It was nights like this that had made Blade happy to leave England for the States all those years ago. The dreary and cold place that the city became after the sun went down seemed to drown out all hope. The wisps of fog that were rolling in did not help; neither did the background aura of evil that blanketed the world after the destruction of the Book of Erebus. It was an ugly world, and all of Blade's efforts did not seem to be making much of a difference in making it better.

He thought of all of the menaces that he faced since he had returned to England. There was the vampiric doppleganger of his mother, there was the depraved Lady Marguerite D'Alescio, there was the gargoyle Stonecold, and there was his own double Switchblade. All of them had come at him courtesy of Deacon Frost.

{All of these being the events of the last four issues}

"Damn him," Blade cursed under his breath. "Frost's been mucking up my life since before I was even born." He had tracked the depraved German scientist for so many years that he had lost count. He hated Frost for what the vampire had done to his mother. His hate had grown to boiling proportions when Blade had to face and kill the vampiric clone of his mother that Frost had created.

{As shown in MDL's Vampire Tales #2}

Despite Blade's repeated proclamations to finish Frost, he really had not made any headway. He hunted every night, and every sunrise he returned to Slow Boy's flat with the world short a few more vampires. Yet, he was no closer to finding Frost than the day he set foot in London. It aggravated him, it frustrated him. His anger had only meant more painful deaths for the vampires he slew.

Blade stomped up the stairs to Slow Boy's apartment and collapsed on the couch. It took some time before weariness overpowered his rage and he drifted off to sleep. His body might have slept soundly, but his dreams were troubled. The nightmares of the average man were nothing to what a vampire-hunter faces in the dark recesses of his mind. Still, he slept on. Though Slow Boy was louder than usual when he rose and made breakfast, Blade continued to sleep quietly, if not peacefully.

It was early afternoon when Blade finally did wake up. His body felt rested but he still could feel the fire of his anger burning inside. For being the world's deadliest vampire slayer, he nonetheless felt helpless. He trudged over to the refrigerator, intent on getting a pint of beer. He saw that Slow Boy had left a note for him on the door, asking him to come down to the club this afternoon. One of the bands was begging him to sit in and play with them.

"Sure why not," Blade thought. Maybe he could sit in with the band and play his horn for a while. "That might help," he tried to convince himself.

After showering, Blade headed Underground and took the Tube to Slow Boy's club. It was only one stop, but he felt like being surrounded by humanity for once. As he stood inside of the train, he looked around at the different sorts of people that were his fellow riders. There were businessmen in suits and blue collar workers in coveralls. "And probably none of 'em got a clue of what I do," Blade thought.

The train reached the stop and Blade barged his way through the crowd to get out the doors. He bounded up the few flights of stairs back to the surface. He was careful not to smack anyone with his trumpet case that he carried in his right hand. He walked the two blocks to Slow Boy's club, breathing in the warm air. There really was a difference in the air between the day and night time. Blade wondered if the occult were ever completely destroyed, as Switchblade had desired, would that change?

When Blade entered the club, the band was already warming up. Slow Boy came out from behind the bar.

"Blade, I was getting worried that you weren't gonna come," he said earnestly.

"Well, I got nothing better to do til sundown," Blade shrugged. "'Sides, maybe I can pick up a few quid so I can pay for you putting me up."

Slow Boy waved his hand and shook his head. "Don't you worry about that. We're friends, practically family."

Blade stretched his arm out and put it on Slow Boy's shoulder. "You're a good man, Slow Boy."

Laying his hand upon Blade's, Slow Boy replied, "Aw, don't be trying to make an old man blush. Now you get up there on stage and play with the boys up there. Maybe your horn can make them actually sound halfway decent, but it's a tall task even for you."

"Sounds like a challenge," Blade smiled as he opened up his case.

"It is," Slow Boy answered. "Come over to the bar when they take a break and we'll share a drink."

"You got it." Blade was already starting to feel better.

True to Slow Boy's words, the band was in dire need of some competent musical skill. Perhaps individually the players had some talent, but as a band, they did not have a unified sound. Blade was hard-pressed to infuse the music with any soul. In between two of the numbers, Blade asked the bass player. "Man, how much is Slow Boy paying you guys?"

"Pay?" the bass player laughed. "Not a pound. We're just happy to get to play in front of live bodies."

"You sneak, Slow Boy" Blade muttered. He put his trumpet back to his lips. The old man had tricked him into helping giving the club some free entertainment. "Still as sly as ever."

When the band took a break, some of the customers dropped a few pounds into Blade's case at the edge of the stage. The cases that the rest of the band had arrayed only received a few pence. Blade went over to the bar to see Slow Boy.

