The Vampire's Apprentice

"Sable, Az!" Alain called as he moved through the camp. "Where are you both at?!"

There was no response, save for some far-off sporadic gunfire and screaming at the other end of the mill. It faded after a few seconds, and when it finally did, he let out a tired sigh, then began to double-time it over to that side of the camp.

Upon arriving, he found Az and Sable standing there, covered in blood, none of it their own. Neither one seemed even the least bit winded by what they'd done. Alain looked around, shuddering when he saw them standing in the middle of a field of mutilated bodies.

"Alright, one of these days, we're going to have to have a serious talk about teaching you both to shoot, if only to cut down on the mess," he said. "Because this shit is downright disturbing to me. For real."

"Really?" Sable asked, putting a gore-covered hand on her hip. "After everything we've been through already? I would have thought this wouldn't faze you anymore."

"You'd have thought wrong." Alain shifted, looking away from the pile of corpses littering the ground. "Let's keep moving, I expect there'll be plenty of underground areas around here we're going to have to clear out. You know the drill – be careful down there, watch for undead, and try not to get shot."

"Az, you're in front," Sable said. "We'll move as one, but you're the biggest out of all of us, so I want you to take the lead."

"Not a problem, my lady," Az replied. "Follow me."

With that, he walked off, leading them to the largest building in camp.

XXX

Naturally, the door to the mill itself was locked, though that was hardly a problem for Az, who merely reached out and crushed the steel padlock with his bare hands before ripping it off the door in one fell swoop. He then kicked the door in, sending it flying backwards, completely flattening a cultist who had been posted up on the other side as the three of them filed in.

The moment they stepped into the building, they started taking fire from the upper levels. From what Alain could see, the mill was made up of a basic floor where all the equipment was kept, plus a level where the foreman would have watched over the workers, and a final upper level that appeared to be dedicated for maintenance.

Not that the specifics mattered at this point in time, as currently, they were taking fire from all three levels.

Alain ducked down behind a piece of machinery as rounds began to ping off the bits of metal scattered around him, each one leaving a trail of sparks behind it. Sable and Az took off running through the mill; Alain only paid attention to them for a moment before turning back to the necromancers still firing at him. He tried to poke his head out from behind his impromptu cover, only for a trio of rounds to impact just above him, forcing him back down as he grit his teeth.

Alain hunkered down behind the machine, trying his best to think of something, when movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned just in time to see a wight charging at him; without even a moment of hesitation, Alain fired a blast from his shotgun, reducing the wight's head to pulp. He cycled the weapon, then looked around. Several of those incoming rounds were now getting dangerously close to hitting him, even behind cover; the necromancers must have been trying to change positions and angle themselves to get a better shot at him.

At this rate, he was a dead man if he stayed where he was, so that left him only one thing to do.

Alain took a breath to steel himself, then took off running down the path the dead wight appeared to have taken. It was dark inside the mill, with the only light coming from the various muzzle flashes scattered throughout.

Therefore, Alain wasn't surprised when he turned a blind corner and immediately tripped and fell end-over-end down an underground tunnel that was almost invisible in the blackness.

He fell several meters, eventually coming to a rest head-first at the base of the tunnel. Alain picked himself off the ground with a groan, his head swimming; thankfully, there were no injuries save for a new headache and the matching bump on his head. He supposed that made him lucky, but he didn't feel like it at this point in time.

"Fuck me…" Alain muttered as he looked behind himself, trying to determine whether or not to climb up the way he'd come. Unfortunately, it didn't seem possible to reach; one thing he'd learned about undead was that even the lower-powered ones such as wights still outperformed humans in terms of sheer physical ability. From what he could tell, the wight had jumped several meters straight up in order to get out of the tunnel, which was something he was not capable of doing.

"Clearing the tunnels it is, then…" he quietly said to himself. He took another breath. "Okay…"

With that, Alain started to move, carefully creeping through the tunnel. If he knew his necromancers as well as he suspected he did, then underground tunnels such as this almost certainly meant more undead; an assertion that was backed by the wights they'd killed already.

It was no surprise, then, when he heard low moans from around a corner up ahead, followed by the telltale shuffling of feet against dirt floor.

Alain grit his teeth as he flattened himself against the wall and peered out from behind the corner. Through the darkness, he could just barely make out several human-like shapes, all of them with strips of old clothing and rotten flesh hanging off of them. The smell hit him all at once, nearly making him gag; he'd killed hundreds of undead by this point, but the stench of decomposition never got any easier to deal with.

