He’d never met a troll, but he knew they were out there, often sharing their space to blend in with the homeless humans that took shelter under bridges and in the man-made caves of the underground parts of a city. Marcus was the first vampire of Kai’s acquaintance, but if he was anything to judge by, Kai wasn’t worried. Humans, on the other hand, reacted with fear. Unreasoning, unthinking fear. Even when they’d known a person for years—decades sometimes— they would assume the worst, most violent outcome of even the most gentle of spirits. Anything that was different was a threat.
And that’s where the hunters came from.
Fortunately, the hunter societies that had flourished from the Middle Ages through the Victorian era had mostly died out now. Belief in the existence of spirits dwindled with the rise of science and the modern world, and with the belief went the perceived need for humans to hunt and kill anything that they considered a magical threat to humanity. Witch hunts had never been only about witches, after all; spirits of all kinds were caught in those bloody massacres. Kai shivered at the thought of that kind of violence touching the Village.
“Hey, I’m going to do another lap or two,” he said. “You going home?”
“Nah.” Sebastian ran a hand through his hair and looked for a moment like a young copy of his father. “I’m going to head over to Sarah’s. She said she was going to be studying some new wards that Doc showed her. She probably doesn’t even know it’s dark out yet. You know how she gets.” Seb grinned. It was good to see him happy. Sebastian had been crushing on Sarah for years, just from hearing Miss Rosie’s stories about her granddaughter. When they finally met and she saved him from a wight almost first thing, Sebastian was pretty much toast as far as unbreakable crushes went.
“Go make sure she’s eaten something,” Kai laughed. “Tell her I said hey.” He watched as Sebastian turned back down the path and shimmered just before the large fox disappeared into the shrubbery. Kai himself stepped into his coyote body and sat in the dust of the jogging path, letting the whispers of the night settle over him.
There was still traffic on Route 17, the noise clear but muffled slightly. A bat hunted nearby, it’s chirps distinct in his large ears. The smell of damp, of earth, of exhaust, of people, hovered around him as familiar as his own face in the mirror. He yawned, feeling his jaw stretch and let his tongue flop over his sharp teeth. Then with a stretch and a shake to settle his fur, he padded around the wards again.
Miss Rosie had set them up and kept them renewed until her death a few months back, when Doc took over and then added another layer of protection when the wights started their assaults. Kai had every confidence that neither evil spirit nor magical attack from a distance would be able to get in through them.
No, his worries were the hunters, and this crazy attempted kidnapper. That guy had been entirely human. Kai had noticed that immediately during their confrontation, and that worried him. Humans could get through the wards if they were careful and didn’t bring anything magical in with them. A gun could probably get through, for example.
Kai shivered again as he thought of a hunter coming into his Village with a gun. Slaughtering wights was one thing— they had long since given up both their lives and their humanity, after all, leaving just a hole in the fabric of reality that smothered any light and warmth it could— but fighting a human? Kai wasn’t sure he believed in any deity to pray to, he’d known too many gods here on Earth, after all, but he prayed anyway just in case.
A flicker of movement, a shimmer of magic, and there in front of Kai sat a man in a dusty cowboy hat and worn jeans. He leaned back against a tree, the corners of his eyes wrinkling when he grinned at the coyote that stared back. He reached up and scratched his chin, then up through his mustache to rub his nose, and stretched, in no particular hurry to go anywhere.
“Well?” he asked with a quiet chuckle. Kai huffed quietly and padded over to sit next to the man. They sat in silence for some time, maybe an hour. At some point Kai lay down, lounging against the man’s hip, his head on the man’s thigh, as they watched the night together. The moon was long gone when the man finally stretched again. He reached up, lifted his hat in one hand and pulled something over his head with the other. He held it out in front of Kai to show him, just a loop of cord threaded through a loop of wire that in turn wrapped around a sharp tooth. Probably one of the man’s own. After a moment, the man dropped it over Kai’s head.
