by Arthur Slade
“Amber.” I did get a sniff of him, and his scent wasn’t quite there. It was as if the sweetly scented aftershave was hiding another smell. On purpose. A tiny tendril of suspicion niggled in my brain.
“Well, I really appreciate the leg up,” he said.
“What’s your number?” I said. “I’ll text the notes to you.” We exchanged digits. I gave him a dummy number that’d forward messages to my main account. My notes were actually on my iPad, but I didn’t want to dig it out of my backpack. “Well,” I said. “Nice talking to you, Dermot.”
“Wait.” He reached for my arm, but my withering glance stopped him. I was rather adept at withering glances. “Would you like to get something to eat?”
“I don’t do breakfast,” I said. “See you in Archival Practices.” Then I turned and walked away. There was something mechanical about his movements. As if he’d acted out this scene. It could be he was actually shy. Most boys didn’t approach me. Yes, a few of the jocks. But they would back down at the bar when I flashed my virtual fangs. Not my real ones, of course. Those only came out once a month. Maybe he’d rehearsed this little tête-à-tête in his dorm room a hundred million times.
No. This was the first time he’d met me.
His smell. It didn’t hit me until I was a few steps away. But it hit me hard.
Beneath the sweet scent was the same lemon-scented antiseptic I’d sniffed on my attacker in Seattle.
He was one of them. I stopped but didn’t turn around.
“Did you change your mind?” he asked. “A little breakfast would go a long way.”
I’d have to kill him.
Survival trumps all rules. That was written right at the bottom of my mom’s list. On a campus of twenty thousand people, it wouldn’t be easy to find a dark corner. But humans weren’t very observant. Plus, I could do it quickly, but then I’d have to move again. I wouldn’t even be able to go back to my apartment. Agents would be watching it—I was pretty certain of that. I always kept a spare passport in my purse. Maybe I would head to Europe. Spain was nice this time of year—well, any time of year.
It would be good to question him though. My delicate ears didn’t pick up any buzzing of a drone.
“So, do you have grumblies in your tumbly?” he asked.
Grumblies in your tumbly? Was he Winnie the Pooh? I slowly turned. Best to just kill him right here. Then flee. Keep it Simple Stupid, Mom used to always say.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve changed my mind.”
He was grinning. And handsome. A shame to waste the blood, but I gained no advantage from feeding this early in the month.
“I’m nutso for pancakes.” There was such confidence in his voice. He had a backpack, but his pants were too tight to hide a weapon. Unless he had a gun tucked in his belt right above his butt. The jacket was long enough to cover that. An awkward place to reach. And I could react faster than him.
We were still alone, brick walls on either side of us. No witnesses were peering down through the windows.
Best to break his neck and throw him through a darkened basement window. I’d have maybe a few hours before he was discovered. Or I could toss him down a manhole. Then I’d have a week.
I shot my hand out, but when it was an inch from his neck, he grabbed me by the wrist.
Impossible. No human could move fast enough to stop me.
“Please,” he said. “Don’t start this dance.”
Had he just gotten lucky with that grab? I whipped up my other hand, and he caught it. I twisted out of his grip, but not easily.
I aimed a kick at his knee. He blocked it.
“You can’t have my notes, Dermot,” I said.
Then I sprinted away.
When I glanced back, I saw he was following with a big fat Cheshire Cat grin.
6
THE PURSUIT
I bumped past students and knocked over professors, moving at a blurring speed. Through the courtyard. Down a trail. Then we were on the street, outracing cars. He kept pace. He actually kept pace. I dodged down a side street.
This was aggravatingly curious. One part of my mind was figuring out which car to dodge, which fence to leap over, and scanning the sky for drones; another part was enjoying the exhilaration of running freely at full speed—something I rarely did in view of humans. A third inquisitive section of my brain was trying to figure out exactly how alpha boy was matching my speed. Not even an Olympic sprinter should be able to do that.
A fourth part of my mind was panicking. Because I was the pursued. Again. My heart beat slightly faster than it should, and my palms were sweaty. This was what prey felt like. I was not prey. I was never meant to be prey. Being at the top of the food chain, I took that for granted. I deserved respect.
Anger began to broil in my chest.
Well, he could run. I gave him that. He certainly didn’t seem to be breaking much of sweat. Each time I glanced back, he was still grinning. Though—if my eyes weren’t deceiving me—his grin was not as wide and mocking as it had been a few blocks earlier. We dashed across a park, doves flap-scattering before us.
Then I led him down Avenue Gatineau and into an alley that smelled like Chinese food. There was a tall, windowless, brick wall directly in front of me, so I decided to see if he could climb.
I leapt up and scaled the wall. I am light and my nails are sharp and nigh unbreakable, so I clung easily to most anything. I gouged out a few chunks of brick and mortar. Not quite with the ease of Spider-Man, but still mildly awe-inspiring. About thirty feet up, I stopped and turned my head.
Dermot was below me. He jumped, launching his frame remarkably high, but nowhere near where I was. He grabbed for a brick. It broke under his weight, and he fell with an umph.
