In the heart of the working-class city, there were many blue-collar workers who turned to things out of the ordinary for entertainment and pleasure. One of these places was Swami Sammy's. It was a small establishment, not much more than the proverbial "hole in the wall." However, the wonders that lay within belied the dingy exterior. People came to Sammy to ask what he saw in his crystal ball. Sammy told them, for a price. Sometimes the price was more than money.

Sammy escorted his last customer for the night out the door. He gazed lustfully as the woman stepped outside. He could undress her with his eyes, now that he had undressed her as payment for his fortune-telling. She had been disappointed by his forecast, she had not felt it worth that which she had given for it. Sammy, on the other hand, was more than satisfied.

Closing the door, Sammy took off the head wrappings that gave him his "Swami" look. He placed the wrappings on the table and took a swig of Scotch directly from the bottle. He smiled as he thought about how well things had been going for him lately. His powers had never been stronger than they had in recent months. Though his predictions had been tinged with more darkness than usual, his accuracy had been unusually high.

"Must be something in the air," Sammy thought as he took another swig.

His thoughts were interrupted by a thick blue boot coming crashing through his door. Sammy dropped the bottle and it smashed upon the floor. The boot disappeared through the broken glass. Then a massive double-headed axe sliced through what was left of the door in two. Shards were scattered everywhere as the door fell away.

"Bloody hell!" Sammy exclaimed.

"Practicing magic. I can smell the odor," a voice called out. The light from the street lamp draped the intruder's features in shadows. Sammy could tell that the intruder was big and strong, armed with the axe and a shotgun, his ears inhumanly pointed.

"What the hell are you?" Sammy demanded nervously.

"I must destroy all things occult," the intruder declared as he swept the room with his axe. Tarot cards and crystal balls fell to the floor. "The supernatural's had too much effect on the natural world."

"I just tell fortunes, for crying out loud," Sammy sputtered.

The intruder grabbed Sammy by the collar and lifted him effortlessly into the air. "You're no fake, like most of them. You really can tell the future, when you please your demons." He tossed Sammy to the floor. After strapping his axe to his back, he pulled out some smaller weapons - daggers. "I guess that they didn't tell you I would be coming."

In less than a minute, the intruder's work was done. He left the place a mess, he left the daggers inside of Sammy.

"Who the hell are you?" Sammy gasped as life seeped away through his wounds.

"Call me Blade."

Blade was sitting restlessly on the sofa, trying to focus on headlines. There had been another gruesome killing of a fortuneteller in Manchester. It was almost noon, and his sleep had been very fitful. He had hunted the previous night until dawn, but he was no closer to finding Deacon Frost than he had been at sunset. The fact that London was now short a few more vampires did not bring him much consolation.

He looked up as Slow Boy emerged from the small hallway. "Whatcha reading there," Slow Boy asked.

"Daily Mirror," Blade replied languidly. "I picked it up at the newsstand when I went to get a biscuit. I couldn't eat another of your bangers and mash breakfasts, Slow Boy."

Slow Boy chuckled. "Some people would kill for my bangers and mash."

"I do enough killing at night," Blade muttered.

Entering the kitchen, Slow Boy warmed up the stove. "Well, I'm going to make some for meself. Hope you don’t mind the aroma."

A knock came at the door. Blade's instincts kicked in. He leapt across the room to where his jacket and bandolier were draped. He pulled out a dagger. He knew it could not be vampires, bloodsuckers did not come out in broad daylight. Enthralled human slaves were another matter.

"You expecting company?" Blade whispered.

"Really, Blade," Slow Boy sighed. "Not everybody is out to get you."

"I've made enough enemies, it's a good bet."

The knock at the door was stronger this time.

"Who the bloody hell is it?" Slow Boy called out impatiently. "Everybody I know knows better than to bother me before noon."

A voice on the other side of the door replied. "Inspector Chelm, Scotland Yard. I'm looking for Blade."

Blade went to the door and cautiously opened it. His dagger was ready, but it was only Chelm in the doorway.

"Is that the way you greet all your guests?" Chelm deadpanned.

"Chelm, what the freak do you want now?" Blade tossed the dagger across the room, sliding the weapon in a slot on the bandolier.

"I take it you've read the papers?" Chelm replied.

"Yeah, somebody's knocking off the occult. Can't really say that that's a bad thing." Blade motioned with a dramatic sweep of his arm. "Enter freely and of your own will, as Big Daddy Fangs would say."

"Thank you." Chelm removed his hat as he entered. He nodded to Slow Boy. "Mr., er ah, Slow Boy." He joined Blade at the kitchen table.

