CHAPTER 4
THE DEMONS’ WEAKNESS
CHAPTER 4
.
“Sis, you sure we don’t need more fertilizer than this?” Dan’s apprehensive tone as he took the last plastic case and set it down in the bed of their wagon stabbed into Doris’ breast.
This was right about the time D was passing through the gates of the vampires’ castle.
The pair had gone into Ransylva to do their shopping for the month. However, the results were something pitiful. Old Man Whatley, proprietor of a local store, had always been kind enough to bring things out from the storeroom that he didn’t have displayed, but today he coldly refused as he’d never done before. As Doris named off necessities, he replied with apparent regret that they were either sold out or on back order. And yet, behind the counter and in the corner Doris saw he had stacks of them. When asked, however, he fumbled to say that the merchandise was already spoken for.
Doris caught on quickly enough. There was only one person low enough to cause her such grief.
Still, she didn’t have time to waste arguing with Whatley, so she choked back her rage, swung by the home of an acquaintance, and somehow managed to get what she needed for the time being. At present, every minute from sunrise to sunset was as precious as a jewel to Doris. At night, her ghastly life-or-death battle with the demon awaited. No matter what happened, she had to get home before nightfall—that was the message D had drilled into her before he set out. Well, she knew that, but ... Once she’d loaded the last package of dried beef into the wagon bed, Doris gnawed her lip. The uncharacteristically forlorn expression Dan wore back there in the wagon became a smile the second his face turned toward her. The boy was doing all he could to keep her from worrying on his account. Because she understood that, Doris’ heart was filled with a concern, a sorrow, and an anger that would not be checked. One of her hands reached over and unconsciously tightened around the handle of the whip she had tucked in her belt. There was only one place to direct her rage.
“Darn it, I forgot to swing by Doc Ferringo’s place,” she said with feigned agitation. “You wait here. It wouldn’t do to have our goods get swiped, so don’t you leave the wagon.”
“Sis …”
Her brother’s word seemed to cling to her, as if he sensed something, but Doris replied, “Hey, a big boy like you should be ashamed to make a face like that. D would laugh if he could see how down in the mouth you look. Stop your worrying. As long as I’m around, everything’ll be fine. Ain’t that the way it’s always been?” Speaking gently but firmly, and giving him no chance to disagree, she quickly set off down the street, thinking, At this hour, I figure those scumbags’ll be in the Black Lagoon or Pandora’s Hotel. I’ll learn them a thing or two!
Her supposition proved correct. The second she opened the batwing doors of the saloon, Greco and his gang smirked and stood up from their table in the back. Quickly counting their number at seven, Doris narrowed her eyes suddenly when she saw what Greco was wearing.
His whole body was sparkling. From the top of his head to the tips of his feet Greco was covered by metallic clothing—actually, a kind of weapon called a combat suit. Doris had never seen one before, but her amazement soon faded, and with a scornful expression that said, looks like that frivolous fool has jumped a new fashion bandwagon, she laid into him. “You were all hot under the collar about what happened this morning, so you went and leaned on Old Man Whatley so he wouldn’t sell us nothing, didn’t you? And you call yourself a man? You’re the lowest of the low!”
“What the hell are you yammering about?” Greco smiled mockingly. “I don’t have to take that off no one who’s about to be some vampire’s fun toy. You should thank your lucky stars we didn’t let that little tidbit out. You’d better get it into your head that it’s gonna be the same thing next month and the month after. Looks like you probably managed to scrape something together today, but how long’ll that pitiful amount keep your orchards going and your cows fed? Maybe two weeks, if you’re lucky. Of course, that’s supposing you’re still walking around and throwing a shadow that long. Well, you’ll be okay because pretty soon you won’t have to eat anything to survive, but what’d you have planned for your poor little brother?”
Before his snide comments had ended, the whip streaked from Doris’ hand. It wrapped around the helmet portion of his combat suit and she channeled her power into toppling him. But her recklessness was born of her ignorance. Greco—or rather, his combat suit—didn’t budge an inch. He pulled the end of the whip with his right hand, and with one little tug, the whip flew into his hands.
“How many times did you think I was gonna fall for that, bitch?”
Shocked though she was, Doris was indeed the daughter of a Hunter, and she leapt back almost six feet. As she jumped, eyes that sparkled vulgarly with the light of hatred, lust, and superiority followed her.
“Don’t forget it’s my daddy that runs the show in town. There’s nothing to keep us from seeing to it you and your stupid little brother starve to death.”
Doris was a bit shaken, and it showed on her face—she knew the truth of what he’d just said.
A committee generally governed village operations, but the ultimate authority in town was the mayor. Under the harsh conditions of the Frontier lands, time-consuming and half-hearted operating procedures like parliaments and majority rule would bring death down on the villagers in no time. Monsters, mutants, bandits—the hungry eyes of outside forces were focused relentlessly on Ransylva. And naturally, village operations included the buying and selling of goods. It would be a piece of cake to come up with some reason to suspend a shop from doing business. When it came to the life or death of his business, Old Man Whatley had no choice but bow under duress. For Doris, a hard two-day ride to go shopping in Pedros, the nearest neighboring village, was out of the question under the present conditions. Anyway, it was clear Greco and his cronies would try to stop her.
“You have a lot of nerve, saying a despicable thing like that. I don’t care if you are the mayor’s son …” Doris’ voice trembled with rage.
Ignoring that, Greco said, “But if you’d be my wife, all that’d be different. We’ve got it all set up so when my daddy retires, the folks with pull in this town will see to it I’m the next mayor. So, what do you say? Won’t you reconsider? Instead of busting your ass on that rundown farm, you could have all the fancy duds you could ever wear and all you could eat of the classiest fixin’s. Dan would love it, too. And we could run off that creepy punk because I’d protect you from the vampire. If we put the money out there, you’d be surprised how many Hunters’ll show up. What do you say?”
In lieu of an answer, Doris drew closer. Well, look at that—no matter how tough she tries to act, she’s still a woman after all, Greco thought for a split second before a mass of liquid spattered against the helmet’s smoked visor. Doris had spat on him.
“You—you crazy bitch! I try and treat you nice, and you pull this shit!” Greco wasn’t accustomed to using the suit, and his right hand clanked roughly as it mopped his faceplate clean. But then he grabbed at Doris with incredible speed. He had hold of her torso before she had a chance to leap away. He pulled her into him. Purchased mere hours earlier from a wandering merchant, the combat suit was second-hand and of the lowest grade, but the construction—an ultra-tensile, steel armor built on a base of reinforced, organic, pseudo-skin over an electronic nervous system—increased the wearer’s speed three-fold and gave him ten times his normal strength. Now that Greco had Doris, there was no way she could get away.
“What are you doing? Let go of me,” she screamed, but she only succeeded in hurting her own hand when she slapped him.
