“I’m just dazed, I think. Thank you. Where is—where is Hamilton?” She stammered.
“Hamilton? Oh, he’s gone,” I extemporized, “He ran as soon as the mugger approached. Father Kevin and I were close by. We happened to see the whole thing.” Kevin winked in accord at the modest fabrication. It was better for her to think her date a coward rather than a killer.
“Oh, that little shit!” Her confusion evaporated, replaced with rage and the first tinges of shame as it sunk in that a priest was helping her up after her plaything had abandoned her to be assaulted. “Sorry, Father.” She made to cover her mouth, but Kevin merely grinned.
“Would you like us to get the police? An ambulance, perhaps?” I asked, trying to assess her damage, but even as I inquired, she was shaking her head with no hint of hesitation.
“I swam in college and raised three sons. I can survive a little tumble.” She looked around. “You’re certain he’s gone? And the mugger?”
“Quite. And they won’t be returning.” My voice was iron, and Kevin seconded the sentiment. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Meredith Ruston. And yours? I know the good priests’ name, but you are?” She extended a hand, which I took.
“Ring Hardigan. My friends own Strata. Maybe next time we can buy you a meal with a guarantee of no violence.” I smiled as she laughed. She was game, I had to admire her spirit, and in the low light of the boardwalk, I could see the outlines of a woman who had been a classic beauty, and was still very finely formed. “May we at least arrange for a ride?”
She nodded and regained some measure of the graciousness I had seen earlier, when she was dining in her element. “Thank you, Ring. I won’t forget this kindness.”
Arriving at the valet stand, I held out a fifty dollar bill to the most attentive member of the staff. “A car for the lady, as quickly as possible.”
He whistled instantly and a cab pulled in. I thanked him for the efficiency and held Meredith’s elbow, admonishing her that we would be at the restaurant for another two hours is she felt unwell or needed assistance.
Kevin echoed that sentiment but added, “I’d be honored to have you visit St. Maurice sometime.” Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, thinking he meant to solicit donations, but his guileless expression rebuked her and she broke into a laugh.
“It’s been too long since I attended church. I’ll be certain to see you, Father.” She gave us both brief, impetuous hugs and slid into the seat. With a clump, the door closed and the cab pulled away as we went back inside to see if we could still catch dessert.
“I don’t know about you, but killing an immortal makes my hunger quite sharp,” Kevin said plainly.
Opening the front door to the restaurant, I said, “You should try sleeping with one.” And in we went, as Kevin laughed at my brazen admission of sin.
Our efficiency in dispatching the unlucky vampire was apparently far better than I had imagined, because we missed a salad course and some chatter, but little else. As the staff presented our main course, Delphine raised one brow just as Risa elbowed me. Both had the desired effect, because I spread my napkin in my lap and announced, “He’s toast.”
Ever a paragon of manners, Wally interrupted her punishment of an enormous bite of her meal to ask, “How?”
Kevin shrugged ineffectually, leaving the explanation to me, even though, from a sheer vantage point, his had been the best view of the brief but explosive encounter. To punctuate his decision, he selected an enormous shrimp from his plate and deposited it in his mouth, with far greater delicacy than Wally, but the same gusto. I took his hint and composed the narrative during a sip of wine, then plunged ahead.
“It was ten seconds of stalking, and by stalking, I mean we walked up behind them on the boardwalk, at which point the vamp finally felt our intent, but by then it was too late. I took him in the chest.” I added without regret. It was his fault he was an idiot, not mine.
“Was the woman hurt?” Risa inquired, tensely.
I shook my head. “He threw her to the ground as he turned, but she was just roughed up a bit, nothing serious. We got a cab for her. She wasn’t even interested in the police, but that may be due to the fact that we told her a mugger ran her date off.”
“Meredith Ruston.” Kevin said with admiration. “Quite a woman. She was more angry than frightened.” He toasted the absent but memorable woman with his glass. “I saw what happened to them, I mean, to him.” He looked meaningfully at Delphine, who smiled in return.
“Do not be offended by the truth, Kevin. I accept the fact that some of my kind are unsavory characters, and they must be dealt with accordingly.” Delphine’s face soured for a moment, and then she added, “I assure you, I strive to be nothing like him at all, for the rest of my days.”
“I know you do, and I think you’re doing wonderful work rediscovering the woman you’ve always been.” Kevin replied, his voice frank. He sounded like a man who was compelled to be truthful, and it was clear that it mirrored his character as well as his training.
“As for Hamilton, our unfortunate dinner guest, he won’t be around long enough to discover how to reign in his appetites.” I concluded, and Wally grunted in approval. Kevin looked uncomfortable, but admittedly, it was a lot to process, even when prepared for such an event. Delphine looked pensive, then hopeful, and then conflicted.
“What is it?” Risa asked her, gently.
“I thought that—I’m not sure,” Delphine stammered. “Just a memory, perhaps. A shadow, nothing more.” She smiled as if warding off a cloud, but then her expression brightened and she added, “I feel as if I’m approaching some sort of liminal, and I don’t know if I should cross to the other side, or remain . . . just remain, I guess.” Her brow furrowed ever so slightly, but a winsome smile broke through again and she laughed, a tinkling, musical noise that had been absent for some time in her life. “I won’t chase it. I will, however, chase another bottle of this wine, and savor this meal. Thank you for this, all of you.”
