Blood Feud

Part Three: Blood on the Highway

""ookin good up there, Dobbs." James Royce smiled into the police radio as if the person on the other end could see his sarcastic grin.

"You can't even see me from back there, Royce." Came the annoyed reply. Marilyn Dobbs was in the truck directly in front of the patrol car.

"Wasn't talking about you. Look up." Royce glanced out his window at the helicopter that had just joined the convoy. "We now have air superiority."

"I saw it," Dobbs replied curtly. "About time they showed up."

"You are clearly not an easy woman to please."

"We get this hunk of scrap... I mean 'evidence'... off our hands without incident and I'll be pleased enough. Dobbs out."

"She's got a lot on her mind," Royce said to the uniformed officer in the driver's seat. "She's usually much meaner than that."

"She should be happy she's got a job," the patrolman grunted. He flashed a quick glance at Royce to judge his reaction.

"Yeah," Royce said, smiling. "She should be. So what about you, eh?"

"What?"

"You like your job?"

"Could be better."

"How so?"

"Excuse me?"

Royce's smile widened imperceptibly... slipping from 'too wide' to 'almost physically impossible' without effort.

"Just for the sake of conversation. If you could have anything in the world... what would it be?"

"Well..."

In the truck directly ahead, Dobbs leaned forward in her seat and studied the helicopter through the windshield. There were two officers inside... a pilot and a sniper... both on loan from the state patrol. Once she'd satisfied herself that they were at a proper height to reconnoiter the surrounding area, she went back to studying the trees... the road... the patrol car in front of her... the driver... and everything else.

It was only a matter of time before something went wrong.

When it did... not 'if', but 'when'... she wanted to be the first person to see it. Until now, the helicopter's absence was the biggest hole in their security detail. Now that that hole was plugged, she had to watch each of the dozen or so smaller vulnerabilities more closely, and hope that Royce and the other cops were doing the same.

"So... how well do ya know that Royce fella?" said the driver. He wasn't a cop, just an equipment operator that had passed the security required to help out on 'sensitive' police work. Dobbs had worked with him before, but they'd never actually had a conversation.

"He was my partner before he got hurt," Dobbs replied. She frowned at something in the trees lining the highway, then dismissed it as a non-concern. "Why?"

"He just... I dunno... strikes me as an odd kinda fella, ya know?"

"Mmmhmmm," Dobbs grunted, hoping this was the end of the conversation. She had no idea what the old man was trying to say, and didn't really care to find out.

"I'm a preacher," the driver continued. "Did ya know that?"

"Can't say that I did." Actually Dobbs did know. But denying it seemed like it would be a quicker way out of the conversation.

"That's my 'real' job... I just drive to pay the bills. Heh. I pastor that little church out on Route 7... New Joy?"

"Heard of it. Never been there." Dobbs was using her best 'stop talking to me' tone. It didn't work.

"Anyway, I meet a lot of people, and I'd like to think I'm pretty good at discerning what's what with folks. People have a hard time gettin' over on this old man. It's a gift, ya might say."

"Good for you. How 'bout you concentrate on driving this tru-"

"And I'm definitely gettin' something wrong with yer partner."

"Wrong? Wrong how?"

"Well... I can't really say. That's odd enough right there... me not bein' able ta say. Usually a man is fake or a liar or unfaithful or somethin'... I can tell in a few minutes just from the way he reacts to stuff. Body language and all that. I ask a man a few questions and I pretty much got 'im pegged. Not a hundred percent, but you know what I mean. You can prob'ly do the same, you bein' a detective and all. With that Royce fella... I can't really tell what he's about. He don't react to stuff like normal folks. It's like he's some entirely different species of human bein', ya know?"

"Actually... no, I don't. He's just a guy."

"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose he is. I'd be careful around him, just the same. Take it from an old preacher man."

The driver smiled at her. Dobbs gave him a sideways glance and turned away.

"So what church do you go to?" the driver asked after a few minutes.

"Wherever the funeral is held."

"Eh?"

"The bad guys don't take Sunday off, so I don't either. Somebody dies, I go to the funeral. That's it."

"Well that's kinda sad-"

"Do you mind? I'm trying to concentrate here."

"Oh. Sorry."

They rode in silence for a few minutes. The convoy of vehicles was less than ten miles outside the city now, traveling through a rural slice of countryside that separated the downtown Rock Springs from one of its more industrial suburbs.

"So, uhhh..." the driver said tentatively. "...what are ya concentratin' on? Expectin' somethin' to happen?"

"Yeah."

"Like what?"

"You'll see when it happens," Dobbs replied. She frowned, but not at the driver. "And if I do my job, I'LL see it before anyone else. Do you have a gun?"

"A what? Oh heavans no! I leave that to you folks-"

"Then if something goes wrong and we have to stop this truck... you run for the trees and don't come back out until I call you. You got that?"

"Yes ma'am."

A short distance away... in the exact opposite direction from the one in which Dobbs was looking, the covered load on the bed of the truck shifted slightly... then shifted back. The movement wasn't enough to be visible under the tarp, but it was enough to twist a tiny scream of strained protest from the heavy chains that held the metal shape in place...

