Youngblood - 5. Cor

The vampire is heavy in my arms, slippery with blood and rain-softened grime, his limbs dangling as I drag him up rickety stairs. The building adjacent to the courtyard seemed like the safest bet to hide out in, but I didn’t feel safe on the ground floor. My monkey instincts told me to go up, so I’m going up. With a little over two-hundred pounds of passed out immortal in my grip. Fantastic.

By now I’m almost as dirty as he is, covered in smears of whatever grime clings to his skin, blood, and small mementos of rotting vampire- My once white shirt is now gray-red-brown and clinging uncomfortably to my skin. And to top it off, my already wet clothes are sweat soaked from the exertion, the nerves, the adrenaline tapering off, my knees shaking as I pull the vampire up the last few stairs. I tried carrying him, but that was a bust. Couldn’t even lift him to waist height. Dragging him up the stairs like a sack of coals was my only option, even if I risk making everything worse. Not that I could tell if I’ve done more harm; he looks like raw meat with all the wounds and the glistening coat of blood.

Dropping him in the hallway as carefully as I can, I turn in a tight circle. The floor I’m on has three doors, one of which is a fire safety door, which means steel and weight. Safety. The other two look like they’ve been the victims of break-ins at some point, but since the building has been condemned for years, it’s likely been that way for a while. Water damage has warped the floors and probably done its part in weakening the stairwell, but the hallway looks stable enough and structurally intact, thank you Hunter’s handbook, safety section four.

I’ll have to keep the vampire in check until I can find out what the heck is going on and my options don’t look all too inviting. The broken doors won’t help, but the steel door might at least slow my vampire down if he makes a run for it. He writhes a little, groaning as I hoist him up, but he does nothing to help me get him into the room. I drop him in the middle of the dusty, moldy room and turn to close the door.

There, all safe and secure.

When I turn back, he’s up. Very up, and very close. Not even a stagger, no sway, just a murderous glare as he squares off with me, breathing heavily.

From this close, he is imposing. Sun-tanned skin peeks through the smeared dirt, offering glimpses of even more scars riddling his chest. They are too regular to be accidental, wandering over his bulging pectorals in groups of five, as if someone was counting the days with a knife to his chest. A crater of a burn wound sits right at the center of his sternum, looking like a meteor strike down to the bone. And all of that glorious destruction is focused on me, looming just an arm’s reach away. Way, way too close.

I can’t help myself, I flinch away. Not that there is a lot of space behind me, just the sturdy metal door I insisted on closing. Who needs escape routes, anyway? Hah. I bump my back against the door and raise my hands soothingly, hoping against hope he won’t see my fingers shake. “Hey there, remember me? I’m the guy you saved back in the hospital. I’m just repaying the favor. Let’s stay calm and cool here, no need for rash actions.”

Something flashes through his eyes and he growls a warning.

I swallow dryly and stay exactly how and where I am. I have no idea if he understands or remembers what happened, but I’m pretty sure it would be a bad idea to move. “So, those vampires, huh? Pretty harsh if you ask me. Any idea why they went after you? I mean, they could have killed you like that, but they didn’t,” I say, keeping my voice low and friendly. Even if he doesn’t understand what I’m saying, he has to see that I’m not threatening him.

He cocks his head, a puzzled expression appearing on his face, then widens his eyes and grabs at his chest. The last tatters of his shirt front rip when he tugs it open. He bears them no mind. His hands fly over his chest wound, his neck, searching for something that isn’t there anymore.

I pull the amulet out of my pocket and hold it up, wincing. Now he’ll think I’m a thief on top of everything else. “Here. I’m sorry I took it, but it was hurting you and—”

He’s on me in a flash, drowning me in the smell of blood and pain and fear. I yelp and flinch again, hitting my head against the steel door. The impact rattles through my already concussed brain like hot spikes.