We all raised a glass in camaraderie. Not even a comically inept Undying could sully our meal, and I said so to the smirks and laughter of a table that was, for the moment, blithely enjoying the warmth of company and working to create some normalcy in a very unusual world. As if to punctuate the complexity of this task, Patroclus walked out of the kitchen, waved at us with a brilliant smile, and disappeared back into his demesnes. Not all immortals are evil, nor are they incapable of controlling their appetites, I thought, staring at Delphine as she laughed with Wally. In the glow of a moment of normalcy, I considered my friend, the succubus, and what her contribution to our efforts had been, as well as what her purpose might be moving forward. The seed of an idea began to grow, but, like Delphine, I could not chase it, so I retraced my effort to enjoy an evening that had been remarkably pleasant.
Hamilton, unfortunately, could not say the same. In fact, I doubt he could say anything at all, since ashes are notoriously silent.
18
Virginia
“We’ll be swamped today,” he announced, looking outside at what was shaping up to be a flawless Saturday. The weekenders would inundate them, but it would keep the more serious water rats at bay. They didn’t like to share the river with amateurs, who would be busy clogging up the bends, flipping boats in the most basic of rapids, and generally making a mess of things. The amateurs pay our bills, he mused, and stretched as he turned on the coffeemaker. Business was good, it had always been good, and he didn’t see a time that they couldn’t at the very least make a subsistence living, but owning all of their equipment and the buildings had given them a serious advantage. That leg up had come at the cost of their parents’ death, a grim reality that was never far, just like the river.
He cocked his head, listening. Ella was rummaging for something in the office at the front of the property, and making a grand racket. No building could be large enough to grant them peace free of each other, but they tried. Or at least I do, he thought. Their li
ving area was a spacious addition to the back of the 1940s storefront, and they migrated forward from their bedrooms each morning without aid of an alarm clock. Like the breeze on the river, they just seemed to know, and after living the whole of their lives here, everything they did was second nature.
On weekends, and during especially busy times, they hired part time help to make sure that everything ran smoothly enough. Equipment was paramount. They could not afford to let their reputation as clean, safe purveyors of adventure become sullied in any way, so the bulk of their time went to maintenance. He couldn’t complain about Ella’s effort; she had always been a hard worker, but with the two of them in each other’s space for so long, the stale tension was just another force of nature to deal with, just like the reality of the river. He heard Ella mutter as she came out to the front, and he handed her a steaming mug of coffee. It wasn’t that they disliked each other, they were just . . . stagnated. There were only so many decades that siblings could live together in the shadow of their parents’ gravesite until a change was in order, and by his reckoning, they were a decade past that, easily.
“Thanks,” she said, then sat down at her desk and opened her laptop. “Hello, what’s this?” Her tone was more than curious, it was confused. That meant it wasn’t shop business, it was something else.
“Is it him?” His voice cracked from disuse in the morning air, and he restated his question immediately. “Is it him?”
“Oh, I would say so. This is something from the Italian authorities; it seems there was an act of piracy while a boat was just leaving the port at Lampedusa, wherever that is.” She immediately began typing, but he beat her to the punch with his phone.
“That’s a tiny place to be hunting!” He gawked at the picture of the island on his phone. It couldn’t have been much larger had he been standing on it, and when Ella looked at her screen, she came to the same conclusion.
“What the hell was he doing there? I don’t get it, there’s like, nothing. At all. What’s the point of even going there? Lots of other islands have better ports with many more yachts and sailboats heading west.” She shook her head in amazement at the brazen nature of the kills. There had been three of them, according to the report, all African men found mutilated in a saltwater grotto. The fact that the bodies were left behind was another quiet testament to the killer’s lack of fear. “He’s getting stronger.” She voiced what they both were thinking.
“How did we get that report?” He wondered aloud. Something wasn’t right.
“From the network. The same as always,” she said, with a hint of hostility.
He didn’t want a simple question to deteriorate into an argument, so he tacked into a diffident tone and asked, “Who was the message sender?”
Still irked, she scrolled back into their email. Her eyes narrowed, and she hit several keys with increasing frustration. “Something’s wrong.”
Suspicion flared within him and he took a deep, calming breath. “Is the email deleted? From the other end?”
She looked at him with alarm. “Yes . . . how did you know?” That was uncomfortable, since she regarded her own ‘net skills as far better than his. He sat down and braided his fingers together, hands in his lap.
“We never asked the sender about a tripwire. What exactly made them aware of some immortal waking up in the desert and slaughtering people?” She said nothing, so he went on. “Here’s another thing that bothers me. Why hasn’t anyone else on the boards mentioned this thing, this creature, coming west? Is it just that we’re so fucking good at data retrieval? No, we know we’re not the best; that guy in Montreal can find a polar bear in a snowstorm, and those sisters in—well, wherever they are, you know who I’m talking about, they’re pretty damned good, too.”
