Blood Moon (Vampire Vigilante Book 1)

by Nazri Noor

  “You’re the founder of Silveropolis?” I said. “I was expecting something more impressive.”

  Uriah snapped the covers of his journal shut. He hugged it against his chest, covetous, possessive. When he glared at me, I could swear that jets of burning cold slammed into my skull. “Fine words from something as tainted and corrupt as the blood-cursed. Though I suppose I should thank you for squatting in my old home.”

  “Squatting,” Gil grumbled. “You hear this asshole? We bought it, fair and square.”

  “Ah, yes, from my beloved granddaughter. It was part of the conditions of my return, after all. Blood must be spilled on the grounds of the Everett House, to water my corpse and help me rise again. And not just any old blood. Outsiders. Strangers.” The final word, he said with a sneer. “Supernaturals.”

  Cold dread clenched in my chest. Then she was in on it from the beginning. She sold us the house, then gave us the journal. She knew and had put us all in danger.

  “Olivia knew all along,” I muttered.

  “The fruit stand girl?” Bastion shouted. “Are you kidding? This whole time.”

  “A sweet child, she is,” Uriah said. “She only meant to help her poor, beloved ancestor return to the world of the living. For these hills must be cleansed, you see.”

  “Cleansed of what, old man?” My fists shook at my sides. How could I have been so stupid? “Was it you who killed all those people?”

  Uriah tilted his head at a grotesque, unnatural angle, then chuckled. “I do tire of these questions. There is still so much work to be done. But if you must know, it was my pets who killed them. Perhaps you should ask them yourself.”

  Howling emanated from inside the house, the walls shaking once again. Something was running up from the same hole that Uriah was standing in, stamping against the earth from what felt like dozens of feet down. Had there been a tunnel down there the whole time?

  And then there it was, a paw, reaching up and over the edge of the cratered floor. Another paw, and with powerful legs rippling with muscle, a great beast pulled itself up to the surface. It was a dog, only bigger and angrier than a wolf, its head as large as a grown man’s thigh, its body as long as I was tall. The dog’s coat was oily black, reflecting the same ghostly blue tinge as Uriah’s body when the light struck just right. It bared its teeth, its jaws dripping with bluish slaver. It barked, a deep, feral threat that echoed around the cabin, right out the door. The walls shook. The trees trembled.

  “What the fuck is that?” Bastion said.

  “I don’t know,” Gil growled. “But you’d better get ready to fight.”

  Another hound leapt out of the crater, then another, each one a mirror of the first. Think jet-black mastiffs, only larger, more vicious, and with eyes that burned ghostly blue. The froth that formed around their open jaws faintly glowed, almost like pale, ghoulish fire.

  “So these were the murderers,” Gil whispered. “These were the things that killed the seven victims. They bit off their faces.”

  Loyal hounds in life, no doubt, and now warped into Uriah’s servants, bound in death. I hated to think that Uriah had chained these animals to his will, trained them into savagery.

  “And no tracks in the woods, no traces of saliva left behind, because they’re specters,” Bastion said. “They can shift their physicality at will.”

  From somewhere behind us, Asher chuckled bitterly. “Oh, those are definitely in the physical realm right now. You guys best get your butts ready.”

  Tabitha shushed him. I went back to check on the two of them, then clasped Tabitha by the shoulder. “Maybe it’s best if the two of you get out of here.”

  “No,” Asher said. “I can help.” He tried to push himself up, then grimaced and grunted when his hand met the grass.

  “Not in your condition,” I said, brushing his hair away from his forehead. His skin wasn’t as cold anymore. Good. “You’ve got to sit this one out, okay?”

  “We’re staying,” Tabitha said, nodding firmly. “These are my forests, and you may yet need my help. I’ll take care of the boy. Leave him with me.”

  I wagged a finger at her. “I’m leaving him in your trust because you seem cool. Okay, Tabitha? No betrayals, or I come for your throat.”

  She scoffed. “That’s rich. But no betrayals. I defend these woods, and you’ve shown that you mean to do the same. Asher is safe with me.”

  Again it was too late when I noticed the little glass bauble in her hand. She smashed it against the ground, calling out two words.

