The Chaos Order (Fanghunters Book Three) (33 page)

He looked about the place with wide eyes. Rain was still coming in through the open windows. The stains on the floor had almost been washed away, the remnants of Leviah and the Blood Order now just a memory. Nixon had no time to dwell on the past. He was there to collect something he knew he’d left lying around before he went after Trixie the bullfrog. Now where exactly did he leave it?

He rapped his knuckles on his head, trying to get the cogs of his memory whirring. All the while the thunder rumbled, the rain lashed the tower. His eyes fell on Leviah’s desk. His heart skipped a beat. Sitting on it were a couple of guns: that asshole Sammy’s Glock, and a .44 Magnum. It was sheened with rainwater, making it sparkle under the fluorescents. A loving grin spread across Nixon’s face. “There’s my baby!”

He stomped over to the table and picked up his special Maggie. She was ice in his hand. He closed his eyes and rubbed her barrel up and down his cheek; it was rigid, cold, power. Oh how he loved the way she felt on his skin; she was like silk.

He got to work. He put Maggie down and ran his fingers along the tats on his forearm, each one representing a battle he’d survived. He stopped at the skull and crossbones inked after Operation Desert Storm, prodding the small lump protruding from the skull’s mouth. He nodded. He turned back to the desk. Sammy the Saint’s knife was sitting there. Nixon grabbed it, and opened it up. The razor-sharp blade gleamed. He imagined running it across the throat of that vamp; but that wouldn’t cut it. Knives didn’t kill vamps. Nixon knew they had this black protective stuff around their organs. It was tough like Kevlar, like armor-plating. Nixon knew how to deal with that kind of defense and it wasn’t knives and normal bullets.

He laid his forearm down on the surface of the desk and pressed the blade against the skull tattoo. He steadied himself, then began slicing himself open. The white-hot scrape of pain erupted at the wound. Nixon brought the blade across the protrusion. The gash opened up and out popped what he’d stitched inside him twenty-five years ago. It plopped down on the desk, smeared with blood. Nixon picked it up and held it toward the lights. The armor-piercing bullet his buddy Charlie gave him as a memento of Deseret Storm stared back at him. Charlie later fell in the Somali civil war. Nixon always swore to use the bullet to take down a true enemy. He sighed, tears welling in his eyes. He kissed the bullet. “This one’s for you, Charlie!”

He grabbed Maggie and spilled the bullets out of her cylinder. He wiped his blood off Charlie’s slug, then slotted it into an empty chamber. He closed her up and began revolving the cylinder; it made a satisfying sound in his ear, smooth and efficient. “Yeah, baby,” he whispered.

He turned and faced the waiting elevator, lightning splitting the sky behind him.

“Now for round two!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

N
ixon dashed over to the elevator in Leviah’s chamber and pushed the ‘call’ button. While he waited, he tightened his grip on Maggie’s handle, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He was gonna make this vamp sumbitch pay big time.
Just let me at him!

Come on, where’s this elevator?
he wondered, rocking on his heels.

He pushed the button again. Nothing happened. No pings, no lights.
What’s going on?

“Don’t tell me the elevators are out.” He kept pushing down on the button, but nothing was happening. He growled in irritation.
Looks like it’ll have to be the stairs.

He marched up to the Japanese blind and threw it to the side. His anger was brewing by the second, he wanted so bad just to grab that vamp by the throat and jam Maggie’s long barrel up his ass to the hilt. And he was gonna enjoy every second of it.

He got out into the stairwell and worked out his strategy. There were two control rooms. One near the bottom on the eighth and one up on the seventy-fifth. If the cameras were still up and running, he’d be able to get a lock on that vamp bastard and then take it from there.

He scuttled down the stairs, his man boobs jiggling beneath his tee. If anything, his body was getting a well needed workout. All the racing down stairwells would get his blood pumping good for the final showdown.

By the time he made it down five floors, he was outta breath. He took a moment to go and lean up against the wall and let his lungs catch up. Man, the good ol’ days of three hundred pull-ups before breakfast and benching five hundred pounds like he was a silverback gorilla were long gone. But, he had just enough juice in the tank for one more battle. And it would be the biggest battle of his life.