Greco had no trouble whatsoever restraining both of Doris’ hands with one of his own, and he hoisted her a foot off the ground. The helmet split down the middle with a metallic rasp. The face peering out at her was that of bald-faced, fiendish lust. A thread of drool stretched from the corner of his lips, which held a little smirk. Doris glared at him indignantly, but he said, “You’re always putting on the airs. Well right here, right now, I’m gonna make you mine. Hey, dumbass, don’t do anything funny and just stay the hell out of this!” With that last remark—roared at the middle-aged bartender who had left the counter to try and break things up—the bartender returned to his post. After all, he was up against the mayor’s son. Eyes bloodshot with lust, Greco’s filthy lips drew close to the immobilized young beauty. Doris turned her face away.
“Let me go! I’ll call the sheriff!”
“That ain’t gonna do much good,” he laughed. “Hell, if it came right down to it, he likes his neck a little too much to stick it out. Hey, the bar is closed now! Someone stand guard so no one comes in.”
“You got it.” One of Greco’s lackeys headed for the door, but then halted abruptly. Suddenly, there was a wall of black in front of him, blocking his path. “What the hell do you—”
His shout was truncated almost immediately, and a split second later, the lackey flew through tables and chairs, crashed into two of his cohorts, and smacked headfirst into the wall. Not that he was thrown at it. The black wall had merely given the man a light push backwards. But his strength must have been inhuman: both the lackey that had gone flying and also the two others he’d hit were all laid out cold on the floor, and some of the plaster had been knocked out of the wall.
“You bastard! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” As the thugs grew pale and reached for the weapons at their waists, the black wall looked at them and shrugged casually.
Easily over six-and-a-half-feet tall, he was a bald giant. Arms, knotted like the roots of a tree, protruded from his leather vest. He must have weighed three hundred and fifty pounds if he weighed an ounce. Judging from the well-worn, massive machete hanging from his belt, the thugs realized their foe had more than just size on his side, and their expressions grew more prudent.
“Please forgive us. My friend here is wholly unfamiliar with the concept of restraint.”
Wriggling in Greco’s embrace, Doris forgot her struggles for a moment and turned toward the newcomers only to have her eyes open wide with surprise. The voice had been beautiful, but the man himself positively sparkled.
His age must have been around twenty. He had gorgeous black hair that spilled down to his shoulders, and deep brown eyes that seemed ready to swallow the world, leaving all who beheld them feeling gloriously drunk. The youth was an Asian Apollo. He, along with the giant and two other companions, seated himself at a table.
The only other people in the Black Lagoon aside from Greco and his gang, the newcomers began to amuse themselves with a game of cards. If the keen glint in their eyes was any indication, they had to be traveling Hunters of some confidence.
“What the hell are you fools supposed to be,” Greco asked, still holding Doris.
“I am Rei-Ginsei, the Serene Silver Star. My friend here is Golem the Tortureless. We’re Behemoth Hunters.”
“The hell you are,” Greco bellowed, as he looked the four of them over. “You’re telling me you hunt those big ol’ behemoths with so few people? A baby behemoth can’t even be killed without ten or twenty guys.” He laughed scornfully. “Granted, you’ve got that big bastard, but that still leaves you with a sissy boy, a pinhead, and a fucking hunchback. So please help me out here—how exactly does a bunch of rejects like you hunt anyway?”
“We shall show you—here and now,” Rei-Ginsei said with his sun-god smile. “But before we do, kindly release the young lady. If she were ugly, it might be another matter, but to treat a beautiful woman in such a manner is a grave breach of etiquette.”
“Then why don’t you make me stop, you big, bad Hunters?”
The vermilion lips that framed his pearly white teeth bowed with sorrow. “So that’s how it’s to be then? Very well ...”
“Okay, come on then!”
Greco was used to getting into fights, but the reason he forgot the power of his combat suit and threw Doris aside with all his might may have been because he had some inkling of how the coming battle was going to end.
Unable to prepare for her fall, Doris struck her head on the edge of a table. When she regained consciousness she was held in a pair of powerful arms, and matters had already been settled. “Ow, that hurts,” she said, rubbing her forehead.
Rei-Ginsei gave her a gentle smile and swept her up off the floor. “We dealt with those ruffians. I’m not completely clear on the situation here, but I think leaving before the sheriff is summoned might avoid complications.”
“Um, yeah, you’re right.” Due to her throbbing headache her answer was muddled, but Doris noticed the sharp squeak of wood-on-wood behind her and turned around in time to be utterly astonished. Every last one of Greco’s hoodlums was laid out on the floor. Despite the pain in her head, Doris was still sharp enough to notice something strange about them almost instantly.
The arms and legs of the two sprawled closest to her on the floor had been bent back against the elbow and knee joints and were twisted into horrific objets d’art. Most likely, the hoodlums had fallen victim to Golem’s monstrous strength, but what caught Doris’ eye were the remnants of a longsword and a machete lying near them. She wasn’t sure about the machete, but the longsword was definitely a high-frequency saber with a built-in sonic frequency wave generator, able to cut through iron plate. Both weapons were shattered down to the hilt as if they’d tried to chop through a block of steel.
Just behind one of the round tables squirmed Greco’s right-hand man, O’Reilly. He was known for his skill with a revolver; once, Doris saw him knock a bee out of the air from fifty yards with his quick draw. When she’d seen him last, he was already going for his gun. When one of the four came at him, the barrel of his weapon should have spit flame in less than three-tenths of a second. Yet here he was, sprawled face-down on the floor with his hand still locked around the pistol grip. But what truly made Doris shudder was the location of the wound that felled him. The back of his head was split open. One of the four—well, perhaps not Golem but one of the other three—had got behind him and dealt the blow without giving him the three-tenths of a second he needed to work his quick draw.
Diagonally across from O’Reilly someone else raised his head. Doris felt as if all the blood had drained from her body. The first three thugs who’d been slammed into the wall were still unconscious, and they could be considered lucky for that. The remaining man’s face looked like it’d been stung by vicious killer bees—his skin was swollen with dark red pustules that dripped a steady stream of discharge onto the floor. Though Doris didn’t notice it at first, at that very moment a black insect crawling across the floor stopped at her feet, scurried a little closer, and then walked right past her as if someone was calling it back. It was a tiny spider. It went from the leather sandals of the hunchback to his leg, then climbed farther up his back to a massive hump, covered by a leather vest. Both the vest and the hump split right down the middle, and the spider disappeared into the fissure. The fissure closed promptly.
“Surprised? I fear it may be too much of a shock for a beautiful young woman like yourself ...”
Doris heard Rei-Ginsei’s voice as if from a distance, like the pealing of a bell, for her soul had been stolen when she saw the most frightening outcome of the whole unearthly battle: she saw Greco, the only one unharmed, still seated in his chair with his hands locked around the armrests and the expression of a dead man on his face. The squeak of wood-on-wood she had heard was the sound of his trembling body rattling the legs of the chair against the floor. Whatever he’d witnessed from the safety of his combat suit, it had thrown his eyes wide open, and they reflected nothing but paling terror.
“What’d you guys do?” Doris asked in a firm voice when she finally looked back at Rei-Ginsei and slipped from his arms.
