The Chronicles of a Vampire Hunter (Book 1): Red Ashes

by Justin A. Moore

  “I think so yeah. Stake, sword, pistol. Anything else I need?” I asked as I sheathed my new sword. I’d always wanted one if for no other reason than I thought they were cool.

  “You got your dog tags on you?” He inquired.

  “Negative, ghost rider.” I said, “Can I make do without?”

  He scratched his chin for a second then took out a wooden match and relit his cigar. “Yeah, you'll be fine, just bring it along next time.”

  “Why aren't you wearing anything like that? A crucifix or anything?” I asked. He laughed and walked to the door of the storage unit, waiting before I was out before turning off the light. “No need. A vamp weak enough to be stopped by that isn't going to pose a threat to me. We might get lucky and this bloodsucker will be pretty fresh, and I'll let you handle ‘em solo.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Outstanding.”

  He locked the door to the storage unit and laughed loudly, the sound echoing off the doors of the storage units. “That's the spirit. Looks like about half an hour before it gets dark enough for Thanatics to come out and play, so let's go wait for ‘em.”

  Twenty-eight minutes later we were parked along the street next to the park near the outdoor auditorium. I had the good fortune of being closest to the sidewalk. The street lights had come on a few minutes before, and all manner of people ranging from the plain and average to the extremely shady strode up and down the pavement. My uncle leaned back in his seat and grinned at me, cigar pinned firmly between his teeth.

  “Lesson one: how to spot a bloodsucker. Thanatic vamps are ambush predators. I know you haven't seen one yet, but they ain't exactly pretty.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I'm not really sure what to look for. What exactly do they look like?”

  He flicked the ash off of his cigar out the window, and then twisted around in his seat, scanning the park through his window. “Well, they're pretty pale until you get up close, then you can almost see right through the skin. Skin's really thin and wrinkly, but don't let that throw you off, I've seen one flip a car one-handed. They can't hide their fangs, and the young ones smell like a corpse. As they age they dry out, but they tend to hide in sewers so they always got a sweet perfume you can place them by. Sunken eyes, pointed ears, bony deformities, the change is hard on their breed. Their eyes are reflective, like a cat.”

  “Sounds easy to spot in that case. What am I missing?” I asked.

  “Like I said, ambush predators. They stick to the shadows, and even when they come out they wear disguises. Not like president masks or anything, but whatever fits in. 'Round here, I'd say they probably dress up like homeless. Might catch a few trying to pass as old folks. Sun burns 'em up good, so you won't see 'em up any time near sunrise.”

  “So you're saying I should look for homeless people?”

  “And the elderly.”

  “Fantastic.” I said, noticing no less than ten potentially homeless people. “Should we get out and try and spot 'em?”

  “Naw,” my uncle said. “Keep an eye out for this kid.” He passed me the papers that Becky had given us. The scanned photo was one of the boys head and shoulders clipped out of another photograph. Black, rakish hair that fell over his doubtlessly made-up face and hung in his shadowed eyes. He looked distinctive, and that’s good. I figured it’d probably make him easier to spot.

  I sighed and focused on the auditorium. There were a few people smoking around it, none of them looking homeless. I sighed and noticed the trees grew thicker to the East, plenty of shadows to hide in. “Let's come back around and park back there,” I said while putting my seat belt back on, “A lot more places to hide.”

  My uncle nodded and dug in his pocket for his keys, and I heard a knock on the roof of the car. My head snapped around back to my window to see a gloved hand outside my door.

  “Hey man, got any change?” The vagrant asked, hand outstretched.

  “Uh,” I replied intelligently.

  The hand shot forward and closed on my right wrist and I felt myself lifted from my seat, the belt biting against my legs and chest as the mammoth strength of the vagrant—who I immediately recognized as a vampire—threatened to tear me out of the car, seat belt and all. I looked at the driver’s side in shock, unable to breathe, only to notice the door was open and my uncle was gone.

