Dark Urban Rising Box Set

13. Blood Suckers

13Blood SuckersThe sun had been low in the sky when Conn O'Cuinn took his place at the broken third-floor window of the derelict tenement building. The long fingers of late evening sun still massaged their way over the long-abandoned cars and slid around the regiment of vandalized parking meters standing guard on the road below. The effect was anomalous: the beautiful rays protectively encircling the dirty ugliness of the cityscape. Just wrong.

He was glad for the sun. It would serve his purpose well today although he still maintained it had no place in this hell-hole. The demons had brought the blistering heat. It charred the landscape, creating shriveling vegetation of lawns, parks, and fields, leaving only dust behind.

On some days in Detroit there was thick gray cloud cover. The sun sucked up water from the lakes to the north and east, creating thick and cloying humidity that gathered in the back of throats and forced rivers of sweat to flow from brows and backs. Perversely, he enjoyed those days the most. For when the relentless southerly wind blew the clouds away, the sun cooked all below and forced even the most resilient demons to seek shade.

Conn closed his eyes against the sun and fought the desire to nap. True sleep had escaped him yet again the night before, replaced by the incessant dreams of past decisions he’d thought he'd accepted long ago, but now mulled over and over. Another thing that made no sense.

He opened his eyes to face the light that pooled on a little section of pavement outside the store opposite. Through the sights of his rifle, the sunlight picked out the shiny specks of granite in the sidewalk slabs. They danced in the winnowing heat rising from the ground, transfixing him for a moment. He shook it off and focused again on the large plate-glass window. His target sat on the other side.

An English flag taunted him from the beige brick of the building’s front. The blood-red cross cut the white background into geometric squares. The sight made the hairs on his neck bristle. Why the f**k were they here? English vampires in his city. Unacceptable. Today they would receive a lesson in respecting boundaries.

Conn shifted his elbows a fraction of an inch and his hips followed suit. He looked up from the gun to readjust his focus and glance at the sky. Although a haze of pollution had followed the sun’s descent to the horizon, desperately clinging to both the ground and the warmth of its final rays, it would still serve to dazzle the occupants inside the front windows of the building well enough. As the brighter light hit his eyes, they instantly changed from deep blue to light green.

The hawk called her usual warning. It was almost time.

For a moment, the wind breezed in through the window, cooling him. It dislodged the longer sections of his dark brown hair and ruffled the open collar of his denim button-down shirt. Along with the blue jeans and tan desert boots, this was his standard uniform.

Despite being over four hundred years old, Conn looked around forty. With tanned skin and dark features, he was striking, but it was the intensity of his eyes, with their constantly changing hue, that demanded the most attention. They pinned his observers down, challenging for either a promise or a lie. A lie received quick retribution.

With the breeze came the smell of cigarette smoke. Puzzled, he looked around, checking that the road was still empty, but saw nothing. The hawk circled a building just to his left and cried out again. Maybe she’d spotted the source of the smoke. He wouldn’t let himself be distracted; this job was to be a strong statement, a promise to others with similar ideas. Someone who smoked on a job was either stupid or didn’t care if they were noticed, either way, he would track them down soon enough.

The sun dropped a fraction further and now shone fully into the front windows of the storefront. Every muscle in Conn’s body contracted, and only his light regular breath forced him to relax enough to prevent cramps from setting in. Acting before the blinds were pulled down and his view became obscured, he looked again through the gun’s sights at the three figures inside the building.

The vampires had been sitting at a table in the window for the last forty-five minutes, drinking beer and playing cards. The boss man was accompanied by a couple of faithful dogs. The leaders of these blood-suckers always insisted on having goons, never had the balls to do their own dirty work. He hated vampires almost as much as the English. They were simply leftover demons who took up residence in dead human shells. They had no allegiance to a higher purpose and no honor.

Conn spat on the ground, even thinking of them left a foul taste.

Adjusting his position for one last time, Conn trained his sights between the eyes of the lead demon and started to squeeze the trigger.

He stopped.

Instead of the vampire, he was looking into the face of his dead and bloody wife. She stood motionless, her eyes trained on him. His eyes widened as a bead of sweat broke on his forehead and dripped with perfect precision into his right eye.

He blinked. She was gone.

She’d been there for just a second, a trick of his mind, maybe? A vision of the afterlife? Retribution?

Conn’s hands began to shake and sweat broke into a rich swathe across his forehead. Before he could readjust, his finger finished depressing the trigger, and he fired. The bullet shot from the gun with a loud crack.

