“All right,” I said, feeling for my sword. As soon as my fingers touched it, I shied away. I remembered my own words; nobody had to get hurt. We’d see how far that got me. “Then quit wasting time and make your move.”
They hesitated.
“No? Fine.”
I jolted forward and struck the bigger man in the shoulder. As he cried out in pain and dropped the pocketknife, I kicked it across the parking lot, shoved my shoulder into his chest and knocked him onto his ass. I spun around violently, only to get whacked in the face by knuckles that broke the second they hit my jaw. My attacker screamed, clutching his wrist and stumbling back as his friends closed the circle, leaving me even less room for attack.
“Seriously?” I said. “After what you just saw, you’re going to keep trying?”
By now the larger man was getting up off the floor and staring at me with both humiliation and furious anger. I could almost see him charging before he even did it, but when I heard him cry out and dash toward me, I knew I was in trouble.
The man struck me hard, knocking me onto my back as a barrage of boots stomped on me over and over. Although I couldn’t feel much, I still didn’t want them to get the better of me. But how was I supposed to stop their attack without killing them? Wounding them obviously had no effect, and they sure as shit couldn’t be talked down. I climbed to my feet, resisting the urge to snap some necks, their heels striking my ribs and then recoiling as they realized their violence didn’t have the desired effect. By the time I was standing upright, I was shoved again, tumbling onto one of the men.
That was when the cold steel of a small blade pierced my skin.
I howled into the air, reaching over to my shoulder where the grip of a pocketknife protruded from my flesh. I pulled it out and tossed it aside, losing my patience now. My blood started to boil, and in spite of the wound I’d just taken, I was ready to do some damage. Every muscle in my body screamed with tension. Glancing down, I noticed my fists were already clenched.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I spat.
Not a single one of them moved in the half-second it took for me to punch one in the ribs. I heard them crack as his body flew across the parking lot, rolling more than five times before skidding to a stop on the gravel. I swung around, ignoring the horrendous pain in my shoulder as I grabbed another man by the throat. His face turning beet red, I raised him into the air and did everything in my power not to squeeze the life out of him. Even as he pleaded with his eyes and kicked his legs around uselessly in the air, I couldn’t help but feel a pulling urge to end his life. I settled for a throw, putting all of my strength into hurling him across the lot and landing on the windshield of a car.
Ready to do what was necessary, I turned to face my attackers, only to find that they still weren’t retreating. What was it about these guys that kept them so determined to put me down? “Goddamn truckers,” I muttered, storming forward. “Stupid rednecks.”
I only made it two steps before I had to stop.
The man had the barrel of a gun aimed directly at the bridge of my nose. At this range it was sure to kill me. I had already seen – could still feel – the damage that a knife had done to me. I didn’t want to imagine the power of a bullet in my face.
“Don’t you move,” the gunman said. Much of his face was hidden behind a dirty gray baseball cap, but the stillness with which he held the gun indicated his familiarity with firearms. “You want it in the head or in the heart?”
The other men stormed around me, desperately grabbing my arms and holding me in place. I thought that they still didn’t understand how easily I could remove them, but I knew for certain that I couldn’t do it without the gunman blasting a round into my face. Immortal or not, that was going to hurt like a son of a bitch.
I only had one thing left to say. “Head or heart, you said?”
The gunman nodded.
“Then I think you should definitely put it in your head.”
They all began to chuckle – even the ones who’d taken an ass-kicking and limped back over to the danger zone. I stood helplessly, watching them regroup. There was no way in hell that Chicago’s Cardkeeper was going to meet his end at the hands of a bunch of redneck truckers, and especially not with uneven odds. There was something to be said for moral integrity: one-on-one is fair, anything else is only cowardice.
I seized my opportunity, throwing all of my strength into my arms. My shoulder burned like a bush fire and the fiery pain spread out across my back as I rocketed my fist into one of my captor’s hips. I heard a satisfying crunch and then grabbed him by the arm, swinging him round into his friend. All I had left was the gunman now, and a couple of wounded men, and I–
The gunshot exploded into the air, making everybody duck and cover their heads. I froze, stood stock still while I waited for the cold pain of the bullet to announce itself. When nothing came, my eyes fell to my stomach and I searched for a wound.
I found nothing.
“I’m gonna have to ask you to let the man go,” came a voice from behind me.
We all turned around, and blessed relief poured through every cell in my body.
The old man had pulled his pickup truck up closer to the melee. The engine still hummed and choked as he stood by the driver-side door with a shotgun held in his hands, the brutish drunks captured in his sights. “I asked ya,” he said, “but I won’t ask again.”
The thugs surrounding me began to disperse, grinding their teeth and spitting at my feet as I walked between them while trying not to look smug. I headed for the truck and, without an invitation, climbed into the passenger seat before reaching for the door. A burning pain seared through my shoulder as I pulled it shut, thanking my lucky stars that I had made it out of there without having to kill, and without being killed.
The old man climbed back in and shifted the gears. A second later we were chugging out of the parking lot, passing the drunkard I’d met in the bar, whose eyes lit up as he saw me and waved goodbye.
