Monster Stalker

by Elizabeth Watasin

  “When I rose, I had to rob blood banks; clinics. I broke into animal shelters. I practiced on animals, how to suck enough not to kill. And then I sucked on people and dumped them at hospitals. If I was going to kill, I wanted the first one to be my maker. I’m really sorry about the animals.”

  “Sweet Niky.”

  “No, I’m not that.”

  “How can ye not ken yer good heart?” Shayla softly said.

  “A good heart?” Nico repeated.

  “Ye are what he was not. I dinnae have tae ken the man tae see it.” Shayla picked up her napkin from her lap and set it on the table.

  “Come, love,” she said firmly. “My account here will cover the tea. Let’s visit the Isle shop.”

  Nico stood with Shayla, unsure what motivated her companion’s sudden determination. She was about to protest who would pay for tea when her Id chimed.

  “Excuse me,” Nico whispered, and pulled out Dorothy. Heloise had messaged. It read:

  Found a name match.

  Heloise gave her a time she was available. Nico held her Id against herself and Bear.

  “Is something the matter, Niky?” Shayla said. Nico then noticed something behind Shayla.

  A black vehicle sat farther down the cobblestoned street, parked up on the kerb. The windshield was dark.

  Huh. She doubted the OI would be watching her. She turned with Shayla for the Isle shop.

  “That amnesia I have? I finally have a possible lead to learn who I was,” Nico said. She sent Heloise back a confirmation, but turned down her dinner invitation. “I just don’t want to find out I’m a bonafide, nut-job mass murderer.” Shayla put an arm around Nico’s shoulders and hugged her as they crossed the street.

  “If ye are one, Niky, we’ve ways of handlin’ ye.” Shayla gently teased. She turned her head at the sound of a vehicle advancing towards them, rubber wheels crunching on paving stone. Nico peered around Shayla and saw that it was a slow-moving Fedotov Kolbasa van. Despite its snail-like pace, it steadfastly approached. Shayla looked at it, as if considering whether to admonish the driver for not stopping. She and Nico completed their crossing as the van passed behind them, and Nico put her Id away.

  “Here’s a random question,” she said. But one I’ve been meaning to ask. “When you call me ’Nicky’, how do you spell it?”

  “N-I-K-Y?” Shayla said, and Nico’s face broke into a broad smile. “How would ye like it spelt, love?”

  “Just like that. It’s perfect.” They entered the Isle Shop.

  Within, Shayla pointed at the sweets jars holding one-inch buttons.

  “Would you like another pin-back, love?”

  “I would love the Saltire of Skye.”

  Shayla directed her to pick one, and Nico did, the image on the button of the white X on azure blue: the Saltire of Scotland. Shayla went to the register to purchase it for her.

  “Getting buttons is so punk rock. It’s a pure stoater,” Nico said happily as they stood outside the shop. Shayla laughed, pin in hand.

  “Have ye Scots history, Niky? Ya know the speech well.”

  “I do.” Nico swallowed. “You don’t know it, but your voice replaces his.”

  Shayla paused, her hand by the mystery button on Nico’s chest. The question whose voice? seemed to die on Shayla’s lips as realisation dawned.

  “Bless Niky. Bless this one, who is loved,” Shayla intoned. She pinned the button on Nico’s chest, then hugged her. Nico inhaled peach-bergamot and—

  Oh my gods its nearly her time.

  Shayla moved back in the embrace to hold Nico’s face, and her mouth descended.

  “Sorry,” Nico squeaked, when she turned her face at the last second, and Shayla’s lips contacted the corner of Nico’s mouth. Shayla laughed self-consciously against Nico’s cheek.

  “Oh love, I’m the sorry one,” she said, and moved back. “Here I am, molestin’ ye.”

  “Oh no,” Nico quickly said. “Never you.”

  Her Id chimed, a tiny, unfamiliar jingle. Nico excused herself again and pulled out Dorothy from behind Bear. No message was present. When she looked up, Shayla had a holo interface activated from the Id ring on her middle finger, the privacy screen obscuring what she read.

  Those rings are so cool. Shayla bit her lip, apparently not liking what she was reading. She tapped rapidly on her interface. When she deactivated it, Nico tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  “Is that you, then?” she said, using Scots speech.

