That Cleansing Fire - Part Six
While the others stood guard, Cade knelt down beside the pole and gently touched Bishop’s face. The man’s skin was icy cold.
They had gotten here too late.
Keeping one arm around his teammate’s body, Cade leaned around the back of the pole and cut through the cords that bound the body to it with his knife. With its support suddenly released, Bishop’s corpse slumped against him. Cade gently eased Bishop onto his back on the floor.
Just to be certain, Cade leaned in close and listened for a heartbeat.
Only silence was returned.
Cade raised his head and looked down at his teammates dead face, burning it into his memory, another victim he would now have to avenge.
Bishop’s eyes suddenly popped open.
His gaze met Cade’s confused one and a wicked grin scurried across his lips.
“Sorry, boss,” he said, without a touch of remorse, and his hand whipped around toward his former leader, a razor sharp set of talons extending from his fingertips and seeking Cade’s face.
At that exact moment, most likely the result of some undisclosed prearranged signal, the rafters suddenly vomited a scurrying, seething horde of ravenous creatures that descended the walls with spider-like grace and came rushing across the warehouse floor toward Olsen and Riley.
“It’s a trap!” Cade yelled, throwing himself away from Bishop and out of reach of those deadly claws.
His warning was unnecessary, however, for Olsen had already caught sight of the swarming horde. Without hesitation the Templar opened fire with his MP 5, pouring 800 rounds per minute into his foes. Riley followed suit, his combat Mossberg booming in the echoing confines of the warehouse in sharp contrast to the buzz of Olsen’ weapon.
Cade rolled away from his opponent and came up in a crouch, his pistol held securely in his right hand. He could see that Bishop had already risen to his feet and was snarling in rage at having missed his target.
As his enemy came charging toward him, Cade triggered his Sight.
In the Beyond, the warehouse was a darker, more ominous place, full of the shadows of pain and suffering caused by the slave-driving mentality of its owners. Here, the true nature of the team’s attackers also revealed themselves, as their thirst for the team’s life force was an almost physical presence pulsing out from them in waves of need and desire.
There was no mistaking the fact that the warehouse was full of very hungry Ch’iang shih.
Nor was there any doubt as to what had happened to Bishop.
Cade calmly noted his former teammates altered condition - his savage hunger, his unholy rage, and his dual existence in both the real world and in the Beyond - and then he was out of time. As his formed teammate rushed in to savage him, Cade fired point blank into the man’s face.
Bishop went down, hard, with a bullet hole just beneath his right eye.
In the fifteen seconds it had taken Cade to dispense with Bishop, Olsen and Riley had littered the warehouse floor with vamp bodies. The staccato stutter of Olsen’ weapon was interspersed with the booming tones of Riley’, but still more of the creatures swarmed off the rafters high above and charged toward them. Worse yet, many of those who had gone down were now starting to get back up.
While Bram Stokers’ fictitious creations had access to regenerative powers, the Chaing ‘shih did not. Yet such powers were not really necessary, for their bodies were really nothing more than animated corpses give new life by the hunger and desire of their souls. As such, bullets, even high powered ones from a weapon like Olsen’ MP5, did little to actually stop them. Those Chaing ‘shih who had gone down under the Templars’ onslaught did so more from the sheer velocity of the striking ammunition than from any physical harm the bullet might have caused them. A bullet hole to the chest was of little concern for an undead creature and was nothing more than a few moments worth of inconvenience as they were knocked off their feet.
Cade quickly took in the situation. “Go for their legs, ” he yelled to the others. When it appeared they did not hear him, he stepped up between them and directed his own fire at the legs of his opponents. It only took a moment before his companions caught on to what he was doing and followed suit.
The warehouse was filled with a cacophony of sound; the bark of Cade’s handgun, the booming sound of Billing’s shotgun, the shrieks and wails of the Chaing ‘shih as they were cut down in mid-step by the precision shots of the knights. Conversation between Cade and his men was next to hopeless. It was only the steady training and discipline that Cade enforced on his team that allowed them to operate as a cohesive unit even in the face of such an overwhelming assault. As one man’s weapon would run dry, the others would step up their volume of firepower, allowing him to reload and rejoin the fray.
Soon, however, their supply of ammunition began to dwindle and then disappeared altogether.
As one, the knights dropped their weapons and drew their swords. The vamps closed in, anticipating an easier time of things now, only to discover that the knights’ still had plenty of bite left to them.
In the face of the savagery of the knights’ defense, the vamps retreated to the darkness among the machinery in the far corner of the warehouse. Those wounded that could walk followed suit, while still others, unable to walk due to shattered legs and kneecaps, used their arms to drag themselves along the floor in pursuit.
The three knights took a moment to catch their breath.
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