The plantation buildings lay just ahead and I was becoming confused. Thus far, we’d encountered humans only. And mercenaries or hirelings, the lot. Not a single controlled minion, and that made no sort of sense. I’d have expected to begin encountering more of the evolved vampires by this point. Oh, aye, a trap I’d expected from the moment the demon had taken seat across from me in Port Royal, and a trap I’d prepared meself for. And yet, here was I at the very doorstep of the sire, and nothing.
“There should be many more of them out there,” I whispered. “Even were they concealed, I should be able to sense them.”
“How many were you expecting?” the Captain wondered.
“Two score, at least,” I replied. “More likely closer to three.”
His eyebrows went up. “That is quite a large number to wade into alone,” he said dubiously.
I shrugged. “I didn’t expect to have to take them all on at the once,” I said. “I have not lived so long at hunting them by being a fool. But where are they? Can you sense any of them at all, at all?”
“I cannot sense them as you can,” he said.
I looked over to him disbelievingly. “How do ye find them if ye cannot sense them?” I asked.
“Most monsters,” he said slowly, “are not so good at hiding themselves in plain sight as these vampires of yours.”
I returned me concentration to the fields. “Where could they be?”
“You said that the creature you killed in Port Royal told you of this place?” the Captain asked.
“Aye,” I confirmed.
“And this creature told you that its master had instructed it to bring you here? Here, specifically?”
I looked to him again, the light dawning. The creature hadn’t mentioned the plantation on purpose. And why should I just assume that it had been telling me the truth?
“So, you think perhaps the bulk of them are lying in wait somewhere else, biding their time until their accomplice brings me in for the slaughter?”
“It is certainly possible.”
I gave that some serious thought, a smile growing upon me face. So there was a chance that the bulk of the spawn were elsewhere. Could I really have such luck?
“Well, friend Captain,” I grinned. “Could be ye won’t be having fun with yon rifle after all. Are they all of them here to be found in the manor house, it will be blade and pistol for the pair of us.”
“That would be a terrible shame,” he said, though his voice did not match the sentiment.
We moved out into the open cautiously, one to each side of the path, scanning the area intently. No sound broke the stillness beyond our footsteps, for no life intruded upon the scene but us. Even the small creatures had made themselves scarce.
I’d begun praying softly to meself as we broke cover, going through the prayers Nana had taught me, envisioning the runes in me mind. Me chest felt heavy with the weight of them, but then lighter, as I felt the blood flowing through me veins and me heart pumping strong with resolve.
This was the final confrontation, this was. Here, I’d dispatch the sire, or it would dispatch me. Of the lesser spawn, I cared not. They’d wither without their master. Oh, they’d not vanish, but much power would they lose. This, Nana had vowed to me. Strike down the head, and the serpent would lose its way.
I could feel the tingling in me fingertips as the energy began to flow, and the thickening of me calves as it permeated me muscles. I brushed hand along the runes laid upon me inner wrists, feeling the prickle of power flow from them. From here on, I’d have no time to tarry. Half an hour at most had I, before once again I was mortal clay and no stronger or more nimble than a greengrocer or cart driver. Did that happen and I still surrounded by devils, it was snack time and me the tidbit.
I was praying aloud, me voice rising and the house no more than twenty paces distant when the door burst outward and the first wave of them surged forth.
Me pistol spoke, and I heard a boom and knew it for the Captain’s pistol. Me second pistol thundered, and now there were three clouds of ash settling in the dust of the yard.
There came answering claps of thunder as pistols and muskets spoke from the windows of the house or the charging spawn, but they flew wide or long. The Captain and I had surged forward together, as though by agreement.
I fell momentarily behind as I charged me pistols on the run. The Captain, however, drove into the knot of them coming at us, cutlass dancing a death jig. I fired one more shot from each of the Lorenzonis before stuffing them back beneath me sash uncharged, drawing me dagger and the silvered dandy’s blade in their stead.
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The Captain was a whirling mountain of doom for the spawn, and I found time to marvel at his agility — like a great cat bounding from foe to foe.
The spawn were faltering, and a few of them turned to retreat inside, creating a clot in the doorway. The big Dutchman caught up one of them who’d foolishly decided to persevere, and hurled it one-handed into the throng, knocking the lot of them through.
I took the opportunity to leap upon their carcasses and in, slashing along the way at any bit of them as presented itself.
The great anteroom was itself crowded with them, and I felt me voice booming out larger than me body, for the fever was upon me that Nana had used to confound those who’d sought to fell her in their time. I laid about me with blade and dagger, elbow and foot, breaking and slashing and stabbing.
The silvered blades did not kill with the suddenness the spelled knives had, for me targets here were not the same. A single blow or thrust would kill only were it perfect, but all would discomfit. Pain these things knew, and pain I gave them in plenty, and enough of me strikes went true to suit me.
There were too many of them. But that also meant that they got in each other’s way. I held to the center of the knot, both blades working, keeping them guessing, me voice booming out the curses upon them to slow them down.
The Captain appeared, all at once, and now it seemed us who had them surrounded.
