I'll Be Damned

by Erin Hayes

Without another word, I turn to leave. I have been distracted too long as it is. I feel Hazel’s eyes on my back as I stride down the cobblestone streets, heading toward Whitechapel.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Hazel hikes her skirts and hurries to catch up with me.

  What always strikes me about the East End of London is the smell. Even before we arrive at the district, the smell of filth and too many humans living together hits me like a locomotive.

  As we step out of our hired carriage and onto Berners Street, I cannot help but feel my own sadness rise in my throat at seeing the extreme poverty around us. Irish and Jewish immigrants huddle among the sewage and the buildings while whores intoxicated by opium eye us warily.

  Too many broken dreams and promises from a world that let these people down. I swallow back the lump in my throat. Regardless of how tough life has been to me, I never ended up on these streets among the derelict and the hopeless.

  “Are you two ladies sure you want to be dropped off here?” the cabbie asks, his Cockney-accented voice strained in disbelief that two women would voluntarily be dropped off in these slums at night.

  “We will be fine,” I tell him, acting demure. Men like it when you act meek, as I have realized over the years. “We are just visiting our poor friend Mary who is suffering from consumption.” Hazel holds out a basket of honey cakes to illustrate my point. “Poor thing is down on her luck. Coughing a right fit.”

  It is our alibi, as usual. The police and Scotland Yard may know about our true identities, but we prefer it if civilians do not know we exist. Children may be worried about the Bogeyman, but when adults are afraid, that adds a new dimension to them. People prefer ignorance when it comes to the occult.

  They face enough horror in their everyday lives.

  “These parts are dangerous,” the cabbie continues with a frown. His jaw moves as he chews on some tobacco. “’Specially to young women like yourselves. Lots of bad things happened here recently.”

  “We will be careful,” I assure him with a nod before turning away. He’d been looking too closely at me, like he was trying to look through the veil at my face.

  “I wish people wouldn’t underestimate us,” Hazel mutters.

  “He is merely worried for our safety.”

  “We can take care of ourselves.”

  “Yes.” I stop and give her a hard look, one that I know she’ll be able to see through the gauze of my veil. “But others underestimating our strength has kept us alive thus far.”

  She regards me for a long moment before nodding. “You’re right, of course.”

  I chuckle lightly. “It has taken me a long time to know when I am right.”

  We move through the streets, our booted feet splashing in the pockets of still water. There is no escaping the dirt of the slums, and it makes the back of my throat close in compassion. I am here to help these people—after all, they are being preyed upon by a vampire.

  But there is nothing else I can do to lift them out of here. The women, most of them widows, have resorted to prostitution, the men either drunk or crazed and out on the streets.

  Hazel seems unfazed by their poverty, and her single-mindedness keeps me moving forward as well. Sometimes I do think that Hazel would make the better Harker.

  She will get her chance shortly.

  “Where do you think he would be hiding?” she asks under her breath, sweeping her gaze across the poor and destitute. Her keen eyes look too feral, too intense for a genteel woman of our status. Maybe she should be wearing a veil as well.

  “Probably in some dark alley where you can perform dark deeds,” I answer. “Inspector Doyle said that the murderer targets prostitutes.”

  “I think that is everyone here, then,” she says, her eyes on a pair of ladies of the night looking at us suspiciously. I think she meant to say it flippantly; after all, most of the women out here at night are whores. Still, I give her a shocked glance as she is not supposed to judge her fellow humans like that, and she straightens her posture. “My apologies,” she adds softly.

  Hazel is always quick to judge.

  We walk in silence for a few minutes, lost in our own thoughts. The darkness feels oppressive, and I cannot help but feel like the shadows are moving too fluidly. Like instead of being the ones doing the hunting, we are being hunted ourselves.

  When I am nervous, I go over the facts presented to us. There is a familiarity, a rhythm to reciting the information that settles me. Every vampire who ever lived and fed has its limitations. Every one of them has a motive, a pattern, and a plan.

