In the main room, Giovanni paused, sensing a disturbance in the magical wards surrounding the place. He remembered the strange boys and their reference to a 'she'. Whoever that someone might be, odds were they or another of Harrington's rather sorry crew were behind this.
Fortunately it wasn't a critical interruption, and there were ways of dealing with such petty annoyances without having to jeopardize the ritual.
He traced a symbol in the air with his free hand, a figure that glowed with a sickly greenish light as it hung there for a moment or two, then became a small sphere and streaked away, to emerge outside the main room, where it split into three and each one headed off in a different direction.
One, up the stairs. Two, towards the front, and three the back.
When each reached its destination, it hovered for a moment, then from the ground beneath it rose figures composed of the same baleful green light. Some that looked at least somewhat human--aside from the coloring--and others that were nightmarish creatures. All howled and hissed menacingly, then began to advance towards the would-be rescuers.
* * *
"Well, isn�t this just dandy?" Dejah smirked. Turning back to Andrew, "You really aren�t much help are you?"
Andrew growled and opened his mouth to say something, but Dejah was already jaunting up to the back of the farmhouse. Snapping his jaw closed, the vampire followed. "How do we get in, mortal?"
Dejah turned, "First off, don't call me mortal. I�m not. Second, we get in this way." She motioned to a door towards the corner of the house. She was about to open it when she felt the energy and essence around the fields rise dramatically. "Oh dear." She squeaked and turned around. "Oh dear, dear, dear." She grinned and her eyes lit with a fire, "It�s been far too long since I�ve had a real good fight. Come on, boys!"
Andrew shot his head around to see what in the hell this woman was talking about, then he saw what she saw.
A horde of beasts, brought up from the magical power surrounding the farmhouse. They were different shapes and sizes, but all were dark and scaly, oozing green stuff from every available orifice and walking like zombies from �Night of the Living Dead�. They didn�t make any noise, but their eyes (those that had eyes) were glowing bright red and they smelt like dirty gym socks.
The vampire clenched his fangs, "Fifty on two doesn�t seem even odds."
"I know," Dejah giggled, "I pity them. But..." She closed her eyes as the demons approached. _Dakota. Do you really want something fun to do?_
After a short wait. _What?_
_I have a horde of demons here and even though there�s two of us, we�d be losing valuable time. Could you come assist us in making them disappear more quickly, so Andrew and I can get on to more important matters?_
_Just me? �Cause Tres and Braedon are asking if they can come and then Christian would have to get us there, otherwise it would take even more time, so that when we got there you�d be done and - _
_Why not? Let�s have one big party!_ And Dejah cut the link. She gather her senses and drew on the land in the same why Giovanni had, only taking the essence of those who fought bravely, and the remains of the courage soaked deep into the soil. She drew a symbol in the air. "Come�n get it dicks!" She murmured and let her spell fly. She didn�t need to worry, the only sleeper around was slowly becoming a non-sleeper.
The first three beasts were only five feet away and were hit with a tower of fire each. "I�d mind-fuck ya, but y�all don�t have brains." She sneered.
Andrew, in the mean time, had been busy taking down two at once with brute strength and razor sharp fangs.
Dakota showed himself first, Braedon beside him moments later; a large silver dagger, engraved with mystic runes in each of their hands. Braedon didn�t say anything but a small growl escaped his lips. He looked up to the moon and in seconds, no longer was a tall, lanky, teenager standing there but a sleek gray wolf. The wolf leapt at one of the attackers, Dakota took another.
A demon had managed to get behind Dejah and pull her to the ground before she could get a spell off. She felt the weight give way and risked a glance. The demon lay dead - er, deader, Tres standing over it, blood running down his chin. "Yuck." He muttered as he wiped his face. "Remind me not to bite into another one of these things again."
"Thanks," Dejah said hurriedly as she and her prodigy jumped back into the melee. There were ten remaining and they had grouped themselves in a puddle of muddy, watery ground where the snow had melted.
