Author's Preface
Vampires. I fucking hate vampires.
Richard Lemington stood with his sword drawn, the edge gleaming like a cold needle in the pale moonlight.
Six of the bastards crouched beneath the ruin of the abbey arches. Fangs bared, black saliva dripping onto the flags, yellowed claws twitching against their thighs.
"Come on, then!" Richard spat, the taste of copper resting heavy on his tongue. "Come on, you bastards!"
Neither side moved.
Richard couldn't break the stalemate. Not now. Not with Penny fighting her own desperate war down in the crypt, and not with Tom lying dead in the mud a few yards behind him.
The silence snapped.
From the shadow of the nearest archway, a blur of pale skin and ragged leather launched itself at him. Richard sidestepped on instinct, cold air rushing past his cheek as claws missed his sternum by an inch. The thing slammed face-first into the cracked masonry behind him. Before it could recover, Richard drove his silver blade across its throat.
The edge bit deep.
The creature didn't bleed; it detonated. Its body instantly collapsed into a cloud of scalding ash that coated his throat and scattered across the wet flags.
Richard cleared his lungs and wiped a sleeve across his mouth. "Who's next?"
The stalemate returned, heavier this time.
He tightened his bleeding grip on the hilt, keeping his eyes moving across the five remaining leeches. The sky to the east was still pitch black. The sun wouldn't show its face for another ten minutes.
Ten minutes, that's all he and Penny needed, ten fucking minutes.
Could he hold out? Could Penny? He could feel his fatigue sapping his muscles.
The creatures began to fan out, stalking in a wide, fluid semicircle, cutting off his angles of retreat. There was no tactic here, no grand strategy just kill or be killed. Exactly as his master had hammered into his head all those months ago.
Go hard, or die cold.
Richard ways went hard, he had no intention of dying in a rotted abbey at the edge of town and certainly not at the hands of five wannabe Master Vampires. Not a chance in hell.
He lunged at the nearest male, driving a thrust toward its sternum, but the leech slipped away with unnerving ease. Richard ducked blind as another swept over his head, its gaunt, skeletal leg smashing into the stone where his head had been a heartbeat earlier.
He spun on his heel to face the next strike.
And instantly knew he'd fucked up.
His heel caught the edge of a loose flagstone. His footing vanished, sending him crashing down onto the slick floor. The silver blade tore from his grip and clattered away across the dark stone of the archway.
---
12 HOURS EARLIER
The abandoned warehouse on Danby Avenue was, without competition, the shittiest hole Richard Lemington had ever laid eyes on.
Holes in the corrugated iron roof let in the unrelenting drizzle and a flock of pigeons, neither of which had the decency to pay rent. Half the foundation had been swallowed during the Great Flood back in '07, leaving the entire structure tilting precariously toward a massive, stagnant sinkhole. Black moss and scum-covered water concealed just how deep the rot actually went.
Richard stood outside in the rain, hands buried deep in his coat pockets, staring at the wreck.
"I see you're taking in the scenery," Tom said, clapping him on the shoulder with a grin. "Told Penny last night you'd appreciate the ambiance."
"Oh yeah, the ambiance," Richard replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Tom paused, glancing at him sideways. "Penny for your thoughts, Rich?"
"You don't want my thoughts."
"Yes, I do." Tom gestured around them with both hands, rainwater splashing off his knuckles. "This is a partnership, you know. If you're not happy, then I'm not happy."
"You're always happy," Richard muttered. "Especially with that shit running through your bloodstream."
Tom turned back to a makeshift workbench set up under a dry section of the overhang, lighting a small flame under a metal dish to heat a smudge of brown paste.
"Makes me less desirable to the undead," Tom said smoothly, swirling the liquid.
"Makes you bloody stupid, that's what it makes you," Richard snapped. "Have you already forgotten Mexico?"
"That wasn't because of this."
"Then what was it?"
Tom glanced over his shoulder, his eyes slightly unfocused. "I already told you. I forgot the shotgun. Not the ammo."
"Ammo! You brought three boxes of ammo, the wrong ones mind, without the bloody gun! I nearly died twice out there, all because of that shit you're cooking up."
Tom just shrugged and gestured back toward the rotting building. "Right. But... you still like the place, don't you?"
Richard rubbed a hand over his face. "Oh, yeah. The wildlife really sells it." He pointed up at a one-legged pigeon perched precariously on a rusted windowsill.