I rotated so that I was upside down staring at him. “You look stupid jumping.”
“I suppose I do. Plus, it’s hard on the ankles. Not to mention the ego.”
“Who are you?” I asked. “I mean, is Dermot really your name?”
“Yeah, it is.” He grinned. “Why don’t you come down and chat face to face.”
“Why don’t you come up?”
“Not possible. That’s a nice trick. Are your hands sticky or something?”
“No. I think you’ve mistaken me for someone who’ll answer your questions.” Of course, I just had; stupid me. “Why are you chasing me?”
“To talk.”
“You enrolled in library studies and pursued me halfway across Montréal to chat?”
“I also flew across the country into a foreign land. That’s how important this chat is to me.”
“Well, we’re talking now, Dermot. Answer me this: why are you so fast?”
“That’s classified.”
“You’ll have to do better than that, Dermot.”
“You don’t seem to like my name, Amber.”
“There’s a lot I don’t like about you. For instance, who do you work for? Why are you chasing me? Actually, just leave me alone. I don’t need any new friends.”
He nodded. “I did suspect you were antisocial, but I didn’t realize to what extent. Do you have any friends at all?”
“I don’t make friends with food.” I hadn’t meant to say that. But I guessed he knew more about me than ... well ... anyone, other than my mother. “Where’s my mom?” That just came out. “Do you have her?”
He scratched at his curly hair. “No. I was not aware you had a mother.”
Oh great, I’d given him more information.
He cleared his throat, then he actually said, no lie, “I have a mission for you.”
“Is this a joke?”
“No. I’ve been studying you for four years. We have intuited several things about you and your personality. And I ...” He rubbed his neck. “Listen, my neck is getting sore.”
“I hope your head falls off.”
“Couldn’t we have a coffee? Do you drink coffee? I mean, I know you don’t have to, but maybe you just like the caffeine.”
“It makes me aggressive.”
“Okay, no coffee then.” He put his palms up. “What if I promised not to harm you?”
“What if I promised not to pluck off your arms?”
“Those are terms I could agree to.” He drew in a deep breath. “I really am here to talk, Amber. Nothing else. You can walk away at any time. You must be curious though. Aren’t you just a little?”
He had me there. “Don’t move.” I spat the words out.
I flipped around and dropped down, landing about ten feet away from him. Silently, I might add. The flip was just for show, and I must admit I was pleased by how it had turned out. “Talk,” I said. “Now.”
“No tea? Or orange juice?”
“You don’t want me to drink my favorite drink.”
“Point taken. Well, Amber, we’ve been interested in you for some time now.”
“Who is we?”
“An unnamed organization.”
I rubbed my neck. “Can you at least give me an acronym?”
“We don’t really have one. We’re just ... well, we’re like a guild.”
“A knitting guild?”
“Look, we’re here to help.”
I laughed. “I don’t need help.”
“You aren’t the only vampire, you know. You aren’t alone.”
Well, duh, I wanted to say. My mom was a vampire. And so was my father. But beyond that, I knew very little. So he had me there.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go for a drink. You’ll be doing the drinking. My choice of establishment.”
There was a coffee spot a few doors up called Brûlerie St-Denis, in one of those quaint old buildings that peppered Montréal. He hadn’t come with a gun or darts or a drone, so perhaps he would be worth talking to. And I was curious. He actually opened the door for me, and we found a table.
“Why do you say I’m not alone?” I asked, once we’d sat down.
“Tea first,” he said. And he was off to the counter. He was more broad-shouldered than I’d first noticed.
He came back with two cups of steaming tea in his hands, sat, and placed one in front of me.
“Your tea is just for show,” he said. “We know you’re not alone because we’ve found others.”
“How many?”
“That’s classified.”
“Is it a number higher than ten?”
He shrugged. “Now, let’s talk about you. And the value of your services.”
“My services?”
“You have the ability to get in and out of places that are impenetrable to most humans. The prison at Walla Walla is a fine example. I spent an inordinate amount of time watching those security tapes. I think I saw your shadow at one point. You’re extremely gifted.”
“It’s mostly genetic. And good training.”
“My organization is a guild of like-minded people who prefer to operate without government involvement for the betterment of the democratically elected world.”
A whole bunch of alarm bells went off. “Sounds cozy. And imperialistic. How do you decide who the bad guys are?”
“Let’s say there are people who ... well ... for the good of the world, shouldn’t be breathing. These are the people whom we would like you to kill.”
“For which country?”
“America. We’re the good guys. Well, us and Canada, the UK, France, and Lithuania.”
“That’s an eclectic group.” I watched him sip his tea and waited until he set the cup down before I spoke. “No. I won’t have someone else pick my food for me.”
“Food. Is that how you classify us?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think that’s a way of shutting yourself off from your connection to humans?”
“I have no connection to humans other than consumption. Oh, and I read their books and watch their movies.”
“And live in their society. And emulate them in a thousand different ways. Without us, you do not exist. It’s a parasitic relationship.”