  When I recognize all of that, it’s like pieces of a puzzle fitting together ever so nicely.

  Six dead since April, with four of those since August. All mutilated in grotesque, horrible ways, with their organs cut out, their throats slashed, and wounds in areas that make me shudder to think about. The hype has grown into a frenzy over the killings, with the newspapers and their titillating headlines and horrific tales. A news publication had a drawing of him, looking like a cross between a monster and a human.

  Inspector Doyle, baffled by the murders and the lack of evidence, believes it to be the work of at least one vampire. Looking at the evidence, I tend to agree. Most vampires don’t kill like that unless they are compelled by some other force. I consider momentarily that a man might actually be doing the killings, because the depravity of some people can still surprise me.

  I would have stepped in earlier to stop the killer, to go hunting with the police, but I got sick from a completely unrelated attack by a vampire in Birmingham. I know it is not this killer, mainly because I took care of the bastard that tried to Turn me. No one hurts me and gets away with it.

  However, the illness that is wrecking my body kept me bedridden for the greater part of three months, and it has only been recently that I’ve been able to function and regain my strength. The murders disappeared for a few months since then, but they are back.

  And I am ready for them. If only my body can keep up with the demands of the hunt.

  I try to hide how much of an effort I am making to act like everything is normal. If Hazel saw my suffering, she would want me to go back home and hunt this killer herself.

  I can’t let her do that. Even if it kills me first. I refuse to leave a murderer on the loose while Hazel is learning how to wield her new powers as the Harker. I remember how difficult that was for me when I took over for our mother. It took me a good three years to get comfortable with my incredible strength and psychic powers.

  “You are going the wrong way,” a craggy voice says. Both Hazel and I turn around, curious, to see an old beggar woman peering up at us from the shadows of a tattered blanket wrapped around her head.

  “Pardon me?” Hazel asks, stepping forward.

  The woman gives a wracking cough. “The wrong way. You are looking for the murderer, right? The one that’s killing all the whores and making the whole city a-frightened. Yes? Yes?”

  She grins at us, and I can see five rotten teeth. Her breath smells of alcohol, and the dried poppy smell lingering around her and the yellowish hue of her skim confirm that she has smoked a bit of opium in her time.

  I hesitate, wondering how much we can trust a drug-addled old woman like her. After all, there is no way she should have known that we were on the hunt. Perhaps we are not as inconspicuous as I would have hoped. Then again, the best way to glean information about a killer in hiding is to ask someone like this woman. So I stand my ground, watching her warily.

  “Yes,” I say softly. “We are looking for the Whitechapel Murderer.”

  The old woman pauses for effect, letting Hazel and me feel uneasy before speaking. Yet, speak she does.

  “Last I saw him, he passed by, heading that way.” She points in a direction opposite us, down a dark, narrow street that I completely missed when we passed by.

  “When was this?” I demand.

  Her crazed grin widens. “Why, just tonight, poppet. Perhaps not thirty minutes ago.”<
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  Thirty minutes. So if we hurry, we may be able to catch up to him. I set my jaw, ready to run headlong into danger.

  Hazel, however, is more suspicious than I am. “If you spotted him,” she asks, “why hasn’t he killed you yet?”

  The old woman turns her glassy gaze onto Hazel. “Child, do I look like a whore he’d be interested in?”

  Hazel frowns, ready to contest her answer, but I feel time slipping through my diseased fingers. Time that’s precious for both me and whatever victim he is about to sink his fangs into. And he will do far worse, if his past murders are anything to go by.

  “Come on,” I tell Hazel, slipping my arms through hers. I try to direct her away from the conversation, to keep us moving.

  “Thank you,” I add to the old woman, and I toss a shilling her way.

  She catches it with a gnarled hand. “Good luck. You smell like you are at death’s door as well.”

  Again, I wonder how she could know that, but I set my teeth and move. The longer we spend here, the more I will spook. However, Hazel startles and turns to ask the woman more questions, but I keep a firm grip on her arm.

