Chapter 55: Fight for your life
Kaine stood on the water tower, watching the Shadow Guard finish their preparations below. The old textile factory squatted in the wasteland like a diseased tooth, its broken windows staring back at him with malevolent emptiness. But his Death Sight painted a different picture entirely.
Twelve signatures moved through the building’s interior. Four of them were weak—sixth and seventh generation bloodsuckers barely stronger than angry teenagers with sharp teeth. The kind that got turned last week and still thought being a vampire made them special.
Five more burned slightly brighter. Fourth generation, maybe some fifths mixed in. Old enough to know how to fight, strong enough to rip a human apart, but not experienced enough to avoid making stupid mistakes under pressure.
Then there were the three that made his jaw clench. Second and third gens, their signatures blazing like dark stars against the building’s mundane backdrop. These weren’t street thugs who’d gotten lucky with a bite. These were predators with decades of experience and the power to back up their arrogance.
And at the center of it all, in what looked like the factory’s main floor, something that made every instinct he’d developed over twelve years of hunting scream warnings.
A first generation vampire. An Original.
The signature was so bright it hurt to look at directly, even through his supernatural vision. Power that old didn’t just radiate—it commanded. Every other bloodsucker in the building orbited around it like planets around a malevolent sun.
"Shit," Kaine muttered, watching the Shadow Guard agents check their weapons one final time. "You have no idea what you’re walking into."
Marcus tilted his head, pale eyes reflecting the distant streetlights. The ghoul had been unnaturally still for the past ten minutes, like a hunting dog catching the scent of something dangerous.
Below them, Gwen was arguing with someone near the command vehicle. Even at this distance, Kaine recognized the aggressive body language of Colonel Steele. The man stood with his arms crossed, his massive frame casting a shadow that seemed to swallow the agents around him.
Steele hadn’t changed much in the year since Kaine’s supposed death. Still built like a linebacker who’d discovered protein powder and anger management issues. Still wore those custom gauntlets that had earned him his reputation as the Shadow Guard’s most effective close-combat specialist in this division.
Kaine had seen those gauntlets in action. They were powered by the same energy source that made their weapons effective against supernatural targets, but Steele had insisted on modifications that turned them into something closer to medieval siege equipment. Each punch could cave in a vampire’s skull, and the energy discharge could fry nervous systems that had been dead for decades.
The argument below seemed to resolve itself. Gwen stepped back, her hand moving unconsciously to the long blade strapped across her back. Nightfall—her custom katana that glowed blue whenever bloodsuckers were nearby. Right now, it would be humming with enough energy to light up half the district.
Steele raised his hand, and the Shadow Guard moved.
They approached the factory in two teams. The first, led by Steele himself, headed for the main entrance—a set of loading dock doors that had been chained shut for years. The second team, with Gwen and Jemima, circled around to hit a service entrance on the building’s east side.
Standard pincer movement. Hit from two directions, prevent the targets from escaping, maintain crossfire coverage. It was textbook tactical doctrine, and it would have worked perfectly against a normal nest.
But Originals didn’t follow normal rules.
Steele reached the loading dock first. Instead of bothering with the chains, he simply punched through them. The metal links shattered like glass, and the doors swung open with a groan that echoed through the empty district.
The colonel stepped inside, his gauntlets already beginning to glow with stored energy. Behind him, Jenkins carried enough explosive charges to level a city block, while Morrison and three other agents spread out to cover multiple angles.
The factory’s interior was a maze of abandoned machinery and textile equipment. Massive looms squatted in the darkness like sleeping monsters, their metal arms reaching toward the ceiling in frozen supplication. Conveyor belts snaked between them, creating narrow corridors and blind corners that turned every step into a potential ambush.
"Movement, second floor," Morrison whispered into his comm. "Heat signatures spreading out. They know we’re here."
Of course they knew. Kaine watched through his enhanced vision as the vampire signatures began repositioning themselves throughout the building. The weaker ones moved to the upper floors, probably planning to rain debris and bodies down on the Shadow Guard. The stronger ones were descending, preparing to meet the humans head-on.
