Darula

Chapter Four - The Dark Light of Abyssal Dawn in Shadow

VanRingking kicked in the thick wooden double doors of Darula's castle, the two swinging back on their ancient hinges and slamming into the walls with a thud as loud as a pair of gorillas being hit by giant magically animated logs. With a road he tossed the heads of Darula's guards onto the floor of the commons area. Missy watched them roll across the stone, leaving a trail of blood that sickened her.

"Be very careful my dear," hissed VanRingking. "The Count will no doubt have more guardians just inside."

He started to walk towards the stairs, his boots loud on the cobbled flooring, when he heard footsteps from the second floor. He paused at the foot of the steps, a wooden stake held in one hand, his double-barrel shotgun in the other. A uniformed security guard appeared at the top of the steps and as he fumbled with his holstered pistol VanRingking took the opportunity to throw the stake at him like a ninja star. I think they're called shurikens, but anyway it was a classy move like that part in "Big Trouble in Little China" where Kurt Russell catches that knife and throws it back at the bad guy. The stake hit the security guard in the heart and the man fell down the steps, landing with a really loud crunch that meant his spine was broken.

"Oh my god!" Cried Missy, covering her mouth in horror.

"Sometimes the undead use the living as servants," replied VanRingking calmly. "We must show no mercy or all is lost."

Darula ended his unlife as he unlived it, with tears streaming down his face.He turned and stalked up the steps, dispatching two more security guards and a wet nurse in a feeding harness who was there for unknown reasons. He also shot a dog with his shotgun and tossed a grenade into a garden they came across just in case "the weeds have a taste for human flesh". At last they came upon the gilt-encrusted doorway into Darula's private quarters and VanRingking shouldered open the door.

Darula lay on his stomach atop his four-poster bed, a dozen or more bloodied facial tissues array around him. He looked up at them sadly, cheeks stained crimson by his incessant crying.

"My unlife is so horrible," he sobbed.

"It's about to get a lot worse," replied VanRingking, who turned to Missy gave her a thumbs up and a wink, pretending she was a camera.

He charged forward and grabbed the whimpering Count by his throat in a chokehold, lifting him off the bed. He reached down and retrieved his last stake from his belt and stabbed it through the decrepit creature's black heart. The monster gasped and collapsed to the floor, writhing there briefly before its soul escaped its withering corpse.

"You did it!" Missy felt the disease of the vampire lifting from her body. The vampiric fevers faded quickly, only to be replaced by the dull ache of the pneumonia from her AIDS.

"Now help me rig this crap heap to blow," said VanRingking, dropping the satchel containing the dynamite charges.