Notes : Ok.. This chapter isn't going to be for the kiddies. If you're
under 17, please close your eyes before reading. Thank you, and I hope you
enjoy the show.
"Now this is not gonna be pretty. We're talking violence, strong language, adult content…" -- BTVS
Shadows : Chapter 7
After hearing the whole story Clark's parents had expressed far stronger objections than Chloe. Suggestions had ranged from waiting until he and Chloe could do more research all the way to an in depth conversation with Agent Philips. But what could he really tell Agent Philips without opening himself up to uncomfortable scrutiny? And how could he wait while they poured through research materials knowing that people were dying simply because he was too cautious to try and do something? In the end that simple argument had won over his parents resigned support with simple repetition, they were caring people, it was from them that he'd learned the value of life.
Now if I were a vampire where would I be? Not in Smallville.
Unfortunately that kind of thinking wasn't going to get him anywhere.
Smallville suddenly seemed far too big. Clark didn't even let himself think about the numerous farms and homes that extended past the outskirts of town, but instead focussed on Smallville proper. If the vampire decided to range that far afield his cause was already hopeless.
Without anything to guide him Clark headed towards Main Street.
Once, a long time ago, Sean had actually liked the night; walking beneath a blanket of stars while a cool summer breeze pulled the heat away had seemed the height of relaxation. Now the darkness outside his window spoke only of danger, of death.
"Sir?" The voice of one of his agents spoke out patiently behind him. By some minor miracle neither the police he'd been forced to allow on the scene nor the teenagers he'd foolishly confided in had talked to the press and no word of the previous day's deaths had been seen or heard in the media. Sean had set up roadblocks around the town and asked for special scrutiny to be made on Metropolis, but when neither of these activities had returned any immediate results he'd decided to wait in Smallville. It was possible that it hadn't left. The bus passengers had not only been told they could leave, but encouraged to do so, and to Mr. Finn's mixed delight and anxiety Sean had taken over the hotel as his base of operations.
"Yes, what is it?"
"I passed along your instructions that people were to sleep in shifts, one up one down." Agent Mayweather was nothing if not efficient. If they failed, if it disappeared and Sean had to start from scratch, he was considering having Mayweather assigned to him. Sean had spent far too much time running around the country on his own and not only did it increase the risk but if anything happened to him there would be no one left in a position to easily replace him.
"Good, thank you. Nothing is going to happen until morning Mayweather so you might as well get some sleep. I'll trade off with you in three hours." Mayweather nodded, but didn't move to leave the room. "Is there something else?"
"I'd like to know what we're dealing with agent Philips." Ah. He'd known Mayweather was going to ask that at some point. That had been Sean's mistake, instead of simply doing as he'd been told he'd allowed his curiosity to take hold. The first step towards perdition.
"Ask me again if we're still alive tomorrow."
Mayweather simply nodded, accepting the fatalistic statement at face value, then headed out into the hall and closed the door behind him.
So where are you Gabriel? Why are you still in Smallville? You know better…
Sean shook his head to wipe the name from his mind. It didn't deserve a name. It was the prey, the target, it was his goal and he would achieve it.
Staring out the window Sean tried to bury the past.
Tom was standing silently and alertly in front of the hotel breakers. He'd tried having a conversation with Franklin, the sturdy Asian man assigned the duty with him but for some reason it simply hadn't worked. After numerous flawed attempts to find something the two men had in common they had both mutually conceded defeat. Some people were just not destined to have meaningful conversations with each other.
It was an odd post regardless, there seemed little logic in posting agents in a basement when all the building entrances were guarded above. Two of them were watching the breakers and four more were stationed outside the doors. The only window in the room was typical of basement windows, small and thick. He supposed someone with a sledgehammer might be able to break through it, but the noise would be horrendous and anyone but a child would take five minutes to worm their way through the frame.
Outside the window there was nothing but darkness.
1 It's too bright…
It was too bright inside the hotel. For some insane reason agent Philips had insisted on turning on every single freaking light. The man was paranoid, erratic, how he'd ever gotten so much pull in high places Tom couldn't imagine.
2 It's so bright it's hurting your eyes…
Tom blinked several times, squinting, if he didn't know better he would have sworn that the light bull in the ceiling put out two-hundred watts. It was ridiculous. Maybe if he requested it the agent in charge would let him switch it with something dimmer.
