Better Off Undead: The Bloodhound Files

by DD Barant

  He’s pacing around his office while I sit. I’ve never seen him pace—he’s always calm and in control. It’s unnerving.

  “I can’t believe you let him get away,” Cassius says. “You had him, he was right there.”

  I’m glad I haven’t mentioned that Charlie was there, too—he’d be in even more trouble than I am. “I tried, all right? It’s this sange ucenicie thing—it wouldn’t let me.”

  “I should reassign you.”

  “What? No! Look, Leo explained the rules to me—Tair can’t make me do anything I normally wouldn’t, I just can’t harm him. Which is fine, because we need to take him alive anyway, right?”

  “Yes. I suppose we do.”

  “Then nothing’s changed. We set a trap, with me as bait. The next time Tair makes contact, we take him down.”

  “If Charlie had done his job, that’s exactly what would have happened.”

  I shake my head. “I told you, this isn’t his fault—I got away from him, that’s all. What, you don’t think a mere human is capable of eluding one of you mighty supernatural beings?” I don’t play the human card very often, but there’s no way I’m letting Charlie take the fall. The only mistake he might have made was in trusting his partner, and I’m not going to repay that by getting him in trouble.

  “I’m not questioning your capabilities, Jace. I’m just worried about you.” He hesitates. “I think we should advance your schedule. Give you another treatment.”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

  “I see. So you’ve decided you’d rather be a werewolf than a hemovore. I understand.” He sounds angry, which is also unlike him.

  “Oh, please. Give me a little credit, will you? You think one little walk on the wild side is going to make up my mind for me? Yeah, he showed me a very small slice of what being a thrope was like, and I won’t say it didn’t have its attraction. But I’m the one who decides, Cassius. Not Tair, not you, not a damn virus. And right now I am still very much rooting for the home team—which, in case you’re unclear, is the old-fashioned human one.”

  “I’m sorry if I misspoke. But we’re treading a very fine line here, and in order to ensure that the process we’ve started is successful, we need to balance the two forces fighting for dominance in your body. Your experience with Tair has no doubt bolstered the thrope side; I simply want to counter that.”

  He’s right, I know he’s right. So why am I so resistant to the idea? Am I afraid of Cassius now? Is it the sange ucenicie, affecting me in some way Leo didn’t foresee? I don’t know—I just know that right now, the last thing I want is another out-of-body experience. What I do want is—

  “I want to see other people,” I blurt.

  Cassius looks at me. Raises an eyebrow.

  “Real people, I mean. Non-supernatural. People who don’t howl at the moon or avoid the sun or think silver was created by the Devil. People like me.”

  Cassius shakes his head. “There aren’t any people like you, Jace. For which I am thankful. But I understand what you’re saying; it’s natural to seek comfort in the familiar when surrounded by the strange. Frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t asked me about this earlier.”

  Cassius likes to support human causes, and the one pseudo-date we’ve been on was when he took me to a charity event sponsoring human-created art. I didn’t really connect with any of the people I met there, and the fact that one of them was an ex-flame of Cassius’s put me off even further.

  But I feel a craving for human contact—genuine human contact, with my own kind. Call me a racist or a speciesist or whatever you want—I just know it’s what I need right now. And I know Cassius is the person who can make it happen.

  “So?” I ask. “You can help with that, right?”

  “Of course. In fact, I can take you there right now, if you’d like.”

  “There? There’s a there?” For some reason I hadn’t thought of a specific location—I guess I just assumed he’d ask me what sort of person I’d like to talk to, then arrange it.

  “Yes.” He opens a cupboard, takes out a gray hooded daymask, matching gloves, and goggles. “It’s not far. Or would you prefer to discuss logistics for trapping Tair first?”

  “No. No, now is fine.”

  “All right. You’ll have to leave Charlie here, though.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll explain on the way.” He’s already halfway out the door.

  The problem with Charlie is that he’s black.

