Chapter 32: Chapter 32

The mark of Osiris tattooed on Marcel’s arm. How could I have missed that? Maybe because you thought he was a friend, and you never thought it necessary to inspect your friends’ bodies? My inner voice said. Only now was I realizing everything. I never saw Marcel wearing anything but a long-sleeved shirt lately.

“Marcel, what are you doing here? What have you gotten yourself into?” I said, still wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt. This could be just another one of his crazy fuck-ups. Like when he joined the Neo-Nazis because they had cool uniforms. Even now. He looked like he just wanted dress up like an Egyptian pharaoh.

“Gotten myself into?” Marcel said, appearing confused. Then, he laughed. It was bitter and hollow. “You’re always a bit slow on the uptake, aren’t you?” Marcel shook his head and turned to one of his minions. “Bring the humans here.”

The man nodded, disappearing in a flash. When he came back, Torres and his men were marching in front of him. All were disarmed, hands behind their heads.

“Now, isn’t this a big disgrace? Who would’ve thought this? The infamous and fearsome, Grand Enforcer teaming up with these weaklings?” Marcel sneered.

“It’s Chief Enforcer, not Grand Enforcer,” I said, trying to distract Marcel.

Marcel snorted. “Well, whatever. I never could understand those useless names you liked to use. Empty words that flaunt your equally useless authority. Like this one. What is he, a captain? A captain of what? These buffed-up thugs? He’s more like a captain of incompetent meat bags” he said, pushing Torres and his men down on their knees.

I noticed one man was absent from the lineup. Chavez. Just as Marcus, Link, and Keno were also nowhere to be seen. Could they have hidden themselves somewhere and were just waiting to attack? One could always hope.

“Never mind.” Marcel smiled, waving a hand at me. “After tonight, I will make sure they will be worthy of you, my friend. After they are, shall we say, changed, you might even turn them into one of your Knights, eh? Speaking of which, how’s Boris doing?”

Stefan growled behind me and stepped forward, but I held him back. Marcel was purposely taunting us, provoking us to make the first move. He wanted to trap the humans in the crossfire.

“What is it you want, Marcel?” I said, fingers itching to grab my blessed blades.

“What do I want? Well, let me see. First, I want your girl. She’s really a special one, did you know that? Her blood is the answer to all our problems. You didn’t realize her importance, did you? All you wanted was to fuck her. You, my friend, don’t always think of the bigger picture. That’s where we differed. Anyway...what else? Oh, yes. I want to get rid of the Royals and their fucking, stupid Council. Once my experiments prove we can make hybrids whenever we want, all those doddering idiots kissing the royal asses of the King and Queen will worship at my feet,” Marcel said, laughing maniacally as he paced like a caged lion in front of us.

“Have you lost your mind? The Prince sired you. His blood compels you to bow down to him and the Royals,” I said, forcing myself to ignore the things he said about Mira. I couldn’t let my emotions cloud my thinking.

“Not if he’s dead,” Marcel screamed at me. Then he collected himself and smiled. “Or at least chained to the ground and forced to hibernate for, let’s say, a hundred years? I might still need his blood again, right? Actually,” Marcel said, pausing in his pacing, “I’ve been thinking of using him before banishing him to the darkness completely. Imagine what glorious offspring the Prince and your beautiful girl will have. With his blood combined with hers, we will have the most powerful hybrid known to man. And once that child drinks MY blood, I will compel it to bow down to me. But first, I must get my hands on...Almira. Oh, even her name is beautiful. Don’t worry, mon ami. I won’t discard her after she serves her purpose. I will keep her by my side. For all eternity. She will be my Queen. I will suck her blood up to the very last drop and turn her. Just as soon as her stupid friend delivers her to me, of course,” Marcel said, turning to whisper at the man behind him. He grimaced at the answer. “Fuck! She’s late again! No matter, Almira will be mine, whether Kris succeeds or not,” Marcel sniggered.

That was the last straw. My blessed blades were in my hands in a flash, ready to cut up Marcel into tiny pieces. I was about to jump at him when Marcel grabbed one of Torres’s men by the hair and pulled him up, the man’s neck stretched out and exposed.

