by Kat Cotton
My lip trembled. I loved that car. People could be such monsters.
“He’s not telling you everything either,” Nic added. Obviously, Nic had no problem telling me the bad stuff. “They sprayed ‘child killer’ all over it. I’m surprised they didn’t torch it.”
“But it can be fixed, right? A new paint job?”
Nic shrugged.
“Kisho? We can go back to get it.”
“You can’t go anywhere near the zoo until your name is cleared.”
I sulked all the way. That made sense, but it worried me that my poor car had been deserted like that.
“Here,” said Nic, grabbing something out of the glove box. “Wear this. Kisho was in such a rush, we forgot to disguise you.”
It was a beanie and a pair of sunglasses.
“This won’t work. It’s too obvious.”
“Well, if anyone’s around, stick your jaw out.”
“That sounds like stupid advice.”
“That’s because you know nothing about being a celebrity.”
“I wouldn’t call being a moderately successful motivational speaker being a celebrity.”
He just snorted at that.
We pulled up at the apartment building.
“It doesn’t look like anyone will be around,” Nic added. “Anyone living here is on the run from the law. I wonder if they have any vacancies, Clem. You’d fit right in.”
Ravyn Black’s real name was Ray Black. The three of us showed up on his doorstep.
Ravyn/Ray opened the door a crack. He wore a t-shirt that looked like it hadn’t been washed in a decade or so and had on the thickest glasses. A sheen of sweat dampened his forehead, and his gaze darted around. This guy had some serious paranoia going on.
“Whoa, man, are you cops?”
“What about us makes you think that?” I forced my way inside, then realized Nic and Kisho couldn’t enter. “Invite them in, we need to talk.”
“No, man. No way. I have no idea who you people are.”
Typical stoner. I knew this was a wild goose chase.
“Just do it. The FBI are after them and they need you to cover them.”
“They’re vampires, right? That’s why I need to invite them in. Heavy shit, man. No vampires in my house, sorry.”
Most people would not have picked that up right away, but then I guessed most people weren’t paranoid stoners. Along with the usual stoner shit—a broken-down sofa covered in a Mexican blanket, homemade orange juice bottle bong on the coffee table and psychedelic posters on the walls—there was other stuff around too. Ropes of garlic hanging from the ceiling, crucifixes, holy water, rock salt.
Ray stared at Nic. “Hey, you’re that guy. The ‘make your dreams happen’ guy. Dude, I love you. Wow, I always thought a vampire attack would be terrifying, but man, you’re cool.”
“Yeah, I am. So, invite me in.” Nic shot him one of those charming smiles that no one could refuse, but Ray held fast, crossing his arms and shaking his head.
“No dice. But if you want some juice or something, I’ll bring it out to you. Like, I’ll leave the door open and we can talk and shit, just stay out there.”
Nic screwed up his face.
What a princess.
“We just wanted to talk to you,” I said, and smiled, hoping he hadn’t noticed Nic’s surly expression.
I sat gingerly on the broken sofa. Ray sat in the chair opposite me. From there, he could see the doorway.
“We wanted to ask you about your book,” Kisho called from the doorway, pulling the ragged copy out of his pocket. “Especially this part about the unicorn blood.”
“You read my book? Cool.”
“We did. Where did this section about the unicorn blood come from?”
“Funny you should ask that. Most of the book came from my own observations. You know vampires are real, right? Well, of course you do, since you are vampires. I need to ask you some questions about that. But the unicorn blood stuff…” He stopped for a moment and blushed.
“It’s okay,” I said, wanting to encourage him.
“I found these old papers in the library. Unicorn papers. Not the usual stuff, but much more interesting. Like that whole thing about virgins, true, but it doesn’t have to be a chick, right? Chick, dude, unicorns don’t care. And they aren’t all peaceful and farting rainbows and shit like that either. Unicorns will fuck your shit up, man.”
He gazed at us, all lost in his thoughts.
