Knock: A Void City Novella Read online

  “You could tell Greta-“

  Aja laughed loud and clear her amusement, a song which dazed me and drew me in until she appeared to notice and made an off hand gesture, releasing me from whatever hold she had accidentally initiated.

  “If I have a problem with that girl,” Aja said, “I’ll walk into her apartment at noon and stake her. Then I’ll put her in a stainless steel coffin, fill it with cement and have it dropped into the Mariana Trench for Poseidon to guard, knowing I’ll have to put her sire in right next to her.”

  Aja shook her head, stirring the unseen snakes again, their hisses brief, but angry. “No. I like her, and that’s why I want you to handle it. Go explain. Be proactive. If you try and fail, I won’t hold it against either of you if they come back. Ignore my request and...”

  “And?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She breathed a pale white vapor even though she hadn’t taken a drag. “And...”

  Eyes narrowing, I thought that one over. I don’t like being pushed around. As well fed as I was, I thought I might be able to erase Ms. Anat without much effort. Might.

  “Might,” she said, echoing my unspoken thought. Silver nailed finger aside her nose, she repeated, “Might.”

  Yeah, better not to throw down with a semi-mythical being of undetermined age and abilities.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I’ll give it a shot.”

  She shooed me away with a wave of her hand and I headed for my car... well, actually I stole Lucia’s orange Honda Element, but I was going to save her life in a few days and I intended to bring the car back safe and sound, so it felt fair to me.

  Vrykolakus or proper vampire, we’re all parasites.

  * * *

  Calling the VCPD got me the location of the wreckage. The dispatcher put me through to Captain Stacey’s cell. Convincing him to let me be the guy going in to talk to the angry burnt and tortured werewolves was as easy as you’d think, though it meant an added stop to steal oven mitts, pliers, and a crowbar.

  Turned out the VCPD had been waiting until the on-call mage rolled over and some guy named Melvin came on duty to call the Mage’s Guild for assistance. Mack, whoever that was, could apparently and I quote, “go suck a bag of dicks” if he thought Stacey was going to “throw his sorry ass any fucking overtime.”

  Given that Captain Stacey is a nigh immortal mouser from somewhere in the Soviet Block, I had to give him credit for an accent which sounded genuinely Southern. Extra points for the “sorry” that sounded more like SAW-reh.

  “Come on out, son,” Captain Stacey said as he ended the call. “You might just spare my budget a little undue tapp’n.”

  Red and blue lights washed their shades over the wreckage which still burned beneath the Moonglow Road bridge. I parked half a mile away in case there were any news cameras, but it proved a needless precaution. Stacey hadn’t allowed them in. How much would that add to the Fang Fee, I wondered.

  Uniformed, blonde-haired, and with a paunch, the human version of Captain Stacey met me at the edge of the embankment. We shook, me a little taken aback by the gesture, and then he pulled me in close, letting me see the upper and lower fangs common to his kind.

  “Don’t screw up on this, son.” He spoke low in my ear. “You are talking them down, right? Not continuing the ruckus.”

  “Yes.” Because he expected it and I did not care one way or another, I added “Sir” at the end of my sentence. His blue eyes brightened at that. Were they always that color? Rather than ask, I headed down the hill to the wreckage where the smoke, gas, burnt fur, and barbecue odor Greta had trailed still reigned.

  Had she set the bus on fire, driven it off the bridge and then thrown the Volvo down on the middle of it? “Great shades of Elvis,” as Perry White, Superman’s editor-in-chief might have said.

  Putting the oven mitts and crowbar to use led to daydreams about metal saws or cutting torches, or, best of all, spending the rest of the evening back at the apartment or prowling the clubs and bars for a Cloe-replacement. Even sitting home in front of the television would have been preferable, but thems the breaks.

  Hunks of charred meat, gristle, and errant bits of sinew and fat pulled free of bone and metal like best friends reluctant to part from each other in the world’s most gruesome game of Red Rover.

  “This is taking too long.” I’d wondered if the werewolves would take to me better in one of my other shapes. I’ll give credit to Duke Gornsvalt for original thinking even if it was a desire for a specific vintage of wine that prompted him to help me swap over to being a Vrykolakas.

