The Regulators - 02 (41 page)

I did what I could to focus. I imagined myself winning the
fight. It was hard to collect my thoughts, though, and I ended up just
listening to the sound of my heart beating inside my chest. It was like a great
engine filling my limbs with energy.

The door to the locker room opened.

I was led through some hallways to a long dark corridor
where I was abandoned. At the far end of the corridor, I could see the football
field. The stadium lights had been turned on and the place was awash in a
bright light. He was waiting for me out there. I could feel him, but I couldn’t
see him yet.

It was freezing cold and I had goose bumps all over my body.
I was opening and closing my fingers as I walked through the corridor in an
effort to warm up my hands. The walk was long, and I was alone. As I got nearer
to the stadium, I could actually see the snowflakes falling against the stadium
lights.

I could scarcely believe that everything was happening so
fast. It seemed like only minutes ago that we had entered the city in an effort
to rescue survivors. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how things had gotten so
fucked up. Then I realized that I was afraid.

The rage came back.

I was no longer shivering because of the cold. I was
shivering due to the massive wave of hatred that was flowing through my veins.
I despise being afraid. Fear isn’t something that I’m at all comfortable with.

I walked on with murderous intent. I felt the power in my
limbs. I breathed deeply and took one step into the stadium. The Master was
waiting for me on the fifty yard line. He was only wearing his black pants. He
seemed rather skinny, like somebody that would normally be a cakewalk, but I
didn’t really believe that. I had seen how fast he could move. I had felt how
strong he was. He had been holding back then and made his daughter look weak in
comparison. He wasn’t going to hold back tonight.

On my left side, closer to me on the field, were the
survivors. They made up a large group. Every single person from the church was
in attendance. On my right side, were all the foot soldiers. There were only
about fifteen of them. They probably weren’t very important to the vampires.

Along both sides of the field were wide PVC pipes. There
must have been at least two rows of them inside the field, but it was difficult
to tell with the light dusting of snow. All in all, it looked like a badly
rigged irrigation system, the kind that should be below the ground instead of
lying on top of it.

Mind you, I didn’t really focus much on the pipes or the
people. I just sort of saw them out of the corners of my eyes. My attention was
focused on the Master, but I noticed when all the survivors began to salute me.
They didn’t make a sound; they just all moved at once and crossed their right
fists over their hearts.

I felt my upper lip begin to twitch, and I walked towards
the Master. That’s when I heard the little girl begin to sing. I don’t know if
you heard about her, but she drew me a picture before the battle at the church.

“
Yes, her name is Mona
.”

Well, I guess she got through the first verse or so on her
own before the others joined in on the chorus.

“
Others
?”

The survivors from the church.

“
How many of them
began to sing
?”

All of them.

Instantly the tears
began to well up in my eyes. It’s just one of those moments. I felt more than a
little embarrassed to be crying in front of the man. After all, he was the one
going through everything. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how he must have
felt.

I don’t know how to
explain it, but I think it has something to do with all the support. Jaxon was
going out there to fight for all of them. He was facing insurmountable odds and
there probably wasn’t a single soul among the survivors that actually thought
he was going to win. Still, they sang him on. They let him know that they were
there for him. He wasn’t alone.

That was also
something that I learned from Mona when I tracked her down and asked her why
she began to sing. She told me that Jaxon looked lost and alone. She wanted her
song to guide his way back to her and the others
.

“
I apologize. Please
continue
.”

I was about ten feet away from the Master when their song
ended. He began to talk. He was addressing everyone in the stadium. I have no
idea what he was saying. I think he may have been asking me a question at one
point, but I didn’t come there to talk.

When I was about five feet away, I charged.

He didn’t expect it. He wanted to play games for the crowd
before we got down to business. I wasn’t about to stand for that. I wasn’t
going to exchange back and forth banter with him. I charged him with my full
speed and power. When I reached him, I ducked down and wrapped both of his legs
with my arms.

