And not eat people? If all they did was eat the local wildlife, there wouldn’t be any need for the Searchers.
His gaze happened upon the pile of mangled raccoon remains, and his stomach lurched in response. Perhaps not.
Tremblay was the first person out of the cellar, and he turned away from Samuel and Violet, noisily vomiting into the snow. Violet’s eyes locked with Samuel’s, a glassy shine to them.
“I feel like doing the same,” she said, her voice queasy.
Samuel closed the cellar doors and fastened the padlock over the handles. “Will you be sick?”
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “No, I think I’ll be all right.” She tilted her head in Tremblay’s direction. “Fred? What about you?”
Tremblay straightened and adjusted his hat. His face was pale and a fine sheen of sweat streaked down his face. His voice was a harsh rasp. “I’m not dead yet. What the hell was down there?”
“It appears they’ve been eating the local fauna,” Samuel said. “Which explains why there aren’t more missing people in Niagara Falls.”
“And their maker isn’t in there,” Violet said. “Unless the one we staked last night was their maker.”
“That’s possible.” It would make sense. Master vampires liked to stay close to their newly-turned fledglings. It wasn’t as though vampires would be totally eradicated within his lifetime. There would always be others to chase.
“But not likely,” said Tremblay, echoing Samuel’s thoughts. “I don’t think anyone should be resting easy until we’ve staked a few more.” He took a shaky breath, and for half a second Samuel thought he might be sick again. “I really hope New York can send a couple of Searchers here.” He looked back at the now-locked cellar doors. “We should get out of here before anyone notices us.”
They walked through the snow back to the front of the house, but their hopes for not being noticed were quickly dashed when a familiar voice said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
All three of them looked at the porch, where the pair of brothers from the night before stood. The front door was still closed and no one had heard it open, so Samuel guessed that they didn’t live here, either.
“Nothing,” said Tremblay.
One of them peered at Samuel and Violet before recognition bloomed across his face. “You were here last night!” he said. “I remember her hair!”
“I shall have to find a better hat,” Violet said, her voice nearly a grumble.
“Are you looking for Gregoire, too?” the man asked. Both he and his brother seemed a little less suspicious of them.
“No,” said Samuel smoothly, quickly coming up with a lie. “I told you last night that my wife is very interested in matters of the paranormal and spiritualism. She wanted to see if she could sense any ghosts here in the daytime.”
“You must really love her. It’s fuckin’ freezing out here,” the other brother said. He tilted his head toward Violet. “Begging your pardon, madam.”
Violet nodded regally in return.
“Well, we haven’t found any evidence of ghosts,” said Samuel. “Just like we didn’t last night, either.”
“I was very disappointed,” said Violet, playing along.
“Yeah, well, to tell the truth, I think Gregoire’s full of shit,” said the older brother.
“All mediums are,” said the other, disgust curling his upper lip.
Samuel exchanged glances with Violet and Tremblay. It was looking more and more like these two didn’t know what their former employer was. “My wife doesn’t share your views,” he said. “I suppose neither of you have witnessed spirits in your house?”
“It’s not ours,” said the oldest. “We’re renting rooms at a boarding house about half a mile away. Thinking about trying our luck in America next.”
“I’d rather go back to Halifax,” said the other.
“So you’ve never seen ghosts in there?” Violet asked, disappointment in her voice. She was piling it on a little too thick, in Samuel’s estimation, although the brothers seemed to fall for it.
“No,” said the older one. “Though I don’t believe in ‘em, anyway.”
“Gregoire was plenty strange without ghosts,” said the other. “I’m Chester, by the way. Chester Greaves. This here’s Morris.” He pointed a thumb at his older brother.
“If you’re looking for places to go,” Tremblay said, “I’d recommend going back to Halifax.”
“There’s nothing there,” said Morris. “I’m thinking we should go on to New York or Chicago next. Get some work at one of the airfield sites.”
