Chapter 4: Danse Macabre

CHAPTER 4

 

Screams echoed throughout the hall as the guests scrambled to get to the exit. China shattered as arrays of expensive vases hit the floor and the lights of the crystal chandelier began to flicker wildly. Streams of crimson energy swept through the vicinity, followed by strange wraith-like creatures in tattered rags and tarnished headdresses. Whatever the glittering streams touched vampires frozen with fear fell to the ground, writhing as bands of flesh formed around their navel. Connected by these gruesome bonds, the vampires began to become sunken and haggard, as though the swelling and pulsing bands of sinew were draining them of their flesh and blood, leaving nothing more than bony husks behind.  

 

‘Leeches,’ growled Kaileena. ‘S**t, I hate these things.’ Pushing the skirt of her gown aside, she wrapped most of the length around her waist. Allowing a little to drape around the thighs, she tied it in place with curtain cord, exposing her long legs. She kicked off the stilettos without a second thought and picked up one of the serving trays a maid had dropped in her hasty escape. Swiping up a set of silverware knives, she clasped them firmly between her fingers. Very Black Butler, she thought to herself, but that moment of amusement was short-lived. One of the Leeches caught her scent and began to shriek to the others in howling screeches.

 

‘Sese chartak!’ cried one. ‘Dhampir sese chartak!’

‘QUATEK SVLAK!’ screeched another. ‘SATHY HEVES!’

‘This is not good,’ said the dhampir. Her knowledge on demon languages was not in the high degree, but even she knew enough of the Leech dialect to know they were planning to kill her slowly and painfully. The vampire lord Vincent was already out of his finery, clad in a red silk shirt, black jeans and a black leather coat with elegant boots. How he managed to change in the midst of the chaos, she’d never know. Another mystery to file away.

 

‘’They clearly don’t want you to get out alive,’ muttered Vincent, a slender long sword in his hand.

‘Is there a way out of here?’

‘There is a staircase backstage that leads to the roof,’ answered the vampire. ‘But there’s no way through them.’

‘There will be.’ She gripped the knives tightly. ‘Don’t stand in the mist.’ With that, she took off into the teeming throng of escapees. Once she was within range of the nearest Leech, she coiled her powerful legs and sprang into the air. Arching her body backwards, she flipped in mid-flight and hurled the utensils at her opponents with an elegant flick of her wrist. Three went down with the slender blades either in their hearts or heads, their blood eating into the polished floors. Their glassy eyes snapped open and they rose to their feet as though nothing had happened. The Hunter swore colourfully in the old tongue.

‘Just as I thought,’ she muttered.

‘They’re supposed to be dead!’ cried Vincent incredulously. ‘They are meant to be killed by silver!’

‘Only if they didn’t have a paradigm shift,’ replied Kaileena. The vampire lord looked stunned. And the dhampir couldn’t blame him. When certain creatures found themselves attacked with a weapon carrying a particular elemental property, it could shift its weakness so it was rendered invulnerable to the catalyst. Essentially, it could switch constantly to provide an all-round defence until the opponent was killed or the creature in question was finally slain.

Apparently, according to bestiality biography experts, leeches were not meant to be one of those creatures.

 

 

 

‘Leeches cannot perform paradigm shifts,’ protested Vincent. ‘It’s not in their genetic code.’

‘It would seem someone has been playing God,’ said Kaileena. Her eyes darkened. ‘And enjoying this twisted game while she’s at it.’

‘What was that?’

‘Nothing,’ she lied. ‘We have to figure out their weakness. And we better do it quickly.’

She snatched up a long gold chain from a gentleman’s corpse, draping it in her hand. Using the pocket watch attached as a weight, she lunged towards the leeches and lashed at the thing’s neck. The gold links ensnared the creature by the throat, tightening enough to constrict a normal human’s windpipe. But the demon bulged it neck out, snapping the delicate chain. Her mind already moving a step ahead, the dhampir dove forward into a roll. The leech shrieked in rage, spitting a vile turquoise substance from its tube-like tongue. It struck the pillar behind her, leaving a huge smoking pit where the stone had eaten away. Something snapped along with it.

 

‘Kaileena, watch out!’ A strong hand grabbed her wrist and she felt herself being hurled into the nearest wall. A loud grinding crash and the metallic melody of crystals shattering drowned the shrieks of the demons as darkness fell over her.

 

Her eyes slid open several minutes later to stare into a pair of glittering blue orbs. His hair carried the scent of perfumed silk and she gazed up at him.

‘Did you have to throw me like that?’ she growled in annoyance. She glanced over at the twisted mess of polished brass and fragmented crystal. She was going to be black and blue in the morning, but it was better than being crushed under a chandelier. It wouldn’t have killed her, but she didn’t have time to recover from an injury like that.

‘It was either that or let you be crushed,’ snarled Vincent, his fangs bared. ‘And frankly, I would have been more than happy to.’ The ensuing argument was cut off by an ear-piercing shriek. The sound seemed to go on forever and her eyes widened in recognition as she noticed spidery cracks in a crystal vase nearby.

