The sun was just beginning to rise in the east when Blade came trudging to the door of Slow Boy's flat. He fumbled through the pockets of his leather jacket in search of the keys. He was grateful that Slow Boy had allowed him to stay at the flat. Blade had suffered through more time in dingy, rundown hotels in his vampire-hunting days than he cared to think about. Slow Boy's flat was no lavish place by any stretch of the imagination, but it was clean and it was comfortable. It was about as close to a normal home that Blade would probably ever get.

Blade strove to open the creaky old door quietly. He knew that Slow Boy probably had been asleep only for an hour or two; Slow Boy tended to get back late from the club. Blade unfastened his bandolier and laid it softly down on the kitchen table. He slipped out of his jacket and plodded towards the couch. He did not have the energy to take off his boots before he collapsed onto the cushions. It had been another exhausting night of hunting down vampires, but the victories of another night did not bring much joy to Blade's thoughts.

"Still ain't no closer to finding Frost" were his last thoughts before he drifted off to sleep.

Around noon, Blade awakened with the scent of cooked food wafting through his nostrils. The smell was unmistakable. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He did not open his eyes as he called out, "C'mon, Slow Boy. Bangers and mash again?"

"Beggars can't be choosers, Blade my boy." Slow Boy was perched over the gas stove, carefully cooking the sausages and potatoes. "Besides, when you do something well, you do it. You slay vampires, I make bangers and mash."

"Hey, I ain't knocking the chef." Blade yawned as he made his way over to the kitchen. "It's just that I've had been having bangers and mash every day since I got here. Even over at Lady Vanity's, the girls could make a few different things, and they weren't exactly the homemaking variety."

Slow Boy chuckled. "True, but they did most of their cooking in the bedroom, if you know what I mean."

Blade plopped himself down in a chair at the kitchen table. "Hey, I lived at Lady Vanity's 'til I grew up. I learned about the birds and the bees at a pretty young age." It seemed like so long ago since Blade had lived there at the bordello. Now all of the ladies were gone, victims of Lady Marguerite and, indirectly, Dracula. At least, Lady Marguerite was going to rot behind bars now. "Dracula'll get his comeuppance, after I whack Frost once and for all."

"Successful night, I take it?" Slow Boy dished out the bangers and mash onto Blade's plate.

"You could say that," Blade sighed. "I'm still among the living and not pushing up daisies."

"You know," Slow Boy noted. "You sure talk like a Yank for a boy who was raised here in London."

"Chalk it up to living over in the States for too many years," Blade shrugged.

"It's good to have you back, Blade."

Blade nodded. "Yeah, man. It's good to be back." He picked up his knife and fork and started eating ravenously. "I take back what I said before. These bangers and mash are great."

"You're very welcome." Slow Boy had dished out a plate for himself and sat down at the table as well. "You should come by the club tonight. Some of the folks are asking when you and your horn are gonna play again. Words getting around that Blade is back in town."

"I dunno, Slow Boy. I got a job to do. Frost's here. I can smell him. This time I'm gonna finish him."

Slow Boy put down his utensils. "You know I want for you to whack that bloodsucker for what he did to your mother, but you've been hunting him all your life."

Blade shoveled the last of his food into his mouth. "Yeah, and I've whacked him a few times, only to find out they were just doppleganger clones. But this time, it's like he's trying to get to me - sending the clone of my mother at me, working with Lady Marguerite. He's trying to mess with me, but all it's gonna do is end him up on the wrong end of a teak dagger."

"Just be careful out there, Blade," Slow Boy warned. "I don't want this visit cut short on account of you getting drained by a bloodsucker."

"No chance of that." Blade smirked as he got up. "Say, anything good on the telly this time of day?"

"Good to hear that you still know how to speak," Slow Boy chuckled. "Check Channel 7. I think they might have an action film on right now."

Night had fallen, and Blade was once again on the hunt. Already he had slain a number of newborn vampires. Unfortunately for them, they had no information to impart regarding Deacon Frost. Not that Blade would have let them go had they supplied any information. He might have been a bit less cruel in dispatching them if they had. Them again, he probably would have been just as vicious.

"Freaking vamps," Blade cursed. "They keep springing up like weeds."

Blade reached one of the many small dark alleys that were scattered all over the fabled city. It was places like these that vampires liked to prey. Blade turned up his collar to obscure his features. Perhaps he could bait an unsuspecting vampire into attacking him. By the time the vampire would realize whom he faced, it would be too late.

"Easier to make 'em come to me," Blade thought. "Though it don't do much good towards nailing Frost."

Blade's ears perked up as he heard some rustling sounds coming from the end of the alley. His hands went instinctively to his teak daggers. "Not too covert of a bloodsucker," Blade mused. He continued to saunter towards the end of the alley, pretending to be unaware of any potential danger. When he reached the end of the alley, he realized that there was no potential danger. The sounds had been made by a terrified old man who cowered behind a collection of trash bags and cans.