  That sounds racist, but it’s not—well, not exactly. Golems are filled with different-colored sand depending on what sort of job they’re designed for; that job is usually defined by the spirit of the animal they’re animated by. Most lems are slated for heavy physical labor, which is yellow. Office workers are the same, but it’s a lighter shade. Those are generally powered by some sort of beast of burden, like a bull or a horse.

  Black volcanic sand is the designation for enforcer. Police officers, soldiers, bodyguards. They’re powered by carnivores—lions, bears, even snakes. Charlie’s a special case, made by government shamans by distilling the essence of a T. rex out of crude oil.

  And the humans are scared to death of him.

  “Lems were designed to help humanity,” Cassius tells me as he drives. He isn’t wearing the daymask yet—his car windows are heavily tinted, naturally—but he’s slipped on the gloves. “For a long time, that’s exactly what they did. But as the thropes and pires became increasingly dominant in society, that changed. Lems grew more and more independent, less willing to be weapons or slaves. And they saw which way the world was going.”

  “So they jumped ship? Declared allegiance to the other side?”

  “No. They elected to be neutral. They refused to fight for humans against the supernatural races, and vice versa. But by the time they came to that decision, it was too late—the human race was in decline. There was nothing that the lems could have done to stop that, either; it was simply the natural progression of economics and politics.”

  I look out the window. We’re driving through a part of town that’s not exactly picturesque; sagging gray houses, concrete-block fences, yards overgrown with weeds. Thropes in half-were form, standing around in groups of five or six, passing around a bottle and what looks like the carcass of a goat. It’s not even noon.

  “Okay, so they don’t have a lot of faith in lems—I can understand that. But neutral’s still better than active opposition, right?”

  Cassius gives his head the barest shake, staring straight ahead at the road. “That’s not the problem. Enforcement lems are a relatively new development—they’ve only been around a few decades. Before that, soldiers were the same yellow that laborers are now.”

  I think about that. “And black lems are made from predators.”

  “Yes. On some level, humans equate them with thropes or pires.”

  Which makes sense—but the more I think about it, the less I like it. “There’s more to it than that, isn’t there? When I headed that strike force going after Stoker, they had no problem with a human target.”

  “Enforcement lems can’t afford the luxury of not engaging with a particular group. They were the first lems to be used against humans.”

  Now I get it. In their eyes, Charlie is worse than a deserter—he’s a traitor. No wonder they don’t want him around.

  We turn off one squalid street and onto another one. We’re at the edge of a semi-industrial area, lots of boxy warehouses and heavy equipment behind chain-link fences. I can hear the grind and chatter of machinery in the background like the soundtrack to a robot musical. Cassius drives right to the end of the street, where another fenced-off industrial lot sits. This one has better security than most: Razor wire glints along the top of the fence, and there are security cameras on poles every thirty feet or so. There’s even a concrete guardhouse by the front gate, though there’s no sign or corporate logo.

  Cassius pulls up and puts an ID card into a slot in a concret
e pillar. I can’t see anyone through the mirrored glass of the guardhouse windows, but apparently Cassius passes muster; after humming for a moment, the slot spits his card back out and the gate swings open. Cassius drives inside.

  “Welcome to the Seattle Enclave,” he says.

  A continuous line of row housing on either side, all the way to the back of the lot. Blocky gray concrete building in front of us, windows barred with rusty iron. Peeling paint on the houses, nothing taller than two stories. Between the houses and the central building is a patchy, half-gravel lawn. There are people outside sitting on folding chairs beside front doors, a few attempting a game of bocce on the largest patch of lawn. I don’t see any children.

  “This is where they live?” I say. The place looks and feels like a prison. “Since when was being human a crime?”

  “They’re not locked up, Jace. The security precautions are for their benefit—in fact, they insisted on them.”

  We pull up and park beside the central building. There are a few other cars parked there, none of them new, most of them with iron grilles over the windows. This isn’t a prison—it’s a reservation. A reservation full of scared, isolated people.

  My people.

