Alice shook her head. “No, Nyx. I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you. Besides, this thing reminds me too much of the Order. Of all the things I did in their name for so many years. I don’t even want to see it again, much less use it.”
I nodded with understanding. “I suppose I could put it to good use.”
Alice took a deep breath. “Burn out his heart. But I’ll take his body back to the mortuary. Perhaps turning him to ash in the crematory will give me some closure.”
Devin handed me a knife that he’d had in his pocket. I unfolded the knife and cut open Wolfgang’s chest—just enough to expose his heart, my heel still lodged in its side. I grabbed the crucifix and, aiming it at the wound, cast a blast of sunlight, setting his vampire heart ablaze. So much for that particular pair of boots. At least Johann had a nearly identical pair—and he no longer had any use for them.
Hauling Wolfgang’s dessicated body all the way back wasn’t likely to be an easy job. Though with so many dead members of the Order, there were vehicles to spare. We’d just have to fish their car keys out of their pockets. Presumably someone had a big van, or a truck…
“We should probably deal with all these bodies,” Alice said. “I have a hearse back at the funeral home. We bring it back here later. People don’t question you when you have a body in the back of one of those.”
I smiled. “Good point.”
Devin was going through the bodies of the Order members, removing their hoods to identify them. He was the only one of us who would know who they were. From the look on his face, it wasn’t an easy task. I mean, he had no love lost for the Order. No more than he did for his dad. But these were the people he’d basically been raised with.
I walked over and placed my hand on his shoulder as he knelt to remove one of the Order member’s hoods.
“Dorcas,” Devin said. “She was a kind woman. Presuming she approved of your lifestyle.”
I nodded. “All the ladies from the quilters’ guild were here?”
Devin shook his head. “I couldn’t find Mina.”
“Why would she miss something like this?”
“She didn’t approve of my father’s insistence to induct you into the inner circle,” Devin said. “And the only reason my dad was so set on it, I think, was because Wolfgang compelled him to do it.”
“Why wouldn’t Wolfgang compel Mina, too?”
Devin shook his head. “I didn’t even know that was his name until you said it. He was always known as His Supreme Lordship and our Holy Father. Bullshit like that. And he really didn’t speak to anyone directly, apart from my dad.”
"And you and Alice… you’ve been working together all this time?”
Devin nodded. “It was my first hunt. My dad was moving a vamp we’d staked, and I stayed behind in the warehouse where we’d caught him to clean up the mess. You know, since hunting can sometimes be… a little bloody. Anyway, in the middle of scrubbing the floors, Alice appeared almost out of nowhere.”
“She’d been hiding as a bat, I presume?”
Devin nodded. “At that point I was just a low-grade warlock. I’d dabbled in the arts after joining a forbidden coven back in college. I couldn’t do much, really. But Alice could sense something about me. She knew I’d touched the arts—something of the craft flowed through my veins, a natural ability. Since she’d spent most of her existence serving the Order, she knew I must be conflicted.”
“So she saw an opportunity?”
“You could say that. I mean, you’d have to ask her. I basically played the spy, listening in on my dad’s phone conversations with the so-called Supreme Lordship. Just a little spell I picked up that enhanced my hearing temporarily. I learned about you. How they were planning to lure you to the Order under the pretense that they could lead you to Alice. I just didn’t realize what the vampire’s motivation was. I mean, I didn’t even know he was a vampire until tonight.”
“She was beautiful,” I said. “Wolfgang’s lost love.”
“I’m sorry,” Devin said. “I know you wanted to stay in that form. If her form was what I desired…”
“No,” I said. “I’ve always appreciated the beauty of this body, it just never felt like me. But I think it’s because I was never loved. I mean, how can anyone love themselves if they aren’t loved by someone else? I didn’t have parents. Not even hyper-religious, judgy parents. The closest thing to love I’ve ever known is my friendship with Donnie, my roommate.”
“Until now,” Devin said. “I know it’s early, but Nicky, I’m falling for you.”
I smiled and, if I could have, I would have blushed. “I think all I needed to know was that I was lovable. That I was accepted. It’s so much easier to love yourself, to accept yourself, when someone else you care about embraces you for who you are.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t have parents who could accept you like that.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry you had parents who didn’t accept you. At least we have each other now.”
Devin nodded and gave me a hug.
“Hey Nyxie,” Brucie said. He’d just popped out of thin air. “I think we have a problem.”
“What’s that, Brucie?”
“So when you sent me down to the catacombs, there were dozens of vamps down there. Took Johann a while to find a few he knew wouldn’t be a threat.”
“Vampires who wouldn’t have it out for either him or Alice?” I asked.
“Exactly,” Brucie said. “But he found a few. Obviously.”
“And what’s the problem, Brucie?”
“They’re all gone.”
“What?” Alice asked, having overheard the conversation. “They’re gone?”
“Every one of them,” Brucie said. “Someone unstaked them.”
“Not just someone,” Devin said. “It was Mina.”
“Why the hell would she unstake vampires?” I asked. “She’s given her life to hunting them.”
