Beam POV: Day 52

Current Wealth: 1 silver 47 copper

Solitaire’s feet left the ground as he caught the vampire’s blow, head jerking so violently to one side that I thought his neck was broken. He flew, for a few feet, half-turning in the air, body hitting a railing, then flipping over it as he plummeted down to the lower floor.

I heard him land as a distant bone chilling thud.

It was just me and the vampire, now, but I didn’t think about that. Couldn’t think about that. There was no room in my head at all for anything besides the memory of seeing Solitaire fall, and the fury of knowing it was to an enemy I should’ve killed the day before. My legs were moving before I even told them to.

The vampire seemed surprised, but he composed himself near-instantaneously, undead nerves carrying his thoughts faster than any human’s. My ruined stub of a spear was easily outranged by his sword, and I knew I’d be impaled before getting close enough to use it, so instead I just threw the thing at his face. It flew well, nice and aerodynamic with all the metal on it, and its bladed tip barely missed the vampire as it hastily sidestepped.

A single moment’s reprieve came, with that distraction, and I used it to finish my charge. Getting inside my enemy’s weapon range, seizing their sword-arm and freeing a dagger from my own belt. I thrust it for the vampire’s eye, hoping to run its brain through with one stab.

No such luck, of course. The bastard moved last second, and I felt my knife thud into his cheek instead. Painful for sure, going by the snarl of pain he let out, but not deadly. The vampire backed off and shoved me at once, forcing space between us as I was thrown back against the railing, almost toppling over myself. Almost, but not quite, because I still held the monster’s sword, and the vampire didn’t seem eager to let it go.

A really stupid idea flitted across my mind as the creature held me steady with its grip on the weapon, and I threw myself back across the railing, planted my boots on its opposite side and kicked off. The vampire sensed itself about to be dragged back to fall some twenty feet, and instinctually let go, freeing me and giving up its weapon.

For all the effectiveness of my plan, it had only one minor flaw. I was now falling twenty feet myself. I winced, bracing myself for impact and slapping the ground hard to break it as best I could. Such a move worked fine when you were on the receiving end of a judo throw, not so much when you fell halfway down the height of a building. The wind was knocked completely out of my lungs, and probably my bloodstream too for that matter, and for a moment I just lay back gasping in forced breaths as my organs spasmed and trying to recover.

Then I caught movement ahead and above me, the vampire’s. Its foot was definitely still hurt, I could see that by the lurching way it came to the railing and leapt over it. The thing’s body was no more fragile than before, however.

It dropped down twenty feet as if it were simply dropping down two steps on a staircase, landing with a fractional bend of its knees, joints absorbing the impact with no sign of strain. I hadn’t even finished fighting back the urge to hurl when it started closing in, panicked villagers standing back and staring. I couldn’t blame them, fighting rotters from behind a barricade was one thing, but this monster was something else. And it was completely unimpeded by our defences.

Unimpeded by our defences, but not by Argar. He came out of nowhere, charging in like a bull, thick legs powering his body ahead like pistons, broad arms swinging his hammer around like an executioner’s axe. The vampire whipped its head back, hissing like an animal as the blow missed, then trying to close in and grab him. Argar was a step ahead though, bringing a knee up into the enemy’s guts as it closed, actually managing to fold it over.

The moment of stunned gasping, while it recovered from the blow, was all the time he needed. His hammer came down so hard on the vampire’s head that the weapon broke.

No, no it didn’t just break. The handle held, it was the iron fucking head that snapped apart, cast metal turning to shrapnel beneath its wielder’s strength. The blow drove our enemy down, face-first into the ground hard enough to split a plank in half and bury its skull like a vegetable. Argar was a perfectionist, though, and he didn’t stop there. He took the handle in both hands, broke it easily over his knee, then hefted a jagged piece up high to impale the fallen monster.

One lucky shot was about as much as could be expected, though. The vampire rolled out from under him, a stupid, telegraphed, sluggish move that would’ve gotten it killed in a fair fight. It worked, nonetheless, for the vicious speed it was able to use in doing so, and sprang to its feet like a panther. A punch caught Argar’s face, sending him reeling, and then another caught his body. Right where the sword had bitten before. That one had the giant fully folded over, coughing and groaning, right into the path of the haymaker that laid him out clean and unconscious.