  “Aye, that’s me, love,” Shayla said apologetically. “Ah Niky, I want tae stay, but I’ve a matter tae handle, in my sector.”

  The gunslinger must ride.

  “Thank you for everything,” Nico said, and leaned awkwardly towards Shayla.

  Shayla smiled and kissed her.

  ***

  I’ll learn to like kissing again. Nico skipped towards the Pea and Cock, enjoying the tingly remnants of Shayla’s lips on hers. They’d parted at the gift shop, Shayla walking towards the underground station with a determination that indicated the gravity of whatever situation had called her away. Nico had wanted to tag along, though her inexperience dealing with Others was a handicap. She had lucked out in her vampire fight at Royal Bento—her first real, Other-being battle. A cryptic gun shootout might see her and Bear cowering behind an upturned table until it was over.

  Plus, she had to stay behind thanks to the black vehicle, which had moved and parked at the other end of the street while she and Shayla had been in the gift shop. Nico could no longer ignore its presence.

  She was halfway down the block when the vehicle backed out of view and into the cross street. Nico took off at a run and turned the corner, in time to see the vehicle spin out of full reverse and zoom away, too fast for her to follow.

  “That can’t be the OI,” Nico said to Bear. Agents would have no reason to act furtive—like criminals. Who else needed to keep an eye on her?

  Found a name match, Heloise had written.

  Nico’s Id chimed. Shayla? Or Heloise? She pulled out Dorothy and looked.

  The message was from Esche’s social worker, Deepika.

  Deepika: Esche Abram-Angel’s husband has contacted me. He had been off-planet and missed her arrival by two days. As the Makepeace have not made progress, have you learned anything?

  Nico typed: Nothing yet. How did Esche’s spouse know she arrived?

  Deepika: All arrivals’ names are published daily in the public immigrant manifest. One subscribes to the alert. I will update him.

  Nico: I’ll keep you posted.

  Nico closed the message and looked up. She stood before the shop window for Absalom, Fairditch & Vastagh, Rare and Unusual Books.

  Miss Fairditch’s vampires had known to meet her at the spaceport, even though Miss Fairditch herself had no idea they’d be there.

  “Immigrant manifest,” Nico repeated.

  Someone had been alerted when she’d arrived in Again NewYork.

  What do you mean Chaikov’s is closed? Nico typed to Dorothy, peeved. She was riding the train, having so far spotted no one else shadowing her, and thought to follow up on the names of the two dead men in her little black book. After the incident with the black vehicle, she didn’t want to wait until her meeting with Heloise to learn more. She’d asked for directions to Chaikov’s Collectible Coins & Currencies, only to find out that it had ceased operations.

  The business you wish to visit is listed as no longer active, Dorothy answered. Nico blew breath. With Chaikov’s suspiciously closed, enquiring at the other Russian businesses if they knew about the two dead men would only tip off whoever was watching her. It would be prudent to wait for Heloise.

  Why does that woman have to work? Isn’t she rich enough, already? Nico put her feet up on the seat, then put them down again when a security robot entered the train car, rolling down the aisle.

  She sent Shayla a message enquiring if all was well, and Shayla affirmed that things were and that she was h
eaded for her shift at Lucy’s. Would Nico like to stay with her that night, since she didn’t like her hostel?

  “Wow, we didn’t blow it,” Nico exclaimed to Bear. The grandstand within shot off fireworks.

  If it’s no bother, she typed back. Shayla said it wasn’t. She would be back home late that night.

  Nico sat awhile, contemplating her extraordinary good fortune. Things were looking up in Darqueworld. She departed the train at the next stop.

  It was time she made herself a visible lure again.

  She ended up in a tiny square within the Japanese neighbourhood, where a cauldron of burning incense stood before a small temple. An outdoor holo theatre had been set up, and Nico joined the after-school children seated on benches to watch cartoons and a kaiju film of Ultrapeace (the super-enlarging Makepeace) fighting giant space beasts. At dusk, the children disappeared, the holo films ended, and the bars, restaurants, and food carts opened. Nico saw no one who might be watching her, not even a Makepeace. She ambled, worked in Dorothy, and studied her civic questions. The night market roused to activity.

