Tap-tap-tap.
“¿Qué coño?” he muttered, looking up.
He almost gasped, but stopped himself. Instantly he was awake.
Idi Han was at the window.
He rose, wishing he was wearing more than boxer shorts polka-dotted with red hearts. It was too late, now. She had seen him sleeping in what he was wearing. He snuck over to the window and tried to jimmy it open. It began to creak. He glanced over at Price, but he was stupendously drunk and had passed out in his chair. She reached and helped him raise it from the outside, keeping it absolutely silent.
“What are you doing here?” he whispered.
“Can we talk?”
He glanced down at the street.
“We’re on the eighth floor. How are you…?”
Her feet clung to the wall as though she were wearing suction cup shoes. As he considered it, at a certain point strength would seem to defy physics. If you could cling to the side of a speeding train with just your pinky, you would seem to be a magical creature.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” she said, “it’s just that I have no one to talk to. At least, no one who doesn’t want to use me or train me or sell me or…”
He nodded.
“I…I understand. Let me just grab something to wear.”
As he pulled on his crunchy, days-old work uniform (with nameplate still attached) he silently cursed himself for not buying some new clothes or at least throwing this set in the wash. He pointed down, indicating the ground floor.
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” he mouthed.
She opened her arms.
“I could save you the trip,” she said.
He eyed her up and down.
“Maybe when we trust each other a little more.”
She shrugged and disappeared from the window. He stuck his head out and saw her, already on the ground, pacing, and waiting for him. He eased the window shut and hurried out into the hallway as fast as he could without making any noise. In Price’s flophouse the elevator only occasionally reported for duty to the proper floor, and this was not one of those times, so he found himself hurrying down the stairs.
He burst out onto the street and was greeted by a wave of cool, exuberant air. Even in long pants and a hat he was chilly, but Idi Han in her short dress seemed unaffected by the weather. She seemed as pleased to see him as he was to see her.
“So,” he said, “what, ah, what’s up?”
“Can we take a walk?” she asked.
He glanced up at the roofs and night sky.
“Is Cicatrice here?”
“He doesn’t know I’m here,” she said. “He said he had some business to attend to alone so I snuck out.”
“Quite the rebel!”
“Nico. Please.”
“I’m sorry. I know this can’t be easy for you. All…this.”
He made an expansive, circular gesture. He didn’t even really know what he meant by it, but Idi Han apparently did.
“You have no idea how strange it is to be told you’re special, you’re important, you’re the most important person on the planet.”
“Wish I had that problem.”
“You laugh, but where I come from no one ever tells you that. They tell you how unimportant you are. How you’re only as good as what you can do for others. You Americans are used to being told you’re the prettiest and the richest and the smartest.”
Nico snorted. He gestured for her to take his arm and they started to walk down the street.
“You think I’m an American?”
“Well, aren’t you?”
“Sort of. It’s complicated.”
“What isn’t?”
“Yeah. I’m American enough for all the bad things but not American enough for all the good things.”
“Stuck between two worlds?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
They walked along in silence for a moment.
“Cicatrice said you two lived up to your end of the bargain.”
“Don’t I know it. I’ve been in the sewers since dawn this morning. Bonaparte – there’s this lady, Bonaparte. I don’t know her real name. Anyway, she has all these gangs of people and it’s all like marching in step-like little automatons. Kind of like what you were saying about China. And they dropped all this tear gas and smoke and all these humans, just regular humans came running out of the tunnels.”
“Disciples,” she said.
“Cultists,” he agreed, “Coffin guards. Price calls them ‘renfields.’ But in the end they’re just ordinary people. Sad, but ordinary people. And they all come flooding out and we tell them to surrender and some of them do but…”
He trailed off.
“In war there are casualties,” she said.
He shook his head.
“This didn’t feel like a war. It felt like a slaughter. My wrists are, ah, chafing.” He waggled the wrist of his free hand to show what he meant. “Because I spent all morning pounding stakes into inert bodies. Chopping heads off of…corpses. How many people did I kill?”
“None. We’re not people.”
He stopped and turned to look at her.
“I don’t believe that.”
She stared into his eyes.
“I’ve seen things…done things…you would find unforgiveable.”
“You and my sainted grandmother both. Sometimes I wonder if being unforgiveable is the only real human condition.”
She placed her hand on his shoulder.
“You really mean that?”
Two
Price’s eyes snapped open. Nothing in particular had awakened him. No special noise or sound of the night had disturbed his slumber. He woke often, a dozen times a night sometimes.
Bad dreams.
“Kid?” he whispered.
No response. He heard a click and instantly he was on his feet, machete in hand. A tiny flame illuminated his dump of an apartment. It belonged to a match, which belonged to a hand, which belonged to a person, facing away from him in the lone folding chair which decorated his digs.
The shadow figure brought the match up to an unfiltered cigarette nestled in a bone holder. Then with a casual flick the flame disappeared and the blackened match dropped to the floor. The shadow took a long drag from its cigarette, and then puffed out a cloud to fog up the apartment.
