Relinquished Hood

by Kendrai Meeks

  “You didn’t know I was a hood.”

  “How would I even begin to imagine that?” he threw back. “You’re supposed to be out in the countryside, roaming through leafy forests and collecting apples on your way to grandmother’s house, not pushing a mail cart around a Chicago skyscraper.”

  “Oh, man, you have really bought into the Grimm brothers PR job, haven’t you?”

  “Always envied the wolf in that.” He winked. “I always wondered what a hood would taste like if I ever got a chance to eat one.”

  Dizzy with the implication, I moved on. “Stop that, be serious. You’re going to have to help me understand this. If you’re running from vampires, why are you knowingly hiding behind vampires? Is it, like, some sort of hiding in plain sight thing?”

  “No, it’s like a good vampire/bad vampire thing,” he said. Caleb laced his hands and set them before his now empty coffee cup on the table. “You sure you want to know this? Why I’m really here? I don’t know if you ever heard the expression, but a little bit of knowledge...”

  “...is a dangerous thing,” we said together.

  I continued on alone. “One of my mother’s favorite idioms, and one of her justifications for making me study combat or arcane pieces of history so fiercely. But yes, I want to know.”

  “Okay, then. The truth is, I’m probably one of the best slayers in the world.”

  He paused, giving me an opportunity to laud him, I assumed, but all that came out was, “Well, you’re probably one of the only slayers, so...”

  “Touché.” He stood, taking his empty cup and my untouched one to the sink. “Even if there were others, though, I’d still say that. I’ve been hunted since my parents died. Six times, I’ve come face to face with a vamp, and five times I slayed it.”

  “And the sixth time?”

  “I barely managed to get away,” he admitted, staring off into space. “The five I killed were pretty young, half a century at most. But that sixth one? He was one of the Ravens. I’m a gifted slayer, but even I couldn’t take on a daemon.”

  A chill crept down my spine, radiating out to my extremities. “Demons? Are those real?”

  “Not demon, daemon. It refers specifically to one of the vampires in the Dracule line. It’s the word the ancient Greeks used for a creature somewhere between a god and a man. To a Huey, a vampire’s abilities would seem divine. You know how they twist our truths. Hoods become one single, innocent young girl attacked by a wolf while going to grandmother’s house. Slayers become either an elderly Danish quack or Sarah Michelle Geller. And the Seven Sons of Dracula become...”

  “Ravens,” I said, cutting him off.

  “The Seven Ravens.” The slayer grinned at my insight. “Dracula’s daemon progeny: one daughter and seven sons. The Grimms got that right. The rest of the details, not so much.”

  “My cousin told me a version of it.” I repeated the story as I remembered Markus relaying it over a feuernacht, years ago. “He said that Dracula’s sons were supposed to protect and defend their clutch against a rival group moving in from the east. Especially his daughter. But the brothers ended up hating Daddy Vamp. Dracula couldn’t bring himself to kill his own progeny, so instead, he sealed them inside a mountain.”

  My face screwed up. “That part of the story never made sense to me. How would Dracula, or any vamp for that matter, seal anyone inside a mountain? Do they have some secret rock-altering ability no one has told me about?”

  “No, and honestly, I don’t get that part of the story either. If slayers knew the truth of it once, it’s been lost now. But somehow, Dracula managed to contain them for centuries. Until about fifty years ago, that is.”

  I felt like a child at story time, sliding to the edge of my seat. “What happened fifty years ago?”

  “Dracula died.”

  “He did? But I thought he was the one vamp a slayer never bested.”

  Caleb crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “A slayer didn’t best him. Time did.”

  My curious expression pressed him to continue.

  “I bet you hoods are the same as the Hueys on that. You think vampires are immortal.”

  “They’re not?”

  He grinned, amused by my naiveté. “Not in the way it really matters. When a Huey is folded into a crèche and undergoes his change, yes, the baby vamp stops aging, doesn’t get sick anymore, and basically becomes indestructible short of a massive sun burn, decapitation, or wood to the heart or brain, but immortal? There’s this great old saying from where my people come from: five hundred to the day, then pass away.” He shrugged. “I mean, it’s not exactly that clean and easy, but yeah, a vampire will last about five hundred years, give or take a decade or two, and then it turns to stone.”

