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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 149: Brown 335
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 48
With his laser rifle slung over his shoulder, his chain around his waist, his knives on his belt, he crossed the bridge with his frypan in his left hand and his trumpet case in his right. He would use the knives to cut through any bramble impeding their progress, which he might not have recognized coming the other way as a fifteen-inch tall flying sprite. Once they were across, the brush rose around them limiting sight, but the path was recognizable.
As they crossed a small wooden bridge, Pierre spoke. “You know, if we destroyed some of these little bridges, we could easily get across but it might stop them from pursuing us.”
There was sense to that; Derek considered it. “Might be a good idea, but let’s not try it on the way in. If things go really well, we won’t have to flee from two dead vampires. If they go really poorly, it might not be an option.”
It was a slow trek through the marsh, and indeed the Sousaphone was an impediment. Derek didn’t complain, though; he somehow thought they would be glad they brought it. Also, he was certain that he had made the trip more quickly flying than he could walking, even given that he was then trying to map the path in his mind. There was one place where the path split, which puzzled him for a moment until he realized that the Carters didn’t build the path--it originally led to the cemetery, and apparently to somewhere else, and it had been abandoned except by the vampires, who maintained the part they needed. Having deduced that, it was relatively easy to choose, ignoring the less-traveled road in favor of the more.
The trip was somewhat tiring, and as they came in sight of the mausoleum they were all sweaty and breathing a bit hard.
The crypt was in the center of a cemetery, worn and toppled gravestones littering the ground. Before it was a small stone bridge over a rivulet, apparently part of the original design. Derek stopped.
Opening his case, he said, “I think this is where we play A Mighty Fortress.” He heard clatter as Pierre adjusted his instrument and Vashti and Maurice got theirs from the cases. They played it through just as they would in concert, but it seemed to have much more gravity to it here. He thought a moment before continuing.
He had been assuming that the vampires would be dormant in the daytime, unable to move. That might not be so. They might awaken if attacked. They might be trapped in their tomb by the sunlight, or they might be able to survive on the unholy ground of their cemetery. He was fairly certain they couldn’t venture beyond that in daylight, but it was a deduction based almost entirely on the fact that they had only ever attacked at night, and vampire lore said that since God made the sun to rule the day and they were creatures of the night, they couldn’t enter the sun’s domain. It was, in short, a guess.
It was all they had.
“O.K., let’s beard the lion in its den,” he said, packing his trumpet, making sure the others were ready, and crossing the bridge and the fifty feet of broken ground to the small granite building. He picked up a broken piece of a headstone and used it to prop the door open after he released the latch. Then he descended the stairs.
Two open caskets on platforms extended from the bottom of the stairs into the space ahead. Two overly pale caucasian male bodies were in them.
“Are they dead?” Vashti asked.
Derek couldn’t help smirking. “Yes and no, I would say. They don’t breathe, have no heart beats, no pulses--but when they become active they are said to be very strong, very fast, and very dangerous. The question is, how do we kill them?”
Vashti shrugged, drew her wooden practice knife, and with a powerful downward thrust drove it through the chest of one of the creatures. It opened its eyes, gasped, released an unearthly scream, and collapsed.
The brother was abruptly upright--not merely seated, but it leapt from lying down to standing. Lei He was ready, though, and delivered a kick which perhaps would have broken bones on an ordinary man, but in this case merely knocked it back against the far wall.
“Run!” Derek said to Vashti.
“My knife!” she said.
“Leave it; it might be keeping the thing dead.”
He heard the blast of Pierre’s derringer, two shots, both of which hit and clearly hurt the monster, but didn’t stop it. Pierre then opened a small flask of water and hurled the contents, shouting “In nomine Patri,” and it flinched. Apparently momentarily out of weapons, he headed for the door right behind Lei, who was behind Vashti.
Maurice, though, dove at the creature, brandishing his knife. He wasn’t terribly skilled with it, but he managed to put a serious gash in the surprised vampire’s one arm. It still managed to knock him back and down with the other.
Derek rushed to the dazed and damaged Maurice, shouting as he ran, “And the King and His armies pulled the Raptor from its perch and cast it into the lake, where it drowned. So shall be the end of all the enemies of the King.” Again the vampire fell back, and Derek tossed his frying pan and his trumpet case up and out of the door, and then was able to grab the trombone case and help Maurice to his feet, up the steps, and out the door. At that point the other helped grab the equipment, and Lei gave him a hand with Maurice. They stumbled across the open ground and over the bridge before they looked back.
The vampire--Derek for the first time wondered whether it was John or Wayne--had gotten as far as the doorway of its crypt, and was screaming inarticulately at them from there.
“Give me a minute here with Maurice,” Derek said, seeing that the boy was fading fast. He wrapped arms around him, prayed, and felt the glow grow through his body and spread to his friend. Maurice began breathing easier.
“Are you all right?” Derek asked.
“Um--ah think so. But, you know, thanks, an’ everythin’, but mebbe you can stop huggin’ me now?”
“Oh, sure. Get your bone out--that is, the t-bone,” Derek said as he opened his trumpet case. The incomprehensible screaming was still filling his ears, but he managed to say, “Amazing Grace,” and in a moment everyone was ready and started playing.
The vampire gave one last scream and fled to the interior of the crypt.
As they finished, Derek said, “I think that might be all we can do today--but we need to get back to the city and expect Mister Carter to attack somewhere tonight.”
With that, the team tracked back along their trail.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
