Abira Shinde

CONTENT WARNING: gore, fantasy violence

Aisha wished them luck. The sisters departed into the stillness and oppressive heat of the summer night.

Back to back they stood, observing nearby trees, the Speedway’s roof, and the makeshift ceiling that protected the gasoline pumps.

Darkness’s monotony remained unbroken. 

“It might be hiding in the car,” Parvati whispered, quiet as a ghost. “We’ll have to be careful — you’ve got the axes?”

Rukmini nodded stiffly. They approached the car.

There was no shattered glass, or mangled handle, as there might have been if the vampire had broken in. No shadowy stranger was illuminated beneath the gas station’s bright lights.

Parvati’s quickened breath slowed. 

Then, she saw the thing on the hood of the car.

Amidst the scratchy-stretch of faded salt was a human handprint molded of burned-black skin and reddish flesh-bits. 

“Gross!” Rukmini cried, recoiling. 

“That’s what happens when a vampire touches salt,” Parvati said stiffly. 

“It’s disgusting,” Rukmini groused.

“It does mean our salt is effective,” Parvati said. 

“Well, hooray for that,” Rukmini muttered. “More grisly dead stuff. Just what everybody wants.” 

Once again, the two examined the area. Thankfully, there was no sign of the vampire. Parvati assumed the salt burn had scared it off. 

She knew it would soon continue its pursuit, and was thankful she’d had the foresight to have Aisha call the police and local vampire experts.

…

The girls got back in the car, mood much lighter. Rukmini insisted on playing her god-awful nerdcore music, and Parvati pretended it didn’t irritate her beyond reason. This made the whole relief-after-nearly-experiencing-a-potentially-fatal-encounter feeling a billion times more fascinating.

They reached the Dunes. The local park ranger was concerned at how late they were staying, but Parvati assured him she’d be out of his hair before fifty minutes were up. Checking the time (10:08), he reluctantly gave them the go-ahead.

So away they went, swerving down the roads into the midnight forests that surrounded Lake Michigan’s sand-kissed shoreline.

The road was surprisingly bumpy. Every few seconds, the car bounced or shook like it’d hit a massive pothole. Despite the moonlight, Parvati could barely see a thing. She turned on the highbeams. 

The headlights scythed through the darkness, illuminating the road a good fifteen feet ahead. Grandma Jules spared no expense on this car, Parvati thought with a pang of loneliness and guilt. Jules had been near tears when she’d left her.

Those expensive, shadow-scything headlights illuminated no uncomfortable, unseemly road-marks.

And yet, the jolts persisted. 

One hit the car with such force the whole vehicle trembled: something within the machine’s bowls hissed unpleasantly. 

“What’s going on?” Rukmini demanded.

Parvati stared at the controls. The engine light blinked a troublesome shade of orange.

“I don’t know,” she said, slowing her speed. “It’s like something’s attacking the car —” 

Oh, gods.

“Parv?” Rukmini asked. 

Parvati dared a look behind her. “The vampire might be around,” she said. “Grab salt. I’m going to stop the car —” 

At that moment, a jolt hit the car like a thunderbolt. 

The window gave a dreadful crack. Fissures spiderwebbed from it — out of the corner of her eye, Parvati saw a strange, bloated shape swallow up most of the windshield —

Rukmini screamed.

At least, Parvati thought it was a scream. It seemed to rend her earbuds to bloody rags, it was so loud. In its fear, the noise sounded more like the death keels of a prey animal.

Parvati turned to the windshield.

Her mind and limbs numbed. Perhaps that was a mercy, for she could distantly register the creature. Its limbs, impossibly bloated and reddish: the holes of rot flecking its cheeks and bare hands: the cataract that stretched over its sightless eyes. 

And then, there was its mouth. The writhing maggots eating its tongue and throat, maggots so pearly white they made the yellowed, bulbous fangs stand out all the more. 

A Spawn Vampire, she thought faintly. 

The vampire thrust its rotting hands through the windshield. Glass sprayed, slicing Parvati’s face. She tasted blood — she felt pain — that pain relit her terror — 

The creature grabbed the steering wheel, and twisted it left, toward the forest. 

The car veered brutally, and Parvati fought for control of the steering wheel like it was the only thing anchoring her to reality.

