Page 10

I TAKE A long time—and somehow no time at all—to build up enough courage to poke my head out of the room. It’s quiet, as it should be in an abandoned hospital, but the quiet makes me uneasy. The dead thralls are still where we left them, but no sign of the second rotting vampire, or Asha. She hasn’t come back yet, neither to look for me nor to start clean-up of what could be an epic clusterfuck of homicide investigations if law enforcement stumbles over the carnage. Thralls look like humans when you cut them up, or so I have heard. She will be back, eventually—I hope—, but not soon enough to drive off that rotting bastard if he decides to circle back and attack me. Or the beast from the box, for that matter.

I listen in the quiet hallways. Nothing but the faint dripping of leaking pipes and the howl of rain-heavy wind through broken windows. Sneaking out of the tiny, blood-smeared chamber, I check each of the thralls for signs of life and strain my mind. What did the Hunter’s handbook say about situations where I need to disappear a few bodies?

I can’t remember, but I do remember the end-all solution for situations where I’m out of options: My phone. I dial my clan’s dispatch number from memory and wait, twitchy and restless and trying my hardest to ignore the stench of blood, feces, and fungi. As soon as dispatch picks up, I chicken out though. Or is it manning up? Feels wrong, especially since I have seen Asha in action, so I go with puckering up.

Instead of blurting out something like ‘mom, please come pick me up’ I take a deep breath and ask the operator to connect me to the local vampire leader. This job may have gone tits-up, but I’m not ready to admit defeat yet.

Loreley lets me wait in line because of course she picks the worst possible moment for power plays. Halfway through the first round of ‘Girl from Ipanema’ I’m having a hard time not simply hanging up and poking vampire-bitey holes into the thralls’ necks as revenge. At least her petulant act gives me time to bandage the deep scrape on my arm; I have to rip off my sleeves to do it, but they are ruined anyway. The whole shirt is trash at best.

When she finally accepts the call, I bite my lip hard to keep myself from yelling at her and instead do my best Asha-impression. “So good of you to pick up. Now get a clean-up crew to the old hospital in Regent Street so I can go finish my hunt,” I growl into the phone. I hope she doesn’t hear my knees knock against each other.

Loreley makes an amused sound, somewhere between a sigh and a snicker. “So brash for someone your age. Do tell what exactly my clan is supposed to clean up in that ruin; did you make a mess of things already?”

Now I understand why Asha didn’t take Loreley’s shit. And where her iron self-control comes from. If I had to stare into smug faces like Loreley’s after a fight like we had, I couldn’t keep it together for all the money in the world. I don’t know how I manage to stay civil, but I do. “We had to kill a few thralls. Could become dicey if the police turn up to collect them and find vampire entrails splattered all over the floor.”

A hiss. “You found your target already?”

“I’d call it half of our target, but yes. Found and killed, along with a bunch of thralls. But one vampire escaped, and I also have a few other things I need to follow up on. So I’d really ap—” Fuck. I stop myself before I can finish the stupidest thing I could say. No accepting favors means definitely not hinting at them either. The mere idea of owing someone like Loreley has me break out in hives. I clear my throat. “I’d recommend you hurry up with that clean-up crew because I won’t stand here and keep watch forever.” There, now I’m doing her a favor, like it should be.

Loreley’s smile is thick in her voice. “Well then, we will simply call it part of the fine owed to the hunters. A crew will be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t call this number again.” And then she hangs up, leaving me listening to the rushing sound of static. A few seconds later my cell chimes right into my ear as I receive a text.

I lower my phone and stare at it for a moment, trying to make sense of the contact she sent me. ‘Envoy’, it reads, complete with a picture of—who else?—Stanley, the perky blond vampire. I chortle, I just can’t help myself. Outwitted by the vampire queen, how unsurprising.

At least I didn’t make things worse. I turn to examine the room again, checking for any other traces of supernatural activity, relieved when I find nothing except the stinking corpse of the vampire lady. I can’t do anything about the silver coffin, but besides being freaky, it doesn’t allow any connections to anything supernatural going on. It won’t cause any additional trouble. Police will think it’s an art robbery go wrong or something, even if they arrive before the cleaning crew. Good.

Now that all is done, I freeze in place. Either the temperature has dropped, or I’m coming down from a heap of adrenaline, but whichever is responsible for the sudden cold, I’m shaking. I should get out of here, but I’m afraid to move. Not because of what I just saw, or because that other vampire could swoop in and eat me, no. I’m afraid because I suddenly notice that my Hunter’s mark is prickling and has just begun its descent into itching.

The magic branding at the center of my neck, a ring pierced by a sword meant to symbolize the sword of Damocles, is the one thing that keeps all hunters in line. The design is ingenious and brutal all at once: Instead of weaving some complicated set of rules into the magic, hunters went the easier road of connecting it to our conscience. If you feel guilty in a specific way, the mark will pick up on it. Right now, the tendrils of discomfort radiating out from the scarred tissue are the first warning that I really, truly fucked up, that I am in danger of breaking the Hunter rules. A nicely wrapped hint that my subconscious is of the opinion that I feel like I have endangered the Hunter code and that I darned well better go fix my mistakes before it’s too late.

