INCURSION: Faeblade (Knight's Bane Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  As Boomer moved into the room, she was immediately attacked by two of the creatures' human thralls. These familiars were so lost to the control of their masters that they blindly dove at the federal agent holding the large automatic shotgun. Boomer raised her shotgun to her shoulder and squeezed the trigger. Riding the diminished recoil from the internal buffers on the AA-12, she shifted her aim slightly and squeezed once more.

  Both humans withered under the hail of silver and wood slugs. Designed to penetrate and take down a full vampire, the large slugs hit each human in the chest, ripping through the ribcage, through the heart and left lung, and exiting out the back in a three-inch hole. One after the other, both humans staggered, then dropped, dead before they hit the dirty concrete floor.

  Heavy stepped through the doorway last. As he did, he reached over his shoulders and drew his two ceremonial khukuris from the sheaths strapped to his back. As they cleared their sheathes, they began to glow a pale iridescent green. Grinning wildly, he stepped forward and pointed at the last two beings remaining. The two creatures bared their fangs and hissed. Then they sprang at the big federal agent.

  The former Airborne special forces sergeant waited for a brief pause as the two vampires committed to their leap. As both flew through the air at him, the giant nimbly stepped aside and swung both of his ceremonial knives at the creature closest to him. The first blade swept through the outstretched arms of the vampire, severing them above the elbows. The second swing seemed to be drawn toward the neck of the attacker, slicing clean through and causing the head to drop and roll away from where the body landed and started to dissolve.

  The second vampire landed and rolled, swiftly rising and slashing at the big agent. Heavy was ready for this attack and used one khukuri to fend off the attacks while he waited for his opportunity for a strike.

  They sparred for a few long seconds, and the vampire finally made a mistake. It was used to attacking slower, weaker prey, and it overbalanced on a long swipe at Heavy's face. Heavy saw the opportunity and his arm was moving before his brain realized it. His right arm brought the khukuri in from the side, and the blade unerringly sought its target — the neck of this vampire. He barely felt the strike as the enchanted blade glided through the undead flesh encountering no resistance.

  Heavy looked up as the head bounced away and the body began to dissolve into smoke. He looked around what used to be a lounge area, and then spoke to Ghost, "I count six, and only four were vamps. This can't be the main nest, can it?"

  Ghost shook his head and gestured at the door in the back of the room. "We go through there," the team leader announced. "According to the intel, that hallway should lead us to the main nest, and the master. He now knows we're coming. Be ready."

  The DHS leader moved over to the door he pointed to earlier and placed his ear against it. Leaning back, he said, "Sounds clear. Time to clean out the nest."

  Heavy took point, trying the knob to see if it was locked. Finding the door unlocked, the big agent turned the handle, and then opened the door. Beyond the door was a short hallway, with two doors on each side, and a frosted glass door at the end with "PRIVATE" stenciled on it in gold paint.

  Carefully checking each door on the way down the hallway, and finding each one locked, the team swiftly and silently made their way down the fifty foot corridor. As they got closer to the private suite, they could hear a different music than the one still pounding in the warehouse outside the offices. Somehow the classical strains of Bach meshed well with the driving music from the club.

  Reaching the door, Heavy approached from the side, trying to minimize his shadow on the frosted pane of glass. The big gunner looked back at his boss, and Ghost gave a nod, signaling him to open the door. Heavy slowly turned the handle, and the door slowly swung open, revealing a decadent suite with a giant bed in the middle of the back wall, thick, lush carpeting on the floor, and heavy drapery all around the room.

  Sitting on couches and chairs around the large room were several people. While most appeared to be vampire, Heavy could see several regular humans among them. On the bed in the center of the back wall crouched a vampire, hunched over as she ripped and tore the flesh off of the body in front of her. Her victim appeared to have been a teenager, dressed in club clothes, and now very dead, by the looks of her shredded wrists and thighs.