But the creature was stronger. It pulled the steering wheel so fiercely the wires tore and the plastic snapped. 

The wheels shrieked as the car spun toward the forested beach — 

The creature tossed the steering wheel to the road —

Parvati slammed on the breaks —

But she hit them a moment too late. The car nosedived off the road, onto the steep hillside and sparse woodland below. 

The car shook like a leaf, throwing its passengers around as it rammed through brush and sand.

Parvati moved to pull the thing into park, or it would kill them before the vampire could.

But the creature took that moment to attack. It lunged forward, destroying the windshield — Parvati shielded her eyes — glass pierced her hands —

Her hand was yanked down. Then, cold, damp fingers dug into her chin, forcing her head upright, baring her throat and pulse to the repulsive creature.

Its teeth flashed in the dim, shifting light. One of the maggots wriggled out of its mouth and dropped onto her leg.

And in that moment, all Parvati knew was the animal knowledge of eat or be eaten. She fought ruthlessly, snapping her teeth, hitting and clawing at its face and eyes with a fury that would have blinded a grown man.

But a man was human, and a Spawn Vampire was nothing but a walking corpse, and corpses can not feel pain. It went in for the kill. 

Something sharp and steel flashed at the corner of Parvati’s vision. It swung down at the vampire — the creature dodged with superhuman speed —

And at that moment, another deadly steel object lashed at it. 

That object was an axe, and this was a feint.

The creature had overcorrected. It avoided the borderline-beheading strike, but the blade gored the soft flesh between shoulder and neck.

For a split second, the creature froze. 

Then it screamed, a noise of such pain and anguish, it readily outdid Rukmini’s earlier cry. It dropped its hold on Parvati, and leapt out through the shattered windshield to escape the cause of its agony.

Why did it flee? Parvati thought manically. Why didn’t it fight — a simple cut couldn’t hurt it — you could behead the monster, and it would continue walking —

Then, faint as a whisper: the axes are salted.

Her terror diffused. Human sense graced Parvati’s frantic mind once more. 

Just in time for Parvati to realize the car was barrelling straight toward a cliff. 

She slammed the breaks (in her panic, her foot had lifted from both pedals), and veered. The car swerved violently: Rukmini slammed into something, and uttered a curse Parvati didn’t catch. 

The car skidded close to the cliff — closer — it was slowing, but it was slowing enough — 

“Grab something!” Parvati cried.

The car slammed to a stop. Parvati braced for the swoop of the fall, of the landing that would twist steel and shatter bone. But nothing happened.

She glanced out the window, and gave a jittering sigh of relief. The car had stopped an inch from the cliff. The engine light was gleaming more than ever. Its clock read: 10:09.

Parvati could barely believe it had just been a minute. It felt like an eternity. She pulled the vehicle into park, then leaned over to see her sister.

“Rukmini?”

Rukmini, down one axe, and nursing a bloody nose, gave her a shaky thumbs up. 

Parvati glanced out the window. The road was all the way up a fairly large hill. Their headlights were on, which meant the vampire could easily find them. Parvati belatedly turned them off.

She scanned the suddenly-dark hillside, searching for a shambling figure with fangs no human could possess. 

Nothing.

Fighting the urge to put her head in her hands, Parvati thought through the last few hours. The vampire Spawn hadn’t attacked them in Chicago. Its master had probably ordered it not to stir up trouble in the Rainy City. 

Fast as it was, a vampire wasn’t as fast as a car. The creature had likely hidden underneath it, holding on to the bits and bobs of the vehicle’s belly.  

“Parv?” Rukmini asked shakily. 

“Yeah?”

“Are we going to die?”

Horrified, Parvati spun around. In the silvery moonlight, Rukmini’s bruises and tears were burningly vivid. 

“We’re not going to die,” she answered with a quiet strength. “We know the vampire is here, for one thing. You got one of its arms with an axe, so it’s disabled. And if that axe’s handle is salted —” 

“It’s salted,” Rukmini confirmed, wiping away her tears.

“Then the vampire can’t use it,” Parvati said, leaning closer to her sister. “My mistake was fighting the thing with strength, Rukmini. The strongest man in the world wouldn’t win that, not against any type of vampire.” 

“Then what do we do?” Rukmini asked. 

Years of study, research and training rushed back to Parvati’s adrenaline-soaked mind. She grinned. 

