# 3
By Brian Campo ( bcampo@hotmail.com )
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. Sansker and all Spawn related characters are owned by Todd McFarlane productions and I do not contest that ownership. This story is in no way official, and should be taken as seriously as kids playing Spawn in their backyards. Please, do not sue me, I am hardly worth it :)
Warning: This story contains harsh language and EXTREMELY graphic violence. If you are easily offended, or think your mom might drop a load of hurt on you for reading this, don't. Consider yourself warned.
-A change of heart part one
He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak
Isaiah 59:17
Boston, Massachusetts- The woman entered the meeting chamber with a large leather bound book under her left arm, her dark brown cape billowing out behind her. The room was filled to capacity, men and women sat in chairs around a long oak table, and more crowded the space around them. There was a tangible excitement through out the room. Those gathered knew that something very big was up, but they didn't know what. The nervous buzzing and whirring of saws could be heard.
The woman with the book walked to the end of the table, where a podium and microphone had been set up for her. She sat the book on it, and began to thumb through it. "Good evening." she said into the microphone, and those gathered in the room mumbled a greeting back to her. She found her spot in the book and then looked up at her audience. Her right eye whirred quietly as she looked at the familiar faces around the room.
"I'm glad you could all make it on such short notice, and I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Once you hear what I have to say, you will understand my urgency. How many of you have been watching the news about this business going on in Hong Kong?"
About one quarter of the room raised their hands and other appendages.
"Very good. While the media is ran by secular scum, it can be a useful tool in our quest. For the rest of you, Hong Kong, or the Vampire Nation as it's calling itself these days, has been placed under sanctions by the United Nations. Special Forces are being sent in to arrest the leader of the Vampire Nation, Mr. Jan Kasner. It seems he hasn't exactly been truthful with the world regarding his identity, or his past. It was revealed earlier this evening that he is in fact a rather old vampire by the name of John Sansker."
There was a collective gasp through out the room.
"Yes, that John Sansker. When our founder, Philip Krahn, was ninety-three, his health took a turn for the worst and he knew that he would die soon. He was afraid that those who followed him would forget the ideals and beliefs he had based his crusade on, so he began to write his book, "The Cross We Must Bear". It ended up being over two thousand pages long, and today, it is simply known as the Book of Krahn. The book not only detailed his life and beliefs, it also described the procedures for dealing with evil in it's various forms. It was a manual for battling the abominations and monsters that plague this world. Toward the end of the book, he provided a list of individuals that he felt had to be destroyed if good was to triumph. It included world leaders, heads of churches, vampires, demons, and so forth. John Sansker was at the top of that list.
In his chapter, "Those who must be dismembered and their body parts sent to various parts of the world", Philip referred to Sansker as "Honor less scum who will find you at your weakest moment to torment you." In the chapter, "Heads I'd really like to see on my wall" he called Sansker "the embodiment of evil" and "Satan's favorite son." He compared his first encounter with John Sansker to Christ's meeting with Satan in the desert. I think you get the idea, and realize what we have to do."
The crowd murmured in agreement.
" Now, for a very short time, we have Sansker out in the open, right where we want him. We must move to kill him now, before he goes back underground like the snake he is. I am sure that he will elude capture from Special Forces, since they are not trained to deal with his kind, as we are. If he is allowed to escape, he will change his identity again, and disappear. We will never have another opportunity like the one before us now. Now is the time to strike! We will find him,"
Saws buzzed excitedly in the crowd.
"we will drag him kicking and smoking out into the sun,"
She raised her right arm high in the air, revealing a high tech mechanical construction ending with a chain saw. The blade roared to life, and she slammed it down in the podium.
"And he will feel the awful weight of the Curse!"
All sixty of them stood, shouting and revving their blades. Somewhere in the afterlife, Philip Krahn smiled. Then a devil slapped him across the back of the head and told him to get back to shoveling shit.
Hong Kong- Mark Trevors looked across the street at the crowd gathering around the Hilton hotel. It had all the makings of a wild night for Hong Kong. Police were doing their best to keep the media away from the building, while others were evacuating guests of the hotel. Armored Personnel Carriers hovered down the street, the heat of their engines turning the moisture on the streets to steam. A gunship had circled the building fourteen times in the last half hour, shining it's spotlight in different windows. Old John had really pissed off the wrong people this time.