He cursed and tracked the path the shot took. It went wide, exploding a bottle of whiskey standing on the bar behind the target. The vampire stood showered in broken glass and amber liquid, while his goons turned to the window to look. Frozen and blinded by the glare, they had nowhere to run. The blaze of murderous sunlight cut off any escape into the street. The window itself remained in place, but web-like cracks extended from a single bullet hole halfway up.

Conn didn’t stop to consider his next move. He had to end it.

He dropped the rifle and ran across the room, racing out onto the stairway. He snaked down to the ground floor of the building, leaping the last few steps, and ran out the front door. As he charged across the road, he reached for the shotgun on his back, brought it over his head and down to stomach level then launched himself through the weakened window of the storefront. The boss had already crouched down behind an overturned table. The other two vampires simply stared, rooted in place as Conn appeared in a cascade of broken glass.

Landing lightly, he straightened up and shot at close range, first at one demon and then the other. Both fell to the floor with jagged holes in their chests. He didn’t stop to assess the results before stalking over to the table. He kicked it aside, gripped the vampire by the hair, and lifted him off the ground.

The demon looked at him, mouth opening and closing, mutely begging for his life and raking uselessly at Conn's hand. Compared to the Soldier's strength, he was nothing. There was no bravery about him, no purpose, nor even grace in the face of defeat. Just another pathetic blood-sucker.

Using the shotgun’s bayonet like a dagger, Conn thrust it directly between the vampire’s eyes. The demon screamed and jerked once before hanging limply, dead.

After pulling out the bayonet, now covered in a new coating of blood and brain, Conn dropped the vampire's body and replaced the gun on his back. He turned and left the bar without another thought for the two vampires who lay on the ground writhing and moaning. The holes in their chests were slowly increasing where the holy water seeped through the paths the numerous pieces of shot had made, like wormholes eating into the surrounding flesh. Once the heart was consumed, life would be extinguished. It was agonizing but effective.

At the door, Conn paused long enough to remove a grenade from the weapons belt slung around his hips. He pulled the pin and rolled it straight to the place where the whiskey-soaked body of the former owner lay.

As he jogged back over to the other building to collect his rifle, an explosion rocked the street. He ducked as glass and bricks flew through the air, but the power wasn’t enough for the debris to reach him. He looked back to find the front of the store destroyed. The burned and tattered remains of the vacation posters floated in the air like scorched confetti.

The fire took hold, and the smoke began to obscure the English flag on the front. To Conn’s dismay, he could still see his wife standing staring at him accusingly.

Tazia had stood to watch the action. Before the stink of smoke overwhelmed her, she’d smelled pungent whiskey, vampire blood, and the gunman’s perspiration. The last had puzzled her. It reached her as soon as the initial shot went wide. Sudden sweats weren’t the symptom of a professional sniper. How could he foul the shot so completely?

She discarded the remaining half-inch of her cigarette on the ground, stubbing it out with the metal toe cap of her boot, and then bounded lightly to the low dilapidated parapet to gain a clear view of the street below. Without a flicker of vertigo, her balance shifted to one foot and the rest of her body overhung the building perilously. She stayed there silently observing, as though suspended in the air, until she had a clear view of Conn as he jogged away down the street.

Tazia maintained her vigil for a moment longer, picking him out through the smoke by the regularity of his stride. He had the controlled steady movement of a large wolf scanning his surroundings. Nerves dug into her stomach. Soldier demons had few physical weaknesses, and she knew of only one way to kill them.

Years ago, her father had taken a Soldier prisoner. He’d kept him caged for weeks. Tortured him. Goading him to change into his Core form over and over. Studying him. Finally, when he was done, he pierced the Soldier’s brain with a thin flexible metal dagger. He’d shoved it through his eye socket under the steel-like bone plating that shielded his skull.

It’s an image that had not faded. And not the kind of up close and personal I’d imagined with you, Conn O’Cuinn.

Just before the Soldier slipped out of sight, the hawk swooped down and landed on the arm he raised for her. He turned slightly and whispered to the bird, stroking her head until she nudged his fingers in search of a further reward.

He chuckled, the sound reaching Tazia as an echo that bounced down the empty road and then distorted into a good-humored growl. He reached down to a pouch hanging on his weapons belt to obtain a morsel of food and then fed it to the bird. As he turned, the final weak rays of the sun briefly lit his profile. She saw his tender smile before they exited the street.

Tazia smiled broadly at the exchange between man and bird. Was the interaction his salvation or hers? Perhaps a weakness she could exploit. At the very least, she’d found a way to connect. Anyone who could feel such affection for a bird must hold more than murder in their hearts, surely.

Unflinching, Tazia dropped over the edge of the roof, free-falling five stories before coming to rest on the pavement below, looking to the world as though she’d just stepped off the curb. She left the area in a different direction to Conn—to find a way into the Irish club.