They crept down the hill, sticking to the shadows and ducking behind bushes when the occasional car drove by. Darting across the street, the team hid behind a newly built brick building that belonged to the city to plan their next moves.
Pablo glanced at Luke, exchanging a knowing look. “You feel it?” he asked.
“Yeah,” was Luke’s staccato, whispered reply. “Lots of fucking vampires. I can’t get any sense of numbers. It’s kind of overwhelming. There’s too many to track.”
“Come here. I’ll give you a boost.” Pablo cupped his hands. “Tell me when.”
Luke grasped the top of the eight-foot-tall brick wall that surrounded the building and stepped into Pablo’s hold.
Pablo lifted him up slowly without so much as a grunt of protest from his armored weight.
“OK,” Luke whispered, and Pablo stopped. Luke could only see part of the village from this angle; their hiding spot was blocking part of the camp. There was no movement, only a collection of mini houses, repurposed shipping containers, and other semi-permanent structures. Narrow walkways and alleys separated the buildings, forming a maze of blind turns, hidey-holes, and dead ends—the perfect place for an ambush. “Down.”
Pablo lowered him, and Luke cursed under his breath, pacing a short path. He calmed down and waved Pablo and Delilah in for a huddle.
“It’s a fucking death trap in there. Sharp turns, dead ends, and all kinds of killing fields. Pablo, I’m gonna need you to go wolf. Can you jump up onto the wall and then the roof?”
“No prob.” He pulled out the earpiece and stripped. Delilah took off her coat and removed the nearly empty backpack she’d been wearing under it, shoving Pablo’s clothes inside.
“Can you keep it quiet?” Luke asked.
“Come on! It’s me you’re talking to,” he replied, giving his best Han Solo innocent shrug.
“Have you seen the movies? Cause it never worked out when Han said that,” Delilah said.
Pablo stuck his tongue out at her.
“Pablo, if you can, keep to the roofs. Attack from above. Keep an eye on us, make sure we don’t get ambushed. Delilah, stick close to me. Let’s keep each other safe.”
Delilah nodded. Her eyes were wider than normal, her nod tight. Pablo waved his hand and for them to turn around, preferring a bit of privacy to shift if the situation allowed. He tapped them on the shoulder with his pointy wolf claws and nimbly jumped onto the high brick wall. They watched as he carefully crawled onto the roof of the building overlooking the village. Pablo didn’t make a sound.
Delilah and Luke glanced at each other with eyebrows raised and matching impressed looks.
“Like a cat,” Luke whispered.
“I’m sure a werewolf would just love being compared to a feline.” Delilah snickered.
“Alright, put your game face on.”
“We just walking in?” Delilah looked incredulous.
“They know we’re coming. We know it’s probably a trap. They’ll try to get the jump on us thinking we’re unaware. We stroll in like we’re oblivious and spring their trap.” Luke shrugged. “Keep moving, watch your back, and call out if you need help.”
Delilah loosened her machete in its scabbard and patted her wooden stakes nervously. They strode confidently out of the shadows and down the sidewalk, toward the entrance to the Portsmouth Women’s Village.
Luke assessed every detail he could make out. The gravel, which was strewn out onto Columbia Boulevard, was spread out evenly across the village entryway. It was too even. When Luke had visited a few days ago with Max, it had shown signs of use, unevenly packed due to traffic. Now, everything was smooth. Some pieces were muddy with dirt lines; they’d been churned up from the bottom layer that met the packed earth. Something had torn up the gravel, flinging some out into the street, and then gone to a great deal of trouble trying to erase the evidence.
A few doors looked slightly askew—a hinge displaying a bit too much gap, a screw dangling precariously from a screw hole. One door was propped against its jamb, leaving a gap at the top and a sizable angle at the bottom. The light glinted off streaks of a dark liquid smear. The raid on this camp had been fast and violent, and then just as quickly erased in hopes of fooling the less aware.
Luke pulled the gate open. Unlocked. At this time of night, the gate should have been secure. As the gate shut behind them, it rattled the whole chain-link fence surrounding the village.
The leader of the camp exited one of the small shelters. She stopped in the shadows separating her from Luke and the light thrown by the street lamps.
“Tresa, right?” Luke asked.
She shifted her head, a look of confusion passing over face as she shook her head slightly. Her hair shifted, allowing Luke a glimpse of a swollen eye on the way to a serious bruise. “Yeah. Tresa. That’s me. You’re Luke.” Her body stood motionless, only her mouth moved.
