Forever Young Birth Of A Nation (47 page)

“Be silent or you’ll lose your heads now,
understand?”

The two nodded, terrified as Li continued.
The three young Adepts came down the stairs and silently joined the
group in the parlor, as did the four women. Marie took off her hood
and said “Are you vampires?”

The two looked at each other and the woman
said “They bit us and we only woke up this morning.” The man
whispered “They took us only last night from the tavern where we
worked.”

Li whispered “On your feet. You are going
down there ahead of us. Stay out of our way down there and you may
live. Give an alarm and you will be the first to die.
Understand?”

The two nodded, and the woman whispered “Who
are all of you?”

In a flat voice, Li said “We are the ones
you were recruited to kill.” as his eyes glowed.

The woman’s eyes widened as she began to
understand their forced abduction and she said “They have three
people strung up down there now, feeding on them. It … it is just
awful!”

“Is there more than one stairway to the
cellar?”

“No.”

“Get moving now” he said, jerking his head
toward the kitchen as he replaced his hood.

The two timidly went to the cellar stairs,
cringing at the sight of still more black-hooded figures gathered
there. Li came to the front and whispered “You two first. Just act
as if you decided to come down to feed. Everyone, get in your
ranks. Here we go now” and he nodded to the two who opened the door
to the cellar and started down.

The group was assailed by the smell of
blood, the sound of singing and of a mandolin playing came to them
clearly. The steps were very long and took a hard right turn midway
to the landing below.

At the bottom, Li gestured to the pair to go
around the stairs and to get under them. He turned to Marie and the
other three women whispering “You four try to hold the stairs and
keep them from getting past.” The four nodded and he signaled the
others to sheath their sabers and pulled two pistols, cocking them
as the others did the same. Gliding now in a crouch he moved
rapidly toward the sound and rounding a turn, he was greeted by a
horrific sight.

Two men and a child were strung up by their
feet, and all three were bleeding into buckets as the vampires
gathered around. Some were singing to the music of the mandolin
while others were on their knees patiently waiting for enough blood
to accumulate to dip their cups in the buckets.

The mandolin stopped as many of the group
gaped momentarily at the black-clad figures rapidly bounding their
way. Li fired his two pistols, shooting two of them through their
head as his group began to open fire. The vampires all rose up,
screeching and roaring in fear and rage as pandemonium broke loose.
Li beheaded the two that were down as he flashed forward into the
thick of them, his saber a blur as it took off the arm of a third
one. Kicking brutally, he drove one up and back to crash into a
wall as he murderously slashed another one’s arm off at the elbow.
The screaming and roaring now had reached a deafening crescendo.
Mustafa had shot one in the head and decapitated him and was boring
in on another male with his saber flashing as he shot yet a
different one in the head with his second pistol. Louis had shot
one in the head and another in his neck and was about to behead his
first target. By now the three young Adepts were flanking them and
had targets of their own, each of them shooting a vampire, but only
one getting a clean head shot. That one was quickly decapitated and
the fight was on.

Pistols roared and the vampires at first
shrank back from the assault in mortal fear, both at the very sight
of them and by the ferocity of their attack. In seconds though,
they realized that they were going to die if they didn’t mount a
counterattack. Drawing what swords and knives they had, the group
began to fight for their very lives. By then, Henri, Robert, and
Andre had reached the melee and had all selected targets. Two of
the three hit their opponents in the head and quickly had beheaded
them as they pressed toward the mass of heaving, screaming,
fighting vampires.

Two of the vampires made a rapid move to
their right and rocketed around the main mass of the fighting,
bounding for the staircase. Celeste stepped forward a step and
leveling her pistol shot the closest one in the face as Sophia shot
the other one right between his eyes. Marie and Jennifer lopped off
their heads and kicked them to the side, retreating to close ranks
with the other two and waiting for more to come their way, two of
them with pistols drawn and cocked and the other two with sabers at
the ready.