  As the team strode in, the master vampire looked up from her feast. Heavy realized something was off. There was something about the scene that bothered him. Then he realized what it was. He could hear himself saying in his deep rumble, "It can't be. I didn't think they did that. Is that bloodsucker really...?"

  Ghost finished his question, "Sparkling? It appears so."

  Heavy could not tear his eyes away from the master vampire, his deep voice rising in plaintive denial, "No. They don't sparkle. You said so. Doc said so. Bloodsuckers don't really sparkle."

  Ghost's voice was soft and thoughtful, "Well, I guess there's a first time for everything. Would you please go kill that sparkling vampire?"

  Chaos erupted.

  3

  TAKEDOWN

  INDUSTRIAL PARK, NEWPORT NEWS, VIRGINIA

  As Heavy let out a tremendous roar and leapt at the sparkling vampire crouching on the bed in the middle of the back wall, Ghost raised his cane sword and blocked a swipe of claws from the teenage vampire sitting by the door. The young vampire scrambled to its feet and the DHS agent recovered from his parry and performed a perfect riposte, shoving the glowing blade through the eye socket of the vampire and into its brain. The vampire jerked to a halt, and its considerable strength left the body as it quivered on the sword.

  The vampire slowly slid off the tip of the sword, and Ghost took a quick swipe, drawing the blade across the neck of the creature. The creature's head slid free of its body and bounced out into the hallway. As its body slumped to the ground, it began dissolving into a greasy black vapor. Ghost looked up and searched for his next target.

  Boomer almost tripped on the head of Ghost's first vampire as she strode into the room. She raised her shotgun to her shoulder and thumbed the selector switch to full-auto. The explosives expert centered her sights on a group of human bodyguards across the room that were reaching into their suit jackets. As the first guard drew his pistol, Boomer squeezed the trigger, firing a short burst of heavy 12ga slugs from her shotgun. The rounds hit the chest of the bodyguard and the trio of three-quarter-inch slugs ripped through his chest, shredding his heart and lungs.

  The human guard started to fall and Boomer shifted to the guards around him. Squeezing the trigger for short bursts, the explosives expert placed perfectly aimed bursts of slugs into the three remaining human guards. All of them were hit and fell hard, and none of the bodyguards were able to return fire. Boomer quickly dropped the mostly empty drum magazine and rammed another home into the receiver. She raised the shotgun back up to her shoulder and scanned around the room for her next target.

  Doc stepped into the room and her vestments lit with a bright blue glow. She looked carefully around and stepped cautiously toward the corner opposite where Boomer was working. She spotted two creatures as they noticed her movement. Abject terror crossed their faces as they froze in fear. She raised the cross in front of her and began chanting and intoning in Latin.

  A blue glow enveloped the priest's cross, and she pulled a cap off the long end of the cross, revealing a silver dagger blade with symbols and latin etched along the edge. Doc waited, holding the two vampires with her faith as she waited for backup.

  To the priest's left, Boomer had just put down another human thrall when she realized that Doc had cornered two vamps. She pivoted to the right and raised her shotgun to her shoulder. As she brought her shotgun up, she flipped the selector switch back to semi-auto. She carefully aimed through the red dot scope and placed the crosshairs over the chest of one of the vamps. She exhaled partly, and squeezed the trigger, sending the 12ga slug into the chest of the vamp.

  Like the rounds she had b
een using all night, the large silver hollow point slug had a giant cavity in it, and that cavity was made from a special wood grown on sacred ground. As the slug hit the vampire in the chest, the pressure on the tip of the round forced the wood back into the solid silver cup. This started the expansion process, and the slug peeled back to create a one-inch wide mushroom of silver that bracketed a half-inch slug of pure sanctified wood.

  This wooden payload traveled deep into the vampire's chest cavity, and the slug hit the creature's heart. As it was designed, the wooden part of the slug shattered as it neared the creature's heart. The slivers burst outward, and most of the fragments burrowed their way into the vampire's heart. Each sliver of wood acted as a miniature stake, paralyzing the vampire. Close behind the wood slivers, an inch-wide "mushroom" of silver slammed into the heart, turning the undead muscle into so much paste, and then exited out the back of the creature. As the first body was falling and starting to dissolve, Boomer again pulled the trigger, and the next slug shattered the heart of the second vampire, killing that threat as well.

