Wight

by Dorien Vincent

  Tset's face was slick with fresh wet, and had been soon after he first laid grip on the vampire. He was sopping and cold - he felt it this time.

  The ground around him and the police cruiser were an outdoor butchery - blood in puddles and pools, hunks strewn.

  Things were still, but soon there was movement in the world again - someone shifted, the hostage cop crawled away in fear, a bird flew overhead. The hostage, and the crowd, had been transfixed by the horror of their savior's methods. Then Larry was there next to Tset. "I knew I recognized you. You owe me an explanation, but personally. I still owe you a life, okay?"

  Tset held up one finger in Larry's face, fast enough that a droplet landed on Larry's upper lip, "Two things, these two were my friends, I'm delicate right now, and, more cocoa."

  Larry acquiesced. Tset wasn't even looking at anything. Larry knew the feeling - losing brothers.

  Interlude

  Prelude to Allegiances

  Larry was extremely friendly with Tset, sitting him down, getting him cocoa and another blanket. Tset had shrugged off his overcoat and left it on the ground next to the latest kill. He was clean now, in a light blue shirt, navy tie and his recently scrubbed lambskin gloves. He wore his cohesive vest over the shirt, zipped down a third. He kept a vacuum-sealed change of fresh clothes in his saddle bags in case this sort of situation occurred.

  "First, tell me who you are."

  "My name is Dargent." Tset inwardly smiled a sad smile at the implications of the name.

  "Okay," Larry smiled like he was dealing with an infant, "But who are you? Where did you come from? What do you do?"

  "I told you, Dargent. Beyond that, no idea, and I kill people for money."

  Tset's card was only showing a static image - it was untraceable as far as ID went, and with current population levels, it would take a week to get a response on a positive or negative ID. And so Haliburton worked. It, in its static state, was also unhackable. Not that Tset let go of it.

  Larry looked stalled, "Alright..." He drew out the second vowel, "What really were you here for this morning?"

  Tset's business was his business outside Haliburton, "A vampire killed my first friend's girlfriend in a parking lot. I tracked it down, trapped it, and exacted revenge. It's dead. I have a Polaroid..." Tset produced it, "... of the motherfucker's remains. I was showing Tyler."

  "So... you kill these... vampires? You kill them on a regular basis?"

  "Never let one get away alive yet."

  "Do you have a team?"

  Tset raised his hand, staring at Larry until Larry understood. "Ah. No friends?"

  "Those were about it outside."

  Larry looked saddened - Tset was now more confused and lost than ever, and it showed.

  Larry was about to start again and Tset cut him off, "What is it you're offering? You're asking about vampires with a false skepticism at best - you know they exist. You know they're what keeps you off the streets at night. So out with it 'cause I'm too damn dense to play cutesy manners games."

  Larry waited, choosing his words, "You're the first hunter I've ever found who does this not for money or fame or prestige. You're the first ever not to have a Devil-may-care front on an apathy at this problem we've got in The City. You're the first ever to openly talk about these beasts."

  "Fuck the devil and what do you want?"

  "I wanted to see if we could team up."

  Tset scoffed, "Look, Larry, you're nice and everything, and I'm sure your men aren't douche bags like Archembeaux's, but level with me here - which one of them could've pinned a vampire like I did and taken it apart like an order of hotwings? The reason other hunters, of which I know none, work in teams, is because they're fucked without strategy on single targets. Just single targets. I've handled three extra-strength..." Tset paused, finding the word, then spitting it, "mites, in hand-to-hand with no prior warning. What help could you offer?"

  Larry sighed and sat back, "There's strength in numbers, you know."

  Tset smiled, no humor, "Look, I'll give you a ring. But when I do, bring thick body armor, bring potential suicides, bring silver, and bring explosives, you dig?"

  Tset's phone vibrated. He stood, taking the call and walking past Larry, back outside, he missed a call from Tristram. No voice mail.

  Odd.