Dakota glanced up. "Out of the snow!" He shouted. Dejah leapt up and managed to stay suspended in midair, taking both Andrew and Tres with her. Braedon sought refuge in a near-by tree and Christian... No one knew if he even stuck around to start with, although it did seem a lot easier and there were a lot of close saves. Dakota also suspended himself in midair, and hit one of the telephone poles, sending it straight down into the snow in sparks. The demons were nothing but smoldering remains after that.
"Now how do you expect us to get there?" Andrew sneered and nodded in the direction of the farm house.
"Oh quit your whining." Dejah laughed. "Thank you guys, now, Christian, if you would be so kind as to..." She didn�t finish her sentence and both she and Andrew were just inside the back door of the farm house. The teenagers were gone. "There. Now we find Sarah and hopefully not any more icky things."
"At least now we're in," Andrew replied, looking around for any more creatures. "The thing is, can we get to Sarah before it's too late? We simply have to! I won't let Raymond have her!" He looked around at the empty corridor. "Do you hear me, Raymond? You are NOT going to win this time--I won't allow it!"
A swirling mass of black smoke seeped through the ceiling directly in front of Dejah and dropped at her feet, then coalesced into a familiar shape.
* * *
In the bedroom...
"What can I do to help?" David had asked.
Gabriel sighed. "At the moment, you're far more capable of action than we are. I don't know if you've gotten this, but Giovanni has been torturing us for days, and we're rather ... confined." He stood up and hobbled towards David to demonstrate his point.
"Oh. Is he going to do that to Sarah?" David asked.
"He's going to KILL her unless we get there," Karen said. She closed her eyes as the weakness from the drugs swept through her system. "Oh, not again." She fell against the side of the bed.
"What's wrong with her?"
"She's been drugged and kept under magical wards, and she's hungry," Gabriel said. He had reached David's side by now. All of two feet, and he'd taken several moments to move painfully towards the mortal, even with the intoxicating scent of blood urging him on. Gabriel felt like falling upon the frail man and ravaging his throat for the blood that pumped so fiercely under the paperlike skin of old age, but he knew that he'd be too weak to even penetrate the skin if he tried.
"In fact, David ... you could help us more than you know," he said, as a thought struck him. "I know it's a lot to ask, but could you spare some blood?"
David took a step backwards. "You're a vampire too?"
"Not the same kind," Gabriel said, swaying back and forth as he tried to keep to his feet. "And I'm not asking for all of it, just a little ... enough to give us some strength. About the same as a blood transfusion, perhaps a bit more."
"If it would help..." David muttered. "What do I have to do?"
Gabriel gave him his best smile. "Do you have a pocket knife?"
"Yeah," David said.
"Cut your arm, not too deeply, and then hold it to my mouth. When I've done, do the same with Karen."
David stared at Gabriel, then nodded, slowly. He didn't feel very comfortable with this but if it was the only way to help them and get everyone out of this mess, then he'd have to. He took out his pocketknife and pulled back the wrist end of his sleeve.
Gritting his teeth, he set the blade edge against the skin and jabbed, just enough to break the skin. A thin red line appeared an instant later.
He placed his bleeding wrist to Gabriel's mouth..."Umm...this isn't going to...well, make me into a vampire, is it?" He wasn't too up on this sort of thing, but the one thing he did know from stories was the vampire had to drink from a human. And what had Gabriel meant about..."What did you mean about not the same kind?"
* * *
In the basement...
The echo of the slamming door was drowned out by the undulating cries of the incredibly solid dark shapes that dragged Brendan across the damp floor, pulling at every free inch of him they could reach.
Brendan tightened the muscles in his shoulders as he attempted to free his arms from the scaly claws that held them tightly. He willed himself to concentrate on the connections made by tendons from shoulders to elbow to wrist as his brother had taught him.