  His yarn had hit a snag. “Wait a minute. If that was true, there would be all kinds of awesomely accurate statues of vamps all over the world.”

  “They turn to dust when struck directly by sunlight,” he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “And for the ones that go stony somewhere where the sun would never find them...”

  He held out his hand, sparking another luminous orb on his palm. I winced, my retinas burning.

  The memory of babysitting the baby vamp I’d killed in the alley, just waiting for the sun to rise and destroy the evidence of my slaying him, I ground my teeth. “Isn’t that convenient?”

  Closing his hand, Caleb again squashed the sphere from existence. “So, anyways, like I was saying, fifty years ago, the Count finally kicks it, and the Ravens are set loose on the world. My people were already dwindling in numbers then. Guess we fell prey to affluence just like anyone else. More wealth, less children, younger generations not wanting to uphold the traditions of the elders. You now, that kind of thing. Then, too many slayers started taking Hueys for mates. A Huey-slayer kid might have the gift to fight vamps, but beyond that first generation, no such luck.”

  Wouldn’t my mother be pleased to learn she’d been right on that theory.

  Caleb continued. “When the Ravens returned and started picking us off, we were pretty much doomed. And that’s why I’m here: because they’re still out there, and they won’t stop until each and every slayer is either dead, or their prisoner. The vamps at WWL, though, protect me.”

  “But why?” I asked, trying to digest the massive history lesson I’d just been given. “I get why a vamp might like to see a slayer dead, especially if it came down to a life-to-life face off. But why are Dracula’s sons so determined that slayers go extinct? Which, by the way, everyone assumes they are.”

  His tightening jaw suggested either frustration or bluff. Caleb knew the reason, he just wasn’t sure if he should – or could – tell me. After a few moments of his silence, and myself knowing the importance of keeping secrets, I moved on.

  “Okay then, if you can’t tell me that, then what’s in it for WWL? Why grant you asylum?”

  Out of nowhere, Caleb clapped and got to his feet. “Well, it’s after dark and I’m willing to bet you should have clocked out by now. Unless you want to hop in the shower with me, which is normally what I do after coffee in the evening.”

  “Another time, maybe.” I slid off the chair, inwardly groaning as I anticipated the ten-mile run that awaited me when I got home. Thunder rumbled in my head as lightning struck my brain. “Hey, Caleb?”

  “Geri?”

  I took a step closer, relaxing my features, putting on an air of vulnerability. “You’re trained to defend against vampires, right?”

  He deadpanned, pointing both index fingers at himself. “Slayer.”

  “Right.” Another small step, the lowering of my gaze. “Can you teach me?”

  The vein on the side of his neck ticked. “You, a hood, want to learn how to fight vampires?”

  “Don’t think of me as a hood. Think of me as a girl from the country, alone in the big, bad city for the first time, all on my lonesome, who just happens to end up working at a company
run by vampires. It’s been happening more lately, hoods having to fill in for slayers and take on vamps who’ve gone a little batty. All the bloodlines are reporting it, but we’re still not trained for it. All I’m asking is if it you could teach me how to defend myself, if it ever came down to it?”

  He was either calling me on my bluff, or falling into my trap. Either way, when he took a step toward me, his eyes looking at my lips, I had to wonder if I bought my own con. His proximity sent my head spinning.

  “If you were just some Huey girl, and you found yourself squaring off with a vamp,” he said, his voice husky, “you wouldn’t stand a chance. But you’re not a human girl, are you, Geri?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Then you might. You know what? Sure, why not? If for no other reason, then when the Ravens do find me, and if I am the last, our skills will live on. But I have to warn you—”

  He moved again, his step bringing us chest to chest. He leaned in, his lips just inches from mine.

  “—I fight dirty.”

