Chapter 2
New York
Rossi and his father Max slowed before the building entrance to their home, and Rossi handed the equipment they managed to find to Max.
"You're not coming inside, Rossi?" his father asked.
"No pops, not just yet. I'll be back; I'm gonna go find a few friends. I'll be back before the sun goes down, promise," he said as he jogged down the sidewalk.
Rossi took off down the street—his sword holding down his open leather jacket.
"Be careful," Max yelled as he watched him round a corner, and then decided to go in after a backhand wave from his son.
Four blocks away, Rossi entered a dilapidated building, with boards nailed to the windows and spider-webs in every corner. Rossi went up a flight of stairs to the second floor and knocked on a brown metal door in the secret knock his friends recognized.
A tall, colossal of a black man stood at the door and waved Rossi in with a pat of his shoulder.
"Rossi, damn good to see ya my man!" was the greeting from Jake—the crew's intimidating enforcer, that sometimes even scared a few newbie vampires. Rossi tapped him in the stomach with a smile, and asked for Sonic, the hunter's leader, and Rossi's good friend. The two grew up together watching men and women try to fight the vampires—but always with the same monotonous ending…
"Sonic," yelled Rossi. "Where are you, you fool?"
Rossi found him a moment later in the third room on the left, along with about seven other members of the team.
"Rossi, get in here, man! What's happening? You with us tonight…we're attacking the old Rockefeller building, 'bout fifty vampires taking up business there; ruthless bastards. They've been killing in the streets at night—," Sonic was cut-off by Rossi.
"They kill in the streets every night, Sonic. What's different?"
"I wasn't finished…they've been hitting shelters. Shelters protected by vampires to raise the humans as workers—the more humanitarian vampires, if you will. These guys are even killing other vampires, there's some sort of war happening in the Vampire Nation ranks…the Houses split," The tall, blond-haired man said brushing his bangs from his eyes.
"Good, let 'em kill each other for Christ's sake! Why should we go after them if the other vampires want them dead?"
"Because we are going to take them out, Rossi—so far, the only vamps we've bagged are puny little newbie scumbags…this is where we get some clout!" Sonic said with a smirk and a suicidal gleam in his eyes.
Rossi looked around at the other hunters. Most were about his age, some younger than eighteen. None of them will live past twenty-five, he thought. Most humans never did these days.
"Rossi? Rossi!" Sonic said snapping him back to reality. "You're with us, right?
"Yeah, of course."
"You packin'?"
"Yeah, right here," Rossi said tapping under his shoulder. "When are we out?"
"'Bout half an hour; couple more comin' with us. It's gonna be raining ashes tonight!"
The sun was falling beneath the horizon seemingly sucking the noise from the planet. And an eerie silence fell over the city.
The building was right down the street, and so the hunters strolled down the eighty or so yards on foot, each hand filled with sub-machine guns and shotguns and Ultraviolet bombs and silver stakes—the necessary weapons of death for the vampires.
Jake trailed the dozen hunters in front of him as his bulk permitted—in both hands, he carried a shinny nickel-plated Minigun—that wasn't so heavy to the giant—the chain of silver-tipped ammo across his shoulder resting in a back pack.
Sonic, like Rossi, had an ivory hilted katana slung around his back, and added ammo to his Uzi's clip. He snapped the clip into place inside the gun, silently braced himself for the melee that was about to ensue.
Rossi, once in front of the Rockefeller building, jumped up and down a few times and shook his head violently side-to-side as if to knock the nervous bug from his body. Sonic looked at him and laughed, giving up on trying suppressing it. Rossi looked back at him and smiled, then said he was ready.
All at once, everyone seemed to cock their weapons at the same moment in a loud ch-chik. Everyone stared at the large menacing brass-trimmed doors. Sonic broke the silence.
"We're not gonna live forever."
And with that, the troupe followed the tall blond hunter up the stairs, and Sonic reached for the handle, the laser on his Uzi aimed at the center.
