by Shéa MacLoed
"Can't you?" I tapped each bright red X with my forefinger. "The first body, here, was found in your shower, Eddie. The second, in the room next door to yours. And the third was right here in this very room. The room where you're trying to figure everything out." I turned back to them. "Eddie, the pattern is you."
# # #
Something ahead made a faint dripping sound, like a faucet that needed a new washer. There was a dank, metallic scent that tickled my nose and sat sharply on my tongue. A few caged lights gave off a dim glow, enough to interfere with my night vision but not enough to light the way.
I kept my UV gun in my hand, ready should I come face-to-face with my prey. How Eddie had gotten the thing on-board I would never know, but I was grateful for it.
We'd spent some time speculating on the reason someone would be after Eddie. It was clear that while Kabita agreed with me, Eddie was just humoring us. He clearly thought it was all one big coincidence. I had a hard time buying that, but I still couldn't figure out why Eddie would be part of the pattern.
The three of us spent the rest of the day searching the ship, marking off rooms as we went. At the rate we were going, it was going to take the rest of the year. After several hours we took a break. Eddie snuck us some food from the buffet, and then Kabita and I napped in his room until dark. Nighttime was always the best time for a Hunt.
After my nap I felt, if not refreshed, then at least more alert. Eddie offered to join in the hunt, but he was emceeing the steampunk ball that evening, so Kabita and I sent him on his way before heading to the place where the last body had been found. I didn't know what we hoped to find, but there wasn't anything. No clues. No residual vampire energy. Nothing.
"Listen," I said to Kabita. "A vamp's natural inclination is to go underground. The closest thing on a ship would be anything below the water line."
"Makes sense. We should concentrate our search below decks. Engine rooms. Storage bays. That sort of thing."
We'd split up and continued our search, which was how I found myself in a dim hallway somewhere in the belly of the ship. Between the bass roar of the engines and the poor lighting, I was getting a raging headache.
Somewhere deep inside me, something stirred, raising its head. The Darkness reminding me it was there, ready to be let out. If I used it, the headache would go away. I'd be able to see. The noise wouldn't bother me so much. And I'd probably find that damn vamp in half the time. But it would also bring me that much closer to the edge. To losing control for good. It wasn't worth the risk.
Then I remembered the red Xs on Eddie's wall. To prevent another murder, yes, it was worth the risk.
I took a deep breath and let the Darkness out. It surged up from that place inside me where it lived, spiraling through me and out the center of my chest. My vision narrowed to a pinprick. A point of light in a long dark tunnel. The sounds of the engines quieted. The pain throbbing at the base of my skull receded. Suddenly I could see as clearly as if it were broad daylight. I felt awake, alive, alert in a way I never did with my normal Hunter abilities.
Clenching the UV gun a little tighter, I picked up my pace as I moved down the corridor. The gripping on the back of my skull returned, but this time it wasn't a headache. I sensed the vamp. It was close.
I checked my phone. Not a single bar. No way to send Kabita a text. I was on my own.
I moved faster. The grip on my skull was growing tighter, a sure sign I was nearly on top of the thing. And then the feeling started to fade. With a frown, I stopped, turned around, and walked back a few paces. The feeling grew stronger. I should be practically on top of the vamp, but there was nothing there. Just an empty hallway. Nothing to hide behind. No doors. Nothing.
I glanced up in time to see the grate over my head come crashing down. The Darkness batted it away as if it were made of tin foil. It hit the wall with a loud clatter, leaving a dent in the panel. The vamp was another matter. It picked me up and threw me against the opposite wall. I hit so hard, I felt the metal shudder beneath me.
I brought up the UV gun, but the creature smacked it out of my hand. The gun skittered across the floor out of reach. The vamp snarled, flashing fang, eyes glowing a demonic red. It was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman, it was so emaciated. Definitely a soul vamp. A vampire who'd had a human soul trapped within it. And it was hungry.