  “C’mon, someone, make a move,” she muttered, and drank down a cup of warm, freshly slaughtered pig’s blood from the butcher’s while watching couples, families, and workers gather. The vampire punks arrived, buying their own cups of blood. They sat on empty crates—a regular hangout for them, judging by the number of snuffed cigarette butts on the ground—and drank and smoked in companionable silence. Nico envied their social unit.

  “We need to start collecting people’s contact codes,” she told Bear. “This isn’t like on Old Earth, where we had to be alone all the time.” A solitary existence thanks to her being a vampire. And thanks to—

  Is he bothering ya, luv?

  Nico gritted her teeth. She surveyed the market area without appearing to be scrutinising it, then tossed her cup. She walked away.

  Come get me.

  ***

  The fact that no one appeared to be following her right then did not stop familiar feelings of unease from escalating. During such anxiety, she would expect a phone call, an envelope, a message taped to her door, or even a graffiti. One time, he had spelt out his clue in stones laid out charmingly in a garden. Then she’d find his handiwork, always timed to be dying the moment she’d come to save the person.

  Nico went directly to the wealthy sector and quickly ascended to the high fashion plaza near Heloise’s building.

  Once in the building’s lobby, Nico calmed. The old fear that she would find death simply because she was visiting someone was, in the present situation, implausible. On this planet, she knew vampires and extra-humans. They were harder to hurt, even harder to kill. Not only was Heloise older than Nico’s maker, but slitting her throat would just make her angry.

  Nico stepped on to the elevator platform, only for it to ascend two more storeys before slowing. The floor it stopped on appeared to be the recreational facility, with people exercising behind its glass. Two older men waited for the platform, wearing tennis outfits and holding rackets. Towels rested around their necks as they wiped sweat from their faces, and Nico thought their tanned physiques looked well paid for—tight-skinned, polished, and pampered.

  The platform’s doors opened and the men entered, moving past Nico to stand behind her. The platform continued up.

  “I tell you, today I outdid my personal best from when I was thirty,” one said to the other. “And I still feel like I could have gone a few matches more.”

  “If we didn’t have to be somewhere tonight, I would have beaten you,” the other man said.

  “Let’s play again tomorrow, and we’ll see,” the first man exclaimed.

  The men fell silent and their fresh perspiration scented. But there was a cleanliness to their human odour; a touch of perfection, like—

  Vampires?

  Nico glanced surreptitiously behind her. Neither of the men seemed to be looking her way, but she sensed that they focused on her.

  She stepped off the platform at Heloise’s floor. The silent men rode on, and Nico watched them disappear from view.

  When she continued for Heloise’s unit, her vampire’s hearing picked up a faint piano melody. Heloise—or someone—was playing the sheet music on her piano’s music rack.

  Somewhen a place for us, Nico mentally sang. Her hand crept behind for her blade. She pushed the chime. After a moment, the doors slid open, revealing Heloise with a hand resting against the doorframe, and Nico’s shoulders relaxed. Heloise wore no tie and her shirt had several top buttons unfastened. She smirked.

  “Hullo, doll,” Heloise greeted. “Can I call you that?”

  “No.” Nico entered. The apartment smelled of Heloise’s perfume, the lingering, fruity-pink scents of human girls, and fresh cigarette smoke. Heloise had had dinner. “You look rosy.”

  “Why, thank you. I would have saved you a bite but you seem the self-denying type.”

  “Why do you say that?” Nico turned back to Heloise and her open door.

  “Because you’d rather stay at—now what did you call it?—a creepy little hostel like Again Friends than the perfectly nice and respectable Y.”

  “Creep,” Nico exclaimed. “You are stalking me.”

  “Pot calling the kettle.” Heloise leaned out the door as a man approached another unit. “Hi neighbour,” she called to him. “I happened to sign for one of your packages.”

