Hunting in Bruges

by E.J. Stevens

  “I’m a big girl,” I said with more confidence than I was feeling. “I’ve dealt with macho assholes before, but thanks for the heads-up.”

  He nodded and we got back to work. Once we had the corpse on the autopsy table, Martens unzipped the body bag. I took a step back, wrinkling my nose at the stench.

  Martens pulled down a hose and started rinsing off the body, making notes into a recording device as he worked. When he came to the victim’s neck, he paused.

  “What?” I asked, leaning forward. “Did you find something?”

  “Hold on, let me get a better look,” he said. He examined the neck with a handheld magnifier and sighed. “Here, take a look.”

  Martens stepped out of the way and offered me the magnifier, but I didn’t need it. I’d seen plenty of bite marks that matched the puncture wounds on the victim’s neck. It looked like our serial murders were the work of vampires.

  Vampires, of course it was vampires.

  Chapter 18

  “Faeries love to bargain, and that desire can become their downfall.”

  -Jenna Lehane, Hunter

  Now that I knew vamps were to blame, their involvement seemed obvious. I should have figured it out sooner. The clues were dotted here and there like blood splatters.

  I wanted to grab the Guild’s witch and run out and bust through that magic ward in the sewers, but Martens reminded me that Celeste was still recovering from the withdrawal symptoms, that were a result of my meddling. He insisted I give the young woman one more night to recover. I’d grumbled, but the doctor didn’t back down.

  That’s what I got for trying to be helpful. With a heavy sigh, I geared up and headed out to have a little chat with the local supernatural gossip. If I couldn’t stake some vamps, then at least I could arm myself with knowledge about the local supernatural hierarchy.

  A quick call to Darryl Lambert, the Guild archivist, confirmed that the rusalka Natasha could usually be found down near the boat docks. So now here I was, overlooking the docks, crouching in the shadow of the Blinde-Ezelstraat bridge.

  At the bottom of a flight of wooden steps, bathed in the glow of a streetlight, sat a beautiful woman with pale skin and emerald green hair. She dipped her feet into the canal and her skin sprouted iridescent green and blue fish scales wherever the water touched. The rhythmic shifting of color as she splashed her feet was hypnotic, and I shook my head.

  Rusalki were not overly powerful faeries, but that didn’t mean the water nymph wasn’t deadly. Like mermaids, rusalki use their beauty and the magic of their voices to lure their victims into a watery grave.

  Natasha was sitting combing her hair, and she appeared to be alone. I wasn’t afraid of one rusalka, but I wasn’t so confident of my odds if her sisters showed up to the party. I better keep this brief.

  I pasted on a smile, checked the draw of my iron dagger, and strode out of the shadows onto Huidenvettersplein. At the top of the stairs, I paused, waiting for the rusalka to acknowledge my presence.

  “Hail, Natasha,” I said. “I’ve come to bargain for information.”

  The comb in Natasha’s hand froze mid-stroke, and she turned to face me. She licked her lips and beckoned me forward. Faeries love to bargain, and that desire can become their downfall. I could tell that I already had this water fae’s attention—hook, line, and sinker.

  The woman was beautiful, but there was no warmth in her smile. Her eyes were glowing chips of ice, and her lips were the color of frozen blood.

  “What answers do you seek Hunter?” she asked.

  Her voice was like beautiful music burbling from her lips and I had to dig my fingernails into the palm of my hand to stay focused. By Athena, she wasn’t even singing.

  “I want to know about the bodies in the canals,” I said.

  “And what will you give me in return?” she asked.

  She wet her lips and languidly stretched and crossed her legs, showing off her body to perfection. Luckily for me, I wasn’t into women, or trading sex for secrets. That was a downward spiral that, in this case, would lead me to the bottom of the canal.

  “How about I promise not to kill you,” I said.

  Her eyes blazed with green light, and she hissed.

  “You dare threaten me on the threshold of my home?” she asked.

  “Think of it as buying an insurance policy,” I said.