3 They won't care…
They wouldn't, Tom could go blind for all anyone else would care. Nothing mattered except following orders... following orders…
4 Fuck them…hit the breakers…
No… that didn't seem right. He couldn't turn off the breakers. God but it was so damned bright his eyes were about to burst and…
Break the bulb then… what are they gonna do?…It's just a fucking light bulb… break it or your eyes are going to burst and your brain is going to explode and…
Tom closed his eyes to try and shut it out. It was too bright. His eyes felt like they were about to explode. Even through his eyelids and his arm the light somehow penetrated and damn it he was going to go blind if…
The sound of shattering glass reached his ears and suddenly everything went dark. His eyes felt better, everything felt better. He wasn't going to go blind after all.
Not that he wasn't grateful, but Tom found himself wondering why Franklin had broken the light bulb.
The entire room was plunged into complete and utter darkness and the words on his laptop disappeared, leaving a disquieting after image that Sean had to blink away.
Stay calm. It could be a coincidence. A power line could have gone down. It was always possible that the lights were out for that entire section of the city.
Looking out the window he was faced with lights that shone brightly on the far side of the parking lot, taunting him.
Oh shit.
Sean took a second to throw on his flak jacket, despite knowing what a futile gesture it was, before grabbing his gun and turning on his flashlight.
"All units, report."
One by one the all clears came in, first from the unit at the back entrance, then from the guards at the front, then those were followed by reports from the agents that had been stationed at the fire exits.
The team that had been assigned to guard the breakers remained silent.
Stay calm. Get as many of them away alive as you can. You know what's about to happen but don't let any more of them die than you have to.
"Teams one, three, and five form up at the top of the stairs into the basement. Shine your lights down the stairs and shoot anything that comes up without identifying itself first. Everyone else wake your alternates. I want all agents to move across the street in pairs and find shelter in the lit buildings. Move it."
Kelly tried to remember if there'd been any mention of monsters in the dark when she'd signed up for special operations. She'd made the switch in exchange for more excitement, more money, and the chance to play with lots of firepower and so far she had yet to be disappointed. In her first year alone she'd seen three heavy shoot outs with drug ring or paramilitary operations, a bloody shoot out at a warehouse, another bloody shoot out at a warehouse, and another bloody shoot out at a warehouse.
What was it with felons and warehouses?
Of course all the actions had been completely off the books and would have been deemed unjustified if revealed to public scrutiny, but that had yet to bother her. If the American justice system refused to acknowledge crime as the war it was then she could entirely understand why fringe groups in the FBI saw fit to circumvent said system. Kelly had been with the FBI for fifteen years, but only the last five of that had been served in the special operations group.
This, her first situation in so public a place as a hotel, was also the first time they'd lost control. It was the first time where she hadn't been one of the aggressors. Kelly didn't like it.
Rumors had been circulating all day about what exactly they were doing in Smallville Kansas. The odd instructions, the deaths of three heavily armed agents at the hands of a single perpetrator, it was enough to shake the confidence of even such an organized and competent group as the one she was part of. Standing at the top of the steps, staring down into a basement that seemed inadequately lit by the narrow beams of their flashlights, she could almost buy into the suggestions that had been bandied about during the day. Sometimes in jest, and sometimes in veiled uncertainty, the word 'monster' had been ascribed to their target.
Of course it was pure nonsense.
She had her orders and she would follow them. After setting up the hotel as a main base the agents had been split into groups of six, and in the hurried instructions issued over the radio agent Philips had quickly called for eighteen people to move to and defend the basement stairs. It seemed excessive. The stairs were narrow enough that even standing back from the entrance no more than ten of them were safely placed in a position to fire, the other six had been forced to position themselves as a rear guard. Ten beams of light cut through the darkness, it should have been more than enough to illuminate the area but instead it seemed to simply accentuate just how dark everything else really was.
With an entire arsenal pointing down the stairs, anything that so much as glanced up them would find itself riddled with metal; those thoughts were very comforting. Why agent Philips had sounded so certain there was an imminent threat from below Kelly didn't know, and whether he was really as qualified to lead as he tried to act she also didn't know, but it didn't matter. She was under orders, she would follow them, that was what would keep her alive.
The clatter of gunfire breached the silence and only years of discipline prevented her from jumping at the sound. She could see the sparks of ricochet as metal deflected down the staircase heading towards…
Towards nothing.
