Standing Before Monsters (Vorans and Vampires) (55 page)

“Well, if you know that it is a plan, then why should I tell you what it is?”

Marek sighed in frustration and he offered, “We can make this easier on you. Now tell us why you are here.”

“We were sent to cleanse this city when Cyrus and his vanguard obviously failed.”

“Cyrus was part of this?” Nick asked joining the circle. “He was an elder vampire, but you make it sound like someone was controlling him.”

Sniffing the air, the reaper glanced to Marek ignoring the question, “So this is the one man? He has a power I haven’t seen before.”

“Answer the question,” Marek added as if he were translating Nick’s words to the reaper.

“Make me,” the man said with a laugh. Outnumbered eight to one, as the kasha remained across the street leaving the remaining vampire to them only because they knew that their scent would affect Marek’s people as much as the reaper, he still acted like he could win. Perhaps not giving up his knowledge meant that he simply wouldn’t lose. It was hard to pry information from a vampire, but the hardest part was taking him alive to pry the information free.

For all his bravado, the combination of the vampires and Nick were more than enough to subdue him. Nick felt his strength and guessed that the reaper was older than Marek and therefore more powerful. They approached him carefully. Swords swiped in mostly to feint and distract, though he was old and skilled enough to know that fact. Knowing that you are being pushed where your enemy wants and being able to do something about it were sometimes two very disparate things.

A silver blade clipped his arm and then another caught his leg bringing hisses from the reaper. He looked up and thought to leap over them in desperation. Nick’s aura blade reached out catching his leg to pull him down like the chains the kasha used. Swords staked his arms while Nick forced a second aura blade into his shoulder as he released the leg.

Forcing him to kneel, the vampires held him fast. A moment later, most of them were sneezing or were fighting the impulse as the kasha crossed the expanse from the west side of the street. Silver chains with spikes were in their hands and the kasha moved into the circle, which gave way save for Marek and Nick. Wrapping his arms and legs in the chains, his skin burned where it touched. It was painful and would prevent the reaper from moving, while freeing Nick from having to hold the vampire with his blades.

“Are you their leader?” Alad asked looking furious, but calm.

“What are you supposed to be, kitty? Don’t tell me that you are supposed to be a tiger. They are ferocious creatures, though I’ve killed a few in my time as well. They look beautiful, but their pelts weren’t nearly as soft as you would think.

“While I’ve dealt with real tigers, I have to say none of them smelled as bad as you,” the reaper stated.

“What is your name?” Nick asked appearing calmer than Alad and completely composed. This wasn’t the first time that he had needed to get information from a stubborn vampire.

“They call me,
Lennart,” he spat at the man’s feet. “I don’t usually bother telling humans since they are my prey, but for you I’ll make an exception.”

“I am touched,” Nick replied standing back to make the sight lines easier between the two of them. “One vampire thought I was simple prey and that sent me on the course that brings us to here. I am not the prey, though I give my friends a bit of my blood to keep them nearly human. Instead, I am the hunter and you are my quarry.

“We hunted you while you hunted the vermin in this city. I don’t know how much time you saved us driving the nests to consolidate just to try and fight you, but we appreciate your work. We also appreciated as the last nest whittled your numbers down. I don’t think reapers are very common or we would have seen them before, so I would guess that you are the last of the ones you brought here.”

“I could lie and say that there are more with me, but we aren’t the last of this type you call reaper. My masters have enough at their disposal and can easily make more. Does that worry you? Does it make you afraid?”

Nick and the other vampires couldn’t help laugh. Even Alad allowed a chuckle before the voran replied for all of them, “Why should we be afraid? You weren’t that hard to kill or capture. We’ve been doing this for a long time. You were barely more of a challenge.

“Hell, at least Cyrus put up a good fight. You aren’t half as tough as he was,” he replied playing down the truth of the matter. While Cyrus had an army which had been very powerful, for their numbers, the reapers were certainly more dangerous individually save for the elder vampires in that army.

Frowning at being so easily dismissed, Lennart stopped talking.

Nick tried again, “Why were you sent here?”

“To clean up the mess Cyrus left behind when he failed to take the city,” the reaper replied surprisingly easily. “The elders knew something stopped him and we were sent to find out what that was by cleaning out all the vampires.”

“Who are these elders or masters? What else do they want with Chicago?”

Barking another laugh, Lennart retorted with derision, “Like they would tell their weapons their plans. We serve the Consortium. We don’t bother to ask any questions. They tell us where to go, who to kill and we obey.”

“Where is this Consortium and who is in it?” Alad asked overstepping his bounds.

Eyes narrowing, Lennart looked at Alad in disdain, “If you were a dog, I could tell you to heel. What does one tell a cat? How about shut up or stuff it?”

Alad punched the reaper with a right cross. The vampire’s lip was broke open spilling a few drops of blood before it began to heal before the kasha’s eyes. His eyes remained unimpressed by the kasha.

“Animal,” Lennart simply stated.

Nick moved in front of the reaper again and said, “It was a valid question.”

“I have told you enough. Sit here and wait for more to come or run away. I don’t really care.”

Nick’s face took a deadly look and he asked, “Do you know what these ‘animals’ as you called are?”

“Werecats or whatever, what do I care what they are called? They will simply be another bump in the way of the Consortium, if they don’t just run and hide. I know how cats think. Scare them and they run. These are probably no better.”

“They are known as kasha and they have powers that you haven’t seen either then. Alad why don’t you give him a taste, since that is what vampires love so much, tastes.”

Alad ran his claws over the reaper’s shirt drawing and loosening the bonds of his evil spirit. Lennart gasped and his eyes flicked from black to his true color for a moment.