  He called Tristram back, it rang, then went to voice mail, "Please, leave a message. Unless you're an idiot. Hang up if you're an idiot." Then came the requisite beep, Tset started talking, but he heard some feedback - the thing wasn't recording. Concern drew in his brows as he walked back to his bike through the snow, a newly lit cigarette in his hand.

  He stepped around a news van that had just pulled up and shoved an idiot with a microphone back inside, slamming the door on his leg.

  As he walked there were shouts of pain behind him.

  When he got around to the back of the van he pulled a wire from the camera man's camera and jerked the tape out, leaving its innards to flutter in the early-morning breeze before the camera had even been turned on. Then he shoved the incredulous camera man, who managed, "H-!" and dropped the single piece of €$25,000 equipment on freshly-salted asphalt, where it too shattered.

  "Hey!" Yelled the camera man and the newscaster once they'd stood up and limped over, respectively.

  When they got no response, they yelled again, "Hey!"

  Tset gave them the finger, more concentrating on his phone, trying to figure out what the distant beeps and grinds were.

  Then it came, a harsh rasp, then Tristram's voice at a whisper, "... dude, I knew I'd get you, come quick. My phone's fucked up, man, so don't bother calling. I haven't been able to put a call through in five minutes. I'll explain later, just get over here right now, please, God." Then the boop telling Tset to record.

  Tset stared at his phone, slammed it into his pocket next to his flask of gin, threw a leg over his bike and had it burning rubber awayward before he was even seated.

  The two people from GE5 News were left angry and flustered, with no story.

  They were quickly put under arrest along with the other reps from news agencies, anyway.

  Allegiances I

  Tristram's Bust

  Tristram sat in his metal shop, his speakers blasting out Pistol Grip Pump on maximum while he sawed, worked and fitted. He wore a pair of welding glasses and some heavier gloves. He had an order of sawed-offs to fill and was building most of the guns from scratch - the more complicated mechanisms his buddy made.

  He slid around his workshop and danced to the heavy beat, occasionally picking up the lyrics, "... you can be messing with any other nigger's shit but you best not be messin' with mine!"

  The door buzzer went off. He checked his security monitor. It was what looked like feds, saving the grit that overlaid them was slightly more honorable and less of a 'whores and drugs' filth, but a more 'family's honor in this grim world' filth - a division of the mob had come to see him.

  He X-rayed them. If guns could bristle, this collection of a half-dozen individuals could make several fair-sized tooth brushes.

  "Ho ho... shit." Tristram said, slightly more than a little worried.

  He buzzed his intercom, "What the fuck do you want?"

  "To talk."

  "Well well well, fuck yourself!" Then he muttered, "Talk my ass."

  Tristram left the intercom on, Rage tinnily antagonizing the group of antagonists.

  They looked to each other, shrugged, and jimmied the door.

  When they got the inner door open, the music was painfully loud all throughout the shop - the basement acoustics and reverb and slamming, steady beat making it hard to think.

  Tristram was hiding in his wall, watching them. He did, in fact, have a pistol grip pump, and while not on his lap, it was near to hand at all times. He had tried calling Tset, but his phone, nor the Haliburton phone, were getting reception. This was odd. No matter, 'I'll handle these punks myself.'

  He was trying to evaluate how, prec
isely, to handle the five targets who presented themselves, coming in his front door. The first was simple enough, the blast took the man in the face and shattered his designer sunglasses, his friend behind him shrugged the vaulted corpse off while Tristram moved away and into another secret area of his store.

  The second was knocked unconscious in the back room when Tristram came out of a mirror-obscured passage and mashed him in the face with a crowbar.

  Two down, three to go.

  But Tristram found himself against the back of his counter, glass and lighters cascading over his shoulders. This was odd as he had been standing well over in the back room - but he saw his reason, the big one had thrown him. Quite hard.

  Now they had his position and he had no shotgun. He was hauled over the counter, by the big one again, clipping it with his cheek and then landing on his face in more broken glass. His shotgun, tossed over the counter before him, was now in reach as the other two drew close.

