The Vampire's Apprentice

A short while later, Alain and Felix came marching out of the gun store, both of them sporting new bandoleers filled with shotgun shells. Felix had slung his Winchester rifle and instead opted to carry a double-barrel coach gun, similar to Alain's. The two of them walked through town shoulder-to-shoulder, until they reached Sable and Az, who were waiting for them.

"Took you both long enough," Sable said, impatient.

"Can't rush the art of reloading, Sable," Alain replied. "Are we ready?"

Az nodded. "We've already told the townspeople to hold here and prepare for a fight in case things go belly-up down there. There shouldn't be very many surprises."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Felix questioned. "Let's go."

With that, the four of them headed for the mines. There was no resistance on the way there – rather, it was deathly quiet. Alain couldn't help but tense as the silence washed over him. Eventually, though, they reached the opening to the mines, then after a brief moment to collect themselves, pushed in.

There were a few undead still wandering through the mine shafts, but Az and Sable made quick work of them as they all advanced. Within just a few minutes, they reached the barrier once more.

"You all ready?" Alain asked.

"Just do it," Sable commanded.

He nodded, then broke open his shotgun and replaced the shells full of buckshot with the ammunition that he and Felix had reloaded. A pull of his gun's dual triggers fired both barrels simultaneously, sending chunks of sharpened bone screaming towards the barrier. They made impact, and there was a loud sound like glass shattering as the barrier broke. Alain stood there for a moment, stunned that it had actually worked, only to snap out of it as the others rushed past him. He hastily reloaded his shotgun, then moved in after them.

They all advanced down yet another mine shaft, though this one was completely barren of any undead. Still, they moved cautiously, unwilling to risk stumbling into an ambush. As they descended down, it got progressively darker, with only wall-mounted torches to light their way; Felix took one down and held it in his off-hand, illuminating the path forward as they walked.

Alain couldn't help but note that the floor underneath their feet was stained with dried blood, as if a body or several had been dragged across the ground.

As they drew closer, Alain heard it – a young woman's muffled cries and pleas, followed by the baying of a small crowd. His eyes widened, and he rushed forwards with his gun already in his shoulder. The path ahead was suddenly illuminated with a wide array of torches, and he barreled on without a care, finally emerging into a large chamber.

He only made it about three steps into the room when he felt cold metal against the back of his head, followed by the telltale click of a revolver's hammer being cocked back. His eyes narrowed, even as his grip on his shotgun slackened.

"Ansley," he guessed.

"Wrong," an unfamiliar voice answered with a sneer.

"Tobias, now is not the time to play with your food," Ansley called from off in the distance. "Our time draws short."

Alain turned towards him, and his breath caught in his throat at what he saw. Ansley was dressed in a set of blood red robes and standing over a stone altar, a bloodstained dagger held in his hand. Just underneath him, a young woman clad in only her undergarments was chained to a stone slab, her bonds rattling as she attempted to free herself, to no avail. The slab underneath her was already soaked with crimson. Behind Ansley, Alain could see several wooden caskets piled up.

"So, this is what you've been doing," Alain noted. "Ritualistic sacrifices?"

"How astute of you," Ansley said dryly. "I'll admit, you've been quite the thorn in my side – you and your little entourage, that is. I was hoping those bandits would take care of you or at least keep you busy enough that you wouldn't be a problem anymore, but I can see now that I severely underestimated you."

"Enough with this," Alain replied. "I know what you're after – you want to make yourself immortal."

A grin split Ansley's face. "Talked to Xavier, did you? The old man always was too honest for his own good. But still, that's only half of the plan."

"And the other half?"

"You're a smart man. Look around you, see what you can figure out."

Alain blinked, then did as he was told. He was stunned to find a small crowd of six people gathered nearby, all of them dressed in fancy-looking outfits and adorned with expensive-looking jewelry. His eyes narrowed, and he turned back to Ansley.

"So that's what this is about," Alain ventured. "I'll admit, I'm disappointed."

"Are you, now?"

"I am. Your ledger made it sound so simple. I'm ashamed to know that it really is that simple, after all. Despite everything you've done, all the evil you've committed, it ultimately comes down to nothing more than money."

"Of course it does," Ansley told him. "It all comes back to the almighty dollar. That's how I attracted these people here, anyway – with promises of gold and wealth beyond their wildest dreams. Imagine my surprise when I ran into the old man, and discovered there was something far more valuable than gold that I could sell to these people."

He ran his thumb along the blunt edge of the dagger. The bound girl stared at the blade, her eyes wide and her chest heaving with panicked gasps. Ansley brought a hand up and ran it through her hair.

"Shh, my dear," he urged. "It will all be over soon."

Footsteps from behind him caught Alain's attention, but he didn't dare turn around with the revolver still pressed to the base of his skull. Ansley, however, stood up straighter, glaring into the darkness of the mine shaft.

"Unless you want to see your friend's brains painted across the stone, you'll stop where you are and hang back," he warned.

