“Drop the kid,” Harold said, the conviction in his voice all but fizzling out.
“But Storm, I’m hungry.”
The Vampire laughed. His pace quickened, and he turned to break out into a run. But the cop on the sidewalk was only inches away from Nik’s feet, and Harold saw him move.
He stuck out his hand and in a last dying attempt to perform his duty, gripped the Vampire’s ankle. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to stall Nik, to get his feet crossed up and stumble. The kid spilled out of his arms as he reflexively used his good hand and the stump to brace himself from breaking his fangs on the concrete. The kid tripped too, landing in the pool of blood to the right, scrambling away from the Vampire and the dying cop.
It was Harold’s chance, and he took it. Shot at him like a human firework. His knee struck the Vampire’s gut, causing a burst of breath to escape his lungs. Harold threw a punch, fist connecting with the bridge of his nose. Vibration rocked through Harold’s bones with a painful burst as the sidewalk under Nik’s head hit back, like a loosely-gripped metal baseball bat meeting a ninety mile-per-hour fastball.
It hurt bad. And he shook his hand out in front of him, while swinging the other fist. Nik dodged the hit, and Harold’s knuckles met the concrete with a crack. That hurt even worse. Fire seemed to run across his vision, enough to distract him and let up his guard.
Nik head butted him. The sound of clanking skulls rattled his ears and his head felt like it split open. The Vampire must’ve been made out of steel or granite. No way a skeleton could be that hard.
He fell back dazed, feeling warm liquid running from the point of impact. And the Vampire turned the tables, throwing Harold off and straddling him. The good arm clamped around his throat.
Harold thrashed, the life force squeezing out of him. Again, he felt like his head might pop. The kid was draped over the curb of the sidewalk, unmoving.
Was he too late?
The pain was too much for Harold to just give up and let death take him because he knew death was an elusive bitch and wouldn’t come at all unless the Vampire had intended it. No, Nik meant torture. A slow and painful death.
Where the Hell was Sahara when he needed her? He had been so eager to prove himself. What a mistake.
“I hope you’re learning your lesson,” Nik said, spit flying from his face, the pale skin turning a fiery red as the tendons in his good arm pulsed.
The veins in Harold’s eyes stood out like Braille.
“After I kill you, I’m going to gut your little gal. Drink her blood. Bathe in it.”
He let up his grip, and Harold inhaled a deep breath of sweet carbon monoxide filled air. Then the fingers squeezed again.
Harder.
So much harder.
“I should make you watch. Keep you alive and make you see what being brave gets you.” He threw all his weight down on Harold. The air exploded out of him and he couldn’t suck down anymore.
Nik laughed. “Don’t go to the light. Not yet.”
Harold’s arms felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each, but somehow they were up, gripping the Vampire’s wrist. He couldn’t imagine how he looked right now. How his face could have possibly gotten redder.
Nik licked his lips, letting a smile pass over his strained features for a second before putting more and more force on Harold’s neck. Vision went black, ears rang with a piercing dead sound. Then —
Howls. Wolves. The eerie calm of a cold, cold night. The silhouettes of a pack of beastly Wolves perched on the edge of a cliff, pine tree dusted with snow towering over them. The words were coming. Filling his brain. Chants.
“Circumventa Lupis!”
His left hand, knuckles white, poking through the burnt skin, transformed in a flash, like an arrow shot from a bow.
Harold saw the cold steel fly out. For a second the pain of the Deathblade leaving his skin overpowered the pain around his neck. He no longer held Nik’s wrist, but held a reddish bone hilt instead.
The Vampire’s eyes bugged out, grip around Harold’s throat loosened. He convulsed, body shuddering like a wave of electricity passed through him. Then he coughed. Specks of black blood showered Harold, momentarily obscuring his vision.
From Harold’s angle, with his back on the concrete, head tilted up, he saw the tip protruding out from Nik, like a horn had grown from the Vampire’s head.
The blade pointed towards the heavens, covered in black sludge. At the apex, a ray of light burned, sizzling, evaporating the blood. Wisps of smoke wafted into the night air, smelling of death.
