by Danny and Chewy Walrus
Daniela, formerly of the PSI-Unit, stood alone in one corner of the cave.
Filling the rest of the space were hundreds of the island's inhabitants, having gone underground to seek refuge from Hurricane Jason.
And leaning against a rocky wall, resting and trying his damnedest to heal from wounds sustained in battle, was Danny Hearn. His gaze shifted across the room, coming to rest on Rachel Johnson as she tended to injured people. He lingered there for a moment, watching her. She suddenly looked up, and her eyes met his. He quickly shifted his gaze and found himself looking at the campfire as it brightly flickered, providing heat and light for the cave full of people.
"Bloody hell..." said his second brain, Hal.
"What?"
"Just go over there and talk to her!"
"It's a bit more complicated than that."
"No! No, it isn't! You go over there. Say you'd love to go to dinner. Maybe say her hair looks nice, or some such shit. Just do SOMETHING."
"Easier said than--"
"SHUT UP! Look at you, for fuck's sake..."
"What?!"
"Mister 'I don't want to form any lasting relationships because I still feel like I don't belong here'!"
"Huh?"
"It's true! You don't want to risk falling in love, because you still feel like you don't belong in this world! You don't want anything tying you here. You haven't even made a friend outside the team. You're pathetic, sometimes..."
Danny and Hal's conversation was cut short when Danny noticed some strange movement at the other end of the cave.
Daniela concentrated hard, focusing on the final battles outside. She tried to guide the heroes and cloud the mind of her enemies. In any way she could, she tried to influence the tide of battle.
It was too bad she wasn't concentrating more on what was happening inside the cave. She may have noticed one of the pureblood vamps leaping at her from the shadows in the rocky ceiling of the cave.
It landed on her back, throwing her to the ground. Before she could react, it grabbed her by the hair and drove her head into the stone floor, knocking her out cold.
"Traitor bitch," it said quietly.
It stood and leaped quickly to its side, grabbing the first person it could and holding them tight. Danny realized with a start that the person he'd grabbed was Rachel. He swore to himself under his breath. The vamp raised a clawlike finger to her throat and addressed the crowd of frightened people surrounding it.
"This... this will be fun. A cave full of people, ripe for the picking. No escape. And nobody in here to stop me..." it said loudly, as if issuing a proclamation.
Three shots suddenly rang out, and three bullets struck the vamp in its side. Spinning around, it noticed one of the policemen who'd been holed up in the cave, his gun drawn. The cop looked nervous, but still held his firearm out firmly.
"Try that again... and you get to be the first to die," the vampire said to him.
The cop looked at the vampire. He looked at the spot where his bullets at hit, noticing how the creature had shrugged them off effortlessly. He dropped his gun.
"Good. Now, I may eat this one first, but that doesn't mean that any of you are any less special to me."
Danny stood, bracing himself against the rock wall with his good arm. Pain shot through his injured body, and he had to concentrate hard to keep from screaming. But still, he stood. "No one... no one here dies. Not while I'm still here... not while I'm still standing."
The vampire just laughed loudly. It looked Danny up and down, taking in his injuries, his broken and bandaged arm, his bandaged ribcage, his face, swollen and bruised, his tattered clothes soaked in blood, the way he limped as he slowly stepped forward.
"Ha! You? I've met you before, haven't I? That's right! You were the foolish meta who fought me on the beach! I did all that to you!" the vamp exclaimed, sounding remarkably proud of itself.
"Yes. We've met before," Danny said softly. He cast a quick glance around the cave and noticed Tayden and a few of the police officers looking at him. The cops had their hands on their guns, ready to draw.
But if they hadn't already guessed, the display by the other cop earlier should have made it clear: guns really wouldn't do much against this guy. Even the eye that Dirk Bell had damaged, perhaps the one vulnerable spot, was already beginning to heal. Danny waved the cops down with his good arm.
Squirming helplessly in the creature's grasp, Rachel watched Danny step forward. He couldn't hope to face the vampire in his current condition. And she couldn't live with herself if he died saving her. But she watched as still he stepped forward, and he mumbled something to himself that she couldn't hear.
"No!" she said, sobbing. Danny ignored her and kept walking forward, slowly.
"You expect to defeat me? You expect to last more than thirty seconds in battle? Your tenacity would be amusing, were it not so... pathetic," it said.
"I don't think I can beat you. I doubt I could even last the thirty seconds. But still... as long as I stand... these people remain protected."
"And how do you expect to protect them like that? In battle?"
"How about..." Danny took a deep breath, and sighed, "...you take me instead of her. I'll sacrifice myself, and you'll spare these people."
Danny closed his eyes. Tayden looked shocked. Rachel squealed in panic.
"And what makes you think that, even if I did take you, I'd then spare these people? You wouldn't exactly be alive to help them then."
"I think you'd give me your word."
The vampire laughed out loud again. "And that... that may be worth something," it then said.
