Prologue : Return to Dystopia
Kate cursed under her breath, careful not to blaspheme, for even
though her father was gone, she still felt a desire to keep her faith.
Faith was what had saved her father, or at least his soul.
She floored the accelerator and tore down the dusty streets
of Mexico. Again she hit a sharp dip in the road, and various things
jumped from the back of the RV and slammed against her. Her frustration
was almost on par with her anger. Anger that was driving her on this
pursuit.
A pursuit of the man who had put her in this position.
Seth Gecko.
Damn him. He'd left her there to fend for herself.
Only a limited knowledge of the world, a small wad of cash and the ability
to drive the RV. He said he wasn't a fucking bastard. Kate
believed that was open to debate.
She didn't know what El Ray was, but she had a good feeling
she knew where it was.
Anyway, Seth and his company had gone down this road, and there
hadn't been a turnoff since. Her suspicions were beginning to grow
more and more likely.
She parked and stepped out of the vehicle. The flames
that errupted from the two cars parked across the road hurt her with their
heat even at this distance. Perhaps it was amplifying the hot heat
of the mid - day Mexican sun. She moved closer, shielding her eyes
and face. Dust swirled up, drying her eyes, her mouth, and burning
into the cuts in her face. From the flames, she saw the shillouete
of someone she knew all too well emerge.
"What the Hell are you doing here?"
She didn't know wheteher to answer him vocally or physically.
"Where else was I supposed to go?"
"Home."
"I have no home."
She knew he was looking directly at her, even though she couldn't
see his eyes. "Well, go to a nunary or something, I don't care.
Just don't follow me." He pulled a pistol from the inside of his
vest and reloaded it.
"What happend to you?" She asked as he moved closer to
her.
"They were vampires..." For the first time she could see
his face, and his expression was one she'd only seen once before.
When Ritchie was...
"What the Hell are you talking about? Vampires?
For shit's sake Seth, this is the worst kind of sun to be in, let alone
any sun! How the Hell could they have survived?"
"I don't know," He said through gritted teeth, "Maybe they're
just weaker during daytime or something... maybe it doesn't affect
them if they're not in vampire form... I don't know. What I
know is that they attacked me and tried to rip me apart with their teeth.
I'd call that fairly vampirish behaviour, wouldn't you?"
She didn't reply. She was thinking about the gravity of
this new situation. Vampires could survive sunlight? This was
bad. They could be anywhere or anyone... she backed away, eyes
wide, staring at Seth.
He registered what she was thinking. "I'm not one of them
Kate, trust me. They didn't bite me or scratch me." He turned
360 as if to demonstrate there were no visible marks on hsis body that
were tooth or claw induced."
She relaxed, but only slightly, moving her hand slowly to the
pocket that she the pistol she'd shot her family with was. "So what
do we do now?"
"We? There is no we... get out of here, my company
is no place for you."
"Damnit Seth," she reprimanded herself for her blaspheme, "You
can't just leave me again. I'm further away from any home I have
now, more in danger, alone, and it's because of you. You owe me something."
"I don't owe you shit! You think I wanted your family
to die? No! You think I wanted Ritchie to die? Not fucking
likely! No matter how much of a whining little prick he was, he was
my damn brother!"
Kate recoiled. She stopped short of apologising, and said
"Then we've got something in common... and I think you need some
company..."
They huddled in the RV, weapons close by, ready for attack.
They'd survived the day, which was no small feat, but surviving the night
would be the test of survival.
Seth looked at the cargo Kate had retrieved from the Titty Twister.
"You went back for all this stuff? I can't believe you went back."
"It seemed like a smart idea in the heat of things."
"Whether it was or not it may just keep us alive for tonight..."
He pulled the cord on the hydraulic drill, which used a wood stake in plave
of a metal hammer. Seth's own creation. Kate thought she saw
a glimpse of pride on his face as it roared to life. Hw pulled the
choke and set it down. He rumuged through some of the other artillery
she'd brought back. Shotguns... Remingtons... The water
pistol Scott had used. She turned away as he held it up. He
held up a minigun which hung off a belt and metal crotch armor. "You
took this off Sex Machine's dead body?"
"A dead vampire's body. Yes." Her tone was solemn.
Seth refrained from pressing the subject.