  SIXTEEN

  Cassius pulls on his daymask and goggles, tucking the edges of the fabric into his collar. “I don’t normally come here when the sun is up. The buildings have many windows, none of them tinted. They like lots of natural light.”

  The mask turns him into an anonymous stranger in a suit. A faceless representative of authority, of the world that drove these people to this place. Yeah, not creepy at all.

  We get out. Everyone’s looking at us, with the careful blankness reserved for newcomers who haven’t demonstrated yet whether or not they’re a threat. I met a number of “unenhanced”—as the supernaturals refer to them—humans at the art benefit, but I don’t see anyone I recognize. Cassius heads for the main building, and I follow.

  The front doors are glass, and the lobby is about as grim and depressing as I expect. Industrial carpeting, bland pastel walls, Naugahyde waiting-room furniture. A gray metal elevator door in one corner, and a wood-veneer desk with a plump, dark-haired woman in her fifties in the other. But the flatscreen monitor she’s looking at is brand new, and she greets us with a smile and a nod. “Hello, David. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  “Hello, Teresa. I’d like you to meet Jace Valchek. Jace, Teresa McKeever.”

  Teresa’s eyebrows go up, but her smile gets wider. “Ms. Valchek! A pleasure—I’ve heard so much about you. I was wondering when you’d come and see us.”

  “I’ve—been pretty busy,” I say. I feel embarrassed, as if she’s a relative I’ve somehow let down. “Work. You know how it is.”

  She nods. “I do. This place keeps me hopping, I’ll tell you that. But you’re always welcome here—” The monitor beeps at her softly, and the look on her face becomes one of mild consternation. She glances down, then back up at me, then down again. “Oh, my,” she says. “This isn’t—this can’t be right—”

  “I’m afraid it is,” Cassius says. “But her first transformation hasn’t occurred yet. Because of her special circumstances, we may be able to reverse it.”

  Teresa looks at me, concern and something else warring in her eyes. Concern wins; she comes around the desk and envelops me in a stout, matronly hug. I’m not much of a hugger, so it catches me off guard. “I’m so, so sorry, my dear,” she says, then pulls back to regard me at arm’s length. “How did it happen? Are you all right? How are you holding up?”

  “Uh—I’m okay,” I say. “Did you just get an e-mail about me or something? Is my health status on the Internet already?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. We just have extremely sensitive wards in place—my equipment identified you as a thrope. A very new one, too.”

  That makes sense—no one would have better mystic alarm systems than these folks. Humans have a natural affinity for manipulating magic, more so than the supernaturals; I’m guessing this place is protected by more than just fences and security cameras.

  “How can we help, my dear?” Teresa asks. She takes a step back and regards me gravely.

  “I’m not sure,” I say honestly. “I just felt like I needed to—I don’t know, reconnect.”

  Teresa nods. “Of course, of course. Well, you’ve come to the right place. David, you’ll be all right out here?”

  “I’ll wait in the car. Jace, Teresa will show you around. Take as long as you like.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  He turns around and leaves. I watch him go, feeling a little like a kid being dropped off at kindergarten.

  “So,” Teresa says. “What has David told you about us?”

  “Not much. Just that you’re the officially sanctioned Human Enclave for the Seattle area, and you like to stay off the radar.”

  “That we do, that we do.” She motions to me to take a seat, and chooses to sit down beside me instead of returning to her desk. “We’re somewhat … cautious in our approach to the outside world, Jace. Despite being protected by federal law, we still have enemies. People who see us as remnants of the past that should be eliminated, or people who simply want to use us for our abilities or our blood.”

  I think about the Purebloods, the pire equivalent of white supremacists, and nod. And then there’s Japan, where human blood is an expensive black-market item controlled by the Yakuza—who keep underground blood farms pumping out product from human captives. “I know, Teresa. Believe me, I understand why you’d be careful about outsiders.”

  “Yes. Well.” She looks a little uncomfortable now. “David’s vouched for you, and that’s good enough for us. He’s been our greatest ally—really, I can’t think of another person who’s done more for us in the last fifty years.”

