New Reign - Act 3
Whistler stepped out of the back room. Diego had just given him some disturbing news. He squeezed around the bar, ignoring the vampire who was looking for trouble.
“There’s a revolution coming,” he was saying to one of his compatriots. “The kind of revolution that leaves guys like us dead- or worse: in servitude to freaks from some hell dimension.”
The two vampires across from him leaned close and glanced uncertainly around before answering in hushed tones. “It’s a revolution like that gives evil a bad name. No free reign to feed like we want: hell no. They call us mongrels and say we’re next on the chopping block once these–” he dropped his voice an octave lower, “–once these humans are dead.” He looked at the vampire on his own side of the table and held eye contact for just long enough to exact consent. “We’re planning an attack...”
“We know where the Creep is hiding and we’re going to slaughter him before he can slaughter us.” He indicated his comrade. “Tonight at quarter past midnight- Steels and his gang is going to hit them. They’re hiding at the airport.”
Steels nodded once and hunched even closer to their possible new recruit. “Hauser says he’s got six muscles he can scare up– That’s seventeen altogether. Are you in?”
Hauser and Steels waited raptly as the first vampire considered. He sipped his drink at first, considering and reconsidering. Finally, he lifted his glass of smyte and snarled. “Let’s kick the fucker’s ass!” The other two grinned and bashed their glasses together.
Whistler slipped around their table and made his way to the back room which had been reserved for just two customers.
Niki was balancing on a one inch copper pipe spanning the distance between two sawhorses. Addison stood on the floor a few feet below, wielding his long sword without mercy.
The Slayer sprang into the air as the sword drew across where her feet had been, cutting into the pipe and throwing a copper shaving off into the darkness. She landed with perfect balance and her arms were already readying her as the sword sang back through the air and she had to duck and lean back to avoid it.
With a sidestep, she avoided the sudden downstroke from the older Watcher and for a moment wobbled uncertainly as the blade crashed into the pipe and sent vibrations throughout her whole body. In a second, however, she had regained her balance and drove her toes into the flat of the blade, kicking it off the bar and sending Addison stumbling off balance.
He laughed heartily as he regained his own balance and then came at her again. This time, without blinking, she twisted her hips and he drove the blade through thin air, then her hands slapped together around the massive sword and she gave a tremendous tug.
Addison, however, was ready for this and twisted the shank of the sword, intending to cut open her palms, but she released the blade in time, and leapt over it as he nearly dropped it in the aborted maneuver. It clanged down onto the copper pipe and Addison looked up to see a broad smile flash over the blond slayer’s face.
With nothing short of Slayer strength, she jumped off the pipe and caught a truss exposed in the ceiling, inverted herself like an acrobat on a trapeze and launched herself headfirst downward.
Before Addison could even blink, she had extended her arms, snatched the pipe on the way down, where it snapped at the cleft Addison’s sword had left, and converted her dive into a roll, coming up on one knee, bringing the long section of copper pipe up before her, like a sword of her own.
With it’s broken end at the Watcher’s throat, Niki’s grin was justified. Addison scowled and dropped his long sword, still resting on the remaining piece of copper pipe still secured in its sawhorse.
“Give up?” the Slayer grinned, standing and running her fingers through her sweat soaked blond hair. The Watcher grumbled and snatched the sword from the floor once he was out of range of her weapon.
“Something like that,” he agreed. Both their heads turned as the door opened and the new barkeep poked his head in. “Problem?” Addison asked, slipping the sweatband from his brow.
Whistler took that as an invitation and entered, closing the door behind him. “Yeah, actually.” The demon poked at the brim of his fedora and sighed. “Niki, you remember that little girl - Victoria was her name?”
Niki’s eyes shifted uncertainly as she searched her memories. “Sat on a swing?” She nodded. “Yeah, I remember her.”
Whistler’s face became grim. In a matter of fact tone, but with concealed inner empathy, he said,
“She’s dead.”
Niki blinked. The Slayer had only met the little girl once. Victoria, the seer, had been an asset to the various bartenders of the Nail Biter for several years. Her death was a shock to the establishment. Niki felt as though it were expected that she feel sad. She frowned. Looking deep into her core, summoning up the memories of the girl’s smile, her concern for Tom, her innocent interpretations of her horrific dreams... Niki realized she had closed her eyes and opened them. With a frown, she realized she had been gripping the copper pipe so tightly, she had crushed it nearly flat and bent a kink into it. Her eyes made their way back to the demon bar tender. It was there: the emotion she wanted. She didn’t need to look for it.
