of our parked convoy of vehicles. For some reason it drew my attention. It was almost as if I could see the invisible energy forming, swirling in preparation.
'Behind us, thirty yards off the road. South side!' I shouted as I surged out of the ditch, sprinting toward the spot as fast as I could. Abomination slammed back and forth against my chest. My boots were sodden with water and seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds. My breath came in gasps as I closed the distance. I was never a good sprinter. If the vampires could appear in our midst, we were as good as dead. They moved far too quickly to be stopped with the weapons that we could use at close range.
There was a crackling noise as the rift opened. A red line appeared out of thin air, and then spread wide. I reached under my raincoat and pulled one of the sharpened white-oak stakes from my load bearing gear. I held it low at my side as I ran forward. It was going to be close and ugly.
The creature appeared through the rift, stepping lightly onto the grass. Blood-colored eyes blinked, adjusting to what was, for it, brilliant light. It had already shed its human appearance, ready for battle, looking like a twisted, gray, hulking bat-thing, all fangs, muscles and claws. It saw me.
Too late to do it any good. I jerked the stake upwards, bellowing, my weight and momentum carrying me forward. Crashing into the vampire was like hitting a brick wall. I pushed the stake with all of my might, coming under the rib cage and stabbing into the pulsing black heart. The vampire shrieked so painfully loud that my hearing protection momentarily shorted out. It grasped my hand, trying to pull out the stake. Its jaws opened wide enough to fit my head inside the maw. I continued to push the sharpened wood deeper into the creature's black heart.
A stake through the heart would kill any living thing. It would instantly paralyze any regular vampire. On a Master, it seemed to merely weaken it. At its normal strength, the creature would have been able to break me in half, now it was almost as if I were fighting someone only twice as strong as a normal person.
The creature swatted me across the chest. I flew back, airborne for what seemed an impossible time, landing hard on the hood of one of the SUVs, shattering the windshield, and sliding down until I fell on my hands and knees onto the pavement. The vampire struggled to pull the stake free. Trip and Lee barreled into the creature, hacking wildly at it with their blades, trying desperately to take its head off. The monster shoved them away, but not before Trip fiercely planted his tomahawk into the base of its skull.
With a wrenching squeal, the stake was torn free. The creature roared in triumph, but only for a moment. Its eyes widened as the grill of a Suburban smashed into it at thirty miles an hour. The tires bumped as Holly gunned it over the fallen vampire, crushing it beneath. She slammed it into park, with the thing still trapped, opened the door and hopped out.
'Keys were in it!' she shouted as she turned and pulled a grenade from her armor. 'Run!' She pulled the pin, the spoon popped off with a clang, and she tossed it into the front seat of the vehicle. I pushed myself up and ran for my life, trying to get as far away as I could before the five-second fuse went off. If that vehicle had been as loaded down with munitions as ours had been, this wasn't going to be pretty. The vampire bench-pressed the SUV off of itself and rolled the vehicle onto its side. It stood, broken bones quickly knitting, looking for prey.
I dove behind one of the vans and tried to get as low to the ground as possible. The initial detonation of the grenade was relatively mild. The pressurized napalm tank it ignited was not. The crate of 81mm mortar rounds that went off next was downright amazing. The van I was using as a shield rocked up onto two wheels and every window shattered under the pressure.
Once the thunder had died, I slowly lifted my head. I peered around the edge of my scorched cover. The Suburban was reduced to a burning pile of distorted scrap lying sideways in a freshly dug crater. A chunk of metal landed in the grass a few feet away. I realized that it was a door. A burning tire rolled past.
'Wow' was the most articulate thing that I could think of to say.
'Think we got it?' Holly shouted from under the warg trailer.
'I hope so.' I lifted the rifle and approached the wreckage. 'Trip! Lee! You guys okay?' In the distance the mortars continued to fire.
'Pitt! Status?' Harbinger's voice sounded in my ear.
'I think we got the vampire. I can't find two of my guys.'
'This is Mayorga. One of them has broken through. It's in the trees on the left. Puta got Abe.'
'This is Cody. Got one on the right too.'
'Earl,' I said into the radio. I kept my gun up, pointed toward the burning vehicle. 'There's only one left in the valley. And it's badly hurt. It can't regenerate until it gets blood.' Holly extricated herself from under the trailer, and I tossed her rifle back.
'How do you know?' he asked. 'Shit, never mind. VanZant, stop the barrage. Edward, clean up in the center. Phillips, roll right. Paxton, reinforce left. Now they're up close, but we've hurt them, so they're gonna be weaker and slower. We can take them. Pitt, my team is coming your way.'
I did not respond. I scanned the surroundings. No sign of the vampire. No sign of Lee or Trip either. 'Hey guys? Anybody hear me?' I shouted.
'I'm okay,' answered Lee. He approached from the other side of the wreckage. His armor was smoking. He struggled with the FN MAG in his hands. It was almost as big as he was, and the exposed belt of ammo hung to the ground. 'That was one big-ass fireball.'
'Have you seen Trip?' He shook his head in the negative.
'Oh no…' Holly trailed off. 'I killed him.'
'You don't know that!' I shouted. 'Trip! Can you hear me!'
Nothing.
'Look.' Lee gestured with the machine gun barrel. I turned quickly, hoping to see my friend. Instead I saw that the flickering rift into the cavern was still open. It floated a few feet above the ground, a door out of nothing, but I could clearly see that there was something on the other side. I lifted Abomination warily, clicked on the flashlight and shined it into the shimmering gap. The powerful light pierced the darkness and illuminated a rock wall.
'Grant!' I exclaimed. Grant Jefferson was lying bound and gagged on the cavern floor, seemingly only forty feet away. 'Earl! Earl! We found Grant. We've got a back door into the cavern!'
'On the way,' he responded.
'We better hurry before it closes,' Lee said.
'How do we know it isn't a trap?' Holly asked. 'What if it closes while we're halfway through?'
'I don't know.' Wild gunfire crackled through the forest as the other Hunters battled the two Masters. 'We've got to try.' I reached into a pocket and pulled out a handful of glow sticks. 'I'm going in. I'll try to grab him and bring him out. Cover me.' I cracked the sticks, shook them, and tossed them through the rift. They landed and scattered across the cavern floor, providing a soft green glow. I couldn't see anything else moving.
'Good luck,' Holly said, 'you big brave idiot.'
I ran toward the rift, no use screwing around. I closed my eyes right before I hit it, only to open them to find myself barreling into the cavern. I had not felt a thing. I gulped in the moist cave air. I turned around, and the rift was still there, only now it showed the valley and the ominous green storm clouds overhead. My remaining teammates were waiting for me.
'Hurry up!' Holly shouted.
That was good advice. I swung my shotgun around, letting the light shine on the damp walls and the slick stalagmites. I did not see any threats. I shined the light on Grant. He moaned softly when the brilliant light hit him.
'Come on, buddy, let's get out of here.' I knelt at his side and pulled the gag away.
'Pitt?' he gasped. I heard something shuffle in the darkness. I spun the light around. Wights. Lots of them.
'Yeah. Time to boogie.' I grabbed him by the straps of his armor and, with a grunt, hoisted him over my shoulder. I sprinted for the rift, ignoring the two hundred pounds of extra weight. The wights began to scramble over the rocks toward me. One stepped into my path, only to be nearly decapitated by a burst of Lee's machine-gun fire. Apparently bullets went through the rift just fine. I passed the falling creature and jumped through the portal.
I was back outside.
And the wights were right behind. Lee ripped off the rest of the belt into the portal. Holly stood at his side, blasting any undead that came too close.
