Hunter of the Dead (39 page)

“I worked with you. I trusted you. I thought you were my friend.”

Kasprzak shrugged.

“Maybe you knew deep in your heart. But maybe you also knew what I knew when I was just a mortal scholar. In the end, the immortals win this war. So I want to be on the winning side. I’ll never die now. But you will. Why fight a futile battle, Carter?”

“Because there are still things worth dying for.”

Kasprzak tapped Nico’s head. “

“Cute. The matriarch wants this one alive. Not sure if as a lover or a get. Maybe both. Come on, boy.”

Nico rose in spite of the gun to his head. He turned and faced Kasprzak.

“Fuck you. I’ll stand with Price. I’d rather die an Inquisitor.”

“Well, the matriarch was pretty clear on this point.”

Kasprzak cold-cocked Nico with the gun and as he passed out, she tossed him over her shoulder like he weighed nothing. She stared at Price.

“Not going to protest?”

“No,” he whispered, “I want the boy to live, too.”

“Good enough. But as for you…The Damned would like a word.”

From the infinite inky blackness behind Kasprzak, a hulking gray vampire with sagging, desiccated breasts emerged and gripped Kasprzak’s shoulder. In her wake, ten other creatures of similar appearance emerged. Kasprzak gripped her temples as though in the throes of a migraine. She turned to the female leader of The Damned.

“Yes, mistress, this is the one.”

Kasprzak was struck by another sudden headache, and belatedly Price realized they were communicating with her telepathically or something. She turned to Price.

“I told them that you had something to do with the death of one of their own. It was rather important to them to settle this account personally.” She shrugged. “Good luck, Carter. I always did enjoy our conversations. You’re not bad for a mortal, but, sadly, that’s all you’ll ever be. My lords and ladies.”

With a bow, Kasprzak disappeared. Price turned his attention to the encroaching monsters. There was no question of reaching for his fallen blade or even for the firearm rather more comfortably couched at his side. The fight was absolutely hopeless. He had faced a single Damned and barely been able to escape with his life, let alone defeat it. Eleven may as well have been an army.

He set his teeth, balled his fists, and to his surprise, smiled.

“I’d love to hear a little disco. But either way…let’s dance.”

Price came out swinging but didn’t even land a blow. In a split-second, The Damned were on top of him, their snatching hands restraining his limbs and forcing him to the ground. Who knew what gruesome punishments they felt fitting recompense for the loss of one of their own?

“I hope you choke on me, you bastards!”

Seven

Nico awoke with a start, heart racing arhythmically. He had been draped like a piece of laundry over a pair of metal trash cans in a dank alley. He glanced around, his eyes not yet accustomed to the darkness, but he didn’t like what he could hear.

Voices, a million voices, were hissing in the darkness all around him. The world seemed to swirl in circles around him. Eyes glowed, red, yellow, and white as a mob of vampires pressed in towards him. He climbed up onto one of the trashcans and snatched the lid off the other to wield as a shield.

Kasprzak emerged from the crowd, beating back at the newborn vampires with Nico’s baseball bat.

“Out of the way! Out of the way! Back, you bastards!”

She led a ghoul, glistening with what seemed like a fresh coat of slime and wearing the uniform of a police officer. She had wrapped the ghoul-cop’s belt around his neck to use as a leash.

She gave Nico a toothy smile.

“What’s going on?” Nico asked.

“Vampirism is like a virus, Nico. It spreads and it spreads and it spreads. Up until now certain factors have kept us in check – natural immunity, you might say. But those days are over. Why don’t you come down from that silly spot and join me?”

She held out her hand.

“Go to Hell.”

Kasprzak chuckled.

“Oh, I don't have to. It won't be long now till Hell comes to Earth. Look how long it took to turn the whole city. Hours. In a month the world will be ours. I've been expecting this for years. I had just been waiting for Cicatrice to let loose The Damned. I admit I'm surprised it turned out to be that bitch get of his.”

Nico nearly lunged off his perch, but the vampires all surged forward at the idea, and he retreated.