That didn't stop him from stepping out from around the corner and firing off his shotgun, however.

The tunnels were cramped, but not so cramped that it was impossible to make fine movements while inside them. In addition, they were also surprisingly long, around twenty-five meters if he had to guess; the undead were peppered throughout, around twenty of them by his count, with most of them clustered towards the end. This was a benefit to him, as it gave his shotgun pellets room to spread.

As Alain watched, three of the undead were cut down with a single blast from his shotgun, each one taking a few pellets direct to the head. He cycled the action and took aim once more; the undead had noticed him by now, and were beginning to shuffle towards him, their arms outstretched and jaws ready for his flesh. Alain stood his ground, however, continuing to fire off his Winchester even as the crowd of undead drew to within just a few meters of him.

Finally, the shotgun ran dry. Alain let it dangle from its sling and ripped one of his revolvers from its holster, then began to fire and fan the hammer as fast as he could. Each round was another headshot, and another undead reintroduced to the soil. And when that revolver ran dry, he holstered it and drew his second, then repeated the feat.

Within moments, the crowd of almost two-dozen undead was no more, having been reduced to little more than corpses yet again. Alain stood there, panting with exertion, before reloading his weapons and continuing on his way, his ears ringing the entire time.

"Should've taken Mom's advice…" he muttered, wincing at the sudden onset of tinnitus. "Note to self: next time, get some earmuffs, or at least stuff my ears with cotton or something…"

Still, Alain did his best to shake the feeling away, instead continuing to move through the tunnels. Thankfully, the path widened a bit past the initial part he'd started in, and aside from the occasional undead, there was really nothing for him to fight; he could only assume the brunt of the necromancers were already busy with Sable and Az, not that he'd complain.

Alain fired off one final shot as he rounded a corner, cutting down yet another walking corpse that'd attempted to grab at him. He took a split-second to confirm the kill, moving on once he'd verified the undead had a fresh .45-caliber hole drilled through its skull. As he did so, however, he became idly aware of something off in the distance.

"Chanting…?" he muttered.

The thought made him pause for a moment, but he didn't dwell on it, instead continuing on his way, shotgun in hand. He advanced towards the ominous-sounding chanting, taking note of how the tunnel he was in tapered off to a single path at the end, one that was well-lit with blue light.

Something told him that whatever awaited him at the other end, it was nothing good.

Alain eventually stepped into the next room, and was met by a large chamber illuminated by deep blue candlelight. And standing there in the middle of the room was a man dressed in a crimson robe, hunched over some kind of altar, chanting in some unidentifiable language as he flipped through an ancient-looking back. As Alain stopped a ways away, the man stopped chanting and looked up from his book, allowing Alain to get a good look at him. He was old, appearing to be in his sixties, and had a large gray beard and deep blue eyes, which gave him away as a wight.

And as Alain watched, the old man cracked a wide smile and stretched his arms out.

"Welcome, welcome!" the man greeted. "We have been waiting for-"

Alain just rolled his eyes. "You talk too much."

Then he shouldered his shotgun and fired a single blast, one which cut the old man's head nearly in half when it made impact a split-second later. Alain watched as the man's corpse fell like a puppet with its strings cut, and after taking a moment to load a fresh shell into his weapon, Alain advanced upon him.

The old man was certainly dead, that much was true; Alain had never seen a wight survive having its brain destroyed like that before, and he had no reason to think this one would be any different. With that established, he turned his attention to the book the man had been flipping through, his eyes narrowing as he leaned in to try and read it.

It was written in some kind of unidentifiable language, and moreover, from what he could tell, it was written in blood and bound in human flesh. He couldn't tell how old it was, but it didn't seem to be that old; the blood was still red rather than a dull rust-color, so it hadn't oxidized yet, at least from what he could tell.

As Alain examined the book, whispers suddenly filled his ears, and he whipped around, shouldering his Winchester as he did so. There was nobody there, however; it was just him and the dead wight. Just to be sure, Alain kicked the dead body at his feet, but it continued to show no reaction. Alain blinked, then shook his head.

"Just hearing things…" he muttered to himself.

Whatever the case was, the old man had clearly been obsessed with this book, and that meant that he couldn't afford to leave it here. Without a second thought, Alain picked up the book and slipped it into his bag, then stepped off the altar and headed back for the tunnels, intent on reuniting with his friends.

The whole time, he did his best to try and ignore the whispers rising up in the back of his mind yet again.