“Not a thing.” Rei-Ginsei made a mortified expression. “We simply finished what they started—in our own inimitable style, of course.”
“Thank you,” Doris said gratefully. “I truly appreciate your help. If you’re going to be in town a while, I’d like to do something to thank you later.”
“Don’t trouble yourself about it. There is nothing in this world more profane than the ugly making the beautiful submit by force. They merely got a taste of heaven’s wrath.”
“You flatter me, but would you have done the same for another girl if she was being treated the same way?”
“Of course I’d come to her aid. Provided she was beautiful.”
Doris averted her eyes from the calmly smiling face of the gorgeous man. “Well, thank you again. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
“Yes, allow us to take care of this mess. We’re well accustomed to it.” As Rei-Ginsei nodded jovially, something black gushed into his gaze. “I’m quite sure we’ll meet again.”
.
A few minutes later, Doris had the wagon racing back toward the farm.
“Did something happen back there, Sis?”
Her distant expression didn’t change at the concerned query from Dan, who rode shotgun. The anxieties running amuck in her mind wouldn’t allow her a smile.
She could only expect that Greco would make things even harder for her now, and on top of that she had no guarantee D would be back tonight. She just knew she should’ve stopped D when he told her he was going into the lord’s castle during the day to take advantage of the dhampirs’ ability to operate in daylight. If he didn’t make it back, they would be left helpless and alone before the Count’s next onslaught. She had no proof the Count would come tonight, but she was pretty sure of it. Doris shook her head unconsciously. No, that would mean D was dead.
I know he’s coming back, she thought.
Her right hand brushed the nape of her neck. Moments before he’d set out, D had put what he said was a charm on the fang marks there. The charm was disappointingly simple, consisting merely of a light press of the palm of his left hand to the wound; he hadn’t even explained what effect it was supposed to have, but it was all Doris had to rely on now.
Another face formed in her mind. That dashing young man in the saloon could also be considered her savior in a way, but Doris felt an ominous shadow fall across her heart. When he’d lifted her from the floor and she saw his handsome visage up close, she had in truth swooned. But her virgin instinct had caught the sickly sweet smell of rotting fruit that lingered around his gorgeous face.
No, most likely it wasn’t her instinct that caught it, but rather the work of something firmly etched in a deeper part of her: the visage of a young man more beautiful and more noble than Rei-Ginsei. Doris had a foreboding that the handsome new arrival would prove a greater danger to her than Greco had. That was another of her concerns.
Come back. I don’t care if you can’t beat the Count, just come back to me.
That these thoughts had nothing to do with her safety was something the seventeen-year-old had not yet noticed.
.
For the past few minutes, the tepid, waist-deep water had been growing warmer, and the mist licking its way up the stony walls had become denser. He had been walking for thirty minutes now. The drop from the great hall must have been around seventy feet. A vast subterranean aqueduct brimming with water had awaited D. As the water only came up to his chest, it didn’t matter much that he’d fallen feet first—what had saved D from a brutal impact was his inhuman skill, and the indisputably superhuman anatomy all dhampirs possessed.
Vampire anatomy—primarily their bones, muscles, and nerves—allowed them to absorb impact and recover from damage hundreds of times better than humans could. While it naturally varied from individual to individual, dhampirs inherited at least fifty percent of those abilities. From a height of seventy feet, a dhampir could probably hit solid ground and survive. It would be nigh impossible to keep from breaking every bone in their body and rupturing some internal organs, but even then some of the faster dhampirs would be able to heal completely in about seventy-two hours.
At any rate, D hadn’t been hurt in the least, and he stood chest-deep in the black water surveying his surroundings. This was most likely a pre-existing subterranean cavern that had been buttressed through later construction. Places here and there on the black, rock walls to either side showed signs of being repaired with reinforced concrete. The water throughout was lukewarm, and a pale, white mist lent the air an oppressive humidity. The aqueduct itself was roughly fifteen feet wide. It seemed to be a natural formation, and an odor peculiar to mineral springs had reached D’s nostrils even as he was falling into the pit. All around him stretched a world of complete darkness. Only his dhampir eyesight allowed him to distinguish how wide the aqueduct was. He turned his gaze upward, but, not surprisingly, he was unable to discern the trapdoor seventy feet above. As the doors had long since been reset, it was only natural he couldn’t see them. And of course there was no means of egress to be seen on the rock walls that boasted mass beyond reckoning.
“What to do, what to do ...,” D muttered this rare comment in a deep voice, yet started walking purposefully in the direction from which the water all around him flowed, though the flow was soundless and so gentle as to be imperceptible. Hard and even, the bottom of the aqueduct seemed to be the work of some external force. That wasn’t to say that he had merely to walk long enough and far enough for an exit to present itself. He was unaware of the three sisters the Count had mentioned so ominously in the chamber far above.
Something was waiting for him.
D was cognizant of that much. And he knew that his thrust had dealt a wound to the Count. There was no way the vampire lord would let such a fearsome opponent just drop into the subterranean waterway and then sit idly by. D was positive some sort of attack was coming. And yet, as he walked along, there was no hesitation in the legs that carried him across the firm bottom of the aqueduct, and no hint of tension or fretfulness in the shining, handsome face that seemed to make the darkness retreat. And then he halted.
About twenty-five feet ahead, the aqueduct grew wider and a number of eerily shaped stones jutted from the water’s surface. There alone the mist was oddly thick—or rather, it hung so heavily it seemed to rise from the very waters, twisting the stones into far more outrageous and disturbing shapes and sealing off the waterway. The air bore a foul stench of decay. D’s eyes saw a film of oily scum covering the water and white things concealed in the recesses of the stones. Bleached bones. Deep in the mist there was a sharp splash, like a fish flicking its tail up out of the water.
There was something here. Its lair was beyond the eldritch stones.
Still, D showed no sign of turning back, and he continued walking calmly into the mist at the center of the stones. Once inside, the space between the stones looked like a sort of pool or a fishpond. The stones formed rows to either side that completely enclosed the waterway. The water sat stagnant there, blacker than ever, and the white mist eddied savagely. It seemed the source of the mineral springs wasn’t too far off. The more he advanced, the greater the number of eldritch stones, and, as the number of bones multiplied, the stench grew ever more overpowering. Most of the bones were from cattle and other livestock, but human remains were also evident. There was a skeleton that, judging from the quiver on his back, looked to be a huntsman, a woman’s skull resting in the tattered remnants of a long dress, and the diminutive bones of a child. Many of them hadn’t had time to be denuded; dark red meat and entrails hung from their bones, rife with maggots. In this vile, disturbing scene—a scene that would make the average person go mad or stop, paralyzed with fear—D noticed the spines and ribs of all the stark skeletons had been pulverized. This was not the result of being gnawed by tenacious fangs and jaws. They’d been crushed. Like something had squeezed them tight and twisted them ways they were never meant to go.
Once again, D halted.
There was another splash, this time much closer. The whine of a blade leaving its sheath rose from D’s back. At the same time, ripples formed on the surface a few yards ahead of him, and a white mass bobbed to the surface. And just after that, another one bobbed to the right. Then one to the left. Unearthly white in the darkness—they were the heads of carnal, alluring women.