Mark stepped out into the street and made his way through the crowd. Some of the people carried protest signs, demanding that Sansker be left alone. A few were thrusting the hand sign for vampire power at the television cameras, a peace sign with the the fingers curled down. They hissed grotesquely, revealing their fangs. Mark was not wearing any sun block, so the cameras did not detect him when he walked in front of them. He waited for the next big group of people to come out of the doors to the hotel, and he slid in behind them, entering the building unnoticed.
It was strangely quiet in the building, most of the guests had already been escorted out. Not wanting to run in to anyone, Mark elected to take the stairs up to the penthouse where his boss was staying. When he reached the top floor six minutes later, he was not even out of breath. His vampiric powers gave him more stamina so he could run up the entire building, while a human would have passed out on the tenth floor. He walked up to Sansker's door and knocked. A second later, the door was thrown open and a pistol was shoved in his face.
"Hey, Carl." said Mark.
"Mark? Holy shit! You're alive!" he turned back into the room and shouted, "Hey, John, it's Mark. He's alive!"
Sansker appeared at the door, his eyes shifting up and down the hall behind Mark. He was shirtless and holding a blood soaked towel against his side. "Hey, Mark. I thought you got toasted when my building got bombed."
"Nah," said Mark. "I just got tossed over the north side of the building. I've been looking for you guys all day."
"Well, come on in. Join the fun." Sansker limped away as Mark entered the room and shut the door behind him. The room stank horribly, like the cross between sulfur and burning flesh. The remains of a body lay on the floor, smoldering.
"Goddamn!" said Mark. It looked like someone had used her chest for a barbecue pit.
"Yeah, I still got it, don't I?" said Sansker, surveying his handy work proudly. He continued on his way, going into the bathroom. Mark could see blood smeared all over the far wall, and there were large stains on the carpet. Had Sansker been wounded? He followed the other two vampires into the bathroom, where medical supplies were scattered all over the counter.
"It's still burning, John." said Carl as he picked up a scalpel. "I'm just going to have to cut out all the effected flesh or it will just keep spreading." Sansker turned a little, giving Mark a better view of the nasty looking hole in his side. Little wisps of smoke drifted up out of the wound. Carl knelt down so that he could have a closer look at what he was doing. John grabbed on to the counter edge tightly while Carl began to trim out the meat around the edge of the hole. Nauseated, Mark had to look away.
He noticed an iron spear head was sitting on the counter and he reached to pick it up. A second later, there was a deafening crack that left his hand stinging, and the spear head had disappeared.
"Don't touch this." said John, setting the spear head behind himself.
"Son of a bitch." said Mark, as he rubbed his throbbing hand. Sansker was very fast, Mark hadn't even seen the slap. "I was just going to look at it."
Sansker nodded his head toward the other room. "There's the last person that looked at it. Leave it alone."
"All right, boss." Mark watched Carl pull out a long strand of smoking flesh and toss it into the toilet.
"This should heal in time." said Carl. "But it will take as long as it would for a human. She got you good, John."
"Lets just stitch it and I'll be good to go. What's happening downstairs, Mark?"
"Looks like their gearing up to storm this place. There were four APC's down the street and you've seen the gunship, I'm sure."
"Yeah, we saw it. I'm thinking about borrowing it." John looked down to watch while Carl sewed his wound close. "Carl brought us a bag of toys. Why don't you go pick a couple to play with? They're on the bed."
Mark walked out into the other room and opened up the bulging douffle bag. It was full of assault rifles and pistols. Most of the world had switched to using energy weapons, but not Sansker. He said it was because he didn't trust them, but Mark suspected that energy weapons killed too cleanly for Sansker's taste. He liked to see some splatter when he greased someone. He took a beretta and stuffed it in his waistband and then took a m-280 and four clips for it. He checked the clips and saw that there were hollow point cartridges in them. Mess makers. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and went back into the bathroom.
"Do we have a plan?" he asked. Carl was just finishing up.
"Yeah, we're going to kill a bunch of the fuckers downstairs, and then I'm going to go check up on some property that I hold dear." John picked up something from the medicine cabinet behind him and handed it to Mark. "What do you think about that?"
