Disclaimer: I don't own Blade or any of its characters. I do Max, Xavier, Rev, and Cam, so no stealing!
Chapter 11: One Wild Night
The sound of gunfire lapsed over the scene of a machine shop parking lot that night. Not that far off, there was a massive explosion ripping through an industrial building. Banks of windows blew outwards, fire roiled; brick walls crumbled, and debris rained everywhere. A screaming man, completely on fire, ran tumbling into the night air. Buoyed by the explosion, his body flew upward, trailing fire like a human comet. Following him, a few men – vampires – raced out, some of them on fire.
At a closer look, two figures soon resolved out of the swirling flames, one was Blade and the other was Max. Both were striding towards the escaped and somewhat still living vampires, bodies bristling with weapons, and the sounds of their footfalls ringing out like drums of doom to the creatures of the night.
"Why do they always run?" Max asked, pulling out her new gun and cocking it. Blade looked down at it, wondering where she got it.
"Good question," he replied, moving his eyes back to the running vampires. "Let's go ask."
"I love this part," she said with a wicked grin, bouncing slightly on her feet.
"You love all the parts," he retorted and the two started walking once again, looking the god and goddess of war.
A trio of vampire low lives – Stone, Gedge, and Campbell – ran for their lives towards their vehicles. As they do so, two modified racing cars are pulling out: a Mustang and an Eagle Talon. Gedge climbed into the Talon even as it started to move, pulling the door shut. The mere sight of them made Max a little jealous that all the vampires in the city had great cars while she only had her supped up motorcycle. Not that she was complaining, but a car was better than her bike in some cases. At the same time Stone and Campbell climbed atop two stretched and lowered hard tail chopper cycles.
Blade and Max started forward with Blade drawing two of his custom mach pistols, but the Mustang came screaming in reverse towards them. Blade made a super-human leap over the speeding car, leaving Max to jump herself. She ran towards the car, stepped up on the hood, and leaped forward to flip over the roof and truck. As she landed safely on her feet, crouched down, she looked up to watch Blade. Momentarily upside down, he fired through the windshield and engine block as he flipped. Within the car, the vampires turned to ash and the Mustang exploded. As the enflamed car flipped over, Blade continued to fire as he landed next to Max.
"Show off," she said to him.
Blade didn't say a word, but turned his guns towards the Talon and the choppers. Max joined him in his aim aiming at the vehicles that were hauling ass out of the parking lot, swerving into the traffic on the street beyond. Both kept on firing until they were out of bullets.
"No more bullets, Blade?" Ellingson asked with a wide grin. "Guess it's time for you to fall down and go boom."
"How come they always know you and not me?" Max asked, holstering her guns to her thighs as four stranded vampires, from the conflagration, their clothes still smoking, surrounded the pair of hunters. It was Emond, Doh, and Denlinger with Ellingson.
"Just lucky, I guess," he replied, hostler his own guns.
As Max reached behind her for her newest favorite toy, two sais, Blade reached for a wicked looking chain-knife strapped to his thigh. The knife, as Whistler had informed him, had a button on either side of the hilt. As Ellingson rushed at the Daywalker, Blade triggered the first button. ZZZING! The knife-blade ejected from the hilt, trailing outward six feet on a razored chain and penetrated Ellingson's chest. He gasped as he started to turn to ash but, before his disintegration is complete, Blade hit the second button. The knife-blade retracted, razored chain whirring back into the knife-hilt.
"Get down!" he ordered Max, who looked confused until he spun and triggered the first button again.
Max ducked as the knife-blade flew out, and the razored chain whipped around Denlinger's throat. Blade tugged at the chain, and it cuts through Denlinger's neck and decapitated him. As he turned to ash, Blade triggered the knife again. As it ejected, he whirled it around his head, making a sound like a bullroarer. Blade dropped low and Max sprung up, jumping over the chain like it was a simple jump rope as Blade swung it to slice through Emond's legs. Emond's amputated legs turned to ash while the rest of him tumbled onto the asphalt, screaming in pain. Blade retracted the knife-blade, whirled, and thrust it through Doh's abdomen, who was coming up from behind to attack. As Doh turned to ash, Blade returned to Emond. Before he could finish him off, Max got in his way and slammed one of her silver sais through his heart.
"What?" she asked, as he turned to ash at her feet and Blade cocked his head at her. "You were taking all the fun!"
"Sidekicks," he mumbled lowly and went on the move again, rushing after the vampires who escaped.
"Well, wait for me!" she called in irritation, running after him towards the street overpass.
The bike-riding vampires had cut across traffic, and then screamed down an on-ramp to a busy street below. While they were trying to make a quick getaway, Blade and Max were sprinting from the parking lot to the sidewalk. Blade touched a hand to his ear, where a tiny receiver was safely tucked within.
"We're on the Stonebridge overpass at Clemons," he said, watching the vampires very carefully.
"Got it," Whistler said through the earpiece. "Heading eastbound, I'm just beneath you!"
Blade grabbed Max's arm and forced her to dodge past a honking car, step onto and over the trunk, and leap atop the safety rail of the overpass as a big rig cab hauling a semi-trailer thundered beneath the overpass, sounding its air horn. It had safety cables running along the perimeter of the trailer roof, like an aircraft carrier.
"GO!" Whistler shouted and both Blade and Max launched themselves into the air.
