Duel Nature (26 page)

Chapter 26

Hosokawa led me silently through the
hallways, his steps eerily silent on the concrete floors. Several
minutes of walking brought us to a gymnasium that was busy with
vampires sparring with both weapons and without. Sidelong glances
followed us as we walked through the large space to a doorway at
the rear. Passing through the small archway led into a smaller
studio space, maybe twenty-five feet by fifty. A rack of weapons
was fastened to the far wall. I had been thinking that Hosokawa’s
black uniform looked much like a martial arts gi.

Hosokawa stepped to the center of the room
and turned to face me. Behind me an unknown vampire closed the
door, which part of me noted was heavy steel. Locking bolts
ratcheted into place.

The small dangerous vampire in front of me
was over 800 years old and his face was a frozen mask that gave
nothing away.

“You are ill prepared to face a Conclave,” he
stated as fact. Not knowing what to say, I decided to say nothing.
I know…shocking. Mark a calendar.

“I will prepare you,” he said, another
fact.

His bow was fast, his attack much, much
faster. Too fast for me…without Grim. The rear wall of the room was
hard, at least according to my head and right shoulder which had
just slammed into it. I wasn’t sure just what he had done.

He was frowning. “I was told you were faster
than that?” he asked, sounding offended.

I shook concrete dust from my throbbing head
and moved forward. “Part of me is,” I said.

That particular part was howling to get out.
I let it.

“Part of you?” he said.

I just nodded and continued to approach. He
slid forward as if on grease, his front foot headed for my sternum.
Grim stepped us slightly to the right, just enough for the
calloused foot to slide under my left arm, which trapped it.
Another step put my right foot behind his left, my right hand
slamming a palm heel to his chest.

In the world of human jiu-jitsu, this
combination of moves will often result in your opponent falling to
the floor, leg still trapped by your arm. In vampire-fu, with an
opponent who had probably helped create jiu-jitsu the result was
not so much. Hosokawa had Posted his balancing leg, effectively
turning it into an iron rod sunk deep in the earth. He would not be
falling over anytime soon.

The fun part about my demonically influenced
combat personality is that he’s nothing if not adaptable. In fact,
I almost felt a mental nod acknowledging a theory proven.

The take down ineffective, Grim pulled us
close to the Japanese vampire, dropping the leg and shooting both
arms under Hosokawa’s armpits, Posting our own legs in place – then
he Pulled on the rack of weapons. All manner of swords, spears and
other sharp pointy things shot straight at us and more importantly,
the exposed back of our/my opponent.

Hosokawa exploded upwards, propelled by
powerful vampire legs, yanking himself right out of my arms and
leaving me to face the sword storm. Grim yanked my body to the
floor, and Pushed the incoming blades upward with my right
hand.

Rolling backwards on the floor, I came up in
time to see all the blades but one, miss the vampire who was
Clinging to the ceiling. One small knife blade tore the bottom of
his pants, but otherwise missed him completely. Grim snatched a
falling spear from the air and jabbed at the black form that was
spidered on the concrete above.

Hosokawa rolled, folded and slipped away from
every attack. Then he flicked his right hand in my direction and I
was Pulled to the ground as if gravity had suddenly quadrupled.
Somehow, he had projected his energy into the concrete below me and
then exerted it against me.

I was trapped by a column of vampire energy,
unable to move as my opponent dropped lightly to the ground. Grim
wasn’t done though, instead ratcheting up our response by using my
aura to slice the pillar of energy holding me down.

I jumped up and back, clearing ten feet from
Hosokawa, who was watching me curiously. Looking down, he examined
the small cut in his pants leg before looking back up with a slight
nod.

“It’s a start,” he said, softly. Then he
attacked again. And again. And again.

I remember sparring with my first martial
arts instructor as a kid. He taught both karate and Brazilian
jiu-jitsu, with a habit of combining the two in one session. In
other words, mixed martial arts. We would start on our feet, but
inevitably end up on the ground, where he would usually find a new
form of choke, arm bar or muscle split to inflict on me. Five
minutes felt like an hour, leaving me heaving for breath as I tried
to repay a ridiculous oxygen debt.

