Hunter of the Dead

by Stephen Kozeniewski

  “How long ago did you say that you all descended on this place?”

  “A few weeks. Maybe a month. The lepress – I mean, Damiana, she’s the Signari elder here in Las Vegas – put out a call for fixers. As many fixers as could be found. She said there was work in Las Vegas for the next hundred years.”

  A few weeks? People have been living here for years.

  She wondered briefly how many of the mortals living here had pledged their allegiance to the fixers when they arrived…and how many had been brought.

  They soon reached Scav’s encampment. It was separated from the rest of the habitations by a few shower curtains. Wooden pallets lined the ground, and Idi Han could tell by the water stains that they were necessary to avoid flooding.

  She counted six sleeping areas. A mortal, her eyes sunken and her face pale and drawn – Hedrox’s features, writ small – rose with some difficulty from a small cookpot over a camp stove.

  “Welcome back, Master Italo,” she practically whispered.

  “Thanks,” Scav replied, his eyes darting all over the place.

  “Are you hungry, master?”

  “Famished,” Scav replied.

  The disciple seemed to notice Idi Han for the first time. Her wits were slow, her senses dulled. The labyrinth of scars up and down her arms and neck suggested she had given a great deal of blood to her immortal masters.

  “Oh, but you have a guest,” the mortal said, “Guests should eat first. Mistress?”

  The woman bowed deeply before Idi Han, and the razor blade that dangled on a piece of cord around her neck hung in the air, an offering. She glanced at Scav, who seemed visibly disappointed that the cultist had approached her first. She glanced at the woman.

  She had rushed out of Cicatrice’s manse without feeding. He had placed a great emphasis on not wasting another moment now that the plot against him was fully revealed. She could feel the hunger in the pit of her stomach, not as strong as the first night when she had mindlessly feasted on her father, but aching, nonetheless.

  Now, though, there was something different about the mortal presenting itself to her like a trussed fowl. She could sense, like candles flickering in the night, points of great power in the woman – arteries, she realized, and the heart strongest of all. The power flowed through her like sap through a tree. It was so close when she closed her eyes she could practically see it.

  “I’m sorry,” Scav said, ripping her out of her reverie, “You’re not still a newborn are you? Do you need me to show you how to…”

  “No,” Idi Han said, raising her hand, “I can handle it.”

  She realized with surprise that her hand was trembling as she took the razor. She cut her palm severely, and if blood had still flowed through her veins, she would have spilled a gallon on the palletized sewer floor.

  She took more care as she nicked the neck of the woman prostrating herself before her. With her supernatural senses, she had struck true, and the blood that bubbled up from the cut was rich with the essence that the immortals sustained themselves with.

  Idi Han pressed her lips to the woman’s neck, as though kissing a lover, and almost instantly stopped. She didn’t taste the energy the way she had tasted the flavors of food, but something about it seemed off. It “smelled” strange. Her eyes rolled open and she looked at Scav.

  He was watching her.

  She pretended to suckle at the woman’s neck, corking the actual flow of liquid with the flat part of her tongue. As she pretended to drink and drink, Scav’s smile gave the game away. Somehow the woman’s essence had been poisoned or drugged, whether through conventional means or supernatural, Idi Han hadn’t the breadth of knowledge to guess. Perhaps a human riddled by disease or addiction was not safe to drink from. Or perhaps, as garlic hampered the immortal “nose” other ordinary spices and tinctures had drugging effects.

  She smacked her lips audibly, and wondered briefly if it was customary to thank the bloodbag for her contribution. Knowing how Cicatrice had treated Hedrox, she guessed not.

  “Thank you, Scav,” she said, “I was famished.”

  He nodded, and she watched carefully as he took his own pretend drink.

  “You may leave us,” Scav said, and the cultist nodded and disappeared.

  “Well,” Idi Han said, “I’ve got to get back and report what I know. And you’ve got to…anyway, thanks for the snack.”

  She started to walk past him, but he put an unwelcome hand on her chest.

