Underground Vampire (29 page)

“I didn’t believe, now I do.”

“Sorry, father; the one who did
this is worse than the devil.”

“Free me and I will pray for you.”

“Pray anyway; I’m your only way
out.  Say, aren’t you guys in one of the bottom circles?”

He looked blank at the crazy turn
of her conversation, or maybe he was distracted by the hot tar dripping onto
his face.

“In the original?”  Seeing
incomprehension in his face she walked off, heading down.  “I’m sure I’m
getting close, the Pope was toward the bottom, I think.”

She walked past the horrors and the
plaintive sobbing as the priests and police turned upon each other, each
accusing the other of being at fault, each demanding their rights.

They crawled out of the dark,
silently circling her, underlings from the look of them, sacrifices sent to
bother and, maybe if they got lucky, hurt her.  Hideous creatures they
were, immatures, more of the Vampires made by Oliver, secreted in the depths,
kept alive on rat blood.  What they lacked in power they made up in
numbers, relying on a swarming wave to overwhelm her.  

Their mistake was to threaten,
rictus lips back, fangs protruding.  They inflated rather like those
amusing Japanese lizards, she thought, as she took their heads in a classic
spin, more fouette than piro.  They collapsed in slow motion, one after
another, the heads bouncing off into the rubble.  “When, oh when, will you
learn that when it’s fighting time, fight,” she mused, as she stepped past the
bodies quickly turning to ash.

Peering over the edge of the ramp,
she looked down into the smoke and flashing flame rising from the bottom. 
Murmuring, “I know how this ends, I read the book,” she vaulted over the ramp’s
edge down into the fire flashing from below until the noxious smoke billowing
from the depths obscured her.

She landed on a lower section of
the ramp decorated with miserable unfortunates chained to the walls. 
Disgusted by Oliver’s deranged excess, she didn’t linger to discover their sin
but forged on down the path.  Receding light beckoned her forward as she
openly marched down the middle way, her Louboutins click clacking, the
triumphant sound of the conqueror rather than a thief come in the night. 

A recent hole in the wall beckoned
and she halted briefly to sample the ancient air released from below.  The
updraft was strong enough to push her hair back from her face and brought a
primeval odor of earth that had never seen the sun; clean ancient dirt, perfect
for a Vampire’s final sleep.

Sharp turn followed sharper, each
offering excellent ambush opportunity, until the tunnel butted against a cut so
that the way continued, but four feet higher.  Standing on the ledge was
Jason, dressed in possibly the finest black suit she had ever seen on a
man.  His shirt was the white of prestige with a perfectly knotted red tie
matched by an impeccable pocket square providing a slash of brilliance to
him.  He raised his arm unconsciously to straighten a cuff, displaying
gold cufflinks as he greeted her, “I told him those boys he sent to greet you
would be wasted.”

“Jason, you are one of the best
looking men I have ever seen,” she said.

“Thank you, my dear.  I have
always enjoyed the time we spent together.”

“Now, please step aside; I have an
appointment and don’t want to be late.”

“I can’t do that; I’m here to
relieve you of your sword and whatever else you may have brought in violation
of your agreement.”

“Jason, I love your head where it
is, but if you don’t get out of the way I’m going to take it off and ruin that
gorgeous suit in the process, so why don’t you leave.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Run Jason, it’s a big world.”

“No, I don’t want to live as prey;
I’ll face you now.”

Bird Girl appeared from out of the
dark delivering two blades, a long sword and a foot long double bladed
dagger.  European, she thought, maybe German by the looks of the dagger
guard.  Perhaps dear Jason was a secret practitioner of the fighting arts.

Turning to Bird Girl, she said,
“You, I’ll be happy to kill.  Leave now, it’s your only warning.”

Unlike her usual gaudy plumage,
Bird Girl was dressed all in black, a severe look accented by minimal makeup,
with her hair pulled straight back.  She had her own blade and handled it
easily, familiar with its form and function.

“I wouldn’t miss this for anything
and you should know before you die that my name is Natasha.”

“Ah yes, the second rater I’ve
heard so much about.  And all this time I thought you were just a bar
rat,” replied Arabella, smiling sweetly over the insult, “My apology.”

