by A. J. Colby
Somehow, I don’t think that tactic would work with the monsters lurking here.
Reaching the threshold to the darkened reception area, goose bumps rose along the backs of my arms. I knew Cordova was tucked away somewhere below the club for his day’s sleep, but the reception area felt eerily empty. I’d at least expected to find someone manning the desk during the day to deal with daytime deliveries and the like. And yet, here I was, alone and unguarded.
Except for my delightful tour guide, I thought, eyeing Chrismer as she swept through the room to tap a light switch beside the door to Cordova’s office, bringing the lights above Katarina’s desk to life.
Although the lights chased away many of the deeper shadows, the silent stillness prompted me to stay on high alert. My senses told me we were alone, but that didn’t alleviate the uneasy heaviness in the pit of my stomach. This was the part in the horror movie where the evil vampire’s minions were supposed to leap out of hidden doorways to ferry me off to their dungeon lair and suck me dry. Or worse.
I’d been surprised to sense no duplicitous intentions from the Shepherd of the City during my meeting with him, but that hadn’t erased the fact that his status as a politician made him about as trustworthy as a fox in a henhouse. I was bracing myself for the inevitable attack when Chrismer broke the silence. “Were you waiting for an invitation?”
“Huh?” I asked, clueless.
Sighing and rolling her eyes, she leaned back against the edge of the reception desk to fold her arms across her chest. “You said something about there being a link between the victims.”
“Oh, right.”
“Your enthusiasm wear off already? You sounded as if you might pee in excitement earlier,” she said, baring her teeth in a smile that was anything but friendly.
Sneering at her tactless joke, I replied, “Well, there wasn’t anything of much use on the surveillance footage from the market, though seeing Chuckles shopping for organic soap was a bit weird. I’m still trying to get that bizarre image out of my head.”
“What footage?” she asked, all traces of derision disappearing as she pinned me in place with a hard stare. “The police weren’t able to turn up any footage; the security system was faulty.”
Letting a sliver of my own smugness bleed through into my attitude, I said, “You should know as well as anyone that people spend most of their time looking out for themselves. It didn’t take much digging to figure out the manager was full of crap.”
Blowing right past my thinly veiled insult, Chrismer remained focused on the subject of the video from the market’s surveillance system. “What was on the video? Were you able to see the attacker? Did you get a copy?”
“Whoa, chill out. I’ve got a copy right here,” I said, pulling a thumb drive out of my pocket and handing it over. “It won’t do you any good though. There was only one person who came in around the time of the attack on Kensington and there’s no clear shot of his face.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said, snatching the USB stick out of my hand and slipping it into her purse. Once she was sure it was tucked away safely she asked, “Did you find anything else?”
“Well, like I said earlier, I think it’s the relationship the vampires have with their Day Servants. Each of them shared an emotional bond with their human, and I think someone is killing them for it. From what you told me, it doesn’t sound like it’s all that common for vamps and Day Servants to fall in love. Maybe our perp wants to keep it that way.”
I knew I was grasping at straws, that my link between the victims was tenuous, but so far it was the only concrete connection I’d been able to make. The shift in Chrismer’s expression was subtle, but it was clear I had her attention when her cheeks paled a little beneath her makeup. Maybe I wasn’t so far off the mark after all.
Well, that shut her up quick.
Fighting to keep the smirk off my own face, I toyed with the idea of drawing the moment out as long as possible. I’d suffered more than my fair share of torment from the smug Day Servant and reveled in the thought of exacting a little revenge. My aspirations of vengeance, however, were quickly quashed when the heating system kicked on, stirring up the dusty smell of vamp until I could barely breath through the gagging sensation in the back of my throat.
Distracted by the action of rubbing the vampire stink out of my nose, I almost didn’t catch the flare of silver in Chrismer’s eyes as a peculiar look stole across her face. Her gaze shifted out of focus for a moment as she cocked her head to one side, creating the image of a golden retriever listening for the scrabble of a rat in the walls. Or the distant call of its master.
