Shadow Hunter

by B R Kingsolver

  “Don’t piss the lady off,” Flynn said. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  About a third of the vampires retreated toward Flynn, and then their group began to back out of the alley onto the main street. The others seemed torn between watching Flynn and watching me.

  The sound of sirens in the distance, coming closer, seemed to get everyone moving, and in less than a minute, the street was empty of all but five vampires, and they weren’t in any shape to move. One was missing a head and two were missing their hearts. I had seen an old vamp to that before—plunge his hand into someone’s chest and pull his heart out. The guy whose knees I’d broken and the guy I’d hit a home run with weren’t in any shape to move, either.

  I turned toward the door and walked between Josh and Trevor. “Come on. Let’s get inside. I don’t want to be out here when the cops show up.”

  One of the things Rosie’s didn’t have was windows, so there weren’t any witnesses other than the two mouseketeers. When we got back inside, I said, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention what happened out there.”

  “Jesus, Erin, you’re a major badass,” Josh said.

  “Here, touch this,” I said, pushing the bat at him. He reached out and grabbed it, then jerked his hand back, his eyes wide. I grinned. “Sam gave me this when I asked about bouncers. Pretty impressive, huh?”

  Of course, everyone in the bar was watching us. Raising my voice, I called, “All over. Just a bunch of stupid vamps dancing with each other, and they don’t dance worth shit.”

  That brought a laugh, and when I walked behind the bar and put the bat away, I called, “Half-price drinks for the next fifteen minutes to celebrate our victory in the Battle of Rosie’s Alley!”

  Josh went outside when we heard the sirens, and then came back in to report that five cop cars had shown up, and one TV news car.

  After the fifteen minutes were over and everyone had a drink, I said to Jenny, “Can you cover for me a minute?”

  I walked back into the kitchen, sat down in a chair, and let the adrenaline and power flow out of me.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Steve asked. He was standing over me, and I realized I was shaking.

  “Yeah. Just reaction.”

  He walked out to the bar area, and when he came back, he was holding a glass of whiskey.

  “Here, drink this.”

  I did, and by the time the burn of the liquor hit my stomach, the shakes stopped.

  “Thanks,” I told him.

  After a couple of minutes, I went back to my place behind the bar and waited for Lieutenant Blair. He didn’t disappoint me, showing up ten minutes later.

  “What the hell happened?” Blair asked before he even reached the bar.

  “Good evening to you, too, Lieutenant? Coffee?”

  He shook his head.

  “Josh said the press showed up. Did you give them an interview?”

  Blair rolled his eyes. “Frankie is taking care of them. We’re reporting it as a gang fight.”

  “I’m sure businesses around here will appreciate that. Nothing like roaming gangs in an area to attract customers.”

  If looks could kill, I was fairly sure I at least would have been crippled. I took pity on him before he dragged me down to his office again.

  “Ms. Jones is correct,” I said. “Two gangs of vampires decided to have a brawl outside. I assume they didn’t like each other for some reason, but no one came in to tell me why they did it, or why they picked here.”

  “Were any of them inside before it started?” he asked.

  “Yes, a gentleman with a very pale complexion came in for a drink. He likes our selection of whiskies. As far as I know, the fight started after he left.”

  “So, no one in here was involved?”

  I shook my head. “I threatened to tell Sam to ban anyone who went outside.”

  Blair chuckled. “You’re a hard woman, Ms. McLane.”

  I gave him a grin. “I can be. Would you want to try and explain to Sam why his bar got busted up?”

  “Not a chance.”

  I considered telling him about all the attention I was getting from shifters, vampires, and the Hunter but decided to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t think Blair was the one putting me in danger, but he reported to Frankie. And some of what Barclay had said came from a conversation I had with Frankie when Blair wasn’t present.

  Blair spoke to Trevor and Josh on his way out, and I saw both of them shake their heads. Blair didn’t look pleased. Once he left, I poured a couple of drinks and walked down the bar.

