Dark Vigil

by Gary Piserchio

  She shrugged. “If the daemón has access to Tabby’s memories, it’ll know about everything I’ve ever done in Denver. And even if it doesn’t, it’s been to my place.”

  “Oh, yeah. I was there, too, wasn’t I?” he said with a thin smile. “That seems like ages ago.”

  She nodded. “I need to cut all ties with my former life and disappear as best I can.”

  “That really sucks.”

  She looked at him sideways. “Look who’s talking. The damned thing left you paralyzed. Now that sucks. I’m just slightly inconvenienced.”

  He shrugged. “Could have been worse, I guess.”

  “How exactly?”

  “Hell if I know. So then what? Find a regular job and get back to some semblance of a life?”

  “No chance. I may not be bandruí gaiscíoch like my sister and aunt, but I’m chock full of bandruí blood—and a little kitty called Cait Sidhe. I’m hunting these motherfuckers.”

  “Good answer. Let’s get rid of all the asshole dark creatures. How are you set for money?”

  “There’s my parents’ life insurance, their savings, and then whatever I get for their place and mine. I’m sure I’ll have to think about making money at some point, but not for the next couple of years at least. Though I don’t really know that, as I don’t exactly have a business plan worked out for monster hunting.”

  They announced the boarding of her flight.

  With a sigh, she stood up. “See you in Denver?”

  “Of course.” He disappeared from the seat.

  Calico smiled as someone gasped and someone else said, “Did you see that?”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Calico stood in her basement and looked down at Winston’s dried out body. “What the hell do I do with you?” She thought she should dismember him and throw him away, though she’d never gotten rid of a body before. It would suck to be thrown in jail for killing a vampire. But there was also a nagging hope that maybe, somehow, he might have some insight into where Balor might be with Tabby’s body.

  Calico reared back and kicked Winston hard in the side. “You fucking assholes.”

  She headed upstairs. She’d put off making a decision about the vampire for this long, no reason not to put it off some more. There was plenty to do before she had to decide, and she could talk it over with Myron and Detrick and Lizzi.

  A smile touched her lips at the thought of people out there who understood the situation and wanted to help. Her little team of monster hunters.

  She stopped in the doorway to the dining room. The box Tabby had left at her Denver apartment only a few short months ago was on the buffet next to the few remaining bottles of booze. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to open it, but now after everything that had happened, it was finally time.

  Unsheathing a single purple claw, Calico cut through the tape holding the flaps closed on the top of the tall narrow box. Folding back the flaps, she chuckled. Of course. She pulled out the Cait Sidhe statue and scratched it behind the ears.

  “Good kitty,” she said, her voice hitching.

  She set it down and grabbed her red-leather tote. Pulling out the rose-colored acetate bag she’d put in there all that time ago, she slid out the silver necklace she’d made. Calico lowered it over the statue’s ears, settling it around the cat’s neck. It fit perfectly, with the rowan triskele lying against the chest where Cait Sidhe’s heart-shaped tuft of fur would have been. The statue made her think of Mom and Dad and Tabby, of course.

  She kissed the top of the statue’s head. “I miss you all so fucking much.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  The last several weeks had been a whirlwind of crap as she tidied up her past life. Thankfully with Lizzi’s help and hiring people to handle some of the logistics, like moving crap into storage and listing her parents’ house and her townhouse, she’d managed to get through it, which included the cremation of her parents.

  As cold as it sounded and felt, like an icicle jammed through her heart, she took care of their bodies as quietly as possible. There had been no funeral or wake, no talking to neighbors or friends, no obituaries in the paper.

  She asked Lizzi to handle most of it because the less Calico’s name was mentioned in the media associated with the sensationalism surrounding her parents’ murder, the better. Of course, there was the “ongoing investigation” by the local cops promising to be in touch, but that was easy to ignore.

  She marveled at how, despite the emotional toll of the last few weeks, it had been remarkably easy to sweep her former life under the rug. And now Calico was ready and determined for the next phase of her life—though she had one last goodbye to make. That’s why she stood in the shadow of a building along East Colfax Avenue at three in the morning.