  “Fuck!” I yelled, and my yell morphed into a scream when with a muted and ugly wet popping sound followed the pain of my shoulder being dislocated. Lightning hot pain shot through my arm and up into my neck and down my back as the vampire wrenched on it. The vampire lowered his face to the window and grinned at me, his eyes completely black save for his pale yellow irises. He opened his mouth, revealing two sets of long wolf-like canines where his incisors should be, making him look a lot like a gigantic rat. He twisted again and fresh pain flooded over me along with the stench from his breath as with my other hand I fumbled between yanking back on my arm and trying to undo my seat belt.

  An instant later a boot descended from the sky and connected with the vampires face. Bits of teeth and putrid flesh exploded from the face as the vampire screeched and flew backward, skidding along the ground. The world’s most intense pins-and-needles sensation suffused my arm, overwhelmed only by the penetrating ache in my shoulder. I finally disconnected my seat belt and climbed out of the car. The vampire was skittering away from us at high speed, looking not unlike a spider crawling along the ground. My uncle turned and grinned at me. The whole incident had taken place over roughly three seconds.

  “Follow me!”

  My eyes stung as I blinked back involuntary tears from the pain in my arm, but I nodded my assent. My uncle took off at a pace that left me shocked. His gait was like that of a man whose legs were too strong to let him run normally. He fairly leaped with each step, and I struggled to keep up with him, my legs pumping at the grassy earth. I saw the creature look back at us, its eyes shimmering in in the dark, and then it disappeared. My uncle veered to the right and I followed him, noticing a wide concrete drainage ditch that the vampire had descended into. I kept running after him, though his bounding stride ate ground at a pace I had no hope of matching. Each step jarred my shoulder and sent fresh shocks of tingling fire across my back.

  “He's going for the drain!” My uncle cried back at me, and he leaned forward, each stride shooting him forward yet faster. I leaned forward and tried to concentrate through the pain, matching my steps to the pounding rhythm of my uncles colossal paces, searching for the power I knew I had that would let me match his speed.

  And I promptly fell on my face, and slid awkwardly for a few hideously painful yards.

  I cursed and pushed myself up, ignoring the new pain of having fallen with a hardwood stake pressed against my chest. I was sure I'd bruised at least half of my ribs with that fall. I found my stride again, though I could no longer see my uncle. I kept running along the ditch and heard a shrill scream rise and suddenly get cut off just ahead of me. The ditch ended in an angular concrete wall with a drain grate half torn from the concrete at the bottom. I slid down the side, kicking aside the occasional piece of ensnaring trash and wayward condom wrapper.

  My uncle knelt at the bottom with the prone form of the vampire squirming underneath. I came to his side, breathing hard. He turned his head and grinned at me. I got a really good look at him this time. His skin was pulled tight over his skull, and I could see the black veins underneath. The bones from every joint and angular feature I could see pressed against the skin, with a few even penetrating from beneath and ending in short, blunt spikes. He wore a tattered heavy coat, crusted in places with something dark and unwholesome. His legs kicked out and his white, bare feet struggled for purchase against the weight of my uncle, pinning him on his stomach. I was reminded of a childhood memory of trying to stomp a cockroach, but only managing to pin half of it under my shoe.

  “This one's small fry, not even a year old. I should toss him back and let him grow a bit more. Ain't that right, you ugly shit?” He spat at
the vampire, the wicked grin never leaving his face. The vampire hissed in response.

  “Christ, he stinks.” I said, covering my mouth.

  “Yeah, he was hiding his smell through obfuscation, kind of like a wide-area compulsion,” he said. “Hey bat-head, how about a little demo for the nephew?” My uncle asked the vampire with a growl, and I noticed he had both of the vampires arms literally tied into a knot behind its back. I gulped, my mind unable to come to terms with the kind of strength that would take. The vampire growled, and suddenly I couldn't smell him anymore. Not only that, but his whole body seemed to blur and become indistinct.

  “Holy shit.” I mumbled. My uncle laughed and punched the vampire in the side. The obfuscation quickly faded at the sound of several of the vampire’s ribs breaking. The vampire let out a breathless scream, and then heaved several times on the ground. My widened as each rib snapped back into place with a sound like popping knuckles. I started to feel a little dizzy.