"Hold your fire." She yelled the words, there was no point in maintaining silence while some unprofessional oaf lost his nerve. She had to yell twice more before he finally stopped, whether because it took him that long to register her words or because he'd emptied his clip she didn't know.
"What the hell were you firing at agent." She growled, trying to relay every ounce of disapproval she could muster.
"I saw something move." The voice sounded tentative and confused, she didn't recognize it. It must not be someone she'd worked with before. Gathering over sixty agents on short notice had resulted in people being pulled from a large variety of completely unrelated assignments. It wasn't ideal but they were professionals, they could all do their jobs.
Or most of them could. "Nothing moved, I haven't taken my eyes off the stairs and nothing moved."
"I swear to god something moved." He sounded shaken, if it weren't for their complete isolation she would have ordered him to leave. As it was she'd simply have to deal with him.
"Did anyone else see something move?" Murmurs of agreement confirmed that indeed, nothing had moved. The man had been jumping at shadows.
One second she was staring down the stares and all of her attention, except for the tiny thoughts planning on submitting a disciplinary report concerning the errant agent, was completely focussed. The next second the air in front of her coalesced into a figure that seemed almost cut directly from the darkness. He was reaching towards her with blinding speed.
For fifteen seconds gunfire echoed through the hotel, a physical manifestation of sound that struck every wall, every door, and every person. Then all went silent.
Sean and agent Mayweather burst out of the front doors at a run, moving from the claustrophobic hotel into the more open but no safer parking lot. Turning Sean could see several pairs of agents still proceeding down the main hall in an almost military fashion. Don't route, retreat, that was the paradigm they followed as they watched behind and checked every corner for danger, proceeding at what felt to Sean like a snail's pace. There were some situations in which caution could keep you alive, this was one in which it was going to get them killed.
But Sean couldn't simply abandon them.
Propping one of the double doors open he kneeled down, aiming his flashlight and rifle up the hall despite the probability that it would be nothing more than a futile gesture. Agent Mayweather followed his lead and propped open the other door in a similar manner. Sean briefly considered yelling at the agents but stopped himself and turned on his radio instead. "I said move it. I didn't say crawl, I didn't say walk, I didn't say check every god damn corner for something you can shoot. Now get out of there as fast as you can."
It took several seconds for the agents he was watching to realize that the comments were directed at them. It took several more seconds for them to put aside their natural instinct and act on his insistence. Now that he could take a good look Sean saw that there were eight, not six agents moving down that hall. He could only hope that the rest had already exited the building. Sean would wait for these eight, then he would go, if there was anyone else that hadn't left yet they were probably already dead or dying.
He registered brief yells as the lights of the last two agents clattered to the ground.
The first pair of agents exited the building, sprinting across the parking lot towards the streetlights and the brightly-lit buildings beyond.
Gunfire echoed through the hall for a moment, then another one of the lights fell, this time disappearing all together.
The second pair of agents moved past. There was still one agent coming down the hall, but whoever it was, was probably already dead. Gauging the distance across the parking lot Sean suddenly realized he was dead too. It didn't matter how fast he ran, it would reach the front doors before he could ever hope to make it across the parking lot.
Unless someone slowed the thing down. Making a decision Sean turned to Mayweather and yelled at him to go. Mayweather understood orders, he did what he was told, and Sean had told him to move. Without stopping to ask questions the man set off with speed entirely out of proportion to his size.
Good, Sean had gotten too many people killed already. The thought that Mayweather would survive was a minor salve for his conscience, but it would have to do.
When the last light went out Sean let a bitter smile cross his face. He'd been here before and had spent the rest of his life since trying to forget it. For the briefest moment past and present merged and Sean pulled the trigger, filling the hall with lethal metal.
It would never stop it, but it might slow it down. Every second counted.
At the first sound of gunfire Clark stopped to listen. Turning his head to identify the source he set out, headed for the place where everything had begun.
When Clark reached the hotel he found it dark and lifeless. Agent Philips was alone at the front doors, staring into the hotel, firing a gun along the same path in which he was directing a painfully bright ray of light. To Clark's still heightened perceptions each bullet uttered a low pitched thwacking sound as it left the barrel, each casing reverberated endlessly as it fell to the ground.
Staring through the hotel walls he could make out the x-ray image of what looked like a person, its bones and joints connected to make an almost cartoonish figure. But it wasn't a person, it was doing thing no person could do. It was moving almost as fast as the bullets, never in a single place at a single moment but somehow always between them as it flowed from one position to the next. It made no attempts to step aside or avoid the pieces of metal, instead it simply charged through them. The bullets that penetrated its form seemed to simply disappear, neither impacting nor appearing out the other side.