Twenty minutes of non-stop vampire sparring
was on another planet of energy expenditure. At speeds of ten times
or more faster than the best human reaction time, twenty minutes
becomes hours in human time.

Soaked in sweat, my body trembled as I
struggled to find a way to stop the fight. I had already literally
used a whole day’s supply of calories and my reserves were gone.
The metabolic beast that is my body had depleted the tank, used up
the emergency supply and was in danger of consuming the rest of me
if it didn’t get fed soon.

In fact, Grim had switched from sparring mode
to survival mode, now looking to truly kill, maim or incapacitate
my enemy, as my life depended on it. My aura was almost exhausted,
having been eroded against my opponent over the course of our
match. His uniform was now mostly shredded, the black showing a
dull gray sheen underneath. The gray was some type of chainmail he
wore that I had quickly figured out was formed from depleted
uranium. Seventeen minutes ago, when Grim had gone into kill mode,
I had blasted the vamp with a burst of aura that should have
removed his legs. It destroyed the black cloth, but was ineffective
against his DU armor.

Crouched at the far end of the room, myself
studied the vampire. Two forms of vision overlapped. One mostly
normal, the other an overlay that outlined his form in sharp
slashes of red. Each red line was a weak point in his armor, the
brighter the red, the closer I had come to penetrating it. Myself
was studying those spots intently. Aura was almost gone, eroded by
a fight that had started as sparring but become a dance to the
death.

A huge impact struck the steel door behind
him. He jumped. I didn’t. Myself knew what or who was on the other
side, demanding in.

The vampire shifted left. An electrical
conduit caught my dark half’s eye. It was the kind run on the
outside of concrete walls. Coming down from the ceiling it ended at
an outlet box. Myself noted others just like it around the room,
with the closest being six feet to my left. The outlet box was
steel, with circular cutouts that could be knocked open for wire
access. Each steel knockout was the size of a quarter.

Springing left, my fingers punched out two
metal discs, tearing them free from the box. A shock jumped my hand
when my fingers touched live wires but I barely noticed.

The vampire was moving toward me at speed,
not recognizing my actions but determined to stop them.

Fingers dimpled the metal discs, hand tossed
them into the air, both hands clapped. Both discs fired in
supersonic bursts of molten metal. One struck the metal door,
ripping through the thickest part of the upper hinge. The other hit
the vampire in his left shoulder, blew through in a mist of blood
and flesh, then blasted a crater from the wall.

The vampire rocked back, I headed forward and
the steel door tore free from its remaining hinge.

“Stop!” the new vampire said. This one had
blue eyes and black hair. This one I had to listen to. I stopped.
Other vampires came into the room. I moved back to the far end.

A little female flitted in. She carried food.
My sight telescoped onto the plastic jar that read ‘Skippy’.

“Just throw it to him, Lyd,”
the one I must listen to said.
Mine.

The jar arced across the room, but I met it
half way. The top came off and myself shoveled the brown oily paste
into my mouth in gobs.

“So…what the fuck?”
mine
asked, voice quiet. I
edged back at that tone.

“Demidova-san. Your Chosen is…surprising,” my
enemy said, one arm hanging limply.

Two more vampires entered,
one tiny and Asian, the other taller and blonde. All the other
vampires bowed, except
mine
. She was angry. Very
angry.

“Arashi? What has happened?” the tiny Asian
vampire asked.

My enemy bowed. “Training, Elder.”

“And at what point of the
training did you decide to attempt to kill my Chosen?”
mine
asked.

My enemy looked startled. He glanced around
the room. I followed his gaze, still gobbling the nutty paste,
squatting at the back of the room.

The room was in shambles. Craters gouged the
floor, walls and ceiling. Two of the concrete buttresses had
enormous impact cracks. Scorch marks and burns were everywhere.

