Chapter Twenty-two

The Head of the Beast

Anthony walks into the mine like he’s worked there every day for the past ten years.

Between his size and confidence, it’s sometimes easy to forget he’s still only sixteen. The passageway isn’t too cramped. Dusty air carries the earthen smell of minerals mixed with the rot of decomposition. The reek isn’t bad enough to knock me over, though I am glad to have missed breakfast.

This straight passageway leads inward for about a hundred feet and probably descends a story and a half before we reach the first chamber. The space is littered with bodies, some more intact than others. I’ve found nauseating proof that what Max told me is likely true: these particular vampires not only drink their victims’ blood, they devour the flesh as well. I’ve seen some horrible things in my day but the sight of human corpses with human bite marks out of them, stripped down to the bone in places, is a new ‘highlight.’ It makes me wish that little device from Men In Black was real so that I could wipe this from my own memory.

Something grunts.

One of the corpses sits up .

Without a word, Anthony whips his fiery broadsword around.

I jog over to the one who sat up and chop his head off. He promptly explodes into a dust cloud.

I pounce on the next nearest body, which turns out to simply be a dead victim.

Orange light from Anthony’s sword splashes over the walls as he duels with a pair of alert vampires. Apparently, they are terrified of fire and mostly dodging away from him without trying to get close enough to attack.

I spot another one getting up about twenty feet from me and sprint toward him. After lopping his head off, I spin at the sound of something coming up behind me. A vampire launches himself at me in a flying dive tackle as if he’s trying to be a superhero or something. I react on instinct, punting him in the face as hard as I can.

His head zooms upward for a hard encounter with the stone ceiling. The rest of his body trailing after his head flips over, and I nearly get his butt in my face. He crashes down on his back, flailing his clawed hands at the air. The guy hadn’t been much to look at before, but my kick broke his face into splinters and the ceiling crushed the rest of his head. He bursts into dust.

While Anthony cuts down a handful more, I spot a vampire sneaking up on Tammy from behind and shout, “Tam, behind you!”

She throws herself forward, shrinking into the shape of a black housecat and leaving the vampire grabbing empty air. Tammy-cat zooms across the chamber in search of a hiding place. I charge the vamp who tried to grab her. He pulls a knife and quickly learns not to bring a knife to a swordfight.

I do sorta know what I’m doing with a sword, after all. Entering with a quick disarming slash that knocks the knife and a few fingers to the floor, I follow up with an instant cross slash through the neck. His head starts to fall over backward, but he grabs it and pulls it back into place. Dammit. I didn’t make a clean cut all the way through. For a second, it seems like I’ve found the one vampire of this type with a small sense of self-preservation… then he dispels that myth by charging at me.

The force of his lunge makes his head fall back off his neck… and he bursts apart into ashes.

“What have we here?” asks a man, his voice normal and not at all bestial.

I spin toward him.

A tall guy in a black biker jacket strolls into the room from a branching shaft that goes deeper underground. The super long hair doesn’t really work with that outfit.

“You must be Hans,” I say. “You tried to kill my mother.”

“Prepare to die,” mutters Anthony.

I have no idea how my kid can make a joke right now, but there it is.

I gesture to my son. “What he said.”

I lunge at him.

He swings a crowbar that I hadn’t noticed before and blocks my attack. Sparks fly as my magical blade sends a few ice chips into the air. Hans shoves me backward, quickly stepping in to swing at my face. I spin away, ducking the high shot and bringing my sword around to deflect his attempt to stab me in the chest with the straight end.

Oof. This guy is fast and he seems to know what he’s doing. His style is very ‘medieval knight’, which gets me wondering how old this dude is. He keeps maneuvering as if he wants to smash me in the face with a shield he doesn’t have. Good thing he’s got a crowbar and not a sword. He sends me staggering with a shoulder-ram after I deflect a crowbar swing for my face. I regain my footing and dart in with a low slash. He blocks, catching my blade in the hook end and tries to disarm me, but my blade slides free before it’s wrenched from my grip. Back and forth we go, circling and trading swings and parries at a pace no mortal could keep up with.

At least the guy doesn’t continue looking unimpressed. Not going to brag and say he looks worried. He’s a few inches shy of worried. I’m a threat, not a pushover. Still, he seems to think he can’t lose… or probably won’t lose.

I change things up by randomly trying to kick his legs out from under him. He’s not ready for that, too focused on my glowing blue sword. My kick lands true, blasting his legs out from under him so fast he seems to hover in midair for a second before crashing down on his back. I go in for a stab to the heart; he kick flips himself to the side. My blade ends up in the dirt.

Anthony, having finished off the rest of the exploding vampires, runs over to give me a hand. My son swings overhead while I go mid. It’s impossible to parry two simultaneous attacks with one weapon.

Hans solves this dilemma by blocking Anthony’s attack as he leaps into the air. The strength of my son’s sword smashing into the crowbar flings Hans out of my reach.

Bastard’s fast. He’s on his feet before we get to him. As much as we try to pincer him and get on either side, this guy keeps side-scooting to keep us both in front of him. He’s fully on the defensive now, not even trying to counterattack. I’m sure if he had a real sword instead of a crowbar and a proper knight’s shield, he’d be more aggressive. Still, it’s damn frustrating he’s managing to hold us off so far.

Where the heck is Tammy?

After what has to be twenty attempts to get through his defenses, an opening finally appears. Anthony launches a powerful, overhead, two-handed swing. The crowbar bends under the force of my son’s attack. I waste no time and aim a thrust at the heart.

My blade passes through a cloud of black mist .

Stunned, I barely manage to stop short before I fall into a well of blackness on the ground in front of me… the same well this vampire just dropped into. The hole vanishes in a second.

“Impressive,” says Hans, now on the opposite side of the chamber.

He pulls open the zipper on his biker jacket, revealing a black-and-gold amulet hanging above a dark shirt. It’s about the size of a bar of soap, though squarish with rounded corners. An Egyptian eye pattern covers the face in gold inlay.

Anthony and I charge toward him.

The vampire grasps the amulet in his left hand and points at Anthony. “You cheated death, boy. You should not be here.”

My son’s stride falters. He crashes down on his knees and slides to a stop, clutching his heart. His fiery sword slips out of his grasp as he struggles to breathe.

“Ant!”

My attention is locked on my son, who gives one last moaning gasp of pain and collapses on his chest. I let out an incoherent scream. The next thing I know, I’ve launched a fireball of magic. Haven’t done that in a while, but it seems the only thing I can do. The ball whips through the air, leaving behind a trail of black, oily smoke. Like a heat-seeking missile, it finds its way to the vampire Hans. Unfortunately for him, he seems to be fairly combustible. Fire erupts on his clothing... then elsewhere as his skin gets in on the fun.

He screams in agony, withering down to his knees while covering his face with burning hands.

I ignore his suffering and dash over to my son...