Half Past Hell

by Jaye Roycraft

  Kilpatrick stared at him for a moment, as if weighing the sincerity of his words, then nodded to the hospital security staff members. “Release him.”

  Two of the goons unlocked his restraints.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” said Kilpatrick, cocking his head in dismissal.

  The burliest of the goons gave Kilpatrick the same “good riddance” eyebrow cock that the doctor had. “Sure. Call us if you need us again.” They filed out of the small room, leaving the two of them alone.

  As if I couldn’t take on all six of them if I wanted to. But Vall said nothing, flexing his arms instead to test his muscles. He stared at the bare skin exposed by the hospital gown. The regeneration mimicked life, giving his skin a pink shade resembling sunburn. The color would fade quickly, and when the healing was complete, his body wouldn’t show a single scar, except, of course, those he’d earned while still mortal.

  Kilpatrick cleared his throat. “Wallace and DeMora have been waiting for you to regain consciousness so they can interview you, but before they come in here I just want to say one thing. I know you don’t like me, and I don’t like you, but you’re a cop and my partner, and I’d never . . . you know. Well, you know,” he mumbled, picking a stuck seed from his teeth.

  Duvall knew what he was trying to say. He’d never give up his partner. But Vall didn’t know the feeling. He hadn’t joined the Department to be a hero or a part of any Brotherhood of Blue fellowship. Just the contrary.

  Citizens hated cops. They always had, and that would never change. Cops harassed people. They gave out unwarranted tickets when the next guy doing sixty in a thirty-five got by scot-free. They never showed up when you wanted them to do something about that dog barking all night long.

  And cops hated their fellow cops no less. The males didn’t like the females. The whites didn’t like the blacks. The veterans didn’t like the recruits. And it went without saying that the mortals didn’t like the vamps.

  Duvall had become a cop because it was the only profession that gave him a place where he could be apart from both mortals and vampires and that still allowed him a modicum of power. Being a cop supported and strengthened his isolation. It justified his apartness, and that was fine by him.

  “Sure,” he lied. “I know.” Still, Kilpatrick’s admission surprised him, and Vall sensed no disingenuous sentiment behind the words. “Are you going to hang around here? Because after the interview I want to talk to you.” Vall didn’t know if he could trust even DeMora with what he wanted to say. Every vamp had joined the Department for his own separate selfish reason, and there was no more bond with DeMora than there was with Kilpatrick. And in the back of his mind, there was still the suspicion that one of the vamps in the Department spied for Nestor.

  Kilpatrick shrugged. “Yeah, I can hang around. I’ll go down to the cafeteria, grab a bite, and call Candy. She’s been worried about you.” He snorted, as if he found that funny. “When 133’s done with you, I’ll stop back. Anything you want to say now before I send them in here?”

  “Yeah. Don’t say anything to anybody.”

  Kilpatrick shoved the last of the seeds into his mouth, crumpled the bag, and shrugged, as if to say he didn’t know enough to talk about anyway. “Okay. I’ll be back.” He left, tossing the empty bag in a trash can on the way out.

  Wallace and DeMora filed in, expressing gladness that he was still among the living, so to speak. Vall was straightforward in his answers to their questions and gave the best description of both the shooter and the suspect vehicle he could, but he kept his opinions to himself. After an hour they put their memo books away and got up. Wallace left, but DeMora hung back.

  “So, Duvall, what do you think? The doctor said you think your partner was behind it.”

  Vall shrugged. “Who knows? That was the pain talking, but it’s no secret Kilpatrick has no love for any of us. And he worships the Claws. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sleeps with his Sig under his pillow.”

  DeMora smiled, giving him a brotherly flash of fang. “Right. Well, I know I don’t have to tell you not to trust him.”

  He returned the fang flash, and as soon as DeMora was gone, Vall used the hospital phone at his bedside to call Kilpatrick’s cell phone number.

  “Kilpatrick.”