“What...?” he exclaimed knowing pain that he had never before
experienced.

Nick moved closer telling him. “Kasha
use their claws to draw out evil spirits and destroy them leaving just a husk. Does that sound familiar, reaper?”

His lips came back together in a smug smile. “I don’t fear death. I have lived long and seen many things. I’ve killed vampires and humans, even a werewolf or two. I can smell one on you as well, so you must know of those. For someone who seems to know little, you have found some things that even I haven’t, little vampire hunter.

“I have lived centuries. If I die, I have more lifetimes than a human like you can understand.”

Nick nodded to Alad to swipe his claws against the reaper’s chest drawing a grunt of pain once more. “I am one hundred thirty one years old, vampire. Don’t preach to me of lifetimes. I will get there over the bodies of more of your kind if they keep coming. Those who want to be saved can be saved, but I am surprised that something as evil as you wouldn’t fear death.”

“Why should I fear it? If there is another side, then I will find it or be reborn anew.”

“A monster like you I would think would be terrified of death.”

“I am a predator. If you mean for God to judge me, then does a lion fear death because he kills an antelope or does a human fear death because he kills to eat meat? I am doing what God wants of me then, so I am safe enough by that measure,” he grinned.

Nick shook his head and replied, “I was taught that we don’t get to heaven through our acts, but without God’s grace an evil spirit should really fear the hell that you’ve brought on yourself.

“Now tell us of the Consortium and maybe we’ll give you time to change your outcome in the end, unlike our friend that you killed over there.”

Lennart
laughed again, “She wasn’t much of a friend. She begged me to spare her life and sold yours out. The girl said she didn’t care what happened to you as long as she might live. I spared you the traitor in your midst.”

Marek decreed, “Lenora chose her own path, whether that would have made us kill her later or not was yet to come. You robbed us of finding a better way for her.”

In spite of Marek’s words, they sounded cold, not just because of his hatred for the reaper, but because the coven leader probably figured that eventually Lenora would have chosen the wrong path and ended up on someone’s sword.

“If you do not feed off of humans, then she was breaking your trust. We happened upon her feeding on a human male in the alley. Two other vampires were inside the club and still are, I would guess, hiding from us.”

“Not everyone is a fighter and they weren’t ready for you on their own,” Nick stated. “You attacked and hunted fledglings. We are the ones who have been hunting down the ones who fall through the cracks before they spread the disease. We have destroyed nests like you have, but to remove the cancer of vampires.

“Now tell us what your Consortium plans to do, so maybe we can find a way to spare you and you can atone for all the death that you have spread.”

Laughing hysterically, Lennart shook his head and replied, “You can just wait and find out. Spare me or not, I told you that I don’t care.”

Nick stood up straight and shrugged before nodding to Alad and Lamassu.

Both of the kasha bent over the cocky looking reaper kneeling in his chains. He wanted to appear invincible as if the chains holding him were by his design and could be broken at any moment. An elder vampire as old as Cyrus might have that ability; but the reaper was much younger and Nick knew that he was bluffing.

Each kasha plunged their claws into a shoulder loosening his spirit as their nails drew black blood. They touched his chest together running their claws down to his abdomen as he cried out in pain. His eyes lost their blackness and gained fear of his end. Blue eyes looked at the voran on the edge of pleading, but he closed them trying to resist their power over his spirit.

In a minute it was over. The kasha had their revenge on another who had caused Shedu’s death. Nick didn’t think either of them looked any happier despite dealing the final ending to two of the remaining reapers. That was the problem with getting revenge. The benefits were a hollow shell and did little for the soul and pain there.

Marek used his sword to split the husk in half setting the remains on fire. Jake did the same for Lenora’s empty shell as well. With the two turned to dust with the other reapers, it only left the human in the alley to cover up.

Nicola gathered up Vicki and Justin, who upon hearing that Lenora was dead were shaken up understandably.

“I can’t believe that they killed her,” Vicki said in shock.

Marek had other business to decide in relation to these two, but he would handle it in private at the Lair.

Looking at the time on his phone, Nick looked at Nicola and shook his head. Almost 1 AM, the man half laughed, “I hope Charlotte’s alright with the girls.”

Nicola smiled wearily as she replied, “I’m sure that a grown werewolf can deal with a college age voran and human with an undersize teenage vampire.”

Texting that they were on the way back to the Lair, Nick received an immediate text saying to hurry. “I don’t know, but she looks ready to have some help,” he laughed at the pretty, blonde vampire in her torn red dress.

The girl looked down seeing the tears and frowned, “Darn it. I liked this dress too.”

Chapter 31- And in Other News

Charlotte had survived her hours of baby sitting reasonably in tact. Lena and Geni had left about an hour before Nick’s return leaving just Sami in the werewolf woman’s care. Still the teenager wanted to dance, and to check out the bar, which had been emphatically told was forbidden to her by Nick.

He doubted the girl wanted to get drunk but was simply curious and being a vampire seemed to make one a bit more impetuous. It was hard to follow rules when you were undead apparently.

“Come on, Nick, just one drink,” Sami said sweetly holding up one finger with her hand as she smiled with her big green eyes trying to wear him down. She put her hands together and added, “Please, Nick.”

Tapping her forehead with his forefinger, he replied, “Not tonight. It’s getting late and we need to get Charlotte home to sleep.”

She looked defeated and pouted making him pull her in under his arm to walk out of the club, which was emptying steadily save for the die hard party goers.

Charlotte asked as they drove away in the car, “What happened?”

Sami sat next to her looking eager for a good story as well.