Clara strapped her wrist terminal back on and flicked the screen to display a map. Before departing for the mission, she had saved directions to the nearest motorway. The sooner they got off country roads and onto something straight and concrete, the better. Their jeep kicked up dirt as she wove around the path of a fallen tree, nearing the cliff’s edge. The night was dark, but silver shone in the puddles beside the road and winked in the water droplets on her wing mirrors. It was as though the moonlight had sprinkled glitter in the atmosphere, she’d never seen anything like it before. Clara hoped it was just her adrenaline playing tricks on her.

“Where are we going?” Linton asked. He was clutching the briefcase which Andy had rescued, containing his precious technology.

“Nearest motorway,” she said. “Doesn’t matter which direction. We need to put some distance between us and the goths.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.

“Fill this,” Andy said, handing him a magazine and a box of rounds. He was sitting on the central back seat, refilling spent magazines from boxes of ammunition. The two scientists on either side of him, and Robert rode up front.The merc was tucking into a first aid kit, bandaging the worst of his wounds. He moved sleepily as his breathing got heavier. The painkillers must be taking effect.

Clara slowed as she drove down a narrow country path, checking the wing mirrors for pursuers. THey were clear for now. Ahead, the path ran onto a two-lane road, winding through hilly country. Mist on the road shone like ice in her full beams, but the night wasn’t that cold. Wind whistled through the cracks in their windows due to their recent battles. Her CD spun in the player, quietly accompanying the wind. Clara didn’t have to look to tell it was track four, about twenty seconds in, though the player never displayed the song names. Humming the tune, she took the jeep out of gear down a long hill to conserve fuel, then revved it back up the other side.

“Good girl,” she said, patting the dashboard.

“There’s lights over there,” Riddhi said. She was staring out the rear window. “Something’s coming.”

Clara watched the yellow glow of headlights jitter towards them, peeking through gaps in the roadside foliage behind them. “Are you reloaded Andy?”

“Rifle’s full,” he said. “Too full, if you ask me.”

The sound of engines rose and fell throughout the hillside, coming closer. Clara focussed on the road ahead of her. She had her job, Andy had his.

“Get the windows down,” Andy said. The scientists obeyed. Andy climbed over Riddhi and leant out, his long black hair streaming in the wind as he took aim. The dot of a headlight wavered on the road behind them, then solidified as it came into full view. Clara heard the engine growl as it sped towards them, three more joining behind it. Andy fired twice. One of the lights veered to the side, but kept coming.

“Dammit,” he said, climbing over Riddhi and Linton to get to the window on the opposite side.

“I’m sorry, are we in your way?” Linton said.

“Yes.”

“What are they?” Clara said.

“Motorbikes, all of them. I might get on the roof.”

“Why?”

“Machine gun’s up there.”

“You’ll have no cover, that’s insane.”

“Yeah, but ten times the firepower.”

“I’m not slowing down.”

“That doesn’t matter, I can make the climb.” Andy leaned out of the window.

Clara swerved around a bend to emphasise her point. “Do not climb on that roof.”

“Fuc-” Andy held down the trigger of his assault rifle and his tirade of cursing was drowned out by the racket of gunfire.

The goths returned fire, approaching at speed. A burst of shots pinged off the driver’s side roof. Clara glanced in her mirrors, trying to tell how many motorbikes pursued them. She counted five headlights before her wing mirror exploded into shards, two bullets ripping it off its hinges. It hung on by a thin wire, rattling against the door as she bumped down the road.

Andy climbed on top of Linton and shot out of the rear window. Glass shattered as a yellow light blazed through their jeep, throwing shadows before her eyes. For a moment, the sounds of gunshots were deafening, then Clara saw two lights veer off and crash by the roadside.

“Let’s go!” Andy shouted.

The lights dimmed as the remaining bikes fell back, but the rhythmic thud of gunshots still harried them. Andy climbed into the boot and started taking choice shots at their pursuers. Another light went out, and the shots stopped coming. The cultists retreated, putting the bends of the road between them and Andy’s rifle.