"What's your problem? Everything we need is right here."
"Oh, yeah? Like what?"
"Guns. Silver nitrate. Shotguns loaded with pure silver slugs. A Magnum with custom hollow-points." Tom gestured toward the murky sinkhole behind the building. "And a bit of carp fishing on the side."
"A spot of angling, is it?"
"Hey, a brother's got to unwind."
Richard scoffed, shaking his head. "Did you bring the new RR45?"
Tom blinked. "The what?"
"Oh, for the love of God, Tom! The RR45. The one loaded with the seven-seven silver rounds?"
"Right. Yeah. I got it."
"Then where is it?"
Tom patted his jacket pockets, his eyes wandering up toward the roofline. "Erm..."
"Oh, for the..." Richard pinched the bridge of his nose. "One of these days, I'm going to end up dead, and you... you're going to be the one in charge."
"And what's wrong with me being in charge?" a voice cut in from behind them.
Richard turned around.
Penny was standing at the edge of the puddle-strewn alleyway, their newest, youngest, and easily toughest recruit.
"So, can I be in charge if you die, Rich?" Penny asked, dropping a bundle of damp firewood near the moth-bitten sofa in the corner.
"You could be, Pen," Richard said, shaking his head. "You'd make a far better one than this ju-"
He didn't get to finish the thought.
The low, abrasive buzzing of a cheap burner phone cut through the drizzle. The sharp sound hit the air like a gunshot; Tom froze, the small flame under his spoon sputtering, and Penny snapped her head around, her eyes instantly sharp. Neither of them moved.
Richard pulled the crackling piece of plastic from his coat pocket and pressed it to his ear.
"Speak," he said.
The voice that came through was a garbled mess of digital static and heavy pitch modulation, sounding less like a person and more like rusty iron sliding over concrete. Richard had never heard the handler's real voice, nor had he ever met them in the flesh. Those were the rules. The proxy gave you the grid coordinates and the contract, you went in, brought back proof of death, and six hours later, untraceable coin hit your account. No names, no faces, no loose ends.
"Target confirmed at St. Jude's Priory," the synthetic rasp hissed through the speaker. "Nest of six. High-tier leeches, one confirmed Master, five fledglings. Clear the site before dawn. Double rate for the head."
The line went dead with a metallic click.
Richard pulled the burner away, popped the battery out with his thumb, and snapped the SIM card cleanly in two before tossing the scraps into the dark sinkhole behind them.
"St. Jude's," Richard said, turning back to face Tom and Penny. His demeanor shifted instantly, the dry banter vanishing into cold, practiced focus. "Six targets. One Master."
Tom wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his dilated eyes gleaming with a reckless, feverish adrenaline. "Double pay?"
"Only if we bring the head," Richard said. He looked at Penny, then back at Tom, whose hands were already trembling slightly as he reached for his jacket. "We move in thirty minutes. Load the silver, gear up, and for God's sake, Tom-check your pockets twice."
---
St. Jude's on Main Avenue stood like a gutted animal.
Built in the early 1800s by a bishop named Francis Jude, it was originally meant to be a stepping stone east-a beacon of faith on the edge of the city. But not long after the final stones were laid, Jud evanished without a trace, leaving behind a hollow sanctuary and a web of dark, swirling ghost stories. By 1932, a stray German bomb had sheared through the nave, blowing the roof into the basement. Nobody ever bothered to repair the ruin. It was left to rot, forgotten by the living and claimed by the things that hunted in the dark.
Tom killed the engine, allowing the quiet pinging and ticking of metal cooling down to fill the damp cab.
The 1970 Dodge A100 was a marvel.a boxy, flat-nosed survivor from a dead era. Built with that forward-control design, Richard and Tom sat crammed up front right over the front axle, framed by a split windshield that offered an unnervingly clear view of the ruin ahead. Between their bucket seats sat the heavy engine doghouse, radiating a stubborn, petrol-laced heat that cooked their knees even through the damp night air. Outside, its faded, sun-baked paint and round single headlamps gave it the look of a neglected tradesman's van, but the heavy-duty rear leaf springs held firm under the weight of three men's worth of weapons, custom silver rounds, and tactical gear in the back.
Through the rain-streaked glass, St. Jude's loomed over the treeline on Main Avenue like a gutted animal-shadowy, jagged, and dead quiet.
"Looks homely" Tom snorted,
"Yeah a real fixer-upper" Penny chimed in, trying to match Tom's sarcastic flare.