Once inside, Sonic motioned for the rest to follow, and the hunt was on. Rossi backed up Sonic, and the two quietly crossed the large open, but desolate entrance hall. Rossi remembered the days before the vampires enslaved humanity when he and Sonic, a.k.a. Michael Shupe would play like they were hunting aliens in the sewers—obviously the product of too much X-files on television—a childhood that children today would never be able to enjoy.
Now, Rossi laughed at the absurdity of it all—they were here to hunt vampires. Rossi wanted to tell Sonic of the events last night; the Daywalker, his killing of maybe fifty vampires, and how he could get the team to fight along side Blade, but he liked having another side to his life—a secret side that neither knew anything about.
The silence was broken inside the vast building by a sinister laughter. All the hunters looked around to spot the voice, but could see nothing. Some of the lights were on due to the humans that resided here during the day—but now all was quite and creepy.
Rossi heard a barely audible noise, like a muffled sneeze, then saw one of his team members drop face first onto the tiled floor—blood spilling from his head. He looked on in horror as another man was dropped by the sniper—Mike Gormley, another long-time friend—now dead, shot in the eye.
Aiming his handgun at a dark shadowy figure on a terrace above the main hall, Rossi fired continuously at the specter. Sonic followed suit, and unloaded half his magazine before realizing the sniper was history. A few red-orange fiery ashes floated gracefully from the balcony.
That almost evened the playing field a little, until more shots rang out from the balcony, and vampires began to pour out of the rooms adjacent to the hunter's spot. The humans dashed in either direction, to the left and the right, hiding behind statues and walls. Gun fire was riddling the plaster off the walls and the stone from the statues.
Rossi grabbed a UV bomb and tossed it in the middle of the lobby. It was intercepted by another sniper, destroyed before it could detonate. Plan B.
"Jake! Clear us a pathway to just under that balcony," Rossi said yelling over the hail of bullets. Jake nodded with a smile—it was time for the big guy to work.
He moved rather fast this time, and stood in the middle, just in front of the entrance doorway, and let loose a shower of lead and silver that seemed would cut the building in half. Vampires were cut down like grass under a mower Rossi thought with a chuckle looking at the Minigun's revolver spraying the veranda.
"Come on, Sonic. We're going to drive them off of that terrace," Rossi said grabbing a couple of UV bombs.
Sonic smiled, and motioned for the other hunters to take out the vampires on either side of hall.
The path was beginning to clear. Rossi scrambled to his feet, and Sonic mimicked. The two humans ran swiftly across the great, Victorian hall and jumped the remaining ten feet to safety behind a wooden banister. Bullets followed their descent down the foot or two drop to a waiting room.
Past the waiting room was a long, narrow hallway with about six doors on each side. The doors began to open, Rossi noticed, and told Sonic to get down. He waited for enough vamps to exit the rooms before tossing a UV bomb their way.
Flash!
The bomb incinerated about fifteen bloodsuckers. Rossi and Sonic did a high-five, and began to toss a couple UV bombs atop the terrace, but the vampires were gone from their—wasted ammo. Damn!
Rossi yelled at Jake to stop firing—they seemed to be finished on the terrace.
With a chainsaw-like squeal, the Minigun came to a halt. The door opened behind Jake, and he began to turn around. Rossi looked on in horror as a bullet exploded through the back of his skull—brain and blood and flesh and bone splattering on the white marble floor behind him.
More vampires began spilling in through the doorway, and the other hunters tried to keep them out, but they kept coming by the dozens. The doors behind Rossi and Sonic opened, and more entered the conflict.
Hopelessness descended on Rossi, before he spotted their savior…
Through the dark tinted window-dome on top of the short building, a dark figure dashed from view.
Rossi looked to the hall way behind him, and the vampires were heading his way. In the instant it took for Rossi to realize he would be dead if he went for a new clip for his polished Smith and Wesson 9 mm, he grabbed his katana and rushed to meet the vampires with a fury of disciplined swings and thrusts.