Perhaps D had lost his nerve, because he stood stock-still instead of holding his sword at the ready. The women gazed at him intently. Their facial features were distinct, but all were equally beautiful, and the red lips of the three women twisted into broad grins. Far behind them there was another sharp splash. Perhaps these three swam this way to escape whatever was chasing them? If that was the case, the way they kept all but their heads submerged after meeting D was quite out of the ordinary. And the grins they wore were so evil, so enticing. He looked at them and they at him for a few seconds. With the sound of a torrent of drops, the three women rose in unison. Their heads came up to the height of D’s. And then above his—far above.
Who in the human world could imagine such an amazing sight? Three disembodied but beautiful heads smiling down charmingly at him from a height of ten feet. These women had to be the three sisters the Count had mentioned.
At that point, D said softly, “I’ve heard rumors about you. So you’re the Midwich Medusas I take it?”
“Oh, you know of us, do you?” The head in the middle, which would be the eldest sister, wiped the smile from her face. Her voice was like the pealing of a bell, but it also dripped with venom. However, it wasn’t the fact that the dashing young man before them seemed to recognized them for what they truly were that gave her voice a ring of surprise, but rather because there wasn’t a whit of fear in his words, so far as she could detect.
The Midwich Medusas. These three women—or these three creatures—were supernatural beasts of unrivaled evil that fed on the lust of young men and women. They had devoured hundreds of villagers in a part of the Frontier known as Midwich. Years earlier, they’d supposedly been destroyed by the prayers of an eminently virtuous monk passing through the region, but, unknown to all, they had escaped. After a chance encounter with Count Lee, they agreed to take up residence far below his castle on the condition they received three cows per day. Unlike the faux monsters the Nobility engineered, nothing could be more difficult to destroy than a true demon like this one. The Medusas had survived tens of thousands of years and had even outlived their own legend. Like the hydra of ancient myth, the three heads of the Medusas, which appeared to be separate, were in fact joined a few yards down in a massive pillar of a torso clad with scales of silvery gray that remained sunken in the water. The splashing sounds to their rear came from the end of the torso—a tail that thrashed in delight at finding prey.
But D could only see the women’s heads. The reason he knew what they really were was because he’d recognized the heads of three beautiful women as the objects of one of the many bizarre rumors out on the Frontier. But the real question was, why did they melt into the darkness below the neck?
“He’s a fine specimen, sisters.” The whispers from the head on the right sounded deeply impressed, and she licked her lips. Her red flame of a tongue was slim, and the tip was forked. “At long last, we have a man worthy of our pleasuring. And not just a pretty face, either—look at how muscular he is.”
“Sisters, you can’t have him first,” the third head—the one on the left—declared. “Just five days ago, the two of you fed on the huntsman who wandered in here while I was asleep. This time I shall be first. First to take him to the heights of rapture, and first to taste his blood when he hits that peak.”
“The nerve of you! We are your elders,” the head on the right—and apparently the second-in-command—bellowed.
“Stop your sibling quarrels,” the middle head scolded them, turning to the head on the left. “You may be the first to drink of his blood. However, the three of us shall pleasure him together.”
“Yes.”
“I’m amenable to that.”
Without another word the three heads nodded in agreement. Little flame tongues flicking in and out and the women fondled every inch of D with smitten eyes.
“But be on guard,” the oldest sister said quite plainly. “This man does not fear us.”
“Rubbish! Could anyone know what we are and not tremble? When we grew angry at our meager repasts and bared our fangs, did not the Count himself beat a hasty retreat, never to return to our realm again?” asked the second sister.
“Even supposing that he is not afraid, what could he do? Manling, can you move?”
D remained silent. In truth, he couldn’t move. From the first moment he laid eyes on the women’s heads, his whole body had been gripped by countless hands.
“Do you comprehend, manling,” the second sister went on. “That’s our hair at work.”
Exactly. The reason why the necks and torso of the Midwich Medusas melded with the darkness was because everything below their jaws was hidden by black hair that fell in a cascade of tens of thousands of strands, shrouding the rest completely. However, this was no ordinary hair. Once on the water’s surface, the strands spread out like tentacles, drifted about, and when they felt the movement of something in the lair, in accordance with the will of the three sisters, they would lure the prey into the center. Then, when the appropriate time came, they could wrap around the victim’s limbs in a split second and rob the victim of his freedom with the strength of piano wire.
And that wasn’t all. The truth was, it wasn’t water that was in the three sisters’ stone-bordered den. The eldritch stones diverted the aqueduct and sent the water flowing around either side, while their lair was actually filled with a secretion from the hair itself. The liquid flowed subtly to complement the gently swaying movements of the hair, swirling it around, and even D—with a sense of touch far more sensitive than that of humans—hadn’t been alerted to the presence of the strands. Unbeknownst to D, the hair had crept up from his waist and wrapped itself around his wrists and upper arms, as well as his shoulders and neck, completely restraining his limbs.
Even more disturbing, the rest of those countless hands—nay, tentacles—had started slipping in through the cuffs and seams of his clothes, creeping across him, rubbing against his naked flesh, teasing him, plotting to make D a slave of inflamed desire. No matter how resolute their will, a person’s reason would dissolve after a few seconds of these delicate movements, reducing them to lust-driven mindlessness—this was the Midwich Medusas’ obscene torture, and no one could resist it.
“Well, have you come to crave us?” the oldest sister asked. “Ordinarily, we would take your life at this point. Like so.” With her words as their signal, the three heads twisted through the air to part their locks. The black cataract changed its course, and three lengthy necks striped with black and blue, as well as the massive torso that supported them, came into view. The torso was so thick, two grown men would have trouble reaching around it. The long necks swooped down at D, wrapping around and around the powerfully built man held captive by the bonds of their black hair. For its part, the hair continued its tiny wriggling movements below D’s clothes.
“We can break your bones whenever it suits us,” the oldest sister said, her red eyes ablaze as she stared at D’s face. The fire in her eyes was an inferno of lust. “But you’re such a gorgeous man. Such a well-proportioned man.” Her tongue licked D’s cheek.
“Verily. Lo these past three centuries we’ve not seen one so beautiful.” The moist lips of the second sister toyed with D’s earlobe from behind. Her hot, rank breath blew into his ear.
“But we won’t kill you. The three of us will see to it you taste more than your share of unearthly rapture, and then drain you to the marrow.” The youngest sister fairly moaned the words.
The source of the Midwich Medusas’ life was not only the energy they derived from the consumption of living organisms. With bizarre abilities only demons possessed, they reduced strapping men and lovely women in the bloom of youth to wanton creatures aching with desire, then imbibed the aura of pure rapture the victims’ radiated at their peak—this was the secret of the three sisters’ immortality, and this was how they had lived on since before the vampires, since the ancient times when humans ruled.