Kreee-kreeeeee
kreeeeeeee
kreeeeeeeeeee

ason ducked down and peered through the weeds to watch the approaching convoy. The long row of vehicles had just come into view a few seconds ago, but he'd been listening to the sounds of their engines for much longer than that. Even before the convoy topped the hill, Jason knew that the lead patrol car was fifteen seconds ahead of the flat-bed cargo truck, and that the helicopter was directly above it... scanning the surroundings for signs of impending attack.

Everything was perfect.

Jason's eyes traced the shape of the lead car. Then the truck. Then the occupants of the truck's cab. He could see Dobbs clearly...

He licked his lips and smiled.

"Ready," he spoke into the cell phone that he held to his ear. He could hear three sets of breaths through the conferenced line. If he tried, he could hear the heartbeats as well. No one answered, but then, Jason hadn't asked a question.

When the car immediately following the truck came into view, Jason's eyes locked onto James Royce. The detective's black aura billowed out of the patrol car like a poorly-folded parachute.

Demon.

The gun in Jason's left hand grew heavier, as if the brainless metal shape were trying to make its presence known. Jason gave the weapon a gentle reassuring squeeze.

...soon.... soon...

The .454 Casull had five shots. There was an identical weapon on the grass by his right knee, but he wasn't planning on using that one just yet. The truck would be first. It had 18 wheels, and he could take out at LEAST two with each shot. At least.

That was the plan... but that was also a waste of bullets. After all, the truck only had ONE driver-

-a .454 round striking a 'glancing' blow across the forehead would put him out just as well as if the bullet had gone through his skull. Dobbs was in the passenger's seat, but by the time she grabbed the wheel and maneuvered herself into a position to control the truck... it would all be over.

The lead patrol car sped past Jason's hiding place. The rushed whup-whup-whup of the helicopter grew ominously loud.

It was time.

"Sebastian. Go."

"hat the f-!?"

Dobbs cut off the profane syllable mostly due to the sudden squawk from her radio... not because of the elderly preacher sitting in the seat next to her.

"Some kind of explosion in the woods!" the helicopter pilot pronounced. Dobbs saw the column of black smoke rising billowing into the air. "Half mile away, maybe. I'm going to check it out."

"God dammit..." It was all Dobbs could say. She knew the pilot had to investigate... and she ALSO knew that it was a distraction meant to deprive them of airborne reconnaissance. "Hurry back," Dobbs barked, knowing that the pilot would do no such thing. An explosion was an explosion, which was significantly higher on the scale of importance than escorting a hunk of metal across town. They wouldn't be back.

"Royce," Dobbs growled into the radio.

"Yeah, I saw it. Nothing we can do-"

"We can get another helicopter dammit!"

Behind her, on the other side of the grotesque hunk of metal rocking slowly back and forth on the truck bed, detective Royce eyed the pillar of smoke rising from the woods with a lazy, disinterested stare.

"Don't you think we're carrying this a bit too far, Dobbs?" he replied. "I mean, its just a piece of metal-"

"And that was somebody intentionally setting off an explosion in the woods to draw off our air support."

"Heh... right. Listen to yourself, Dobbs: 'Air Support'? This ain't a military operation; just escortin' some evidence."

"Make the call, Royce. They'll listen to you. We need another chopper ASAP."

"How about we-"

"Royce. I thought you were going to help me out here."

James Royce sighed heavily, shaking his head in exasperation.

"And you need a helicopter," he said.

"Yes!"

"Very well. Your wish is my command... Royce out."

Royce put the radio down and tugged the cell phone out of his shirt pocket.

"Kinda demanding, isn't she," said the driver.

"Yeah, but we like 'em that way. Good for business. We'll get back to our conversation in a minute, I gotta make a phone ca-LOOK OUT!"

Royce caught a glimpse of bright blue as the tarp flew off the back of the truck in front of them. One second it was there, and the next, it was flapping in the wind like a flag in a storm, held fixed only by one sharp edge of the metal shape beneath it. The blue flag fluttered away as the now-uncovered load jerked suddenly backward. The chains securing it snapped like glass, and the entire monstrous hulk rolled... then BOUNCED off the back of the truck, coming straight at them.

The lightning-fast reflexes of the driver were pitifully insufficient. All he had time to do was scream as the thing demolished the front end of the car, crushing it like a empty soda can. Metal protrusions... sharp and serrated like gigantic steak knives... burst through the windshield and impaled both seats. Blood jetted from the driver's shredded torso, splattering the hulking metal shape outside-

-and soaking the empty passenger's seat beside him.

"HE PLAN JUST WENT TO HELL!" Jason screamed into the phone. "Everybody get their ass here RIGHT NOW... we got a demon to take down!"

Jason didn't wait for the responses. By the time the cell phone hit the ground, he was sprinting onto the highway with a revolver in each hand. He had absolutely no idea what he was about to do... but whatever it was, he had to do it NOW.

The driver of the truck had hit the brakes, and was now struggling to keep the screeching flatbed in the road as its own momentum tried to send it into the trees. The patrol cars ahead were turning around... the ones behind had sped up. Cops were descending on the wrecked police cruiser like... lambs to a slaughter. Jason's first impulse was to shoot out their tires... but no. That would trap them here with no way to flee except on foot.

