Forever Young Birth Of A Nation (73 page)

He leveled both pistols and fired just an
instant after the female vampire screamed, hitting two males in
their heads. They dropped and began to twitch and flail about as
pandemonium broke loose. The vampires bellowed and screeched in
surprise and fear as he continued forward, snap-kicking one female
nearest him in her stomach and driving her back into the lap of a
male on the sofa who was trying to rise. It was as if a lion had
been dropped into a pack of hyenas as everybody shrank back in
terror, trying to get away from the dreadful black-clad figure. One
of them screamed “It’s McCloud!” as the mass of them shrank back
from the destroyer.

Yvonne turned from admonishing Bartholomew
in shock and leapt to the handrail overlooking the foyer just in
time to see the entire coven backing toward the staircase in terror
even as they shouted and screamed curses.

Ian had dropped both pistols the second he
had fired them and already had the other two out and was seeking
targets. In seconds he had shot two more of the males in their
heads, who joined their fellows, twitching and flopping about on
the floor.

Leaping forward he drew his short sword in a
blur and lopped off the heads of those four even as the others had
just started to realize that he was alone. Some were turning and
looking frantically for swords as others had pulled out knives and
were even now crowding together, yet still retreating from the
dreadful figure.

In the upstairs rooms two of the three doors
opened and naked couples peered out, wide eyed. Yvonne laid hold of
them and propelled them toward the staircase shouting “Get down
there now!”

In her room, Priscilla said “Get dressed now
Oliver and please stay close to me” as she hastily dressed.

One who had found a sword charged out of the
pack toward him and Ian met him skillfully, parrying his rapid
strokes easily and suddenly transferring the sword to his left hand
he changed tactics and ran the vampire through, pulling his sword
free and cutting off his sword-hand as his arms flailed, even while
seeking another target, snap-kicking the one-armed vampire back
into his fellows.

Still in a battle crouch he moved forward
toward the now-massed group who began to shout with rage,
brandishing what weapons they had managed to find even as they
closed ranks and formed a knot against the staircase. Only then did
Ian come into Yvonne’s view. Her eyes blazed brightly in hatred as
she and Bartholomew looked on.

Five of the vampires had found sabers and by
now all of the rest had knives. Ian had still not seen their leader
and had about decided to leave when a gunshot rang out.

Pain exploded in his head as he heard an
excited cry “I got him.” Bartholomew raised a smoking pistol above
his head and waved it exuberantly.

Ian felt himself falling on his back and
began to realize that he was flailing about at an eye-blurring
speed as he had seen so many vampires do after he had shot them in
the head. The knot of vampires raised their weapons, eyes glowing
in hatred and with a great cry they rushed in to the slaughter even
as he thrashed violently, his body now completely out of his
control. He lay helpless before the onslaught now and thought
I
came here scarcely six years ago just to help start a bank for my
family and look at what I have come to.
He began to feel the
stabbing pains as the females reached him first and began to
screech in rage as they stabbed furiously into his unprotected
chest and stomach while the males pressed forward to get their
turn. His eyes rolled upward and the roar of the descending
vampires drowned out everything else and then began to recede as
his mind drifted back to the day he first saw America.

Suddenly a loud voice screamed “Stop! Stop!”
A petite figure leaped from the balcony and landed in the midst of
the vampires driving three of them down to fall across Ian which
stopped the onslaught. Priscilla shot to her feet instantly pulling
the females off of Ian with all of her strength and when one of
them snarled and turned on her, Priscilla parried her knife thrust
and in an eye-blurring movement she twisted the knife from the
female’s hand, grabbing it while breaking her wrist. Turning she
drove her foot in a powerful side kick to that one’s stomach,
lifting and driving her back to land on her back stunned. Following
through and in the same motion she continued to pivot, and slashed
viciously with the knife, ripping one of the other females open
across her face and following that with a snap kick to the stomach,
she doubled that one over, as the others screamed with rage and
turned on her.

