by Jack Knight
Asher started toward the broken down bar and I hesitated. I hated being around people, I’d be no good at asking around for information, and I always did my absolute best to avoid talking to anyone when I was out hunting for a mark. I had a really bad feeling about this.
The alternative, though, was staying in the car while Asher chatted people up and drank in a bar.
I slammed the car door closed and jogged to catch up, Asher and I walked into the bar, which wasn’t locked, at the same time.
The inside of the place was just as dirty and broken down as the outside. There were tables on their side, trash all over the place, and a layer of dust so thick it almost felt like carpet.
Except for one door. Across from the entrance, right beside the bar counter, there was a shining, metal door that looked freshly polished. There was no handle, and there was a small window that reminded me of the doors to Speak-Easies. Someone would have to let us into the actual bar.
Great, more talking to people.
Asher started toward the door, but I stayed by the entrance. Something about this felt off. Maybe not the bar itself, but I had an alarm going off in my head, telling me danger was nearby.
“Asher, hang on,” I hissed quietly.
Asher looked over his shoulder and laughed. “Maddi, just come on. It’s just a—”
Someone jumped out from behind one of the fallen tables and hit Asher over the head so fast I couldn’t even tell what kind of creature had attacked him.
My hand jumped to the knife at my belt, but as soon as my fingers touched it, a blinding pain erupted across the back of my head. I was pretty sure I fell down, but everything went black so fast I couldn’t be certain.
Chapter 16
MY MIND STARTED TO wake up slowly. What happened before my blackout filtered in, quickly waking the rage inside me.
I had been surprised and knocked out. I took that as a personal offense. Nobody surprised me. And, more importantly, nobody had ever beaten me in a fight before. Surprising someone and knocking them out before they could fight back was just low. I hated these people.
My head started to throb. I could feel a bump on the back of my head pulsing with my heartbeat, and it hurt like a motherfucker. I tried to reach up and feel how big the bump was, but my hands stopped. Something was keeping me from raising my arm. Something cold and hard was pressed against my wrists.
I opened my eyes and saw that I was in a bare room. There were no windows and only one door. The only furniture in the room was the small, metal chairs that Asher and I were sitting in.
Asher was a few feet away from me and still unconscious, his head was slumped against his chest. And, there was a line of dried blood that had come from somewhere on the back of his head and trickled down his neck before it dried and hardened.
When I tried to move my hands again, I heard the clink of metal against metal. I was handcuffed, my hands were bound behind my back, probably looped between the slats on the back of the chair.
I struggled for a couple of minutes to free myself, but it was clearly pointless. I was one hundred percent fucked.
“Let me out!” I screamed.
Almost immediately, the door gave a loud screech as it grinded open and a man walked through it.
The guy was tall, probably over six feet. He had short brown hair and green eyes. He was wearing a heavy army jacket and a black shirt, torn, faded jeans and an evil smile that told me I was not getting free any time soon. As if that wasn’t bad enough, someone followed him into the room and closed the door again.
It was Matt. Asher and I had been caught by Hunters.
“Let me go,” I repeated.
“It’s nice to meet you, Maddison,” the large man said pleasantly. “I’m Romanus.”
“Great,” I said sarcastically. “We’ve been introduced. Now we’re besties.” My voice returned to being hard and angry when I added, “Let me go.”
The man, Romanus, chuckled. “Cute, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
I pulled on the handcuffs a couple of times, achieving nothing more than I had the last dozen times.
“What the fuck do you want?” I demanded.
“She’s a feisty one,” Romanus said to Matt.
Matt was standing against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. His face was completely blank, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking at all.
“Now, Maddison,” Romanus said as he turned back to face me, “did you know you’re on the Hunter’s most wanted list?”
I reclined in the chair. Struggling wasn’t helping, and this guy was clearly full of himself. There was a good chance he loved the sound of his own voice, talking to him was pointless. I was going to have to wait until he said all he wanted to say.
“We’ve been searching for you for over a year, all over the world, too,” Romanus continued as he stuffed his hands into his pants’ pockets. “And, now we know you’re mixed up in something called ‘Shadow Reapers’.”
Shit. They must have overheard Asher while we were outside the car. One more reason to never interact with people. You can’t be jumped if you stay away from everyone.
“Care to tell us what Shadow Reapers are, Maddison?” Romanus asked politely.
“Care to suck my dick, Romanus?” I replied, mocking his tone.
“Aw, now that’s not very nice.” Romanus’ smile dropped away. His tone was edging toward angry.
“I’m not telling you anything, so let me go,” I pressed, glaring at him as I spoke.
“Well, that’s unfortunate, but not a big deal.” Romanus was starting to sound angry now. That probably wasn’t a good sign. “That means that we move onto the next step, is all.”
I glanced at Matt, hoping that by some miracle he would be willing to help me. His face was still blank and he was looking directly at the back of Romanus’ head. A quick look at Asher told me that he wasn’t going to be in a state to do much of anything for a while. I was on my own.
“What’s the next step, then?” I asked in resignation. “Let’s hurry this along.”