All three of them immediately froze where they stood. Sable leveled a glare at Ansley from just outside the entrance to the room.

"Foolish mortal," she said. "You have no idea the kind of powers you're meddling with by doing this."

"On the contrary, my dear – I know exactly what the consequences are for doing this. Why do you think I'm so dead-set on seeing it through to the end?" Ansley shook his head. "But enough talk. It's good that you four showed up – you'll get to see our rebirth… and at the end of it all, you will be the first ones to be brushed aside by us as we usher in a new age."

Ansley suddenly raised the dagger, the point aimed square at the young woman's heart. Her eyes widened and she thrashed against the stone slab, desperate to free herself from her restraints, but it was no use. The blade glinted in the torchlight as it came down hard enough to pierce straight through her ribcage. Her body tensed, but then slackened a second later as the breath left her.

For a moment, nothing happened, even as Ansley roughly removed the blood-soaked dagger with a sickening squelch. But as Alain watched, the shadows in the room began to shift. They elongated, creeping out from the corners they'd been banished to by the firelight, steadily reaching towards Ansley. He eyed them with a wild, wide grin.

"Yes!" he proclaimed. "I knew it would work!"

Alain watched as several of the shadows diverted course, splitting off from the one headed towards Ansley. One of them began to move towards him, and for a brief instant, he was worried that it would make contact with him, but it didn't – instead, it bypassed him entirely, aiming for Tobias.

"Fascinating…" Alain heard him mutter under his breath. "This is simply div-"

Before he could finish his sentence, the shadow suddenly retracted into itself, then shot forward as a large, jagged spike. It passed just above Alain's shoulder, causing him to flinch when he felt it barely graze his ear. Behind him, he heard Tobias give out a sick-sounding gurgle, followed by his revolver clattering to the ground. Alain instantly rounded on him, pulling his Colt from its holster as he did so, and was stunned to see Tobias lying there, the shadow steadily worming its way into his body through a hole in his throat. Tobias thrashed, his eyes going wide with fear and panic as the blackness forced itself into him. As Alain watched, Tobias' body began to change, steadily going from human to some kind of darkened shadow creature. His whole body began to contort and shift; his bones shattered and cracked as they were reshaped and molded, blood leaking from the myriad fractures erupting throughout his body.

He never got to finish his transformation, however – Az suddenly stepped forward and stomped on his head, crushing it underneath his heel. That shook Alain out of his stupor, and he turned towards Az, who stared back at him with razor-sharp focus.

"If you all have any sense, you'll take out the rest before they can finish shifting," he growled.

That was all Alain needed to hear. He scooped up his Ithaca shotgun, then raised it to his shoulder as he advanced. The other members of Ansley's inner circle were currently suffering the same fate Tobias had, with all of them in various states of transformation; Alain took aim at the nearest one and blasted him with both barrels, which instantly stopped the transformation and killed the unfortunate host.

There was a sudden rush of wind from next to him as Sable and Az advanced, leaping from person to person in an attempt to stop them before they could fully transform. Felix stepped up next to him as he reloaded and took out another person with his own shotgun before dropping back to load.

"What is this…?" Ansley asked as he backed up into a corner, several shadows advancing upon him. His eyes widened as they drew closer, and he pulled a revolver from his holster and began to fire at them. Several of the shadows went down, but the remainder suddenly split into multitudes, all of them continuing to move towards him. Ansley screamed as he fanned his revolver's hammer, but eventually, it ran dry.

And the moment it did, the shadows pounced.

Alain could only watch as the shadows all piled onto Ansley, who disappeared beneath the pulsating mass of darkness with a muffled scream that was cut short. He only stopped and stared for a moment, however, before Az and Sable came running up to him.

"We need to leave, now!" Sable warned.

Alain was about to ask what she was talking about when he saw several of the shadows suddenly pull away from the pile atop Ansley and begin to move towards the four of them. Without a word, he nodded, and then they all took off running towards the entrance of the mine.

As they ran, the shadows followed. Thinking quickly, Alain pulled a lantern from the walls and shattered it, slathering the ground behind them with oil; in the same motion, he pulled a match from his pocket and struck it, then tossed it back at the oil-slick ground. Flames erupted in the center of the mine shaft, and by the looks of things, his intuition had been correct – the shadows reeled from the sudden onslaught of heat and light, enabling the four of them to continue sprinting back to the entrance unimpeded.

They emerged from the depths of the mine and back onto the world above just as the sun began to crest over the horizon. Alain doubled over, his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath, but it only lasted a moment before someone rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Look sharp," Felix warned.

"What do you-"

Alain's statement was interrupted by the sound of several dozen guns being readied. He paused, then looked up, and was stunned to see an entire US Army cavalry detachment standing there, their guns pointed at the four of them. Sheepishly, he raised his hands in surrender.

"Army's here," was all he managed to get out before they approached him and threw a burlap sack over his head, then began to muscle him away.