Knock: A Void City Novella Read online

  KNOCK:

  A Void City Novella BY J. F. LEWIS

  COPYRIGHT

  This novella is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Jeremy F. Lewis

  Cover Design by Ace Book Covers at www.acebookcovers.com

  Visit J F Lewis on the web at jflewis.net

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The events of KNOCK begin just before STAKED and end where they collide with chapter nineteen of STAKED when Greta makes her first appearance.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Greta: My Brother's Keeper

  My little brother is terrible at murder. He thinks he's good at it, but that is only because his vampire big sister is always looking out for him. It's not that I mind so much, I'm just a little confused about why Dad wants it to be this way... I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.

  Kyle is so cute when he's stalking prey. I heard the xylophone sound of a cartoon character tip toeing in my head as my brother tried to be casual crossing the darkened parking lot. It's hard for me to pinpoint a food's age, but she was well above the age limit Dad imposes on all his offspring. Kyle followed her out of a late nite diner on Northside after she closed down. It was about time. Seriously. He’d spent the previous two hours sitting in his Toyota on a warm Friday night in August reading Stephen King's Salem's Lot for the third time as if doing so would finally make him understand how to be scary.

  No Killing Kids is an important rule to Dad. I hadn't realized it meant not turning kids into vampires either until Dad got mad at me for turning the three brats who now run Sweetheart Row, but now I know better. I won’t do it again and he won't keep me exiled forever... not that he remembers what I did anymore. Dad’s memory is nice like that. Some forgive and forget, but for Dad it works the other way. He forgets why he was mad and then forgives by default.

  I don’t think he’ll ever forgive Kyle for being a crappy vampire, though. Like the way he was stalking the food he had targeted tonight. He was going to either lose her or have to be stupid and loud and messy. I knew which one he’d pick, too.

  "Damn it, Kyle," I hissed under my breath.

  He can't hear me; his hearing is closer to a food's, but Kyle was too slow getting out of his car, almost like he wanted her to see him. His target was already climbing into her stupid little blue Dodge Neon by the time he was ready to follow her. Fortunately for him, once I'd deduced his target, I’d unhooked her car battery. He should have done that himself, but his nose isn't as sensitive as mine, so he wouldn't have been able to match her scent to the driver's seat anyway. She saw him when she gets out of the car and reached for her purse.

  Could he smell the gun? Did he have his gun? Should she smell like she’s turned on by this? All three were excellent questions and the answer to all of them was a resounding no. (Maybe with an extra “Ew!” on the end of the third one.) Kyle had a goofy look on his face like it was all a game. Idiot.

  My brother wasn't always this stupid. Not everyone makes a good vampire and you can’t always tell ahead of time, but I could have sworn he’d be better than this.

  As Cloe, according to her name tag, pulled the gun from her purse, Kyle grinned wide, baring his fangs. Did he think she wouldn’t shoot him? I mean, come on! People shoot guns at vampires for the same reasons they waste them on Superman, but with Kyle they’ll work. I’d have asked him what he was thinking, but truth is he probably wasn’t.

  A thin layer of sweat broke out on the food’s skin, cueing me to register the heat, too. It gets hot in the South come summertime and stays hot even into Autumn if it wants. I also like the way the South can give you all four seasons in one day. In that way, we’re pretty similar. It’s fun to be unpredictable; I wish Kyle were.

  We're just different, Kyle and I. There are all kinds of vampires broken down into four (or five) basic power levels. I'm near the top: A Vlad (or if you're all caught up in misogyny like tons of the older vampires, a Lady Bathory). As pure vampires go, being a Vlad is the best. You have the strongest powers, the fewest weaknesses, and a trick or two unique to you.

  Masters are okay, too. Their powers aren’t bad and Masters and Vlads can sense each other within a certain proximity. One of my special little quirks is to hide myself from that unless I want my presence to be known, so a lot of vampires assume I'm just a Soldier. To be honest, Soldiers are as low as I think you can go and still really count as a vampire. They have powers and can turn into an animal or two, but most of the typical vampire killing methods will work on them.