Mark looked it over and said, "It looks like a bugging device."
"We found that in the ear of the sweetheart in the next room. I don't think that she was working alone. Who ever was on the other end of that thing is trying to fuck me over. I may be paranoid, but they are after me."
"Do you think it's still running?" asked Mark, handing the earpiece back to Sansker.
"No, I stuck it in a light socket earlier and burned it out." He reached over and dropped the bug into the toilet. "Just to be safe." he said.
They walked back into the front room, where Sansker pulled some fresh clothes from his suitcase and dressed. When he finished buttoning his shirt, Carl offered him a shoulder harness with two automatics, which Sansker waved away. "No need, my man. I'll use my hands." Carl pulled the holsters on himself and put on a jacket over them. Sansker put on a leather jacket and a pair of sunglasses. "Well, I'm ready. How about you guys?"
"As I'll ever be." said Carl, who picked up a rifle and loaded it. Mark started for the door, but stopped when he heard Carl and John whispering.
"- trust you with this?" he heard John say, and he was slipping the spear head to Carl.
"After two hundred and sixty years, I hope you can trust me." Carl raised his pant leg and slid the spear head down into his boot. Mark quickly turned around before they could look up and see he was listening. Sansker took the lead and they left the penthouse
All was quiet in the hall. They made their way to the stair well and started down it. Four floors down, they heard voices drifting up from down below. The troops were getting ready to come in. Sansker looked like a kid on christmas morning, all eager to unwrap some gifts. He doubled his pace, and the other two vampires did their best to keep up. When they reached the third floor, Sansker halted, and put his finger to his lips. He pointed at the door leading to the third floor and then pointed at his nose and sniffed. He had smelled something. He smiled giddily and opened the door. Carl and Mark followed him as he crept sneakily down the hallway. Mark could hear some men talking, now, and Sansker was making his way toward them. He chambered the first round in his rifle and raised it his shoulder, ready for anything.
The conversation between the two soldiers was getting clearer the closer they got. One of the men was trying to get the other to hurry up. Apparently the other was going through luggage that had been left in the room, looking for money. Sansker paused outside the open door waiting for the soldiers to come out.
"You're taking too fuckin' long man. We were supposed to have this floor secured ten minutes ago. The sarge is going to rip us a new one."
Carl stopped about twenty feet behind Sansker and kept watch up the hall, while Mark turned around and watched their backs.
"All right, you whiner. Let's get the fuck out of here."
The soldiers came out of the room and Sansker said, "Quiet down, boys. Vampires might hear you."
It looked like they might fall down for a second, and then when they saw who it was, they grabbed for the rifles on their backs. Sansker put the first ones head through the sheet rock wall and snapped the other's neck so hard he was looking at his own ass before he fell to the floor.
"It's all in the wrist." he called back to Carl, who laughed along with his boss. The elevator at the end of the hall dinged, and before the doors opened, all three of the vampires had disappeared. Six UN troopers stepped out, rifles at the ready. They were halfway down the hall when Sansker stepped out of a doorway, hands in his pockets, whistling a ditty.
"Freeze, asshole!" shouted one trooper and a split second later, six guns were pointed at Sansker's head.
"Holy shit!" he said. "Man, you guys really enforce that "No noise after 10 pm" rule here, don't you?"
"John Sansker, you are under arrest for War Crimes and UN Weapons Violations. Place your hands on your head, then turn and face the wall."
"Boy, do you have the wrong guy. Let me show you something."
The trooper sighted Sansker and said, "Don't move."
"Watch close." said Sansker. "Cause I will only be able to do this once, for reasons that will soon be obvious."
He snapped out his arms, puncturing the chests of two troopers standing near him. He spun, a spurting heart in each hand, and then shoved each organ into the opposite body. When he finished his spin he was facing the trooper again, who hadn't yet caught on to what Sansker had done.
"Now, am I wrong or am I right," asked Sansker as the two men fell dead. "was that not the world's fastest heart transplant?"
