by S T Branton
Chapter Ten
Why is it always a creepy building? Why couldn’t it be a beachfront hotel? Or a fun indie arcade? No, it’s always a fucking creepy building where I can smell the mold from a block away, and even the birds avoid it.
I kicked an empty can of bottom-shelf beer out of my way as I continued toward the creep-tastic building in a slow, methodical stomp. Yet another out of the way, abandoned building where absolutely nothing good can happen, and surrounded by the depressing aftereffects of a local economy drying up.
Every single time.
I needed Archie to find some friends who worked in Hawaii or in the business section of a major metropolitan city. This was getting depressing. It didn’t help that Archie framed this particular dealer as ‘more or less reputable.’ Which was code for, ‘I have no idea if you’re walking into Murdertown’s Most Wanted or a place where you can buy what you need and maybe ice cream.’
As usual, this building looked abandoned. Short, squat, and entirely industrial, it looked like a cover model for ‘Depressing Buildings Monthly.’ A small whiff of smoke rose from one of the exhaust pipes for what must be an ancient oil-burning system and poured out of the top of the building. Other than that, it looked empty, which in my experience usually meant hordes of Farsiders, or agents looking to arrest me.
I muttered a few more curses to myself as I walked the perimeter of the building to check for mysterious vehicles or giant gangs of Fae hanging around. When none of them appeared, I relaxed a little and made my way to the back door Archie suggested I use.
The door, like most doors in industrial buildings used as a front for dealers of all kinds, was propped open. Archie’s instructions were to go in that open door, make my way right until I ran into the far wall and turn left, then right. At that point, I should arrive at a large open space where a desk would be standing in the middle and the guy I came to meet would be sitting. Archie described him as a ‘bookworm’ type, although one who was well-connected.
I followed the directions Archie gave me. When I made the last turn, I saw the table in the center of the room. It was a warehouse area, and surprisingly clean, and the table was neat and organized, but no one sat in the chair. I was about to step forward when the patter of canine feet surprised me and I turned to see Dog. Our eyes met, and he yanked his head back toward the door. He must have followed me in here. A thousand questions whirled through my mind all at once.
“What is it? And where the hell have you been? How did you find me?”
Dog barked, answering exactly none of my pressing questions. The sound reverberated off the walls, but he didn’t step forward. He looked back toward the entrance again and looked back at me.
“I’m sorry, buddy, but I have a job to d—” I began. A loud yell like someone was being hurt cut me off. I turned to it, and Dog ran around me to block my path. He began barking loudly and growling.
“Shit, I’ve gotta go help.” I ran, leaving Dog barking behind me. The sound came from deep in the warehouse where the lights were off. My thoughts immediately went to some nerdy guy, waiting around for me to show up, and breaking his leg stocking some shelf. That would be my luck, for someone to get hurt on the most mundane of missions.
As I got farther from the lit area, I slowed down. The yell had stopped and now there was only a soft whimpering, but it wasn’t coming from somewhere I could identify. It was like it was all around me, somewhere the sound could push down. Like above. I looked up and stepped back in horror. There was someone tall and lanky and, from the looks of it, a fairy, hanging from one of the tall metal shelves. Around his neck was a crude noose made out of what looked like a spool of barbed wire. Blood dripped down his shirt, off his shoes and onto the floor.
“Oh, God, I’m coming!” I assured him and grabbed the shelving. I climbed up by stepping on boxes I hoped would support my weight and wished I’d done more rock-climbing in my time since imprisonment. Or before my imprisonment. Or at any point in my life.
I reached for his shoes and briefly tried to lift him, so it could create slack, but realized it was no use. He was passing out and not capable of the dexterity it would take to get out of the wire once he had it loose. Not to mention, his hands looked like they might be bound behind his back too. I climbed another shelf higher and saw his hands were, indeed, also bound at the wrist with barbed wire.
I shuddered at the thought of who would do that to someone, then realized this guy dealt in Farside weapons. Any number of the Farsiders who imprisoned me in The Deep would do something like this and consider it the day’s entertainment.
Not today.
