He uncapped the lenses of his scope and settled in for the long haul.
One little piggy…two little piggies…three little piggies…time to go to market.
The school rooftop shook with the report of the fifty-caliber BMG rifle.
Well, Masters, you wanted their attention. Now you’ve got it. Any other bright ideas?
The Beowulf roared its defiance in a slow and steady staccato beat, and with every bark from its muzzle another target hit the ground and didn’t move again.
Part of his mind realized that he was firing on American citizens while on American soil. The subtle nightmare of it was only beginning to dawn, however, and in the heat of the moment he could ill-afford to pay it any attention. That they were already dead was a technical point — hell, it was the honest truth — but the horror of it still gnawed at him. This wasn’t what he’d signed up to do; it wasn’t how his life was supposed to run.
Yet this was where his journey had brought him. And it was likely where he would end.
So be it.
He’d drawn a crowd, so much so that his steady shooting with the Beowulf had resulted in a literal pile of corpses that the other corpses were climbing over instead of going around. Unfortunately, there were more of the walking dead than he had bullets for in his rifle, and they were getting closer.
He had seated his last magazine into the receiver when a whining sound tore past him, accompanied by the fleshy splats of a heavy bullet hitting targets. The boom that followed quickly on its heels left no doubt as to the origins of the heavy round that had just felled three vampires in their tracks.
“Nathan, you damned fool.” Masters swore as he brought his rifle up again. “Now they know where you are. I told you to get out.”
He was just talking to himself, of course; he didn’t bother with his comm because it didn’t matter anymore. He knew his job; Nathan most certainly knew his. Orders were obsolete from this point onward — now they could only take things one mad minute at a time.
The Beowulf roared again.
“That idiot.” Alexander Norton swore under his breath, using several choice words and phrases that didn’t translate directly into English.
“While I’m not disagreeing,” Jack Nelson growled, “I’m pretty sure that’s the distraction we were ordered to move on.”
“Go. I’m going to see if I can get the fool out of the rat trap he just tripped on himself,” Norton said, sounding more annoyed than anything else.
“We have orders,” Nelson began, only to be cut off.
“Don’t.” Norton shook his head. “I’m not one of you. I’m a civilian, and the reason I’m here is because I know more about this sort of shit than you ever could in your worst nightmares. So you go follow your orders, and I’m going to go see if I can keep a friend from being turned into a snack food. To each his own, yes?”
Alex straightened up, walking away from the group with a calm, casual manner that just seemed so wrong given the situation. Nelson swore, but finally just shook it off.
“Fine. The rest of you, move!” he growled, pointing north, up the middle of a cluster of houses. “Double-time. Go.”
Derek Hayes and Mack Turner nodded, gathering up an increasingly shell-shocked Judith Andrews between them as they followed Lieutenant Nelson. Behind them, however, Eddie Rankin hesitated and cast a glance after Alexander Norton and the distant flashes of gunfire in the night.
Hesitation turned into motion, and in an instant he was off after Norton. Nelson noticed him go, but suppressed the urge to order him back. He doubted it would do any good, and if there was one thing he’d learned about command, it was that you never gave an order you didn’t expect to be obeyed.
Not only was it pointless, but it literally destroyed discipline when the troops saw you standing around like a schmuck with your thumb up your ass while the person you were trying to command flipped you the bird.
Alex ambled down the slush-and-mud-covered road, not breaking stride for anything. Rankin caught up with him quickly, but the man in black barely glanced at him.
“You have a plan?”
Alex shook his head. “Not even a ghost of one.”
“Good. At least it’s not just me.”
“Hold that thought for a moment, will you?” Alex asked as he paused at a driveway. He turned and walked over to the house’s door, waving over his shoulder. “Be just a minute.”
Rankin watched nervously, checking around to see if they’d been spotted as Alex fiddled with the locked door. In a matter of seconds, he opened it with a flourish and disappeared inside. After a few moments, he was back, walking toward Rankin with a couple of objects in his hands.
He tossed one to Rankin, who caught the crucifix on reflex and goggled at it.
“You must be joking.”
“Nope,” Alex said cheerfully. “A vital part of every vampire hunter’s kit.”
“I never took you for a Christian, Alex.”
“Oh, gods forbid.” Alex rolled his eyes. “It has nothing to do with that.”
Rankin hefted the cross in his hand. “How do you figure?”
“The cross is what makes the difference, my friend, not the crucifix,” Alex chided him as he gestured down the road. “Shall we?”
“What’s the difference between a cross and a crucifix?”
“A cross is the ancient Celtic symbol for the sun,” Alex told him as they walked, “and a crucifix is how Romans murdered the filth of their empire, a few potential exceptions aside. Which of those do you honestly believe is likely to have a more profound effect on a vampire?”
He checked the cross in his hands again. “So it’s really a symbol of the sun?”
“Really.”
“Huh. I guess you learn something new every day.”
“Quite. Now, I believe we’re about to become busy.”
Rankin scowled as several shapes lurched out of the shadows in their direction. “How effective is this thing?”
Alex shrugged, tucking his own cross into his belt. “Honestly? I would lead with the gun.”
“Speaking my language.”
Rankin followed Alex’s example, sliding the cross into his belt before adjusting his grip on his Beowulf, bringing the weapon up to his shoulder. The big rifle roared, its recoil a satisfying comfort against his shoulder as he and The Black walked into the night.
Out!
Masters tossed the Beowulf aside, the big-hero gun spent now. He drew his Smith and Wesson 500 in the same motion, thumb cocking back the hammer on the five-round revolver.
One-handed, the big gun was hardly an ideal weapon, but the half-inch-diameter rounds packed enough power that he was willing to forgive the hammer-blow recoil and blowtorch cylinder exhaust. All the more so when the first round out of the heavy pistol split the skull of his target with almost the ease of the Beowulf.
It was unfortunate that he could only do that four more times.
Time to break out the big guns.
He knelt down, firing another round out of the pistol as he pulled open the zippered section of the duffel with his off hand.
His third shot, a little low, tore through a vampire’s jaw and effectively decapitated it, though the head was still technically attached when it fell to the ground.
Masters switched to a Weaver’s grip on the pistol, emptying it with two more rounds placed as fast and precisely as he could manage considering the recoil, and then the Smith too hit the ground, abandoned after it had served its purpose.