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

by Justin A. Moore

  Lily stood a few feet away, casually looking over her nails as I delivered the final kick and backed away. The vampire bouncer lay on the ground, not nearly hurt enough from the amount of effort I’d just put into stomping his ass. His expression was one of abject terror though, and that was good enough for me. I calmed myself and took a few steadying breaths before kneeling down to him. He scrabbled against the ground, trying to shove himself somehow closer to the brick wall that his back was against in an attempt to put more space between us. I saw a pack of cigarettes in his pocket, and snatched them out while smiling in his face, along with a zippo with a cheesy nude woman on a plastic emblem glued to it.

  I took out one of the cigarettes and lit it with the zippo, taking a long drag and feeling the smoke burn pleasantly on the way into my lungs. I hadn’t had a cigarette since Afghanistan, and had completely forgotten that I smoked despite my uncle’s cigar habit. It was nice to have one again. Once a smoker, always a smoker, I guess. My mind clouded for the briefest moment as addiction reared its ugly head, demanding satisfaction.

  “I’m gonna let you live,” I told the bouncer. “On the condition that you never tell this lady here that she can’t bring whoever the hell she wants into this place.” I flicked a bit of ash onto his arm as he stared into my face, quivering. I’d broken one of his fangs with a kick, I noticed. I couldn’t help but feel a little pride in the poetic nature of such an injury. He nodded his head at me, unable to bring himself to speak quite yet. I found myself wondering if vampires could experience an adrenaline rush, or the soothing high of endorphins. Maybe.

  “Lily, why don’t you ask the gentleman if we can enter?” I said, taking another long drag on the cigarette.

  “May we, darling?” Lily asked, kneeling down next to me and giving the bouncer a highly embellished look of sympathy. The vampire looked between us and nodded.

  “Y-yeah, go ahead,” He replied.

  “Aw, thank you,” Lily said and planted a noisy raspberry of a kiss on his forehead. Her lips came back stained by a few drops of blood which she licked away while giving him a wink. I admired the intimidating effect of that particular mix of signals. I stood and opened the door, which swung open noiselessly despite its apparent state of disrepair, and gestured to Lily.

  “Ladies first,” I jeered.

  “My kind sir,” Lily said with a smile, and walked through the doorway with haughty swagger.

  I followed Lily around the corner and down the stairs. The entire stairway was lit by a single hanging bulb at the bottom, making the stairway seem much longer than it really was; not to say that the stairs didn’t go down at least two floors. About half way down two men came around the corner and headed up while we went down. The one in front was a skinny Italian-looking guy with dark, unkempt hair, glasses with one lens cracked, and a long, light brown trench coat worn over dirty jeans and a white t-shirt. Guns, knives, and other assorted paraphernalia bulged from his pockets. I could swear that I saw a bandolier filled with shotgun shells worn in the old western style around his waist before he closed his jacket and buttoned it. The man behind him was a blonde behemoth of a man; a solid wall of muscle that strained against the skin, less from tone and more from bulk. He wore a black wife-beater and knuckledusters adorned each hand. His eyes were beady, but sharp, and he looked Lily and I over in the same way you’d expect a predatory bird to. He clenched his fists as he looked over Lily, but visibly relaxed when he saw me. Both men were walking up the stairs acting conspicuously nonchalant, the juggernaut-looking one even going so far as to whistle.

  Lily and I stood aside, allowing them to pass. They were both heavily stained with old, dried blood, and the resulting odor mixed with that of sweat and dust was quite strong. Thankfully they weren’t looking for a fight, and passed Lily and I and continued out into the night.

  “Who the hell?” I asked Lily.

  “No idea, but they were human. Lost tourists, probably,” She said, deliberately and not-quite-mockingly evasive.

  “Yeah, if they were on tour in the gulf. Did you see how much weaponry they had? The skinny one was a walking armory for fuck’s sake.”

  “Now that you mention it,” she teased, “They could be hunters. Wouldn’t be the first time someone ran here to get away from hunters.”

