Chapter 166: Crimson Requiem on the road (1)
Bogotá, Colombia
"Wow, we’re really lucky that gold is valuable in this world too! Actually, it’s worth even more here than it is on N’Raeth! With all this money, we’re going to enjoy our pilgrimage to New York in style!" Evelyne exclaims, waving a thick stack of Colombian pesos in the air.
"The annoying part is having to exchange currencies every time we cross a border. Seriously, they still don’t have a single currency for the entire planet? How primitive..." Dorian grumbles.
Meanwhile, Constantine continues studying a map of the continent, carefully analyzing the fastest possible route.
To avoid attracting attention, they had abandoned their armor in favor of ordinary human clothing.
Their armor had been packed away inside a surprisingly small satchel—far too small to realistically hold five full sets of heavy plate armor.
It was a magical artifact recovered on N’Raeth, capable of holding up to a hundred times its actual volume.
They are making their way along a road on the outskirts of Bogotá when a white van pulls alongside them.
"Hey, guys, where are you headed?" asks the driver politely, a Colombian man in his forties.
"We’re traveling to New York. By the way, which route would you recommend?" Constantine replies with equal courtesy.
The Colombian stares at them in disbelief.
"You... are seriously planning to walk all the way to New York? That’s insane! Listen, I’m heading to Mexico. If you want, I can give you a ride. It’ll save you quite a few days of walking."
"We would gladly accept your kindness."
The man opens the van’s rear door, and the five of them climb aboard without hesitation.
"So, you five aren’t from around here, are you?" the driver asks, a faint note of mockery in his voice.
No response.
They continue chatting among themselves, completely ignoring him.
"I’m asking because once you reach Mexico, crossing into the United States is going to be a nightmare. If you’re not Americans, you might not know that, and getting across could become a serious problem," the driver continues.
"Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure something out," Constantine replies curtly.
"If I were you, I’d wait a year," another man chimes in from the passenger seat. "The frontrunner in the U.S. presidential race has promised to make border crossings from Mexico a lot easier."
"I sure hope so..." the driver mutters. "If that bastard Frank Pyton doesn’t keep his word after all the money we’ve poured into funding his party, he’s not going to last very long..."
The sentence is delivered with a subtle but unmistakably threatening undertone.
It immediately puts Constantine on alert.
"Just let us out here. We’ll continue on foot. Thank you for the ride," Constantine says.
"Whaaaat? Are you crazy?! Traveling like this is so much more comfortable!" Evelyne blurts out.
"Oh, don’t worry. We’re almost there anyway," the driver replies with a less-than-reassuring grin.
A few moments later, he pulls the van over.
"Thank you. How much do we owe you for the trouble?" Constantine asks politely.
"Hm. Let’s see..."
The two men in the front seats suddenly turn around and level their pistols at the passengers.
"...how about everything you’ve got? And no funny business, unless you want your heads blown off."
At that exact moment, the van’s rear doors swing open.
Several more men are waiting outside, their weapons already trained on the five vampires.
Dorian lets out a long sigh of mock concern.
"Oh, for fuck’s sake. Don’t tell me we’ve been..."
"...kidnapped? Yep!" Lazarus finishes enthusiastically.
The excitement in his voice leaves the armed men visibly confused.
Evelyne immediately begins counting their captors.
"Hm... only eleven. That’ll do. On my mark—"
"Oh, no you don’t," Dorian cuts in. "This time I’m calling the start. You always cheat and start killing people before the game even begins!"
"The important thing is that you close the doors before you start playing," Blake hisses. "I don’t want my new clothes getting covered in blood."
Click.
The man in the passenger seat cocks his pistol.
"You people are really fucking weird, you know that? Maybe it hasn’t sunk in that—"
"Silence, human."
CRACK!
With a single violent punch, Blake’s fist tears through the metal partition separating the front seats from the cargo compartment as though it were made of paper.
The blow slams into the man’s chest and he dies instantly.
"H-How... how the fuck did you do that?! What the hell are you?!" the driver stammers in terror, pointing his gun at Blake.
"Lower that toy and shut your mouth if you don’t want to share his fate," Blake hisses, meticulously wiping the blood from his hand.
At the sight of that, the armed men instinctively retreat.
Then they raise their weapons, ready to open fire.
But against three vampires at such close range, they don’t even have time to pull the trigger.
A single second later, every one of them is dead.
This time, Blake manages to shut the rear doors just in time to keep the blood spray from staining his clothes.
When Evelyne, Dorian, and Lazarus climb back into the van, they’re already arguing about who killed how many.
Evelyne killed three. Dorian and Lazarus killed four each.
The overall score in their little human-hunting game since arriving on Earth now stands at:
- Evelyne: 21 (Dorian maintains it should only be 17, refusing to count the first four tribesmen she killed before the contest officially began.)
- Dorian: 21
- Lazarus: 21
- Blake: 1 (though he has absolutely no interest in competing with them.)
The moment they climb back into the van, Blake fixes them with a withering glare.
"For heaven’s sake, stay away from me. You’re covered in blood from head to toe. Is it really that difficult to kill a few ordinary humans without making such a mess?"
Lazarus shrugs.
"We could do that... but where would the fun be in it?"
Blake shakes his head in exasperation.
"Good grief. You’re worse than children playing in mud just for the pleasure of getting dirty..."
Taking advantage of the brief conversation, the van’s driver suddenly makes a run for it.
Dorian catches up to him instantly.
"Where do you think you’re going, friend? We didn’t spare you because we like you. Get back in the van and take us to that place you called Mexico. Come on, move."
"A-After I take you there... you’ll let me go, right...?"
"Who knows? Why don’t you start by doing what I told you, and then we’ll see."