The metal creature crouched on top of the demolished patrol car, literally bathing in the driver's blood. When the first jets of red faded, the creature reached in and ripped open the driver's torso with the ease of a man peeling an orange. It then began smearing the blood all over itself-

-yet there wasn't a speck of red on it. Not on the sword-like protrusions it had used to impale the driver. Not on the half-melted face that had been completely coated with blood just few seconds earlier. No blood anywhere. The metal was soaking it up like a sponge.

Somewhere in a far corner of Jason's mind, the concepts of 'metal' and 'blood' tried to combine into a coherent thought. There was something here that he was missing... something he should remember. But he was absolutely certain that he'd never fought a blood-drinking robot before, so Jason pushed the thought aside.

"Damn, that thing is strong..." Jason gulped. The creature was now ripping the front half of the wrecked car apart to get at the rest of the driver's corpse. Meanwhile, the truck had come to a stop... smoke pouring from its stressed brakes. The driver's side door opened, and an elderly man made a dash for the trees. On the other side of the cab, the passenger's side door flew open. Dobbs dropped onto the asphalt... already shouting into her radio as she limped. Two police cars roared past her, and several more were already screeching and spinning to a halt behind the demolished cruiser.

The demon paused and looked up from the bloody mess it had created... it's head turning slowly toward the first car.

All these cops were about to die. And the two officers in that car were first in line.

"ASHLEY!" Jason shouted. He didn't need the cell phone; Ashley was hidden in the trees on the other side of the road. "GET THESE COPS OUT OF HERE! NOWWW!"

The uniformed officer in the passenger's seat had already opened his door. He was stepping out, and had one foot out on the road when the driver slammed the transmission into reverse, revved the engine, and put the accelerator to the floor. The patrol car shot backward. The passenger's face bounced off the edge of the open door and he fell... back into his seat. Then the driver changed gears and sped away as if he'd suddenly remembered that he'd left his testicles in a jar back at the house.

"Okay," Ashley said as she stepped out onto the street. "Who's next?"

"omebody's got some explaining to do..." Royce growled as the shapes and colors of the world solidified around him. Trees. Dirt. The horrible stench of GREEN-ness was everywhere. He was in the woods, about thirty feet from the edge of the road, directly perpendicular to the direction the car had been traveling when it had been hit. He'd slipped out of phase just in time to avoid a sucking chest wound which may... or may not... have killed him. Either way, it would have hurt like a sonofabitch and THAT, he was not in the mood for. Not right now, anyway.

Now he just wanted to figure out what the hell was going on and WHO needed to suffer an agonizingly horrific death because of it. Oh yes... someone was going to die. His employers didn't feel the need to tell him every move they made... but a rampaging metal monster? THAT they would have told him. And if this wasn't their business, then it meant he had yet ANOTHER uninvited guest pissing in HIS toilet.

"Well it's MY toilet, dammit," Royce said as he drew his weapon and headed for the street. "Nobody pisses in it but me!"

Royce angled through the woods so that he ended up behind the action. He had a good view. Ugly Metal Thing had ripped into Royce's latest prospect like a starving hyena. The front end of the cruiser had been peeled open, and the human in the driver's seat was... well... dead. Not dead in a 'heart attack behind the wheel' sort of way, but in more of a 'swallowed a live hand grenade and stepped into a wood chipper' sort of way.

It was beautiful. There wasn't enough blood for Royce's tastes... but he still recognized the work of an artist when he saw one.

Now, Ugly Metal Thing was turning toward the other police cars-

-some of which were going the WRONG way.

"Huh?" Royce grunted as a speeding patrol car executed a perfect, tire-squealing 180-degree turn in the middle of the street and took off toward some unknown destination. The creature spun toward an approaching cruiser-

-which continued past without even slowing down. In fact, it was speeding up.

Royce spotted Jason Brooks jogging toward the demolished cruiser, and Marilyn Dobbs hobbling beside the flatbed truck, shouting military-grade profanities into her radio as she approached the wreckage

"Shoot him, Dobbs..." Royce whispered. "...shoot the bastard!"

"YOU!" Marilyn screamed at Brooks. "YOU'RE DOING THIS! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!""

"Noooo, don't talk to him! SHOOT him!" Royce growled.

"Get OUT of here!" Brooks shouted back. He pointed at the truck. "Get back in and GO, before-"

The explosion of motion and squealing metal swallowed the last of Jason's words.

"-before it's too late?" Royce muttered. "Is that what you were gonna say? -because it looks like you're a weeee bit too late yourself... heh, heh..."

They'd been spotted. The metal creature pulled itself out of the strangely non-bloody wreckage and sprang hungrily at Brooks.

But Royce watched Brooks execute a spinning/leaping maneuver that... Knight or no Knight... was physically impossible for a human being. The creature landed exactly where Brooks had been standing, but by that time Brooks was at least twenty feet away, covering the distance in a single bound and coming down in a bone-crunching crouch that would have popped both kneecaps off of a set of normal human legs. He still had his guns, but the hands that held them looked like they were in the process of becoming something else. Something with claws.

"Now THAT'S new," said Royce.

Dobbs stopped hobbling and was now simply staring... mouth open, lips moving, but no words coming out. It was the expression of a woman who had no idea what she had just seen... and was therefore actively convincing herself that she had not actually seen it.

