H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (24 page)

I was wearing the same blue jeans and black
t-shirt that I had on earlier in the evening.

I had to admit I had never felt this way
before an altercation. I almost felt like nothing could hurt me, as
if I was protected by some supernatural force.

I approached a grassy field at the north end
of the ranch. I stood there alone. On the other side of the field
appeared to be at least 30 to 40 Carni. The area had about half a
dozen giant rocks scattered throughout. They almost appeared to be
boulders. Not sure what kind of landscaping design this was, but it
was definitely different. The noise and laughter soon stopped as I
approached. It was obvious these ignoramuses had no idea who I was.
They all looked at me amused, as if I had walked up to my own
execution. I liked to be underestimated, I liked that a lot.

In the middle of this hairy, dirty mob stood
my opponent, the bartender. I don’t think he was thirty yet. But
hell, he was a Carni; he could have been this age for 300 years. He
made his way to the front. I was less impressed with the
bartender’s stature and more impressed with the seven-foot-plus
wild beast in the back. It appeared that Goliath had made his way
to the show. Something told me he was not here as a spectator.

“You alone?” the bartender asked with a
nervous crackle in his voice.

“Yes,” I said staring directly at him. I was
amused that he appeared anxious.

“You really are new at this,” he laughed.
All his Carni cohorts laughed like a grisly choir of deadheads.
“You are either a bad ass or just stupid.”

“I would go with the first,” I said plainly.
I walked a little closer to him. About seventy-five feet separated
us. “So how do we do this?”

“You’re asking me how to fight?” He turned
to the others and laughed.

“No, I definitely don’t need any advice on
how to fight. I’m going to kick your ass, and I’m going to do it
rather quickly. What I do want to know is this: once I’m done with
you, is that going to be it?”

“You sound pretty confident, blood
sucker.”

“It’s not confidence, hairball. It’s what I
know. What I know is someone like you can’t last two minutes with
someone like me.”

“I could kick this pretty boy’s ass,” a
woman yelled out from the crowd. “Are we sure that this is even a
man?”

I looked at the woman. She was at least
fifty and about 50 pounds overweight. I smiled bemusedly at her.
“Listen, ma’am. Do yourself a favor and don’t come anywhere near
me.”

“Ma’am?” The woman said. “This little twig
just called me ma’am.”

Little Twig? I decided to take off my shirt
so everyone could see I was definitely not a twig.

“What?” the bartender said. “You think
because you spent some time in the gym that it matters out here on
the ranch. You’re going to need to do more than just flex, pretty
boy.”

I stared at the grisly mob. They looked like
something out of a bad seventies’ movie starring Billy Jack.

“Kick his disgusting Mani ass!” the
fifty-year-old woman yelled out.

“Let’s get this going,” a man from the mob
yelled out.

“Kick his ass, Brian!” another echoed
in.

“Brian?” I yelled out. “Your name is
Brian?”

“Why the hell do you care?”

“When I write my memoirs, I want to be able
to call you by name.” I turned to the mob and said, “So, if one of
you can grab a piece of paper and pass it around, would everyone
sign it with your first and last names? I promise, you will all
become infamous after tonight.”

“Kill him,” a man from the back yelled out.
I looked over. It was Goliath.

Kill him? Damn this was real. This wasn’t a
stupid college fight. This was as real as the night I became a
Mani. At least then, I had Yari on my side. Tonight, by choice, I
was alone.

I slapped my body all over to get my blood
flowing, doing it the same way I would before a mixed martial arts
fight. I didn’t know if I had blood anymore, but slapping myself
was doing the trick. I was ready to go.

Here we go! I circled Brian. I had him come
out to me by nodding my head and motioning to come and get me. This
was a safety measure. It is common to circle each other in a fight.
So, being that I was outnumbered 30 to 1, it was in my best
interest to move the fight away from his friends. You never want to
turn your back on a group that wants to rip off your head. These
guys not only wanted to rip it off, they wanted to display it at
their bar.

“It’s show time, you Mani piece of shit.”
Brian charged at me. I focused my eyes on my opponent, and this is
the part where everything goes in slow motion. All my life—whenever
I fight—it would seem as if time would almost stand still. My brain
goes into what I call Good-Will-Hunting mode. I am able to dissect
and break down my opponents weaknesses in milliseconds. This would
allow me to do the most damage by delivering the least amount of
energy.

