Chasing The Dawn - Shadow War

Third Thursday of the month! And on TIME for once. Another little story, again a bit of a prequel. Given it’s October I decided to show case a little something from my Urban Fantasy setting due out this time next year, God willing. Something with the action you’ve come to expect of me and a little more bite besides. Wallace Works presents :

Chasing The Dawn

The pepperbox-pistols were heavy against his hips. Lucien felt the weapons calling to his hands like a magnet summoning iron but he resisted. ‘Not yet.’

Through the darkness came his prey-and-hunter. A man, or what had once been a man, draped in the remains of fur and denim, with ‘coon skin cap and a prospector’s pick rotating in his right hand, stalked from the darkness. But this creature had abandoned hunting for gold when it had given up its humanity. The vampire paused in the space between the trees, twisting its face left then right to scent the air.

Take the bait, Lucien urged. He’d left a drop of his own blood in the hollow of a tree. Just one, the vampires’ senses would be sharp enough to detect it, and Lucien knew that if it smelled too much blood it would sense the trap for what it was. Just one drop though, just the tiniest little trace on the way to the river down hill. An easy thing for a man to leave behind when fleeing a predator for the safety of water. That would draw interest.

Dried leaves crumbled like old bone as the vampire took another cautious step forward, eyes gleaming crimson under the thin light of the wanning moon.

Lucien’s fingers itched. The creature was less than ten paces away, even a poor shot would fill the creature with silver, but he couldn’t risk the noise. Others had done so at the start. Elizabeth, Antonio, Pier, had all used firearms and only summoned more vampires onto their heads. No, if Lucien was to survive too dawn he would have to kill his hunters swiftly and silently.

The creature took another step forward, less than eight paces from Lucien, less than five from the spot of blood. Slowly, like a snail inching across a leaf, Lucien drew the tomahawk from his hip. It was an old weapon, ‘untouched by machine and blessed by spirits of war’ or so the brave had said. Lucien didn’t know if the brave had been trying to intimidate the ‘white man’ with those words but Lucien had put enough unnatural things into the ground with it to believe it.

The vampire lifted his pickax and took another step forward, there was a snap as rope lashed around the creature’s ankle and dragged the leg from beneath him.

Lucien moved, bursting from his hiding spot in an explosion of foliage and dirt before the vampires’ back had even hit the ground. His heart beat once, flooding limbs with strength and peeling the shadows from his eyes. Before he had taken his second step the leaves drifting through the air slowed as though sinking into molasses. By the second step the vampire’s hat was falling from his balding scalp as he was lifted from the earth. Lucien lifted the tomahawk.

The vampire twisted, ears fluttering as he caught the sound of Lucien’s approach and aimed his murderous eyes at him.

Lucien brought his tomahawk down.

The vampire brought his pickax up. The weapon moved faster than falling stones to collide with Lucien’s in a ring of steel on steel. Sparks entered the air as pain rattled Lucien’s arm. Lucien brought his weapon around but the vampire was already halfway through his return stroke. Too late Lucien saw the attack coming, and leaned away from the swing like a man pushing against the tide. The pickax hooked Lucien’s ankle and pulled, dragging him off his feet with the sickening crack of broken bone. Pain raced the spinning world as both he and the vampire were lifted into the air.

He needed more speed, more power, he couldn’t risk the vampire recovering faster than he. Two beats of his heart, blood and power racing through his limbs anew, the last of his stolen strength use up now. Now because now was all he had.

The bones of his shattered ankle pulled themselves together and mended by the time he finished his revolution allowing him to land on his feet. The vampire was coming down now, in the time it had taken Lucien to finish his flip the monster had severed the rope about his ankle and was descending with the pickax gripped in two hands to cleave Lucien’s skull. I’ll give you my back.