  Even at that time, the street was pretty busy. It was Friday night—or rather, Saturday morning. She watched the front of a small red brick building across the street. Over its door was a garish neon sign of a chef flipping what she assumed was a pancake.

  A half-block away she heard the squeal of laughter and the too-loud conversation of four young women dressed in cute dance-club outfits. Four women heading to a late, late meal after a night of dancing and drinking, coming directly from The Deadbeat Club or Polly Esther’s or maybe Rock Island. They got in line outside the diner. There was always a line at this time of the morning on the weekend.

  That world seemed a lifetime ago and Calico’s heart ached at seeing them, but she smiled. “Goodbye, girls. Have all the fun.” She wasn’t surprised at the hitch in her voice.

  Turning away, she headed down the block to get an Uber, pulling a small carry-on behind her. The car would take her to DIA to catch a flight to Paris to help some cousins she’d never met.

  Epilogue

  The sea air was damp and cold, but the bandruí gaiscíoch’s body was dressed warmly in a simple gray tunic-like dress with a black wool overcoat, which was Ciarán’s. The vampire had also bought her black shoes with short heels.

  It had been six weeks since leaving Kansas City, and the body had healed for the most part, though the mended bones ached and restricted some movement. She used a black onyx walking stick for stability or took Ciarán’s arm.

  “Are we near?” asked the vampire.

  “We are.”

  Ciarán wore one of his expensive charcoal gray three-piece suits. Or, rather, one of the suits that his previous master Lorcán had bought for him. Ciarán looked to be in his twenties. He’d been a young man when Lorcán turned him. He was only slightly taller than the bandruí’s five-foot-ten frame. He was slim with the ashen pallor of a vampire and light brown hair that hung in waves to his shoulders.

  Balor led them from the Embarcadero to a long concrete pier that jutted out into San Francisco Bay. It was one of the industrial piers, the entrance blocked by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire. Ciarán twisted the padlock off the gate and the two entered. A guard emerged from a small booth off to the side.

  “Whoa, there, you can’t come in here.” He had one hand out toward them the other resting on the firearm in its holster.

  Balor sighed and pointed at the guard. Tendrils of dark power erupted from her hand like a geyser of black ink, punching the guard in the chest. He dropped. His heart stopped. The darkness reabsorbed back into her hand and the pair walked onto the pier.

  Ahead, a cargo ship was moored, its gigantic hulking shadow rising in the dark behind the amber pier lights. The sounds were constant between the street traffic behind them and the constant motion of the bay itself chuffing water against pier and ship.

  The dark creature they looked for did not live on the pier, she had come to hunt, to suck the life force from her victim along with the very marrow from his bones. She fed upon sailors traveling to San Francisco from all four corners of the world. Most of the captains and export/import companies assumed the sailor had simply wandered off, deciding to stay in America. Or that the sailor had met his demise in some gruesome but mund
ane manner as could happen around ships. Either way, local authorities were rarely informed.

  “She’s hunting tonight?” asked Ciarán.

  “She is. We shall wait here for her.”

  It took nearly an hour before a woman materialized out of the thin fog of the bay. She was shorter than Balor by a couple of inches and dressed casually in jeans, a white button-up shirt, flat black shoes, and a houndstooth peacoat. Her long blonde hair was wet. She either wore no makeup or the ocean had washed it away. Her clothes were damp, but not saturated. She had just come back from the water and dressed, having devoured some insignificant human and leaving his remains to be consumed by the bay. She glanced toward them, the reflected light in her eyes a bloody crimson.

  Her features had changed over the millennia, but he remembered her from that night on the hill in Ireland beneath the rowan tree. She’d been one of the bandruí priestesses rushing in to save their male counterparts and failing. She was Céad. One of the first of Balor’s children.

  “Muirgheal,” said Balor, nodding to her.

  The woman stopped and looked suspicious, nearly panicked. Her eyes darted from side to side as though expecting an attack. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do, my dear.”

  She hissed at them, then said, “You won’t take me, bandruí bitch.”

  The daemón smiled. “Ah, yes, this body that I wear.”

  Muirgheal’s eyes fastened on Ciarán. “You’re a vampire.”

