The Battle For Blogland - Chapter 15: As Good As Dead

So here, as promised - a lot sooner than any of the others. I'm still hoping to get another one in before the holidays are up, but we'll see.
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Theme: 'Devoid' by Whitechapel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH5sSdFmD1Q
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15

AS GOOD AS DEAD

Flame froze where he was and Ivy shut up under the collected glares of every other person in the room. A high pitched whine drifted across from behind the door and the vampire pounded its claws against the wood, again, again, again. Another set of forces begun clawing away at the tavern next to the first vampire.

“Nobody move…” whispered Death as quietly as she could. Sparky, who’s position of solitude for the last hour or so had been directly next to the furthest window from the door, took a step sideways, turned and peered through one of the gaps in defences. I slid off my chair and joined Sparky at the window while Nixion took up residence at the next one over, all of us searching for the vampires currently making the tavern itself rattle under the force of beating. There were three vampires currently pounding away at the building, snarling and fighting to get at the fresh meat on the inside.

“I said ‘nobody move’…” muttered Death.

Nixion turned and spoke at a regular volume. “Well, they know we’re here,” he said. “Time to go.”

“Thrust go upstairs and get Lorelei,” Flame said, matching Nixion’s tone of normality. “Death, do we have any bags or anything?”

“I think so…” Death muttered, stooping behind the bar again, coming back up with two backpacks.

“Great,” he said. “Everyone scoop as much food and bottled water into the packs as possible. Now.”

Thrust hurried upstairs, Flame, Nixion, Death and Ivy pushed food and water into the two packs, and Sparky and I kept watch as the defences buckled and weakened by the second. They crammed as many supplies inside as the bags would hold, and even then forced bottles of water into the outer portions of the packs. Muffled speech drifted from upstairs and then came the sounds of footsteps on wood. There was another white blur and just like that, there were four vampires snarling and screeching, hacking at the building, making it rumble.

“There’s another one,” I muttered as Thrust came hurrying down the stairs supporting a pale looking Lorelei.

“Another one?” asked Death.

“Another vampire,” I said. “Four vampires. No Valedr.”

“It’s not going to be easy getting out of here,” Flame said. “We’re going to have to do this right. Lorelei’s the most injured here. Zath’s got some messed up rib and I’ve got a messed up arm, but aside from that everyone’s fighting ready, yes?”

Most people nodded in affirmation, and I frowned slightly. I’d been doing a pretty good job of ignoring my whole rib dilemma until Flame had brought it up, and had almost forgotten suspicions of Sparky’s actions that night. Now that he’d mentioned it again, however, the pain – which had subsided to a simple nagging annoyance by that point – leaped back to being the nuisance it was supposed to be. Which was, of course, highly convenient at that moment, considering what we were about to do. The unnerving noises that the vampires were making escalated to new heights in terms of volume, and their pounding against the building increased in strength. Dust begun flitting down on us between the floorboards of the ceiling, coming to a rest on the objects below. They would break through any minute now.

“Two people need to support Lorelei,” Flame said. “She obviously can’t walk by herself.

“I’m fine,” she grunted, sounding annoyed. “Give me my weapons back and I’ll be just as ready for them as any of you could be.”

“You can’t even walk,” Death said. “But you can have your weapons back. You might need them.” She pulled out the switchblade from under the bar and tossed it to her, but when Death ducked under to grab something else, she frowned. “Where’d the gun go?”

“Are you kidding?” Lorelei asked, exasperated, as she pocketed the switchblade. “I stole my handgun back ages ago.”

Death muttered to herself and Flame took charge of the situation again. The apparent leader in a crisis, now that Sparky had drifted. “Thrust and Death can support Lorelei, it’s only logical.”

“How is that logical?” asked Death. “I can fight, I can help.”

“It’s logical because you two have been with her the longest and know what needs to be done when she has to be moved,” Flame replied calmly. “We don’t have time to argue. Everyone will form a pack around the three. We all stick together and move quickly. No one gets left behind, but no one make any stupid moves either. Any objections?”

“Who died and put you in charge?” asked Nixion.

“Problem?” asked Flame.

He shrugged. “Nah.”

“Let’s go then. Gimme one of those packs, I won’t be able to fight as much as everyone else with this arm anyway, so I may as well be somewhat useful. Give the other one to Lorelei – she’s getting supported anyway.”

