Chapter Twenty One

Kayla waited silently in the shadows. Invisible to Jack and the others, she saw them perfectly, and that was all that mattered now. She cursed to herself as she saw the familiar silhouette of Ianto. But she couldn't think about that now, she had to stay focussed. She always knew that this was going to be a one-man fight. Their hearts pounded like drums in their human chests; a call to arms for any vampire. Not that she liked the thought of using them as bait.

It wouldn't be long now. She could smell them coming. The game was on.

Jack froze when he saw them. For once in his life, he began to think that he had made a gross error of judgement. What was he thinking?! They couldn't fight them! Normally, he relished a good fight, but this... This was suicide! All they could hope for was a passing lucky shot at best. He didn't know what to do.

"Get out!" he said desperately to the others. "There's too many of them! "Go! GET OUT!"

"Not a chance!" replied Owen, cocking the sub-atomic machine gun.

- T – T – T -

This was impossible. She couldn't make out was happening. It was too dark. The noise of the screaming, the blasts from Torchwood's guns and the pinging of bullets as they ricocheted off the metal struts and girders, everything was happening so fast. Gwen felt completely disorientated.

"Come on – focus. Focus!" she scolded herself. Taking a trembling deep breath, she hoisted up the heavy sub-atomic gun and aimed it at one of their attackers. Fixing him in her sights, she squeezed the trigger. She heard a loud whooshing sound as the large bullets left the barrel and the gun recoiled in her hands. Gwen's eyes widened, as the vampire seemed to pixelate in front of her and then dropped to dust on the floor. A strange sense of elation flooded through her body and she smiled just a little. But it was short-lived.

As she looked to her right, she saw another running at full speed, yelling and coming straight for her. Gwen lifted the gun again and without taking time to aim accurately, she fired. This time two shots rang out in quick succession. The first whizzed past and inadvertently took out one vampire hell-bent on ripping Jack's head off, the second got Gwen's assailant right between the eyes. It seemed to stop in mid-air, pull a momentary face of surprise and then disintegrated into nothing.

Gwen saw Kayla in her line of fire. Kayla turned and raised her eyebrows at her. Suddenly though, Kayla's expression changed and she lunged at Gwen.

"GET DOWN!" she yelled, pulling her stake and landing directly on the chest of a skinny blonde-haired female standing approximately two feet from Gwen's back. Kayla pummelled it into the ground and rammed the stake straight through its scrawny heart. Gwen stood and stared, speechless.

"You're welcome!" said Kayla as she stood and jumped through the air over Gwen's head, effortlessly kicking one vampire through the head so hard that its head parted company with its body.

- T – T – T -

The onslaught seemed to last for hours. The Torchwood team were mentally and physically exhausted. Owen was aware that they must be running low on ammunition by now, they probably had only a few shots left at best. He twisted himself into a tight corner of the warehouse and rifled through his pockets. He found four sub-atomic bullets.

As he hastily rammed them into the gun chamber he heard a noise immediately above him. He turned to look, but his vision was blurred by a sharp, sudden blow to the side of his head, as he fell he picked up the gun and fired. The bullet shot straight through two vampires in quick succession. A third grabbed his free arm from the side and wrenched hard. It had been expecting Owen to at least cry out, but he hadn't accounted for the dead not being able to feel pain! Instead Owen turned the gun and placed it squarely against the vampire's chest and smiled sardonically. It looked down at the barrel of the gun and then back at Owen, just as he fired.

"Not today thanks!" Owen spat. He scrambled to his feet, painfully aware that he now had only one remaining bullet. He looked across at Ianto, his gun still bursting into life at the other side of the room. Perhaps he had bullets to share. Owen checked his position. If he was quick, and if he was lucky, he could make it over to him.

- T – T – T -

Ianto felt guilty that he had not seen Kayla for some time. But in all fairness, things were more chaotic than he ever thought possible. He suddenly caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye and was relieved to see her still alive and fighting as hard as ever. Just then, Ianto saw a particularly nasty, dark haired vampire flying down towards him from a girder some way above him. He pointed the sub-atomic destabiliser at him and fired. Nothing. He pulled the trigger again. Nothing. Ianto desperately fired again and again but still nothing. He was out of ammunition.