“One move and we drain these men of their life right before your very eyes,” Marcel said, nodding at the men behind him. They all snatched Torres and his men by their collars and copied Marcel, their fangs poised over the men’s necks. “Are you willing to sacrifice these worthless humans this time, Enforcer? They kill our kind, you know? Oh, wait, but so do you. Ah, now I know why you work so well with this scum. You’re just like them!”

“Why don’t we settle this between ourselves and leave the humans out of it?” I said, buying Keno and the others a bit of time. He was hovering near the last row of Marcel’s men; I would recognize that top knot anywhere.

“Leave them out of it? They’re the reason you’re here, aren’t they? You want to rescue these walking blood bags from the evil vampire, right? You betray your kind every time you kill a vampire for feeding off of them. They’re just cattle, Nick! Osiris placed them on this earth to feed us, to satiate the unquenchable thirst within us with their blood.”

‘You used to be like them, Marcel. You used to be human, too.”

Marvel tilted his head at me, a cynical smile gracing his lips. “Was I? Was I ever human? Or had this bloodlust always been with me? Maybe I was born a vampire.”

“Marcel, I’m speaking as a friend. Please, release the humans.”

“Friend? Were you ever truly my friend? What kind of friend would report you to the Council for accidentally killing a fucking whore? Or for allowing my real friends to hunt them down like the animals that they are? But, enough of this. It’s time that these creatures learned their place,” Marcel said, gesturing to the men holding the cops.

But before they could latch onto their victim’s necks, one of Marcel’s vampires screamed as a flash of metal sliced through his neck, separating his head from his body. Pandemonium erupted as more bodies fell to the ground, the metallic singing of blades accompanied by the loud reports of gunfire reverberating around the walls. Marcus and Link fought back-to-back, hacking at their attackers and dodging bullets with their broadswords. Keno and his Katana were both dripping blood, yet he didn’t seem injured.

Chavez had also joined the fray and was shooting at the vampires holding Torres and the other officers in astounding precision, enabling them to drop to the floor and crawl their way out of the carnage. Stefan and the others who had leaped into the air when they saw Keno’s first victim fall were now cutting and slashing through any moving vampire with their own blades. The fight had now spilled beyond the curtained divider. It became harder and harder to avoid hacking into the supine bodies on the hospital beds.

I slashed my way through the remaining combatants, my eyes searching for the only vampire I wanted to get my hands on. But in the chaos, I lost sight of my target.

But then flash of white and gold dashing out the door caught my eye. It was Marcel, concerned only for his own ass, like always.

Too bad, my friend. You’re not getting away this time.

I found him on the third level. The area took me by surprise. It looked so different from the rest I thought we had left the building. They had clearly renovated it into what could pass off as a grandiose apartment, decorated according to Marcel’s liking. A flash of gold and white disappeared around the corner, but immediately reappeared in front of the ornate door at the end of the hall. Marcel was about to open it when my voice halted him.

“Marcel! We’re not done yet,” I yelled as I twirled the twin blades in my hands. “Let’s settle this once and for all. Right here. Right now.”

I thought he didn’t hear me and was about to call out again. But then he twisted around and launched himself at me, the blade of a sickle-shaped sword aimed at my neck. Was this why he ran up here? To get a sword matching his outfit? I would’ve laughed at his foolishness had I not noticed the markings on the blade. This was the legendary Kopesh of Osiris, forged by Ptah himself for the god of death. Wounds inflicted by its blade would never heal. This meant that Marcel was aiming to kill, not just maim. But I wasn’t ready to die just yet. The Kopesh might be a powerful weapon, but Marcel wasn’t an expert swordsman, nor was he a fighter.

When Marcel lifted the sword to hack at my neck, I went down on my knees, my blades crossed over my head to protect it. I knew he would get frustrated by this move and would lunge at me instead. The moment he tried to go for my chest, I lowered my arms and crossed them in front of me, the Kopesh sliding between my twin blades. Marcel tried to pull it back, but the hooked curve got caught in between my crossed swords. With the Kopesh now trapped between them, a simple flick of my wrists sent it flying out of Marcel’s hands. Marcel fell back on his ass, his backward momentum working against him. Disarmed, he scrambled to his feet and backed away from me. Then, probably realizing that I was going to kill him, he screamed ‘enfants’ at the top of his lungs. As if responding to his distress call, a dozen children came running from out of the ornate door. They all wrapped their arms protectively around Marcel, murmuring ‘pére’ over and over. Their ages seemed to range from 6 to 12.

