42 BETO THE BLOODED

Lyra still only wore her martial-skin fashioned like a dark skims dress. Only now she also wielded a fencing sword in one hand and a sawed off repulsor-shotgun in the other. The kit didn't make sense to him. But it would get the job done like any gun and sword.

As they padded down the steps of the tower spire atop the church, Rex activated his feline senses. In the dark, the veins in his suit began to glow purple. Under the dim lighting, he could see the symbols and writings on the stone walls made in blood. Decades old blood that lost its red coloring and smell.

He pulled his mind from the writings and focused on moving. They descended down sixty steps before reaching the top floor.

Nothing more than an open room with a flat stone floor.

In the classic room clearing formation, Lyra waited for his goahead.

They shared a glance once before preparing to enter, walking along the walls with an almost robotic sense of synchronicity.

But he stopped her before her first step.

His hyper-sensitive feline ears twitched as he heard a rushing sound.

Blood. Rushing blood. Violent blood. Right on the other side of the wall he leaned against.

He motioned to the target to Lyra. Because of the angle, they both just barely missed visual of eachother.

Even still. It knew she was there. It was waiting.

But the V-Negative virus wasn't known for instilling patience.

The vampire charged.

Rex did as well, using his feline reflexes to act quickly.

As the dark shape came diving through the door after Lyra, Rex swung his axes in an overhead chop, slamming the blades down into the vampires fatless shoulders and stopping it from reaching her.

Lyra back stepped once before diving forward and driving her glass-like rapier through its skull.

The vampire died soundlessly.

[+100 EXP]

She smiled as Rex pulled his axes out of its shoulders and watched the body plop to the floor.

Lyra dropped down to study the corpse.

"Right. The vampirism virus has stages of infection. The first is reversible. The second isn't. The third is transmitable. Each stage is split by….. a week? Fuck, I should've studied harder." Rex said as he looked over the body.

It was a man. Older based on the leathery quality of his skin. It was black. Pure black. Like he was doused in ink. Wiry brown, grey and black hair sprouted from the back of his neck and spread down his back where one batwing had grown.

He looked to Lyra as she held up two fingers.

"Stage two." Rex said, "So the current timeline is a week. That's when the outbreak started. Vampire-dating one-oh-one."

Lyra stood up and motioned for him to follow.

They cleared the room as if they didn't just kill one. Rex ran along the left wall while Lyra took the right. They held intersecting lines of fire, aiming their weapons at eachother to cover blind spots on the ground and ceiling with the walls they ran along covering their backs.

They met at the other end on the left and right side of a window. Which was really just a cut in the stone formation.

Rex's eyes scanned the stone contours of the window sill as he found cut marks in the stone. Over an inch deep and reeking of the blood of many animals.

And people.

"Entrance p—" His thoughts zeroed at the sound of wings flapping in the distance. "Another coming. Makes sense with the sun rising. The hunt is over. They're coming to sleep."

Rex pointed at the window with his back to the wall.

Lyra raised her eyebrows in surprise but understood.

Rex focused, shutting his eyes to listen better as it neared. To get a better sight on the unseen afflicted one.

He held his hand up, counting from five. Listening to the wingbeats. To the guttural breathing.

Four.

Three.

Two.

Rex stepped out in front of the window and threw his axe. The bladed weapon whistled through the air before sinking into the face of the flying vampire with a went thunk.

Due to the built up momentum, the vampire still flew in through the window. Rex caught it by the throat and crushed its windpipe for good measure.

He dropped the vampire quietly.

[+120 EXP]

It was only then that Rex and Lyra realized the vampire was holding a dead body. Human. Unaffected.

The two shared a glance. Both confused.

"That's not vampire custom. They're predators— not harvesters." Rex whispered.

"Could be an instinctual glitch. The virus progression isn't ever the same." Lyra said. "Don't panic, charmer."

Lyra rolled over the body and studied the woman. Ignoring the man beneath. His death was obvious. Bite wound. But not to feed. To maim. His throat was gone.

Rex dropped to a crouch and leaned toward her, "What are you looking for?"

"Cultural signifiers." Lyra whispered, "If they're not in line with this villages cultural customs that tells us how far the outbreak has spread. No signs. The victim must've been a nearby nomad. We're good, handsome." She stood up after holding eye contact with him dangerously close to his face.

Afterwards, they headed to the next room.

They cleared every room on the top floor before heading down the hall to the main stairway downstairs.

It was too slim of a hallway. Rex took up the flank with his axes while Lyra led with her repulsor shot-gun at the ready.