"Just leave me alone," the man whimpered. "I ain't got much, but I wanna keep my skin."

"Easy there," Blade said, trying to sound comforting. "I'm not gonna hurt you, old man."

The old man rubbed his eyes and stared at Blade. "You dress funny, but you don't look like no monster."

Blade chuckled. "I've been called worse."

"What do you want here, man?" The fellow's tattered clothes marked him as a streetperson. "Old Charlie ain't looking for trouble."

"Well, I am," Blade replied. "Only not with you. What kind of monsters you talking about?"

Old Charlie's body shook a little bit. "You'll just call me crazy."

"Trust me." Blade smiled. "Monsters snatching your fellow people of the street?"

Old Charlie's eyes darted back and forth as if he were looking for something. "You could say that. Only when they're done with them, they're missing some important stuff."

"Blood. I know about vampires."

Wrapping himself tighter with his worn jacket, Old Charlie shook his head furiously. "Bloody hell. I know what a vampire is. This bloody thing takes 'em and brings 'em back, but they're missing every square inch of skin when they're dead!"

"Missing their skin?" Blade was perplexed. "Bloodsuckers don't operate that way." Just then, his senses perked up. Something occult was in the air, but it was not the smell of the undead. "Can't be a vamp."

"Yes, Blade." A voice called out from behind. "Not a vampire, but a gargoyle."

Blade whirled around and saw the misshapen body of a gargoyle descend out of the sky. "Stonecold!"

"Yes, in the stone, if not flesh, at least not yet," Stonecold sneered. "But soon, very soon, I shall once again have flesh and blood." The gargoyle's body was the consistency of his name - cold stone. A pair of massive wings sprouted from his back. His face was as hideous as any inanimate gargoyle, but the sinister life force that shone in that face made him even more terrifying.

"It's the skin stealer!" Old Charlie cried as he stumbled and fell amongst the garbage receptacles.

Blade armed himself with teak daggers. "I thought we saw the last of you after we destroyed your human-powered perpetual motion machine." He recalled how the Nightstalkers had uneasily joined forces with Morbius to defeat the combined menace of Stonecold and the Morbius-spawned pseudo-vampire Slaughter

{The battle against Stonecold appeared in Nightstalkers #7-9}

"The destruction of the wheel just meant that my demonic masters broke their contract with me. They wouldn't give me back my human skin," Stonecold's wings folded behind him. "So I had to use a new broker to the infernal powers to get a new deal. An old friend of yours, from what I hear."

"Don't tell me," Blade sneered. "Deacon Frost." Blade remembered how one of the Frost dopplegangers had almost worked his way into becoming a vampiric deity. Frost dabbled in the magickal side of reality as well as the scientific.

"Exactly." Stonecold made a grotesque smile. "He asked me to keep an eye out for you while I collected skins. Once I have enough of them, I'll be given my own back."

"Deals with devils just make you a more attractive target for me," Blade declared.

"You're not the hunter here, Blade. I am!" The tops of Stonecold's wings came together, and a pulsing green glow arose there. Blade's instincts took over and he leapt to the side as a blast of eldritch energy came streaking out. The flux coursed past Blade but struck Old Charlie square in the chest. The streetperson looked down at the massive wound before collapsing.

"Curse you, Blade!" Stonecold exclaimed. "You made me ruin a perfectly good skin." He raised his talons. "I'd take yours instead, but there's not going to be much left of it, once I'm through shredding you."

"We'll see who does the shredding, stoneface!" Blade let a pair of daggers fly, but the weapons bounced harmlessly off of Stonecold's hard hide.

Stonecold laughed. "Those daggers may be effective against vampires, Blade, but against the stone body of a gargoyle, they're just sticks of wood."

Blade was undaunted. He snatched up another pair of daggers and sprang towards Stonecold. "Let's see how they work up close and personal."

Stonecold opened his arms to welcome the attack. "You have my personal invitation to try."

Though Blade swung hard, the daggers only crumpled into splinters against Stonecold's body. The gargoyle laughed again and grabbed Blade by the collar with one hand. He snarled and slapped Blade's face with the other. Drawing his free hand back, he opened his hand and spread out his talons. He slashed across Blade's chest, slicing the bandolier in two. The remaining daggers tumbled to the ground.

Blade struggled to free himself from Stonecold's grasp, but the gargoyle's grip was too strong. Stonecold slashed again and ripped Blade's leather coat to shreds. Next the monster began to slice Blade's shirt. Stonecold seemed to be enjoying his tormenting of Blade. Once the shirt was tattered, he began softly drawing his talons over Blade's exposed skin.

