Heart of the Dead: Vampire Superheroes (Perpetual Creatures Book 1) Read Free

hadn’t taken a single step.
    He now stood in a long hallway, void of doors, with a floor that sloped gradually upward. Every so often an insignia of a hand holding a candle was painted on the walls. He caught the name Light Bearers — the name of the group holding him prisoner — on the mind of someone close by. Footsteps echoed, some fleeing, but many more approaching.
    Ten men, adorned in black body armor and riot helmets, slid to a stop twenty yards from him. Each held a weapon that he had never seen before. He probed their minds, found the word rifle , and gained a quick understanding of their capabilities. The first five men dropped to a single knee and raised their rifles, allowing the remaining five a clear shot over their heads.
    The men were nervous, their breathing ragged and heavy beneath their helmets. Their hearts raged like contending thunderstorms. The stench of their sweat filled the air. He searched their minds, reading only hatred and disgust, as if he was an abomination that deserved to be extinguished from the earth. There would be no bargaining, no compromise, no answers.
    The men on their knees fired something attached to their rifles and a series of darts, tethered by wires, pelted him in the chest. The sharp prongs could not pierce his skin and instead, fell to the floor, sparking and sizzling with tiny arcs of lightning.
    “Live rounds,” shouted one of the men. “Fire!”
    He threw up his arms, protecting his face from the searing projectiles, which riddled him head to toe. The immense pain forced him backward. He pressed himself against the thick panel blocking the doorway, nowhere to go. At first, he thought the bullets were piercing his flesh and he couldn’t understand why he wasn’t dead. When he opened his eyes, he found that the bullets were instead flattening against his skin, falling away and leaving only tiny burns that healed almost immediately.
    The men continued the attack, each row alternating between firing and reloading their weapons. Tiny flames spurted from the ends of their guns, creating a strobe effect even more irritating than the band of yellow lights in the room behind him. Acrid gun smoke filled the hall. The reports echoed off of the walls, fed off one another until the sonic assault was too much for even his enhanced hearing to tune out.
    Another hunger pang quaked throughout his body. He pressed his fingers against the concrete floor hard enough to bleach the tips. He clenched his teeth and the cords in his neck drew taut. A great force churned within his chest as the pain within and the pain without fused. The air about him became dry and hot, as though he were standing near a great furnace. The concrete floor blackened. The tiles of the drop ceiling smoldered. The pain in his flesh ceased, for the bullets were no longer reaching him, but instead, exploded in white-hot sparks mere inches from impact.
    The heat surrounding him became immense, setting the ceiling and walls aflame. Still, the men continued to shoot their rifles. He rose to his feet, his face screwed into a scowl, his eyes bulging. He screamed loud enough to deafen even the gunfire, and in his mind, he willed the great heat forward.
    A great burst of fire exploded down the hallway, blowing all ten men off of their feet and igniting each like the wick of an oil lamp. None of the men had the chance to scream or flee or even flinch. One moment, they were ten living beings and the next, charred bones were all that remained.
    Water showered down from the ceiling, hissing as it hit the scorched floor, though it was unnecessary. The fire had devoured all of the air in the hallway. What little bit remained burning, when he quenched the blaze with his mind, smothered on its own.
    He looked up at the tiny metallic cylinders causing the deluge in the hallway. It was such a strange and marvelous thing to see. He closed his eyes and turned his face up to the indoor rain. He sighed and shuddered as the cool drops