  “Normal human hunters? Really?”

  “It’s not as uncommon as you’d think, darling,” Lily said. “Either way, I doubt they started any kind of ruckus in here.” She said, taking on a drawl and giving me a wink.

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “You’re about to see,” She said, and we turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs and pushed aside a heavy metal door. Immediately the sound of dubstep music pulsed and vibrated over and through me. The smell of tobacco smoke, liquor and other less savory scents wafted over me as I walked through into the thronging mob of dancing club goers. My jaw slowly dropped as I took in my surroundings.

  The club was a huge, double-tiered single room with a bar in one corner, a DJ in the other, and several tables and booths spaced around a huge polished wooden dance floor that was heavily occupied. The tier above us had several glass spiral staircases leading up to them around poles where naked dancing girls spun and whirled dizzyingly. Lights and lasers of varying color fluttered and flowed brightly over every surface, and a giant neon sign that said simply “Moonrise” in stylized curving red letters adorned the far wall; of which the letter e would flicker briefly when it wasn’t too busy staying completely dark. Pretty serving girls swarmed around the tables delivering drinks to laughing patrons, human and vampire alike. The top tier was likely reserved for those less inclined towards dancing who preferred to be danced for. Several shining metal poles stuck into the floor from the ceiling, and more girls danced erotically around them. Most of the patrons of the upper floor wore suits, and many of them had serious, businesslike faces. I judged that they were likely part of the older vampire crowd. I noticed most of the dancing girls were human, with multiple cuts either scabbed over or dripping slow runnels of blood from their arms and legs. I felt my jaw clench involuntarily as I stepped forward with fury burning in my heart.

  “Don’t,” Lily said, grabbing my arm and snapping me back to reality. She was right. The sheer number of vampires here was staggering. Most of them looked human, some looked less than human, and yet others looked somehow more than human in the same way that a centerfold model can look inhumanly beautiful. At a glance, I guessed between two and three hundred dancing, drinking and carousing vampires. It was difficult to pick the far fewer humans out of the dancing vampires, but I guessed that there were no fewer than fifty.

  “This is a bloodbath waiting to happen,” I shouted over pounding rhythm of the music, fighting the overlapping urges to run, fight, and throw up in disgust at the girls who danced in tiny smeared puddles of their own blood. I had to laugh just then as my brain compared it to a meeting of Overeaters Anonymous held at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

  “This is the accepted norm here. Nobody dies here, and people who cause trouble are thrown out, disappear, or worse,” Lily shouted back.

  “What happened to the last hunter who decided to get rough in here?” I asked.

  “That would be your uncle, about three years ago. He hulked out and dragged some scumbag vampire who was feeding on little kids out of here by the ankle. Nobody stopped him, but then again nobody would be foolish enough to try. Also the guy he pulled out of here wasn’t exactly a shining star in our community. But at the same time, he didn’t stake him on the dance floor. Be careful in here John, the humans in this place are here because they want to be, and they won’t be killed. It’s taboo.”

  “Huh,” I replied. This was the last place I would expect to find vampires with a conscience. I noticed the vampires nearest to us kept a wary eye on me. I had hoped I wouldn’t be so easily recognized for what I was, if not for who I was. I figured I’d just go with it, and smiled at the vampires around the smoldering short stump
that remained of my cigarette. Apparently this was the right thing to do, because they all gave me fanged grins in return and resumed dancing with renewed vigor. One of the more lithe females began dancing my way, but immediately changed her mind when Lily gave her deadly look that could turn your bowels to ice water. Really, I was surprised the vampire girl didn’t break down in tears on the spot; it was that kind of look.

  “That was mean,” I said with feigned scorn.

  “Just because this place is a safe haven for them doesn’t mean you should let down your guard,” she said. “I’m sure everyone here would look the other way if someone decided to stab you to death. We should have called the owner before coming here, just to get permission to shed blood.”