Moving the remaining distance that separated him from agent Philips, Clark abruptly pulled the man's weapon from his grasp. It wasn't doing any good, and Clark needed to block the creature's path. He didn't know how, but he was going to hold the creature at the door long enough for the fleeing agents to escape. Long enough for agent Philips to escape.
Staring at the agent's shocked face Clark briefly considered throwing him to safety, but decided against it. Neither could he carry him, because that would guarantee the death of the other three agents who were still struggling to reach the other side of the street. Without any other option he simply turned and said a single word. "Go."
Through the confusion and amazement surfaced recognition, a basic understanding of what Clark was offering irrespective of circumstances. With a brief nod of thanks the agent turned and left, headed for safety, while Clark waited, watching as darkness rolled towards him.
The shape of the vampire swerved to move around Clark but he moved in turn, it swerved again and again Clark interposed himself between it and its quarry. In a blur the actions accumulated until two lines, one the swirl of a blue jacket mixed with the pale color of flesh, the other an absence of color where light was expelled as unwanted, formed a border between two conflicting forces.
Just as quickly both lines contracted until they were once again singular points.
Clark forced himself to keep his eyes low, refusing to look back into the depths from which he knew it was considering him. Staring at the crack of dried lips and the teeth behind them he noticed that its mouth seemed no different than any other mouth he'd ever seen. For some reason that made things worse, that the creature would have any part not warped and twisted by its nature was almost an affront to some internal sense of right and wrong.
Clark hadn't known how to stop it, the simple act of physically blocking its progress had been a move born of desperation. In the back of his mind he'd continually expected it to end the game and pass directly through him.
But it hadn't, there were limits to what it could do.
"You're starting to piss me off." The words called forth images of slithering maggots and dying screams but Clark just pushed them away to focus on the meaning.
He was pissing it off. Good, that meant he was doing something right.
It grinned at him then, pleased with itself for no apparent reason. After contemplating Clark for a moment it began to talk in an almost conversational tone.
"How's your bitch doing?"
Chloe… it was talking about Chloe. Clark wanted to pound the grin off its face.
"I was going to rip her head off you know… rip it off and leave it as a present." Images assailed him, disgusting horrible images that made him want to throw up and cry all at the same time. Every word brought with it thoughts and meaning and feelings completely alien. "You sure you wouldn't like her better that way? One piece for this, one for that…"
Clark swung his fist and it danced back a step, laughing at him. For a moment he almost forgot himself and looked into its eyes, but only for a moment. Morning, he just had to pace it until morning. Then they'd see who was laughing.
"But that was last night. When I found her tonight I decided to give her something special."
Meaning fell behind the words. Chloe was safe. She'd kissed him and then she'd gone home and there was no way it had any idea where to find her and…
And it had been hours since the sun went down.
The creature's lips sneered at him and he suddenly wondered how he could ever have compared them to those of a person. It was lying, it was made of lies.
"You wouldn't know where to find her." For some reason it found that absolutely hysterical. It fell back against the wall and almost choked from its cackling. Barely visible within the wall's shadows it rolled back and forth with complete and utter glee.
He just had to follow it until morning.
"You should have checked the trunk." The vampire's figure curled up in the trunk of Chloe's car, calmly waiting for her to return and drive it back to her home…
She would have had the lights on, it couldn't get to her if she had the lights on… The darkness of the hotel called out the lie and laid it bare before him.
Clark's fist demolished a chunk of the wall, opening a hole into the entranceway beyond. By the time he struck towards the vampire it had somehow moved behind him, still laughing, still taunting. It talked to him about how it had made her watch while it slowly bled her parents dry, how it had carefully pulled her apart piece by piece, first the fingers, then the toes… never letting her die, never letting her pass out as it tasted her whimpers and screams and fear and hate and agony.
Every word and detail brought a memory, every mention of what it had done emerged in Clark's mind as if he had done it himself. Blood covered his hands and he could hear her pleading filling his ears, begging him to let her live even as he…
It told him about how she had cried out his name before it finally ripped out the throat from what was left.
Turning Clark threw himself at the creature, not caring if he could touch it, simply needing to strike out…
But there was nothing to strike out at. In the fraction of a second before Clark had turned the vampire had disappeared, somehow vanishing into the night without a trace.
