Bloodlands

by Christine Cody

  “The knife,” the kid said, clearly taking up the conversation about Zel again, “was silver. You should know all about silver and how it affects you as well as how it tamed Zel Hopkins.”

  “Zel was no demon,” Gabriel said, even though the words sounded weak. He was recalling how those two men Zel killed had died with their faces mangled. . . .

  “You’re right,” Stamp said. “Zel Hopkins wasn’t a demon. Thanks to my security cameras, af heard my men screaming outside and I saw their faces being ripped off with Zel Hopkins’s freakish claws, I had a pretty good idea of what she was.”

  Claws?

  Stamp turned his head so he was assessing the spot where Gabriel still took cover with a sidelong look. Then he laughed.

  “If I didn’t know any better,” he said, “I’d think you had zero idea.”

  Everything was falling in on Gabriel now—Zel disappearing so quickly, Zel’s strange death screech . . .

  Stamp added, “And the longer I stand here, the more I do believe it, Gabriel. Then again, your ignorance makes sense. You were masterful at keeping your monster from me, but Zel Hopkins was, too—were-creatures can contain themselves much better than your sort. They’re absolutely human when the moon or emotion doesn’t pull at them, but when they change . . .” The kid laughed freely now. “How was it that the community didn’t tell you what she was?”

  Gabriel was speechless, and Stamp was enjoying taunting him too much to stop.

  “I never caught a vampire living alongside a were-creature. Both species would run with their own kind out of preference, and vampires used to be a bunch of loners, to boot. Of course, there’s ancient lore about alliances between the two groups, but this is rich. You and Zel Hopkins, in the same community. Did she know about you?”

  “There was nothing to know,” Gabriel finally said.

  Laughter again. The more Stamp found this amusing, the more Gabriel burned, his gaze flashing deep red until he had to close his eyes so Stamp wouldn’t see the glow through the branches.

  The kid obviously knew he was getting to Gabriel, even without a weapon, and he put more verbal firepower into his attack.

  “Know what my crew told me? They said that Zel Hopkins appeared from behind the hill, stalking over it, her clothes in shreds because of the change from this to that form and back again after she flew to us from your place. But we only figured that out afterward. At first, she was aiming her pistols and calling me out, just as if she wanted to do this the human way, without giving up her true identity. A couple of my men told her to back off, and when she didn’t, they got out the guns.”

  Stamp’s words sounded as if he were saying them with a tight smile. “She was so outraged that I suppose she couldn’t help what came next. She turned, Gabriel. Turned into a were-owl—a cross between a bird and human, something whose systems underwent mutations until she became a creature of blood appetite. I hear it happens to all those weres, even what used to be plant eaters. That’s how they get their water out here when they’re in animal form, I suppose. Accidents of nature, just like a lot of things out here in the Badlands.

  “She winged into the air in that awful half-human, feathered body, flew around, then gained momentum, attacking with her claws extended, her wing-arms spanned. She mauled my men but good with her claws and beak until that employee who’d been on the demon hunt earlier got her with the silver knife. The silver gave Zel Hopkins a decent shock, weakened her enough to take away her preter powers, and she turned all the way human again, yelling for me to come out and face her the entire while until I did emerge. I just had enough time to fit a silver bullet or two into my revolver before you rode to the rescue and I terminated her.” He shook his head. “A monster. A thing way out here where I least expected to find any more. I thought you all were extinct.”

  Gabriel had been sieving Stamp’s comments, taking what he needed and letting the rest fall away. It was the only course he had left if he wanted to restrain himself.

  “Is that what you did with your life?” Gabriel asked. “Killed?”

  Stamp’s amusement seemed to disappear, his tone going flat. “I did my duty to humanity. And I’ll keep doing it until your kind presents no more problems to the good of the world.”

  Thinking he’d calmed enough to open his eyes, Gabriel did, relieved that his sight was normal. He’d done it—gotten through Stamp’s verbal assault.

  He’d taken it like a man, too.

  Now he stepped away from the tree, confident in the good he knew he had in him.

