Tianna walked across the parking lot near the rec building on CIU’s campus, her dark hair and brown skin melding beautifully with the darkness around her. She was heading to her 8 PM psychology class at Milberg Hall, but she would never arrive. Something lurked in the darkness.
Tianna approached the space between buildings, a shortcut she often took on Tuesdays. As Tianna entered the area, she immediately felt a chill run up her spine. She shook the feeling away and kept going. Just before she got back to the open area of the quad, a dark shadow approached her from above; Tianna turned to scream, but it was too late. The vampire known as Drahomir was upon her.
Tianna struggled bravely, but very briefly; once the feeding was begun upon the victim, they lost their will quickly. When he was done, Drahomir dropped the young woman on the ground as so much debris. He stalked off into the night to find his comrades.
The next day, the buzz was all over campus, all over Stevenson. A murder had occurred, mimicking the methods of the mythical vampire and the draining of blood from the neck. Howie Durward, a friend of The American Attitude’s (they’d met during the Nex trooper assault on Stevenson, in which the Attitude and Triumph had saved his life) contacted him right after the body was found.
Triumph and the Attitude arrived within minutes. It was still early, before most students were heading to classes. “Thanks for the call, Howie,” The Attitude said. The body was still undisturbed. Kneeling to the ground, the hero examined the ground and area near the body closely. He could see there had been a man there, not large. He’d been holding the student, named Tianna Miller, from behind and to the side, as one would expect from the angle of the neck wounds. The marks on her neck from where the perp held her in order to bite were cold, colder than the now dead flesh around them. Odd.
What he didn’t see was even more telling. First, there was no real sign of a struggle. Second, the approach had been from above. Looking at the air first, The American Attitude next examined the walls. There. Microscopic scratches on the side of the wall, about ten feet above ground level. The perp had been waiting there, somehow attached to the wall, when the victim walked by.
Howie nudged the Attitude. “Time to go, hero. The detecs coming. Don’t want them thinking I compromised the crime scene.”
The Attitude stood up and flipped his skate board onto the ground. “Triumph, give me a tow.” Grabbing onto the end of the combat staff the Attitude carried, Triumph sprinted away at high speed, the American Attitude gliding along behind.
“What do you think?” Steel York, aka Triumph, asked Barry “The American Attitude” Stills.
“I think we need to talk to Angela. That was no vampire copycat crime. The killer was a real vampire!”
Later that night, the heroes gathered together in Triumph’s underground headquarters to discuss the situation. Angela was visibly nervous about the attention she was being given, and about the potential return of the creatures that had forced this change upon her.
“The man, the thing, that turned me was called Drahomir, though he went by Dre. He claimed to be hundreds of years old, an early American colonist. He was traveling with five others at that time. That’s really about all I know,” she said in answer to The Adept’s question.
“Not much to go on,” Caz said. “‘Course, they’re just vampires. They haven’t shown any inclination toward hiding their activities. We start patrolling the area at night, we’ll find ‘em.”
“We will,” Steven Chen broke in, “if we don’t find a bunch of bodies beforehand.”
“Steven’s right,” The Adept said. “We need to get out there soon. How’s tonight for everyone?”
“I can skip class,” Triumph volunteered.
“You always skip class,” The Attitude countered.
“Boys!” Angela snapped, slamming her fist into the table enough to make it rattle. “This is serious. These aren’t Nex addicts. These are vampires. They’ll take your soul if you let them! I know!”
The Attitude snickered one more time, but everyone else was deadly silent.
“Good point,” The Adept said after a moment. “On that note, we’ll meet up on the quad at sunset. We’ll find these guys, and we’ll stop them.”
Later...
The quad was sprinkled with students, the usual mid-week class and library crowd. The heroes split up, and began monitoring the most out-of-the-way, isolated areas, as discretely as possible. Caz and Steven played frisbee in a lighted area near a dark tunnel entrance. The American Attitude was positioned atop a four-story classroom building, scanning in all directions with his amazing senses. Triumph darted from building to building. Sydney sat on the ground, her senses tuned into the life force of the Earth. Meanwhile, The Adept and Angela sat talking in a dark corner of the quad.
It was hours before they got anywhere, but when they did, it was like a fire alarm. A scream from west campus, near Schuster Tower.
Rick opened a portal, and he and Angela slipped through to where Caz and Steven were. Seconds later they were picking up The American Attitude from the roof of a building. Meanwhile, Syd had slipped on her gray robe, becoming the hero known by the same name. Triumph was already on his way.