“Nothing special. Just in case you need it. And perhaps it will help you,” the man said before he stood and stretched again and stepped out of sight as if he’d never been there.
Kai was used to it. His father hardly ever stayed in one place very long.
It was close to four in the morning when he walked back through the parking lot towards the main administration building where his own apartment was. He didn’t see his father very often, and was always glad of the chance, but it always left him feeling restless and slightly off kilter. It wasn’t helped by the fact that his father was so old that even when he was trying to be completely clear, he spoke in riddles.
Kai fingered the tooth on the heavy black cord. Seriously, Father, nothing special? There are probably whole armies who would kill for something like this.
The air had that thin, tired feeling to it, like even the world wanted to rest, and Kai shivered in the cool darkness. It was spring, and plenty warm in the daytime, but nights still held on to winter, and the feeling of being alone in the world was creeping over him, driving off the warmth of spending time with his family.
“You’re not actually nocturnal, are you?” Marcus’ voice made Kai jump.
“No, but I couldn’t sleep again,” Kai admitted. “Something’s coming, I can feel it. You sure you’re not part ninja or something?”
Marcus laughed. “Sorry. It’s just how I move normally. I usually try to make more noise on purpose, but I wasn’t really thinking. I don’t usually see people this time of night when I’m coming home from a club.”
“Yeah. Well, we’ll have some folks starting patrols soon. I think first shift is around five thirty,” Kai said.
“Makes sense,” Marcus sighed. “I wish I could help with that, but sunrise is getting earlier every day. I could pick up some SPF 100, but even that would only get me maybe half an hour after dawn.” He shook his head.
“SPF 100 is a thing?” Kai had never considered it. “What did you do in Florida, anyway? Seems like you’d want to live somewhere like Alaska or something. Land of the midnight sun sort of place.”
“Yeah, well. I was born in Florida. So you know. It was home.” Marcus shrugged. “Then when I met Sam… She was an ER nurse at the time, and I found a homeless guy having a heart attack. Heart attacks don’t exactly qualify as nourishment for me, you know? After I met her, though, I couldn’t move anywhere. Home was with Sam and Cassie.”
The pain that flashed over Marcus’ face was too raw to comment on, and Kai didn’t know what to say to that.
“Cassie asleep then?” he finally asked.
“Yeah. Mrs. Anderson’s boys introduced us to a young lady named Ellie who said she would stay over with Cassie while I looked for work. Not much luck tonight, I’m afraid,” Marcus said.
“Ellie’s a great woman,” Kai nodded. “If I hear of anything I’ll pass it on.”
It was just a quiet chat between neighbors, muffled by the time of night and the darkness. Small pleasantries between people who lived near each other but didn’t know one another well yet. Kai heard a truck blow past on the freeway. He usually prided himself on knowing all the residents but hadn’t managed to pry much from Marcus yet. The man’s schedule was a bit of an impediment, admittedly, but still. Kai felt that he should try harder.
“Listen, maybe tomorrow—” he started, but a loud smashing noise came from the other side of the building. Marcus’ eyes grew huge and the both took off running towards the source of the crash. When they rounded the building, they were joined by a few others, clearly pulled from
sleep by the noise.
Nothing obvious was wrong. Everyone who came out of the buildings seemed to gravitate towards the courtyard area, the communal space that was ringed with the apartments, so Kai headed that way as well, with Marcus just behind. They walked quickly into the middle of the apartment complex, towards what was cheerfully called the Village Green: the large lawn that stretched from the clubhouse to the building that backed up on the wall with the hidden door to the creek.
There was nothing there, nothing out of the ordinary to be seen in the glow of the landscape lighting.
“Kai!” someone called, and he turned to see her waving, her patchwork bathrobe flapping with the motion. “Over here!”
He went and looked where she pointed. There, in front of Kai, was the wreckage of the clubhouse. Someone had managed to smash the pair of wide bay windows to pieces, and the glittering trail of broken glass led from the front of the community building, across the pool deck, and directly to the water.
