Vampire, Hunter

by Maria Arnt

  “Give or take,” he agreed.

  It still sounded like a lot, though. “How long will it take to reach that many?”

  He gave her a long stare. “I can’t be certain, but due to recent activity, I think it may be as soon as three years.”

  “What?” How could that be possible?

  “I believe that only a few Masters may be responsible for the sudden boom in the last decade,” he revealed, “they may intend to become a major global political force. But I haven’t been able to learn more.”

  “Why not?” He seemed pretty damn crafty to her. “If you could convince me you were human, why couldn’t you convince them, I dunno, that you wanted in on it?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “I’m afraid I’ve already shown my hand. They already know I’m looking for them. But they don’t know about you.”

  And there it was. It made sense in a weird, twisted sort of way. It had to be a vampire because no human could ever hope to fight against that many vampires. It had to be her, because of her passion for wiping out the bastards.

  “So, say we get rid of these wackos with designs on world domination,” she hypothesized. “Why stop there? Why not just get rid of the problem altogether?”

  “Myself included?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “It’s what I would do.” Especially if it meant no one would ever have to go through what she had.

  “You would wipe out an entire people? One which has walked this world for over five thousand years?” he sounded incredulous.

  Tanya put her hands on the countertop of the island between them and leveled her gaze at him. “Yes.”

  He held that gaze for a long time and then laughed. “And you wonder why I thought you would make an excellent vampire?”

  She frowned. “Your logic is all kinds of twisted.” Turning, she started looking through the cupboards, curious. “It must be pretty freaky inside that head of yours.”

  “Would you like to see my study?” he asked.

  She turned back to look at him, surprised by the change in his voice. He seemed excited for some reason. “Sure...” she drawled.

  “It is my favorite room,” he told her, and led the way back through the living room to a door at the foot of the stairs.

  Once inside, she could see why. It reminded her of the apartment where he had pretended to be human, after she had attacked him. Before he attacked me, her mind added unhelpfully. The walls were solid bookshelves, except for a large fireplace and the mantle above. As well as books, the shelves held many odds and ends, artifacts that even she could tell came from many different times and places. There was a fancy old rug on the floor, and in front of the fireplace sat an odd sort of couch, which went up at one end but stayed down at the other, and had no back. At the other end of the room was a huge carved desk.

  “Oh wow,” Tanya went to the desk, smoothing her hands over the dark wood. It felt fantastic, and it was so wide that she had to stretch across it to touch the old-fashioned swivel chair on the other side.

  Seth cleared his throat, and she jumped. Clearly, he wasn’t fond of her touching what was obviously his desk. He licked his lips and then smiled at her startled reaction. “I spend most of my time here when you are asleep,” he explained, looking around at the books.

  “Do you sleep in here?” she asked, surprised. “Don’t you have your own bedroom?” It seemed odd in such a big place.

  “I don’t sleep much at all,” he admitted. “But yes, I do have a bedroom. Would you like to see it?” The slow smile he gave her made it clear what else a bedroom could be used for.

  “No,” she answered quickly. Ew. “Actually,” she glanced at the clock on the mantle. It was nearly six in the morning. “I’m kind of tired.”

  He looked as well. “Ah, yes. We can continue the tour on the way back to your room.” Leading the way up the stairs, he pointed out three unoccupied guest rooms, all decorated sparingly, and a bathroom.

  Seth accompanied her to her door—she took the stairs slowly so she wouldn’t trip and give him the opportunity to catch her—told her he hoped she would sleep well, and left.

  As Tanya changed into her pajamas for the first time since her involuntary arrival, she thought seriously about him. She still hated him, and when she thought about what he did to her, she wanted to either cry or rip his head off, or both. But he was so damn polite, it was unsettling. It gave her the willies. But it made it difficult for her to lash out at him when he was so courteous.

  Oh well, she thought as she climbed under the covers, relishing in the feel of them instead of freaking. Makes waiting until I can kill him less unpleasant.

  9

  The next morning—evening, she corrected herself again—Tanya woke to a sound, but it wasn’t a knock. Distantly she could hear something, some far off white noise that seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. She got up and got dressed, still listening so hard she hardly even noticed the fabric against her skin.

  When she opened the door, it got louder, but only just. It seemed to be coming from the training room, so she crept downstairs to investigate. It was coming from the training room, and as she got closer, she finally recognized the sound of birdsong. It made her think of summer mornings, the windows left open to try and beat the heat, and the birds waking her up just before sunrise. It was like a memory from another life. She wandered towards the door in a trance, wondering what she would find.

  Once inside, the sound intensified, so that it surrounded her, passed through her, became her. There was more than just birdsong, she could hear the insects buzzing, and the wind rattling the cottonwood leaves. But there was nothing there to make the sound, nothing but Seth, facing away from her, fiddling with something inside one of the panels.

  At last, she noticed a small box in the corner, up close to the ceiling. There was another in the corner next to the door. Speakers, she realized. It didn’t seem possible.

