Rebirth Read online

“I thought a stake through the heart did it. That’s what the movies show.”

  “Vampire not have heart like person, place where heart was different, changed, take in blood and change it, hold it. Stake like hit in head, knock out, make weak. But pull stake out, will start moving. Must burn it to stop it, or tear to small pieces.”

  Damn….that one in the cellar, I needed to make sure it burned or it would get up and go right back to what it was doing. These things were tough….wait a minute.

  “We can’t do damage to anything internally, that’s an instant death sentence!”

  “For vampire, different rule. You know Gaia hates them, bad magic. Gaia is ok with ending vampire any way possible. But hard to do, vampire not stay still so you can work on it.”

  “So cut off the head, and that ends it.”

  “No. It can grow back, will be slow, but if it get food, time, can come back from head cut off.”

  I couldn’t help the curiosity. “Which part comes back, the head or the body?”

  I guess I lost her. She looked at me a little strangely, then laughed “The head can grow a new body, the body does not know what to do without head.”

  “Do you have any idea why he is so set on getting my blood?”

  Mag stood and looked away from me “Strong blood make him more strong.” She turned back to face me “give him power from Gaia. Like many years older, strong and quick”.

  “Why not your blood then? You are older than I, probably stronger.”

  “I do not know. I not have long training, not much knowledge, had just got fire when I changed shape and then, was dog.”

  So…in a few feedings, he would be much stronger. And he was pretty much impossible now. But I either gave him what he wanted or he would continue to attack my people. So far, Chen had won every time. If we fought I could hurt him but he could leave and get one of the people I cared about and hurt them. Each time the hurt was worse. If they were anywhere where he could get to them, he would get them.

  So no fighting Chen unless all my people were protected. That was the first step. Next…there had to be something, some way, to put this thing down.

  “Mags, does silver hurt vampires?”

  “Yes, silver is bad for anything tied to the night or the moon”, she looked around the darkened yard “werewolves, other blood shape shifters, vampires. Not us, we not shift from the blood, gift from Gaia.”

  Carl had been listening “Let’s get a werewolf to fight the vampire. They don’t get along do they?”

  Mags said “It depends on if they like each other, or something they do for each other. They not just fight for no reason.” She looked at Carl,. “You know where some werewolves are?”

  “Well, no, not right off hand, but we might could… find… some.” Carl was sheepish and his volume dropped by the word, by the last word he was pretty much not talking. “Never mind.”

  “Ok, so not gonna get a local werewolf. Or bear or anything like that, don’t think anything is gonna take care of this for me.”

  Carl chimed in “Us.”

  “What?”

  “Us, nothing gonna take care of this for us, you ain’t in this alone. That bastard skinned my momma. And other stuff, just don’t think you doing this alone.”

  “Ok, well good. Thanks. So we gotta do this, anybody got a good idea what we can do? I was kinda thinking about poison, put something in my blood. But if it don’t kill him quick, or make him a whole lot weaker, he is gonna come take someone else and skin them. And he been getting worse every time.”

  Mags said “Send everyone away, he don’t see them.”

  “Good idea, I don’t know where, but Carl, why don’t you just load everyone up and take them to Montgomery. Y’all stay in a hotel for a couple days, till we get this straightened out.”

  “Naw. I ain’t leavin. We can put ‘em on a bus.”

  Well shit. I kinda expected that though. I just didn’t want to get into that deal right now. But before anything happened I needed to get him out of the way so I didn’t have to watch out for him.

  Carl said “Hey, I know, let’s make a bomb and blow his ass up. That would fix it. When he comes up on the porch set it off, he won’t see that comin.”

  “I like that, what do you need to make a bomb?”

  “Well….hell I ain’t got no idea. Some powder from some bullets maybe?”

  “Don’t look at me, I ain’t fooling with no bullets like that, we gone blow us up. So unless you know some way to get a bomb that would actually hurt this bastard, the bomb thing is out. What else we got?”