 

‘Cover your ears!’ she cried. The vampire nodded and immediately grabbed a length of cloth, tearing off small strips. Balling them up in tiny wads, he stuffed them in his ears. Kaileena took out a pair of silver studs with rubber cups behind them. The vampire lord frowned in puzzlement. The dhampir ignored him and slipped the cups inside her ears, reaching into her skirt simultaneously. A second later, a song by a popular band called Disturbed blared in her ears. In spite of the rest of her kind, she indulged in the music trends of today. And rock and metal bands had a raw, hard edge to them that she endeared to. Not to mention, the growling of the lyrics were enough to drown out the lethal screech of the leeches nearby.

They were getting closer. She didn’t like resorting to this, but she had no other choice.

Raising her right hand to her mouth, she closed her eyes. Lowering her head, she sank her teeth into the soft flesh of her wrist. Thick, warm vermilion ran in a rich flood, staining her flawless skin. Her voice grew metallic, cold and hard, completely transformed by the taste of her own blood as she began to intone something in a strange tongue. The blood began to disintegrate into a thick crimson mist, rapidly darkening to the colour of a raven’s wing. It began to spread, touching everything within a twelve foot radius from where she stood. However, a wide berth was given to Vincent, as though this eerie miasma was being controlled by the Hunter. A single word, indiscernible even to his ears, and the mist began to coalesce into an array of strands that crossed over in every possible direction. What was she up to?

‘Requiem et stat et pace!’ The voice that had leashed from the dhampir’s throat was enough to send a vampire as powerful as he was running for the hills. In spite of his proud blood, Vincent found himself trembling at the very sound of that voice. A flash of crimson light and the misty web solidified into gleaming strands of iron wire. Screeches of pain pierced the air as showers of blood painted the polished floor with a vermilion stain. The iron strings seemed to writhe momentarily before streaking towards the leeches; twisting, coiling and weaving as though alive. As one of the strands whizzed past Vincent, barely skimming his left eye, he could discern tiny, serrated blades over the expanse of the taut string. They stretched tight and he felt the urge to scream in agony as it cut into his skin. Gods, it was like white-hot fire, searing him to the utmost depths of his soul! It was beyond imagining, agony beyond description. Just one cut from this wire was enough to almost reduce him to begging for death.

 

The leeches screamed in excruciating pain as white flames raced up their handless limbs. It licked at the decaying flesh, slowly charring it a deep black before it crumbled to ash. The dhampir stood in the centre of the carnage, a black widow weaving webs of cursed iron and holy flame. Her lips were parted, exposing fine white fangs and her eyes slid open. Vincent froze. Those eyes were now the crimson of fresh blood, but a raging fire could be seen glittering deep behind those orbs. But it was a cold, soulless gaze, calmly watching as her prey was burned alive. There was no anger, no hatred, nothing. They were simply…..dead.

Was this how all mortals were? Thought the vampire. No, not mortals. There was nothing remotely human in that gaze. It was devoid of all humanity. Could it be that he was staring into the eyes of a true dhampir? ……No, it was even beyond that. It was like he was staring straight into an endless void of blood and decay, nothing able to sate it. No, these eyes….they were not the eyes of any creature, vampire or human.

They were the eyes of death.

 

The inferno receded, and so did the look in her eyes. She blinked and turned to the vampire. The charred corpses of the leeches were scattered in pieces on the bloody floor. Vincent made to take a tentative step forward, still reeling from the magnitude of this Hunter’s power.

‘Stay still or your head will fly,’ she said calmly. He glared at her but then saw why. Her lethal web was still in place. She raised her hand and, with a single click, the iron strings dissolved into mist, brusquely swept out of an open window. She cut the cord holding her dress up and it fell around her once more. Sirens could be heard in the distance.

 

‘We should leave. The police will be here any moment.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said the vampire. ‘They are most likely from my sector. I can talk with them as they will not harm me.’

‘All the more reason for me to leave,’ said Kaileena. ‘I’m not being arrested for doing my job. If you recall, I am not welcome around your kind.’

‘I wonder why?’ Vincent’s tone was dripping with sarcasm. Kaileena heard the tone and glared at him.

‘Think of how many of your breed would have died tonight were it not for this dhampir,’ she snapped. ‘You deal with the legalities and contact me. I will be waiting for your call.’ She turned to walk away from the scene when a strong grip on her arm stopped her.

‘Until tonight, I did not even begin to realise why you lasted so long as a Vampire Hunter. But now I see why. So remember our arrangement, half-breed,’ sneered the vampire lord. ‘I give the orders. You follow them.’ He threw her arm out of his grasp and glared. ‘Go. You’ll just be in the way.’

Kaileena glared at him before turning on her heeling and storming out, leaving bloody bare footprints. The sooner this job was done, the better.

 

I really hate vampires.