The Regulators - 02 (26 page)

I reached into my pack for my little kit, but the General
interrupted me.

“I wouldn’t bother. They already know we’re here. When they
want to find us, they won’t have any problems. It doesn’t matter how quiet we
are.”

“So what are we going to do when they come?” Scalp asked.

“I’m going to kill them,” the General said as he shouldered
open the first door he came to.

It was, to say the least, a very ugly situation for Scalp
and me. Being that we knew what the vampires were capable of, we also knew that
our odds of surviving were relatively low. The General proved that he could
fight, but the odds weren’t in our favor. Unfortunately, there was nothing we
could do about it. We had our orders.

“
It must have been a
very difficult situation for you to be in. Forced to follow orders from a man
you don’t believe in couldn’t have been easy
”.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’ve never followed orders
from a jackass. I’m in the military for crying out loud. It’s just that, well,
let’s just say that it’s been a while since I had to follow orders from someone
that I did not have complete faith in.

I could also tell from the signals Scalp was giving me that
he agreed completely. When they came for us, Scalp and I would do what we were
told, but if the General went down, we were going to get our asses out of that
building as quickly as possible.

Going from room to room actually didn’t take as much time as
I had thought it would. There were only about ten rooms per floor and we swept
and cleared each of them in less than two minutes apiece.

It wasn’t long before we had reached the stairs for the top
floor of the building.

“
Did you find anything
of interest in the search
?”

Just bodies, lots and lots of bodies. The General searched
every single one of them, but he still hadn’t found his missing friend. Some of
the rooms had blackened out windows and no bodies. I’m guessing that some of
the vampires slept in those rooms during the daytime, but I can’t be sure.

“What do you call something like this?” the big guy said.

“Something like what?” the General asked.

It amazed me that they were actually capable of having
normal, everyday conversations while they were smack dab in the middle of a
very dangerous situation. The big guy looked a little nervous, but the General
was calmly sipping water from his canteen and leaning against a wall as we took
a short break.

Another thing that surprised me was that the General never
seemed to notice how cold it was in the building. Everyone else began to shiver
every time we stopped moving, but not the General. I even remember rubbing my
hands together in order to make sure that they’d work properly when the time
came.

“A building full of vampires, what do you call it?”

“Let’s go with lair,” the General said. “How’s that sound?”

“How about a nest?” the big guy said.

“I like lair, but what does it matter?” the General asked.

“It matters because I might freakin’ die here and I want it
to sound cool.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” the General said. “I don’t
think people will remember you.”

“Fuck that,” the big guy said. “I’m part of the team now.”

“Yeah, but you just joined up. Nobody knows you exist yet.
Maybe after all this is done people will learn your name, but being that you
might not even make it out of this building, I don’t think it’s that
important.”

“So can we call it a nest?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

After that, the conversation was over.

We were about to get into the thick of it once again. We had
searched the entire hotel, and we had not seen a single vampire. That meant
that they were all waiting for us on the top floor. I didn’t like the situation
one bit. The only positive aspect was if we were fast enough, we would be able
to retreat all the way to the street without anything blocking our exit.

“
You knew this because
you cleared all the floors below you
?”

Exactly.

“We ready?” the General said.

All of us nodded that we were. For the first time, the
General removed the tomahawk from the back of his belt. It was a little
foreboding to see him go for that particular weapon. Through all the previous
floors, he had simply carried a black folding knife in his hand.

As soon as the General took his first step into the hallway,
the dim lights came on. He looked back at me and smiled. He really is an
arrogant bastard.

“
Why did he smile at
you
?”

It was his way of saying I told you so to our earlier
discussion when I wanted to use the lock picks, and he told me the vampires
knew we were there and being quiet wouldn’t help us out any. The lights turning
on when we reached the top floor proved that.

The little girl in the nightgown once again stepped into the
hallway. The chills shot up my spine so fierce, it was almost as if someone
were pouring ice water down my back. Her walk was strange; it was almost
aimless as she made her way towards us. She was playing a game. Black ooze
dripped from her mouth as she looked at me and smiled.

“You found me,” she said.

I’m not sure why she said that, but I’m guessing it was in
reference to the game of hide and seek that they were playing. I don’t think I
will ever find out either. The quietness of the building was interrupted by a
WHUMP, WHUMP, WHUMP sound as the tomahawk flew through the air and split open
her forehead.

The General wasn’t waiting to see the results. He was right
behind the tomahawk, and immediately after it connected the knife in his hand
slashed twice and the vampire’s head fell to the ground before her body
followed it.

“No mercy,” the General said. “These aren’t children
anymore. They look like children, but they aren’t. No mercy and no hesitation.”

I was stunned into silence and immobility. These aren’t
things I’m used to mind you. I’m used to taking charge and acting. My team, my
job, and my life often depend upon my ability to act intelligently under
duress. However, the General actually succeeded in killing something that was
entirely way to deadly for a normal man to kill, and he made it look easy. It
was the suddenness that did it to me. The sudden and immediate destruction, I
never before saw a man move like that.

Snake Charmer steps
into some familiar territory at this point. I’ve heard many times from many
different people how shocking it is to see Jaxon in action. The way he moves
and the devastation he causes is apparently quite alarming
.

I don’t know if it makes sense to explain. Maybe it’s
something you need to see in real life instead of just hear about it, but the
guy is scary good. He fights like no man should be able to fight. I’m sure I’ve
said it before, but I’ll say it again anyway. I’ve seen a lot of violence and
action in my time, but he makes the things I’ve seen seem amateurish.

He was just getting started.

