
’s insane brain
pretended not to notice.
There was a man, a woma
n, and two 10-year-old twin girls
.
The man was repeatedly cracking his knuckles. The woman told him repeatedly to stop cracking his knuckles
and asked if her flowery dress looked good on her
.
Only what he was really stalking was four large
tree stumps. He had the rotting bear propped up against a tree
to observe
.
The stench of the bear was as bad as it gets.

    “Are you going to eat them or not?” said the bear.

   “Be quiet
you’ll scare them away.
I’
m much faster than humans but if they all run in different directions
it would be a pain in the ass to chase them down
.”
Keith was naked and he got closer and closer
to the juicy humans
.
An old man drove through on his Harley Davidson and gave him a thumbs up, which he did find peculiar since he was in the middle of the forest
; he acknowledged the thumbs up with a nod
.
He pounced on the largest stump which he thought was the father and sunk his fangs into it. He sucked an
d sucked. “Not much blood in this guy
.
What the hell was he eating?
”

    “Not much at all,” said the bear. “My back is itchy. Scratch it for me will ya?”

    Keith pulled his fangs out of the tree stump, went over and scratched the dead bear’s back.
He followed the bear’s directions, a little to the left, then down.
They enjoyed one another’s company and had become good friends. The black bear clutched his chest and then fell t
o the ground. “A
re you okay?”

   “Nope,” said the bear. “I just had a fatal heart attack.”

   
“You’re my only friend! Don’t die on me.
”
Keith pumped the bear’s chest for several minutes, tried to give him mouth-to-mouth but his jaw came off in his hand. “
You really are dead?
”

    “That’s right I’m a gon
er. You should probably bury
me or some other animal will come and scatter my bones.”

    “Okay.” Tears ran down Keith’s cheeks as he dug a hole with his hands like a dog
, earth went flying all over the place
.
The fact that he was naked wasn’t a pretty sight, things jiggled.
When the hole was large enough, and it didn’t take long with his strength and speed, he gently laid the bear in the ground.
He considered saying a prayer but didn’t know any.
“I hope you go to bear heaven where there are probably lots of other bears running around, maybe eating people maybe not.” He then filled in the hole and patted it down gently.
“I’ll never forget you.”

    “Help!” the bea
r screamed. “
I can’t breathe!
Get me out of here!
”

    In a panic Keith dug the bear out of the hole
but it wasn’t pretty
.
He pulled out pieces of him.
He shook the
dirt off the bear
as best he could. “Are you okay? Talk to me! Are you all right?
Can you breathe now?
”

   
The black bear laughed and laughed. “Keith, I was just teasing you. I’m still dead. You can bury me again.
  You should have seen the look on your face m
an.
”

   
Keith’s emotions were more than a little confused, and now he was
annoyed. “That
wasn’t very nice. Don’t do that again because I’m only burying you one more time and that’s it.”