Page 11
I FEARED IT would be impossible to track the vampire once he got loose in the city. It confuses me I don’t lose sight of him. Maybe someone up there has decided to have mercy on me.
I found him an intersection away from the hospital ruins, glancing up at the bulb of a streetlight, his face bright with curiosity. He canted his head, then climbed the lantern like a monkey and touched the hot glass cover, frowning in wonder. We stayed there for a little while; me hanging back and pressing up to a corner, him playing with the light bulb like it was the most exciting thing he’d ever seen.
Since then, he has been ambling down the street, checking out the abandoned buildings to his left and right, stopping every so often to turn in a circle and get his bearings. And I, obedient Hunter that I am, follow him through his antics and try to come up with a plan that doesn’t involve a gunfight.
The streets remain deserted, the trademark district darkness broken only by a few streetlights and the flashes of distant lightning. The sun has finally set, but the smog catches the city lights like a lampshade, throwing some of it back down on us and the rain-wet streets. Him up front, a sleek, muscular shadow almost a block away from me, and me back here, blood-smeared, sleeveless, drenched to the bone and trying to ignore the beginning headache strobing out from the throbbing spot at the back of my head.
Tracking him is easy, but actually following isn’t, and not just because my head thunders in sync with my heartbeat, thanks to the concussion. I don’t have a dart gun, I don’t have enough silver bullets for someone like him, I don’t speak his language. At least he doesn’t seem interested in eating me, or anybody else for that matter. Were it not for his obvious fangs, the black eyes, the dirty, scarred-up skin, and the erratic behavior, I wouldn’t have to worry about him breaching the Contract. But how do I make him understand he needs to change back to human? Can he even do that? Maybe he’s a kind of vampire who can’t, but what then?
There are moments when he staggers, stops, or stumbles, always grabbing his neck, always clenching his teeth, but I can’t make heads or tails of it. It looks like he is in pain, but I’ve seen him up close. He isn’t hurt. I think. For all I know, he could be riddled with wounds under that crust of dirt, but I don’t think so. The steady drizzle makes it hard to see, but there is some kind of smoke or haze coming from his neck area. I can’t figure out why or where it comes from. The only thing I saw on his neck was that amulet, and it isn’t silver. I would have noticed.
The longer we walk, the better lighted the area becomes, breaking the gloom with intermittent spots of yellowish haze. Houses show the first signs of habitation, even if it is of the vagrant sort. Still, except for a blackout-drunk bum sleeping on the sidewalk, I’ve yet to get unlucky and run into someone. Old apartment buildings encroach on the sidewalks, their entryways filled with garbage bags and old papers. A certain stink permeates the air, a mixture of trash can bottom and public urinal cake that makes my eyes water.
Up front, a dark patch heralds the existence of a small park. The vampire stops at the intersection in front of the unkempt little park, looking left and right like a well-behaved pedestrian. I stop too, ducking into an entryway. He definitely knows I’m following him, but I’m no threat, and I’m giving him space, so he’s ignoring me for now. His clothes indeed are in tatters, too dirty and thread-bare to look anything but brown. There’s just enough left of them to cover his body, but he’s constantly losing bits and pieces of it, the rags disintegrating with each movement of his body. How long has he been in that box, and why? Who hates him enough to torture him like that?
The vampire rolls his shoulders, ducks, and skitters across the street to the edge of the park. He hovers there for a moment, turning his head this way and that as he listens. Then he looks back, throws me a glance, and hops into the bushes. The moment he moves past that hedge line, he disappears as if swallowed by the greenery. Vanished, leaving behind a deceptively empty park.
I know what this is. A veil. No, not a veil, the veil. There is just one magical veil in this part of Babylon city, and it’s hiding the district I desperately don’t want to enter. The Dark City Moon Market. It stretches from the Dark City to the Border District like a hungry kraken, cutting through a third of the city like a sword. And my vampire has just stepped right into it.
Cursing, I prowl closer, stopping right across the street from the spot where he vanished. This is bad. Veils are bad. Okay, not all of them are; some are reasonably pleasant from what I’ve heard. But veils like the Moon Market, veils that stretch over vast parts of a city district and swallow blocks after blocks of buildings and streets, are a Hunter’s nightmare. Out here we are the watchdogs, enforcers of the Contract, a cenotaph of what happens when a supernatural misbehaves. We can hunt, shoot, kill, and fine however we please, and all we need to justify our actions is a written notification of a breach of Contract. Out here, we are the predators.
In there, where no human could ever see what kind of supernatural creatures hide beneath them, the Contract doesn’t exist. Our rules don’t apply once we cross the threshold. There are creatures in this world who could never ever pass for human, can’t ever set a foot into modern society, and they all have found a home in the veils. You can’t breach the Contract if there aren’t any mortals around to see it, and no mere human will ever cross a veil and survive. Hunters have learned to handle repelling spells and curses, just in case, but we know better than to go in. Veils are filled with the creatures we hunt and kill. Veils are their turf, not ours. In there, we are the prey.
My nails leave small half-moon grooves in my palms as I stand there and struggle against my overblown sense of duty. The vampire went into the Moon Market, where he can’t possibly do anything to breach the Contract. He’s safe—okay, safe-ish, there are always bigger fish—there; I’m not. I can turn away, walk home, and not waste another thought on my savior. Also, it would be ludicrous to follow him inside, and I have absolutely no reason to do it. So why does my Hunter’s Mark still burn then? And why do I have this tight knot in my chest?
