Flynn had been the first to snap out of the terror trance and realise that they weren’t dealing with some damn fairy story here, but a real threat. A real nasty threat that was just about to turn its attention onto Flynn and the one remaining and utterly freaked out archaeologist. Flynn didn’t care whether this monster was the real Vlad, some crazy, inbred village idiot or the damn Devil himself. So he’d reacted in the only way he knew how. Natural or supernatural, this son of a bitch was flesh and blood. So a Glock should have an effect on it, even if it was only to slow the fucker down for a few seconds and give them that chance they needed to put more than twenty feet between it and them. He emptied an entire clip into the thing and watched as its body twitched and danced.
The blood-daubed creature recoiled for a few seconds and then stopped its snapped-marionette-string dance. It smiled, white teeth emphasised by the gore-covered skin. It stood, unfurling and flexing taloned fingers.
“Oh, shit…” Flynn grabbed his charge by the shoulders and screamed one word at him. “Run!”
Whatever that thing behind them was, it kept pace. Flynn got the distinct impression it could quite easily overtake and overwhelm them. But it was toying with them like a cat would play with a mouse. It was watching how they reacted, determining how well they knew the terrain. It was assessing them, learning their tactics, and letting them draw it along. Flynn had the distinctly unpleasant feeling that the little the archaeologist had told him about the legend of the Black Prince being a military genius was just the tip of a blood-soaked iceberg. His skin prickled. Back in Afghanistan there had been this one Taliban chieftain that had made all the others look like complete amateurs. He had had that cold, detached way of disciplining his men that revolved around ‘making examples’. The examples were bloody remains left swinging in trees in the savage winter gales that swept through the Tora Bora caves and the White mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. He had mounted an IED campaign so successful that it had claimed the lives of twenty regulars and seven Special Forces troops. He had been known for his extraordinary ability to pre-empt when and where the SF teams would go in on a ‘flush out’, and vanish like a wraith into the mountains, forever one step ahead. He had retained that arrogant, smug smile and defiance right up to the moment Flynn put two bullets between his bloodshot, hate-filled eyes.
Flynn then had to run for his life as the man’s two radicalised and equally insanely-violent sons pursued him and his team through the badlands, promises of revenge screamed in Pashto ringing in their ears. He learned then that when you cut the head from the Hydra, two more grow back. Evil is never conquered. It’s merely subdued until a greater evil comes to take its place. He had seen that same evil in the eyes of… whatever the fuck that thing was when it paused in its bullet-dance, dropped the mushed-up, ruined heart of the research fellow, and locked its gaze with him. An evil allowed to fester in a dark, vile place for centuries had become focused into a singularity that, when unleashed, would sweep everything before it. And Flynn’s Glock17 was going to do fuck-all to stop the bastard, no matter how many clips he emptied into its emaciated, putrefying body…
Vlad watched the soldier and his charge scuttle away down the corridor and smiled a chilling, venom-filled smile. Cold. Calculating. A military strategist like no other before or since. Stalking its prey at its leisure. It had waited hundreds of years. It could wait a few moments longer. Blood was only half the meal. It wanted to savour the fear as well. It wanted to hear their hearts pounding in anticipation of the terror that was about to befall them. It relished the futile attempts of a little man with a pop-gun trying to comprehend the evil he faced. That sweet, satisfying moment when the man realised that there was no escape. There was no fate other than the one the Black Prince had chosen for him. The Black Prince smiled a virginal white smile. Soldiers rarely operated alone. So there were more. So he would make sure the little soldier with his useless gun stayed alive long enough to watch any comrades he may have devoured in front of him. The anguish, the rage, the pathetic howling and screaming as he watched the Black Prince’s teeth rip into the throats of men he loved like brothers would be almost as delicious as the blood itself.
‘Lead on, little soldier. Lead on…’
Flynn and the archaeologist pelted down the slippery corridors that twisted and turned under the citadel and carried them deeper into the labyrinth. A line of gaffer-taped cables acted like a trail of breadcrumbs leading them back towards the sanctuary of the armoury. Without that advantage they would have become completely turned around in the myriad of tunnels that weaved and meandered beneath the ruined towers and crumbling walls. A wrong turn would take you into a dead end. And a dead end had a very literal sense when you were being pursued by an insane and bloodthirsty monster.
As he shoved the archaeologist again in the small of the back, Flynn pulled out a radio and pressed the squawk button. “Micky, get ready with everything we’ve got ordnance wise. We’re coming in fucking hot!”
“Don’t tell me those boffins have gone rogue on your arse? Coo, there ain’t nothing worse than a cocky egghead, fella!” Micky Cox’s cheerful voice crackled out of the hand-held and bounced off the stones.
“Don’t fuck about, Micky! I’m serious! FUBAR! FUBAR like you wouldn’t fucking believe!”
“Fuck… copy that.” Micky’s light-hearted tone instantly changed.
Flynn felt himself losing step as the archaeologist, not the fittest of academics, started to slow. The adrenaline was wearing off and panic was starting to take hold. Flynn knew from experience that he had seconds before the bloody fool froze up and probably went foetal on him. He reached out and grabbed the man’s shirt, overtook him and ignored the protestations as his coaching method changed from snarled encouragement and threats to brute-force dragging. “Move! We’ve got a few more turns before we get to the control room. I’ll lay money that your bitey friend back there won’t be able to get through that door once we’ve locked it, right?”
The archaeologist gasped as he tried to keep pace with Flynn. “And once we’re locked in with nowhere to run, what do you suggest then?”
“I’m not thinking that far ahead right now, fella. Priority number one is to stay away from Count Chompula, okay?” He yanked hard at the archaeologist’s multi-pocketed waistcoat, hauling him around another corner and a few steps closer towards safety.
They were close.
They were so damn close…
Flynn and the archaeologist rounded the next corner and skidded to a halt, flailing wildly to try and keep themselves from tumbling into the waiting arms of the Black Prince. It stood stooped and filling the corridor, disproportionately long arms full of muscle and sinews ending in talons that would rip through flesh and bone like it was paper. White teeth shone in the flickering light. Unlike those dopey movie vampires, this vicious fucker didn’t have two slightly longer canine teeth and a mouthful of perfect orthodontry. It had a whole mouthful of dazzlingly-white points bathed in saliva and dripping with toxins. It opened its maw and hissed like an angry cat. Eyes fixed on the two stumbling men, eyes filled with insanity, hatred and a raging hunger beyond anything Flynn had seen during his humanitarian missions to Sudan. “Shit! Back! Back! Back!” Flynn shoved the archaeologist backwards, trying to twist him around. The academic, unaccustomed to any physical activity more strenuous than reaching for a book on a top shelf, lost his balance and collapsed in a heap directly behind Flynn’s legs. Flynn toppled backwards, and the archaeologist and CPP bodyguard became entangled in a mess of flailing arms and legs.