“Who did it,” she asked with smouldering fury.
Whistler swallowed. “You know who did it. And he’s hiding at the airport.”
After a pause, the Slayer threw the pipe to the floor with a resounding clang. Storming out of the back room, she stopped as Whistler took her arm gently. Her glare informed him exactly what she thought of his restraints.
“Listen,” he said gently, “I know you’re angry—”
“Angry?” she demanded, pulling her arm from his grasp, “you know I’m angry? You don’t know anything about me!” She moved towards the bar– Whistler knowing exactly why.
“I know you still think you’re not ready” he called after. Three vampires were getting ready to leave, slipping quietly away from their table. “I know why you’re really so angry.”
The Slayer turned on him, two paces from the bar. “Exactly why do you think I’m so angry?” She hissed, her hands fists.
Whistler lowered his tone to force her to listen. “You’re angry because he forced this on you.” Niki’s glare didn’t waver. “This vampire: this enemy — He forced this conflict onto you and you think you’re not ready.”
She cocked her head in impatient annoyance. “And I suppose I really am ready?” she demanded, itching to get behind the bar and take what she knew was there.
“No,” the barkeep answered simply. Caught off guard, Niki’s glare turned into a confused frown.
“What?” She looked around for an instant as if this might be some colossal joke at her expense. “What kind of advice is that?” She shook her head. “What kind of barkeep are you?”
“You’re not ready,” he said again, “and no amount of Stuff will get you ready.” The Slayer ground her teeth. She hadn’t realized it, but out of instinct, she had been heading for the small vial of white powder behind the bar. She resented Whistler for bringing it up.
“So– what? How do I get ready?” Her glare was now one of festering resentment– aggression unfulfilled.
Whistler shrugged. “You don’t.” The barkeep calmly walked past her and took the vial of her desires from its place behind the bar. “Not for moments like these,” he continued. “These moments aren’t like your average moments. They’re last call moments. Big moments.” The vial was passed from one hand to the other and Niki found herself watching it move back and forth. “No one’s ever ready for those moments.”
Niki looked up and had steel in her eyes. She offered her hand for him to give her the vial. “So what’s the difference?”
Whistler lifted the vial of white powder next to his face to emphasize the gleam in his eyes. “This is the difference.”
Meg drummed her fingers absently on the steering wheel. Honestly, this red light had lasted for five or six minutes. She was cursed. She was sure of it. Every green on the way to work and every red on the way home. It’s like the universe is conspiring to make sure I never got home, she mused.
Then Meg blinked. The light turned green but Meg’s foot came off the accelerator. To the sound of a car horn behind her, she slowly reached down and undid her seatbelt. With slow and deliberate motions, she opened her door and stepped out, the car horns becoming more intense. A window rolled down as a man shoved his head out and started screaming at her.
But Meg wasn’t listening. The man in the car behind her suddenly stopped screaming as Meg began to walk down the street. This was not what caught his attention. What made him forget about his screaming was that, in the darkness of the late evening, dozens– hundreds of people were walking in the same direction as her. At the same slow, deliberate pace, their faces devoid of all expression.
With a frown and a rising heartbeat, the man quickly rolled up his window and eased his car forward, bumping the rear of Meg’s car, easing it into the intersection. He had to get out of here. This was insanity.
Several people who had been standing in a group on the sidewalk were now plodding calmly down the street, ignoring the halted traffic and ignoring each other. As they marched past his window, the man began to panic, slamming his foot onto the gas and driving Meg’s car into the rear of the stopped car at the far side of the intersection.
By now, the light had turned red and a Porsche which had just finished a brilliant swerve around a group of careless pedestrians broad sided the man’s car and sent both vehicles spinning into stopped traffic.
Through the rising chaos, the water pouring across the pavement form ruptured hydrants and flames leaping into the night from the burning Porsche, hundreds upon hundreds of citizens found themselves marching to some unknown destination, guided only by the subconscious commands being fed to them by something that medical science hadn’t seen for millennia.
Meg arrived at the airport ten minutes after midnight with everyone in the city who had been summoned. The terminal staff had been overwhelmed and had called the police but had found their telephone lines cut. The airport security had been missing for hours and many of the staff had actually been the first to walk off with blank expressions.