  “Cheery thought, so much for taboo,” I commented. “And I don’t think telling vampires that I’m coming for a visit is the best policy if we’re going to keep trying to be clandestine in our approach, know what I mean?” I drew another cigarette from my stolen pack and lit it on the ember of my previous one before stamping it underfoot. I took Lily’s warning seriously, but for some reason I felt like a fox in a henhouse. I was sure I was the top dog here on the lower tier, but all it would have taken was the proverbial angry farmer with a rifle to take care of me in dramatic fashion; I decided to avoid the upper tier. I drew the pouch from my jacket pocket and turned to Lily.

  “We should try to find somewhere quieter to work,” I said as the bass dropped and sent the mob into a sea of unearthly rapid motion. It was like watching a normal club scene in fast forward.

  “Sure, I’ve got an idea,” Lily said and took me by the hand, leading me through the thinnest part of the gathering. Eventually we ended up in a nearly deserted area next to a booth that had a couple teenage-looking vampires fiddling with acoustic guitars and going over pages of sheet music. Lily pinned me gently to the wall and smiled, pulling my head down so she could speak into my ear.

  “Play along—I’ll give you enough room to work,” She said and then kissed me on the cheek. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as she laced her fingers behind my neck and gave me a look that could melt butter as she began to dance in an alarmingly sensual way.

  “Uh…” I said, with my typical razor wit.

  “Just do what you need to do; nobody will be paying attention to you anyway.” She said, smiling with her eyes half closed as the beat forced her into a quickening display of almost feline agility. It took me a few seconds to overrule my body’s reaction before I could get started, because let’s face it, a body doesn’t care what’s rubbing against it; be it a centuries-old vampire or a refrigerator door. I decided, finally, that it was the wisest course and let her dance against me as I pulled a pinch of the cemetery dust from the pouch and closed my eyes. I focused my aura into the dirt until it glowed like before, and then concentrated on my uncle. Once again he appeared in my mind, unchanged from the way he had appeared previously. Once again he looked up and I saw his eyes, and I swear I saw him smile. I released the dirt with the same beckoning wish as before, and then opened my eyes to see it drift to the center of the room and swirl like a miniature tornado before settling into a small pile as the energy faded from it.

  “Lily,” I said, as I tried awkwardly to dance with her now; feeling confused less by her moves and my inability to dance than by the results of the minor spell. “The dust went to the center of the room.”

  “He’s either above or below us, would be my guess,” Lily said, “I’d bet on the basement.”

  “Aren’t we in the basement?” I asked as she moved closer, pushing her face to mine again so I could hear her better. The intimate proximity didn’t do much to soothe the case of frayed nerves I was rapidly developing.

  “I’m sure there’s another level below us. Let’s try and find a door.”

  She took me by the hand and led me through the pulsating mass of bodies once more, and it wasn’t more than a few seconds before we found a door marked “Staff Only” in faded red lettering. Lily pushed me through it and followed, shutting the door as quickly and quietly as possible. I hoped silently that we hadn’t been noticed, but I felt it was unlikely. We probably didn’t have much time.

  “Alright, let’s go,” I said, spitting out the butt of my cigarette and proceeding down a flight of concrete stairs similar to the stairs leading to the club, but substantially less worn. I flew quickly down the steps and hit the bottom a bit faster than I intended, accidentally slamming the wooden door at the bottom open with unnecessary force. The sound of the music was substantially quieter down here, and the room I had just plunged into was pitch-black. I stumbled blindly for a moment before I heard a click as a bank of fluorescent lights switched on—Lily had found the light switch. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust, and then I scanned over the room.

  There were stacks of boxes neatly piled along the nearest wall, with the back wall lined with refrigerators. The left wall had several computers on desks, their screens dark. Otherwise, the room was filled with general housekeeping equipment and assorted debris that tended collect in places like this in the form of old posters, newspapers and discarded food wrappers. Oddly, there were several unopened bags of unmixed concrete leaning against one wall. I noticed the center of the floor looked relatively new, as if it had been cemented over just as recently as one or two weeks ago—the new concrete still had that fresh, light contrast compared to the dark, dingy old floor.