  “The only other thing anybody come up with is to poison him with the blood. I don’t think bug spray or that weed killin shit would do it though. We don’t want to just piss him off.”

  Carl said “Yeah, but that weed killer – if we use that, he would need to get a lawyer to get his share of that money. That would tie him up a while.”

  I guess I’m slow, I was just sitting there wonderin’, like, what the hell? When he started cackling and folded over holdin’ himself.

  “You are an idiot, you know that?” It was either get tickled or kill him. “I got some colloidal silver, its good for all kinda stuff so I keep a bottle. Mags, how much would it take to mix with the blood to slow that thing down?”

  “I don’t know. If you stick a piece of silver into it, that will hurt it, it will not heal. I never hear of colloidal? What is it?”

  “It’s silver dissolved in water. Hang on a second.” I got the bottle, I knew right where it was. I read the bottle “Solution of 200 PPM distilled water and pure silver. Lets see, drop two zeros off a million is ten thousand, off two hundred is 2, so 2 parts in ten thousand is silver. This is about a pint. 2 ten thousandths of a pint is….not very much. Maybe enough to offset whatever it gets out of my blood, and almost sure enough to piss it off pretty bad.”

  “Ok, the colloidal silver maybe ain’t the way to go. At least not by itself. I would sink him in the ground but he’s so fast I think he would get back out. I can check with dirt and see what he thinks, maybe he has an idea.”

  They both got behind that idea, so I stepped out of my shoes and walked off a bit to commune with dirt.

  I got the alter ego involved so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed first, I was proud I thought of that. Guess I was learning.

  “Hey, dirt, you there? I need a little help.” I got the sense it was listening, waiting for me, so I continued “Have a bad strong vampire, fought it several times, it is so fast and strong I can’t beat it. Any suggestions?”

  What I got back was confusion. Dirt didn’t see any problem. Fields, dirt, shovel, digging…WTH?

  “If somebody stick a shovel in a field it ain’t no big deal, but in a person is a little different. This bastard is ripping the skin off people, tearing arms and shit off them, and they noticin’. I gotta up my game some to have any chance at all, or it will end me and you will need someone else.”

  “Other (persons in your position) never had a problem with (these things). The things end when one of my helpers (Same as person in your position) decides to end it.”

  “So what these people doing to make it fall down?”

  “This entity cannot directly experience other entity. Assistance provided at your request in the form of your choosing.”

  “So you don’t know what these others do to put down a vampire? Is that what you sayin’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn. Is there anything you can do to make me tougher, faster, and stronger? Maybe that’s the trick.”

  “You can draw from the earth for strength and speed and protection. You also have contact with entities that can/have/will assist.”

  It sounded/felt like it was getting aggravated with how slow I was. I got aggravated with it myself sometimes. Guess I needed to check with the necklace thingy.

  Seven

  I pulled the necklace off and thought at it, “Hey, you there?” Yeah, pretty silly. How to talk with jewelry ain’t a thing
I’ve done a lot of.

  I got the normal (for me these days) reply “Present.”

  “I got this problem,” I proceeded to show/tell what was going on “is there anything you can do to help?”

  “Cut, bash, cover, protect, burn! Fast, fast!”

  A lot of, maybe, pictures of that kinda stuff showed up in my head, all excited, ready to rock. I didn’t know about the burn option though, “You can do fire?”

  “Is fire!”

  Gonna take that as a yes. “Show me, can you do a fireball?” That would be cool! I wanted to know how to use it, if it could do it. Suddenly liquid fire extended from the necklace like a flamethrower all the way to edge of the pavement, where I happened to be facing. The pavement flared up, on fire, thick black smoke roiling up in a column. “Stop!” The long tube of fire quit instantly. I understood – I didn’t have to think words at it, wanting or needing fire made it so. I was freaking out over the fire, “Stop the fire, put out the pavement!! Quick!”

  I saw the smoke move away from the base of the fire, the burning pavement raised up a little and there were no flames. I could vaguely see a clear ball surrounding the fire. “What did you do?”