Lucien leaned forward, drawing one of his pepperboxes with his left hand as he swung the tomahawk with his right. Fire bloomed in his shoulder blade as the pickax sunk home, mangling muscle and fracturing bone, but not before Lucien could drive the tomahawk into the vampire’s stomach. Cloth and undead flesh tore like old wool to reveal the ashen black meat that had once been organs. With his left hand he pressed the seven barrels of the pepperbox to the vampire’s closing wound and fired, and fired, and fired. Seven barrels igniting in rapid succession to punch burning silver into the animated corpse.

The body went limp and hit the ground at the same time as the scattered leaves.

Lucien exhaled through the pain, grasped the pick ax and pulled it from his shoulder, sneering at the blood smoldering on the weapon’s tip. He turned his gaze to the corpse at his feet and watched as flesh sloughed away, bones dessicated, and blood turned to pitch. He would have spat on the body but it would have been a waste of spit.

Lucien hefted the pickax, testing its balance. Having a larger magic weapon might help him survive the rest of the night but it was heavy and even testing its weight was sending tremors of pain hunting through his body as the broken fragments of his right shoulder blade ground together. No, the hatchet could still be used one-handed and its weight wouldn’t slow him down like the pick. He slammed the pickax into the rotting skull of his would be attacker and turned toward the river. Even rotten and bloated with decayed blood the corpse would attract more hunters and he really would need to wash away his scent.

He charged down hill, abandoning any attempts at hiding his trail, fighting the pain of his fragmented bones and listening to the sound of broken twigs and snapped branches moving against the wind. The water was so cool a low fog blanketed it, and so dark it looked like a hole to hell. He plunged in, steeling himself for the shock of the chill stream and finding himself on prepared. Darkness wrapped him, broken only by the rocks along the bottom and the currents that carried him down river. He scissored his legs and stretched with his one good arm. He tried the bad one only once, the pain of using it to pull him through the water so great it dragged a howl from his lips. Acid ate at his muscles, fire nestled in his lungs and a fog rolled across his mind. Despite all he was he still needed air and regretfully pushed himself to the surface.

How long had he been under, minutes? Hours? It felt like days but it couldn’t have been one because dawn was fast approaching. Coughing, retching and gasping Lucien crawled to the shore and fell upon his back to watch the line of sunlight slowly slide down the tree tops toward the far bank.

“Impressive,” cooed a voice smooth as silk from behind him.

Lucien sprang to his feet and twisted, backing toward the river he pulled the trigger on his second pepperbox-pistol, going through all seven barrels before he realized he’d drawn it.

Nothing.

“Wet powder,” observed the pale skinned woman crouched by the shore. As though salvation was not swiftly approaching the woman rose. “You did well Lucien. Well enough I think.”

Lucien cast the pistol aside and drew the tomahawk. He was bad with his left hand but he had only two options. Fight or run, neither would save him so he decided to die like a man. “Come on then, finish it.”

“Do you want me to?” asked the woman taking one step forward. “Because I don’t. I think you have earned this prize.”

“Prize,” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at the sunlight crossing the river.

“Yes,” she answered. “Darkness. You are the only ghoul to survive tonight’s game. To overcome its challenges. You have earned a place in the shadows.”

The sunlight washed over Lucien, its warmth invigorating his muscles even as it blinded him. When vision returned the woman was still there, standing in the diminishing shadow of the tree behind her. “So … I get to live?”

She smiled like a jackal. “Oh no dear Lucien you will die.” She extended a hand, palm raised, delicate red fingernails almost shining in the thin light. “But if you embrace the darkness you will return.”

The sunlight reached the tips of her fingers and thin wisps of smoke crawled into the air.

He could run, the sun was growing higher and soon the darkness would pull far enough away that she could not reach him. All Lucien had to do was take a step back.

The woman did not move even as the smoke began to crawl up her arm.

Lucien took the offered hand and stepped into darkness.

—-

I do hope you found that entertaining my dear readers. Until next time, take care and God bless;

~S. Wallace