Laws of the Blood 1: The Hunt

by Susan Sizemore

  Would being in a crowd protect her? From a crazy, Hunt-crazed strig? Chances were, the only thing being in a crowd would do would be to get other people killed. Public. Messy. Out in the open. This was L.A. Who would notice any longer than it took to hose the blood off the street? Where the hell was Selim when she needed him? The Lakers game wasn’t tonight, was it?

  Irrelevant. It was all irrelevant. She could feel Jager stalking toward her. No time. No time. She cast her head from side to side. Which way? Left.

  She went left, away from the crowd waiting to get into the club. They were hardly alone on the busy street, but it was his laughter she heard, Jager’s footsteps that sounded close behind her. He wanted her to run. Her own voice inside her head told her to run. She didn’t run. Siri moved quickly. When she reached the end of the block, she dashed across the street against the light. Better to face traffic than what was coming up behind her. He could outrun her, of course. She knew he didn’t want that yet. The crazy strig was enjoying stalking her. She knew he was there, even though she couldn’t see him when she glanced quickly behind her. He knew she knew. He was getting high on the knowledge they shared.

  His thoughts buffeted at her shielding, a cat’s paw swiping at her mind. Siri stumbled, barely able to keep her feet as she made it to the other side of the street. Where she walked straight into a plate glass window of a sushi shop. Raw fish. Raw meat. Yum. Oh, God! Her outer senses were blinded while she struggled to keep the hungry strig out of her head. She’d be damned if he was going to mindfuck her as well as murder her!

  They say we can’t kill our own, Jager’s thought whispered to her. Let’s prove ’em wrong, bitch. Bitch. Selim’sfuckeddeadbitch.

  Yum, yum, yum.

  A vivid image formed in her mind. A sending? A vision? She didn’t know. Siri knew she’d kill herself before she let those things happen to her. Somehow. Suicide was against the Laws. Then she’d kill Jager. It was against the Laws for a companion to injure a vampire.

  She bounced off the glass, stumbled blindly on. She heard sobbing, was furious to find out the sound came from her. She bit her tongue to keep the fearful whimpering inside. Footsteps. Laughter. The brush of claws caressed the back of her neck.

  “Fuck the Laws.”

  “You tell them, sweetheart.”

  She couldn’t tell if the voice was inside or outside her head. She felt a hot, stinking breeze from an alley entrance against her skin. Her arm was grabbed roughly. She was pulled into the alley.

  “Stay here,” Selim said. “No. Wait at the car.”

  He kissed her. Brief, hard, reassuring. He was breathing harder than she was, radiating hard-held fury. She tasted her own blood when his mouth left hers. His tongue swiped across her lips, taking the blood for himself. His eyes had turned to pure night. His hand brushed across her cheek, touch gentle, though mostly claw at the moment.

  It had been his hand that had touched her neck. He had called her to this spot. He’d been waiting for her!

  “No, you weren’t bait,” he said, before she could even think it. “What the hell are you doing here? Never mind.”

  The alley was dark. Her thoughts were still scrambled. She suddenly couldn’t see a thing. Siri reached out to grab him. Her hands closed on air. Selim was gone. The Enforcer of the Law was hunting.

  Where are you, owl bait?

  Owl bait?

  Here, little girl.

  Nobody called his companion things like that and got away with it.

  Selim snarled, but he kept to the shadows, spreading them wide and thick around him. He was between Siri and the creature after her. Jager was lost in the dark, but so into blood fever, he didn’t quite realize it. Selim felt her moving from the alley, racing back up Sunset Boulevard. She was on the other side of the busy street from Jager now, moving in the opposite direction. Jager sought, with eyes and ears and mind. He didn’t see her. Didn’t feel her. Selim kept the shadows a hard and solid wall of smoke between the vampire and the one he hunted while she got away.

  Where are you, bitch? Jager made a wet, lip-smacking noise. It reverberated through Selim’s head. It was meant to chill the prey’s soul. You’re old, but you’ll be tasty.

  Old? How dare he?

  “Yo, Hannibal Lechter,” Selim whispered. “You talking about my girl?”