Airfield construction was dirty and dangerous work, but Samuel could see the appeal. It was supposed to pay well, not that he’d ever worked on one.
Samuel wanted to ask if they’d ever been in the cellar, but he couldn’t fathom a way to do so in a roundabout way that wouldn’t tell the Greaves brothers what they discovered down there. Instead, he said, “I’m sure working on an airfield will be less strange than for a medium.”
“Mediums pay rather good,” Chester said. “Even if they’re weird. ‘Don’t go in this room, don’t go in that room, stay at the front of the house.’ He was loony.”
“Took off last night and didn’t pay us,” Morris said.
“Perhaps it’s best that you leave Niagara Falls,” said Violet. “We may not have seen any ghosts last night or today, but I still have a strange feeling about your employer. You should leave.”
****
Night fell early, and she and Samuel left their hotel shortly after sunset. This time, Violet could pick up the faint vibration that said vampires were nearby, but she couldn’t pinpoint an exact location. She looked up at Samuel under the light from the street lamps, and could tell that he felt it, too. There was another nest somewhere close by, if not more, but she couldn’t pinpoint it. It was a low thrum, a never-ending vibration that alerted them to their presence.
They couldn’t sit around their hotel room and wait for one of them to show up, so they did what they had to every night: hunt. And, Violet thought wryly, take in some of Niagara Falls’s life after dark. She didn’t often get an opportunity to travel, even if it was only a few hours away from home.
She could tell Samuel was cagey as they walked along the snowy streets, and she was, too. This was new territory for both of them; not just because neither was familiar with the infested town but being thrown together with a very different partner.
Well, not thrown together. She had volunteered, after all. So had Samuel.
“Why didn’t you go right back to London after Ada and Max’s wedding?” she asked. “You were so eager to come to Canada right away.”
He seemed surprised by the question and took a few seconds to answer. “I suppose I needed a change of scenery.”
“You’ve said that, but why?” She prodded a little further. “What happened back in London? Was it Ada’s accident?”
Accident. That was a hell of a way to describe nearly having one’s throat ripped out.
“No, not exactly.” Samuel continued walking. “It happened after the incident with Mrs. Sterling, last autumn.”
Violet forced herself to keep from urging him on and waited.
“I don’t enjoy discussing the particulars of it,” he said. “But…”
“Sometimes it helps to talk about things with someone who’s experienced them as well,” she said gently.
“It was a routine vampire hunt,” he said, his voice abrupt. “One of my partners died.”
Violet assumed as much, but she merely nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“He was a new Searcher. Bert Radcliffe. Just a lad, only nineteen. He overestimated his own ability with the stake and underestimated the vampire’s strength. He bled out in front of me.”
When Violet looked at his face, she saw his eyes had taken on a glazed look, like he was back in the cellar or drawing room or wherever that vampire had killed his partner. Nineteen years old. A hell of a way to die.
“I’ve seen it happen before,” Samuel said. “But not in someone so young, and not on their first hunt. He was young, dumb, and arrogant. Just like I was at nineteen.” He looked straight ahead, at the steam cab that a small group of women were pouring into. “I stopped hunting after Radcliffe was killed. I wasn’t ready to do it again until I came to New York.”
“I couldn’t tell,” she said, thinking of the way he dispatched Gregoire the night prior.
“We’ll see how I perform when faced with more than one vampire,” he said. “I don’t have as much confidence in my skills as I used to.” He barked out a short, humorless laugh. “That’s a hell of a thing for you to deal with, too. Your partner dropped the basket.”
Violet knew that trying to soothe his ego would probably be fruitless, but she had to try anyway. “Sam, that’s one of the risks of our profession…”
He cut her off. “It’s never happened to me before,” he said. His eyes blazed when they met hers, but she still saw the agony and guilt reflected there under the street lamp. “He shouldn’t have been in the field yet, but we were desperate for more help. He said he was ready, and…”
“He wasn’t,” Violet said, finishing for him. “Sam, all nineteen-year-olds think they’re ready. It’s part of being that age.”