They had thrown the nearly invisible glass knives into the pool.
10
Well, it’s not pretty, but it’ll do for now,” Nick said, stepping back to look at his handiwork. Kai scrubbed his hand over his face and back through his hair again and nodded. The plywood now covering the gaping holes wasn’t a great solution, but as a quick fix it would have to do. He’d had to close the clubhouse to the residents, something he hated to do, but the last thing they needed was city scrutiny. The reason people lived here in the first place was to protect their secrets, and that was hard to do with random city officials wandering in and out taking notes about unsafe conditions. Having the police here all morning had been bad enough.
The pool was being drained and the whole pool area had been closed off for the time being, adding insult to injury. And he didn’t want to think about the costs of all this cleanup that were chipping away at the renovation funds.
“Hey. Kai. Don’t worry about it so much. You were thinking about renovating around here anyway, right? Just start here,” Nick said. Kai sighed and nodded.
“I needed to call the architects anyway. I’ll see what they have to say about it,” Kai agreed. He stepped out into the sunshine and hoped that Marcus had been able to deal with the cops’ questions okay. Kai had sent him home once they’d made sure nobody was hurt. He had to get inside before sunrise and had Cassie as an entirely reasonable excuse. Kai, however, didn’t have any way to dodge this mess.
“Well, I’m going to go on home then. You need any more help, you know where I am.” Nick clapped Kai on the shoulder and Kai managed not to stagger under the blow. Nick was fond of playing the retired old man, but he still had all the strength of a cyclops and sometimes forgot to hold back.
The pool was about half empty now, the police having allowed the pool maintenance company in finally, and Kai scrubbed his hand over his head again. Not even the sun could chase the chills away this morning, and his exhaustion was close to becoming a physical thing. He’d been patrolling all night and seen nothing. The exact thing he was worried about happening had happened, it seemed. A human had gotten in with a non-magical weapon of some sort. Even if the violence had been directed against the clubhouse, it still fell heavily on Kai’s shoulders as a failure.
“Hey,” Sebastian stopped next to Kai and stood there in silence, watching the water level slowly drop. They stood like that while their shadows slid across the cement of the deck, living sundials ticking off an hour.
“My father came by this morning,” Kai finally said. “A little after you headed out to Sarah’s.”
“Yeah? Wow,” Sebastian said.
“Mmm.” Kai kept his gaze on the receding pool water.
“You realize that’s twice in two months now he’s been around. He’s really paying attention to us. Makes me feel both safer and a little nervous.” Sebastian turned to tip his head at Kai.
“Twice?” Kai frowned. He didn’t remember seeing his father at all recently, not until that morning.
“He saved Sarah, remember? When the warlock attacked her through that dream?” Sebastian said.
Kai remembered the attack. Sarah’s home had been vandalized, then that night she’d been sent a nightmare with the goal of separating her from her friends here. The warlock responsible for that— and the wights— still hadn’t been caught, but it seemed that Sarah was much less of a target since she had accepted her power as a witch and broken through an incredibly complex spell bent on destroying Sebastian, and then stood up to her mother who’d hired the warlock in the first place. Even warlocks can understand when they’re outclassed.
“I didn’t realize that was my father, I guess.”
“She might not have mentioned it, maybe.” Sebastian tipped his head again. “She remembered bits of the dream after the whole thing when she… you know.” He shifted his feet and shivered. Another wave of cold washed down Kai’s back as well. Sarah had managed to drive herself into Sebastian’s mind and free him from a particularly evil spell that was shredding his mind from the inside. It was the sort of power that most of them had thought was only accessible by spirits so old and powerful that they were considered gods. Entering someone’s mind like that was not a feat of any average power, and Kai would be in her debt forever for saving his brother.
“So, I guess Father is hanging around then? I wonder why?” He reached up and fingered the tooth in its wire wrapping.