Meg wasn’t aware of where she was going, she was just taking the path of least resistance, which happened to be into the thickest part of the gathering crowd trying to get into the freight storage warehouse. Finally most realized that the doors were locked and they contented themselves to stand around the entrances with blank expressions and vacant eyes.
Although she wasn’t sure what she was seeing, the woman was certain that the twenty or so men hanging around at the edge of the parking lot were not here for the same reasons as she. They were not dressed as police, nor as airport staff. Then the twenty or so faces morphed into vampiric forms and the twenty or so creatures belonging to those faces charged.
Vaulting over the listless army, Steels and Hauser led their raiding party towards the main service entrance of the warehouse. All the lights were out and they were navigating the night on scent alone.
Steels landed on several blank New Yorkers who stumbled out of the way before righting themselves and then continuing to ignore the intruders. Unnerved, the vampire made his way to the door and tore the lock from the hasp. He ripped the door open and, hearing the sounds of his vampire gang behind him, charged into the darkness.
The ensuing battle was short and unexpected. The Nosphorus had been waiting inside the door for the vampires— waiting ever since Meg had seen them in the parking lot. Eighty six Nosphorus had formed a semicircle around the doorway — nearly one third of all the Nosphorus in the building. To each Nosphorus there were at least a dozen infected humans, all of which were being called: assembled for the coming battle. The eighteen brave vampires had held their ground for less than twenty seconds against the tide of Nosphorus which pressed against them.
Hauser was dragged from the jumble of seventeen bodies –newly recruited captains for the army– and taken before the General, a Nosphorus on either side of him.
The vampire grimaced at the Creep who sat on a crate before him. His senses told him this was a vampire, but his gut told him there was no commonality between them. Unable to help himself, Hauser cringed as the figure in black stood up before him, turning to his black briefcase. With a click he opened it.
There was little light, since all of the lightbulbs had been smashed from their fixtures, but the glow from the night poured through the windows and Hauser could see clear enough. Inside the briefcase was an eclectic assortment of objects which the vampire in black now removed, setting each carefully on the crate nearby.
First was removed a white gauze bandage, torn at both ends and stained with blood. Beside it was placed a large silver medallion engraved with a circle crossed by three spears. Near that was lain an ancient looking leather bound book at the sight of which the Nosphorus bared their teeth. On top of the book the vampire in black set a heavy 9mm Magnum Wiley handgun. Hauser tensed. Out of all the items, he recognized the gun. It had been shoved in his face several times at the Biter. Next the vampire drew a curved blade from a protective leather sheath and placed it carefully next to the book. Lastly, the Creep placed a simple key on the crate. The key had started this war. Each and everything else had furthered it to the black-clad figure’s satisfaction. But there was one item missing from his personal collection. Before the war was over, he would collect it, if for no other reason than posterity.
“You know,” the Creep began, turning casually towards his captive, “I was exactly like you once.” He sat easily back on his crate.
Hauser had never heard quite that accent before. It was extremely subtle – a common trait among vampires who have spent centuries traveling all over the world. “Just like me?” the captive asked trying not to sound too disinterested.
“Very much,” the Creep confirmed. Hauser placed his origin at Eastern Europe... perhaps ancient Eastern Europe. “And then I realized something. As an impure blooded mongrel, I was... shall we say... transient.”
Hauser frowned. He wasn’t sure what the Creep was getting at, but he didn’t like the mongrel talk. “Oh?” he said noncomittally.
“Yes. As part human – inhabiting a human form, I was less than I could be.” He edged forward on his crate, engrossed in his spiel. “I was tainted, you see, by the infection that has overrun this planet since the Old Ones have left.”
“It sure looks like these guys are the ones who are infected,” Hauser indicated the Nosphorus on either side of him.
“They are my soldiers.” The Creep stood, clasping his hands behind his back. He took a step towards one of the Nosphorus – a creature still fully rat-like in appearance. “Not these crude things you see before you... They are not the real Nosphorus. The real army lies within them. It is the pure demon trapped in the mongrel body that is at my command. It is that pure demon that what you call the ‘Plague’ releases and sends to my service.” The vampire in black turned abruptly from his examination of the Nosphorus and moved back to his collection. “It restores that natural order of existence. The mongrel-kind serve the pure bloods –like me– and the pure bloods serve the Old Ones.” He lifted the medallion and examined it with simple curiosity. “And of course the human scum serve everyone... but they are of no consequence: livestock, you might say.”