The trooper grunted in disgust and started to squeeze on the trigger. Sansker put two fingers through his forehead before he could get off a round. He turned to the three remaining troopers and licked the gray matter off of his fingers seductively. All three opened fire, the explosive flashes of light from their rifles turning the plaster of the wall and ceiling into chips and dust. Sansker ducked in, grabbed the leg of the nearest trooper and tore it off. Wielding it as a flaccid bat, he turned on the next trooper and cracked him up along side the head with it.
Sansker was thrown forward by the force of a blast from behind. The third trooper was standing behind him, firing shot after shot into the vampire. Sansker turned toward him and shoved his hand through the man's belly. He grabbed hold of the troopers spine and yanked it out with a "Shlork"ing sound. He shoved the length of jagged bone up through the man's throat and into his skull.
"All done, boys." said John.
Carl and Mark came out of their hiding spots and took a look at Sansker's mess. Two of the troopers were still moving so they popped them in the head with their pistols. John was leaning against the wall, a satisfied look on his face.
"You know," he said. "I've been asked in the past, does the killing ever get old? I tell you the secret to keeping the thrill is creativity. Always be willing to try something new. I was hoping that a couple of them would line up, 'cause there's something I've been wanting to try. Oh well, maybe next time."
"Where do you want to go from here, John?" asked Carl. Mark could never understand how Carl seemed so unfazed by the things Sansker did. He guessed it was because he had been around him for so long and had grown numb to the horror. Mark was twenty five years old now, and only four of those were spent as a vampire. He still felt a certain amount of disgust when he saw John tear someone apart. Andrew used to tell him that that was just his humanity trying to rear it's head.
"I think we should take the-"
Bright light filled the hallway, stopping John mid sentence. The gunship had stopped at the window at the end of the hall way and was shining it's spotlight on them.
"Well, that can't be good." said John. The window blew in, and the hallway exploded as one of the gunships cannons went to work. The lights went out and the Mark was surprised to see Sansker disappear into the smoke and flames, running toward the gunship. It took everything Mark had to keep from running the other way. He saw Carl take to John's heels and he followed.
He felt a burning in his chest, and knew he had been hit. No matter, he thought, it would heal quickly. Up ahead, he could see two black shapes dodging in and out of the line of the cannons fire. The taller of the two jumped out the broken window and the spotlight pitched wildly.
"That crazy son of a bitch," thought Mark. "he's trying to take on a gunship!"
He ran the rest of the way down the hall and out of the smoke. He could see Sansker clearly now, clinging to the front of the air craft, punching at the glass of the cockpit. Mark could see the pilots inside screaming in terror, and they were bucking the aircraft around, trying to throw off their attacker. Sansker had his claws secured on one of the vents under the window, and he wasn't going anywhere. His hand punched through the thick glass and grabbed onto one of the pilots. There was a whirring sound as the other pilot brought a cannon around to bear on Sansker. Sansker let go of the pilot and slid down the nose of the gunship as the cannon opened fire. It looked like he might fall right off the end, but at the last second he grabbed onto the radio antenna sticking from the nose. He swung in under the craft and delivered a solid kick to the bottom of the cannon that had tried to shoot him. It snapped off of it's supports and was sucked back along the side of the gunship, right into the engine turbine. The left engine exploded and the nose of the craft dipped until it was standing on end. Sansker hung tenaciously to the radio antenna, four tons of burning aircraft right about him. The gunship began to fall. Mark thought John looked a little worried.
Sansker let go of the antenna and dropped the last forty feet to the ground. He hit the ground running, the shadow of the gunship on his back. It nose-dived into the ground and then the back end fell back toward the hotel where Carl and Mark were standing. It crashed through the second floor windows right below them and exploded. The floor fell out from under them and then they were falling into the fire.
Out in the midatlantic, a brown transport raced east. Inside, men and women gathered around television monitors, watching attentively. The flickering light reflected off of their visors and shining armor. The screens showed live broadcasts from Hong Kong and the ordeal being played out at the Hilton. The men and women sat forward in anticipation when the gunship began to crash. A few seconds later, when Sansker ran clear, they cursed and flopped back in their chairs.
"We'll get him." said the woman in the back. "Don't fret, children."
The force of the blast knocked Sansker onto his face and he skidded on the pavement a couple more feet before coming to a stop.