_Look inward and picture all those highways interconnecting and drive your impulses over the bridges._
The creatures which held him must have sensed the ripples underneath the skin of the mortal for Brendan felt their grip tighten even further.
"Damn fool Yankee!" one of them hissed.
"I am an American!" Brendan hissed back between clenched teeth and in one concentrated move he quickly pulled his arms into his side and let them fly outwards.
Solid shadows were suddenly flying into even more shadows as Brendan found himself free and scrambling to his feet.
"Not that easy!" the darkness whispered menacingingly.
The hunter solidified his stance and reached deep inside himself. "It never is."
A small shape hurled at him from the left and Brendan dodged it easily.
"Testing. Testing." the darkness murmured.
A shudder ran through the hunter and he raised his eyes to the ceiling.
_Sarah,_ he thought. And out loud, "I don't have time for this." Brendan turned his back and took a single step towards the stairs.
"Not that easy!" the darkness cried out.
A huge dark shape broke off from the gathered shadows and rapidly sped towards the hunter.
"Nooooo ....." it shrieked as Brendan whirled around, golden flames glowing from his eyes that shattered the huge shape into a million shards of ebony that melted into the damp earthen floor.
A wave of murmured astonishment echoed off the stone walls.
Then the assault began.
Brendan found himself battered from all sides as the shadows lashed at him from the back, pounded him from the sides and pummeled him from the front. He fought back, twisting and turning to fend off each new attack. He channeled his energy into his hands and feet as he lashed out at the myriad shapes that never seemed to form a cohesive unit or end.
The attack seemed ceaseless!
Brendan found himself slowly being backed down one of the hallways that made up the rabbit warren of a cellar. Doors to the rooms off the hall flung open, hitting him in the back and temporarily knocking him off balance and lessening his ability to concentrate. Malevolent laughter began to well in and from the darkness. And Brendan felt himself tiring.
"No. Damn it!" he muttered. "Too much at stake."
As another door hit him in the back, a tendril of shadow snaked out from the enveloping mass to wrap itself tightly around Brendan's ankle. It began to drag him into a small room that seemed to be alive with the darkness. Brendan reached out to grab onto something and his hand closed around something long, cold and metal.
"Use it!" a strange voice whispered in his head.
Brendan spared an instant of energy as he reached out to sense what it was he held and then the fading golden glow from his hands brightened as it snaked down the sword's blade.
The sword that suddenly began to cut and flail away at the shaken darkness.
A darkness that began to collapse upon itself as the hunter used the sword to cut a path through the cellar.
"The stairs!" that strange voice urged.
Brendan ignored the tired feel in his legs. Too much energy had been spent in fighting off the cursed shadows. It was a perfect plan; even if his final target did not realize it. Brendan knew he would have to pay for this later.
"The front room," the voice whispered as Brendan opened the door at the top of the stairs.
"Oh yeah," he whispered triumphantly.
* * *
At the top of the stairs, Brendan.
In the hall, Rene.
At the front doors, Kenyon and Capri.
At the back, Dejah and Andrew.
And in an inner room, David, Gabriel, and Karen.
All, wherever they were, felt an unnatural chill--even the vampires shivered.
Then a baleful greenish cloud appeared, a cloud in which a face formed.
For those who had seen it--Gabriel and Karen, and David also--it was recognizable as an image of Giovanni.
David, who'd just finished feeding Gabriel, and had been about to move to Karen, froze as the image appeared.
An image that spoke. Or rather, shouted.
"FOOLS!" it cried out menacingly. "THIS IS A PLACE OF THE DEAD--AND THE DEAD ARE MINE TO COMMAND!"
David's eyes narrowed angrily as he recognized the face, even this way. "Go to hell!" he snapped, but a moment later wondered just how they were supposed to fight this sort of thing. He'd served in the Army but that'd been over a half century ago, and that had been nothing like this. He looked at Gabriel and Karen, hoping they had some ideas.