“But the Old Ones are dead,” Hauser protested, feeling his stomach turn. The Creep whirled on him, moving over and clutching the captive vampire by the throat without seeming to use his muscles. He moved like a breath of smoke. Hauser felt clammy all over, like being immersed in a deep fog.
“They are not dead,” the vampire in black boomed, his voice sounding loud but his lips remaining motionless. The two Nosphorus recoiled instinctively into the darkness of the warehouse. The Creep ignored them and finally released Hauser’s throat. “They cannot die,” he said simply, turning and clasping his hands together again. “And when they return, all will be as it was: as it should be.”
“When they return?” Hauser said gruffly, finding himself able to stand now that his two guards were gone. “Why would they come back?”
The vampire in black turned with a look of amusement. “Because,” he said with a quizzical smile, “in less than a week, this planet will be theirs for the taking.” Now the Creep lifted something new from his briefcase – something Hauser wouldn’t have expected to find in a vampire’s briefcase. The Creep drew close to his captive, stake in hand. “I’ve decided to give you a choice,” he said politely. “I understand how you feel, being of impure blood: the New Reign doesn’t hold much glamour for your kind. So I’ll let you decide.” He drew the stake closer, his whole body shifting like a shadow in smoke. “Slave, or dust?”
Logan tightened the leather strap over the brow of Sir Kyle Raleigh. It had been easier than he had thought to incapacitate them. Assuming the Nosphorus he had killed at the doorway had been the one to infect them, the one Addison had infected when he got here, then it would seem that without their captain, the foot soldiers don’t put up much of a fight.
He delicately slid the silver pin through the man’s throat, maneuvering it with precision around the arteries and between the esophagus and trachea. If the pins were incorrectly placed, they could pinch off the jugular and kill him. If they punctured the major arteries it would mean even faster and messier death. On the other hand, if they didn’t puncture at least a few capillaries, there was really no point.
The mysterious R had provided the materials and pre-manufactured components for enough Cure Tables so that the Council could be rid of the infection simultaneously, making Logan suspect that R had provided Hobbs with the book in the first place.
Logan wiped his brow and sat down on the edge of Sir Raleigh’s table. In three days, they would be good as new, minus a little psychological trauma. That was unavoidable, however, considering that with the pressing deadline, Logan had no time to tend to them while they slipped in and out of consciousness in perpetual torture. Somehow, that didn’t bother him as much as he thought it probably should.
“Does that make me evil?” he said out loud, knowing no one would answer. “If it does, then God help the rest of the world, because I’m about to save it.”
Niki stepped out of her elevator and marched down the hall with some still festering resentment from her last conversation with Whistler. Who said demons were allowed to be wise? Where was that written? Smart-ass he was... maybe. Dumb-ass she was... Fuckin’ A. She grinned. That made up for just about ev—
The door opened and her heart skipped a beat. Addison walked in beside her and his expression became grave. The apartment was torn apart. Not a drawer was intact, not a cupboard door wasn’t open. The couch upon which she had snuggled with Logan countless lazy days had been shredded, the stuffing flung everywhere. The television screen had been shattered. The blinds had been ripped from their brackets, the windows broken.
“Good Lord,” the Watcher breathed, stepping into the fresh air that filled the mess. A breeze tossed some of the beloved couch’s stuffing across the floor. “Watch your step,” Addison advised as Niki entered, “there’s broken glass near the telly.”
“It’s all gone,” Niki whispered. The suitcase filled with weapons Addison brought each time he visited had been opened and looted. The pictures Niki had kept of her parents were shredded. The tapes of Toe Tag City’s songs were unwound and laying in shiny dark piles in one corner.
As she pursed her lips, the tauntingly refreshing air filling her mouth, a simple truth slid easily into the Slayer’s mind. She tilted her head as it made a home there. With shifting eyes, she read it like a telegram.
“What is it?” Addison asked, touching a hand to her elbow, afraid she might destroy something in classic Niki Valtaine retribution.
“Vampires didn’t do this,” she said simply. “They couldn’t enter without an invitation. It was the infected humans...” She squinted as the idea became clear. “This war has no rules.”
Addison looked at her with a similar expression, if only for his complete lack of understanding. “What are you saying?”
Niki finally focused on the man who had been her Watcher. One corner of her mouth lifted just slightly. “I have an idea,” she tilted her head, “but you’re not going to like it.”
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