“Ah! So you do care about her. I could let them rip you to shreds, Nico. But the matriarch doesn’t want that. She wants to spend eternity with you. You’ve been fast-tracked to be granted The Long Gift.”

“By you?”

Kasprzak chuckled. She reached down and stroked the ghoul-cop under its chin.

“No, not by me. I’m still a bit too green to be much skilled at turning others. In all the chaos tonight I thought I may as well practice a bit, but unfortunately old Kolchak here was the best I could do. Mother Idi Han doesn’t want you to turn out like this. She’ll either do it herself or have one of her most trusted oldbloods do it. You’ll be fine, Nico.”

“‘Fine.’ You call being a bloodsucking fiend ‘fine?’”

Kasprzak’s expression darkened.

“You're as stubborn as I was at your age. But wait until you're just a little bit older. Bit by bit death becomes a reality instead of a far-off nightmare. There’ll come a time when you won't hesitate to sacrifice others to keep yourself alive. Even if it means sacrificing every other person in the world.”

“Sounds like a real jolly philosophy. Look around you, prof. This isn’t sustainable. Slaughter everyone? How are you even going to feed yourselves?”

“Oh, there are ways, Nico. The Necropolis had a booming system of agriculture. Humans can be farmed. And just think about the advances we’ll make. Just like industrial farming today. Chickens don’t need beaks. They just peck each other. Veal cows don’t need to stand. Imagine humanity downgraded from masters of the earth to livestock. What do you need arms or legs or a cock for? They’re just extremities siphoning off precious blood. That’s the future. But that doesn’t have to be your future, Nico. The matriarch wants you by her side. You won’t get another chance like this. Most people never do.”

Nico pursed his lips.

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.”

Nico took her hand, and like Baryshnikov she lifted him bodily and set him on the ground. Nico let the pin clatter to the ground and dropped the garlic grenade.

“But I don’t want to live in that world.”

As white smoke that smelled like an Italian bistro filled the alley, Nico pushed and shoved his way through the scrum. It seemed he had chosen his moment wisely. The newborns were particularly confused to suddenly be unable to “smell” their prey.

“Idiots!” he heard Kasprzak shouting as he managed to shove his way out into the street, “It’s just garlic! Grab him! Don’t let him escape! The matriarch will have my ass.”

The city was on fire. Gunfights raged in the distance, smoke rose from half the buildings. Screams and madness filled the air. Thinking fast, Nico wrenched a manhole up off the ground and slithered down into the sewer.

Nico had spent the better part of the day before in the sewers and hoped that he might come across some landmarks to help him figure a way out of this scrape. He pounded down the corridor as fast as he could.

Where should I go? They’ve probably cordoned off the city. If I can prove I’m still human, that might be the best way to find help.

Kasprzak’s voice echoed through the underground.

“Where are you going to run to, Nico? Give up now and make it easy on yourself. You could be one of the greats, you know! You know why we turn Inquisitors? Because they make the best vampires!”

Nico felt his resolve harden. He spotted an overturned coffin he thought might have belonged to a gang of Druids.

No. I’m not going to run. Price is back at the Aztec. He needs my help if he’s not already dead. And if he is, he may need it even more.

He didn’t relish the thought of putting down his friend, but it was no doubt something that occurred to every Inquisitor at some point. Suddenly he hit a dead-end. A crosspipe with a crank faucet blocked the entire passageway. Nico turned around to go back the way he had come, but it was already too late.

Shadows flickered in the depths. A host of vampires turned a corner, Kasprzak in the lead, with her pet ghoul Kolchak on a string. Nico was confronted with a wall of vampires in front of him and a wall of pipe behind him. Above his head, a faucet dripped, as though ticking off his last remaining seconds on this earth.

Eight

Price pinched his eyes shut and ground his teeth together.

This is it. I won’t give them the satisfaction of screaming. At least I’ll go out like a man.

A loud clomp suddenly cut through the hisses of The Damned. The claws clutching at him stilled. He ventured to open his eyes. To a one, each of The Damned had turned their heads 90 degrees towards the front of the conference room. Price turned, too, just as a second clomp cut through the stillness.

