Youngblood - 3. Creepy Crawlies

Another hour, another city district. The Border district is a place in between, whichever way you look at it; neither rich nor poor, neither new nor old, neither dangerous nor particularly safe. Maybe it’s because of where it is—right between the ghetto districts and the Central district—, or maybe because it is so big, but everything about the Border is boring at best, and forgettable at worst. Nothing much ever happens there, if you believe local news, but maybe that’s why Aschure was so quick to decide that this would be it. Where better to hide than in a place that most people can’t for the life of them describe, as soon as they leave it? That, and deduction, of course. Stanley may have given us a list of almost a dozen potential nesting places, but only this spot converges with one of the murders. Hard to argue with that, if you ask me.

Harsh wind greets us when we crawl out of the car. The day so far was hot and strangely cloudy, but the weather seems to have finally made up its mind: The air smells like rain and lightning, and the streets are groaning for a good soak.

Aschure seems to agree; she re-does her ponytail as she stares up at the clouds pondering, lips tucked against her teeth. When she turns and her eyes meet mine, she startles at my closeness, looking young and caught. Then her face closes up again and she forces herself to straighten, tapping her sides to check her weapons. “If you don’t have extra bullets on you, I’ll be very cross,” she threatens with a slight upturn in her lips. I smile in return. Of course I have. Thirty extra rounds, three magazines, stuffed down my boot, belt, and jacket pocket, ready for grabs should the need arise. I don’t think it will, though. If it does, no amount of bullets will make a difference, because things that survive thirty plus bullets don’t fuck around.

The warm breeze howls along the walls of the dilapidated building in front of us. The rumor mill mentions a defunct hospital, Stanley said, and then told us in great detail how to find it. I didn’t understand why, until now. Were it not for the O and the TAL still dangling from the brick wall, I wouldn’t have dreamed that this was once a place to bring the sick. If we had come at night, we would have driven right by it. Luckily, we’re not stupid enough to hunt vampires at night.

Old oaks seam the outer property wall, leaning onto it like old men. At some places, the wall has given, crumbling onto the broken pavement and filling the potholes there, leaving light blotches on the exhaust-blackened rock. Ivy climbs the barred metal gate at the front, roping the bars together for eternity. The wings gape open, though, and the ivy leaves just enough room to snake through. And of course there will be vampires inside, it’s a spooky ruin. Where else would they be?

Aschure ducks through the ivy like a feral cat, popping up from the vegetation further in. She looks around, then turns and waves at me. I follow her, not half as agile as she is. I’m good in the athletics department, but she? She is art. Next to her, everyone would feel cumbersome.

We make our way towards the main building quietly, straining our eyes in the bleak daylight as we watch the perimeter. I have trained for this, trained to the point of broken bones, torn ligaments, and painful sprains just to make sure I could handle any situation, but doing it for real? Shit, my heart is about to punch a hole into my lungs.

The red brick building is covered in graffiti, not just tags, but big, swirling, colorful depictions of dicks, cannabis leaves, middle fingers, and peace signs. The big broken windows sit in between the sprayed murals like dead eyes, and I can’t help but feel paranoid as we get closer. Aschure stops when the surprisingly small front door comes into view, taps my shoulder, and points. A trampled trail leads through the unkempt grass and to the door, disappearing around the left corner of the giant complex.

There’s somebody here. And they are smart enough not to use the main gate. A homeless person wouldn’t give a shit about leaving traces, but a criminal would. Vampires would. My stomach contracts into a heavy, pulsing knot.

We both pull our guns, pointing them down as we creep closer. My mind spins with useless quotes from the Hunter’s handbook, things like signs of unsound walls or where the best places to store magazines are when in a swampy area, bullheadedly sabotaging my futile attempts at calming myself. I let Aschure take point and follow her in short sidesteps as I keep an eye on the overgrown garden at our back, my feet moving on autopilot. Tall grass and wild bushes wave at me as the wind gets stronger, my gun whipping to and fro as I scan for attackers. God, I hope I don’t shoot a rat and blow this whole thing.

The soft thud of boots on stone inform me that Aschure has reached the steps in front of the door, and I move in closer as she climbs them. A gust of moss-heavy air ruffles my moussed-back hair and my neck prickles warningly, feeding into my frustration. I can’t see anything!

And just as I turn, a pale, broils-ridden man-creature appears in the dark doorway and snags Aschure through it as if she weighs nothing.

Her scream echoes, then the thud-thud-thud of three shots floats towards me from somewhere frighteningly far away.

Shit, shit, shit!