“We’ll be on the motorway soon,” Clara said. “They can tail us all night if they want.”

“Where are we heading?” Linton asked again.

“Somewhere,” Clara snapped. Truth was, she must have taken a wrong turn, because her compass indicated they were heading north. She had hoped to take a fast road back west and gun it for the safety of Quadra, but right now, evading the motorbike cultists was their priority. Once they were in the clear, she’d check her maps and draw a route back.

Clara looked out of the window. The sky was overcast with a strange purple cloud, like bloated dead flesh. It blotted out the stars, all but the moon, which shone upon the landscape ahead of them. Clara checked her map. They’d have to pass nearby the moonlight to reach the motorway. The closer they drove to the moonbeam, the more concentrated it seemed to get, as though someone was winding the focus filter on a titanic spotlight.

“What is that?” Linton asked.

“I don’t know,” Clara said. “Andy?”

“Moonlight.”

“No shit.” Clara followed the road around a wide bend and down a verge onto the motorway. Three lanes opened up on either side, separated by a steel barricade. Abandoned cars dotted the motorway, but it was nothing she wasn’t used to. Picking up speed, she took a swig of water, feeling calmer in the absence of gunfire.

“Okay, so what do you know about this vampire then?” she asked.

“Well, my AI seems to think it’s powerful,” Andy said. “Threat Level: Severe. Haven’t heard that since I necked a bottle of moonshine to win a bet in the Underbelly.”

Robert laughed meagerly. “Tarik’s stuff?”

“That’s the one.”

“A whole bottle? Yeah right.”

“Wanna bet?” Andy raised an eyebrow.

Robert’s grin widened across his swollen face. “Sure, once we get back.”

The mist on the road cleared as the wind picked up, wiping clean the glittery sheen. Debris blew across the road ahead of her. A storm was brewing. “What powers did he have? We still might have to fight him, tonight or tomorrow. I don’t know.”

“Right, well…” Andy leaned over the backseats from the boot, resting his chin on his arms. “He woke up, and straight away ate someone. It seemed to make him stronger. Obvious stuff really. Vampire logic.” Andy shrugged. “Weaknesses: Garlic, holy water, silver bullets. Strengths: Superhuman speed, strength, agility, fortitude, intellect, eccetera. Some mystical voodoo powers too. I think he was operating the monsters in the ghost train, possessing them with a will to kill me. I was shooting them, and some of them had flesh, but some were still dummies–mechanical constructs and practical effects. But either way, they were all smoking with this black purple stuff. Kind of like the sky right now, actually.” Andy glanced out the window. “I hope he can’t possess the entire sky. Imagine if a big mouth just opened up and ate us.” He spread his hands like jaws and made a chomping sound. Linton shrunk back in his seat.

“How do you know all of this about vampires?” Riddhi asked.

“Experience,” he said. “And pop-culture.”

“Pop-culture?”

“Movies, books, comics.”

“Is that stuff accurate?” she asked.

“It’s often a good basis,” Clara said. “Something to go off.”

The wind picked up again, blowing down her neck from the smashed rear window, wailing through the cracks in the glass. She hadn’t noticed before, but it seemed like it flowed towards the patch of cylinder of moonlight, cast from the sky. As she watched, the moonlight emerged at the eye of a storm.

“What is that?” Linton said.

“The devil,” Riddhi whined, rubbing the bangles around her wrists, lifting her feet to her chest. “He is here.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Damn.” Robert leaned over, peering through the patchwork of duct tape and broken glass that served as their front window. “I’ve never seen that before.”

“Me neither,” Clara said.

Dark clouds spun around a silver centrepoint twisting the light into a tighter beam, funnelling it through tendrils of black purple shadows like gargantuan snakes, writhing towards the earth. It looked like an invasion from the heavens, like a satanic reckoning. The snakes reached the earth and the moonlight narrowed to a blade of silver, too bright to look at directly. Something glanced their jeep–an obstacle in the road. Clara was reluctant to slow down, but desperate to keep an eye on the sky. She squinted at the silver blade, checking the road frequently. Then the wind stopped. Only the sound of their engine remained.