"Just call me Slow Boy, mate," Slow Boy responded cheerfully. "Care for some bangers and mash? I know it's closer to tea time, but …"

"Thank you, but no," Chelm shrugged. He turned towards Blade and looked the vampire-slayer directly in the eyes. "The Yard would like to know what you know about it."

"The Yard or your Vampire-Squad?" Blade sneered.

"For now, it's just Vampire-Squad, but eventually somebody at the Yard will start putting the pieces together." Chelm looked warily at Blade's displayed weaponry.

"What pieces?" Blade did not care for being interrogated, even by somebody he could almost call a friend.

"The deaths have your handiwork written all over them. Expert knife cuts on the victims, most of them staked with daggers … teak daggers." He pulled out his pipe and put in his mouth. He looked at Slow Boy and took the proprietor's smile as permission to light up.

Blade slammed his hands on the table as he rose. His cup of coffee fell off of the table and crashed to the floor. "And you think I got something to do with it?"

"There are the facts."

"Screw the facts. It's a set-up. Probably by Frost," Blade bellowed. "Look, I got no love for the occult. But I ain't going out hunting it, at least not since that freaking Strange messed with my mind and 'expanded my focus'. 'Sides, I don't kill the living, just the undead."

"I'm sorry, Blade," Chelm sighed and shrugged. "I had to ask, for your own sake."

"Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the concern," Blade said sarcastically.

"Very well," Chelm sighed. "Just be warned, that the everyday bobbies are going to be even more vigilant. They might take things the wrong way if they see you dispatching the undead. They might think that they've broken this case."

"Londontown's ain't got the bobby that can take me down," Blade huffed. "I'm the one doing them the favor, even if they don't know it. Why don't you tell them?"

"As I've told you before," Chelm said soothingly. "We can't have it general knowledge that there are vampires out there. It could cause massive social repercussions."

"Whatever," Blade grimaced. "Maybe if Joe Public knew that there were bloodsuckers, we'd have a lot more help eliminating them. This way, it's just me, and whatever help your Vampire-Squad can dish out."

"We're sufficient," Chelm answered confidently. He nodded towards Slow Boy. "Thank you for your time. Watch yourself out there, Blade."

Blade slumped back down at the table. "Yeah, I'll do that."

Despite Blade's bravado in the face of Inspector Chelm's warning, he was a bit more cautious as he set out for hunting once the sun dipped below the horizon. He noticed more policemen than usual out on the streets. The "Occult Killer" had struck in a number of the English metropolitan areas. The trail indicated that London would likely be his next target.

The hoopla would not stop Blade from doing his self-appointed duty, it would only mean he would have to be more sly about his vampire-hunting and more particularly his vampire-slaying. Perhaps he would run across this occult-killer himself. "Kind of reminds me of myself, back in the Nightstalking days," he thought to himself.

Even though the sun had dropped and vampires could emerge, Blade was having little luck tracking down any of them. He was not discouraged, for he knew that the bloodsuckers tended to prefer when darkness had fully taken hold of the night. Once the blackness had completely overcome the ever-weakening light of the sun, the vampires would be out in droves.

It was a few minutes past nine o'clock when Blade caught wind of his first victim-to-be. The dilapidated warehouse was a typical vampire hangout. Blade had worked the area many times over the years. He wondered why they kept on coming back here. "Maybe cuz I whack 'em before they got a chance to tell any others of their slimy kind," he thought to himself smugly.

He saw the revenant closely trailing a young couple. The two lovers were either tourists or blithely ignorant of the dangers of this section of town. Whatever their story was, they were about to meet an untimely death unless Blade intervened.

As the vampire was poised to spring upon them, Blade called out. "Hey, you stinking bloodsucker!"

Both the couple and the vampire turned at the sound of Blade's voice. When the two lovers saw the disgusting creature that had come so close to them without them recognizing it, they broke into a full-fledged sprint. The vampire hissed at Blade, and then turned back to see his intended prey fleeing.

"Bloody hell," the vampire cursed. The two young lovers would have been a tasty treat. He started marching towards Blade. "You cost me a good drink of red, mate. Don't know why you interfered but …"

Blade had continued to walk towards the vampire. He only took out one dagger. "This vamp's got the feel of a rookie," Blade thought. He would not need any more than the one dagger to dispose of the vampire.

While still at a distance that would have made recognition impossible by human eyes, the vampire's supernatural sight could make out the details of the figure approaching him. "Cor," the vampire exclaimed. "It's you."

Blade smiled. "I guess my reputation precedes me." He was somewhat surprised that the vampire did not show any signs of alarm. That was the typical reaction when a vampire recognized him.

"Well, mine's not to reason why." Blade's hand darted out, driving the dagger through the vampire's chest. "Mine's to do, yours to die!"