“Well, we’re going to turn over the traitor to the Bishop. Your mother will be happy to see you, I’m sure,” Romanus explained with relish.
The way that he said those two things together wouldn’t make much sense. Not unless...
“Valeria is the Bishop?” I asked in surprise.
“Bingo, Mommy got a promotion. Good for her, right? She wants to talk to her daughter straight away. All of us Hunters would like to know why you’re going around creating vampires, to be honest.”
They were blaming me for the vampires? That didn’t make any sense. Obviously, Valeria had told them that I was a sorcerer. She probably got the promotion for trying to kill her husband and daughter once she found out they could use magic. Even with that, they had no reason to think I could do something like create vampires. As far as I knew, only vampires could do that.
“Before we get on to that, though,” Romanus said as he started walking toward Asher, “we’re going to have to kill the mage.”
I sat bolt upright in my chair and started tugging on the handcuffs so hard I felt them start to cut into my wrists. “Are you serious? Why!”
Romanus pulled a knife out of his jacket and looked over at me as he chuckled, “Because he can do magic, of course. Plus, those Shadow Reapers sound pretty bad, right Matty?”
Matt finally pushed himself off the wall and let his arms fall to his side. “We can’t be carting around two prisoners. Too much hassle.”
If I could have gotten my hands free, I would’ve strangled Matt right then. The bastard had to have turned me in, that was how they had found me so quickly after I ran into him. Now he was advocating for killing Asher just for being near me.
I let out a scream as I tried to break the handcuffs around my wrists, but like everything the Hunters used to restrain prisoners, they weren’t going to break easily. They were probably made to withstand the strength of a vampire, I couldn’t jus
t tear them off.
Romanus took another step toward Asher and it finally occurred to me that I might not need strength. I could already feel something wet sliding down my left hand. I was bleeding. I could use magic.
If only I knew a spell that could unlock handcuffs. I pulled on the cuffs as hard as I could, making sure that whatever wound I was inflicting on myself would be enough to make the magic work, and searched my mind for any word that I knew in Latin that might help.
“Don’t worry, Maddison,” Romanus said as he lifted Asher’s head, exposing his neck, “your mage friend won’t feel a thing.”
I glared up at him, ready to try to imagine what I wanted the magic to do and force it to work without a word, but I was too confused to keep trying.
Matt ran at Romanus, grabbed the man around the neck, and threw his entire weight to the ground, dragging Romanus with him. Romanus’ head slammed into the ground with a crack and the knife fell from his hand, clattering on the floor.
Without a second’s hesitation, Matt started toward me. I was terrified that Matt was going to kill me himself, until I saw him slide a key out of his pocket. He disappeared behind me and grabbed my left hand, after a couple of seconds, I felt the handcuff fall away. Another couple of seconds and I was free.
I jumped up from the chair and turned to face Matt, who was already hurrying over to Asher’s chair to undo the second pair of handcuffs.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked. I meant it as a demand, but it came out as utter bewilderment.
“I’m letting you out,” Matt answered as Asher’s bindings fell to the floor. He shook Asher’s shoulder and looked up at me as he continued.
“The vampire that’s in Sacramento is on a rampage, it’s killing three or four people a day, that’s why we’re here. You need to get out of town now.”
“Whassgoinon?” Asher mumbled as his eyes fluttered open.
“Why do they think I’m the one making vampires?” I asked. I was so confused I couldn’t even begin to process what was happening, I needed an answer to something, anything, right now.
Matt lifted Asher’s arm and put it around his own shoulders before he hauled Asher to his feet. He looked at me and nodded toward the door as he said, “Get that, hurry.”
Alright, no answers. I guess getting away from the dude trying to kill Asher and take me to be reprimanded by the Bishop was good, too.
I raced over to the door and pulled it open just in time for Matt and a barely conscious Asher to stumble through it. Barely a step behind, I followed through the door and saw that we were inside a warehouse. It was completely empty except for the cube-shaped, concrete room we had just been in.
Matt hurried toward a large door that took up most of the warehouse’s walls. It was one of those garage door type things that slide up and along the ceiling, except this was big enough for two semi-trucks to fit in at the same time. It was already wide open and looking out into a grungy street at twilight. Asher and I must have been unconscious for a really long time.
Right after we exited the building, Matt turned to me, took Asher’s arm off his shoulder, and pushed Asher toward me.
Asher stumbled a few steps, caught my shoulder, and then just barely managed to keep himself upright.
“I’m guessing,” Asher said while he tried to look at me with unfocused eyes, “that something went wrong.”
“You’re a fucking genius,” I answered.
Matt had started walking back into the building. I couldn’t run after him with all of Asher’s weight pushing on me, and I doubted he could stand on his own two feet just yet, so instead I just yelled.
“Matt, you tell me what’s going on right now!”
Matt turned his head and stayed perfectly still for a few seconds. It looked like he was trying to decide between just leaving me and answering my question. Finally, his shoulders slumped and he turned his body without coming any closer.