  Becoming a vampire is kind of like a supernatural Rorschach test. What you think or subconsciously want out of your unlife informs, to a certain extent, the kind of thing you become. Maybe I’ll tell you more about my time as a Drone one day and how I came to suspect more and more fervently that something to do with Eric himself had made me a Drone and not my own unoriginality, odious nature, or sheer stupidity. Before making me a Vrykolakas, the duke told me tales of them not just from Greece, but of their namesakes in other countries, the Vârcolac of Romania, for a example, which is either a werewolf, a dire wolf, a mortal shapeshifting sorcerer, or... a vampire. I think he knew what would happen, how my love of the tale of Varney the Vampire by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest would combine with the legends of the Vrykolakas, with my own thwarted Vladhood, and generate the bastard hybrid he needed. A vampire who was very like and unlike a vampire, but also very like and unlike a...

  A layer of blood welled up through my skin, my clothes evaporating into blood mist, rising and then settling on the larger, rangy form I swelled to become. Blood thickened, drawing into thin spikes, multiplying, and growing in thickness until it wasn’t blood anymore, but fur the black tainted color of dried blood at the scene of a murder. All vampires are crime scenes; not all vampires can turn into werewolves.

  One translation of Vârcolac is wolf’s hair.

  I howled; it’s mind bogglingly difficult to resist, so I didn’t.

  Clad in the form and fashion of a werewolf, my claws turned to the task of freeing the ragged bloodied beasts who despite their possible wishes to the contrary, yet lived and ached. Freeing them took an hour or more, the sun just peeking over the horizon as I freed the last, a few of the faster healers helping to speed the rescue while others lay whimpering, the skin bubbling and flowing as it regenerated. A few reverted to pink shiny new versions of their naked human guises and passed out of consciousness.

  “Who are you?” a gray furred werewolf asked as we lay the final victim out upon the grass.

  “Kyle,” I said letting the uncomfortable vulpine hybrid shape go. Old age settled on me briefly in the sunlight, fading fast as falling when I drew on the strength of those poor idiots I’d infected and left lying in their beds back at Void City Gardens.

  Have to remember to count their days as one shorter than usual, I thought.

  With life force came the return of briefly waxing power and I summoned my James Dean attire out of habit. I rolled my neck, relishing the crack and pop while under the gob-struck stare of the lycanthrope.

  “We’ve met,” I said, “under poor circumstances, so I thought it best to come and make amends as best I could.”

  “You ain’t no vampire,” he said. Much to my surprise he took the form of a man in his mid to late thirties, not much to look at, except for an enviably full beard and mustache. “But you ain’t no werewolf neither. What are you?”

  Who am I had been an easy question, but what am I?

  Vampire. Werewolf. Vrykolakus. Vârcolac. A dozen other ways of saying monster. A murderer. A victim. A creep who uses people. A romantic who hopes to regain his lost love. A walking chalk outline of a wasted life which now wastes the lives of others... I’ll say it again: all vampires are crime scenes and most of us become murder weapons.

  “I’m the one who came to pull you out of the wreckage with my own two hands.” I crossed my arms. “I’m also the one who bowled w
ith a few of you last night because you were stupid enough to come after Greta Courtney. I’d have preferred to decline, but she’s not exactly easy to argue with. I’m also the one who can tell you that Eric did not kill the son of your Alpha, but instead, killed a werewolf named Feagus who tried to end him in an alleyway. I want you to stay away from the apartment complex, from Greta, and I want you to set up a meeting between Eric and your Alpha so they can figure out who is trying to get them to destroy each other, because-“

  That was when the growl and bite came. If I’m honest, I couldn’t believe he listened to as much of my spiel as he did.

  There was no fighting back on my part. It hurt, but I deserved pain and he and his pals had already endured enough to drive lesser beings crazy. He worried me like a rag doll, but it felt mostly like frustration and loss.

  A gunshot stopped the attack and sent the werewolf scrambling clear of me looking betrayed and afraid. I let my wounds undo themselves, skin untearing, cloth remitting, hair unmussing itself.