"Goddamnit." he said as he pulled himself to his feet. He didn't mean to crash the thing, he was just going to borrow it. He turned around to check the damage and saw that the first three floors of the hotel were on fire. The window that Carl and Mark had been standing at was now just the top of a very big hole in the side of the building. Sansker hoped that they were ok. A vampire could survive fire, but being burned alive was no fun in anyone's book.
Down the street, people were getting up off the ground and crawling out from under cars. Several platoons of soldiers were standing out in the street, waiting for the order to go in.
"Hey," he heard someone shout. "it's him! It's that Sansker bastard!"
Sansker spun around searching for cover. He was in the middle of the street, there was no cover. Guns down the street began to fire at him. Having no where else to go, John ran back toward the hotel. He jumped over the wreckage of the aircraft and disappeared into the burning building.
"Mr. McBean!"
The UN inspector turned to see a man in camouflage striding up toward him. "What can I do for you, Colonel Brighton?"
"We have a problem, sir. It's the building, it was damaged in the crash earlier." George looked over at the twenty story structure critically. It did seem to be leaning to the left.
"What are we supposed to do about it?"
"Sir, all of our troops are being recalled out of the building. We do not feel it is safe for them to be in there."
"Now, hold on!" said George. "How the hell are we going to catch that bastard if all the troops are out here?"
"It's just too dangerous." said Brighton. "We're just going to have wait him out. He'll have to come out eventually."
"Perhaps I could be of help, Sir!" said a voice behind them.
They turned to see a very large man with a crew cut and a black uniform stomping up toward them. His voice sounded like it was being amplified somehow, as if someone had inserted a megaphone into his mouth. He snapped to attention, and said, "Name's Straight Razor, sir! My friends call me Razor, sir! At least they would if I had any friends, sir!"
"That's good, son." said Brighton. "What can we do for you?"
"It's what I can do for you, sir! The SS sent me in to help with this vampire problem you're having, sir!" He turned so that they could see the badge on his shoulder showing twin lightning bolts, the symbol of the SS.
"So, you're a SPB. What exactly is it that you do, son?"
"Well, sir, I have a titanium steel skeleton!" He slammed his fist into his forehead, producing a loud clanking sound, which McBean thought sounded just a little hollow. "I also have genetically enhanced reflexes and strength!" He flashed his arms around, karate chopping invisible enemies. "On top of that, sir, it was a vampire that kilt my mama!"
"Well, he certainly isn't lacking in enthusiasm, is he, Brighton?" asked McBean.
The Colonel was looking the man up and down, like he was trying to figure out just what the hell his deal was.
"So you want to go into a collapsing building and bring out Sansker?"
"Sir, it would be my pleasure to go in there and drag that bloodsucking son of a bitch out by his ass hairs, Sir!"
Brighton and McBean looked at each other. McBean shrugged.
"Why the hell not? Good luck, son."
"Thank you, Sir!"
Straight Razor spun on his heal and stomped across the street toward the Hilton. "Well, that was interesting." said Brighton.
"Yeah." said McBean, who was starting to get a bad feeling about all of this.
The inside of the hotel looked much worse than the outside. It looked like it had been bombed. Half of the first three floors lay in piles of broken rock. The building above groaned as it contemplated just falling down. Occasionally, there was a deafening crash as another slab of rock fell free from it's moorings and dropped to the ground.
Sansker climbed through the rubble inside the Hilton, sniffing and hoping that his sensitive nose would detect some sign of Mark or Carl. All this dust and smoke was messing with his sense of smell, however, and he couldn't locate them. Every couple of seconds, he would call out one of their names, and listen for a response.
The sound of falling gravel caught Sansker's attention and he saw a hand shoving out of the broken concrete thirty feet away. He crossed over to it as quickly as he could and grabbed hold of the hand. He gently pulled and Mark's head appeared a few seconds later, gasping for air. John pulled him the rest of the way out, and then began to dig down through the chunks of rock. Carl had to be somewhere close.
He lifted a six foot slab of concrete and found his friend underneath it, squashed flat as a pancake, but otherwise just fine. He yanked and tugged his crushed friend out into the open where he could heal, and then sat down to let some of his own wounds have time to heal. He had several holes in his torso from the gunship cannon and the trooper upstairs that had shot him. If he waited a couple of minutes they would close up and he would be good to go. His side hurt, and he thought that he might have ripped the stitches out.
