by Powell, C. G. ; Lavender, Cait; Rayns, Lisa; Hardin, Olivia; Nelson, Stephanie; Schulte, Liz
A hand slapped down a piece of paper on the bar next to me. “I always knew you had low standards, but I didn’t think even you would stoop as low as working for those bottom-feeders.”
“Tobias, you’re getting on my last nerve, and I haven’t had dinner.” I smiled. “I would hate to have to eat your heart.” I looked at the paper crunch beneath his huge hand. It was a bounty for the capture of a vampire named Ambrose.
“You could try, kitty cat.” The bear of a man leaned in close his face inflamed with rage and his eyes stretching from his skull.
“You might be larger than I am.” I stood up, and my 5’9 frame didn’t even come to his shoulder. “You definitely have bigger muscles.” I poked his bulging bicep with my fingernail. “But I have an advantage you don’t.”
“What is that?” he growled.
“A brain.” I rammed my silver toed boot into the side of his knee and slammed his forehead against the bar before he thought of a comeback. Plucking the bounty from his hand, I leaned over him. “I’ll take care of this one for you, champ.”
“Damn it, Femi,” Sy said behind me. “How many times do I have to tell you not to start fights in the Office.”
“He needed to learn to mind his own damn business.”
Sy chuckled. “You better get out of here before he wakes up.”
I sauntered towards the door and blew a kiss to Sy over my shoulder. He looked human if it weren’t for his pointed ears made visible by his crew cut and his unusual eyes. His gaze met mine as if he had been waiting for me to look back and held for a moment before he shook his head good-naturedly and waved, not moving to help Tobias.
Back at my apartment, which was slightly better than a hovel, I changed into my flannel pajama pants and plopped down on the lime green overstuffed chair with a bag of Cheez-its. Bounty hunting paid well if you were good at it, and I could’ve lived somewhere nicer, but I never had time to look. I was at home maybe five nights a month, so the 700 square foot basement apartment suited me fine. I flipped through every channel hoping to find something mind numbing and distracting, but nothing sparked my interest. I grabbed the bounty packet I stole from Tobias and flipped through the bounty.
Ambrose Sullivan was a vampire who apparently liked to steal children. He was accused of taking four young witches from different covens. The bounty was placed by the Neru Corporation; he was wanted dead or alive. It wasn’t uncommon for bounties to be offered under the umbrella of a corporation. The Abyss didn’t have laws; each race had their own rules and it was up to them to enforce their policy. Basically, everyone worked out their own problems for better or worse. If a bounty on one person caused problems for someone else, eliminating the person who voiced the grievance might be the easiest way out of a bad situation. It might not have been fair, but it was the way this world worked. Normally, bounties were placed by the head of the race with the complaint, but large corporations with paranormal interests were a close second and always a good pay day.
This case ate at me and wouldn’t wait for tomorrow. I hopped up and dressed in my favorite hunting outfit: leather pants, a long sleeve v-neck shirt, black trench coat with plenty of inside pockets, and of course my trusty silver-toed, shit-kicking boots. I swept my amber colored hair into a no nonsense low ponytail and hit the streets. I didn’t know any vampires, so I didn’t have anyone in the community to ask about Ambrose. There was only one place I could get a lead without asking for help.
I made a beeline for my baby, a 1961 MG roadster. My fingers caressed the supple red leather seats before I brought her purring to life. We whizzed through the streets of Chicago in a streak of silver. The brisk night air whipped around me as my foot pressed harder against the pedal. The feeling of freedom roared to life inside my chest. I loved to be on the move, on a new case with no idea what the road ahead would bring—it was what I lived for. I slowed as I entered the neighborhood. Near the end of the street I cut the motor and parked, not wanting my engine to draw unnecessary attention. Witches were mostly humans and easily excitable. They were sort of half in, half out of the Abyss, meaning they could see some of us, but not everyone—not an easy position. Basically, they could see anything of a similar circumstance as them, aka former humans: vampires, jinn, guardians (when they allowed it), ghosts, banshees, etc. The part of the Abyss made up of born creatures, they could not see: fae, elves, goblins, and most mythical creatures. Some witches could see me, others couldn’t—it depended on how strong their abilities were. Sekhmet were never human, but we were similar, like first cousins.
I stood outside the single story home underneath a tree in their front yard and adjusted to the new environment. Taking a deep breath, I released it in a long exhale and focused on the energy inside the house. There were two people inside in a tremendous amount of pain, the sort of gut-wrenching, kick in the head pain that came with losing an integral part of themselves. The healing part of my nature demanded I go in and help them, but the warrior countered with the only way I could help was to bring their child back home. I blinked one eye at a time so I wouldn’t miss anything as I inspected everything around me. The warrior was right. I shifted from the house to the surrounding area. How would the perpetrator get inside and take the child without alarming anyone? I crept around the house as silent as fog scanning the ground and the possible entrances. The grass and flower beds were undisturbed, the windows untouched, if he broke into her room, then he was better than a ghost.
