Blood Lust: A Supernatural Horror (14 page)

“Lew!” I yelled
out
in warning
.

He looked back at me
,
then
follow
ed
the direction of
my
.45 upwards
.
A
bolt
of lightning
s
treaked
across the sky,
flooding the
room
with light
.
Blinded, Lew raised his .38 and swept it back and forth in front of him, unable to see
anything
.
In the flash, half blinded, I caught my first glimpse of our perp
and almost pissed my pants.
It was
a monster.
I
stood frozen a
s
the
shadowy
figure glided
, not f
e
ll,
through a hole in the roof
.
It swooped down
and across the
nave
directly at me
.
Lew
fired twice
and
the creature swerved midair
, gliding up and around a column.
Lew’s shots broke my torpor.
I pulled my .45 and raced toward Lew.

“Where did it go?” I yelled to him.

He continued scanning the
sanctuary as he spoke but his shaky voice betrayed his
panic
. “I don’t know. What the hell was that thing
, Tack
? It…it flew.
”

I didn’t know how to answer him. It had
all
been a blur, happening so
quickly
I couldn’t focus
, but I knew our perp was no man. It was bigger than Lew’s estimate
,
at least eight feet tall,
all gray and had wings like a bat. Its face…I shook my head
. All I remember were its eyes, large, red and staring directly into mine as if it recognized me.
I knew it was no mere animal.

I knew I had made a grave error
, my second mistake
. My plan to capture our killer
was
rapidly
crumbling. It could
easily
escape through any one of half a dozen holes in the roof
, may have already
.
Then I remembered Sasha Sattersby and the reason she was still alive became
obvious.

“I’m a fool,” I said to Lew. “She’s bait.”

Lew turned to look at me
and his eyes snapped wide open. “Hardtack!” he yelled; then charged at me like a linebacker
, slamming
into me with his shoulder
, knocking
me aside. I fell to the floor
, coming down hard on my injured shoulder.
I heard a shrill call
and Lew’s cry of pain. I rolled
over on my
side and
stared in
mute horror
as
the creature lifted
Lew
off
the ground
, one talon gripping his arm
. Lew was heavier than any of
the creature’s
previous victims
were.
Too heavy to carry,
Lew’s long legs dragged along t
he floor halfway across the nave
, Lew
furiously
pounding the creature’s chest with
his fist
.
I shouted uselessly as the creature slammed Lew into one of the stone columns before releasing him. Lew slumped to the
floor; the creature
c
rouch
ing
over Lew
’s stunned body
.
I
stood and raced toward the
pair but stopped when a flash of lightning fully revealed
Lew’s assailant,
a nightmarish creature
conjured
right out of the pages
of
one of
horro
r
novel
I had read as a kid
.
The face that slowly turned toward me reminded me of a gargoyle with its long, blunt snout and two large eyes that bored into me with a ferocity I had never before felt. I detected more than animal cunning behind them; there was intelligence as well
a
nd evil, an evil so deep it bordered on hellish. It
stared at me with crimson eyes
full of hatred and, unless my imagination was running wild, laughter, like all this was a game.
Then it turned its attention to Lew, moaning on the floor.
I recovered quickly
and
fired two quick
rounds
into the
creatures
back as it reared over Lew, wings spread wide.
The creature
ignored me
and
focused
its attention
on
Lew
, who struggled uselessly beneath it
.
Lew, se
nsing death, yelled
frantically
at me.

“Tack!”