Of course, that wasn’t to say they would feed on just anyone. The sisters were gourmands in their own way. Though the Count had sent hundreds of people into the subterranean world, and still others had wandered in from various entrances, the sisters hadn’t tasted pleasure like this for centuries, and had devoured their victims’ flesh greedily but joylessly year after year. Now the time had come for pleasure to burn through their shared body once again. A heady blush tinged the three beautiful faces, their eyes danced with flames, and the hot breath spilling from their vermilion lips threatened to melt D’s frostily gorgeous visage.
“Well now,” the oldest sister fairly moaned. Three sets of damp, bewitching lips closed in on the firm iron gate that was D’s mouth.
The instant their lips met his, the sisters saw it. They saw the crimson blood-light glinting from D’s eyes. It dealt a mysterious blow to their wicked minds. In that instant, the three sisters felt a sweet thrill racing through their body, the likes of which they’d never experienced before.
“Oh, those lips,” the oldest sister said in a husky voice.
“Show me your throats,” a low, rusty voice commanded.
Without time to comprehend it was D’s voice they heard, the sisters raised their necks as one and brought the slick white base of their throats to D’s lips. Something told them there was no other way to snuff the feverish excitement gnawing its way through their bodies. The Midwich Medusas’ wits were no longer functioning properly.
“Undo your hair.”
D’s limbs were immediately set free. His right hand returned his sword to its sheath while his left scooped up a fistful of hair.
“A trap baited with pleasure—but who caught whom?” Before his muttered words had faded, D dropped the strands he held and pulled the three lengthy necks to himself with both arms. “I don’t like doing this, but it’s the only way to find a way out of here. Someone’s waiting for me.” As he spoke, his eyebrows suddenly rose and his eyes rolled back. His lips spread wide, exposing a pair of fangs. Brutal and evil, his visage was that of a vampire.
There in the darkness, what happened in the moments that followed?
The cries of the women melded with the repeated splash of their tail beating the water’s surface, suggesting unearthly delights had just taken mastery of them. It was the sisters who had blundered into the pleasure-baited trap. Before long, there was the sound of something heavy dropping into the water three times in succession, and then D quickly gave the command: “Arise.”
Twisting their torso and serpentine necks, the three sisters rose again. A hollow shadow clung to their countenances, and their bloodshot eyes were as damp as the mist, as desire choked the vitality from them. And it was truly eerie how their glistening, greasy faces were completely bloodless, with a luster like paraffin. At the base of each of the three necks a pair of deep red dots could be seen. Fang marks.
Who could have known the demonic blood slumbering within D would awaken at the last possible second? He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Now, as his gorgeous countenance returned to the cool mountain spring it always was, he commanded the three sisters to lead him to an exit in a voice that resembled a moan of pain.
The three heads bobbed wordlessly in midair, then moved off into the darkness. As D followed them and vanished into the darkness also, a taunting voice could be heard from around his waist. “No matter how you hate it, you can’t fight your blood. That’s your destiny—and you know it deep in your bones.”
In a split second came the response. “Silence! I don’t remember telling you to come out! Get back in there!”
The angry shouts clearly belonged to D. So, who had been speaking before ? What could D have meant by those strange expressions? And most of all, why had his ice-cold exterior shattered, even if only for a moment?
.
While the edge of the plains swallowed the last bit of afterglow from the sunset, and Doris continued waiting for D, Dr. Ferringo’s buggy pulled up to her house. Doris was somewhat embarrassed, and tried to get the doctor to leave. Doctors were far too precious on the Frontier for her to put one in such danger. After all, this fight was hers and hers alone. She’d mixed a sedative in with Dan’s dinner and he was already fast asleep. That was probably the best thing to do with him, since a Noble stalking their prey wouldn’t even spare a glance at anyone who wasn’t in their way.
“Um, Doc, I’m a little busy today with stuff here on the farm,” Doris called preemptively from the porch.
But the doctor responded, “That’s quite all right, I don’t mind. I was just out on a house call—could I trouble you for a glass of water?” Dispelling her objections with a wave of his hands, he went ahead and opened the door, trotted into the living room, and installed himself on the sofa.
He’d been a friend of her late father, he’d brought Doris and Dan into the world with his own two hands, and since the death of their parents to this very day, he’d helped them in countless ways. Because of this, Doris couldn’t very well toss him out on his ear. To make matters worse, for some reason he began to recount his youthful adventures battling supernatural creatures—or “the damned things,” as he liked to call them—and Doris had no recourse but to sit and listen attentively. He must’ve been aware the Noble would most likely be coming for her, so she had to wonder why he seemed so dead set on hanging around.
Night rolled closer with each passing minute, and D wasn’t back yet. The moment the sun set, Doris resolved to fight alone. All the armaments and traps spread across the farm had been double-checked, but she only grew more afraid. And now she had not only herself but the physician to worry about as well.
No matter what happens to me, I’ve got to protect Doc at all costs. Please, don’t let him strike till after Doc has gone. As she made this wish, another concern annoyingly crept up on her.
No matter what happens, I can’t let myself think about that. If he makes me one of them, what’ll happen to Dan? He can’t live the rest of his life knowing his only blood relative is one of the Nobility—that’s just too big a burden to carry. Nothing doing, Doris. Get your arms and legs ripped off trying if you have to, but fight that bastard off. The bravery she mustered only lasted a heartbeat before sinking into the shadow of her fears. Coupled with centuries of psychological conditioning, the horror of actually falling victim to the pernicious fangs of the Nobility had more than enough dark power to daunt a young girl of seventeen, no matter how distinguished a fighter she may have been.
When the hands on the clock indicated nine thirty Night, Doris finally came out with it. “Well, Doc, I think I’m gonna turn in now.” So please hurry up and go home—this much Doris implied, but Dr. Ferringo showed no signs of rising. Instead, he said something that shocked her senseless.
“You’ll have a dangerous customer paying you a call real soon.”
“That’s right, Doc, so you’d best be on your way—”
“My, but you are a sweetie,” the elderly physician said, showering her with a gaze of boundless affection. “But there’s a time and a place for restraint. You don’t have to be that way with me. Seventeen years ago, I brought you into this world with my own two hands, and you’ve always been like a daughter to me, haven’t you? Now this old fool ain’t the sort to just stand by while a young lady does battle with a demon straight from hell.” As Doris stood at the door to the living room watching the old man, her eyes glistened softly with tears. “Don’t look so down in the mouth,” the old man said jovially. “I may not look it, but it was yours truly that taught your father the tricks of the Werewolf Hunting trade.”
“I know that. It’s just—”
“If you know it, then why don’t you stop your blubbering? Of course, it is interesting to see a little spitfire like you squirt a few tears from time to time. Anyway, where’s that young fellow? You hired him for protection, but when night started coming on, he probably took to his heels, I suppose. He was a spooky character, that one, but he turned out to be a worthless drifter, did he?”
“No, he didn’t!” Up to that point Doris stood silently, touched by his words and nodding in agreement, but this sudden about-face, and her exclamation, made the elderly physician jump in his seat. “That’s not the sort of man … uh, I mean, he’s not the kind to do that. No, sir. The reason he’s not here tonight is because he went into the Count’s castle alone. And he hasn’t come back yet. I just ... Something’s happened to him, I just know it ...”