“Crazy little bastard,” I mumbled.
We made it out of the lot and turned onto the road at the end, picking up speed. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, the old man reached into his pocket, found another cigarette and placed it between his lips. “Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Only a little.”
He nodded. “I’ll patch you up.”
“Thank you,” I said sincerely.
Neither of us said any more as we drove through Vival Creek, passing a church and a set of houses that I could have sworn I’d walked past earlier. Minutes later we were rounding a gigantic lake on the edge of town. I had no idea where we were going, only that this strange old man had saved my life, and for that, I owed him everything.
Chapter Eleven
After a long journey through the woods in the black of night, we arrived at a small house in the middle of nowhere, with a garage and a collection of beat-up vehicles out front. Most of them were rusted and missing wheels, while others looked like they were hanging on for dear life, refusing to become scrap. The old man parked the car between a small gathering of old Fords, killed the engine and kicked open the door.
“Come on in, son.”
I climbed out and followed him, slightly surprised when he began to veer toward the garage rather than the house. He fumbled for his keys and doubled over to break open a padlock, then raised the shutter. The metal scraped on the gears as it screeched open, revealing the interior little by little. When I could see the whole of the inside, I did a double take.
There was no car inside the garage, no tools or spare tires. Due to the state of the yard, I’d honestly expected to find some kind of workshop inside, but what I found instead was very, very different. I was looking at a makeshift home.
To the left was a comfortable-looking leather couch made to seat three. In front of that were two armchairs and a coffee table. On the other side of the garage, the corner was occupied by kitchen worktops with a microwave-oven, refrigerator and free
zer. There was even a waffle iron, for god’s sake. The old man had everything he needed in this one small room. It only begged the question: what was in the house?
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, showing me in and closing the garage door behind me. “But I live alone out here, and it’s all I need. The house is packed full of boxes of stuff – car parts and the like. It’s how I make my living.”
“You sell car parts?”
“Online. You’d be surprised how well they sell, too.”
“You do okay?”
The man raised his hands to either side, looking around the room. “It bought me this house after my bitch wife left me and took everything with her. Who’s laughing now?” He smiled, showing his teeth for the first time, though I wished he hadn’t – some were yellow but most were missing. “The name’s Harvey Thomas.”
I shook his hand. “Jack Hannigan.”
“Good to meet you, son. Now go take a seat while I find my needle.”
Harvey disappeared and left me wondering what he would use a needle for, but when I remembered his promise to patch up my wound, I relaxed a little. Left on my own, I traipsed around the garage, glancing up at the pictures that hung on the walls. One thing stood out quite clearly by the time I got to the fourth photograph: they were pictures of the same dog.
“That’s ol’ Jessica,” Harvey said, returning from a door that led into the house.
“Strange name for a dog.”
“Well, she was a strange dog.”
“Was?” I turned, crooking an eyebrow.
“Like I said, bitch wife took everything.” Harvey sat on a dusty old office chair, pulling a stool out in front of him with a screech. He pointed at it with one hand, swiping the needle on his tongue with the other. “Sit.”
I slid the coat off my shoulders and set it down, then removed my shirt and placed it neatly on top. Preparing myself for a painful stitching session, I lowered myself onto the stool and rotated my body to show Harvey my shoulder.
“Ah, doesn’t look too bad,” he said, inspecting it. He reached out to the nearest counter, swiped a bottle of whiskey off the side and poured it onto the wound. I winced, expecting it to sting like a motherfucker, but was surprised to feel nothing more than a slight burning sensation.
“Let’s get that sorted.”
“Appreciate it.”
We sat in silence while Harvey tended to the gash in my shoulder. I looked around the place, wondering if a life like this would have been more suitable for someone like me. Don’t get me wrong – I loved action. It’s just that every now and then I considered a more peaceful life, one where I knew I would make it through the day. Where I could have a wife and kids, and could watch them grow old. I just didn’t see it in the cards for me. Not for the next thirty years, anyway – I was stuck on Cardkeeper duty.
“So then,” Harvey said, focusing on his careful stitching, “tell me more about this vampire. I’m gonna hazard a guess and say that you’ve never been here before. I might even go so far as to say that you’ve never seen The Ancient.”
I stared at him in an instant. “You know about The Ancient?”
“Not many folks round here don’t. It’s kind of the town’s big secret.”
“Not much of a secret. I knew about it.”
Harvey nodded. “Well, I wouldn’t go around talking about it anyways. Might unsettle a few people, upset the wrong bunch. Then you’d have bigger things to worry about than a few thugs outside a bar.”
“I’m just trying to do the right thing.”
“Which is?”
I hesitated. Usually I’d be more careful about discussing such topics with a mortal, but this man seemed to know his stuff. I guessed that was to be expected when you lived in a town that the world’s oldest vampire frequented.
“I plan to slay it,” I said.
Harvey stifled a laugh, leaned back and grabbed a knife from his ankle holster. In one swift motion, he cut the thread and waved a hand at his nursing skills. “That’s all done.” He leaned back, grabbed a towel and threw it at me. “For the blood.”
