Efraim looked around the room and nodded to himself. “This is where we start. I’ll short out on of the electrical outlets and start a small fire in the corner; the room should go up fast after that. Pepromene will be in that doorway,” he said pointing to the doorway they just came through. “Barking and snarling to start clearing out the building.” He paused, “Once that happens, I don’t know how much time you’ll have. I hope you can escape to the roof and take care of yourselves from there, if not you’ll have to go through the front doors, hopefully this place will be a raging inferno by then.” He offered his hand to them, “Good luck.” William shook his former teacher’s hand and stood as Ryan did.
William and Ryan pushed their way through the crowd to the dance floor, edging their way as close to the staircase as possible. The overwhelming scent of sweat, perfume, cologne, and some other smells which he found repulsive, were washing over him.
They pushed to the outside of the crowd and started march dancing to the music. The people around them ignored them for the most part, but there was one or two glances shot Ryan’s way. William was ok with that; he was just a white boy who couldn’t dance and had no fashion sense.
Then he heard muffled growls and a few barks from the other side of the club. William looked out over the crowd in that direction, the people nearest him didn’t seem to notice it yet. Efraim came out onto the dance area yelling and waving his hands around like he was crazy. That got people moving and soon the sea of dancers and club goers were surging out from the back corner room toward the front entrance. William could see tendrils of smoke quickly turn to billows of black, flowing up into the dance room as orange flames licked the walls. William waited another minute for the panic to fully take hold.
When the surge turned into a human tidal wave, William and Ryan took the opportunity to burst out of the throng and up the staircase. He looked up and two guys were talking into hand mics and head pieces. It didn’t take them long to spot the two men running up the stairs towards them.
They held out their arms. “Alright you two you can’t come up here; exit towards…”
William grabbed an outstretched hand, twisted the arm around and shoved his shoulder into the guy, pushing him off the third-floor landing. The man fell with a flat thud to the dance floor.
This added screams from the club goers below and a full-on panic to get out of the building ensued, causing a rush of people to move faster towards the exits.
Ryan stood over the man he had just dropped. He leaned over the edge of the staircase and looked down at the dead body guard. “Jesus, William have you ever heard of restraint?”
“It was the only thing I could think of?” He offered weakly. He tried not to think about children without a father coming home anymore. It had happened so fast. William’s eyes drifted over to his hand that was still outstretched towards the dead body. He had tried to stop him from falling, to catch him, or at least he thought he had, didn’t he? He had been too slow and gravity had been too strong. A half second was all he’d needed, just a half second. A half second that he would never get back.
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Ryan was already halfway down the hallway leading away from the staircase. “William now is not the…GET DOWN!”
William felt a huge, thick, brick like object collide with his head. He found himself looking back and up toward the ceiling; his legs were awkwardly sprawled over his head as he tried to untwist himself on the floor. Ryan ran over to him and helped him up. Then he let him go. “This just got a whole lot more interesting.”
He looked over at the staircase and watched as the second bouncer joined the first one who had clubbed him in the head. The one that William had watched fall three stories appeared to be just fine and was sharing a glance with his partner. There was no way a normal human could have survived that fall. Then William saw the reason why he wasn’t dead, as the two smiled at them, and closed the distance. They were vampires, how he had missed the smell and stink of blood them in the first place was a question for later.
Ryan said nothing and William watched as he shifted into werewolf form and charged straight at them. The vampires hesitated only a half step before meeting the oncoming werewolf. Ryan crunched into them and brought one of them to the ground with the force of the impact.
The vampires moved just as fast as the ones that assaulted Ansuya that night on the roof of the archive building. As soon as Ryan had one on the ground, he was back on his feet, dishing out a blur of punches.
William shook himself free of his temporary paralysis and shifted forms. He stalked toward the three-man scrum. With a little effort he was able to grab one of the vampires and hoisted him up onto his shoulders. He threw himself backward and with a crushing force and sound, collided with the floor of the hallway, letting the vampire take the full force of the impact.
He rolled back and hopped to his feet just in time to receive a tackle from the vampire that he had just dropped. The vampire lifted him up and slammed him into the hallway wall, revealing the stone and concrete underneath. William blinked the stars away from his eyes, and then his torso exploded as the vampire speared him with a strong shoulder charge.
William had been in a fight like this one before, only that time he had no idea what he was and his opponent was much braver than the one he faced now. The size difference hadn’t fazed the Old Gray in the slightest. As far as the wolf was concerned, he saw a threat to his pack and he would have died for his cause. Would this vampire die for his?
William launched himself away from the wall. He grabbed the vampire by the waist and served him a pile driver as hard as he could. He grabbed the vamp’s legs and arm and swung him around like a child and crushed his head into the wall, into the same indent that William had left.
The vampire went limp for a moment, and then dropped to his knees, shaking his head and holding his left wrist. William didn’t give him any more time. He grabbed the vampire by the neck and squeezed, lifting him off the floor.
Instead of gasping and struggling, the vampire silently laughed at him. William let the rage boil in him and his claws drew tighter around the vampire’s wind pipe. The vampire just hung there, silently laughing, swaying gently with William exertions to keep the man off the floor. William threw him off to the side in disgust.