“How old was Mrs. Sterling when she conducted her first hunt?”
He had her there. “About seventeen, same age I was when I started. But we’d been practicing for years. Samuel, how strong was this boy’s sense?”
It was the wrong question to ask. He visibly stiffened at her words, his mouth tugging downward. “Not like mine. I’m not sure how far removed he was from his dhampir ancestors.”
An inexperienced boy, without as much as the sense as other Searchers, working for a branch that was dangerously understaffed—it was a recipe for catastrophe. A bubble of grief welled up in Violet at the thought of the boy being struck down so young. Then she remembered the pair of brothers who’d turned up on Goat Island, and all the young vampires they’d staked with Tremblay earlier in the day.
Samuel bent down and whispered in her ear, breath tickling the delicate skin there. The sensation jarred her out of her thoughts. “Bat.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Bat,” he said, and discreetly pointed a gloved finger at a shop that advertised small automatons in its window. “It just landed on that roof.”
The increase in pressure to her temples has been so slight that Violet hadn’t noticed it until now.
“There’s only one reason a bat would be flying about in January in Canada,” she said.
“Do you have your stake at the ready?”
“Always.” She smiled at him, and he thawed a few degrees. “Let’s go.”
****
It felt like they had been wandering around Niagara Falls’s snowy streets for hours, but when Violet checked the watch she kept in her pocket, she saw only forty-five minutes had passed. That stupid bat had flitted from building to building, to the tops of street lamps, and even threatened to crash into the heads of unsuspecting people a few times. Whether it knew it was being followed, Violet couldn’t say, but it was certainly either very bold, very stupid, or both.
Violet was betting on stupid. She was hoping for stupid. She didn’t feel like having a fight with a vampire tonight. She was able to keep up with Samuel, but the cold and exhaustion from lack of sleep still pulled at her. She hoped he didn’t notice.
The bat darted past them and landed on a street lamp. Its yellow light illuminated an icy, steep walkway that led to a small dock. “Damn,” said Violet. She was appropriately dressed for the weather, but navigating that incline would be treacherous.
Samuel gripped her arm reassuringly, but whether the gesture was for her or himself, she couldn’t tell. “It’s moving forward,” he said, voice low in her ear. “What the devil is that boat doing in January?”
“It’s a Niagara Falls tour boat,” she said. “The Maid of the Mist. I rode it when I was a little girl.”
Samuel kept propelling both of them forward down the icy incline. “I think our friend intends to board it,” he said.
“Damn,” she said again. “What the hell does a vampire want on a tour boat?”
The bat swooped to the covered deck of the boat. They hurried to reach the gate, Samuel already reaching for his coat pocket. “Two, please,” he said to the unsuspecting ticket taker. “Are we too late?”
The man stared at him before speaking. “Yes, sir. The Maid of the Mist is standing room only at night in January.”
Violet loathed sarcasm.
Samuel opened his mouth to offer a rebuttal, but Violet spoke first. She clutched his arm a little more tightly. “Darling, just pay him,” she said. To the ticket taker, she said, “We aren’t too late, are we?”
He softened a little. “Boat departs in five minutes. Be sure to pick up a blanket and stay inside. It’s bloody cold out there.”
Violet was not looking forward to that, and judging from the set line of Samuel’s mouth, he wasn’t, either. But he paid for another tourist attraction that was going to end up a greasy mess for them.
For them, she reminded herself. That vampire didn’t have a chance.
The enclosed lounge on the deck was almost humid with its steam-powered heaters, but after the cold of the outdoors Violet welcomed it. Still, she draped one of the fur blankets piled beside the deck door around her shoulders, trying to coax some more warmth into her body. It might come in use if she had to trap the vampire with it.
And that undead flying bastard was on the boat somewhere, she could feel it.
The boat’s engines roared to life, hot steam issuing from every vent onboard. It lurched forward, and Violet nearly crashed into Samuel as it started moving.