  My clothes don’t reform dryer fresh like Eric’s, but I make do. A few of the others made as if to charge me, stopped themselves. I imagine that it was a silver bullet, fired to wound, from the service revolver gripped in the hands of Captain Stacey that held all of the stopping power. A well-placed backup plan is a beautiful thing when it works. My old sire should really try it once in a while.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Kyle: Final Meal

  Bacon met me at the overpass. In the culvert below, a Volvo’s charred body had still visibly been used to impale a burned out short bus, but now it looked more like a tragic accident. There were no dead bodies in sight, werewolf or otherwise. News cameras covered the scene as public works crews tried to winch the mass out of there. Some former on sight reporter named Denise Culpepper sat in for Evelyn Courtney-Barnes who’d been murdered a few nights before in what sounded like a classic drain and dump to me. Based on the locale and the brazen approach (and since I knew where Greta had been) my money was that Eric had been the murderer du nuit.

  Vick Daily, a young African American reporter who was way more talented than the prick manning the news desk next to Culpepper, recorded interviews with police and workmen trying to get a few golden seconds and a catchy sound bite or two.

  “There were people in there?” Bacon asked. Her outfit was similar to the one she’d worn Saturday with clean jeans, a different t-shirt, and new socks and undies (this news courtesy of supernatural sense of smell).

  “Werewolves.” I nodded in the direction of the cops. “After I pulled the werewolves from the wreckage, the boys in blue escorted them elsewhere before the news crews got here. Well, after they tried to kill me for my troubles.”

  “That is going to be one big Fang Fee.” Bacon whistled.

  “Orchard Lake Baptist Church isn’t going to be happy when it hits them either.”

  “But I thought Greta-“

  “Don’t mention her here.” Bacon started at my tone and I dialed it back. “Sorry. But, yes, I can see your logic.” I pointed out Captain Stacey, the blonde haired human-looking being who was really a mouser like Pop’s second biggest fan, Talbot. “I spoke with Captain Stacey, though, and his point was that since the werewolf attack was unprovoked, and the victim took reasonable precautions against discovery, a Hand of Glory in this case, the fine gets levied against the werewolves who attacked. Also I think it annoyed him that they made him waste a silver bullet and freaked out badly enough that he still wound up having to call in the Mage’s Guild.”

  “Did they hurt you?” Bacon’s brow furrowed and her lips drew tight. Too much concern for her to spend on a glorified leech, but I bring out the stupid in some truly breathtaking women.

  A memory of the short fight flickered through my mind’s eye. To an onlooker, I might have looked impressive, but it had been pragmatism not bravery which stayed my hand.

  Werewolf number one had sunk his teeth into my shoulder to either keep me in place for an easier stake through heart (if he’d still had a stake) of to maintain sufficient leverage to tear off my head. It’s hard to get me to bleed, but unlike most vampires, I feel a wound until it’s healed, just like a human.

  That was probably when I decided what to do about the wolves’ unavoidable return later Sunday or Monday, with hitters from the Lycan Diocese in tow. Greta could fight things like that, but I have no interest in fighting epic battles I can avoid. Vampires who can turn into mist are the lucky ones on that front, those like Ebon Winter and Lord Phillip. No mist for me, though I can do something similar, it’s just much less... hygienic.

  “Kyle? Babe?” Bacon took my hand and pressed it against her breast. Steady and strong, her heartbeat soothed my fear and stoked my lust.

  “Careful.” A fang-baring grin touched my lips. “Don’t offer things you don’t want me to accept.”

  She flushed, shoving my hand away. “It was that stupid Thrall thing they do at the Irons Club sometimes, to calm-“

  “I know what it was.” I touched her cheek feeling the warmth of her skin. She’ll die one day, I thought, and I’d give you even odds that when she does it will be my fault.

  “Get off.” Bacon pushed my hand away, but you can’t hide arousal from a vampire. A gentleman doesn’t have to point it out, though, and I surprised myself by being one for a minute or two.

  “Want a ride?” she asked.

  I didn’t even smirk at that. Worse, when she smiled at my not rising to the bait, I realized I’d passed a test I was pretty sure I ought to fail... for both our sakes. Some people fall in love... others fail into it.