“Can unicorns breed with humans?” I couldn’t believe those words came out of my mouth.
“Hell yeah. Rarely, but they can. They can change into human form, but most of the time they don’t even bother. Like they don’t think human chicks, or dudes, are hot enough.”
“Can a vampire with unicorn blood shift into a unicorn?” Nic called.
“Dude, are you smoking the crack pipe? Of course not. It’s just unicorn blood, not magic. How would a vampire even have unicorn blood? That doesn’t work at all.”
I glanced over to Kisho. I knew this was stupid.
“What about if they had unicorn blood as a human? Before they turned?” Kisho asked.
Ray glanced up at the ceiling as though the answer was written there.
“Yeah, yeah, that works. Sweet. I hadn’t thought of that. A human with unicorn blood, turned vampire. Oh, man, that’s genius. But they’d be insane. Insanely powerful. Like, if you staked them, the unicorn blood would heal them before the staking killed them. If you could get close enough to even get a stake in them.”
He looked back up to the ceiling, then turned to Nic.
“Is it you?” Ray asked. “You look kind of shimmering. Are you the uni-vamp?”
That was just stupid. I needed to get him on track.
“He’s not a uni-vamp, he’s just incredibly vain. Where did you find the papers? Which library?” I asked. If we could get his source material, then our information wouldn’t be warped by his stoner brain.
“Oh, the one downtown. The city library. But, here’s a spooky thing, when I went back to double-check, those papers were gone. Vanished into thin air. Like they’d never been there at all. The library chick had no idea what I was even talking about. Man, it was like I was meant to find them.”
“Did you take notes, anything?”
“Sure did. They’re in the other room. I’ll get them.”
“Can you get me a hat or something?” Nic said. “The sun out here is way too strong for my delicate skin. I can feel the cells being damaged.”
Ray shook his head. At least he had sense about some things.
“I’ll find something,” he said. “Wait right there. Oh, I guess you don’t have much choice.”
He scratched his head and went to the other room. While he was gone, I walked to the front door.
“This guy is all kinds of crazy,” I said. “We’ll get his notes and go.”
“There’s some truth in his crazy,” Kisho said. “He got things right about the Demon Child.”
“Yeah, but he thought Nic had unicorn blood when it’s obviously just cosmetics.”
“And good genes,” Nic added. “That’s an important part of it.”
I reached out and patted him on the head, then pulled my hand back in the doorway so he couldn’t touch me. This no invitation thing could be fun.
“That was a little childish, don’t you think?” Nic said.
Like he wouldn’t have done the same thing to me if our positions were reversed. Then I remembered the whole ‘him clutching me from certain death’ thing and felt a little bad about it. No matter how annoying he was, I was in his debt.
“What’s that?” Kisho said.
“What’s what?”
“That noise, did you hear it?”
“I heard nothing,” I said. But then a groan came from the bedroom. “Ray?”
I ran into the bedroom. Motherfucker. A dirty great demon wrestled with Ray. And Ray was not a man who could take on a demon, even a tiny little o
ne.
“Holy water…” Ray groaned. “Next to the bed.”
Yeah, holy water wasn’t going to cut it. I knocked Ray out of the way and smashed my fist into the demon’s face.
“What’s going on?” Nic called.
Like I had time to give him a running commentary.
I whipped my blade out of my waistband. The demon recovered and came for me. He knocked Ray to the floor. God, the carpet looked more lethal than the demon. Had this guy never heard of cleaning?
As the demon rushed me, Ray crawled along the floor. I think he wanted to grab that holy water, but he just managed to trip the demon, sending him sprawling to the floor too.
“Thanks, Ray,” I said as I slashed at the demon. One good swipe with my knife and that demon became dust. Pretty piss-poor effort, actually. I’d hardly broken a sweat.
“Is everything okay?” Kisho called.
“I think so.”
I reached down to give Ray a hand up. He grabbed his chest. I thought he was just being all theatrical and crazy until he began foaming at the mouth.