At the back corner of the house a chill ran down my spine, if I had hackles they would have stood. My senses were telling me I wasn’t alone. My head swiveled, weapon in hand, but there was nothing. The air moved behind me before I heard or smelled anything. I spun left ramming my solid silver knife forward. The blade met a moment’s resistance then slid into the vampire behind me. His flesh sizzled and air hissed from his mouth as his hand came back towards me faster than I could dodge. I blocked his attack with my arm and twisted the knife still lodged between his ribs with the other hand. Pain seared through my arm as his claws tore my flesh.
“Son of a bitch,” I said through gritted teeth. I released the knife and tackled the rat bastard to the ground. I produced a larger silver blade from my jacket and jammed it to his throat. “Hold still!”
The vampire went all corpse-like which gave me the creeps, but I didn’t give up my position.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
He gave me an insolent, unblinking stare, but didn’t respond.
I forced the blade deeper making his skin and blood boil beneath it. “Talk or I will make sure you never have the opportunity to speak again.”
“Frank Webster.”
“What are you doing here, Frank?”
“What are you doing here, hunter?”
I positioned my knee so it could push the knife in his side in deeper. “Don’t piss me off. Do you know where Ambrose is?”
“Not here,” he sneered.
“Tell me where he is, and I’ll consider letting you live.”
“Go to hell.”
I punched him a couple times while leaning on the knife in his side. “Then I have no choice but to believe you’re part of all of this, Frank. There’s nothing I hate more than someone who preys on the weak.” I yanked the knife from his ribs and used it to pin one of his hands to the ground.
“You don’t know anything.” His voice was little more than an angry whisper.
“Then tell me all about it before I get bored. I have lots of knives and so few opportunities to use them.” Blood ran down my arm, and I could feel hunks of flesh dangling unnaturally which pissed me off more.
“You don’t care about the truth. None of you do. Vampires take care of vampire business.”
“You aren’t going to be taking care of much in about thirty seconds,” I growled.
“Ambrose didn’t do anything.”
“Great. Then he can turn himself in, and we’ll get this all straightened out.”
“And will you stick arou
nd to make sure I get a fair trial, hunter, or will you turn me over and leave?” A voice asked from just beyond the yard in the trees.
“That’s not my job,” I said carefully, trying to come up with a strategy. “But if you turn yourself in, I’ll listen to what you have to say and do what I can to help.”
He stepped forward in the darkness. He had dark, short, messy hair and arms covered in tattoos. I met his gaze, and he shook his head. “That’s not good enough.” He turned and ran back into the forest.
I bolted after him, ignoring the nagging voice in my head telling me I shouldn’t have left Frank. If this costs me a fourth life, I’ll kill him, I thought as I sprinted full speed ahead. Branches lashed across my face as I chased the inhumanly fast vampire through the dark forest.
“Ambrose, you aren’t going to escape. Why are you running?” I yelled as he zig-zagged through the trees in front of me.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he shouted over his shoulder.
“I don’t care. Explain it to them.” I darted over to the side with the soft, graceful steps of my race anticipating his turn. When he made his zig, I pounced, crashing into the 6’4 vampire. We tumbled to the ground, and I dug my fingernails and spike heels into him until he stopped struggling. “Better me than another bounty hunter who might not be so gentle.” I slapped the back of his head against the ground.
He flashed his fangs at me, his eyes black as coals. “I was framed.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I heaved him up though he was twice my size and fastened the silver vampire cuffs over his wrists behind his back. He hissed and steam rose from beneath the bindings. I wiped his blood off the heels of my boots the best I could in the wet forest leaves before shoving him forward.
“You don’t understand—”
“Correction, I don’t care. I’m not paid to resolve the issue, just to bring you in. It’s up to you to resolve your own problems. Whine to someone else.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I don’t need to.” I nudged him forward.
“You’ll regret this.”
“Yeah, like I haven’t heard that before, and the funny thing is, I have yet to regret anything.”
“You short-sighted—”
I yanked up on his cuffs hard nearly dislocating his shoulders. “I wouldn’t finish that thought, Ambrose, or I might lose patience with you. In fact, why don’t you just stop talking completely.” There were no signs of Frank or any other vampires here, but it was too quiet and I didn’t trust that. Being ambushed by a crazed vampire cult of child killers wasn’t high on my “To Do” list. I shoved him the rest of the way through the forest in silence, not letting my guard down.
“You said you would listen to me,” he complained as we exited the wooded area.
“Then you made me chase you. Take it up with Neru.”
“They’ll kill me. I didn’t do it, I swear.”
“Not my problem.”
Everyone said it wasn’t their fault. Something or someone else was always to blame for them messing up. I was so used to hearing these same pleas they did nothing to make me sympathetic. If he had a bounty, it was there for a reason. I’d admit vampires were treated as parasites in a grand gesture of hypocrisy. In reality, we were all parasites so who were we to throw stones at them; however, I wasn’t here to change the world. I was here to bring back missing children. The vampires would have to work it out with whatever witch group placed the bounty on Ambrose. Though, a nagging voice in my head reminded me that vampires were becoming the perfect fall guys—the usual suspects. I had my doubts they were suddenly so sloppy, but it wasn’t my problem. I was staying out of it—a mantra I kept repeating to myself so I wouldn’t forget.