The last of the patrol cars skidded to a halt in front of her, almost colliding with the side of the truck.

"TAKE COVER!" the driver shouted as he got out and leveled his .45ACP at the creature, who's attention was fixed on the retreating Brooks at the moment...

...but two cops must have looked a lot more appetizing than one Knight, because the creature turned toward them with the slow, ear-splitting groan of metal grinding against metal.

The uniformed officer fired two rounds into the creature's torso....

...and had the nerve to look surprised when the bullets bounced off without effect.

Then the officer decided that right now, his BEST course of action was to-

-fire more bullets.

"ASHLEY GET THAT FOOL OUT OF HERE!" Jason shouted. He was back pedalling now... guns ready but still unused. He didn't want to get close to the creature either. "WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYONE ELSE!?"

"Ashley..." Royce hissed. That meddling little girl was just as deserving of a bullet as Brooks himself... even more so, considering the threat she posed to his employers. But, while Royce had been given a direct order to take no action against Brooks... that order did not apply the psychic. And if she was within shouting distance... then she was definitly within SHOOTING distance...

Ashley Ricks crept slowly out onto the road. She was about ten yards behind the wrecked cruiser, well within the danger zone if the creature decided to turn around and look at what was behind it. But instead of backing off, she walked calmly forward, hands clenched into tight fists. On the third step she leveled a lonnnnng hard stare at the driver of the remaining police car. Royce watched his eyes shift to hers. The cop went rigid-

"Stray bullet," Royce said as he cocked the hammer back on his service revolver. "I was aiming for the creature and she caught a stray ricochet. What a shame..." He leveled his gun at the side of Ashley's head. His finger tightened on the trigger. The tiny lever began to move-

"ou'll die if you stay here."

Ashley mouthed the words silently as she shouted them into the police officer's mind. Detailed images of exactly what the creature was going to do to him accompanied the words...

...but the officer stood his ground. He nervously popped the empty clip from his gun and slapped in a fresh one.

She was losing him. She had had his thoughts grasped firmly in her mind, but the cop's will was too strong. Either that, or he was insane.

"You Are Going To DIE!" Ashley repeated. She showed him again. The officer's mind slipped even further of her reach. The fear was making him stronger. The more terrified he became, the more he wanted to stay and fight and-

-protect Dobbs. That was it. Anything that the creature did to HIM, it was going to do to the detective about five seconds after that. And that was about the length of time he was looking at. The creature was on the move, charging toward him like an angry rhinoceros. The cop's bullets were useless... he may as well have been throwing mosquitoes at it.

Behind him, Dobbs snapped out of her temporary shock and noticed the creature for the first time. She saw the police car that it had just wrecked, and realized that the one 'shielding' her was just like it. In other words: No protection at all.

"LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" Dobbs ordered. She reached for the car's passenger door-

-it was locked. Her 'savior' had neglected to open it when he showed up to 'rescue' her.

"YOU GO!" The cop shouted. "I'll hold it!"

"Hold it WITH WHAT!?!"

"Heroes are so stupid," Ashley said as she pushed her thoughts deeper into the cop's, slipping them into the workings of his mind like hooks. If she had to give this man a temporary psychotic break to save his life, then-

"...hmmm..." Ashley smiled as the solution presented itself as a flash of the man's recent memory. She changed her plan of attack. The old way would work just fine with just one simple change. Again, she sent words and images searing across his conscious thoughts-

"YOUR CHILDREN ARE ON FIRE."

The cop froze as the horrific image unfolded across his mind... his body held so rigid that it looked ready to shatter. And then he was gone. His thoughts slipped away from Ashley's as he ducked back into the patrol car and threw the transmission into reverse. His foot drove the accelerator to the floor and he yanked hard on the wheel, causing the car to spin out onto the street. He shifted into drive. The wheels left shreds of rubber on the road as the car screeched down the highway...

...leaving a very perplexed and unprotected Marilyn Dobbs standing in the road like a cardboard target at a shooting range.

"Damn," Ashley swore.

She heard an odd ringing sound in the distance... and then everything went totally and unexpectedly black.

"OLD ON!" Jason screamed. Ashley had gotten through to the cop at the last second, but she'd done her job a bit TOO well. The patrol car had departed without Dobbs, and now the creature was about half an instant away from turning her into a chunky red stain on the highway. She was dead if he didn't do something.

Shoving his guns back into their holsters, Jason and took three running steps... each faster and more powerful than the last. When his feet left the ground he was already traveling faster than the car that had just sped away. Dobbs had turned to run. Realizing that she didn't have a prayer, she then decided to duck under the truck in the mistaken hope that it would shield her.

It wouldn't have, but she wasn't going to find out. She was too slow.

The monster's fists came down hard ... but the instant before they struck, a speeding blur darted between them and their target. Jason's arm hooked around the Dobb's waist as he flew past. The sudden change of momentum spun her violently around. Her leg struck the side of the truck as Jason took her up and over the flatbed in one leap. Perfect-

"AAARRRRRRRGGGH!" Jason screamed as sharp, tearing pain exploded across his back. The creature had struck a glancing blow as he'd sped past. Blade-like protrusions lanced into his spine, and then tore free as his leap carried him out of reach. The pain hit like a blast of pure white light. Everything got brighter, as if the sun had dropped from the sky and was hovering just three feet away. Too bright to see. And it burned. Even the momentary touch of the creature's metal body scorched his flesh like broiling acid.