Linton held the payload tightly against his chest. “I think-”

A subsonic boom rattled the jeep; Clara felt it reverberate deep in her organs. It began to rain, then within seconds, mud pelted their jeep. Clara put the wipers on full, but the downpour was too heavy to see further than a few metres ahead of her. The very air seemed to rattle with energy. Linton was hyperventilating in the back seat. Riddhi held his hand and spoke to him softly. The downpour ebbed. Clara checked the sky. The moonlight was gone and the storm clouds with it. A touch of pale blue kissed the sky.

Clara jumped as thunder boomed above them, then floored the gas. Andy responded with a hail of gunfire, shooting out the back of the boot. Clara glanced in her mirrors, trying to spot what he was shooting at, but couldn’t take her eyes off the road. Clara counted the shots, expecting him to stop. Andy was deadly accurate, it normally only took one or two bullets to do the job, but he didn’t pause before his magazine was empty, then he loaded another.

“What’s happening?” Clara asked.

“He’s here.”

Gunfire cracked from the boot. Clara hit the brakes and swerved around a pileup of abandoned cars. One lane was stacked full of lorries from bumper to bumper, penning them in between the steel barricade. The traffic worsened abruptly. Clara prayed that there was a route through the motorway. She slowed to 30mph, navigating wreckages. Their jeep’s tires crunched over glass. She slammed through a rusted car door blocking their way. It snapped clean off its hinges.

“I need more firepower,” Andy said.

“The roof?” Clara couldn’t believe she was suggesting it.

A shadow loomed above them, so dark that it dimmed their headlights. Clara squinted, swerving around a discarded motorbike in the middle of the road. There was an exit on the motorway ahead. She aimed towards it, hoping the traffic would be better wherever it led.

Sparks erupted as something slammed into their jeep. Clara fought to keep the wheel steady. The darkness was all around them now. She struggled to see where she was going.

Andy fired his revolver from the boot. Each shot was like a whip-crack of lightning, propelling a vortex of energy from the muzzle. It pushed the darkness back. She could see the road again. Something shrieked in the sky behind them, then sparks erupted from the shattered passenger window. Robert shielded his eyes, raising the pistol Clara had given him and firing blindly out of the window.

A dagger of silver light pierced the boot beside Andy’s face. It staggered the jeep, dropping their speed abruptly. Clara swerved. The engine choked and the wheel was yanked from her hands. Clara pulled the gear stick into neutral so that the jeep wouldn’t stall, but then they hit a roadside barrier and lurched upwards.

Clara was picked out of her seat and her head hit the roof. The jeep slammed back down and bounced to a stop at the top of a grassy verge. “Seatbelts,” she shouted, jamming the gear stick into second and throttling the gas. She wrapped her arms around the steering wheel and gritted her teeth, launching them down a grassy verge. Tall weeds churned under their wheels and vegetation battered against the windscreen as they plummeted. The bonet clanged like a rusty bell as it scraped against concrete on the other side and they broke the weeds, bounding into a car park.

Clara put the pedal to the metal. The wheels spun stationary for a moment before they bit the road and accelerated.. Something ground under her feet as she climbed the gears. The sky above them was growing lighter. The sun would rise soon. It had to.

A flood of purple tendrils swam under their car until it seemed like they were driving on the surface of an inky lake. Clara pulled the wheel down, tensing her bicep as the tires screeched to the side. For a moment, she saw the road beneath them again, but then the tendrils caught up, chasing them. She wove again but was met by a wall of blackness. Suddenly, there was no road, no sky. Nothing in sight. The engine revved, inertia pushed her back into her seat, but it looked as though they were driving through a void.

