“What do you think we should do with him, Tadeusz?” the Klingon looking vamp asked her large companion.
Blade knew he wouldn’t be healed in time for what was coming. The beating the two vampires delivered was impressive. His last combatant had roared over how unfairly Blade had killed her protégé. These two blood-suckers were using chain and bludgeon weapons so Blade had limited himself to similar tools of the trade. One on one, he could have handled either one of them. Vampires are a sneaky lot by nature. Blade was a fool for trying the honor road with the monsters and had paid the price.
“I dunno, Moray. Gut him?” Tadeusz asked.
The professional wrestler-sized viking picked up Blade by the throat. The Daywalker s limbs were still having a hard time getting any kind of signals from his brain thanks to the near crippling blow from Tadeusz s war hammer.
“You killed the others didn t you, hunter?” Moray the Klingon asked through her snaggle-toothed maw.
Barely breathing, Blade could only manage a smile.
“Break his goddamn neck!” Moray barked.
The giant Tadeusz dropped both war hammer and Blade and began spitting a foul smelling, thick, black-green slime. A silver stake from Blade s spring-loaded left sleeve stuck out from under his jaw-bone. Moray growled and charged, predictably. Blade raised his right hand, palm up, depressed his fingers into his palm. A burst of holy water shot directly into her eyes.
It was a new device for the vampire hunter, one he had cobbled together after his last encounter with the super hero Spider-Man. Blade didn’t know if the web-slinger generated his own webbing but if he didn’t then surely such a simple trigger device was how he launched his fluids. Blade s wrist launcher only held two bursts of the sacred liquid. He wanted to ask Spider-Man about the device but the fool likely had it copy written. Blade and the web-spinner s encounters were generally left short and to the point.
Moray’s eyes liquefied, running down her face while her cheeks blistered and burst. Tadeusz s body quietly sizzled and popped as undead flesh turned to so much ash and ember. Moray wouldn't stop screaming.
“Where is the next ambush, Moray?”
“Go to hell, hunter!”
Blade discharged a burst of holy water onto her forehead. The screaming worsened.
“You are dead, Daywalker! The Baron will end your murder spree!”
Blade limped over to the hysterical vampire and took her by the throat. Gripping a flap of her facial skin, right below the eye, he began peeling.
“The museum. The C an T! Moray squealed as her face fell away.”
Blade drove a teak dagger into her heavily muscled chest and slammed it home with Tadeusz”s war hammer. Moray was dashed to ashes as she hit the street.
“Blade! Wake up, man. C mon, snap out of it!” a voice mumbled from far away.
Blade blinked and lashed out to grip the speaker by the trachea. His hand found nothing but air. Focusing his eyes Blade realized it was the wraith that stood before him.
“You look terrible, man. What the hell happened? I told you not to take off on me.”
“The hell’d you care, ghos’. Y’jus wan vengeance.” Blade rubbed his eyes.
Where the hell am I? Blade looked around at the nearby intersection but recognized none of the street names. He checked his rigging to determine which weapons he could still call on. The cinquedea was gone, lost fighting on the truck. He couldn’t even recall losing the shotgun. The world was starting to come back into focus. He had leapt off the truck after defeating Moray. There was something about a museum. Blade found a yellow-page from a phonebook in his trench coat pocket.
“We gotta move if we re gonna save Yvette, right?”
Dead Al was grating worse than the pains in Blade s body. He needed to consume some kind of sustenance and soon before the wild took over. Then Blade would do what ever his body felt like doing. On the upside, Dead Al hadn’t come back into focus with the same clarity. The brain damage was healing. Way too damn slowly but the dead-sight was disappearing. His body was healing the more pressing injuries first.
Blade looked over the thin paper in his gloved hand but recognized none of the businesses he read there. It was something that Moray had screamed before her timely end.
“That’s it right there, man.” Al pointed a transparent digit at the page Blade held.”
