by Bill Blume
Gidion’s Blood
Gidion Keep, Vampire Hunter - Book Two
Bill Blume
Copyright
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
Copyright © 2015 by Bill Blume
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information, email [email protected]
First Diversion Books edition August 2015
ISBN: 978-1-68230-013-8
Also by Bill Blume
Gidion's Hunt
The Deadlands: And Other Stories
This book is dedicated to my wife Sheri and our children Regan and Liam. I can’t thank you three enough for the support in getting this book written.
Chapter One
When Gidion hunted, he kept a rabbit’s foot in his front pocket, a gift from his girlfriend. He also wore his black t-shirt with the symbol of a red bat on the front, but several layers of clothing hid it from view. The idea of burying his luck made him nervous, and ever since winter had rolled around, he’d fought the weather more than vampires.
Winter wasn’t keeping people away from Westhampton this night. Didn’t hurt that this was also a Friday. Gidion had added this stretch of Grove Avenue and several other places in the Richmond area to his patrol route back in early December when the pickings had gotten slim downtown. A vampire would have to be pretty desperate to try his luck in Westhampton, a much nicer and smaller area than downtown. People would be more likely to miss anyone taken from here and dumped in a ditch.
A thick crowd had gathered inside the Blue Goat. Blue decorative lights were strung along the edges of the restaurant’s front porch. When he started patrolling here back in December, he assumed the lights were for Christmas, but now that it was more than halfway through January, he’d decided the lights must be a permanent fixture. Dad had made some less than subtle hints that he wanted Gidion and Grandpa to take him to Blue Goat for his birthday, which was a week away.
Gidion needed to earn some extra cash to buy a birthday gift. His grandpa paid him a hundred dollar bonus for each bloodsucker he killed, but naturally, the vampires weren’t cooperating. The word seemed to be out to stay away from Richmond. He was putting himself out of a job.
He’d circled Westhampton seven times and was on the eighth circuit when he spotted a good candidate. Since he’d started hunting this past summer, he’d killed a total of eighteen vampires, six of whom had made up the local coven. The rest had been nomads, and he’d learned to recognize the signs.
Some nomadic vampires made more of an effort than others, but even the best dressed usually couldn’t avoid wrinkled shirts. Living out of a suitcase will do that. A wrinkled shirt gave Gidion his first tip-off when he saw a potential target cross Libbie Avenue and walk down the sidewalk towards him.
Gidion made a quick note of his description: white male, short black hair, red dress shirt beneath a black velvet jacket, black jeans. The velvet jacket screamed “vampire,” and not just because he looked like he’d ordered his wardrobe from a “GQ Dracula” catalog. The jacket might impress the ladies, but it certainly wouldn’t do jack to keep him warm on a night predicted to make it down to twenty-eight degrees for the low. Sure a guy might be dumb enough to tough it out, but he didn’t look bothered at all by the cold.
By comparison, Gidion wore thermals, his t-shirt, a black turtleneck beneath a grey hoodie with the hood up, and a black reversible coat. His leather gloves only kept his hands warm enough to avoid them turning into meat popsicles. If his gloves got any thicker, they turned his grip to crap.
Given the cold, a guy dressed like GQ Drac should be hugging himself to keep warm. Only one thing remained to put the nail in the coffin, and the weather cooperated for that test. A westerly wind shot up Gidion’s pant legs, so cold as to mock the effort of his thermals. His scent carried towards his prey.
The vampire stopped in his tracks. His head jerked up to look right at Gidion.
Touchdown.
Gidion knew what came next. Things always played out in one of two ways. Half of these vampires followed him, waiting until Gidion led them somewhere more private for the inevitable confrontation. Others ran. Hard as he tried, Gidion couldn’t hold in his smile as he waited to see which way this guy went. He walked straight at him.
GQ Drac reached into his jacket. For a split second, Gidion thought he was about to get shot. Most vampires didn’t carry weapons. They risked unwanted attention if someone noticed, but surely even a vampire with a gun wasn’t dumb enough to shoot someone in a place this public.
Gidion went dead still, every muscle tensed and ready to jump left or right as the vampire jerked his hand back out of his jacket. GQ Drac didn’t draw a gun, though. He pulled out a cell phone and snapped a shot with the phone’s camera just as he turned tail to run.
The flash blinded Gidion for a split second. As soon as his eyes cleared, he saw his father’s birthday present sprinting back the way he’d come.
The vampire ran straight across Libbie, not bothering to look for any oncoming cars.
A blue SUV slammed into the vampire. The driver hit the brakes with a horrid screech. The vampire rebounded off the hood of the car and rolled out into the intersection. The vampire didn’t stay down. He jumped up and bolted like a cat dropped into a bath. With all the traffic stopped, he cut diagonally across the intersection, taking him to the far side of Grove Avenue.
Gidion chased him. He gave a token glance in all directions of Libbie and Grove. The SUV wasn’t going anywhere, nor were any of the other stopped cars. He avoided looking at the drivers too long, not wanting to give them a good view of his face. Gidion saw at least two people already on their phones, most likely to dial 911, giving him a fleeting moment to be glad he was in the city and not Henrico County where his dad was working this night.