“What have you done, Marcel?” I said, hoping I was wrong about my assumption.

“You asked me once if I wanted children,” Marcel said, gazing lovingly at the kids.

“And you said no,” I said, remembering the conversation perfectly.

“I lied. One of my biggest regrets when I became a vampire was not being able to have kids. But then I came across the lore about Newborns. And when I became a follower of Osiris, I realized that I could have children. Not of my blood, but of my creation.”

“This isn’t right and you know it. But it’s not too late, Marcel. Let me take you and the children to the Count. He will help you explain everything to the Prince. He will—”

“Put me to death! Have you forgotten the Royal Decrees? Have you forgotten how selfish those Royals are? Why are they the only ones allowed to have children? You said it’s also one of your regrets. Well, now you can have your own. I can help you, Nick. If you join me, I will not take Mira away from you. I will let her live with you for as long as you want her. And with the Council gone, no one can stop us from living the life we want to live. We will be free,” Marcel said.

It was a really tempting offer. I could be with Mira, and we could have our own children. Not my flesh and blood, I was past being a Newborn. But I could raise hers as my own. And we would be free from all the restrictions. Still, I knew Marcel’s plans went far beyond these hybrids he created. He made them not because he wanted to be a father. He wanted to be a god.

“What happened to you, Marcel? This isn’t who you are.”

Marcel’s laughter was bitter and mocking. “Really? And you know who I am? Is it so hard to accept that the devil-may-care Marcel had other things than sex in his mind? Didn’t you ever think that it was all just an act? You know what? I admired you from the moment I met you, Nikolai. You accepted your fate without batting an eye and made a name for yourself, even without a proper sire. I had the most powerful sire of all, but he never moved a finger to help me achieve my dreams. He turned me because he thought I would make an impressive addition to his Royal Court of dandies and simpering fools. And I played the part well, didn’t I? Fooled even the great Enforcer, the one beholden to none. I also envied you, did you know that? Being turned by magic makes you independent, free from another’s influence. No one can compel you to do anyone’s bidding because not tied to anyone.”

“I can’t let you continue what you’ve been doing, Marcel. It isn’t right.”

“According to who, the Council? The Royals? They’re all gone, Nick. As of this moment, I’m sure the Royal Guards’ rebellion is complete. They would’ve already captured the Prince and his family and kept them chained in the vaults. The King and Queen might also be dead by now. So, you see, Nick, I’m your savior. I freed all of us. We can all now be what we should’ve been to these humans. Gods,” my erstwhile friend said, smiling his crazy smile.

It faltered and vanished completely when I heard movement behind me. My Knights had been victorious. Otherwise, I would lie in a pool of blood by now.

“It’s over, Marcel. Hand over the kids to us and we will deal with you mercifully,” I said, my heart breaking at the loss of a friend. No matter what he had become, Marcel had once been a good friend to me.

“You really want the kids? Well, you can have them,” he said before leaning down to kiss the children one by one, ending at the smallest child in his brood. “Tuez-les tous, mes enfants,” he said in a clear, loud voice.

The children slowly turned to us in unison. And with fangs bared and fingers clawed, they charged at us. They moved so fast I hardly had time to give the order to stand down.

“Try not to kill them,” I said, lifting my arm to protect my neck. A girl of about twelve had bitten into my arm, getting a high-voltage jolt for her efforts. She convulsed violently before falling to the ground, unconscious.

Two more launched themselves at me, while the rest went after my men. They both followed their sister on the ground after biting into my arm. Keno used his samurai skills in subduing the ones attacking him. Link and Stefan were helping Marcus get rid of his attackers without harming them too much. A final one jumped on me, but he also made the mistake of biting my arm. He crumpled to the ground, just like his siblings.

Seeing that my Knights had the situation under control, I rose to go after Marcel.

But he had already gone.

Marcel de Chatelain had escaped.