Melabeth the Vampire (38 page)

Final Scene

I
yelled. "Everyone take cover… now!!"

Kelly just screamed and started crying. Lizzie ran over to her sister and pulled her down to the ground. The sisters took cover behind one of the large gravestones. Mab ran over to her daughters, and then she dropped down with them, and pulled them into her arms. She was now weeping with Kelly; Lizzie looked to be in shock.

My teeth elongated, my claws came out, and I pulled the contacts from my eyes. All my emotion drained away; was it because I was a vampire, or was Ezra right, that some of us can become completely focused in battle. There would be time to worry later; there was only time to react for now.

I flashed over to David who was still lying on the ground unconscious. I pulled his body behind a large gravestone. I quickly grabbed another gravestone and dragged it over to David. I grabbed two more stones, and then I positioned them around David's body. He now lay upon the ground surround by gravestones. This would give him some protection from gunfire.

I was trying to think of what to do next; that’s when my second sight showed me something.

Over the hill in the middle of the graveyard, someone had yelled an order. The noise made an image in
my head. There was a group of gunmen heading up to the top of the hill. There were trees and gravestones up there. Once they were in position, they could shoot us dead.

I looked over at Carrie. "Watch over David, Carrie. I have to slow some of them down."

I could see Lizzie with tears in her eyes. "Kelly, mom… gets ready. They're coming for us. We need… we need to fight."

T
hey started to cast spells; now they understood what must be done. I just hoped they could do it. I flashed over to another set of gravestones. As I moved from stone to tree, to stone again, gunfire erupted. I had to move fast, as streaks of light flew by.

They were using tracer ammo; if they hit me, the bullets could ignite my blood. I moved quicker; by the time I reached the crest of the hill, the gunfire died away.

Whoever was shooting at me must have lost their line of sight when I reached the highest point of the graveyard. I didn’t have much time to think about it because, with my second sight, I could see four or five people working their way through the trees and gravestones.

They were heading right for me. I moved behind a stone so that I could surprise the first one.
I could tell that they had rifles; I needed to keep them at close range.

The man walked right by me; he was moving like a soldier. He had an M16 assault rifle, and he appeared to be wearing some kind of body armor with a helmet. The man was in black, head to toe. Wearing black at night might work with humans, but I could see him like it was day.

He spoke into his microphone, "all clear, fall into positions." He said this quietly; he may as well have been yelling it with my hearing.

I flashed so that I was standing right behind him. Without a noise, I reached up and grabbed his head. With one strong, fast twist, his face was now looking at me. He grunted, but I gave it one more twist.

Snap… was the noise that came from his neck. His body went limp.

I was about to drop him, when my second sight caught movement from behind. I spun around using the body of the dead man as a shield.

Just in time, as a barrage of gun fire slammed into the dead man's body.

Soon as the gun stopped firing, I figured he was out of bullets. I snuck a look around the dead man's body, and the man in front of me was dropping his clip and reloading another mag.

I reached over the dead man and grabbed the handle of his rifle that had been hanging from his strap.

I fired… I was shooting without aiming; it was a good thing his rifle was loaded with tracer ammo. It helped me find the target; I put the stream of gunfire right into his face.

The man’s head exploded, and his body fell to the ground dead; I guess he should have worn face armor. No time to celebrate; I moved forward.

I dove behind another tree as a fireball whizzed by my head.

I was now standing next to the body of the man that I just killed. He had an array of weapons on him. Two weapons caught my eye, his reloaded M16, and a large knife strapped to his boot.

Using my second sight, I could see two figures moving toward me. The man straight ahead of me was the one who threw the fireball at me, he must be a wizard. The second one was trying to flank me from my left.

I went for the weapons.

Knowing that I didn’t have time to bend over and grab them, I tried something else. I did a cartwheel right over the dead man’s body. I placed my left hand on the handle of the rifle and my right hand on the handle of the knife. In one fluent movement, I landed back on my feet with weapons in hand.

I didn’t wait to even look around me; I flashed back behind the tree from where I just came out of.

As soon as I was safely behind cover, I watched as another fireball zipped by where I was just standing.

Then I could hear whoever threw that fireball let out a string of curses. She also yelled at the other man that I was now armed. Clearly the fireball shooter was a girl.

I flashed and moved behind some more gravestones. I could see, from my second sight, that the witch took cover when she saw me recover the gun. I took that moment to move; she didn’t even see me leave. Her partner just finished moving into a position behind a large gravestone, and he had his rifle trained to the tree I was just hiding behind…too slow.

I quickly moved, and, without a sound, right behind him, I put my hand over his mouth, and then pulled back his head.

With one fast motion, I sliced his neck open.

With blood spilling out, I couldn’t help myself. I bit into his neck and started to feed.

“Bitch!”  I jerked my head up from the man’s neck to see who had said that. I had been too busy feeding and had not realized the witch had moved, and now we were staring at each other.

The witch was not in military body armor like the men, and I couldn’t see any kind of weapon on her... no knife, rifle or club; this made me more nervous than the heavily armed men. She was wearing all black: a shirt, skin tight jeans, and a leather trench coat that hung to her knees.

We stared at each other for a second more… then her lips began to move.

She was casting a spell.

I wasn’t going to wait to see what it did. I whipped my M16 up to my shoulder.