  They faced off, Stamp ready to draw, Gabriel willing to do it, as well, his hand just above his revolver. The longer he didn’t change into his vampire, the better his chances for survival, and he could see that in Stamp’s expression as it went from utter cool to containing a shade of doubt about Gabriel’s monstrosity.

  He was thinking that Gabriel should’ve turned into a vampire by now, not be squaring off in a fight with just a bullet as an ally.

  “I’m going to be departing this place soon enough,” Gabriel said, “but I won’t do it until I know that you’re going to leave my friends alone.”

  The oldster. Sammy. Hana.

  Mariah.

  Some kind of emotion must’ve come over Gabriel’s face, because Stamp was still hesitating. Then a sympathetic yet pitying expression consumed the Shredder.

  Gabriel knew what it meant. Stamp was thinking how naïve his opponent was. He hadn’t changed his mind about Gabriel’s vampirism at all. . . .

  Instead of fearing Stamp’s perseverance, Gabriel’s anger at Zel’s death rose up, inflaming him just enough to provide courage for what needed to be done now.

  He went for his revolver, and Stamp drew, too.

  But the kid wasn’t raising his firearm—no, he flicked up a hand and a cross snicked out of the wrist of his gauntlet.

  The silhouette of the holy symbol was black against the gloom of night, and before Gabriel’s body jerked into itself, he reached for his revolver, skinned it, and fired.

  He fell to his knees right before he heard Stamp dive to the side, dodging the bullet. With the cross out of sight, Gabriel rolled behind a tree.

  Then he heard the eerie whirring sound coming at him.

  Automatically, he sprung up to the branches of an adjacent tree, grasping the weave of them and flipping himself up into cover in the mass of darkness just before Stamp’s bullet zipped by.

  A Shredder bullet. The professional killers had gotten their nicknames from the projectile that would open into ripping blades upon impact, shredding a vampire’s heart at longer range than a chest puncher required. If it didn’t disable the heart thoroughly, it’d at least give a Shredder enough advantage to descend on the incapacitated vampire and behead it to ensure termination.

  Gabriel stayed still in the hive of branches, waiting to see what Stamp would bring at him now. Next to his hand—the one nto wasn’t still gripping the revolver—he felt a tiny pinch. When he glanced over, he saw a little jaw bird opening its sharp-toothed beak to take a bigger bite of him.

  Gabriel flicked it aside and bent down to get a view of where he thought Stamp had gone, behind another loom tree.

  When he saw the nose of a weapon peeking around the bole, he knew Stamp was there, using a corner shot gun, which boasted a screen that extended away from the weapon, showing the target, even from around a barrier.

  “Come on out, Gabriel,” Stamp yelled, his voice echoing. “I’m going to get you in short order, anyway. You might as well not prolong the exercise.”

  “I’m not what you think I am.” The statement surprised even Gabriel. But here he was, still trying.

  Still believing.

  Stamp didn’t answer right away. Gabriel could see him scanning around with that corner shot gun.

  Then the kid said, “Fair enough. I’ll admit, the vamps I met back in the hubs would’ve turned full monster by now, just out of a desperation for survival. But you . . . You’ve got some discipline for
a preter.”

  Gabriel knew why that was. Mariah. What she’d given him when he’d shared his sway with her. It was with him, even vaguely.

  “Yes, sir,” Stamp added, “you did react to the cross.”

  “You drew on me, and I thought it’d be a bullet, not a tired religious symbol.”

  He could see the corner shot gun’s nose lower, then pull behind the tree.

  Gabriel leaned forward. Stamp did have doubts.

  But then the corner shot gun appeared once again, and this time it was focused on Gabriel’s branches, as if the weapon had some kind of close-up mechanism that would unmask him.

  Stifling a curse, he quickly slid down the bole, hitting the ground and slipping to another nearby tree. Then another. Then more . . .

  Stamp’s voice came from way back now. “Just make this easy.”

  Gabriel listened for the Shredder, but the kid was stealthy, and it wasn’t until he saw Stamp’s corner shot gun poking around the tree two down from his that Gabriel targeted his own weapon and fired.