"What ye hassling me for, mate?" the vampire hissed as his clutched at the dagger. "I's already pledged me allegiance to Frost."

Blade kept a firm grip on the hilt of the dagger. "What do you know about Frost?"

"Take the … dagger out," the vampire sputtered.

"Maybe a little." Blade eased up on the pressure, but still kept the teak point penetrating the revenant's heart.

"Frost's the big man in town," the vampire gasped. "I threw in with him."

Blade twisted the point slightly, and the small motion brought excruciating pain to the vampire. "What the freak makes you think that joining Frost's team is gonna save you from me?"

"He's not afraid of you," a voice called out. "He's afraid of me."

Blade's head turned quickly. Somebody had managed to sneak up on him. Nobody did that, not living or undead. Now he could smell the stink of the occult. "Who the hell are you?"

"Call me Blade," came the reply. A motorcycle, its wheels ablaze, came skidding to a stop about ten yards from Blade. The rider stepped off of the bike. His face was one Blade recognized. It was his own, although distorted into a visage of fury. He wore the same dark blue leather ensemble Blade had during his early Nightstalking days. In one hand he carried a shotgun, in the other he held a scimitar.

"Sweet Mother," Blade gasped. It was a vision of himself that still haunted his dreams. It was the monster that he had become when he had accepted a page of the Darkhold. It was the image as he was when he committed the 'Midnight Massacre.' It was the creature into which he had been transformed. Legend called it 'Demogorge', but Blade called it "Switchblade!"

"If you want to call me that," Switchblade responded. "Whatever you call me, I'm still going to be the death of you."

Twisting the dagger as he pushed it deep again into the vampire's heart, Blade ensured that he would only have one opponent to face. He would behead the bloodsucker later. As long as the dagger remained in its heart, it would not be going anywhere.

Blade had two new daggers in hand. He sized up the weaponry that Switchblade was packing. The shotgun certainly looked like the one Johnny Blaze used to carry, and the scimitar was a perfect double of the one Blade had used back in the day. He knew the sword could not be the original since it was safely stored back at the Chiaroscuro with Bible John.

With only his daggers, Blade still felt confident. "Let me guess, you're the Occult Killer that everybody's been talking about the last few days." He let the teak daggers fly, but Switchblade parried them with the scimitar.

"You can't beat me Blade," Switchblade taunted as he unleashed blasts of hellfire from his shotgun. "I have your abilities and all those that you killed - Ghost Rider, John Blaze, Morbius, Demogoblin, Jack Russell, Modred."

The fiery bursts sent Blade diving to the ground. As he rolled, he had a dagger in each hand again. "You can stick your arrogance up your nose," Blade countered. "I got turned into Switchblade because of one of the lost pages of the Darkhold. Strange banished the book, so you can't have the Darkhold fueling your fires."

"Very perceptive, Blade." Still holding the scimitar, Switchblade took some new shells from his belt and loaded them into the shotgun. "I'm still more than enough to eliminate you."

"Well, me and my daggers see things differently." Blade sprang to his feet and leapt at Switchblade. He was too quick for Switchblade's awkward slice. He slashed across Switchblade's chest, tearing the leather jacket and drawing blood. Switchblade tried to swing at him with the empty shotgun, but Blade was out of range before the doppelganger could.

Turning quickly, Blade tossed the daggers, though not directly at Switchblade. This time, he aimed for the hammer and the trigger of the shotgun. The two projectiles flew true, and both the hammer and the trigger snapped. The shotgun was now useless.

"Damn you, Blade!" Switchblade cursed. He dropped the shells he was trying to load and took the scimitar in both hands.

Blade was armed once again. "I already am, thanks to reading the Darkhold page that turned me into what you're claiming to be. But you ain't, and neither is the poor man's copy of Blaze's shotgun."

"You're quite right." Switchblade swung at Blade, but the vampire-hunter dodged backwards to avoid being disemboweled. "Deacon Frost wanted a new agent. You destroyed his chance to 'beget' a son through Lady Marguerite."

"Darn straight I did." Blade caught the tip of the scimitar between the points of his daggers, turning the sword away from him. "So how'd he make you? Another clone like Crossbow?"

Switchblade pulled back the scimitar, freeing it from its temporary entrapment. "Of course," Switchblade snickered. "Deacon Frost can make countless doppelgangers of those he's bitten. Only I'm different."

Sparks of magickal force danced about the scimitar's edge now. When Blade tried to parry next, the sparks coursed through the daggers and into his hands. The pain caused Blade to drop the daggers. Thankfully, he had more on his bandolier.