Jason's body went limp in mid air. It was through sheer force of will that he maintained his grip on the squirming detective while his perfect landing turned into a bone-jarring crash that he didn't even feel. Jason heard himself stop screaming... but that was because his lungs were empty. He felt the ground beneath him. He felt his arm reach out protectively... almost instinctively... searching for Dobbs...

"Go-" He gasped. "Run!"

The creature was still there, just on the other side of the truck. It would be coming for them. Would it tear the truck in half and wade through the wreckage to get them? Or would it just leap over? Either way, it was coming.

Jason couldn't move yet, but if Dobbs could-

"...my God..." He heard her grunt. Jason swept his arm toward her, trying to push her away... push her toward the trees. Maybe the trees would slow it down enough-

He touched something-


"What kind of friends are we talking about here, Royce?"

"Friend friends."

"The kind of friends that cops shouldn't have?"

"No, I wouldn't say that."

"What WOULD you say?"

"It's kinda like the Masons, ya know? It's a brotherhood kinda deal... sometimes we do things for each other. Favors. You know."

"And you're telling me this because...?"

"Because I like you, Dobbs. My career as a cop is pretty much shot." Royce held up his half-arm again. "That's a done deal. Maybe they'll let me shuffle papers or fetch coffee... maybe not. But that doesn't matter because I'm gonna be fine."

"Your friends?"

"Yeah. Maybe. But you... all this crap in your life... that's NOT a done deal. There's still some things that can be done."

"Things like..."

"You tell me, Dobbs. You tell me what you want."


The vision ended abruptly when Dobbs pulled herself away, twisting her bad leg painfully in the process. The sudden return to reality brought a matching a yelp of pain to Jason's lips.

"You... made a deal..." he gasped as the dislocated vertebrae in his lower back slid into place with a series of rapid, agnozing 'clicks'.

Maybe Dobbs heard him and knew exactly what he was talking about. Or maybe she would have to think about it for a second... or maybe she hadn't heard him at all. None of it mattered now, because the metallic roar grinding its way toward them was about to make the entire issue moot.

There was an explosion of sound as the creature sprang onto the bed of the truck that had been carrying it. It thrust itself forward, suddenly looming over them.

Dobbs was on her back in the grass. Jason was at her side. The beast's shadow fell across them like their own, private midnight.

Dobbs cursed and tried to use her good leg to push herself toward the trees behind her. She reached out for Jason-

"GO!" Jason growled as he sat up and threw himself between her and the beast. "GO!"

"YOU!"

Everything froze.

Jason had been glancing back at Dobbs, wondering just how many more seconds she had to live. Marilyn's eyes were gazing past him, fixed on the demon. When the single word bellowed over them like the report from a cannon blast, she froze in place like a painted glass figurine. Jason turned to see...

The creature was leaning toward him. The cluster of metal that might have been its head was alive with motion as something assembled itself before Jason's wide eyes. Small shards and slivers of steel swam through the mass of the creature's body... weaving their way upward as if drawn by some magnetic force. They scraped across its neck and face, gathering into a layer of mobile metal fragments that then took on a life of their own... forming ridges and depressions that were unmistakable in their intention:

It was a human face. A demonic caricature of a human face.

And worse still... it was a face that Jason almost recognized. There was something familiar about it.

"YOU DID THIS TO MEEE!" The raw, nerve-wrenching sounds screeched forth from deep in the creature's metal throat, and were sculpted by the moving bits of metal that had now formed lips...tongue...teeth... "YOU STOLE MY FLESH!"

"I-I've never seen you before in my life..." Jason said as he tried to ease himself back away from the looming creature. He heard Dobbs doing the same thing behind him. He also heard something else.

If he could just stall this thing for a few more seconds...

"SEE NOW!"

The creature leaned even closer. As it did, the metal face seemed to 'tighten' on its head... the smaller pieces pulled together, solidifying the details and transforming the face from a poor caricature into a near portrait-

-but by then, the creature was so close that its twisting, mutated aura sliced across Jason's body. Were he not so terrified, Jason could have easily locked the visions out... as he had done before. But, distracted and frightened, his mind slipped even as he tried to sidestep the surge of sounds and images.

He saw water.

There was a brief flash of what could have come before... but no, this evil truly began in the depths. What sea was this? How deep? There was something there. Something huge and evil. Monstrous. And a man. A sacrifice. An embrace. ...a transformation...

...a return.

The ship.

The rain of blood.

Land... men... the colonies...

Roanoke

Then fighting. Combat. A Native American armed with nothing but a spear... and a monster roaring the man's name as it was beaten back toward the sea.

The images came faster now. Flashes of blood and fighting and destruction. And hunger.

And men... with weapons... The native fell, but another rose to take his place. And then another when that one was beaten... and another...

"...what...are...you..." Jason grunted as he tried to force the visions to make sense. He was seeing too much too fast. He couldn't decipher it all... he couldn't even SEE most of it; new images were there and gone before his mind could even-

Donovan?

Was that last flash... Donovan?