  I’m not sure how to respond to that. Cassius certainly appears to care about the plight of the human population, but I’m a little unsure of his motivation. The cynical side of me says he’s just trying to appease his guilt, to make up for the sacrifice of six million humans to an Elder God in 1945, a sacrifice that Cassius himself was involved with. The even more cynical side thinks he just wants an ongoing supply of human females, because that’s what floats Cassius’s boat.

  Six million corpses. Hard not to compare it to what my world’s Hitler did, except the Allies here had a much better reason—the deal they made gained pires the right to procreate, thereby saving their entire race from eventual extinction. That doesn’t make what they did any less horrifying or easier to excuse, but it does make it a little easier to understand. In my world we dropped atomic bombs on two different cities, killing over two hundred thousand people, most of them civilians. How many lives did it save, by ending the war quickly? There’s no way to know. Every pire born since 1945—not just in this country, but worldwide—wouldn’t exist without the deal the Allies made with Shub-Niggurath, and that will continue to be true for presumably centuries to come. Was it justifiable to kill millions of one race to ensure the existence of billions of another?

  I don’t know. I suspect Cassius doesn’t, either. But every time I look into the eyes of Gretchen’s baby, Anna, I’m glad she’s in the world.

  That being said, I’m still a tourist. I wasn’t here in 1945, but Teresa’s parents probably were. She might have very different views on the subject, and I don’t think I’d want to argue with her. I wonder just how much she knows about Cassius’s involvement—he’d been head of the NSA for a decade by then. I’ve always wondered just how deep his responsibility for the massacre ran, but I’ve never had the nerve to bring it up. Some elephants are just too big, no matter what room you’re in.

  “I know what you must want to see,” Teresa says. “We just got something in, too—a very special find. I won’t spoil the surprise.”

  “Actually, I have no idea what I want to see. Like I said, I’m not even sure why I’m here.”

  She studies the look on my face, and then a smile breaks
out on her own. “David hasn’t told you what we do, has he?”

  “Do? Not specifically, no.”

  “David, David, David … if he kept his mouth any more closed, his lips would grow together.” She stands up abruptly. “Well, you’re in for a treat. Just stick close to me—as I said, we have very sensitive wards in place. You don’t read very high on the lycanthropic scale, so we should be fine as long as we stay together.”

  She bustles over to the elevator and presses the call button. The door slides back smoothly and silently, and we step inside.

  She presses the only destination button on the panel, marked with the words DISPLAY FLOOR. The elevator begins to sink. It goes down farther than I would have expected, but I shouldn’t be surprised; pire architecture leans heavily toward sub-basements.

  As if reading my thoughts, Teresa says, “There was a lot of disagreement over where to house the exhibits. Some of us—including me—thought they should be on public display, out in the open. Out in the light. But a lot more people voted for security. They won.”

  The elevator door slides open.

  I have an idea of what I’m going to see—all the talk of displays and exhibits leads me to believe this is some sort of gallery of human art, similar to the charity event Cassius took me to. In the back of my mind, I’m envisioning a dusty subterranean warehouse, kind of like that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark but underground.

  I’m very, very wrong.

  The space we step into is huge, a vast, cavernous room big enough to park a fleet of 747s in. The roof is easily thirty stories high, and the far wall is the length of a dozen football fields away. But it’s what the room holds that’s truly amazing.

  The room is a patchwork of environments, each of them a fully realized microcosm complete with terrain, weather, and vegetation. But that’s just set dressing; it’s what they surround that takes my breath away.

  Directly in front of me, the Sphinx regards us impassively from her sandy bed. To one side, the distinctive spires and minarets of the Taj Mahal gleam a pristine white; the curving stone walls of the Roman Colosseum flank the other. For a second I feel like I’ve just stepped into a theme park, or maybe some newly opened stretch of the Las Vegas Strip. But these aren’t three-quarterscale copies, they’re full-size. And they’re not the only structures on display, either.