Primacy of Darkness (24 page)

I shake my head. “No, he wanted her alive. You’ll have to get her to a hospital, and fast. That takes you out of the fight.”

“You can’t fight him as you are, Malone. Not by yourself.”

“You’re probably right, but you can’t stay here, and I can’t just let him get away again. You need to get her out of here.”

“I don’t plan on staying. I’m saying you can’t fight him as you are, what you have become. He’s a monster. You have to be a monster too. Like you were.”

I shake my head as bile rises into my throat. “I can’t.”

“You have to! You have to meet him on his field, but then you have to have the strength to come back. It’s the only way.”

“I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I can find the monster and I’m even less confident I can put it back in the cage once I let it loose.”

“Then I’ll deal with you, but you need to deal with him—now.”

I literally shudder at the thought of it. “Go, get her out of here.”

Trinh lifts Carol in her arms as if she were an infant and runs to the rooftop access. I watch her disappear through the door and down the stairs before I drop my weapons at my feet and stare at the city around me as I contemplate setting free a monster the likes of which the city has never seen.

I shed my human trappings and let my clothes lie next to my sword and gun. I look inward and find myself standing before the door holding back the darkness buried deep inside me. It has been locked for so long I don’t even know if I have the ability to open it any longer.

My “hand” trembles as I reach for the handle. I expect it to resist me when I try to pull it open, like a cage door with hinges rusted solid with age and disuse. The moment my fingertips brush the surface, the door crashes inward and the darkness reaches out, wraps around my body, and pulls me screaming inside. My cries cut off as the door slams behind me, locking my soul away in its lightless enclosure.

CHAPTER 28

I was a fool. After decades of talking to my shrink and through my own force of will, I thought I had banished the darkness, that living, breathing beast residing within me. All I had managed to achieve was to teach it to stop scratching at the door. It sat there, waiting patiently for me all these years. The moment I tried to open the door to get a peek inside, it reached out with its paw, sank its claws into me, and pulled me through, devouring me body and soul in an instant.

It is the seven mortal sins concentrated into a single concept. It is pride, avarice, lust, anger, and gluttony, but instead of envy and sloth there is fury and hatred. I gave it a body in which to act out its desires and then I set it free.

All of my senses heighten. I hadn’t realized how much of myself I had been suppressing. I can feel every hair stir with the wind, the city lights are almost blinding, and I can separate and identify a thousand sounds at once. I tilt my nose up and inhale, taking in the myriad scents, and pick out the ones carrying fresh blood.

The young woman, Carol I think her name is, I’m already forgetting, is chief amongst them. Even on the dark rooftop, I can pick out her blood staining the surface. I can also “see” the trail hanging in the air. It travels in two separate directions. One direction is entwined with the scent of another woman, the other with a man. A vampire. A rival!

The thought of another hunter in my territory infuriates me. I vaguely recall wanting to kill him for his crimes, but I no longer care about that. Everything I had been fighting for seems trivial now. All that matters is feeding and protecting my territory. I must feed. I feel as if I am starving even though part of me knows it is a hunger I cannot sate. But I’ll try.

My feet brush against something on the ground. Clothing and metal. I curl my lip in disdain for the human things. I run my hands across my bare chest, and a deep, satisfied rumbling makes my vocal cords quiver. This is how I was born. This is what I am supposed to be.

The wind is deafening in my ears as I sprint across the roof, leap from the ledge, and soar fifty, sixty feet across the gap between buildings. I strike the next rooftop with a surprisingly light step, roll, and am back on my feet in an instant, racing for the far side. I hurl myself into space once more, cling to a fire escape on the next building, and drop level by level to the street below.

Sniffing the air, I follow the blood trail down an alley. A new source of blood, fresher than the one I am following, reaches my nose. I hear voices ahead, soft and fearful. Stalking forward like a great hunting cat, I slink through the darkness, silent and deadly.

The flickering of a fire burning in a steel barrel is like a bonfire to my eyes. Near it, two men stand near a third who is laying on the ground near the barrel. His body is twisted at odd angles. He is the new source of blood, a victim of my rival. The other two vagrants, unable to detect the lingering stench of death with their pathetic senses, must have happened upon their fellow after Jack had made a meal of him.

One of them is trying to find his murderer in the darkness, but he may as well be blind for all the good his eyes do him. The other is going through the dead man’s pockets. They are pathetic creatures whose only value lies in being a food source. I pounce, my leap devouring the dozen yards separating me from my prey. I strike the wary one in the chest, sending him crashing against the wall and stunning him long enough for me to wrap the other one in my clutches. He struggles, but his efforts are futile.