  “Hold on.” Scav glanced off into the distance as though he saw something she could not. But nothing was there. Just expectation. “Let me show you something.”

  He reached into his pocket and drew out a beaded necklace with a Christian crucifix at the end. He didn’t look at it, but pointed it towards her. Idi Han hissed in an unrecognized pain.

  “You’re hurting me,” she said.

  “Faith,” he said, “That woman you drank from was clergy once. Her life energy will make you slow and weak for a time.”

  “You drugged me.”

  “In effect, yes. I’m still a believer myself. It’s rare, almost unheard of amongst our kind. But I was raised Catholic and I can’t shed myself of it. That’s why I can make this work on you.”

  His own hand was sizzling where he grasped the beads of the necklace. As he moved towards her, Idi Han felt the pain rise in her gorge. So this was what Topan and Cicatrice had alluded to. The pain of encountering faith. Faith in a divine or greater power. Faith, the ultimate antidote to the desire to live forever as an immortal, channeled through a relic or totem. She backed away from him as the invisible black flames licked her body.

  “I’m sorry, Idi Han. I tried to convince you to leave, remember?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  He closed his eyes and bit his lip.

  “My brother…he put me up to it. But now I’m starting to think there might be another way. A way out for me. Cicatrice’s young, untempered heir is too great a prize to pass up. I’ve killed Cashley. Now I’ve captured you. Father Otto will have to take me seriously. Have to reward me. I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to turn out this way. But now we’ve been seen here. My brother and his goons will be on their way.”

  Idi Han plunged her arm forward, as though dousing it in a bucket of ice. She grabbed his hand, snapped his wrist, and turned the idol back on him. He hissed in pain as her own fog of doubt lifted, and she clenched his hand tighter and tighter even as he tried to drop the holy symbol.

  “I’m sorry you took me for a fool,” she said, staring into his eyes as he bit back at his own supernatural bile, “But I’ve known you meant to betray me ever since we reached this place.”

  “You never drank…”

  She shook her head mournfully from side to side.

  Idi Han clenched her fist, and felt Scav’s bones crunch to shards beneath her grip. He gasped, a gesture unusual at best for an immortal. She reached out with her other hand and gripped his shoulder blade, feeling the sting of the holy symbol as her arm passed the invisible wave of its path. She yanked, and with a single pull his arm came fully out of its socket, and she grasped his severed limb in her hand.

  The holy icon was pulverized to plastic fiber. Its power to harm vanished with the separation from the faith of its wielder. The meat of his severed limb was perversely, bleakly white, devoid of the blood which normally gave muscle its healthy red color.

  Idi Han cracked Scavatelli across the face with his own severed bicep. He stumbled forward into the pallets, scattering coffins and spilling grave dirt, unable to brace himself without his missing limb. He rolled away from, her, half covered in dirt now.

  “Wait! Let me explain!”

  She brought the arm down with such force over his crown that the forearm and the bicep split asunder. The shoulder haunch, or what was left of it, flew off into the sewers. The shattered ulna was now showing through what was left of his forearm. She drove the splintered bone down into his eye, lifted it out, check
ed to see if his lips were still moving, and then drove it in again and again until his mouth fell dumb. It was odd to cut so deep and draw no blood.

  She rose to her feet, dropped the shattered chunk of Scav’s arm by the rest of his body, and hurried back out into the bright blinking lights of Vegas.

  Four

  “The Crusades began. History as we record it looks at the Crusades as an attempt to recapture the Holy Land. But at least some texts – which you’ll find roundly mocked if acknowledged at all in conventional academia – speak of the attempt to bring low the Necropolis. The European kingdoms united, in a fashion, and sent an army of knights to march on the grand city of the vampires.”

  Kasprzak flipped a page. The picture was a familiar one, the medieval attempt to explain an army when the idea of numbers and units was a bit sketchy even in the mind of a fairly well-educated monk. Many banners, no doubt of great significance to a medieval audience, waved amongst the assembled forces, but all bore a red cross on their shields. At the head of the army was a clergyman in either transparent or white vestments holding aloft a silver cross. She tapped him.

