Vampire World (30 page)

   
This was looking like serious
trouble.

ATTACK

There was a
whizzing noise, followed by a scream. I saw a flying stake thud into the heart
of one of our very own.

   
“Defend yourselves in the
name of X-Fang!” shouted Mr. Stake.

   
In no time at all, a vicious,
close quarter battle was underway.

   
Knowing this was my only
chance of getting home, I grabbed a stake in one hand and a long blade in the
other. Swinging away, I thrust my blade deep into the left side of one
attacker. Blood gushed from the wound. While he was still in a state of shock
over this, I rammed a stake into his heart. He died quickly.

   
But this offered no respite.
Another TriFang member slammed into me and threw me onto the floor. With his
heavyweight body holding me down, he seized a large stake and aimed a thrust at
my heart. Absolutely helpless, I squeezed my eyes tight shut. But miraculously,
the strike never arrived. I quickly realized why after daring to look again.
His severed arm lay on the floor in a pool of dark blood. Mr. FreeCut was stood
over him holding a curved blade.

   
“Are you okay, Janice?” he
asked, helping me up. I nodded, but had no time to thank him as the brutal
fight roared on all around. TriFang gunners on the second floor were shooting
their stakes down at us. One of these only missed my arm by a fraction before
stabbing into the wall behind me.

   
“I need some people to help
me take out those gunners on the top!” screamed Mr. Stake.

   
I followed his lead by aiming
at one of the shooters and hitting him in the left thigh with a stake. He fell
from the platform and onto the floor, badly injured. Then I shot another
TriFang member right in the heart. Yes! Practice truly does equal perfection.

   
Just as I was about to load a
bottle of holy water into the gun and fling that at the shooters, I spotted
Brett locked in a vigorous blade fight with a lanky, tattoo-covered vampire.

   
My boyfriend was bleeding
from the forehead. Moving rapidly over, I thrust a fistful of grains into his
attacker’s eyes, causing the creep to go temporarily blind. But even blinded he
still managed to swing violently at Brett’s neck. Luckily, he missed. A moment
later, Brett and I both finished him off with simultaneous stake stabs to the
chest.

   
“Are you managing okay? I
asked, eyeing the nasty gash on his head.

   
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied.
“It’s not deep.”

   
“Where is Mr. FreeCut?” I was
worried to death about him.

   
“I don’t know,” Brett said.

   
I searched for my caretaker
in the middle of the bloody mess. Bodies were everywhere. Some vamps were still
clinging to life, with blood draining from stake wounds and deep cuts. I hoped
that most of the dead were TriFang and not X-Fangers, though I didn't have time
to check properly.

   
Then I spotted Mr. FreeCut.
He was fighting tough against two armed brutes. I rushed over to help him, but
he’d already nailed one in the heart with a stake and drenched the face of the
other with a fresh bottle of holy water.

   
Before I had a chance to say
anything to my caretaker, four members of TriFang charged at us, knocking over
both Brett and Mr. FreeCut. I held my ground and fired a stake right into the
heart of one of them. Then I felt an icy chill of blood running down my back as
a swinging blade sliced into me. I didn’t know how deep or bad the cut was, but
that wasn't important right now. The two vile vamps who'd pile-driven Brett
into the floor now had their knives raised to strike. I fired my gun, killing
the first one. But my hand trembled with anxiety for my boyfriend, causing me
to miss with my second shot.

   
I watched horrified as the
knife flashed toward Brett’s throat. But just when I thought it was all over,
Mr. Stake appeared in the nick of time to plunge a stake right through the
heart of Brett’s foe from behind. His victim keeled over in a pool of blood.
Then his body turned to dust.

   
Brett stood up, shaken but
otherwise unhurt.

   
“ Keep it up X-Fangers,”
yelled Mr. Stake. “We’re winning!”

   
I started to feel weak as
more blood trickled down my back. I wanted to forget about the throbbing wound,
hoping it would go away. But it didn’t. Then Brett noticed it for the first
time and quickly began applying some Bloodstop ointment.

   
“How is it feeling now?” he
asked after a short while.

   
I told him I was fine, just
as another TriFang member came charging at us. Brett fought fiercely and
protected me the best he could, but his blade was much smaller than the one his
attacker was armed with.

   
Despite still feeling rather
weak, I couldn’t let the wound affect my chances of getting home. Taking a
razor-edged blade from my belt, I swung fiercely at the neck of the asshole
attacking my boyfriend. With one smooth slice I took his head off. Damn! What a
good shot!

   
At last the effects of the
Bloodstop ointment were beginning to kick in. With a burst of energy, I loaded
my gun with bottles of garlic and holy water and fired them at the last TriFang
gunner standing on the platform. It was a direct hit.
 
First he lost his skin, then his blood.
His remains were engulfed in garlic.

   
My energy levels remained
high as the battle continued. With holy water, garlic, stakes and knives all
flying back and forth at full fury, fighters continued to fall. Thankfully, it
was mostly TriFang members who were going down. I made three more kills and
didn’t give a damn about my wound any longer.

   
Eventually, the bravery and
determined fighting of X-Fang paid off. The battle ended with all of the
TriFang attackers either dead or injured.

   
Mr. Stake and several others
checked on casualties. After identifying their bodies, it turned out we had
lost five valiant members. Many of our injured lay on the floor with stakes
jabbing out of blood-soiled limbs. I hated to see such suffering, but Mr. Stake
assured us they would be okay.

