The Darkest Colors- Children of Asmodeus Read online

  The opportunity presented itself immediately, almost right on cue. Some girls coming out of the club and down the alley saw what was going on.

  “Oh my God!” one girl shrieked.

  “Go, go! Call the cops!” another cried as the trio of Goth bitches started backing away.

  Mister Gravel Voice rolled his eyes and turned his head to look over his shoulder at them. “The cops are already on their way…!”

  There it was: his ticket out of there.

  The Kid had just about clicked the first cuff around his left wrist. He yanked that wrist down and Rick turned with it, bringing him face-to-face with the kid. His dark brown eyes went wide with surprise as Rick grabbed the Kid’s tactical vest with one hand and the pistol in the holster on his left flank with his other. He knew a thing or two about fighting. He jerked the pistol free, fell back and down, planted a foot in the Kid’s gut, and kicked him up and over, launching him right into Karen. Immediately, still laying upon the ground, he took aim at the black guy, clicked off the safety, and popped him three times in the chest – pop, pop, pop, just squeezing the trigger fast, close enough that he didn’t really need to aim. The black guy fell back, discharging a shotgun blast uselessly off to his left and shattering the window of a full-size SUV parked beside the Mercury, and Rick was up and on his feet again.

  Knowing the Gravel Voice Guy was still there, he fired a couple of shots blindly over the trunk of the Mercury, hoping to either hit him or at least make him duck down, before he started running down the alley with everything he had. The wind whistled through his ears like a hurricane, halted only when a tremendous boom sounded behind him. It felt like someone striking him squarely in the left shoulder with a baseball bat. It made him stumble, but he kept running.

  The alley came to a T-intersection at its end and he immediately turned right. The loud, rapid pops of semi-automatic gunfire sounded, and this time he felt things punching through his body. He again stumbled, clumsily falling to his knees. Even though his left arm now was too paralyzed with pain and damage to really function, he could still manage with his right arm to push himself up and scramble back onto his feet to run around the corner, safely out of range for the moment.

  The alleyway ahead extended behind another building and then opened up to another street – which was it, Main Street? – and there were two large blue trash bins sitting on the right-hand side of the alley. He ducked behind the closest one and used it for cover as he aimed back at the corner he had just passed. He could hear their footsteps echoing in the alleyway, and he knew they weren’t too far behind. He would nail them, or at least one of them, as soon as they came darting around that corner, and then he would make one last sprint for the street at the end of the alley. Even at this time of night, surely there would be some traffic. He would carjack the first vehicle he came across, hop in, and drive off to freedom … that is, freedom, and one last chance to start over and do things right.

  His pulse thudded in his ears and his breath came in a panicky, rapid series of gasps. He could do this. He had just gotten through the hardest part. Now that he was away from those damned bounty hunters, that modern-day vampire lynch mob, he could think. The footsteps approaching down the alley came to a hurried stop. There were no shadows cast upon the wall at the end of the alley, so he could not be certain, but it seemed as though the bounty hunter in pursuit was smart enough to know he might be waiting for him.

  He waited, and so did the bounty hunter. That was fine. He could stand to wait. He was immortal. He could wait forever, if necessary. But sooner or later, that bounty hunter would have to pop his head around the corner, and he would blast it right off his shoulders. Until that happened, he couldn’t leave, and so he waited. He waited … and he thought.

  He was still cursing himself over and over for having gotten himself into this mess in the first place. How had he fooled himself into thinking his luck would never run out? How dumb did he have to be to actually believe that what he’d been doing was right, that the crimes he had committed were justifiable? No, he knew what he’d been doing was sick, depraved, and downright evil. He knew … but he couldn’t help himself. It was just too much of a rush, just too awesome a high to deny. After the first time he’d taken more than a full measure – to really just drain a person dry, to suck down every last drop they had to offer, and to fill himself with as much hot, delicious warmth as he could possibly contain – he knew that nothing else would ever compare. Nothing could beat the feeling, the total high of having one’s mouth completely full of fresh, hot human blood and filling his belly with it. Nothing … except to be taking more than a full measure while also burying himself in a woman. He would drain her of her juice while she drained him of his – a fair enough trade.