Somewhere to the left, a motor revs. The sound of hard braking is next, preluding a sudden, loaded silence. I duck into a garbage-filled entryway on instinct, grabbing my gun and flicking the safety off before my brain catches up to things. And then I turn the safety back on, because as jittery as I feel, I shouldn’t wave a loaded gun around. Also, with how my arm is hurting, deadly instruments are not a good idea.
The sound of car doors slamming echoes up the street and I freeze and listen. A torchlight wavers along the buildings and over the street, announcing four dark figures. They walk silently, their eyes searching and intent as they close in on the veil threshold. One of them stops to scent the air and I hold my breath. Vampire senses are very acute, bordering on crazy sharp, if the vampire in question is old enough. Scent, sight, hearing, it all makes them perfect predators. They are using a torchlight, though, so maybe they are closer to human and unable to detect me. Just in case, I push myself deeper into the little nook I found.
I can’t do jack shit about my racing heart, but there have to be other humans around me. For all they know I could be a hobo sleeping off my booze. I breathe a sigh of relief when they keep moving and disappear into the veil. And then the knot in my chest tightens around a growing sense of doom. I could lie and tell myself that they are here out of sheer coincidence, that they aren’t following my vampire, but…
I breathe a quiet “fuck, fuck, fuck,” and jog after them. Guess I’ll have to go with the completely ludicrous choice.
THE VEIL’S MAGIC scrapes along my body until I feel like I’m losing skin. I have to struggle to make it through, but my fighting against the magic leaves me nauseated and dizzy. I almost face-plant into the unkempt grass when I pop out on the other side. Safe to say no mortal would ever expose themselves to this unpleasantness. Not that they would even get this far; the veils’ magic works as a repellent that is almost undetectable. It makes people not want to go there in the first place, and they never even know they were influenced by magic. Nifty trick.
The scenery on the other side of the veil looks altogether the same, and yet different. The air is remarkably clean, as if the city stink has been filtered out on my way through, and the city noise is dampened and toned down. I expected fairies and dancing leprechauns or something, but the park is as quiet as it looks, the bushes as wild, the sky as dark. And nothing tries to murder me, which is a relief.
My gun has survived the trip unscathed, but I stay crouched and in place until I have checked and holstered it. Still nine bullets left, no surprise there. That those nine bullets could make a difference is laughable, considering where I am. Even a tank couldn’t guarantee my safety here. I should turn back right now, leave and forget I’ve ever been here, but…
I look left just in time to see a flash of movement as the familiar group of guys spreads out and veers off into the greenery. They don’t spare me a second glance, rustling through the bushes at breathtaking speeds as they run after something, or towards someone. Definitely vampires, or something similarly powerful. I wish I could make myself believe that they are after someone else, but I know the truth: They are after my savior. Hunting him.
The tight knot in my chest quivers as the itching in my neck stops and the Hunter’s Mark goes back to being silent and unobtrusive. What the hell?
I could stop now, wait for them to collect him, and check this job off my list. His people are here; they will take care of any problems he could cause for the supe community. But I don’t. The visual of the locked silver box in an abandoned building that nobody would ever look twice at won’t leave my mind. What if I hadn’t stumbled upon him? What if Asha and I hadn’t shown up? How long would the two vampires have held him captive in there, letting him starve until he was nothing but skin and bones?
Fear tightens my stomach. Vampires did this to him. How do I know those four guys weren’t involved? What if they catch him just to lock him up again? That would be a fate worse than death. I wouldn’t want that to happen to my worst enemy. On the off-chance that they are planning to do that, I should be there. I can’t leave him. Not until I’m sure he’s safe.
Holstering my gun, I take off after them.
THE PARK IS just as wild as it looked from the outside. The vampires have left no trace, but I keep pushing through the dripping foliage, anyway. The scent of trampled weeds, rotting leaves, and wet cigarette butts greets me when I leave the remains of a path and break through the tree line—and almost run head-first into an ivy-covered brick wall. It stretches along the perimeter of the small park, too high for me to climb. It’s not a building, more like a divider wall, pock-marked with traces of past and present ivy growth. Going by the broken stems and vines, that ivy hasn’t been ripped off the wall long; the naked bricks are still dry, as if someone or something—the vampires?—tore them off just now.
On the other side, I hear the sounds of a fight.
It has to be them. A muted mix of grunts, slaps of fists against meat, —and is that a cattle prod I hear?—faintly echoes over. The feeling of urgency increases and I run along the wall, looking for a door of some kind. There is none. Vampires don’t need doors, not when they can easily climb obstacles or jump over.
An elm tree close to the wall catches my eye, big and old enough that one branch reaches the upper edge. It’s a stupid idea to climb a tree in a rainstorm, but I’m beyond caring. The bark is rough and slippery from the rain. My hands are scraped to hell and back halfway up the trunk, but I keep going. Keep clawing at the slightest ridges and gaps to pull myself higher. Once I reach a branch high enough to let me see over the wall, I balance along it, painstakingly slow and very aware of the drop I’m in for if I slip. Up here, the gusts of wind are stronger, unpredictable, and I have to focus on each step not to lose my balance.
It’s only when I drop down onto the narrow line of bricks that I realize this is a one-way-maneuver. The wall is higher than expected, and jumping back down into the park would most likely sprain or break something. Not that I pay much thought to my escape route; the fight in the courtyard before me captures every bit of attention I have.