"A small taste of Modred's magick," Switchblade boasted. He held the sword in one hand again. With the other, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a blazing pumpkin-bomb. "Now for a little bit of Demogoblin's." He tossed the magickal explosive at Blade's feet. The explosion sent Blade flying.

"Hey!" Blade exclaimed in disgust. He had not expected the magickal attack. "How'd you get you these Darkhold powers. Strange sent the book and its hocus-pocus to never-never-land!"

Switchblade swung again with the scimitar. It clanged loudly against the cobblestone street, since Blade had rolled out of the way. "You'll remember one of the casualties of your Demogorge rampage," Blade explained, "Professor Louise Hastings."

Blade certainly remembered the woman. She had been one of the Darkhold Redeemers, searching for the lost pages of the Book of Sins. "Yeah, she used the Darkhold to stop me, and bring back the guys I wasted."

Switchblade's form melted into that of a werewolf. The lupine leapt at Blade, but the vampire-slayer was ready to greet him with a dagger. The point penetrated just below its left foreleg. Blade had aimed for the heart.

"Awoooo!" Switchblade howled. He slunk back a few yards, dragging his injured leg along. He started to straighten up and resume human shape. When the transformation was completed, there was blood dripping from his left shoulder. "Curse you again," he snarled. "As I was saying, Hastings was infected by its powers by the use. She died later, and Deacon Frost used the latent energies in her corpse to energize me."

"Magic and Frost. Don't sound like his style," Blade sneered.

Switchblade's features became more vampiric in nature. Blade could see that the wound he had just inflicted was already healing. The doppelganger's jacket was still torn, but the flow had blood had stopped. Blade figured he was calling upon Hannibal King's vampirism to heal himself. "I'm sure you'll remember the Frost double that tried to become a vampiric deity," Switchblade explained. "To Deacon Frost, science and magic are opposite sides of the same coin, pathways to power."

"Well, you can tell him that I don't care what he mucks with," Blade raged. "He ain't gonna get on the top of the vampire heap. The only way he's gonna do that is if that heap is made up of staked vamps." He beckoned with his hands, taunting Switchblade to come at him.

Switchblade's body contorted and suddenly shot forward, though his legs did not move. His body stretched across the distance between them. His distended fingers slashed at Blade. One scraped across Blade's cheek and drew a long gash. Then Switchblade retracted himself.

Blade's touched his cheek and looked at the blood that was now on his fingers. "The old stretcheroo. A trick out of Morbius' book."

"Right again," Switchblade replied with an arrogant tone. "Like I said, you can't stop me."

"Stop you from doing what? What were you wasting time hunting down the occult if you're working for Frost converting the bloodsucking masses?"

Switchblade's initial reply was a flurry of pumpkin-bombs. Blade dodged them this time, though the acrid smoke from the explosions was making his eyes teary, even beneath his green goggles. "If Frost doesn't give me specific orders, I'm free to do what I want, and I still want what you wanted - the destruction of everything occult."

Blade pounced out of the smoke and drove his knee into Switchblade's mid-section. "And you don't see how that don't jibe with working for a bloodsucker?"

"Frost's orders take precedence," Switchblade gasped as he regained his footing. "In this case, both my innate mission and Deacon Frost's orders coincide," the enhanced clone declared. "You're touched by the occult and Deacon Frost wants you dead."

"This clone's thinking's whacked," Blade thought to himself. "And I'm the one to whack him." His hands darted out and he grabbed Switchblade's wrists. "Frost's the one who 'touched' me with the occult, you freak."

The hold was firm and Switchblade struggled to free himself. He stared with his bloodshot eyes. His fetid breath condensed on Blade's goggles. His forked tongue came mere inches away from Blade's face. "I am Switchblade, I am the Demogorge! I will wipe out the occult and pave the way for Deacon Frost's ascension."

"Fat chance!" Blade threw his arms to the side and followed with a head-butt to Switchblade's nose. There was a sickening "crunch" as cartilage was shattered. Switchblade's hands went immediately to his nose. Blade's went immediately to his bandolier. Before the doppelganger could recover, Blade had pierced its heart.

Switchblade dropped to his knees. His head slumped, and then his entire body burst into flames. In a few seconds there was just a pile of ash.

"Well, I guess you can't deliver any message to Frost." Blade kicked the ashes and scattered them. "I'm gonna have to do it myself. I'm gonna get you, Frost. Throw all you want against me - my mother, my self, gargoyles. It ain't gonna matter."

NEXT ISSUE :

"Hunter of Vampires" - A vampire out of Blade's past returns to Blade's present, and she certainly isn't happy to see him.

BITING REMARKS

Bob Gansler
28-Apr-00