Nik blinked once. His mouth parted as if he were going to say something, but that same black sludge flooded his mouth, lined his fangs and spilled over his lips. Then he fell backwards, body sliding down the blade with a squish.
Though he was no longer being choked, Harold still couldn’t breathe. When he sat up and looked to his left, towards the street and the sidewalk beyond it, he saw an array of cellphones pointed at him. Camera flashes twinkled, momentarily blinding him. But through it all was a man who stuck out from all the rest. Calm, collected, and smiling as he leaned up against the brick facade of an Italian butcher’s shop. He winked at Harold, took a cigarette out of his mouth. One last cloud of smoke erupted from his nostrils and he flicked it onto the curb before he turned his back on the crowd and Harold, disappearing into the darkness.
Another flash went off, this time right in front of his eyes, jerking him out of his daze, bringing him back to the now. He swiveled his head towards the onlookers. He saw all of their faces. Some were happy, but some were pale-faced, sweaty, on the brink of vomiting as they looked down at the black and red sludge coating the cracked sidewalk.
CHAPTER 16
He pulled his jacket collar up, trying to shield himself from the cameras, but they were moving closer. People chattering. Whispers.
And a lady screamed again, and he couldn’t help it, he had to turn his body towards the direction of the sound. The same lady, wearing her mud-splotched black dress, from before pointed with her mouth hanging open. Harold knew what she was pointing at before he noticed what was happening. He had seen it happen to Nik’s arm back in the blood bank.
Now he looked down at the Vampire’s blank face, watched the entry wound disintegrate into a pile of orange-tinged ashes, spreading to the rest of his body the same way flames on a piece of paper moved. And soon the Vampire was nothing but a pile of crisped clothes. Harold found himself hypnotized, ignoring the increasing volume of murmurs from the crowd.
They started clapping. A man wearing a top hat patted him on the back as he crossed in front of Harold’s line of sight, hawking a loogie onto the Vampire’s clothes. He walked over to the boy, scooped him up like a baby and whispered to him, gave him a little shake. The boy opened his eyes, looking up at the man with a sort of sleepy gaze. Then once he remembered what had happened, the trauma he had went through, he started to bawl like the child he was which was hardly heard over the dying howls inside of his mind.
His blade retracted right as the mom from the Chinese restaurant rushed through the crowd, catching eyes with Harold. The look of disgust erased from her face as she placed a shaky hand on her son, then turned and threw her arms around the Protector.
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” she said, wiping away tears from her eyes, smearing her black mascara. The cameras flashed again.
Blinding.
He answered with a slight nod, at a loss for words, then turned, ran passed the smiling faces, finding the nearest alley and slithered in. He walked and walked, going through the maze of backstreets and alleyways until he settled behind a few trashcans, the cold metal like ice on his skin. The ripped fabric of his trench coat fluttered in the wind.
Goddamn Vampire.
His hand went up against his throat, the skin tender and raw, painful to the touch, but he could already feel the healing working its magic. He slammed his head onto the trash can, a metallic ding rattling his brains. Why him? Why did he have
to be like this?
The one time you get on TV and you look like a Zombie’s Asshole.
He didn’t know what to do anymore.
Footsteps came from behind him, ears perked up like a dog.
“Harold?” a woman said in a voice he instantly recognized as Sahara’s.
He stood up.
She looked him over, narrowing her eyes then curling her lip up.
“Thank god it’s you. If I found another bum, I’d kill myself. By the way, you look like shit,” she said.
“I’ll always look like that,” he said.
“Come on, let’s go back to the apartment.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, leaned back, saw the rip in his coat. “Get you a new coat, too. Maybe some sleep. We all fail sometimes, but Nik will find us, like I said. Even Felix talked of failing on his first chase.”
Harold’s stomach tightened. He almost corrected her, gloated like some hunter killing a defenseless deer, feeling the guilt consume him. But the kid, he was going to hurt the kid. How many people had he hurt before them? How many people would he hurt after if Harold hadn’t done the job? Instead, he just kept his mouth shut. The job was dirty and out there for everyone to see. For some reason, he thought Sahara wouldn’t take kindly to the way he’d handled the situation.