Louis had discharged all four of his pistols
by now and there must have been nine vampires rolling, flailing and
thrashing about on the floor. By now the fighting was so intense
and close that no one could get time to finish off the ones on the
floor rolling about. It was a scene of absolute mayhem, chaotic
beyond belief. The acrid-smelling gun smoke hung in the air, making
it harder and harder to see in the heaving struggling mass of
bodies. Howls and curses mingled with screeches of rage and
fear.

Sabers and swords dripped blood and the
sound of pistols discharging lessened somewhat as the group kept
using them. Heads with mouths moving and eyes rolling were kicked
from one place to another as the mass of fighting vampires with
brightly glowing eyes moved rapidly about in combat. Hands and arms
were strewn about as well. It was a living, thrashing, heaving, and
ghoulish nightmare, beyond describing.

Realizing that Henri and Robert might be
more vulnerable now that it was down to mostly swordplay, Li fought
his way to their side and stayed in the center of the two. He
shouted “Robert, lop off the heads of those on the floor! Hurry
now!” Positioning his self properly, Robert had the space and the
precious seconds he needed to start beheading the ones rolling
wildly about. It took some two minutes before he had beheaded eight
of the nine.

The last one recovered and bounded up in the
blink of an eye and grabbed Louis’s dragon pistol, bounding for the
stairs. He discharged it at Jennifer, hitting her in the neck and
knocking her flat on her back. Marie bored in relentlessly, her
blue-violet eyes blazing as she pulled her dragon pistol and shot
the vampire point blank in his face. He had no sooner hit the floor
when Celeste lopped off his head, retreating to their
formation.

Marie shouted “Cover me” as she dragged
Jennifer around to where she was under the staircase with the two
cowering vampires. Tossing two flasks to them she shouted at the
two, her eyes blazing “Give her this and take care of her or I will
cut both of your heads off!” as she spun around in a blurring
motion to rejoin their formation.

Li had found an excellent opponent and was
busily engaged with his saber, parrying and slashing viciously but
neither one could best the other. Catching a glimpse of the stairs
he saw that one of the women was missing. Pulling his knife in a
blur he threw it at his opponent, burying it in his neck to the
hilt and following that with a murderous eye-blurring attack. The
distraction was just enough to tip the balance in Li’s favor as he
delivered the death stroke to the vampire, lopping off his head. In
one bound he was with the women at the stair case and just got
turned around when three of the females came screaming at the four,
brandishing swords they had picked up, trying to escape the hell
they found themselves in. Again Celeste calmly stepped forward and
shot the leader between the eyes as Sophia got the second one. Li
lunged out and skewered the third one, snatching the saber from her
hand as Marie beheaded the other two.

Spinning around still holding the woman up
as if she was a piece of screaming meat on a spit he went to the
two staying with Jennifer behind the stairs and shouted “Here, keep
this one pinned to the floor or else” he shouted as he slammed her
down on the floor. He stomped down on the stomach of the female he
had skewered and let the male vampire take the hilt of the saber.
“Keep her alive if you can” he shouted as he bounded back to rejoin
the three women at the staircase. The skewered female screamed in
rage and pain, thrashing about violently as the one above her
grimly kept his foot on her chest, bearing down on the saber, his
eyes glowing.

“Henri, Robert! Over here! Over here” he
shouted. In minutes the two had fought their way to the stairs.

“Stay here together and don’t let anyone get
away” he shouted as he bounded away into the melee once more. Gun
smoke was so thick that visibility was reduced to some ten feet.
There were now no pistols being discharged but there was determined
fighting going on nonetheless as the survivors of the attack grimly
fought for their lives. The screeching and roaring had been
replaced by cursing and grunting as steel rang out against steel.
They had formed themselves into a knot of five males and two
females. One of Robert’s young
Adepts
had lost his hand and
was holding what was left of his arm as he lay against a wall.
Andre had suffered a seriously deep cut to his shoulder, and was
fighting with his sword using both hands. Louis, Mustafa, and Li
all had numerous cuts, some of them deep.