It was gone now, but Jason was certain that-

-was that HIM!?

The parking lot. Cops... an explosion. An ambulance.

And then, a good looonng look at the creature's face. It's HUMAN face... the face that Jason had condemned to a lake of fire. The face that he had destroyed in a vat of liquid-

Metal.

"Uh-oh," Jason

Reality swirled into focus around him, but Jason saw none of it. His eyes were filled with a single image... A face... the same face he had just seen in his vision, only now assembled from metal fragments instead of flesh and bone. The face of a vampire.

"Brite."

"YES!" Brite's agonizing voice bellowed. "YOU DID THIS TO MEE! YOU DID THISSS! THE PAIN!"

"Hey, sorry about that. I thought it would just kill you-"

"THE PAINNN!!"

"What, I'm supposed to have sympathy for you? You ARE a vampire. And I'm a Knight... me causing you pain kinda goes with the job, know what I mean?"

The entire mass of metal shifted toward Jason. The roaring squeal of its motion almost covered the sound rising behind it... the rapid rhythmic thumping of rotating shafts pounding the air beneath them into submission.

The police helicopter descended sharply, missing the treetops by only a few yards and then pulling up again as the creature turned toward it. They had apparently wanted to get a close look at it...

...and now that they'd gotten it...

The sniper leveled his assault rifle at the creature... at Brite... and took aim through the scope.

"NO!" Jason shouted at them.

The sniper glanced at him. Then past him at Marilyn. He gestured at the pilot, who swung the chopper up and around, positioning it so that any possible ricochet wouldn't endanger anyone on the ground.

The vampire followed him with its eyes. Its human face had disintegrated... now it was just a hulking tower of metal again. Bloody-thirsty metal.

Blood-thirsty metal that apparently didn't like helicopters.

Brite took a tentative swipe at the hovering machine, but by then it was well out of the monster's reach. Then, with a metallic growl, the beast hopped off of the flatbed truck. Its impact sent deep fissures radiating through the asphalt. Brite kept his nonexistent eyes on the helicopter as he moved toward the ruins of the patrol car that he had demolished earlier.

The sniper's first shot bounced harmlessly off of the creature's hide.

"RUN!" Jason shouted. But between the sounds of Brite's motion and the helicopter's engines, they didn't have a prayer of hearing him. "ASHLEY DO SOMETH-" He looked around for Ashley.

He found her.

"ASHLEY!"

She lay sprawled on the highway. There was blood in her hair, and more on the asphalt.

And she wasn't moving.

For an instant, the world and everything in it was absolutely calm... all except for the massive piston hammering in Jason's chest. Each heartbeat felt like he'd been struck in the chest with a hammer. His eyes burned... burned even more than the touch of Brite's metal flesh.

"Oh God, no..." Jason's muscles began to tighten. "...she can't be..."

He had to get over there. He had to-

No.

Ashley looked dead.

Maybe she wasn't, but there was an injured detective behind him, a helicopter with two cops hovering over his head, and a vampire that was about to use all of their bones as toothpicks. Ashley looked dead, but... God help him... Jason had more important things to consider.

"DAMN!" Jason swore as he turned back toward Dobbs. "DONOVAN, GET THAT CHOPPER OUT OF HERE! WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYBODY ELSE!?"

Marilyn had managed to retreat almost to the tree line, where found a branch sturdy and low enough to support her. She grabbed it and pulled herself up onto her feet.

"Jason what-" she began.

Metal. The sound was metal... something big being forcibly ripped out of something bigger.

Jason turned.

Brite was standing next to the cruiser... head aimed skyward and arm drawn back. In his hand he held the demolished cruiser's drive shaft. The knife-like fingers tightened around the long metal pipe.

Another pair of bullets bounced off of Brite's torso.

In the sky above, a brief flash of humanoid luminescence darted through the helicopter's window. Donovan Wilde appeared directly in front of the pilot and... calmly and evenly... instructed him to leave. Immediately.

The pilot complied.

The chopper veered away, but Donovan was too late. Brite's arm snapped forward in a short arc, and the drive shaft whipped through the air. It would have gone straight through the cockpit, but instead, it struck the tail rotor... destroying the entire assembly and sending the chopper spiraling out of control. The pilot had gained enough height to make it over the treetops, but he'd only made it a few yards into the woods before the cruel fist of gravity snatched him out of the sky in an ungraceful, sputtering drop.

The sound of the crash made Jason's blood run like ice in his veins. But when the helicopter's engines fell suddenly silent, he then heard ANOTHER sound-

Jason darted across the thin field of grass between him and Marilyn Dobbs.

"INCOMING!" he shouted. "GET DOWN!"

he roar of the motorcycle's engine was almost a solid, tangible thing as Sebastian raced down the side of the flatbed truck. The sound of the helicopter had covered his approach, but now that it was down, the creature could hear him.

...seven...six...

It seemed to smile at him as he came.

Sebastian smiled back.

...five....four...

He was on a collision course. The speeding Harley Davidson had enough momentum to knock the creature down... maybe... but any damage done from the impact would be minimal.

Minimal to the CREATURE, at least.

...three...

As the bike chewed through the yards separating him and certain death, Sebastian steered slightly to his right. The creature reached out... intending to snatch him up as he passed.

...two...