My thumbnail parts the flesh and the carotid artery with the ease of a scalpel. Clamping my mouth over the jetting wound, I drink in the warm, life-giving liquid without wasting a drop. It takes only a minute before the blood flow dwindles to a trickle with my help. The other homeless man is on his feet and tries to stumble away. He is severely concussed and unable to operate his legs properly. It doesn’t matter. The man couldn’t flee if he had wings and could fly. Discarding my first meal, I leap onto his back before he is more than a few feet away.

I can feel the weight in my belly, but it isn’t enough. There can never be enough. I have more time with this one, but I am in a hurry. There is an interloper in my territory I simply cannot abide.

Satisfied for the moment, I toss my second victim aside and pick up Jack’s trail once more. He has returned to the industrial park and is expecting me. He wants to challenge my dominance. I won’t keep him waiting.

The scent trail leads me to a large, crumbling structure near the center of the sprawling complex. My instincts tell me he is inside. I scramble up the side of the forty-foot building and gaze into the dark interior. Jack is standing near the center, seemingly unconcerned. He thinks he has taken my measure and found it lacking. He has made a serious mistake.

My animal pride screams at me to destroy him, but my remaining intelligence warns me to use caution. He has earned alpha status in his own right and is a dangerous adversary. His senses are as acute as mine and his strength likely equal as well. With his sense of hearing and sight rivaling my speed and stealth, I choose to remove them both from the playing field. I drop through a busted skylight onto a rusted metal catwalk above the factory floor.

Jack spins in my direction, looking up, with his sword and pistol held at the ready. “Wonderful, you found me. Are you alone, Mr. Malone, or did you bring your little friend and let the girl die? Of course you did not let her die. You are far too civilized.” He sniffs at the air. “Oh, but you have been a naughty boy, haven’t you?”

I pick up a length of pipe and strike the catwalk. The metal on metal toll echoes through the cavernous building. Jack flinches, tensing his body for an attack that does not come. I pick up a chunk of broken cement and throw it into one of the building’s dark corners. Jack turns his head but does not shift his position. I hurl more bits of debris into the darkness, polluting the battlefield with my noise.

“Very clever, Mr. Malone. I knew I sensed something special in you. You just needed the proper motivation to bring it out.”

I jump to the ground floor, hiding behind an enormous piece of machinery. Jack turns toward the sound of my landing. I toss a chunk of metal across the room to distract him.

Jack glances at the sound but continues to face my direction. “A valiant effort, but I shan’t fall for such a clumsy ruse.”

He talks too much. I come out from behind my cover and fling a cinder block at him. He dodges the projectile, but I am coming in right behind it at nearly the same speed with only a slightly deviated trajectory. Jack snaps off a pair of shots and one catches me in the shoulder. I don’t care.

I hit him at a dead run, punching out with both fists. My twin blows catch him in the chest and send him flying several yards. I’m airborne before he strikes the ground. I land atop him and start slashing at his face with my hands, like an animal.

Jack brings his arms up to ward off my blows, gets a leg beneath me, and heaves me away. Now I’m the one in a semi-controlled flight. Bullets fly past me. A couple leave burning lines across my flesh as they skim by. I push off the debris-littered floor the moment my feet touch the surface, lunging behind a piece of machinery to escape the barrage of bullets.

“You have given yourself fully to the blood,” Jack calls out as he seats a fresh magazine into his gun. “I imagine that is going to be a problem for you and Vincent, assuming you are triumphant here. It’s such a shame to have to put down a beloved pet. Come out, Old Yeller. It is past time to finish this.”

I sidle around the steel press to a pile of rubble and iron from where a section of the roof had caved in. I pick up a chunk of concrete with a length of rebar sticking out of it and wield it like a sledgehammer. My leap carries me over the mass of cement and iron, and I charge forth, using my momentum to swing my hammer with the power of a furious god.

Jack jumps straight into the air, high enough to allow me to go stumbling past as I try to check my wild swing. He fires, striking me in the back several times. I force the wounds to close even as I spin around with my weapon trailing behind in a lethal arc.

Jack springs back to avoid the punishing blow, but I release my grip on the handle and turn it into a projectile. The makeshift sledgehammer strikes him in the chest, burying the foot of rebar sticking out of the end into his body. The impact sends him flying backward into a stout support beam. The weapon’s inertia tears it from his body and it crashes deeper into the darkness.