It slashed at me with long fingernails. I twisted to the side, narrowly avoiding having my face redecorated. I twisted around, throwing a kick that connected with the vamp's knee. I heard something snap, and the vampire tumbled to the floor with an unholy shriek. I went for my gun, but the vamp, ignoring its broken leg, leaped at me. We went down in a heap, and the thing grabbed me by the hair, smashing my head into the steel plating of the floor. Warm blood gushed from my nose.
I freed the knife from my wrist sheath and stabbed backward blindly. I must have connected, because the thing screamed and rolled away from the blade. It was enough that I was able to use its momentum to throw it off me. I rolled with it, stabbing again with my blade. I missed the heart, but it screeched enough to let me know it was hurting.
Jumping to my feet, I ran for the gun. The vamp caught my ankle, and I went down. Hard. I was pretty sure I saw stars, but the Darkness pushed back the pain, forcing me to focus. My fingers closed around the gun just as the vamp's hands closed around my throat, squeezing. I choked, gasping for air. The vamp squeezed harder. Tiny spots of black danced across my vision. The Darkness roared in anger. It wasn't about to let me die.
With every ounce of focus I could muster, I pointed the gun back over my left shoulder and gently squeezed the trigger. The vampire screamed, letting go long enough for me to suck in oxygen. A second shot, and it was off me, rolling around on the floor clutching at its face. I smelled the stench of scorched flesh. It turned my stomach, but the Darkness laughed with excitement. It liked the smell. Which only made me feel sick.
Rolling to the side, I pointed the UV gun and pulled the trigger over and over. Blast after blast of UV light hit the vamp in the chest until, between one moment and the next, it went up in flames and then exploded into dust.
The sprinklers overhead suddenly burst into action, turning me into a drowned rat. But at least it washed away the blood, both mine and the vamp's. Staggering to my feet, I tucked the gun into the waistband of my jeans and staggered toward the nearest flight of stairs. I wanted to push the Darkness back where it belonged, but I kept it with me. I needed it to overcome the pain and fatigue. It was the only way I was going to get the hell out of Dodge before I got caught.
I heard the faint sound of voices and the fall of booted feet coming my way. Hurry, the Darkness whispered. I ran.
Chapter Five
The minute I got to the top of the stairs, I leaned against the wall and took a deep breath, willing the Darkness back into its hole. It didn't want to go. It snapped and snarled, but slowly slunk away to that place inside me where it lived. I couldn't help the small sigh of relief. One of these days I may lose control for good, but today was not that day.
My phone had two bars, so I sent Eddie and Kabita a text: Got him. A couple of workmen passed me in the hall and gave me some strange looks but didn't say anything. I wasn't sure if the looks were because I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be or because I was a hot mess.
I stared down at myself. Hot mess. For sure. I was covered from neck to toe in vamp blood. Fortunately, because vampires were technically dead, their blood was more blackish brown than red, so it looked like I'd taken a bath in motor oil. Actually, from the smell, some if it probably was motor oil.
I needed to get out of sight as quickly as possible, so I hurried toward the storage room Eddie had commandeered as his command post. The door was locked—obviously Eddie and Kabita weren't back yet—but the lock was easy enough to pick. Less than a minute, and I was inside.
I shrugged out of my stained jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair, wrinkling my nose at both the smell and the mess. I
repressed a shiver. It may be hotter than the inside of a sauna above decks, but below decks, the air conditioner was cranked to North Pole levels.
There was blood splatter on my shirt, too, so I unbuttoned it and tossed it onto my jacket, leaving me in my tank top. Fortunately, that was clean. Unfortunately my boots and jeans were still filthy and I couldn't exactly run around barefoot in my underwear. At least the dark colors hid the worst of the stains. I could get back to the stateroom to clean up, put on a change of clothes. Except I hadn't brought a change of clothes.
The door swung open, and Eddie scurried in, Kabita hot on his heels. "Dear God," he said reeling back. "What is that stench?"
"Vampire blood with a light dusting of motor oil. It's very "in" this season."
Eddie frowned at my jacket and shirt draped over the chair. "Good thing you have a penchant for black. Some of those stains are never coming out. You really should change. People might notice."
"Possibly, but I don't have any other clothes."
"You got him?" Kabita asked, ignoring the byplay.