Each step made Rex cringe as the stone steps were covered with dust and rubble from the cracked ceiling. It wasn't smart. So close to the main floor of the church to make so much noise.

Rex decided for a change in r—

The literal second he reached out for Lyra in the dark, the bottom four steps exploded with arcs of crimson light.

The deafening explosion knocked them both back up four steps.

Being the Werepanther he was, Rex flipped and landed on his feet with Lyra in his arms.

Ahead of them, Cpt Camo was blown through the stairs and onto the slanted ceiling they were once walking under.

His kobold infected arm gripped the stone with horrifying claws. With his other hand, he aimed his modified magnum and fired six shots in a flickering sequence of fiery gunpowder and shadowy smoke.

"TRAP! TRAP! They were expecting military involvement!" Cpt Camo roared as he headshot six swarming vampires.

Then, he jumped back in. Unfortunately before he could say anything more.

It all happened in the span of two seconds. The church still vibrated and crumpled from the sudden explosion of sensory phenomena.

Lyra jumped out of Rex's arms and hopped down the steps. Into the pit of screams and bloodfire.

Rex followed right behind her. As soon as he exited the slim stairway and fell a dozen feet into the open church main room, the air became hot and sticky— rife with the smell of blood. It was in the air, burning like fire as it licked and scorched the stone contours of the church benches and statues.

Statues and benches he could barely see from the hundreds of vampires swarming like bugs. Cpt Camo was on the ground firing and clawing through them with Isadora. Surrounding them were jungle-monkeys who moved in hazy blurring flashes as their camoflauge technology mixed with the blood and guts filling the air.

[Predator's Frenzy: 68%….78%….]

Rex landed on a vampire mid flight.

[Predator's Frenzy: 88%….]

[Predator's Transformation (Apex-Panther Form) Available in 3….2….]

"NO!" Rex tried to calm his shifting genes as he grabbed the vampires slim neck to steer through the horde but it was too late.

Beyond too late when a vampire flew by above and cut his face open.

When his blood hit the acrid air, every vampire in the room gained new focus.

Even the giant beautiful anomaly at the center of the church.

He suddenly knew what Cpt Camo was saying it was a trap.

The people of Verhmelo Village weren't trying to bring back their blood-god by accepting the vampire virus. That's why they'd try to goad military reinforcement to entering their church.

He was already there. In the flesh. Preaching the red word. And it seemed new scripture would be added to it as he scented the air as Rex's blood flowed.

He was tall. Impossibly tall. Nine feet/two and a half meters tall. A single bat-wing bloomed from his grey skinned back. He had no nose. Only two holes in his face and his eyes were red— like the currents of flaming blood spinning around him in some sort of scorching sanguine aura.

In the tense moments since Rex was cut open, the vampire-god of sorts stared. Rex felt like he blinked once and suddenly he was being taken off the the vampire he rode and slammed through the stone walls of the church.

[60% HP Remaining]

Early morning air hit his skin. He rose. Hot hands squeezed his throat.

He faced the vampire— who was flying up towards the cloudless sky.

"Your blood... it's unique. Old. Empowering…." The vampires voice was deep and sounded like it was mixed with a dozen others.

Rex snarled as they rose above the jungle canopy and faced the rising sun.

The vampires skin blistered and healed over again and again.

"Specialist Rex— come in!" Cpt Camo yelled into Rex's earpiece. The background was filled with the screams of the infected. "Specialist Rex— do you have visual on Beto the Blooded! We can't let him leave this area, he's patient zero!"

Rex clawed at the hands around his throat. Not only did the wounds heal over but the blood in the vampire was scorching hot, burning Rex's fingers deeply before he gave up.

His vision blurred.

[40% HP Remaining]

With the sun fresh on his mind, he made a final attempt to free himself. Shown as the purple glowing veins in his martial skin turned golden like the sunlight surrounding.

He reached for the jungle below and pulled.

A pillar of dirt and fiery sand exploded out of the ground, rising towards them in a flash of focused debris.

The vampire-god casually fanned his wing and dodged the attack, studying the sand pillar that rose up to reach them, over two hundred feet above ground.

"Dammit…." Rex thought.

"Peculiar…. was that it, old-blood? Your taste tells me to expect more."

Rex wished he had something smart to say as he faded.

He prayed the hulking dark-skinned man in sand colored robes perched on top of the sand pillar beside them didn't.

Knowing Hassan, he wouldn't. He would just rise— continue to materialize out of the golden fiery sand with his shield and massive fists and quickly— brutally, get to work.