by Alix Adale
“Yes.”
“Did anybody run a DNA test on the dust to confirm?”
“You crazy? Hell no.”
“It could’ve been anyone.”
“Babe, that’s sweet, but you’re grasping at straws. Your Queen hired my order to kill Ferdinand. Harlan gave me the assignment. I went to that festival. I did it. I killed your sire.”
Maybe, but it didn’t matter. His sire was gone, long gone before that day. “Don’t you see? The Queen hired you to kill a Walk-In. Ferdinand was already replaced by then. Remember that creature at the motel, the huge man?”
“Yes. That was Malmardane.”
“That was Ferdinand.”
“So you said.”
“Was that the same guy you killed all those years ago?”
Her breathing came across the line. “No. Different guy. If … if I didn’t kill Malmardane, who did I kill?”
“I don’t know. But one person might know.”
“Who?”
“Moog.”
She mumbled an aside to Kit, something along the lines of how long is the Firewater Dam rally. He strained, but couldn’t quite catch the words. Jordan spoke again. “Firewater Dam ended yesterday, but Ingrid says the Circus has another gig lined up.”
He had only a vague sense of the circus’s schedule, as Moog and Kit handled those details. “Where are they headed next?”
“Santa Barbara County Fair, starting tomorrow night.”
A tingle ran down his arms. “That’s a hell of a coincidence.”
“You been in this game a lot longer than me, Dreck. But even I know there’s no such thing as coincidence in the Underworld.”
“You’re right about that. Come on out, okay? Let’s do this together, like we agreed. If we trade off drivers, we can reach Santa Barbara by sunset.”
Her voice sounded small. “Will it all be over soon?”
This was a side of her he hadn’t seen before, the vulnerable young girl on the rooftop, waiting to be rescued by the National Guard. Whatever it took, whatever demon they needed to slay, he’d do it, just to get that pain out of her voice. “Yeah. I promise.”
Chapter 17: Saint Marius
Jordan
Sunlight filled the interior of the BMW like a warm, intangible blanket. The car’s AC hummed. After driving all night, she was glad to sleep while Dreck drove. This was another long car trip, like the one they’d taken from Montana all the way to Port Selkie. That same comfortable routine settled in again. He was right; it was stupid to have run. Stupid to have taken Armando’s Jaguar, tearing through California like a slayer out of hell.
Now she could sleep without fear, knowing Dreck was there. He wouldn’t hurt her, would do anything to protect her. He knew what she was, what she did and what she’d done, and he accepted it.
As she accepted his vampirism, believed he was human deep down, no matter who turned him or why or how long ago. None of that changed the good, strong man that he was.
After talking to Dreck on the phone—that name suited him better than George—she had gathered up her stuff and bid the baffled local priests a farewell. Then she and Kit had joined the vampires outside.
Armando wanted to drive his own Jaguar, fair enough. She returned his keys, letting him retrieve the sports car from the rectory garage. The only minor kerfuffle came over who would drive the other vehicles. It had been a shock to learn that Colin had spotted her leaving Port Selkie and followed her all the way to Half Moon Bay. He’d used the spyware in her phone, keeping out of sight of her rear-view mirror, following her on a GPS unit.
Too exhausted for words, she stood blinking in the sun while Armando sorted out his clan. Colin would drive the Audi with Kit as his copilot. Armando would drive his Jaguar with Cherise, while she and Dreck would take Cherise’s red BMW.
“Let me drive my own car,” Cherise demanded.
“It’s an eight-hour drive,” Armando told his spawn. “George and Jordan need some privacy. And we need to talk.”
“About what?”
“Your attitude, your activities, your future in this clan.”
“What activities? I didn’t do anything!”
“Maybe not this time. It’s fine to serve the Queen, but you are a Braden first. You forget that.”
She rolled her eyes but walked toward the Jaguar. “Fine, but when I’m a hundred, I’m starting my own clan, turning a bunch of young men, and bossing them around!”
“Fine, you do that,” Armando said. “Get better specimens than this Burke character. Now let’s go.”