  “Smoke screen.”

  An impossible quantity of smoke rushed out of the broken glass egg, forming into a dome around her and Asher. She nodded at me once, her face filled with conviction as the smoke swirled and solidified into a shield. As the last curls of smoke locked into place, I heard her voice.

  “Give ’em hell, bloodsucker.”

  I muttered under my breath. “I have every intention to.”

  My hand slipped into my jacket pockets, searching for the one that held my favorite weapon within its depths. Only actually clashing with these beasts would tell us if they’d be vulnerable to physical weapons, but the blade’s electrical enchantments might help, too. I slipped the sword out of its scabbard, sparks crackling as the blade awakened in the red glow of the moon.

  At my side, Gil groaned in pain. He stretched out his fingers, blood dripping from his skin as his wolf talons erupted. It was the same horrible trick that Damien had pulled, a partial transformation to help in the fight. Bastion held one hand up, needing no weapons apart from the force of his mind.

  “How utterly charming,” Uriah cooed. “You champions of the supernatural, working together to defy me. And that witch – the Bridges have been a thorn in my side for far too long. Time was when these hills belonged to man and man alone. Yes. That time will soon return. Come along, now.”

  Uriah raised his hand, faint threads of blue light running in arcs from the tips of his fingers. They were lengths of string. He waggled his fingers, like he was manipulating a puppet. And then there it was, jerking and twitching like a decaying marionette, the last thing to rise from the hole in the floorboards: a rotting corpse. It responded to Uriah’s gestures, feet shuffling, arms groping at the air. Its head lolled and flopped about, its tufts of white hair and beard streaked with clumps of dirt. My insides turned at the realization.

  “It’s his corpse. He’s puppeteering his own corpse.”

  “So much work to be done now that the blood moon is here,” Uriah’s shade said absently, his gaze looking off into the distance. In one hand he held his journal. With the other he made a harsh tug, pulling his corpse fully out of the hole.

  “Quick,” Gil snarled. “Before he escapes.”

  “And how do you expect me to get past those three horse-dogs? I’m not a miracle worker, Gil.”

  Bastion’s chest puffed up. “But I am.” He threw his arm towards Uriah, clenching his fingers around thin air. The corpse twitched, Bastion’s power lifting it off its feet. Uriah cried out, tugging in the opposite direction, the glimmering strings attached to his corpse-puppet tightening. His rotted body spun in midair, flailing like a rag doll, exposing his back.

  That was when I saw the faces, seven of them, no longer dripping blood, but threaded on a cord and draped across the corpse’s shoulders, a grotesque garland. Olivia’s voice reverberated in the back of my mind, a vague memory. “Uriah Everett wore many faces.” This paragon of the community, the beloved founder of Silveropolis.

  Caught in Bastion and Uriah’s tug of war, the corpse tumbled again, its string of ripped faces undulating like some horrible snake. Weighing down the end of it was an eighth face, this one better preserved than the others, its shape not quite as warped or twisted.

  Wait. That was because it wasn’t made out of flesh and skin, but metal. Silver.

  The Filigreed Masque.

  29

  “He’s getting away,” I said. So close. The Masque was just out of our reach.


  “Not if I can help it,” Bastion said, grunting. His forehead was creased, his fingers bent into crooked claws. “He’s strong, but I can break him.”

  Uriah Everett was full of surprises. Few things could resist the sheer strength of Bastion’s mind. He could uproot a tree and use it like a club, but here was this dead thing fighting him on even ground.

  “Rip his corpse in half and it’s over,” Gil said.

  “What the fuck do you think I’ve been trying to do?” Bastion roared. “There’s an enchantment protecting the body. I can’t just pluck its limbs off. Would have been so easy, too.”

  I wrinkled my nose, giving Bastion a sidelong glance. I didn’t think I had a very weak stomach, but imagining him just pulling limbs the way a child plucks petals off a flower was still disconcerting. He talked about it so casually, too.

  “This is all very amusing,” Uriah said, “but I have somewhere else to be. Time to play with your food, children.”