I got up onto the shelf by his waist and looked up. The noose was on the shelf right above and was tied tight to his neck, meaning he wasn’t hanging by much of the wire. If I could sever the barbed restraint, it would be risky letting him fall, but it would relieve the pressure and the cutting of his neck and might save him. I knew my switchblade would slice through the noose, and as soon as I climbed on top of the top shelf, I pulled it out and wedged it under the wire between it and the shelf pole. It cut the restraints smoothly as I yanked up, and the man’s body dropped legs-first to the floor.
He cried out when he landed, then began coughing hard. I whipped around to climb back down the shelves. When I reached him, he was in tremendous pain. Blood poured from his neck where the barbs ripped his skin as he fell, and from the puncture wounds where it dug into him while he hung. An entire piece of skin from his neck was missing and a glance upward saw it hanging from one of the prongs on the wire.
I reached over him and cut the wire binding his hands and tossed it away, then frantically looked around for something to stop the bleeding. It pooled around his head like a crimson halo, and I knew he didn’t have long before blood loss would make him pass out again.
Finding a bag of surprisingly normal white t-shirts among the shelves was lucky and unexpected. I ripped open the packaging, pulled out one of the shirts and went to work cutting it into strips. When I got the first strip cut off, I wrapped it around the fairy’s neck and grabbed the second.
I tried to hold the fabric to him to stop the bleeding, but I knew it wouldn’t take long. He was bleeding quite badly and needed to get to a hospital soon. Since I didn’t think he would want police here, that meant I needed to help him, and get him out of the building.
“Okay, dude, I’m going to help you up now so we can get you out of here.”
He sputtered something I couldn’t understand, and I cocked my head to one side.
“Sorry, I don’t understand you, buddy. I don’t think you should try to talk though, okay? So let’s get you out of here.” I tried to move faster.
“Trap,” he forced out. “It’s a trap.”
A sound caused my spine to straighten and every hair on my neck to stand on end. It was a hiss. Not simply any hiss, but the hiss of a being who has two large fangs and likes to see people drained of their blood. I turned to face the sound but saw only shadows. The vampires I fought before were simple creatures, and it confused me why one would go through all the trouble of setting up a trap. They didn’t seem that intelligent.
It all made sense when the being stepped tentatively into the light, long dark shadows casting down his face and body and obscuring much of him. A finely tailored shoe being joined by a second stepped into view. Pressed pants and a designer black shirt with a red tie appeared before what I could see of the face. When I could, it took me aback, and I tried to steel myself for whatever was next.
It looked like a man, with two long, impressive fangs, and dark black hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. It eyed me with satisfaction, then looked around again, as if searching for my friends. When it saw none, its expression turned to one of slight disappointment, and its arm came from behind it. In its hand, it carried a fencing sword, which it brought to its forehead, then down and away in a swooshing sound. Archie had told me about ones like this, but I didn’t believe it. This was no mere vampire.
This was a Varkolak.
Chapter Eleven
“Sara Slick.” The creature had a slight lisp when he said my name. It seemed like an accent hid deep in his voice as well, but I couldn’t make it out.
“I don’t know who you are, or what your game is, but I am getting this guy out of here right now, and if you so much as move…” I stepped toward him.
“You will what? Exactly?” Under his long, hooked nose, his mouth stretched impossibly wide, showing his wide array of gleaming white teeth. Especially the long ones. “You will attack me with that blade of yours? A toy.” He waved his arm. When he did so, the blade yanked in that direction. I tried to hold it firm, but the pull was too great, and it flew out of my fingers and clattered on the floor.
“What the hell?” I demanded.
“You are but a child, Slick. A tiny gnat on the grandness of the world, and yet…” he stepped toward me, and although everything in my brain screamed to run, I felt locked into place. It was as if his eyes held some special power over me, and I couldn’t look away. I was transfixed by how impossibly blue they were, and how they seemed to grow and recede, like they were reacting to the beating of a heart.
My heart.
I felt it in my chest, thrashing against my ribcage, pumping blood through my system, trying to give my body the fuel it needed to move, but instead it made me hot. I began to sweat, and still I couldn’t move. His eyes, expanding and shrinking with the beat of my heart, seemed not to look directly into mine. They stared lower, off to the side. Near my neck. I tried to close my eyes and break the spell and found it almost impossible to do.
“Who are you?” I sputtered while forcing one eye closed and feeling the tiniest twinge of relief. If I could only get the other closed too.