“Are you calling me a parasite?”
He put up his hand. “Well, we are your food source, that much I understand.”
“And not much else.”
“Forgive me. I’ve written and memorized so many studies on you. Perhaps the terms we use in our bureaucracy are not the terms you prefer.”
“I prefer Queen of Nightstalking.” He stared at me. I laughed. “That was my attempt at humor.”
“Please don’t reject the offer out of hand.”
“So you want to hire me as a hit woman for an organization that has no name. And you expect me to say yes without any sort of proof you even are who you say you are?”
“We are who we are.”
“Thanks, Buddha. I’ll need a bit more than that to go on.”
“You’ll get a car. And flights on a private jet.”
“I will?” That was intriguing.
“No. I was kidding. In the bureau, they call me the joker. I’m aware that you have rules about which food you’ll consume. There’s obviously a moral dimension to it. I’ve estimated that up to twenty percent of your time is consumed—sorry not quite the right word—by your need to find morally acceptable food. Most humans in western society are only spending five percent of their time hunting and gathering their food. We could save you so much time.”
It was true. I wasted so much time on research. And the truth was I was growing bored of sifting through all the details to find yet another human who had killed his wife/brother/passerby. Imagine if you had to study a specific cow for several hours before you went out to get a hamburger. Then had to do it again the next time you ate. And again. And again. “Yes. It takes time.”
“And it’s boring.”
Was he reading my mind? “It’s not scintillating.” Maybe that was why Mom disappeared. She just got bored of the whole hunting and eating thing.
“That’s where we come in. We could tailor a target to your rules. All you have to do is give us a description of a morally agreeable kill.”
“I prefer to use the term meal.”
“Meal, then. Yes, that’s the perfect term. It keeps you distant from the fact that they’re sentient.”
“Dolphins are sentient too. Humans eat them. And whales. And elephants.”
“Sorry, I wasn’t judging you. Just thinking out loud.” He put his hand under his chin. It gave him a bookish look. “Here’s another thought. You also have an extremely nomadic existence. How many moves has it been this year? In the last ten years? Set up a new nest, research your meal. Then something invariably happens—the media writes a story or there’s police pursuit—and it’s time to drop everything and move. Am I correct?”
He certainly liked to talk. Oddly enough, I was starting to enjoy his voice. Dermot was making sense. I had moved six times in the last year. “Moving can be onerous. But I travel light.”
“Well, as one of our agents, you wouldn’t have to move. Just catch a flight, go to another country, eliminate ... I mean, eat a meal ... and return. We could tack on a few days for a holiday.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“Everything will be planned out for you. And since you only dine out in one manner, you’ll be much cheaper than our other eliminators.”
“Eliminators? That sounds so scatological.” I was finding the idea of being a hit woman rather intriguing. I did like to travel, but I preferred to have a home to come back to. “What sort of documents will you give me to prove that my moral dining code has been satisfied?”
“Anything you ask for. Bios. Photographs. Video. These are bad, bad men and women we pursue. I know you are an obsessive researcher and would demand a detailed report. After all, I planned the ‘Rex’ project.”
“You changed the files so that I would pursue your man?”
“Yes. It takes quite a bit to change official documents and make them stand out. But I was pleased by the result.”
“You didn’t catch me.”
He shrugged. “No, b
ut we learned so much about you.”
I didn’t like the confident smile he had now.
“How did you find me here?” I asked.
“Now, does a bloodhound give up his tracking methods?”
“A hound with a broken nose does.”
He put up his hands. “Ah, well then, I suppose it doesn’t hurt. I just checked all the North American university and college calendars for library courses. After an hour, I came across your name. New name, but you had just signed up. And you used the same initials as last time.”
I was so stupid. If they were following me in Seattle they would have known I was a library student. “I’m sorry I didn’t make you work harder.”
He took a sip of his tea. “Oh, it was a lot of work to find you in Seattle. But once you know a target intimately, it becomes easier to find them. You learn their habits. Their needs. Their desires.”
“What are my desires?”
“Simple. Blood. Once a month. And adventure, though not too much. For someone of your abilities, you’re rather staid.”
Staid!
“How about this?” he said. “Just do one mission to get a feel for the process. You’ll excel at it; I have no doubt. Maybe even become the best in the world.” He paused to let that sink in. “If you don’t like it, you’re free and clear to part ways with us.”
I didn’t know how free and clear I would be. If they could track me here, they might be able to find me anywhere. But I could go much more incognito if I had to. “And will I have the right to refuse any mission?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
“What a pleasant expression,” I said. I drank from my teacup.
“So you do drink tea?”
“Hydration is good for the skin. Plus, it helps me fit in. And you know how important it is to fit in.”
“Well, what do you think?”
I paused. There were still so many questions I could ask. How could I trust my life to an organization whose name I didn’t even know? But I could leave it at any time. If he was telling the truth, that is.
Staid. He had called me staid.
“Let’s talk money,” I said.
7
DESERT SANDS