  Selim smiled at the thoughts he intercepted, thoughts that didn’t get a chance to touch Siri’s mind. “Not a pretty smile,” Siri would have said. “Too many teeth.” He laughed. Oh, yes. Far too many teeth. Even for a vampire. That was one of the differences between Enforcers and their prey. You needed a lot of teeth to bite a vampire. And really long, sharp, nasty, hard-as-titanium claws. Vampire hide was tough stuff. Especially old vampire hide.

  “Come here, young and tender one,” Selim murmured.

  Jager’s frustration cut through the night. He was about to lose his concentration on taking a specific prey. About to turn on someone, anyone, on the street. Couldn’t have that. Way too public. Damn sloppy strigs. Selim shed the shadows and moved to intercept the other vampire.

  Jager was standing in the center of the sidewalk, just out of the light of a streetlamp, a snarling, fanged creature, hardly hidden from view. People saw him, all right, and hurried to move out of his way. No one was running in screaming panic. Not yet. He wasn’t trying to eat their emotions. Once he picked one out of the herd and concentrated on the victim, the fear would spread to every mind in the vicinity. Panic and riot would ensue. Vampires from all over town would be showing up to join in the fun.

  For now, though, people just walked on by. Jager ignored them, and they paid him very little attention. Selim thanked several gods that this was a town full of weirdos and makeup artists. Then he laughed, remembering that Jager had once had a day job working in the special effects department of a movie studio. Back when he was Kamaraju’s companion.

  Selim moved, too fast to be seen. People only felt the brush of air as he passed. Jager felt his scream of challenge and rage. The strig whirled, answered the challenge with a bellow. Selim ran a circle around Jager. Jager clawed the air, great, long-armed swipes, trying to connect with fast-moving muscle and bone.

  It was Selim’s turn to whisper inside the vampire’s mind. Run, little one, he suggested. He didn’t have too much time to play, but it added a little necessary spice to the night. Added a little revenge for the bastard’s hunting Siri.

  Weren’t you expecting me? Selim stopped a few feet away from the strig. “You happy to see me?” he asked around a mouthful of fangs. He caught Jager’s gaze with his and held it. He reached out with his thoughts and sucked in the strig’s anger, lust, and madness. He sent back all the terror Siri had experienced, tripled and concentrated.

  Jager froze, still as a statue of a dead thing, his arms up, claws catching only air.

  Selim clouded the minds of most passersby as he walked up to the frozen form. Frozen like a rabbit. The pounding of Jager’s wild heartbeat was loud in Selim’s ears. His fear scent was an overripe, strong perfume. Selim sniffed and put his hands behind his back. He tilted his head to one side, as though studying a piece of bad sculpture. “You waiting for pigeons to land on you?”

  Run!

  The strig turned and ran. Panting, pushing humans aside. Any thought of hunting them was gone from Jager’s mind. Death was after him. Selim was happy to have distracted Jager from the people on the street. Now he had to get the strig somewhere private. Selim felt someone running behind him, another vampire trying to catch up. He’d deal with the intruder later. First things first.

  It was Jager himself who provided Selim with what he needed when he veered off the sidewalk at the base of one of the tall billboards that reared over Sunset. Selim followed as Jager dodged through a forest of metal legs and struts. The shadows under here couldn’t hide him. The metal obstacle course didn’t slow Selim down. When Jager jumped for an access ladder high overhead, Selim leaped onto the ladder a second after him. Selim scrambled up onto the
narrow catwalk at the top of the ladder to find that Jager had led him to the base of a gigantic, brightly lit movie advertisement. He raced after the strig, vaguely aware that he was passing the wide expanse of some actress’s lovingly rendered, mostly exposed breasts. There were painted explosions somewhere in the background of the movie ad as well. The whole scene was lurid and eye-catching. Hopefully, the young actress’s twenty-foot breasts were of far more interest to anyone glancing up than the swiftly moving shadow images that raced briefly in front of them. For a few moments, Selim felt exposed and naked himself, as though he were caught on a movie screen. Then Jager ducked to the back of the billboard, and Selim followed him into darkness.