Something this weird might bring the cops here in a hurry. It’s not every day a well-dressed guy gets hit by a car and then runs from the scene with someone after him. Anyone with at least two brain cells rubbing together could add these facts to know something was going down.
Indecision gnawed at Gidion, even as he continued his pursuit. Before the police could get on scene, they’d probably have a direction of travel and descriptions. How much time did he really have to catch this vampire, cut his head off, run back to his car, and roll out of here before the police started searching the area? He wasn’t sure how many minutes it would take, but he was pretty sure he didn’t have nearly enough to get the job done.
GQ Drac led him past the off-white exteriors of the businesses along that block, down past the Café Caturra and across Maple Avenue. Gidion wondered if the vampire was injured and panicked enough that he was running blind. There were plenty of open spaces to park along Grove. Gidion hoped that meant the vampire had run past his car and wouldn’t be able to drive away, but then he saw the outline of the old, dark blue VW van parked in the shadows that separated the street lights. No, GQ Drac had planned to abduct his victim in the dark, if need be—to shove his prey in the van and roll off.
He needed to catch up. Gidion hoped unlocking the car door might slow the vampire’s escape. He spared a thought to what he’d do, if he even caught him in time. There were already too many witnesses, and even in the shadows two blocks from the accident scene, he couldn’t fight this vampire an
d slice his head off without being seen. Adrenaline had him going, though, and he was determined to get a hand on his target.
GQ Drac reached the driver side door and jerked it open. No, of course he wouldn’t bother locking up a piece of crap like that. Who would?
The van rumbled to life just as Gidion reached the passenger door. He pulled the door open, but the van took off before he could get a grip on the door frame or try to dive inside.
Gidion ran after the van as it disappeared down a side street. He’d hoped the vampire might stop to pull the passenger door shut. No such luck. The stylish coward was too freaked. Halfway down from Grove, Gidion abandoned his pursuit. He stopped with his hands on his knees to keep his body on its feet as he struggled to catch his breath.
The sirens of an ambulance got him moving again. He heard the slowing of the whine that could only mean that they’d reached the scene of the accident. Gidion unzipped his jacket and pulled it off as he jogged down Maple Avenue until he reached the next corner where he also pulled his hood down. He flipped the reversible jacket inside out and put it back on with the lime green color on the outside. He also kept his hood down and let the jacket cover it so no one would recognize he was wearing a hoodie. As fast as everything had happened, no one at the crash scene should recognize him like this. That was important, because he needed to see something where that SUV had hit the vampire.
The entire walk down that dark street, all he could hear was Grandpa’s rough, chain-smoker voice in his head.
‘You aren’t gonna bat a thousand. A few get away, and some hold a grudge enough to come back for another try when you’re older and weaker. They’ve got time on their side.’
He reached into his pants pocket to grip his rabbit’s foot. Even if time wasn’t working for him, he hoped his good luck charm would.
Chapter Two
Gidion hesitated as he neared the intersection, just half a block away. An ambulance had made it on scene. Several cars idled in the road without their drivers in them. Some of the witnesses might have gone looking for GQ Drac, not that they’d find him. The flashing lights marking the accident were only red, no blue. That meant the police hadn’t gotten there yet, but that could change any second, so he picked up his pace as much as he could without making himself look suspicious.
Even with the full head of hair that his dad coveted, Gidion longed to pull his hood back up to block the chill digging into his scalp. More than that, he wanted the anonymity the hood provided. At least wearing the jacket turned inside out made it a little safer to go back.
The ambulance was parked in the middle of the intersection. The first responders, already out of the cab, talked with a woman in a dull-colored sweater that screamed “soccer mom.” She pointed down Grove, in the direction of Gidion’s pursuit. He wasn’t close enough to hear them, but he could guess what was being discussed. One of the ambulance crew members stepped away to say something over the radio. With any luck, that might send the police in the direction GQ Drac had gone and not straight to the scene.
Nobody had moved since the accident. Gidion passed beneath the glow of an old-timey style street lamp as he came up on the blue SUV. The Toyota Rav4 idled in the middle of the brick path that marked where pedestrians should cross. Two kids in the backseat had unbuckled themselves and were bouncing around. One of them flung himself against the back seat in what Gidion assumed was a reenactment of the vampire getting hit. Even with the windows and doors closed, he heard their giggles. He supposed that was better than the kids being hysterical.
Gidion stopped at the corner. No one appeared to pay attention to him. Even so, he stayed put, pretending to rubberneck as he tried to figure out whether the thing he was looking for was here.
The Rav4’s passenger side had suffered the most damage, giving it the automotive equivalent of a black eye. GQ had smashed the headlight to bits and dented the top of the hood. The car looked drivable, though.
Gidion stayed on the corner as he studied the intersection, starting with tiny shards of the Rav4’s headlight. The glass glittered, reflecting the street light and the red emergency lights. He found what he was looking for midway between the Rav4 and the ambulance: the red, rectangular shape of GQ Drac’s iPhone.