  “Remarkable, isn’t it?” Seth asked, and just before he turned to face her, the sound changed. At first, she didn’t recognize the tumult of noise, it was not something familiar to her as the birdsong had been. But after a moment she heard something like a long, indrawn breath, and then another great crash. It was the ocean, she realized, and it sounded like she was right on a rocky beach.

  She looked to Seth and saw that he stood with his eyes closed, chin tilted upward, as he lost himself in the chaos and noise.

  Tanya tried to follow suit, to let go of herself and become a part of it, the way she had with the birds, but it was too much. She pressed her hands to her ears, trying to dampen the sound, and then block it out.

  Just as she teetered on the edge of another panic attack, the noise stopped. She opened her eyes when she felt Seth pulling her hands down.

  “It’s all right, Tatiana, I’ve turned it off for the moment. Today we will be working on sounds and movement. I had this state-of-the-art sound system put in, and purchased all sorts of music for you to listen to,” he explained.

  She frowned. “What, last ni—yesterday?”

  He chuckled. “No, when I had it built, a year or so ago.”

  She looked around the room, and the meaning behind his words struck her. “You’ve been planning this for a long time,” she said slowly.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “I wanted to make sure that your transition went as smoothly as possible, so I designed this environment, and this program for you to accustom yourself to your new body.”

  She felt weird. Part of her was seriously freaked out. How long had he been following her, plotting to steal her humanity? But another part of her was baffled by the effort of it, the incredible attention to detail. “You put a lot of hours into this, didn’t you?” she asked, almost to herself.

  He smiled mysteriously. “That I did,” he admitted. “It was important to me that the process be as easy as I could make it for you.” There was a softness in the way he spoke, and the way he looked at her, that set her on edge.

&n
bsp; She swallowed thickly and looked over at the panel he had left open. Inside was the small control box for the sound system, as well as a stack of a few dozen CDs, and even a few old vinyl records at the bottom. “Are all of these cupboards?” she asked, turning towards the nearest wall. She couldn’t see any handle, so she smoothed her hand along the flush panels looking for a gap.

  Seth reached past her and pressed on one side of the panel, making it click. When he removed his hand, the panel swung open, revealing a collection of basic exercise equipment: jumping ropes, hand weights, and stretchy bands. She started going around the room, opening each panel to see what was inside. Most of them held similar training-type materials, although she also found the bag of fabric swatches and a whole collection of little bottles with cotton inside them.

  When she made to open one, Seth snatched it out of her hands and put it back. “Those are for tomorrow,” he said, “when we will handle scents.” He returned to the sound system and put on another track that sounded like a gurgling stream as she continued to explore.

  At last, Tanya came to a panel that would not open, no matter how she pressed on it. The next four were the same way. “What’s in here?”

  “Weapons,” he said bluntly. “They shall remain locked until you are ready to train with them.”

  She raised her eyebrows. He was—eventually, of course—going to let her handle weapons? She eyed the locked cubbies with a new-found desire to cooperate with Seth’s little “training” program.

  “Has your curiosity been slaked, then?” he asked, amused. She sighed and nodded, and he began to move around the room, closing the cupboards once more.

  “So, movement?” she asked, pretending to be enthusiastic.

  “Movement,” Seth agreed. “As you may have noticed, your body is far more responsive than it used to be, the muscles stronger and the reflexes quicker. Eventually, it will make you lithe and graceful, but while you are still unaccustomed to it, you will be a bit... clumsy.”

  “So I noticed,” she rolled her eyes. She hadn’t exactly been tripping over her own feet like she did at first, but it was still awkward. It made her think of when she was about thirteen, when she went through a hell of a growth spurt, and suddenly her arms and legs were too long, and she was constantly smacking her hands on things and hitting her hip on doorknobs.

  He came to stand opposite her. “Eventually I intend to instruct you in a variety of martial arts, but we shall start with some basic Tai Chi,” he offered.

  “Wax on, wax off?” she laughed.

  He smiled, so she figured he must get the reference. She was impressed. She had always assumed that vampires were behind the times, but maybe Seth was different.

  “First we begin with the neutral stance,” he instructed, “which is called Wu Chi. Feet straight forward, shoulder width apart, knees unlocked, pelvis tipped forward, shoulder blades spread and chin tipped slightly down,” he instructed.

  It was a lot to follow, but she tried. He circled around her, correcting the way she had hitched up her shoulders. When he came to stand behind her, his long fingers took hold of her hips and quickly tilted them back more. “Tipped this way,” he said.

  “Hey,” she squeaked. There was something about the way he had touched her... it was quick and purely professional, but it left her blushing.

  “That’s much better,” he said, ignoring her protest. “This is the basic stance, which we will often return to. The next one is cat stance...”

  He began to describe the next position, and she sighed. This was going to suck, she could tell already.

  Two hours later, Tatiana had finally mastered the first walk. She could cross the whole length of the training room with her knees bent deeply and without bobbing up and down. Seth was impressed by her progress. As they worked, the playlist he had devised continued on, starting with natural sounds, and then mixing in a few low-key instrumental pieces. Woodwinds, then soft strings, then subtle percussion. She seemed to be handling it well, only glancing up occasionally when a new sound touched her ears.