“Okay, what’s your point? We’re number three?” she asked, a tad bitterly.
He patted the air in a calming motion, and her anger receded for the moment. “No, my point is, we’ve only had, what, five kills in ten years? And all of those were really close to here, local stuff, right?” When she agreed, he continued, “So, nobody in the know is going to think of us first when there’s something really bad that needs killing.” He refolded his hands and sat, waiting for her to reach the logical conclusion.
He was right. They could count on one hand how many people knew that they were even aware of immortals, let alone capable of taking one out. That meant that someone knew they were connected, inquisitive, and had feelers out among the very quiet, very underground net of people who didn’t just believe in legends, they killed them. She blew air out through her teeth, not quite whistling, and began to see connections in the things that she hadn’t asked because she was too taken with the idea of a being a frontrunner on some creature that was clearly way over their pay grade.
“We need to find out who Elizabeth left behind when she got taken out,” Ella said, thoughtfully.
“Not only who, but what she left behind. Remember, just because they live forever, doesn’t mean they aren’t greedy bastards,” he said, and she smiled for the first time that morning.
They were being led. But where, and more importantly, by what?
19
From Risa’s Files
To:[email protected]
Sender: Chanticleers@REDACTED
Things have changed since our last email. The creature we’ve been tracking is still moving in our direction. We still do not know where he will ultimately go, or what his purpose might be, but there may be more evidence to clarify that, and soon.
I’ve done some more research on the three of you, and the more we read, the more impressive your resume becomes. With that in mind, I’m sure it should come as no surprise to you that there is a sort of web for people in our line of work. I know you’ve had contact with several colleagues, whether you know where they actually are is another story, and doesn’t concern us at this point.
A serious concern is how I was able to find you, and how that sudden appearance ties in to what is happening now. Where we live, there aren’t any immortal beings nearby at this time. I can say that with complete confidence. I’m sure you cannot say the same, but that is part and parcel with living in a place that has millions of people crammed into a strip of sand.
I may as well tell you that I made a mistake. I got information, in the form of those crime scene photos, and I was so sure I had a hot lead before anyone else that I didn’t bother to source them at all. Make no mistake, the crime is real. The murders are real, there are bodies to be had, and the beast is on the move. Back to my original point; I don’t know who sent me those pictures, and I don’t believe in coincidences. I don’t think it was you, but I think that it would be damned foolish to ignore the timing. Which brings me to a question: when you killed Elizabeth, what, or who, did she leave behind? Because if there is anything we know about immortals, they have long memories, longer bank accounts, and they do not let revenge sit idly by.
20
Island of Ustica
Not since Christian knights forded the sea to Outremer have I visited this place, he mused, taking in the humble isle with a disdainful sniff. It has not improved very much, although at least the stinking Franks are no longer here. During a period of travel in which he followed the Crusaders and their opponents with outright glee, an errant shipload of knights, merchants, and their bedraggled followers had wrecked, but survived the cataclysm, only to find him waiting. As the survivors made for higher ground, he beset them in a fury at first dark, ravaging their ranks like a mad lion, and when the sun rose on the gore spattered earth, there were prizes left behind that inspired dizzying greed, even within his ancient heart.
Among them were armor and weaponry of such superior quality that he suspected an immortal had crafted the pieces. A closer examination of the corpses, or rather what was left of them, revealed that three of the men had the calloused hands and burn marks of veteran armorers. After washing the blood from their bruised, distorted faces, he determined that they we
re at the very least cousins, and most likely brothers. He had inadvertently found not one, but three master smiths, whose work quite literally took his breath away. There were vambraces and greaves of light but solid construction, and a cuirass built in the same manner, but filigreed with chased silver and flexible joints at the gorget that made it seem more like a second skin.
As an immortal, he feared no man, but the sheer inconvenience of deep wounds was something he could do without. It was a vast, bloody world, full of delicious conflict and opportunity that he preferred not to miss due to healing, albeit with inhuman rapidity. There was a war hammer of near perfect size for his thick, muscular build, and even with his unnatural strength, he sensed the balance of a weapon made by an artisan. But it was the sunlight on the cuirass which was his undoing, because a chance beam breaking through the canopy of a tree above lit the metal from within, and the design, subtle but present, was released to his avaricious gaze.
Dragon. It coiled in repose, one clawed hand resting on a skull, and the other talons grasping a sword of such venomous appearance that he savored a momentary tang of alarm. He immediately began scuffing about in the dirt, certain that if such a blade existed, he would find it. The items he now had, all supernaturally lightweight and alive under his touch, would become his shell, his protectorate, and with them, his rage would only be limited by his stamina, which was godlike.
And then, it glinted, shyly, from underneath the oiled cloak of a page that had died before he could even raise his club in defense. Curled within a fatted hide, it had clearly been hidden from view for fear of theft. Even among men of the Christian god, there was no such thing as true honor. They would rob one another of everything save their balls when in hospital after a fight, and he had seen more than one soldier hide coins in his ass as a last resort. It seemed that knights might attest to the language of Christ, but these same men of honor used their hands to steal like the lowest street beggar.
Box Set: The Fearless 1-3 Page 56