***

Even as a teenager, I thought that heroes running into danger were utterly stupid. If you hear something creepy when you’re alone in a cabin in the woods, don’t go out with a flashlight to look, for fuck’s sake, barricade the doors and make sure all the knives, axes and rifles are exactly where you are. Then hunker down and slice everything that tries to get close to you into ribbons. Survival is just as easy as that.

Much to nobody’s surprise, once I hear Aschure scream, I charge into the spooky building, and to hell with sanity.

I’ve been trained well enough to handle my gun even when I don’t have time to think about it, and I don’t just run like a headless chicken, but I don’t check the rooms beyond making sure nothing jumps at me while I run past, quick little glances left and right as I hunt after the echoes of my own steps. Rooms after rooms lurk along the hallway, their doors long gone. Big earthen tile shards sprinkle the rotting floorboards, sporting giant algae and fungus growths.

At the end of the hallway, I find drops of blood. I examine them long enough to get a feeling for where to go next, and I’m off again. Past a spiraling staircase leading up, through a roomier hall cluttered with rotting and rusting furniture, and right through Aschure’s line of sight. Her shot whirs past my head and I do a shoulder roll, ducking on instinct, cursing breathlessly.

She is lying on her back behind what is left of some kind of bar, gun in a two handed grip as she stares at me wild-eyed, bloody, and hyperventilating. She’s clutching something in her right hand, pressed tightly against the grip of her weapon like her life depends on it. Blood covers her chest, spots of it soaking into her shirt just above her belly button, and her ponytail is a mess. Something ripped right through her jacket and the leather shoulder holster she wore beneath it, leaving her shoulder half naked and riddled with gashes and teethmarks. Her face is almost as pale as her fingers, both hands clenching her gun so tightly, her knuckles have turned white. She meant to hit me, I can see it in her eyes. Which means, whatever attacked her is still alive and kicking, and somewhere in this building.

My mouth moves faster than my screaming mind. “We have to move,” I snarl at her, reaching down to pull her up. She stumbles before she catches herself, coughing dryly. I watch her pat herself down out of the corner of my eye, but mostly I keep both entrances to the room in sight. The item in her hand disappears into her pants pocket, nothing but a faint metallic glint hinting to its identity.

“Fucker got me good,” Aschure growls and drops both jacket and broken holster. “I’ve never seen a vampire like that. He’s fast, Gideon. So fast.”

I flick my eyes over her neck and naked shoulder before I turn back to watching the exits. The vampire mauled her, and had she not worn the holster and the jacket, she’d be one arm short of whole. Probably shot the vampire off her at the last possible moment. Her human-slow reflexes cost her; as pale as she is and with this much blood on the floor, she shouldn’t be able to stand upright. Yet there she is, shoving magazines into her pants pockets, face contorted in pain, jaw set.

I back into her, counting on her to control the exit I slowly push her towards. It’s not the one where we came from; were I a vampire, I would sit just there and wait for the mindless, panicked blood-bags to stumble by in their bid to make it to the front door. I’m not mindless and I refuse to be a snack for another vampire this week.

Aschure falls into her training easily. As soon as my back touches hers, she starts moving, gun half raised, keeping a constant pressure against me as she moves forward. I keep my gun raised. I’d rather have my arms become cramping noodles than meet the vampire who beat Aschure’s quick-draw skills pants-down. It’s enough of an effort to follow Aschure’s guidance blindly already, especially with her stumbling and huffing, fighting the blood loss and increasingly flagging. Don’t need to add ‘raising a gun’ to my lists of newfound tasks.

We make it around a corner, pass through a door and follow another hallway. Both of us are tense as we point the guns where we look, flinching at every nook and cranny. No amount of preparation will ever win out against fear and adrenaline, but we’re not shaking yet. That will come later. The hallway gets increasingly darker though, and it does nothing for my frayed nerves. When we take another turn into yet another hallway, I snap. “Where are we going?” I whisper through clenched teeth, scanning the shady corners in the rooms we pass.

Aschure hums, feet sliding forward carefully, feeling for holes and obstacles instead of using her eyes. She needs those to survive. “We’re following the vampire,” she whispers back. “I hit him before he ran off. Look down.”

I do, a quick few glances every second step or so. A trail of smeared blood drops leads down the middle of the hallway, almost black against the greenish stone tiles. Technically it could be Aschure’s blood, but it’s already started to congeal in the dust, much too old to come from her wounds. “Are you fucking crazy? You’re in no shape to fight,” I hiss a little too loud.