  He’s going to kiss me. No sooner had the thought occurred to me, and my eyes fluttered closed, then a breeze whisked through my hair. By the time I opened my eyes, Caleb was already at the door of the kitchen into the hall.

  Apparently, vamps weren’t the only ones who could move with superhuman speeds.

  “I really have to book it,” he said, disappearing down the hall. “Meet me tomorrow night at seven at the executive gym. I’ll trust you can show yourself out.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I ran home from the El, dizzy from the day’s events. Not only were the slayers alive, but one was going to give me lessons on how to defend against vamps. And he was hot. And a flirt. And god damn it, even if I had no intentions of flirting back for any other reason than manipulating him to fit my own needs, it felt good to be flirted with. Coming off of two relationships that had ended both in their own uniquely tragic ways, I had started to doubt that I’d been meant to have any sort of appeal as female. Yes, Caleb might be playing up my attraction to him for his own ends, but it was hard to think what those ends might be.

  Other than the one possibility that was the aim of males of any species. To my own surprise, that didn’t sound too bad. For the moment, however, I had to deal with another male, one whose only intention for me was to serve as a vehicle of his revenge and to buy dumplings.

  “You’re late.” Tobias glared at me the moment I walked in the door. “Again.”

  “Sorry.”

  I dropped my backpack on the couch and shimmied out of my street shoes. After I found out I’d been demoted to the mailroom, I didn’t bother with anything that gave an air of professionalism. The high-heel shoes I’d worn to orientation ended up in a dumpster somewhere. As I walked to my room, peeling off work clothes so I could change into my yoga pants and sports bra, the wolf trailed me, sniffing deeply.

  “What’s that?”

  For the briefest of moments, I stilled, before forcing myself to keep moving. Hopefully, he thought my quickening pulse was merely because he was standing in my room as I changed. Wolves knew better than to expect a blushing damsel around their own nudity, but hoods weren’t as loose on the practice of bearing all.

  “What’s what?”

  He inhaled again, closing his eyes, concentrating on the profile. “You smell different. It’s... some animal I never smelled before.”

  I wasn’t a liar, but I knew when to conjure a truth for my own sake or somebody else. I could have, of course, told Tobias about Caleb without mentioning the part about him being a slayer, but I was pretty sure I couldn’t do it without grinning like a school girl, suggesting I had a crush that would distract me from my work. The last thing the grieving wolf needed was to see me being giddy over a guy.

  “Had to make a delivery to one of the labs today. Must have been whatever chemical concoction they were working on. Why, what does it smell like?”

  “It smells like...” He fell back to sit on my bed. “Sunshine? I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s what it reminds me of. Are the vampires trying to manufacturer sunshine?”

  “Science has already invented sunlamps, so I doubt there would be much money in that.”

  “Probably not. God, it’s clinging to you. I should throw you on Amy’s bed and roll you around for a while.”

  I stopped mid-shoe. “What?”

  “Amy’s bed,” he repeated through a half-smile. “The traces of at least six men are in that mattress. I’d much rather smell sunshine than that.”

  “Right.” Change the subject, change the subject. “So, coach, what’s on the itinerary for tonight? Ten-mile run, five-mile swim in the river, then burpees?”

  “Remember the woods you chased me down in that one time?”

  La Bagh Woods. Both he and I scoffed at the name when it came up before. I’d been raised in the tree-choked innards of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Tobias’s packlands nested on the edge of the largest national park in England. Chicago’s paltry attempt at a woodland made both of us snicker.

  “Yeah, so?”

  The wolf stood, marching through the door. “We’re going there. Now that you’re getting a sense of your agility and endurance again, we need to rekindle your hunting skills. I’ll expect you there in a half hour.”

  “You’ll what?” I slid my phone into my bra. Not a fan of pockets, it was the only place I’d found to keep it. “What do you mean you’ll expect me there?”

  “I’m going ahead to hide from you. Wait ten minutes, then run.”

  So I wouldn’t be getting out of running after all.