“Vampire Spawn are notoriously stupid. We have to fight smart.” 

…

Parvati leaned against the car. Her torso pressed against the car’s frame: her leggings were stained through with damp grass and earth. Her shoulders rested on the car’s floorboard. 

A coat, dregged up from the trunk, covered Parvati’s face and most of her body — except for one hand. It lay, deliberately still and stiff and sprawling, a bloody gash across its palm. 

Parvati had to admit the cut (made by shattered glass) burned like acid. But the scent of blood was wickedly alluring to vampires, even vampire Spawn, who technically didn’t need to feed.

Better yet, the strength of the scent would conceal the odor of salt, which rested in her shoulders, her hair, and was muffled by the coat.

In fact, her exposed palm was the only unsalted part of her body.

When vampire spawn were around, lures like this were nearly infallible. 

But that didn’t stop the pounding of Parvati’s heart.

She worried for Rukmini, who made her way up the hill, salted as a pig before roasting. She feared for herself. She hated the way the hood of the coat blinded her — 

Crunch. 

Parvati bit her lip, forcing herself to still. The odor of unburied corpses pierced her nostrils.

A cold, clammy hand closed on her wrist, and pulled her toward it with inhuman strength.

Parvati fell into its embrace. The icy carcass holding her stilled — 

And then, it felt the salt that covered her body.

Its shriek wrenched the night. It pulled backwards —

But Parvati had already torn open its tattery shirt, and shoved her salt-covered hand into the wound made by Rukmini’s axe. 

The creature howled again, so loudly Parvati thought it would blow out her eardrums. It dropped her bloodied hand, and grabbed her salted one, trying to force her away.

As it flinched in pain, Parvati shoved off the coat.

It dropped her — she tore her arm free of the last coatsleeve, and threw the coat at the creature — 

But it had already dodged. 

Parvati stiffened, afraid it would attack. But it simply knelt. 

In the moonlight, she got a good look at it. Its shoulders shook as if it were crying, but no tears would ever spill from those sunken eyes. It had been an older man, once: its hair, now falling in clumps, had been sterling silver. Burned skin and savaged flesh peeled away from its stomach, chest, and arms. 

At that second, Parvati pitied the creature and hated its maker.

Once, this creature had been a living man.

And the Vampire Sovereign took his dead body, infused it with her venom, and played it like a puppet. She had forced a twisted form of life upon him: a life in which he could only feel pain and endless hunger. 

Not ten feet away, Rukmini stepped out from behind a slender tree.

The sisters locked eyes. Parvati nodded. 

Rukmini leapt out from behind the tree, hurling her axe.

The creature dodged in the knick of time, narrowly missing a blow that would have cut through its skull. 

But it didn’t move quickly enough to dodge Rukmini, who jumped onto it, clinging to its neck and shoulders with her salt-smeared hands. Smoke and steam rose from the places where she burned it. It shrieked, throwing her off, but she grabbed its wrist — 

The creature slammed its palm into her face — Parvati heard a terrible crack — and the creature screamed.

Beneath the moonlight, the red, exposed flesh of its hand bubbled, and turned black. That hand, mutilated beyond recognition, crumbled off its wrist, and fell wetly to the ground. 

The beast was momentarily immobilized by pain, and Rukmini took the opportunity to wrestle it down.

As living girl and walking corpse fought, Parvati raced to the axe. She pulled it out, grabbed the salted coat, and rushed back to her sister’s battle.

The vampire had Rukmini pinned. Rukmini’s face and knees were bloodied. Bruises cut a swathe of purple through her arms and belly.

But her mouth broke into a gruesome smile when Parvati appeared. 

Sensing salt, the disintegrating creature froze. It spun around and pounced onto Parvati. 

Parvati swirled the coat —

The creature sidestepped – 

Parvati swung the axe — 

The creature’s fragmented hand clenched around the arm that held the axe —

It twisted and pulled.

Pain, such as Parvati had never known, stabbed through her arm. Her eyesight went white — her fingers spasmed, numb to all except the sharp agony snapping at her bones and ripping through her hands — 

The creature loosened its grip. The pain faded, but did not disappear.

And Parvati realized, in that horrible second, that she’d dropped the axe. 

