Beast Mode Warrior

  BEAST MODE WARRIOR

  by

  H.T. Night

  Immortal Warriors #23

  Acclaim for H.T. Night:

  “Bad Blood is fast, hilarious and sexy...the coolest vampire since Kiefer Sutherland. The Mount Shasta setting is dreamy. The cult is deliciously creepy. And Spider is as sexy as they come. I was pressing the ereader’s ‘forward’ button so fast that I broke it. Let’s hope we hear more from Spider.”

  —H.P. Mallory, author of Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble and To Kill A Warlock

  “Vampire Love Story is a hip and timely vampire novel filled with real characters and some of the coolest vampires since The Lost Boys! You’re going to love Night’s completely original take on the supernatural.”

  —J.R. Rain, author of Moon Dance and The Body Departed

  “H.T. Night is a riveting storyteller, capturing the essence of the vampire genre.”

  —April M. Reign, author of The Turning and Dividing Destiny

  “Vampire Love Story is a passionate story that is told from a refreshing perspective. This book was a blast. Night invents a brand new world for the Vampire genre. Great Job!”

  —Summer Lee, author of Kindred Spirits and The Sword of Peter

  “Night is a true storyteller. Winning Sarah’s Heart is thoughtful and inspirational! I enjoyed the ride.”

  —Elaine Babich, author of You Never Called Me Princess and Relatively Normal

  Beast Mode Warrior

  Published by H.T. Night

  Copyright © 2020 by H.T. Night

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Dedication

  I dedicate this book to my great friend, Shawn. Proud of him.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Other Books by H.T. Night

  About the Author

  Beast Mode Warrior

  Prologue

  “Circle up!” I yelled to my group. The six of us stood back-to-back, looking out where we could see all comers. We began moving our circle to the middle of Flatlands. We settled on a spot and waited. And we waited. We stood there motionless, looking out as the Mani Vampires swarmed around us like bees.

  We were outnumbered two hundred to six.

  My heart sank.

  This wasn't the plan. We hurried in coming here and I had little time to plan when we arrived other than letting my reputation lead the way.

  Looking out at the Mani vampires, they looked either scared stiff or pumped up and ready to fight. I decided to fly up into the sky in my human form facing down on the two hundred, or so, who had congregated around us.

  “I know why some of you here. I also know that you want to live. I'm going to make it very simple. If you stand and fight us today, the likelihood is that you will perish on this night. Leave now and go to your families. You don't want to die tonight.”

  I waited and soon vampires began flying off by the dozens. About two-thirds of the two hundred transitioned and flew like bullets out of the Flatlands and into the night sky.

  That left about seventy, and that's a fight I knew I can handle. At least, I was hoping.

  “Seems to me a lot of people here were smarter than they looked,” I said to Rubidoux. “The rest of you, I'm going to give you one more chance.”

  The remaining Mani vampires all looked at each other and twenty more decided to transition and get the hell out of Dodge.

  Now, we were looking at fifty to six.

  “I can keep asking,” I said laughing. “I'm giving the rest of you two choices. Leave now, or die at our hands.”

  A couple more took off into the night sky.

  “So, the rest of you plan on standing in our way. I will say this once. We plan on leaving and returning to wherever we came from. If any of you prevent that from happening you will perish.”

  “The years have turned you into one cocky bastard, Josiah.” Rubidoux yelled out.

  “I'm just trying to prevent all of you from making a huge mistake.”

  “I like huge mistakes,” Rubidoux said.

  Then without warning, the first shot was fired, figuratively, and it came in the form of two Mani who transitioned into ravens and charged directly at Jason. I guess they figured he was the weakest and they wanted some type of bounty today. That was not a wise choice. Before they could reach Jason, Tommy intervened and crushed both with his massive jaws in his werewolf form.

  “That was stupid,” I yelled out. “Anyone else want to try a kamikaze mission?”

  “We still have the numbers and every Mani left has ten kills a piece.”

  I laughed. “Ten kills? What is this, a video game? I get ten kills on a bad Tuesday.”

  “The Josiah of yesteryear could have. We all know you have been living as a monk for the last two years.”

  “You need better information. I was living as a monk, and it was only for a year. Six months ago I returned and tonight you will feel my wrath.”

  Transitioning into the great white eagle, I charged the group of Mani men and women that had stayed and split them down the middle like the Red Sea. They scattered like pigeons.

  I returned to the group, transitioned back into my human form and we all went back into our back-to-back position in a circle. Looking out, Mani came at us in a flurry of rage.

  They tried to isolate us. But we were committed to staying by each other's side. Each of us put a silver dagger in our hands and fought them off as well as we could.

  A horrible cry came from the sky, and I realized quickly I was very wrong. No, it wasn't a thousand, but at least one hundred more Mani ravens rained down on the Flatlands.