  “Sure.” I nodded. “Thanks.” We climbed into her jeep and were halfway cross town before I remembered Lucia’s car back near the scene of the accident. Ah, well. The car keys tinkled once when they hit the road, then they were gone.

  “Did you just throw someone’s keys out the window?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” We stopped for breakfast before heading home and I ran my idea past Bacon. She didn’t like it, but she she knew I’d already made up my mind. It was in her thoughts to tell me to go shit in my hat rather than drop everything and follow my command. She kept that to herself, though, or well, she thought she did. I called a cab halfway through and when I paid the check, Bacon was quiet.

  “So I drive down tonight...?” It wasn’t really a question, but I answered it.

  “And if all goes well, I’ll see you Tuesday.”

  “I don’t know why I go along with all of your bullshit.” She hugged me when the cab arrived. I climbed in.

  “Because I’ve been in your mind so often you think you love me,” I told her. “You don’t, though. Not really.”

  Yes, she did.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Greta: Would You Bite the Hand

  Is it deja vu if you wake up smelling the same pancakes cooking? And by pancakes, I mean werewolves... And by cooking, I mean prowling around the apartment complex. They smelled farther up the hill, though, so the location barriers on my apartment were plugging away.

  Sliding my deck window open made the puppies easier to track. Head cocked, sniffing the air, nostrils wide, a tortured twist of fur, fang, and holy water drew a snarl to my lips. Werewolves stink, but holy water burns my nose.

  Moonlight and street lights illuminated several vehicles I’d never seen before. A black van sat, side doors, and rear door open wide, motor still running. First Holy Lycanthropic Church of Rome, Georgia was stenciled on the side in bold gold letters.

  Rosary beads hung from the rear view mirror of it and several other cars. Each vibrated with faith-filled intolerance. As Christians go, I prefer Father Ike.

  A black cat skittered cross the parking lot, but it wasn’t Talbot. Grabbing a gallon of blood out of the fridge, I walked back to the deck and chugged it. They’d smell the blood and come running, wouldn’t they?

  I tried Dad’s cell, but he didn’t answer. How could I fight a bunch of goons from the Lycan Diocese without killing th
em? Holy wounds don’t heal on me without Dad’s blood, and while I could take several, there had to be a dozen. It’s not like I had spare Norberts in the house. Finding a thief to hang and make a candle out of is easy, but a quarter of a million dollars is a lot of money and the ritual to create the Hand of Glory takes a week...

  If the Furry Pope had sent troops, he’d have sent powerful ones, ones who would eventually see through the location deterrent Aja Anat had on my apartment and Kyle’s. How long had they been here? My eyes widened (a sure sign I was too deep in the meat body interface because usually my physical reactions are more deliberate than unconscious) and worse, could I fight them, not kill them, and still keep my stupid Drone brother safe?

  Yeah, in MMO terms, I was going to have to train these idiots to the Demon Heart zone. Grrr.

  I slipped on a pair of jogging shorts, sneakers, and a sports bra (the jogging outfit I wear when I hunt athletic humans at the park) and gave myself a quick and severe haircut (it would grow back tomorrow, so don’t worry). Headphones and a clipped-on iPod Shuffle completed my ensemble. I checked myself in the mirror as if I could see my reflection and smiled as if I liked what I saw. Faking a good self-image was important if I was going to see Dad. Mrs. Rosetti could tell me how I looked if I wanted, but... No. Kyle. Crap.

  Doing front flips out of multi-story buildings is fun if you’re a vampire, so I did one off my deck and hit the grass, rolling up into a jog smoothly, wishing someone could see how cool I looked. Hitting top speed was easier with the gallon of blood in me, but I wished I’d had time for a couple more before going into Big Sister Vampire Savior Action-mode, but hopefully I’d be able to grab a couple of bites on the way. Bites. Get it? Heh. I amuse me.

  Ripping the driver’s side door off of the van, I used it to cave in the front of each werewolf-scented vehicle making sure to bust up the engines. I wanted these puppies to be chasing me on foot and the madder they were, the better. I felt like it took too long, but I really needed this to play out right with Dad.