By then Yvonne had fought her way to
Priscilla and with her eyes blazing she shouted “Stop! All of you
stop! Priscilla! What is the meaning of this?” The others fell
silent then as Priscilla lowered her knife and stood up from the
battle crouch she was in. Her eyes began to quit glowing and she
handed the knife to Yvonne and said in a loud voice “This vampire
buried a king’s ransom in Manhattan somewhere and you fools want to
kill him? What in hell is wrong with you? No wonder Yvonne gets so
angry at the lot of you!”

Cosette had passed the second house on the
left and thought she saw a structure near the road just ahead on
the left side.

Celeste spoke to her in her mind saying
it should be an old barn with a weathervane and a large tree
hanging over it.

Yes! That is it!

She knelt then and scrabbled a pile of dried
leaves together at vampire speed then, adding what twigs and such
that she could find. Making a little hole in the middle of the pile
she poured all of her gunpowder in the center of it and quickly
struck a match.

With a ‘WHOOM’ sound the pile lit and
Cosette quickly added more tinder as well as two sizeable pieces of
dead wood lying there. Ripping open her rucksack she put her five
pistols into their holsters unsecured and slid her short sword into
its sheath hanging between her shoulder blades. Her eyes blazing
she rocketed toward the dim lights she could just make out between
the trees.

Celine said
Uncle Ian is down, Aunt
Cosette. He is hurt!

Cosette felt Celine weeping then as Celeste
and Marie spoke to her mind saying
my God Cosette, hurry,
hurry!

***

There was a muttering then as several of the
vampires spoke up, one of them saying “I didn’t hear about this?
What is this talk of hidden money?”

Priscilla continued then in a loud voice
saying “Grundy was using his rank in the army to punish McCloud for
humiliating him. He was going to have him arrested for sedition.
McCloud found out and hid all of the bank’s funds he brought to
America to keep the British Army from taking them.”

Shoving her aside, Yvonne ripped off Ian’s
hood, saying “Where did you put that money, McCloud?” as he lay
bleeding, his eyes rolled up in his head and his body twitching.
Yvonne drew back her foot and started to kick Ian in the head as
Priscilla blocked her and pleaded in a loud voice “Yvonne, let him
heal first and then we can get him to talk.”

She hesitated for a bit, turning it over in
her mind.
How much money does a bank need to start up in a large
city
she thought?
A lot more than Stefan and I were being
paid for this job. Why can’t we have all of it?
She turned
then, smiling at Priscilla and said “I don’t know what we would do
without you, Priscilla.”

About then Stefan came forward with an axe
in one hand. Furious that his wife had given herself to other men
for so long just to find this one he began to raise the axe for a
killing stroke as he advanced, eyes glowing in hatred. He screamed
at the top of his lungs as he moved toward them “He dies now!”

At that instant a window exploded into their
midst and a black clad figure landed with an unearthly scream. Her
gray eyes blazed with fury as she rolled to her feet in one fluid
motion, her hair flying wildly about her face. She drew two pistols
in the blink of an eye, shooting Stefan in the head even as he
swung the axe, burying it in Ian’s neck. The impact of the slug
rocked him back even as he swung the axe, causing it to strike a
few inches off of dead center. The other bullet found its mark in
the head of another male standing beside him.

The place erupted in roars and screams of
surprise and fear then as Cosette spun, her hair flying wildly
about her head, as with eyes glowing she sought two more targets.
In less than a heartbeat she had shot two more males in the head
even as they were backing away in fear. These two were naked,
having just descended the staircase. Before the guns she dropped
had hit the floor she became a virtual tornado of violent rage as
her sword seemingly appeared in her hands and she began a
relentless attack with yet another unearthly scream. The seven
vampires remaining on their feet were all females, two of them
naked having come downstairs with their lovers who were now
thrashing about on the floor. All of them including Yvonne shrank
back from this avenging angel with the blazing eyes.