He got going again, grateful he was heading down those steps and not up them.

He made it down to eighty, his tee stuck to his sweaty body. The whole way, flashes of previous battles played in his mind like a movie. He was gearing up, getting ready to face this asshole.

Seventy-five. At last. Gasping for breath, he staggered through the stairwell door. He made it to the control room. It was empty, just him and no one else. He expected to see at least one other soldier there manning the controls, but there was no one. Whatever, he just had to find this sucker, then it was on. He studied the myriad of screens ahead of him, his eyes darting left, right, up, down. He flicked buttons, changing the cameras.

Come on, come on...

He brought up the lower floors, where he knew the Chaos assholes were holed. Twenty-seven flicked on and—

Nixon gasped. The camera was showing up a decapitated Dragon slumped up against the wall. Nixon panned the camera down; the head was on the carpet nearby, his tongue hanging out.

“Christ!” Nixon blurted. He panned the camera around the room and it got worse. Dragon bodies lay left and right, missing limbs. “Oh no,” Nixon said to himself in horror. He flicked on another camera on the lower levels. The first thing he saw was a huge bloodstain on the wall; he panned down and he got a torn apart Dragon on the floor below. He grabbed his cheek. “Oh God...”

He checked another. Same thing. Bodies of allies, lying in their gore. He checked fifteen. Same. Twenty-two. Same. Thirty. Same. Thirty-five. Same. Blood, guts, and headless bodies all over the battlefield. Their guys. Despair dropped into his stomach with each brutal image, his heart swelling with fear. He looked away in terror. It was him. The vamp. He was working his way up the floors quick time, slaughtering the Dragon unit. Nixon’s brothers in arms. He was making mincemeat outta them all. None of them could stop him, their weapons didn’t work against him.

“I gotta find this asshole!” Nixon said to the air ahead of him, before studying the screens, flicking his eyes all over the place. “Where are you? Come on, come on, where are you?”

He flicked on floor forty. He caught a glimpse of some Dragons backing up. One of them was Sergeant Blunt. Nixon brought the camera around; they were backing up from the elevator. It popped open and out rushed the vampire, blood smeared all around his mouth. The Dragons opened fire and the vampire just ran at them, taking the punishment. He grabbed the nearest one and took a huge chunk out of the guy’s throat. Nixon winced.

He needed to do something. The cartel had control of the elevators from the lower control room. They must have been switching them on and off whenever their buddy ordered them to, letting him know which floors any Dragon soldiers were on, and then let him up to clear them out. Nixon knew he had to stop him before he made it up to the higher floors of the building.

He turned to the elevator controls. He threw on the other express elevator and ordered it up to his floor. He ran straight for it, leaving the control room behind. He needed to get in the elevator before they noticed it had been switched back on; he knew the override code he could plug in once inside, so they couldn’t stop him.

He made it in there and hit the switch for the fortieth.

The elevator plunged down. He watched the control panel with hot eyes, his grip on Maggie grimy and sweaty.

“Come on, come on,” he urged the elevator. He needed to get there before the vamp killed any of more of their guys. As the elevator went down, Nixon’s adrenaline levels went up. His heart thudded steady and hard, the sweat poured. This could be the final battle of his life. One way or other, it was gonna end. Either with the vamp going down, or him with his head between his feet.

The elevator continued on its journey to the fortieth and Nixon rocked on his heels.
Come on, come on...

45, 44, 43, 42...

Come on, come on...

41.

40.

The elevator came to a halt and pinged.

Nixon’s heart jumped into his throat. The doors slid open and what was waiting in the floor beyond came into view. He took it all in, his eyes wide. The carpet was stained with blood; bodies strewn around like a bomb had gone off.

Nixon grabbed his head. He was too late.