Once again, the little girl was followed by the entire nest.

The General didn’t retreat. He didn’t hesitate as they
rushed towards us. He wasn’t stunned by their fast movements. He wasn’t
concerned as they crawled across the walls and ceiling.

He eagerly met them in a deadly embrace.

His tomahawk twirled in his hands and his black knife
flashed up and down as he brought them down one by one. It was really something
to see. He didn’t normally kill them with one hit, but he at least injured them
enough to render them temporarily harmless. He seemed to have complete
situational awareness. Even when they came from behind, he knew. He knew, and
he reacted before they could grab a hold of him.

I’m a believer in zombies because I saw them and killed
them. I’m a believer in vampires as well for the same reasons. Despite that, I
wasn’t a believer in the whole Guardian business until that very moment.
Because for the very first time I was seeing a man do something in a fight that
I was simply not capable of.

I was watching a master at work.

Maybe that’s wrong.

A master is a mere human at the height of his skills. The
General is by no means a mere human. Human beings are not capable of doing the
things that he was doing.

All this happened very quickly. It’s not like everyone else
sat back and watched. No, we were fighting as well. With the General in the
middle of the hallway and Scalp and I at the far end, the big guy moved in
between the General and Scalp and I.

The General met the charge and the big guy attacked whatever
got behind him with that big axe of his. Scalp and I attacked whatever got
behind the big guy. It wasn’t easy. The fighting was vicious, and it wasn’t the
type of fighting I was used to. I normally fought with guns and intelligence.
If I was in a firefight, I followed the tactics I was trained in and improvised
when I needed to. Rarely did I ever need to go hand to hand. This type of
fighting brought me out of my element. It was almost medieval.

We were bringing them down. We were succeeding. It was
difficult. More than a few times I felt claws scraping against my vest. I heard
the material tear from a far off place that wasn’t anywhere near the fighting.

I was getting tired. Scalp was getting tired. The big guy
was breathing pretty heavily, and his suit had multiple tears. The General must
have noticed this.

“Do you have any flash grenades?” he shouted.

I yelled back that I had one and he told me to set it off in
front of him. I pulled the pin and tossed the stunning weapon just a few feet
in front of him. It went off with a loud bang and an extremely bright flash of
light.

All of us had time to cover our ears and protect our eyes,
but it still played havoc on our senses. The General got it the worst. He was
down on one knee and using the wall to get back to his feet. Yet, all of us,
though banged up, were recovering just fine.

The vampires didn’t fare so well.

The light must have been extremely painful to their eyes.
They were all screaming and clutching at their faces. They were running around
blindly and slamming their small bodies into the walls of the hallway.

They weren’t interested in attacking us anymore. They simply
wanted to retreat. To go back to whatever dark place they felt safe in. I was
shocked that they retreated so easily. Then I remembered that they weren’t
adults. Whatever they were now, they still had a child’s mentality. We hurt
them, and they ran away. An adult might have fought through the pain and
continued their attack, but children didn’t think that way.

“Well, that sucked,” said the General. “I was hoping to take
out a few at a time since some of them have already fed. I didn’t expect to
deal with the whole nest.”

“What the hell are we going to do?” the big guy asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” the General answered. “But I’ll figure
it out.”

I realized something about the General immediately. He
wasn’t experiencing any adrenaline surge. The rest of us had our hearts
pounding in our chests. Our adrenaline was so high at that moment that our
hands were shaking. He was completely calm as if he had just woken up from a
peaceful nap.

“
What does that mean
?”

Well, an adrenaline surge is your fight or flight response.
It can help save your life, but it also causes a loss of hand and eye
coordination. That’s why a lot of gun battles use so much ammunition. The
adrenaline surge ruins their aim, and they end up missing shots that they would
normally hit very easily.

There have even been some studies that were conducted to
find out just how badly it can affect a person’s performance. It also applies
to martial artists. Sometimes their coordination suffers in the beginning of a
fight, and they can take unnecessary damage.

I have a theory that a lot of the successful gunfighters
from the old west somehow controlled their adrenaline. This made them extremely
lethal because their aim was never off. My guess is that the General somehow
manages this as well. His aim with the tomahawk was absolutely perfect.

“
So what does it mean
?”

It means that he’s completely lethal. He doesn’t have a
fight or flight response. Instead, he has a fight response without an
adrenaline surge to damage his chances of success. Or maybe he does experience
an adrenaline surge, but somehow he’s hardwired in a way that it doesn’t mess
with his coordination, but I doubt it because he was way too calm after the
vampires made their retreat.

His earpiece went off. It was a private message, so the rest
of us couldn’t hear the conversation. The grin was back on his face.

“We need to get to the roof,” he said. “Miriam finally
turned up something with her research and they are going to drop off a present
for us.”

It was a relief to hear that they finally had something that
would hopefully give us an edge because, despite how well the General could
fight, the odds were seriously stacked against us. The only problem at the
moment was how we were going to get to the roof in one piece.

The General already had a plan for that.

It wasn’t really very much of a plan, mind you. It consisted
of him holding off as many vampires as he could while the rest of us retrieved
whatever was about to be dropped onto the roof and then rush back to help him.

Of course, the plan was based upon us being once again
attacked by the entire horde. There was a small chance that we’d receive a
moments respite from their attacks due to the flash grenade.

We weren’t going from door to door either. Our goal was to
find the way to the roof as quickly as possible and then come back to mop
things up. It didn’t take but a moment for us to figure out the right
direction. The way we needed to go was down a long hallway that led up a short
flight of stairs to the metal door of the roof.