Брайан Макклеллан - Blood Tally

I pulled a piece of paper out of the printer and wrote a simple message on it.

I KNOW WHY YOU WERE BLACKMAILED.

I left it on the desk and returned to my truck. “Feeling better,” I told Olivia. “Let me drive.”

She pushed Eddie over into the passenger seat but stayed in the middle, leaning into me when I got in the car. Her knee touched mine, and it felt like an electric spark passed between us. Whatever had been building before that confrontation with Jacques had not cooled off.

“Food?” she asked. “Sleep?” Her hand rested on my thigh. I cocked an eyebrow at her. She returned the look and bit her bottom lip. “Your place or mine?” she asked.

“Mine’s closer.”

I somehow managed to make it back to Gates Mills doing twenty over and making out while driving. It wasn’t easy, but we also didn’t die. By the time we reached my driveway, it was dark, the forest looming tall in the windscreen, and we were both half dressed. I took the turn into the driveway way too fast, almost taking out my own mailbox. I was running on adrenaline, the fumes of whatever energy I had left after two long weeks, and the pure bliss of knowing I was about to sleep with someone I liked for the first time in a depressingly long time.

I was halfway down the driveway when Maggie suddenly came alive. Alek, zip your damned pants up.

Excuse me? I managed to ask, Olivia’s teeth on my earlobe and only one eye on my driving.

Alek, there’s something wrong. Alek, stop! That last was a scream, and I slammed on the brake so hard that I had to wrap one arm around Olivia’s waist to keep her from going through the windshield. She jerked in my grip, let out a tiny scream, and threw her hair back.

“What the hell,” she managed before something hit the side of my truck.

It hit hard. I pushed Olivia out of my lap, jerking the door open with one hand and reaching for my endless wallet with the other. I drew my Glock, felt my pants slipping, and did up my belt. I stood there in the silence of a night where the crickets had decided to stop chirping, weapon ready, not wearing a shirt. Situation? I asked Maggie, glancing at the side of my truck. Whatever had hit it had left a sizable dent but was nowhere to be seen.

Situation bad, she said breathlessly. Get back in the truck and get out of here as quick as possible. WAIT! You’re cut off.

By who? I demanded.

By them. Slowly, like someone who realizes they’re being watched through the open window of their home, I began to feel a presence in the dark. No, more than one presence. Dozens of them. Maybe a hundred. I swallowed a bit of bile and lowered my Glock at a shadow that emerged from the night. “Olivia, put your shirt on,” I said over my shoulder. “I hope you have those cantrips ready still.”

“Alek Fitz,” the figure said.

“Boris,” I replied. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m not well.” The vampire stood just outside of the light from the high beams of my truck. In the shadows his eyes glowed red and he looked, more than any time since I’d met him, feral. There were other figures in the darkness behind him, unblinking pairs of red eyes. More vampires. So damned many more. His entire feudal brood, if I had to guess. “OtherOps said it was them, but I’m too smart for that. You fucked up, rockskin. You destroyed a thing I’ve been working on for decades. You tipped off the cops.”

“Cops that are now keeping a very close eye on you,” I said, glancing to my left. There were more of those red eyes staring at me from the night. I glanced to my right and saw humanoid shapes flitting around in the high beams.

“I’m going back to the Old World once I’ve cleaned up some business here. OtherOps won’t follow me.” Boris sniffed, holding a lighter and carefully puffing a cigarette to life. “I’m not a forgiving man, rockskin. You should have taken whatever deal Ruthven offered you. You might have lived.” He took a deep drag on the cigarette and raised his left hand. “Leave him alive enough so that we can make it hurt for a few weeks,” he ordered.

The first shadow that darted for me took a silver bullet in the chest. I squeezed the trigger again and again, dropping as many vampires as I had bullets before reloading fast enough to make an action star proud. I blew through that second magazine before a vampire hit me from the side, throwing me through the air and into the light of my own high beams. I squinted against it, tried to find my gun, but couldn’t. I got into a crouch, both Grendel’s claw and Mjolnir flaring to life. Vampires swarmed over my truck, shadows that I could barely see, pouring toward me like something out of a horror movie.

Well Mags, I said, it’s been a good run.

Then they were on me. It was like getting hit with a wave of howling, gibbering flesh. Within moments I gave up any pretense of this being a real fist fight and just began to swing my arms with all my strength. Grendel’s claw sliced through meat and bone like butter, covering me with blood. Mjolnir caved in the side of a vampire’s head, punched a hole in a sternum, and then took a fanged jaw clean off before several of the beasts grabbed onto my fist, hanging from my arm like children, weighing me down so I couldn’t take a swing. I felt teeth and claws tearing at my skin. Something latched on to my cheek, yanking a scream out of me.

I got a glimpse of a familiar face in the melee. Boris moved like a shadow, flitting here and there, before he was suddenly on me. I freed my left hand and took a swing with Grendel’s claw. He grabbed my wrist, jerking it to one side, snapping the bone as easily as my tattoos had cut through his minions. I screamed again. He jerked me to the side, rag-dolling me back and forth, grinning into my eyes the entire time.

Pain lanced up my right arm, and it took me a moment to realize that it was coming from Maggie’s ring. The heat came on sudden and overwhelming, sorcery tearing through the air with the force of an explosion, scattering vampires in every direction. For a moment I was free and Boris had retreated to the edge of my driveway, crouching in the shadows as he examined me, his clothes smoldering.

Thanks, I managed to say to Maggie. I looked toward my truck, trying to find any sign of Olivia. I couldn’t see shit in the high beams. As far as I knew, she’d already been torn to shreds.

Don’t thank me yet, Maggie told me. That’s about the best I have, and there’s still seventy-one of them left. Unless Boris retreats … She trailed off. From the predatory gleam in Boris’s eyes, he had no intention of retreating. His vampires stalked around me in a circle, warily. Boris’s hand suddenly twitched, and they surged toward me, howling, piling on. Maggie lashed out with her sorcery, driving them back again. The blast had a little less force than the first one, and I knew from experience that Maggie could only do so much sorcery from within her ring. My left arm hung at my side, useless. My clothes were barely shreds of cloth on my body, and I was bleeding from dozens of wounds, my troll skin torn into by the claws and teeth of an angry vampire brood.

I lifted my right hand, watching Boris for the next order he would give for his creatures to attack. I could feel there was nothing left in the tank – I was going to die here, and I was going to die badly. One more surge of those assholes would bowl me over for sure.

And then the high beams suddenly flicked off, leaving us in darkness, the only light coming from my Mjolnir tattoo and from my porch security lamp about thirty yards away. There was a thump followed by a high-pitched whine. The night suddenly lit up with a chorus of screams, and I could see the shadows of vampires falling over themselves in the moonlight, hands clutched to their ears. There was another thump, and the entire world filled with the scent of garlic. It was so strong that my eyes began to water. I staggered back and would have fallen if arms had not caught me. Olivia put herself under my right arm. She had my shirt tied around her face. I saw a small shape dart past us and heard a voice yell, “Get him to my temple!”