Brian, my werewolf friend, charged me like a
bull. So, I knew that very little force would knock him down. As he
came up on me, I bent down and swept my left leg, and tripped him.
I hit his leg with an extreme amount of force. He did a face plant
into the grassy dirt field.

Brian pushed himself out of the mud and got
to his knees. He hollered out, “You better not use any of your Mani
wizardry. The second you do, all bets are off.”

I didn’t know how to do anything other than
transition to an eagle. Even that was a challenge for me. “You’re
lucky, bar-back-boy,” I said as I circled around him on the ground.
“I don’t know any magic tricks; I’m just one tough
motherfucker.”

“We’ll see about that.” He got to his feet
and came at me again. This time instead of charging me like a bull,
he ran up to me and held firm like a horse being pulled in by a
lasso. I just stayed there and did not waste a drop of energy. He
was bobbing and weaving like Cassius Clay on speed. He was show
boating for his Carni audience. He began peek-a-booing with me.
That’s when a fighter puts his hands to his face and then drops
them, so he is vulnerable like you would simulate a game of
peek-a-boo with a child.

All I was doing was timing each peek-a-boo.
Each one was two seconds faster. The last one he did was ten
seconds, so this one should be eight seconds. I counted to seven in
my head and I knew it would take only a second to high kick him
like Tommy had told me to do. I raised my leg and high-kicked him
right in his smug face and just laid him out. I had completely
knocked him out.

The Carni ran over to their fallen friend
and surrounded him like they were protecting a piece of meat from
an opposing animal.

“Get him,” one guy yelled out. “He used Mani
magic.”

“No, I didn’t! I did a standard high kick
made famous by the Nintendo video game, Shaq Fu.”

“Someone take him to the hospital,” a large,
toothless man yelled out.

“Wait a second. Your boy is done. I used no
magic. As a matter of fact, I barely used human fighting. Isn’t
this the part where you kick his ass some more and leave him for
dead like you did to Tommy?”

“He knows Kyro!” the same toothless man
yelled out.

“Nobody touches Brian,” Goliath yelled out
from the back. “I’ll take care of him after I kick this pip
squeak’s ass.” Goliath stretched his arms and walked toward me.

“Goliath, is it?” I asked in a cocky, but
polite tone.

“You heard of me,” Goliath smiled from the
corner of his mouth.

“Not until tonight. You’re kind of hard to
miss.”

This guy was over seven feet tall and over
450 pounds. He was the largest man or thing I had ever seen. He was
wearing cut-off jeans with a Harley Davidson T-shirt that was two
sizes too small. I looked at his feet, of course he had 2-inch
thick Doc Martens, so he could pound a guy even harder.
Unfortunately, I was going to be that guy. I wasn’t looking forward
to feeling his size 18 shoe crushed against my skull. His face was
scarred in the way only a street fighter would appreciate.

“I guarantee one of your Bruce Lee kicks
won’t even faze me, little man.” He then pulled out a chain that
was apparently in his back pocket.

I looked up at the moon to make sure it was
still a half moon. I couldn’t be too cautious.

I would hate to fight this guy when he was a
werewolf. “That’s okay.” I said. “I didn’t even break a sweat.” My
adrenaline was amped. I had just floored a guy with two kicks. I
didn’t care that this guy was twice my size.

“All right,” I said. “Round two.”

Goliath stood there like a rhinoceros. His
hands were up and his feet were shoulder-width apart.

It was obvious that he wanted me to strike
first. A guy like this would wait for his prey to make a mistake
and then pretty much sit on him and beat the crap out of him. He
had one giant problem. I wasn’t going to make any mistakes. I knew
if I made just one, it would be the end of me.

“Come and get me!” he shouted.

“Nah, big boy. If you want a piece of this;
you’re going to have to come and get it.” I mirrored his fighting
stance, and stood like a statue.

“Let’s go, Josiah Reign, Mr. MMA fighter.
You had a 4-1 record and got your ass beat by Kyro himself.

This overgrown gorilla did know me. “Oh,” I
said. “You know me. I feel honored.”

“Oh, I know you all right. I know that Tommy
kicked your ass.”