The amulet’s weight lifts from my hand and the vampire turns, roaring as he throws the metal disk against the wall. It cuts into the plaster and gets stuck there with a sharp, dry shnick sound. That doesn’t seem to be enough for him, though. He stalks over and smashes his fist into it, twisting and breaking it into tiny pieces and punching through the drywall in the process. Then he turns again, chest heaving, and glowers at me. Another guttural growl fills the room as he sizes me up, his eyes lingering on my neck.

Hooo boy.

I can’t run, it will only make him want to chase me. And I can’t lock him in this room, it has too many windows. I can’t talk to him because he doesn’t understand, and it would be a waste of a perfectly fine rescue mission to shoot him now. I’m officially out of options. I need help from someone who speaks vampire, and Aschure is god knows where, doing god knows what. Probably throwing my stuff into the Bracket river to wipe all traces that I’ve ever been here. Fucking Hunter code.

Then it hits me. Stanley. Loreley gave me his number for situations exactly like it, didn’t she? Adding to that, he’s a vampire and he owes me. What better way to repay my leniency than to come save me from being eaten again?

Now I only have to get out my phone without setting the wild beast in front of me off.

I move slowly, carefully, let him watch my wandering hand intently while I keep the other one up and far away from my gun. “I’m just taking out my phone to call a friend,” I explain. “We need help with this mess and he’s just the person for that. You’ll like him, he has fangs too.” At least I hope they’ll like each other, or we’re both fucked. Stanley and me, that is, the wild vampire will be just fine.

He lets me pull out the phone. He even lets me dial, although the beep-boop accompanying the dialing makes him cock his head like a dog. I take a deep breath of relief when he just watches on as I press the phone to my ear, very aware of the fact that he will hear every word of the conversation.

Stanley picks up at the fourth ring, sounding both hesitant and breathless. “Hello?”

Thank you baby Jesus. “Stanley, it’s Gideon. The Hunter Gideon, I mean. Remember how you said you’d do almost anything to make the whole biting thing up to me? Well, almost anything is just what I need right now.”

I give him the rough address and even mention a fight between vampires, but leave out the specifics. He’s surprised to find out I’m inside the veil, but doesn’t comment on it after a single snort of disbelief, just listens to my clumsy explanations. I can’t be sure he isn’t part of this, can’t know if he’s giving Loreley a blow-by-blow of what we’ve been doing or are about to do. I’ll have to surprise him and just hope he’ll be able to do something about this mess.

When I’m done, I pocket my phone again and take a furtive glance at the vampire. He’s still standing there, still focusing on me, still glowering. Hasn’t moved a muscle, perfectly happy to stay where he is. His neck and chest look raw, swollen and riddled with the deep acid burns the amulet caused. The other wounds, all the bruises and gashes, don’t look any better either, almost as if he’s not healing at all. At least he isn’t bleeding to death. We’ve still got time to fix this.

I sigh deeply and settle in for the wait. Him and me, we’re not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

And here I thought the night couldn’t possibly get any longer.

***

Stanley arrives an eternity and thirty minutes later, jogging up the steps with casual worry. I hear him more than I get a look at him, and I only turn when he knocks at the steel door behind me. I open it and he weasels inside, muttering a jovial, “—so what was so urgent you had me come all the way out he—”

His eyes meet the vampire’s and he stumbles back, gasping, “Holy shit on a cracker!”

I frown, closing the door before I look from the hyperventilating vampire to the statuesque one. Only my friend isn’t so statuesque anymore. Quite contrary, he is now cowering, growling, eyes fixated on Stanley as the man squeezes himself into the corner next to the door. Stanley even tries to open it, but a sharp, teeth-baring bark has him swiftly jerk back his hand.

Stanley is white as a sheet. I thought he was near fainting back at the café, but this is something else. He looks like he is staring at the devil himself and realizing there is nothing, no wall, no bars, between him and a gruesome death. His voice becomes a high pitched whimper. “What the fuck are you doing here with him? Are you completely mad? Gideon, do you even know who that is?”