“It’s okay,” Sahara said. “Even the best athletes aren’t born into the big league. They gotta work themselves up. Nik will pop up again, and when he does, we can ask him some questions. Give him sort of a fair trial before an execution.”
Harold swallowed dry, placing his sludge-lined hands into the pockets of his coat.
They walked down the alley way, Harold guiding Sahara in the opposite direction of the ruckus — sirens, people clamoring, shouts, horn honks. But no doubt she heard it, the usual sounds of the big city.
Her apartment was a shitty thing on the south side of the bridge. Really shitty. Harold had been in such a rush to protect Marcy the first time he was there that he hadn’t noticed just how shitty it actually was. The brick of the building was the color of dull sewer water, even duller in the moonlight. There was about twenty floors, and most of the windows were boarded or the glass was cracked, some still standing despite missing chunks here and there. When they opened the door to the lobby, the smell of dog urine and old tobacco smoke smacked him in the face. One of the overhead lights buzzed like a pissed off bee. It flickered on and off before settling with a ghostly hue.
Sahara saw him looking up, then swiveling his head, taking it all in.
“It’s not much,” she said, pushing the button to call the elevator, which didn’t light up at all and had a faded triangle inside of the circle. “But it’s a roof over my head. All I can afford at the moment.”
And Harold thought his place was bad, but Sahara’s made his apartment complex look like the Taj Mahal.
“It’s not that bad,” he said, trying to hide the lie in his voice. “Whatever works.”
He yawned, almost too tired to talk. Some type of bug, possibly a cockroach, skittered across the stained linoleum and crawled under the crack of the door leading to the stairwell. The elevator vibrated the entire wall. Sounded like rusty cables rubbing together in an attempt to start a fire.
Harold’s eyes shifted to the door leading to the steps, where the cockroach had shimmied under, but the thought of being trapped in a janky elevator for hours sounded a lot worse than having to avoid a couple of bugs. It was the city after all. Rats and cockroaches were the norm. Nothing to get too creeped out about. He might not have remembered, but he knew, like most people and despite being a city-dweller, he was neither a bug or rat person.
“I-I think I’m gonna take the stairs,” he said.
“Seventh floor. See you soon,” she said. She moved closer to the elevator door. The cable and pulley system churned, sounding like it was shedding the last bits of rust off, grinding inside of Harold’s eardrums.
Yeah, the stairs would do. Much better choice. But the sickening feeling of premonition in the pit of his stomach almost made him turn back to warn Sahara, to get her to come up the steps with him. Then he chuckled, bursts of air escaping from his half-missing nose.
That was stupid. He was stupid. Just being paranoid, that’s all. If he could nearly outrun a demon dog and battle a Vampire to its death then he could brave an elevator. Still, something tightened in his stomach, and he couldn’t turn back.
He pushed open the door to the stairs. Its steel hinges gave off a high-pitched whine. The smell of urine was more prominent inside. And the lack of lighting made it seem like the steps of a multi-floored haunted house. Graffiti decorated the walls in obscene gestures of penises and swear words in bright neon colors. Up a couple of flights a steady dripping could be heard, almost hypnotic. Harold trucked onward. When he got to the first landing, a homeless man sat in the far corner with a paper bag in his lap. A wild, dirty beard. Smelled like garbage. Harold stepped over him, said, “Excuse me.”
“You’re excused, my dear boy,” the man said in a voice like serrated steel.
Harold stopped. That voice sounded familiar. He didn’t know why. Then he looked over his shoulder, each foot planted on a different step, a hand on the chipped steel of the handrail. He met the bum’s eyes. And the bum met his, not wavering, or avoiding looking at the monstrosity that Harold was. For a second, he felt normal again. Like his skin was smooth and unblemished, like blisters weren’t forming on his skin at that very moment. It was a nice feeling, one he had taken for granted all the years of his life.