  “On me,” I said as I pushed them across the bar to Trevor and Josh. “Thanks for having my back.”

  “No problem,” Trevor said.

  “Damn,” Josh said, “did you see that one guy twist that vamp’s head off? Like opening a jar.”

  I nodded. “Older vampires have an incredible amount of power, and it just increases with age.”

  “How long do they live?” Josh asked.

  “Until someone kills them, or they commit suicide,” I answered. “I’ve been told some of them are thousands of years old.”

  Chapter 18

  I was left with the problem of what to do about all the attention I was receiving. With Flynn’s appearance, that problem was obviously getting worse. I could always leave town, but I didn’t have enough money to go very far, and I’d have the problem of how to eat and find a place to live in a new town with even less money than I had when I arrived in Westport.

  As a Hunter, I was trained in determining who needed to be removed to resolve a particular situation. That often required weeks or even months of stalking suspects, following leads through social and business networks, and working my way into position to quietly take care of the problem individuals. Mass slaughter was rarely a good idea and bound to attract attention. Identifying the one or two people who were causing the problems in Westport and taking them down was a far better solution.

  But I didn’t have the time or the money to take a Hunter’s patient approach.

  Steve drove me home after work, but when he pulled up in front of my building, I saw a red sports car parked in the space assigned to me if I had a car. Frankie Jones had driven a car like that the day I found the dead werewolves.

  Sure enough, when I got out of Steve’s truck, Frankie got out of the sports car and approached me.

  “May I have a word, Ms. McLane?”

  “It’s late,” I said. Not to mention it was cold and drizzling.

  “I know,” she said. “But I would appreciate a little of your time.”

  I thought about it, then said, “Let’s go inside.”

  I dissolved the ward on my apartment door and let her in, then re-cast the ward. If it was a setup, she would have to deal with me one-on-one. I wasn’t going to provide a hole in my defenses if she had people with her.

  She looked around at the lack of any furniture. I had my eye on a small dinette set at Goodwill but was waiting until after I paid the rent and got my next paycheck.

  “I love what you’ve done with the place,” she said. “Sort of a minimalist feng shui?”

  “Yes, it’s the chic look that’s very in with the broke-bartender set.”

  I took off my coat and hung it in the closet by the door. I didn’t offer to hang hers.

  “About tonight,” Frankie said. “I understand that George Flynn came into Rosie’s to see you tonight.”

  Obviously, she had at least one informant in the bar. I didn’t think it was Josh or Trevor, so I would have to figure out who else might be tattling on me.

  “He came in for a drink,” I said.

  “I suspect that brawl was between Flynn’s adherents and those of Rodrick Blaine, who I understand you also know.”

  I went into the kitchen and put the teakettle on the stove. “You seem to know everything about me,” I said.

  “Are you aware that a TV news team showed up tonight?”

  “So I heard.”

  “They were tip
ped off,” she said. “I thought at first they might have been monitoring the police frequencies with a scanner, but one of them admitted they received a phone call telling them something was going to happen at the Huntsman Hotel. Ms. McLane, I don’t think I need to tell you how bad it would be if the paranormal world was revealed.”

  I shook my head. “No, you don’t. Tea?”

  She hesitated a moment, then said, “Yes, please.”

  “Ms. Jones,” I said as I pulled a pair of mugs from the cabinet and dropped tea bags in them, “I don’t know what you want from me. I’m just a bartender, and I barely know any of the players in this city. And I’ll tell you honestly that I have no intention of getting involved. I just wish all of you would leave me alone.”

  “I’m sure you think that,” she said, “but you’re involved whether you like it or not.”

  That pissed me off. I turned to her, “And that’s your fault. Every damned thing I tell you is being passed along to people who are hassling me. Your damned questions are getting repeated to me by vampires I’ve never met before. Shape shifters, and who knows who else, are stopping me on the street, and coming around here trying to break in. Are you trying to get me killed? Every time I talk to you, I can count on someone showing up who I don’t want to know.”

