Blade Page #2

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The strobe lights quicken to a seizure-inducing intensity. Dennis

spins, tumbling into Raquel's arms. She shoves him forward -- Dennis

lands on the floor, falling at someone's boot-clad feet. He looks up.

A DARK FIGURE sits in the shadows, unnoticed until this moment. The

figure stands, moves into the light as time screeches to a halt --

A BLACK MAN,

towers above Dennis, wearing dark glasses and a leather longcoat -- a

sneer of cruel contempt etched upon a face tempered by a lifetime of

horror. His name is BLADE.

Blade whips open his long coat, shrugging it off, revealing an

arsenal of high-tech weapons strapped to his body:

6-point adjustable body armor, a modified CAR-15 assault rifle with

an ultra-violet entry light, two Casull .454 revolvers, a "Demon"

automatic cross-bow, a bandoleer of mahogany stakes, an Indian-style

katar punching dagger -- and last, but certainly not least, his

namesake -- a silver sword which is secured in a back-scabbard.

CLOSE ON BLADE:

A gaze as cold and pitiless as a midnight sun. The vampire club-goers

stare back. Nuclear silence. And then --

All hell breaks loose. With a SNARL, Raquel charges at Blade, moving

at superhuman speed, practically a blur --

Blade draws his Casulls, FIRES in multiple directions --

MACRO BULLET SHOT

as a round roars through the air towards Raquel. A silver-tipped dum-

dum bullet which explodes on contact.

WHAM! The round punches a fist-sized hole through Raquel's chest,

continuing on into the vamp behind her! Vampire blood fountains. Both

creatures tumble forward, their bodies liquefying into puddles of

black oil which go gurgling down the run-off drains.

Blade continues FIRING, then -CLICK!- magazines empty. Next. He

holsters the Casulls, swings up his assault rifle, calmly flicks on

the UV entry light mounted above --

MERCURY:

leaps twenty feet straight up into the air. We've never seen anything

move so fast. She CRASHES through a glass skylight, disappearing into

the night just as --

-- a shaft of blinding UV "sunlight" cuts across the vampires. They

rear back, skin smoking from the light's corrosive effects. Blade

opens FIRE, pumping round after round of wooden fragmentation bullets

into the crowd -- vampire genocide.

The strobe lights flicker as the mayhem mounts. Some of the vampires

try to flee, scurrying up the stairs, but the exit quickly becomes

clogged with liquefying bodies --

-- then Blade's CAR-15 jams. The remaining club-goers see their

opening, surge forward en masse --

Blade drops the rifle, reaches over his shoulder and -SCHINGGG!-

unsheathes his sword with a double-handed grip.

THE SWORD:

Four acid-etched feet of blood-soaked Damascus steel. An edge so

sharp it could cleave a shadow in two.

Blade moves like lightning, hacking his way into TWO CHARGING

VAMPIRES. Blade spins again, cuts ANOTHER VAMPIRE clean in half --

ON THE FAR END OF THE CLUB,

a LATEX-CLAD VAMP makes a break for it. Blade flings his sword,

sending it spinning end over end -- THUNK! The sword punches into the

vampire's heart. The hellish creature convulses, dies.

Beat. Blade retrieves his sword, then senses --

SOMETHING BIG:

rising up behind him. In a flash, Blade swings his sword downward,

cutting off the vampire's right hand at the elbow. The severed limb

falls to the floor --

-- but it doesn't slow the hulking creature down. It SLAMS into

Blade. Blade flies backwards thirty feet, tumbling over tables,

slamming into the rear wall so hard that plaster rains down from the

ceiling.

Blade suddenly finds himself wrestling with a feral-faced six-foot-

something nightmare named QUINN. The vampire rears back its head,

jaws stretching wide. Every inch of his face is covered with ritual

scarification patterns and Maori-like tribal tattoos.

Blade forces an elbow against Quinn's throat, trying to keep him at

bay. With his other hand he reaches to his bandoleer, pulls out a

stake -- CRUNCH! Blade shoves the stake through the vampire's larynx.

Quinn gurgles, clutches at his throat.

Blade rolls out from under, unholsters the cross-bow secured to his

leg. With a flick of a switch the arms of the bow -SNAP!- open,

drawing the bow-string taut. Blade FIRES --

The bolt hits Quinn in the shoulder, throwing him backwards and

nailing him to the wall. As Quinn reaches over with his other hand to

pull out the stake --

Blade FIRES AGAIN. A second bolt slams into Quinn's other arm,

effectively pinning him like a butterfly to a board.

UP ABOVE,

mounted in one of the corners, is a security camera. Blade fires a

cross-bow bolt straight into the lens.

Blade strides over, placing his sword against Quinn's chest.

BLADE:

Where is Deacon Frost?

Quinn glares, trying to speak, gagging on the stake still lodged in

his trachea --

BLADE:

Got something in your throat.

Blade yanks the stake free. The vampire laughs, air whistling through

his ruined larynx.

QUINN:

F*** you, Day-walker, I ain't saying

sh*t --

BLADE:

Frost.

Quinn responds with a slew of rapid-fire vampire invectives. Blade

sees he's getting nowhere fast, calmly sheathes his sword. He unclips

a white phosphorous grenade from his combat harness --

QUINN:

You won't stop him, Blade. The Tide's

rising, the Sleeper's gonna --

Blade shoves the grenade in Quinn's mouth, pulls the pin. WHOOSH!

Quinn goes up like a roman candle. Blade turns, surveying his work,

ignoring the howling pyre behind him:

All evidence of the vampires is gone -- with the exception of a few

oily-black puddles. Clothes, jewelry -- it's all been burned away by

the acidic process of the creatures' accelerated decomposition.

DENNIS sits huddled in a corner, having pissed his pants. As Blade

approaches, he cringes back --

DENNIS:

Please don't --

Blade simply grabs Dennis by the jaw, tilting his head upward,

rotating it from side to side -- looking for bite marks. There aren't

any.

Blade moves on, leaving Dennis alone amidst the carnage. As Blade

starts up the stairs, he pauses in mid-step --

A COCKROACH:

scurries out from underfoot.

Blade adjusts his footfall, sparing the roach. He continues on up the

stairs, disappearing in the smoky haze.

CUT TO:

INT. CITY HOSPITAL, AUTOPSY ROOM - NIGHT

CAMERA FOLLOWS a bagged corpse as it's rolled into the autopsy room

by an ASSISTANT.

ASSISTANT:

Brought you a baked potato, nice

and crispy. Still warm, too.

CURTIS WEBB, the forensic pathologist (30s, white bread, a little on

the smarmy side) steps forward, unzips the bag --

It's Quinn, what's left of him, anyway. Burnt to a charcoal

briquette, limbs twisted horribly, oozing fluids.

Curtis turns his head, grimacing, wafting the air.

CURTIS:

Jesus, that's rank --

Curtis turns back, makes note of the blackened stump where Quinn's

arm used to be, the ruined throat --

CURTIS:

What's his story?

ASSISTANT:

Paramedics said he was still screaming

when they found him. Looks like some

joker had stapled him to a wall.

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