Delilah shifted nervously, her feet kicking up a grinding noise as her shoes crunched the loose gravel. Floorboards groaned and creaked, breaking the strained silence.
Finally, Tresa spoke again, “Sorry about the voice mail. I hope it didn’t cause you any inconvenience. Um, someone got the phone and thought it would be amusing to play a prank.”
“I see…” The sound of a pebble skittering was the only warning Luke got that something was happening behind them. Then a chain flew through the gate as someone quickly wrapped it around the gate post. The click of a padlock sealed them in. Delilah drew her machete; Luke followed suit with his gladius and rudis in steady hands.
“There’s no cause for alarm…” Tresa droned on.
Doors were kicked out of their frames as vampires emerged into the courtyard. A tall, lanky female vampire strode out of the building Tresa had appeared from. She stroked Tresa on her cheek, and said, “You may go hide now, my pet.”
Tresa turned and walked woodenly back into the little house.
“So, you’re the one who’s been interfering with our plans. It looks like your adventures in slaying end tonight.” She lazily raised her arms and gestured toward Luke and Delilah. She looked around at the vampires, all champing at the bit to chomp on the humans. “I do so enjoy my job.”
She snapped her fingers and pointed aggressively at the humans, as if giving commands to an attack hound. The vampires edged toward Luke and Delilah, looking more cautious than eager. Luke scanned the crowd, trying to pick out which pawn would move first. A couple of vampires were exchanging glances. Luke exhaled, his muscles relaxing into readiness as their eyes shifted from questioning to decided.
Luke exploded into a blurred rush of violence. Where his gladius landed, limbs fell and blood flew. A head, an arm, a back slashed, a gut opened—four vampires down were left crawling away or writhing on the ground holding stumps.
Delilah darted out and dispatched one of the downed vamps with a precision stake strike, before tucking in just behind Luke and to his left. The rest of the vampires halted their progress, eyeing each other and hoping someone else would be ballsy enough to advance. Their attention was so firmly fixed on Luke, they had no idea they had other threats to worry about.
“You assholes got anyone here that can actually fight?” Luke taunted, hoping to distract them from any noises Pablo might make. “What a bunch of clowns. Just a friendly piece of advice. You should probably flee while you have the chance, or you’ll end up one more pile of vampire sludge oozing into the gutter to be carried the sewage treatment plant.”
They ignored his bravado, faces scowling, and snarled at him. Pablo dropped down into a narrow alley between two of the tiny houses and began tearing into them. As the dismembered head of one vampire struck another, the vamps realized they might be in more trouble than they’d bargained for.
“Oops. Too late…”
All hell broke loose. as the werewolf ripped their bodies to shreds. Pablo kicked one vampire in the chest so hard that he was left holding only a pair of arms. Doing a passable imitation of Luke’s sword work, Pablo smacked vampires with his arm cudgels. Luke charged into battle, Delilah racing after him.
The vampires scattered, running through the tight alleys and darting into buildings. A few of the more valiant ones engaged Luke or tried to face off with the raging werewolf. Luke closed with one, getting inside its reach and delivered a wicked slash to its face. He let it stumble backwards until it reached the perfect distance for an incoming stab from the wooden sword in his other hand. The vampire went rigid, then sloughed off the rudis into another behind it. Delilah darted around Luke and staked another vampire, quickly withdrawing and pulling another stake from her belt.
Pablo, done playing with his arms, had tossed them aside and was busy wrenching another vampire’s head off. He chucked it straight at Luke, who ducked. It smashed into the vampire sneaking up behind him. Delilah raked a backhanded slash with her machete across its face, pivoting in with a stake to its heart. Straightening, Luke nodded his thanks.
The last of the braver vampires had finally broken ranks and retreated, leaving the tiny courtyard deserted. Behind Pablo, a set of shadows in the window of a darkened home jostled, trying to get as far as possible from the door. Catching Pablo’s eye, Luke nodded his head toward it, pointing with the tip of his sword up to the roof of the house next to it. Pablo jogged over to the neighboring building and leapt onto its roof. Reaching across the foot-wide gap, he ripped off the corrugated tin roof, chucking it aside as he jumped in. The sound of vampires screaming serenaded Luke’s ears as he kicked in the door of the shelter closest to him.
“Delilah, watch my back,” Luke called out as he shot inside, leading with his gladius. Pulling his other arm in, he stabbed to the left with the rudis. His eyes quickly adjusted to the dark space of the interior. Empty. “Coming out.”