“I must attend to the Shepherd. Wait here, and don't touch anything.”
I wonder if he'll let her play with his ball, I thought while biting the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud.
Touching my fingers to my temple in a mock salute I said, “Aye, aye, Captain.”
Her painted lips curled in a sneer as her eyes narrowed. “Stay put.”
I waited all of thirty seconds after she disappeared with the whoosh of the elevator door before I decided to do a bit of snooping, reasoning with myself that really it was Chrismer’s fault for being foolish enough to leave me unsupervised.
The obvious place to start was to resume my previous attempts at snooping through Cordova’s office. Grasping the door handles, I tried to turn them, and grumbled a curse under my breath when they wouldn’t budge. I could’ve forced the doors open with just a tiny surge of strength from the wolf, but figured that if I was going for stealth, busting the locks wasn’t the best idea.
Where’s MacGyver when you need him? I thought, wishing the intrepid ’80s TV hero would materialize, armed with a paperclip and a banana. Although I knew I was alone, I still cast a quick glance around the room before skulking over to the receptionist’s desk and trying one of the drawers, hoping to find a key to his office. When the first couple drawers turned up nothing more exciting than a stash of fun size candy bars, and an inexplicably large package of wet wipes I felt my hope beginning to die.
I so don’t want to know what those are for, I thought, eyeing the wet wipes dubiously.
Popping a miniature Snickers bar in my mouth, I declared the desk a lost cause and sidled over to the waiting area with its uncomfortable space-age chairs. I sat on the edge of the couch drumming my fingers on my knees as they bounced up and down. There was something about being in the silent space alone that intensified my natural inability to sit still for more than five seconds. In no time at all, I was bouncing up from the couch and pacing around the coffee table.
Man, I’d kill for a cup of coffee, I thought, pausing mid step as an idea blossomed in my mind.
“There’s gotta be a coffee maker around here somewhere,” I mused aloud, looking over the draped walls for a sign of a concealed alcove or doorway.
Picking a spot at random, I worked my way around the room, pushing aside the fabric panels to reveal the stone walls beneath. After a few tries I stumbled across the Holy Grail—a small alcove that contained a bar sink, mini fridge, and, most importantly, a coffee maker and a gold foil bag imprinted with foreign lettering.
“There you are,” I said, picking up the bag to cradle it in my arms like a baby. “You’re coming home with me.”
Hearing a soft sound, like the whisper of cloth on cloth, or the shuffle of a foot against wooden floors, I froze, and felt my heart sink.
Oh, come on! Can’t I ever catch a break?
“I was just going to make a cup, I swear I’m not stealing it,” I said, turning to face an empty room.
What the hell?
“Chrismer?” I asked, trying to ignore the unrest blooming in the pit of my stomach as her words from earlier echoed in my mind. It’s not safe.
“Chrismer?” I called out again, hating how my voice wavered. “Is that you?”
No reply came except for the panicked tattoo of my heart pounding against my ribs.
“So n
ot funny, Chrismer,” I said, hoping against all odds that the uppity Day Servant was playing a cruel trick on me. She did delight in seeing me suffer for her amusement.
I realized it wasn’t Chrismer the moment the scent of vamp hit me, too strong to be the residue of Cordova’s nighttime presence in the space.
Latching on to the hope that it was the Shepherd of the City risen early from his daytime slumber, I called out again. “Cordova?”
The soft, rasping sound came again, and with it the death of my hope that its source was benign. From amongst the shadows and folds of fabric covering the walls, lurched a pale, white-eyed figure dressed in Batman pajama pants and a black V-neck t-shirt.
Seriously? What man wears a V-neck? Fucking hipsters. Or even worse, fucking undead hipsters.
I knew the vamp was dangerous, but between the nerdy pajamas and bed head, he didn’t incite a lot of fear. Of course, that all changed when he bared yellowed fangs and emitted a hiss like a pissed off cobra.