But the Original hadn’t moved. It remained in the center of the main floor, waiting.
Gwen’s team breached the service entrance without resistance. The door had been unlocked, which should have been their first warning that something was wrong. But they moved inside anyway, weapons ready, following the tactical manual that had kept them alive through dozens of smaller operations.
Jemima took point, her enhanced rifle scanning the shadows for targets. The weapon emitted a faint blue glow that made her look younger than her twenty-four years. She’d grown into her skills since Kaine had trained her, but she still moved with the careful coordination of someone who remembered what it felt like to be prey.
Behind her, Gwen advanced with Nightfall drawn. The blade’s blue glow intensified as they moved deeper into the building, responding to the supernatural presence that filled the air like ozone before a thunderstorm.
"Multiple contacts," Gwen reported quietly.
Eight. She was picking up the weaker signatures, the ones that were moving to attack positions on the floors above them. The real threats were still hidden from conventional detection.
The first attack came from the ceiling.
A seventh gen dropped through a gap in the factory’s roof, landing in the middle of Steele’s formation with enough force to crack the concrete floor. It was a kid, maybe eighteen when it got turned, still wearing the remains of a college sweatshirt that had been fashionable five years ago.
The vampire’s landing created a cloud of dust and debris that temporarily blinded the human agents. In that moment of confusion, it lunged at Jenkins, aiming for the explosives expert’s throat with claws that gleamed like surgical steel.
Steele was faster.
The colonel’s gauntlet caught the vampire mid-leap, his armored fist connecting with its chest in a burst of blue energy. The impact sent the creature flying backward into one of the abandoned looms, its ribs caving in with a sound like breaking kindling.
But seventh gens were fast healers. The vampire rolled to its feet, bloody froth bubbling from its lips, and charged again. This time it went low, trying to tackle Steele around the legs and bring the big man down where its claws could do real damage.
Steele stepped aside and brought both gauntlets down on the creature’s spine. The energy discharge lit up the factory floor like a lightning strike, and the vampire’s back bent in a direction that defied every law of anatomy.
It hit the ground and didn’t get up.
"One down," Steele reported, shaking vampire blood off his gauntlets. "Status report."
More movement above them. The other weak vampires were repositioning, probably realizing that dropping into the middle of a trained tactical team wasn’t the brilliant strategy they’d imagined.
Meanwhile, Gwen’s team was dealing with their own problems.
Two sixth gens came at them from opposite directions, moving through the machinery with the fluid grace of predators who’d learned to hunt in confined spaces. They didn’t make the mistake of attacking head-on. Instead, they used the factory equipment as cover, darting between conveyor belts and textile machinery, forcing the humans to split their attention.
Jemima tracked the first one with her rifle, waiting for a clear shot. The vampire was smart enough to stay behind cover, showing only glimpses of movement that weren’t enough for a clean kill.
The second one tried to flank them.
It came around a massive loom, moving low and fast, aiming for the agent covering their rear. But Gwen was already moving, Nightfall singing through the air in a horizontal arc that should have taken the creature’s head clean off.
The vampire ducked under the blade and kept coming. Its claws raked across the agent’s tactical vest, shredding Kevlar like tissue paper but missing the flesh underneath by inches. The human stumbled backward, trying to bring his weapon to bear, but the vampire was already inside his guard.
Gwen reversed her grip on Nightfall and drove the blade backward in a thrust that punched through the vampire’s chest from behind. The blessed steel emerged from the creature’s sternum in a spray of black blood, and the vampire’s charge turned into a stumbling collapse.
But it wasn’t dead yet. Sixth gens were tough, and a chest wound wasn’t enough to put one down permanently. The vampire twisted around the blade, its claws reaching for Gwen’s face, and she had to abandon her weapon to avoid having her throat opened.
The creature lunged after her, blood streaming from its chest wound but not slowing down. Gwen rolled aside, coming up with a combat knife that looked insignificant compared to her lost katana.