“Well, whatever his scheme, I have faith in him. I like your father, he has a good heart. Even if he doesn’t always get things right,” Sebastian said before turning back to the cleanup efforts. “Any clues here?”
“Nothing.” Kai answered. He and Marcus and a few others had searched the grounds as soon as they’d discovered the destruction and seen nothing to indicate anyone had left in a hurry. There had been no traces of magic, either, something several of the residents were sensitive to. Just some rope with scrap metal tied to it. As near as the police could tell the other end had been tied to a truck to yank the whole thing through the window in order to strew the glass shards as widely as possible.
“I’m a bit worried, Kai. This is going to be an interesting paragraph in the police reports, and any reporter diving around that wolf man story is going to notice it. Sarah said there was a short article about the guy yesterday in the Mercury News.”
“Hell,” Kai growled quietly. Sebastian shot him a look he couldn’t quite identify, and he swore again under his breath.
“We’ll figure it out,” Sebastian said. “You look wrecked, man. Go get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye on everything.”
“I really should—”
“Kai. Let me do this. I’m a manager too, remember? You’re always trying to take care of the Village, but you need to take care of yourself, too,” Sebastian put a hand on Kai’s shoulder to give him a gentle nudge towards the gate out of the pool area. “You go get some rest and let me do my job here.”
Kai met Sebastian’s gaze and saw the worry there. With a small nod, he scrubbed his hand over his head and shoved his hair out of his eyes to glare one last time at the foot or so of water left in the pool before he turned to stalk off towards his own bed.
11
Kai woke up drenched in sweat and shivering uncontrollably. The late afternoon sun pouring in his window scraped away the ragged edges of his dark dreams and Kai had never been so glad in his life to have a south facing bedroom. He ran a hand over his head, shoving his hair back and glancing at the dreamcatcher on his wall. Kai wasn’t too sure that it had been much help today, but then he supposed it was possible that his dreams could have been much worse.
He had to warm up. Heading into his bathroom Kai tried to drag his thoughts away from the disturbing images his mind had conjured in his sleep. Just remembering that he had dreamed at all triggered another violent shiver. Did wights feel like this all the time? Did they feel the cold they carried or did they become immune after some point?
No. No point in thinking about it. Kai took a dee
p breath and focused on the moment. The needles of hot water that stung his shoulders. The familiar scent of his shampoo carried by the steam. The ridiculous shower curtain Sebastian had gotten him for Christmas a few years back with kittens posed as Star Wars characters. The memory of that Christmas morning made Kai smile. After opening this totally stupid shower curtain, he’d gleefully watched Seb open the most hideous knit hat, covered in puce and pink pom poms.
Kai didn’t remember when they’d started it, or who had proposed the rules, but they were required to use whatever ridiculous gift they received for a reasonable amount of time. It had been hilariously funny when Sebastian realized that the shower curtain may have to go up in Kai’s bathroom, but the hat had to be worn in public. The grumbles had seemed so worth it until spring when the hat got put in the Donations box and Seb realized that the shower curtain still hung in the bathroom. Now, Kai had to admit he was actually kind of attached to the damn curtain. He was finally almost warm again before he stepped back out of the bathroom, steam billowing out behind him.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty awakens! Good morning, princess.” Eric lounged on the sofa, Xbox controller in his hand when Kai stepped into the living room.
“Ass,” Kai grumbled. “Hey, Sebastian been through recently?”
“Nah. Haven’t seen him today,” Eric jammed the buttons and cursed under his breath. “And you were still in bed when I got back from lunch. Must be nice to be able to sleep all day. Some of us have jobs to go to.”
“You’re on vacation, Eric. I didn’t even get to bed till lunchtime. Goddamned vandals hit the clubhouse and the pool overnight. I had to deal with police reports and cleanup and all that stuff. I’m going out to check the progress once I’ve had some coffee.” Kai felt exhaustion trying to pull him down but managed to get the coffeemaker turned on and brewing.
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