“I have not had a match like this in seven
centuries. I lost myself in battle. I have failed,” my enemy said,
his tone flat.

The blonde vampire spoke in a voice used to
being obeyed. “Doctor?”

A male vampire moved forward, his skin dark.
I knew him, he was no threat to me.

“I’ve not seen a wound like this before. It’s
completely cauterized. Like a plasma burn. The tissue will have to
be abraded down to raw tissue. It will be painful.”

“That’s a start,” the little Asian said. They
all turned to me. I finished the jar, my attention back on the
little female with the food.

“Throw him the
donuts,”
mine
said.
I caught the box halfway across the room and retreated, grabbing a
broken sword blade on my way back. Tearing open the box, I shoved a
donut in my mouth, then jammed the blade into the concrete in front
of me. My fingers squeezed the top of the sword where the steel had
snapped, forming it, molding the metal into a flat square that
faced the vampires. Tiny aura claws on my right fingers scored the
steel in a four-by-four grid.

“What is he doing?” the blond bossy one
asked.

“He’s simultaneously
replenishing reserves while preparing a defensive weapon to kill
Hosokawa. The blade will act like a mini-Claymore mine when he
claps his hands, sending about twenty explosively formed
projectiles across the room,”
mine
explained.

“The fight is stopped. Why is he doing that?”
the blonde asked.

“Because Hosokawa has pushed him so far into
survival mode that he sees no way out except to kill everything
that threatens him. His body reserves are all gone and he had begun
to cannibalize his own tissues.”

“Like a vampire who has been starved of blood
for weeks,” the dark skinned male said.

“Like a vampire starved of
blood for months or years!”
mine
corrected.

“How is that possible?” the tiny Asian
asked.

“He burns calories like a
were, but if he simultaneously engages in combat and uses his aura,
the burn rate multiplies. Hosokawa started this as a sparring
match, right?”
mine
asked.

“Hai, Demidova-san,” my enemy agreed, swaying
on his feet.

“When did it escalate?”

“Ah…” my enemy was lost in thought. “After he
tried to push me with his…aura? Yes, after that. I think he noticed
the armor then. It got…exciting after that.”

“So, he didn’t know about the armor. He faced
his first older vampire, got his ass handed to him, Grim took over
and then found out about the armor. He still controlled it as he
never pulled the ceiling down on you, but as the fight went on and
he used up more reserves, both energy and aura, he got more
desperate.”

“Pull down the ceiling?” the blonde
asked.

“He’s thinking about doing it now. His energy
levels are back up enough. Lydia, throw him the protein bars,
please.”

“He could pull down the ceiling? And why are
you throwing everything to him?” the blonde asked.

“I think he could pull a satellite or
asteroid down from space if he was sufficiently motivated. Right
now he’s pretty motivated and if I leave this part of the room to
go to him, he’ll probably do something drastic to everyone on this
side of the room.”

The vampires were all silent for a moment,
staring at me as I tore through the box of chewy bars.

“He fought well?” the blonde finally asked my
enemy.

“Hai! Best fight I’ve had,” he replied. “I
need to heal for a rematch.”

“No! You still don’t get it
do you?”
mine
said,
stamping one foot hard enough to crack more of the
floor.

“I told you…stop pushing him. But no one
listens to me, do they? I’m the one linked to him, I’m the one who
sees what happens each and every time,” she said.

They all just stared at her. She went on.

“His other personality,
Grim, just went through a half hour doctoral program in fighting
both older vampires and ones that are armored in depleted uranium.
Trust me when I tell you that he learned everything you could teach
him and more. The very next time he fights either or both he will
have adapted
all
his strategies. He won’t spar, he won’t hold back. He will
blast your head off your body, rip the floor out from under you,
create a spear of energy so sharp and focused that it will slice
through your armor like tissue. That’s what Grim does…learn and
adapt to combat. You threatened his survival. Grim’s only function
is to ensure survival. In fact, it will be a struggle for Chris to
keep Grim from killing you on sight, Arashi!” she said.