  Nico watched as Heloise plucked a box from the side table and presented it to the smiling, dark-haired man who came to accept it. He had a sparkling grin, and Heloise’s easy charm with him seemed to harken back to days when men and women understood how to interact with each other—a confidence borne of established social parameters. The man was tall, well built, and (Nico felt) significantly older, but his appearance didn’t seem so. She suspected his pectorals’ heft of artificial shaping, and his strange, smooth looks of having enjoyed one surgical adjustment too many. Nico stood near enough that all she smelled was his natural scent and cologne, and when he left, Heloise closed the door and turned to her with a wistful smile.

  “Saw some of his swashbucklers at the cinema when I was alive,” she said. “Wish he’d let himself age naturally.”

  “With that much plastic in him, he probably tastes weird. While I was coming up, I saw two humans who had to have been using Mircalla products.”

  Heloise chuckled, the sound throaty. “That woman is a genius.” She sauntered down to the living area in her stockinged feet, and Nico followed.

  “Does her stuff really bestow youth? Is it possible?” Nico asked.

  “Considering that we’re undead, anything is possible. Personally, I think it’s pure advertising. The vampire primacy would flay her alive for an eternity if she were really making products from our bodies.”

  “I think her beauty products do have something,” Nico said. “Those humans smelled like us.”

  Heloise looked at her, intrigued. “You mean like our undead state? Maybe it was a fragrance? Synthesised.”

  “I guess so.” Nico went to the piano. The fallboard was up, the bench pushed back, and the creased music sheets sat spread out. The keyboard smelled of Heloise.

  “A fragrance for luring a vampire lover.” Heloise picked up her dwindling cigarette from the amber ashtray on the coffee table and inhaled, her gaze mirthful.

  “Or for passing as vampires so we don’t bite them. Not everything has to be about getting laid.”

  “Not everyone is sanguivoriphobic,” Heloise said, exhaling smoke.

  “Why does—you watch one commercial and then you think you’re a shrink,” Nico exclaimed. “Can you show me what I came here for?”

  “Right away, Miss Alexikova,” Heloise quipped in a false British accent. She moved for the holo table and activated it. Nico joined her.

  “I ran all the names in your little book. Anyone mentioned in a news article or police report was a crossed off name on your list,” Heloise said. An icon appeared, labelled Nic’s Little Bla
ck Book. “Don’t open that yet.” She waved Nico’s hands away from the light keyboard. “Not until I explain something about a certain name—from the four you didn’t get to cross out. It showed up in an unlikely place: the letters written to you from the rescued.” Heloise snuffed her cigarette in the ashtray on the holo table. “And the letter happened to be written on black paper.”

  “Black paper?” Nico repeated.

  “Black is the colour used for banishment spells,” Heloise said. “The scanned envelope that was archived revealed no return address. When I’d gotten hold of your mail, I hadn’t taken the time to translate the letter itself. Until now.” She walked over to the bar top and retrieved something. She held up two blue, glass amulets painted with eyes and hung from silver chains—one chain sized for a small child.

  “One nazar for you and one for Bear,” Heloise said. “Put them on, and they’ll deflect any evil intention aimed at you. Then you can read the letter.” When Nico didn’t move, Heloise let out breath.

  “For crying out loud, they’re not—what, poisoned? I had a witch bless them for extra protection. I’d tell you what’s in the letter, but my American mind might misinterpret the message. Now put these on.”

  Nico looked at Shayla’s woven bracelet on her wrist.

  “In addition to your blessed bracelet,” Heloise said.

  “Okay. Thank you,” Nico said, and accepted the amulets. After she put the littler one on Bear and the other on herself, Heloise summoned the letter on the holo display. Nico held Bear and read it.

  Fearful Vengeance and Bear,

  You are the ghost that will not stop, even after death. You are the voice of all souls who cry for vengeance. You are Nemesis, and you will pursue us to the last child and beyond that, to anything we have touched and will touch. We must not destroy you, for that would bind your wrath forever to us. We must send you away. We will send you away. We must make you as unreachable as the stars. I write this to you, to the memory of you, knowing nothing can be forgiven or appeased. We who you slaughter—we have no guilt. We are beasts, and would harm ones like yourself all over again. I recognise this. But I am only one, and my sorrow is not enough to answer you. I will summon that which can exile you. May you forget us. May you ascend to the stars and forget us. May you journey as the vampire you were before you met us and forget us. And when it is done, and you are so far away, may you find peace.