She waved the coat toward the creature with her good hand, but it bit the salted coat. Its bottom fangs and jaw crumbled to nothing. Spilled salt burned through the flesh of its chest and to the ribcage.

It tore the coat out of Parvati’s hands, shoved her to the ground, dragged her forward. 

Pain lashed through her wounded arm, and the dozens of little cuts. Parvati fought, slapping it with salt.

But it seemed that the agony of its failing body had only told the creature that it needed to finish the mission before its final demise.

Arms nothing but stumps of rot and burns, the creature shoved Parvati’s face into a pool of water.

It was a shallow pool, barely an inch deep. Parvati closed her eyes and held her breath, even as the creature shoved her nose into the muddy banks until it hurt.

Parvati didn’t say anything. She didn’t struggle, out of fear that movement would make her breathe water. She waited, as her lungs ached and her nose bled, for Rukmini. 

But seconds ticked by, and Parvati heard Rukmini’s distant cry.

She’s too far away to help, Parvati realized. And she’s too hurt to move quickly.

What was it Rukmini had said, not fifteen minutes ago, while they were still in the car, reeling from this creature’s attack?

Are we going to die, Parv?

Parvati’s chest was tight. Against her will, her chest expanded — 

And the creature’s weight lifted from her head and chest. 

Not daring to waste a second, Parvati pulled herself out of the pool and drew a deep breath. 

She heard two cries. The first, the strangled, anguished sound of the creature.

The second, a young woman’s ferocious battlecry, bright and bold as the rising sun. 

Careful not to put too much pressure on her wounded arm, Parvati staggered upright.

Rukmini stood near her, eyes wide and marveling. She held the salted coat and axe, for which Parvati was grateful.

Moonlight gleamed on the white sand, as a smaller figure attacked the creature. She was tiny, but moved like the wind. And, most importantly: she was uninjured.

Parvati knew who the girl was, even if the Mira she was familiar with would never tear something to pieces.

And torn to pieces, the Vampire Spawn was. In the span of seconds, the Spawn became a pile of torn, reddish parts at Mira Belizaire’s feet.

Mira turned to them. Her eyes and cheeks were sunken, her hair dry and coming loose from the delicate knots on her head. No longer were her eyes that deep brown of dark earth. Now they were crimson.

And, worst of all: those crimson eyes were filled with tears.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” she said, nearly sobbing. “I — I’ll be gone in a second. I just didn’t want — I didn’t want you to get hurt —” 

Parvati’s heart squeezed.

Rukmini rushed forward, stumbling on her scraped-up legs. 

“Rukmini,” Parvati cried. “You’ll hurt her, you’re covered in salt — No!” 

Rukmini fell just before she could reach Mira, but hugged the other girl tightly around the waist. She pressed her head against Mira’s belly. Thankfully, Mira’s outfit covered everything below her neckline.

“I’ve missed you,” Rukmini sobbed. “Sparkles, I’ve missed you so much, I sometimes feel like I’ve died.” 

“Rukmini,” Mira said tearfully. “I’ve missed you, too. But don’t cry — please don’t cry —” She reached down to pet Rukmini’s curls. 

“Don’t touch her, Mira,” Parvati called. “Rukmini and I — we’re covered in salt. She’ll burn you.” 

Something flickered deep in Mira’s eyes. Lips trembling, she pressed a hand to her heart. She slipped out of Rukmini’s embrace, and sank to her knees, whispering something to the other girl.

To give them privacy, Parvati busied herself with the coat Rukmini had dropped. She lay it over the squirming remains of the Spawn Mira had dismembered. When she lifted it, the vampire’s remains had crumbled to ash.It would never reform now.

Parvati remembered the pitiful monster she’d fought. She heard Mira and Rukmini’s sobs. She felt pain in everything, from the smallest cut and her fractured arm. She sank to her knees, hugging herself. She let every horror wash over her until her mind could contextualize them. 

She might have sat there for a millisecond. She might have sat there for an eternity.

But eventually, her musings were broken by a frightened, ragged male voice crying a name.

“Mira?” The man cried. “Mira, you OK?”

Parvati turned to the sound of the voice. 

An unhealthily thin White man with a scraggly beard raced down the slope of a hill. Parvati recognized him instantly.

He was Hector Blair, the drug addict who’d taken Mira in and launched Parvati’s investigation.