Blade poured over the page again, finding nothing. “What are you running your mouth about?”
“When I found you standing here, propped up in the alley like a manikin, you kept repeating one line over and over. C and T museum... C and T museum,” Al resonated performing a poor imitation of Blade in a dilapidated state.
So what, Blade thought. How the hell does that help me? The Daywalker turned around to face the street and directly across from his position in the alley he saw the small building across the street.
The Cut and Thrust Museum. You gotta be shittin’ me. Blade watched traffic for a break and charged across.
The C and T museum hadn’t been open for some time, looking at the sun-faded closed stickers adorning the front doors. All the windows were soaped over. He ran around to the side alley and found the emergency exit. The door was eroded and suffering from neglect like the rest of the building. The wood was crumbling and entirely too inviting to be forced in. Blade inclined his head to the building and listened. Across the street Dead Al was negotiating traffic to come along and watch the fun.
Blade drew his largest remaining weapon, a fourteen inch Butterfly Sword, from his hip and kicked through the door. Two things struck him immediately, the complete darkness of the interior and the odd moisture level. Blade pocketed his sunglasses. He kicked the door shut behind him and allowed his eyes to properly adjust to dark.
The front of the buildings signing had boasted of an outstanding collection of bladed weapons, of both a cutting and thrusting nature, from throughout history. Besides the museum, the proprietor, a James L. Donaldson, also sold modern replicas of almost everything he had on display but all were gone.
Blade stepped with but a whisper of sound from the small hallway that lead to the rear offices into the front display room. He had hoped that something would have remained behind after the museum closing or perhaps Donaldson hadn't quite finished moving out. Blade needed weapons. He hadn’t been prepared to fight an entire hive when he arrived in Philadelphia. A hive of expertly trained fighters wasn’t even considered.
There were a few boxes, cheap plywood, haphazardly stacked on some of the display cases that yet remained. The cases were too damaged to bother taking with the high end swords, Blade thought. The dust on the remaining countertop would be mud shortly. Where was all the moisture coming from? It coated the skin of his head. He wiped his eyes, they began to burn. Once he had pulled his hands away he found that his vision had only worsened. The night-sight, one his hybrid gifts, began to change its message. He could no longer determine definite heat variants. A hollowness manifested deep inside the hunter, a sensation that most would call fear. Blade could not place it. His arms and legs began to quiver.
“What the hell is going on here?” Blade asked aloud.
“We re finishing you off, half-breed.” The voice came from beyond the far counter.
Blade palmed and threw one of the two grenades he was carrying. The UV flashbang exploded emitting ultraviolet light and scattering silver shrapnel through the target area. Two voices screamed in agony and Blade felt his heart rate rise in what he considered excitement. The colors of his night vision were a ruin of reds and blues that pulsed and swam like live oil paint seeking form and meaning that only it could understand. Blade shifted his vision in to the human spectrum.
Something stumbled though the glass case on his left. Blade quick-stepped over and listened. Leather rubbing against leather and steel sliding out of a sheath, more than twelve inches, Blade guessed. The hunter slashed with his butterfly sword while drawing his longsword. Blade cut through the air in interweaving patterns. The ruffling of clothing, suede maybe, was all Blade could rely on. His nose told him without a doubt there were at least two vampires in his immediate vicinity..
“Very good, Blade! But then you d have to be to get this far.” Someone behind Blade chuckled. “The Baron said we were secure here so long as we followed his rules and sought honor but I knew one of your kind would show up.”
A second attacker he did not need. Blade stepped up the tempo of his whirling, striking drill keeping the vampire before him on the defensive. Blade knew his opponent could see him quite clearly. Either he wasn’t as skilled as the others or the changing patterns were keeping the vampire mindful. It wasn’t going to last long, Blade knew, the fear somehow made his skin hypersensitive.