It’s a weird feeling, finally not being the one about to pee themselves. I’m not half as freaked out as Stanley, but to answer his question, no I don’t. My vampire does look like some kind of ancient warrior with his scars, the tanned skin, and the storm of knotty dark hair on his head, but he could very well be a knight, or a world war two hero. Who am I to know? I shrug and step away, placing myself roughly in the way of my growling savior, who at least stays put, if crouching and ready to pounce. “I just know that he saved my life and needed help,” I say, scratching my cheek. Something flakes off my skin and I shake out my hand, doing my best not to look what it is. “I kinda hoped you’d help him, but going by your reaction, that’s a no. You know him?”

Stanley cackles, still trying his best to meld into the corner. “You don’t even know, that’s hilarious,” he squeaks, muttering lower, “standing there like it’s a petting zoo.” It takes a while—and a pointed cough on my part—to get him to talk again, still half laughing, either at me or at the situation as a whole.

“Gideon, that is Cor. The Cor. The lone surviving Strigan.”

Speaking the name out loud does something to my vampire. His growl gets quieter but all the more threatening, and he leans forward on one hand, poised for an attack maybe, or to defend himself? I don’t know. I keep an eye on Cor—finally a name to the face—, frowning at the unfamiliar word. “What’s a Strigan?”

“A Strigan—he— is to us what we are to humans. He can live off vampire blood and he can, uh, ensnare vampires, control their dreams, their feelings. People say he can even eat fear and love and hate, the big emotions, but that might be poppycock. Some six-hundred years ago, some big-shot vampire warlord they call the Norseman killed the whole bloodline except for him. Kept him like a pet. But I tell you, he is mad. They made him mad. There are stories about how they did it, stories that would make your skin crawl. I used to feel bad for him, until I saw what he can do. What he does. Nothing but animal left inside of him,” Stanley whispers. “I have no idea how you are still alive. I’ve seen him being let out once, forty years ago.” He swallows forcedly and his eyes finally find mine. “It was a massacre, Gideon. I’ve never seen anything like it. Friends, enemies, he mowed through everything that moved, no hesitation. The Norseman himself had to go down into the arena and force him back into his prison. I thought they finally put him down after that. Seems I was wrong.” A pause, then he hisses urgently, “you’ve got to kill him as long as he’s weak. Do it now, there’s still time!”

I take a breath to reply and Stanley’s eyes go wide as saucers, staring at something behind me. I feel it then, a sudden presence, like static crackling along my skin, a brush of hot and cold pushing against my back. Something wild, unknown, other. He is behind me. Close. So very close. The rabbit inside me tries to make a run for it, but strong arms wrap around me in a flash, pull me against a way too hot, way too hard chest. A scent cloud of salty pain, blood, grime, and something muskier washes over me and drives the fight right out of my limbs. My heart becomes a throbbing, squirming thing in my chest, slippery and feeble. Teeth rip at the skin-colored bandage on my bite wound, tearing it from my skin. Sharp, long fangs sink into the crook of my neck at the exact spot I’ve been bitten before. I yelp at the pain and try to scream, but my throat won’t let me.

So this is how it ends. Seems my luck finally ran out.

Only he doesn’t drink. And his teeth burn in my skin, but nowhere near as painful as the bite of Stanley’s ward. I don’t dare to move, gasping short little breaths to keep myself from hyperventilating as my heart struggles against its confines. This is not like they told me. This is not something my training could help me solve. I am a puppet in the arms of a creature that could grind me down into shivering pulp and not break a sweat.

Cor keeps me pressed tightly against his chest, growling softly, but I’m not dead. Not even dying. And even the bite stops to hurt and changes into something warm, prickly, relaxing. This strange feeling is no more than a vague tingle, but it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. And it grows, slowly, steadily, cancerous.

Stanley watches all of this with a kind of death grimace on his face. Something like recognition flits over his face and he quickly turns his eyes away. “Oh,” he mutters breathlessly.

My body is chaos. My mind is drowning in fear and whatever strange cloud of pain-induced trance I’m in, so it latches on to the one real thing. Stanley. I try talking, because it’s not like Cor couldn’t have killed me a hundred times over by this point. And I can’t stand there like this forever, my adrenaline will run out at some point. The bite will start to hurt. The vampire will change his mind and eat me, like he is supposed to. I just hope I pass out when it happens. “Oh, what? What is he doing? What’s going on?” I mumble through numb lips.