  He nodded and held a hand out toward the daemón. “And this is Balor, our Mother.”

  She looked between them. “Pardon me if I think you’re full of shit. The daemón is imprisoned. Lost.”

  Balor sighed and raised her hand. Dark tendrils stretched out and wrapped around Muirgheal’s neck. She gagged even as her face showed incredulous recognition from the touch, and then she kicked wildly when Balor lifted her from the pier.

  “I have need of your assistance.”

  She waited for Muirgheal’s struggles to wane as her child started to pass out, then she reabsorbed the tendrils. Muirgheal fell limp to the concrete but was still conscious.

  She gasped weakly, “How are you here?”

  “The Príosún Daemón was opened by humans some twenty years ago, freeing me. I was rescued and protected by my dark children and eventually found my way to Lorcán.”

  She rose unsteadily to her feet. “That asshole? I nearly killed him once. Did he tell you that?”

  Balor shook her head. “He did not. But I shall put an end to the squabbles of my children and unite you so we can rid the world of the bandruí blight.”

  Muirgheal arched an eyebrow. “I like the sound of that.”

  Balor smiled.

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  Bandruí Chronicles

  Dark Vigil (Book One)

  Dark Fear (Book Two)

  Glossary

  Albios is the upper-world of Tir Na Nog

  Pronunciation: ahl-bee-uhs

  Balor is a daemón, a dark spectral spirit, from Dubnos

  Pronunciation: bahl-orr, with the Irish roll of the R

  Bandruí is a female druid

  Pronunciation: bahn-drew-EE, the EE is a slight sound. Think of is like boundary, but starting with the bahn sound

  Cait Sidhe in mythology is a fairy creature; also called king of the cats. In this book, she's a spectral spirit from Albios (upper-world) who is sent to retrieve the daemón Balor

  Pronunciation: caught shee

  Céad is the first of their kind

  Pronunciation: KAY-uhd

  Ceannanus Mór is the town of Kells in County Meath

  Pronunciation: canon-us more

  Ciarán is a nestling of the Céad vampire Lorcán

  Pronunciation: keer-AHN

  Daemón refers to a dark spectral spirit from Dubnos (lower-world)

  Pronunciation: dayuh-MUN

  Danu is a goddess and ruler of the Tuatha Dé Danann

  Pronunciation: dahn-new

  Drogheda is one of the oldest towns in Ireland and lies along the east coast

  Pronunciation: DRAW-hed-uh

  Druí is a druid

  Pronunciation: drew-EE, the EE is a slight sound

  Dubnos is the lower-world of Tir Na Nog

  Pronunciation: dove-ness

  Gaiscíoch can be hero or heroine; a warrior

  Pronunciation: GOSH-geeil, the L sound is slight and not pronounced in some parts

  Garbhán is a nestling of the Céad vampire Lorcán

  Pronunciation: gar-VHAN

  Lorcán is one of the Céad, turned into a monster by Balor

  Pronunciation: ler-CAHN

  Seanchaí is a traditional Irish storyteller or historian

  Pronunciation: shawn-uh-thwee

  Teitheadh means flee or run

  Pronunciation: te-ha

  Tir Na Nog is Otherworld, the domain of Tuatha Dé Danann (the tribe of the goddess Danu), of which both Cait Sidhe and Balor are members

  Pronunciation: tear nah noth

  Triskele is a spiral design with three symmetrical parts

  Pronunciation: tris-kuh-loo

  Tuatha Dé Danann is the tribe of the goddess Danu, a supernatural race

  Pronunciation: two-uh DAY dahn-uhn

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to my first readers Jeff Piserchio (my brother, who’s been a beta reader of all my books, including the pen name ones), Cindy Myers (a friend since high school and a great help with my story problems), and Brittany Smith (a friend with a really great blog about books: perfectlytolerable.com). Their insights and comments were invaluable.

  And thanks to friend and editor, Rebecca Hodgkins.

  About the Author

  Gary Piserchio (hey, that’s me) lives in Denver with two Chihuahuas. By day he works in the tech industry and by night, or rather by early evening because, you know, late nights are a thing of the past, he writes about a kickass monster hunter.