I lifted him straight up into the air, carried him a few
more feet and slammed him down on his back. The look of shock on his face was
almost comical. He couldn’t believe that a human had just put him on his ass.

I didn’t laugh at him though. I wasn’t in a jovial type of
mood. Instead, I immediately began to pound at his face with both of my hands.
The left hand was the deadlier of the two. It was holding my unopened folding
knife and therefore, the impacts were more damaging.

I broke his nose in an instant. I saw the black blood run
freely for just a moment before the injury was healed. So I broke it again and
after it healed, I broke it once more before the vampire backhanded me into
orbit.

I actually sailed through the air. I remember thinking that
I was in some serious trouble before I landed hard on my back. I struggled to
bring air back into my lungs, but the vampire didn’t give me any time.

“YOU DARE!” he shrieked as he closed the distance between
us, picked me up off the ground and brought my face to within an inch of his
own. “You will pay for that.”

I slashed his neck from ear to ear with my knife. The
vampire threw me aside as if I were a ragdoll. His hands flew to his neck as he
attempted to staunch the spray of blood that was darkening the light snowfall.

I stood up quickly and charged at him. I wanted to hit him
while he was injured and in pain, but by the time I got there, he had healed.
He was a lot stronger than his daughter. I didn’t even see the slash of his
clawed hand, but I felt my head snap back and I saw stars begin to dance at the
edges of my vision.

His claws cut me all the way to the bone. He had opened up
my face and the blood was freely flowing. I almost managed to avoid his next
attack, but he still caught me on the chin with his fist. I’m pretty sure that
the blow shattered most of my jaw.

I fell to the ground. I was hurt, but I wasn’t out of the
fight. When he came for me again, I slashed open the inside of his right arm.
The blood spurted out once again, and I rolled away from him as he shrieked in
pain.

I charged him from behind and was able to open up his
femoral artery on his left leg before the wound on his arm healed. Then, he
struck me in the stomach so hard that I felt something burst in my abdomen. As
I rolled on the ground in pain and attempted to rise to my feet again, I
noticed that there was black blood all over the ground. I also saw that the
Master was standing right beside me.

He grabbed at my neck with his clawed hands and dragged me
to my feet. I tried to cut him again, but his grip was so strong I couldn’t
breathe. Instead, he rained blow after blow upon my face. I could feel the
bones break. Everything went numb. I didn’t have the strength to give him a
serious cut so instead I put my knife in front of my face and let him slam his
fist down upon the blade.

The vampire screamed out his rage and again threw me away
from him. I flew through the air and came to a rolling stop. I rubbed my face
in the snow in an attempt to clear the blood from my eyes. The falling
snowflakes were hissing into little puffs of steam as they landed on my body.
Even the snowflakes were trying to heal me, but they weren’t enough, not nearly
enough.

My face was ruined. I didn’t even want to guess at how bad
the damage was, but still I climbed to my feet. I walked on unsteady legs to
meet the vampire as he in turn walked towards me. He was rubbing his injured
hand as it healed.

I ducked his clawed strike, reopened the artery on his left
leg with a forward cut and made sure that his right leg matched before rolling
away from him. His hands flew to his injuries and he doubled over in an attempt
to stop his precious blood from leaving his body. I jumped on his back and
opened his throat once again.

In a blind rage, he reached behind himself and grabbed a
hold of my left arm. He yanked me off of him easily and slammed me into the
ground. The impact once again drove the breath out of my lungs. As soon as he
let me go I tried to stand back up, but my legs were having a difficult time
cooperating with my mind. I looked over at the Master to see why he wasn’t
pressing the attack while I was at a massive disadvantage. He was rolling
around on the ground in pain. His blood was spraying everywhere. No human could
geyser out blood like that. I don’t think the average heart is strong enough to
pump it that far.

I felt my lips pull back in a smile.

I finally got to my feet just as the vampire stopped rolling
in agony. The slam on the ground had damaged my hip, so I limped over to him.
He stood up before I could slash my knife.