"Yeah."
"Were you able to question him?"
"He wasn't feeling very talkative." I gave them both a quick run-down on the vamp, including the fact that it was a soul vamp.
"I don't like this," Eddie said with a shake of his head. "Something feels very not right."
"You're telling me." I gathered my filthy clothes. "I'm going to take a quick shower." It would get the worst of the gunk off my skin and out of my hair.
"I will have the concierge arrange for rush laundry service," Eddie said.
"Um, great." It would be better than putting bloody clothes back on. "Then I'll put in a call to Trevor. He needs to know about this."
Eddie nodded in agreement. "That's an excellent idea. Clearly there is a reason someone set that vampire loose on this ship, and I can't imagine it was a good one."
I nodded and started to exit the room, but Eddie's voice stopped me.
"By the way, you should both get ready for the ball."
I stared first at him, then at Kabita. She shrugged. I turned back to Eddie. "What ball?"
"Why, the Grande Steampunk Ball, of course. It's the biggest event of the season, and it starts in"—he glanced at his pocket watch—"three hours. We have just enough time to eat and get ready."
"Eddie, I'm not going to a ball."
"Why not?"
"For one thing, I don't have any regular clothes to wear, never mind a ball gown."
Don't worry," he beamed. "I can fix that."
I barely repressed a groan. With my luck, I'd end up in a hoop skirt. "For another, we're here on serious business."
"And that business is completed. The vampire is dead, the immediate threat dealt with. There is nothing more we can do at the moment. We might as well enjoy ourselves."
"He's got a point." Kabita gave me a wicked grin.
I glared at them both. "Fine." I may have slammed the door a little harder than necessary.
Back in Eddie's stateroom, I stripped off my boots and jeans, then put in a call to room service. I was starving. After being assured my meal would arrive within forty minutes, I hustled my way through a shower, finishing as the food arrived. My pile of dirty clothing, including my boots, had already disappeared from the middle of the floor.
Wrapped in one of the ship's wonderfully fleecy bathrobes, I perched on the edge of the bed to enjoy my meal and make a call to Trevor. He answered on the third ring.
"Are you eating?"
I swallowed a bite of my BLT. "Yes. I'm hungry enough to eat a horse. Do you know how much energy it takes to execute a vampire?" Not to mention channel the Darkness, but I wasn't about to bring that up. I gave him an abbreviated version of events.
"You're sure it was a soul vamp?"
"Yeah. No doubt. I thought your guys destroyed all the tech." Creating a vampire imbued with a soul required a very special kind of technology, one my father had tried to destroy before his death, to no avail. Instead it had been taken for some nefarious purpose we still hadn't figured out.
"We destroyed what we could find. But it's not unlikely Alister Jones has some of it hidden away somewhere."
Alister Jones was Kabita's father, former head of MI8, the United Kingdom's version of the SRA, and a genuinely bad guy. The recent appearance of soul vampires was thanks to Alister, and I was pretty sure he'd had something to do with the death of my father as well.
"Great," I snapped. "So good ole Alister is holed up somewhere cranking out soul vamps. But why?"
"Other than the obvious?"
"His chances of creating an army of these things are pretty low now," I said. "After all, we know about the vamps and the tech. The element of surprise is gone. And with most of the tech destroyed, he can't make as many or as fast." Unless, of course, he'd found someone to recreate the technology. Which was entirely possible and very disturbing. "There's got to be more to it."
"I've no doubt of that," Trevor agreed. "I just don't know what that is right now. I've got people on it. It's the best I can do." He paused. "How are you?"
"You heard about Inigo."
He cleared his throat. "Ah, yeah. Kabita called me. She was worried about you."
"I'm fine." My voice cracked a little. "Okay, maybe fine is overstating it, but I will be fine. I'm just…he's alive, Trevor. He's healed. And yet, he's not…him. He looks at me like I'm a stranger." My throat was so tight, I could barely squeeze out the words.
"Ah, Morgan, I'm sorry." He sighed. "You probably are well aware of this, but PTSD does funny things to a person. He needs time. And treatment. Hopefully he'll come around."