In contrast, Ingrid went along without complaint with Colin, a man she didn’t know. At first, that didn’t sound like a good idea—Ingrid liked to latch onto inappropriate men, from Brickhouse to Armando. But according to Dreck, this Colin dude was already in love with someone else and was strictly a one-woman man.
Which was good. Because Ingrid was the least of her problems right now. Her focus now was Malmardane the Walk-In. Whatever that was. Whatever that meant. In all her lore, she’d never heard of a demon possessing a vampire.
Then again, it’s not like the holy orders ever stopped to ask: are you a good vampire or a bad vampire? They were all bad and they all had to die. That wasn’t an ethos with a lot of nuance to it.
The past weighed down as heavy as traffic moving down Highway 101 on a summer’s day.
This trip had an oppressive sense of dread hanging above it, but she still needed to eat. Three-quarters of the way to Santa Barbara, they stopped in Atascadero for lunch. They ate at In N’ Out Burger, a California hamburger chain famed for its unprocessed beef and natural methods. If she was about to die, an Animal Style-burger would make for a fine last meal.
None of the vampires ate with them. They stood in the parking lot, leaning on their cars and smoking—Dreck with his ubiquitous cigar—and talking about whatever Bradens discussed when lycans and hunters weren’t around. Their favorite types of blood maybe. Where to get some more of that O-Positive.
Her burger tasted so good it was a sin, but only Ingrid shared the love. The lycan ordered three burgers and wolfed them down one after the other, an amusing sight from such a small woman, but even in human form, lycans could eat. Her friend’s rumpled ninja pajamas provoked even more stares. The two of them made for an odd sight, but she was beyond caring. She grinned at Ingrid. “Don’t knock yourself into a food coma.”
Ingrid wiped ketchup from her lips with a smile. “It’s good eating.”
“Channeling your inner Brickhouse?”
“He’s not a bad man. Only bad-tempered.”
“He wasn’t good for you.”
Her friend sighed, looking out the window. “I know.”
“What’s next for you?”
“Helping you! Against Malmardane.”
Poor Ingrid. Maybe her last friend in the world, apart from whatever this thing was with Dreck. Wherever that was going, however long it would last. Another day, maybe. A week, a month, a year. She should be so lucky. “I meant, what are you going to do after all this, Ingrid? Don’t stick around that Armando guy. Bad enough one of us is mixed up with a Braden.”
“Don’t worry, one night was enough.” The kitsune nibbled her burger. “Besides, he’s peculiar. After we did the thing, he drank a bunch of wine and went on and on about all the spawns he’s turned before. I’m like, wow, that’s a lot of women. He just laughed and pulled out this old miniature portrait. ‘There’s only one her,’ he tells me. Poor guy.”
“Vampirism does strange things to the brain, I think. But Ingrid, you dodged my question. What about you?”
The lycan sighed. “Maybe I’ll see this zoo Dreck is talking about. Or go back to Japan. I know people from the old dojo. They love kitsunes over there. We’re rock stars in Japan.”
“Don’t get mixed up in some weird cult.”
Her friend giggled, munching fries. “Naw, I’m going to wander the countryside, righting wrongs and saving lives. They will make a manga series ab
out me. Ronin Kitsune.”
“Just stay your foxy self.”
“You too, Jord.”
Yeah, maybe. She had no foxy self. Her gaze went out the windows, searching for and finding Dreck. He leaned up against the BMW, smoking, watching his two brothers engage in a heated conversation about something. Armando’s arms were going up and down in the air and Colin was shaking his head in the negative, lips pursed, arms folded.
It was treason enough to befriend former enemies, but to turn into one would be more than even this new, more tolerant outlook could stand. At the same time, she envied the Bradens that supernatural camaraderie. But only in part. The price was bloody and it was too high. There was so much death in the world, so much agony. Why prolong it?
The sinking, drifting feeling in the pit of her stomach grew. And it wasn’t just the burger, riding heavy. There was the little matter of a fiend who wouldn’t die. “Come on, we better go.”
She took the wheel a mile outside Santa Barbara, leading the caravan through the quiet, picturesque coastal city, out into Montecito and the wooded hills south of town. Busy suburban streets quickly gave way to quiet, tree-lined drives. Red Spanish tiles poked out of dense foliage, the yards dotted with aqua pools and tennis courts.