An ineffable light sparked in Dr. Ferringo’s eyes. “So you were kind of ... Now I see ... I didn’t know you felt that way about him.”
Doris regained her composure and hastily wiped at her tears. “What do you mean by that? It’s not like I ... I mean ...”
The physician grinned at the young girl as a rosy blush suffused her face. Then he made a gentle wave of his hands. “Okay, okay. My mistake. If you think that much of him, then we needn’t worry about him. I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Until he does, what do you say to working up the nerve to capture the Count?”
“Sure,” Doris said with a cheery nod, then suddenly, with great apprehension, she asked, “How are we gonna do that?”
There was no precedent for a human capturing a member of the Nobility—a vampire. Battles between the two species were normally a matter of kill or be killed. It went without saying that one side ended up dead more often than not. Particularly when doing battle at night, in the Nobility’s element, the respective weapons and abilities of the combatants made the outcome painfully obvious.
“With this.” The elderly physician produced a small glass bottle from his faithful medical bag. It was filled to its corked neck with yellowish granules.
“What in the world is that?” Doris’ tone was a jumble of expectation and misgivings.
Dr. Ferringo didn’t answer, but rather pulled a battered envelope from the same bag and unfolded the letter it contained. He held it out to Doris.
The second she laid eyes on the characters scrawled in sap-based ink on the yellowed paper, Doris turned to the physician with a perplexed expression. “This handwriting ... My father wrote this ...”
His hoary head bobbed in agreement. “Your dear father used to send me these while he was out on the road honing his fighting skills, back before your brother and you were born. But this was the last of them. If you read it, you’ll see that it relates an encounter between your father and a vampire.”
“My father and a vampire?” Doris forgot everything else and began poring over the letter. The first sentence or two informed the reader he’d arrived at his lodging. Then, the very characters themselves became jumbled with excitement and fear.
I’ve found it. The bastard’s weakness is a t ...
That was all there was. After the last character, the rest of the sheet was just a lonely expanse of rough, yellowed paper. Doris fixed a confused gaze on the elderly physician. “Why didn’t my father finish what he was writing? Was there anything in any of his other letters?”
The physician shook his head. “While your father was writing that letter in his lodgings, he was attacked by a vampire, but he fended it off. There can be no doubt your father somehow discovered some weakness of theirs. That much he stated plainly in another letter. The point is, he fought off the fiend, put his mind to order, and had just taken up a pen to record his discovery when he realized he’d completely forgotten what that discovery was.”
“Are you serious? How could that happen?”
“I’ll address that later. At any rate, less than five minutes after the danger had passed, your father found himself standing like a zombie with a pen in his hand. Like a man possessed, he sifted through his memories, wracked his brain, and eventually even tried to reenact his own half of the engagement, but all his efforts were for naught. The vampire appeared and they scuffled. Then, when all hope seemed lost, he narrowly managed to make his foe take flight—that much he could clearly recall, but the form of that decisive attack and manner in which he’d learned it were completely expunged from his memory.”
“But why? How did that happen?”
Ignoring the same question from Doris a second time, the physician went on. “We had that last little ‘t’ as a hint, but your father never did figure out what that was supposed to stand for. He wrote again about how the situation developed in another letter and sent it along to me, entrusting me to make something out of it. Unfortunately, I failed to live up to his expectations ...”
“Well if that’s the case,” Doris said, completely forgetting the danger creeping steadily closer and whipping herself into a frenzy, “all we have to do is solve the mystery of the little ‘t’ to find out what the Nobility’s weakness is, right?” Her voice trembled with expectation, but it quickly withered. She recognized that the shadow clinging to the face of the elderly physician said that the situation was not merely grave, but close to hopeless.
In the past, attempts to learn a definitive way to protect themselves from vampires had been tried time and again, but all of them had proved fruitless. Though humans must have had ample opportunity to learn that secret in the countless conflicts that raged ever since their species lost the right to rule the world, not one such method had been passed down to posterity. Now, ages had passed since anyone had even tried to discover them.
“The Nobility is going to beat us after all, aren’t they? I mean, if they don’t have any weaknesses ... ”
As Dr. Ferringo heard Doris’ words crawling across the floor like a beaten dog, he shook his head and stated firmly, “No. If that were the case, we wouldn’t have these rumors being passed down all these years that there are things that can hurt them. Didn’t your own father state he managed to drive a vampire off in some manner or other? Your father wouldn’t have lied to save his own life. I’ve heard tell of knights and travelers who’ve had experiences similar to his, and I’ve even spoken to a few in person.”
“And did you find out anything?”
“No, all of them had the same thing happen that your father did. They escaped the loathsome fangs of the fiend by some means … or rather, they forced the fiend to escape. And yet, despite that, not one of them could recall anything at all about what they’d done.”
Doris was speechless.
“More recently, I’ve been tempted to view these rumors of a weakness in the Nobility as legends born of wishful thinking, but I plowed through a mountain of records, and based on the actual cases I could assemble, I’m positive that a weakness does in fact exist. People simply can’t remember what it is. In my view, it’s a kind of manipulation of our memories.”
“Manipulation of our memories?” Doris knit her brow.
“To be more precise, perhaps we could call it a selective and automatic editing of our memories. To wit, our minds have been programmed to automatically erase all memories of a certain kind.”
“You mean, memories of their weaknesses? Of weapons that can drive them off?” Unconsciously, Doris was trying to peek inside the old man’s head. Was that what the powder in the bottle really was?
Watched by eyes that were a battlefield between hope and uncertainty, the physician went on undeterred. “Remember, we’re talking about the bastards who ruled the world for ten thousand years. I’m sure it would be mere child’s play for them to alter human DNA and reprogram our minds to selectively weed out any memories of those sorts. That’s a theory that’s been around for quite some time, and based on my own research, I’ve taken up with that camp. I’m not usually the type to go along with theories when I don’t know the folks behind them, but what’s right is right. That being the case, the rest is simple.”
“The rest being?”
“All we have to do is bring those memories back.”
Doris gasped. “Can you really do that?”
The physician looked very pleased with himself as he rolled the bottle in question in the palm of his hand. “Here we have the fruit of that very endeavor. I hypnotized a dozen of the men and women I interviewed, and tried to regress them with the help of reenactment-stimulating drugs I procured from the Capital. What I have here is something two of them mentioned. You see, even with all their science, the creatures of the night couldn’t completely erase our memories.”
Doris noticed that the physician seemed to hesitate at the last sentence, but couldn’t fathom why. She pursued a different matter instead. “But if what you say is true, Doc, won’t the two of us lose all memory of that powder soon?”
“No, I’ve been fine so far. Again, this is purely a hypothesis, but the loss of memory only occurs when the subconscious mind has actual proof that we’ve discovered a weakness of the damned Nobility. In our heart of hearts, neither you nor I completely believe in the efficacy of this powder. As a result, the enemies’ programming hasn’t gone into action, either.”