Chloe.
"Now this is not gonna be pretty. We're talking violence, strong language, adult content…" -- BTVS
Shadows : Chapter 7
After hearing the whole story Clark's parents had expressed far stronger objections than Chloe. Suggestions had ranged from waiting until he and Chloe could do more research all the way to an in depth conversation with Agent Philips. But what could he really tell Agent Philips without opening himself up to uncomfortable scrutiny? And how could he wait while they poured through research materials knowing that people were dying simply because he was too cautious to try and do something? In the end that simple argument had won over his parents resigned support with simple repetition, they were caring people, it was from them that he'd learned the value of life.
Now if I were a vampire where would I be? Not in Smallville.
Unfortunately that kind of thinking wasn't going to get him anywhere.
Smallville suddenly seemed far too big. Clark didn't even let himself think about the numerous farms and homes that extended past the outskirts of town, but instead focussed on Smallville proper. If the vampire decided to range that far afield his cause was already hopeless.
Without anything to guide him Clark headed towards Main Street.
Once, a long time ago, Sean had actually liked the night; walking beneath a blanket of stars while a cool summer breeze pulled the heat away had seemed the height of relaxation. Now the darkness outside his window spoke only of danger, of death.
"Sir?" The voice of one of his agents spoke out patiently behind him. By some minor miracle neither the police he'd been forced to allow on the scene nor the teenagers he'd foolishly confided in had talked to the press and no word of the previous day's deaths had been seen or heard in the media. Sean had set up roadblocks around the town and asked for special scrutiny to be made on Metropolis, but when neither of these activities had returned any immediate results he'd decided to wait in Smallville. It was possible that it hadn't left. The bus passengers had not only been told they could leave, but encouraged to do so, and to Mr. Finn's mixed delight and anxiety Sean had taken over the hotel as his base of operations.
"Yes, what is it?"
"I passed along your instructions that people were to sleep in shifts, one up one down." Agent Mayweather was nothing if not efficient. If they failed, if it disappeared and Sean had to start from scratch, he was considering having Mayweather assigned to him. Sean had spent far too much time running around the country on his own and not only did it increase the risk but if anything happened to him there would be no one left in a position to easily replace him.
"Good, thank you. Nothing is going to happen until morning Mayweather so you might as well get some sleep. I'll trade off with you in three hours." Mayweather nodded, but didn't move to leave the room. "Is there something else?"
"I'd like to know what we're dealing with agent Philips." Ah. He'd known Mayweather was going to ask that at some point. That had been Sean's mistake, instead of simply doing as he'd been told he'd allowed his curiosity to take hold. The first step towards perdition.
"Ask me again if we're still alive tomorrow."
Mayweather simply nodded, accepting the fatalistic statement at face value, then headed out into the hall and closed the door behind him.
So where are you Gabriel? Why are you still in Smallville? You know better…
Sean shook his head to wipe the name from his mind. It didn't deserve a name. It was the prey, the target, it was his goal and he would achieve it.
Staring out the window Sean tried to bury the past.
Tom was standing silently and alertly in front of the hotel breakers. He'd tried having a conversation with Franklin, the sturdy Asian man assigned the duty with him but for some reason it simply hadn't worked. After numerous flawed attempts to find something the two men had in common they had both mutually conceded defeat. Some people were just not destined to have meaningful conversations with each other.
It was an odd post regardless, there seemed little logic in posting agents in a basement when all the building entrances were guarded above. Two of them were watching the breakers and four more were stationed outside the doors. The only window in the room was typical of basement windows, small and thick. He supposed someone with a sledgehammer might be able to break through it, but the noise would be horrendous and anyone but a child would take five minutes to worm their way through the frame.
Outside the window there was nothing but darkness.
1 It's too bright…
It was too bright inside the hotel. For some insane reason agent Philips had insisted on turning on every single freaking light. The man was paranoid, erratic, how he'd ever gotten so much pull in high places Tom couldn't imagine.
2 It's so bright it's hurting your eyes…
Tom blinked several times, squinting, if he didn't know better he would have sworn that the light bull in the ceiling put out two-hundred watts. It was ridiculous. Maybe if he requested it the agent in charge would let him switch it with something dimmer.