“Stop whining, puppy. This is our job and we’re damn well gonna finish it before he can skitter away like the roach he is.”

We haven’t stopped moving through our little spat, which is why we suddenly find ourselves in another wider hall.

And we’re surrounded.

***

A shout, the ratcheting of guns being readied, and I know we’re fucked. Thralls. They may be technically human, but what little brain they had at some point has been bleached out of their heads by vampire blood and venom. Easy to kill, but no less dangerous. I’m counting seven of them, spread out across the debris-filled room as if they were guarding something. They look surprised at our sudden appearance, swinging around in startled hops as they shout warnings. It takes us no more than one breath to get into formation. Aschure goes down on one knee, swinging her gun right. I whirl along Aschure’s back until I’m on her left side, pointing my Glock before I’ve finished the move.

We squeeze our triggers as the first rifle muzzle points at us, blasting the room with fire, light, and noise. My shots hit in groups of three, stomach, chest, head, and I miss only once. Three of the blood-bound men fall, dead as they hit the ground, before I have to reload. I do a shoulder roll behind a cluster of boxes, making room for Aschure when she follows clumsily. Bullets whine over my head, biting into the marble pillars above us before the shooter aims lower. Another wave of shots clatters along the floor, ricocheting off the tiles and blasting holes into the boxes we use as cover. Aschure pops up and takes down two more, but her aim is off. She’s a much better shot than me, but her hands are shaking badly and getting worse by the minute. Most of her shots go far off target, and when her gun clicks empty, she sobs a frustrated curse. Her face is white as a sheet from blood loss.

This isn’t good. We’re shit out of luck and I can’t take them on alone. “Tactical retreat,” I call to her, half expecting her to show me the finger for ordering her around. But the tough, veteran huntress is gone, leaving behind a bleeding, scared person with a gun. Scared gunmen are what kills people, and I really don’t want to die here. “Run back to where we’ve come from, I’ll cover you,” I yell over the rattle of automatic rifle fire and nod my head back.

Aschure turns to do just that, flinches back, and screams. Two fucking vampires are right there, right at the door we came through. The closer, female vampire is staring at her with a mad grin on her pus-covered face. She’s tall and thin, her pale skin covered in broils and greenish veins, the skin of her arms flapping like empty sacs where muscles have rotted away. Her shirt and pants are drenched in fluids I don’t want to examine any closer, barely keeping her sick flesh in place. And the way she eyes Aschure makes my skin crawl with alarm. Like she doesn’t just want to eat her, but hear her scream until she’s finished eating.

The other one is just as tall, blond and broad-shouldered, looming behind her like a general. He is dressed in not quite formal but expensive clothes, the collar of both his burgundy turtleneck and the white shirt beneath ripped to expose a discolored throat. He doesn’t look that much like a nightmare, but dark lines are blooming on his cheeks and neck, surrounded by a greenish-gray hue that makes me think he isn’t in a much better state than the other one. Our eyes meet for a moment and he frowns at me, almost as if surprised by my existence. Then his gaze flits to Aschure and he puts a hand on the rotting lady’s back, shoving her forward. He says something to her, but it’s too low for me to understand.

The rotting vampire snarls and charges like a well-trained dog, and Aschure shrieks and starts running. There goes that escape route. “Left, left, left,” I yell, pointing to another, smaller door off to the side. Machine gun fire follows her from across the room, and I use the shooter’s distraction to pick him off with two quick shots. Panicked gasps and the scrabbling of nails against wood tell me that Aschure has reached the door. A squeak of dry hinges follows, almost swallowed by the ratatat of the last few shots the dying thrall squeezes out of his weapon as he falls. She slams the door behind her, bullets biting into the wall where her head was a blink ago. She’s safe, thank god.

But that leaves the vampires. With me. With nowhere to hide. Fuck.

I whirl around and waver my gun as I look for them, but the room is filled with gunpowder smoke and whirling dust and I can’t see shit. The less rotted man is gone, nothing but empty space left where he stood a moment before. The other one isn’t. A snarl and the screech of claws against concrete make me turn to the side door, gun wavering as it builds momentum, but I don’t want to lower it just to have to lift it again. There the creature is, busily punching a hole into the wooden door that Aschure disappeared into, roaring as she shoves her arm through the tiny gap she made and peeling off parts of her skin in the process. The stench wafting from her slashed arm is incredible. Quite literally breathtaking. Sweet, rotten meat, pus, and that unique smell of dying from sickness, all bundled into one cloud of odor. I didn’t know vampires could even get sick, but if that creature is still immortal, I’ll eat my shoe. But immortal or not, she’s almost through the door. I can’t let her reach Aschure. I simply can’t. Swallowing bile, I empty my magazine into her as I charge. She twitches and shrieks with each hit, ripping her mangled arm out of the sharp-edged hole. She stumbles back as I round her, gun blazing, until I’m between her and the door, not waiting for her to come to a halt until I’m absolutely sure she’s down. But she doesn’t die. She just twitches and howls, staggering as clumps of—god, I don’t want to look—something fall off her body. A whining snarl follows when my gun clicks empty, and she comes to a swaying stop. Blood seeps from the bullet holes I bestowed on her, and still she doesn’t go down.