Slow Boy finished pouring a pint of Blade's favorite ale and slid it across the bar to him. "Not the greatest band in the world, eh Blade."

Snatching up the glass, Blade took a look drink before replying. "Yeah, maybe in a few more decades they’ll sound good. Pretty sneaky getting me up there with them."

Slow Boy chuckled. "If you're gonna feel guilty about paying me back like you said before, think of this as a way to pay me back. If I just let those boys play by themselves, it would probably empty the place."

"Don't doubt it." Blade took another sip. "It's not so bad to be back in Londontown."

"Too true," Slow Boy admitted. "It just hasn't been the same without you, once you left to join up with Harker and the others. You've been out of touch longer than the last time."

Blade put down his mug. "Now hold on a minute. One, I didn't join up with Harker's crew. Sure we worked together, but mine and Quincy's philosophies on vampire-slaying weren't exactly compatible. Second, what are you talking about - the last time?"

"After you moved out of Lady Vanity's, I didn't see you for a while. What were you up to?" Slow Boy's eyes looked that there was hurt behind them.

"I was running with a tough crowd," Blade muttered.

"Every crowd you run with is a tough one," Slow Boy remarked. Seeing that no response was forthcoming from Blade, Slow Boy implored. "C'mon, Blade, talk to me. We're old mates."

"Don't wanna," Blade replied and took another sip of ale.

"I know that you hooked up with some other boys from the neighborhood - Ogun, Musenda and the others - and started hunting vampires full-time, but that was a couple of years later, I thought," Slow Boy said. "Did you start with them earlier than that?"

"No." Blade shook his head. "I was with another gang first. What happened to them convinced me that I needed to whack bloodsuckers."

"Who were they?" Slow Boy's curiosity seemed earnest.

"You ever hear of the Bloodshadows?" Blade said. "That was my gang, at least it was for the short time I led 'em …"

{The Bloodshadows were introduced in Blade: Vampire Hunter #5}

"Sure I heard of them," Slow Boy admitted. "People always been talking here about things. Nobody talked about them for long, maybe just those years when I didn't hear from you."

"That's 'cause they didn't last beyond that," Blade replied. "We ran up against an ancient vampire and she clobbered us." Blade's reluctance dissipated and he related to Slow Boy the entire tale of the Bloodshadows, of how they met up with the vampire from ancient Atlantis, Lamia, and how the bloodsucker killed three of them, sparing only Blade and Glory. He did not mention to Slow Boy that Glory had been turned.

"That's sad." Slow Boy slapped Blade on the shoulder.

"I miss 'em," Blade sighed. "We might have been bad seeds, but they were good mates."

"You ever go back to that old house, say goodbye to them?" Slow Boy asked.

"No time," Blade said. "Always had things to do."

"Maybe it'd be a good idea if you said your goodbyes to them now. Give yourself a sense of closure," Slow Boy suggested. "Give you one less demon to haunt you."

"Yeah, maybe you're right," Blade decided. "Tell you what, old man. I'mna go right now." He drank the last of his ale and put the empty mug back down upon the bar. He looked over to the stage and laughed. "Remember, this was your own idea, old man. Don't blame me if the band empties the place."

Slow Boy snapped a bar towel at Blade. "Get your butt out of here. Leave me to running the club."

Once Blade had departed, Slow Boy put down his towel and apron and headed downstairs to the cellar. He walked directly to one of the darkened corners of the basement and began relating his conversation with Blade, apparently to no one.

When he had completed, a gnarled hand reached out from the shadows and pulled back his collar, revealing two small bite marks.

"Very good, my thrall." the figure in the shadows chuckled. "Very good indeed. Blade is heading exactly where I want him." The faint illumination of the cellar only revealed the figure's pointed white beard.

Blade had walked all the way to the old home that had been the site of the end of the Bloodshadows. He spent the time reliving the times that he had had with them, especially with Glory. After he had beaten Cutter for the leadership of the Bloodshadows, Glory had been his girl. She had been someone special to him, one of the very few women in his life. There was, of course his mother, a woman he never knew. There was Lady Vanity, who had raised him along with the other girls of her brothel; they were slain by the Legion. There was Safron Caulder, the woman who knew what he was and loved him for longer than he would have thought possible. But Glory was different. She was the first to evoke true feelings in Blade, but their relationship had been short-lived. Once she was turned, he shut down that part of him again.

"I wonder if Glory came back after Strange futzed up the Montesi Formula," Blade thought. "I hope not."

