Blackbloods Chapter 1

BLACKBLOODS
Chapter 1.

He pushed off the concrete barrier, feet skipping off scarred metal floors.  Shattered glass littered the floor, casting fragmented reflections of the boy and his pursuers.  Bullets ricocheted off the metal floor.  One of the randomly flying bullets winged a florescent bulb, sending the room into darkness.  He turned, offering a polite spray of return fire.  A staccato gurgle told him that he hit something.  Good, he hoped they choked on it.

Dimitri bolted around the corner, slamming the bent door into place and sliding the locking bar through.  The door was a shaky mass of damaged metal.  A determined individual could fit their entire arm through the warped gap in the top-right, but it might slow them down for a few crucial seconds.  In his deep pockets he held grenades, trip mines, even a wad of build-it-yourself thermite, the typical things a growing boy needs for a trip to the chicken farm.  But this wasn’t a simple game of scatter the roaches.  He held tight to his emergency det-pack, just in case.  One never could tell when the vamps would figure out how to aim.

Vanishing around the corner, Dimitri found his salvation.  A small air-duct, barely large enough for an adult to squeeze into.  Behind him, the door hit the ground with an echoing crash, and Dimitri slid down the tube.  They could see his legs for a brief second, before he vanished into the dark.  Without saying a word, the vamps rushed in, sliding down the claustrophobic tunnel without a second thought, claws scraping the paneling as they tried to catch up.

They were hallow, emaciated things, dressed in strips of fabric that hung loosely.  Blood red monochromatic eyes cut through the dark, and the anorexic looking limbs tore through the metal door with ease.  A mouth full of jagged misshapen teeth gnashed by the vent entrance, and for a second Dimitri could see its face.  A sunken skull, yellowed with age, those bright eyes the only dash of color to be found.  Its hair was nothing more than whispy white patches, growing out of a nearly bald skull like patches of crabgrass.  The scent of rotten meat on its breath carried down the tube.  If anything could motivate Dimitri to hurry, it was that.

A dozen of the vampires went in, leaving their larger guns behind so that they could move faster.  The smell of humans told them that there were survivors hidden up ahead, and the child had led them right to his home.  They would feast well tonight!

Fantasies of hot arterial gushes of that beautiful crimson sustenance fueled their bodies to new heights of superhuman speed.  The vampires crawled down the ten foot tube in a matter of seconds, spilling out into a room full of large black boxes.  A room that reeked of sweet humanity.  The pack leader, a long-fang vampire, entered last.  Rifle across his shoulder, he was the only one in the pack dressed like a human, instead of some feral beast.  Avarisse was his name, and he was wise enough to know the room for what it was the moment he entered.

“BLACKBLOODS!”  He cried out, yanking the gun off his back as the UV lights flickered on.

Four massive UV lights had been set up around the tube entrance, ensuring that no shadow survived in the space before the vent.  Under the powerful UV lights, harsher than pure sunlight, the weakest members of the pack fell into a state of hibernation, even as their skin started to burn and blister.  The stronger Vampires stood their ground, even as their vision swam and their joints began to lock up.  Aches and pains filled their bodies, and only by fighting through unimaginable pain could they so much as move.  Avarisse was not some common vampire.  He was a long-fang.  An elder.  One of the original ten-thousand that led that grand crusade into the stars to escape the purges.  He bit the inner lining of his cheek until putrid black blood filled his mouth.  Anything to distract him from the painful, nerve-numbing aches.

His limbs were like lead, though the UV lights barely burned his skin.  His eyes screamed out in agony as they tried to peer through the haze of murderous light, and spot the attackers that had set this trap for his pack.  Four thousand years of life would not allow him to simply roll over and die.  Survival was hard-wired into his very existence.  So he stomached the pain of boiling eyeballs and steadied his gaze.  Waiting for the attackers to come from any corner.

Six Blackbloods popped up, followed by the grinning Dimitri.  Their guns tore into the downed vampires, and the few that remained on their feet soon fell.  The elder got off a single shot with his ancient hunting rifle, the round tore through one of the Blackbloods, dropping the heathen human to the floor in a growing puddle of ink-black blood.  The rest of them shifted their focus to the elder vamp, who managed a second shot that went wide before their storm of bullets cast him to the ground.

The humming of the lights was the last sound in the room.  Then the Blackbloods began to cheer.  Zhelezo, the leader of their group, picked himself up off the floor, his rifle wound already nothing more than a light scar.  The puddle of blood he left on the floor would need to be cleaned before it ate through the metal.  However his attention was on the hero of the hour.

“Dimitri!  You have done well my boy, very well!  A whole pack, and on your fifth try too!  Sokav couldn’t manage that for an entire year, yes.  Not to mention an Ancient.  Very impressive, yes lads?”  His voice echoed around the room like a cheerful growl, rumbling through the vents as if daring the vamps to come rescue one of their many leaders.

The boy, now a man by right of triumph, glowed beneath the spotlight of attention.  “Thank you Father.  I knew I would make you proud.”

“You will make me proud by getting me a new coat!  Bah, this one is ruined.”  The massive gunshot, right over his left lung, had done a number on his favorite fur coat.  The blood soaking into it had not helped at all, the fabric was starting to smoke as the ink-black blood ate into it like acid.  The room laughed good-naturedly until Zhelezo silenced them with a raise of his hand.  “But.  You have earned your place here Dimitri.  From now on, we are all brothers.  I am Zhelezo!  You are Dimitri!  Tonight is your night!  Tonight we take back a shred of the universe for humanity, and welcome to the fold another Blackblood!”

He strode over to the ancient vampire, grabbing the five-thousand year old man-killer by its withered and burnt throat.  The thing felt like a frail old man, and after all the UV exposure its once powerful frame was pruny and bright red.  Dimitri was already waiting with his hunting knife.  “Remember, brother Dimitri. Aim for the chest, and get a good slice.  There is nothing like the first taste…”

The boy steadied his shaking hand, before plunging the knife into the vampires chest.  The thing shrieked and twitched its last, as Dimitri sucked heavily from the gaping chest wound.  Black blood filled his mouth, and he swallowed it down greedily, hungrily.  He paused for a moment to taste it.  To savor it.

Then the taste hit him like a 45 round to the chest, and he vomited all over the floor.  The men around him laughed joyously.  One passed him a tin cup of strong-smelling liquor, and he wiped the vomit and vampire blood off of his lips.  He was home.