“Before I kill you, you will be on
your knees apologizing,” said Natasha, “and you will mean it.”  Natasha
lightly jumped from the ledge and, while they were talking, circled to her
left, no doubt planning to encircle her while Jason pressed forward from the
front.

“Whore, you are playing with the
big girls now.”

Most of the community that
considered such things thought that Arabella’s choice of a katana as her
personal weapon was due to the blade’s cutting power or, perhaps, some mystical
connection to the East.  What few fully appreciated was that she relied
upon the Samurai manual of arms, wherein the attack started with the blade in
the scabbard, one continuous motion ending in the fatal cut.  Europeans
drew their blade, then started combat, and while they might think the action
was continuous, there was an infinitesimal distance between two discrete steps,
a tiny moment where an adept might strike unimpeded, dealing the mortal blow.

As Natasha raised her blade to en
garde, Arabella was moving forward.  Her blade started its movement on her
left side and, as she stepped forward sinking onto her right leg till her
shoulder was over the knee, she swept the blade around and cut through Bird
Girl’s ankles so that she stood for a moment then toppled over.  She still
held her sword until Arabella said drop it or I will cut your arm off. 
The sword clattered to the floor and, using her toe, Arabella flipped it into
the shadows.

“Extraordinary,” said Jason, as if
he had just witnessed a stunning gymnastic routine, “Wouldn’t believe it if I
hadn’t seen it.”

“Last chance,” said Arabella,
fastidiously cleaning the blood from her sword by wiping it across Natasha’s
shirt.

“I don’t suppose you would
surrender your weapons so we could avoid a messy confrontation?” he asked
politely.

She looked at him, saddened that he
and his beauty would no longer be in the world, and gave him a final smile
goodbye.

He jumped down landing at her level
and feinted to his left into her sword arm, saying, “I don’t think I’ll go that
way.”  She feinted and swung horizontally, a body cut, which he easily
evaded and immediately counterattacked with the point of his sword to her
waist, coming in behind her swing.  She narrowly avoided the puncture and
settled in for the difficult grind of a long nasty fight. 

Evidently, Jason had been alive in
Europe when men fought for a living.  He handled his blades well, no wasted
movement, always looking to wound or kill.  The dagger was always a
problem, and several times when they locked blades he narrowly missed stabbing
her neck. 

Several times they leapt into the
air, rising and floating down in a crescendo of blows.  Finally, she
bobbed her head, luring him to again leap into the air where he hung above
her.  Suspended helplessly at apogee he looked down at her, helpless; she
moved under him and, slashing back and forth, cut him into three sections as
gravity pulled him to the ground.  Pausing, she watched as his body flared
and turned to ash, an old and powerful Vampire, one that, in spite of herself,
she missed and respected and, in some odd way, even loved.

All that remained was to locate
Oliver; she was bored with the preliminaries.  The pathway narrowed and
became quite cramped.  To the sides and above someone had carved bolt
holes that could hide an attacker.  Sheathing her sword, she pulled the
.45 from her waist and proceeded; anyone popping out she would blast with the
silver tipped bullets; the noise would be deafening in the enclosed space but
the slugs very effective.

Ahead, the light flickered as if
the narrow passageway was lit by torches.  “A melodramatic touch,” she
thought, “one that Oliver would love; I’m surprised he didn’t lug an organ down
here for mood music.” 

Coming around another bend, she saw
that there were, in fact, torches stuck in the walls; as she grew closer, she
could see that what she thought were small logs jammed into the walls were, in
fact, body parts held in place by wrought iron sconces.  Here a leg, there
an arm, and so on down the passageway, the burning flesh giving off a sweet and
disgusting smell, as she peered down the passageway, the smoke burning her
eyes.  Involuntarily, she caught herself counting the limbs, trying to
determine how many Humans Oliver had killed as set decoration.  A part of
her mind tried to match the various parts; there was a left leg, so where is
its mate?  It was the only way to maintain sanity as she closed in on his
sick mind.

“Can you see your way?” Oliver’s
voice echoed down the passage, faintly magnified with a tiny bit of
reverb.  “It’s more than you provided me when you put me in the grave; you
should thank me for my kindness,” this last with a bit of petulance. 