  And my brother isn't even that powerful; he's just a Drone. So, he's immortal and he has to drink blood, but all the normal vampire stuff would work to kill him, along with most of the things that would kill a food... things like bullets.

  "I am a vampire,” Kyle said, his fangs catching the light of the closest street lamp. “Your blood calls to me.”

  "Get away from me," Cloe said, leveling her gun. It's a snub-nosed revolver, which in my opinion is a stupid gun for a female food to use. There are a bunch of 9mm’s which would have been better: Sigs, Glocks, or Rugers... even a couple of Smith and Wessons. When I was alive, I'd tried several, but liked the Smith and Wesson Bodyguard or Shield the best.

  Now that I'm powerful, I carry a .357 Magnum sometimes, but that's mostly because I think it makes me look cool. You don’t much need a gun when you can poke your finger through someone’s skull without even trying hard, but they do have their uses.

  "Soon you will join me in the ranks of the undead," Kyle said, but he didn't stop walking. “There is no hope for you now.” How embarrassing.

  I really do like to try and let him handle these things himself. He's a guy. I’ve been told they have all kinds of hang ups around not needing to be rescued. It's why I had him low jacked so I can find him. I get a little alert on my computer when he leaves his apartment. Although, I think there’s something wrong with it, because it keeps showing him leaving his apartment during the day and that makes no sense at all.

  Cloe brought the gun to bear.

  "Come on, bro," I whispered. "Talk your way out of this. Tell her you're sorry and you thought she was LARPing, too, or something."

  He doesn't, though. There were a million ways out of the situation. My brother is cute and he was in great shape when he died. He could have said he just wanted to ask her out. Instead, he opted for:

  "I am darkness!" He charged like some stupid movie vampire. It was so tempting to let her shoot him, but I love my brother; Dad said I should.

  My eyes lit up red, leaving a light trail as I hurled myself from the diner's rooftop toward the uppity food. I mean my brother may be a crappy undead, but Cloe's just a food. Food does not get to win.

  I didn't make it in time to keep her from firing, in fact to give her credit, at the last moment it looked like she was trying to train the gun on me. Not that I couldn't have been fast enough, but my brother needs to feel like I might not always be there to save him... even though I will.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Greta: Assisted Unliving

  Cloe's wrist snapped along with several of the bones in her hand and a finger or two as I controlled the shot, ensuring it struck Kyle high in the shoulder. Painful, but easy to get blood on so it would heal. The high-pitched keen of hearing damage vanishes in milliseconds for me because healing speed is one of the best perks of being a Vlad.

  Kyle probably still couldn’t hear himself. He was LOUD. “Damn it, Greta!” He landed on his butt, both hands clutching his shoulder and making no attempt to break his fall. Jeans met asphalt a
nd I really hoped that wasn’t the sound of his tailbone breaking.

  I watched Kyle for a moment to be sure. He was shouting something, but I couldn’t pay attention to it. Typical of him, though. Whining about the pain. Blah blah blah. More shouty than that. BLAH BLAH BLAH.

  Fragile vampires annoy me.

  I want to rip their hearts out and stink my teeth into the core where vampires store the tastiest blood. Well, it really all tastes the same, but it’s still sweeter to me. I let out a sigh, which is a food thing and bugs me, except that Dad does food things sometimes, so I can do them too as long as I do them sparingly.

  Dad still thinks with his brain. It's cute when he does it because he is the best vampire ever and he saved me. I'm the second deadliest vampire, though, so don't think you are scarier than I am. Mystic undead powered by blood; my body is just an interface.

  Cloe, as a food, lived in the meat. Trapped and useless for anything but food and games. Kyle was still caterwauling which made me wonder if he was really so stupid that he let himself keep feeling the pain after acknowledging the damage.

  Not stupid, I reminded myself. Challenged. Drones are trapped in the meat.

  Although, really, Kyle had never been this much of a pain in the butt when he’d been alive. He’d been smart and witty and good at sports. We’d worked out together when Dad was asleep, shared... um... gone bowling with Mom. Kyle had even been the one to teach me web design when I’d been deciding on the best career path to keep getting money once Dad turned us both into vampires. I miss Kyle even when I am with Kyle. No wonder Dad finds him hard to look at.

