Knock: A Void City Novella Read online

  Technically I was still grounded (banished) for making vampire kids (or I think that’s why... I’m a little fuzzy on the reason really)… but he’d probably forgotten. He would be glad to see me and proud I hadn’t disobeyed him and killed all the puppies when he saw me. Then we could murder the puppies together and everything would be okay and he’d be happy with me again.

  Metal on concrete rang out when I dropped what was left of the door and finally the first werewolf noticed me. He had dark brown fur and wore a collar thickly studded with crosses.

  “What in heaven?” He growled as he processed the damage. “Isaiah,” he shouted over his shoulder, “I found the daughter!”

  A pug-nosed werewolf with a cross made of two railroad ties stepped out of corridor in building five. His fur, short and mottled gray, combined with a stumpy muzzle making him look more bulldog than wolf. He even smelled more canine than lupine. That had to be embarrassing.

  “Hi, puppy!” I laughed. “Are you lost? Cause I could have sworn I made it clear you weren’t welcome to play here.” My eyes pulsed red and I ran straight for the big one, feinting like he was my target before I darted sideways and sunk my thumb claws into the eyes of the puppy with the mean old cross-studded collar. Pop!

  Kicking off his chest with both feet, I rolled in a backward somersault under the tremendous whoosh of air generated by Isaiah, the werebulldog, as he swung his giant cross like a club.

  I bet if I blinded one of these puppies Three Stooges-style when I led them to the Demon Heart, Dad would think it was funny. I repeated that to myself as I rolled between Isaiah’s legs and neutered him with a vicious claw, bite, twist combination.

  “How forward,” I said spitting out his kibbles and bits, “and we’ve only just met.” Nah. That one wasn’t funny, but I don’t think he heard me over his own screams. The Three Stooges thing, though. I had to remember to do that one in front of Dad.

  I grinned, blood running down my chin. Crap! What if I was all blood-covered when I got to Dad and he realized I’d be playing with the puppies too hard without permission. Grr... well, if I needed too, I could always steal some clothes and change while they were chasing me.

  “I’ll kill you, you whore!” Isaiah shouted other mean things, too, but I think he was just trying to insult me. He didn’t really think I was a whore.

  “I think you probably meant something more like ‘murderous bitch’,” I said. “You should grow your balls back so you can think more clearly.”

  “Reverend!” The one with the collar shouted. “The daughter’s here. Help!”

  What a reasonable puppy, shouting for backup. How clever... and if it kept them away from Kyle’s front door, so much the better. My fangs and claws glittered with wet crimson and I wondered how easy it would be to make a leash out of intestines.

  Heh! One way to find out!

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Kyle: A Little Sleight of Heart

  The first time I died, it was for love. A vision of a false future before me, shattered when I rose from the dead by a casual turn of phrase from the brain damaged powerhouse Eric Courtney, the vampire I call Pops when I think Greta might overhear me.

  “I guess now I have a son,” he’d said. Greta immediately figured that made us instant siblings.

  When I died the second time, it was for me, to become my own supernatural self, face eternity on my own terms, free of the faux dronedom inflicted on me by Eric being an Emperor who’s just too clueless to figure it out. Emperors turn potential mates into Vlads whether they should be Vlads or not and potential rivals into Drones whether they should be or not... a little mystic automatic competitor elimination.

  Undoing it took help from a priest, a demon, and two of the most powerful vampires in Void City, but it had been worth it... even if, so far, I still hadn’t found a surefire way to really help Greta, to break her weird family fixation which had dropped me in the bro-zone and help her find her way to sanity, but I had a few ideas. Assuming of course, that I survived my current plan.

  Which brings us to death number three. Now the third time... well, I’ll tell you something I learned at the Irons Club. A mortal can only come back from the dead three times and each time, they have to use a different approach. So, I wasn’t all that keen on counting past two on this one, particularly when I had no backup plan... okay, actually, that’s a lie, but I tell those from time to time, so don’t let it shock you.