A silver bolt of lightning struck the engine. It was like slamming into a wall. The jeep flipped. Everyone screamed. Air bags inflated. Clara clung to the door handle, bracing one arm against the roof, being thrown around like a doll. Miraculously, the jeep rolled upright, teetering to a stop on two wheels, then fell down, bouncing on its suspension. The darkness around them dissipated. Clara panted, mentally checking herself for injuries. She looked at her shaking hands, one felt sprained, but she wasn’t bleeding. She turned around. Andy was already climbing over Riddhi to get out the door.

“Everyone good?” Clara asked. Robert was unresponsive. The two scientists in the back were shocked. Linton’s face was paralysed in shock. He gritted his teeth, eyes wide, like a death grin.

Clara shouldered her door open and stumbled onto the concrete. How had the void appeared and vanished so quickly? What power was this? She had never heard anything like it. Fear touched her heart, but she forced herself to move on wobbly knees, running around to the passenger side and opening the door for Robert. He slouched into her arms unconscious. Clara undid his belt and dragged him out of the jeep, then took stock of their surroundings. They were in a large, mostly empty car park. There was a huge shopping complex at the head of the lot. That was the closest source of cover. They would run there.

A few paces from the jeep, Andy fired his rifle. Clara didn’t dare turn around to look at what he was shooting at. She knew it was close, deadly, but she had a job to do. She reached inside the jeep and pulled Linton outside onto his feet. Riddhi climbed after him and knelt at Robert’s side, helping the merc to his feet.

“The shopping mall,” Clara said. “Go.” She turned her attention to Andy. He was taking pot shots at a spot of darkness floating above the grassy verge which they had driven down. Shaped like a drop of blood, a purple sheen shone over its slick surface. Smoke emanated from it, spreading outwards like the wings of a gargantuan bat. The dark tendrils which had swamped their jeep were pulling away, feeding into the bloodrop form, filling its depths.

Clara’s breath caught in her throat. A rush of blood flooded her head. She stumbled, dizzy, then planted her feet and raised her submachine gun. “Andy, let’s go.”

“No.”

The bloodrop shuddered as Andy shot it, spraying blackness out of its rear. The retracting tentacles slowed, but did not stop. Silently, it beheld them, a monstrous black eye.

“Quickly,” she shouted.

“There’s no running,” Andy’s rifle clicked dry. He slung it over his shoulder and jumped onto their jeep, climbing onto the roof.

“We can get to cover,” Clara said. She glanced at their companions, they were halfway to the shopping complex now. Another thirty seconds and they could get inside, if the entrance wasn’t locked. But then what? She looked at the bloodrop. It was about fifty metres away, looming over the carpark, sucking the last of its tendrils into its form.

Andy cursed. “It’s stuck.” He was trying to spin the heavy machine gun mounted on the roof to face the bloodrop, but the swivel joint was damaged. Andy braced and tried to tug it free, but it wouldn’t budge.

“It’s not worth it. Let’s go.”

“You want a fight?” Andy screamed, drawing his revolver and firing three times into the bolts where Clara had fixed the tripod to the roof. He holstered his revolver and heaved the heavy machine gun with both hands.

Clara glanced nervously between him and the bloodrop. A face appeared in the void, upside down. Glassy white, with sharp animal features. Its nose was stubby and upturned. Its cheeks and eyebrows were high and pointed. Its eyes were closed. Hands appeared in the bloodrop, crossed over its chest, as it slowly emerged.

“Reveal unto me thy might, Andrew.” The vampire stretched its long slender arms out invitingly. Dagger canines jutted out of its jaw. “What spices doth render thy blood so exotic?” Its voice was loud and deep, amplified across the length of the car park. It possessed an aura which sunk into Clara’s gut like the precipice of an enormous drop. Her blood froze. She couldn’t move, she was diminutive, helpless.

“I told you already, obey me.” Andy spoke to himself, straining to lift the machine gun. He bent and tore the metal of the roof where one tripod leg was still attached. His face was red with exertion, his teeth gritted into a snarl. Clara had never seen him try so hard at anything in his life.