  “Yeah buddy, you really gotta' one-shot these guys. Otherwise they just heal up. Smile pretty, bloodsucker.” My uncle said and slammed his left fist into the vampires face. It made a sound like two balloons rubbing together, and the vampire spit out a jagged cluster of teeth and laughed in a voice twisted with loathing.

  “You can'th shtop what'sh coming, hunthah. Nobothy can. I can shmell him from mileth away.” The vampire said, words mixing with the squelching sounds of his face reconstituting itself. The vampire looked back at me with one bulging eye and let out another wheezing cackle.

  My uncle picked the vampire up with one hand and slammed him back into the ground. I felt the impact up through my feet and in my shoulder.

  “What's that? You tryin’ to say something?” My uncle asked the vampire, twisting the arms behind its back into interesting and terrible positions.

  The vampire snarled through gleaming, pearlescent, freshly reformed teeth. “He’s coming, hunter. It's been foretold.” The vampire let out a rasping laugh and gave my uncle a sour grin. “That's all you need to know.”

  My uncle rolled his eyes and took out his bowie knife, placing the point gently on the vampire’s cheek, right beneath its left eye. “Let's make a deal. I want you to tell me who ‘They’ are. Each time I ask and you don't answer, I'm gonna pop this eye out. You answer in a civil tongue too, boy; none of that circumlocutory crap.”

  The vampire whimpered pitifully under my uncle's iron grasp, and his eye turned in its socket to look at me, then back at my uncle.

  “I don't know much, but it's been going aroun—No! Please!”

  My uncles knife pressed into the cheek of the vampire, the point slowly cutting a tinny furrow up to the eyelids. My stomach turned and I placed my hand on my uncle's shoulder.

  “Hey, let him talk, we don't need to do that.” I implored.

  My uncle stopped cutting and looked at me, seeming confused. He shrugged and sheathed his knife. “Your call, bud. Alright sucker, let's hear it.”

  The vampire sighed. “Thank you... all I know are rumors. Whispers that something is coming, and there was a sign. A spark of power felt across the globe, it's the first sign. I don't know what is to come, the elders won't tell us.” The vampire laughed nervously. “Politics, you understand.”

  “How 'bout your nest? Where do you plan on going before sunrise?” My uncle asked, not unkindly.

  “I... I can't tell you that.” The vampire stammered before my uncle twisted his fingers into unnatural shapes, accompanied by the sharp cracks of bone splitting. The vampire screamed and flecks of spit flew from his mouth as he spoke.

  “Alright! South bay power plant, off Bay Boulevard. There's a warehouse near the water. Go there, you'll find it, now please let me go. Please, I swear I'll leave and I won't come back!”

  My uncle looked at me, as if waiting for something.

  “Will you let me go? I won't come back; you'll never see me again.” The vampire said. “You said yourself, I'm just a fledgling, I won't come back, I swear.”

  My uncle continued to look at me with a searching gaze. I looked back at him for a second that dragged on as I thought of Lily and what she told me. I looked at the vampire, its left eye wide with apparent fear, but I couldn't be sure. Such a creature as the one that lay pinned to the ground before me couldn't have any other function than to cause death and misery to people. I blinked, and suddenly I could no longer meet the vampire's gaze. I shook my head while looking at the ground.

  “Sorry bud,” my uncle said, “We can't risk it.”

  “No, please! Just wait!” The vampire screamed, struggling with renewed strength under my uncle's unmoving form, and like lightning my uncle snatched a stake from inside his jacket and plunged it into the vampires squirming back. The vampire instantly coughed up a puddle of black sludge blood and let out a long rattling breath. My uncle held the stake down as the body twitched and then started glowing from within with a deep crimson light. He yanked the stake out with a sickening crunch just as ruby flames began shooting from the wound, and the skin peeled back from the vampires skull like thin plastic exposed to the flame from a lighter. In moments red fire consumed the body, leaving only the scorched remains of his clothing and dimly glowing red ashes twisting through the breeze.

  “Damn orlocks. Always trying to have the last word.” My uncle said, standing next to me as the ashes burned in front of us, rapidly becoming a brittle black pile of dust. “How's the arm?”