  “Very good,” he allowed a little approval to show through. He was grudgingly pleased to see her take to it so quickly. “Next I will teach you the Tortoise walk,” he decided. It was further than he had planned to go on the first day, but he felt she had earned it.

  He began to explain it to her, and she sighed deeply, obviously not paying attention to him. “Is there something wrong?” he asked, trying not to clench his jaw.

  “No, it’s just…. This is really boring. I mean, I get it and all. But isn’t there a way to learn movement that’s more… fun?” she begged.

  He felt the corner of his mouth quirk upwards. Oh yes, there were far more entertaining ways to learn. “Well, do you know how to dance?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I guess. If the music’s right. Clubbing’s never really been my thing.”

  It was becoming more difficult for him not to smile. “I was referring to more traditional kinds of dance.”

  “Oh,” she bit her lip. “No, not really. I always wanted to do ballet when I was little, but it was too expensive. Mom made me take piano instead.”

  Hmmm... Tatiana as a ballerina. There was a passion to pursue at some later date. He strode over to the media center and selected a different playlist. An orchestra struck up a pleasant, lilting waltz. “What about ballroom dancing?” he asked.

  She laughed. “Definitely not. Too hoity-toity for me.”

  “I think you sell yourself short, Tatiana,” he told her as he returned to her side. “I can easily imagine you at some antebellum debut, your dance card filled within the first five minutes,” he smiled. She would be just the sort to make the men fight over her attention.

  She snorted. “Yeah, not really the Scarlett O’Hara type. I’ve just never had the patience for all the manners and whatnot.”

  “Well let’s see how you like the dance,” he offered, and held out his hand, bowing.

  Tatiana looked at it like it was a snake that might bite her, but eventually, reluctantly, she slid her hand into his. He suppressed a shiver of excitement—it was the first she had willingly touched him. He pulled her towards him, holding her hand aloft and placing his left hand on the small of her back.

  She made a surprised sound, but her left hand found his shoulder quite naturally, and he could not help but smile. “Now, watch my feet, and try to mirror my actions. It’s three steps in a square shape like this,” He began the steps slowly, not in time with the music. She seemed to catch on, but she kept skipping through the second step. “You have to trace the box,” he told her.

  Huffing, she tried again, and while she took a little too long on the second step she was starting to get the hang of it. “Very good. Now try it without looking.”

  The alacrity with which she snapped her head up made him chuckle in spite of himself. She frowned at him but continued to move along to his lead. They soon fell into step with the music, and he could feel her relax in his arms. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine them in a hundred different places: Vienna, Atlanta, Paris. All his old haunts of the nineteenth century. Therefore, he kept his eyes open.

  “This seems easy enough,” she commented.

  Seth nodded his head to the side and then began to lead them in a rotation.

  “Woah, it goes in a circle?” she asked.

  “And circles within circles,” he added.

  “Sounds like a good way to get dizzy,” she glanced over her shoulder at the floor beneath them.

  “The best,” he agreed. “Ready?”

  “Ready for whaaa—!” her words devolved into a sound of protest as he backed away and led her through a turn. She stumbled only a little, and when she returned to his arms, she was flustered. He could not help but laugh.

  “You did that on purpose!” she accused.

  He merely smiled. “Of course I did. And you performed wonderfully.”

  They danced a while longer, and he could tell when she was getting the
hang of it because she began trying to lead. He kept her on her toes by throwing in the occasional turn or embellishment. “What do you think of the waltz?” he inquired.

  Tanya shrugged. “It’s alright. Kind of stuffy.”

  “There was a time,” he informed her, “when the waltz was the subject of great scandal. Young men and women were not even allowed to do it in public, it was so provocative.”

  She frowned. “Why?” she asked incredulously.

  “Because.” The remainder of his answer consisted of pressing her against him tightly and whirling them faster around the room. He was rewarded with a small gasp.

  “Okay,” she said when they slowed again. “So it’s like twerking for the sexually repressed.”

  Seth groaned, wishing that he hadn’t understood that particular reference. He had made an effort to stay abreast of popular culture in the last two decades or so, despite how ridiculous it seemed at times. It was worth it, though, for she smiled, and then laughed. It was a sound he had heard many times, but never directed at him. He pressed his lips together, looking away.

  Wow, did I actually manage to embarrass him? Never one to resist pushing a button once she found it, she sighed. “Still, this is pretty boring. If I have to learn to dance, I wanna learn something fun, like the tango,” she teased.

  His eyebrows shot up as he met her gaze again. “You want me to teach you the tango?” he murmured, just loud enough to be heard over the music.

  “Sure,” she shrugged. “Don’t you think that would be fun?”

  He stopped dancing suddenly, as he considered her question. Somehow, she doubted the old creeper had any idea what fun actually was. After a while it started to get awkward, standing there in his arms, but at last, he smiled grimly and said, “Very well.”

  Why did it feel like a warning?

  10

  He left her standing there, wondering, as he went to the control box and changed the music. The sound that came out of the speakers put her immediately on edge; she was learning fast, but not that fast. She closed her eyes, trying to take in the music. It was still mostly strings, she realized, but it seemed odd that the same instruments that had been drifting along with them were now driving into her head.