  Three lengths of blue light flashed into existence, connecting each of the hounds to Uriah’s waist. They were ethereal chains, their links made out of the same ghostly substance. And then the chains just snapped, a faint tinkling noise as Uriah released his hounds.

  “Oh,” I muttered. “Fuck.”

  Bastion yelped as the closest hound lunged for him. He raised his other hand towards it, the air around his fingers gleaming. The hound snarled, then yipped when it struck a solid wall of force, one of Bastion’s shields. But with his energies focused on defense, he had let slip on his conflict with Uriah. The corpse dangled and jerked merrily under Uriah’s command once more.

  “Excellent,” he said. “Perhaps I will see the three of you again, provided you live. I enjoyed our little game, sorcerer. I’ll see to it that my children devour you first. Fare well.”

  The other two hounds had been racing towards me and Gil, but they swerved at the last moment, converging on Bastion. Three of the monstrous dogs were now focused on him, snarling and slavering as they threatened him in an ever shrinking circle.

  “Uh, guys?” he said.

  “Not so cocky now, are you?” I said, relishing the opportunity to gloat.

  I rushed in, raising my katana, electricity surging and sizzling as I brought it down on the closest hound. It had its back to me, still baring its teeth at Bastion. There was little satisfaction in attacking an animal, even one that was nothing more than a revenant. I could only hope that snuffing out its unlife would mean releasing the creature from Uriah’s hold.

  The dog vanished.

  “Well,” I breathed. “Fuck me.”

  Nobody warned me that these doggies could teleport. A humongous weight fell on my back, dropping me to the ground, my face smashing into the dirt. I just barely kept my grip on the katana. A dull pain shot through my jaw, my lip tasting of blood. Above me, what felt like three hundred pounds of ghost-dog growled and slobbered, chewing at my –

  “Not my fucking leather jacket,” I shouted.

  I struggled to roll to my side, fighting to throw the hound off me, but the damn thing was far too heavy. Asher wasn’t kidding, these things had turned their forms physical as fuck. The damage to the leather was one thing – my baby was custom-made – but the bigger problem was what would happen if the dog gnawed its way through and pierced the delicate dimensional barriers. And then, kaboom – goodbye, Everett House, and probably everything else in a half-mile diameter.

  But why would I wear such a fragile magical device so close to my body, you ask? It’s called fashion, sweetie.

  I brought the katana swiping upwards, flailing. Like that was ever going to work. And then the monstrous weight above me disappeared, shortly after it yelped, following what had sounded like the collision of two very large bodies. I rolled to my side – successfully, this time – then sprang to my feet.

  To the right of me, Bastion was fighting off two of Uriah’s hounds, his palms flashing with light and activating his shields each time one of them came too close. And to my left – oh boy. The third hound was snarling and snapping at the air, aiming and failing to clamp its ferocious jaws around the black, hairy shape wrestling with it. It was Gil, completely shifted into his werewolf form. He’d gone full dog.

  Gilberto Ramirez when he was no longer Gilberto Ramirez was always a sight to behold. His sinewy digitigrade legs gave him incredible running speed and jumping power. The muscles in his arms were already well-developed when he was human, and they only grew bigger and stronger when he transformed. His wolf talons and the massive teeth of his enormous jaws were just a bonus.

  As a man, Gil was a dangerous opponent. But as a wolf? He was a force of nature.

  He pinned the hound to the ground, tearing at it with his talons. Gil threw his head back, baying to the red moon before plunging his jaws in a final, fatal clamp. I flinched, but there was no blood, no awful death. The hound simply dissipated into wisps of pale blue smoke, rising harmlessly into the night sky. I thought I heard a distant rush, something like a peaceful sigh.

  “Rest well,” I whispered, watching as the ghost passed on into nothing. I turned to Gil, pointing a finger-gun at him and winking. “Nicely done, buddy.”

  “Sterling,” Bastion shouted. “Help me. You are such a fucking asshole.”

  Gil, on the other hand, bared his teeth and snarled.

  “Oh, shit.”