  I looked down at Kyle, giving him a bittersweet smile. Cloe ruined the moment, though. Stupid food. She managed to fire the gun a second time, bringing her other hand around to mace me, which stung my eyes, but who cares. I don’t see with those anyway. With my free hand, I wiped the spray from my eyes and then jammed my fingers into hers.

  “How do you like it?” I yelled. Her eyeballs popped, warmth gushing over my knuckles. I hoped Kyle hadn’t intended to re-use this food. It isn’t something I do, because c’mon who eats only half the pizza and saves the rest for later? Some vampires have strange ideas about the fungibility of food... as in they think food isn't... Fungible, I mean.

  Cloe dropped the gun, screaming, and trying to say something about her eyes at the same time, but I was tired of all the loud, so I grabbed her throat hard enough to cut off all her air and silence her. She struggled and jerked, but I was done playing, especially if I wasn’t going to get to rip open a vein and watch the spray.

  “Kyle! Are you going to get up and eat this one or not?”

  “You just don’t get it at all, do you, Greta?” he mewled. Poor thing. Even though he was more like food than a vampire, it was hard to stay mad at him. He was so adorable when he was pitiful. And since he was always pitiful…

  “Fine.” I dragged Cloe over to where Kyle sat. She’d gone limp, but her heart still faintly beat. At least I’d saved the kill for him. See what a nice big sister I am?

  “Damn.” Kyle frowned as I shoved Cloe toward his mouth. “You messed up her eyes. I’m not going to be able to unsee that anytime soon and pre-mortem wounds like that won’t heal. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Who cares what she looks like?” I growled. “Were you going to eat her or sleep with her? I can’t even really see their outsides half the time.”

  Which was an exaggeration, but true, too. When I’m hungry enough, people start looking like walking circulatory systems to me. The flesh, muscle, and bone vanish like layers of a CGI model leaving just the nummy red goodness.

  I realized Kyle was going to say, "Both," and I thumped him hard enough to crack his skull. Yeah. Yeah. I know things can happen on a hunt when a vampire is out of control. Our needs can get all twisted together and things can go farther and more intimate than we'd like. But if a guy is looking forward to it in advance, then it's a whole different thing... a not allowed thing. A bad thing.

  My eyes blazed red, bathing my brother in disapproval as I counted, enumerating each spoken number on a claw-tipped digit. By the time I hit four, wondering if I should swap Cloe from one hand to the other, start over on the same hand, or decide a five count was all he deserved, Kyle began apologizing.

  "Drink," I shoved Cloe at him. "And nothing else."

  He sank his fangs into her throat and missed the jugular. How does a vampire miss the fracking vein?! It’s like he didn’t want the blood even though he needed it. Forcing his mouth open, I jammed his fangs down in the right spot and ripped off her arm so I could get blood directly to his wounds so they would heal. Drones are such wimps.

  Kyle had recovered enough to begin complaining again - Something about his ruined clothes, maybe? I really wasn’t listening- when I heard another scream.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Greta: Fang Fee Avoidance

  What confused me about the big dude screaming like a little kid wasn’t the pitch of his vocals, but that he was screaming at all. There’s this magical field in Void City called the Veil of Scrythax that is supposed to keep supernatural activity hidden by all those who aren’t directly involved. It rewrites what people see, remember, and even think about what they are seeing. Usually, it would make foods see what was happening with me, Kyle, and the Chloe-food and think it was some sort of movie shoot, special effects, or a YouTube prank video, but then again, it could also present us as two normal foods murdering another food or the aftermath of a car wreck or ostensibly an industrial accident...

  Luck of the draw, I guess.

  Being spotted wasn’t such a huge problem all by itself. It’s not like I minded eating more food. The cell phone Fat Dude was trying to dial, though. If he called the cops, they’d come. They wouldn’t be coming to help him, but even though the VCPD is on the take and in the know, their complicity doesn’t come cheap. When they have to cover something up or help a supernatural creature cover it up, that supernatural citizen gets a ticket... a rather large, four zeroes at the minimum, ticket. Since vampires tend to get hit with most of them, the common term is a Fang Fee.

