Cunning Devil

by Chris Underwood

  But then I heard someone respond to my call. I couldn’t make out the words, but it was someone speaking, not some Stranger growling. The sound seemed to come from the landing at the top of the stairs.

  “Lilian?” I said. “Is that you?”

  The figure of a woman appeared on the landing and began to stagger down the stairs toward me. I froze with my hand half-raised to wave.

  It wasn’t Lilian. Not Alcaraz either. The woman was slim, redheaded, beautiful, and young—all of about nineteen.

  Oh, and she was naked. Not a stitch on her.

  She stumbled quickly down the stairs, clutching at the banister with both hands. Big blue eyes fixed on me. Her fear was as naked as the rest of her.

  “Please,” she said. “Help me.”

  “Hell,” I breathed.

  I dropped the dog cage, earning a squawk of annoyance from the creature inside. I ran for the stairs. The woman didn’t seem to be injured, but by the way she was moving, something wasn’t right.

  As I made my way toward her, I scanned the landing above. Where was Alcaraz? What was going on? Who was this woman?

  “What happened?” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “Help,” she said. “Please me.”

  My steps faltered. “What?”

  She continued to stagger down the stairs, staring at me with those big wet eyes. “Help please. Help me. Me. Please.”

  I stopped. Licked my lips. My throat was awfully dry all of a sudden.

  “Help,” she said again, just the same way she’d said it before. She had no accent, but the way she was speaking…

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  “Please.” She reached for me with one hand. “Please.”

  I began to back away. The rising panic in the back of my brain wanted me to turn and run for it.

  That would’ve been a very bad idea.

  The woman’s steps were becoming sure-footed now. She was coming on faster. That same look of fear remained in place, like it’d been painted there.

  I glanced back. Too far to the door.

  A sunflare. That would buy me enough time. I had one in my bag…

  …which was sitting in the front passenger seat of my van. Might as well have been in China.

  So my hand went to the one thing I had on me. My truncheon, hanging from the loop in my belt. I’d put it there before leaving my place.

  Maybe the Dealer’s warning had sunk in more than I thought.

  “Help,” the woman said. She’d released the banister, and now both arms stretched toward me. Her red hair shimmered around her bare shoulders, as if it had a life of its own. “Help. Help. Help.”

  Without taking my eyes off her, I grasped the pommel of my truncheon and twisted. It was screwed on tight, so tight I thought it’d frozen shut. But I put some elbow grease into it, and it started to come loose.

  The woman was coming quicker. Her fingers seemed to grow longer before my eyes. Her face shifted, became sharper. Those baby blues grew narrow.

  I stumbled back as fast as I could. My fingers desperately unscrewed the pommel. The caged creature I’d left on the floor screeched in fear.

  “Please,” the woman said one last time.

  And then she was flying at me.

  8

  She wasn’t beautiful anymore.

  The woman’s hair twisted and coiled like a pit of snakes. She came at me snarling with teeth like steak knives. Her claws swung. She was a blur.

  The truncheon’s pommel came loose in my hand, exposing a sharpened wooden point. I thrust the truncheon forward as she leapt.

  The sharpened point sunk into pale flesh. There was no blood. But let me tell you, she had a pair of lungs on her.

  Her howl of pain was like a knife being dragged down my spine. Didn’t help that her mouth was about three inches from my ear.

  Her momentum carried her forward. She slammed into me, weighing a hell of a lot more than her slim form would suggest. A bony elbow drove into my solar plexus and all the wind went out of me.

  We went down together. She was on top, which was really fucking bad news. I twisted aside as jaws snapped at my neck. A claw swiped across my chest, making the wounds I’d taken in my sister’s basement look like paper cuts.

  The point of my wooden stake was still jammed into her stomach. It was the only reason I was still alive.

  Because this woman was no woman at all. She was a vampire. A breed of lesser vampire, to be more specific. And what the hell she was doing wandering about free in Alcaraz’s house, I had no goddamn idea.