“Thanks for the heads up.” Delilah looked around the empty courtyard nervously.
“You’d feel pretty bad if you stabbed me by accident,” Luke said. “On to the next.”
Luke peeked into the gap left by a door hanging off one hinge but couldn’t tell if anyone was inside. There were still too many vamps around to sense any exact locations. He kicked the door just next to the hinge and sent it flying, leading with his sword once again. This time, the house was occupied. A body leapt out the window. Reacting on pure reflex and nerves, Delilah chopped down with her machete, nearly taking off most of its left arm. The vampire landed on the ground in a heap. Delilah finished it before it could get away.
A vampire had taken a cue from Pablo and gotten to the rooftops. Luke stepped out, and the vampire sprang. Delilah called out as the roof squeaked and cracked. Luke spun and caught it, impaling him with both swords. Rolling to his back, Luke coiled his legs and kicked out, launching the vampire over him and onto the path behind him. The vampire hit the ground hard and shattered it into dust. One of Luke’s blades must have pierced its heart.
Delilah hacked her blade into the doorjamb, sticking it in the wood. She reached down and grasped Luke’s forearm, careful to avoid his blade as she helped him up. She reached out and yanked her blade free. Luke raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment. Instead, he turned and slipped into the shadows of one of the narrow alleys.
Somehow, a vampire had wedged itself into the tiny space between two of the buildings. As Luke passed, it stabbed out with a knife. Luke jumped out of the way as the vampire’s sleeve snagged on a nail, then sliced off the vampire’s forearm. Dropping the gladius, he grabbed the bleeding stump and pulled its torso toward the gap. The vampire tried to get its other clawed hand out to protect itself, but it had picked too small of a space to wedge itself into. Luke slid his rudis through its armpit and into its heart.
Luke let go kicked it off his rudis—the vampire splatting to the ground in a pile of goo—and picked up his gladius. Delilah squeezed by Luke in the narrow alleyway to inspect the dark alleys, nooks, and dead ends they still hadn’t cleared. Luke, startled by a shadow moving across the light, relaxed when he saw Pablo stalking across the rooftops.
Luke caught Delilah’s eye as her gaze shifted up. She nodded and moved forward, taking a quick peek around the corner. She gave Luke the “OK” signal, and he darted around the corner. She followed him.
Doors sprung open as vampires poured out from every hiding place, quickly surrounding them. Luke didn’t wait for them to make the first move; he charged whoever was nearest. Shoving a pipe out of his way as it swung toward his head, he delivered a stab to the face and withdrew into a backward slash, bisecting another vamp’s arm. He followed through with a stab from this rudis. Delilah was doing her best to keep her back to Luke’s as she hacked at anything that moved within the range.
Pablo, having finally run out of rooftops, dropped into the back of the alley and worked his way through the vampires surrounding his friends. The vampires between him and Luke were pressed in close to one another, trying to find room to fight.
Delilah switched from defense to offense and tried to keep up with the butchery. As she positioned herself to swing toward her next target, Luke shoved her out of the way, knocking her back into the building. With her in the clear, Luke returned to slicing bits off the vampire Delilah had gone after.
A car horn sounded in the distance, blasting three long honks. The vampires not currently fighting desperately against the marauding slayers ran, jumped, and climbed out of the village. Luke and Pablo put their remaining opponents down.
Luke, his back still to Delilah, looked around for more vampires to pursue. Delilah thwacked him across the back of his thighs with the flat of the machete’s blade.
He yelped, jumped, and turned around.
“What the hell was that for?!” Luke asked. Unable to rub the back of his thighs with his hands full of swords, he squirmed in pain.
Delilah pointed her machete at his chest and shoved him back against the building. She closed the distance, going almost nose to nose with Luke. “Do. Not. Fuck. With. My. Kills. Ever. Again. Understand?”
“Uh, I, um, I, uh…” Luke stammered.
“I don’t want to hear anything out of your mouth except ‘understood,’” she ground out through clenched teeth. She cocked her arm back, showing Luke the flat of her blade.
“Understood.”
Delilah wiped her blade clean on the shirt of a dead vampire and shoved it back in its sheath.
Luke craned his head over his shoulder, trying to get a good look at the back of his legs. “Is there vamp blood on my pants where you hit me?”
Delilah gave him a quick once over. “You’ve got blood splatter everywhere. Not sure I added much. Get to staking, sword boy. We need to get out of here.”