Ignoring him, she continued on, the
stench from the torches growing stronger as she descended into the
depths.  She estimated that she was many hundreds of feet below ground
when she came to the end of the passage.  Looking up, she could see that
he had hollowed out an area the size of a small chapel; at the end a dome had
been dug out of the ceiling; along the walls of the nave were cutouts
approximating the Way of Sorrows. 

As she gawked at the surreal scene,
a head popped out of where Veronica should be wiping His face and she shot, the
head exploding crimson from the silver jacketed bullet. Leaping into the air
she whirled, putting a round into each opening.  Thumbing the ejector, the
spent magazine popped out and she calmly inserted a fresh clip and put a round
into the remaining opening.   Flaming Vampires tumbled from the
openings, lighting the scene for Oliver’s final act. 

“Enough of the theatrics, don’t you
think I’ve killed enough of your Vampires?  Keep it up and you’ll be
missing your army.”

“You were supposed to be unarmed,”
he said, a little peevish now that his plans were unwinding.

“And you were supposed to be alone,
so we both lied.”

“If you come to the end of the
chamber, take the last window on your right; it will lead you to me.”

Inventorying her weapons, she had
her sword and her .45; she’d used her ammo on the underlings and now her
favorite pistol was dead weight.  Hating to abandon it, she’d had it for
almost a hundred years, she tucked it into a bent wall fissure, scratching a
mark on the floor to mark the spot, should she come this way again.

Pausing, she breathed in through
her nose, held for a whole note, just enough to differentiate, and then
released out of her nose.  Concentrating, she focused on the little hot spot
glowing at the tip of her nose until there was no regret and no future, no love
gained and none lost.  Opening her eyes, the grey and smoky walls turned
bright and, for a moment, she marveled at the texture she hadn’t yet noticed
and smelled the cleanliness of the mostly unpolluted deep. 

Facing the final decision, she
thought to herself how she’d tried to protect Jesse from this end.  Once
she’d found the tomb empty and Oliver risen from the dead, she’d careened to a
final meeting and, truth be told, she didn’t know who would win, which of them
would survive.  

Overpowering gusts of hot air
bubbling with gas came now.  The heat was oppressive and she gave a quick
smile, wryly thinking she had again dressed appropriately to go to hell. 
For hell it was; the path was cracked with magma puddling as it seeped from the
bowels of the earth. 

Coming at last to a cavern, she
stopped to see Jesse on his hands and knees, a collar about his neck, a short
vicious chain run through a bolt in the floor so that he was forced to cower at
the feet of Oliver.  Jesse raised his face as she entered the chamber and
hopeful recognition crossed his face, instantly replaced by concern as he
screamed “Run, save yourself,” as Oliver, roused from self-absorbed lethargy,
jerked the chain so that Jesse’s tongue bulged from his mouth and he fell to
his stomach, life choking out of him.

Arabella walked into the cavern,
unconcerned about the fate of her lover.  Stopping, she viewed Oliver as a
beast in a cage, for that is what he had become.  Around him were corpses
of half devoured Humans and Vampires.  Apparently he could no longer
discriminate and, responding to his urges, randomly attacked whatever was
within reach.  “I’ve been waiting,” he said, unfolding his wings. 
“I’m going to kill him,” he jerked the chain in case she didn’t get his point,
“tonight.”

“Saving him for dessert,” gliding
closer as she talked, “are you?”

“No, you are my dessert.  He
is, how do you say, merely the amuse bouche.”  Amused at his witticism,
Oliver opened his mouth and laughed loud, a corpulent stench rolling before
him.  “Should I eat him now,” he bellowed, “or later, which do you
prefer?”

“It matters not to me,” she
sniffed, uninterested in Jesse’s fate.  “I tire of him; kill him now, kill
him later,” a Gallic shrug dismissing the matter as of no account.

Petulant, robbed of his little
moment by her indifference, Oliver jerked the chain arching Jesse’s neck,
exposing the thumping artery.  For a moment all were tableau, the only
sound Jesse’s heart reverberating steady through the cavern.   At
that precise moment, a moment frozen in time, Jesse looked at her and they
locked their eyes and he mouthed, “Kill him.”