“Steady,” he said. “We have to find that thing.”
She nodded and looked around the lounge. There were perhaps ten passengers willing to brave the cold and damp to see what they could of the waterfalls at night. Utter lunatics.
As was the vampire: the lunatic, utterly stupid vampire who shifted into a bat and would shortly be dealing with freezing cold water from the never-ending flow of the falls. Although she had to admit that the vampire wouldn’t care about the cold, assuming he even noticed it.
The vampire certainly wasn’t in the lounge, which was a mixed blessing. It would hopefully reduce the risk of the other passengers seeing it staked, but they would have to go out into the bone-chilling cold to do so. Violet already missed the warmth of the lounge and they hadn’t even left yet.
She and Samuel avoided eye contact with everyone else and slipped out the flimsy lounge door to the deck. Violet bit back a gasp of shock as the freezing air and droplets flung from the falls stabbed her face with what felt like a thousand tiny, icy needles, and judging from the horrified look on Samuel’s face, he felt it, too. It was almost difficult to differentiate this new type of pain from the one that still permeated through her head.
And the noise. The roar of the rushing water was nearly deafening, and she had to strain to hear Samuel’s order to move to the back of the boat.
Forcing herself to breathe the frigid air, they walked along the slippery deck to the back of the boat, and she prayed that they wouldn’t run into anyone who wasn’t a vampire. How many more crazy people could there be onboard, anyway?
The light offered by the lanterns strung along the deck was hardly sufficient, but it still shone brightly enough to reveal a very pale, very naked man at the stern, looking up at the falls in abject shock. His skin nearly glowed, and he didn’t notice Samuel and Violet approaching him until they were only a few feet away, stakes and mallets in hand.
Despite the cold, Violet shrugged off the heavy fur blanket wrapped around her shoulders, needing to have as much mobility as possible. She and Samuel both stood with their feet shoulder-length apart, trying to keep their purchase on the iced-over deck.
This is madness.
&nbs
p; Neither she nor Samuel wore life vests. If the vampire was inclined to, he could toss them over the edge of the boat and no one would know until their bodies washed up ashore. If they washed up. God knew how many poor souls had ended up sucked into the Niagara Gorge never to be seen again, their flesh stripped away by the never-ending churn of the water.
They hadn’t thought things through. They should have looked for life vests … the boat’s edge was so close … all it would take was one errant wave to tilt it to the side and sweep them away…
“I can’t feel it!” the vampire screamed. He turned wild eyes to Samuel and Violet. “I can’t feel the fucking cold!”
The panicked look on his face was replaced by something resembling hunger, and Violet could see his eyes shift red with bloodlust as he realized what was in front of him. Two meals, neither of whom had their sea legs in the middle of a freezing river. “This almost makes up for it,” he said. He advanced on them, bare feet gliding over the deck. He stumbled as he advanced on Violet, and Samuel took that opportunity to knock him to the deck. Violet threw her blanket over him for added measure.
There was a brief struggle as he tried to free himself from the blanket, but neither of them let go. Samuel fumbled with his stake, placing it over what was probably the vampire’s torso, but before he could deliver the fatal strike, the vampire gave a guttural hiss and pushed them off him.
Violet was flung against the side of the boat, the impact knocking the wind out of her. She saw Samuel rise to his feet, albeit unsteadily, but when she tried to do the same she slipped back to the deck, smacking her elbow in the process. Pain zigzagged through her arm, then numbness. She briefly prayed that she hadn’t broken it.
The sound of wet feet slapping against the deck managed to override even the roar of the falls, the base of which the boat was rapidly approaching. Violet tried to scramble to her feet but slid back to the deck again.
The vampire placed his hands on her shoulders, pinning her in place. His fingers dug into her through her coat, and he leaned his face down to hers. His breath stank of decayed flesh, and a wave of nausea rolled over Violet.
The Falls (The Searchers Book 3) Page 6