The voices and memories in his head quieted in the face of imminent battle. Experience and training took over. He watched Cornelius laugh, turn to his fellows an offer a salute-a gladiator’s salute. He didn’t know Cornelius at all, but he knew his type. He’d seen this sort of thing before. Cornelius didn’t take Alex seriously as a threat; he wanted to put on a display for his people. A long fight wouldn’t suit his purpose. He’d want to end this quickly, and he’d want to make a show of it.
Alex set his stance and waited. Cornelius laughed, posed, and then gave an animalistic snarl, baring his fangs at Alex to frighten him before rushing in. Given the vampire’s unnatural speed, Alex might not have been able to track him, but for the fact that Cornelius made exactly the move the young man’s memories warned would be coming.
Cornelius crossed the distance between himself and Alex with startling speed. He made a playful yet frighteningly quick lunge for the young man’s shoulder, thinking to hew straight through his body with a single mighty blow. Alex ducked and deflected the sword with a parry that took full advantage of the strength Cornelius put behind his swing.
The impact of the parry gave Alex’s blade a boost of momentum. He spun in place with it, bringing his longer sword up and over in a wide arc that he buried forcefully into the back of the vampire’s neck.
In the blink of an eye, Cornelius went from confidence and power to shock and helplessness as he wound up on his knees with a sword embedded halfway through his neck. Though most of his flesh died millennia ago, he still needed a working spine to carry the commands of his brain to his limbs. For all his speed and might, he’d been arrogant and even flamboyant-and his opponent made him pay for it with stunning skill. The fight began and ended in a single breath.
Astonished vampires looked on in complete silence as Alex jerked his sword free. Cornelius fell forward, his hands out onto the floor to keep him from falling onto his face. It seemed all he could make his body do. His head hung low, exposing a wound that gushed a steady stream of blood.
Completely given over to memories of battle, Alex didn’t hesitate to follow through. He swung the blade down on the gap with a loud, bloodthirsty cry. Murderous anger flared in his eyes as he chopped deeply into his foe’s flesh, yanked his blade free and did it once more.
Amber watched in utter shock. She only barely tracked the start and finish of the fight, but she saw Alex finish his opponent. The head of her task force’s most wanted suspect rolled across the floor in front of Amber and immediately began to crumble to ash.
Alex turned back to the semicircle of vampires and loudly demanded something of them in a language Amber couldn’t understand. Some blinked in shock, and others in surprised recognition.
None showed greater understanding of the young man’s words than the two Nordic vampires, who looked to one another with amazement. Unferth replied in the same language; Alex responded with obvious contempt and spat at his feet. Bjorn stepped forward, drawing a sword from his belt.
“Fuck me, I was right,” breathed Jason.
“Jason!” Amber hissed. “Jason, what’s happening?”
Alex kept shouting, pointing at one vampire and then another in what was obviously a series of challenges despite the foreign words and spittle that flew from his mouth. His whole body shook with anger.
“Shit’s about to get crazy,” Jason warned.
“About to?”
“Alex is havin’ a freak-out,” Jason said. “I dunno-aw, no,” he groaned. Bjorn leveled his sword at Alex in a salute or a challenge. He came forward with less speed and more wariness shown by Cornelius, but with the same obvious intent to kill.
Again, Alex read the first swing almost before it came. His blade came up in time with the vampire’s, only lower, and what initially looked like a badly misjudged parry smashed straight through two of Bjorn’s fingers. The blade fell from his grasp in a bloody mess, but the vampire swiftly retaliated with a broad sweep of his other arm that sent Alex tumbling away.
Alex kept hold of his weapon as he hit the concrete. His vision had gone red with anger; rage and memory guided his movements and his thoughts. He owed this man a debt of blood. They went home and told Halla he was dead. She found another husband, who cast her out when Alex-no, Skorri-returned from the Danelands…
He had no time to sort through his identity. He couldn’t think about what was Alex and what was another man. He needed that muscle memory, that skill and that rage, or he’d never live through this.
The vampire had to switch his left hand to wield his sword. He brought it down with such force that it bit a half-inch gouge into the concrete.
Alex kept rolling away. The sword came down again, this time closer to his head. He raised his own blade as he sat up to get out of the way. It was a weak parry against a vastly stronger opponent. The dodge saved Alex’s life, but the parry cost him the sword as the force of Bjorn’s blow tore it from his hand.
Alex spun on his hip then, hooking the vampire’s shin with his right leg and then slamming his left foot hard on the side of his knee just like they’d taught him in basic, before ‘Nam. The vampire stumbled and fell to the floor. Alex scrambled up again and rushed to the ashen remains of Cornelius.
Jason jumped forward. The men guarding him were too distracted by the spectacle to catch their prisoner. Jason snatched up the gladius beside the empty toga and tossed it to his friend, pommel first.
Bjorn’s weapon slashed overhead again as Alex caught the gladius, fell forward and rolled. Unused to fighting with his left arm, Bjorn hadn’t quite brought his sword back in time to defend against his opponent’s retaliatory lunge. Alex stabbed the gladius directly through Bjorn’s neck.
Painfully strong hands caught Jason’s shoulders and arms. He was yanked back and spun by two pale men, one with thin ‘80s New Wave sunglasses and a ridiculous Mohawk, the other with a do-rag and an oversized, buttoned-down but untucked blue flannel shirt. Jason heard a loud boom behind him, but couldn’t look to see what happened. All he saw were the fangs of his captors and hands reaching for his neck.
Then blood, bone and gore exploded out one side of the New Waver’s head with a loud boom. Another boom went off half a second later, identical to the first except for the ringing in Jason’s ears. More of the vampire’s skull flew off to the side.
More booms split the air. Jason felt the hands gripping his arms fall away. The last hands on him, clutching his shoulders, released him with a soft, almost distant “splutch.” Jason turned and saw Alex yank his sword out of the side of the man’s neck. He wound up and cut loose with another swing to behead the staggered foe while Jason ducked and scrambled out of the way.
To Jason’s left, Amber stood in a controlled, measured Weaver stance just like he’d been taught in his NRA classes. The vampire who’d held her in place lay at her feet, staring off at the ceiling with a confused gaze and a bullet hole in his forehead. She held his pistol in her hands.
“Holy shit,” Jason blurted, “how did you-?”
“Jason,” she barked, “get behind me!”
“Gun!” someone shouted, and then others joined the cacophony of warning. “She’s got a gun!”
“Kill her!”
“Calm down. It’s just a gun, you stupid cow!”
Jason looked right and saw the vampires in a confused crowd. Some drew weapons. Others shrank back. One pulled her bloody hand away from her dress, now with a large hole in it, and hissed with her fangs showing. A vampire needed a working brain, spine and heart; other organs weren’t so vital.
Alex grabbed Jason and heaved him to his feet. The rage in his friend’s eyes frightened him almost as much as the vampire who’d nearly bitten him. “Get out of here!” Alex snarled. “Run!”