  This wasn't good. We might have to tuck tail and run.

  For the next hour, the six of us literally fought for our lives. They came at us relentlessly. I noticed very few people were attacking me directly. They wanted an easier kill, and the money was still pretty good on some other members of my group.

  I kept jumping in and protecting everyone as they fought off the Mani warriors.

  Then I heard something I haven't heard in years. It was Tommy's voice in my head saying, “Josiah! Help!”

  Tommy had the second highest bounty after me, and I turned to look at him and noticed he had an army coming after him. I flew up in my human form, and swooped down and landed right next to Tommy and helped him fend off attackers.

  “We need to protect Joshua and Sion as much as we can,” I said out loud to Tommy. “I believe in Hunter. Keep a third eye on both of them.”

  “You got it!” Tommy yelled out.

  Then Tommy and I went to work. I stood beside Jason and Tommy stood beside Sion. We fended off, deflected, and killed everyone who came at us. The dead bodies and bloody mess soon evaporated with each death. As if the person had never even existed.

  It was chaos, but the kind of chaos I'm used to. Braveheart had nothing on us. The speed each of us reached while moving was a sight to behold. I trained these folks beautifully.

  I looked over and noticed Jason had somehow been pushed out of our organized
position. I could see a group of Mani trying to isolate him and take him out. I flew as hard as I could and broke up the group with my arms swinging.

  Then out of nowhere, I was tackled out of the sky. I was confused as to what was happening. Why had someone tackled me and not killed me?

  I looked up and saw a dark haired vampire with his hair slicked back like a 1950's greaser and he nodded at me. I looked over to my left and realized that twenty silver daggers had been thrown at me. They were stuck in the ground and still vibrating where I had been standing just before the vampire had shoved me out of the way. Who was this guy? Why did he save me?

  Was he one of them?

  I started to notice Mani running off more and more as we killed them off. Before we knew it, all of the Mani who had decided to stay to fight had either been killed or flew off into the night. Choosing life over certain death.

  We all looked at each other. Completely shocked how fast everything had gone down. The mystery man stayed behind with us. He had apparently been fighting with us the whole time.

  “Friend?” I said to the Mani man. “Who are you?”

  “I am someone who knows what it's like to lose everything.” He held his hand out to me, “My name is Todd and I...”

  Before Todd could finish his sentence. I grabbed his head in a way he knew I wasn't hurting him but was reading his mind. I focused and only saw good in this man. I saw that he defended the weak and alone. He had been a loner for a very long time.

  “Why did you help us?” I asked Todd, releasing his head.

  “You had it covered for the most part. I took out who I could. I was merely chasing them off. Not too many of those folks were prepared to die tonight.”

  “So, Todd,” I said, “If you have no place to go. We could use another person. Especially a pure soul like yourself. There's not too many of you guys left. You don't even want to know all the sick stuff I have to sift through in Tommy's head to find some goodness.”

  “Very funny, Josiah. But he is right new guy.”

  “I take it you're Tommy.”

  “The one and only.” Tommy held out his arms and grinned.

  I looked around and smirked to see how, within an hour, we had taken over the Flatlands. We were low in numbers, but we were a force to be reckoned with.

  I turned around and faced my friends. “We made a statement tonight. People will never come at us kamikaze again. They will need a plan.”

  “We cleared this place out pretty fast,” Tommy laughed.

  I looked at Jason. “Are you okay?”

  “I'm okay, dad.” Jason seemed relieved the whole ordeal was over.

  “How about you, Sion?”

  “I did alright,” he answered.

  “The important thing is that we are all alive. Unfortunately, we are not any closer to finding Joshua. I say we retreat to home base and come up with another plan. We have a new brother in arms. His name is Todd and he saved my life. He checks out, everybody. I scanned his mind. Why he wants to join this band of misfits, well, you can ask him that yourself.”

  With that, the seven of us flew off into the night. Where Joshua ran to, I didn't know. He had already put us all in jeopardy tonight trying to find him. I lost my wife, I refused to lose my son. He needed to be found and protected.

  There was a new war being fought. Our goal, survival. I'm not sure what the future holds. All I know is, we are stronger as eight than we were as seven. We just need to find Joshua to make eight. I didn't lose my wife to only let my son run off and get himself killed.

  Not on my watch.

  Never on my watch.

  Chapter One

  Loss of a loved one is a gut-wrenching feeling. The pain never leaves you and you can only camouflage your true feelings by focusing on the goals of the present. My number one goal for the present was finding my son. But, the thought of Lena was always with me. It's weird. The closer I get to my own inner peace the more I can feel her with me.

  These days, the seven of us have been training and keeping things loose. We understand at any moment we could be ambushed by a sea of bounty hunters if our home base were discovered. Sion was working his magic, keeping us off the radar. Technology won't be used against us as long as we have Sion on our side.