3 They won't care…
They wouldn't, Tom could go blind for all anyone else would care. Nothing mattered except following orders... following orders…
4 Fuck them…hit the breakers…
No… that didn't seem right. He couldn't turn off the breakers. God but it was so damned bright his eyes were about to burst and…
Break the bulb then… what are they gonna do?…It's just a fucking light bulb… break it or your eyes are going to burst and your brain is going to explode and…
Tom closed his eyes to try and shut it out. It was too bright. His eyes felt like they were about to explode. Even through his eyelids and his arm the light somehow penetrated and damn it he was going to go blind if…
The sound of shattering glass reached his ears and suddenly everything went dark. His eyes felt better, everything felt better. He wasn't going to go blind after all.
Not that he wasn't grateful, but Tom found himself wondering why Franklin had broken the light bulb.
The entire room was plunged into complete and utter darkness and the words on his laptop disappeared, leaving a disquieting after image that Sean had to blink away.
Stay calm. It could be a coincidence. A power line could have gone down. It was always possible that the lights were out for that entire section of the city.
Looking out the window he was faced with lights that shone brightly on the far side of the parking lot, taunting him.
Oh shit.
Sean took a second to throw on his flak jacket, despite knowing what a futile gesture it was, before grabbing his gun and turning on his flashlight.
"All units, report."
One by one the all clears came in, first from the unit at the back entrance, then from the guards at the front, then those were followed by reports from the agents that had been stationed at the fire exits.
The team that had been assigned to guard the breakers remained silent.
Stay calm. Get as many of them away alive as you can. You know what's about to happen but don't let any more of them die than you have to.
"Teams one, three, and five form up at the top of the stairs into the basement. Shine your lights down the stairs and shoot anything that comes up without identifying itself first. Everyone else wake your alternates. I want all agents to move across the street in pairs and find shelter in the lit buildings. Move it."
Kelly tried to remember if there'd been any mention of monsters in the dark when she'd signed up for special operations. She'd made the switch in exchange for more excitement, more money, and the chance to play with lots of firepower and so far she had yet to be disappointed. In her first year alone she'd seen three heavy shoot outs with drug ring or paramilitary operations, a bloody shoot out at a warehouse, another bloody shoot out at a warehouse, and another bloody shoot out at a warehouse.
What was it with felons and warehouses?
Of course all the actions had been completely off the books and would have been deemed unjustified if revealed to public scrutiny, but that had yet to bother her. If the American justice system refused to acknowledge crime as the war it was then she could entirely understand why fringe groups in the FBI saw fit to circumvent said system. Kelly had been with the FBI for fifteen years, but only the last five of that had been served in the special operations group.
This, her first situation in so public a place as a hotel, was also the first time they'd lost control. It was the first time where she hadn't been one of the aggressors. Kelly didn't like it.
Rumors had been circulating all day about what exactly they were doing in Smallville Kansas. The odd instructions, the deaths of three heavily armed agents at the hands of a single perpetrator, it was enough to shake the confidence of even such an organized and competent group as the one she was part of. Standing at the top of the steps, staring down into a basement that seemed inadequately lit by the narrow beams of their flashlights, she could almost buy into the suggestions that had been bandied about during the day. Sometimes in jest, and sometimes in veiled uncertainty, the word 'monster' had been ascribed to their target.
Of course it was pure nonsense.
She had her orders and she would follow them. After setting up the hotel as a main base the agents had been split into groups of six, and in the hurried instructions issued over the radio agent Philips had quickly called for eighteen people to move to and defend the basement stairs. It seemed excessive. The stairs were narrow enough that even standing back from the entrance no more than ten of them were safely placed in a position to fire, the other six had been forced to position themselves as a rear guard. Ten beams of light cut through the darkness, it should have been more than enough to illuminate the area but instead it seemed to simply accentuate just how dark everything else really was.
With an entire arsenal pointing down the stairs, anything that so much as glanced up them would find itself riddled with metal; those thoughts were very comforting. Why agent Philips had sounded so certain there was an imminent threat from below Kelly didn't know, and whether he was really as qualified to lead as he tried to act she also didn't know, but it didn't matter. She was under orders, she would follow them, that was what would keep her alive.
The clatter of gunfire breached the silence and only years of discipline prevented her from jumping at the sound. She could see the sparks of ricochet as metal deflected down the staircase heading towards…
Towards nothing.
"Hold your fire." She yelled the words, there was no point in maintaining silence while some unprofessional oaf lost his nerve. She had to yell twice more before he finally stopped, whether because it took him that long to register her words or because he'd emptied his clip she didn't know.