  Doc looked at Boomer and nodded her thanks, and then turned to survey the room, looking for more targets. The explosives expert was also looking around the room and saw Ghost attacking another creature. She saw them just in time to see the former independent monster hunter slice the head off of the vampire. She watched as Ghost flicked the ichor off of his blade with a quick hand motion and turned toward the giant bed.

  Heavy had drawn the khukuris from their sheathes as he strode toward the raised bed. The blades began to glow a ghostly green that brightened as the big man got closer to the creature in front of him. The vampire on the bed raised its head, bloody maw gaping and lined with razor-sharp teeth. She let out a loud hiss that shifted to a growl.

  The creature leapt at the big DHS agent, hands outstretched and claws glinting a muted red in the light. As it jumped, the vampire scattered her latest victim across the bed, and a small corner of Heavy's mind watched the torso and legs go in different directions with the force of the creature's leap.

  The creature and Heavy collided in midair, both letting out savage roars. The vampire wrapped its arms around the big man, using its superior strength to pin the warrior's arms to his sides, and keep the blessed blades away. The two dropped heavily to the floor, with the big federal agent landing on top of the smaller vampire. The impact jarred the creature as several hundred pounds of weight landed on the monster; Sir Isaac Newton's physical laws playing out in real time.

  As Heavy landed on the creature, he felt her arms loosen slightly. He drew his head back and brought his forehead down in a headbutt, slamming his hard forehead into the nose of the vampire. Crushed between the hard floor and the agent's hard forehead, the weaker bones in the nose and face shattered on impact. The creature howled in pain and she let go, throwing the big agent off of her.

  Heavy briefly saw stars as his forehead broke the face of the creature. He shook his head and realized that he was free of the creature's embrace. He also realized that he still held both khukuris in his hand. He rolled to his knees, and saw the vampire four feet away from him, holding her face and howling as the ichor poured through her fingers. He seized the opportunity in her distraction and lunged forward, hoping to pin her on one of his blades.

  The vampire raised her head at the last second, and her murderous gaze changed to fear as the glowing blade pierced her chest. The flesh around the blade began to sizzle, and the agony forced the creature to scream again.

  With the creature pinned to the end of the khukuri, Heavy was able to draw a ragged breath, aim, and then swing his second blade around, severing the head of the vampire. He let the rapidly dissolving body drop from the end of his blade and looked at the room around him. Seeing the rest of his team staring, he deadpanned, "And all I had to worry about at the raves I attended were drugs."

  "I wouldn't know. I never got invited," quipped Ghost. The team leader keyed his mic, "Ghost to Knightmare. The Master is gone, and the nest in clean. Begin mop up. Bravo, execute Insertion."

  Standing outside the door, Do-Right nodded to Scout, and then raised a foot to kick in the locked door. As the door crashed open, two creatures stepped out of the darkness and rushed the agents. Do-Right pulled the trigger on his MP5. The small sub-gun chattered out a burst of silver and wood slugs that chewed into and dropped one of the charging vampires. Scout raised his suppressed pistol and squeezed off two rounds. One of them struck the vampire in the chest, with the second round entering the vampire's face and exiting out a large hole in the back of its head.

  Scout dropped his aim slightly and pointed his pistol at the writhing creature on the floor. A single muted "clack" and the vampire stopped writhing in agony as a silver and wood slug opened the back of the creature's head and scattered the contents around the body.

  William "Scout" Buckhorn was not yet used to using firearms to kill monsters. William had been an archery instructor at a camp in northern Colorado until just a couple months ago. A mad scientist under the thrall of a master vampire had infected a large majority of the children in the camp and most of the adult counselors with a genetically engineered version of the vampire virus. William had been fortunate to escape and hide in the woods.