  Tristram stood, a look of 'fuck you, boys' on his face as the arm on the shotgun slid back, ejected the old case and slid out again. The heavy bass line of his song blasted out of the speakers as Tristram aimed, from the hip, and swung, by his neck.

  He gripped, the wire cut his flesh while he clawed at it. The sixth mobster. There had been a solid half-dozen and only five he saw come in the door.

  Luckily, the shotgun, jarred by its fall, went off and knocked out the light fixture above Tristram and his attacker.

  Unluckily, a pellet also gored Tristram in the stomach.

  The attacker fell back, and, with relieved pressure, Tristram was able to strike him repeatedly and flee.

  He had to contact Tset, 'But what the fuck is wrong with my phone?'

  He grabbed his laptop in the darkness, then hauled it up into the recesses of the shambly ceiling. He sent one e-mail, with a .wav and an .exe file, to his phone provider's servers on his anachronistic fax modem.

  They found him, someone heard him cough during a lull in the music, grabbed him, and threw him down. Before his MacBook was smashed and obliterated, he hoped the e-mail had sent.

  Tset arrived, he left his bike on the sidewalk and flew down the stairs.

  Glass crunched underfoot, but there was the unconscious form of Tristram in the middle of the room. The shadows were oddly deep and the only illumination was from around Tset's elongated shadow as he stepped from the threshold into the room.

  No one else presented themselves for immediate handling, so Tset crouched and touched the figure's shoulder.

  The mobster pointed a gun at Tset's face - this wasn't Tristram.

  Tset was unused to dealing with mortals after his last few encounters and ended up horrifically wounding the softer-inclined mobster, shattering his wrist and crushing his face and head against the tiles, silencing him before he actually made a sound. This was reminiscent to Tset of rolling a hardboiled egg against a counter to peel it.

  He stood and a wire wrapped around his neck, pulling tight.

  Tset decided to let the idiot work his neck for a minute before spinning and grabbing his expensive winter coat. He hauled him up, grabbed his chin, and smashed him against a wall - the sound, grind and feel of enamel teeth smashing together and coming apart was satisfying. So was the skull-on-cement crack.

  The mobster spit blood and tooth fragments, then wore a bewildered leer as he staggered and fell - his teeth were all broken and his jaw was mush.

  Tset lit a cigarette while turning to face a mobster who'd, yet again, pulled a weapon on him. This one automatic, HKMP5.

  The mobster started, "Easy, b-"

  "Shut the FUCK up." Tset's face was wreathed in exhaled smoke, he pointed dangerously with his left, the one that held, straight-fingered, his cigarette.

  When he had utter silence, Tset lowered his hand, "You let my pal go. We'll talk about what you need then."

  Tset was lying, of course. These pawns had rubbed a very raw spot.

  "He's dead, vampire boy, and so are you." The mobster stepped more into the diffuse light from the doorway, out of the shadows. He smirked.

  Tset's blood went cold, "You better be fucking lying, 'cause otherwise I'm extending your life by about a week more than you're gonna want it to last, and I've got a shitload of acetylene and very, oh so very, small drill bits."

  The mobster's blood chilled now. The guy had taken Georgie without comment or hassle after Georgie had a hold on him... but this was their target, wasn't it? Single combat wasn't going to work out - they needed to get him somewhere and bust him from all sides...

  "Come with me and I'll show you your friend."

  "Fuck you. I'd agree, but you aren't calling the shots. This is how it will work - you put your gun on the ground, you show me Tristram, and I'll leave with you." Tset exhaled while he spoke - like a dragon, heating up. Lying again.

  There was a pause while the gangster tried to shrug off the power behind the assertion and call another shot, Tset snapped, "Look, putzfuck, show me my friend or I'll send your dad your parts while you address the UPS boxes! Get the fucking idea!" The outburst made the gangster jump.

  There was only a moment of silence before, "Bruno, bring 'im out."

  Tristram was wounded, bound and gagged, but he winked.

  "Hand him over to me."

  They did.