  He continued, deaf to my groaning. “I’m your target, and this time, when you find me, I’m going to attack. Be ready; I won’t be going easy on you.”

  “Come on, Tobias. Like you said, I wouldn’t stand a chance against you if we were actually to go at it. I’m still only a nascent.”

  “That’s no excuse.” Grabbing his house key, he headed out the door, squeezing in just before it closed. “And it’s certainly not one that the vampires are going to accept.”

  THE NIGHT WHEN I’D first chanced the werewolf through these woods had been before I understood why he was in Chicago. Before he’d shared with me that he’d been drawn there by the abduction of his mate, and that he’d been searching for her for two months, a dangerous amount of time for a wolf to be away from his pack. Then, he’d hit me with the hardest truth of all: he was a rogue. Exiled from his pack and disowned by the alpha, Tobias’s fate had been all but sealed. He’d go moon mad, and as soon as the Yellow Matron who controlled this area discovered that, he’d be dead.

  A waxing moon peaked out from a break in the clouds, reminding creatures of the night that the cycle was nearing its zenith. Two hours past sunset, the park was officially closed, but I could still hear a handful of Hueys scattered through its dales and canopies; whether they were homeless, lovers stealing a few moments together, or others up to illicit activities, I couldn’t be sure. Chicago’s famous winds battered the leaves of the trees above. Rain clouds seeded the air with their scent, and a distant rumbled suggested we had a half-hour until they arrived and deluged all caught out of doors. Verdant rolls twisted, turning yellow in the momentary silver glow.

  The wind made tracking difficult. I could sense Tobias on the air, but the gusts dispersed and folded his aroma, making a mockery of my sense of direction.

  Before I left home, I’d grab my wristbow. Wearing the weapon in the city might bring unwelcomed attention, but who could blame a single girl for having some sort of protection on her? Besides, it still wasn’t the weapon I wanted. My hands longed to wrap around my crossbow, a gift from my father on my fourteenth birthday. For Tobias’s sake, I’d switched out my normal silver arrow tips for rubber ones. The design inflicted blunt trauma, but didn’t pierce the skin. Any werewolf worth his canines wouldn’t get more than a bruise from them.

  Finally frustrated by the lack of cooperation the elements offered, I closed m
y eyes and used my senses. The low-level buzz of his proximity hadn’t diminished since I’d come into the park. Without concentration, however, it was just a directionless sensation. Suddenly, his location revealed itself, not with my eyes or my ears, but with my mind. Tobias waited twenty yards away, hidden in some shrubbery. My eyes opened just in time to see his lycanthrope form pounce over the hedges. White, gleaming teeth bared, he attacked. I lifted my arm, took a blink to aim my training arrow, and fired.

  The wolf yelped when the dull projectile knocked him right between the eyes. Tobias’s charge ceased, and his confusion began. Sitting back on his haunches, he pulled off the closest thing a two-hundred-pound wolf could to annoyance.

  “Oh, just change back!” I huffed out. “You know there’s something you want to criticize and I’ll be more pissed off about it if it’s in human.”

  He did as I suggested, and then, immediately after, he did as I had predicted. “You have to stop doing that!”

  I blinked twice. “Being an expert mark?”

  “No!” he shouted, flailing his hands in the sky. “Using this weird hood mumbo jumbo thing you do that makes me track you down. It’s like you’re shouting out, ‘come eat me, wolf, for I am near and tasty.’”

  “I’m sorry, but did or did I not also just shoot you between the eyes?” The cool grass blanketed hard earth still warmed from the sunny day as I plopped down. “If that had been one of my silver arrowheads instead of the rubber ones, you would be dead right now.”

  “And if I had been a vampire,” he shot back, “I’d have moved even faster, and you’d still be dead. Why do you close your eyes anyway?”

  “Helps me concentrate.”

  “Helps you lose, is more like it.”

  Tobias circled around a tree to grab his discarded clothing before crossing to where I sat and bringing himself into compliance with public decency laws. “What does it matter, anyway? You’re already half way through your internship, and we’re still not any closer to knowing anything.”