  The teakettle started whistling, and I poured water into the mugs.

  Handing her one of the mugs, I said, “Whoever you’re talking to is stirring the pot, hoping to take some kind of advantage of the chaos that’s infesting this city. Rodrick Barclay repeated to me, practically verbatim, a conversation you and I had. He wanted me to find the Hunter for him.”

  She rocked back on her heels, a shocked expression on her face. “What did you tell him?”

  I wondered if she was as crazy as Barclay. “What do you think? Do I look suicidal? How in the hell would I find a Hunter if the entire damned police force can’t? Go out and walk down dark alleys at night hoping he shows up? And then what would I do?”

  I pulled the tea bag out of my mug and tossed it in the trash.

  “I wish I had picked another city,” I said. “If I knew this place was so crazy, I would have.”

  “So, why did you come here?”

  Because of the ley lines. Because I would be far more powerful in Westport than most other places if the Illuminati found me. Because it was some place I’d never been before, and for that reason, no one had any cause to look for me there. Of course, that wasn’t something I was going to tell her.

  “This is as far as I could afford a bus ticket,” I said.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but then just shook her head. She looked around my empty apartment, and I hoped she would see the logic of what I told her. The truth was, I had almost run out of money. I could always rob a bank, or an armored car, and probably get away with it. I had done so many things that were much worse. But I hoped to make a clean break with my past. If it wasn’t for the Hunter, I wouldn’t even care about all the crap going on around me.

  Frankie set her mug on the counter. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  I had to dissolve the ward again to let her out. I noticed that she never did address the issue of Barclay and others coming after me. Shaking my head, I went back into the kitchen, picked up my mug, and took a sip of my tea.

  An explosion rocked the building. The dishes in my cabinets rattled, and I almost lost my balance. What in the hell now?

  No, I decided, not in the building, but outside. I rushed out of my door and ran down the hall, looking out the window at the parking lot below. Frankie stood near the burning wreck of her car, surrounded by three men. One of them hurled a fireball at her, and it splashed off her shield.

  My first thought was that she was going to pay a price for being mistaken as me. Then logic kicked in, and I realized only a blind man would mistake Frankie Jones for me. But they were attacking her in my parking lot, which didn’t make a lot of sense.

  I rushed down the stairs and out the front door. A small whirlwind blew across the parking lot, engulfing one of the men facing Frankie and knocking him off his feet.

  With one exception, my magic was good only for a limited distance. While someone like Josh might be able to throw a fireball a hundred yards, my range was about fifty feet. Running forward, I hit the nearest mage with a burst of energy that tossed him to the ground like a rag doll.

  The guy who hurled the fireball turned toward me and let another one go. I dodged it and pushed another burst at him. It knocked him head over heels.

  Then the man who was knocked down by the mini-tornado hurled an orange ball of energy at Frankie. It hit her shield and rocked her back. He was too far from me for my magic to reach him, and I had other problems as both of the guys I had knocked down scrambled to their feet.

  I rushed the nearest mage, and our shields met. I was sure he expected me to bounce off him, but he was disappointed. I punched through his shield and crushed his chest. His shield dissolved.

  Picking him up, I threw him at the second man, who was just unleashing a fireball in my direction. It hit his buddy, engulfing him in flames.

  Before the pyromancer could call another fireball, I stepped toward him and kicked him in the balls, lifting him four feet off the ground. He fell in a heap and lay still.

  The mage facing Frankie turned toward me and let loose with another one of those orange balls. I dodged and it grazed my shield. I felt it, which surprised me, so I pulled more power from the ley line.

  Before I could move on him, a powerful gust of wind hit him, sending him staggering backward. When he gained his balance again, he looked back and forth at Frankie and me, then turned and ran. Another gust of wind knocked him off balance, but he managed to keep his feet.