“Because those vampires,” Alice said, “the ones in the catacombs… they have one thing in common. I put them there. And they want to see me dead.”
33
THE VAMPS THAT Mina unstaked would come after Alice eventually. Once they fed. The hunter in me wanted to go after them straightaway. But hunting recently unstaked vamps is a challenge. Sure, they’re operating on pure instinct and bloodlust at first. You’d think that without their wits about them, they’d be easier to track.
The opposite is true.
A satiated vampire has patterns. Behaviors they repeat over time. Things I can track. As if I were some kind of supernatural CSI.
But younglings and the recently unstaked… they’re unpredictable. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try.
I sat in my apartment, listening to a police scanner while Donnie and her new beau, Caleb, cuddled on the couch.
He just thought it was weird, my obsession with police scanners.
Donnie knew what I was up to.
I casually listened for anything that might indicate a vampire victim and scrolled through my phone checking obituaries. So far, nothing I’d heard indicated a vampire kill. Mature vampires, or those who’ve tamed their bloodlust, rarely kill their victims. They don’t want to catch the attention of hunters like me.
But these vamps, they needed to feed…
A part of the problem was that the old Order’s church was in such a remote area that there was no telling if they’d find their way to the city or if they’d find people on farms and whatnot in the country first.
But I hadn’t given up.
I also put in for a leave of absence at Leotards and Lace. I needed some time to adjust to my new reality. And to track these new vamps.
Alice was doing her part, too. But she had to be careful. Usually a hunter has the element of surprise on her side. When you’re both the hunter and the hunted, it’s more challenging. You don’t only have to keep your eyes open to track the vamp’s movements. You also have to watch your back.
Ac
cording to Devin, she’d been laying low. Taking care of necessary business at the funeral home. But mostly hiding at an undisclosed location. Not even Devin knew, exactly, where she’d gone.
Devin enrolled in one of the local community colleges. He thought he might go into graphic design. They had programs.
And he’d moved in with us.
I know, it was fast.
With his father gone, he thought about moving in with his mom. She could have used the support. But she didn’t want anything to do with him. She wasn’t there, at the ritual. But she knew enough about what she thought Devin’s “sins” were that he was the last one she wanted comfort from.
Not to mention, living an hour away from the college wasn’t convenient. And, according to Devin, that house had memories tied to it that he’d just as soon forget.
“Honey,” Donnie said, “you need to turn that thing off.”
Caleb was absorbed in whatever show they were watching. Some kind of sitcom. I don’t know; I wasn’t paying attention.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Girl,” Donnie said, “you’ve got a fine man coming home any minute who wants a little Nicky tonight. And you’re going to sit there all night listening to traffic stops and indecent exposure calls on the scanner?”
I snorted. “You never know if…”
“Bitch,” Donnie said, “I should slap you three ways to sideways.”
I cocked my head. “Is that karate? How do you accomplish a slap like that, exactly?”
“If you don’t turn that thing off, I’ll show you!”
“Donnie, I just…”
Donnie walked over and turned off my scanner.
“Donnie, what the hell…”
“Tonight, no scanners. No obituaries. Don’t tell him I said anything—it’s supposed to be a surprise. But Devin has a whole evening planned. If you blow him off, I swear Nicky, I’ll shove those nine-inch heels so far up…”
“Okay!” I said, interrupting her. I didn’t need to hear the rest. “I get it.”
“Then go get yourself ready. You look like a bum.”
I looked down at myself. “What’s wrong with sweats?”
“Nothing,” Donnie said. “But do you really want Devin to take you out… in sweats?”
I shook my head. “I guess not.”
“You need to get out of this funk, Nicky. This bullshit isn’t you.”
I nodded. “I know. Don’t get me wrong, a part of me is happier than I’ve ever been. But I’m still struggling with this change… accepting that this is how it’s going to be forever. And I’m not saying it’s not a good thing. I love who I am. I can accept that. But it’s hard to know what to do with myself without that obsession. Hunting, it’s like the only thing left of me that I recognize. Without that… goal to drive me. It’s like now all I have left is tracking… you know… them.”
By “them,” I meant the vampires. But with Caleb in the room, I had to choose my words carefully. He already thought I was little off my rocker. If he got the impression that I thought I was a vampire hunter, he’d think I was certifiably insane.
“And because you stopped singing,” Donnie said. “Not saying I like the fact that you perform at that club, but you need to find you again, Nicky.”
“I know,” I said, nodding. “I need to get dressed.”
“Honey,” Donnie said, “how about we get dressed up together?”
I nodded. “What about him?”
“Hey Caleb,” Donnie said, “why don’t you go plan something? Take me out! I need some romance tonight.”
“You got it!” Caleb said, more enthusiastically than I’d anticipated. I suppose, in his mind, needing a little romance likely came with a happy ending to the night.
Devin and I hadn’t progressed that far in our relationship. Hell, I hadn’t technically been with a man before. Not like that. A lot of meaningless flirtation with random men, but that was about it.