"What the hell were you firing at agent." She growled, trying to relay every ounce of disapproval she could muster.
"I saw something move." The voice sounded tentative and confused, she didn't recognize it. It must not be someone she'd worked with before. Gathering over sixty agents on short notice had resulted in people being pulled from a large variety of completely unrelated assignments. It wasn't ideal but they were professionals, they could all do their jobs.
Or most of them could. "Nothing moved, I haven't taken my eyes off the stairs and nothing moved."
"I swear to god something moved." He sounded shaken, if it weren't for their complete isolation she would have ordered him to leave. As it was she'd simply have to deal with him.
"Did anyone else see something move?" Murmurs of agreement confirmed that indeed, nothing had moved. The man had been jumping at shadows.
One second she was staring down the stares and all of her attention, except for the tiny thoughts planning on submitting a disciplinary report concerning the errant agent, was completely focussed. The next second the air in front of her coalesced into a figure that seemed almost cut directly from the darkness. He was reaching towards her with blinding speed.
For fifteen seconds gunfire echoed through the hotel, a physical manifestation of sound that struck every wall, every door, and every person. Then all went silent.
Sean and agent Mayweather burst out of the front doors at a run, moving from the claustrophobic hotel into the more open but no safer parking lot. Turning Sean could see several pairs of agents still proceeding down the main hall in an almost military fashion. Don't route, retreat, that was the paradigm they followed as they watched behind and checked every corner for danger, proceeding at what felt to Sean like a snail's pace. There were some situations in which caution could keep you alive, this was one in which it was going to get them killed.
But Sean couldn't simply abandon them.
Propping one of the double doors open he kneeled down, aiming his flashlight and rifle up the hall despite the probability that it would be nothing more than a futile gesture. Agent Mayweather followed his lead and propped open the other door in a similar manner. Sean briefly considered yelling at the agents but stopped himself and turned on his radio instead. "I said move it. I didn't say crawl, I didn't say walk, I didn't say check every god damn corner for something you can shoot. Now get out of there as fast as you can."
It took several seconds for the agents he was watching to realize that the comments were directed at them. It took several more seconds for them to put aside their natural instinct and act on his insistence. Now that he could take a good look Sean saw that there were eight, not six agents moving down that hall. He could only hope that the rest had already exited the building. Sean would wait for these eight, then he would go, if there was anyone else that hadn't left yet they were probably already dead or dying.
He registered brief yells as the lights of the last two agents clattered to the ground.
The first pair of agents exited the building, sprinting across the parking lot towards the streetlights and the brightly-lit buildings beyond.
Gunfire echoed through the hall for a moment, then another one of the lights fell, this time disappearing all together.
The second pair of agents moved past. There was still one agent coming down the hall, but whoever it was, was probably already dead. Gauging the distance across the parking lot Sean suddenly realized he was dead too. It didn't matter how fast he ran, it would reach the front doors before he could ever hope to make it across the parking lot.
Unless someone slowed the thing down. Making a decision Sean turned to Mayweather and yelled at him to go. Mayweather understood orders, he did what he was told, and Sean had told him to move. Without stopping to ask questions the man set off with speed entirely out of proportion to his size.
Good, Sean had gotten too many people killed already. The thought that Mayweather would survive was a minor salve for his conscience, but it would have to do.
When the last light went out Sean let a bitter smile cross his face. He'd been here before and had spent the rest of his life since trying to forget it. For the briefest moment past and present merged and Sean pulled the trigger, filling the hall with lethal metal.
It would never stop it, but it might slow it down. Every second counted.
At the first sound of gunfire Clark stopped to listen. Turning his head to identify the source he set out, headed for the place where everything had begun.
When Clark reached the hotel he found it dark and lifeless. Agent Philips was alone at the front doors, staring into the hotel, firing a gun along the same path in which he was directing a painfully bright ray of light. To Clark's still heightened perceptions each bullet uttered a low pitched thwacking sound as it left the barrel, each casing reverberated endlessly as it fell to the ground.
Staring through the hotel walls he could make out the x-ray image of what looked like a person, its bones and joints connected to make an almost cartoonish figure. But it wasn't a person, it was doing thing no person could do. It was moving almost as fast as the bullets, never in a single place at a single moment but somehow always between them as it flowed from one position to the next. It made no attempts to step aside or avoid the pieces of metal, instead it simply charged through them. The bullets that penetrated its form seemed to simply disappear, neither impacting nor appearing out the other side.
