I looked at both Matt and Lola and indicated we should follow this guy. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was playing along with this, but something told me to go with it.
The four of us made our way out the door, and on the street I realized I hadn’t even asked this guy’s name.
“So who are you?” I said.
The young-looking vampire smiled, his straight, white teeth only increasing the illusion of his youth.
“My name is Kace, and I’m going to show you something you won’t believe.”
He had me at “won’t believe.”
PART EIGHT
1
“C’mon,” Kace said, quickly taking the lead down the sidewalk and sidestepping drunk people.
He walked briskly, almost at the pace of a jog, but with his legs firmly in a walking rhythm. He reminded me of one of those race-walkers.
His small butt twitched back and forth in his overly-tight jeans as he led us out of the party district and, interesting enough, in an easterly direction.
Even as a vampire, I wasn’t in the habit of following strange men to strange places (usually I was the strange woman leading a man to a strange place), but I felt oddly at ease.
He had information—or something for us—and was using his knowledge of my gift to communicate that in an invisible way, which made me think we were being watched.
Who was I kidding? I knew we were being watched, even before Kace showed up, this just confirmed it.
Also, I was pretty sure Raven wasn’t involved in this at all, but how Kace knew enough about her to speak convincingly I wasn’t sure.
On the last block before the bars started to disappear, we passed by a woman lying on a stretcher with an oxygen mask on and an ambulance parked adjacent to her. She looked paler than a vampire and much sweatier. My senses told me she wouldn’t make it tonight.
I was more than a little surprised when Kace abruptly changed direction and made a hard left, taking us due west.
He had me on edge, in a good way, and I looked up at him just in time to see him light a cigarette on the move. I wanted to go up and talk to him, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood, and maybe, I thought, it would be dangerous at this time for whatever reason.
I stayed right behind him like a good little soldier, knowing he would begin talking in due time.
The crowds thinned out and the neighborhood became residential. I then realized he was leading us to the river.
Still headed west, he led us onto the river path—which is just what it sounded like—a path that people walked or jogged along by the river. Although at this time of night it was mostly populated with homeless people bundled up and sitting with a cartful of possessions.
Kace still hadn’t spoken to us.
He walked us along quite a way, so that even the homeless became sparse, and I was starting to get impatient.
I had seen trees and grass and water before, so what the hell did he have to tell us?
And this was going to be an expensive cab ride back to my place.
“So where are we going?” I finally said, not hiding any of my exasperation.
He flicked his cigarette away after taking one last drag (he had chain smoked three of them along our way) and told me to hold on in a way that I thought was unnecessarily rude.
I was no Miss Manners usually, but his tone aggravated me and I thought that whatever he had to show us better be really good.
Oh, and he was going to pick up our cab fare back. Little shit.
Another five minutes passed, and I was just about to order Matt to pick Kace up by his neck and beat the information out of him, when Kace stopped, spun around and threw both of his arms out.
“Ladies and gentleman, we have just entered a no vampire zone.”
Except that we were now here, I thought. Frustrated, I was about to tell Kace to go fuck himself and shake him down for cab fare.
“So what?”
“From this exact spot,” Kace turned around in a circle as he said this, “there is not a vampire for a mile around. Ask her,” he said and pointed at Lola.
And now I was really curious because he obviously knew that Lola could locate, but before I had the presence to say what was coming to my brain Lola beat me to it.
“You’re a copycat,” she said and Kace smiled at her proclamation.
He bowed in an exaggerated way, and when he was upright again, he smiled at us with the most self-satisfaction I had ever seen displayed on a human being or vampire.
Copycats, while having a legitimate gift, were generally viewed as shady, even among vampires. They were thought of like thieves, for obvious reasons.
I cut right to the chase.
“What do you want from us?”
He didn’t blink an eye.
“Protection,” he said and then hesitated for just a fraction of a second. “My gift, although...useful, lacks the substance to keep me safe.”
“Safe from what?” I said and I was genuinely curious.
“Safe from an eternity of vampiric sleep.”
“You know about that? About Ivy?”
He dropped his dramatic flair for a moment and looked genuinely angry.
“He and his...followers invaded my hunting ground not long ago, and I had the displeasure of running across their leftovers.”
“How many of them are there?”
“Nine or ten, I think.”
“My stomach turned.
“And that’s only the vampires—or, whatever they are now,” Kace continued, and I was shocked at what he was implying.
“He’s using...”
“Humans, yes. As spies, or servants, or—”
“Slaves,” Lola finished for both of us, and a shiver of revulsion went up my spine.
There weren’t many rules in vampire society, but one of the unspoken ones was “don’t play with your food.” Ivy had no boundaries.
I momentarily forgot Kace’s request in light of this new information, and my stomach flip-flopped a little.
“That’s why I had to bring you here,” he said, lighting another cigarette. There are too many eyes in your hunting grounds.
