Avenging Autumn: Seasons Change Book 1 of 4 (9 page)

“
Alright,” Jack said, once again
clasping his hands for a foot hold, “you first, Benny.”

Benny gave his brother a sarcastic smirk, “You
should go first, you’re lighter than me.”

“
Yeah, but your taller, it would be
easier for you to reach the wall with your long arms, and then
reach down and pull us up.”

“
Well, I guess that makes since, I
am stronger than you.”

“
Whoa, now wait a minute,” Jack
said seemingly unable to believe what he had just heard, “who said
anything about you being stronger?”

Autumn let out a groan that seemed to go
unnoticed.

“
Of course I’m stronger,” Benny
continued. “It’s all in the weight.”

“
Bullshit, I’ll arm wrestle you
right now.”

“
Would you two macho idiots shut
the fuck up and get over the wall?” Autumn bellowed.

Jack threw his hands up in surrender,
“Alright, alright. Don’t get your pulse rate up.”

Benny snorted laughter.

“
Oh, ha ha, very funny,” Autumn
said, “you’re short and your scrawny, now get over the damn
wall.”

The two men gave Autumn an identical look of
in-sulted hurt.

“
I’m not that short,” Jack said
solemnly.

Jack boosted Benny up to the top of the wall
for a look around. He saw one guard walking toward the front of the
house, yawning as he went. Once the thug was around the corner
Benny pulled the rest of his body up and, positioning himself on
his stomach, reached down for the others. Jack put his hands on
Autumns waist and lifted her up to Benny’s out-stretched hand. Once
she was over, Benny reached down for his brother. Jack jumped up
for Benny’s hand, but missed it completely.

“
Autumn’s right,” Benny whispered,
“you are too short.”

“
Fuck you!” Jack shot back. He
backed up about ten feet and got a running start. Kicking his foot
off the wall to get extra height, he was able to reach
Benny.

Once the three of them were over, they all
stood mo-tionless against the wall and looked around. After seeing
the seemingly deserted lawn, Jack strode forward with
confidence.

“
Jack,” Autumn said quietly, “what
are you doing?”

“
What?” he asked, “This is going to
be easy.”

When an angry pit bull leapt out of the tall
grass, knocking Jack to the ground, the surprised look on his face
was almost comical. Benny and Autumn stood motionless for a moment,
staring at the dog in shocked surprise.

“
Benny,” Jack shouted, “do
something.”

Jack had his hands on the dog’s chest, holding
it at bay, as it snapped and slobbered inches from his face. Benny
pulled his sword out and held the blade facing downward with the
intention of stabbing the hound in the back. He hesitated,
wondering if he could accidentally stick Jack as well.

“
Come on, man.” Jack
begged.

Benny then turned the sword around in his
hands and swung it like a golf club. He was surprised at how easily
the silver blade cut through the pit’s rib cage. The bottom half
fell to the ground while the top half continued to squirm and
writhe in Jack’s hands.

“
Jesus!” Jack exclaimed. He threw
the top part of the dog aside, looking down at his jacket as he
stood up, “Shit, look at me, I’m covered with blood.”

Just then, the sound of automatic gun fire
filled the air. The Writemans dropped to the ground as the bullets
hit the wall behind them spraying shards of brick in every
direction. A second gun began raining bullets in their area from
the bal-cony above. With no cover nearby, Benny and the others were
pinned to the ground, certain death looming in the very near
future.

Suddenly, pistol fire broke out and the two
rifles were silenced.

“
So much for the element of
surprise,” a gruff voice shouted from across the lawn.

Benny, Jack and Autumn all looked up in unison
to see the Old Man walking toward them. They all stood up, looking
awkward and ashamed.

“
You guys need to be more careful,”
Frank contin-ued, “I may not always be around to pull your asses
out of the fire. Is everyone okay, any bullet wounds that need
tending to?”

“
I’m fine,” Benny
answered.

After running his hands over his body for a
moment, taking extra special care to check his crotch, Jack finally
looked up and said; “I’m cool, too.”

“
Oh no,” Autumn said casually,
“I’ve been shot.”

Benny rushed to her side, “Are you
okay?”

“
I’m fine, Benny,” she gave him a
sympathetic smile, “I’m the dead girl, remember?” The hole the
bullet made in Autumn’s left hip was small and clean, with no blood
flow at all. She kissed him on the cheek and said; “Follow
me.”

Autumn began walking toward the house with
Frank following close behind. Jack paused a moment to brush off his
cloths while Benny cleaned the blade of his sword on the tall
grass.

“
I told you I’m stronger,” Benny
teased.

Jack held out his hands in an exasperated
manner, “What are you talking about?”

“
That dog.”

“
What about it?”

“
That thing weighed like thirty
pounds at the most, and it had you pinned to the
ground.”

A wave of incredulous shock washed over Jack’s
face, “Are you seriously giving me shit about that? That little
fucker was trying to eat my face, man.”

“
Whatever,” Benny chuckled as he
began to follow the others.

Jack stared slack jawed at Benny’s back, “He
was squirming around like he had rabies or something. I couldn’t
even get a good grip on him.”

“
Come on, sissy,” Benny hollered
back.

“
Fuck,” Jack sighed to himself as
he began walking.

Staring up at the house, Benny thought it was
pretty obvious that these so called “businessmen” had made a lot of
money through his father’s bank. He didn’t think the house was
quite big enough to qualify as a mansion, but it had to be damn
close. Its enormous Victorian style looked familiar to him, as if
he’d seen it in some old Vincent Price haunted house movie, only it
wasn’t run down and shabby looking. Instead, it was in exquisite
shape, as if it had been built very recently.