His timing had to be perfect... and it was. Sebastian threw himself off of the bike. The sudden shifting of his weight as he leapt drove the bike back onto a collision course as he skidded painfully across the surface of the truck's bed-

...one...

Impact.

The bike's impact drove the metal demon back a step, even managing to knock it off balance. It was still teetering when the timer on the explosives strapped to the handlebars... handlebars now lodged in Brite's torso... clicked its last digit-

Zero.

Sebastian hit the ditch on the other side of the truck just as the explosion turned Brite... and a portion of the truck... into a deadly hail of heat and shrapnel. Sebastian's face was in the dirt, with his hands clasped protectively over the back of his head. The concussive blast shook the world around him, robbing him of sight and sound for an instant. It felt as if the world was going to keep on shaking forever... but it didn't.

In two seconds, he could move.

He looked up cautiously.

There was a large crater in the highway where the thing had been standing. Something that MIGHT have been one of its legs was still there, lodged in the scorched dirt with smoke pouring out of every twisted metal crevice. The REST of it was scattered around like a bag full of aluminum cans tossed into a tornado. Several of the trees immediately adjacent to the highway had been demolished... not by the blast, but by the impact of foot-long shards of metal.

"Brooks!" Sebastian shouted. He could barely hear his own voice. He'd been wearing disposable earplugs, but those just meant that his loss of hearing was temporary and not permanent. He caught movement in the corner of his eye. Brooks and the detective had made it into the trees. Now Jason was pointing-

-At something on the street.

Sebastian looked.

The world shook again.

"hat the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Huh?"

The first thing Ashley realized when she opened her eyes... was that she didn't have any eyes. Not her real ones, anyway.

Someone with a lot less experience than her might have been fooled by a psychic construct like this one... but she wasn't. Still, it was very good.

She was sitting on a bench in a park. The sun was shining, but the park was empty. The grass was green... a bit TOO green, perhaps. The bench was hard and uncomfortable, the way most park benches became after sitting on them for too long. But she got the distinct impression that she'd just gotten here.

Wherever HERE was.

Astral plane?

Whoever had brought her here against her will had better HOPE not. Anyone that tangled with her on the astral plan was either stupid or suicidal.

"I said... what the hell do you think you're doing?"

The voice had come from behind her, but when Ashley looked, there was nothing there.

Okay, so they weren't stupid. They were cloaking themselves... not giving her a target to focus on. The voice was male. Older, but not elderly. No discernible accent. But all of that could be faked easily in real life... and even easier in the realm of the mind.

"'Your Children Are On Fire'? What was that?"

"That was me saving that guy's life," Ashley snapped. She didn't like this voice. It wasn't the sound of it... it was the attitude behind it. It sounded too much like Donovan. "Now who the hell are you!?"

"You could have caused that man permanent psychological trauma."

"OR I could have let him get smeared all over the highway by that thing-... which is STILL out there, by the way! Don't think you have me fooled by this, I know it isn't real."

"It's real enough. More real than reality, in fact. If you interfere with someone's mind... it's the same as changing their reality. Forcing your thoughts onto someone is just as much a violation as-"

"Oh? OH!? Somebody's talking to me about VIOLATION!? Okay, buddy... show yourself NOW so you get your ass kicked and I can get back to IMPORTANT stuff-"

"Like what... torturing young men in hospitals?"

"Are you reading my mind?"

"I don't have to. I was there. I saw what you did."

"Well then where were you when that 'young man' had me drugged on his couch with his hands down my panties!? HUH? Where were you THEN?!"

Ashley stood up and looked around.

"HUH!? WHERE!?!"

"Sit down."

"No," Ashley sneered. "MAKE me!"

"Very well..."

The sudden, irresistible urge to sit back down rushed into Ashley's mind.

-almost irresistible-

Ashley... still standing... looked around at the empty park.

"What the f$#%k was THAT supposed to be? You trying to force my thoughts? ME!? Do you even know who I AM!?"

A man appeared six feet in front of her... materializing without a sound. He regarded her with a long, stern glare that reminded her even more of Donovan.... but he was clearly someone else.

"I know exactly who you are," He said, folding his arms across his narrow chest. "You are my daughter."

"ou've gotta be KIDDING me!"

James Royce had lowered his voice to a respectful whisper, but managed to make even sound like a howl of extreme displeasure.

The five seconds of total silence on the cell phone told him that his 'respectful whisper' wasn't quite respectful enough.

"I don't get it," he said more calmly.

"It is not for you to understand," replied the voice on his cell phone. The voice sounded human... but it wasn't. In fact, though the object Royce held to his face LOOKED like a cell phone, it clearly was not. Most normal phones weren't capable of dialing Hell's area code. "You were to take no direct action against the Knight."

"I wasn't," Royce hissed. "I shot the girl. If this damned phone hadn't gone off at the last second-"

"As part of the Knight's entourage, orders concerning him also extend to her," the voice snapped. "You are to take no action against the girl."

Royce peered through the trees at the highway. It looked like Brooks had bagged another demon. Not bad for someone who just stood around and shouted while other people did all the heavy lifting.

"I don't get it!" Royce hissed into the phone. "Brooks is dangerous... but that girl? She can do more than Brooks can even THINK about! She's a damned-"

"We are aware of her potential... which is why you are to take no action against her."