  Of course, if I found out that Natasha was killing innocent humans, I’d make sure she ended up dead. By the terms of the bargain, her death couldn’t be by my hand. That didn’t mean I couldn’t enlist another Hunter to do the job.

  She tilted her head, considering the offer. Finally, she laughed and nodded.

  “Very well,” she said. “You promise not to harm me, or my sisters, and I will give you information about the killings.”

  Crap, I hadn’t planned on giving her sisters a free pass, but there it was. It was nearly impossible to out bargain a faerie.

  “Done,” I said.

  “The undead are draining humans and dumping the bodies in the canals,” she said.

  “Vampires,” I said, spitting out the word.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Some vampires are dumping bodies while some of the ghoul servants are being more careful,” she said.

  “More careful?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, the cadence of her voice was like the hypnotic rise and fall of waves. “The ghouls dump only the bones they’ve stripped bare of flesh.”

  So, the ghouls were better at cleaning up the table scraps? Good for them. Ghouls were just the vampire’s servants. I wanted the ones doing the killings.

  I paced the dock, keeping a wary eye on the rusalka.

  “Where can I find these vampires?” I asked. “Are they down in the sewers?”

  “There are vampires in the sewers, yes,” she said. “The undead prefer the lightless tunnels to the city streets.”

  I knew it! I pounded my fist into my other hand. Damned leeches. The bastards must be using that magically sealed sewer tunnel for dumping the bodies into the canals. I needed to get Celeste to help me take down that ward tomorrow. We couldn’t allow another night of killings.

  I blinked, realizing that I still had no idea why the local vamps had changed their feeding habits.

  “Any idea why the vampires are on a killing spree?” I asked.

  Natasha leaned forward, a slow smile building on her lips.

  “Perhaps a better question is, why one of your Hunters is helping them?” she said.

  There was a traitor in our midst.

  “No,” I gasped.

  She threw her head back and laughed. I turned away, hurrying back to the Guild, the rusalka’s laughter hounding my footsteps.

  Chapter 19

  “Faeries cannot tell an outright lie, but they sure as shit know how to manipulate.”

  -Jenna Lehane, Hunter

  I took a deep breath and bent down, hands on my knees. Come on, Jenna, calm the hell down. Running blindly through the streets wasn’t going to do anyone any good. Neither was bursting into the Guild and pointing fingers.

  I couldn’t let Natasha’s words make me sloppy. Faeries cannot tell an outright lie, but they sure as shit know how to manipulate.

  “I am nobody’s pawn,” I muttered.

  But my mind was already racing, analyzing every member of the local Guild. Who was doing the vampire’s dirty work? Benjamin Martens’ autopsy reports had lacked crucial details, and he was living out of the company hearse, so he obviously could use the money. That made him a suspect, though he wasn’t the only one.

  Was Celeste’s Mandragora addiction a means of stifling the pain of guilt? Or, perhaps she owed her drug supplier more money than she made hunting monsters. It was hard to say.

  It was even harder to see how Darryl Lambert could be our traitor, though in his service to the Guild he’d lost something irreplaceable. Perhaps behind that friendly smile lay an angry man with a vendetta.

  Then the
re was Chad. Simon Chadwick was an asshole, and Martens didn’t trust him. For that matter, neither did I. But would someone like Chadwick set his ideals, twisted as they may be, aside to betray the Guild?

  Maybe the demolitions expert was a more logical choice for traitor. Aleksey Zharkov was obviously a thrill seeker, and, from what I’d seen, the Guild hadn’t provided him with the best prosthetic money could buy. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to see Zharkov playing the double agent.

  I shook my head. I’d heard about paying an arm and a leg, but these theories were getting outrageous. I rubbed my face. I’m sure this would all make more sense after a good night’s sleep.

  “Help!”

  A woman’s scream pierced the night and all thoughts of sleep fled as adrenaline pumped through my body. I sprinted down the street in the direction of the woman’s cry, scanning the sidewalks and alleyways, and listening for any sign of trouble.

  “Please, somebody help me!”