“Is it true? What you said about there being no vampires around this area?”
He nodded, blowing spoke from his mouth.
“Though you may want to confirm that with your locater.”
I looked up at Lola.
“He’s right, Vic. There are none of us around here.”
Odd. But why that would be I wasn’t sure.
“You want our protection?” I asked, not sure why I was repeating this.
Kace nodded again.
“How do you even know who we are?”
“I’ve been watching you. And well, I pay attention when a knower comes into my awareness.”
“Are there any other knowers around?” I asked, knowing full well there weren’t, but testing him anyway.
“You insult my intelligence,” Kace said. “And my gift.”
“So I’m pretty sure I can guess, but what exactly is a copycat?” Matt asked, stepping forward, and Kace smiled, flicking away his latest cigarette.
“You have speed, right Adonis?” Kace said with a smile that could sear flesh off your bones.
I chuckled a little at the way he was poking fun at Matt, as Matt surely wasn’t used to that—not as a vampire and certainly not as a human. I prepared myself for the demonstration that was coming.
“Right,” Matt said, crossing his arms over his chest, and if I was perceiving correctly, puffing it out just a little.
“Watch,” Kace said, and took off at a run down the path. He became a blur just as Matt would have if he had done the same, but, he looked imperceptibly slower—the blur wasn’t quite as blurry, and to my eye he slowed down considerably toward the end of his sprint.
“Not bad,” Matt said, arms still crossed. “But you look a little winded.”
I was pleased with Matt for fighting back and, I have to admit, intrigued at Kace
’s ability.
Kace ran back over to us, this time noticeably slower, and I realized that he probably had limitations to how long he could imitate.
He bowed again for us, and his theatrics were just the right mix of annoying and endearing.
Matt didn’t say anything, just nodded his head as if to acquiesce that Kace hadn’t done a bad job.
“Enough proof?” Kace asked, and in order to stop another round of showmanship, both Lola and I said yes.
“You’re sort of like a quasi-locater,” Lola said, and I picked up disappointment or some other similar emotion.
“Yes,” Kace said, “because we can sense any vampire’s gift, locating is the only gift we copy at almost all times.” He stopped here and then quickly continued. “You’re, of course, much more powerful and accurate than I am, but I can pick up any gift—and therefore any vampire—near me, which gives me locating-like abilities.”
He said that to spare her feelings, but also because it was true, and I wondered briefly why he would even care.
“So back to protection,” I said. “What are you offering us?”
He looked at me like he had been expecting this, and his bravado flickered briefly.
“I’ll get you into their camp, and, offer you full use of my abilities. That’s where you want to go, right?”
“Yeah. How do you know that?”
“Because I know,” he said, and he made me genuinely laugh.
“Deal,” I said. “Now what else do you know about this place,” I said, as I gestured toward the area around us.”
“Well, those are trees and that’s the riv—”
I cut him off with a look.
“Why are there no vampires here?” I asked.
He looked at me surprised and held his hands up.
“I have no idea. I thought you might know.”
On instinct, I looked back at Lola, who shrugged her shoulders at me. I wondered if Raven would know, but she wasn’t around and I wasn’t about to go to her.
“No,” I said, “so what was the amazing thing you had to show us?”
Kace laughed and then smiled that same searing smile.
“Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you came with me,” he said and raised his eyebrows quickly in succession a few times for good measure.
2
“Well? Ready?” Kace asked
“Ready for what?” I asked. “I thought I was going home. I don’t know where you’re going.”
Kace let out an exasperated sigh and placed both hands on his hips.
“To Ivy’s.”
I was taken aback. I wasn’t ready for that yet. What would we do when we got there? I had no idea how to defeat him.
I started to hem and haw all of my excuses while Kace stood in place, not moving a muscle. Finally, he must have gotten tired of me because he interrupted me with a wave of his hand.
“Vic,” he started with an exaggerated slowness, “you can’t go back to your apartment or to your hunting grounds. Ivy’s people are all over you. And I know what happened to you last night. You don’t want to repeat that, do you?”
To make matters worse, Lola tapped my arm as if to say “I told you so” and “Kace is right” all in the same gesture.
I didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to hear that my home wasn’t safe. That the place where I had some of my best moments in the last seven years wasn’t safe. What was I supposed to do now?
“But I don’t know what to do with Ivy once we get there,” I admitted and immediately regretted it.
I was the knower and I was supposed to know what I was doing.
Matt reached over and put a hand on the back of my neck, which only served to make me feel weaker, and only a little comforted.
“You’ll figure it out,” he said. “You always do.”
Maybe that was true, but I wasn’t ready.
“C’mon,” Kace said, balling up his fists in excitement. “The night’s young, and I’ve got my security team with me. Where could we go wrong?”
Everywhere, I thought, and there were real consequences.
“You said you’ve seen the bodies? Those in sleep?”