  I had more pressing things to think about.

  Contrary to popular belief, stakes don’t kill vampires very effectively. Decapitation is the trick if you want to kill a vampire. Burn the body if you want to be sure.

  But a stake to the heart will paralyze a vamp, at least for a while. Trouble was, I hadn’t got her in the heart. I’d hit about eight inches south of there. Given the speed of her, I was lucky I got her at all.

  She was hurt, but she wasn’t paralyzed. And she was extremely pissed off.

  I wrenched one arm free and grabbed her by the throat. With my other arm, I drove the stake in deeper.

  That was enough to convince her to give up on bleeding me for the moment. She got her feet under her and leapt upward, pulling herself free of the stake.

  She sailed into the air, spun, and dug the hooked claws of her feet into the wall. She hung there upside down, back arched as she snarled down at me. One claw swiped at the light fixture hanging beside her, and the light flickered out.

  Now was my chance. With one hand clutching my wounded chest and the other desperately grasping my truncheon, I pulled myself to my feet and staggered for the door.

  There was a thud and a crack of splintering floorboards behind me. I glanced back. The vampire had landed in a crouch on the floor. She was fully transformed now, a predator in its purest form. The hole in her stomach was already closing over.

  I kept running. My legs were getting tangled. The adrenaline was keeping the pain at bay, but my shirt was soaked with blood. I risked another glance back and saw the vampire standing tall, her nostrils flaring at the scent of my blood. In the darkness, her pupils glistened like pools of black ink. For a second the only sound was the rattle of her breath and the squeal of my shoes on the floor.

  Then the dog cage in the center of the entrance hall screeched and jiggled in place.

  The vampire’s head snapped toward Lawrence.

  Lesser vampires aren’t sentient, but even in the grip of bloodlust they have a certain amount of animal intelligence. She could see I was nearly to the door, and I had a weapon that could cause her pain. If she came for me and I got outside into the sunlight, there’d be even more pain for her.

  The caged creature, on the other hand, offered no resistance.

  She snarled at me once more, snapped her jaws, and turned to the dog cage, hunger in her eyes.

  It was the perfect distraction. I was home free.

  So I—being the bone-headed idiot I am—stopped.

  I could tell you it was because I still needed to unravel the mystery of what this little creature really was, and how he’d got into my sister’s basement.

  I could tell you that I needed to know if the creature had brothers and sisters that might come looking for him, and maybe find my nephews instead.

  But I’d be lying. I wasn’t thinking about any of that. Hell, I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe, sometime in the last couple of hours, I’d started to like the poor little bastard. He had probably only been looking for a dark, quiet place to hide, after all, and here I’d come, a big blundering human, to capture him and stick him in a cage. Maybe my conscience just couldn’t quite bear the thought of that vampire tearing the door off the cage and sinking her fangs into the throat of that child-sized little creature.

  Reasons didn’t matter. What mattered was what I did.

  I stopped running. I turned back to face the vampire.
r />   It stalked toward the cage, hunched over, head thrust forward, claws clicking on the hardwood. The cage rattled and shook, the creature inside squealing frantically.

  I glanced around the entrance hall. Below a board of pinned and labeled insects, there was a polished troll humerus set atop a wooden vase stand. I tossed the troll bone aside, grabbed the stand by its leg, and stomped on it. The leg splintered near the top, and with one more good kick the top of the stand sheared off.

  Leaving me with what was essentially a three-foot long wooden stake.

  I slid my truncheon back into my belt and looked up, gripping the table leg in both hands. My vandalism had attracted the vampire’s attention again. She was crouching above the dog cage, but her black eyes stared at me, watching to see what I’d do.

  She bared her teeth. It was a sight to set knees quivering.

  I swallowed and adjusted my grip on the stake. When had it got so slippery?

  “Come on, then,” I said. I pressed my hand to the scratches on my chest and held out my bloody palm. “This is what you want, isn’t it? Why have stinking Stranger blood when you can have human?”