  Stamp’s surveillance screen exploded with the impact of the bullet, and the kid dropped the gun altogether. But then Gabriel heard the rustle of dry twigs to his left, and he aimed there, seeing, too late, that it’d only been a tossed rock.

  Then he felt a chill on his right side.

  Gabriel darted his gaze over to find Stamp just ten feet away, his gun pointed up into the tree, the nozzle sparking and the Shredder bullet gnawing through the air toward him.

  Diving to the ground headfirst, Gabriel let go of his revolver, feeling Stamp’s bullet grind into his calf. He grunted as it dug through him, exiting the other side of his leg.

  Silver. It’d had silver in it, and the weakness spread like a bloom of shriveled skin.

  He gripped his leg, crawling for his zoom bike, which was only about six feet away. If he could just get to it, he could speed off much faster than his silver-addled powers would allow. Then, back at the community, he’d ask someone, anyone, for help in cleansing him with a drinkof their blood.

  Shit, why hadn’t he thought to bring his flask?

  The regret weighed him down as he crawled, inch by inch. Always it came back to this . . . being a vampire . . .

  He slowed down, so weak, so tired.

  Was it even worth going back to the way he’d been before?

  “Gabriel!” Stamp was stalking him, approaching. “Damn it, you freak, why don’t you just turn and then face me like a real vamp?”

  Even as Gabriel flinched at the curse, he heard the frustration in the kid’s tone.

  The silver—much more than what he’d gotten from the cut of the knife earlier—spread up Gabriel’s leg, breeding weakness, and he knew that aside from the knives and the machete and the grenade he’d grabbed back at Mariah’s, playing on Stamp’s frustration was all he had left.

  Funny, but now, when he truly could use his powers, they weren’t so available.

  He saw the kid come into the open. Finding Gabriel near his zoom bike, Stamp holstered his revolver and reached over his shoulder, whipping out the chest puncher.

  It resembled a long crossbow with clamps and cables. Unable to control his body, Gabriel felt his fangs needling his gums, and he groaned.

  “You’re not going to win!” Stamp said. “The way of the world won’t let you win!”

  Then he was right in front of him, the chest puncher aimed. But Gabriel had already slid a knife out of his back pocket, bringing it up to target Stamp’s neck, where there would be no leather armor.

  Neither man moved.

  At least, not until Stamp started laughing again. This time it sounded real unsure.

  “Mutually assured destruction?” the kid asked. “Is that how this is going to end?”

  “Seems like we’ve been hurtling toward that conclusion all along.”

  The nose of the chest puncher dipped. “I could use that cross on you right now, you know. I could cuss up an unholy storm that would make you writhe until you screamed for me to stop. I only wish I’d had the chance to hunt down any remaining holy men in the hubs for holy water, too. That’d get a confession out of you.”

  “Do your job, then.” The silver had rolled up to Gabriel’s chest, lulling him, and he smiled.

  It flustered Stamp. “Why do I have to resort to crosses and words with you?”

  Gabriel could only whisper. “Because you were wrong about me.”

  “No. I can’t be.”

  He wasn’t looking Gabriel in the eye, probably because he’d been trained to avoid it with vampires. But Gabriel would use his knife rather than hypnosis or his voice, anyway, especially since the silver had doused his power.

  The blade started to fall from his grip. He couldn’t hold it up any longer.

  “Silver,” Stamp said. “It got to you, Gabriel. Open your mouth. Show me that fang. Show me some red in the eye.”

  “You’re pathetic.” The knife dropped to the ground.

  A muffled sound of rage pushed out of Stamp, and he swung around with the chest puncher, using it as a .”

  Stars. Gabriel hadn’t seen such clear stars in a long time, thanks to the red haze enveloping the atmosphere. . . .

  “Turn, damn you to hell! You should’ve already turned!”

  Nothing less would be good enough for Stamp, and that made Gabriel even more determined to stay a man, even though his chest was tearing itself apart at the curses.

  Stay a man. No fangs . . . no red . . .