At the same time, she lifted both her hands up; for a mere second, I thought she was surrendering.

I didn’t wait to find out; I pulled the trigger.

The ground in front of the witch lifted into the air making a wall of dirt. My bullets slammed into the dirt.

The dirt fell back to the ground. The witch was still standing there. She should have used this moment to move. I opened fired again.

Her body fell apart. People don’t fall apart because of bullets, and there was no blood.

Damn it, it was a spell; I used my second sight… too late.

The witch was standing to my right. I turned my head only to see her push her hand at me. A wave of air hit me like a tornado.

I flew up into the air and violently spun around in a circle. Both my rifle and my knife were flung out of my hands as I flew through the air. My head slammed into something hard.

The world got blurry. I couldn’t see straight and was having a hard time moving. I couldn’t seem to find my legs. I clawed at the ground trying to find my equilibrium.

With my head lying on the ground, I was looking down a row of gravestones. There lay the dead soldier. Standing next to him, checking his pulse, was the witch.

The look on her face let me know that he was dead. The witch stood up and looked over at me with eyes of hatred.

Need to get up… the witch grabbed the gravestone and started to chant.

Need to get up… the gravestone in her hands turned to liquid and started to wrap around her hands.

Need to get up… when the witch stood up, the gravestone was gone, and the witch looked like a stone statue.

The world spinning had slowed, and I now could feel my legs; as I got to my feet, the stone witch was three feet away and swung her hand back. I readied myself for the first blow… I thought I was ready.

I had put my arm up to block her. When her arm made contact with mine, my arm broke. Then she punched me in the ribs with her other hand.

I could hear and feel my ribs break; I lost my balance and fell to the ground.

I rolled out of the way as she tried to stomp my face. Then, with all my speed, I jumped up and sidestepped her.

She swung but missed me.

Then I kicked her with such force she lifted off the ground and slammed into a gravestone.

She pulled herself up… and she was unhurt.

The next three minutes were much of the same. She was stronger and could break my bones when she hit me, but I was fast as lightening and healed too quickly to worry about a few broken bones. As we battled back and forth, I was trying to figure out how I was going to end this.

The stone witch grabbed me and tossed me through the air. That act did not hurt me; I used my second sight as I flew through the air.

The fifth soldier that I had forgotten about had moved in to help the witch. When the stone witch threw me, the soldier threw a grenade. Their timing was good because I was going to hit the ground at the same time and spot as the grenade.

I didn’t have much time to think about it, so all I could do was react.

I had been thrown backwards; I should not have been able to see the soldier, or the grenade that he had thrown.

The next thing I did, they could not have been prepared for. I spun around mid air and reached out with my foot. My timing had to be exact. I cupped the grenade with my toes as I was spinning.

Like a super ballerina, I landed on my other foot; I
was still spinning and kicked the grenade right at the face of the stone witch.

I fell to the ground as the grenade blew up inches from the stone witch’s face.

I stood up and flashed behind a tree before the soldier could even turn his head back to see what had happened. My timing had been perfect. The soldier turned and covered his face after he had thrown the grenade, so he never even knew what happened.

The witch was sitting on her ass, and the stone had broken off, and laying in pieces all around her. Blood was coming from her head as she moaned in confusion.

The soldier ran up to the witch. “You all right… what happened? How did you get hit?”

The witch was quick to recover; she squeaked out, “vampire…”

The soldier was a fool. I flashed up behind him, pulled his sidearm right out of his holster. Reaching under his arm, I stuck the gun in the witch’s face.

I pulled the trigger.

Her head whipped back as her brains blew out of it. As she fell to the ground, I pointed the gun straight up.

My arm was still under the soldier’s arm, so, when I lifted the gun straight up, it was pointing at the soldier’s chin.

The soldier said. “No…”

I pulled the trigger.

I took the next few minutes gathering weapons from the dead soldier. I had two hand guns with extra clips, one M16 with a couple of magazines; I also slid one knife in my boot and another in my belt. I wish I would have brought Ezra’s birthday gift with me.

I had worked my way right over the top of the hill. Now I was on the other side, and had no line of sight of David and the others. I started back to the peak of the hill; worry filled my head. I stopped and took two deep breaths. Ezra had drilled and drilled that worry, that emotion, would get me killed
.

My worry made me want to run at full speed to check up on them, but I must step carefully. I have no idea how many enemies there are, or where they are. I let my emotions drain away for later.

I moved carefully toward the top of the hill, using my second sight the whole time. I kept whistling. I needed to keep alert. Good thing too; from my left, two more soldiers were coming. If I would have run up the hill, I would have run right in front of them. From the direction they were coming from, I believe they are the soldiers who were shooting at me when I was heading to the top.

I had all of the advantages; I knew where they were, and I knew where they were going. I changed my direction and moved to my left. I would let them pass right by. Then I would move up from behind and finish them quickly.

As I moved in this direction, the cemetery changed. It was newer, so the stones lay flat on the ground. This would make it harder. The only cover I had now was the trees, and they were fifty feet apart in some spots.

I flashed behind a tree and hid. The two men passed right by; I didn’t have time to waste. I moved out from behind the tree and took aim. With their helmets and body armor, shooting them in the back might not work.

I yelled out; the soldiers spun around. I fired.

I was a good shot; the first solider I killed with a small burst right in the face.