“He’s not draining you, so there’s that,” Stanley says hesitantly, relaxing a fraction. He keeps his eyes firmly turned away though. “And I’m not an expert in crazy vampire behavior, but what he’s doing there, that looks a lot like a claim. Some of the old ones do it with their thralls, or children.” He falls quiet, squirming a little as if embarrassed, then clears his throat and adds, “I think he thinks I left that mark on your neck. And he doesn’t like it. Looks like he sees you as his. He’s staring me down as if he’s challenging me to do something about it.”

I suck in a shaky breath and force myself to relax. It’s frighteningly easy, my mind wrapping itself in the growing tide of warm, fuzzy ecstasy his bite pumps into my body. I’ve heard of vampires possessing the ability to make their bite a pleasant, even orgasmic thing. ‘Venom’, they call it. But I couldn’t have imagined a feeling like this, not even in my wildest dreams. It’s like my thoughts float away before I’ve finished thinking them. “How do I tell him that it wasn’t you? He doesn’t seem to understand me.” If he even speaks. I’ve heard nothing but growls as of yet.

“I don’t think he cares,” Stanley retorts. “I should leave. Calmly. And then run like hell. It’ll give you a chance of survival, I think. But you,…” He sneaks a quick glance up, inching his hand towards the door knob. Cor doesn’t growl this time, he just stares, teeth buried in my neck. His warm breath wafts along my neck, calm and immovable. Stanley twists the knob and opens the door a few inches, then he looks at me. “You should kill him.”

And then he’s gone.

***

This feeling, it is like a maelstrom. It pulls at me, tugs softly, mildly, until it has me in its claws and I don’t remember how it happened.

There are teeth in my neck and somehow I’ve forgotten about it as I stare belatedly at the swinging door. I should worry about it, but I don’t. I should be in a world of pain, but I’m not. There is nothing but the rush of his venom and the growing need to lie down and give in. Just give in and let it happen, whatever ‘it’ may be. It would be so peaceful. Bliss.

I ram my elbow into Cor’s stomach, as hard as I can.

He makes a garbled sound and stumbles back, his fangs leaving bloody grooves on my neck as they slip out of my flesh. I falter without the safety of his arms, half boneless and half drunk, and manage to catch myself against the steel door before I topple over. My mind swims in a soup of poison, making me clumsy and slow and dizzy, my chest hot and tight, and my senses so, so confused. The only thing keeping me upright is that voice inside my head that is screaming at me to remember Cor, remember the Hunter’s handbook.

It’s not the thought of my training that gets me out of this stupor. It’s the disapproving voice of my mentors that forces me to move, to get going, to stop turning my back towards danger. How they would tear me a new one if I died now, after all I’ve survived today.

I force myself to turn, my back scraping against the sharp cracks in the metal surface, and try to remember what to do next. He is on me before I can finish that thought, his sculpted body a hard, hot line against my shivering limbs. He grabs me, digs his hands into my button down shirt until it rips open and gives way to his searching fingers. They draw scorching lines over my ribs, up and up until they wander towards my back and force their way between my body and the wall. It feels like he’s setting me on fire, like every nerve ending is dancing to his touch. Touch has never felt like this before. Never been this intimate. I was never as aware of anyone as I am now of him.

It takes my breath away.

Then his lips find my throat and hot breath wafts over my sensitized skin. His tongue licks a warm, quick line over my pulse. He growls against the wetness he left, deep and drawn out. My cock jumps at the sound, hardening in its confines. I want him closer, want to melt into him, possess him, fuse myself to his body. God, I wish he would—

No. No! Nothing good lies this way. This is not how I’m going to die. I will not let this vampire eat me while I hang in his arms, limp and whimpering, wet dick throbbing and throat bared. I will not be one of the victims, a statistic, a disgrace to my clan. I won’t. I can’t!