  “Keep going, Hazel.”

  “How did she know, though?”

  “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “But it’s not our concern right now.”

  “You are always my concern, Catherine.”

  I fall silent as the shadows engulf us. With my heightened senses from being the Harker, I can make out shapes in the darkness, almost as well as I do in the daytime. Hazel stumbles, so I hold on to her, knowing that I am now her eyes.

  A chill runs down my spine as I look around.

  “How are there such dark corners in London?” Hazel asks. There is an uneasy note to her words, and I feel her tense muscles against my own as she stumbles next to me. She curses under her breath as her booted foot trips on a cobblestone.

  “The rest of the city would like to think that the people here don’t exist. Therefore, they don’t take care of the area. There is a bottle there to watch out for,” I add, although it’s too late and she kicks it. It crashes into a gutter with a shattering sound. We both stop, holding our breath. Granted, vampires can hear our heartbeats blocks away. We won’t be catching the murderer by surprise.

  I turn my gaze to a still form laying by a rubbish heap. “There.”

  Hazel whirls. “What?”

  But I have already let go of her arm and go to the mound—hoping against hope that it is not what I suspect it to be.

  It is.

  Another victim. We are too late.

  I mutter a prayer for God to protect the dead woman’s soul.

  “Catherine, what is it?” Hazel asks, panic edging into her voice.

  “Just stay there.”

  I reach out to inspect the victim, feeling bile rise up into my throat. But I have to know. This is the closest I have been to a victim, and I have to see if it truly is a vampire. I’ve seen photographs and police reports. There’s nothing like seeing it in the flesh, however.

  The woman was young, probably younger than Margaret. She still had her lips rouged, and her eyelashes are long enough to look like lace against her cheeks. There is dried blood on the corner of her mouth, but there is more than that. In fact, I look down and see that my boots are in the sticky substance surrounding her. Blood. Lots of blood. I can taste the coppery tang in my mouth.

  Then I see why. Her entire torso is gutted, leaving a gaping cavity to the air. I can see her internal organs and the white bones of her spine and ribs throughout all the gore.

  I have never seen anything so brutal in my whole life. Ten years I’ve been the Harker, yet nothing comes close to this.

  With a trembling hand, I reach out to turn her head to inspect her neck. Sure enough, there are two fang marks, almost innocent in how clean the bite marks are.

  That confirms that it is indeed a vampire. But why would a vampire kill like this and leave so much blood? If they kill, usually they will drink all the blood. Rarely do they ever spill a drop.

  We are dealing with a different kind of monster. Still vampire, yet something more. Something feral and violent. And ultimately more dangerous than anything we’ve ever faced.

  I should have brought more weapons. More hunters. As it is…

  We are woefully underprepared.

  “Hazel,” I whisper, gritting my teeth. No please don’t let it be that.

  “What is it?” Hazel asks.

  As if on cue, I hear the rustling of feet along the rooftop nearest me. I wet my lips and grip the disruptor pistol in my suddenly-sweaty hands. My heart thuds in my chest, hard enough that I know our assailant can hear us.

  I look back at the victim, a sense of terror settling into my gut. This wasn’t just a violent killing. It is a trap, and I don’t see a way out of it. But for Hazel, maybe I can save her. Maybe…

  I bring up the disruptor pistol. Hazel is facing out blindly into the darkness, not seeing what I am doing in front of her. That almost makes this better. Almost.

  “Good-bye, sweet sister,” I tell her, feeling my heart break with every word.

  She stills and turns her head toward my voice. “What?”

  I fire the pistol, and the bluish crackle of light hits her squarely in the chest. She seizes up, throwing her head back with a shriek that gets caught in her throat, before she collapses to the ground, unconscious.

  I blink in disbelief at how effective Father’s weapon is. Hazel doesn’t move or say anything. In fact, the only reason I know she is alive at all is the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

  I move quickly, grabbing her under her armpits and dragging her over to the rubbish pile with the other body. I hope the blood from the victim will mask Hazel’s scent and the paralysis from the pistol will keep her breathing and heartbeat almost nonexistent. I hope that the vampire didn’t see the two of us standing here.