We were taking our time. I needed my time, and so did Devin. We’d both been through a lot. We’d both lost a lot. And, let’s face it, we hardly knew each other. We’d only completed one hunt together. And back then, we were both pretending to be people we weren’t.
That said, Devin knew me better than I’d expected. Apparently he’d been stalking me, at Alice’s behest, for a while before I even had a clue who he was.
He’d secretly found me attractive before I knew he existed.
And he’d stalked the livestreams of my performances for weeks before I ever showed up at the church, before I worked with him and the Order.
I mean, I was both flattered by that and mildly creeped out. If I wasn’t as equally obsessed with Devin as he was of me, I’d probably be more upset by it than I was. Even so, it was strange when I thought I was sharing with him things for the first time only to find out he already knew…
I took a deep breath as I looked at myself in the mirror. This was the face I’d have to look at for the rest of my existence. Sure, there were things about my body I didn’t like. That’s true for everyone. But this was me. It really was…
Before, even though my body was identical to what it was before, I’d been Alice’s desire. I’d taken the shape of Johann, her long-lost love. While I looked the same now, it wasn’t Johann that Devin desired. It was me. The only me he’d ever known. Even if most of the time he’d known me, he’d only watched me from afar.
I suppose, in a way, I was now a copy of a copy of Johann.
But the only reason I had this body again was because Devin desired me.
For years, this body didn’t feel real to me. But what was my real body, anyway? It wasn’t like taking any woman’s body would suddenly make me feel genuine. Genuinely what, exactly? Like a real woman?
I was a real woman. I didn’t need a cis woman’s body to know that. The only reason I thought I needed that was to pacify the expectations of others. Was that reason enough to make myself miserable and constantly discontent?
But now I wasn’t masquerading as someone else’s object of desire. I was myself if only because Devin desired me—and this was the way I happened to look when we met.
I didn’t need to look a certain way. Not the way that society expected a woman to look. Not exactly. I just had to look like me—the me that Devin desired. His love meant more to me than the shallow “approval” of random strangers, anyway. And those who I had to deal with, if they didn’t “approve,” well fuck ‘em. Their bigotry said a lot more about them than it did about me.
I was lovable. I was beautiful. Just the way I was.
And the rest of the world could suck it.
“Alright bitch,” Donnie said, parading into the bathroom, “you ready to get fabulous?”
I laughed. “Hell yeah I am.”
34
TONIGHT I WENT top shelf. My Jimmy Choos. A purple dress that highlighted all my curves in all the right places. Donnie redid my nails to match my dress.
“You’re a man-eater!” Donnie said, standing behind me as I evaluated myself in my full-length mirror.
I cocked my head. “Not anymore.”
“Oh shit!” Donnie said. “I didn’t mean it like that…”
I laughed. “It’s been five years. I can take the joke.”
Donnie smiled. “I seriously wasn’t even joking. I mean, it’s just a phrase for a woman no man could resist. She eats them and spits them out. Not literally.”
“I know what it means,” I said, still chuckling. “And you’re right. Again, not literally. I look good!”
“Damn straight, girl.” Donnie smiled. “Almost as good as me.”
“Oh, you didn’t!”
Donnie smirked. “I think Devin’s home.”
I nodded. “I heard the door open.”
“You ready?”
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
“Remember,” Donnie said, “he wants to surprise you tonight. All I told you was that you had to get ready… for whatever he had planned.”
I smiled. “You didn’t tell me what the surprise is. Only that he wanted it to be a surprise.”
Donnie smiled wide. “You’re going to love it.”
I nodded and stepped out of the bathroom and into the living room.
Devin stood there, a single rose in his hand, in a three-piece suit.
“Damn!” I said.
“Damn is right!” Devin said back, scanning me up and down.
“Looking dapper, Devin,” I said with a wink.
“Looking gorgeous, gorgeous.” He smiled back. “I didn’t expect you’d be so…”
“Prepared?”
Devin nodded. “It’s just late.”
“Honey,” Donnie said, walking into the room, “I’ve got you covered. I told you she’d be ready.”
Devin smiled. “Shall we?”
We left the apartment and got into Devin’s car. It smelled great, and it was clean. His car was always fairly clean, not cluttered with crap like a lot of people’s vehicles, but he’d gone to extra effort to make sure the car was as clean as it could be for this “date” he had planned. I appreciated the gesture.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” Devin said. “But not right now. Look in the cupholder.”
I glanced down and grabbed a thick black strip of material. “What is this?” I asked. “A blindfold?”
“Put it on.”
“But my mascara…”
Devin smiled. “You can redo that. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.”
I nodded and tied the blindfold around my face.
I tried, based on the feel of the turns, to figure out where we were going. But once we got onto the interstate it was hard to tell how far we’d gone when we finally exited. I didn’t have a clue.
A few more turns, and Devin parked the car. “Stay there,” Devin said. “I’ll help you out.”
“Okay,” I said with a little hesitation. I was anxious to see whatever it was he intended to show me.
He led me across what felt like a parking lot. There was a little traffic in the area, but not a ton. The breeze was cool. It smelled fresh.
Gates of Eden: Starter Library Page 113