Death tossed the first backpack over to Flame who caught it with the air and maneuvered it through his arms and onto his back. She then heaved the second one over to Lorelei and helped Thrust put it on her back. They both got into position and Lorelei, with no short amount of complaining, allowed herself to drape her arms over each of their shoulders for support.

“I’ll push them out of the way when we run for it,” Flame said. “You all head for the other side of the town – don’t go the same way we came in. Remember, everyone stay around Death and Thrust and Lorelei, and stick together. No one make any dumb moves, and we should all hopefully survive this.”

“Keep a lookout for Vlaedr,” Death said. “You’ll want to know where he is.”

Thrust and Death moved Lorelei up to the front of the tavern as the building continued to rock and shake. Ivy, Nixion and I all moved into position around the three and Flame turned to Sparky. “Ready?” he asked. She gave him a long, cold look, but did not reply. He turned to the door and said “Go.”

With a snap of his palm the wooden door splintered and shot backwards, knocking a single vampire backwards. The next second, however, the other three vampires were in the doorway. Flame snapped his palm again and two of them shot backwards, but the other managed to move itself around the blast of air and sped inside the tavern. Everyone sprinted for the doorway and most of us were out when the vampire collided with Ivy, and crashed into the bar in a cloud of smoke and dust. Nixion was about to run back for her when a blinding burst of crackling light emitted from inside the building and the vampire seized up and collapsed. Sparky offered Ivy a hand and pulled her up.

“Keep moving!” Flame yelled and pushed us forwards. Ivy took a minute to register the long gash across her shoulder before brushing it off aggressively and ran after us with Sparky. The vampires Flame had knocked over had long recovered by this point and were currently stalking us through the night, making horrible noises and crashing into buildings around us. One came crashing down through the window on the top floor of a rundown old house and leaped for us. Nixion stepped forwards and socked it in the jaw. It cringed for only a second and then flew back at him as a blur and took them both crashing away.

“Where the hell did they go?” yelled Death.

“We don’t have time to stop…” muttered Flame.

I scanned the area as fast as I could, but I could see no sign of Nixion.

“We don’t have time,” Flame repeated. “We have to keep moving!” he hurried off and after a few seconds of hesitation, most of the group followed. I lingered around a few seconds longer.

“Nixion!” I roared, but no response came. “Nix!” only silence. I cursed, looked around, cursed again. This couldn’t be right, we couldn’t just leave him. We were supposed to stay together as a group and not get separated. I scowled as the sound of the vampires returning echoed around me, and sprinted after the others.

“How far until the exit?” I spat at Death and Thrust.

“Not sure,” Death murmured as we ran. “Everything looks different in the dark…”

We charged through the alleyways, sprinting past the decaying and olden buildings that held true to the standard set by the ones we’d seen on our way in. There were no lights in any of the buildings, so the only source of illumination we had was the fireball in Flame’s hand, and the fireball in mine. “We can’t let anyone else get separated,” Thrust growled. “We have to stay together.”

“They’re stalking us…” whispered Death. “They’re here.”

Out of nowhere leaped the snarling pale face of a vampire and Flame hurled the fireball in his hand at it. As expected, the vampire dodged it and took Flame off his feet. Sparky’s face darkened again and a burst of electricity surged toward the vampire, but it looked up at the last second and blurred away. Flame got to his feet, but the vampire had returned, and now had Sparky pinned to the ground and was clawing at her. Flame roared and snapped his palm at the vampire, and it tumbled over, towards us. Ivy sent a kick at it, but it recovered quickly and dodged, then swiped at her.

The other two vampires had caught up, and then one of them had taken Sparky back to the ground, clawing at her chest with ferocity. Flame leaped onto its back and snapped his fingers, holding the fireball close to its neck. The vampire whined and reeled backwards, spinning and throwing Flame off. It struggled between sources of meat, and then bounded for Flame again. Meanwhile, the other two vampires had collaboratively attacked both Ivy and Thrust. Death was struggling to hoist Lorelei back up while she protested and screamed at her that she had to help Ivy and Thrust. Ivy was screaming in fury which quickly tumbled into a cry of agony as the vampire dug its claws into her already open wound from earlier. I ran for it and sunk one of my daggers into its arm. The vampire screeched and swiped at me with its good arm. It missed my neck but snagged my check and I stumbled backwards as warm blood spilled over my face. When I looked back up, Death had forced the vampire off Ivy and was trying to bat it away while Lorelei struggled with the one clawing at Thrust.