  I hope that she survives beyond this.

  I spare one last glance at her face and stroke her cheek. Hazel Harker—one of the toughest women to ever walk the streets of London. She will never forgive me for doing this to her. She will wake up next to a dead body, covered in the other woman’s blood. And she will be angry that I kept her from fighting.

  Then again, I would never forgive myself for letting her die alongside me. My time has come. I know this. It is my turn to protect the ones dearest to me.

  Two footsteps sound behind me, sending a shiver through my body. A low growl rumbles in the air, so low, it feels like it is rattling my brain.

  “You are…the Harker?” the monster asks.

  I stop administering to Hazel and straighten, using my skirts to block her from view. “Yes.”

  Then I turn to look at the murderer and terror freezes me to my spot. The man—if he can still be called a man—looks more like a wild beast than human or vampire. He is tall, nearly two heads taller than me and wider than even a boxer would be. He wears only a white shirt covered in blood, and his trousers are torn all the way up to his knees. His feet are bare and muddied. My eyes go to his hands, which remind me of a wolf’s—covered in blood and long claws ready to tear into flesh. His fangs gleam white in the darkness, blood dripping from his jowls.

  It is his eyes that give me the most pause. Usually, a vampire still has humanity in their eyes, regardless of how old they are. Even animals have some semblance of a soul in them.

  But his eyes are black, like the deepest, blackest pit of hell. There is nothing behind them. No humanity to appeal to.

  Just an angry beast that I need to kill.

  I hold out my left hand and summon Silver Bane to my palm. The enchanted sword, a part of the Harker’s gifts, sluices through the skin, drawing out to the full length of the blade before I catch it. Sinew and veins wrap around my hand and the hilt of the sword. It is a part of me and I am a part of it. We have been one and the same for ten years now.

  Let’s do it one last time, old friend.

  Generally, such a display o
f my power will have vampires either running in fright or begging for mercy. I get neither from the monster in front of me.

  “My name is Catherine Harker,” I tell him, “and you are wanted for the murders of six—seven—women in Whitechapel.”

  He just grins at me, his mouth a gruesome slash in his face.

  I swallow back the lump in my throat. “And I judge you to be guilty. Punishable by death.”

  Still nothing. I find myself hesitating, waiting for a reaction from him, but there won’t be one, will there? He is unlike anything else I have ever faced.

  I need to kill him before he becomes Hazel’s problem.

  I surge forward, swinging the blade in an upward arc. Only, the vampire isn’t there, and I stumble to a stop, switching my balance to go back the way I came. A hand connects with the flat of the blade, knocking it to the side. I pirouette, my Harker training taking over, and thrust the blade again.

  He is not there again, and I stop, blinking in confusion. Where the hell did he go?

  Then I feel the rank breath on the skin of my neck, sending goosepimples across my flesh. “You smell diseased,” he growls.

  “Pity,” I tell him, elbowing him in the face. He roars, stepping back, and I kick him away from me, glad to put myself between him and Hazel.

  My retaliation only serves to anger him more, because he snarls and rushes at me. I counter with the sword, my blade against his bare hands. It’s impossible, as my attacks should be slicing into his flesh, but he bats my thrusts away like I am an annoying gnat.

  I lean heavily into my training, utilizing every trick I have to try to overtake him. He is fast. Impossibly fast. I don’t know if it is because he is a different type of vampire or if he is fresh from feeding off the woman, but I can barely keep up.

  And then there comes the moment where I fail to match him.

  He grabs me from behind, and I shriek, kicking out. His grip is like iron shackles against my collarbone. I try kicking against him, headbutting him—anything to knock him loose.

  It does not work. Nothing works, in fact, and angry tears roll down my face.

  “You smell horrible,” the vampire mutters into my ear.