“Ah... hi there,” I said, raising my hands in the universal gesture of peace. “I’m just waiting for Chrismer, you know, your boss’s walking blood bag. I’m sure he wouldn’t want anything to happen to me, so how about you go back to whichever coffin you snuck out of, and I’ll go wait outside, where it’s not so stuffy. Or sunless.”
Risking a glance around the space I tried to spot another way out besides the stairs I had come up, and which the vamp was blocking. I didn’t recall having seen any other exits during my prior visits except the elevator that led down to the parking garage. Looking around now, I didn’t see any obvious indications in the fabric draped walls that signaled where the damn thing was, and I hadn’t paid enough attention to see which panel Chrismer had ducked behind. I knew it was somewhere off to the right of the receptionist’s desk and prayed to whatever powers might be that I was right in thinking it was close to Cordova’s office.
Either the vamp didn’t understand me or he didn’t care, but for whatever reason, my words didn’t have the desired effect of sending him back to his daytime resting place. Instead he advanced in sharp, skittering motions that conjured up images of cockroaches scattering when someone turned on a light. My own steps back seemed to spur him on, provoking the natural instincts of the hunter within. In a sudden spurt of movement he was halfway across the room, and I was letting out a panicked scream.
With no other options presenting themselves, I glanced at the gold foil packet with a sense of longing and reluctant acceptance, and then pitched it at the approaching vamp’s head. It didn’t do much except distract him for a moment as the bag burst open on impact, showering him with rich, dark caramel scented beans. I winced at the soft patter of the beans striking the floor, and then threw myself at the wall, hoping that I would end up somewhere close to Cordova’s private elevator.
By some miracle, my estimation was only off by a foot, and sweeping aside the drapes I pounded a fist into the call button for the elevator. The vamp’s hiss and skittering steps propelled me into the elevator as soon as the door opened and had me thanking my lucky stars when it slid closed before the vamp could get a hand in the doorway. I flinched at the sound of his fists striking the other side of the door, and the wordless growl of frustration.
Not even bothering to try to stop the tremors that ran through me, I sagged back against the wall of the elevator.
Now what? I can’t just hide out in here all day.
“Well, I guess there’s only one way to go,” I said, glancing down at my feet.
Looking at the control panel I was presented with a new problem. During my last ride in the elevator it hadn’t occurred to me to pay attention to which button Chuckles had pushed to take us down to the garage. All elevators are generally the same, right?
Wrong.
The panel had three buttons, none of which bore a number. Instead they were each inscribed with a symbol which may as well have been hieroglyphs for all the sense they made.
“Seriously?” I growled, wincing a second later when the vamp answered with a series of blows to the other side of the door.
Having no idea how long the door would hold, I sucked in a breath and pushed the middle button, hoping that it would lead in the right direction. I remained leaning against the wall as the elevator jerked into motion and tried to tell myself that the echo of the elevator’s motor whirring in the stone shaft was a comforting noise and not the sound of my impending death. When the elevator didn’t come to a stop within a few seconds I wondered just how far down beneath the earth I would end up.
I must be at least forty feet down, I thought when the elevator came to a stop, and I braced myself to face whatever unknown threats I might find on the other side of the door.
The elevator opened onto a small circular room lit by the same artificial torches as the ones in the club upstairs, but somehow the space felt older than the church above. It was hard to tell if the subterranean structure had existed prior to the church, or if it was the knowledge that there were thousands of pounds of dirt overhead that made it feel ancient. The soft whoosh of the elevator door sliding shut behind me when I stepped out of the brightly lit box stirred a feeling of apprehension in the pit of my stomach. Again I heard Chrismer’s voice echoing it’s warning in my mind. It’s not safe.
This is so not where I want to die.