  The explanation again was more in pictures than words, the air left the area of the fire and the heat was gone quickly without air.

  Mags was pretty upset with something, she gave me a lot of shit; “That wrong, free, set loose!” maybe, and something about the necklace. Maybe she was jealous but it didn’t strike me that way. The accent was kicking ass, I couldn’t tell what else she said. She needed some work on her talking and I told her that.

  “Hey, I get that you bothered and all, try to let up, shit happens, ya know? If you want to give me a hard time, you need to work on your talking.”

  Carl was excited, “Damn, you like the flamer or somethin’! That vampire dude oughta go down pretty easy if you cook his ass, I didn’t know you could do that! We just been killing time here worryin’ about all this, you just ‘poof’ and light his ass up, and its over. Glad that’s took care of!” He raised his hand at me for a high five, then stepped back and snatched his hand back “How good a control you got on that? You ain’t gonna light me, are you?”

  “Hell, Carl, of course I won’t …well, honestly, ummm, I ain’t got a clue. I won’t light you on purpose, but I suggest you be light on your feet, this ain’t like shootin’ a pistol. And it’s hair trigger. You reckon that would hurt that Chen thing enough we could deal with it?”

  Mags said “that was some hot fire, it was (snot, gargle almost spit), you have a (whatever the fuck she said) trapped! You must free!”

  Carl looked at her like he wanted to kick her, “Oh, Hell naw! We gonna use that stuff, that is the shit, ain’t no way we losin’ that. Maybe later if Rose wanna give it up, but we need it, ain’t no doubt.”

  I held up my hand to stop that stuff “Mags, can you talk with it?”

  “Maybe, if I hold it. Why?

  “Ask it about bein’ trapped. If it wants loose. If it does, I will let it go if I can. I done told you I don’t know how it came to be trapped or made or whatever. I didn’t do it, at least not on purpose. I was busy dyin’ at the time, remember?”

  She reached out her hand and I pulled the necklace off. Or tried to, it covered my hand and partway up my arm and the part from around my neck was just gone. I stuck my hand out to her with the metallic glove looking thing on it and she looked at me like she was aggravated.

  “Hey, I ain’t doin’ that. Reach out and touch my hand, maybe it will let you get it off.”

  She grabbed my hand and tried to pull it off, her fingers fell off, every one of them, and she was suddenly bleeding like a stuck hog (I reckon she was, I never actually seen a stuck hog bleeding but this girl was putting out the red).

  She jumped back and grabbed her hand with her other hand “Ouch, fuck, shit fuck owowow, why you do this!” the accent was bad but she had the cussing down pretty good.

  “I didn’t do that, I guess you oughta ask it if you can take it. Here, let me put them fingers back on?” I held out her fingers I had picked up, three of them were still stuck on a piece of hand.

  “You give me, ouch, fuck me, that stings a lot!”

  I handed her the fingers and she stuck them back on, sat down, and the bleeding stopped. She had them attached in just a few seconds. Guess this was just common shit nowadays.

  Carl was undecided for a second, then he got tickled and snorted, “That’s the most casual cutting up somebody’s ass I ever seen in my life. I think if I was one of these boogers and seen y’all doin’ this sorta shit I would just run away, ain’t no way I would mess with you. We need to start makin’ video of all this and put it on the internet, that would make all the bad things stay away and we might make money.”

  Mags said “Why you do this to me? If you don’t want to hand it to me please do not offer!”

  “No, I didn’t do that. Let me ask it – hang on.” I communed with the necklace, asked it to let Mags hold it, told it she wanted to ask it questions. It came back all “No.” like that was the end of the discussion, ready to move on. I tried to explain that she thought I had trapped it in the necklace and wanted to know if it wanted to be free. It said “No.” again. I asked if she could talk with it and get that from it, ever thing I could think of, and no luck. I told Mags what was going on and finally got her to believe me, I think, but the end result was the necklace was here to stay.

  “All right, looks like the new plan is meet this thing on the porch and burn it up with the necklace. I’d really like to get everyone else gone so if something happens I can just worry about me.”