I suck in air sharply and ram my knee into his crotch. He twists away before I can make contact with his dick, snarling like an angry dog. A hurt expression flashes through his eyes as he hops back and bares his fangs, as if he didn’t expect me to get violent with him. As if I don’t have a reason to. His face twists into a snarl and he takes a quick, ducking step closer, one hand snatching at my gaping shirt like I’m a fly he’s trying to catch mid-flight. I gasp and roll along the door, out of his reach, until my back rests against the crumbling wall. If I don’t draw my gun right now, he will kill me. I just can’t quite remember how. Fuck, why is my head still swimming? How long does his venom last?

I fumble along my side for my holster, but he doesn’t give me a chance to finish the move. The next pounce isn’t feinted. He snags my wrist and tugs me forward, propelling me through the room like it’s nothing. Like I weigh nothing. My shoulder feels like it’s being ripped apart and I cry out in pain as I fight against gravity and vertigo, stumbling along on weak knees and burning thigh muscles. He flinches again at my sound of pain, but his hesitation only lasts a moment. Then he’s on me with two wide steps, hooking his foot behind my heel. A hard shove against my sternum topples me back and I fall, grabbing for him on instinct. My fingers slide along his blood-slick arm, nails scratching over his skin, but he shakes me off with a snarl and I hit the floor hard. My head bounces off the dirty wood with less force than I anticipated, but the impact still rings my bell with a burst of white spots.

Fuck, it hurts. If I don’t get away from this with a major concussion, I’ll eat my shoe. I attempt to writhe away, but a weight settles on my hips and pins me down. Cor stares down at me with half bared teeth, less angry than I anticipated, but unhappy enough to give me pause. I move to sit up, but he grabs my throat and pushes me back down, growling warningly. Okay then, lying down it is.

His face twists slightly and a small frown line appears on his forehead. Cor licks his lip, opens his mouth, then closes it again and gnashes his teeth in concentration. If I didn’t know better—if I wasn’t so sure I have a concussion and am most likely imagining things by this point—, I would say he is fumbling for words. Whatever is going through his mind right now though, whatever reason he has to play with me like this, it must be important.

The frown line disappears. Cor leans forward, puts a little more weight on my throat, and growls. A single word tumbles out of his lips, bursting from his throat like the first rumble of an earthquake.

“Behave.”

My face gets numb as all blood leaves for greener pastures. Behave? How am I supposed to behave in a fight for life and death? Unless this isn’t a fight for life and death. I blink up at him, at his unhappy face, the harsh tug around his lips, the tension in his wide shoulders, the crease between his brows, and realize: This is him playing nice.

It shouldn’t startle me. I have seen what he can do, how strong he is, how fast, and how I compare to him. Which is, not at all. The crestfallen expression, the flinches, come back to me and I groan out a curse. No. He isn’t just trying to play nice, he’s trying to not hurt me at all and I still come out as one massive bruise on the other side. My spine screams with the need to writhe, but I force myself to lie still. To be calm.

His eyes flit over my face searchingly. Whatever he sees seems to satisfy him and he relaxes his grip on my throat minutely as he straightens. Again that pondering expression appears on his face. He cocks his head, licks his lips and growls another word.

“Mine.”

When he’s done with his herculean feat, he bares his teeth in a creepy grin, proud like a peacock. Like he has explained everything that has been happening to the furthest extent possible and there can’t possibly be any more questions I could ask.

My chest tightens in a burst of adrenaline. He thinks I understand, but I don’t, I so don’t. What is that supposed to mean? Me, his? What the hell is he thinking? I’m a Hunter, not a second rate romance novel protagonist who falls head over heels at first sight for the bad boy vampire. I do have a faint notion of what he means when he proclaims ownership of me, but the concept is simply too ludicrous to entertain. I can’t even imagine how the idea of having a vampire lay claim to me would go over with my clan. Because it wouldn’t. They would shoot him on the spot and give me the whipping of my life. Or simply kill me too because I’ve been compromised.