  “They’re gone. Come on back to my room.”

  Ten minutes later his partner settled into the hard plastic chair DeMora had recently vacated. His suit coat was unbuttoned, and his white shirt stretched tight over an abdomen that was well-fed but hard. His right hand held a large Styrofoam cup of the coffee that seemed as much of a fix as blood was to him.

  “The wife sends hugs and kisses. She hopes you’ll still be able to come over to the house next week.”

  He smiled. “Tell her that meeting her will be my pleasure. I’ll be out of here tomorrow and back to work, so next week is still a go.” He had a growing affection for Miss Candy.

  “So what did you want to talk about?”

  He had raised the top half of the bed up so he could sit and talk to Wallace and DeMora eye to eye, but he raised it another couple of inches now. “How much do you know about the Brothers of the Sun?”

  Kilpatrick raised his brows and lifted one shoulder. “I know what everybody knows who lived through the war. I was only twelve when it started, but I listened to the news. They made the Claw famous as a vamp-killer during the war, but hell, everybody uses Claws now—law enforcement, the military, you name it. It’s the hottest black-market item out there.” He paused. “You think the Brothers are behind this? They dropped out of sight when the war ended.”

  “I was in Chicago when the war started. You didn’t know that, did you? In fact, I was only a mile away when Carlos Silgar and his crew of vampire hunters found that first colony in Wicker Park and exterminated fourteen sucklings too young and stupid to keep their pitiful existence a secret from the world.”

  Kilpatrick put his cup of coffee on the floor and leaned forward with his feet spread apart and his elbows on his thighs.

  “It was the media frenzy to end all,” he continued.

  “I remember.”

  “After that Silgar didn’t need to kill another vamp. The people of Chicago did it for him. You ever live there?”

  Kilpatrick shook his head.

  Vall took a deep breath and focused his gaze on a poster on the wall. This was a room reserved for undead residents only, and the poster touted the usual propaganda—the benefits of night person registration and bottled blood. “It’s a strange city. The Gold Coast mansions north of the Magnificent Mile are only six blocks from low-income housing. But I don’t know if it would’ve been any different in any other city. Mob mentality is mob mentality. People panicked and set fires to any poor neighborhood they suspected of housing a colony. Some called it the Second Chicago Fire. Most called it Urban Renewal. But the Brothers were still a big part of those early days. Most masters went to ground and stayed there. They didn’t care if every suckling in Chicago went up in smoke. Don’t ask me why, but I was part of the underground that tried to help. We tried to smuggle the young ones out of Chicago and relocate them somewhere safer, but, ah . . .” He shook his head, wondering why he was telling Kilpatrick all this. Few mortals had ever known about the Chicago underground.

  He met Kilpatrick’s gaze, which was as focused as he’d ever seen it. “Anyway, I was caught in more than one house fire, and I had more than one run-in with the Brothers. This guy tonight . . . I’d lay odds he’s a Brother.”

  Kilpatrick sat up straight and ran a hand through the Elvis perfection, dislodging strands that curved over one eye. “Whoa. You think he was targeting any squid cop or you in particular?”

  Vall let the slur slide. He had taken Kilpatrick out of his comfort zone, big time. “I think he wanted me. I’ve been stirring the pot to see what surfaces.” He told Kilpa
trick about dropping the stolen evidence bottles off at the lab for an independent analysis. The visit to Nestor, however, he kept to himself. It was unwritten law that vamps didn’t divulge secrets of the true vampire community to mortals, and Vall had already told Kilpatrick more tonight than he should have.

  “You think there’s a connection between the Brothers and the poisoned blood?”

  Vall nodded. “I think there’s a connection somewhere, yeah. Kilpatrick.”

  His partner leaned forward again, no doubt eager for more skeletons in the vamp closet to be revealed.