You vampires got some kinda nerve calling me a beast, Blade thought. Primal these things might be but there seems to be some kind of pattern here. I’ve been dealing with pairs since the rooftop. A teacher and his progeny. Assuming that is the pattern might be dangerous but fighting blind is going to get me killed if I hang here too much longer. The older ones like to send in their progeny first while the masters hide back. That means Mr. Talkie is behind me in the prime attacking position.
Longsword and Butterfly blade clashed hard into the vampire’s steel. Sparks revealed his foe’s weapons to be a hatchet and a wickedly curving knife that was likely a relative to the Arkansas Toothpick. Blade began altering his strikes to increase the chance of generating sparks. The clashing of weapons masked the location of the second vampire. He was closing in, Blade knew, the end was close.
One final spark, Blade grated his longsword along the wavy knife to drag out visibility and the opening he was waiting for appeared. Movement in the reflection of the glass case revealed movement behind him. The glass revealed a male wielding a halberd of some kind. The pole axe was in mid strike and closing. Sensing that Blade halted his attack, the hand-axe and knife slashed forward as the halberd struck home.
Blade leapt into the air, flipping over his sparring partner and tossed his remaining flashbang between the vampires. The grenade exploded, Blade heard the sound of a baseball bat striking a puddle followed by the sound of a vampire exploding into ashes. The remaining vampire howled and suffered the silver shrapnel alone. In the dying illumination Blade saw the vampire drop to his knees clasping both clawed hands over his eyes, the halberd forgotten. The hunter leapt from the top of a display counter into a lunge with his longsword that pierced the vampire s heart. In burst of flash-dried vampire meat Blade was alone again.
The hunter detected no immediate threat yet the throbbing fear lingered. He spit a thick phlegm from his mouth. His stomach, painfully empty, threatened to turn inside out. Blade wiped his mouth and upper lip. Sweat had mixed with the ambient moisture... ambient, Blade thought. It s cold enough to snow outside. What is this crap?
Blade retrieved the handaxe and Arkansas Toothpick and charged at the front doors. The damn vampires have been living here without any kind of natural predator for who knew how long. They’ve head plenty of time to set up traps of anything their wicked little minds can conceive of. Blade crashed through the glass doors with weapons in hand and fangs bared.
A young couple, walking home after catching the late show were dashed to the ground and showered with glass only to behold an actual, true to life vampire armed for murder standing over them. The woman looked at Blade and screamed before passing out. The man, his crotch darkening with wet, drew a handgun from inside his coat and aimed it at Blade. The vampire hunter was almost lost in the pleasure of breathing in the fresh air when he saw the weapon. Blade ran up the street as hard and fast as he could before stopping to allow his mind to mend.
Blade squatted on the top of the church roof. The air, the sprinkler system maybe, it was full of some kind of hallucinatory drug. How many victims had they tricked in there for a confusing and terror filled death, Blade wondered. That was finished for now, he decided. No one else will suffer in that damnable pit. There was still this Baron to find and take care of.
Where to now though? He had tortured the next location out of the last vampire. Things got too lethal too fast in the C and T. Blade looked down from his holy perch at the police taking statements and investigating the devastated museum. Do I just wait for them to invite me to the next match of this undead tourney?
More than one of Blade s opponents had gone on about honor and how things are required to be done here under the Baron’s watchful eye. What kind of bizarre hive is he running here?
Blade blinked the poison from his eyes. He focused in on the gathering crowd in front of the C and T. The hunter shook his head. Yvette was standing in the crowd. Was the Baron using her as forward scout? It was common enough practice. Blade wondered if Dead Al was watching. He was certainly lurking around somewhere. The hunter hoped that because he couldn’t see the wraith maybe the vision had been removed from his repertoire of supernatural abilities.
Yvette left the gathering quickly and stepped away. She kept a sharp eye out on her surroundings but like most people, they never observed anything above eye level. Blade rose, stretched and jumped from the church to nearest building and began to shadow the woman that started this nights exercise in elimination.