"And if he doesn't?" My darkest fear given words.
"Then we'll deal with it. Together. We're family."
Family. It might be the only thing keeping me sane.
# # #
"You seriously expect me to wear this thing?" I stared at my reflection in the mirror, half in awe and half in horror. "I can't even move."
"Oh, come on, they're not that bad," Kabita said, smoothing down her lapels.
"That's because you got the good outfit," I snarled.
I didn't know how Eddie had done it, but in under an hour, he'd come up with costumes for both of us. Unfortunately, mine was an utter fail as far as I was concerned. While Kabita's costume consisted of skin tight pants, boots, and an aviator jacket—not much different from her usual clothing—mine had so many layers of bustles and petticoats and whatnot, I was half afraid I would trip and fall on my face. As if that weren't bad enough, I had to wear a full corset over a thin, silky blouse. It looked great, but I could hardly breathe, never mind move.
"This is ridiculous. I can't wear this." Every time I took a step, my skirts made a rustling sound loud enough to wake the dead.
"We're not hunting, Morgan. We're dancing." Kabita shot me a smug grin. "Now come on before we miss the ball." She grabbed me by the hand and dragged me, protesting, from the room.
"Ah, there you are. My, don't you ladies look lovely." Eddie beamed at us. He was dressed every inch the Victorian gentleman, right down to his cravat and waistcoat. Except attached to his top hat was a pair of brass goggles, and the left side of his face was decorated with a series of little metal gears. He held out his arms to both of us, which we took, and escorted us to the elevators. "Oh, this is going to be a wonderful evening. Don't you think?"
I gave him a wide, fake smile while muttering curse words in my mind. If I didn't pass out from lack of oxygen, it would be a miracle.
I had to give the organizers props. The ballroom was amazing. Swaths of fabric draped the ceiling and walls, hiding the modern fixtures from view. From the ceiling hung giant, softly glowing orbs. I had no idea how they'd done it, but it looked amazing. Magical, even. The pillars had been turned into giant steam-work pipes swathed in fairy lights. A table lit with candelabra groaned under the weight of platters of food and a bizarre brass urn that seemed to be dispensing something alcoholic. It was lik
e something out of the Mad Hatter's tea party. A mini zeppelin whizzed about the crowd, bumping into the occasional reveler. The bumpee would laugh and grab something from the basket dangling beneath the zeppelin before it whizzed off again.
"Eddie!" A woman emerged from the crowd, arms outstretched and face wreathed in smiles.
"Now that's an outfit I could work with," I muttered to Kabita as Eddie hugged the newcomer.
The woman was not much older than me. Her long hair was almost as red as mine, but while mine came from a bottle, hers was clearly natural. Where my eyes were green, hers were gray, but we both had the pale skin that spoke of Celtic ancestry. And the curves, all of which were easy to see, thanks to her outfit.
She was dressed like something out of a Jane Austen novel, with one of those sheer cotton gowns with the high waists and tiny puff sleeves. The stays, which should have been underneath the dress, were on the outside, boosting up her ample assets like they were being offered to the world on a platter. The stays, instead of being a simple white, were made of rich blue velvet trimmed in silver. She wore simple ballet flats, and her hair was done in an elaborate Grecian style, decorated with a tiara, only instead of the expected diamonds or pearls, it was made of tiny brass gears surrounding an actual clock. Frankly, it was awesome. And a whole lot more practical for a vampire hunter. I had to remind myself I wasn't on the Hunt. I was supposed to be having fun.
"Emory," Eddie cried with delight. "You are looking lovely, as usual. Please, allow me to introduce my friends, Morgan Bailey and Kabita Jones. Ladies, this is my dear friend, Emory Chastain. She also lives in Portland."
"Lovely to meet you," Emory said with a wide, genuine smile as she shook our hands. "Any friend of Eddie's is good people."
As her hand touched mine, I felt an odd zing, almost like static electricity. The powers inside me stirred. How strange. I plastered on a fake smile, hiding my suddenly whirling mind. I was pretty sure the woman had magic, and a lot of it.