The decrepit house on Blaylock Street was exactly as Blade had remembered it. It was still 'officially' abandoned, and it still showed the damage from the confrontation with Lamia. There were holes in the walls and boarded-up windows, scars from that battle. He wondered if the public health officials or police had disposed of the bodies of the Chen, Hector, and Carla, of if they had been left there to rot over the years. He would not have been surprised to find the bones of his mates or perhaps other victims of Lamia amidst the wooden rubble. It was not a nice section of town. The police had sworn it off as hopelessly crime-ridden.

Blade walked right past the battered "For Sale or Let" sign and climbed through one of the splintered holes in the wall. The sun had set, but there still was enough ambient light to navigate through the house. Blade looked around, re-playing the scenes of the battle. He heard the sickening snapping and crunching sounds of Lamia breaking the Bloodshadows.

"Damn. I can almost smell Lamia like she was here today," he shrugged.

"Lamia is here, hunter!" a gravel-like female voice called out. The vampiress stood at the top of a worn flight of stairs. Her ragged white hair hung down upon her ragged purple cloak.

"What the freak?" Blade flung open his jacket and snatched out a teak dagger. He cursed himself for being so wrapped up in memory that he ignored what his occult sense had been telling him. "Lamia!"

"That simpleton Frost told me that you would be here," Lamia cackled. "I didn't want to believe that foolish pretender to my master's throne, but here you are."

"You palling around with Frost now?" Blade moved cautiously towards the stairwell. "I thought you had the hots for Grandaddy Fangs Varnae."

Lamia stamped down the rickety stairs. Her powerful steps threatened to break the aged wood, her scent threatened to overwhelm Blade's senses. She was putrid, even moreso than the average vampire. Apparently, millennia of undeath did that to a revenant. "Varnae is still my master and the one true Lord of Vampires. You opposed us during the Bloodrise, when my master could have regained his throne."

{A somewhat biased view of the events of the MDL Bloodrise limited series}

Blade hurled a dagger at Lamia. "My job's to make sure that nobody gets the job, 'cause all of you will be staked and dead."

Lamia caught the projectile in mid-air. "Foolish mortal."

Blade was re-armed when Lamia reached the foot of the stairs. "It ain't like you're immortal. You just manage to live long until somebody puts an end to you. Fortunately, I know exactly how it's done. Lots of practice, don't you know." He sprang at Lamia, slashing with daggers in both hands.

Lamia managed to turn away Blade's attacks with her arms. Although the wood tore into her flesh, it did not penetrate her vulnerable heart. As she did so, she grabbed a hold of Blade's collar and flung him across the room. The vampire-slayer crashed into a dilapidated wooden table, crushing it under his momentum.

Blade brushed himself off and rose to his feet. "I don't break that easily, bloodsucker."

"No, you don't." Lamia shimmered and shifted into a ravenous wolf-form. "Though your friends did, as I recall." The wolf stalked towards Blade, saliva drooling from its fearsome maw. "It was years ago, but Lamia remembers. To one who has seen the turn of millennia, it was like yesterday." The lupine pounced forward but Blade rolled underneath the flying assault.

"What were their names?" Lamia taunted. "I don't think we were introduced before I crushed them." She turned and leapt again at Blade. The vampire-slayer had to offer his forearm to keep her sharp teeth from reaching his neck. His tough leather jacket kept her bite from drawing blood, but the extreme pressure she exerted threatened to snap his arm.

Blade drew back his free arm and then plunged a dagger into where he hoped her heart would be. Lamia shrieked as the brand sliced through her fur and flesh. She released Blade from her jaws and kicked herself free with her hind legs. She landed on her side and resumed her humanoid form.

"Damn you to the deepest hell, Blade!" Lamia raged.

Blade noted that while he had not scored a direct hit, he had seriously wounded the ancient vampire. "The way the blood's flowing," Blade countered. "You're gonna get there first."

Lamia staggered to her feet, one hand covering her wound. "Foolish fleshling, you know nothing of the Firstborn Undead. We were creating by the power of the Darkhold itself."

Rushing at Lamia with his right hand ready to strike, Blade instead feinted with that hand and instead sliced at her with his left. The dagger cut through her purple cloak, revealing the fetid flesh underneath. "The way I hear it," Blade exclaimed. "Only Grandaddy Fangs was made by the Book. The rest of you got turned by Varnae."

Lamia slapped Blade with the back of her hand. "The power still flows within us, not like the many petty vampires, their blood dulled by the centuries, whom you slay."

Blade sprang back to his feet. "Gonna have to do bettter than that, bloodsucker. I can take worse than what you're dishing out."