His voice echoed throughout the
chapel
until
the crash
of thunder drowned it out.
Before I could react,
the creature
raised a wing into the air
. I
caught just a
glint of a
long
talon at the tip of
the
wing
just before the creature slashed it across Lew’s throat
. Lew’s quick scream ended abruptly
in
a
horrendous
gurgle.
The creature
lowered its face and
began to lap
blood from the wound like a dog. Enraged, I ran
blindly
at it, firing
my .45
as I went. I placed each of my remaining bullets squarely into the
creatures
back
to
no effect.
I
charged
into
it
at
full speed
.
My
right
shoulder erupted in
searing
pain and
I
involuntarily
expelled
my breath
in a loud whoosh
.
We toppled from Lew’s body and slid across the stone floor with me sitting on the creature like a child’s macabre carousel ride.
I beat at its head
futilely
with
the butt of
my empty .45.
The creature
heaved and threw me off
as
effortlessly
as a shrug
. I bounced across the floor
,
rolled over on
to
my back and
fumbled trying to
shove a
fresh
clip into my automatic. I glanced over at Lew and
instantly
knew he was
beyon
d my help.
His throat was
in shreds
, his head hanging by a strip of flesh
.
One cheek was missing.
Through the opening
,
I could see the gleam of
his teeth.
His open eyes stared at me
as if begging me to avenge him
.
One leg
trembled
slightly in
slowly subsiding death throes
.
Blood pooled around him,
with
crimson
rivulets
streaming
across the floor
to
mix with the rain as it
poured
t
h
rough the roof.

I
rose
to my knees
and
faced the creature, .45 in my hands
shaking
from a combination of fear and
the
adrenaline surge
that
now
raced through my body
.
I ignored my pain.
The shock of seeing a
living
monster
had vanished
, replaced by the
solitary
desire
to kill it
.
I heard footsteps
outside the room
and knew the officers were coming, drawn by the gunshots. I should have waited but my blood was boiling
with rage.
A long jagged streak of lightning filled the sky,
illuminating the
nave like daylight
for several long seconds
. I aimed
carefully
and fired two quick rounds into the
center of
creature’s head.
To my amazement, t
hey ricocheted off.
The creature
must have
had
skin as thick as a rhino’s.
It screamed shrilly and spread its wings
, ready to attack me
. Just at that moment,
Sasha
Sattersby
began to crawl from behind the altar
using one arm
, her eyes fixed on me.
She was speaking, pleading
with
me but I could not hear her words
over
the thunder.
The creature barked at her, and then began to move toward her on
its
clawed
feet in a shuffling gait
using its wings for support
. I
moved until I
had
placed myself between the creature and the girl.
This
snapped its attention back to me.

“Okay,
you
bastard!” I yelled
over the rumble of thunder
. “Come and get me.”

I fired three
more
rounds at its head
as I moved forward
.
It dodged the first
but the second and third scored hits on the side of its head
above a small rounded ear
where the skin must have been thinner
.
This time
I saw a reddish-yellow ichor ooze from the wounds.
The creature
leaped into the air, screaming its rage at me. I braced myself for the attack
,
wishing I had brought something
other
than a .45, like maybe a silver cross or a wooden stake
, but
I had not expected to deal with vampires, at least not real ones
; my third mistake of the day
.

It flapped its
massive
wings several times
, the sound
of
bed sheets
snapping
on a clothesline
in a high wind
,
and hovered just above the floor. Behind it,
one of the uniforms enter
ed
the nave and ra
ce
d
down the aisle. H
is face held disbelief, but to his credit
,
h
e
showed no hesitation as he
confronted the creature,
yelling
at it to draw its attention
and
firing three quick rounds with the shotgun
,
ripping a hole in one wing. The creature screamed again
,
landed
for a brief second before bounding into the air
again
and
circling the
ceiling
.
The officer
had
just
time
enough
to look toward me with
doubt
-filled eyes before the creature
swooped down and
decapitated him
with
a single swipe of a
talon
.
The officer’s
head rolled across the rain-slick tile as his body slowly crum
p
led to the floor
,
a
geyser of
blood
gushing from his severed neck
. The shotgun dropped from his dead hands and clattered on the stone
floor
.

I began firing as
the creature
glided around the nave. Chunks
of masonry exploded
from the columns and walls as
my
rounds
stitched holes
into
stone just behind the creature
.
It
screamed one more time and
shot
through
a hole in the
roof
and
into the night.
I saw it
briefly
outlined against the night sky by a brilliant flash of lightning
; then it was gone
.
I staggered over to Lew
’s body
and looked down into his dead eyes
. M
y
anger g
a
ve way to sorrow. He had been my partner, my only friend for five years, longer than my marriage had lasted.
I had often berated him as
being
too liberal and he had called me a primitive throwback, but we
had
worked well together, finish
ing
each other’s thoughts
,
watching each other’s backs.
He trusted me
implicitly and
now
I had let him down.
I had failed to watch his back.