  “This is squad talk. It stays between you and me, understand? I don’t want you telling even Candy about this. And you don’t trust Wallace or any of your buddies with anything I’ve said tonight. Are we perfectly clear on this? Because if I find out you’ve gone behind my back on this, partner or no partner, it’s not going to be pretty.”

  Kilpatrick’s eyes were as round and glassy as a pair of marbles, reminding Vall of a deer caught in a spotlight. “Yeah, sure. Absolutely. It stays between you and me.”

  “Listen, as long as you’re on desk duty, do some research on the Internet. Find out everything you can on the Brothers of the Sun and Carlos Silgar. The vampire community put out a bounty on him years ago, but I never heard that anyone collected on it. And remember this—hunters don’t make money in peacetime.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  Vall wanted to smile. He had taken responsibility for the squad, for the two of them, and Kilpatrick had come around sooner than he’d hoped. “Are you back on the street tomorrow?”

  “Who knows? With everything that’s happened tonight, nobody has said shit about my problems.”

  “By tomorrow, no one’ll even remember you shot anyone.”

  Kilpatrick grunted. “I suppose I should thank you for that. When do you get the results back on the bottles?”

  “Within the week.”

  Kilpatrick retrieved his coffee and stood. “I’m going downtown. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  “Try to stay out of the news.”

  With a smirk, his partner was gone, and Vall lowered the bed and closed his eyes. Within the week. Within the week he’d have the results back on the bottles, he’d meet the legendary Miss Candy, and he’d know whether or not Veronica Main had any real interest in him. Within the next week more vamps would die the true death. Whatever enemy was out there would be taking their game to the next level. He hoped he wouldn’t be among the fresh corpses.

  KIL GOT HOME at five-thirty in the morning, and as soon as he unlocked the door and let himself inside Candy threw her weight into his arms. She was warm, soft, and best of all, she smelled unbelievably good. The small vampire wing of County Hospital had reeked—a cross between the odor of a funeral parlor and a nursing home.

  “Oh, John, that could have been you tonight.”

  “Naw,” he whispered. “Whoever it is just wants vamps.”

  She pulled away far enough for him to look at her face. Her eyes were all puffy, and he guessed she’d been up all night. “Is Duvall okay? I saw the news footage on TV, and the crash looked horrible.”

  “He’s fine. Fuckin’ squids are indestructible. When you see him he won’t have a scratch on him.”

  “John, your language.”

  “You never objected before.”

  “Well, this one saved your life. Show some respect.”

  “Bring me a beer, babe.”

  “Beer at this hour? Don’t you want breakfast?”

  “I ate late at the hospital. Speakin’ of which, send this suit out to be cleaned. It smells like I spent all night in the morgue.”

  Candy sighed, let go of him, and padded toward the kitchen. He went upstairs, took off the suit, and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. Candy came in and handed him a cold beer, eyeing the jeans with a frown. “Aren’t you going to bed?”

  He took a long swallow and kissed her on the cheek. “Not yet. I need to unwind. Why don’t you lie down and get some sleep? You look tired, babe. I’ll be back up in little while.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he walked out of the bedroom, and she didn’t follow. He went downstairs, dropped into his favorite family room leather armchair, and closed his eyes.

  When Duvall had asked what he knew about the Brothers of the Sun, he had thought he had known it all. They’d been heroes to the twelve-year-old whose world had just turned upside down. He’d been too old for the action figures, but he’d devoured the comic books, computer games, and TV movies that had all touted the dominance of the vampire hunters over the monsters who walked the earth. Tonight, though, he’d found out just how little he knew. There’d been dozens of websites on the Internet devoted to the Brothers of the Sun, and even more articles. Some were fan sites devoted to hero worship, but many more were critical of the hunters, blaming them for the war and its casualties as much, if not more, than the vampires.