  “This happy customer here is, ah, unnamed in the texts, but we refer to him as the White Bishop. The Crusaders didn’t know it, but the crosses painted on their shields, and silver crucifix the bishop carried were some of their most potent weapons. It’s said that the horses refused to enter the shadow of the Necropolis, and the Crusade was almost turned back before it began. But the White Bishop plunged in, unafraid, and the assembled knights were so shamed by a simple clergyman’s bravery, that they dismounted and followed.”

  The professor turned the page, which portrayed an army of vampires emerging from the Necropolis, headed by Lily the Half-Faced.

  “The armies clashed. Neither side could seem to gain the advantage until Lily the Half-Faced met the White Bishop in single combat. Lily was a vampire far beyond anything the Bishop had ever encountered before. But Lily had also never encountered a man of such singular faith before. The two clashed for hours but neither could gain the advantage.”

  “An unstoppable force meeting an immovable object,” Nico said.

  Kasprzak looked up and smiled.

  “Exactly. And then, as so often is the case, a quirk of fate turned the tide of history. A knight’s sword was knocked out of his hands, flew through the air, and knocked the crucifix out of the White Bishop’s hands. Lily was able to push through and drop the Bishop to his back. But the Bishop wore a scapular. Lily recoiled in horror from the holy object and the Bishop rose to deliver the coup de grace. But a sword suddenly plunged through the Bishop’s back and out his front.”

  Kasprzak turned the page. A vampire with one red eye was driving a sword through the Bishop’s back. The other vampires surged forward, destroying the Crusaders.

  “Cicatrice.”

  Kasprzak nodded.

  “It was a hard-fought battle, but in the end, the vampires were victorious. And unlike a mortal army, whose numbers dwindle after combat, their ranks grew fat with the freshly dead. The vampires had not only defeated Christendom’s mightiest warriors, they had converted many of them to their side. The sun was rising, so the vampires retreated to the Necropolis. And at the next sunset, Lily the Half-Faced declared a Crusade of her own – an unholy Crusade, to cast down the kingdoms of men and their church.”

  Kasprzak leaned back in her chair and put her fingertips together. Nico realized he was practically falling off his chair. He settled himself back.

  “Then what happened?”

  “See for yourself.”

  He turned the page. It was the strange inkblot figure.

  “The Hunter of the Dead. So what happened?”

  Kasprzak shrugged. Nico turned to look at Price. He rolled his eyes.

  “The Necropolis was never heard from again.”

  “Nor has any archaeological evidence of it existing ever been found,” Price muttered.

  “Lily the Half-Face disappeared. An entire army of vampires and supposedly an entire city was completely wiped from the face of the earth.”

  “And there were no survivors?”

  “Cicatrice. And supposedly Otto Signari had left earlier, at Lily’s request. To this day Cicatrice blames Signari for not bringing back reinforcements.”

  “What did Signari say?”

  “He said he delivered the messages as ordered and it wasn’t his fault none of the patriarchs responded to her call.”

  “Huh,” Nico said.

  “The point of the story, kid, is that The Hunter isn’t real. It’s a boogeyman. Something vampire sires tell their get to keep them in line. ‘Follow the code or The Hunter will come for you. Listen to me or The Hunter will take you.’ Same as Santa or the Tooth Fairy.”

  “Carter, I’ve never seen a vampire scared of anything. But they are scared of this horseman.” She tapped the illustration heavily. “Boogeyman or not, they believe in him and they are terrified of him.”

  “They’re terrified of Cicatrice. Cicatrice is the one who spreads this legend. I don’t believe it’s real. I don’t even believe the Necropolis was real.”

  “The proof that the Necropolis existed is the way they live. The code exists because they believe The Hunter was revenge for the hubris of gathering too many vampires in one place. That was when the code was established: no large gatherings, no public identities. They’ve lived in fear ever since that if they broke the code The Hunter would resurface.”