  “Somebody Got Murdered” by The Clash played on my stereo, turned down low enough only a vampire could hear it well, quiet enough to make it easy for me to keep an ear out for the werewolves. They’d shown up early with two Alphas and and a fistful of Lycan Diocese goons. Having upped the location ward on my place with Aja Anat (free for the first month since according to her, after hearing my account, I’d gone farther to try and wave off the werewolves than she’d expected) I knew it would take them a long time to find me unless they started kicking doors in, and for that, there would be a Fang Fee of epic proportions, so I gambled the locals would do things the quiet way even if it took them past sunset.

  It’s not like they were afraid to fight me, nor did I want them to be. Overconfidence is a blessing when it’s your enemy’s. Timing, though. Man, timing was going to be harsh. Outside, Greta fought a mixed batch of werewolves, drawing one of the Alphas down the hill to help the one she was basically vivisecting. They were afraid of her and they should have been. She’s the only vampire I know who has particles of real silver in her silver nail polish.

  She could’ve killed them all if only she had Eric’s permission, but he wasn’t taking calls.

  I waited until I heard the second Alpha, William, the local leader of the Orchard Lake Pack, start to pray, then I dialed Eric’s cell, hoping he wouldn’t pick this time to answer.

  “This Eric. Leave a damn message,” his recorded voice said. When I heard the beep, I kicked open the front door, but left the chain fastened. Doing my best impression of Drone-me, I started talking.

  “No one answered at the club, Pops, so I guess something is going down.”

  William’s prayer ended with a quick, “Thank you, Father.” His knees popped, and I caught the crackle and hiss of his transformation. I wondered if he knew he smelled like magic.

  “Just had a weird feeling and thought I should check in.” I spoke in the receiver, paying more attention to the muffled thump of paws on concrete than what I was actually saying. “You didn’t close the club, did you? I think Greta would have let me know, but you know how she is when she’s mad, so if it happened-” -Where was that idiot? How long does it take to charge up some stairs, kick in a door, and try to murder a vampire- “-you know, recently or something, then I understand why she wouldn’t tell me, because you know,” -I felt like I was going to have to talk forever before William got in here- “-she’s busy and everything, being mad and all, but if it isn’t that maybe you could call me back, because I’ve been getting these freaky phone calls from a guy named William. He said he’s coming for me and I kinda want to know what it’s about because—”

  Behind me, the door came off its hinges in an explosive display of strength so powerful it sent the door chain flying off through the glass doors to the patio. Dickish, but impressive.

  William, all bright white fur and rage locked eyes with me, but I didn’t try and take him. A second werewolf plowed in behind him and, instead of fighting properly, I swung for William’s jaw, unsurprised when he batted the punch aside.

  Timing. Timing. Timing.

  I let the phone drop, aiming for the couch as William seized my throat with one massive furry paw and carried me across the room smashing my coffee table and sending Cloe’s coffee cup through the television. That little bit of destruction I regretted. The cup, not the television. I do have some heart.

  William’s jaws opened, eyes glaring as if he wanted to speak, but couldn’t get clear enough of his own rage to make words. His claws sank into my chest, seeking my heart, and as he pulle
d it out, a cloud of dust, ashes really, flowed out from where I’d been standing. Whoosh. Just like being dusted, except not.

  William picked up the phone, growling hateful words without stopping to change back to human.

  I guess he meant war.

  “You and your vampire whore have a lot to answer for, dead boy,” William said. “You killed my son. You and your bitch killed eight more out at the lake.”