“Then why don’t we just write it down somewhere?”
“That wouldn’t do any good. On reading it, even the person who wrote it would take it as the deluded ravings of a madman.”
A somewhat deflated Doris changed her tack. “So is that powder the same little ‘t’ thing that was in my father’s letter?”
Once again the physician shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’ve given the matter much consideration, but I simply can’t connect the powder with that initial. Some might say your father, overwhelmed by the excitement of this great discovery, miswrote it, but I don’t believe that’s the case. The reason I don’t is because most of the other interviewees failed to mention the powder as well. I think it’s safe to assume the letter ‘t’ refers to something else entirely.”
“But if some of them could remember the powder, why didn’t they remember the other thing?”
Dr. Ferringo faltered. And then he began to speak in the gravest tone Doris had ever heard. “I’ve always felt there was something somewhat ironic about human/Nobility relations—in the Nobility’s view of humanity, to be specific. In your present circumstances, I can’t expect you to appreciate this, but they may well feel a kind of affection toward us.”
“What the hell! The Nobles think they’re our friends? That’s ridiculous!”
Rougher than her tone was the way Doris’ hand tugged at the scarf around her neck. For the first time in her life, she glared at the elderly physician. “I don’t care who you are, Doc, that’s ... I just don’t have the words ... ”
“Don’t pull such a face.” The physician waved his hands in an attempt at placating her. “By no means is that to say all of the Nobility feel that way. Any examination of the historical facts will show that, in the preponderance of cases, they don’t demonstrate affection, but rather act as if human beings were lower than machines. Emotionally speaking—if we assume for a moment that they indeed have emotions—as much as ninety-nine percent of them are no different from the lord who attacked you. But it’s very difficult to discount the possibility that the other one percent exists. I’ll have to relate all the facts I’ve unearthed to you another day …”
Am I gonna see another day? Doris wondered. Beyond the window, something evil was on its way, tearing through the pleasantly sweet air of the spring-like evening.
Dr. Ferringo wasn’t looking at Doris any longer. His eyes seemed nailed to a spot on the floor as he continued to expound on long-held suspicions. “For example, why would they make distinctions between their weaknesses and the weapons that exploit them? Why did some memory of this powder remain when it could’ve been erased as completely as whatever the ‘t’ stands for? My guess is that compared to this ‘t’ thing, the powder is a minor hindrance, at best. Could it be the bastards are just teasing us? Is this our masters saying, ‘Let them have a minor weakness like this,’ as they throw us a bone? If that’s the case, then why not make it common knowledge from the start?” Here Dr. Ferringo’s words trailed off. Pausing a beat, he added, “This is the conclusion I’ve come to after a humble little investigation that’s occupied half this old fool’s sixty years—I take this as a challenge from a race that reached the pinnacle and now slides toward extinction. It’s a challenge being offered to us humans, a race that can’t even begin to be measured against them. But we may eventually rise to their level, or perhaps even surpass them. And I believe this is what they say: ‘If you humans want to inherit our throne, then try to beat us into submission by your own power. If you have the powder, then try to solve the mystery of the ‘t’ thing. And when you’ve solved it, try to prevent it from being shrouded again in the mists of forgetfulness.’”
“That’s impossible ...” To Doris, the words spilling from her own lips sounded a million miles away. “That’d make them just like an instructor breaking in a Hunter trainee ...”
Though he gave a slight nod, it was unclear if the elderly physician truly fathomed Doris’ words. His gaze didn’t deviate in the least as he said, “This isn’t something the Lesser Nobility would be capable of. It may well be ...”
“It may well be what?”
“Him. All the true Nobility in the world were united under the thousand Greater Nobility, the seven Kings, and the legendary dark lord who ruled them all—the great vampire, the king of kings, Dra—”
At that moment, a wave of tension swept into Doris’ countenance. “Doc!” she shouted, but it sounded more like a cry for help than a warning. Snapping back to reality, the physician turned his head to follow Doris as she made for the living room window.
The light of the moon on the cool plains showed no signs of anything on the move, but the ears of both caught the sounds of wagon wheels and hooves pounding distant terrain.
“Looks like he’s coming.”
“I’ve got a hell of a welcome party set up for him.” Though she’d reclaimed the stalwart mien of an Amazon, in her heart of hearts the girl let a plaintive cry escape.
You didn’t make it back in time after all, D.
.
The black cyborgs seemed to run on unearthly clouds, and, when their hoofbeats echoed so close that it was impossible Doris was mistaken, she went to the other side of the living room and twisted one of the silver ceremonial masks adorning the wall to the right.
With a dim sound, part of the floor and wall rotated and pulled out of sight. In a matter of seconds, a wooden control-console and armchair appeared. Though the control console itself was wood, the switch- and lever-dotted top was iron, with a riot of colored lamps and gauges adding to the confusion. This was a combat control center—Doris’ father had summoned a craftsman all the way from the Capital to install it. Every weapon on the farm could be controlled from here. As far as being prepared for the attacks by the creatures that ran rampant in the wild, this was about as good as money could buy. A full-field prismatic scope lowered from the ceiling.
“Ha! Back in those days, I asked your father what kind of work he was having done, and he told me he was having a new solar converter put in. Your father was a sly one to even keep this from me.”
There wasn’t time to respond to the recollections of the still-easygoing physician. The prismatic lens of the view scope showed a black carriage drawn by a team of four horses coming down the road to the farm at full speed. Doris’ hand reached for one of the levers. The view scope doubled as a targeting system.
“Steady,” Dr. Ferringo told her as he peered out the window, the little bottle in his hand. “You’ve still got the electromagnetic barrier.” Before he had finished speaking, the triple-barred, wooden gate opened without a whisper. As the black carriage was about to sprint through the gate with a gust of wind, it was enveloped by a blinding flash of light.
Powerful enough to char a lesser dragon through tough scales otherwise impervious to blades, the electromagnetic barrier set off a shower of sparks that turned blackest night to brightest day for a fleeting moment. Bursting through a giant, white-hot blossom of fire, the ball of white light forced its way onto the farm. The horse, the driver, the wagon wheels—white flames clung to them all. It was an outlandish sight, like a carriage from hell that had suddenly appeared on earth.
“They’re through. What in the world?...” Doris’ puzzled exclamation came as she watched the cyborg horses—as soon as they’d broken through the barrier, she’d expected the four of them to tear right into her front yard like a veritable hurricane, but not a single hoof was out of step as they executed a brilliant stop right on the spot.
The magnetic flames swirling around them quickly dispersed. The enemy was protected by a more powerful barrier.
“Not yet. Look! He’s getting out!” Once again, her hand was checked by the physician’s hopeful command, but in his voice Doris caught a ring of both tension and fear that outweighed the former emotion by far. Embodiment of courage and intellect that the elderly physician was, the damage of scores of centuries of brainwashing by the Nobility had seeped well into his subconscious.
The black door opened, and a massive figure garbed in sable trod down steps that automatically projected onto the ground.