  The voice was weaker now, but I nodded to myself, suddenly sure of where the attack was taking place. I put on more speed, vaulted over a metal railing, and raced down the embankment toward the canal. The woman’s scream had come from beneath the bridge—the same bridge that hid the mouth of the sewer tunnel with the bloody grate and magically warded door.

  I palmed a silver combat knife and a wooden stake as I ran, a fierce snarl curling my lips. I was not going to allow another vampire kill. Not on my watch.

  Heart pounding, I eyed the narrow ledge leading into the dancing shadows beneath the bridge. There was no way I could make my way across that expanse of moss slick stone without discarding my weapons.

  “Damn,” I muttered.

  I shoved the wooden stake into a loop in my battle skirt and bit down on the silver knife, holding it between my teeth. I’d need both hands free to make the climb to the bridge. If I was dealing with vamps, I’d rather lead with the stake, but there was a chance that this was a mugging or rape. Vampires weren’t the only monsters that preyed on the weak.

  It would be foolish to bring a stake to a knife fight. Everyone knows that.

  Shoulders tight, I shimmied across the ledge. I was exposed, vulnerable, but the whimpering sound ahead of me kept me going. As my foot hit the wet platform with a splash, a clawed hand grabbed my leg in an iron grip.

  My attacker wasn’t human.

  I slashed out with the silver knife and the hand retreated, leaving behind a searing pain in my calf where the creature’s talons had punctured flesh. Working fast, I retrieved the wooden stake and, with a flick of the wrist, turned on my flashlight and tossed it into the shadows. The flashlight spun, illuminating a crumpled heap near the iron grate and three vampires: one to my left, one to my right, and one scuttling along the ceiling like a cockroach.

  It was a goddamned ambush.

  I didn’t know if the woman crumpled on the ground was still alive or not. Her cries had ceased, but there was nothing I could do for her at the moment. I was too busy trying to stay alive.

  I spun to the left, slashing upward with the silver knife. The vamp on the ceiling hissed and scuttled to the right, giving me some breathing room. I shivered, my subconscious mind reeling in horror. These vamps weren’t even bothering to maintain a glamour. Instead of being drop dead gorgeous, these guys were just dead—as in mummified.

  Skin the color and texture of dried parchment was stretched tightly over skeletal bodies that moved with an insectile, alien grace, but their grinning faces were the worst. I’ve seen a lot of monsters during my time as a Hunter, but there’s something about the fanged, rictus grin of a vampire that gives a girl chills—and not the romantic kind.

  As soon as a vampire dies its first death, their body begins to dehydrate. It’s part of what makes them appear so monstrous in their true form. There’s just something nauseating about seeing such a grotesque caricature of a human moving around animated with life.

  These vamps with their empty eye sockets and gaping sinus cavities were a prime example. As a vampire’s body deteriorates, the soft tissue is the first to go, which makes for some butt ugly vampires. Drinking blood helps, but nothing can fully restore life, not even necromancy. Vamps are nothing more than dried up, walking corpses.

  Too bad their desiccated bodies don’t slow them down.

  If I was going to survive this, I’d have to out think my opponents. I feigned a minor stumble, and the vamp on my left didn’t hesitate. The monster lunged in, fangs bared, the hollow pits of his eyes intent on my jugular. One, two, three…

  He closed the distance and I thrust the wooden stake up beneath his ribcage and into his chest cavity. The vamp froze, completely paralyzed, and I knew I’d staked him through the heart. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would keep him out of the fight until I had the time to finish him off—and add his fangs to my necklace.

  I grinned, showing my own small, white teeth.

  “Okay, boys,” I said. “Who’s next?”

  I drew my sword, now glad I’d worn my hunting gear to my visit with the rusalka. I’d had a feeling I might need my favorite blade. I guess I was right.

  Lightning fast, the vamp struck. One second he was circling to my right trying to flank me, and the next he was tearing away a chunk of my flesh. The iron and silver coated steel boning of my corset deflected the worst of the attack, but one of his talons managed to slash through the space between.