  “Dislocated,” I said. “Should we go to the hospital?” I asked, gingerly poking my shoulder.

  My uncle grunted and plucked a cigar from his pocket and lit it as he walked to my right side. “Here, lemme just...” He grabbed my arm and held it straight out to my side, rotating the palm down. I winced as I felt a dozen tiny vices in my shoulder clamp shut on my muscles and tendons. “Relax,” he said. “Take a deep breath.”

  I looked at him like he was a crazy, knowing that seating a dislocation like this made matters worse more often than not. I took a breath and was about to protest when he yanked suddenly and my shoulder seated itself with a hollow popping sound. White hot pain screamed through my back and chest from my shoulder again for a moment, and then resigned to soreness and pins and needles as if I'd slept on my arm for a good week.

  “Shit, god damnit...” I muttered as I shook my arm out, trying to get feeling back in it. My uncle laughed and looked me over.

  “Sorry 'bout that. I figured we'd be ambushing him, not the other way around. I didn't even notice his obfuscation ‘til it was right at the window. Guess I got too comfortable. Easy to do if you've been goin' solo as long as I have. Your arm should be better in a couple hours, maybe less.”

  I looked at him with surprise, and then realization hit me. “Oh right, super powers.”

  He laughed at me and clapped me on the back. “Not really super powers or anything. Don't get overconfident. You can't leap tall buildings or any shit like that yet, hell, you can't even keep up with a geezer like me yet.”

  “Ha-ha,” I replied, “What was that he said about someone coming?”

  My uncle took off his cap and rubbed his head, exposing shining beads of sweat that coated his hand in a glistening layer. He rubbed his hand on his pants and started walking. “Well, it was interesting. Every vamp I've killed for the last two months has had the same thing to tell me. I even got ambushed the day after you got jumped out in the sandbox, and that mob of vamps had the same thing to tell me. I gather the fireworks that happened when you killed Eurus fit into some kind of vampire prophecy and it's got them all riled up.”

  I smirked, “Vampires, magic, prophecies. I feel like I'm in some kind of fantasy movie.”

  He chuckled, “Yeah, well, now we know where to hit their nest. I'd been tracking them all over the coast before you came, had no idea they'd be hiding somewhere so open.”

  I rolled my shoulder and the feeling returned to my fingertips. “So, their nest is pretty close by? We headed there next?”

  “Oh no, not ye
t.” My uncle said. “We need to get you up to speed. I just wanted to show you what we're facing; now we need to give you the tools to succeed. We're heading back to the shop.”

  “What about them?” I asked, pointing at the crowd that had followed from the noise from the auditorium and had gathered on the edge of the ditch. I noticed one of them was the boy from Becky’s file.

  “I’ll let Becky know he’s still out here and not turned. Might be compelled, but that’ll wear off quick now that this guy is dust.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “Stopping by the storage unit on our way back?”

  “Naw,” he replied. “I got a locker at the shop we can hide our gear in, just in case we need it quick like. But we are going to stop and get some beer first.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Alright, now concentrate.” My uncle said as I lay on the couch and he sat across from me in his giant leather chair. “Meditation is important. I want you to relax and imagine a white glow forming at your feet.” We’d been going over the basics of supine meditation for the last several hours and I felt like I had a knack for it. Now we had already moved on to conscious control of my power.

  “What, like a glow stick?”

  I felt something bounce off my forehead and heard his grunt of satisfaction. “No dummy, more like a radiant glow, like light bursting out of you.”

  “It's hard to concentrate with you throwing candy at my face.” I said, opening one eye to glare at him.

  “It'll be harder if a bunch of orlocks come up and try turning you into lunch while you're trying to channel your power,” he said. “Be glad I’m not using rocks. Or hammers.”

  “What the hell is an orlock?” I asked, still not understanding half of his creative and sometimes vulgar nicknames for vampires.

  “It was the name of that old vampire from that old Nosferatu movie, back before your time. Close that eye up and concentrate.” He said, tossing another M&M at my face. The candy stung as it shattered against my forehead.