“Shit, guys, help.”
“What’s going on?” Kisho asked.
“He’s foaming. Like a rabid dog.”
“Well, it’s not like we can help,” Nic said. “We can’t exactly come inside.”
Ray slumped down to the floor, clutching at his throat and groaning. He had no wounds or bleeding. My next thought was some kind of poison in the demon’s claws.
I ran into the kitchen, trying to find a clean glass. I ended up having to rinse one out, then filled it with water. That should help.
He took hold of it, but it fell through his fingers, spilling on the floor. Hell, I had no idea about first aid or any of that stuff. The demon had obviously gotten to him before I dusted him.
“What do I?” I called out.
Kisho began reciting some kind of incantation from the doorway.
Ray spluttered and choked. The weird purple color of his face didn’t reassure me. He reached out for me but then slumped back over, his head lolling to the side, as though he lacked the strength to even hold it up. He made a weird gurgling sound.
Then Kisho fell through the doorway, stumbling into the living room. The invisible barrier no longer existed. That meant…
“He’s dead,” Nic said. “Let’s go.”
“Wait, we can’t just leave him. We need to call an ambulance or something.”
“Well call them and then leave. We can’t have anyone seeing you here. Not when you’re public enemy number one.”
Nic wasn’t wrong, but I couldn’t just leave Ray there, dead and alone. I grabbed the blanket off the sofa and covered him with it. It didn’t matter to Ray one way or another, but his death just looked cosier that way.
Where were the papers, though? Ray didn’t have them. One of the drawers was open. I wasn’t sure if Ray had opened it or not. I searched. No papers.
Kisho came into the room and helped me search the rest of the room. Apart from the drawers and the bed, there was no other furniture in the room. Just a lot of pizza boxes on the floor.
“Aren’t you going to help us?” I called to Nic.
“Not likely. This place is filthy.”
“There’s nothing here,” I said to Kisho.
He nodded. “We should leave.”
“Wipe your fingerprints off anything you touched. Hurry,” Nic added.
I called for an ambulance. Poor Ray. None of his garlic or holy water or amulets helped. That demon had known we were coming, and he knew what Ray had.
Chapter 28: Unicorn
“Well, that was no help,” Nic said.
We’d come back to the vampire lair to regroup after a trip to the library to check on any unicorn information. Like Ray had said, that information was long gone.
“Poor Ray.”
“Someone got there before us. That means they know what we’re doing and they’re one step ahead,” Kisho said.
Defeat filled my whole being. I just wanted to slump on the sofa and eat junk food until the inevitable end of the world. I’d pretty much accepted that the Demon Child was part unicorn. It explained a lot. His unusual strength, his lightning-fast reflexes. I’d also accepted that he wasn’t a unicorn shifter. But I couldn’t accept that poor Ray had died. If Kisho was right, that made it our fault. If we’d left him alone, then he’d still be alive. All he’d done was find some information he wasn’t supposed to at the library.
“We can’t kill the Demon Child,” I said. “We have to accept it.”
I’d accomplished the “slump on the sofa” part of my goal. Now I just needed snack foods to binge on.
Nic pursed his lips. He looked so smug that I wanted to hit him. If I could just swing one decent punch at him, I’d probably feel a whole lot better.
“We aren’t going to kill the Demon Child.”
“Huh? But you’re paying me to kill him. That was the assignment.”
“I’m paying you? I seem to remember you walking off the job. The terms of the contract weren’t renegotiated, and you and your dog are living off my charity. So, you aren’t actually back on the case. You’re just hanging out with me. I’m harboring a fugitive. That puts me on the wrong side of the law and might damage my career. Think about that, Miss Lack-of-Gratitude.”
“The mayor and the Vampire King are going to use the Demon Child to start a war. A war that will damage your career more than anything else. Think about that.”