Holy shit I can’t ever let them know I’ve been compromised!

Panic claws at me, scratching its way up and up until I feel like I will either vomit or faint. The very real threat sitting on me is forgotten and I buck against Cor’s weight, screaming as I shove at his chest and try to crocodile-roll him off me. I can’t get enough air into my lungs but I need to get out, now!

Cor pays my minor panic attack no attention though. He even slides off my hips as he turns his head toward the window and tenses, crouching, focused at something I can neither hear nor see. A low growl vibrates through him. His nostrils flare as he sucks in air, ready to pounce. At what, I have no idea. I just know that I seem to have suddenly been forgotten. I’ve been handed one last chance to make my move and get myself out of this catastrophe.

I crab-walk backwards until my back hits the wall, using his distraction to get some distance between us. My head swims, vision tilting. Damn it, I should have listened to Stanley. Cor can’t call me his in front of anyone, not even me. Not even inside the privacy of his own mind. It’s a death sentence. I’m not ready to die. I have to kill him, maybe then I can breathe again, maybe then my heart will calm down and stop trying to burst out of my chest.

The leather holster slips my grasp again and again, until I finally feel the butt of my Glock in my hand, cursing the sweet Mary as I pull the weapon and aim—

At nothing. The vampire— Cor— isn’t there anymore.

The empty space makes my heart race. I swerve the gun like a floret at an empty flat, my brain insisting he will jump me when I least expect it. Dust floats through the stuffy, moist air and scratches in my throat as I heave to keep up with my racing heart, but there’s nobody here but me. Me and a half open window, squeaking tiredly as it moves in the wind and rain.

The floor conspires against me, moving up and down and side to side as I stumble to the window to look outside, even though I don’t know what I’m supposed to look for. The nightly yard below swims and tilts like a ship deck at high seas, blurring the moving shapes down on the concrete. I blink forcedly and shake my head, but my sight clears only marginally. Still, what were mere shapes now turn into people.

Five strangers prowl the yard, dressed in shimmering, black, well-worn leather. Their movements are nothing but groups of white dots, a face and two pale hands per person, dancing through the darkness as they enter the courtyard. They stop at the bodies of the vampires I shot, gesturing and hissing to each other, their faces darting back and forth as they scan the surroundings for threats.

I grab the window sill to keep myself still, but my weight dislodges a tiny clump of brick and sends it down onto the concrete. All five of them snap their heads around at the tiny plink, inevitably looking up to follow the trail of pebbles to its source. Me.

Shit.

***

Cold, wet wind greets me when I step out of the abandoned apartment block and into the unsteady night. I take a sneaky glance around, hoping against hope that Cor is still around and ready to jump in and explain everything, but he isn’t. And even if he was, he wouldn’t talk. I’ve seen his reactions to vampires. He despises his own kind to a point where his first reaction is attack on sight, and there are already enough bodies lying around. I’m sick and tired of death, and it’s only my first day of active duty. My clothes are both bloody and rain drenched, my neck is not only scratched to all hell but also home to another vampire bite, and I’m fucking out of ammo except for one single, lonely bullet still waiting in the magazine. Being in a veil as a hunter is bad enough. Being an unarmed hunter in a veil,—well, you get the picture. And now I’m surrounded by even more vampires, which doesn’t look good compared to my track record so far. If those newcomers are friends of the dead vampires on the ground, I’m in big trouble. And since they all share a fashion theme…

I raise my hands as I step out of the building, both to make my holstered gun visible and to make sure they know I want to talk. Not that it changes anything; we’re way outside my jurisdiction. They could kill me right here, right now, and nobody would come after them. Hell, for all I know there could be other critters lurking in the darkness, just waiting to be tagged in and have a go at me.

A vampire jerks to a halt mid-step before me, staring at me with a mixture of surprise and angry confusion. He takes in my raised hands, my gun, my scent, and bares his blunt teeth into a sharp grin. No fangs yet, thankfully. He’s a big fella, though. I can’t even look over his shoulder, not to mention around him, because he’s built like a brick wall. He could be the main act in a Conan the Barbarian reenactment show, all muscly and long-haired and weathered.