And suddenly it was quiet. The remaining spawn drew back, and I felt an overwhelming pressure in me head. I turned to the stairway that led to the second floor, and there it was. The creature I’d been pursuing the whole of me life, it seemed.
“Friend Captain?” I panted. “If ye would be so kind as to keep these lot company for a few moments?”
“Are you certain?” he asked, not near so out of breath.
“‘Tis mine to do,” I gasped.
I stepped forward, not entirely steadily, and drew up facing it, coated in ash ‘til I looked as though I’d been crawling about in a fireplace.
Right off, it tried the mind thing, and it was far better at it than the lout in Port Royal had been. The hornets were back, but I had their trick now, and touching me wrist to me forehead, along with a few muttered words, quieted them.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
It tilted its head slightly, seemingly confused. “Where is who? It asked. “Do I know you?”
I took a step forward. I’d no time to argue. “Mary Kate O’Hearne,” I said. “Ye took her away from a manor house in Connacht five years ago. I’m here to kill ye and take her home.”
The thing laughed, a cold, cruel thing. “I am afraid that I will have to disappoint you on both counts,” it sneered. “Firstly, it is I who will kill you, and secondly, your Mary Kate is no longer your Mary Kate.”
If it had thought to shock me, it was mistaken. I took another step towards it and heard the lesser spawn begin to shuffle forward.
“You might consider hurrying,” I heard the Captain recommend from behind me. Good advice.
I was on the fifth step when the sire made its move, covering the space between us in a single, great leap. I twisted and ducked, and dropped to me bum, parrying one taloned hand with the dagger, and the other with the basket of the silvered dandy’s blade. I felt a shock go through me up to me shoulder at the contact of the basket with its teeth, and the confident sneer vanished with a puff of green smoke.
And now we were facing one another again, but me, this time, with the height advantage. A great gash had opened up on its face where the basket had taken it, and its eyes were glowing. Good. It was angry now, and the human bits were struggling with the demon bits.
Of a sudden, it produced a pistol, which was the last thing I’d been expecting. Were it not for the spell, I’d have ended me mortal coil then and there. Me own turn, it was, to dive down the stairs, and the ball whistled over me head.
It pounced before I’d finished sliding, and it was all I could do to get me dagger up and between us. I ran the runed blade up beneath its throat as it came in for a bite of me, tucking me head down into me collar at the same time, for I had no wish to catch any of its spittle on me.
The runes on the blade were not proof against its strength, but they slowed it. I fetched the hilt of the dagger a bash with the basket of the sword in me right hand, driving its point deeper into the demon-cursed brain, feeling razor-like talons shredding the borrowed coat. Another bash and the quillons brought up against its chin, pegging the mouth closed.
I could hear the Captain grunting with effort as he engaged the lesser spawn, but I’d no time for him or them.
Letting go the dagger hilt, I brought that hand out to me side and made a fist, clobbering the beast in the temple with all the strength I could muster.
Again, and again, as its eyes glowed hellfire from out of its ruined face, and we struggled over the silvered sword — me to bring it to bear, and the demon to keep it away.
I fed it a knee to the groin, but I might just as well not have bothered, and it was slowly gaining control of the dandy’s blade. Closing me eyes and turning me head aside and down, I opened me left hand and smashed the heel of it up and into the creature’s nose, mashing it flat in a shower of blood. For the merest instant, it faltered, and I used that instant to bash it again to the side of the head and roll it clear of me.
The silvered sword was trapped beneath it and lost to me. The dagger buried deep into its head. I scrabbled away.
The creature crouched over me lost sword, eyes glaring, blood drooling from mouth, nose, and eyes. It reached up to pull the dagger from its throat, never shifting its gaze. It thought the contest over, no doubt.
I drew me right hand pistol and worked the lever, raising it and firing in one single motion.
“Three!” I shouted hoarsely at it as the ball took it in the right shoulder, rocking it back and sending billows of that sulfurous green smoke rising.
I worked the action again. “Four!” and a ball took it in the left shoulder. Again, and, “Five!” This one took the right knee. “Six!” The left knee.
The thing was wailing now, the only sound to be heard in the room. An inhuman, hellish sound to set ears ringing. I charged the pistol again and crawled to me feet. I could feel the energy of the spell crashing all about me, and me body weighed a thousand stone if an ounce. It was all I could do to manage the ten steps to the screeching abomination.
Standing over it, I fetched it a kick or two with me boot, until its ruined eyes found mine.
“Where is she, demon?”
“Up… up the stairs,” it moaned. “Caged. She would not stop fighting the—”
The pistol spoke again, and the spelled silver ball tore out its foul heart. “Seven,” I whispered.
Turning away from the settling cloud of ash, I beheld the Captain regarding me evenly. We were alone.
“Those few left fled when the screaming started,” he told me.
“Thankee, my friend,” I bowed to him. “I owe ye more than ever I shall be able to pay. If ever there is the slightest thing ye may need that I may provide, ye have but to ask.”
He smiled broadly and nodded. “There may come a time when I hold you to that.”