"Shall we go and pay the neighbours a visit, I mean we did drive all this way" Tom added
Richard checked his trusty CASIO watch 3.55am roughly two hours till sunrise. Sighing he opened the door and stepped out into the street.
---
"So, Penny, you stay here. Tom, you take the ground floor, and I'll sweep the first. Then we hit the basement together," Richard said, running through the plan, snapping magazines in place.
"But I want to come," Penny whined.
"Not tonight, Pen." Tom placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Next time, maybe"
"You always say that! Every single hunt now... 'Next time, Pen... Sorry, Pen,'" she mocked, pitching her voice up. "I can handle myself!"
"I never-"
"No, listen! I've been training," she cut in, counting off on her fingers. "Shot through the heart, decapitation, or fire. Regular bullets do nothing-pure silver only."
"You've done your research, I'm impressed," Tom admitted, clicking the buckle of his grenade belt around his waist. "But these suckers are way faster than the training dummies or level-one vamps."
"He's right, Pen," Richard said, sliding a fresh magazine into the sleek frame of his new RR45 with a sharp metallic snap. "Level ones are sluggish, slow, and very easily killed. Levels two and three are more difficult; they retain most of their cognitive function after turning, and can sometimes surprise you. And as you know from personal experience, levels four and five are the thinkers the ones who look like normal people. The ones you don't see coming."
"What about the Masters and the Shadows? I've been reading..." Penny asked, leaning closer.
"Masters control the strings, lived for thousands of years" Richard said, his tone turning deadly serious. "They control every vamp under them. Very, very smart. Strong, fast, and extremely dangerous. As for a Shadow... they don't exist."
"But still, I want to contribute, not just be the getaway driver," Penny said, slumping back onto the van's deck. The heavy suspension gave a slight, dull bounce under her weight. "I mean, come on, Rich I need real experience."
Richard turned from the trunk and looked at the nineteen-year-old. He remembered her story all too clearly: family slaughtered in their own home by a rogue wanderer a senseless, random execution that left her with nothing but a chest full of rage and nowhere to put it. He felt for her, he really did but in a dark, claustrophobic death trap like St. Jude's, keeping one eye on an eager rookie could easily get all three of them killed.
He stared at her for a long, silent beat. Then he let out a heavy sigh.
"Fine." He must be getting sentimental in his old age, plus six leeches and a master, easy nights pickings.
Tom froze mid-motion, his thumb holding a silver slug half-shoved into the tube of his shotgun. He snapped his head around to face Richard. "You're bloody serious?"
"Yeah," Richard said, pulling a spare sidearm from the wall rack and tossing it onto her lap. "Pen, gear up."
---
They crossed the threshold, and the air immediately shifted.
Usually, when you enter an abandoned building, you hear the quiet fluttering of pigeon wings or the frantic scurry of mice in the rafters. But inside St. Jude's, there was nothing. No rustle, no vermin, not even a whisper of wind. The silence was absolute, thick and heavy like liquid lead.
"Right. Sunrise is in roughly under two hours," Richard said, tapping the face of his watch. The green digital display glowed faintly in the dark: 4:05 AM.
"Okay, Pen, you're with me," Tom said, lowering his voice to a harsh whisper. "Keep your head down and try not to make a sound, got it?"
Penny stood frozen, her boots glued to the slick stone floor as if she'd been set in concrete. She gave a stiff nod it was all she could manage.
"You okay, Pen?" Tom asked, glancing back at her.
"Yeah... yeah, just feel..."
"Sick," Richard finished her sentence, offering a grim, knowing nod. "That'll be the nerves setting in. It'll pass. On my first two solo runs, I threw up straight over the leech I was fighting. Trust me, it wasn't pretty."
"Just breathe," Richard said reassuringly. "Tell you what you come with me to the first floor. Leeches like the dark, so they should be down closer to the ground they prefer that. And this weirdo..."
Tom offered a goofy, silent wave.
"...is more than equipped to deal with a few leeches," Richard finished with a quick smile.
Penny looked at the middle-aged hunter. Despite the silver weapons strapped to his chest and the grim shadow of the abbey hanging over them, something about him felt... warm. Safe.
"Okay," she whispered.
"Okay then. Tom?"
"Yeah?"
"In and out. You spot the bastards, holler. Got it?"