That’s when Jemima’s rifle spoke.
The sun-charged round took the vampire in the head, and its skull simply ceased to exist. One moment there was a snarling face full of fangs and rage, the next there was a headless body collapsing in a spreading pool of black blood.
"Nice shot," Gwen said, retrieving Nightfall from the corpse.
She nodded and kept it moving.
More movement throughout the building. The stronger vampires were finally making their move, and Kaine could see them converging on both teams from multiple directions.
"Incoming," he muttered, though there was no way for his voice to reach the agents below.
Three fifth generation vampires hit Steele’s team simultaneously.
They came from different angles—one through a window, one up through a gap in the floor, one rappelling down from the factory’s upper levels on what looked like steel cable. The coordination was perfect, designed to overwhelm the humans’ ability to respond to multiple threats.
Morrison took the first one with a plasma burst that lit up the vampire’s chest like a Roman candle. The creature kept coming even as its torso burned, but its coordination was shot. Morrison sidestepped its wild swing and put two more rounds center mass. The vampire finally dropped, its regeneration overwhelmed by the amount of damage.
Jenkins wasn’t as lucky.
The vampire coming up from below grabbed his ankle and yanked, sending the explosives expert crashing to the concrete floor. His charges scattered across the ground, some of them beginning to beep ominously as their impact-sensitive triggers activated.
"Shit! Everyone back!" Jenkins shouted, but the vampire was already on top of him, claws raking across his chest in furrows that painted the floor red.
Steele grabbed the creature by the back of its neck and hauled it off Jenkins like it weighed nothing. The vampire twisted in his grip, trying to bite the colonel’s face, but Steele’s other gauntlet was already moving. He drew back and forgot his fist right on the creature’s face.
The punch connected with enough force to drive the creature’s skull into its chest cavity, and the body went limp instantly.
The third vampire hit them while they were distracted.
It moved with the enhanced speed that came with fifth generation status, crossing the factory floor in three bounds that covered ground faster than human eyes could track. Its target was clear—take out the leader and let the rest fall apart.
But Steele had been fighting vampires since before Kaine had joined the Shadow Guard. He’d seen this exact attack pattern dozens of times, and he was already moving when the creature committed to its final leap.
The colonel’s gauntlets met the vampire’s charge head-on. The collision sent shockwaves through the factory floor and shattered windows three blocks away. When the energy discharge faded, there was nothing left of the vampire but a smoking crater and some scattered pieces that might have been clothing.
"Status," Steele barked, checking on Jenkins. The explosives expert was bleeding but conscious, his tactical vest having absorbed most of the claw damage.
"I’m good," Jenkins gasped. "But we’ve got bigger problems. Those beeps you’re hearing? That’s three pounds of military-grade explosive on a timer."
The scattered charges were indeed beeping, their displays counting down from thirty seconds. Enough firepower to turn the factory floor into a crater and take everyone on it along for the ride.
"Everyone out!" Steele ordered, but even as he said it, Kaine could see more vampire signatures converging on their position. The bloodsuckers had heard the commotion and were coming to investigate. If the Shadow Guard tried to retreat now, they’d run straight into an ambush.
Twenty-five seconds.
Meanwhile, Gwen’s team was fighting for their lives against opponents that outclassed them in every measurable way.
Two fourth generation vampires had cornered them in a section of the factory where the machinery created a natural chokepoint. These weren’t the mindless monsters that Steele’s team had faced. These were experienced hunters with decades of practice in killing humans, and they moved with the kind of calculated precision that only came from surviving countless battles.
Under normal circumstances, hunters wouldn’t be too worried about a fourth gen. Even Kaine would consider them cake walk. But there was a degree of variation between generations. They didn’t all measure up to each other. The strength of a vampire be it a second or a seventh gen most times depended on how long it had lived and fed and the maker.
The first one used the industrial equipment like it had been designed for supernatural combat. It ripped loose sections of conveyor belt and hurled them at the human agents, forcing them to take cover while its partner moved to flank them.