I’m already moving, my hands extended, reaching for his throat. Jack has lost his gun, but he maintains his grip on his sword. He thrusts, and I nearly lose the battle. The sword punches through my chest as if it’s paper. A last-second shifting of my body saves me from a severed spine.

I slam into Jack with my full weight, driving his thrusting arm back and wrenching the sword from his hand. Grabbing the front of his jacket, I lift him up and slam him against the concrete floor several times before hurling him bodily against one of the huge motors that was once the heartbeat of the factory.

Grabbing the sword’s hilt, I pull it from my chest and sling it away. I stalk toward Jack, who is picking himself up from the ground. He stands hunched, and when he looks up, I can see the change in his eyes. He loosens his grip on humanity and falls deeper into the blood just as I have done. He snarls and rushes at me, his hands extended, fingers splayed like talons.

Whatever fighting style we once espoused vanishes. We become something like a cartoon caricature: a rolling, snarling mass of clawing hands, pummeling fists, and gnashing teeth. We are two animals, wild and ferocious, locked in a battle to the death for primacy.

Jack tries to get a grip on me, but his fingernails cut through my flesh and slip off. The more I bleed, the harder it becomes for him to get a grip. With Jack still wrapped in his human trappings, an apt phrase to be sure, I grab the front of his jacket, roll him over my shoulder, and slam him onto the ground. Twice more I lift and dash him against the concrete as if I’m beating laundry against a rock, before hurling him against the nearest stand of immovable steel.

He rebounds off the metal pipes and valves, groaning in pain. Jack crawls to his hands and knees, raises his head, and gives me a snarling glare. The last vestiges of humanity flee his eyes. His feet slip against the dirt and debris-littered floor as he lunges forward with an animalistic roar.

I return his snarl and countercharge. We collide near the center of the complex like a pair of rams dueling over a ewe. Jack manages to get a grip on one of my wrists and puts me in a headlock. He leaps twenty feet straight up, twists around to put me on the bottom, and rides me to the floor.

My hands are busy trying to keep Jack’s teeth from tearing out a chunk of my neck, so I’m unable to break my fall. The impact with the floor is hard enough to daze me. My sight leaves me for a brief moment. Jack lifts me from the floor before I feel only weightlessness coupled with certain velocity.

Something solid arrests my flight. Agony lances through me, and I lose sensation in my legs. I look down and find a jagged length of metal sticking out of my stomach. I cast my eyes around and find myself pinned against a stand of pipes and machinery like a bug to a specimen board.

Jack’s body undulates beneath his heavy, growling breaths. He grabs at his discarded logic and reels it back in. He picks up a length of flat steel from the ground nearby and stalks toward me. The metal isn’t sharp, but with his strength, it doesn’t need to be.

Jack spits out a wad of blood, his voice raspy and strained. “It was a bloody good game, Mr. Malone. Now I will have my trophy, if you please.”

He raises the piece of steel like a baseball bat. The pitch comes with a brilliant flash of light and a cacophonous roar. Jack stumbles and falls to his hands and knees, dropping his weapon. We both turn our heads toward the unexpected, violent interruption.

Kat is standing fifty feet away, her feet set in a shooter’s stance. She is holding Shalonda in a two-hand grip and cocks the hammer back for a second shot. A distant, tiny voice in my brain screams at her to run, but my mouth is incapable of forming human words.

Jack roars his fury and charges at Katherine. I struggle to push my body off the metal rod pinning me in place, but I know I cannot save her. Kat fires again, but the round goes over Jack’s shoulder. She has no time to take another shot.

A deep, booming staccato fills the air and illuminates the chamber like a strobe light. A barrage of 12 gauge, 00 buck slams into Jack’s side and knocks him away from my beloved. Castillo advances, never taking her aim off of Jack as she holds the trigger down and pours lead into him from the automatic shotgun, the fusillade occasionally punctuated by the .500 magnum.

Jack tries to get to his feet and run, but the detective cuts his legs out from beneath him before he makes it more than twenty feet. He lets loose an anguished cry, barely audible until the shotgun’s drum runs dry. Jack lays twitching on the floor. Impossibly, he crawls onto his hands and slowly stands. Kat squeezes the trigger, but the hammer falls on an empty chamber. She pulls my sword from her belt and makes to chase after Jack as he stumbles away, but I don’t give her the chance to reach him.

The moment I’m able to get my legs working again, I leap onto Jack’s back and ride him to the ground. Grabbing his head in my hands, I screech my outrage and rip his head from his shoulders. Palming it like a basketball, I smash it against the floor until it is nothing more than a pulped mess. I sense movement to my side. I whip my head toward the source and hiss.