Youngblood - 4. Hunted

It takes me 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 Aschure. 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, sooner or later, but not soon enough to drive off that well-dressed bastard if he decides to circle back and attack me. Or the beast from the box, for that matter.

I listen into 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 Aschure in action, so I go with puckering up. Instead of blurting out something along the lines of ‘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 a revenge. When she finally accepts the call, I bite my lip hard to keep myself from yelling at her and instead do my best Aschure-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 do 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 Aschure 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 have no idea how I manage to stay civil, but I do anyway. “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, alongside a bunch of thralls. But one of them 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. 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.

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 do feel like I have endangered the Hunter code and that I darned better go fix my mistakes before it’s too late.

And since I can’t think of anything I did wrong beside letting that vampire-in-a-box hoof it and not even 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 drowning 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, other, 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 brushes and the grass, stepping lightly 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 completely. “Okay, we’re both gonna be calm and 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 to not 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’s Dark City district is no better than an apocalyptic wasteland and riddled with magical veils I shouldn’t even think about entering. The only people on the streets here are criminals, junkies, or worse. Crime is a business of the night, which is when the Dark 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.

***

I feared it would be impossible to track the vampire, once he got loose in the city. It confuses me that I don’t lose sight of him. Maybe someone up there has decided to have mercy on me.

The streets are still mostly deserted, the trademark ghetto darkness broken only by a smattering of flickering streetlights and the flashes of distant lightning. The sun has finally set, but the smog catches the city lights like a lamp shade, 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, drenched to the bone and trying to ignore the beginning headache strobing out from the back of my head.

I found him an intersection away from the hospital ruins, glancing up at the bulb of a street light, 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 ever 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.

It’s not as easy as I had hoped, and not just because my head throbs in sync with my heartbeat, thanks to the concussion. I don’t have a dart gun, I don’t have silver bullets, 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 probably wouldn’t have to worry about him breaching the Contract. But how do I make him understand that 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 out of his neck. I can’t figure out why, or where comes from. The only thing I saw on his neck was that amulet, and it wasn’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 first signs of habitation, even if it is 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 probably 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 really are 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 he has 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. 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 fairly 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 the 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 there, I’m not. I can turn away, walk home, and not waste another thought on my savior. What’s more, it would be completely 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.

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 the arrival of 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. 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.

The knot in my chest tightens around a growing sense of doom. 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.

The scenery on the other side of the veil looks exactly the same, and still different. The air is surprisingly 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 street is as quiet as it looked, 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. The idea 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 quiet 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 nobody would ever look twice at won’t leave my mind. What if I hadn’t stumbled upon him? What if Aschure and I hadn’t shown up? How long would the two vampires have kept him in there, leaving him to starve until nothing was left 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 traces to follow, 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 park, too high for me to climb. It’s not a building, more like a divider wall, pock-marked with traces of past 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 quiet mix of grunts, slaps of fists against meat, and—is that a cattle prod I hear?—dimly 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 simply 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, painfully 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 last bit of attention I have.

Three vampires surround my savior, whaling on him with fists, kicks and, yes, one of them has a cattle prod. A fourth vampire—at least I hope it was a vampire, there’s not much left of it—lies dead on the ground, its body ripped into pieces and strewn across the yard. He got at least one of them, but now the tide seems to have turned. I would have thought a fight between supes would be a lot more dynamic, have cinema-worthy scenes, jumps, tumbles, roars, but this fight is stationary. And it’s not much of a fight. The assailants are big, rangy athletes, built like soldiers, dressed all in black. I’m not sure why it takes four vampires in their prime to bring down one half-naked, dirty creature, but the way they act lets me think that they expected more resistance, more of a fight.

Whatever they expected, they were wrong. As I watch, I realize I didn’t imagine the sizzling and smoke around my saviors neck before. It has increased since I lost sight of him, and now there is no way to misinterpret the tiny plumes wafting out of what’s left of his shirt. Or the way his upper body reddens and swells, skin breaking when they hit him, as if he were one giant bruise. The stink of sizzling flesh hangs thickly in the air. He can’t even stand, stumbling and falling as he tries to retaliate or block their attacks.

Not a fight. A beating, more vicious than anything I’ve ever seen.

My mind blanks. White spots dance through my vision as I whip out my gun, point, and pull the trigger twice. I don’t think this through, but I don’t have to. This is wrong on a level I don’t care to comprehend. The bullets hit the vampire with the cattle prod in the head, going right through his skull, splattering his brains everywhere, and ricocheting on the concrete. The second vampire doesn’t stay conveniently still, but I still hit his neck and send him to the ground, gurgling and spitting blood as he tries to breathe with a shredded throat. He doesn’t need air, but instincts are strong, so he tries and tries as he thrashes around. He will heal, probably faster than I’d like, but for now he’s out of the picture.

Which leaves me with vampire number three. He charges me, his fingers grinding as they shift into pale claws. I struggle to keep up with him as he jumps and climbs the wall directly beneath me, roaring with rage. My heart pumps blood into my head so quickly that I get dizzy, but my training holds. The thunder of my last shot echoes through the abandoned apartment complex and I stare wide-eyed as my attacker twitches and falls off the wall. He crashes into the ground and stays down, eyes still wide open, a gaping hole in his forehead.

I relearn to breathe when my heartbeat slows down, gasping in air I didn’t notice I missed. I’m alive. And the vampires are down. Not dead, I think, but down. Normal vampires that don’t take twenty bullets to be impressed, thank god. This day couldn’t have gotten any weirder if they’d just shrugged off my shots.

A groan draws my eyes to my savior. He blinks at me, kneeling in a pool of both blood and shreds of clothing, then falls over. I wait for him to move, crouching on the wall and hoping very much I don’t have to hop down into the courtyard. If I can stay up here, it’s a hop and skip back out of the veil, even if I break something. If I go down into the courtyard with him, I’m trapped. Please get up, please get up—

He doesn’t.

The sense of urgency in my chest hasn’t eased. He’s a mess, on the verge of death, and I know somewhere deep down in my mind that I’ll regret it forever if I don’t help him. I can’t imagine why, but I can’t ignore it. Couldn’t, ever since this whole disaster started.

I shuffle along the wall until I find a slight dip in the brick structure and jump down. As I hurry towards my savior, the throat-less vampire vaults up and my hand raises the gun to blast him again before I can think about what I’m doing. The bullet rips through his face and he falls back over, thankfully lifeless. And before I know it I find myself kneeling beside the sizzling mess that is the vampire-in-a-box, shuffling through his clothes as he tries to slap me off with bleeding arms he can barely raise.

A shiny amulet rests in a dip of blackened flesh on his chest, burrowing deeper and deeper as his body reacts as if he is both burning and having an allergic reaction. I’ve never seen anything like it, never heard of any magical item doing something like this, but it doesn’t matter. If this is the amulet’s doing, it’s an easy fix.

I grab the chain and yank hard. It breaks with a tinkling sound and the sizzling, the swelling, the dying stops.

The amulet feels light in my hand, light and hot but cooling fast. I frown down at it, then at the motionless vampire in front of me. Rescue mission: check. Vampire still alive: check.

What now?