  I didn’t feel like chasing him. I looked at Frankie, who seemed to be okay, and turned my attention to the men on the ground. The one who caught the fireball was certainly dead, the magefire still burning as his body blackened. The other guy wasn’t offering to get up. I thought I had felt bones break when I kicked him, so it was likely he couldn’t walk.

  “Are you okay?” I called to Frankie.

  “Yes,” Frankie said, walking over to where I stood over my victim. “Is he alive?”

  About that time, the guy threw up, signaling that indeed he did survive.

  “Yeah, but I think he might need a doctor. What happened?”

  “I unlocked my car, and a fireball hit it. If I hadn’t shielded in time, I think the explosion might have killed me. Knocked me down. Then these three came out of the shadows and attacked me.”

  “Does your insurance cover paranormal attacks?” I asked.

  She gave me a startled look, then laughed. “That’s a very good question.”

  I cast a ward around the survivor to hold him in place, just in case he wasn’t hurt so badly that he could crawl off, and we went back inside. We stood in the hallway, and Frankie made a phone call.

  Eleanor showed up a minute later, and a number of people who lived in the complex came out to gawk. A couple of my neighbors who lived in my building came out of their apartments and asked Frankie and me if we were all right. Everyone had questions that we didn’t answer.

  Some of the cops from Blair’s team showed up, along with a truck from the fire department, and it was near dawn before I finally got to bed. The one positive thing was that Frankie deflected the cops and I didn’t have to give a statement.

  “The last thing I want is for anyone to hear about what happened,” she said.

  Chapter 19

  Frankie came in to Rosie’s the following evening around nine o’clock and sat down at the bar.

  “What’s your pleasure?” I asked.

  “A vodka and tonic and a menu,” she replied. She looked completely worn out. I didn’t think she’d had much sleep.

  I made her drink and handed her a menu. “Are you driving?”

  She started, looked down at the drink in her hand, and said, “Yeah. I am. I’ve got a ci
ty car.”

  I stuck out my hand.

  After a moment, she reached in her purse and handed me a pair of keys on a ring with a paper tag. I glanced at the tag and saw a printed line, “City of Westport,” along with what looked like a license tag number.

  “I’ll call you a cab when you’re ready to leave,” I said. “I recommend the salmon special. I liked it so much the first time I had it, I applied for a job.”

  The look she gave me was so weary I wanted to give her a hug, but instead I just gave her a grin.

  “How can I beat a recommendation like that?” she asked, making an effort to smile back at me.

  I watched her gulp half of her drink and poured her a glass of water. I put the water on the bar along with a small glass vial with a hand-written label. Energy Enhancer.

  “As long as you don’t tell the Liquor Control Board or the FDA,” I said. “The cook’s wife is a witch and an apothecary. A very adept one, I must say.”

  Frankie unscrewed the cap and downed the potion. “Thanks,” she said. “And thank you for last night.”

  I shrugged. “Hard to sleep with all that noise going on. If you don’t put your foot down, people will think they can go around blowing up cars without any consequences.”

  She took another pull on her drink. “The guy we arrested has a long rehab ahead of him. Pelvis broken in four places and a dislocated hip. The doctors removed his testicles. They were completely crushed. Remind me never to piss you off.”

  I winked at her. “Too late, you already have.”

  Frankie nodded. “I did hear you last night. I’m still trying to process what you told me.”

  I left her to take a drink order, and by the time I checked on her again, Donny was placing her meal in front of her. She raised her empty glass to catch my eye, and I mixed her another drink.

  “This really is extraordinary,” she said, gesturing with a fork full of salmon when I took her drink to her.

  “Yeah. The food here is really good. Steve is a wizard in the kitchen.”

  “I’ll have to come in more often,” she said. “You know, the one thing that puzzles me is why those idiots didn’t shield themselves. The coroner said the guy who burned was dead before the fireball hit him. Crushed chest, and his heart exploded. And then the other guy.” She shook her head and took another bite.