The option of punching him became more appealing. He couldn’t just not pay me. What was I doing here anyway? Oh yeah, besides hiding out from the law and the angry mobs. I guess I couldn’t argue too much. Instead, I went to look for food in the kitchen.
“You never even gave my deposit back.”
I popped my head back into the living room.
“And I’m not. Do you want me to live with you forever? Because that’s what I’m going to have to do if you don’t pay me.”
I found some chocolate hidden in the kitchen. Nic was so mean. He always hid his snack food. Luckily, he was totally shit at hiding it. While I was in the kitchen, I made a sandwich because I couldn’t just live on chocolate.
“Are you eating more of my food?”
“You know, Nic, when you say things like that, it makes me feel unwelcome here.”
I sat back down on the sofa next to Kisho and offered him a bite of my sandwich. I wouldn’t offer Nic one because he was so mean. Kisho had been so nice to me while I recovered that I pushed that whole lying and stealing my book thing to the back of my mind. If I was going to work with these guys, I had to just go with the flow. Maybe their secrets weren’t for me to know.
“Are there any big events coming up? Surely the mayor has a plan,” I said.
“Nothing that we can see.” Kisho frowned.
“So, if we don’t kill the Demon Child, what are we going to do? We can’t let him go nuts on the world.”
“I’m going to tame him. He just needs training,” Nic said, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
I jumped up.
“You are kidding? He killed a lot of people. He has blood on his hands. Not literally. Because he drank it all. But he is a bloodthirsty killer. What makes you think you can tame him?”
“I know I can. He only kills because he’s never learned to control his urges.”
Nic’s smile scared me. This idea was taking root in his head. I had the feeling once that happened, nothing would shift it.
“Training a unicorn vampire won’t be easy.”
“I’ve done a good job of training your out-of-control dog. He kept trying to eat my clothes when he first came here. If I get him before his one hundredth death day, I can tame him. I’ll be his foster dad, and he’ll be my unicorn baby.”
I had to admit that Hellhound’s clothes-eating habits had stopped, but Hellhound was far from being a lethal unicorn/vampire.
“Clem is right. Training the Demon Child will be incredibly difficul
t. He’s never had one bit of training since he turned. He’s feral.”
Nic shook his head.
“But he was a gymnast as a human. He must’ve been super disciplined to do that. He is trainable. It’s just that no one had tried in the last years. How many years, anyway? Is it ninety-five years ago he turned? That gives me five years to get him up to speed. He’ll be an asset for our pack.”
“He’ll make our pack a constant target. And it’s ninety-seven years. That only gives you three years to work on him.”
“Phhht. I can do it in six months. Maybe less. It didn’t take me long to train you.”
I filed that comment in the “things to ask later” part of my brain.
“So, smarty-pants, how do you intend to capture him? We don’t know where he is. We don’t know how to catch him and we’re on the wrong side of the law.”
“You’re on the wrong side of the law. I’m not.”
He had a point there. But he made it incredibly difficult to be grateful with the way he kept throwing it back at me. I’m pretty sure he had a little notebook where he recorded every thing I ate too so that he could present me with a bill in the future.
“We have nothing. No information about where he is, no plan and no way to kill him, and now you have a stupid idea of turning him into your pet. I’m not sure if my life is going to get any worse than this.”
Kisho sat on the sofa beside me and put his arm around me. I rested my head on his shoulder. Even though it didn’t make my life any better, it did make it seem less dire. I looked at Nic for his reaction, but he didn’t even look at us. He stared at something, seemingly lost in his dreams of his vampire/unicorn pet.
You’d think living in the vampire lair, I’d have worked out the relationship between Kisho and Nic. I mean, like if they were screwing or not. But I still had nothing. They never seemed that intimate with each other. Maybe they just liked to play around sometimes. Maybe having me here cramped their action. Nah, that couldn’t be it.
Compared to vampires, incubi had been so simple. They just wanted to stick it in you and drain your life force. None of these mind games and complicated emotions.