"His whip. Nice for close encounters." He snapped
it. She jumped as it echoed around the small area. He picked
eveything up and piled it into the floor compartment, with the exception
of a Remington which he kept aside for himself."
He sat down next to her and put his hand on her shoulder.
"I've already said I'm sorry your family's dead, so let's move on."
She turned to him. "We have to move on. We're not dead. We
will be if you don't concentrate on what's going on here and now, okay?"
She nodded. "Okay."
"Okay. Now in the morning we'll get going, and see if
we can make it to an airport. Get out of the God forsaken country.
Back to America, or Canada, or wherever the Hell we're going."
"You got enough money?" The question was rhetorical.
"I pulled the case out of the car before it went up."
He pointed at a singed briefcase in the corner. She knew it was there,
he'd gone back for it ealier.
"How did you kill those three vamps?"
"I burnt em alive." His face turned to stone, and she
thought she heard a tremor of triumph from his voice. It was vengeance...
A body slammed against the RV windscreen, its eyes bulging,
its face scarred and burnt, and its teeth...
"Hello Seth... whad'you leave us behind for?"
Seth reacted in an instant. Too impulsively. He
grabbed a nearby Remington and aidmed it at the Vapire form that was Carlos.
"Eat Me!!"
He fired before Kate could tell him not to. Carlos dropped to
the ground dead as spam, and his figure was replaced an instant later with
at least fifteen other vampires clawing at the shard holes in the windscreen.
"Holy shit!!"
Kate grabbed her pistol and began firing through the holes in
the windscreen. Vampires dropped like flies, only to be replaced
two at a time. Seth turned. They were all over the RV.
It was covered from bumper to bumper in vampire...
He kept his cool. His was resourceful... but would
that be enough? He looked around... he grabbed a nearby bottle
of Chinzanno Bianco. He hauled himself up on a roof beam and kicked
the skylight open. Due to the manual nature in which he opened it,
it was only opened about two inches... even the vamps weren't strong
enough to move titanium bars. He shoved the bottle though the opening
and took aim with his Remington. "Duck!"
Kate turned and rolled, not even realising what he was doing.
He fired, and jumped backwards at the same time. The bottle erupted
into a deafening roar... the RV was a blazing inferno. It was
impossible to see outside, unless you looked up. The roof was gone.
No sign of it, just gone. And so were the vamps... for a few
seconds... then it began to rain. Flaming vampired chunks.
Their blood covered the ashy forms of Seth and Kate from head to toe.
The swore in disgust. They let their guard down. Not all the
vamps were gone...
The began to pile through the roof. But Seth had heard
them coing and beat a hasty retreat out the door, pushing Kate in front
of him. "Watch my back!" He called as he turned and beagn to raid
the cargo section for the weapons he'd stored there. He handed a
few to Kate and pushed her along the cold night sand.
He turned back to the RV, lit up a molotov cocktail and hurled
it in through the non existant roof. He grabbed Kate and ran.
The RV exploded seconds later. He piled himself on top of her to
shield her. Luckily enough, the only shrapnel that came down was
bits of plastic, and were not enought to pierce his skin too badly.
They turned back to look at the RV. It was a flaming mass
of twisted metal, full of scorched corpses. Seth thanked God - a
God he'd believed in now for 24 hours - that the vampires were stupid.
But now they were out in the open, and vulnerable to any attack
that may come. And it did. They both recognized the sound.
Bats.
In the moonlight, it looked like a hundred odd. It was
only around twenty, but still, that would be enough to finish them off.
Seth loaded his remington and Kate aimed his pistol...
this would be the vampire hunter's last stand... neither had anything
left to live form but damnit, they weren't going alone.
Then, from out of the misty shadows screamed a black ferrari
down the road. It screeched to a halt inches away from Seth and Kate.
They pointed their guns at the trenchcoat clothed figure that emerged from
the vehicle and tensed their fingers around the triggers. The figure
stood on the hood of the car, and calmly said "Stay down," while it pulled
out a semi automatic and layed waste to the flying rodents that began their
descent. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left in the sky.
It turned to Kate and Seth, "Get in."
"Why should we trust you?" Asked Seth, now wiser to offers
from anyone.
The figure turned, for the first time showing her deep red hair
and dark eyes. "Can you trust anyone else?"