Triumph arrived first. Running around the entire grounds of the Tower in seconds, he finally found the culprit. A large man, red of hair and light complected, was struggling with a young woman, who seemed prepared for something of this sort. She held a taser on the man, but it had already been discharged. And it hadn’t had any effect. Wouldn’t on a vampire, Triumph thought. Charging in, Triumph grabbed the woman’s waist and continued up the wall. He deposited her safely on the roof of the entrance, which stuck out several yards from the main wall of the skyscraper.
The young woman, short with thick dark hair, gasped. “How did you...hey, you’re Triumph!” she recognized.
“Yep! Talk to you later, busy now!” As he turned back to the street, he say the red haired “man” sprint quickly across the street, then bound to the roof of a single-story row of shops. Triumph was getting ready to jump down when he saw The Gray Robe whip around the corner of the building in mid air, looking around.
“Over there!” Triumph pointed, running down the wall and after the assailant. Syd followed by air, launching rocks from the landscaping at the rooftop where the man was running. Suddenly, their prey dropped behind the wall on the other side of the shops. Triumph came around the side of the building just in time to be caught with a steel bar in the ribs. Because he’d been running at over a hundred miles an hour, his ribs cracked when he hit the solid bar, and he dropped to his knees in pain.
Hearing her teammate’s cry, Syd flew over the buildings until she saw several individuals, all of whom had an unsavory appearance. An Asian woman with sickly gray skin was getting ready to smash Triumph into next week. The Gray Robe didn’t hesitate; she concentrated on a nearby bush, which quickly grew into a writhing, monstrous man-eating plant. The female vampire was quickly engulfed in battle with the plant-beast.
Sydney pulled her phone, but before she could dial it, two of the vampires, including the leader who had killed Tianna the night before, leapt onto the roof and grabbed her by the ankles. They slammed her into the gravel coated roof, stunning her. Drahomir knelt over her form and began to feed, but after only a second, turned back and spit the blood from his mouth.
“Ack! Her blood is like a spinach smoothie! This one’s not for us. Kill her!” The other vampire prepared to carry out the order.
“This way, guys!” Sydney dimly heard The American Attitude call. Of course! His powerful senses could find them even without a phone call.
Leaping on top of the roof, Palisade and Angela came to Syd’s aid. Palisade slammed a spiked elbow into the vampire preparing to attack Syd, and the two entered into a fast and violent melee. Meanwhile, had stopped cold in her tracks, seeing Dre again for the first time in months.
“Ah, here’s a familiar face,” Dre said in a vaguely English accent. “Angela Hughes. My own blood-spawn. Come to feed with us?”
“Get...get out of here, Dre,” she said with a stutter and little conviction. She felt an irresistible pull toward the creature, an unnatural effect of vampiric lust.
“Now, you don’t mean that, my child,” Dre said, sauntering toward Angela. Before reaching her, he was interrupted by a giant, harry fist, the power of which knocked him clean off the building.
“You’re being too gentle with ‘em,” Cazmonster growled to Palisade.
“Okay, fine!” A spike protruded from Palisade’s knuckles and penetrated the skull of the vampire he was fighting. It collapsed to the ground.
On the ground, in the parking lot behind the shops, Drahomir saw that the battle was going against him. The speedster was back up, pummelling his lieutenant. Jackson was down on the roof. Lyra was wrapped up in a plant beast controlled by the woman. It was time to spring the trap.
Screaming a death-like call that penetrated all windows and carried for miles, the night air itself started changing. Within moments, dozens of vampires appeared, coalescing out of the moonlight. Suddenly, the heroes were greatly outnumbered.
“Oh, snap!” The Adept said under his breath, as the heroes once again prepared to battle against the odds.
Meanwhile, in Chicago...
Aaron had landed at the airport. As he walked toward the exit, he lookout out on the hangar where he’d first encountered Benito Asante, the deceased head of the Milan Syndicate. The Syndicate was no in disarray, and without access to the chemicals needed to make Nex. Aaron had no double they’d be back at some point, probably with a vengence, but for now, they were a non-issue.
As Aaron stepped into the cool Chicago night and hailed a taxi, he appreciated how nice it was to be home. Well, almost home. “North side,” Aaron said to the driver. “Montrose and Clark.” Aaron would head down to Stevenson in a few days to say hello to his friends and get his equipment. But for now, he was still plain old Aaron Majesky. And tomorrow, he started work as a manager in his uncle’s deli, called “heroes”.
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