Something ahead of him moved and he aimed Maggie right at it. A body was trying to crawl away. Nixon recognized it. Sergeant Blunt. Nixon jumped out of the elevator, aiming Maggie left and right. He made it to Blunt’s side and crouched down. Blunt had a chunk of his throat missing. He was making nasty guttural sounds every time he tried to breathe. His cold eyes fell on Nixon, and he reached up a trembling hand.

A surge of anger shot up Nixon’s chest. He reached in, grabbed handfuls of Blunt’s khaki tee and yanked him up off the floor. Their faces were inches apart. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a frickin’ vamp in here!” Nixon sneered, spittle flying out of his mouth and hitting Blunt in the face.

“We... weren’t prepared!” Blunt managed with a coarse voice, blood spurting out of the wound in his neck. “We weren’t... expecting a... Chaos Don.”

“Well, here’s here!” Nixon screeched, shaking Blunt. Blunt began zoning in and out of consciousness.

“And he’s killed most of our men!” Nixon added.

Blunt coughed up blood; it spilled down his chin. He then went limp in Nixon’s grip. His cold gaze fixed on the ceiling.

Nixon groaned in disgust. He threw Blunt down to the carpet like a piece of trash. What kind of Sergeant was he? He’d left his troops to die in cold blood.

Nixon stood and glared at the carnage surrounding him. His heart bled for the fallen. He bowed his head in respect of—

A roar from behind made him whirl. Before he could react, a claw scratched across his hand holding Maggie. Nixon shrieked at the tearing pain in his hand. Maggie fell to the carpet. Nixon threw up his free hand in self-defense, just as the Chaos Don grabbed hold of his shoulders and threw him forward. Nixon was pushed helplessly back across the carpet, his arms flailing.

His back slammed into the wall, the impact stealing the breath from his chest. He groaned in agony, panic fizzing through his mind. He wanted to fight back, but was debilitated. The vamp stuck a hand on Nixon’s throat and squeezed. Nixon felt the blood pooling in his head. He was lifted up off his feet as if he weighed next to nothing. His back slid up the wall, while he waved his arms on the air. He rolled his eyes down. He got a glimpse of the Don’s forehead and hair. Nixon grabbed hold of his wrist, hoping to yank it off, but it was stuck tight to his throat, vise-like.

He began choking, his whole body trembling, his feet shaking on the air.

“Die!” the Don sneered, and increased the pressure. “Die!”

Nixon flapped his hands around like an excited seal. His mind was caught in survival mode; it was desperate, needed to do something. NOW!

His hand found something on the wall and he grabbed it. He yanked the small fire extinguisher out of its holder and whipped it across the air. The can connected with the Don’s temple with a hollow
dong!

The Don grunted. His grip loosened and Nixon dropped to the floor with a hot grunt. He slid his back up the wall ASAP, pulling the safety pin from the canister in his hand. The Don’s head had been snapped to the right. The moment he recovered from the blow, he spun his head around, his face contorted in a snarl.

Nixon didn’t hesitate. With a yelp, he pushed down the operating lever. A jet of opaque mist streamed into the Don’s face, right in his eyes. The vamp screeched, throwing his hands up to his face. He staggered back under the pressure. Nixon roared as he unloaded the canister. When it was empty, Nixon threw the extinguisher at him; it clanged against his head and bounced across the carpet.

Nixon seized the initiative he’d created. Ignoring the burn in his throat, he raced past the Don, pumping his weary arms and legs with the fury of a wildebeest evading an encroaching lion. Maggie was lying on the floor, calling to him. His only hope. He dived across the carpet with a war cry as if he was scoring the winning touchdown. He landed on top of her. He whipped her up and rolled onto his back. He sat up, just as the vamp whirled his way. The Don removed his hands from his face; his eyelids were covered in white crystals that hung from his lashes, the skin on his face frostbitten, puffy and flaky, his nose a red sore.

On laying eyes on Nixon, a demonic howl of rage escaped him. Nixon had seconds to react. He sat upright, fumbling Maggie in his hands. “Come on, baby, come on, baby,” he cooed to her, his breathing hot and ragged.

The Don lunged for him, Nixon’s advantage lost.