by Chewy Walrus
"Bloody hell..." Grissom Montag muttered to himself as he stripped a wire with his incisors and crossed it with another. His six bare fingers moved deftly around his makeshift workbench as he tried his utmost to figure out a security device.
He had nothing to fight a butt-load of vampires offensively. All the wood in the shelter was being used for other purposes -- chairs, benches, and the like -- which meant no stakes. Garlic was a perishable substance, and seeing as how it'd been left upstairs, it had probably perished by now. Grissom wore a small gold cross around his neck. He was sure it would protect him, but his own safety was not at issue here.
It was the safety of the other people in the shelter, predominantly civilian lives. The new guy had been pretty good at keeping everyone but Griss and Dr. Henry Quantos from panicking. Hell, the way they were smiling, it was almost like they didn't even know where they were.
Grissom Montag placed the cover on a small metal box that had, at one time, been a standard security system control box. Attached to the box was a long, thick cable that wound itself to the other side of the box in a loop. On the loop were several black market-level laser emitters and receivers, presents that Montag had picked up on one of his early mercenary adventures. He'd been waiting a while to use them, and now seemed as good a time as any.
Now to test it. Montag laid the security device out on the table and carefully aligned the emitters with the receivers. If this thing didn't time right, as soon as this thing got turned on, there'd be disaster, that was for sure. Pressing the old code for the security system, Montag watched as the laser generators hummed with life and shot out a dense, webbed pattern of red laser beams that intersected and crackled with energy.
Montag smiled as he picked up a small piece of cloth and dropped it onto the laser array. A quick fizzle later, and the cloth had been completely burned up. Griss' smile grew. This was gonna work perfectly.
After a few minutes, Grissom had successfully rigged up the laser array and taught Doc Quantos to operate it.
"Why are you teaching me this, Grissom?" Quantos asked nervously when Griss had given him the operating codes.
"Well, my work in here is finished, so I was thinkin' 'bout headin' on out to help in that fight outside," the Englishman said, nodding his head toward the door. "I'm pretty handy in a scrap, although... I've never really fought a vampire before." Grissom paused as he scratched his five o'clock shadow, making a scratching sound as his dry hands met his hard stubble.
"Could be fun," he said finally, pulling one of his firearms from his belt and handing it to Quantos. "You might be needing this."
"What am I supposed to do with this?" Quantos asked, eyeing the gun nervously; shotguns were one thing, but he wasn't comfortable with automatic weaponry.
"Think of it as Contingency Plan A," Montag said with a wink, pulling his small pack onto his back and latching his pocketed belt to his waist. "If that array goes down, you and that gun are the only hope for these people."
"I'm a man of science," Quantos began insistently. "I don't take much stock in myths like vampires, but, just to say that these legends are true, what good is a gun going to do against a vampire?"
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I encase all my bullets in silver," Montag said with a smirk.
"I thought that was werewolves," Quantos said pensively.
"It is," Grissom said, raising his eyebrows, "but you never know when one person's weakness will work on someone else's."
"Well, I'm reassured," Quantos muttered sarcastically.
Grissom surveyed the area once more before he left, looking for anything that might be of use. That was when he saw it. "What's that doing here?" Montag said, pointing to a metallic object laying next to one of the survivors.
"He must have brought it with him from the bus that just arrived," Quantos said, sliding the gun into his pants and walking back over to Grissom's computer relay. "Why?"
"It's just the thing to protect this room from the outside," Griss said with a smile. Jogging over, he hefted the item into his hands and jogged back to the door.
"Well, Doc," Grissom said, pulling his unkempt hair away from is face, "here goes nothing. Don't forget to activate the lasers when I leave."
"You're a good man, Montag," Quantos said, giving the Englishman a mock salute. "Good luck."
"You too, Doc."
Outside the shelter, the storm raged on in more ways than one. The rain stung as Grissom slammed the shelter doors. Rather than using a chain to bolt them shut, as Grimm had thankfully been too preoccupied to do earlier, Griss turned to the metal object he'd found: a tire iron.
"Looks like a cross to me," he said quietly, turning it in his hands. He then shoved the ends of the tire iron through the door handles on the shelter door, locking it from the outside.
Then, pulling his gun from his shoulder holster and his knife from his boot, Grissom Montag turned around and surveyed the scene of the battleground.
Grimm was doing a good job, lobbing off vampire heads with his axe. The guy known as Blackwulf grinned as he cracked skulls together. The energy that Priest had been siphoning from the old generator had made quick work of more than a few of the attackers. The gunslinger and the young English psychic also had done a fair share of damage.
But the attackers still came in droves.
Popping his neck, Grissom cocked his gun on his leg, spun his knife in his hands, and leapt into the fray. This was gonna be fun.
Continued in Chapter 28: That's the Paradise, and This is Hell