Blood & Honey #1

Chapter Thirty-Two

The steel of my sword sparks as it scrapes along the dirty pavement of a university located in the upper quadrant of the Bronx in New York City. Perplexed gazes are cast in my direction as I weave my way through the campus toward the stadium.

The cheering of the crowd, while the football players run onto the field, is deafening when paired with the band's blasting instruments as I near the structure that seats eight thousand warm-blooded, adrenalin pumping humans.

Pushing past the ticket collector at the entrance, I ignore the girl who reeks of alcohol and asks if she can touch my sword. I keep my stride the same though I have two humans and a security guard rushing after me.

I step out onto the field, breaching the area designated for fans as if I am the long-awaited third challenger in this two opposing team game.

The padded players stand up straight, confused as I have interrupted them before they can make the first play. None of them say anything to me. They part, making way for me as I walk to the center of the field.

The coaches feel differently. They are yelling at me to get off the field while more security guards begin to trickle onto the painted turf in pursuit of the crazed man with the sword.

The football players closest to me appear to be very aware of the fact that I am no man. They can sense their impending deaths in the energy that is starting to swirl around me like black smoke. It's the same look I have seen for thousands of years. While humans' conscious minds might not be exceedingly perceptive, their subconscious minds often have no trouble detecting they're in the presence of a dark being.

By the time I reach the center of the field, white electricity is entangling with the black sphere that is growing larger around me with each millisecond. The energy storm around me is too intense for me to hear the yelling of the security guards, but I can tell from their flushed faces they are still telling me to get off the damn field and to drop the sword.

Raising my sword high, I plunge it into the soil I stand upon. I kneel, clutching onto the leather wrapped handle as I shut my eyes to help block out everything around me. I've been preparing for this exact moment for three months.

As I pull the power that resides in my blood to the surface and push it out of me, the cold that thrives in me becomes less. Soon, heat begins to fill me.

When I can feel nothing but a scorching heat in every part of me, I open my eyes. "Dieddus endatura sani," I say in our archaic tongue.

Let the blood flow indeed.

Releasing the black energy sphere, I push it all out in front of me. A beast's face that matches the one that sits atop of my sword appears from within, his mouth stretched wide as he bears his fangs. All the energy I pushed out collapses into itself. I brace myself for what comes next.

The blast that follows destroys every warm-blooded being it touches; fanning out and growing wider as it consumes humans before they can even think to scream. It's all over in a matter of seconds.

I stand, clothes shredded from the massive amount of power I forced out of my body. I lift my face to the sky feeling warm blood rain down on me. My power isn't like an atomic bomb blast that is man-made. Its purpose is to do one thing and one alone—spill blood. It's a strange sight to see all the structures still intact and, yet, not a single human among them.

Seven million humans gone in five seconds.

New York City is the most crowded city in the continental USA, and I have wiped it out in a single blow. Everything is bathed in rich red tones. There aren't even any fleshy bits left. All the humans popped and their blood spilled out the moment my energy came into contact with them.