Her eyes widening, Lamia looked into Blade's eyes, harnessing her vampiric power of hypnotism. "The body is strong, but is the spirit weak?" She spoke in soft, lilting tones, completely unlike her typical voice. "Do you really want to slay me, Blade? Not when I can reunite you with your lover?"

"What?" Blade said, his feet frozen in place."

"What was her name?" Lamia continued. "Hope? Faith? No, it was another foolish name. Ah, yes. Glory. Sweet Glory. I turned her when you and your friend invaded my home."

"What about Glory?"

Lamia walked slowly towards Blade. She motioned with her hand, and Blade dropped the daggers that he held. "A vampire always knows her bloodchildren. A vampire can always find her bloodchildren. I can bring you to Glory. I can bring you across so that you can spend eternity together." She reached out with her withered hand and touched Blade's neck with a mock caress. "You would like that, wouldn't you, Blade?"

Blade stared at Lamia with captivated eyes, saying nothing. Then his hand darted out and grasped Lamia's wrist. "Age don't guarantee wisdom, Lamia. Else you would have known that I can't be turned. Plus, it's gonna take more brainpower than you got to hypnotize me. That's two strikes. Here's the third." He drove a dagger that had been hiding inside of his sleeve into Lamia's heart.

"Argghh!" Lamia screeched as she stumbled backwards. Her hands clutched at the dagger. "This isn't enough to kill an ancient," she gasped.

"There's more where that came from." Blade produced two more daggers and hurled them unerringly at Lamia's heart. The vampiress screamed as the missiles struck home. She sunk to her knees, her strength dissipating. "This won't stop me," she hissed.

"Oh, no?" Blade returned from the living room with one of the pieces from the shattered table. He was busy sharpening the point of a broken table leg with a teak dagger. He put the dagger away and grabbed the leg with both hands. "Let's see how this feels." With all his strength, he pierced Lamia's heart with his makeshift stake. It drove the daggers already embedded straight through the vampire's body.

Lamia's shrieks grew to an intolerable level. Her strength had been sapped by the daggers in heart, the stake had taken all that she had left. She collapsed on the ground. Ichor continued to seep out of the massive wound. Her mouth sputtered and her voice gave out, ending her screams. Her head rolled over, and she looked at Blade with her enraged eyes.

Blade reached back and took out a machete hidden in the back of his black leather jacket. He pointed it at Lamia. "Guess you're not going to go straight to dust." He drew the machete back. "Guess you're gonna need a hand getting to oblivion." Bringing the blade down, he severed the ancient Atlantean's head.

Blade bent over and used a piece of Lamia's cloak to clean the blood from the machete. Once it was clean, he sheathed the blade once again. He folded his arms and seemed pleased with himself. He knew there was one last thing to do. Kicking Lamia's head across the floor, he went in search of the gas main. While the gas to the house had been cut off years before, there still was a little gas left in the pipe. He let out the little that was there.

He trudged out of the house with another shard from the broken table in his hands. Taking a lighter out of his jacket, he lit the piece of wood on fire. He looked at the house one more time, and then hurled the wood through the open front door. Instantly the house erupted into flames.

Blade watched the flames rise. He bowed his head for a moment. "Chen, Hector, Carla. Rest in peace." He looked up and thought about Lamia's words. She had known that he was coming. Only Slow Boy knew that he was. He was being manipulated even worse than he thought by Slow Boy. Blade knew that Deacon Frost had to be behind it somehow. Once he got back to the club, he would get some answers.

NEXT ISSUE :

"Reflections of Times Past" - The final showdown between Deacon Frost and Blade! It's about time!

BITING REMARKS

One letter this month:

Just read the issue, Bob, and liked it as usual. One thing on the characterization side, though: Switchblade seemed unusually talkative about his origin. I know you had to show it, but it felt a little forced. Can't imagine another way of doing it, but it came to mind that it felt unnatural. That aside, you left me with a doubt: Is the reference to Demogorge to the same creature from WAY back WHEN, when Gaia created a creature to kill the minions of Set and Chton? I only have the last part of the Midnight Massacre, so I dunno. Suddenly, I dunno why, I felt the urge to say something like... Till Blade and Frost play poker together, Make Mine MDL ;) Francisco Araujo da Costa Thanks for writing in, Cisco. You're right. Switchblade did talk a little too much about himself. Fortunately, we won't have to hear him talk again. J While the original Demogorge was indeed Gaia's son Atum, the creature into which Blade's was transformed by the Darkhold page was also called by that title.

Bob Gansler
31-May-00