  Jager would have leapt from the top of the billboard onto the roof of a truck on the street below, but Selim grabbed him by the back of the neck before he was able to jump. Selim dragged him back to the darkest part of the narrow catwalk. Jager turned to fight, now that the chase was over. He slammed into Selim. Desperation turned him into a snarling, furious animal. He was strong, with years of martial arts training as well as his natural weapons.

  Selim dodged and ducked and blocked, dancing back and forth across the billboard with Jager. A few of the strig’s blows landed. Jager didn’t draw blood, but a kick cracked Selim’s ribs, a closed fist grazed his jaw. Jager descended into frenzy while Selim fought to keep his head through the growing blood hunger. The hardest fight Selim had on the catwalk was with himself. Instinct told him to just jump for Jager’s throat, to go for the jugular kill as he would with human prey.

  That was no way to kill a vampire.

  Selim waited until the moment was right. Then he drew the silver dagger. He smiled and got Jager to look him in the eye one last time. There was nothing rational left about the strig. It was a pure animal that met Selim’s gaze.

  That was how you killed a vampire.

  You waited until there was nothing to them but the hunger, until they descended into frenzy, with no more brain than a shark. Anyone could kill a shark. You just had to be careful about it. Smarter and better equipped, too. It wasn’t the dagger that killed Jager; burying it in his bared throat was just a symbolic gesture.

  The dagger that killed Jager came from Selim’s mind. A thought, sharp, penetrating, aimed straight into the strig’s brain sent Jager staggering. Another mental blow knocked him onto his back, legs and arms splayed out as much as the narrow space allowed. His breath wheezed as thick blood welled around the silver hilt sticking out of his throat.

  Selim crouched by the body. He pulled the dagger from Jager’s throat and cleaned the bright blade on Jager’s shirt. “Doesn’t hold an edge worth a damn,” he said and slipped it back into its arm sheath.

  The Hunter ripped the beating heart out of Jager’s body with his bare hands. He swallowed it whole. The strig wasn’t going to be causing any more trouble for Siri, for the child he’d planned to repeatedly rape, or for anyone else. Dead vampires did not get resurrected; they got digested.

  Chapter 11

  SELIM’S ACHING RIBS were healed by the time he’d sucked and licked all the blood away from the open chest wound. There was still plenty of blood left in the body, still plenty of fresh meat. Selim just didn’t have the time or privacy to take advantage of the feast right now.

  When the vampire that had been following the hunt jumped on the top of the catwalk, Selim’s reaction was instant and violent. He slammed Geoff Sterling against the back of the billboard, held him there with an arm against the young vampire’s throat. He held the claws of his other hand a fraction of an inch from the strig’s darkened eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  Sterling didn’t resist. He kept his lips over his fangs, his hands rigidly at his side. He didn’t try to shield his fear from Selim. Or the worry. “Your companion?” he asked after a false, squeaking start. “I—I wanted to help her. She’s safe?”

  Selim was almost moved by the young strig’s concern. “Of course.” He believed the boy enough to let him go.

  Sterling slumped against the billboard for a moment, letting out his breath in a rushing sigh. He brushed a fall of hair out of his eyes. Eyes that were just beginning to show normal pupils once more. “I did what I could to help. The blond just ran.”

  I bet you did. Selim kept the thought to himself with effort. Jealousy ripped through him. “What blond?”

  Sterling shrugged. “The one she was with. Don’t know him.” He shrugged again. “I don’t know the community.”

  Selim made his claws withdraw into their sheaths. He forced himself not to see the young vampire as either a threat or a scavenger come to fight for a share of fresh meat. He forced the jealousy down. Siri would tell him about the blond. She didn’t keep things from him. Jager must have interrupted a meeting at one of the clubs strigs went to. Maybe Sterling had tried to help Siri. At least he hadn’t joined Jager in the Hunt. That was a point in his favor. The other strigs were probably all nearby as well.

  Selim stood still and let his awareness spread from the perch high over Sunset. His perceptions roamed over the neighborhood, drawn to moving hot spots of lust and hunger. Yes, they were out there, all of Los Angeles’s population of loners, drawn to the double aphrodisiac of fear and blood. Selim considered the simple expedient of spending the evening killing all of them. He had promised them a Hunt, but he hadn’t said who would be the prey. Primitive peoples thought that eating the heart of an enemy made a warrior stronger. It was true.