No matter how long we live, no matter how many creatures we kill, there’s always that one creature that is simply stronger than the Hunter. It’s why my kind dies off so frequently, nothing surprising. I did expect to live through my first job though.

Clenching my jaw, I shuffle backwards, reloading my gun with quick, shaky moves. The vampire turns with me, stumbling and slow. She seems confused, eyes glazed over as she looks around, drool dripping from her indecently long fangs. She doesn’t charge though. She should, I’m right here. But she doesn’t. Maybe I did actually damage something important?

I take a chance when my back hits the damaged door and knock with my heel. “It’s me, let me in!”

Nothing. I knock again, pointing the gun at the vampire as she totters and sways, frowning at me. “Fucking open the door, Aschure,” I yell and shuffle to the side so I can try the handle. Locked.

The vampire moves, one hesitant step towards me, still frowning as if she doesn’t quite believe her eyes. I put a bullet through her head and she falls back, hitting the floor with a wet, gurgling grunt. I could empty another magazine into her, but if one salvo didn’t kill her, the next one won’t do much either. Some vampires, especially the old ones, are so good at rapid healing, simple weapons don’t do more than temporary harm, slowing them down but doing fuck-all besides that. She’ll need a good heap of silver bullets to finally get the message, but those are in the car, outside, where they’re safe and cozy. It’s a long, long way to the car.

I’ll need to get out of here first, but I’m not going near that twitching heap of vampire rot. My other exit options are limited, and besides, two Hunters are better than one. I need to follow Aschure, make sure she’s not lying on the other side of that door, unconscious. She’ll know what to do, how to bring the zombie-lady down before she can skitter away into the district—or worse, one of the magically veiled blocks—to find another rat hole. Next to Aschure, I’m nothing. I’m so far out of my depth it’s not even funny anymore. I need her.

Heart pounding, I worm my hand through the gap the vampire lady punched into the massive wooden door and fumble for the latch, keeping the gun pointed at her. She’s still twitching in a growing pool of blood and something milkier, but she grows more coordinated with each heartbeat. Wooden splinters cut into my arm, but I still can’t reach the latch. Whimpering, I give up pointing at the vampire and turn around. I push harder, gritting my teeth against the searing pain of skin being cut open as I bury my arm in the hole. I can just about reach the handle, my fingertips fumbling against the cool, rough metal, my gasps hot and wet against the wood.

The vampire gets up, cackling madly. One of her eyes is so bloodshot it looks black, but she sees me now, and she grins at me as she spits out a bullet. I scream, angle my arm harder and flip the latch. The vampire staggers forward as I rip the door open, her skeletal claws tangling in my jacket. I give it to her, let her tug it off me and jump through the door. Only when I slam and lock the door, I realize that my last magazine is in the jacket pocket. Outside with the vampiress. Only nine bullets left.

My arm bleeds like a motherfucker, but I don’t have time to tend to the gashes. I stumble back from the door, eyes fixed on the hole. If I managed to open it, she can, too. I have a minute, at most. The urge to cry pushes on my eyes like a leaden weight. The fucking room is fucking empty, except for a giant, rectangular box. It’s made of silver and looks like a table, or an altar maybe, embossed with runes and lines, but that doesn’t help me. Further into the room and at the back wall, there is a chute that’s pointing up, but a massive, grated metal shutter covers it. And since Aschure is nowhere to be seen, she must have dragged it over the hole, once she was outside.

Locking me in. Leaving me to die.

A sharp, hard impact behind me rattles the door, cracking the wood around the latch. Two, maybe three more of those hits, and the door will give. I scramble over to the silver box and touch it. Feels real enough, and thank you lord, it has a seam around the top, and another latch, well oiled by the looks of it. I don’t wonder why a horde of thralls and two vampires are guarding a silver box, considering that the vampires won’t be able to touch it without their hands melting off. It’s not important. What’s important is that I can hide in it easily, if I just get it open in time. There are situations in life where you don’t look a gift horse into the mouth, you just get on and ride it like you stole it.