And since I can’t think of anything I did wrong besides letting that vampire-in-a-box hoof it and not trying to stop him, I know just what to do. Not that I want to, because that man scares my pants off, but I don’t have a choice. I will have to figure out a way of going after the rotting vampire and find my box man at the same time, before either of them can do more damage. If I don’t go after both of them, I will break my vows. And then my vows will break me, quite literally. Right through the neck, like a magic butcher knife. As I said; Hunters are animals, especially towards each other.

The idea of having to go after a creature so powerful still has me shaking in my boots, no amount of prickling, itching or burning will ever change that. Mighty Hunter, I am not. It can’t be helped, though.

Just to make sure I don’t get caught unawares again, I check my gun. Still nine reassuring bullets left. Still nothing but quiet and the howl of wind in the ruins. I sneak back the way I came, grimacing at the squishing sounds my boots make. I’ll have to clean them before I drag pus-speckled vampire blood everywhere, but I don’t want to stop until I’m out of this hell-hole. Thralls, a master vampire, a walking heap of rot, a vampire-in-a-box, a mild concussion, ruined boots,… Definitely not what I expected for my first job. And to think I could be in a library right now, sighing as I sort books into shelves. Hindsight twenty-twenty, as always.

Cold droplets of rain greet me once I’m outside. A summer storm in all its glory is growing above the city, its clouds bunching, and churning, belching lightning bolts into the distant sound of thunder as they light up the smog in the sky. It’s much later than I thought. Night is already licking at the horizon, and the clouds do their part too, blocking out the setting sun and dousing the world in gloom.

The garden looks untouched, as wild and overgrown as when I came in. The scenery feels wrong somehow. I don’t know why I expected things to look different, I was only gone for maybe thirty minutes, an hour at the most. My brain is still confused, though. I killed multiple people and I feel different, so why is the world still the same?

A rustle further into the thicket makes me tense and perk up. I grab the gun tighter and snake my way through the bushes and the grass, stepping gingerly between twigs and dried leaves, ducking under branches. I’m almost soundless. I wasn’t before. It’s like my shoes suddenly fit.

I’m so focused on my steps, I only notice my savior when I’m already in sight. He’s on the other side of the metal fence, a muscular, sinister creature crouching on the concrete sidewalk in the rainy twilight. Brownish water drips off his limbs, the rain leaving rivulets of almost clean skin behind. His wide shoulders are hunched, muscular back bowed as he cowers down lower, trying to blend in with camouflage that isn’t there. His skin sizzles a little where the last rays of sunshine break through the clouds, but he pays no mind to it.

I didn’t know vampires could do that and not burst into flames. Is he that powerful, or did I miss something? He’s focused on me, glowering, lip slightly curled as he growls soundlessly. His fangs are shockingly white in his grime-smeared face.

I haven’t thought this through. He didn’t kill me inside the hospital, true, but what made me think he wouldn’t fix that mistake now? I talk before my throat closes up. “Okay, we’re both gonna be cool about this, you and me. I’m not gonna shoot you, and you’re not gonna eat me, right? I have no reason to hurt you—,” yet, my mind adds glumly, “—but you have to get off the street before somebody sees you like this. Suck in your fangs and what have you, and maybe come back inside? Once we’ve got you nice and hidden, we’ll call your vampire friends, and they will come pick you up, easy peasy.”

My tiny inside-the-head-voice screams at me not to use baby talk with an elder vampire, no matter how wild, but I can’t get myself to stop. A tiger couldn’t scare me more than he does at the moment, and I would talk to a tiger the same way. Hell, I could kill a tiger with one bullet, tigers are way less scary than this guy. But, just like a tiger, there is no recognition in his face. He stares at me warily, cocks his head a little and blinks, but I get the strong feeling that he doesn’t understand a word.

I switch to Spanish and repeat myself, using slightly more civilized phrasing, but still nothing. German gets me no closer to my goal, either. And I’m getting nervous, my already rain-damp shirt going sweaty and clammy as my mind races. How do I get him off the street and don’t get eaten in the process?

The streets are silent, but they won’t be much longer, not after sundown. Babylon City is no better than an apocalyptic wasteland and riddled with magical veils I shouldn’t even think about entering. The majority of people on the streets at night are criminals, junkies, or worse. Crime is a business of the night, which is when the city comes to life. It won’t be much longer until the first whoremongers stroll out and start their day. If anyone sees him, they will get curious. They will think he’s easy pickings. I can’t let that happen.

“Come on, get over here,” I beg and take one hand off the gun to reach for him. We are too far away from each other to actually touch him, but maybe the gesture will do what the words didn’t. Inside my mind I’m begging him to be complacent, to come back, to trust me.

Unfortunately, real life doesn’t work like that. With a sharp, teeth-baring snarl, he takes off. Whimpering a curse, I holster my gun and run after him, along the fence, through the gate, down the street, driven forward by the first tendrils of burning on my neck.

I’m a dead man.