Homing in on Yvonne, Cosette darted toward
her even as Yvonne drew her sword with a scream. Yvonne fell back
from Cosette’s onslaught, and knew in seconds that she was no match
for this raging creature as she desperately tried to parry and
retreat, all the while screaming “Kill her! Kill her! She is alone!
Attack her now you fools or you will die!”

That rallied the six other females so that
three of them advanced with swords and three with knives, eyes
glowing with hate, yet not rushing in for fear of falling under her
flashing blade. They slowly pressed inward, not one of them
committing their self as a target, but all in unison. Cosette had
to begin to retreat as Ian thrashed about helplessly on the floor.
Only the whites of his eyes were showing even while his head lolled
about, only attached by his spine and some tendons on one side.

She stood over him, determined not to leave
that place while she had life in her body and she held the seven of
them at bay as her sword became a moving, living instrument of
death, flashing in the light of the oil lamps and making a
shrieking sound of its own as it cleaved the air about them.

“Now, cut her down now” screamed Yvonne, as
the group began to bear in on Cosette who was grimly standing over
Ian, determined not to yield another inch of ground to them.
Priscilla rocketed up the stairs to retrieve her sword and in
seconds she had it and screaming in fury she leapt from the
balcony, eyes blazing as she engaged the first one she came to,
distracting the others for a moment, but the others quickly turned
back to Cosette and began to press her again as Oliver leapt from
the balcony and plunged his knife into another of the females who
screeched in rage and attacked him with a vengeance.

Two more windows exploded into the room then
and four more black-clad figures rolled to their feet. Quickly the
five remaining females were shot in the head even as they screeched
in fear, falling down thrashing violently. Yvonne was blown off her
feet by the impact, driven across the foyer toward the back hallway
where she fell in the shadows twitching. In the chaos of the melee,
no one noticed the female that had been stabbed by Priscilla drag
herself to the kitchen and disappear, along with one male who had
finally recovered from his head wound and had also crawled out of
the scene of the slaughter through the kitchen.

Dropping her sword, Cosette fell down on her
knees next to Ian, and gently cradled his head to her breast,
holding him so that the awful gash made by the axe on one side of
his neck could close itself. “Li! Someone help me! Quickly now Li,
hold him still!”

Li flashed to her side and with Oliver the
two of them held Ian still so that his awful neck wound could
close. Priscilla came and held down his feet to keep him completely
still. In fact, only his spine and the tendons and muscles on his
right hand side were holding his head to his body.

It was a macabre scene then as Cosette knelt
there with Ian in the midst of ten thrashing bodies and four more
headless corpses. No one spoke then and the only sounds heard were
the sounds that the vampires made as they thrashed about and
Cosette calling Ian’s name repeatedly. Every few seconds a thud
would be heard as Sophia, James, and Melissa would decapitate
another vampire. Finally the last thrashing body was still and
everyone gathered around Ian and Cosette, kneeling to watch and
wait. No one paid the slightest heed to over a dozen severed
vampire heads lying about with eyes rolling and mouths moving
silently

The family all waited expectantly as Marie
took her hands down from their place on Celine’s hands and sat
back. She turned to them with a tired looking smile and said “The
fighting is stopped and our people won. Cosette is sitting with Ian
now and the others are with her.”

Everyone gave a loud cheer then and both
Aimee and Xavier were snatched up by Louis and Mustafa and whirled
about over their heads as they danced about the room laughing.
Henri restrained himself and said “Marie, what is it?”

“The wound in Ian’s neck is a bad one. His
head was nearly severed and Cosette is even now sitting with
him.”

Henri looked over at Celine and Celeste and
the two of them sat staring at each other as if in a trance,
obviously still linked to Cosette and monitoring the situation.

***

Ian lay there, aware only that the din of
battle had died and not seeing anything. It seemed as if there was
someone persistently knocking at a door in his mind, as if they
demanded that he answer it. In fact it seemed as if that door was
open, but he could not see who was there for the light coming from
the doorway itself. He became aware of his name resounding in his
consciousness and it was repeated over and over again as if the
light itself was calling out to him.