Elsewhere, Andrew seized a nearby chair leg (broken during their earlier fight with the wraith-beasts) and threw it at the image with a howl.
For Andrew and Dejah, the image dissolved, but in a spate of evil laughter.
* * *
Brendan stared at the green cloud. And then raised his sword.
"Not all the dead," he said in a deadly voice.
"ALL!!!!" the vision shrieked back as it shattered to be replaced by the decaying figure of a young man dressed in the tattered uniform of a Confederate soldier.
"My fight is not with you," Brendan said as he backed up a step.
"All fights are with me," the creature said in a hollow voice.
"I'll not inflict more suffering upon you," Brendan tried again.
"Suffer the consquences of all enemies."
"You are not my enemy!"
The creature was backing Brendan into a wall. Something about the evil that guarded this place seemed to sense the inherent danger in the young man.
"Go back to your rest," Brendan tried.
The creature reached out the hands of the grave, "You are my rest."
Brendan drew the sword he held down and into an offensive posture and for a moment the creatured wavered and Brendan could see the haunted blue eyes that mirrored the tortured hostage soul of the young man.
"Release me!" he cried before the evil creature took control once again.
"Come with us," the creature said as it shambled forward.
"Go with God!" Brendan cried as he lifted the sword in a graceful arc and brought it down in one single, fluid motion.
The gold energy that engulfed the sword cut through the figure of the dead soldier and Brendan heard a sigh of relief as the two halves of the figure disappeared into the cracked floor boards. The hunter reached down and pinned the small demon to the floor with the point of the sword.
"Tell your masters that the vampire hunter has arrived and their moments are numbered!"
* * *
The figure floated before the duo at the front doors, shouting its vengeance. Kenyon reached into his coat pocket and flung a sharp metal object into the dissipating glow. "Bastard." He muttered, retrieving his weapon from the wood in the door.
"What is that?" Capri asked.
"A present," The agent replied. "From my mother. Never been blessed or spelled, but it does a number on demons." He replaced the tiny silver dagger in the folds of his coat. "Okay, asshole, here we come." He kicked down the door.
"Another lot," Capri mouthed to Kenyon as he took out his dagger again to smite these demons. Capri froze the figures in place so they couldn't even cry out. Kenyon used the dagger on the one that looked like Giovanni, and Capri sent the Sarah likeness into the depths of no return. After a moment, the faerie muttered scornfully, "Yeah right, as if. Jus' what kinda dumb clucks does that molderin carcass think we are?"
Kenyon allowed himself a little smirk. That was one trap foiled. But just as those demons disappeared, a horde of them came down another hall that seemed to be leading from another set of rooms. "More?" Kenyon asked incredulously.
Capri's eyes flashed furiously for a moment, and she muttered dangerously, "I ain't got time for this crap!" She gave those demons the same send off as she had the first two, and she and Kenyon continued down the hall until they heard voices that seemed to be coming from one of the bedrooms. Taking a moment to listen, Kenyon and Capri discovered their worst fears were being confirmed, that Sarah was about to be sacrificed.
"I thought as much." Capri growled almost inaudibly.
"That's exactly the kind of thing the bastard would do." Kenyon looked just as disgusted.
More discussion from Karen, Gabriel and David was overheard, but Kenyon and Capri didn't linger long. there was work to be done, and the sooner the better.
* * *
Rene felt like he had been hit with a sledge hammer. He spent a couple of valuable minutes getting his breath back. "What in the name of God was that?" he asked when he was able. Jumping to his feet, he ran to the door and tried to open it. Finding the door jammed, Rene swore. Impatient and thoroughly pissed, he slammed into the door as hard as he could. The sound of splintering wood filled the air as Rene ripped the door off its frame. Rene looked down the hallway but there was no sign of Brendon. Furious, Rene's vampire nature took over.