“He must be some kind of idiot—look at him, jumping out like he doesn’t have a care in the world.”
Ostensibly encouraged, Doris’ voice still lacked strength. Her foe knew that any defenses she might be ready to spring on him would pose no threat. When the villain that had left his filthy mark on her neck bared his pearly fangs in a grin and started toward the house alone, Doris pulled the lever.
All over the farm there was the sound of one spring releasing after another. Black chunks flew through the air toward the Count, only to bounce back inches shy of him. What fell to the ground were boulders a good four feet in diameter. Fired in rapid succession, all of the rocky missiles were robbed of their kinetic energy by an invisible barrier, falling around the calmly advancing Count.
“Just as I thought—he’s no pushover.” Doris pulled a second lever. This time it was steel javelins the launchers disgorged. All of the first ten bounced off him, but the eleventh and final javelin pierced the Count’s abdomen.
“I got him!” Doris exclaimed, squeezing the lever so hard she threatened to break it. What froze her smile was the way the temporarily motionless Count gave a horrible grin before he resumed his deliberate stride, the steel javelin still protruding from his stomach and back.
The bastard’s trying to tell me he doesn’t even need his force field to stop my attacks!
It felt like an icy paw of fear was stirring her brains as Doris suddenly realized that there was no need for a vampire to “go get” a former victim. For those who’d felt the kiss of blood on their neck but once, a single word from a fiend outside their door would suffice to call them out into the waiting arms of Death. That was precisely the sort of thing D was guarding against when he rendered her unconscious the first time she had unwanted guests.
“He’s toying with me!” Doris pushed and pulled levers like a woman possessed. So long as nothing pierced its heart, a vampire would not die. Though undoubtedly aware of this immutable fact, seeing the fearsome power in action with her own two eyes had completely robbed the girl of the cool judgment the daughter of a skilled Hunter should possess. She was robbed of her reason by the same fear that slumbered in all mortals, the fear of unknowable darkness.
Machine guns concealed in the shrubbery spat fire, and explosive-tipped arrows set aflame by a lens on the solar storage unit fell like rain.
Through the oily smoke, the fiery explosions, and the deafening roar that surrounded him, the Count grinned. It was clear this was the stiffest resistance humanity could currently offer. Their kind remained on earth, tough as cockroaches, while his species slid silently and inevitably toward extinction, dwindling like the light of the setting sun.
Suddenly, his anger flared, consuming all the admiration he’d felt for the resistance his prey offered. His eyes became flame. As he gnashed his naked fangs together, the Count dashed to the porch, took the stairs in a single leap, yanked the javelin from his abdomen, and heaved the weapon at the door. The door burst off its hinges and toppled into the house. Beyond the door hung a black, iron netting. The instant he heedlessly thrust the steel javelin into it to sweep it out of his way, there was a flash at the point of contact, and the Count felt a violent burning sensation flowing into his body through the hand he had around the weapon. For the first time, the flesh beneath his black raiment shuddered in agony, and his hair stood on end. The vampire’s accursed regenerative abilities did their best to counteract the vicious electric shock, and then set to adjusting the molecular arrangement of the cells that needed to be removed. The shock he received came from a transformer that converted energy collected in the solar panels on the roof by day into a high-tension load of fifty-thousand volts. Even as he felt his cells charred and nerves destroyed by the precipitous electrical shock, the Count swung the javelin. With a parting gift of fresh agony and a shower of sparks, the conductive net of interlaced wire tore and fell to the floor.
“Well done for a lone woman,” the Count muttered with admiration, his eyes bloodshot. “She’s every bit the fighter I thought she’d be. Child, I must have your blood at all costs. Wait for me.”
Doris knew she had exhausted all means at her disposal. As the monitor was switched to the interior of the house, the visage of a thirsting demon filled the screen. Suddenly the living room door was knocked back into the room. Doris leapt up from the control console and stood in front of Dr. Ferringo to shield him.
“Child,” the figure in the doorway said, “while you fight admirably for a woman, the battle is done. You must favor me with a taste of your hot blood.”
The snap of a whip split the air.
“Come,” the Count commanded in a penetrating voice.
The tip of her whip lost its impetus in midair, and the weapon fell to the floor in coils. Doris began walking with the shaky steps of a marionette, but the elderly physician grabbed her shoulder. His right hand covered her nostrils, and the young woman slumped to the floor without a sound. The physician had kept a chloroform-soaked cloth concealed in his hand all along.
“So you intend to interfere with me, old fool?” the Count asked in a stark, white voice devoid of all emotion.
“Well, I can’t stand back and do nothing,” the old man responded, stepping forward with his left hand clenched. “Here’s something you hate—garlic powder.”
A wave of unrest passed across the Count’s face, but he soon gave a broad grin. “You should be complimented on your discovery—but you truly are foolish. True enough, I am powerless against that scent. You may slip through my grasp this night. But the instant you confirm how effective it is against me, that confirmation shall cost you all memory of the very thing you hold in your hand. And tomorrow evening I shall come again.”
“I’m not gonna let you do that.”
“Oh, and what shall you do?”
“This old fool had a life once, too. Thirty years back, Sam Ferringo was known as something of an Arachni-man Hunter. And I know a thing or two as well about how to do battle with your kind.”
“I see.” There was a glint in the Count’s eyes.
The elderly physician gave a wave of his hand. Powder and a strange odor swirled through the air.
Gagging, the vampire reeled back with his cape over his nose and mouth. He was struck with a horrible urge to vomit. He felt utterly enervated, as if his brains were melting and life itself was draining from his body. The cells in his sinus cavity—the olfactory nerves that make the sense of smell possible—were dealt a devastating blow by the allicin that gives garlic its distinctive aroma.
“Your kinds’ days are over. Back to the world of darkness and destruction with you!” At some point, Dr. Ferringo had pulled out a foot-long stake. With the rough wooden weapon in his right hand, the physician advanced. Right before his eyes, a black bird snapped its wings open. It was the Count’s cape. Like a sentient being, it wrapped around the elderly physician’s wrists, then swept around wildly to hurl the man clear across the room—all without the Count appearing to lift a finger. This was one of the secret tricks of the Nobility. The Count had learned it from no less than the Sacred Ancestor of his race.
Scrambling desperately to rise from the floor, the elderly physician was horrified to see the still wildly coughing Count climbing onto Doris.
“Wait!”
The Count’s face eclipsed part of the girl’s throat.
What the physician saw astonished him.
The Count fell backward, his face pale. Perhaps no one had ever seen a Noble wear such an expression of stark terror as the elderly physician now witnessed. Ignoring the awestruck physician, the figure in black disappeared through the door, his cape fluttering behind him.
When the elderly physician finally got to his feet, rubbing his hip all the while, he could hear the echo of wagon wheels fading into the distance. Somehow or other, it looks like we’re out of the woods for now. Just as this tremendous feeling of relief welled up inside him, Dr. Ferringo suddenly got the feeling he’d forgotten something important and cocked his head to one side. What in the blazes is that smell? And why did that bastard take to his heels?