“You! What are you doing here? This is private property,” barks the vampire. His eyes twitch left and right, on the lookout for attackers as he puffs up. There’s a lot to puff up, too. I’m almost affronted by the implication I couldn’t have killed those vampires all on my little lonesome, but in this case, I wisely shut up.

“It’s not your property, that’s for sure,” I reply and daintily step over some bricks and closer to the would-be security guard. “And I do appreciate your kiss trying to clean up its own messes, but if Loreley thinks for a second I’d let her add any other favors to her fine, she’s got another thing coming.”

Confusion dances over his forbidding face. “Loreley? Wha—” He stops himself and shakes his head, lips curved into a grimace of vague disgust. “We’re taking a walk, you and me. Move.”

The four other vampires await us with expressionless faces. My keeper herds me towards them with a single, pointed push against my back that almost sends me to the ground. I throw him a dirty look over my shoulder, but keep walking until I’m surrounded. Not my favorite position. Makes my back prickle, having to let it happen.

All five of them are giants, all male, all dark-haired. They look like second cousins from parents who were too closely related to be having fun with each other, and I don’t like the way they stare at me. It’s not hunger, not even hate or interest. Their eyes focus on me like a cat would watch a mouse happening to stroll by. Dispassionate, but very, very attentive.

Now that they have me surrounded, they relax slightly. The one to my left, as indistinguishable from each other as the rest of them, looks me up and down and clicks his tongue. “You one of the Hunters?” he asks, his accent a heavy, hoarse melody that doesn’t match his effortless English. He sounds like a well-coached movie villain.

My vision readjusts slightly, now that I’m out in the open. I still feel the venom coursing through me, mellowing me when I should be sharp, but it’s getting better. I take a measured breath and nod deferentially. “I am, actually.”

He sniffs and shifts, throwing a side glance at the bodies. His voice lilts, like he can’t believe he’s even considering someone like me could kill his people. “You do that?”

“Yes.” Lying would be stupid. Their dead friends have bullet holes and I have an empty gun. Even if their senses weren’t heightened enough to hear the fear in my voice, they’d still be able to put two and two together. “They interfered with my hunt. I assumed they didn’t get Loreley’s notice in time, but that’s not my fault.”

The head vampire flares his nose and balls his fists, staring at me like I just shat on his boot. A jerk of his chin sends one of his goon-twins scampering off hastily. The sound of dead meat flapping around fills the nightly courtyard as he flips over the dead and looks through their pockets. “Shot,” he proclaims and moves on to the next body. And all though this, the dead-eyed leader never takes his eyes off me. And to top it off, I can feel the other three spearing my body with their stares, silent and unmoving. Lurking. By the time the goon has finished his inspections, I’m positively squirming. And cold. And fucking tired of everything.

“Happy now? I’ve got places to be.”

The head vampire shakes his head minutely, then relaxes his jaw. A small scar appears in the corner of his mouth when his frown wrinkles even out. “Not yet. Why did you kill them?”

Why, indeed. ‘Because they tortured a vampire I’ve just met and it didn’t sit right with me’ probably won’t fly. Telling them about the strange connection between Cor and me wouldn’t go over well either. And I will never, ever, mention the thing with the venom where I almost humped a caveman vampire because he drooled on my neck. Nope. I blink and give him my best Mona Lisa smile. “They were hunting a witness to a breach of Contract and I couldn’t let them kill him,” I say mildly. Then I take a risk. “Maybe you know him. Big guy, although not quite as big as you, but still impressive. Fast. Wild. Didn’t seem to care he was dressed in nothing but rotting tatters. Ripped that one apart before the others got him down.” I nod towards the chunks of flesh as if to make sure they know I mean the massacred corpse. “Ran off as soon as I cleared a path for him, unfortunately.” I pause and watch the twitches on my opponent’s face. “You know where I can find him?”