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It all happened fast, and while I was still forcing myself up. It all happened right before my eyes. It all happened while I was helpless, slow, weak, stupid and simple. Without the bolstered stats that had let Solitaire last so much longer, without even the magic weapons I’d just barely learned to rely on. My mind frayed with the intensity of my fury, and the adrenaline poisoning my veins came more from the rage than the pain or fear. It was just the electric boost my muscles needed to force me up, and I surged on with the knife clutched and ready.

But the vampire turned, fast as ever, and knowing now to be cautious of the handful among us whose abilities were beyond a baseline human. I stopped dead in my tracks as the familiar, wretched crimson light engulfed me, starting my slow, pitiful descent to my knees.

You’re dull.

I was, and I’d always known it. Solitaire and Xangô would have both been smarter than three of me by themselves.

You’re weak.

How could I argue? With all the potential I’d had, how could I stand next to world-class athletes and not even put in half their effort? I wasn’t even a shadow of what I should’ve been.

You’re a coward.

And there was the final point of it, the crux. I was a fucking coward. Too cowardly to stave off this stupid, biting insecurity being magically thrown on me. Too cowardly to push back against Solitaire and Xangô as they insisted on making everything all dark and twisted in the world I loved to build so much. Too cowardly to even get up and fight for my fallen friend. Better to die now than keep living as the wretch I was.

A coward, as I thought.

It was hard, in the heat of the moment, to separate the voice I heard whispering against my mind from my very own thoughts. I just about managed it. It wasn’t me thinking that, not even under the vampire’s influence, it was a presence I recognised well. The presence, the one I’d spent the better part of a day wrangling hints from, the one I’d had everything special about me snidely axed away as punishment for displeasing. It was speaking again, finally….And it was choosing to mock me rather than offer any help.

The injustice of it all made my eyes water, but with rage rather than panic. Coward? I wasn’t the one hiding in someone else’s fucking head, I wasn’t the one throwing a wave of bodies at illiterate peasants just to win. I started standing, faster now, and the presence returned.

Are you hoping to impress me with a second wind?

I ignored it.

Are you planning to die like a man?

I ignored it.

Do you really want this to be your end?

I ignored it, and then it said something else. Differently, questioning, now, as I took my first step to the vampire and the vampire took its first towards me.

Have you truly steeled yourself?

That one cut right to the centre of me, and I wasn’t even sure if I had. The red light returned, then, washing over. And I felt all the old doubts.

But what was doubt? My best friends were some of the most intelligent people alive, you can’t grow up next to people like that without doubt. My rivals were the strongest, fastest on earth, and I’d still won.

And whether I had doubts or not, Solitaire was still bleeding and unconscious. That was the end of it all, no matter what, my friend was hurt or dead and it’d been my fault. I couldn’t save him, but I’d make sure he didn’t go to the grave without company. I lunged.

Muscles rebelled as the light tried to disable them, but I ignored them. My bones felt like jelly, and I forced them hard, my mind was slow, doubtful, hesitant. I pushed it to one side. Relying on my gut, instead, like I always had. And then I was taking my second step forward.

The vampire looked surprised, but I didn’t feel it. I just felt tired of waiting. My body responded again, more quickly now, with a third step, then a forth. I came up to stand just beside one of our barricades as I closed in. Then the presence returned.

One last chance. It told me, and it needn’t have even bothered. Whether I was going to be given my powers back or not, I’d have lunged on this fucking monster and bitten chunks off like Solitaire if I had to.

But the magic certainly helped. I felt the tugging instantly as I moved past the barricade, and I reached out to touch it without thinking. It was all safety, all security. All defence. I felt the intent behind its craftsmanship, the skill behind its structure, the anticipation as it awaited a test against rotting flesh and snarling jaws. I took that purpose, and I drew it into myself. It congealed inside me like milk turning to butter, thickening, hardening. Gaining substance. And I shaped that substance with a thought.

My fifth step came, and I was wearing a helmet. My sixth extended it into a gorget and shoulder pads, then a breastplate and gauntlets. By the time the silvery, sleek energies covering me had finally reached my feet, I was within three paces of the vampire, and watching as the creature backed off uncertainly. I followed after like a hungry predator, pausing only to reach down and graze the wooden floor with my fingertips.

Wood, old reliable. The first material mankind made anything at all from. Flexible, hard, sharp. It formed a spear in my hands, an oddly thick one, robust and deadly. I saw pure panic on my enemy’s face, even as the new weapon crackled and glowed a dull orange. Because there was another aspect to wood, too, that I hadn’t even considered before I wrapped it into a weapon.

It was what you drove through a vampire’s heart to kill him for good.