I, Vampire

Bette Kane and Paco Ramone could only watch as Dagon, their former Titans West teammate, launched himself across the table at the intruder in their headquarters. He cleared the table with one leap, slamming into the intruder and sending him crashing into the wall of portraits.

Dagon stood ready to pounce as the intruder stood up from the remains of Risk’s painting, dusted himself off, and smiled.

Bennett smiled with confidence. The child had strength, but no finesse. He knew that he could take care of this easily. Before Dagon could blink, he had jumped forward and knocked him backwards, sending the former Titan crashing through the meeting table.

Bennett jumped into the table’s remains and knelt over Dagon as he reached into his coat. He withdrew a wooden stake and held it aloft. “Do not move,” he warned. “This will only hurt a moment.” Bennett’s eyes went wide as Dagon grabbed his lapels and threw him over his head, sending him through another wall of the meeting room and into the hallway.

Paco grabbed Bette’s arm. “I think it’s time for us to go,” he said, pointing his thumb down the hall in the opposite direction of Bennett’s landing.

Bette’s eyes were fixated on Dagon as he climbed to his feet with splinters from the table falling from him. He leaped out of the ruined table and drove himself into Bennett again as they skidded into the wall on the other side of the hallway. “We need to help him,” Bette decided.

“How?” Paco asked. “Chica, I’ve got my powers, but all of your gizmos are boxed up on the other side of them. There’s nothing we can do but get you clear.”

“All right,” Bette said, finally caving to logic. The two of them ran down the hallway toward the exit stairs as the battle continued. Despite herself, she still found herself looking back as Paco pulled her forward.

Behind them, Bennett had fought back to his feet and threw Dagon into a wall. He took advantage of the moment to pull another stake from his coat and lunged forward. Dagon rolled out of the way and the stake splintered against the cement wall. Dagon threw a punch that snapped Bennett’s head back, then followed up with a kick that sent him through yet another wall and into the adjacent room.

“What is going on down there?” Mal Duncan demanded. He was waiting at the top of the hidden steps as Bette and Paco arrived. “If you guys are going to destroy the place, you could at least wait until I close!”

“Big trouble,” Paco answered.

“Thank you for that,” Mal said. He turned to Bette. “Can you be a little more specific?”

”There’s apparently another vampire down there going after Dagon,” she explained. “They’re really going at it.”

”I couldn’t guess,” Mal replied with an angry tone. “I’ve got people in my dining room thinking that there’s an earthquake going on! Isn’t there any way you could either stop them or get them somewhere that won’t shake my restaurant every time they punch each other?”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Bette promised as she started shoving Paco back toward the stairs. “Maybe we can lead them into the old subway tunnels.”

”Thank you,” Mal said. “I had a waiter drop a two hundred dollar bottle of wine a few minutes ago because of them!” He watched as Paco and Bette headed back down the stairs, then froze.

“Excellent work,” a woman’s voice purred from behind him. “You have placed those two exactly where I desire. Now sleep and know that you have served me well.” Mal collapsed to the floor as the woman began gliding down the stairs.

“Man, this is nuts!” Paco whispered as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “There’s nothing we can do to take them on!”

“We’ll think of something,” Bette reassured him. She had a thoughtful look on her face. “Did Mal seem kind of weird to you?”

“Karen’s pregnant,” Paco observed. “Maybe he’s just backed up.”

”Ha ha,” Bette retorted. “We’d better think of something to break those two up.”

“Great advice,” Paco said as he peeked around the corner at the devastation which had once been the Titans West headquarters. “Any ideas on how we can do it?”

“Let’s get to the control room,” Bette said. “Maybe we’ll figure something out there.” She quickly pulled Paco out of the stairwell and down the hallway. Piles of destroyed drywall and shattered furniture marked Dagon and Bennett’s path. The hall still echoed with the sounds of the fight.

Behind them, the woman stopped at the bottom of the stairs and smiled. Everything was going perfectly.

She turned to the three men who were following her. “Go,” she ordered. As they started after Dagon and Bennett, she turned and started walking toward the control room.

Bennett turned and saw the three men approaching him and Dagon. “Reinforcements?” he snarled. “You will need them.”

Dagon turned and his eyes narrowed. “I’ve never seen them before in my life!” he replied. “I might be outnumbered, but you and your friends are still not going to take me without a fight!”

Bennett stopped and lowered his fist. “Perhaps we should talk,” he conceded. “After we take care of these creatures.”

”How do I know I can trust you?” Dagon asked.

By way of response, Bennett lunged toward one of the other vampires, pulling a stake from a pocket in his cape as he went. Another one shambled forward and threw an awkward punch at Dagon.

“I suppose that means I can trust you more easily than these three,” Dagon muttered as he punched back.

“Can you see anything?” Paco asked.

Bette shook her head as she studied the control board. “I’m still trying to get this to cooperate with me,” she said. “It looks like Mal had already put the system into shutdown, and most of what was working has been destroyed by those two throwing each other through every wall in the base.” She turned to Paco. “Unless you’d like to go upstairs and ask Mal to come down and help us.”

“No way,” Paco said. “I go up there and he’ll just yell at me some more. We can get this figured out ourselves.”

“I thought so,” Bette said as she adjusted the controls. “Let’s see what this does.” She turned a dial and a screen showed a battle going on through heavy static.

“Well, there’s something,” Bette muttered as Paco leaned forward to try and study the screen more closely.

“Chica,” Paco said, “there’s something weird going on here.”

”What do you mean?” Bette asked, ignoring the nagging urge to ask exactly what qualified as weird in a world where two vampires were currently fighting each other and destroying their headquarters.

”Look close,” Paco said. “There’s more than two guys in there. More like four or five.”

Bette squinted at the screen. “I don’t see it. How can you make it out?”

Paco smiled. “Child of the eighties. I haven’t always had cable TV. Had to make do with an antenna to get my TV reception.”

Bette gave up and folded her arms. “And how is this little talent useful?”

Paco swallowed his answer, which would have been “When I’m checking out the scrambled nudie channels on cable.” Instead he said, “It’s helping right now, right?”

“I suppose you’re right,” Bette said as she pushed the chair back. “I’m sure that whoever those new guys are, they’re not helping Dagon any. Let’s get going. Maybe we can help.”

As Bette stood, a voice came from behind them. “You will do perfectly,” the woman said. Something slammed into the back of Paco’s head and he fell to the ground, cracking his forehead on a console as he fell.

“Who are you?” Bette demanded as she reached for a throwing disk that wasn’t there.

The woman smiled. “Does it matter?” she asked.

“No,” Bette said as her arms fell to her sides and her eyes went glassy.

“Excellent.” Bette followed the woman out of the room without another word.

In another location of the base, Dagon and Bennett had found each other back-to-back, surrounded by snarling vampires. Bennett’s arm stabbed out with a stake and another vampire collapsed into dust.

One by one Dagon and Bennett whittled down their attackers. Finally all of the attacking vampires were gone and the two turned to face each other.

“Now what?” Dagon asked. “Do we start fighting again?”

They whirled around as another vampire who had concealed himself leaped from hiding to attack. The vampire suddenly seemed to freeze in midair before he started madly vibrating. He was then thrown into a wall where he was impaled on a broken board and turned to dust like his compatriots had.

Dagon and Bennett turned to face their rescuer. Paco stood there with blood running down his face from striking his head on the main computer.

“I’ll tell you what’s next,” he said with uncharacteristic fury. “Somebody came in here, busted me on the head, and took Bette. You two want to fight, you can help me fight to get her back.”

To Be Continued...

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