  I tumbled and rolled into the grass as he sprang at me, keeping my blade close so I wouldn’t slash him by accident. It was always a damn gamble when he went full dog. If there were enough enemies around, he could expend his bloodlust and go on a berserk rampage, threshing and slashing until everything that opposed us stopped moving.

  I climbed to my feet, my sword at the ready. Gil had landed across the way, to the other side of Bastion and his desperate dance of self-defense. Gil’s red eyes flitted between me, then Bastion, then the hounds. At last, he made a choice. Hound it was.

  “Holy shit,” I sighed, relieved.

  Gil tussled with the second hound, taking it down with a tackle. The two of them snarled and barked, the tangle of dog and werewolf limbs taking them somewhere among the bushes. It distracted the third hound long enough for Bastion to regain his bearings. He dropped one of his two shields, preparing his newly freed hand to strike. But seeing the opening, I struck first.

  I shouted as I drove the sword downwards. If Tabitha Bridges could kiai her way to better results in battle, then so could I. Susanoo’s katana came slashing down in a crackling crescent. It struck a single hair on the back of the hound’s neck, then passed into the grass, biting into the earth. The hound, like its sibling, had disintegrated almost instantly into a puff of bluish matter, floating up into the clouds.

  “Good thing I was around to take care of your problem for you,” I said, balancing the tip of my sword in the grass and leaning on the pommel. You know, just to be a jerk.

  White light flashed in the palms of Bastion’s hands as he dismissed his shields. “Oh, that’s just so typically you, Sterling. So now you’ve gone and saved the day.” He looked down at his legs, his shoes. “They’ve could’ve gotten me good. I wore shorts today.”

  “I fail to see how this is my problem.”

  “Ass.”

  The bushes rustled. I brandished my sword again, heart thumping, in case we needed to defend ourselves from Gil, or worse, subdue him. But when he emerged, he was no longer covered in glossy black hair. Well, he was, just not on most of his face, or his body, for that matter.

  “While the two of you were bitching, I was over here doing your work for you and taking out two of the dogs myself. Lightweights.” He raised his head to the sky, the moon painting his naked skin crimson. “I’m glad they’re at rest now. But the moon is still bloody, boys. We’ve still got shit to do.”

  “You went full dog to help me,” I said. “I’m so touched.”

  Gil stretched his arms out, looking down at himself. “Yeah, well, you owe me a new set of fucking everything. I’m amaze
d I didn’t rip up my boxers this time. I should get more of these.”

  “Not my fault you destroy your wardrobe every time.”

  “Just say thanks,” Gil growled. “Like a normal person.”

  Bastion stomped his foot. “You two can bicker on the way. We still need to find where this Uriah bastard went. Surely not into town? What, to meet up with his granddaughter? How do we find her?”

  The dome of smoke protecting Tabitha and Asher whirled and spun like a miniature tornado, until nothing was left but empty air. Tabitha stepped out unscathed, as did Asher, who held up his hands. Still crusted with blood, but good as new.

  “Fixed myself up,” he said. I clapped him on the back, thrilled, relieved.

  “It’s not the girl we need to find,” Tabitha said. “It’s Uriah. And I know a way. Sterling, light up a cigarette.”

  “My pleasure.” Asher narrowed his eyes at me as I lit a cigarette and blew out the first puff. “See? Even Tabitha approves of my filthy habit. It helps me destress, okay?”

  Tabitha gestured, curling her fingers towards her, beckoning. My hands flew to my throat as the smoke forcibly reversed its way out of my lungs, tearing and burning. Wisps of it exited from my mouth and my nostrils, and, I thought, my eyes. Hot tears streamed freely down my cheeks. Everything stung horribly, the inside of my windpipe feeling scorched. I doubled over, retching and coughing.

  “What – holy shit, Tabitha. What did you do to me?” I gasped and sputtered, head still pointed at the ground. Bastion slapped me on the back. I could tell it was him from his bare legs. Somehow I could tell he was holding back laughter, too.

  “This,” Tabitha said. “Watch.” I pulled myself up, wiping away tears in time to see the smoke form into the loosest shape of a compass, a large ring with an arrow in the middle. The arrow spun, then stopped. “That’s the way we’re headed.”