Outside the entrance to the room, astride a massive charger with one foot raised to slap down a third time, sat The Hunter of the Dead. The breath caught in Price’s throat as he thought to himself that there was no way this could be a faker or a pretender. The man – the thing – was like an inkblot smudged on the surface of reality.

The Damned rose, almost releasing their grips on Price’s clothes as an afterthought. He was forgotten. One of The Damned reached out, grabbed the conference table which was bolted to the floor, and flung it through the bulletproof glass windows. It smashed to splinters in the chaotic confusion of the casino below.

The Hunter tucked his spur into his horse’s flank and it pressed forward, smashing a horse-and-rider shaped hole in the wall like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. With this larger-than-life figure in it and twelve grotesque monstrosities the conference room suddenly seemed dreadfully small.

Price glanced around, wondering if there was somewhere to hide, wondering, in fact, if hiding would even matter. If the window frame wasn’t still lined with jagged glass that would have cut his hands to ribbons, he would’ve considered sneaking out that way.

Then again, how often do you get to witness a grudge match like this?

The Damned who had tossed the conference table so heedlessly growled and leapt across the room, covering the whole distance in a single bound. As bulky and unwieldy as a suit of armor made him, The Hunter seemed to have no trouble snatching The Damned out of the air, impaling it on his lance. The Damned’s own momentum drove it the rest of the way down the lance, until it and The Hunter were practically face-to-face.

The impaled Damned hissed, its tongue writhing lasciviously in the air, even catching The Hunter’s helm and licking some of the oily goo from it. The Hunter sliced its head off. The rest of The Damned backed up, forming a semi-circle, and Price suddenly realized that he was in the keystone position, directly across from The Hunter.

Oh shit.

The Hunter dropped his lance and drew his sword across the gauntlet of his opposite hand, raising a shower of sparks. One of the sparks caught the oily substance coating the sword, causing it to erupt into flames. The Damned shrank back from the fiery apparition, and Price watched as the two nearest the broken window dove out for safety.

The black knight charged down the center of the room, straight towards him. Price dove out of the way, rolling towards one corner as best he could. The Hunter pulled his horse to the right, and swept in an arc, hacking and slashing at each of The Damned as he came. The fire spread with each step, consuming the knight’s armor and finally igniting the horse.

Each of The Damned screeched as they struck out futilely at their attacker, their normally devastating blows reduced to a child’s tantrum. Blade cut through flesh and fire caught their sallow hides. The Hunter was transformed into an avenging demon, inferno made flesh. Price had never heard a horse scream, and in a way, the death cries of the Hunter’s mount as it was consumed by fire were even more horrific than the unholy roars of The Damned.

The Hunter cut the Damned down one by one, even as his horse collapsed and died underneath him. When he fell, only one of The Damned remained, and it watched, transfixed, as the tar-like substance was used up, and The Hunter was reduced to a smoldering pile of metal covered by a mound of horseflesh.

Price felt his heart racing a mile a minute, and didn’t know if he would be able to bring a word to his lips even if he wanted to. The Damned were monstrosities but the devastation he had just witnessed raised something akin to pity even for them in his heart. The last of The Damned tentatively approached the smoking pile that a moment before had been an avatar of fury, striking down its brothers and sisters in wrath.

The Hunter flipped the ton of charred horsemeat off of him as though kicking off a twisted blanket. The Damned didn’t even have time to shriek as he shoved his sword up through its missing jaw and into its brainpan. He rose, lifting The Damned off the ground as though he had skewered a shish kebab.

The last of The Damned struggled in agony, trying to pull itself off the sword which had been thrust through its brain, but when The Hunter raised it off its feet, it no longer had the purchase it required. He reached out with his free hands and pulled its arms off as though plucking the wings off a fly.

He punched through The Damned’s stomach and pulled out a handful of intestines and let them spill to the floor, where more and more of its guts piled out afterward. The thing practically seemed to be sobbing before he finally reached out and with a pinch of his gauntlet separated its head from its torso.

Then The Hunter spotted Price.

Nine