I flip the latch.

Another crash behind me as the door goes off the upper hinge, a shower of wood splinters raining into the confined space. The vampire screeches as she tries to crawl through the gap, undulating in snake-like movements. The room fills with unbearable stink as she claws at both the wooden door and the stone beside it. Time’s up. I flip the giant lid, grunting with the effort.

Out of the box comes a monster.

***

A shadow surges out of the depths of the silver box. It rams into me, riding me down to the floor too fast for my senses to react, my head hitting the stone floor with a resounding crack. Flashes of white and black dance through my vision, followed by spiking pain in my back. The creature lands on my chest, forcing what little air I had left out of my lungs with a breathless cough. A soft tinkling sound accompanies the impact as some kind of amulet around its neck spills out of its tattered shirt. His tattered shirt. It’s a man, caked in an almost black crust of unidentifiable grime, clothes torn beyond recognition. Patches of unblemished, somewhat tanned skin shine out of the mess like beacons, but they are few and far between. Most of him is dirt, or dried blood, and it flakes off whenever he moves, like snake skin. Or a spider carapace. His semi-long hair is wild, as is what beard he has left between all those scars, but there is no way I could ever guess what color his hair is supposed to be. Most of it is tangled, all of it is as dirt-caked as the rest of him. And his eyes are black. I don’t mean his pupils, but all of it. Solid black orbs stare down at me, neutral and utterly cold.

I suck in a shaky breath as my vision blurs and wavers. The beast grabs my throat and squeezes, lips curling into a manic grin that make his fangs peek out. Vampire. His fingers dig into my neck as if he was squeezing a tomato, breaking my skin effortlessly. So much for surviving my god-damned first mission. I close my eyes and try to remember in which hand I’m holding the gun so I can make a last effort to shoot him, retching as the pressure on my throat tickles my gag reflex. I manage to lift the gun halfway up before he casually slaps it away, almost breaking my wrist in the process. It slides along the stone floor, hitting the wall with a sharp clang. My vision spins and flickers.

But then the beast-man hesitates and sniffs the air above my face. His fangs are elongated, poking out of his parted lips as he huffs. The grin falls off of his face and leaves a grimace behind, almost as if he’s put out he touched me. He snarls and his fingernails slide out of my skin with a soft, ripping noise.

That’s when the vampiress finally manages to squeeze through the broken door, falling into the room like a newborn calf.

The wild man’s eyes snap up and hone in on her. The manic grin returns, as if nothing could make him happier than seeing that abomination. He growls softly, then his weight is suddenly gone from my chest.

He’s on the her before I finish blinking. They don’t fight, though. Aschure said her attacker was fast, but whatever I let out of that box is faster. He grabs her, one hand on her neck, the other at her hips, and… rips her apart with a single tug. No strain, no fight for dominance, just a short impression of bulging muscles, followed by a spray of blood and body parts.

I suck in a rattling breath, rolling around and crab-walking backward until my back hits the wall next to my gun. I grasp it instinctively, as if it were a life line. It may not help me, but it makes me feel better to die armed, and right now, my mind is very much working on basic settings. Murderous vampire bad, weapon good. And all the while, my mind doesn’t want to believe what I’ve just seen, but my straining gag reflex is pretty sure about what happened. If I could somehow unlock my panic-frozen muscles, I would hurl.

The beast stands there for a moment, sucking in a single, deep breath as if he’s never had air before, then slowly looks over his shoulder. He throws me an appraising glance out of his black-on-black eyes, like a bear would eye a wolf encroaching on its territory, and I instinctively raise my gun to point it at his chest. His blank expression tells me all I need to know. Either he doesn’t know what a gun is, or he doesn’t give a shit about bullets. If he doesn’t know guns, he’s way, way too old to fuck with. If he doesn’t care about bullets, my shooting him unprovoked would probably do nothing but piss him off. I throw a short, sideways glance at the remains of the last person who was stupid enough to go there, then flick my eyes back to his neutral face.

Gulping, I lower my gun.

The beast man growls again, low and restless, and rolls his shoulders, flexing muscles I could only dream of having. Then he stalks off, smashing the broken door right out of its frame as if it is nothing but a slight nuisance.

I stare after him, wide-eyed and hyperventilating. Holy shit, I just let an antediluvian out of a silver coffin. Not just that, but I watched him march right out of his prison while I’m just sitting here and wondering if the wetness on my pants is blood from the corpse or something more embarrassing.

What the heck am I supposed to do now?