  Before Tristram was two steps out, Tset aimed his gun over Tristram's shoulder, past his head, and shot Bruno in the mouth and then, under Tristram's arm, the skinnier one in the firing hand, blowing it apart and putting shards of bone and bullet into his guts.

  The way he'd held his gun it didn't seem he'd moved faster than the eye - his pose was jaunty, relaxed, calmly in control, though his hand whipped like lightning and fired shots fast enough to overlap. The gun slipped away, back under his jacket and the hand returned to remove the cigarette from his lips.

  He walked over, easily, and crouched, easily, next to the bleeding mobster. He blew smoke in his face, "I don't care who you are, or who your family is, but you don't fuck with me or my people. Period."

  The gangster was deposited in a trash can in another part of town, Tset gave the address to an ambulance. The bodies were stuffed into another trash can, near a morgue. A letter was in one of their pockets.

  Allegiances II

  Geoffrey

  When Tset made it back from his deliveries, Tristram had tied up the gangster he'd knocked out with the crowbar.

  Soon after Tset had bolted the door Tristram managed to bring the mobster around with a groin stomp.

  He screamed.

  Tset bent down and picked up the wallet that Tristram had dislodged while lugging the unconscious body, he began going through it, throwing the cash on the ground but flipping through credit cards and IDs.

  Tristram had turned on The Doors now. Break On Through played while Tset stood, absently reading a Panda Express coupon and other odds and ends while Tristram violently beat the mobster, demanding his name and where he'd come from and who sent him.

  Tristram had emptied a can of kerosene over his severely-bloodied prisoner when Tset told him, "Wait, I got his driver's license."

  Tristram turned, he gasped and licked his lips from exertion, "What? How long have you had that?"

  The mobster was relieved, blinking tears and fumes out of his eyes.

  "About three minutes. But I thought you were having fun." Tset smirked and threw the license to Tristram. It floated in the puddle of kerosene.

  Tristram picked it up, "Oh shit, Tset."

  "Yes?"

  "Tset, oh shit."

  "Oh, Tset, shit? But right now?" Again the smirk.

  "No man, this ain't funny. The fucking Corneos are after me."

  The mobster laughed behind him, Tristram punched him in the neck, sobbing real tears, "I am fucked!" He punched the mobster in the stomach, then collapsed in the soaking lap, crying more, pityingly pounding his fist repeatedly into the mobster's thigh.

  "Wait, why are you laughing?"

 
"I'm fucking crying man! I'm dead!"

  "No, not you, you, Hermando, whatever the fuck, why are you laughing?"

  The mobster was still choking, then regarded Tset with an evil eye, he coughed a few times and then sat up, Tristram was still in his lap.

  "We're after you, assassin boy."

  Tristram looked up, "Oh, shit." He stood, wiping at the kerosene blots on his grey T.

  Tset regarded Fernando, "Alright Hermando, lay it down for me."

  "Everyone wants you dead, boy."

  Tset was annoyed - an unclear picture was forming in his head, "You're going to get specific, or you're going to get hot." Tset lit a previously-rolled cigarette, offering it. Tristram jumped back and got a fire extinguisher with 'EXPIRED 1988' stamped on it.

  The mobster froze, changing course and changing tactics in an eyeblink, "Look, all I know is you have a huge price on your head, alright? That's all I know. That's why the Corneo King sent his favorite sons to getchore ass."

  Tset laughed and smiled at the hole he'd dug, "Favorite sons..." Then louder, "Alright, I'm going to let you go. I already delivered my message so no need to take your life."

  "And my brothers?"

  "Tall one, he'd dead, the idiot with the cord, he's dead, the pasty one, he's dead, and the one with grease vat for a head's in a hospital somewhere."

  Fernando had started to cry already, the heartless tone Tset took as he counted off on his fingers his brothers was entirely free of any emotion besides carelessness, or maybe that same emotion one would use in remembering a shopping list.

  "Also your friend with the fur collar and designer sunglasses, I fucked him up when he came in. But you knew that." Tristram waved his hand to get the attention of the teary-eyed murderer.