They began then to bore in on the remainder
relentlessly. As one got close enough by lunging at Louis, he
countered by pulling his dragon pistol and shooting that one point
blank in the face, dropping him and leaving a momentary gap in
their group. Li leapt into it, kicking the nearest female with a
snap kick to her face, breaking her neck and dropping her. She
thrashed wildly about on the floor in eye-blurring movements as Li
had already turned on the nearest male and had lopped off his sword
arm, following by a whirling follow through in which he took off
his head with a two-handed sabre stroke.

The two young adepts that Robert had brought
bored in on one of the males, wounding him seriously in his left
leg and the other decapitating him. Suddenly one of the remaining
males broke ranks and lunged out, decapitating Steven. Andre cut
him down using both hands, lopping off his head. Mustafa bored in
on the other two and had them and the remaining female backing up
until they had nowhere to go. He and Li bored in and finished off
the last two males while Louis skewered the last female and pinned
her to the floor, as she flailed and screamed in rage.

The fighting had stopped finally. Li shouted
out “Who is hurt?”

The Adept with the hand missing said “Over
here. I lost my hand!”

“Who else? What about Jennifer?”

“Over here, Li. I am getting better. See to
Andre!”

Henri said “Quickly, the humans! Cut them
down now!” Li and he ran to them only to find that all three were
dead, so they cut them down and carried them off to one side. Then
Henri said “Robert and I are going outside to see if anyone heard
this uproar.” The two leapt to the top of the stairs in one bound,
heading for the front door.

Mustafa came and got the woman who Alexander
still had pinned to the floor with the saber. He stabbed her and
picked her up like a piece of squirming meat and hauled her back to
a room for interrogation, closing the door after going in.

Li went around to everyone and quickly
organized a hunt to find the hand that belonged to the young Adept
who had come with Robert. That would take some time even for a
group of vampires, given the sheer number of body parts strewn
about the cellar. Louis took Steven’s head and held it to his body,
calling for help. Celeste came quickly and held the head while
Louis held the body.

Mustafa found the hand belonging to the
young English Adept and took it to him, holding it in place while
the man took a flask and drained it, groaning in pain and starting
on another while his hand began to knit itself back to his arm.

Marie looked over and saw the three human
corpses stacked along the wall and shook her head sorrowfully. She
took over for the terrified woman under the staircase. The woman
had never left Jennifer, but had held her and kept the flask handy
for her to drink. She was mostly healed now and the lead balls were
all lying on the front of her fighting suit, her body having
expelled them already. “You are healing well, Jenny. Well done
tonight.”

Laughing, Jennifer said “Ouch! Is it always
this bad?”

“Well, it is always this noisy and bloody.
Believe it or not though, after a few times you will get used to
it.”

Jennifer laughed and then said “Ouch! I
can’t laugh too much yet, Marie.”

Celeste said “How can anyone get used to
this?”

Marie said “You did very well Celeste. You
were very cool under fire and hit your target every time.”

“I never dreamt of this sort of thing when I
was target shooting all of those times. It seems I just did it
automatically, like I always practiced it. But the noise and the
speed that they came at us! I just didn’t ever imagine it like
this.”

Turning to the couple under the stairs,
Marie said “You two did well. No harm will come to you. We’ll help
you
imprint
near here.”

The woman rose and came to Marie, reaching
out to take her hand she said “Oh thank you! Thank you! We are
grateful.” Her husband came to her side, nodding agreement, eyes
wide as he took in Marie’s fighting suit and weaponry. “Do… do you
do this often?”

“Only when we have to, like tonight.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We’ll tell you more later. For now, both of
you get busy. Go upstairs and get bedding. Bring it back here and
gather up all heads and body parts. This place has to be cleaned up
before sunrise. Shoo! Hurry now! Make yourselves useful before I
change my mind!” The two flashed to the foot of the stairs and
leapt to the top of them like two puffs of windblown smoke.