- T – T – T -

Jack stopped in his tracks, distracted by Ianto's screams as they rang out. His heart sank as he watched him drop to the ground. The vampire had descended on Ianto and started feeding from him. He then lifted Ianto from the ground and laughed, brandishing him like trophy. Owen sprang from behind and fired his last remaining bullet, hoping to God that his aim was true. It wasn't. The bullet smashed into the vampire's arm. He screamed out in agony and anger, dropping Ianto to the ground like a rag doll. Blood from the vampire's wound splattered the wall behind him. It covered Ianto's face almost completely obscuring it from view. Jack could no longer see whether he was alive or dead. Suddenly, Kayla swooped down from above, plunged a stake deep through the chest of the screaming creature.

"Ianto's down!" Jack screamed at Gwen. "Take the SUV. Get him out of here NOW!" He checked frantically around him. "Owen! You too - you're not gonna heal! Go! All of you – we need you alive. Get back to The Hub – get the Medibay ready. GO!"

"I'm staying!" Someone called out from the shadows.

Jack turned towards the voice, he saw no one, but he recognised it immediately. "OK Toshiko – you're with me!" he called out, realising that she had obviously found the perfect vantage point.

Owen made his way over to Ianto, by now unconscious and covered in blood. He tried to lift him but his hands kept slipping with the blood on bare skin.

"Help me!" he shouted desperately over to Gwen. "I can't carry him by myself."

Gwen immediately dropped her weapon and scrambled her way through the semi darkness to the unconscious figure. Draping his arm around her neck, she and Owen hauled Ianto onto his feet and staggering they dragged him towards the doors.

"I'll cover you! GO!" Jack screamed. Kayla leapt at the vampires who were now closing in on the injured party as they tried to leave, she tore the first one's head right off its shoulders as she staked a second through the heart. Jack breathed a sigh of relief as the heavy doors slammed shut behind them. At least they would make it back.

As he turned back, Jack saw the figure flying towards him but it was too late.

"Oh no, not again!" He braced himself for the impact and felt himself lifted high into the air. There was a sickening crack as Jack's body hit the roof girder snapping his spine in two. His lifeless body plummeted through the air, hitting the ground with an almighty thud.

Toshiko, completely concealed under a pile of old boxes in a corner of the warehouse, had the perfect cover. Squinting against the blinding light and trying not to burn her eyes, she fired the Sun Gun. A blood-curdling scream resounded around her. She watched as the vampire hurtling towards her suddenly exploded in a ball of flame and dust. She fired again at another that followed close behind.

Jack's body convulsed violently as it returned from death once more. His lungs burned as he gasped desperately for air. To suffer this once was painful enough; to go through it this many times in one night was killing him. He scrabbled weakly across the floor, fleetingly unaware of what was happening and frantically trying to regain his bearings. Dust and dirt filled his lungs and he coughed violently. He looked hysterically around him, there didn't seem to be that many of them left now. Suddenly Jack, his attention drawn to his left, saw Kayla just as her screams filled the air and she doubled over and fell to her knees.

"NO!" he cried out.

- T – T – T -

Kayla struggled for breath; she steadied the stake as the blood soaked through the white of her shirt and ran down through her fingers. Her adversary laughed and knelt down to face her.

"The old fool said he wanted to kill you, shame I got there first!"

Kayla raised her eyes to meet his and grinned slowly through the pain.

"Yeah?" she snarled slowly. "Well guess what – you missed!"

With a wrenching scream, Kayla pulled the stake out from her chest and thrust it through the heart. The vampire yelled out in agony, desperately trying to free himself, but finding the stake lodged firmly between the bones of his ribcage; he roared angrily and vanished into a cloud of dust.

Kayla attempted the best she could at a smile towards Jack, until she collapsed unconscious in the dirt. As she did so another wave of three vampires closed in on her.

Jack stood unsteadily on his feet. "Hey! Guess what boys –," he panted, "– still alive! You're not the only ones who get to live forever." The vampires turned in surprise and launched themselves at Jack. "Here we go again!"

- T – T – T -

Kayla blinked slowly. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious. There was silence. Nothing but stillness. She sprang up and looked around her. At first, she saw nothing. No movement. All around her dust, flesh and tendrils lay strewn like streamers across the warehouse floor. The sweet thick, stench of blood so heavy in the air, that you didn't need to be a vampire to smell it.

She wiped the sweat from her eyes. As she glanced around her, something caught her eye, a figure lying prone and lifeless in the dirt.

"JACK!"