The tightness in Gidion’s chest relaxed. He thought he’d seen the vampire drop the phone, but he feared he’d imagined it. Now that he’d switched from Chase-the-Bad-Guy mode to What-the-Hell-Just-Happened mode, he realized how bad it would have been if that vampire still had his phone. The vampire seeing his face created enough problems, but the nomadic vampires getting their hands on a picture of him endangered him far more than a first-hand account describing him. By comparison, getting shot at would have been better.
He needed that phone. Not only would it potentially give him plenty of information on other nomadic vampires, but it might help him track down the one who got away and finish the job.
Odds favored that GQ Drac was a hotel vampire. Even with the wrinkled shirt, he looked too neat and tidy to be roughing it in the back of that van. When a guy’s diet involves popping open a person’s throat, he’s gonna get messy. That meant he needed a shower or a bath. One creative guy who’d been camping in the trunk of his Buick had kept an army’s worth of flushable moist wipes in the back seat of his car. Gidion wondered how many times that vampire had holed up in a public restroom and flushed his mess into the sewer.
The ambulance crew looked more focused on where GQ Drac had gone versus the scene itself. Could he stroll into the intersection and pick up the phone without being noticed? He’d learned early on there was an art to going places he didn’t belong. It was amazing how often people didn’t give a second thought if he just walked with purpose. He didn’t care for his chances with something this overt, though.
He had to try, though. Dammit, he needed that phone.
Gidion stepped off the sidewalk. He swore he felt the change from concrete to asphalt even through the soles of his sneakers. He made it five steps out, halfway to the phone, when a siren whooped and made him jump.
Coming around the stopped Rav4, the red and blue light bar and headlights of a Richmond Police car blinded him. Nothing to do then but keep walking and hurry out of the cop’s way.
Gidion glanced over his shoulder as the police cruiser rolled through the intersection to pull into the parking lot of a gas station across the street. If the police officer went through that phone and saw the picture the vampire had snapped, there was a chance he might recognize Gidion. Better to get out of there while he still could. He continued down Grove, getting back onto the sidewalk where the chase had started. When he reached the Blue Goat, he cut into the alley between the restaurant and the movie theater. He’d parked his car in the back.
At least the vampire didn’t have the phone either. Gidion puzzled over that as he climbed into his grey Kia Soul. Getting out of the cold wind felt much better. He got the car cranked and turned the heat to full blast. His mind went through the places the vampire might go next, which hotels or populated areas. There was also a good chance that the guy might be too spooked to risk going hunting again. Even so, he decided to drive to Carytown. The van hadn’t gone that way, not exactly, but it was the next best hunting ground for a vampire near Westhampton.
As Gidion drove east towards Carytown, his mind kept replaying GQ Drac’s reaction. No other vampire had tried snapping a picture of him. Something had changed with the vampires, and it couldn’t mean anything good for him.
Chapter Three
Gidion searched Carytown for GQ Drac without success. He even rolled the dice on downtown and found nothing. He hadn’t bothered with walking in the cold, though. Given the vampire’s distinctive mode of transportation, Gidion settled for searching the most popular parking lots and side streets. He made it south of the river, back to his side of town. As he was cruising westbound on the Midlothian Turnpike, the music cut off in the middle of one of his favorite songs, replaced by barking. Great. Grandpa was calling.
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“You didn’t check in.” Grandpa’s voice always reminded Gidion of loose gravel.
“Sorry, Grandpa.” He checked the clock display on his dash and saw it was a few minutes past midnight. He was supposed to call Grandpa every hour. He’d tried to talk him into just letting him send a text, but he didn’t think Grandpa knew how to read a text sent to his cell, much less send a reply. That Grandpa could answer a phone call to his cell was nothing short of a miracle, but Gidion wagered he still didn’t know how to make a call from it. This call came from his office at the funeral home. “I lost track of time driving around.”
“Driving?”
Gidion explained what happened in Westhampton.
“You got lucky, boy. Walking around in those hoodies of yours with vampire blood on them is stupid. You’re inviting an attack.”
“That’s the point.” Gidion paused as he saw a vehicle with a boxlike shape coming from the opposite direction on Midlothian. As he got closer, he saw it was an SUV, not a van. Darn it. “Lot easier finding vampires to kill when they’re dumb enough to come after me.”
“Not if they kill you before you see ’em,” Grandpa said. “If all you’re gonna do is cruise around, call it a night. I’d like to go home and have a beer.”
Gidion clenched the steering wheel. “It’s not even past one yet, and it’s a Friday night. Packing it in now would be stupid.”
“Don’t give me lip, boy.” Grandpa chewed through the words like a bulldog. “You’re like a damn Indian wearing scalps from his kills and waltzing into a saloon. Get your ass home. Wash the damn hoodies. Besides, we’ve got a busy day tomorrow. You’re driving for four funerals. First one’s at ten, so be there by 9:30. Don’t be late.”