A couple of minutes later, Carl moaned and sat up. "We got to find something else to do with our nights, John. This shit sucks."
"I hear you." said Sansker, who got to his feet and offered his friend a hand. Mark looked genuinely shaken, and John didn't think that he had ever come that close to death before. He'd get over it in a while, he was sure.
"You did good, Mark." he told him. The kid smiled weakly in return. "You guys feel up to getting the hell out of here?"
He started toward the hole leading outside, Carl and Mark following him. "Now, you guys are going to have to keep up when I start running, because I don't really want to come back and get you. Just stay right behind me, and you'll be fine."
"Oh, I doubt it!" boomed a voice out of the darkness in front of them. "First you will have to face the Razor! The Straight Razor!"
"You have got to be kidding me." said John as a dark shape stepped out between them and freedom, flexing and waving it's arms.
"What's wrong, Vampire Scum?!" shouted the voice. "Afraid to fight someone your own size?!"
"Where did they find this clown?" asked John. "Hold on, guys, this will only take a second."
Sansker made a leap that closed the distance between him and Straight Razor. His arm stuck out, his hand already cupped for the heart it would rip out. An instant later, there was a clanking sound and Sansker fell down clutching his hand.
"Aw, shit." he said.
Straight Razor pounded his chest and shouted, "What's wrong, you worthless piece of snake shit?! Doesn't a solid titanium steel ribcage agree with you?! Well, let's see how you like an ass kicking like you wouldn't believe!"
Sansker realized what this guys gestures and voice reminded him of. One of those professional wrestlers from the late twentieth century, in all their loud and obnoxious glory.
Straight Razor grabbed a handful of Sansker's hair and lifted him into the air. "Alley Oop!" he yelled as he slammed Sansker into a concrete column.
"You need any help there, John?" Carl called out.
"No," said John, his voice a little strained. "I got it all under control. It's all good, Carl."
Straight Razor grabbed him by the throat and by the crotch and cracked Sansker's back over his knee. "How does that feel, feign?! You like that?! You want more?!"
Sansker popped the claws out of his finger tips and ripped the flesh off the front of Straight Razor's skull. The Shadow Striker clutched at his face screeching, while Sansker rolled out of reach. He got to his feet, his legs shaking as if they were unsure whether they were up to the task of holding him up. He straightened his back and it cracked loudly as his spine slipped back into alignment.
"I had that happen to me one time." said John. "Hurt's, doesn't it?"
Straight Razor dropped his blood covered hands away from his face. "I WILL BREAK YOU!" he said and charged at Sansker with a loud roar.
"First a face lift." said Sansker as he crouched under Straight Razors flailing arms. He shoved his claws into his belly, grabbed a hand full of guts and ripped them out. "Then a tummy tuck." Straight Razor ran past, tripping over his own innards. He ran right smack into a column, which broke in half. Above them, the building began to rumble
Sansker was a blur as he grabbed Carl and Mark and slung them over his shoulders. He ran for the opening as fast as he could as chunks of concrete began to fall around them. Straight Razor was stumbling around with a look on his face that said, "Wha?"
Across the street, George heard someone shout, "There he is again!" He sat down his coffee and turned to see John Sansker exit the building at a full run, with two men slung over his shoulders.
"Kill him!" he shouted at his men, who pulled up their guns and opened fire. The vampire dodged around the bullets and kept going. A second later, he disappeared around the corner onto another street.
A rumble made George turn back toward the building. The Hilton was leaning toward them and it was quivering back and forth like it was made from Jell-O. Right before it collapsed on them, George thought about how he would never be able to spend all that money he had been paid.
Well, that's the first issue, thanks for taking the time to read it. As always, if you liked this story, you might like my others, check them out at my site, Bad Monkey Comics!!!
If you have any comments or cursewords, e-mail me at bcampo@hotmail.com I welcome all comments and criticisms, but ask if you are going to tell me I suck, tell me why I suck (yeah, that sounded funny to me too.)
By the way, I will probably print any letters I get next issue (if I get any), so if you don't want yours printed, let me know.