In truth, the creature relished the thought of biting Danny. The meta had survived their encounter last time. And it was not often that this creature ever found its prey surviving. The thought nagged at him. This wasn't to say that it wouldn't just kill everyone else when it was done with Danny. But that didn't need to be said out loud.
"Fine. We have a deal," it said. It let Rachel go, pushing her to the ground. She tried to stand and run forward to stop Danny. But the creature grabbed her hard by the neck and forced her back to the ground beside him.
"You. Stay there. You get to watch. Up close," it said. Danny took one more step, until the two were standing face to face.
"This... will be fun," it said, and opened its mouth wide, baring its fangs. It grabbed Danny's shoulders, and drew him close to its chest. Slowly, it lowered its head, bringing its fangs slowly closer to Danny's neck.
Danny looked down and noticed Rachel looking up at him with a tear in her eye. She softly shook her head. He closed his eyes hard, and felt the flesh of his neck tearing as the vampire bit down.
For a moment, the two stood locked together, Danny with his eyes closed, slumped against his captor's body, the creature with its arms firmly around his shoulders, holding its prey tight.
Suddenly, its eyes opened wide in panic. It detached from Danny's neck and froze. "What...?" it croaked, and collapsed to the floor. Danny collapsed beside it.
Grissom Montag gritted his teeth as he watched Priest deliver the final crushing blow to the pureblood vampire at his feet. The limey lightly touched a small cut he'd gotten above his right eye and then to his busted lip. As his large friend pulled himself up from the ground, Griss noticed several bruises, abrasions, and even a mild laceration on the man's chest.
"You should get that looked at," Grissom said, nodding at the gash on Priest's chest.
"It'll heal," Priest said, popping his neck as he walked back toward the caves.
"Yeah..." Griss replied, nodding. "But you still oughtta get it looked at."
Priest chuckled mildly and looked down at his friend. "You're pretty good in a scrap, Griss."
"We try," Montag smiled, teleporting a sterile cloth into his hand from his pack. Dabbing his lip and above his eye, he shoved the cloth in his pocket as the two men approached the caves. "Well, it looks as though we both came out with our share of scars from this one."
"Every battle has scars, Griss," Priest said. "The important thing is that we've lived to tell about them. You seem like enough of a soldier to know that."
"Oh, not a soldier, per se..." Griss said, squatting by the cave entrance, "...just an adventurer of sorts, know what I mean?"
Priest cocked his head to the side inquisitively. "Not really," he responded.
Grissom chuckled. "Never mind, then, mate. Not really important."
As Grissom ran his hand through his dirt-caked hair, he heard a female scream emanating from one of the caves. Both Priest and Grissom were on their feet, rushing toward the cave as a panicked female made her way out. She was very near hysterics, and Grissom wanted to know why.
Putting out an arm, he stopped the girl, who was crying uncontrollably. Putting an arm around her, Grissom rubbed her back as his gaze followed the trail of her frantically pointing finger: the cave.
Then, he heard it. "Danny... vampire... bitten..." were the only words he needed out of the scared girl's lips to know that his teammate was in trouble.
"Get this girl to someone who can help her," Griss said to Priest as the large man took the girl by the hand. "When you get done with that, get in here. I dunno what the 'ell's goin' on in there, but I want some backup just in case."
Priest nodded and turned to run toward a parked Hummer a hundred yards away, where Phil Smith stood talking to Grimm and some female. Grissom rushed into the cave, his firearms mysteriously appearing in his hands.
The man's combat boots stopped suddenly on the hard rock as he took in the scene before him. Danny Hearn and the last of the pureblood vampires lay on the ground, neither moving. Holstering one of his guns while keeping the other trained on the vampire, Grissom looked at Danny carefully, making a few observations as he went.
"No loss of color... no dialated pupils..." Griss' hand felt at Danny's neck for a pulse, but what he found were two large cuts: teeth marks. No, fang marks.
"Aw, crap..." Griss said, reaching for Danny's arm. "Don't die on me, mate... you're the only other member of this squad who knows the words to God Save the Queen..."
There it was. Faint, but it was a pulse. Grissom patted the young man on the side of the face as a gust of air travelled out the Aussie's nose. Danny stirred and groggily looked up at the man who came to his aid.
"The... pureblood...?" he managed to croak out raspingly.
"Leave it to me," came the voice of Priest as he dragged the limp body of the vampire from the cave and onto the beach.
"'Ow'd you do it, mate?" Griss asked as Danny stared up at him, his eyes half-open.
Danny managed a chuckle. "Ask me again... when I'm done recuperating..."
Grissom laughed as he looked out the cave opening. The red La Perditan sun peeked over the horizon as the clouds thinned in the sky overhead.
"Well, Danny, m'pal..." Griss said, teleporting a blanket from his bag and spreading it over Danny's form, "we made it through this one... and it looks like it's gonna be a beautiful morning."
"Yeah..." the Aussie coughed. "Hope you don't mind if I sleep through it."
"Not at all, mate," Grissom said with a smile, surveying the horizon. "Not at all..."