Gwen ducked behind a massive loom as chunks of metal sailed over her head. Nightfall’s blue glow was so intense now that it hurt to look at directly, responding to the supernatural presence that filled the air like radiation.
"Jemima, can you get an angle?" she called out.
"Negative. Too much cover, and they’re moving too fast."
The second vampire proved her point by appearing behind one of the other agents before anyone could react. Its claws opened the man’s throat in a spray of arterial blood, and he dropped to the factory floor clutching his neck while his life leaked away between his fingers.
The vampire paused to lick blood from its claws, savoring the taste with the expression of a wine connoisseur sampling a particularly good vintage. The gesture was deliberately theatrical, designed to demoralize the surviving humans.
It worked.
Kaine could see the fear in the agents’ body language, the way their movements became stiffer and more defensive. They were starting to realize that these much were special.
But Gwen had been fighting vampires longer than any of them except Steele and some of the high ranked soldiers on this mission.
She’d learned to channel fear into focus, to use terror as fuel for the kind of calculated rage that kept hunters alive in impossible situations.
She came around the loom fast, Nightfall leading in a strike that should have opened the vampire from shoulder to hip. But fourth gens weren’t just strong—they were smart. The creature twisted away from the blade, grabbed a section of machinery, and swung it like a club.
Gwen barely got her katana up in time to block. The impact sent vibrations through the blessed steel that made her teeth ache, but Nightfall held. The blade’s edge bit into the improvised weapon and stuck there, trapped in twisted metal.
The vampire smiled, showing fangs that gleamed like ivory daggers, and lunged forward while her weapon was trapped.
Jemima’s rifle cracked twice in rapid succession.
The first round took the vampire in the shoulder, spinning it around and disrupting its attack. The second punched through its chest, opening a hole the size of a dinner plate that leaked black blood in pulsing streams.
But fourth gens were tough. The creature shrugged off wounds that would have killed a human instantly and kept coming. It reached Jemima before she could cycle another round, claws extended toward her throat.
The young hunter dropped her rifle and drew a combat knife, moving with the fluid grace that Kaine had drilled into her during months of close-quarters training. She sidestepped the vampire’s lunge, opened a line across its wrist that severed tendons, and came up inside its guard with the blade angled toward its heart.
The knife punched through supernatural flesh and found something vital. The vampire’s eyes went wide with shock and pain, and it stumbled backward with the weapon still buried in its chest.
But it wasn’t dead. Fourth generation vampires had redundant organs and healing factors that could compensate for massive trauma. The creature reached down, pulled Jemima’s knife from its chest, and smiled.
"My turn," it said.
That’s when the building shook.
Jenkins’ explosives had finally reached zero, and three pounds of military-grade firepower detonated in the factory’s main floor. The blast wave rolled through the building like an earthquake, buckling walls and bringing down sections of the roof in avalanches of brick and twisted metal.
But more importantly, it had the attention of everything supernatural in the building.
Kaine watched through his Death Sight as the remaining vampire signatures began converging toward the explosion site. The weak ones came first, drawn by curiosity and the scent of human blood. But behind them, moving with predatory purpose, came the real threats.
Three third generation vampires, their power signatures blazing like dark stars.
And behind them, still radiating the kind of supernatural authority that made Kaine’s enhanced senses ache, the Original.
The first third gen reached Steele’s position before the dust had settled from the explosion. It didn’t bother with the cautious approach that its lesser cousins had used. Instead, it walked straight through the debris field like it was strolling through a park, ignoring chunks of concrete and twisted metal that would have crushed anything merely human.
"Well," it said, its voice carrying the cultured accent of someone who’d learned English when Shakespeare was still writing plays, "this is disappointing. I was expecting the legendary Colonel Steele to provide more entertainment."
Steele stepped over Jenkins’ unconscious form, his gauntlets already charging with power "Trust me, bloodsucker. You won’t be disappointed."
The vampire smiled, showing fangs that had been filed to perfect points. "We shall see."