Son of Blade: Retribution.
Water no longer dripped from the urban ghillie suit he was wearing; it was now pouring down the strands of fabric like a raging torrent instead. But while the water was a slight, unwelcome distraction, he felt neither the icy chill of the rain nor the cruel sting of the wind as he waited, watched and hoped.
Eric Brooks Junior, or Katana as he was called by his adopted father; the Day-Walker known as Blade; watched through the scope of his silenced 7.62mm Dragunov SVD sniper rifle as he had done constantly for the last seven days; unmoving, silent, ethereal; his cheek resting on the polymer stock, it's smooth surface comforting like the touch of the mother he never knew.
The weapon, mounted on a bi-pod, providing the perfect irony. Based on the assault rifle designed by Mikhail Timofeevitch Kalashnikov which entered service with the Soviet defence forces in 1947, it was to be used as retribution for the death of Katana's father; used to kill the vampire who had taken the life of Blade - Mishka Kalashnikov – the cousin of the weapon's inventor; turned by Deacon Frost in the Soviet Union in the late 1940s.
Katana was also a Day-Walker, his mother bitten while giving birth in a so-called 'natural birthing spa.' Unfortunately, one of the mid-wives was a familiar for a vampire and she had arranged to make Katana's mother a meal for her mistress. Blade had tracked the vampire there, but he was too late; so he turned the vampiress into a pile of ashes and gave the mid-wife a good beating before tying her up and leaving a note for the police to find. He took the new born baby and tracked down Dr Karen Jensen; they raised him together; not as husband and wife- but as sensei and teacher. Blade taught him everything that he needed to know about martial arts, fighting vampires and playing the trumpet. Karen taught him the basics of a normal schooling, but also advanced lessons in biology and medicine.
By the time Katana was 16, he could kick blood-sucker butt with the best of them and had the equivalent education of a third year medical student.
He was 21 now; his father had been dead for 3 years.
After the Daystar virus had been unleashed, they thought all the vampires had been destroyed by it. But they were wrong. Less than 0.1 of a percent of them had survived and the virus had made them stronger, much stronger. But on the bright side, their bite no longer turned their victims into creatures of the night. They would die out, but not by natural causes; they would have to be hunted to extinction.
Being less of them made them harder to find as they no longer congregated in nightclubs or had the influence that they once enjoyed. They were rarely ever found in more than groups of two or three; most deciding to travel alone and hunt in the shadows like the animals that they are. They got smarter too, it was now an odd occurrence to find their victims with puncture marks in their neck; the vampires had taken to using human weapons: knives and razors, to inflict the damage that was needed to allow the blood to flow.
Katana had been hunting Kalashnikov ever since the death of Blade. He had travelled to six continents and countless countries, searching for evidence of his quarry. Then he found him, or at last a familiar that had given his allegiance to Kalashnikov; stupid moron didn't even know that vampires could no longer convert their pets as they had in the past. He was an idiot and Katana didn't even have to resort to torture to make him give his master up. All he had to do was show the fool evidence of how the Daystar virus had changed the vampires and he sung like a canary.
The familiar, a junkie named Spargo, thought becoming a vampire would be a cool way of getting free from smack. He was really ticked off when Katana had shown him the facts about his master and he pointed the son of Blade to a bar. The very same bar on which his sights were now set.
When he told Katana, he was furious. He had travelled the world looking for signs of Mishka Kalashnikov only to be told he visits a bar one hundred yards from where he had murdered Blade.
And so he continued to wait.
Another day passed and the rain had eased but not stopped. Katana was beginning to feel like he had been jerked around by Spargo and wondered if he should pay the junkie another visit.
But then he spotted him. "Yes, it is him" Katana thought, recognising Kalashnikov by the photos taken of him and his brother just before Frost had taken his life, and his humanity. He hadn't changed one little bit, he was an ugly piece of work then and he was just as homely now.
Then Katana began to sweat for the first time in his life.
Unlike his father he was free of the thirst; Karen Jensen had discovered a cure for the insatiable appetite for blood that came from being a Vampire or a Day-Walker. Developed before Daystar, it was too late for Blade, he had been a Day-Walker for way too long; the new vaccine only worked on the recently bitten and fortunately it worked on Katana.
And now he had the killer of his father in his sights.
He knew his weapon was loaded and had been cocked. There were ten, pure silver 7.62 X 54mm incendiary rounds in the magazine and one in the rifle's chamber. "I only need one" he thought to himself, "Only one!"
Kalashnikov was standing out in front of the bar; smoking and chatting up two prostitutes that had been there every night that Katana had been watching. They kept moving around and each time Katana thought he had the shot, one of the girls would walk in front of the sights and he had to take a breath, stop and make ready again. He was methodical, almost machine like in his approach to firing the weapon. He had been practicing for this shot for three years, going though each second of the shot in his head again and again.
"Damn it" he thought as Kalashnikov disappeared, out of his view and into the crowded bar. He regained his composure and calmed down. He knew the owner of the bar had illegally bolted his back door shut to keep out local junkies and home-boys who liked to sneak in during happy-hour and steal booze; so he knew his target would have to come back out the front door.
So he waited, again.
Kalashnikov came out two hours later. The girls had gone but he stopped for another smoke. "The last smoke you'll ever have asshole" Katana thought as he stopped breathing and slowly squeezed the trigger.
The bullet entered through his left eye and moved on a downward trajectory, reducing his medulla oblongata to pulp. A micro-second later, he was burning ash and as his embers cooled they became one with the mud and the muck of the sodden street.
Eric Brooks Junior, Katana - The son of Blade; stayed as still and ghostlike as he had done for eight days. He didn't move a muscle. He just kept repeating, over and over in his mind – "Only one."
"Only one."