Drew D'Amato:Bloodlines:02 (33 page)

THIRTEEN

1

T
he front entrance
from Platt Street on the north wall of the building was unlocked
.
 
There was only one security guard.  Vlad assumed this place always had someone on duty, but he also figured it would be a skeleton crew today.  Vlad and Malachi strode over to the heavyset black guard at the desk.

“They got you working today,” Vlad said to him with a laugh.

“Yeah the only one, but just until twelve, still time for dinner.  Martin got from noon until six…hopes his wife leaves him some leftovers.  So who are you two here to see?”

“Ah, Rich…”

Malachi smacked the guard upside his head with his left hand.  The guard was out cold.  There was no other option and he would live.  They couldn’t let him notify anyone of their arrival.  Luckily it was Thanksgiving, no one was in the lobby, and no other guard on duty. 
Not luck, fate…destiny. 
Malachi scooped up the unconscious body over his shoulder and they carried him to the right of the entrance up the west stairwell.  There was another stairwell on the north wall, but that was an emergency exit.  Opening those doors would sound the fire alarm, and the doors were designed to only exit into the stairwell.  You could not open them to go onto other floors. 
The east wall had no elevators or stairs, just a wall of windows that allowed the morning sun to pour in.  The west stairwell was the only option for them. 

They got to the third floor and explored it.  They dumped the guard in the first utility closet they found and used his own handcuffs on him around a pipe from the wall.  Vlad put ducttape he found in the closet over the guard’s mouth and also used it around his ankles.  Malachi searched the guard’s pockets and took out his keychain.  He didn’t need to have the exact key.  Malachi closed the door, jammed the key in the lock and then broke it off inside it.  They would notify the authorities of this man’s whereabouts once they were finished.  In a few hours, this guard would find himself alive and having a lot to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving.

They continued up the same stairwell, floating now, up to the 42
nd
floor. 
Malachi gripped Jericho’s two silver Desert Eagles in his hands when they got there.  They still seemed strange to him.  They were not his.  Vlad unsheathed his sword from a scabbard under his jacket that he picked up during their stop in East St. Louis.  He was about to open the door, when Malachi put a hand on his arm.

“Vlad, Richard’s apartment used to have windows all around it.  They could have them all covered.  They might not be sleeping.”

“It doesn’t change anything right now.  Just be prepared.”

Malachi holstered the two Desert Eagles and took out his HK-MP5K.  He twisted on its silencer.  He noticed Vlad staring at him.

“If they are awake, do you really want to just have a sword on you?” Malachi asked.

Vlad nodded, sheathed the sword back under his arms, and took out his two gold Desert Eagles from his hips.

“You’re doublefisted, I’ll get the door,” Malachi said and grabbed the handle.

2

T
hey entered the room and
noticed that it was dark,
not a trace of light in the place.  Vlad and Malachi used their vampire sight to see what existed in the room.  No furniture except
for two rows of coffins on two-
foot high stands that stood in the middle of the room.  Twenty coffins, in two rows of ten.  The coffins rested out horizontally in front of one
another
.  The
y were two feet away from each other on all sides.  The
rows ran to th
e back of the room
.  Nothing was moving, not a sound, not even a feeling to the place.  This would be easy, but the lack of light would cost their precious blood energy to be able to see.

They approached the first two coffins.  Vlad
put his gold Desert Eagles back in their holsters
.  He reached his right hand behind him
over his left arm
and unsheathed his silver sword from Hunyadi.  He nodded to Malachi to open the coffin.  The coffin opened with no problem.  It was not lock
ed for obvious reasons.  I
nside laid an unsuspecting Raduson. 
There was a gun inside the coffin with him.  The Radusons had learned from last time.  Vlad and Malachi looked at each other and both understood,
be quiet and be careful. 

Vlad turned back to the sleeping vampire.  He looked oddly familiar but Vlad did not think much about it.  He
held the sword with his two hands
over the chest
, the tip of it pointing down
over the vampire’s heart
. 

With this sword rid the world of the Lord’s enemies
,
read in Latin pointing down to the heart
.  The inscription placed on the sword at the time of the making of the weapon referred to the Muslims who were warring with Eastern Europe at the time.  Now,
more than
half a
millenium
later, the
intent of the
inscription
still held true, even though for a different set of
enemies. 

He looked at the unlucky bloodsucker.  He knew Radu would not be in this room but he would never grow tired of killing Radusons.  Plus
,
he would rather kill as many as he could before facing Radu. 
If any conflict occurred he
only
had
Malachi with him.  He had to lessen the odds as much as possible.  He licked his lips, and in one motion
he thrust the sword through the
heart.  The vampire disappeared before he even got a chance to scream. 

“This might be easy,” Malachi whispered.

“Don’t even start to think like that,” Vlad said.

They went to the other coffin in the row and did the same thing, same outcome.  Vlad had brought the sword for mainly this reason, to kill without making
any noise.  He also liked the idea of using this same sword to kill Radu, but that was just wishful thinking.

They finished all twenty of them.  Twenty more dead vampires, but none of them the one they wanted.  When the last one was killed they looked around the room.

“What do you want to do
now
?” Malachi asked.

“Go to the next floor and keep on killing.”

They walked back across the r
oom and went to the stairwell.  O
ne floor down
,
three to go.  They had to check all the floors and all the coffins.  They were not leaving anything to chance.