  I dug into my pouch of grave dust and performed the ritual again. It came easily this time, and almost instantly I was greeted by the still smiling, though battered visage of my uncle. I bade the dust find its way to him, and dropped it. The dust darted quickly to the floor and swirled in a cyclone for a moment before settling onto the square of somewhat new concrete, its power depleted. At the same time, I felt a strong vibration and a muffled sound like a muted explosion come from under me. A rush of exhilaration went through me for a moment as I realized my uncle was somewhere still below me and knew that I was looking for him. I don’t know how he knew, but I didn’t care to question it.

  “Is there a basement below this?” I asked.

  “Not likely,” Lily said. She was standing next to the door listening for anyone who may have thought to follow us, but now she stared in shock at the floor in the middle of the room.

  “He’s beneath us, look at this fresh concrete,” I said. “I think I’ve been seeing him when I did this ritual, in my mind. He raised his arms and slammed the ground this time, and I felt it through the floor. Did you?”

  Lily nodded and continued to stare at the floor. “Yes, I felt it, but it could have been anything… How could he be below us? There’s no way he was cemented in, that cement is too old.”

  “What runs below every building?” I asked wearing a fierce and satisfied grin.

  “How should I know?” Lily said, frowning.

  “Sewers,” I stated matter-of-factly. “He’s in a goddamned sewer.”

  “Shit, I should have known that,” Lily said, letting out a string of French obscenities. “That’s where Thanatic vampires tend to congregate. I’m betting you noticed that there weren’t any that we could see upstairs—I’ve never been down here, but I heard there was an entrance into the sewers in case of a raid. That is, of course, why I’ve never explored.”

  “So why cement over a bolt hole? Everyone saw me come in… unless…”

  Lily’s eyes widened in shock. “It seems someone has laid a trap for you.”

  “I was a little preoccupied with the dancing and all that, but yeah, it makes sense,” I said, walking over to her and squeezing her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We made our way up the stairs and quickly back through the door into the club. The music had changed from Dubstep to the rapid electronic melody of Trance music. Vampires flailed enthusiastically—many of them were wet, and water droplets sprayed from them as they flung their arms and bodies through the iridescent air. Many of them were going around spraying hoses into
the air, produced from where I had not a clue. I led Lily through the crowd this time, staying as far from the water as I could, but rushing through the inevitable arcs of spray that managed to fall in our path. As we neared the door, I saw the bouncer talking to a group of no less than five vampires inside the club. They were all looking through the thrashing mob; my guess was for Lily and myself. As I approached I lit another cigarette—I wasn’t about to be stopped now.

  The bouncer spotted me right as I lit the cigarette and pointed at me as I neared. All five faces of the vampires to whom he was talking snapped in my direction, and they all wore expressions as grave as you could expect from people who had undoubtedly been told about my entry into the club. I gave them my best arrogant smile in return.

  “Evening fellas, mind if the lady and I get by?” I asked, making my question as obstinate as possible. None of them so much as smiled, much less stood aside. Then Lily walked up and hooked her arm through mine.

  “Oh, boys, move along,” She said, and I noticed her eyes had taken on a dangerous cold look that didn’t fit with the pleasant expression she wore. The vampires looked back and forth at each other then, and grudgingly stepped aside just barely enough to let us pass. Lily and I walked through them and I gave the bouncer a cheerful wink as we left and headed up the stairs.

  “Close one,” I said.

  “We’re not out of the woods yet, John. Those vampires are young, but I won’t be able to handle them all at once, and it’s likely that they will follow us.”

  “Should we try to shake them, or fight it out?”

  “I very much doubt that they will allow us to simply walk away. We may want to find somewhere to stand and fight,” She said. She was clearly nervous, and I could hear it in her voice as her accent thickened.

  “Alright, I’ll follow your lead.”

  “Shit…” She muttered, and looked at her watch. At a glance I could tell we had about half an hour before sunrise.