“That he did, Sasquatch. But, I’ve ironed
out a couple of flaws in my technique since then.”

“The lying flat on your ass technique wasn’t
working for you?” All of Goliath’s Carni folk burst out
laughing.

“Just to let you know, I was the one who
beat Tommy to death. And if a bitch-ass like Tommy could handle a
fluff like you, then this should make for a short fight.”

“I guess that doesn’t say much for your
bartender friend, does it?”

Goliath didn’t like that comment. He broke
his stance and came at me. I leaped forward with a roundhouse kick.
I missed because Goliath moved out of the way. Goliath was agile. I
was shocked. When my kick missed, I fell to the ground.

Goliath jumped on top of me. This guy was
the strongest opponent I had ever felt. He picked me up right up
off the ground by my neck. He held me up in the air with my legs
dangling. I gasped for air; he walked me by my neck to an old
eucalyptus tree that was near the flowerbed. With one slick motion,
he threw me like a Frisbee against the tree. I hit the tree head
first about six feet up, and then dropped to the ground.

I heard screams of excitement from the
crowd. They were laughing at my expense. Damn, I hated to hear
laughing and cheering at my expense. I was filled with anger, I
turned around and opened my mouth, and I felt my incisors protrude
out to razor sharp blades. I had never felt that sensation before.
It felt like I was flexing my teeth.

“He’s vampiring up!” a man yelled from the
crowd.

“Let’ him!” Goliath bellowed. “That will
give us reason to rip him to shreds.”

I lunged at Goliath. I grabbed both of his
ears with my hands and head-butted him right in his nose. Blood
sprayed everywhere. Some got on my tongue. Wow, it tasted delicious
and I felt an erection in my pants. Just the smell seemed to quench
my every desire. Werewolves bled?

Goliath rolled backward and landed on his
feet. “You taste good,” I said.

I grabbed my groin. “Now I’m ready to
play.”

Goliath dove at me. I jumped ten feet in the
air and hit the peak of my height. It felt as if I floated in
midair for a second. I came down hard and fell to my feet.

“What the hell was that?” someone
yelled.

“He just flew, that motherfucker just flew,”
another hollered out.

When I landed, I collapsed on the ground. I
had no idea what had just happened. My body just defied gravity. I
almost couldn’t tell because I had been flying all night as an
eagle. I had most definitely floated. No one told me that could
happen in human form. I didn’t have the time to analyze what had
happened. There was a 450-pound man ready to take my head off.
Goliath jumped on top of me. It felt like I was on the bottom of a
ten-person dog pile. He was hitting the back of my head with
elbows, mixed martial arts style. I felt a sea of elbows hitting my
neck, head, and shoulder blades.

I heard the strangest crushing and tearing
sound come from the back of my head, he had cracked the back of my
head open. I was disoriented. There was a large boulder to the left
of me. As I continued to get the crap beat out of me, I stared at
the large boulder. I felt helpless. Goliath was heavy and strong. I
wished that boulder would just fly up and knock the fat
motherfucker off me. I stared at the boulder as if I felt my will
breaking. I continued to stare at that rock. In my mind, I was
pleading for help. I zeroed in on the boulder. I then zeroed in on
the crowd that was cheering for my demise. Something miraculous was
about to happen. The boulder lifted off the ground and into the
air, and then it shot 40 feet through the air and crashed into the
crowd, knocking Carni over like bowling pins. I don’t know how I
did it.

“He’s using magic,” a bearded man
yelled.

Goliath grabbed me by both arms and stood me
straight up. My head was killing me.

“Why the hell would you do that?” he yelled
at me.

“Do what?” I yelled back at him.

“Use your bullshit Mani magic. Now we have
every right to kill you.” Goliath held me tight in his grasp. I
struggled, but it was no use. He had me in the worst bear hug known
to man. I looked over his shoulder and tried to resist his squeeze.
I could see the chain that he originally had at the beginning of
the fight about fifteen feet behind him, he must have dropped
it.

As he held me, I focused my attention on the
chain. I imagined the chain flying in the air. I strained my eyes.
Nothing happened. How did I make the boulder move? I looked at the
chain, and then quickly looked at Goliath. The chain whipped off
the dirt, flew up in a whipping motion, and wrapped around
Goliath’s neck. It wrapped tight. Real fucking tight.