  As a vampire, everything always seemed so much more intense, so much more vivid. It was no wonder that he’d found himself becoming something of a sexual addict after the Change. The bitch that had been his Maker had only given him a one-night crash course education on what it was like to live as a vampire. He’d had a pretty decent life before then – nothing outstanding, just stable and secure. While it had initially seemed that she had ruined everything he’d ever had by taking advantage of him while he was drunk off his ass, bestowing the Communion of Blood upon him in the middle of sex, he eventually came to realize what a gift it truly had been. His Maker, Liz (or so she had called herself), had opened up a whole new world to him.

  He’d never much been into the whole Goth scene, for one thing. He’d always thought Goths were just geeks and freaks, bitchy and bitter plus-sized women and nerdy guys with faggy tendencies. After he’d decided to start hitting up the places they frequented, however, he learned otherwise. Goths and vampire wannabes were a pretty easygoing bunch, really. As long as he dressed the part and knew what bands and movies were cool, nobody seemed to judge him much. These people were social outcasts, and so they were desperate for acceptance. The girls were usually either fat, ugly, geeky, or all of the above, but because they favored shock value and exploring taboos, they tended to be total freaks in bed.

  This, alone, made his status as a vampire an automatic “in” for getting laid on a regular basis without even trying. Chicks wanted to know what it was like to be with a blood-sucker; he was just grateful for an opportunity to immerse himself in a gal for awhile and maybe get a taste of blood. But the first time he’d made the mistake of hooking up with a gal that was really into pain, she’d encouraged him a bit too much. He’d wound up biting her a bit too hard and a bit too deeply than he should have. Instead of getting a little trickle of blood, there had been a gushing spray of it shooting into his mouth, and the feel and the taste of all that blood, combined with the feel of her clinging to him and moaning loudly as he ravaged her … he had lost all sense of control and reason. He’d totally blacked out, and the next thing he knew, he was trying to find a way to dispose of her body. He’d wound up covering his tracks with arson in that case, making it look like she’d passed out and left some candles burning near her bed, and apparently nobody questioned her “accidental” death. He moved on to a new scene for awhile, hitting up different clubs and bars, but it never was quite the same after that. What was that girl’s name again? Robin? Something like that…

  He’d tried to control it better after that, but the memory of that ultimate rush, the greatest high of all, kept nagging at him for weeks after that. It was an addiction that he hadn’t felt or known until his first kill; after that, the bar had been raised and everything else paled in comparison. He tried distracting himself, finding other avenues, other outlets. No amount of booze, porn, or even the drugs that he tried after that could compare. He even got a dose of heroin once, shot it up to see how it would affect him. It was good, but it wasn’t quite the same, the experience was too clinical and too incomplete, and the crash afterwards was absolute hell.

  At that point, he now realized, he should have sought help. Actually, he should have sought help from the very start,
long before he had ever killed that girl … but, dammit, it had just felt so right, so natural. This was what he’d been born to do, or at least reborn to do. Women desired him out of curiosity and romantic admiration, and he desired them for what they could give him in return – again, a fair enough trade, right?

  He heard footfalls going down the alleyway again – splash, splash, splash, through the shallow streams of runoff rolling across the blacktop pavement. The pain of his injuries was not getting any better, but rather it was getting steadily worse. That partial load of buckshot he’d taken felt like someone was holding a lit propane torch to his shoulder. The other two wounds to his lower right flank and his upper right shoulder, were also burning and throbbing with pain, but not nearly as much as the shotgun wound. The rifle rounds had passed through his body completely, from what he could see by the bloody holes in the front of his shirt, but the shotgun pellets were probably embedded in his flesh. He couldn’t believe how hot it was, how goddamned hot. He’d heard the term “hot lead” before, but he hadn’t figured that it would stay hot this long after being shot. Unless…

  “Oh … fuck,” he breathed through his chattering teeth.