  When I’m in Dad’s good graces, he pays them without even thinking about it, but then again he and Uncle Roger have had longer to save money and invest it than I have and the Demon Heart (Dad’s club) makes more cash than it should because of all the quiet cash influx it gets from the city’s other vampires. I don’t get that kind of easy cash flow, but...

  Decisions. Decisions.

  I turned the vampire speed up to maximum, happy with the way it made the world flicker, not charging yet, but making sure I had the time to think this through and make the call I wanted to make.

  There was less time than I would have liked, though. Fat Dude had his phone unlocked and was already at the call menu. Grrr. So tempting to make Kyle pay the Fang Fee... So annoying to know that he couldn’t actually afford it on his budget and he’d just have to get it from me anyway. Fine then. In for a penny...

  Humming the Speed Racer theme under my breath, I sprang across the parking lot. It’s terrible to have to be such a good sister.

  Fat Dude pressed the “9”, but I was already in motion. I’ve never tracked my top speed, but I’m quicker than most vampires.

  Word problem: If a terrified victim at point A is roughly 100 feet away from a vampire at point B that wants to kill him before the victim can dial 9-1-1, how fast will the vampire need to travel, assuming it takes 1.25 seconds to dial? Answer: I don’t know, but it probably looked super awesome. He’d dialed all three numbers and was about to hit the call button, when I smashed the phone to smithereens.

  “Boom goes the dynamite.” Seizing his neck and crotch, I sank my claws deep into both areas and hurled him skyward as hard as I could, blood spraying from both severed arteries in an all too brief pinwheel of crimson spray. Not exactly low key, but I tend to forget in the moment to keep things on the down low, even when that’s why I’d started my attack.

  Food is just so fun
to play with it’s hard not to revel. It doesn’t help that I’m almost always hungry. People think it’s because I was so obsessed with being thin and perfect when Dad changed me on my twenty-first birthday, but it has more to do with my secret boss-mode. You feed your largest form and mine is... friggin enormous. I’ve never had to use it, but one night there will be a fight big enough... and what a fun night that will be.

  Hee! Watching the Fat Dude rise and fall, his blood raining down on me sent a dark tingle through me. This is the gift my Dad gave to me when he saved my life and adopted me, raised me right, and then turned me when I was grown. This magic. This power. I would have loved him just for saving me, but in the light of all that I can do, the fun I can have, I think it’s pretty clear everyone else ought to love him, too.

  I caught the body one handed, feeling tendons in my shoulder tear and reknit. The body is only an interface; it has limits. I didn’t let him hit the ground, though, so I win.

  “Kyle,” I shout, corners of my mouth pulled up into a broad grin, “did you see that?! He went at least five giraffes.”

  “Giraffes?” Kyle asked.

  “What?” I dropped Fat Dude’s blood wrapper next to the girl’s wrapper and sighed. “You’d prefer penguins?” I paused. “But then I’ve have to say which kind. I mean, I guess it would have been around eighteen and a half emperor penguins, but see, with penguins, you have to specify breed while everyone gets that a giraffe is tall. Don’t be silly, Kyle. Using penguins would be almost as counterintuitive as using hedgehogs as a measurement of height.”

  “You’ve been spending too much time at the zoo.” Kyle shook his head, blood still dripping from his chin.

  “The zoo is a great place to practice my self-control for when Dad unbanishes me,” I said. “Besides, one day I’m going to eat a lion and it will be glorious.”

  It only took a few minutes to get our dinners forced into the front of Cloe’s car. I shot her in the side of the head before shoving my .357 magnum in fat dude’s mouth and pulling the trigger. Brain gore is not my type of gore, but it’s not like this had to be too convincing. Once my shoddy murder-suicide diorama was complete, I doused them both with gasoline and lit the whole stupid scene afire. It wouldn’t fool the VCPD, but it didn’t have to, it just had to not look like a supernatural monster attack.