“There was a time,” a voice, syrupy with malevolence intoned, “when my kind was not relegated to the shadows. And there will be again.”
Price glanced around the room, wondering what to do. He’d never been caught so naked…literally and figuratively…before. He held the blade level and perpendicular with the ground, in Cicatrice’s general direction.
“Where’s the kid, Cicatrice?”
“The people of this land tell a story. Once upon a time a fox was bathing in a river. In some versions it’s a fox, in others it’s a frog, the end result is really the same so it doesn’t really matter. We’ll call it a fox. A scorpion approached the riverbank. The fox was a wily hunter but even he feared the scorpion’s deadly sting, so he started to swim out into the river, knowing scorpions can’t swim.
“And the scorpion called out, ‘Please don’t run from me, Brother Fox. I’m not here to harm you. I just need to get to the other side of the river. Will you take me on your back?’
“Now the fox was intrigued but he wasn’t stupid, so he replied, ‘If I carry you on my back you will sting me and I will drown.’
“And the scorpion replied, ‘That would be foolish. If I sting you we would both drown. There, you see? Our mutual safety is assured and if you aid me, you will have my gratitude, and my gratitude is worth much.’
“The fox thought and thought but he couldn’t figure out any trick. If one drowned, both would drown. So, albeit reluctantly, he let the scorpion on his back and started to swim. When they were no more than halfway across the river, snap! The scorpion stung the fox.
“As the fox began to drown he said, ‘Why did you sting me? Now
we will both drown.’
“‘I had to,’ the scorpion replied, ‘I’m a scorpion.’”
Cicatrice turned to look over his shoulder at Price. His face was silhouetted in the moonlight, and looked cold, alien, and whiter than the moon.
“Where’s my apprentice?” Price asked, hoping the machete wasn’t quivering in his hand.
“No one was here when I arrived. He must’ve realized the futility of what you do and fled.”
Price glanced around the room.
Did he abandon me? Why would Cicatrice lie? If he wants to hurt me, he’d taunt me about having Nico somewhere. Did someone else snatch him up? Bonaparte? The Signaris?
“Get out, Scar. Get out now.”
Cicatrice stood, and pressed lightly on the chair, sending it flying backwards towards Price. Price dove out of the way, cursing his nakedness as his balls slapped against either thigh. The chair flew past Price and smashed into a mangled wreck against the wall.
“It’s not so easy to exorcise a demon, Price. You invited me into your life. Invited me onto your back. When the fox agreed to help the scorpion they both momentarily forgot who they were.”
The point of the story dawned on him.
“But they never stopped being what they were.”
Cicatrice grinned. Price was certain he had never seen the immortal smile before, wasn’t even certain if he had ever smiled before. The effect was cadaverous, and chilling.
“Now you understand.”
Price roared and rushed at Cicatrice, bringing the machete across his front in a long arc aimed at the vampire’s neck. Cicatrice easily ducked out of the way and caught the machete between his index finger and thumb, arresting Price’s charge completely and making his teeth chatter. Cicatrice snapped the blade out of his hand with a motion that almost shattered Price’s wrist and tossed it out a window, sending pulverized glass exploding outward into the night and tinkling down against the backdrop of the full moon almost like fairy dust.
Cicatrice stood between Price and his cache of weapons in the closet. His mind raced. There was only one weapon on this side of the apartment. He scrabbled with his sore wrist at the wall, reaching for the ceremonial stake with his name carved into it. With his fingertips he fumbled with it, forgetting whether it was glued to the plaque or merely hanging there, but before he could even wrap his hand around the wooden shaft, it didn’t matter anymore. Cicatrice had grabbed his wrist.
Whipping him around like a ragdoll or an unwilling dance partner, Cicatrice easily held Price a few feet off the ground by only his wrist. Then he let him drop to the floor, where he promptly crumpled into a pile like week-old laundry. Price grimaced, rubbing his forearm, and wishing he hadn’t landed on his tailbone. White-hot pain radiated out through him from his coccyx.
“Go on, then,” Price grunted, “Kill me. I’m obviously outmatched. At least show me the respect of not toying with me any longer.”
“Respect? I have no respect for you. No respect for your profession. No respect for your person. You’re a joke. The Inquisition’s always been a joke. I tolerate it because it’s no more dangerous than tolerating a Bigfoot society or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Who cares if mortals want to waste their time believing they make a difference?
“But you, Carter Price, you in particular I have no respect for. I am an individual who understands his power and understands the power of organizing. But you have always been so certain that you alone could take on the world. Your friends who tried to organize? They were right. They might make a difference someday. Cowboys like you will always end up like this.”
“I should’ve clarified, Scar. Toy with me, torture me, whatever you want, but for the love of Christ, enough with the speechifying. Go ahead. Suck me dry.”
Price stuck his neck out as best he could towards the vampire.
“Death? That’d be a mercy. Don’t you know, Price, the Inquisitor always becomes the strongest immortal? I was once like you.”
Cicatrice rolled up his sleeve and held up his wrist, which was covered by a gauze wrap. He ripped away the gauze and bared his wrist, complete with the mark of the Inquisition. The tattoo bubbled and burned, as though it were constantly torturing him.