"Nothing left between your black skin and my touch now," Stonecold taunted. "Prepare to feel my caress."

Both Blade and Stonecold were startled by the sound of gunfire. Stonecold was more surprised since the bullets were striking him. What was more, the bullets were actually hurting him! The gargoyle whirled to see Inspector Chelm and Kate Fraser standing at the opening of the alley. Small curls of smoke were drifting from the muzzles of their pistols.

"Kindly put Mr. Blade down," Chelm said with mock politeness. "You're under arrest."

"Friends of yours?" Stonecold asked angrily of his captive.

"You were ordered to put him down!" Kate fired again, and she could see that the silver bullets were actually affecting the creature, although they still ricocheted off of his hard skin.

"Cops will bring more cops," Stonecold cursed. "I want to relish the flaying of your dark skin." With noticeable disgust, he hurled Blade at Chelm and Fraser. Opening his wings, he took off into the air.

Blade, Chelm, and Fraser lay in a pile together. Though he was the most bruised of the three, Blade was the first to speak.

"Chelm, what the freak are you doing here?"

"I see your years in the States have affected your manners," Chelm said with disdain. "I would think that your first words would be those of gratitude."

"I don't think Blade has had much need of manners, Inspector," Fraser noted dryly.

"How'd you find me here?" Blade demanded.

"You left a trail of a destroyed vampires, quite apparent to those of us with some knowledge of the undead." Chelm took out a match and lit his pipe. "You seemed to be acting a little bit reckless. We wanted to check up on you."

"I don't need your covering my back, Chelm."

"I beg to differ, at least in this case," Chelm retorted, though with stereotypical English civility. "Was that creature actually a gargoyle?"

Blade rose to his feet and tried to straighten out what was left of his clothes. "Yeah, a modern day variety. A freak doctor named Johann Bessler. Wanted immortality, bartered with the wrong kind of demons, and got turned into a gargoyle. Had to collect human skins to win back his own."

"Sounds positively medieval," Chelm noted.

"Yeah, now I'm gonna get medieval on his …" Blade held his tongue, in deference to Kate. He was not completely without manners. "On his behind, and I know just how. I'm gonna head home. I got a call to make back to the States." Blade trudged away, leaving Chelm and Fraser behind.

When he got back to Slow Boy's place, he dug through his suitcase until he found the calling card that Bible John had given him. Grabbing the telephone, he punched in the numbers on the card and then the (naturally) unlisted number for the Chiaroscuro.

Bible John picked up on the other end. "Hello, Blade."

Blade was silent for a second. He had not even said a word yet, and Bible John knew it was him. "John, it's Blade."

"I know."

"Cuz of some kind of magic?"

"Caller ID," Bible John chuckled. "You gave me Slow Boy's number."

"Very funny."

"How are things going over there in England?"

"Well, I skragged that vampire-double of my mother, and I put an end to a freaked-out scheme by an old lady 'friend'," Blade answered. "But now I got other problems. I need you to send me something."

"I FedEx-ed a package last night for you. I had a vision."

"So don't tell me, you sent me my armor."

"Exactly. Along with a Cathari spear. My vision had you in a medieval setting. Dragons, gargoyles, unicorns, and the like."

"No dragons or unicorns, but I got a definite gargoyle problem. An old stoneface named Stonecold that me and Frank and Hannibal thought we took out in our Nightstalking days."

"Let me guess. You didn't find a body at the end of the adventure."

"Nope. We thought he was done for in the harbor. Shoulda known better. Anyways, thanks for the armor."

"Not a problem. Good luck dealing with Stonecold and Frost. Come back soon, Blade. There's evil brewing on this of the Atlantic as well."

"I'll be back as soon as I can, John, but I'm gonna whack Frost permanently this time."

The next evening, Blade was once again stalking the night. This time, he was not wearing his typical leather jacket and 70's style clothes. Stonecold had left them in tatters the previous night. On the outside, it looked like he was a heavy-set man wearing a long overcoat. What he really wore underneath the overcoat was another matter.

Blade knew that there were vampires out that needed to be slain. However, tonight was a night for unfinished business. Stonecold had gotten away once. Blade had luckily escaped the previous night due to the timely intervention of Chelm and Fraser. Tonight, Stonecold was Blade's target. Frost could wait, for one night at least. "Maybe Stony's got some real info," Blade thought. "So it might not be a complete waste."

Arriving back at the same alley, Blade shouted, "C'mon Stonecold. I know you're looking for me. You know I'm looking for you. Let's get it on."

The sound of flapping wings let Blade know that Stonecold was indeed in the vicinity. The large shape of the gargoyle blotted out the bright moonlight as Stonecold descended to the ground.