  Todd's an interesting cat. He claims to have wild stories about when he was a greaser a long, long time ago. No one has nailed him down for a story yet. But, we get pretty bored having to stay cooped up in this place. Going out into the world has to be discreet but we can manage. The hardest thing is that we have to stay off of the internet. Sure, Sion can create a never ending web making it impossible to find us, but is it worth all of that so we can update our Facebook status?

  Our little posse was growing slowly, but surely. We had no other plan than survival and making sure each of us was safe. We were seven strong at the moment. I believed in each person we had. Todd and Hunter still needed to prove their worth, but as of now, both have done a great job.

  Tommy and Yari seemed to be doing a lot of talking lately. They tend to stay up late talking and seem to always be next to each other. They both know what a horrible idea it would be for them to get together again. They were a thing for a couple of months around twenty years ago. Well, I hope they learned their lesson the first time around.

  We were all still sleeping in the same room at the exact same time so we could be on high alert to protect one another. We started taking shifts each night randomly so we could always have someone awake and keeping an eye on our sanctuary.

  With seven of us, we ended needing to take watch once every seven days which was tolerable.

  Nothing ever happened on any watch mainly because if we were to be attacked it would have to be humans or Carnis in human forms. It's not the Mani way to ambush during the day being that the second they are forced to be in their human form they disintegrate within five minutes.

  It had been six weeks since our battle out at the Flatlands while looking for Joshua. Still, there was no sign of him being anywhere and I was starting to lose hope.

  But today, during my watch, something odd occurred. A longish raven zoomed into our air space. Which is basically our eye-space through binoculars. There has only been one bird over the years that has had that shape. I held my breath as he circled in front of my door quite peacefully as if to say let me in before I burn to death. I quickly ran to the door and swung it open and the bird flew inside and circled the living room waking everyone up. The raven sat himself in the corner of the room.

  And before he transitioned, I knew who he was.

  It was Atticai.

  Chapter Two

  I welcomed Atticai into the house and escorted him into the living room. Looks of shock filled the faces of my family and I had everyone go upstairs. I wanted to be alone with Atticai. Once everyone was upstairs, I looked Atticai deep him deep in his eyes as if to say, 'Are you here to do something you're going to regret'.

  Atticai read my mind, which scared me, as not too many can do it. “I'm not here for your bounty. Because of my unwillingness to join the new Mani army. I, too, have a bounty on my head.”

  I smirked. “How much?” I asked.

  “One hundred thousand.”

  “That's respectable considering you haven't betrayed anyone.”

  Atticai smiled at my last statement.

  I needed some answers “Why are you here, good friend?”

  Atticai tilted his head thoughtfully and said, “Josiah, we need to talk. But first, I'm sorry about Lena. I know you cared for her.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered. If anyone understood the pain I was going through, it was Atticai.

  Atticai looked back at me and said, “Lena passing is a tragedy, but that is not why I'm here.”

  I nodded and motioned for Atticai to join me on the couch furthest against the wall. Even sitting down, he was a head taller than me. The guy was a beast.

  “Josiah,” Atticai started. “I have been out of the game for a long time. I
receive invitations to a lot of weird gatherings. But last week, I was invited to something that I had to see for myself. Let's say my curiosity got the best of me.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “A fight club,” Atticai responded.

  “A fight club?” I repeated.

  “Well, less of a club and more like they have death matches.”

  “Death matches. Wow, that's intense,” I said.

  “Yes, it was its grand opening,”

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “This is the part that intrigued me the most. It is at area 51 in New Mexico.”

  “Wait, what? What does that mean?”

  “My friend Maxwell Howard started it once all the alien folks finally left the area for good.”

  “Maxwell Howard?” I asked. “The human?”

  “Yep?”

  “How old is he now?”

  “He is in his sixties, but he looks good.”

  “I bet. That is what being a billionaire does for people. I thought he was pouring his money in that new space program of his. He wants to start space travel to the moon and make it a normal thing.”

  “Well, obviously he has a little extra money to start a fight club.”

  “More like he is using the funds from the fight club to help fund his dreams of space.”

  “Why do you keep calling it a fight club if it isn't?”

  “Howard refers to all the matches as a fight Club. A majority of his business are humans interested in what they don't know. I think he's afraid of the negative PR if he calls them death matches. But that is what they are.” Atticai waved his hand, “Semantics.”

  I nodded. I knew there was more to this story than Atticai wanting to tell me about some bizarre fight club in New Mexico.

  Atticai continued, “I sat in his luxury box. He built a state-of-the-art arena for these guys. I watched match after match. It was gruesome. Some died and some were left crippled. But every fighter knew the cost. He pays 50 thousand to the winners and nothing to the losers. Well, most of the losers couldn't collect even if there were a prize.”