“Nice work if you can get it,” Dreck said, watching the splendor roll by. “You grew up around here?”
“Nah, down in Carpinteria. Strictly middle class, til my dad took that job in Oklahoma. Not half as nice as all this shit.”
“Some of these places make Braden House look like a trailer park.” His gaze shifted from the window onto her. “Jordan, I’m …”
He was what? Hungry? Tired? Scared? No, never that. Dreck was a fearless kinda guy. She glanced his way. There was a heat in that gaze, a fire in those eyes, embers in the ashes of a dead man walking. “What, Dreck?”
“I’m not a talker.”
She had to laugh. “No, you’re not.”
“What I’m trying to say is…” He trailed off, facing out the window again. “Never mind.”
“Go on, tell me.”
“Forget it.”
Nuh uh, he wasn’t getting off that easy. She took a hand off the steering wheel, reached over and found his, squeezed. Cold at first, it warmed up with contact against her skin. “What, George?”
Hard fingers squeezed back, holding tight. “We make a good team, you know, and I thought after this was over, maybe…”
It was cute, his struggles with words, like a mountain climber losing his footing. She bit her lower lip, concealing a smile. “Maybe what, George?”
“San Francisco is a cool town, but there’s no monarch keeping the peace, just a bunch of princes and clans, fighting for turf across the whole Bay Area. There’s a lot of trouble, a lot of strife. A couple of talents could do some good.”
Her fingers squeezed back. “You sound like Kit. She wants to wander around, have adventures.”
“Maybe not ‘adventures,’ but supernatural detectives, paranormal troubleshooters. Help people out of a jam.”
“You mean shack up somewhere in The City?”
“Yeah. You got six months sabbatical still, more or less. I’m already on a leave of absence from the Bradens.”
She stroked his callused palm with her fingertips. “I’d like that.”
Dreck sat up all a sudden, pointing. “There, a sign for Saint Marius. Do you think it’s a good idea to bring four Blooded and an ex-Order lycan inside? This is a nest of vampire slayers.”
A nest, not hardly. But fair enough. She put on her turn signal, rolling up the quiet drive into the twenty-acre retreat. Bungalows, tennis courts, and a Zen rock garden drifted past as she made her way to reception. “Don’t worry. The monastery is on the other side of the hill, behind a fence. This half is rented out to New Age practitioners and other people from Hollyweird. The two halves never mingle, except the novices doing gardening and shit like that. You guys will fit right in.”
“Why would the Jesuits let a bunch of Hollywood people in here?”
She laughed. “Money and cover for the Order. Hiding in plain sight is often the best way. You Bradens do the same.”
Despite her assurances, it was a calculated risk bringing Dreck and the rest here. It would be smarter to rent a hotel somewhere, but the tranquility and familiarity of Saint Marius was impossible to resist. Parking in the visitor’s lot, she left the others and went inside. At reception, she pulled rank and secured a private bungalow. It only had two bedrooms—two twin beds in each room—but it would do.
They moved their cars to the overnight guest’s area then walked up to the bungalow. Without any luggage, it felt odd moving in even if only for a night. But she got them inside and out of sight, which was the main thing. Someone recognizing Ingrid was her greatest fear; that, or one of her fellow hunters wandering over to this part of the retreat and having their senses tingle around the Blooded.
“Guys in this room, girls in that one,” she said, showing the simple, homey appointments of the retreat bungalow. Crucifixes and religious paintings gave a subtle but persistent religious flavor to the hand-crafted décor. She hung her katana in a closet, as carrying weapons around the public portion of Saint Marius wasn’t permitted. “I’m going to talk to Father de la Sierra. You all stay indoors and out of sight. If anyone knocks, let Ingrid answer it. Less chance of anyone picking up a spooky vibe from her, okay?”
The Bradens assented with hardly a word. Colin took his phone into the other room and called his woman. Armando and Cherise lapsed into mute silence, apparently angry at each other. Well, whatever. Dreck and Ingrid found a deck of cards and started a game.