  Everything was getting muddled up, and he didn’t like it. The world had changed when he was twelve, and he’d adjusted. He’d found a place in the new world, a place that had made him feel good about who he was. An ordered society needed laws, and he’d been happy doing his part to enforce those laws. As for vampires—they were lying, deceitful, immoral creatures—but like humans with criminal records, as long as they behaved themselves, he didn’t concern himself with them. But when affirmative action had started allowing vampires into government jobs, it’d been like letting convicted felons into the police department. It hadn’t been right.

  And now he didn’t know what was right anymore. He was hiding evidence, cutting himself off from cops he’d spent years trusting with his life, and was investigating the Brothers of the Sun as if they were the enemy. It was all wrong. Yet, what could he do? Go to Butler and rat out Duvall for concealing evidence? If he did that, no cop—mortal or squid—would ever trust him or work with him again. He could accept a voluntary demotion back to police officer and go back to simpler days of taking hitches and writing tickets, but he’d worked hard for the rank of detective, and he’d be damned if he gave up what he’d worked so hard for.

  I need clarity, he thought, downing the last of the beer. He needed to focus on his goal and keep things simple. He needed to solve the case. If he did, all sins would be forgiven.

  He went upstairs, undressed, and crawled into bed. He wanted Candy to tell him everything would be all right, but she was already asleep.

  Twelve

  The Wilderness

  1757

  WULF KNEW HE was dying, and that it was no dream.

  He’d seen the faces of too many soldiers on the cusp of death not to recognize the feeling in himself. In the midst of the body’s agony, death was surrender to the inevitable, a joy that peace at last was at hand. But that joy and peace, so near that he saw it even with his eyes closed—a doorway filled with the most brilliant white light he’d ever seen—faded and retreated as quickly as it had appeared.

  In its place he saw the woman, and she unhooked her cloak and slid it from her shoulders. She unbuttoned her muslin blouse as well, and he understood nothing, for the hands of mortal death still cradled his body, and his mind had never experienced the likes of her before.

  She had blood on her mouth, his blood, and the realization of what she’d done to him finally hit. She’d taken his blood, drunk from him like a red savage and killed him, and yet he could do no more now than stare at her.

  “I’m Dorothea,” she said softly, shedding the blouse as she had the cloak. She was naked from the waist up, so pale her dark veins were visible through the translucent skin of her breasts. They were large and beautiful and glowed like twin moons in the night, and even in death he craved her with an ache as hard and heavy as his morbid flesh.

  “I give you life, brave soldier. Take it.” She pulled him
into her arms, and with a silver-tipped finger cut her breast. He stared at the dark liquid running down the curves of her bosom. “Take me,” she said, guiding his mouth to her wound.

  He wanted to live. He fed at her breast, and his mind went blank, drained of all thought and aware of only one thing. Need. His need was boundless, eternal, and he suckled harder in desperation and desire until he fell from his host, gorged on her blood.

  HE WOKE FROM his stupor, but had no idea if it was day or night. The sky was still dark, but there was so much light that he saw everything around him. The dead leaves upon which he lay had a wondrous texture, and he saw their every vein and wrinkle. The trees around him were each so different in size and shape that he saw them as children, each unique. And he saw Dorothea, and she was even more beautiful than before.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  She smiled. “We are the Nathusius, the undead.”

  He didn’t understand. “And him?” Wulf nodded toward her companion, the old man.

  “He is Nathusius, our creator, our father. We are all named for him, so he is just le père.”

  He frowned. “French?” He had no love for the Frenchies. The French had betrayed them all, promising safety, promising . . . he couldn’t remember.

  “Once upon a time, but those things are no longer important to us.”

  His body was still in agony. “What did you do to me?”

  “You have died and been reborn. You are one of us now. We will care for you and teach you. But first we must leave this place and take shelter. Your body is still adjusting, and you will need rest.”

  He had to find his mates. The 35th. He had to move on. “Fort Edward . . .”

  She laughed as she helped him to his feet. “You are no longer a soldier. You no longer owe allegiance to whatever army or country you fought for. Your only loyalty henceforth is to us, le père, and yourself. Remember that. What is your name?”