  Slowly, the vampire sank to all fours and slunk toward me like a jaguar. She began to circle me, her eyes never leaving mine. I turned in place, threatening her with the point of the stake.

  Then she struck. She was a pale blur, zigging and zagging toward me. The black shine of her eyes filled my vision.

  I stabbed with the stake, felt it hit flesh. But it was a glancing blow. Screeching, the vampire darted away again. She stopped a few feet away, watching for an opening. Her eyes grew wider. She licked her lips, staring at the drops of blood staining the floor.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed movement at the top of the stairs. A woman’s figure appeared, half-hidden in shadow.

  For a moment, I feared the worst: the vampire wasn’t alone. I could barely handle one; with two vampires I’d be drained dry in twenty seconds.

  I should’ve run while I had the chance.

  But then the woman moved into the light, and I saw I was wrong. She was no vampire.

  She was wearing clothes, for one thing—a set of work overalls stained with God-knows-what. And she was armed. She lowered her rifle, braced it against the landing’s railing, and aimed down the sight.

  “Lilian!” I shouted.

  That was as far as I got before the vampire was coming at me again.

  I heard a single pop, like a violent puff of air. The vampire darted to the side and something whizzed past, striking the floor behind me. Up on the landing, Lilian raised her rifle to reload.

  The vampire swiped at me, but it was a feint. As I thrust with the stake to keep her at bay, she skittered past me, leapt off the wall, and came flying at me from another angle.

  No time to think, no time to defend myself. I threw myself to the ground as the vampire sliced through the air above me. She landed, twisted, and struck at me. I was already rolling away, scrambling to get to my feet again.

  There was another pop, another sound of something striking the ground. Lilian swore and started reloading again.

  Before I was fully up the vampire threw herself into another attack. She didn’t seem to give a shit about Lilian. I didn’t even know if she’d realized the woman was up there. Her focus was entirely on me. The bloodlust had taken over.

  I barely managed to bring the table leg up as the vampire struck me. The wooden point drove into her flank and she screeched in agony. But this time she didn’t pull away. She used her momentum, twisting past me. And she twisted the slippery stake right out of my hands.

  With a howl, she tore the stake from her side and hurled it across the entrance hall. I suddenly felt very vulnerable. Staggering back, I pulled my truncheon from my belt once more, holding the short point out like a dagger.

  “Keep her still!” Lilian’s voice echoed down from the landing. “Keep her still, goddamn it!”

  Of course. Keep her still. What a great fucking plan. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Keep her still. Hell.

  I looked around once more. My gaze fell on the blacked-out windows near the door.

  The vampire charged with a snarl. My first instinct was to defend myself, my second instinct was to run. I did neither. I was fading, and I couldn’t keep up the fight much longer. So I turned to Plan C.

  I darted to the side, grabbed the mounted troll humerus from where it’d fallen, and hurled it at one of the blacked-out windows.

  Glass shattered. As the vampire pulled back an arm to swipe at me, a thin beam of sunlight pierced the entrance hall.

  The vampire staggered back with a shriek, dazed and shielding her eyes. I knew she would only be stunned for a second or two. There just wasn’t enough sunlight to cause her any real pain.

  So I charged forward, raised the pointed end of my truncheon, and plunged it into the vampire’s chest.

  She fell to the floor screaming. Before she could squirm away, I raised my foot and stomped down on the truncheon hard, driving the stake further into her heart.

  Her muscles tightened and she went suddenly rigid. Her eyes bugged out and she gasped for breath. The bestial visage faded, human features rippling back into view.

  The pop of Lilian’s rifle sounded one more time. A wood-tipped dart struck the vampire in the neck. The vampire’s eyes opened wide in shock.

  For what seemed like forever, the creature strained against the stake in her chest. Slowly, her movements began to fade. And then finally her eyes slid closed, and her body went limp.

  I swayed on my feet. The burning pain of the wounds in my chest came roaring to life.