  He looked speculatively at Sterling. A little torture would be in order to distract and excite the strigs. The boy’s silent screams would make an excellent lure to draw them in. Then again, he thought he could get to like the kid. Selim decided he’d rather find Geoff Sterling a good home than rip his heart from his body. Besides, he wanted to get to Siri. He needed to see that she was safe, and killing the other strigs would take too much time.

  “It was just a thought.”

  “What was?”

  Selim shrugged. “Never mind.”

  He nudged Jager with his foot. It was Kamaraju who should be lying there dead, instead of the companion he’d let hunt long before he was ready. But Kamaraju hadn’t broken any Laws. Skirted them, gained the contempt of many, but he hadn’t done anything that wasn’t allowed by the code set down by the Strigoi Council.

  “Jager never had a chance on his own,” he pointed out to the young vampire. Better to offer instruction than violence. “I told you that how long you’d been a companion was irrelevant. That’s not true. When you have a lover,” he warned, remembering Sterling’s interest in the actress, “keep her as long as you can.” If you don’t kill her, that is, he added to himself, remembering the decision Sterling had to make.

  Geoff Sterling nodded. “Jager and I used to talk.” He didn’t go so far as to claim that he and Jager were friends. Strigs liked to pretend that they never had anything to do with each other. “He went crazy,” Sterling said. “Kept trying to get Kamaraju’s attention.”

  And Kamaraju loved it, Selim knew. He and the nest leader were going to have to have a talk about that. But he had other things to occupy the rest of his evening right now.

  There was a saying Siri had quoted to him once. Something about how friends help you move, good friends help you move bodies. Sterling wasn’t a friend. He was wearing a long, draping leather coat, impractical for even the coolest desert nights, but stylish. It would do. Selim held out his hand. “Give me your coat.”

  Sterling looked disgustedly at the bloody body on the catwalk. “Shit.” He didn’t argue, though, just stripped off the coat and handed it over.

  “Thanks.”

  Selim bagged Jager’s remains in the coat. The makeshift shroud would be enough to keep any blood from trailing on the ground. He then hefted the body over his shoulder. He glanced at the ground below the billboard and jumped. It was a faster and easier way than taking his burden down the spindly access ladder. Hell on his knees and arches when he landed, though. At least he was wearing a dece
nt pair of Nikes to help take the impact. It was little comfort to know that the fall would have killed a human. He wasn’t human; he was a hungry Enforcer with a curious young strig on his tail. He snarled at Sterling when the boy landed lightly beside him. Sterling grinned at him. It was a gesture of cheerful enthusiasm rather than a threat display. Which was good, since Selim was in no mood to play alpha games.

  “I have to get to Siri.”

  “You need help with—”

  “Go home, boy.”

  Sterling took the hint. He went. So did Selim, trotting under shadows to where he felt Siri waiting, blocks away.

  There was valet parking in this lot, but the young men who worked in the place didn’t notice Selim as he went past the booth at the entrance. Maybe they caught a faint scent of blood on the air, but they didn’t see anything. Selim walked directly to the back row. There were many Mercedes among the neatly parked rows of cars, but only one of them had its trunk open. Only one had Siri standing apprehensively next to it. After he dumped Jager inside, Selim slammed the lid and turned to the woman cowering by the side of the car. All right, maybe she wasn’t cowering, but her shoulders were hunched and her arms were crossed defensively over her stomach. Her face was pale, but for a bruise forming on one cheek. Her dress was torn. Anger flared in him at the sight of her exposed flesh.

  “You did that,” she said, in a small, tired voice. “When you grabbed me from behind.”

  “Oh.” That didn’t make it all right. She’d been threatened, in danger. It didn’t matter who had caused it. He held out his arms, and Siri rushed into them. Hunger gnawed at him, so he didn’t dare let himself kiss her. It would lead to his dragging her into the backseat and having her, letting her taste him. All his pulse points throbbed at the thought of Siri’s teeth sinking into his flesh; of her mouth sucking, drinking deeply.