A Town Called America (37 page)

“Anyone else have bad news?” Mr. Magnus, said wiping the blood from his fingers with a handkerchief. “You seven…I swear to God, you’ll all pay for this. I’m taking the helicopter, and I alone will rectify this situation.”

“I’m afraid we can’t let you do that, Mr. Magnus,” Mr. C. said, standing up from his seat.

“Oh, I see. Now you want to be proactive?” Mr. Magnus said, glaring at him with his black eyes.

“Sir, the sun will be up in less than an hour. If we don’t leave this deathtrap now, we’ll either be stuck in this room all night, at the bottom of the Atlantic, or cooked alive. I—
we
—won’t let that happen.”

The other six vampires stood up as well, looking at Mr. Magnus.

“If you take the helicopter, we’ll be stuck here. That’s not going to happen,” Mr. Black said sternly.

“You defied my orders, and look where it got us.” Mr. Magnus walked slowly to where Mr. C. stood and stopped directly in front of him, face-to-face. “After all this time, you fools actually believe I can’t replace you?”

“You don’t scare us, Mr. Magnus,” Mr. C. said calmly.

Mr. C. threw a left swing followed by a right, neither connecting with Mr. Magnus, who easily avoided both punches.

Laughing, Mr. Magnus reached out, grabbed Mr. C. by the throat, and slammed him onto the table. The other six ran to his aid as Mr. Magnus pummeled him over and over. His face covered in blood, Mr. C tried to fight back, but it was to no avail.

The other six attempted to grab Mr. Magnus, but his strength and speed were far too great for them. He easily hurled each of them across the room, all the while not letting go of his grip on Mr. C.’s throat.

When Mr. Magnus finally released Mr. C., he rolled off the table and dropped to the floor, gasping for air. He then knelt, pausing for a moment, before he leapt through the air, landing nearly ten feet away, just in front of Mr. Magnus, and slashed at his face with his razor-sharp nails.

Mr. Magnus growled in pain just before lifting Mr. C. off the floor by the collar and throwing him to the floor. Mr. C. tried to crawl away to safety, but even with all his strength and power, he was no match for Mr. Magnus. When Mr. C. turned his back to get away, Mr. Magnus ripped into his flesh, clutching his spinal column in his hand, before throwing him across the room, where he struck the wall and fell limply to the floor.

The other six vampires quickly moved toward Mr. Magnus in an effort to subdue him. Before they could reach him, however, he already had left the conference room and locked the door behind him before making his way to the helicopter.

“We’re all trapped,” Mr. Black said, as he pounded his fists on the thick metal door. “Even if we get through the door, when the sun comes up, we’ll still be stuck here without the helicopter.”

All but one of the vampires sat down at the table, waiting for whatever was to come. The only one not sitting was Mr. Black who stood in front of the large round window, looking out at the sea in front of him, as the cruise ship in the distance headed straight for them.

On
The Gem of the Seas
, when Rick regained consciousness, he found himself chained to a support column on the front deck of the ship.

“It’s good to see you awake. In some circles you’d be considered my enemy. I think of you more as…Well, no, you
are
my enemy!” Mr. Magnus said, as he hit Rick in the chest so hard that he thought his lungs were going to collapse. “Now, if I have your attention, just to your left, you’ll see a crane extended over the side of this ship. Attached to the chains, you’ll see a wooden box. Do you have any idea what’s behind door number one?

“Oh, I’m sorry. Where are my manners? I’m Mr. Magnus, and you…you’re the infamous Rick Nolan, general of the Army for the Free People of…Well, who gives a damn.”

Mr. Magnus paced around the white metal pole Rick was chained to, only stopping to adjust his suit tie, which was covered in dried blood, and to throw punches at Rick.

“Yes, I know you,” Rick said. You’re that asshole who lets all his goons fight for him. If anything you’re a coward. You want a real fight? Then untie me.”

“Always a tough guy until you find out the person you care about most in the world is locked in a cage and is about to drown.”

“I’ll kill you, you bastard,” Rick shot back, spitting blood on Mr. Magnus.

“I don’t think you understand the situation you’re in. Let me explain. I’ve spent years ridding this planet of the abominations you humans call vampires. They’re a plague, and if left unchecked, they’ll spread until nothing’s left. Yes, I could simply throw them out in the sun and be done with them, but I have bigger plans. Understand that after they drown, their souls will be in left in purgatory. Can you imagine what that would be like? Your mind and soul stuck at the bottom of the Atlantic for eternity?

“As I said I have much grander plans than simply killing them. You know, you never can tell what might happen in the future, so as long as they’re down there, they’ll be at my disposal, should I ever need an army. All I’ll have to do is pull them up. But enough talk…”

“Good, it’s about time you shut the hell up!”

Mr. Magnus reached out his hand and, with one quick tug, tore the chains that held Rick to the pole. Rick struggled to maintain his balance before falling on his hands and knees in front of him.

Filled with rage and fury, Rick wasn’t holding back any longer. His eyes black, and his mouth open, revealing his fangs, he jumped four feet up in the air, punching Mr. Magnus straight in the jaw as he came down. Mr. Magnus took the hit without so much as staggering.

“Hmm,” he said, looking at Rick for a moment before he came around hard with a right hook and struck Rick twice, once in the stomach and once in the face, knocking him back several feet. A second later Mr. Magnus was on top of Rick. He tried to defend himself by swinging punches, but it did no good, as Mr. Magnus was never where Rick thought he was. He was moving faster than he could follow with his eyes.