  “Forget it,” I said to no one in particular. “I’m going back to bed. I give up on today.”

  Up on the landing, Lilian rested her rifle against her shoulder. “Hey, Ozzy. Nice of you to stop by.”

  9

  My shirt was a write-off. Doctor Alcaraz offered to find me a new one, and before I could protest she’d produced one from some long-forgotten wardrobe. By the look of it, it’d last been worn in the early days of the Cold War. It was far too tight, but after several minutes of badgering I finally accepted it.

  Early wasn’t around to play nurse this time, so I patched myself up. Lilian was nice enough to fetch my kit from the van, and I spent the next fifteen minutes bandaging my chest and trying to hide the fact that my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

  Twice in one day I’d been scratched up. I bet the Dealer was laughing it up right now.

  “All right,” I said as I gingerly pulled on the borrowed shirt, trying not to burst the seams. “Now will someone please explain to me why you had a baiter vamp running loose?”

  We were on the second floor, in what had once been a guest bedroom. It was a little less inviting now, what with the blacked-out windows and the reinforced floor-to-ceiling cage dominating one wall.

  The vampire was in the cage, snoring peacefully on the thin mattress in the corner. The sleeping draught that Lilian had shot into the creature was potent stuff, beyond anything I—or maybe even Early—could cook up. It had also returned the vampire to her human form, which had the unpleasant side effect of making it look like we’d kidnapped a naked young woman and trapped her in our dungeon.

  But the cuts on my chest were a painful reminder of what she truly was. Baiters were a kind of lesser vampire that used camouflage to attract their prey. This one was designed specifically to look like a helpless victim. But she wasn’t sentient. She couldn’t even truly speak. The words she’d spoken were about as meaningful as a parrot mimicking the sound of a washing machine.

  Doctor Alcaraz was puttering about the room, scratching notes in a notebook by the dim orange light of the single remaining bulb in the light fitting overhead. So it fell to Lilian to give me the story. She sat with the dart rifle across her knees. While she talked, she fiddled idly with the bolt.

  “We had a break in last night,” she said.

  “What?” I found that a little hard to be
lieve. Anyone who knew what was kept here would know to stay far away. Except me, apparently, but I’ve never been accused of being particularly smart.

  “It happens from time to time,” she said, shrugging. “Judging from the shattered window on the top floor, it wasn’t a human intruder. Some sort of flying creature. Sometimes predator Strangers smell the prey creatures here. Think they can get themselves a nice meal of imp and sprite.”

  She said it so nonchalantly. As if the kinds of Strangers who’d come hunting here were nothing to worry about. We were talking seriously nasty creatures here: hellhounds, fiends, lesser vampires.

  I glanced back at the sleeping baiter vampire. “Her, you mean?”

  Alcaraz made a hmmph kind of noise and muttered something to herself. Apparently I’d said something stupid.

  Lilian seemed to get the joke as well, but she contented herself with smirking at my expense. I didn’t mind. When she smirked, her nose kind of wrinkled up, which did strange and unspeakable things to me.

  “Do you see any wings on her, Ozzy? Besides, it usually takes more than one itty-bitty little baiter vamp to muscle through our wards.”

  “She didn’t look so itty-bitty from where I was standing.”

  “She’s just one of our guests here,” Lilian said. “Whatever got in here damaged a number of our cages when it was trying to get at its prey. A few creatures got out. The roggenwolf is still unaccounted for, but by the blood in its cage, I’m guessing it was the unfortunate victim of our intruder.” She jerked her head toward the vampire. “She was the last one running around. I’ve been hunting her through the house most of the day.”

  “Then I guess I did you a favor, showing up when I did.”

  “Yeah. You made a great chew toy. Really distracted her nicely.”

  “Didn’t you see my stake-work? That was pretty nice, I thought.”

  Lilian made a non-committal noise, then put her hands behind her head and stretched out in her chair. She was a razor blade of a woman, tall and skinny and sharp all over.