“Augment me or we both die.”

The vampire began to glide towards them, silent like an owl. Clara shook herself, shouldered her submachine gun, and opened fire. Bullets sped through the air, pelting the swooping shadow. Blood and bone burst from the vampire’s carapace, oozing black smoke. The vampire drew up like a bird in flight, pulling its arms before its face, withdrawing its outstretched bat wings like shields. Clara pulled down on the gun’s barrel to control her grouping, peppering its wings with the low calibre rounds. SHe could hurt it, maybe she could kill it? Her gun ticked empty in her hands. Clara unclipped the magazine to replace it, but already the vampire was opening its wings again. A few small holes smoked in its flesh, but they tightened and reconstituted, snuffing out the smoke.

It snarled at her. “Stay thyself, impetulant wench, until thy time cometh.”

With a lurch, Andy tore the machine gun free of the roof. A jagged scrap of metal was still attached to the tripod’s leg where he ripped it. Stumbling backwards, he planted his feet and turned the barrel on the vampire, hauling the machine gun up to his waist with a strength Clara had never before seen him possess.

“Vampire…” he said. “More like… vamp-why-are you such a pussy?”

Clara frowned. “What?”

The machine gun pounded like a pneumatic drill, wailing carnage. The vampire tucked its wings to protect its body, but the heavy rounds pierced the blackness, pushing it back. Each bullet was like a javelin stabbing through it, thrusting black spires into the air which evaporated on the wind.

Andy swayed with each shot. The recoil travelled through his body like a wave, dissipating the kinetic energy. His long black hair flowed behind him, erect with static electricity. He stood atop their jeep and screamed, but the sound was deafened by the machine gun. Suddenly, the vampire’s wings crumpled and it collapsed to the concrete. Andy did not pause, he did not miss a shot. Mercilessly, he eviscerated its form. Shell casings spat from the gun’s chamber, spraying the car park like tinkling chimes accompanying a pounding war drum. The vampire shrank beneath the onslaught, its clawed hands held before its face as its black aura ebbed. Then, with a gust of morning wind propelled by the rising sun, a swell of smoke rose about the dark lord’s eviscerated form, like the ash of a great bonfire caught in a tornado current, drifting upwards and vanishing before the pristine blue sky.

Clara blinked, wobbling in place, not believing her eyes. No trace of the vampire remained. Andy dropped the machine gun and sat on the roof of their jeep breathing heavily. His head drooped. Clara approached him, offering her hand. Instead, he dragged the huge gun across the roof and passed it down to her. She heaved it on her shoulder. How had Andy lifted the thing, let alone rip it from the roof and fire it?

Andy slid down the jeep’s smashed windshield and off the bonnet. He approached the spot where the vampire had been. “That’s it?” He kicked around in the bullet-pocked asphalt. Nothing remained. No blood, no black markings, no shadows.

“Is it dead?” Clara said.

“Doubt it. We’ll probably see him again tonight”

“Do you reckon?”

“As much as I enjoyed that, you can’t kill a vampire with just bullets.” He bent and picked something out of the fine rubble. A small golden ring. “Loot,” he said, sliding the ring over his finger. “Think it’s my style?”

“Andy, it’s probably fucking haunted.”

“Ah, never mind then.” Pocketing the ring, he took one end of the machine gun, Clara took the other. Together, they carried it like a heavy piece of lumber across the car park towards the shopping complex. Clara could feel the heat of the barrel near her hip where she carried it. Her legs were stiff. She needed a break. Birds chirped nearby, occupying the wild trees which surrounded the car park.

“Good job dude,” she said.

“Cheers sis.” The veins bulged in Andy’s forearms and swelled at his temples. “Heavy init?”

“How did you…?”

“Special powers,” he winked. “I’ve got that AI working for me now.”

What did that even mean, Clara dared not ask. The shopping centre rose above them, its glass exterior sparkling in the morning light.

“I need some water,” Andy coughed. “Then the stiffest drink in the joint.”