“It’s burning you. My God, you’ve got a little faith left in you, Scar.”
“It is the constant reminder of my human weakness. I will bear this pain eternally as a constant reminder of what I once was. Of what I despise now. Of you.”
“I find it hard to believe you were ever anything like me.”
“Believe it. I was the first of your kind. I founded the Inquisition. But then my matriarch taught me what it was to be immortal. Now I will grant you the same gift as punishment. You will learn what it means to be a scorpion.”
Cicatrice pressed his fingers to Price’s scalp.
Three
Mesoamerica…
Before the Europeans came to Tenochtitlan, the natives worshipped immortals, whom they revered as gods. They sacrificed the hearts of virgins in elaborate ceremonies designed to keep the sun rising each morning. In reality only the highest caste of priests knew that their sacrifices were really being made to immortals.
Then the conquistadors arrived.
Cortes and his men arrived on the shores of what is now called Mexico. Cortes ordered all of his ships burnt so there could be no retreat. The only hope for his men was to conquer an empire. And with the help of gunpowder, horses, and treacherous native politics, they succeeded.
The Aztec priests were shot, mid-way through their sacrifices to appease the gods. The pyramids where the immortals resided to receive their sacrifices were reconsecrated in the name of a carpenter from Judea, far across the sea.
Fourteen of the most powerful immortals from across the empire managed to escape the wholesale slaughter of Cortes and his men. They went north, far north to a place beyond the reach of the Aztecs, beyond the reach even of men, to a profane, unholy place.
The pyramid there was a reversal of the Aztec ones. It descended down into the ground, and terminated only at a vast abyss. Some believed this was the dark source of the power of the immortals. Others believed they had crawled up out of Hell and this was the spot where they had emerged. Whatever the truth of the tales they told, this was the place where the immortals had decided to sleep, and wait for Cortes’s reign of terror to recede. When the Spanish left, they were to be awakened. One among the immortals had the gift of sight, and predicted the Spanish would not leave until civilization was in the throes of a grand apocalypse.
The least of the immortals was tasked to be a caretaker. He would stay awake, watching over the others as they slept, communing in the dark with ancient evils and gathering their strength for a time when they intended to take back these shores. The thirteen slept, and the last waited, sealing up the others with a golden key. Each day the caretaker sacrificed a virgin, stolen from a far-off village (for at that time all villages were far off) to satiate the bloodlust and demand for sacrifice of the others. The key was passed down many times, but the Spanish never left, and in fact men began to encroach even on that dreadful place. The thirteen great ones were referred to collectively as The Damned, and the fourteenth as their steward or caretaker.
After the coming of the European immortals, with their tales of the Necropolis and The Hunter of the Dead, it was decided that The Damned represented too great a threat to the status quo. They were a danger to those who kept their heads down, followed the code, and kept The Hunter at bay. So it was agreed that they would remain sleeping for eternity, or until the age-old dream of an Empire of Immortals was at last realized.
***
She lay beneath him, nude except for two necklaces around her throat. One was a golden key which looked Mexican in design. The other was a delicate silver (or silver-colored) series of Chinese characters. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her up into him as he thrust. She wasn’t reacting like any other girl he’d ever been with. She wasn’t a
cold fish, but neither did she seem to be enjoying herself.
“Is it all right?”
She replied in Chinese, apparently forgetting herself, then pounded his chest with her fist. She left a throbbing bruise.
“Not right now,” she said, apparently repeating herself. “It’s about to be. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
Her face remained impassive and he felt confused and even a bit worried, but a moment later she wrapped her legs around his waist and began practically kicking him into her. She began to moan loudly and her head went back, her back arching and the top of her head laying nearly perpendicular on the pillow, as though she were presenting her throat to him.
He felt the warm thrill of orgasm, as he had hundreds of times before, but there was something else there, a sense that she was drawing him into herself, needed him, was hungry for him, was draining him.
As he came he shuddered, and felt a ripple of pleasure run through him. Somewhere he had heard that the French called orgasm “la petit mort” or “the little death.” He’d never really understood that before, but in the instant that his mind seemed to void itself, filled with nothing but the absolute carnal pleasure of Idi Han’s body, he understood.
When he came back to himself she was smiling up at him, a devilish little grin. She wasn’t breathing hard (naturally – she didn’t breathe) but her skin had darkened, and was almost glowing. She put his hand in his hair.
“I’m sorry, Nico,” she said, “I think I took a little too much out of you.”
A sharp pain tugged at his scalp.
“Ow!” he said, slapping the spot where she had pulled out the single hair.
She held it under his nose. He stared and took it from her fingers, rolling it between his own.
“A gray hair? I didn’t think…Jesus, I’m only twenty.”
“That was my fault,” she said, rubbing his chin. “When you…uh, what’s the English word? We never really studied this sort of thing in school.”
“Urm,” he whispered furtively, “ejaculate?”
She nodded, not repeating it.
“Yes. When you did that, I felt your life essence and I…I may have taken a little too much.”
Hunter of the Dead Page 22