She pulled out a fresh stake and worked her way through any bodies that were slowly trying to heal. Luke sheathed his gladius and did the same with his rudis. Pablo, still in his bipedal wolf form, guarded them in case any vampires decided on an encore. The silence was only broken by the squelch of decaying vampires and the thuds of stakes going into torsos.
A rattling sound came from inside Luke’s hoodie. Started, he fished out the pouch from under his armor. Blood rose in his face the longer he stared at the screen of his phone. His jaw clenched and unclenched, the muscles of his face quivering.
“Luke, what is it?” Delilah asked, looking concerned.
Luke thrust the phone at her. They took Max. They broke into his home and took Max. Please help! - Pam
“What number is this? It’s not coming up as their camp phone…” Delilah said. “It might be another trap.”
Luke didn’t answer, stomping back and forth and shaking with barely contained fury. A loose head belonging to a body they hadn’t staked yet lay on the ground. He reared back with his foot, and kicked it as hard as he could, letting out a scream that was nearly a roar of frustration that echoed through the night. The head splattered against the metal wall of a shipping container living unit like a rotten melon.
* * *
Delilah drove through north Portland toward Hazelnut Grove. Luke, still too angry to talk, had tossed her his keys. Pablo had reassumed his human form and was shimmying into fresh clothes in the backseat. Luke fumed, staring out the passenger window. She pulled into their usual spot and put the car in park. They poured out of the Volvo and jogged up the bike path.
Pablo put his hand on Luke’s shoulder just before they reached the camp, only to have it shaken off. “Hey, Luke. I understand. You’re angry. But you can’t walk in there looking like you’re about to demolish the place. Their trusted leader is gone. They’re scared. You need to pull it together. OK? Also, if it’s a trap, you’ll need your calm.”
Luke took several deep, slow breaths, forcing his muscles to relax. He nodded curtly at Pablo and put on a calmer face. Even if he didn’t really feel it, he could fake it. He’d worn façades for nearly two millennia.
Someone must have seen them approach because Pam and Jim were walking briskly toward them. They waited at the edge of the glow cast by the streetlight. The camp, despite the extremely late hour—closer to sunrise than midnight—was a hive of activity. Not sensing any vampires, Luke’s tension eased a little more. Once they got closer, he could see that Pam had been crying. Her eyes were puffy and red. Jim looked solemn and scared.
“What happened?” Luke asked.
Jim spoke up first. “Someone woke us up. Said there were suspicious strangers at Max’s. By the time we got there, it was too late. He was gone.” He glanced down, then made eye contact with Luke again. “You better see this.”
Jim led the way; Pam fell in with the rest of them. As they walked through camp, people gave them wary glances, hastily packing anything they could.
Jim stopped about ten feet from Max’s door. It swung in the early morning breeze.
“Is this how you found it? Door open?” Delilah asked.
Jim nodded. “Yeah. I peeked inside but made sure nobody disturbed anything.”
Luke walked forward, bent at the waist as he surveyed the ground for clues. Finally, he arrived at Max’s door. Everything was still neatly in its place. The only sign of anything out of place was the bed, its sheets and pillow tangled on the floor. Luke stepped inside and turned around slowly. Then he saw it—the cell phone he’d given to Max was nailed to the wall next to the door. A spike driven through the top of the screen pinned it in place. Underneath it was a folded piece of paper. Luke pulled it free of the nail, ripping the corner of the fold.
The night belongs to us. All who dare go out into it belong to us. Portland is ours, and you’re next. Leave while you can or we’ll come for you next, you two-bit Buffy wannabe.
The bottom was signed only by a happy face with dripping fangs.
He walked out and handed the note to Jim. Pam read it over his shoulder. She gasped, covering her mouth. Jim handed it to Pablo, who held it out for Delilah to read along with him. Everyone deflated. They all stared at the ground, heads spinning helplessly, out of option or good ideas.
Luke looked around and watched as tents were disassembled. “What’s going on here?” he asked.
Jim startled out of his daze. “People are running away. It’s not safe here. It’s not safe anywhere…” he said the last to himself.
“Don’t go north. We just came from the Portsmouth Women’s Village. They emptied it,” Delilah supplied.
“Yeah. Southeast, I guess,” Luke suggested, recalling his map at home, filling up with pins. “Deep southeast, further south than Johnson Creek. I don’t know if it’ll be any safer after this, but it’s all I got.”
“Wha…what about Max?” Pam chimed in.
“I’ll do what I can to find him, him and anyone else I can.” Luke squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I’ll figure something out.”