They landed atop the semi and Max tumbled, nearly slipping off the edge until she snagged one of the safety cables atop the trailer. She dangled above the asphalt until Blade reached down, grabbed her arm, and swung her into the open back of the trailer before swinging himself inside as well.
"Thanks," she gasped shakily walking over to the passenger side of Blade's matte black Dodge Charger.
"Use your head, kid," he told her gruffly, slipping into the driver's side. "Think!"
Blade stuck the key in the ignition and the engine Max listened to a thunderclap of the high-performance engine turning over as it rocketed out of the back of the trailer, sailing right over a car that was tail-gating the semi, and headed into three lanes of on-coming traffic at fifty miles an hour. Blade suddenly hit the brakes, sending the battle-scarred muscle car into a spin and clipping other vehicles in the process.
As cars continued to brake and collide around them, Blade remained calm and stoic as Max gripped the roof for dear life. She thought she'd be used to his driving by now, but she wasn't at all. His driving still made her stomach do flip-flops. As she was silently praying to live through this drive, Blade put the pedal to the metal once again. The Charger accelerated, tachometer red-lining as he pulled alongside the cab of the big-rig, catching a glimpse of Whistler behind the wheel. The old man grinned, giving them a little salute.
"Do it," Blade ordered and Max nodded, gaining her bearings. She reached in between the seats, activating the newly installed nitrous oxide fuel-injection system – the same one that was in her motorcycle.
The Charger jetted forward into hyper speed as the nitrous system boosted the car's speed by another three hundred HP, leaving any and everything in its dust. Within seconds, Blade and Max caught up to Stone and Campbell. The two vampires drew TEC-9s, firing back at their hunters. The bulletproof windshield held on though, as did the Kevlar body panels protecting the engine – but the rounds chewed the shit out of the bodywork.
"Again," Blade ordered, eyes on the road, and Max gave the car another jolt of nitrous. The Charger surged forward as Stone and Campbell fell back, veering to either side; now the hunters were ahead of them. Blade checked their position in his rear-view mirror, and proceeded to stand on the brakes.
The Charger dropped from a hundred to fifty in a heartbeat, causing Stone and Campbell to rear-end Blade and Max. The vampires were ejected over the handlebars of their bikes like crash-test dummies. Stone smashed through Blade's back windshield, continuing into the front seat between him and Max while Campbell tumbled over the roof and across the hood. He somehow managed to cling to one of the windshield wipers at the last minute.
Blade clutched the wheel, and Max gripped the roof with one hand and the vampire's neck with the other. Blade was not enjoy the scene as much as Max; after all, he has a howling vampire in the front seat, upside down, covered in windshield fragments and another perched on his hood, obscuring his vision. This simply wasn't good.
Stone tried to right himself, clawing at Blade, who struggled, keeping one hand on the wheel while he reaches for a shotgun secured between the seats. Max grabbed the vampire by his shoulders with one hand and wrapped her other arm around its throat, choking it. Blade fired at him and, as Stone turned to ash, and Max released him and Blade hit a button on the dashboard. The passenger door opened, and spilled Stone onto the road right into the path of an oncoming bus. WHAM! Stone was gone. The passengers on the tourist bus that hit him were jolted in their seats as the wheels ran over his remains.
"I hope that wasn't a dog," an old woman said sadly, looking out her window to see nothing in the road but other cars.
Back at the Charger, Campbell continued to hammer away at the windshield, forming spider webs. Campbell managed to get a clawed hand through, and Max grabbed Blade's shotgun before he could raise it again.
"My turn," she said simply, and swung his shotgun over, shoving it in Campbell's snarling mouth. She pulled the trigger – BOOM! Campbell's cinder remains blew over the cracked windshield. Blade hit the wipers, spritzed the window cleaner but the mess turned to ashen sludge, making the view even worse. "Nice work, B," she commented mirthlessly.
On the busy street, the Talon was up ahead, weaving in and out of traffic. Fighting to see, Blade accelerated, gaining ground. The vampire driver leaned out of his own window, looking back at Blade and Max, firing an automatic pistol. Blade's windshield, which was already weakened by Campbell, shattered and blew glass fragments all over him and Max. Undaunted, Blade calmly reached for his dashboard, hitting a button labeled "UV."
The roof-mounted UV daylights came on, bathing the car ahead and, more importantly, the vampire driver with UV rays. The vampire at the wheel shrieked, turned to ash, leaving the car driverless. Gedge tried to lean over and take the wheel, but the burning remains blew back and the view cleared.
"I'm getting bored here, B," Max complained with, as she said, a bored tone. "Run 'em off the road! Please!"
Blade shook his head before slamming his Charger into the Talon. The cars briefly locked, grinding sparks, before they disengaged. Blade jerked his steering wheel, giving the Talon yet another slam. The Talon hit the curb, riding halfway up onto a sidewalk, and plowed down some newspaper vending machines and tabletop displays piled with cheap wares, and a phone booth and food cart. Pedestrians ducked for cover, and the Talon got some serious air, rolling onto its side as it came back to earth.
"Happy now?" Blade asked her as they watched the wreck skid to a stop against a streetlight, which creaked and crashed down onto the wreck.
"Oh, yeah," she replied with a smile. They looked on as bystanders gathered, murmuring amongst themselves. Gedge suddenly dragged his bleeding body from the wrecked Talon and staggered to his feet, clutching a pistol, and limped away. "What the fuck? How many times do we have to hit this guy before he learns to stay the fuck down?"
"One more time apparently," he retorted. "Let's go."
P.S.: Five pages total.