He was smiling back at me.

He understood what I was trying to do. I could see it in his
face. I wasn’t necessarily trying to cause him pain. I wasn’t trying to finish
him off with one cut. I was trying to drain his blood and he knew it.

The wounds I had given him were still leaking. His neck was
still torn open in places and black blood was seeping from the wound. He wasn’t
healing as fast as he had been when the fight started.

I tried to cut him again, but he was too fast. He dodged my
attack easily and slashed open my chest. More of my blood began to flow freely
from my body. The wound felt as if it were electrified. I heard a collective
gasp rise up from the crowd so I knew it must have looked pretty bad.

The chest gash was followed by more slices and cuts. Two
could play at the bloodletting game, and he was showing me just how good he was
at it. I dove for his legs, but I couldn’t budge him off his feet. I felt his
clawed hand pierce my back and tightly grab my spine.

I can’t even begin to describe how badly it hurt when he
lifted me into the air by my spine and held me over his head. I heard him
shouting something to our audience, but the words were lost to me. The wound
was fatal. That much I knew. I could tell that by the pain. I could hear it
from the crunching noises coming from inside of me.

But that didn’t mean that I was finished.

I spun around and slashed his wrist open. The blood didn’t
spray out this time, it just oozed. And the wound gaped and stretched open in
the cold night air. In reaction, the vampire dropped me and clutched at his
wrist. As I fell, I sliced open his stomach and when he doubled over, I once
again cut his neck open.

The Master retaliated by kicking my stomach with his bare
foot. I felt something else burst inside of me from the blow. I watched him
with cloudy eyes as he stuffed his internal organs back inside his opened
stomach. His entire body was covered in the black blood and his wounds bled
horribly. The organs wouldn’t stay put. The wounds would no longer close. I had
finally drained him.

Still, he fought through the pain and approached me. I could
no longer get off the ground and judging from the numbness in my legs, I
probably had damage to my spine. He easily grabbed my left hand and crushed my
fingers as he tore the knife from my grasp.

I think I may have cried out as he crushed my fingers. After
that almost everything was a blur as he stomped and pummeled by body. I tried
as best I could to defend myself, but I was just too slow and too injured to stop
him. He easily broke most of my ribs and cracked my hip bone with the violence
of his attack, but he wasn’t doing very well himself. He still had some serious
strength, but his movements were also slow and he seemed rather clumsy as if he
couldn’t fully control his body.

It wasn’t long before he actually exhausted himself with his
efforts and his organs began to slip from his body cavity. I could barely see
through the blood, but I could hear his ragged breaths as he stood there
swaying back and forth in front of the bright stadium lights. He fell heavily
to the ground right next to me.

I watched him slowly climb back to his feet, and I willed
myself to move against him. Pain was etched across his features as he held his
wounded stomach. He was looking down at me. He wanted to finish me off, but he
was too injured. He was too weak. He could barely stand. He couldn’t heal. The
bloodletting had done its job. My plan had worked. I stayed alive long enough
to drain him.

I wiped blood from my right eye with a numb hand and saw him
turn his gaze away from me and cast it instead upon his foot soldiers. He
motioned them to come forward as he swayed on his feet. He cursed aloud when
they refused to move. He took a shaky step in their direction and managed to
stay upon his feet. That step was followed by another one that was equally
shaky. I knew what he was doing. He wanted their blood. If he fed upon them, he
would heal. If he healed, I was a dead man.

I played my ace in the hole.

I reached my right hand down towards the bottom cuff of my
shorts and pulled free my Cold Steel Ti-lite folding knife.

“
Is this the same
knife you used to finish off the former Guardian
?”

Yeah. I used the needle and thread to sew it onto the inside
cuff of my shorts. I figured that the Master would eventually attack my hand if
I kept cutting him so I made sure to keep the blade in my left hand. I’m
actually right handed. As soon as I had the blade in that hand, I threw my
entire body to the side and slashed the vampire’s Achilles tendon.