"C'mon... one bullet! I can take her out from a distance before she even knows I'm there! No threat... no danger."

"Your safety is not our concern. The girl's usefulness will not be compromised by your foolish violation of our orders."

This time, it was Royce that paused.

"Usefulness? You... you gonna turn her?"

"No," said the voice on the phone. "She will turn herself. Her power is a constant temptation... and now, she falters. The time will come... very soon.... when she will be open to influence, even from one who's nature is known to her."

"You mean me."

"We will use her to further our ends, just as we have used the others."

"I see."

"Until then, we suggest you focus all of your energies on your CURRENT project."

"Dobbs is in the bag. She's as good as ours-"

"And yet she was very nearly killed mere minutes ago, while you were taking unauthorized action against the girl. The detective is important to us... perhaps more so than the other. Bringing her into our service does us no very little good if she is dead."

"So I'm her bodyguard now?"

"If required, you will sacrifice your existence for hers. She... and the girl... are more valuable than you. Is that understood?"

Royce nodded... wondering if they were actually looking at him right now. They probably were... they were always looking. That was how they knew he was going to kill the girl... how they knew the exact instant to make his phone go off, spoiling his aim. So they were probably watching him right at this very moment-

"Good," said the voice... even though Royce hadn't given it anything to reply to, other than a nod. "You may continue your service by escorting the detective from the area. Immediately."

"Why?" Royce blurted before he could stop himself. 'Why' was generally not a very well-received question with his employers. But they surprised him with an answer:

"See for yourself."

Then the phone went dead. Royce checked the scene on the highway again. Other than the huge crater in the middle of the road, he didn't see anything. Then he looked closer...

"Oh..." he gulped. Then he was gone.

"he's been shot."

Sebastian knelt beside Ashley's unconscious body, holding her bloody head in his hands. He'd torn off a piece of his shirt and was pressing it against her right temple in an effort to stop the bleeding.

Jason's stomach dropped. Ashley had been shot. In the head.

"Uhhh..." he began. He wasn't sure what came after 'uhhh'... but it was all that he could manage at the time. "Is she... she... are you sure?"

"The bullet didn't go in. I'd show you the wound, but she's bleeding too badly. She needs a doctor.... my phone is in my pocket. She needs a doctor right now."

Sebastian reached down and grabbed the phone from one of Sebastian's many pockets.

Speed-dial.

"Not now-"

"Goode!" Jason blurted when the doctor answered. "You were supposed to BE here! Where-"

"Helicopter came down almost on top of me. I'm holding the pilot's guts in with my hand right now... this is not a good time for twenty-questions. I'll call you when I've got this guy stabiliz-"

"Ashley's been shot."

Pause.

"...how bad?"

Jason held the phone up to Sebastian's face.

"Severe concussion. Skull fracture. Possible brain trauma. Pulse is weak. She's lost a lot of blood." The boy said with his typical coldness. Then added: "...hurry..."

"I can't, kid," Jason heard Goode say on the phone. "I've got a bloody mess of my own here. The cops in the helicopter... one of 'em didn't make it. The other one ain't lookin good."

"I understand," said Sebastian.

"Can you stop the bleeding?"

"I think so-"

"Then she's already in better shape than what I'm looking at here. Get her to a hospital, son. I'm sorry."

"I understand." Sebastian jerked his head away from the phone. Jason put it to his own ear.

"Goode!"

He wasn't there. The doctor had hung up.

"We need transportation," said Sebastian. He looked past Jason...

The flatbed truck was in twisted ruins from the explosion... but the damage was mostly confined to the flatbed itself. The cab looked... almost intact. If they could detach it from the bed...

"Can you drive that?" said Jason.

"I can drive anything," Sebastian said as he stood... cradling Ashley in his arms.

"You don't have to move her!" someone shouted. It was Dobbs. She'd found a tree branch long and thick enough to use as a crutch, and was hobbling toward them. "The chopper would have called for more backup. There'll be cops all over this place in minute. They'll have paramedics-"

"NO!" Jason blurted. "You have to turn them around!"

"What? Why!"

"That thing isn't dead!" Jason pointed to the metal fragments scattered across the road. Dobbs couldn't see the network of thick black tendrils that connected each of the fragments... Brite's aura. The vampire's body was in pieces, but those fragments were just as alive as the whole... and they were all around them. On the road. In the woods. Everywhere. Dobbs was almost standing on one. "It's still alive. If anyone gets blood on ANY of those fragments we'll be doing this all over again."

"Blood?" said Sebastian.

"It's Brite. That thing is Brite... a vampire."

"Brite isn't made of metal-"

"He is now. And NOBODY can touch anything around here! All this happened because a guy cut his FINGER when he was loading the truck. I saw it and didn't think about it... but if THAT'S all the blood it takes, then...

Jason suddenly realized that he was talking to himself.

Ashley was still unconscious. Both Sebastian and Marilyn were staring at the spot on the road where Ashley had fallen. Jason didn't need to be psychic to tell what they were thinking... because when he looked, he thought the exact same thing:

"...wasn't there a lot more blood on the ground a few seconds ago?"

[To Be Continued]

copyright 2005 by Dark Icon Entertainment
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