Kace’s face turned dark and the jokes that had been coming all night turned off.
“Yeah,” he said.
I rubbed my face with my hand and tried my best to put all of my excuses out of my head.
Find your desire.
I had figured that part out, but I didn’t understand how it fit with going to Ivy’s tonight.
So what if I wanted to be human? That didn’t give me any power, another gift to fight with, or even any ideas. It was just something I wanted.
I heard sirens, two sets in fact, and I considered for a second this area we were in. Before I could talk myself out of it or say no, I said yes.
“Are we going to walk?” I asked.
“It’s the best way,” said Kace.
“Lead away,” I said.
* * *
The four of us walked along the river for what felt like a long time, but in actuality was probably half an hour. I always thought time moved differently at night. Sometimes slower, sometime faster, but always different than in the daylight. Tonight was moving at a snail’s pace.
The funny thing is that for as long as I had lived in this city, I actually wasn’t that familiar with most of it.
I was a homebody at heart, and my apartment and my neighborhood were as big as my world got for weeks, sometimes months at a time. Of course, I had an idea of the layout of the city and what was in each part, and, for the most part, I had been there or at least driven by once, but I didn’t have familiarity with them. And that was hurting me tonight.
As we walked, I could hear Lola and Kace speaking quietly to one another up front, Kace still leading the way. Matt walked beside me and either didn’t have anything to say or was leaving me to my thoughts, and either way I was grateful. That’s what I liked about Matt. Sometimes he just didn’t talk, but would still stand right next to me.
For the first time, I considered the effect of my environment on my comfort and confidence and wondered how I had never pieced these two things together before.
Anytime I arrive in a new city, I immediately establish a territory—a place that suits me, where I can hunt and that I find interesting, and then I settle in. When I leave, it’s the same thing all over again.
I’ve even returned to cities I had previously lived in and gone right back to the same place, sometimes even the same home. I’ve always taken for granted the fact that I can move around basically wherever I want and be safe, but that’s not the same thing as being comfortable or confident.
There are definite places that feel good to me and those that don’t.
As we got closer to the northeast quadrant of the city, my skin started crawling a little. Whether that was because of Ivy or any vampire activity I was picking up on or because I just didn’t like it here, I wasn’t exactly sure, but I had the definite feeling of being out of place.
The neighborhood we walked into as we left the river path was darker and quieter than mine, and I think that’s exactly what unnerved me. I like activity, but I like to be apart from it, to be able to get away whenever I want. The silence here was eerie.
About half of the homes were boarded up and the other half were in some stage of disrepair. There was almost no one on the streets. We passed an individual person only every so often, and that struck me as suspicious.
Even cars were sparse. One would drive by every five minutes or so, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was walking through a ghost town.
Still, the four of us walked down these streets with no cover. There were no humans that posed any physical threat to us. We must have been a sight.
In the distance, I could see the remnants of what was once thriving industry. Ancient ruins made of steel. The soot still clung to almost everything around here, though most of the fires had ceased to burn years ago.
Kace
took a hard left into an alley, and as I followed him I saw two people huddled close together scurry away like a couple of rodents. It was the only sign of life around.
Immediately, I worried about barging in on other vampires, and then I remembered that there was a reason Kace and Lola were leading the way.
Kace took us off the alleyway to the right and into a courtyard of sorts where the backs of homes faced one another. He jumped up and caught the steel balcony of one house right in the middle and pulled himself up onto it.
Lola went next, and when it was my turn, I easily made the jump and swung myself over the railing. Matt was behind me a second later and we all entered the house.
Pitch black and dusty as hell, the old home smelled like smoke and mildew at the same time, and I wondered how long it had been since someone lived here.
Kace turned around and threw his arms out.
“Welcome,” he said.
“Is this—or was this—your house?” I asked, a little disgusted. Vampires could essentially live anywhere they wanted.
“No,” he said. “It’s just one of my hunting posts.”
Why on earth would anyone choose to hunt here? I thought before Kace could go on.
“Because in this neighborhood I look like a scared kid who can’t protect himself. I barely had to stalk at all. I just let people come to me.”
He walked over to one of the boarded up windows, and I could see that the board had broken in the middle. There was a hole he could see out of.
“I’d wait right here,” he said, miming how he would sit at the window, “and wait for the right person to come by. Then I’d go outside and pretend I was looking for drugs, generally, and it was easy pickings from there.”
He turned around to look at us like he was proud of how clever he was.
“I had houses like this all over the neighborhood. And sometimes I’d get lucky when junkies or people looking to hide would come inside. I picked them off before they knew what happened. Also, cleanup is a cinch in this neighborhood considering that dead bodies are a dime a dozen.”
He turned his attention back toward the hole in the board, as if he was keeping a look out for any snacks that might walk his way.
I had suddenly lost my appetite.
Bored To Death Page 17