  It was silver. They’d been using silver. Bounty hunters and cops always used silver. Shit. He had to get it out, and soon. He knew it would hurt, but if he didn’t dig those bits of silver-coated lead out of his skin, it would soak into his bloodstream, and then…

  A shot rang out, and he felt the gun in his right hand jerk back with the recoil. What the hell? His right hand was shaking badly, and he’d been resting his finger on the trigger, so maybe he’d squeezed it too hard. He moved his finger up to the side of the pistol, away from the trigger. He felt his hand spasm once, like a small electric shock had just shot up his entire arm, and he almost dropped the gun when it happened again, almost immediately. His stomach was in knots, his heart was racing, and his head was spinning. This was bad. This was very bad. Maybe the silver was already in his blood. He was no doctor, but he’d heard enough on TV and by word of mouth. Once a vampire got a good enough dose of silver in their bloodstream, it wasn’t long before everything started to shut down.

  Sure enough, just as he had that thought, he felt the start of it. At first, it didn’t quite get his attention over the fiery burn of the shotgun wound and the throbbing pain of the two bullet holes in his torso. It came in a slow, steady, surging wave. At first, he started to develop one monster of a headache to go along with the vertigo, like the worst hangover he’d ever felt but multiplied by five. Then there was the ringing in his ears – the loudness of the gunshots, he’d thought at first, but then becoming worse and worse as time passed. His breathing had already been panicked, but now he was actually hyperventilating. His mouth and throat went dry as ash, and his lungs felt as though they were on fire. The trembling in his limbs became worse, and soon it seemed as though even his insides were quivering. And then finally, the pain in his shoulder was quickly overtaken in severity by what felt like a knife being driven slowly through his chest.

  “Hurts, don’t it?”

  He turned his head slowly toward the gravelly voice behind him. It was the older guy, the one with the laser-sight shotgun. He was smiling a little, almost amused by what Rick was experiencing.

  “What … what did you…?”

  “Silver-coated lead buckshot,” he replied, confirming Rick’s suspicions.

  He stared at the bounty hunter, having to narrow his eyes to slits to still see him with any clarity. “Why?”

  “Why? Well, aside from the fact you just knocked over my lady friend and shot one of my boys,” he said, “you also have a nasty habit of going from town to town, raping and killing young ladies.”

  The pain in his chest was excruciating. The imaginary knife in his chest now felt like it was being twisted, and he began to double over with the pain, backing up against the wall.

  “Don’t move too quick,” the Gravelly Voiced Man warned him. “I see you’re still holding that gun, so my trigger finger’s real itchy right now.”

  “Oh … God … fuck, it hurts!”

  “That silver sure does a number on you ugly suckers. Don’t even have to get hit anywhere vital for it to wind up killing you,” he explained. “I’d say right about now it looks like you’re already starting to have yourself a little bit of organ failure. Won’t be long, you’ll be going into cardiac arrest. Boy, I bet that smarts.”

  “Fuckin’ … shoot me!”

  The bounty hunter shook his head. “Nah … you’re worth more money if we bring you in alive. And don’t go thinkin’ it’s an automatic death sentence if we turn you in, either. Shit happens with the justice system. You get yourself a good enough lawyer, you might get off on a technicality, or maybe get yourself checked into a program of some kind. That’s not up to me, of course. My job’s just to bring you in. So, unless you just want to stand there and let that silver do you in, or if you really want me to make your head disappear, then I’d suggest you drop that gun and play nice.”

  “But … I’m dying.”

  “Drop the gun and we’ll get you fixed up. Already got an ambulance on the way. You hear it?”

