It's impossible to describe the insanity of a three-way fight where all three people involved are actively trying to kill each other. It would occasionally and very momentarily turn into a two-versus one fight and but that would immediately fall apart as one of the temporary allies chose to attack the other instead of pressing the fight. It was pure chaos and insanity so of course Beatrice was having the time of her life.
This was the sight that greeted me as I barrelled into the bar/ballroom area of the motel that served as a nightclub on weekend nights and was no doubt a source of irritation to the occupants, but was profitable enough for the owners not to actually give a shit. I initially had no idea where the hell I was running to and hadn't given it much thought except that it was daylight outside and I really was wearing the wroing outfit, but I simply hadn't cared at the time. It was the sounds of shit breaking, coupled with yells and grunts that caught my attention. That was familiar sound to me and I went directly towards the battle, fearing the worst.
Apparently what I had been expecting wasn't exactly the worst.
What I got was definitely in a whole new category by itself.
There were a couple of pretty big windows once I reached the lobby level, but those were mostly facing east, so I only had indirect sunlight to deal with, which was a relief, since I didn't feel like running the gauntlet of windows and coming out the other end slightly toasted. If I was going to try to jump Mr Bryce, which was looking more and more like suicide the closer I got to the ballroom, then I was going to need to be as strong as possible. Even if the caffeine from the 5-Hour Energy had hit him with full force, I was extremely skeptical of it slowing Mr Bryce down, especially since it hadn't done that already. The best case scenario would have been me running around the corner and finding the prone unconscious body of Mr Bryce waiting for a few unfortunate kicks in the ribs and in the head, which of course couldn't be helped. Since that was looking like less and less of a possibility with every step I took, I was preparing for the worst case scenario.
At some point, the fire alarm had gone off and the few occupants of the rooms had exited, all wild-eyed and worried, some of them dragging their suitcases with them, not knowing what to expect. I suspected that some of them had been terrified into hiding under their beds in case whatever terrorists outside with the bombs and guns had come knocking, but who could really blame them? If I had told them that it was nothing like that, just a deadly battle between vampires, they would have looked at me like I was stupid and crazy. Everybody knew that vampires were not real, and if they were, they wouldn't be fighting with guns and grenades. There would be lots of fists and teeth and sharp objects involved.
They should have taken a step into the ballroom.
Beatrice stumbled into me as I entered, almost knocking me over from the force at which she had been almost thrown across the room. She was all wild-eyed and bloodied, her day-walking outfit torn to shreds. There was a huge fist-sized bruise across the left side of her face and her nose had been broken, mashed into her face, but she was literally having the time of her life.
"Hi Bobby!"
"Hi?" I offered, and looked past her to where Jaime and Mr Bryce were trading blows like all Hell was coming down around them. Jaime's hoodie and balaclava had been ripped away and the leather jacket hung in tatters around her, full of different kinds of holes. Blood streamed down the left-side of her face, her hair sticky and matted and she was a mass of scratches, bruises and cuts. And somehow she fought on with Mr Bryce, a broken and slender piece of wood that might have once had carvings on it held tightly in one fist, which she used to jab and stab at the staggering Mr Bryce whenever she got the chance. She wasn't trading blows directly, since that would have been absolute disaster since one of his fists was easily the size of her head and he could have easily crushed her, especially at full strength. But this wasn't Mr Bryce at full-strength. This was Mr Bryce after he had suffered a huge embolism, that had left his left side partially paralyzed, so that he staggered and swung his blows more clumsily and with only about sixty-percent power, but it was still a very dangerous Mr Bryce nonetheless.
The problem with brain embolisms is that they're hugely unpredictable and affect every single one of us differently. This was the huge hole in Claude's plan, the part that involved more hope than fact, and he had known that he couldn't depend on one thing to bring these fuckers down. Even with the four direct injections of 5-Hour Energy while they had been incapacitated from the flash-bangs, hope was never going to be enough. As it was, Mr Bryce had all but shrugged off his embolism.
Jaime was still faster than he was, even at full strength and she now used her incredible speed to hit him four, five times before he could turn. She wasn't always fast enough of course and a few blows had already landed, stunning her and sending her spinning, but somehow, she would catch her balance and turn to rejoin the fight.
Beatrice reached down and yanked out a splintered piece of wood from the side of her torso and grinned at my expression.
"I think I love your ex-girlfriend," she said and literally jumped back into the insanity.