  “It’s a myth, Professor. The time the code was founded was the same time the Inquisition started to really get going. People were actively hunting witches and vampires. The only way they could survive was by going underground.”

  Kasprzak picked up Price’s phone and waved it in his face.

  “So what do you make of this little piece of evidence?”

  “That’s what I’m here to ask you about. It’s got to be somebody faking it, right?”

  Kasprzak looked at the picture again. She shook her head.

  “I can’t be sure of anything without getting a look at this object. I guess at a minimum I could attempt to date it. If it’s really medieval then…at least an argument could be made in favor of The Hunter resurfacing.”

  “What about that serial killer the vampires are all worried about?” Nico asked.

  Price and Kasprzak both turned and stared him down. He felt like he could disappear up his own asshole and no one would notice.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “No, no. Go on, my boy. What were you going to say?”

  He coughed into his fist.

  “Well, um, I heard Carter and that lady he calls Bonaparte talking about a serial killer that only kills vampires, that all the vampires are scared of lately. So, you know how there are copycat serial killers?”

  Kasprzak slammed the butt of her hand down on her desk, over and over.

  “That’s the way to think! Whatever you’re paying this boy, it’s not enough, Carter!”

  Price nodded.

  “Actually, that’s not bad thinking. Somebody’s knocking off nightcrawlers in the shadows. He’s not getting the reputation he wants. So he dresses up like The Hunter of the Dead. Suddenly everyone’s paying attention.”

  “And this is the same guy who killed our Damned?” Nico asked.

  Kasprzak snorted.

  “Killed one of The Damned? The Damned can’t be killed. Well, not easily, anyway.”

  Price gritted his teeth.

  “We saw one that was.”

  Kasprzak’s eyes went wide.

  “My God, Carter. Tangling with The Damned…their reputation alone…”

  “Yeah, I tangled with one, all right. Their reputation is…well deserved.”

  Kasprzak leaned back in her chair.

  “Well, you may well be dealing with the actual Hunter of the Dead, then. I can’t imagine anyone else who’d be capable of killing one of The Damned. Barring maybe Cicatrice.”

  “Yeah, I w
as afraid you’d say that.”

  Price sighed and crossed his arms. He tipped the plush chair back.

  “Well, why don’t we go talk to this Cicatrice?”

  Price and Kasprzak turned to stare at Nico.

  “What? I just said talk. I didn’t say piss in his cornflakes. Blood flakes. Bloody cornflakes. Whatever.”

  Price looked at Kasprzak, and rubbed his chin.

  “Actually…what do you think, Professor?”

  “Well…there is something of a truce between House Cicatrice and the Inquisition.”

  “A truce?” Nico asked. “How the fuck did that happen?”

  “It happened during the ‘50s. It was actually a rather complicated plan that his get, Topan put into action…”

  “Eh, with all due respect, Professor, let’s hold off on a second round of story time. The important thing is there’s a truce. At least, every Inquisitor I know of knows not to fuck with any Cicatrices. They flash the scar on their hearts and it’s like a get-out-of-jail free card. The question is, does Cicatrice reciprocate it?”

  “I don’t think he’s scared to kill Inquisitors. Although most vampires don’t kill Inquisitors unless directly attacked. They usually prefer to turn them on their enemies.”

  “So there is actually a lot more crosstalk between vampires and vampire hunters than you’ve let on?” Nico asked.

  Price shrugged.

  “I don’t like being played. But my opinion is a dead nightcrawler is a net positive. Whether I did it because it played into some other nightcrawler’s political bullshit is beside the point.”

  “Everything I know about Cicatrice suggests he is fixated on The Hunter,” Kasprzak said, “Perhaps he never really got over that early life trauma. If you go to him and suggest that The Hunter is back, he may just assist you.”

  “But what if my theory’s true and he just made it up?”

  “In my experience, people are even more proprietary about their lies than about their truths.”

  Price turned to Nico.

  “Put on your big boy pants, kid. We’re headed to the Aztec.”