Stonecold crouched upon the ground and eyed Blade warily. "New clothes, Blade? And did you put on a few pounds since yesterday?"

"Nope." Blade unbuttoned his jacket and revealed the suit of dark blue armor that covered his body. He also slipped out the Cathari spear that had been strapped to his side. Swords hung from scabbards on either side of his belt, and a large axe was strapped around his back.

"You look like a knight ready for a joust," Stonecold snorted.

"Ain't no knight, ain't got no chivalry. Just gonna skewer you." Blade marched towards Stonecold as he held the spear out in front of him.

The points of Stonecold's wings came together and an energy surge formed between them. Blade recognized the development and reacted. He thrust forward with the spear and drove its point directly into the heart of the energy surge. Sparks erupted and the surge dissipated into nothingness.

"What in hell's name?" Stonecold raged. The short-circuiting of his eldritch blast had caused some painful feedback to him.

"Seeing as this pigsticker's Cathari-made," Blade responded sharply. "I'm guessing Old Scratch ain't got nothing to do with it." Blade made a mental note to thank Bible John again for the spear. He had used it instinctively, and it had provided an ideal result.

"No matter!" Stonecold drew his wings back and snarled. "All I needed are my talons and teeth to rend you to pieces." He sprang into the air and descended towards Blade.

Blade swung with the blunt end of the spear at Stonecold. He caught the gargoyle on the chin while Stonecold's talons only raked against Blade's armor. Hardly a scratch showed upon its surface.

The lack of damage surprised even Blade. "I guess Bible John's done some enchantment on it since I last wore it." He brought the point of the spear forward again. "Let's see what this pigsticker can really do."

Rubbing his chin, Stonecold rose to his feet again. "I don't know what kind of magic you're using, Blade, but it won't be enough."

"Just need a little to get through your hard skin," Blade countered. "The rest is gonna be all skill." He tossed the spear at Stonecold. The projectile headed for Stonecold's heart but the gargoyle dodged to the side. Instead, the spear tore through the thin skin of Stonecold's wing.

"Argh!" Stonecold screamed. He beat his wings, but the wound made it impossible to lift into the air.

"Didn't figure I run you through straight off the bat," Blade said as he unsheathed his swords. "Now, you're staying on the ground, no aerial escape for you."

"I'll heal," Stonecold raged. "You won't." He swung at Blade with both sets of razor-sharp talons. Blade brought his swords up expertly and parried Stonecold's attack.

"Oh, did I forget to mention that I'm more than just a master with daggers?" Blade countered Stonecold's attack again. "If it's sharp, I got game." He continued to block each of Stonecold's slashes and cuts.

"Now these blades I know," Blade announced as he began slicing at Stonecold. "Own personal collection. They got some nasty history, and it looks like your hide's gonna be added to the list."

Stonecold tried to block Blade's attacks but the swords brought pain to his hardened form every time that they touched him. He was astonished to see that the swords were actually cutting into his rocky flesh. Stonecold was a practical man (or at least he was, before he bartered with demons). He was not going to escape from Blade's fury. That is, unless he offered Blade something he wanted more.

"Blade!" Stonecold cried. "Spare me! Spare me, and I'll tell you what you want to know. I'll tell you about Frost!"

Blade pulled back but still held his swords at the ready. "What do you have on Frost, other than he brokered a new deal with demons for you?"

Stonecold tried to regain his composure. He was panting, he was in pain. He thought such sensations were a thing of the past when the demons transformed him. "Frost is onto you. He knows you dealt with Lady Marguerite. He knows you're here. And he's planning to destroy you."

"Now you're told me things I already know. Gains you squat!"

"He said that's he's going to unleash your worst nightmare upon you."

"I already had to kill a double of my mother. I don't get much worse than that."

"He says that this will be even worse," Stonecold huffed.

"And that would be?"

"I don't know. He's working with some kind of magic beyond my experience," Stonecold declared. "I've told you what I know. Now let me be. I won't cross paths with you again, I swear on my lost skin."

Blade shook his head. "Like I told Frankie and Hannibal, we gotta take the war to the enemy. You're occult, you're a killer. Now you're history." He raised his swords to strike.

Moments later, Blade emerged from the alley. He carried some things inside of his balled-up overcoat. "Stonecold won't be using these anymore. He was human; I couldn't kill him. But I could make sure he wasn't going to cause any more trouble." He walked until he reached the River Thames, and then he dumped the contents of the overcoat. A pair of wings and two rocky hands fell into the water and were carried away by the current.

NEXT ISSUE : "Son of Midnight" - True to Stonecold's warning, Blade faces his worst nightmare. What could scare Blade more than vampires?

BITING REMARKS

The focus on Blade will wrap up with #7. Then we'll start looking at what the other characters in the vampire world are doing.

Bob Gansler
31-Mar-00