Moving the remaining distance that separated him from agent Philips, Clark abruptly pulled the man's weapon from his grasp. It wasn't doing any good, and Clark needed to block the creature's path. He didn't know how, but he was going to hold the creature at the door long enough for the fleeing agents to escape. Long enough for agent Philips to escape.
Staring at the agent's shocked face Clark briefly considered throwing him to safety, but decided against it. Neither could he carry him, because that would guarantee the death of the other three agents who were still struggling to reach the other side of the street. Without any other option he simply turned and said a single word. "Go."
Through the confusion and amazement surfaced recognition, a basic understanding of what Clark was offering irrespective of circumstances. With a brief nod of thanks the agent turned and left, headed for safety, while Clark waited, watching as darkness rolled towards him.
The shape of the vampire swerved to move around Clark but he moved in turn, it swerved again and again Clark interposed himself between it and its quarry. In a blur the actions accumulated until two lines, one the swirl of a blue jacket mixed with the pale color of flesh, the other an absence of color where light was expelled as unwanted, formed a border between two conflicting forces.
Just as quickly both lines contracted until they were once again singular points.
Clark forced himself to keep his eyes low, refusing to look back into the depths from which he knew it was considering him. Staring at the crack of dried lips and the teeth behind them he noticed that its mouth seemed no different than any other mouth he'd ever seen. For some reason that made things worse, that the creature would have any part not warped and twisted by its nature was almost an affront to some internal sense of right and wrong.
Clark hadn't known how to stop it, the simple act of physically blocking its progress had been a move born of desperation. In the back of his mind he'd continually expected it to end the game and pass directly through him.
But it hadn't, there were limits to what it could do.
"You're starting to piss me off." The words called forth images of slithering maggots and dying screams but Clark just pushed them away to focus on the meaning.
He was pissing it off. Good, that meant he was doing something right.
It grinned at him then, pleased with itself for no apparent reason. After contemplating Clark for a moment it began to talk in an almost conversational tone.
"How's your bitch doing?"
Chloe… it was talking about Chloe. Clark wanted to pound the grin off its face.
"I was going to rip her head off you know… rip it off and leave it as a present." Images assailed him, disgusting horrible images that made him want to throw up and cry all at the same time. Every word brought with it thoughts and meaning and feelings completely alien. "You sure you wouldn't like her better that way? One piece for this, one for that…"
Clark swung his fist and it danced back a step, laughing at him. For a moment he almost forgot himself and looked into its eyes, but only for a moment. Morning, he just had to pace it until morning. Then they'd see who was laughing.
"But that was last night. When I found her tonight I decided to give her something special."
Meaning fell behind the words. Chloe was safe. She'd kissed him and then she'd gone home and there was no way it had any idea where to find her and…
And it had been hours since the sun went down.
The creature's lips sneered at him and he suddenly wondered how he could ever have compared them to those of a person. It was lying, it was made of lies.
"You wouldn't know where to find her." For some reason it found that absolutely hysterical. It fell back against the wall and almost choked from its cackling. Barely visible within the wall's shadows it rolled back and forth with complete and utter glee.
He just had to follow it until morning.
"You should have checked the trunk." The vampire's figure curled up in the trunk of Chloe's car, calmly waiting for her to return and drive it back to her home…
She would have had the lights on, it couldn't get to her if she had the lights on… The darkness of the hotel called out the lie and laid it bare before him.
Clark's fist demolished a chunk of the wall, opening a hole into the entranceway beyond. By the time he struck towards the vampire it had somehow moved behind him, still laughing, still taunting. It talked to him about how it had made her watch while it slowly bled her parents dry, how it had carefully pulled her apart piece by piece, first the fingers, then the toes… never letting her die, never letting her pass out as it tasted her whimpers and screams and fear and hate and agony.
Every word and detail brought a memory, every mention of what it had done emerged in Clark's mind as if he had done it himself. Blood covered his hands and he could hear her pleading filling his ears, begging him to let her live even as he…
It told him about how she had cried out his name before it finally ripped out the throat from what was left.
Turning Clark threw himself at the creature, not caring if he could touch it, simply needing to strike out…
But there was nothing to strike out at. In the fraction of a second before Clark had turned the vampire had disappeared, somehow vanishing into the night without a trace.
Chloe.