Frank was gone, but the vampire who came to see me at the Office leaned against my car with his thumbs hooked in his pockets and a pair of darkly shaded aviators blocking his eyes even though the alabaster night had yet to break. He didn’t move, and I could feel his gaze upon me as we approached. I tightened my grip on Ambrose and inched myself behind his body so I had cover if I needed to go for my gun. We came to a stop ten feet away.
“Who are you?” I let impatience clip my words.
“Thomas Jameson.” He gave me a half bow and a shy smile that nearly made me feel safe. This guy was good. “I see you found Ambrose.”
My eyes narrowed and my shoulders straightened. “He has a bounty.”
“He does.” His tone was conversational, and he still didn’t budge even a millimeter from the car, like a predator waiting to pounce.
“Step aside. He’s coming with me.”
“I can’t let you take him.”
I switched hands holding Ambrose and pulled my gun, bracing for a fight. “You can’t stop me.”
“I don’t wish to hurt you, but you cannot take him.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t do what he was accused of.”
I stared into his eyes and measured his sincerity. “How do you know?”
“Release him. I’ll explain the situation as I intended to this evening.”
“Not gonna happen.”
A coarse, harsh laugh barked from his lips. “Vampires aren’t the only race with demons; everyone has weaknesses.”
“A bounty was placed on Ambrose for a reason.” My words were slow and firm.
“By whom?”
“Neru.”
“And who are they?”
I had no idea and didn’t really think it mattered. I shook my head.
“Don’t you think if you were kidnapping and killing young witches, placing a bounty on someone else would be the perfect way to mislead the public?”
I appreciated his condescending tone even less than his conspiracy theory that challenged my chosen way of life. I hated that his logic made sense. Should I be blindly taking bounties? Was my laziness at investigating who made the claims doing more harm than good? I had a funny feeling about the increase in vampire bounties lately, and now I had vampires standing in front of me telling me they were being framed. The question was, what was I prepared to do about it? I sighed. “I’ll turn him in, and then we’ll find out who placed the bounty.”
Thomas straightened away from the car like molasses running down the side of a can. He tried not to appear threatening which put me more on edge. “Too risky. I’ll not let them kill Ambrose or blame him for something he didn’t do.”
“I’ll not give him to you willingly.”
“It seems we are at an impasse.” A sweet smile spread across his face, my eyes narrowing in response. “For I cannot let you take him.”
I brandished my gun, aiming directly at his heart. “Then you’ll have to stop me.”
He took a couple creeping steps towards us. “Femi, I do wish you would work with us on this.”
“How do you know my name?” So many conflicting feelings swam in me. I was curious, attracted, nervous, and suspicious. Whatever this vampire’s game was, he was about thirteen steps ahead of me.
“The bartender told me when he said you were the most open-minded of all the hunters, which you proved this evening.”
Ambrose snorted, and I jabbed him with my elbow. I was open-minded, but I wasn’t dumb. Ambrose was my leverage and there was no way in hell I was giving him up. But if Sy sent this guy my way, he couldn’t be all bad. “How about a compromise?”
“What do you have in mind?” He took off his sunglasses, and I didn’t like the way his eyes glittered at me.
“Both of you come with me, and you’ll have the entire drive back to the city to talk me into coming to your side.”
“And if I can’t talk you into it?”
“Then I’ll drop you off and turn Ambrose in.”
Thomas considered my proposal for a moment before agreeing. I smiled and deposited Ambrose in the trunk of my car—I had limited room in my two-seater—then turned to Thomas retrieving another set of vampire cuffs from my coat.
“What are those for?” he asked,
his eyes narrowing.
“You. Do you think I’d allow the person who wants to take my bounty to ride freely next to me in my car?”
“You’re not easy to work with,” he complained, but allowed me to handcuff his wrists behind his back.
I ignored his firm arms corded with muscle beneath my hands and focused only on what I was doing. “That’s why I work alone.”
“But it’s so much more fun with someone else.” He turned around so quick his lips nearly collided with my cheek.
I danced back from him, heart thumping and breath shallow. “Get in the car.”
A crooked smile tilted his mouth. “You’ll have to come a bit closer.”
I stared, having no intention of moving closer until my heart slowed down. “Why?”
“Do I make you nervous?” His eyes darkened and screamed of danger. “I can’t open the door like this, can I?” His voice was soft, a trace of an accent rolling from his supple lips.
Right, pull yourself together, Femi. I opened the door, careful not to let him get too close, then slammed it shut and walked around to the driver’s side. The soft leather seats hugged my body, and I strapped the seat belt across my chest in a fluid motion. The engine came to life and the car hummed with anticipation. I glanced over at Thomas. The hunger on his face was evident and made it hard to breathe. I grabbed his seat belt clicked it in place. “I drive fast so you only have about twenty minutes.”
He licked his lips and leaned in close to my ear. “In twenty minutes, I can make you purr.”
Heat pooled in my stomach, and I slammed my foot down on the gas pedal, snapping him back into his seat. “You can keep playing these games or you can take me seriously, but I’m going to turn in Ambrose unless you change my mind.”