Good enough. She left them to it and made the long walk across the public part of the retreat toward the monastery on the far side of the hill. The tree-lined pathways calmed her jangling nerves and she saw few others—a couple ordinary gardeners, and one small group engaged in Navajo sand painting—but nobody from the Order.
Crossing into Saint Marius proper through an iron gate in a hedge-lined trellis brought her into the cemetery. Here's where it had all begun, not so many days ago. On a sudden impulse, she stopped by her mentor’s grave. The marker read simply:
Brother Harlan Jaczynski
1961-2017
Deus Vult
Fresh wreathes of flowers ringed the headstone.
She went to her knees and bent her head, running through the Lord’s Prayer before addressing her mentor.
Harlan, I don’t know if you’re up there watching. And I don’t know what I know anymore, what I believe. And I’m so, so sorry, but I can’t do what you taught me. I met someone, and he showed me a different side of things. I don’t want to lose my faith, I don’t. And I don’t think of it that way. I see it as growing. But killing them for what they are and not for what they’ve done is wrong. We’ve got to evolve, and grow, and find a better way.
Afterward, she crossed herself and made her way to the rectory.
The phone dropped onto the broad, mahogany desk, startling the Father in his work. He looked up, fright turning to surprise. “Jordan, back so soon?”
“There’s spyware in this phone. It tracks my movements. Why?”
Not a good liar. His face betrayed the truth, and his words didn’t deny it either. “A mere precaution, in case you are lost, in need of help. Nothing more.”
“Then how was Malmardane using it to find me? He followed me from Santa Barbara to Montana and the only way he could know where I was going was through that phone.”
Father Sierra’s throat trembled as he stared at the device, as if the slim form factor could provide answers. “Are you sure? There are also supernatural means of gaining such information.”
She took out her wallet, dropped the Opus Dei credit card on the desk too. “Maybe so, but that way’s a lot easier. Who runs Ordo Silentii, Father?”
“The Order is sponsored by the Church but maintains its independence. Its existence, if known, might cause controversy. Why are
you giving me your credit card?”
“Consider it a resignation.”
“Jordan. You’ve been gone less than a week. Surely…”
“I’ve thought about it long and hard. It’s enough. I’m done.”
“Come now, don’t be rash. What would Brother Harlan say?”
She spun on him. “He’d say, ‘Good work, Jordan. You done your bit. Ten years is enough. Get out while you can.’ At least, I hope he’d say something like that.” If this had been Brother Harlan, maybe she couldn’t walk away. But it wasn’t. She walked toward the door. “Goodbye, Father, and God bless.”
“Go with God, my child.” The priest sounded old and tired. “Go with God.”
Chapter 18: Waterloo
Dreck
When Jordan returned, something was different. Eyes reddened, that was obvious, but she looked if anything both looser and grimmer, more determined. She was, like him, a quiet and intense person, but something had changed. She retrieved her katana from the bedroom, brought it into the common room to clean. The whetstone made a soft whick-whick sound, quiet backdrop to their card game.
Saint Marius was a bastion of peace. No honking horns or street noise. No airplanes passing overhead. No constant whir-whir of leaf-blowers or lawnmowers. Tranquility permeated the place, along with a potent spirituality, the accumulation of generations of seekers passing through the gates.
Yet for all that, a sense of lingering doom hung in the air, like a cloud passing before the sun or the calm before a battle. It made his neck-hair tingle and with each passing hour, the sense of an approaching storm only grew.
The others noticed it too, lapsing into long silences, only speaking a few words here and there related to the card game. For blood, they had only the limited supply Colin kept packed and chilled in the trunk of his Mercedes.
Not for the first time, he was glad of his brother’s preparedness. His brothers and sisters, the Bradens. His only family now. One Jordan might never join, for to turn her would break her heart and betray her faith, her mentor, and her order—they meant so much to her still. Besides, turning someone into a vampire should not be done on a whim. That bond lasted forever no matter what happened. Colin for example hadn’t turned his girlfriend. No need to, since she was alive and well. But what if Jordan asked for that gift? Would he do it? No idea. But she wouldn’t ask, at least not for a while. Maybe never. The only benefit to vampirism was immortality. The rest was blood and regrets.