That seemed reasonable for Seth, but not reasonable enough that
he let go of his Remington. Kate hopped in alongside him, and the
car beat down on the asphalt before taking off into the dusk.
"Who are you?" Kate leaned forward and yelled in her ear.
"I'm you."
"What?"
"I'm you. Someone who's family was ravaged by vampires
and were shown no mercy. Someone who wants every last one of those
fucks dead and rotting in whatever they call Hell... Someone wth
nothing left to lose..."
"What's your name?"
"Crow."
Seth remained casual, seemingly undaunted by the turn of events.
"So what's your story, Crow?"
She looked in the rear view mirror, shrugging off the sarcasm
that dripped from Seth's words. "You really want to know?"
She wrapped her legs around his back. This was exactly
what she needed after months on the road, doing endless deliveries for
Marin and his cohorts. All drugs and weapons, or stolen items of
value. All blood money. All risk. Low pay. All
the stress and frustration that had been bottled up, this young stud was
finally relieving it for her. He was cheap too, which made it all
the more better.
She hadn't expected to find any male prostitues in this place.
But just because they weren't on show didn't mean they didn't exist.
Usually, they were saved more for the gay type, as few women drove trucks
in this area, and fewer visited this kind of place. But Ashlee had
no problem with it. Men shouldn't have all the fun, especially when
she needed it more.
The whole ordeal was about to reach its conclusion. His
pace increased and she responded. It was over in the next minute.
They lay on each side of the bed, panting, coming down of their individual
highs. She turned slightly and said "I needed that."
He turned back and said, "My pleasure. And now its time
for your payment."
"What? I payed in advance! You're not squeezing
any more cash out me, my friend." She got off the bed and moved over
to the clothes in a crumpled pile on the floor.
"I don't want any more of your money." He got up and moved
toward her as she put her jeans and shit on.
"Oh no pal. I know your little scheme. You get into
bed for another session and charge me. No thanks. I've had
what I came for."
"You don't seem to understand... I don't want your money...
I don't want your body... I want your blood..."
"What?!" She tensed now, not quite understanding the situation
she was in.
"Your... blooood..." His face contorted and reshaped...
it twsited into a hybrid of human and reptile. He smiled at her,
and his kanines grew to strange proportions, as did several of his other
teeth.
"What... the..." He lunged at her, but she was ready.
She rolled out of the way, at the same time grabbing a nearby light stand
and arming herself with it. He turned and slammed down, splitting
the wooden pole. She slid nimbly out of the way and hit him with
the end she still held. He seemed totally unphased.
She jumped over the bed and flipped backwards out of his reach.
She moved to the door, and found it locked, with no way of opening it from
the inside. She moved as he again lunged at her, and transformed
the door into splinters of wood. But he was between her and the opening.
She moved away from him as he spun to face her, and tripped over a cord
which was lying on the floor. He grined maniacally and leapt at her
again. She pointed the sharp end of the wooden pole in his direction
and thrust upward... He landed with the disgusting sound of splitting
metal and shattering bone. Blood poured onto her, and she shoved
him off in time to avoid a complete soaking. She avoided more than
that. His body burst into flames and burnt to a cinder before her.
She had no hesitation in heading for the door.
She reached the staircase and looked to the bar below.
It was an orgy of gunfire and blood. She didn't want to risk it after
so narrow an escape. She returned the room she was in, and opened
the window that overlooked the carpark. If she hung out the window
and let herself drop gracefully she may not hurt herself too badly.
She did so, and sprained her ankle, if not fractured it.
She hobbled to her truck and got. The engine roared to
life. It was one of the sweetest sounds she'd heard in her life.
Behind her, the door to the bar burst open, and the same kind of demons
that her stud became poured out of the doorway, headed directly at her.
The truck tore down the road and left them eating her dust.
She put all her weight on the accelerator, even though it pained her newly
sprained ankle to do so. Survival was more important than controlling
some pain in her ankle. But she was oblivious to it now. Her
only thought was getting somewhere safe.
She huddled in the back of her truck, loading and cocking the
various weapons around her. She felt a slight pain in her stomach.
Then it came again, only more intense this time. She stood up and
moved grogily to a chair, clutching her stomach as if when she let go she
would die. The pain came again, shorter this time, but intensely
all the same.