Staying close to the elevator in case I needed to make a quick getaway, I surveyed my surroundings. The walls, floor, and domed ceiling looked to be crafted from the same dark stone as the church, though they bore the mark of time in the form of dirt and slimy looking moss. A series of medieval looking banners hung at even intervals around the room, occupying the spaces between seven identical tunnels that led off from the room like the spokes of a giant wheel. The tunnels trailed off into the gloom, and although curiosity would normally have made me eager to explore, I had no intentions of sauntering off into the unknown. Despite the fact that the place felt as desolate as the grave, the choking smell of vamp left no doubt in my mind that there were dozens of the undead lurking down there with me.
Yeah, that isn’t creepy at all, I snorted as a shudder rippled down my spine.
“Well, I guess that leaves me a fifty-fifty chance of meeting Mr. Sunshine again,” I told myself, turning back to the elevator and hitting the call button. The button lit up for a moment, and then nothing. There was no cheery chime, and more importantly, no door sliding open. My stomach plummeted to somewhere in the vicinity of my ankles. I was sure I’d have heard it if the elevator went back up to Cordova’s office. Jabbing the button again produced the same result—that is to say, none at all.
“Oh, come on!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AFTER SEVERAL MOMENTS of hammering on the call button didn’t open the door, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to find another way to the garage. My need to get out was made all the more unnerving by the knowledge that my friend from upstairs could find his way down at any moment.
“If I was the way out of a creepy vampire nest, which one would I be?” I murmured, looking at the gaping black mouths surrounding me.
Eenie meenie miney mo... I thought, studying the tunnels, each one appearing as abandoned and eerie as the one before.
“Well, shit.”
In the end, I decided that the possibility of running across a ravening vamp was better than standing there doing nothing, and opted to try the closest tunnel on the right. Being a were has the occasional advantages, superior vision being one of them, but my were-enhanced sight was better suited for shadowy forests than pitch black underground tunnels. I was nearing the edge of the light that filtered down the tunnel from the circular room when I heard the whisper of scratches on stone behind me.
My heart leapt into my throat at the sound, and every muscle in my body screamed for me to run. But where? Behind me loomed a crazy vamp and ahead was only darkness. Before I had a chance to decide whether to run or stay, the sound shot towards me. Bracing myself, I let out a stra
ngled scream when a fat, furry shape crawled over my foot, continuing along the tunnel as if I wasn’t there.
“Jesus tap dancing Christ!” I swore, listening to the rat scurry on its way, oblivious to the fact that it had almost made me crap my pants.
There’s gotta be a better idea than running around here aimlessly, I thought as I peered into the darkness, but no brilliant ideas came, only the growing desire to find daylight.
My progress was slow as I inched along the tunnel with one hand sliding along the slimy wall and the other stretched out into the dark in front of me, my anxiety increasing with each step I took further into the unknown. I may as well have had my eyes closed for all I could make out in the inky black.
This has got to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done, I berated myself, cursing my own stupidity for getting caught up with Cordova and his ilk. I should have known nothing good would come from getting mixed up with the undead.
Distracting myself with plans of what I would do to Cordova and his Day Servant if I made it out of there alive, I moved forward inch by inch until an unseen obstacle brought me down hard on my knees. It was just a small rock, but in the total darkness that blanketed my eyes, it may as well have been a giant boulder. A hissing breath escaped me as my palms grazed the rough stone of the tunnel’s wall and my phone clattered out of my pocket.
“I’m such an idiot,” I muttered under my breath as my phone flared to life at the impact, filling the tunnel with its cool glow.
Ignoring the tremble in my hands and the sweat trickling down my spine, I wiped the grit and blood from my hands on the thighs of my jeans, before retrieving my phone from where it lay nestled amongst rubble and dust. Armed with my makeshift flashlight, I climbed to my feet, angling the screen’s glow out in front of me. My burgeoning relief at discovering a light source was instantly dashed by the sight ahead. Twenty paces up ahead the tunnel branched off to the left and right with no sign of where either direction led. For all I knew they could have looped back around to the circular room in an endless loop of darkness.