The leader knows exactly who I’m talking about and he doesn’t like what he’s hearing. It’s not that he shows much of anything, he is way too controlled for that, but rather what he doesn’t show. He freezes, ceases to move, and if he wasn’t breathing and blinking ever so often, I would think time has stopped. His eyes sit like sharpened coals in his rugged face, a hatred too intense for words boiling through those dark orbs. This isn’t anything I did. Whatever makes him feel that much rage has been brewing for a long time. And maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t poke at it again.

The he seems to remember who I am and why I’m here. He comes back to life a different person, licks his lower lip and readjusts his stance. I wouldn’t call it squirming, he’s too bulky for that, but it’s a good attempt at it. And the rage is gone, leaving the stage for something that looks entirely too much like worry.

Not that it makes much of a difference. He ignores my question and snaps his fingers, then crosses his arms. “Where did you meet him?” he asks, his accent making a growl of his voice. “Maybe we can help each other out.”

The corpse flipper grunts at the snap and takes off toward the building I came out of. Another goon says something in a language I can’t place, turns and walks off in a quick trot, trailing the path I took to get here like a fucking blood hound. I turn my head and watch him as he examines the wall I climbed, then look back to the more imminent threat.

I allow myself a moment to ponder his question. I have entirely too little information to make any sort of guess how the pus-vampire could be connected to Cor or these guys, but I’m sure that Cor won’t go back to the hospital. Which means I can tell them about what happened there. They could probably even give me what I want most: more information about Cor and how he ended up where I found him. I could simply ask them. If I weren’t so sure they put him into that silver coffin, I wouldn’t be able to resist. With things being as they are, though…

“There’s an old hospital about five blocks south from here. Big metal fence, loads of overgrowth, it’s almost hidden from view. My partner and I got a tip that the supe killing off theology students might hide out there, so we checked it out. Turns out the tip was spot on, although I’m not sure those beasts really were vampires.”

The goon cocks his head. “Oh?”

The shudders come unbidden. It’s a single sound, but he still makes it into a demand, a curse, a question, and a threat all in one. His face doesn’t move, remains unchanged, but I still tense at the unspoken, cold warning in his voice.

I hesitate and chew my lip. “There were two of them, a man and a woman. The man was fast. Very fast. There in a blink, gone in the next. But he looked… sickly, and she looked even worse. I don’t know how else to put it. Broils and pus everywhere, almost frail, pale, inhuman. I’ve never seen a vampire look like that.” Not that I’ve seen any vampires outside of photographs and home movies, but I’m reasonably sure. “If I didn’t know it’s impossible I’d say she looked like she had the plague, or leprosy. Like she was rotting right in front of my eyes. The man wasn’t as bad, but he looked like he was on his way down the same path.”

One of the last two remaining goons hisses through clenched teeth, his face paling. “Isegrim,” he snarls. The leader turns and punches him without so much as a blink, and the goon goes down in a sickening crackle of broken bones. The leader turns back to me and snarls an angry, “continue.” An order, not a request.

Okay then. I store that name away for now and stutter through the next few words before I catch myself. “As I said, we found them and they were dead set on making it as hard as possible for us to kill them. There were a bunch of thralls involved and the male simpered off to leave us to his lady friend, but to make long things short, it was a mess. My partner bailed on me and I had to take cover in a room with a coffin. A silver one. And when the lady vampire tried to break in, the coffin lid snapped open.”

The leader bites out a curse before I can continue my tale of half-truth, turning away and letting off a staccato of unpleasantness that I luckily don’t understand. It sounds like Swedish or Icelandic, and now I’m having a hard time not picturing the goons as vikings. One of the dead falls victim to the burst of anger, getting both stomped on and kicked at until one arm detaches and sails off into the darkness. More blood seeps out of the gaping stump, thick as molasses. The raw meat where the arm tore off glistens in the moonlight.

Yep. No poking the angry viking. And no hurling until they leave. I swallow convulsively to keep the sick down and close my eyes as I take slow, shallow breaths.

When I open them again, the vampires are gone.