  I doubted that, but it wasn’t the right time to correct him. And William wouldn’t have listened to me anyway.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t be able to smell your stench through hers? I was willing to negotiate, but you don’t get that chance anymore. I’m coming for you. I’m going to tear down your unholy family and wipe your allies from the face of the earth. You, your unholy spawn, your den of immorality, even the humans that you’ve tainted with your presence will be wiped clean. Amen.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Greta: All of a Sudden it’s too Late

  Kyle went poof and I dropped the length of intestines I’d been wrapped around puppy throats. Claws out, palms up, I screamed at the sky. They’d killed him. At the edge of me, my rage was making decisions. Screw these werewolves. Screw waiting for Daddy’s permission! Screw my secret Boss-mode! I hung at the edge of a preternatural precipice, my skin starting to roughen, teeth getting sharper.

  I would let them see the hidden me and then swallow them whole and...

  ...and my heart sank, because a more clear-headed part of me, a betraying opportunistic part thought, With Kyle dead, Daddy will have to let me come back. Pondering that slowed me enough for one of the werewolves to come close enough to getting a claw on me, that he shattered my iPod.

  Time slowed, the fragments of plastic and electronic flying away and striking the asphalt. If I killed these puppies, then Dad might be angry, but if I led them back to the Demon Heart like I’d planned, and we killed them together, he’d want to go out to Orchard Lake and finish off the whole pack.

  An image of Orchard Lake running with blood of small Lake Houses burning in the night and the screams of the young, the old, the cowards, and the bold as I ripped and tore sustained me.

  “Catch me if you can, puppies.”

  How slow would I have to go for the werewolves to keep track of me? Time to find out. I shot across the parking lot at full speed, stopping by the entrance sign so they could still track me. Tears of blood streaked my cheeks. I could allow that, I supposed, until I was halfway to the Demon Heart and then I needed to wash my face and paste on a smile. It’s not good to let Dad see me get too upset. He worries.

  Running into the night, I set my pace and didn’t look back.

  I’m sorry, Kyle.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Kyle: Stupid Pet Tricks

  If you’re willing to spend two dollars and ninety-four cents on extra-fine crystal glitter...

  If you’re willing to steal the ashes of a dear old Italian grandma’s late husband...

  If you’re willing to cut open the lining of your jacket and pour the ash-glitter mixture carefully in, making sure it doesn’t bunch and gets an even distribution...

  If you’re willing to let a werewolf grab your heart and rip it out...

  If you’re a Vrykolakas with just the right abilities and you get the timing spot on, you too could fake your third death right under the super-sensitive noses of some of the most perceptive supernatural beasties on the planet.

  Fooling a werewolf’s nose is hard. It’s why the ashes had to be from human remains, why I had to wait until the moment of impact so when I used one of my alternate forms and left only the ashes and glitter behind, it would still be in motion, mimicking the sort of explosion of particulates people expect when they kill a low-powered vampire. As for the whooshing sound, nobody tries to figure out what made a whooshing sound if they are one hundred percent sure already that they know where it came from.

  A cloud of microscopic beads of clostridium tetani, the bacteria which causes Tetanus, makes a whooshing sound if you convert your whole body to it and shoot through the air to infect a werewolf... one, for instance, standing behind the werewolf who ripped your heart out. It’s meaner than the influenza-like illness I can inflict to feed, but I didn’t intend to hang around.

  William sneezed in convulsive bursts growling as rubbed his fists against his eyes trying to rub the ash-glitter mixture away.

  “I can’t see,” he growled.

  Served him right. Werewolves are very much in the meat. They do seem to convert mystical energy to matter, but their senses are tied to the organs used by the biologically encumbered.

  I watched him struggle, regretting that I hadn’t added a little silver powder to the mix. Despite not having eyes anymore, I had a great view. Vampires don’t see with their eyes, not really. As close as I can figure it, we’re actually something of a field of negative energy pulling the life out of things around us to sustain ourselves. Mixed with the onlooking werewolf’s essence, the one who’d been with William, my perception felt like listening through his ears and seeing through his eyes.

  “You kind of have to blink during the initial burst,” the werewolf I rode said. “But you did it. You killed the son. An eye for an eye.”

  “It may be a sin,” William choked out between sneezes, “but I want more than that. I want daughter and the father dead, too. I want the strip club burned to cinders and the ground sown with salt.”