"Okay, boss," Tom answered, bringing up his shotgun with a heavy, mechanical clack-clack.
"Right. Two hours."
"Two hours."
"Let's go."
---
"Watch your footing," Richard said to Penny, his voice barely a murmur. "These old places like to surprise you."
He scanned the dark rafters above, watching the thick timber beams for any sudden movement or flash of eyes.
Penny guarded his rear, stepping where he stepped, but trying to watch the clinging shadows while avoiding cracked stone was almost impossible. How does Rich do this? she wondered. She watched him move ahead of her with practised, effortless grace, smooth and quiet, every sense tuned to the space around him.
"Penny, keep your eyes up," he warned without turning his head.
"How?" she whispered back, frustration tightening her throat. "You just told me to watch my footing."
"To be successful in this job, Pen," Richard replied, his hand resting firmly on the hilt of his sword, "you have to learn to do both."
---
Tom moved through the wide nave of the atrium, stepping carefully past rows of black, rotting pews. The wood was swollen with decades of rain, giving off a sharp, sickly-sweet stench of ammonia.vampire shit, basically.
The heavy smell hung thick in the dead air, clinging to the back of his throat. Up ahead, the stone floor was slick with moisture, and deep shadows pooled between the shattered pillars where the old stained-glass windows used to be.
He clicked his radio twice. "Rich... Rich, come in."
The speaker faintly beeped as Richard's voice crackled back through the receiver. "Yeah, what's up?"
"Vampire shit. Loads of it, by the smell," Tom muttered, sweeping his gun barrel past a row of blackened pews.
"Looks like a base of some kind..."
"You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Yeah," Tom replied grimly. "I thought it as soon as I walked through the doorway."
"What's that?" Penny's soft, uncertain voice broke into the channel.
"This isn't a convenient six-leech nest, Pen," Richard said, his tone dropping an octave into pure ice. "It's a fucking hive."
"Fallback?" Tom asked, his thumb instinctively flicking the safety off his shotgun.
"Yes. Penny, back up slowly," Richard's voice came through the speaker. It was tight, laced with a cold edge of panic that made Tom's stomach drop.
Tom could handle street gangs, pedophiles, murderers, and vampires all with a straight face and a steady grip. But when Richard Lemington ordered a fallback, sweat broke out on the back of Tom's neck, and a ice-cold shiver walked straight down his spine.
---
Penny had just begun to step backward when a faint flutter high in the dark rafters caught her attention. For a single, fatal split second, her eyes left the floor. Her heel found a patch of dry-rotted oak, and her weight went straight through it.
"PENNY!" Richard shouted, diving forward with an outstretched hand, but his fingers swept through empty air.
The rotten boards of the first floor snapped beneath her with a thunderous crack. Penny plunged through the collapsing timber, screaming as she crashed through the decaying floor beneath. Plaster, splinters and debris rained around her as she smashed through two levels before slamming onto the mud-slick stone of the crypt.
She landed hard on a pile of damp rubble and crushed bone. Her flashlight skittered across the flagstones, its beam sweeping over a narrow corridor lined with ancient subterranean arches.
For several terrifying seconds, she couldn't breathe. She rolled onto her side, clutching her chest, her eyes wide as she desperately tried to drag air back into her lungs. Every part of her hurt, but nothing seemed broken.
"Penny!" Richard's voice echoed down through the jagged opening high above. "Talk to me! Are you hurt?"
"I'm... ghhh... I'm okay!" she managed, each word a strained gasp. "Just... winded..."
"Don't move," Richard warned, his face appearing between the broken floorboards two levels above.
Then the darkness behind him began to shift.
A low, collective hiss rose from the upper arches as dozens of pale, hollow faces turned towards the sound of the crash. High in the shadows of the ruined nave, the hive had fully awakened.
"Rich! They're coming out of the walls!" Tom roared from the atrium.
He racked his shotgun with a heavy clack-clack. A screech tore through the silence, followed instantly by the deafening blast of his twelve-gauge.
Below, Penny's flashlight caught movement along the crypt walls. Three stalkers were crawling down the ancient masonry towards her, their yellowed eyes gleaming in the beam.
"Rich!" she gasped, scrambling backward through the rubble and reaching frantically for her sidearm. "They're down here!"
"Hold on, Pen!"
Richard didn't hesitate. He drew his silver blade and dropped through the jagged opening, landing hard on the crypt floor between Penny and the approaching stalkers.
Comments