“I don’t know why they think the vamps are being made by you,” he said quickly, getting everything out in a rush, “but they seem pretty sure. What I do know is there’s a psychotic new vamp running around, and you two need to get the hell out. This thing is scaring all the Hunters. The Bishop has deployed a dozen teams to San Francisco already, if we don’t take care of this soon, more Hunters will come here.”
I shook my head. There was no way one vampire would call for more than one team of Hunters. Two teams max, if it was quiet on the Hunter’s side and there happened to be two teams nearby. That didn’t make any sense.
“Maddi,” Matt said, clearly knowing what I was thinking. “This isn’t a normal vampire, okay. It’s got abilities it shouldn’t have, it’s stronger and faster and a bunch of other things, too. Whatever this thing is, it’s not like the vampires we’re used to.”
Matt walked a few more steps inside the building and hit a button on the wall just beside the door. The garage door of the warehouse started whining and creaking as it lowered itself down. Matt spoke a little louder so that I would be able to hear him over the noise.
“Someone is creating a new type of vampire. One that’s too strong for a team of Hunters.”
Chapter 17
“I’M SORRY, BUT ARE you actually stupid?” Asher asked without the slightest hint of humor.
He was sitting on one of the motel beds that I refused to touch. I was pacing the room filled with cheap, gaudy furniture with my hands on my hips, trying to work out what my next move would be.
“Matt said they were a new kind of vampire, that still means vampire. They’re going to be running around right now, we have to go get them,” I insisted, not for the first time.
Asher did his best to stand, which he hadn’t been able to do on his own since he woke up in the warehouse. He swayed on his feet for a second and then tried to walk toward me with his hands outstretched, like he meant to stop me from pacing.
I dodged his hands, moved through the room and stopped with my arms crossed over my chest. There was a bed that had probably seen more sex than a whorehouse between us, which I felt would be enough of a barrier that Asher would stay away.
“Look, this vampire is dangerous. It’s killing people. New powers or not, it can’t be allowed to just run free.”
Asher wobbled a little and then let himself fall back down on the bed that he had just left. I stayed where I was, keeping a bed between us so he had no chance of touching me.
Asher lunged across the bed to grab the file that he had opened and closed a thousand times since we had gotten this room, and still not come up with any new information or ideas.
Honestly, I couldn’t believe he was comfortable being in a place like this. It was a shitty motel on the edge of town. The lights on the sign outside didn’t even all light up, which made it look like it was called the “Seafam Motel” in the dark.
There was a very good chance that the person in the room beside us was a drug addict, based on the fact that he looked like a mummy and talked to himself the entire time I was hauling Asher into the room. And, the beds. The fact that this place was just a little too dirty probably meant the beds weren’t properly cleaned. He was likely sitting in someone else’s sex juices right now.
“Alright, so, they’re still bound by the sun,” Asher said again as he leafed through the file. “They need blood to breathe probably.”
That one was new.
“Breathe?” I asked. “Don’t they just drink blood to be vampires?”
Asher glanced up at me for a second before he continued looking through the file. “No, vampires can’t produce blood. They drink blood that already has hemoglobin in it so they can breathe. They can’t actually die, but they’ll feel like they’re suffocating. Also, they use the blood to stay animated, so without drinking regularly, they’ll dry out and mummify.”
I tried not to think too hard about that. The Hunters just told us that vampires drank blood, I assumed the reason was “evil” or “magic”. Next thing you know, Asher was going to start tell
ing me shifters needed to kill so they could grow hair or something.
Asher flipped through the rest of the file without finding anything useful, closed it, and tossed it back on the bed. “Let’s just go back home. There are too many Hunters here for this to be safe.”
I glared at Asher and snapped, “Didn’t you people say the Reapers were supposed to be around to help people? Which do you think will be more helpful: the Hunters tearing this guy apart so they can get their money, or us trying to figure out who made him so we can stop this from happening all over the place.”
Asher cracked a smile and shook his head. “Ah, see, I knew you were a big softie under all the snark and sarcasm.”
I uncrossed my arms and set my hand on my knife. “Alright, new plan. I toss you to the Hunters and take care of this myself.”
Asher sighed. “Okay, so, I spotted something in the file. It’s nothing definite, so I didn’t mention it, but if you’re going to insist on doing this...”
He pulled the file back toward himself, flipped a few pages and then held it out to me.
He wasn’t smart enough to trick me, so whatever he had to show me must be at least worth a look. I walked around the bed and snatched the file out of his hand a little more roughly than I probably needed to. He deserved it, though, for calling me soft.
The page he had flipped the file open to was a list of deaths that Ezra thought were associated with this particular vampire. There were locations, dates, approximate times, and a few other details I didn’t really care about.
“What am I missing?” I demanded.
“You notice anything about where all these things happened?” Asher asked. “Flip to the back page, there’s a map.”
I rifled through the pages of the file until I found the map he was talking about. It was a zoomed in view of a small section of Sacramento with about two dozen little Xs drawn on where the murders happened. Most of them were clustered around a small downtown area, but there were several that were more spread out.
“Okay, what? There’s no pattern here.”