“Thanks.”
I dabbed it on the wound, admiring his handiwork. He seemed to have done a perfect job at stitching me up, and I wondered just how he had learned to do it so well. I suspected military medical training – the guy certainly looked the part. When I was done, I handed back the towel and stood up as normal. My shoulder would heal at an accelerated rate, thanks to my immortality, but this would greatly help for now.
Harvey put all of his medical equipment to one side, climbed out of the chair and went for the fridge. “You want a beer, son?”
“No, thanks. I should be heading out soon.”
“Oh yeah? Where’s that?”
It suddenly dawned on me that I had no idea where I was going. The only source of information I had – the only contact – I had in this dive was Harvey. If I wanted to find The Ancient, I was far better off hanging around.
“I wish I knew,” I said, grinning.
Harvey bent down by the open fridge and grabbed a beer. Sliding the cap onto the edge of the counter, he smacked the top of the bottle and the cap popped off, clanging to the floor like a head rolling off a guillotine. “All right, then. Come with me, Jack Hannigan. Let me show you something.”
Refraining from asking too many questions, I followed him outside and round to the back of the house, where there was no light and a strange smell crept up my nostrils, like dog shit. Only worse. I hoped I didn’t stand in anything.
Harvey pointed into the distance, aiming his finger halfway between the sky and the ground. “See that?” he said.
I followed his line of sight but saw nothing. “Nope.”
“Then look harder.”
I squinted, doing as I was told like a good little Keeper. At first there was only the black of night with a couple of clouds drifting by like cruising cars, minding their own business. When they finally moved out of the way, a pattern of bright lights shone in the distance, right in the center of a faint, house-like outline.
“What is that?” I asked.
Harvey took a sip of his beer, standing at my side and gazing out into the night with me. “That, my friend, is where The Ancient is said to live. I know it looks small from here, but you wait until you get up close. It’s like a mansion over there.”
“I would have said ‘castle’, actually.”
Harvey shook his head.
“Yeah,” I said. “Thought it was a bit too Bram Stoker.”
“You and me both.” Harvey sipped his beer again.
I stared at the house in the distance, picturing The Ancient in a coffin, sleeping until it was ready to come out on the prowl, swooping across the country and taking its victims where it saw fit. I wondered what it would be like; how tall it would be, what language it spoke, and just how fast it could move. The thought made me shudder.
“Still want to kill it?” Harvey asked.
“Yep.”
He shook his head, disbelieving. “Why, son?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, I can’t stop you, but I can sure as hell offer you some advice. My first little tidbit would be to not even try it, but if you’re so damn stubborn about it then take someone with you. At least that way someone might live to tell your story.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Folks tried to go up there a lot back in the day.”
“And what did they find?”
Harvey laughed, a maniacal sound dripping with sarcasm. “Don’t know. Never saw them again. Even the cops went up there once, trying to find a bunch of missing kids who’d gone exploring. They never came back, either.”
I sighed. On one hand, it was starting to look like I might find The Ancient. On the other, it seemed very much like a one-way trip. I’d have to go in prepared, with the Sword of Lucada held firmly in both hands. And maybe garlic. And a wooden stake as backup. “All right, I’m heading out there.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Harvey put a hand on my shoulder – the good one. “Then do me a favor, will you?”
“What’s that?”
His eyes met mine, and while I searched for a hint of humor within them, I found only a deadpan expression on his aged face – the look of a guy who was deeply concerned for his fellow man. “If you’re lucky enough to survive, come back here and let me know. I don’t want your death on my conscience.”
I nodded, glancing back at the house in the distance. “It’s a deal.”
Chapter Twelve
I didn’t want to trouble Harvey anymore than I already had, so I took a cab back into town. Money troubles hadn’t plagued me yet – I had enough cash to blow on cabs without being able to afford my own car. In years to come, when I’d not been bounty hunting for a while and the Vault kept me too busy to find a job, I could worry about an income. For now, I just wanted things to be easier. Besides, I might not make it past the end of the week.
The driver left me on the side of town, and I walked the rest of the way to the house. Large from a distance, it continued to awe me as I drew nearer, growing bigger and bigger until I could no longer see the whole thing without turning my head. I wrapped my hands around the closed gate, staring up the long path that met with the two huge, wooden front doors with swirling patterns of silver. The windows were dusty, but not boarded up. The lawn was the only part of town that hadn’t been cared for, and I suddenly realized how grim this place must look in the daylight, especially in stark contrast to the tended flowers.
“Hmm.” I sighed, feeling around in my pocket for the Sword of Lucada. The blade was designed to take care of supernatural beasts. All I had to do was drive the tip of the blade into the bastard’s heart, and then this crazy war between the vampires and werewolves could come to an end. I couldn’t wait.
“No time like the present,” I mumbled, reaching my trembling hand above me to get a good grip on the gate. I placed my foot on a wrung, giving me a slight boost, but at the very moment I moved, a fluttering of wings passed overhead.
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