"KAREN!" Rene no longer gave a damn if anybody heard him or not. Let the sorry son of a whore try to stop him. He was going to find Karen and God help the person who tried to stop him! A red eyed Rene stomped down the hall, his mind searching for Karen's essence. Clenching his fists, he hoped somebody would make the mistake of trying to stop him. He would rip the SOB's throat out and drain him dry . . .then he would tear him limb from limb. He snarled at the thought, all humanity absent until his quest was finished.
* * *
* * *
Gabriel felt stronger now that he'd ingested David's blood -- Giovanni had starved him as part of the torture, and healing, even such limited healing as he'd managed, took energy. He managed to scrape up a smile for the elderly man.
"It's all right," he said. "Giovanni may summon all the minions of Hell to him this night, but we are in the right, and we shall win. I promise you, David Lindsay, that by the time this night is over, Cristoforo Giovanni will be one with the dead he claims to command."
"Fancy words, Gabe," Karen whispered, "but I don't suppose you have a plan?"
Gabriel turned to her. "We leave this room. We find Giovanni and that ball Travers is in. We destroy them. We do this now, before Sarah is harmed."
"But ... who's to say she's not already dead?" Karen asked. Meanwhile, she'd moved up to where David stood, listening to this conversation and cradling his wounded wrist. The scent of blood had drawn her, and she took his arm in both hands, gently bringing it to her lips. David did not seem to notice -- or perhaps it was just that Karen's feeding was so gentle and so light that he found it a respite from the worries of the night.
Gabriel straighened. "She's not. I would know. Even though we were only lovers for that one night, I'm ... for me, there's a connection forged when minds touch in love. We didn't have enough time to form a firm connection, but there's enough to tell me that she's alive and to find her.... when we leave."
David stirred. "You and Sarah...?"
Gabriel touched the elderly man's shoulder. "If you're wondering why Karen and I were ... here, it was all Raymond's idea. To hurt Sarah and to make her feel that he is the only person who truly understands her. Rather the same tactics Travers used the first time around... I suspect. But I assure you that I care for your sister and that I will always do so."
* * *
Meanwhile Rene had been prowling the corridors and empty rooms of the farmhouse. It would have seemed to anyone with an ounce of humanity left to him that he was travelling through a great many more rooms than there ought to have been, but Rene was operating on pure instinct. Whenever he met a phantom, he didn't ask questions, he simply rended. Since he wasn't in his right mind, as it were, Rene never could describe the hunt that night, save to say that it was dark and full of shadows which rended and tore at him, and that it seemed endless. He dreamed of it on many the day afterwards.
But... at last ... the last of the shadowy dead lay broken on the floor and a door which he had not opened was before him. Light poured from the cracks around the hinges, and he smelled human blood. Rene opened the door.
Gabriel glanced up just in time to ward off Rene's leap. Rene's beast self had scented the musk and the blood and the residues of strong emotion in this room, and he could only focus on the fact that this other male had taken his woman. Red-eyed and snarling, fangs snapping as he attacked.
Karen lifted her head from David's wrist and shouted. "Rene!"
"Kar... Karen?" Rene's eyes lost their crimson hue as he took a step away from Gabriel. Which was good, because Gabriel had been one second away from taking a bite from Rene that would have hurt him sorely.
"Rene?"
"It's not what it looks like," Karen managed to say, grabbing Rene, holding him close, feeling much stronger than she had in days. "Rene, I am so glad to see you, I thought I would never see you again," pushing away slightly, looking up at him, "how did you find us?"
Rene still felt a little uneasy about what he had just walked in on. He tried to smile and stay calm. "It's a long story Karen, but I found you and that's all that matters now, there are others, Brendan, Capri, and people I can't begin to tell you who they are. Come on, we got to get going, we have to find Brendan, and get to Giovanni, he has Sarah and who knows how far he has gotten in his plot to regain his life."
"Brendan is here, little Brendan?" Karen said. "Oh, this is all so confusing."
Rene looked to Gabriel and David. "Let's go, we've wasted enough time, facts later, we got work to do."