  Indeed, the sound of sirens in the not-to-far distance could be heard. He couldn’t tell whether it was the sound of an ambulance or a police car, but soon another siren started up and joined it, and then another. Someone, probably those girls that had spotted the commotion in the alley at the start of this, had already called 9-1-1 and alerted the cops. Somebody was on their way. And his chances with somebody else, somebody official instead of this bunch of amateur headhunters, were probably far better. Cops had laws and regulations to follow; these guys were obviously playing by their own rules, preferring to shoot first and then give warning.

  Once again, he was faced with another decision that really wasn’t a decision at all. He had to surrender. He didn’t want to die, not like this. And the guy was right, if he went along with this, there was at least a chance that he could make it out of this alive. If they didn’t rush him right into a conviction and march him in front of a firing squad, then he could finally get help. He could finally get himself straight and get on the right track. It made sense. But then, at that moment, anything made sense, as long as it meant making the pain stop. He just hoped there was enough time. He hoped it wasn’t too late.

  “Okay.”

  He carefully let the pistol fall from his hand to the wet pavement below, all but praying for it not to accidentally go off by itself. He gave the gun an awkward kick and it skidded away about a yard, stopping right at the feet of the Kid as he came around the corner of the trash bin. The black guy was with him, leveling a shotgun at his face while the Kid aimed that wicked-looking assault rifle at his chest. Apparently, the black fellow had been wearing a vest. Those three shots had done nothing more than piss him off.

  “How’s Karen?” the Gravelly Voiced Man asked.

  “She’s fine. She’s calling it in,” the Kid replied.

  “Good.” He lowered the muzzle of his shotgun, gestured for the black guy to stand down, and turned toward the Kid. “He’s all yours, Kid.”

  The Kid hesitated. “Sir?”

  “C’mon … before the local fuzz gets here.”

  He felt his eyes growing impossibly wide. Just like that, he realized just how badly he’d fucked up. He shouldn’t have stopped running. He shouldn’t have tried to out-wait the Kid following after him. He shouldn’t have surrendered. He’d thought that his luck had run out before, but he’d been wrong. He’d been given opportunities, and like always, he’d made the wrong decisions. He should have just taken his chances. If he’d just rolled the dice one last time…

  “Sir, he … he’s not armed,” the Kid said nervously.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake…” The Gravelly Voiced Man bent down, picked up the dropped pistol, and jammed it into the front of Rick’s pants before stepping back quickly. “There!”

  This wasn’t happening. There was no way thi
s was real. Rick felt the cold wetness of the gun in the front of his waistband, the droplets of rain drizzle upon it quickly soaking into his shirt and briefs. His hand was clutching his chest, but it was just inches away, just inches. He knew what the older guy, apparently the leader, was trying to do. He knew where this was going. But it didn’t mean he had to accept it. The Kid was hesitating. This was his chance, his last chance.

  “God damn it…” the Gravelly Voiced Man grumbled as he and his black associate both raised their shotguns once again.

  Roll the dice, he told himself. And so he did.

  He knew he had it in him. He knew he had the speed, the opportunity. In that brief instant where the Gravelly Voiced Man was jacking another shell into the chamber of his shotgun, Rick had closed his fingers around the grip of the pistol once more and pulled it clear of his waistband. He turned it, aiming for the Gravelly Voiced Man because he was nearest…

  The Kid shot first, and the calm night air was ripped apart with a brief but deafening roar of gunfire. While his companions only fired their shotguns twice apiece, the Kid emptied half of his thirty-round magazine into Rick’s body. The Commoner vampire was slammed back against the brick wall of the building behind him before he crumpled to the ground, facedown in a motionless heap. He did not die immediately. The pain was absolute, but Rick could not bring himself to cry out, nor even so much as twitch in response. He could see only the shoes of his killers, black military-style combat boots, as he lay there feeling nothing from the neck down but agony and the certain onset of death. The glistening dark blacktop pressing against the side of his face became dull and a much flatter shade of blackness, creeping around the edges of his vision and slowly eating away at his consciousness. The last thing he thought as he lay there, accepting the darkness that swallowed him, was how surprisingly pleasant his own blood tasted as it drooled from between his lips.