Nathan notched another arrow and aimed, but Kamiyo shook his head at the boy. There was no need, Hannah had it handled. She hurried over to them now, with Frank brandishing a sword and struggling to keep up with her. The other man, the stranger, stood where he was, seemingly mortified as he stared at Vamps.
Kamiyo faced Hannah. “You’re back! Why?”
“Long story, but I knew you were in danger. Is everyone okay?”
Jackie wailed, as all of her emotions gushed out at once. She pointed at Eric’s eviscerated corpse. Frank shook his head and swore.
Kamiyo let his head drop. “Not everyone.”
Hannah ground her teeth. “Damn it! I was too late.”
“It would have been worse without you.”
Without reply, she pointed her rifle at Vamps who remained on his knees, still fighting to keep the blood in his neck. “I should have put a bullet in you two weeks ago. I don’t care whatever big-shot demon you think you are, you picked on the wrong group of people.”
Vamps glared at her, trembling as blood continued pumping from his neck. Gradually, his breathing came to a stop, and he teetered back and forth on his knees like he was about to fall flat on his grave. Hannah pointed her rifle at his head, ready to deliver the mercy shot.
Nathan yelled. “Do it!”
“Let the bastard ‘ave it!” Frank cried.
Vamps removed his hands from his neck and held them out to his sides like Christ. Blood dripped from his fingertips onto the grass and gushed down the front of his shirt. “Deliver yourselves from evil,” he said mockingly.
Hannah sneered—“Amen!”—and pulled the trigger.
Vamps rose to his feet, arms still held out like Christ. “I am the red thunder, the flame of consumption, the spark of creation. Behold, and I shall make things anew.”
Hannah fired again. The shot tore through Vamps’ chest, but he sold no injury. He snatched Hannah’s rifle, breaking the strap around her neck, and flung it high into the darkening sky.
As if in reply, it started to rain.
Hannah had the presence of mind to launch herself into an evasive roll before Vamps could grab her, and she joined the others. No one moved, stunned into inaction by what they were seeing. This monster couldn’t be killed. Not with fists, spears, or bullets.
There was no hope.
The strange man Hannah had brought along now stepped forwards. Twilight made his features appear grey and featureless, but Kamiyo thought the man was Middle-Eastern. He muttered something in a strange language and held out an arm to Vamps. His wide, hanging cuffs made him look like a wizard. Vamps placed all his attention on the stranger, snarling like a wolf. He took a swipe, but the small man dodged aside, still speaking his foreign tongue.
Kamiyo leant against Hannah, for comfort more than anything else. “Who is that guy?”
“His name is Aymun. He knows Vamps, and about what’s going on.”
“Makes one of us,” said Frank, waving the sword that Hannah had returned to him.
Aymun continued dodging, putting himself in danger by further enraging The Red Lord. Whatever he said was getting a passionate reaction.
“We have to get out of here,” said Philip. “We have to gather everyone and leave the forest.”
“No,” said Hannah. “This place is ours.”
Philip shook his head. “We can’t win this.”
Aymun tripped in the dark, falling down on one knee. Hannah yelled at him to get out of the way. Kamiyo groaned, realising this strange man would not be their saviour either, just as powerless as the rest of them—and about to die.
Vamps swiped a lethal claw through the air, aiming for Aymun’s exposed neck.
Aymun sprung aside and thumped Vamps in the ribs, then rolled away quickly. A long blade jutted out of Vamp’s chest, left there by Amun. “Now!” He yelled at them all. “The beast is wounded. Attack him.”
Kamiyo didn’t know what he could do with two broken hands, so he got involved by roaring at the others to attack. Frank struck Vamps in the back of the head so hard with his sword staff that it bent. Nathan buried another arrow in Vamp’s chest. Jackie and Philip stabbed at his mid-section with sharp sticks. Vamps leaked blood from a dozen places. He thrashed and grew weaker.
The heavens opened, and the rain came down in buckets.
Frank leapt into the air and walloped the bent sword into the back of Vamps’ neck. “Boing boing, you shit-faced dingle.”
Vamps fell forward onto his hands. Aymun stepped forward and pulled the knife out of his side, holding it to the monster’s throat. “Vamps, my friend, if you are in there… my soul weeps for you. You were a warrior until the end. May God shelter you for eternity.”
Vamps leapt up and seized the knife before it had the chance to cut his throat. He twisted it until Aymun had no choice but to let go or see his arm broken. He gasped, taken by surprise, and this time he lost his footing for real, tumbling backwards nearly onto his back. Vamps gnashed his filthy, crooked teeth, and raised the blade in his trembling, blood-soaked hand. Everyone stopped what they were doing, too fearful to move, waiting for what the beast would do next.
Vamps tossed the blade into the wet grass and fled into the forest. Frank gave chase, but was too slow, so he resigned himself to shouting obscenities at the trees.
Aymun clambered to his feet. He brushed off his clothes. “We must prepare. The Red Lord will return, and not alone. He has taken my friend’s body and will use it to assemble an army. An army designed to wipe out whatever people are still alive in this world. That cannot be allowed to happen.”
Frank put his hands on his waist. “Yow don’t ‘afta tell me twice, kidda.”
“I’m sorry,” said Aymun. “I didn’t catch