I snapped my palm at the one on Thrust and the gust of air sent both the vampire and Lorelei soaring backwards. Cursing once again at my error, I moved to fix it when Thrust leaped up and tended to the problem. Instead, I turned to the vampire attacking Sparky and Flame, only to see it had been driven backwards from them and was now bounding for me. Its claws dug into my chest as it took me to the ground and I cried out in pain. Its jaws snapped and it snarled and tried to dig into my flesh, for its first bite of the night, but I held it back. All the same, it was taking up every ounce of my energy and will to keep it from tearing me to pieces. A streak of blue energy crashed into the vampire and it tumbled sideways, wounded. I took a long breath and rolled over, taking a few moments to recover.

I struggled to my feet and as my vision cleared slowly I surveyed the situation. Lorelei had a vampire on the ground, her switchblade dug into its neck as Thrust lay unconscious on the ground beside her, his temple bleeding heavily. Ivy was staggering around with one hand on her shoulder which was now a bloody mess and one large open gash. Death was screaming for someone to help her but the only person close enough to do anything was Ivy who appeared to be very disorientated. Sparky was trying and failing to hold off the vampire still attacking them as Flame struggled to get back to his feet. She would attempt to get in a few blows and was pushed back, each time with more gashes to her body. And Nixion was still nowhere to be seen. The vampire that had been blasted off of me was stirring again, getting to its feet and I took another breath, still not functioning properly. I kicked it hard in the back, which only appeared to aggravate it. It rounded on me again, swiping and missing, though coming very close.

I staggered backwards, stumbled into Ivy who collapsed onto her knees, her wound bleeding too fast and too much. The vampire approached, and was then knocked aside by a creature much larger than the rest of the vampires. It had patches of fur in random places and large sections of which was bald in others. Its jaw held fangs and teeth of a much larger proportion than any of the other vampires, and out of the paws protruded claws more deadly looking than any of our weapons. The Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire had arrived, and it roared with such a volume that I screwed up my eyes despite the danger, and crammed my hands over my ears. The roar ended and I looked up as the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire set its sights on me. It slammed one of its huge paws into my chest and I shot backwards, the air in my lungs gone, and the hollow feeling in my stomach quickly spreading to the rest of my body. I landed on the ground hard and rolled a few times before coming to a stop. I did not have any air to breathe or any words to groan, and I just curled up into a ball on the ground and lay there, waiting for the pain to subside, waiting to breathe again. The rumbling of the ground indicated that the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire had made its way after me, but I did not have any means of fleeing, or even moving. I just lay there, waiting for whatever fate it would bring upon me. In the corner of my eye I saw the huge beast raise its paw, with those deadly, horrible claws, and swipe down on my body.

I still have not found a way to accurately describe the searing, awful pain that followed. The claws sliced open my side completely, digging down deep and damaging at least three ribs. The flesh had opened up, right down to the bones, and it was so dreadfully terrible that I was blinded. I could not scream. I still could not breathe, but my eyes widened and I think that in that moment I lost all concerns for any of the people around me. I forgot about Nixion and his condition, I forgot about the unconscious Thrust, I forgot about Ivy and her terrible current state, I forgot about Death, struggling and dying, I forgot about Sparky, being driven back, I forgot about Flame, injured and weak, I forgot about Lorelei and the disadvantage to her leg. I was selfish and thought of myself only, because the pain was just that awful. And it multiplied upon itself by measures I don’t understand when the claws were pulled out. The air rushed back into my lungs and I could not find it in me to scream, but I took a breath which made everything so much worse. I let out a short grunt of terrible agony and looked around, searching for the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire, but it appeared to have moved on.

My energy was gone, and the pain was still too much to handle, but despite this, I managed to throw myself to my knees, one hand clutching at my side. I tried breathing again, and it was more tolerable than the previous one, though still sent searing spikes through my side, setting it aflame. I looked up. The final vampire, the one that had taken Nixion, had joined in the battle. They were all here now. All four vampires, plus the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire. And we were dying. We were as good as dead. I had to help the others, I had to do something. I tried getting to my feet, but it was useless. Instead, my hands roamed around the ground closest to me, trying to find anything that might help me in getting up. A pole, a stick, any kind of object at all. But I did not find something to help me. I found a body. And I looked over to find the battered form of Nixion Strange on the ground beside me, covered in scars and coated in blood.