Rancor: Vampyre Hunter (Rancor Chronicles) (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The full moon stared down upon the graveyard, calling out to her sisters, the stars, so that they too might rejoice in this battle of the sky. A tapestry of Northern Lights joined the celestial dominion, and together the active night unclothed much light.

Shay Jackson, sitting atop the crypt marked
Whittaker Orphans
, held in his eyes a promise of death. A look so stern that not even a sudden brisk wind swayed him from his post. Nor did the scent of a white dire wolf as it ran up the northern slope.

He waited patiently, keeping his back to the canine as it transformed into Rellik Faolchú. Shay waved his hands and ignited lamps around the graveyard with a single thought.

The Wulfsign stood no more than a few feet away, and his angry growls alone should have made the vamp feel supreme.

But Shay felt as if he’d lost. He had turned to mist, surrounding the wagon where Rancor held Ariana. He was unsure why he’d stayed to watch. He’d destroyed Ariana, the one thing in life the Wulfsign cherished most. Or rather, the one thing he had cursed.

Ariana opened her eyes wide enough that they threatened to swallow whatever they beheld. She screamed as her two eye teeth grew into long fangs and her once-dark complexion bled away all its color.

“What has happened to me?” she cried.

Rancor held her to him and wept. He stroked her long hair, smelled her perfumed skin and kissed her cheek.

“I still love ya,” he whispered.

She pushed him back. Her eyes looked empty. Goose pimples spread over her skin. “I . . . feel . . . hungry . . .” she told him. But he held her tightly and would not let go.

“Woy find a cure, Ariana, we will!”

“For what? I feel alive for the first time!” She smiled, and shoved him hard, sending him flying back onto the floor of the wagon. “And you, my love, will be my first meal!”

As Ariana flew at him, Rancor broke a long stake from the wooden wagon. “Woy you kill me, ta man ya love?”

At that moment Rancor knew that if he did not kill her, she would live her life as a demon. If he killed her out of mercy, and not hatred, it was not murder. It was within his honor as a Wulfsign to do so.

When she was upon him, he grabbed her throat and held the weapon against her chest.

“Forgive ma,” he whispered, and plunged it through her heart.

And then Shay watched the Wulfsign defeat him. Not one tear left Rancor’s dark, sunken eyes. The vampyre now understood what it was that this werewulf treasured most: honor. He had assumed it was love, that the woman was his world; but he was wrong. Unless he made Rancor betray his principles, he would never best him. If only he’d known, it could have been so easy.

But how could he get the werewulf to challenge him senselessly, for vengeance and not for honor? How could the vampyre get him to say . . .

“Let’s end this, Shay,” Rellik growled, plunging his sword into the earth. “I know you killed Fred, and I know you killed the others. Now I’m going to send you to Hell!”

“Will you now?” Shay turned to him, his face disfigured with long, pointy teeth. “You still think you can kill me?”

“That I do. I have lived among your kind and have learned your weaknesses.”

“You have hidden among them,” Shay spat.

“I have spent a thousand years undoing your corruption. Not once have I ever fled from your bane.”

“You should have. You should have taken your mortal and run as far and as fast as you could. After this battle I will be free to bring her into my world. She will not find you in Heaven; she shall be stuck here on Earth! Do you never learn?”

Shay jumped from the crypt and marched to his enemy.

“So shall it be. A fight to the death,” Rancor said, spreading his arms in invitation.

Alix’s head hurt. She walked down the hall toward the kitchen, flicked on lights as she went, and heard Sam in his den. She considered going inside, but if she found him drunk she would be in no shape to handle it.

This single thought came into her mind:
the rifle
.

“Alexandria, can you come in here?” her father called from his den.

Alix complied without putting any thought into it. She walked into the den and found Sam sitting at his desk chair–

Tied up.

The large, muscular man from her vision of Lenny being murdered stood behind him. Another, in a brown leather jacket and bolero hat, with a guitar resting on his lap, sat on the floor.

“Greetings,” the man with the guitar said. “I am Jonathan Pyre, and this is my associate.”

“They call me Bruce.”

Alix braced herself against a wall for support as the whole world spun.

“Do you want to save thousands?” the one named Bruce asked. He pointed the double-barrel shotgun at her, while keeping his crossbow poised on Sam. Pyre began strumming his guitar. Alix recognized the tune. Bon Jovi’s
Dead or Alive
.

“Now, now, Bruce. No need to be rude. Keep the gun on her father. I’m certain she’ll tell us whatever we want.”

“But I don’t know anything.” Her knees knocked. Barely able to hold herself up, Alix repeated herself, this time so softly that no one heard.

Pyre smiled and sang a few words to the song. Between stanzas, he said, “There, there, my dear. We don’t want to hurt either of you. We just want to know where your boyfriend is this fine night.”

Alix lifted her head and looked into the man’s eyes. Then she looked at Bruce, and saw that he no longer held his menacing weapons against Sam. Instead, he held an open bottle of whiskey. Her tears flowed more easily. What should she do? These men must be animals to threaten her father’s rehabilitation. He had managed to stay sober for five whole days! That was five days longer than ever before in his adult life.

It hit her what she had to do.

“The graveyard. He’s at the graveyard,” Alix sobbed.

“Bruce, leave,” Pyre said coldly. Then, to Alix’s father: “You should be proud to have a daughter who loves you so much. It will be a shame if after this night you return to the drink, after all.”

Alix watched her father’s face turn red. As Bruce ran out the front door she felt a tinge of satisfaction. After all, Shay was the one at the graveyard, not Rellik.

Rellik had trained for this moment for nearly a whole millennium. He threw a roundhouse punch–but Shay ducked and jabbed his opponent’s chest. The Wulfsign fell back. He felt a fist slam across his face and a backhand punch against his temple.

