Chapter 7
1195 Words
What the hell?
Damien ran up on the feeding rogue with another blade in hand. He didn't waste a second, going for the neck this time, intending to cut it clean through. The blade sank in, slicing deep. But the suckhead spun out of the attack before Damien could finish it off. With a pained roar, it dropped the female and focused all of its fury on Damien.
"Get the humans out of here!" Damien shouted to Andreas and Vlad that arrived in seconds as he yanked the woman out of the fray and shoved her towards the others. "Move it, now! Clean her up, scrub their memories, and get them the f**k out of here!"
The both of them jolted into action.
They grabbed the shrieking women and young men and pulled them away from the scene while Damien considered the strangeness of what he'd just witnessed.
The rogue didn't disintegrate as it should have from the double dose of titanium Damien had delivered.
It wasn't a Rogue, even though it had been hunting prey and feeding like the worst blood addict. It was something more demonic.
Damien stared into the transformed face, the extruded fangs and elliptical pupils swimming in irises awash in fiery color.
A foul-smelling pink spittle crusted around the rogue's mouth, turning Damien's stomach with its stench.
Offended, he backed off, guessing the rogue to be about the same age as the two male human youths.
A frigging kid.
Ignoring the pulsing gash in its neck, the rogue reached back and removed Damien's dagger from its shoulder. It growled, nostrils flaring as though it would spring at any moment.
But then it ran.
The bastard bolted away at a fast clip, the hem of its trench coat flapping behind like a sail as it headed deeper into the city on a zigzagging path. Damien didn't let up for a second.
He followed it down one street after another, through alleyways and neighborhoods, then farther out, into the dockyards outside Boston proper, where empty factories and old industrial parks stood like bleak sentinels along the riverfront.
The low throb of music pounded from one of the buildings, the heavy bass and intermittent flashes of strobe lights no doubt coming from a rave taking place somewhere nearby.
Ahead of him a few hundred feet, the rogue sped down a dock toward a rickety boathouse. Dead end. Spitting fury through its open jaws, the suckhead swung around and went on the offensive, roaring up on Damien like a lunatic.
Fresh blood soaked the front of its clothing from the brutal assault on the human female. The rogue snapped and clawed at him, its large fangs dripping saliva, the gaping maw oozing more of the foul-smelling pinkish foam. He sank it's fangs into Damien's flesh and it sent a very hot burning sensation through his system.
Damien manages to shove him off and the bastards amber eyes glowed with pure malice
Damien felt the change come over him as well, battle rage coursing through him, transforming him into a creature not so different from the one he fought. With a snarl, he threw the suckhead down onto the wood planks of the dock.
One knee planted in the barrel chest of his opponent, Damien drew his twin malebranche blades. The arced weapons gleamed in the moonlight, lethally beautiful. Even if the titanium proved useless, there was more than one way to kill a vampire, Rogue or not.
Damien brought the blades down, first one, then the other, slashing deep into the fleshy throat of the crazed rogue and cleanly severing its head.
He kicked the remains off the dock and into the water. The dark river would conceal the corpse until morning, then the UV rays of daylight would take care of the rest.
A wind kicked up off the water, carrying the stench of industrial pollution and something else.
Damien heard movement nearby, but it wasn't until he felt the burn of tearing flesh in his leg that he realized he was under a further attack. He took another piercing hit, this one in his torso.
Jesus Christ.
From somewhere behind him, up near the old factory, someone was firing on him. The gun's report was silenced but unmistakably that of an automatic rifle.
His dull night was suddenly getting more interesting than he liked. Damien dropped to the ground as another shot whizzed past him and into the river.
He rolled, going for the cover of the boathouse as the sniper let another few rounds fly. One shot bit into the corner of the shingled structure, shattering the old wood like confetti.
Damien had a handgun on him, a hefty 9mm backup for the blades he preferred to take into combat. He drew the piece now but knew it would be all but useless against the sniper at this range.
More rounds peppered the boathouse, one of them grazing Damien's cheek as he peered around to get a sight on his attacker.
Oh, not good.
Four dark shapes were moving down the sloping embankment from the area of the factory, all of them carrying serious hardware.
While Breed vampires could live for hundreds of years and withstand severe physical injuries, they were still essentially flesh and bone.
Pump enough lead into them, sever major arteries--or worse, their head--and they died, same as any other living being.
But not without one hell of a fight.
Damien kept low and waited for the newcomers to come into range. When they did, he opened fire on them, taking out a knee of one and planting a slug into the head of another. He was oddly relieved to see that they were Rogues, this ones had a little conscience than the one he just fought.
The titanium in the custom-crafted rounds dropping them instantly and sending them into swift cellular meltdown.
The remaining Rogues fired back, and Damien narrowly avoided the spray, moving farther back along the side of the boathouse.
Damn.
Taking cover meant sacrificing the position of offense. Not to mention the fact that it impeded his ability to track his enemies' approach. He heard them coming closer as he reloaded a new clip into the pistol.
Then, silence.
He waited for a second, gauging his surroundings.
Something bigger than a bullet flew through the air toward the boathouse. It clattered heavily onto the planks of the dock and rolled to a stop.
Holy Christ.
They'd lobbed a damn grenade at him.
Damien sucked in a breath and flung himself into the river a mere instant before the thing blew, tossing the boathouse and half the dock into the air with a giant explosion of smoke, flame, and shrapnel.
The sound was like a sonic boom under the murky water.
Damien felt his head snap back, his entire body racked with unbearable pressure. Above him, debris rained down onto the surface of the river, backlit by a blinding spray of orange fire.
His vision clouded as the concussion dragged him under. He started sinking, drifting with the strong pull of the current.
Unable to move as the river swept him, unconscious and bleeding, downstream.
- Writer