The fight was pathetic, lasting just two minutes before Rick fell to the floor, defeated. His face was swollen; he was unable to open his left eye; and his mouth was filled with blood. His eyes were still black and his teeth sharp, but his strength was fading.

As Rick attempted to get to his feet, Mr. Magnus grabbed him by his hair and pulled him across the deck of the ship before dropping
him near the cage that held Chris. Rick tried to yell out to her but couldn’t find his voice.

Now directly in front of the oil rig,
The Gem of the Seas
had come into view and was steadily growing larger as it sped toward its fate.

“Why is it that I always have to do everything myself?” Mr. Magnus asked no one in particular.

A fter taking hold of the chains that hung from a crane, Mr. Magnus ran them through the rings attached to each corner of Chris’s cage.

“I won’t lie to you, my dear,” Mr. Magnus told her. “You’ll drown, and your body will die. Hmm…you should consider this a favor on my part. You might even find having your soul trapped in purgatory at the bottom of the Atlantic to be quite peaceful. Do let me know.”

After he had attached the chains to the cage, he continued to ramble as he pushed it toward the edge of the ship.

Rick watched helplessly as everything in his world went silent, and the cage disappeared over the edge of the cruise ship. A moment later he heard the splash, and the reality of what was occurring hit him just as the cage hit the water.

Still muttering, Mr. Magnus once more adjusted his bloodstained tie as he walked toward Rick. He stopped next to where Rick lay, picked him up by the throat, and lifted him until his feet no longer were touching the ground.

Rick had no strength or energy, but he did have one thing: his willpower. As blood ran down his arm and dripped off his fingertips, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a handful of salt packets.

“Can you swim, General?” Mr. Magnus asked, as Rick ripped open the packets of salt behind his back then threw them at Mr. Magnus’s face.

He dropped Rick and, screaming, held his face, the salt burning his flesh as if it were acid.

Suddenly Rick heard the sound of gunfire. It was Billy; he had shot Mr. Magnus twelve times in the back with his revolvers. After the last bullet ripped into Mr. Magnus, Billy dropped the smoking guns on the deck and pulled out a short-barrel shotgun.
Boom, boom, boom
. He fired ten slugs into Mr. Magnus’s torso, tearing his flesh from his body.
When the shotgun was empty, he threw it on the deck and ran toward Mr. Magnus as fast as he could.

In a flash Billy pounced on him, punching him repeatedly, until the last uppercut sent him staggering back. The only thing that stopped him from going over the edge of the ship was the railing. Then he threw one more punch, a huge uppercut the cracked Mr. Magnus’s jaw on contact. This time, however, Mr. Magnus went flying over the railing, tumbling through the air until he hit the water.

During the fight Rick had managed to get to his feet and jump over the ship’s railing. Underwater, using the chains to guide him down, he swam as fast as he could until he reached Chris’s cage, which was rapidly descending. The saltwater burned his skin as he swam, but fortunately not to the point that debilitating as the salt was much weaker than pure salt. Reaching out, Rick grasped the edge of the cage and pulled himself toward the door. As soon as he opened it, he reached in and grabbed Chris by the arm, pulling her free from the cage.

With his right hand on the chain above the cage, and his left arm wrapped around Chris, he headed for the surface. As he swam as hard and fast as he could with his weak body, Mr. Magnus suddenly grabbed his ankle from below, preventing him from ascending to the surface.

With the cold of the water against his skin, and his body weakened from the beating he’d just taken, he knew that as long as Mr. Magnus had him in his clutches, he’d never reach the surface. So Rick did something he’d never done before. For the first time in his life, he stopped kicking and fighting; he stopped struggling; and in that moment, for the first time, he was at total peace with himself.

As Rick clenched the chain tightly with his outstretched right hand and held Chris securely in his left arm, he placed his mouth on hers and breathed into her the life-giving air she desperately needed. Chris opened her eyes and looked directly into Rick’s black eyes for only a moment; in the vast silence of the ocean, she knew this was their final good-bye.

After Rick ensured Chris’s hand was on the chain, he let go of her, allowing her to climb to the surface, which seemed a world away to
him. With one hand grasping the chain and the other reaching out to her love, she watched as Rick disappeared into the darkness below.

In Rick’s final moments, as water filled his lungs and he descended into the endless void of the ocean, he fought his last battle. With his left foot, he kicked Mr. Magnus’s face as hard as he could—three kicks total—after which Mr. Magnus released his grasp on Rick’s ankle. It was all Rick needed in order to push Mr. Magnus into Chris’s cage, which was descending to the ocean floor.

It took every bit of strength he had left, but he forced Mr. Magnus through the open door. With the click of the steel latch, he was trapped inside the very prison in which he had placed so many others—a prison that would keep his soul in purgatory as his body decayed at the bottom of the great Atlantic.

Just as Chris reached the surface, L.J. dove from the refuel vessel into the water. After grabbing her, he swam back toward the vessel, where their friends waited. Billy, Chris, L.J., Robbie, and Mike were the only ones who had made it off the cruise ship alive. Everyone else had been killed by the remaining M.M. soldiers while trying to get off the ship.

Billy hit the throttle, and the refuel vessel moved away from the cruise ship just as the sun started to rise in a magnificent array of blues, yellows, and reds.

When the sun came up over the horizon, casting its first rays of light over the surface of the water, the remaining vampires sat at the conference room, silently awaiting their fate. As
The Gem of the Seas
slammed into the oil rig, all were seated at the table, except Mr. Black who still stood at the enormous window with his hand on the glass. The moment it made contact, Billy pushed the red switch on the mechanism he held in his hand.