“
I
have spent the last thousand years training, as well,” Shay said, and spin-kicked his adversary’s stomach.

The werewolf stumbled back. He brought his fists up. “Then we fight a fair duel at last.”

Shay jabbed. Rellik ducked. The Wulfsign kicked the vamp’s chest. He grabbed the back of Shay’s hair, slamming his head into his knee. The vamp launched an uppercut. But when he tried a backfist, the Wulfsign caught his arm and twisted him into a headlock.

“What will you do now as I snap your neck? That will take a few days to heal,” Rellik said.

His opponent turned into fog. Rellik fell into a foot sweep and tripped the vamp; then he leaped back to his feet. He glared hard at his shocked opponent.

“I told you I learned much this past millennium,” the Wulfsign said, with an iron voice. “Such as you can only transform one body part into fog at a time.”

He couldn’t stop smiling. He hoped his other lessons would prove just as true. “Now get up, and see what else I know.”

Shay turned every body part into fog, starting with his head and ending with his feet. The eerie blue mist rose as one beast, parts of it manifesting into two clawed hands and a jaw of jagged teeth. It struck, one hand slicing Rellik’s cheek. But the Wulfsign caught the other, snapped the talons off, and followed the move with an elbow strike that shattered its teeth.

The fog howled and slunk away.

The vamp slowly gathered to form its human shape and turned its back on Rellik. Shay slumped, unable to rise past his knees. The Wulfsign glared, his emerald eyes burning.

“I learned something else, Shay. Whatever you attack with, it cannot be turned to fog.”

Shay lay helplessly on the ground, clutching his broken hand against his chest as blood poured from his mouth. He laughed, the apparent fear in his eyes not heard in his voice.

Rellik growled, “What is so funny?”

“My victory is turning you against your principles. I have already won.”

“Then I will be your final triumph. For you, forever ends tonight. Are you ready to become mortal?”

Shay spun and sliced Rellik’s chest, but suddenly he stopped. The Wulfsign stared into the vamp’s horrified face, uncertain what had made him halt so abruptly. He looked down and saw . . .

A wooden shaft that resembled a bolt from a crossbow stuck directly through his enemy’s heart.

Pyre finished his song and stood. Slinging the guitar over his shoulder, he glared at Alix. He walked to the doorway, stopped as if to savor the moment, and when he turned back his eyes looked like two endless pits. His smile was wide and bright beneath the brim of his hat.

“Go to him, Alexandria,” Pyre said. “I want you to suffer greatly, just as I did.”

He turned and left.

Stunned by his last remark, Alix stared into space for a moment. Then she reached into her purse and felt for the ring. This time she slipped it onto her finger, unsure why. A tear left her eye and her hand tingled. Sam leaped from his chair and ran to her. He grabbed and shook her as if to wake her.

“Alexandria! We have to go help him!”

“But Rellik isn’t there.”

In the silence they threw their arms around one another. Alix sobbed, knowing she had made a terrible mistake. Both she and Sam turned to the mantel and stared at the portrait of their lost loved one.

Then, at the rifle beneath.

Rellik scanned the area. He prayed that the bolt had come from a crossbow Alix operated. But as Shay fell, turning into a pillar of dust for the evil he was, Rellik’s power died.

“I’m mortal,” Rellik realized, when all his senses lost their heightened ability. He looked up and saw a large man running at him.

“I am Bruce Tannis,” the stranger growled, leaping at Rellik. “I AM SALVATION!”

The Wulfsign caught his opponent and tried pushing him away–but forgot to compensate for his lost strength. Bruce tackled him to the ground. He got on top and pummeled him with his fists.

Rellik wrapped his legs beneath his adversary’s waist, threw him off, and scrambled to his feet. His nose was bleeding and one eye had started to puff out. He shouted:

“Don’t be a fool! I am mortal now! If I wasn’t, I would have turned to a wolf and ripped out your throat.”

“I was told you like sport.” Bruce took out a silver-laced Buckmaster knife. “I shall save thousands by killing you!”

Bruce swiped but Rellik dodged, caught his opponent’s arm, and kicked his kneecap. Bruce staggered and yelled, managing to pull his arm free. He tried to rise, but fell back to the ground, his leg broken and unable to support him.

“I’ll get you an ambulance,” Rellik said as he turned to leave.

“Don’t mock me,” Bruce spat. “Before you kill me, at least tell me why you were fighting the vamp. Was it over the same prey? Was it the girl?”

“I was stopping him from killing anyone ever again, you fool.” Rellik turned and walked to his sword. He took it from the ground and returned to the man.

“Then why did you kill the Tannises? Why did you kill my parents!”

“I saved them. I saved them all,” Rellik kneeled and balanced himself with his weapon. “I am not evil. The legends about my kind are nothing but lies. You cannot become a werewolf by drinking water from my paw print, nor from eating food cooked by my hands. My bite does not spread my seed, nor does the full moon make us change. It was wrong of humans to make up those fallacies to justify their hatred.

“But vampyres are different. They crave pleasure and spread their kind like a disease. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I do.” Bruce gave a shout and grabbed the sword from Rellik. With one last effort, he thrust the blade through Rellik’s chest.

Bruce staggered to his feet, using the sword as a crutch. The vampyre was long dead and, though the werewolf clung desperately to life, he would soon join his counterpart.

“If silver is also a myth, fight or not, you’re going to Hell.”

“I will die,” Rellik choked on his blood, “but only because I have been made mortal. You missed my heart.”

“But you didn’t miss my parents’ hearts.”

“I saved them from a life of evil–from living as this vamp before you.”

“You’re a creature like them. If you aren’t evil, why would they have to be?” Bruce’s voice resounded with hatred.