Sonic once again followed Rossi and drew his katana from the scabbard on his back.
The two modern samurai began to slash the vampires; falling limbs and ashes and crumbled bones littered the stairs and red carpet.
Then Rossi heard the shattered glass followed by another burst of ultraviolet light that swallowed everything and everyone in the grand hall. Rossi and Sonic turned around as the Daywalker silently landed the forty foot drop as gracefully as a bird. Blade turned around and glared at Rossi through his dark Oakley shades.
"You're dumber than I thought you were, Rossi."
Sonic only looked at Rossi; he couldn't find the words to ask how he knew the dark hunter.
Adding a bit more to the hopelessness feeling, the vampires once again filled the hall and surrounded the Daywalker. Rossi made an attempt to help Blade, but he motioned for him to stop. Blade would handle this.
"Get outta here and get home—now!"
Rossi and sonic slowly walked around the vampires; their swords in a defensive stance—the vampires just staring at them as the two sole surviving hunters walked with their backs to the wall and their tails between their legs. They heard that laugh again echoing the corridor.
As the two reached the doorway, Rossi watched as Blade slowly vertically drew his sword from behind him, and the vampires advanced with their sticks and weapons.
With one horizontal swing, three were slashed in the chest and faded to the floor. Behind him he lunged his blade almost subconsciously attacking with the eyes in the back of his head, or so it looked to Rossi.
Blade moved with their speed, and seemed an even match up regardless of the overwhelming numbers of the vampires. Sonic only shook his head in disbelief as the man took out vampires as if they were in a slower reality even to his. Rossi watched as one vampire brought down an axe at Blade's back, but was swept off his feet and his axe slammed into his chest, and then lobbed off his head.
Rossi had had enough, and entered the melee swinging and yelling.
"Nobody gonna have a rumble without me!" he said making a reference to one of his favorite movies.
Blade noticed Rossi swinging and slashing at the vampires, and this made him want to protect him even more. Max, from behind Sonic, pushed his way passed the doors and unloaded several shells into the immortal scumbags.
Sonic was the warrior type as well, and would not let his friends die without him. After all, his entire team; all of his friends were dead now thanks to the very thing he has been trying to destroy for the past five years. In an instant, he was in the battle royal, and hacking and slashing his way to humanities freedom.
It all seemed like a blur, and dream to Max. He fired away, and reloaded his shotgun, and fired again. He watched his son fight alongside the Daywalker like the warrior he had become. If the vampires bled when they were hacked, they would be fighting in a swamp of the stuff now.
But vampires aren't natural, no, there are apart of the supernatural realm.
Something suddenly snapped Max back into reality—this reality—pain. Pain in his back—he was shot and it came through his stomach. A point-blank shotgun wound, and now he was dead. His body fell face first as he looked at his son.
"Dad!" Rossi screamed over the ensuing battle.
Rossi ran to his dad's aid, but it was too late. The tears rose up in his eyes, and so did the carnal lust to destroy the vampires. He closed his dad's eyes, and grabbed the katana that lay in his father's blood.
He turned around, blushed with anger, and attacked the remaining vampires that were readying to jump the Daywalker and Sonic.
A few more vampires began to retreat to the hallway, and with a flick of his wrist, Blade tossed his glave and four vampires were mere ashes.
Slash, slash, slash…ashes to ashes, dust to dust; that's what became of the last few vampires in the Rockefeller building. And the three swordsmen stood, tired and out of breath, and furious at the death and destruction of their friends and family.
A tear streamed down Rossi's eye as he looked at his father's corpse. Sonic put a hand on his shoulder and the two looked at each other—the tears in his eyes imitating that of Rossi's—and both bowed their heads.
Blade walked over to Max's body, and picked him up in a fireman's carry and walked out the door. He turned around and looked to Rossi.
"You comin'?"
Rossi and Sonic sluggishly followed Blade to his Charger, and with that, the night was over.