   
“Do not remove the stakes,”
he instructed us. “This will cause too much loss of blood. Instead, apply
Bloodstop ointment around the wounds and help them to drink the emergency
canisters of blood.”

   
This brought me back to my
fall in Slice Canyon. It was not about the broken bones or cuts. It all came
down to the loss of blood.

   
Uninjured X-Fangers passed
out the Bloodstop ointment and reserve blood. They checked the cut on my back
and reapplied the ointment. Though the wound was quite deep, it was already
healing. After a short while, with Brett’s soothing warm and cold hands helping
me to stand up and fresh energy flowing through my body thanks to the new blood
I'd been given, I set about helping our other injured the best I could.

   
Once everyone's injuries were
attended to, I glanced up again at the massive teleporter. It had survived
 
the battle without a scratch. For a
while I had been so engrossed, I'd forgotten that this huge machine was to be
my ticket home.

   
Even as this thought formed,
Mr. Stake yelled an order. “Now, let’s destroy the portal.”

   
I panicked and lost control.
“NO! Stop!” I screamed.

   
Mr. Stake, who was bruised
from the battle, looked at me like I was nuts. “We have to destroy it. You, of
all vampires, should be the one who most wants to protect your world.”

   
“I want to go home,” I
shouted. “I deserve to go home. It’s MY HOME!”

   
“But you can’t,” Mr. Stake
shouted back. “You’re a vampire now! You can’t go back to Earth. You’ll be a
danger there.”

   
“But you don’t know that for
certain,” Mr. FreeCut said, stepping in.

   
Mr. Stake was stunned.

   
“She deserves a shot,” Mr.
FreeCut continued. “Let her go home. I will go with her to make sure she
doesn’t harm herself or others. She is willing to protect those on Earth from
TriFang, so I will act as her assistant and protector. Anyone else who wants to
help out is welcome.”

   
Mr. Stake glared at him.
“Have you gone mad?”

   
Brett stepped in. “No, he
hasn’t. In fact, I think the only person around here who is going mad is
you.
 
I’ll be jumping through with
them because I’m crazy in love with Janice.”

   
He was wonderful when I
needed him to be, especially at a gut-wrenching time like this.

   
“It’s the wrong decision,”
Mr. Stake hammered.

   
“No, it’s the right one,” I
told him. “You and the rest of X-Fang should join us in protecting humans from
vampire attacks. You know damn well that destroying this one portal will not
prevent TriFang from getting to Earth.”

   
“Well, we have to do
something,” he insisted. “Why not destroy this thing now and at least disrupt
them?”

   
“It will not stop them,” Mr.
FreeCut said.

   
Mr. Stake was about to
respond to this when several bright flashes told us that more vampires were
transporting into the room. Unfortunately, as before, they were not on our
side. Far from it. As the figures materialized I found myself gazing into the
despicable face of none other than Rob. He was accompanied by five heavily
armed vampires.

   
“So, you have human blood,”
Rob said to me. “Well, you know how much I enjoy drinking that, bloodbitch. I'm
going to
love
drinking you.”

   
“How did you know?” I
demanded. “Were you spying on me?”

   
I gawked at his fiery hair
and awful tats, also the unmistakable TriFang symbol on his forehead. Wearing
golden gloves, he was armed with a blade bigger than my body, while his friends
were equipped with stake guns and garlic clusters.

   
“That's not important,” Rob
told me. “All that matters is, I want your blood.”

   
He was obviously still
furious that I'd beaten his ass fair and square in the fireball tournament,
even when he was unfairly high on human blood.

   
“I also know where you want
to go,” he added. Grinning evilly, he pulled a small clicker gadget from his
pocket and pressed one of the buttons on this. The huge transporter abruptly
shut down. The neon-blue force field in the center flickered and then faded
away completely, leaving a deathly silence.

   
Briefly, I was too stunned to
say anything. Then I screamed out: “What have you done?”

   
“I turned it OFF. Gosh you’re
still so dumb. Oh well, I don’t care how stupid you are.”

   
“Turn it back on!” I shouted.

   
“I want to face you again,
Janice, or should I say Marissa? Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I’m gonna lick up
your blood anyway. Come on. You and me. One on one. If you want to go home,
come and get it. If not, I’ll crush the switcher and you’ll never make it
there.”

   
My hand holding the stake gun
shook as he started to crush the switcher.

   
“STOP!” I shouted.

   
“Here kitty kitty….” he
mocked.

   
Suddenly, someone jumped in
front of me; a brave vampire with a heart of gold.

   
“You'll not hurt Janice while
I'm here,” declared Mr. FreeCut, placing himself halfway between Rob and me. He
pointed a long silver stake at my tormentor's head.

   
Letting out a growl of anger,
Rob charged at my caretaker with his mega blade. I fired my stake gun at the
devil but missed. Rob took a big swing at Mr. FreeCut, but also missed when my
caretaker nimbly dodged to one side. The huge blade banged into the floor, the
jarring impact sending it slipping out of Rob’s hand. Mr. FreeCut immediately
lunged at Rob's heart with his stake, but thanks to the extra energy Rob gained
from consuming human blood, he was able to avoid the thrust. Carried forward by
his own momentum, Mr. FreeCut slipped on a puddle of blood and fell to the
floor.

   
I rushed over to help, but
was too late. Mr. FreeCut was already lying helpless on his back. I watched in
horror as Rob plunged a large stake into his shoulder.