Harold’s hand acted on its own, fishing into the inside pocket of the trench coat he wore. It wasn’t his. It had belonged to the Wizard before him, and there were a lot of pockets, enough to shoplift a cart full of groceries without anyone ever batting an eye. He found a thin stack of money in the pocket closest to his heart, pulled it out, revealing a one hundred dollar bill and a couple fifties. The rest were ones. He walked back down the steps, a smile on his face, handed the bum the money. The bum’s eyes were as big as twin full moons. The rubber of his ripped boots squeaked against the floor as he sat up a little straighter, wiped away drool with the back of a gloved hand.
Harold pointed to the paper bag shaking in the man’s lap. “Next couple rounds are on me.”
“I-I — ”
Harold didn’t stick around to hear what the man said, but perhaps he should’ve because the poor guy looked like he was about to have a heart attack. Oh well, Felix the Wizard wouldn’t be missing that money, not wherever he was right now. Probably Hell. And Harold was sure they didn’t take American dollars down there. A smile flashed on his face as he walked up the last few steps to the seventh floor. Not even out of breath. Muscles didn’t scream. He was ugly, but man, he might be able to get used to these abilities after all if it just meant having to kill a Vampire once in awhile. He didn’t look like a hero, but he damn sure felt like one.
Sahara’s door was cracked open. When he walked in, Slink greeted him. The little monster’s tail wagged like the blades of a helicopter and though his teeth were bared, he jumped onto Harold, knocking him down onto the couch and crawled up his chest, licking his face. “Whoa, boy. Down, boy,” he said, giggling. The dog’s tongue had the texture of sandpaper, but it was nice to get some attention even from a Hellhound. Slink didn’t care if he looked like a Zombie’s asshole.
Sahara stepped into view from the threshold of the kitchen. She wore an apron and her red hair was tied back in a ponytail. The candle burning on the fireplace mantle near her illuminated her features — the smoothness of her skin, the cherry-red of her lips, the contours of her body. Harold’s mouth hung open for a few seconds as he studied her until Slink’s tongue found it’s way inside and he jerked back, blowing raspberries and wiping away the slobber. The taste was horrendous. Like the Hellhound lived off a steady diet of cigarette butts and used matches.
Sahara chuckled, leaning on the doorframe. “Geez Slink, buy the poor guy a drink first.”
Slink
looked over to Sahara, and growled playfully.
“I know, I know,” Sahara said. “He reminds you of home.”
“Home?” Harold asked, before the oven beeped in the kitchen.
“Hold that thought,” Sahara said, leaving. “Hope you like pizza!”
Slink answered her back with another growl. But all Harold could think about was pizza, and hoped it looked better than the rest of the apartment complex and tasted better than Slink’s ashtray mouth.
He sat back and placed a hand on the Hellhound, guiding him down to lay in his lap. The heat the creature gave off was almost unbearable, yet it was comforting.
Harold took a deep breath. For a second, it felt like home, which was an entirely new feeling altogether.
The elusive home. He had never really had one. Not a welcome one at least. The closest he’d been was with Marcy, but now that he’d gained some distance from the whole thing — not being together for nearly three months and her already moving on to blonde douchebags — he knew what they had wasn’t a home at all. She’d work. He’d work. She never cooked. He never cooked. Lived mostly off pizza or leftover cheap dishes from the diner she waitressed at. Nothing linked them together after their second year and they slowly realized it — at least Harold had — but each had kept quiet. Was it fear that sealed his mouth? Fear of being alone, maybe.
But then came the pregnancy almost three months ago. That would surely do it. Would surely save the relationship. The one link — shared flesh and blood. And Harold had been so excited to hear the news, also scared. More scared than he’d ever been. Marcy too. For a couple months, things were great. They were inseparable. He wound up getting more hours at his job, and always brought up the fact that his fiancé — who he’d not officially proposed to — was pregnant and they hoped for a girl to the patrons because they’d usually give a generous tip.
Then the doubt came, mostly from Marcy. How she thought her youthful body would be ruined. They’d never have free time. The money was already tight as it was. They’d have to get second jobs, their kid would be raised by a nanny or, god forbid, Marcy’s chain-smoking mother. There had been one big fight about all of that. The culmination, the tipping point. Which resulted in Harold picking up the bottle more frequently than before — and he was already doing that on all of the days that ended in ‘y’ anyway.
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