When they entered the
43
rd
at first everything appeared the same, a dark room filled with coffins, and nothing else to be seen.  Vlad looked to his right and saw a leather couch sitting there.  This couch used to belong to Richard.  Vlad figured Radu was still in the process of getting rid of Richard’s things before bringing in their own stuff.  They
probably got here right after they killed Jericho. 
Vlad felt Malachi’s hand tap his left arm like a kid warning his friend that an adult had found them.  Vlad did not turn to look at Malachi but looked farther down the row of coffi
ns.  A figure sat on the last coffin on the
left row looking at the two in
truder
s.
 

Gabriel.

“Shit,” Malachi said softy.

Gabriel smil
ed
. 
“Master has been expecting you,” he said.

Gabriel
jumped backwards up in the air and kicked
forward the coffin he sat on
.  The coffin f
e
ll forward and tipped over, and the vampire inside fell out.  The coffin itself hit the coffin in front of it and that one in turn hit the next one knocking the entire row
of coffins
over like dominoes.  The vampires in the other row then j
umped out of their coffins at the sound of all the noise. 
The Radusons
went the guns inside their coffins.  Vlad and Malachi only had seconds to respond.

“Get back,” Vlad commanded, and he and Malachi ran back to the stairwell they came from. 

Bullets ripped up the west wall right before they managed to get behind it.

“Fuck,
what do we do?
”
Malachi asked
.

“Hope there is no more of them.”

“Fuck hope,” Malachi said and took a grenade off his belt.  He threw it through the doorway.  The explosion killed three Radusons who were getting close to the door.  Discretion was no longer an option.  The cops would be here, but they still had some time.

“Get up to the next floor,” Vlad said.

The two of them ran up to the 44
th
floor. 

“Keep your guns pointed down at them,” Vlad ordered. 

Malachi held his gun over the railing at the door to the 43
nd
floor.  Malachi shot and killed two more Radusons that tried to make their way out of the door.

“Just like the battle of Thermopolyae,” Malachi said.

“I’m not that old,” Vlad said and then opened the door to the 44
th
floor.

The room was empty.  This had been Richard’s office where he did his business, but now it had been gutted.  Nothing was in there, not any coffins or vampires.  He smelled no vampires, this place was safe. 

He went back to the stairwell to tell Malachi. 

“The 44
th
floor is clear.  Let’s get in there,” Vlad said.

“This is too easy though,” Malachi said as he killed two more Radusons who quickly tried to make it out of the 43
rd
floor door. 

Then a grenade flew up from the lower floor toward Malachi.  He dove into the 44
th
floor to avoid it.  His machine gun fell out of his hands.  The bomb exploded harming neither of them.  Malachi looked up from the floor at Vlad. 

“Yeah, real easy,” Vlad said and then ran back out into the stairwell.

“Where are you going?” Malachi asked from the floor.

“I’m going to take out Radu, he has to be on the top floor.  You keep these Radusons down here.  I take him out, I take them all out.”

“So you get one, and I get fourteen.”  Malachi smiled and stood up.  “I like those odds.”

“Just keep your wits.”

Vlad ran up the next flight of stairs to the penthouse on the top floor.  Malachi started to go for his machine gun that fell on the floor when he heard the ping of the elevator door to his right opening up.  He turned and found Gabriel walking out of the elevator.  The two of them locked eyes.  Even in the blackened room they could see as much as each other’s pupils with their vampire senses.  Malachi stood up, but he knew he could not make a move for his MP5 on the floor.  He was sure Gabriel was armed and would get a shot off first.  Malachi paced around the room, never taking his eyes off Gabriel, and Gabriel did the same, until they were both standing in front of each other, the length of the apartment floor between them, about fifty feet.

“Where is Radu?” Malachi asked.

“Where is Vlad?”

“Should we just wait for our masters and see how this all plays out?” Malachi said with a smile.

Gabriel smirked back.  “No, while the fathers are away the boys should play.”

The tension between them was tangible.  Malachi noticed Gabriel was not holding a gun either. 
What did he have planned?
 
Gabriel brushed back his jacket.  There was a .357 holstered on his hip.  Malachi could hear the sound of vampires making their way up the stairs.  He did not have much time.  The showdown at high noon would have to end soon. 

Malachi stared into Gabriel’s eyes.  He heard the sound of the footsteps too.  He would wait Malachi out, let him get flanked.  He would hesitate, that would be his mistake.

Malachi grabbed both of Jericho’s Silver Desert Eagles from their holsters.  In the past Gabriel had always been faster than Malachi—the Radusons were always faster than Vlad’s men—but not now, not after Vlad had been reborn again.  Gabriel didn’t even get a chance to get his gun out of the holster.  Malachi shot a round from each gun, center mast at Gabriel.  He disappeared, killed by the guns of Jericho.

The other Radusons had made it up to the floor.  There was no furniture, nothing to hide behind.  He couldn’t handle 13 Radusons by himself, not in an open room like this.  He jumped into the air and turned into a gnat, hiding in the pitch-black room. 

The Radusons got into the room guns blazing but nothing to shoot at.  Malachi knew he did not have much energy, but he wouldn’t have to hold out for too long.  Pretty soon one way or another, this war would finally be over.