Katarina Kills VI

As my seven faithful readers will remember, we left Kat and Mike Hudson unable to move, spellbound by Üdvöske, the Witch of Budapest. They watched helplessly as the red-haired sorceress drove away, the two vampires she had murdered laying dead on the dark country road. 
 And... action.

The spell lifted as soon as Üdvöske left.
"Why not teleport?"

Katarina ejected the clip from the pistol, snapped it back in, and chambered a round. "I don't know, Mike. Maybe you should ask next time we see her."

He checked his AK's action, then walked to where the vampires lay, one beheaded, the other with a fist-sized hole in its chest. His boots stuck to the blood's tackiness, the dark fluid forming a large, somewhat gelatinous puddle around the two.  Both remained dead. Nothing special about it. Dead was dead.

After a moment he felt Katarina next to him. She spoke. "Because this is how I've always seen her use that trick. Perhaps she can only move herself into a space she can see."

"Did you know them?"

"No Mike, I didn't. It's not a club."

He stood there. Staring at the corpses, but only seeing the softly glowing stone in Üdvöske's hand. A stone that could call vampires, a stone that could bring a witch across the centuries, a stone that could control monsters, a stone that could end the war. Glowing.

Glowing.

Never glowed in my hand. But was it my hand, or was it something else?

Without a word he bent and retrieved the Vampire's G3 assault rifle, wiping the bloody side on the soldier's fatigues before pulling the spare magazines from his web gear. He looked up at Katarina, motioning with his chin at the other German.

"Get that rifle. All the magazines you can carry."

She nodded, bending to the task, speaking over her shoulder

"And we’re doing this because?"

He stood. "Because it's gonna take a lot of ammo to win the war."

He gave Katarina a moment to clean the rifle, slung the spare G3 over his shoulder, then turned and started walking toward Aurich.

****

"And what's the plan?" Katarina asked.

They had covered the first mile in silence. Wary, scanning the woods for danger, the small echoes of their steps echoing softly in the night. No traffic.

"Telephone book," answered Hudson.

Kat nodded. "That ought to do it." She smiled. "You're pretty sharp for a human."

"It doesn't take Einstein. Stone didn't glow when I held it, but it glows now. Either it's Üdvöske  that ignites it, or it's the proximity to the other half."

"Or maybe both," Kat replied.

"Could be. Either way, I'm thinking she headed for Aurich. And why?"

"Because the other half is there." Katarina answered.

"I think so,” agreed Hudson. “And if it is, it's in a Catholic church, just like the one where I found the first half."

"So we find Aurich’s Catholic church.”

Katarina’s words flashed the image of the slaughtered priests in St. Fridolin through Hudson’s mind. Absently he checked his rifle’s magazine, his eyes seeing not the rounds, but a blood-stained floor, smashed pews. Grimly, he snapped the magazine back into the receiver.  

“Not sure exactly how she is going to use the stones,” he began, “but…”

“But it doesn’t matter,” Katarina interrupted. “It can’t come to any good. Controlling those beasts can never come to any good.”

“Even if a vampire does the controlling?”

“Like the pair she killed?” Kat replied.

Hudson frowned. “Yeah, like them. They must have known that I had the stone. Otherwise why search me out? How could I change the course of the war?”

Behind them a car's headlights popped over a rise in the hill, two glowing circles in the dark.

Katarina shook her head. “You couldn’t, but all the Lycan, controlled as one by the stone, wielded by Üdvöske, could do more than change the course of the war. They could change the course of history.”

They walked quietly for a few seconds. The chirping of insects, the thrum of the approaching car, the night’s only sound.

Kat looked back at the car. “And to answer your question. No, I don’t think it would be a good thing, even if a vampire possessed it. We can’t be, no one can be, trusted with that power. We have to stop her, we have to get to Aurich, fast.”

Without another word, Kat stepped into the path of the approaching vehicle, waving her hands. At first the car continued its steady approach, engine growing steadily louder. Just as Hudson opened his mouth to yell to Katarina, the car braked to a stop. By the glow of its dashboard lights, Hudson glimpsed the apprehensive faces of a woman and a young girl. He held his rifle in both hands, the barrel pointed at the ground. If they were what they seemed—a mother and her daughter—he wouldn’t need an AK. If they were something else, well, he had checked the magazine, hadn’t he?

Kat walked to the door, pulling the pistol from the waistband at the small of her back. She tapped the glass with the barrel. “Out!”

Hudson frowned, there wasn’t an ounce of subtle in that woman. Horrifying a mother and her kid wasn’t his style.

The driver shook her head, eyes fixed on the tip of Katarina’s gun, and the doors locked shut. Kat didn’t ask again.

The gun barked, the bullet exploding the lock. Katarina jerked open the door, yanking the terrified woman from the car, and throwing her to the road. Inside, her child screamed, a high-pitched wailing that pierced the night. Kat whirred, leaping into the car, eyes blazing, incisors dimpling her lower lip. She grabbed the small head with both hands, the blonde hair falling over her fingers, and twisted.

But not.

An instant before her brain sent the signals to her muscles, a heartbeat before she twisted, a breath before she ended the young girl's life, Katarina felt cold metal at the back of neck. Heard the deadly snick of a round chambering.

"Leave it, Kat."

The screaming had stopped, replaced by wide-eyed terror.

"You wouldn't," Kat replied. Her voice certain.

"I fucking well will."

"Leave. The. Girl."

Slowly she nodded, the tip of Mike Hudson's rifle light on her neck.

Minutes later they drove, Kat in the passenger seat, the mother and child standing by the side of the rode, quickly lost in the rear view mirror. Kat spoke.

"We have a strange relationship."

Hudson shifted to into third. "Yeah."

Silence, the headlights showing small pieces of their future as they headed for Aurich. Hudson flicked on the brights.

"So what's this history you have with the witch?" He framed the word with finger quotes.

Kat turned to him, her face incredulous. "Seriously, Mike? Now?"

Mark H. Walker served 23 years in the United States Navy, most of them as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal diver. He is the owner of Flying Pig Games as well as Tiny Battle Publishing the designer of the aliens-invade-Earth game Night of Man, the author of Desert Moon, an exciting mecha, military science fiction novel with a twist, with plenty of damn science fiction in it despite what any reviewer says, as well as World at War: Revelation, a creepy, military action, with a love story, alternate history, World War Three novel thing, Everyone Dies in the End, and numerous short stories. All the books and stories are available from Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing right here. Give them a try. I mean, what the hell? The games? Well that's Flying Pig Games and Tiny Battle Publishing Retribution will release in the summer of 2015. Okay, Okay. It looks like Retribution will be a fall release. Should I Kickstarter it?