As the group reached the front of the house,
they found the entrance in the form of a very large and expensive
looking double door.

Frank tried the knob and was not surprised to
find it locked.

“
What do we do now?” Benny
asked.

Frank pulled a double barreled, sawed off
shotgun from a holster that was strapped to his right thigh, “Stand
back,” he said, raising the gun to the doorknobs. Both barrels
fired simultaneously, spraying wood in all directions and creating
a gaping hole in the center of the doors.

The Writemans entered the manor.

Inside, the house was lavishly decorated with
many high priced items. Large vases and strange sculptures lined
the multitude of antique chests and dressers in the lobby area.
Though Benny had taken a few Art History classes at Herron when he
was younger, he didn’t recognize the sculptures. Not very
surprising, considering most of them seem to feature vampires in
some way or another. Directly in front of the en-trance, a double
staircase split off to opposite wings of the house.

“
Should we expect more human
servants in here?” Benny asked.

“
I don’t think so,” Frank replied,
“vampires may employ humans to guard their coffins during the day,
but they still wouldn’t trust them enough to give them access to
their sleeping bodies. I imagine the men outside were locked out of
the house, just as we were.”

The three men followed Autumn up the stairs
and to the center of the landing where she stopped in front of a
large oak door that was trimmed with red velvet.

“
This is it,” she said, “all five
of them are in this room.”

“
Alright, Benny, you take Autumn in
there and stake these five in the heart,” Frank commanded, “Jack
and I will finish off any others we find in the rest of the
house.”

“
No!” Benny said
sternly.

Frank looked confused, “What’s the
problem?”

“
We kill the five, and then we
leave to find the last one.”

“
Benny, take a look around, there
are quite a few more rooms in this house. There could be thirty
more vam-pires sleeping helplessly, ripe for the staking. If we
just take out these five (who are most likely the leaders of this
group, I might add) then the rest of them will be hunting us
down.”

“
That’s a chance we’re going to
have to take.”

“
This is not the way vampire
hunters work.”

“
I’m not on some mission to destroy
an entire race of beings. This isn’t about being a hunter, it’s
about avenging Autumn. I don’t give a fuck if these goddamned
things over-run the earth, as long as the six who are responsible
for her murder no longer exist.”

“
And when they come after us, will
you be able to kill them then?”

“
I’ll be forced to defend myself,
as I’ve done already at Jack’s house. Self defense is different
than cold blooded murder.”

“
Aren’t these guys technically
already dead?” Jack interrupted.

“
It doesn’t matter,” Benny
continued, “they’ve done nothing against us, so we’ll do nothing to
them.”

Frank knew there was no point in arguing the
matter any further; his youngest son had always been the bleeding
heart type. “Fine, go on and do what you need to do
then.”

Benny and Autumn opened the door and stepped
through into a large room that was decorated in maroon velvet and
black roses.

“
Wow,” Autumn said, looking around,
“we should have done our bedroom like this.”

Along the left wall sat two black coffins with
gold trim, in front of an enormous wall hanging that depicted dark
figures in the middle of some gruesome act. The right wall was
almost a mirror image, only the figures in the wall hanging were
wearing white instead of black. In the middle of the room was a
white coffin trimmed in silver and elevated slightly higher than
the rest.

“
We don’t have all day, Benny,”
Frank said from the doorway.

Benny suddenly felt self conscious, knowing
that his father would be able to kill these beings without
hesitation. As he opened the first coffin (on the left side of the
room) he felt a sudden weakness in his knee’s that he usually
associated with a good round of sex. This, however was not sex, it
was murder, plain and simple.

Even in the darkened room, Benny could see the
pale face staring up at him with wide pleading eyes. He pulled a
stake from his belt and let the point rest on the vampire’s chest,
directly over his heart. The man’s face twitched and grew taught at
the touch of the wooden object. He looked as if he wanted to beg
for his life, but was physically unable to.

Benny swallowed nervously, and then placed the
palm of his right hand on the flat end of the stake. Using all of
his weight, he pushed the weapon through the creature’s breast
plate and into the heart beneath.

A deafening scream erupted from the vampire’s
mouth, forcing the humans in the room to quickly cover their ears
with the palms of their hands. The thing arched it’s back, it’s
hands twisting into ugly talons as dark red liquid flowed from the
wound in it’s chest. Suddenly, he dropped limp and lifeless back
into the coffin.

Benny felt a surge of adrenaline rush trough
his body. Maybe this was more like sex then he thought. Suddenly a
sickening guilt began to tickle at the back of his mind. Then the
guilt was pushed away by a foreign voice telling him there is no
room for guilt here, this is revenge, there can be no mercy shown
to these creatures. They murdered the only woman you ever
loved.

Taking a deep breath, Benny moved to the next
cof-fin with grave determination painted on his face. He threw the
lid open and looked down on an extremely attractive woman. This
took him by surprise, she was the first female vampire he had seen,
and she was quite possibly the most beautiful vision he had ever
laid eyes on. How could he ever bring himself to do harm to this
lovely creature? How could he drive a wooden stake into her
flawless, creamy white breast? He suddenly felt a strong urge to
reach out and caress the two full mounds that were hidden beneath
the black silk of her blouse.

He shook his head violently and forced his
eyes away from the beast. This was part of their power, he
understood that now. It was the same spell that Autumn fell under
with Odin Sway, just before he killed her. They’re all attractive,
he even felt vaguely attracted to the male vampires. It was faint,
but he now realized it was there just the same.

He pulled a stake from his belt and brought it
down swiftly, so as not to be caught under the spell again. The
woman howled like a banshee, as the same death rattle that the
first vampire exhibited now ravaged her body. Then with an alarming
suddenness, she went still.