  Stamp delivered another blow to Gabriel’s head, then prepared for another—

  Still ringing from the curses, Gabriel gathered what remained of his strength, lifting his hand and catching the puncher, and it trembled in his grip as he kept it between him and the Shredder.

  He opened his eyes, still seeing through those stars, seeing Stamp hovering above him, breathing hard, smiling a little at Gabriel’s determination not to turn.

  Carrion feeders began to gather overhead.

  When a burning sensation sizzled against Gabriel’s skin, he was barely aware that the kid had struck without him knowing it, pressing a cross into his forehead.

  Gabriel couldn’t hold on to the chest puncher anymore, and he slumped all the way to the ground as he lost the weapon to Stamp.

  “There!” the kid said. “See? We are what we are. There’s always something that’ll betray it in us.”

  Forehead crisped, Gabriel struggled to push himself back up, to show Stamp that he . . . was . . . a man.

  No matter the common definition, nothing could take this moment from him.

  Stamp pressed the cross against Gabriel’s cheek this time, and Gabriel went down, again, eating dirt.

  “I really am sorry it turned out this way,” the kid whispered, taking the cross away. “I’m sorry for you, for Zel Hopkins . . . for everyone else in the scrub compound who’s been hiding.”

  Gabriel was so discombobulated that the last part hardly registered.

  Everyone else . . . ?

  Everyone else?

  A voice cried out from somewhere in the gully, and Stamp faced it. Gabriel remained on the ground, the grit of dirt in his mouth, the chars of the cross branding him from his skin down to the empty area where he would’ve stored a soul.

  Standing, Stamp hailed the voice and, within a minute, one of his employees had sprinted over on FlyShoes. Gabriel couldn’t really hear what the woman was saying, because he was too close to the black, near a place where he wouldn’t have to be one thing or another anymore.

  Even so, he inched his fingers toward the knife he’d dropped.

  “The scrubs aren’t there,” the woman said in the thick of Gabriel’s mental murk. Old American. The messenger who’d called Gabriel to the showdown?

  Stamp started asking her questions, but Gabriel had already tuned out, the woman’s words swirling around his head as if trying to find a catch to cling to.

  He was remembering how Stamp had called Gabriel out via that message deliver
ed by this very woman . . . Remembered how the community had been left unguarded . for

  Stamp wasn’t talking anymore. Neither was the woman.

  There was just a slice of silence.

  Gabriel tried to look past the swelling around his eyes to see that all of Stamp’s crew had gathered around them by now, and they were glancing toward the top of the gully, frozen.

  He sensed what Stamp’s crew had just now discovered—vital signs rimming the gulch. Signs that Gabriel had deemed more appealing than any human’s when he’d first sensed them. Signs that couldn’t have been so different from any human’s just because the air and water out here were purer. . . .

  “Fck,” said one of the Text men.

  Then, before any of the crew could draw weapons, mass confusion rained down on the gully.

  Explosions from what seemed to be grenades, cries from a few groups of employees who were torn apart from the multitude of blasts. Then came enraged cries, howls, hisses. Human yelps of pain lit the air as whatever was attacking them overcame the crew.

  Gabriel attempted to push himself up, yet couldn’t. The silver was too much, but he did grab the knife. As he opened his eyes the widest they’d go, he heaved the weapon toward Stamp.

  It hit him, though Gabriel didn’t know where, and the kid dropped the chest puncher, falling backward.

  The woman standing over Stamp in her FlyShoes bent down to catch him, yelling something inarticulate at Gabriel just before taking a submachine gun and shooting a circle into the ground around her and her boss.

  Then, with a stomp of a FlyShoe, both she and Stamp dropped down into the old mine, the descent covered by a gush of dust.

  Gabriel tried to yell, to relay where Stamp had gone to anyone who’d listen, but then a spray of blood dashed over his face, wetting his lips. Unable to stop himself, he licked at it.

  The taste wasn’t sufficient to push out the silver weakness, but he had enough strength left to turn toward the source of the blood.

  The bleeder—one of Stamp’s men—was screaming as a creature gored him with its antlers.