  When team Knightmare showed up to eradicate the vampires, they had found William and had attempted to rescue him. When the vampires attacked en masse, the team had been almost overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the vampires. Seeing an opportunity to help, the former olympic alternate had grabbed his grandfather's old bow and started killing the monsters alongside the DHS agents. When the smoke cleared, William was conscripted to join Section 28, and he'd been given the nickname "Scout" to match his Navajo heritage.

  Do-Right and Scout carefully explored the large room stuffed with electronics and made sure that there were no more surprises waiting in the crowded room. Scout found the back of a rack of computers, exactly as Spooky had described. He took a small USB thumb drive out of an inner pouch and stuck it in a slot in one of rack-mounted servers. When it was seated fully, he pushed the small green button on the drive.

  A red light lit up on the specially designed thumb drive and Scout keyed his microphone, "Spooky, this is Scout. Package is uploaded. Scout to Ghost, Insertion complete. Will escort locals inside."

  "Ghost to Scout. Affirmative. Ghost to Spooky. Patch us in to the local radio network."

  In the blacked-out DHS truck, Spooky flipped a couple switches, and then began typing on his keyboard. After twenty seconds, he keyed his own mic, "Spooky to Ghost. You are live in... Five. Four. Three. Two. One."

  As he checked all the bodies in the nest area, Ghost keyed his radio again, "Agent Vanhof to Captain Gerard. You are clear for entry. I have two agents waiting on the back side of the building, they will escort your men in. The rest of my team is in the main office area. I will post my people at the entrance. Consider the office area clear and off limits for your people."

  Ghost's earpiece crackled and an older voice came back to him. "Affirmative, Vanhof. I'm sending my men in now."

  As Spooky watched from the monitors in the truck, swarms of police officers in uniforms or riot gear approached and entered the building. As the first officer opened the outer door, the young electronics genius tapped out a pre-arranged key sequence.

  In the electronics staging area, the light on the USB drive shifted from red to green. In the computer system, a series of random data was rapidly overwriting all the storage media attached to the network. At the same time, the data worm in the programming almost instantly infected the server, and then spread rapidly to the other servers. In less than a second, the specially designed worm transferred complete control of the servers to Spooky.

  The electronics specialist keyed a macro sequence and hit "enter" on his command console. Inside the rave, the music died out and the lights came up as the police officers burst through the doors. Amid the sudden silence, the police officers shouted orders and pointed their firearms at the
ravers. With the alcohol and drugs flowing through their systems, it took many of the partiers a long time to realize that their night of debauchery had suddenly, harshly, ended

  At the rear entrance, the group of policemen followed the two federal agents inside the building. Scout led a small group of officers down a short corridor and onto the raised dais where the DJ was hurriedly gathering his equipment before he made a break for the exit. The DJ stopped and raised his hands as the trio of officers came through the back door, weapons raised and shouting orders.

  Down the other hallway, Do-Right led the officers to the equipment room, and then the office area beyond the door. The agent and the officers with him didn't find anyone else in the area as they cleared the building room-by-room.

  On the roof across from the warehouse, the DHS sniper watched the scene through a bulky pair of binoculars. Much like the scope on his rifle, Little G was able to cycle the view from infrared to low-light to normal light at will. He watched and counted sixteen police officers and tactical officers entered the front of the building. The sniper watched as the prisoner transport vans began to arrive, and then movement on the roof across from him drew his attention.

  He shifted his aim and saw a second figure emerge out of a roof access hatch to stand next to the first. Both looked human, but were moving a little too fast to be normal. He carefully lowered the glasses and raised his scope, never moving more than a couple inches, lest he draw attention to himself. As his scope came to his eye, he thumbed the switch to infrared.

  As he put his eye to the scope, he could distinctly see the colder body temperature of the figures on the rooftop. Too cold to be a living human. He grinned slightly and disengaged the safety on the rifle. He watched as one of the creatures looked over the front edge at the police cars and officers milling below it in the parking lot. The creature looked back over his shoulder and made a motion for the other creature to look over the back of the building.