  “I ain’t leavin’” Carl said, “I can hide somewhere or somethin’, but there ain’t no way I am leavin’ you to do this by yourself. We partners.”

  “I don’t want to have to try to put parts of you back together during a fight with this thing. Me and Mags can take a lot more damage than you can. And somebody needs to get the rest of these people someplace safe.” Plus, and I didn’t want to say it out loud, nothing he could do would help against this bastard, it was too fast, too tough.

  Carl puffed up “first off, momma can drive. She’s messed up a little, but she’s got a license and she can go slow, she got time and it might do her good. Next, I get to worry about you just like you do me, you know, that ‘partner’ shit? Next, and I know you didn’t say it but you thinkin’, I ain’t no good against this thing, but you think back when I shot his ass off you. You ain’t got the right to keep me safe. I’m gonna be here.”

  About what I figured. “Let’s get everyone else outta here and then we can worry about me and you and Mags. Mags, you gonna stay, or you want to go with them?”

  Mags said “Not leavin’. Worse that can happen is that critter kill me. Ain’t no thang.” Nonchalantly.

  Me and Carl stopped and looked at her, Carl looked at me “Damn. We done ruined that girl, she ain’t never gonna talk right now.”

  I just held my hand up to Mags, I could tell she was proud, she’d been practicing at this for a while, and we high fived. With the non-necklace hand.

  Then we got everyone loaded up, I gave Wanda some money, which of course she protested, but she needed to get at least one hotel room and maybe more somewhere off away from here, and they had to eat and so on. And they needed to get gone, so we rushed them off.

  After they left, we got out and walked around, scoping out where the cup of blood would go, where Chen would have to stand to get it, and debated about how to handle this whole thing.

  I stood on the ground and communed with dirt, “can you help with this?” I tried to explain what we were doing and that if dirt could slow down the vamp and power me and Mags up for speed and tough it would be a big help. I figured we would be inside and would bust out and attack when he showed up. I asked if dirt could power up Carl too. Dirt let me know it could power me and Mags up, and toughness was no problem, but one of us, preferably me, would have to project
anything Carl needed to him, since dirt had no connection. That led to other questions and answers. The upshot was, Mags was not really bonded with dirt. She knew what he was but didn’t communicate like I did.

  I asked Mags about it and got more of her story. She was young in her studies, and had only progressed to the point of bonding with small fires, and she could carry a small fire spirit/elemental whatever you want to call it with her. Still pretty hot, useful, but somewhat of a childish power. At the time she was training, there were more of her people and they already had bonds with the earth and did not share easily or quickly. They tended to set up new students with fire. Evidently when I got blown up with the sorcerers magic ball, it created an explosion that caused or pulled in a fire (I couldn’t get a clear answer on that, other than it was a big, hot fire). I was bonded to the fire, I could talk with it, but it appeared to be mixed with the iron thingy from the sword and maybe a water thingy from the creek. The word she used to describe them was in some other language and sounded like she choked on something then gargled it around a little. Carl thought she was talking about an elemental and she might have agreed, her definition was different from what he thought it should be; to her it was a kind of living thing except it just began to exist and was based on an element.

  So I needed to talk with the fire I guess. She had some specific rules and one of them was I had to be introduced, which would involve getting the shit burned out of me. I tuned into the necklace while she was explaining, and asked it if there was a fire elemental there. It explained a lot of stuff, and I did not understand any of it. It sent feelings and pictures, but none of it made any sense at all. For instance, I got a feeling of distance, got sucked into a dark place with a spiral made of two strings of fire with dots on it, on fire but still dark, in a rigid framework that kept anything from moved or getting jostled around. What the hell? I knew it could project the fire, the pavement was still bubbled and I needed to fix that, it would cause questions. As I thought that I happened to be looking at the road, the pavement slid down on itself and lay flat, no bubbles, no damage. There was no paint in the area that burned but other than that you couldn’t tell anything had happened. It smoked a little while it moved but that didn’t last long.