Here's the problem that Jaime had been facing all along in fighting tooth and nail with Mr Bryce. She was fighting Mr Bryce and Beatrice at the same time, both of them determined to kill Jaime and to kill each other at the same time. It was utter insanity, Beatrice attacking Mr Bryce with her usual glee, stabbing and slicing with one of the knives she always seemed to have about her, but Jaime would move into the perfect position or get knocked back and Beatrice would attack her instead of pressing the attack on Mr Bryce. Jaime gave back as good as she got, literally trading punch for punch with Beatrice for a few seconds until Mr Bryce would rush in and there would be a wild cross-section of punches going on, coupled with wild stabbings and the occasional cheap shot.
"Holy shit—" Claude said of the chaos as he entered the room, finally catching up.
"I know," I said. "I don't know if to step in and get killed or just take out my phone and start filming."
Jaime got kicked in the face and staggered back towards us, panting, sweat and blood pouring from off her. Her right eye had swollen shut and her the fingers of her right hand appeared to be broken. She pulled and straightened the fingers as she staggered, grimacing as she did.
"Fuck! I hate her so goddamn much!"
"Why don't you two just work together and take him out first? Then you can have you own fight!" I asked, keeping a close eye on the violence in case Beatrice suddenly decided that she wanted some company and brought the fight over to us.
"Try telling that to psycho bitch-nuts over there!"
Psycho bitch-nuts was currently wrapped around Mr Bryce's neck pounding on his head in an attempt to disconnect it from the body, but she wasn't having much luck.
"If it's an consolation I think you're wearing him down," I offered.
Mr Bryce chose that exact moment to yank Beatrice off of him with his good right arm and swung her through a row of chairs and tables that had somehow avoided getting demolished. Beatrice staggered to her feet and with a chair in hand, charged Mr Bryce definitely intending to make some kindling out of the chair.
Jaime glanced over at Beatrice and flexed her broken fingers. It was remarkable, but the swelling in her eye had reduced as well.
"The fucker heals as fast as we cut him down. Find me a weakness!"
And with that Jaime was gone back into the fight, she and Beatrice pounding on Mr Bryce for a few second, before Beatrice took a cheap shot and off they went again.
"This isn't a videogame Jaime!" I yelled.
"But he does have a weak spot," Claude said and I looked at him in shock. I was even more shocked when Claude handed me two carved wooden stakes.
"Carved from the finest Romanian ashwood, inscribed with the ancient symbols of chaos and destruction, guaranteed to kill any vampire who dares to even look at them."
"You bought these off the internet didn't you?"
"Yeah I totally did," he said with a grin. "Such total bullshit, but they're really, really pointy and impressive looking"
Jaime screamed and I looked over to see that Mr Bryce had caught her upper left arm in his hand and was squeezing as we heard bones snap and crunch— Beatrice was stabbing and stabbing at Mr Bryce's arm, but he was savage and undeterred. His fangs snapped into place and I knew all at once that he intended to rip Jaime's arm from her body.
"What am I supposed to do with these?" That was going to be my smartass comment to Claude and he would no doubt have had some witty comment to give that we could chuckle at later, but the moment for that was gone, and I was already moving, the stakes in my hands as I leapt at Mr Bryce.
"Let her go, you motherfucker!" I yelled, and drove the stakes deep into both sides of that fucker's neck, aiming for the rush of blood that I knew was there, could almost hear, those arteries that carried so much blood.
Blood sprayed out and Mr Bryce may have screamed, but that might have been Jaime or even me. The blood was thick and red, leaving a heavy smell of iron in the air, and it spurted freely as if it had never been free before, not like this, never like this, oh no. I could have stopped then, I supposed, but I had just stabbed one of my most frequent tormentors and I was far from done, for from satisfied with taking him down. Even as I rose up, yanking the stakes out of Mr Bryce, bringing an extra spurt of blood, I could see that Jaime had fallen away and was crawling, crying, her arm crushed to a bloody pulp. Beatrice hovered near, seemingly trying to help, but that wasn't my business right then. I looked down at the weakening Mr Bryce and I didn't wait for him to say anything. I didn't wait for him to surrender.
I dove both stakes into his eyes and into his brain.
Motherfucker.
#########AUTHOR'S NOTE##########
Two chapters to go! I hope you've enjoyed the hell out of this one. Honestly, it was nothing like I had expected so I'd love to hear what you guys thought of it all.
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