The contractions had begun...
It had been 8 months since the fateful night... and she
had struggled over those 8 months as to whether she should have the child
or not. What would it be when it came out? Would it be one
of those freaks? If yes, she wouldn't have it... but if no,
if it was normal... even though her father was a blood sucking demon
that tried to kill her... it would still be her child.
She reasoned that she could kill it if it was mutated, but could
she kill a baby? No.
So here she was, taking the risk, praying to whatever God there
was in the heavens that her child would be human.
Normal.
The ferrari cruised on for a short while longer. No one
said anything. Seth took it upon himself to propose the obvious question.
"So you're her daughter?"
"Yes."
"And what does that make you?"
"I am a human vampire hybrid." Her eyes locked on his
in the rear view mirror, "To answer your other question, I hate vampires,
and I know weapons."
Seth digested this for an instant. "Okay, how did you
know where we were?"
"All vampires share a telepathic link. I am part of that
link, although not in a prominant way, so my existance to them goes unoticed.
At least it did, until recently."
"What do you mean?"
"They dug up some history on me. Who I am and that kind
of shit. Now they want me dead. I'm a threat to them."
Kate leaned forward again, "Okay, so what do we do know."
"We get ready to hunt."
They sat around the small fire in the center of the cave.
Kate was huddled in a small blanket. She hadn't noticed how cold
Mexico was at night the previous night. She had been a little distracted.
But now she was freezing. Seth, on the other hand, was attempting
to shrug the cold off, and concentrating on interrogating Crow.
"So how do you know so much about weapons?"
She picked up an assault rifle and took it apart, then put it
all back together in the space of ten seconds. In the following 2
seconds, it was loaded and cocked. "A lot."
"Impressive," he droned sarcastically, "who taught you?"
"My mother. We travelled Mexico for 7 learning from people.
I know weapons, engines, anatomy... survival."
"So your mother's a regular Sarah fucking Conner?"
"She was."
Seth remained silent. Even he had the decency to respect
death. Kate looked over, "What happened to her?"
"She died protecting me. In a cave very much like this
one. I hid behind a boulder while she offloaded everything she had
into them, including her soul..."
Her company may not have understood her previous comment, but
they didn't press the subject. Seth looked at her intentl.,
"This telepathic link, do you know exactly what's going on?"
"No. I exist to the link in the form of a watcher, and
since I don't have an active participation I cannot question and therefore
I can't get the exact answers. I sense things."
Seth rolled his eyes, "Okay Obi - Wan, why are you helping us?"
It was obvious that Crow was getting tired with Seth's smart
arse remarks. "You are the only ones with the natural instinct to
defeat the undead. No others in my lifetime have come close to shaping
up, until you two showed up." Seth sat back and folded his arms.
Crow continued, "This is a partnership. It goes both ways.
I help you, you help me."
Seth shooks his hands at her, "Oh no, thankyou. I've had
my fill of blood sucking fucks for this lifetime, now if you'll excuse
me I'm on my way El Ray." He got up and headed for the cave entrance.
Crow's face turned deadly serious, "Funny, that's just where
I was headed..."
Seth stopped in his tracks. He turned and looked directly
at her. "What?"
"El Ray isn't a hostel for ex cons who pay for sanctuary, it's
a fortress for the vampires, who feast on those foolish enough to pay them
for asylum. That's why your friends in the van were of the sharp
toothed variety."
Seth became physically frustrated. Weapons flew across
the room, and stones were hurled in every direction. When he finally
calmed down, another question came to him, "That's another thing...
how can the survive the sunlight?"
"They just aren't vampires in the sunlight, that's all.
They assume human form by day. They only attacked you because they
thought you knew what they were. That's why they agreed to meet you
at Dawn. It wouldn't blow they're cover in any way."
Seth shook his head in realisation. "I took my gun out
to empty it... that's when they went ballistic. They must have
thought I took it out to take them out. Fuck!"
"It's a good thing you did, otherwise you'd be one of them by
now." Seth was in a mixed sensation of frustration and
gratitude for the luck that had been bestowed upon him.
Kate spoke up. "Okay, so what do you want us to do?"
"Come with me to El Ray. Take them out. Flush them
out of Mexico. Hunt them down..."