  I heard the sizzle of his claws, knowing the silver was eating away at the tips of the talons that scored across my abdomen and flank. I let out a satisfied grunt, but the zing of pleasure was premature.

  Hot blood leaked from my side and the two vampires shrieked in hunger. Shit. The blood was stirring them into a feeding frenzy. I had to end this now, or I’d be the body they’d find in the canal tomorrow.

  I drove my sword through the air, separating the vampire’s head from his body. The creature continued to cling to the ceiling for a moment, but when the head hit the cement with a meaty thud, both pieces of the beast burst into ash.

  The sound of the vamp’s falling head still echoed throughout the chamber beneath the bridge as ash fell like grisly snow. The remaining vamp and I warily circled each other, searching for a weakness. Vampires like to play with their food, but I didn’t kid myself. Saliva was dripping from his elongated fangs and a leathery tongue darted out to lick dry, papery lips.

  If I gave this one the opportunity, he’d go straight for the kill.

  I struggled to keep my sword up and shifted my weight to allow for the wounds in my leg and side. I swallowed hard and grit my teeth. Every move tugged at the edges of the gash in my side, making it burn and bleed.

  My knuckles whitened as I increased the grip on my sword, readying for the kill.

  “Jenna!” a familiar voice cried out. “Behind you!”

  I dropped to the ground and rolled, never hesitating. As I came to my feet, I faced not one vamp, but two. A female, judging from the sagging breasts, had joined the party. I flicked my eyes to the ground where the “victim” had been curled up just moments before.

  The woman was gone.

  “You smell delicious, ma chérie,” said the female vampire.

  Oh yeah, this had been a trap from the very beginning. I let out a low growl, but it was cut short by movement over the vamp’s shoulder. Ash was running down the embankment, reaching into his guitar case as he rushed toward us.

  No! The fool, what was he going to do, bash them over the head with his guitar? But I lost sight of Ash as the male vamp lunged from the side, barreling into me like a freight train. My head hit the stone wall with a sickening crack and the chamber fell out of focus.

  “Jenna!” Ash cried.

  I blinked rapidly, clearing my vision. The vamp was tearing at my leather jacket, trying to get to my neck, but he was slowed by the silver mesh I’d sewn into the collar’s lining. I pulled a stake from my belt, turned it in my fist, and shoved it up through his gut for all I was worth.

  Once the vamp
was paralyzed, I used my sword to take his head. A rancid death rattle passed his lips before he exploded in a cloud of ash. Duh, duh, duh, another one bites the dust. The old rock song ran in the background, my addled brain giving the moment a ridiculous soundtrack. I snorted and shook my head.

  Big mistake.

  I dropped my sword with a gasp. The bridge above my head started spinning, and I bit the inside of my cheek to make it stop. Either I’d suffered a minor concussion, or I’d lost more blood than I thought. Either way it was time to get up and save Ash’s ass before the idiot became the female vamp’s dinner date.

  Knees wobbly, I grabbed hold of the damp, stone wall and pulled myself upright. I blinked, staring open mouthed at the scene before me. The female vamp was immobile, staked to the ground, and Ash faced off against three more vamps who were pouring out of the tunnel like sewer rats.

  I grabbed my sword and rushed forward as the first vamp went down beneath Ash’s blade. He hadn’t been carrying a musical instrument in his guitar case. He’d been carrying a sword. We fought alongside each other, slipping into the easy rhythm of practiced movements.

  It was a good thing I went through my kata daily. After that blow to the head, I was letting muscle memory lead my sword through each block and stab.

  As the last vamp exploded in a cloud of ash and dust, I turned to study the man at my side. He wiped his sword on the pants of one of the two staked vampires, who were still staring blindly from the ground where we’d left them, and he flashed a rueful grin from beneath his ridiculous hat. We were close in age, with Ash being just a few years older, and he moved with a strength and grace I hadn’t noticed until now.

  I shook my head. There was no mistaking it.

  Ash was a Hunter.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Chapter 20

  “Interrogations don’t go so well when the person asking the questions is hunched over in pain.”

  -Jenna Lehane, Hunter