Revelations

He heard something. Gunfire. It was strange. Vampires hardly ever used guns, and if they did, what use would they have for them if there were no humans around?

He had dozed peacefully for a bit. He didn’t know how much time had passed. It was irrelevant, anyway.

Again, he heard it. It was louder, this time. Closer. Who was out there? Was it human? Were there humans here in Sydney?

Everything told him not to leave his hiding place, to stay put until the sun rose. Dawn wasn’t too far away – if he stayed here, he would make it through another night. But intuition told him that someone – a human someone – was out there and needed his help. And if not, then at least his pathetic excuse for a life would be over.

His muscles groaned as he stood up from the rather uncomfortable position he had been in. How had he been able to sit there for so long without being in pain? It was a mystery.

Silence descended upon the surrounding area once again. He paused, listening intently. Had he imagined it? Was he still dreaming when he’d heard the gunfire?

Enough questions, he thought.

Checking to make sure his weapons were still on his person, he carefully opened the door, gun at the ready for anything that might be lurking outside. The rooftop was free of vampires and the man felt just a little disappointed – he felt very much like shooting something, But he was the only one there.

Which direction had the gunshots come from? Everything was so silent now.

Then he heard it again. A single gunshot, followed by another. Someone was close by. Very close. His hand tightened around the gun and he swiftly descended the ladder. He backed up against the grotty brick wall of the building the rooftop belonged to. He couldn’t risk anything seeing him – by the sound of it, enough vampires were going to be lured by the gunfire.

Moving quickly and with silent precision, he followed the sounds he heard with his experienced ears and rushed out of the alley and into the open street. He crossed the road without pausing and knew he was growing closer because he could hear the snarling of a multitude of vampires.

He sensed that he would just need to risk using his gun – by the sounds of it, there were many vampires – too many to kill with a blade. Before, when he’d shot that vampire, he had been foolhardy. But now he needed to kill a lot of the things quickly. He withdrew another, identical, gun from a holster around his waist and ran toward the alley where he could see the creatures clearly.

There were a dozen of them, give or take, and without hesitation he fired both guns and two vampires exploded into a smouldering mess. He fired again – one bullet missed but another made its mark. A third vampire was down.

He couldn’t see who the vampires were surrounding because there were so many of them. But he knew someone was there because another vampire was hit with a bullet to the heart – it was a wooden bullet, not UV like his rounds. Obviously this person wasn’t a professional vampire hunter.

Vampire Hunter. He almost laughed at how cliché that term sounded. It reminded him of the name of some cheap-budget movie he’d once seen with badly translated subtitles.

A few moments later, there were only half a dozen vampires and the man could see the human they had been surrounding. He was surprised that it was a woman – barely old enough to be called as such. She was of middle height with dark hair and a determined expression on her face. There were some dark strains on her clothing that looked very much like blood and he wondered what she had been through before coming to Sydney. He wondered why she’d come to Sydney at all. All the humans alive knew that the cities were the most dangerous places to go. The biggest human hideaway was all the way in the Northern Territory in the middle of nowhere.

The two of them exchanged a brief glance before he was attacked by four vampires, while the other two advanced on the woman.

He ducked a blow from the nearest creature, sheathing his guns in the process. He’d wasted enough bullets for today. Instead, he slid a silver blade from its sheath and decapitated the first vampire he saw. He felt a heart-warming satisfaction as it crumbled into ashes.

Momentarily, he was winded when one of the vampires dealt a blow to his chest but he recovered quickly. He’d slain hundreds of these creatures and had plenty of experience.

These vampires were relatively easy to kill – which meant that there was one less group of humans out there. Vampires grew stronger with age, which was why it was imperative to kill them as soon as they were turned. The ones who had been around before the invasion in 2010 were the strongest and some of the hardest to kill. But the Ancients... he had never come across the original vampires. At least, not that he knew of.

At one point he glanced over to see how the woman was doing – just as one of the vampires collapsed in a dusty pile.

He regretted getting distracted soon enough – he was knocked to his back by a vampire that had come up behind him. Another one kicked him sharply in the side and he hissed in pain.

He brought the blade up and into the heart of a vampire standing directly over him and the hot ashes fell upon him. He wrinkled his nose in disgust and stood up again, not even having a chance to brush himself off before the remaining two vampires lunged for him.

The more of them he fought and killed, the more convinced he was that these were newly risen vampires – their fighting technique was sloppy and all they seemed to want to do was bite him – they looked positively ravenous but they didn’t focus enough on their opponent’s moves. It was much too easy to kill these.

It took a matter of minutes before the two humans were left standing and surrounding by vampire remains – some of them smouldering from the man’s UV bullets. There was a slight breeze that caused some of the ashes to gently float along and he congratulated himself on a job well-done.

The young woman stared at the scattered remains around them. Her expression was one of surprise. Perhaps she hadn’t expected to survive such an attack.

The man looked down at his blood coated sword and calmly withdrew a cloth from a pocket on the inside of his leather duster. He cleaned the blade and sheathed the sword. He was used to the smell of blood.

It wasn’t until he looked up that he realised the woman was staring at him. He took a few steps closer and took it as a good sign that she didn’t just run away. But she didn’t trust him. He could see it all over her face. But that meant she was smart.

“It’s all right,” he said hesitantly. It was so long since he’d spoken to another human being, let alone a woman. Had it been a year? He wasn’t sure.

Then she spoke. Her voice was quite calm despite the contradictory fear in her expression. “Who the hell are you?”

He smiled. He was close enough to offer out his hand for her to shake. “I’m Zachary Wolfe, your knight in black armour.”