Most of the buildings in this section of Philadelphia were over a century old and had been refurbished as erosion and the codes department demanded. The alleys between the small runs of shops could barely accommodate a single car. The cold kept the inhabitants of any of the apartment blocks indoors and off the roofs so keeping pace with the almost jogging Yvette was simple and uneventful. That was, until Blade reached the end of the block. Beyond the intersection was a home for the aged surrounded by a smattering of leafless trees.
Diagonally across from the bar that Blade stood upon was a small church. Yvette passed it by and turned toward the stone building beside it. The sign over the steel double-doors was too faded for Blade to read. Yvette ran up the twenty-odd steps and entered the unlocked front doors.
Blade looked down over the edge of the rooftop and finding no observers dropped the two stories to the sidewalk precisely as three young black woman rounded the corner. Blade didn t move as their eyes poured over him.
“What was you doin?” the tallest asked.
“Scuse me,” Blade said and ran across the street.
“Damn, he fine,” Blade heard a second woman say to the agreement of the others.
Once Blade crossed the snow laden grounds of the Williams Home for Seniors he sampled the air. From across the street Blade could finally make out something of the sign that hung over the double doors. The smaller printing was beyond legibility due to erosion and graffiti. Beneath that the larger word SHELTER was easily read.
Not for long. Blade crossed the street.
The exterior of every window on the first floor was wire mesh or bar covered. There was no chance of a silent entry. All the doors were locked and made of steel. Blade returned to the front doors that Yvette entered through. He tested the right door. It opened an inch without resistance. Interior smells wafted over his still sensitive olfactory ability.
Vampires.
How many he couldn’t tell but more than one. At least one human too, likely Dead Al’s girl Yvette. With the Arkansas Toothpick in his right hand and the axe in the left Blade opened the door and stepped inside.
He stood in an open-door foyer of ten by twelve feet. The hallway continued beyond the foyer for another fifty feet leading into a larger room. The illumination of the far room flickered randomly, revealing candles as the source of light. Blade had had enough of the blind fighting for one night. Straining his hearing to its utmost he heard nothing from the open chamber beyond and started walking.
From waist level down the wall was once painted white and above that, to include the arched ceiling, was a dark green. Time had not been kind to the shelter and chips and lightning bolt cracks worked throughout the front hall s decor. The tile floor was barely intact revealing the concert base. It could be tricky once the bout starts, Blade thought looking at the loose tiling laying scattered about.
He stepped out of the hall in the octagon shaped room. Straight ahead, after another forty feet the hallway continued out of sight. Blade wasn’t going to shift into night vision with the massive candle packed chandelier hanging over the center of the room. The ambient illumination would only bring blindness. To the right was an elevator. Mirroring that was a forth door to Blade s left. Standing in that doorway was a well dressed vamp with a wire hilt rapier hung at her waist.
Hello, Blade, she said with a slight grin.
Blade took in the rest of the large room, the next stage of the blood gauntlet. How many more until I reach the Baron? Blade remained silent, facing her from the center of the Octagonal room that once served as a lobby.
“My name is Vanessa Kievan. We don t have to do this you know. You can walk away now and we won t pursue you. Leave the barony, never return. You have the Baron s word,” Kievan said pulling her leather gauntlet tight.
She was a beautiful vampire, Blade admitted. Her waist length black hair was tied back. Kievan could easily have been a Hollywood actress. It was a glamorous beauty not dainty. Though she was a foot shorter than Blade, her body was that of an athlete. She wore a white sleeveless blouse tucked into spandex pants and thigh-high boots. No heels, this wasn t for show, she was a fencer though no mask adorned her face. Hanging from her right hip was a stiletto. She was trained in sword and dagger.
Great.
“Civilized vampires are still vampires. Where do I find this baron of yours?” Blade drew the hatchet and butterfly sword.
To be concluded…