  Whatever happened to, ‘Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord’, I wondered.

  William had terminated the call and now he cursed himself for doing so. “I should have deleted the message and said what I had to say in person,” William said. He stopped rubbing at his eyes, but tears wet his fur and he had that blinking and refocusing look people get when their vision is blurry. “Tell the Reverend I’m heading back to Orchard Lake in case the vampire decides to attack the pack directly. He probably won’t but-“

  “Better safe than sorry, sir,” the other werewolf said.

  Ears pricking up, both monsters turned to the open door, sniffing.

  Blood scent filled their nostrils, mixed with fear and excrement.

  “See?” I heard Greta laughing. “It’s like a leash. Of course, I guess I should have washed out the intestines first - you know, like with chitlins.”

  “You, monstrous bitch,” a werewolf shouted.

  “You’re the furry wolf person with a vagina.” Greta sounded more annoyed than insulted. “So I think technically...”

  I lost the rest when William cursed.

  William and my taxi ran out of my apartment (leaving the door wide open, I noted) and into a... well, a blood opera of pain.

  “Your brother is dead, leech,” William bellowed. “You’re tougher than he was, but the Lord’s pack will prevail. You will-“

  “Kyle’s dead?” Greta slowed for a moment her face contorting from wide-eyed shock, to fangs-baring rage, to a thinly narrowed eyes leaking crimson light and her mouth pouted in a moue of disgust. The one they called Reverend almost got a paw on her, his claws catching the media player she had clipped on and Greta seemed to come back into control of herself.

  “You’ll have to catch me first,” Greta yelled as she ripped open the abdomen of the next werewolf, one whose fur looked more Husky than wolf, and thrust a mass of liver into the pain-widened muzzle of the victim.

  “But no more killing vampires unless you eat your liver.”

  “Get it?” she asked, darting back out of reach. Turning, she ran, not at top speed, but exactly fast enough for the werewolves to feel like they could catch her, exactly fast enough that I knew they couldn’t.

  My taxi ran down the middle of the road, they all did, ignoring the Fang Fee which must be growing with each minute these werewolf bastards chased my girl through the city streets. We were halfway to the Demon Heart before I accelerated the symptoms. My guy would never see the fight at the club.

  Fatigue hit him, not all at once, and not too much, just
enough that he slowly dropped to the rear of the pack. Cue a muscle spasm. He didn’t like that. It should have been a clue something was wrong, but if you’re a big bad wolf, do you complain that you have a cramp to pack mates who’ve had their guts ripped out or their balls ripped off and had to grow them back in combat? Nope.

  “I’ll catch up,” he said, waving away a concerned look. Jaws locked next, neck muscles going rigid... abdomen tight. When the fever hit, he knew he was in trouble. Choking on his own saliva, he crashed to the ground. Hard to stay conscious when you can’t breathe, so he didn’t.

  Flowing back out of him was less pleasant than the initial infection, but I’m certain he was happier not being awake while he disgorged a full grown man’s worth of mucus. Shriveled, weak, and trembling, he lay defenseless in the gutter, but with me out of him, he had already begun to regenerate.

  “I’m not silver and your head’s still on, asshole.” I smiled at a confused looking bystander. “He’s a hairy drunken idiot. Isn’t he?”

  It’s fun to watch the Veil of Scrythax take hold of a mundane’s mind. Even better on those rare occasions when it takes requests.

  “Yeah, really hairy,” he said.

  “You see those other crazy Viking dudes?”

  “Yeah.” Short and skinny, wearing a comic book t-shirt, and shorts, the guy brightened. “Crazy, right?” He jingled his keys nervously.

  “Don’t worry.” I held up my hands, giving the universal sign of everything’s okay. “I’m not going to rob you or anything, dude.”

  I was, though, but I bet you knew that.

  GRETA AND KYLE WILL RETURN IN:

  Who’s There? A Void City Novella

  TOC

  KNOCK:

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four