“My name is too complicated for your human mouth.”
“I’ve gotten that a lot lately,” I shot.
“But I shall allow you to know me, for I believe the hunter must acknowledge his kill and his kill must know his hunter. Or hers, in your case.”
He tapped the sword on the floor and seemed to trace something on it. As he did, his eyes fell to it, and I felt an intense pressure leave me. I squeezed my eyes shut, shook off the trance, and felt my legs loosen as I gained back a measure of control over my body. I opened one eye again to see him.
“I know you’re a vampire.” My voice faltered a little despite myself.
“True. But that is like me telling you you’re human. It is, of course, what we are, but not who we are, yes?”
Ah, great, riddles.
I scrutinized him from head to toe. “I thought most vampires were all goth-wannabe-posers. Red sunglasses and leather jackets and too much gel in their hair. Aren’t you a little old to cosplay as Edward?”
“You speak of popular culture. It is beneath both of us.” He seemed to take a stance against the darkness with his sword and stabbed at it. “I am a creature of culture. I have not lived this long to abide by the rules of your petulant society without argument. Besides, I am far more than a vampire. I am an assassin. And I have caught my prey.”
“Who, me?” Both eyes opened and stared at him. His spell over me was lessening, and I felt more of my old self coming back. Anger coursed through my veins at the gall of this dandily dressed ‘assassin.’ Yet, my legs still wouldn’t move. He still had a power over me that kept me rooted to the spot, no matter how free my arms were. His spell was extraordinarily powerful, and an example of the power of a Varkolak over a normal vampire.
The vampires I had fought before were nearly senseless, dumb creatures, but they were nothing compared to this. In fact, Varkolaks had the power to create those kinds of vampires out of humans, although the Pax Philosophia explicitly banned the practice. Which I guessed explained why one would go into hiding and become an assassin.
“Yes, you. It was shockingly easy, too. All I had to do was endanger some innocent and you ran to the rescue like a good little puppet. I am disappointed it was so easy. I heard so many stories of you from the Fae and others. I expected a great battle of wits before a battle of arms, and here you stand before me, locked in place, dumb as a deer in headlights and as imminently dead.”
“You sure talk a lot. Why don’t you let my legs go and you can see if you’re as good a fighter as you are an epic monologuer?” I dared.
“Hah,” the vampire spat as his head fell back in mock laughter. “You challenge me?”
His face finally came into full view of the light, and I nearly retched. Something about his facial features was wrong. His eyes were a little too wide and far too sunken in, his nose a little too hooked. His lips were thin, and almost translucently white, and his gleaming teeth only accentuated how pale the rest of his skin was.
He looked slimy and gaunt. His hair was oily and pulled back tightly like it was running away from the horror show that was his face. Big, thick, bushy eyebrows bore down like they were attempting to menace me all on their own. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of passive malice wore on his forehead, etching wrinkles across his oily, pale skin.
“To a fair fight? Sure,” I bluffed.
“I’ve always enjoyed playing with my food.”
Suddenly, a large brown blur passed me. Before I knew what was happening, Dog knocked him down and was on top of him while barking loudly. As the vampire hit the floor, my legs released, and I nearly fell over when they suddenly had to handle holding my weight again. I stumbled forward a step or two and turned to the hurt fairy. Our eyes met.
“Go, go, go,” I whispered, and he scrambled to his knees and crawled away.
I looked for the switchblade and saw it off to the side. It was far enough away the Varkolak would definitely notice me going for it, but I had to give it a shot. I ran and slid like a baseball player going hard into second, then hopped up onto my feet as I grabbed the blade. A sudden thought occurred to me. In movies, a wooden stake through the heart would take care of these suckers, but did that work on actual vampires from The Far? I hadn’t yet tried this course of action. I thought hard about it. I knew there was something else in the stories, but it wouldn’t immediately come to mind.
Dog was tearing at the creature when suddenly, he yelped and flew across the room. The vampire assassin stood and brushed himself off, only a minor tear on his jacket as evidence anything happened at all. Looking back, I supposed a lycanthrope tearing at your veins didn’t do a lot if there was nothing in them in the first place.
Dog landed hard on the floor and smashed into a shelving unit. He looked up at me, and I read the apology and pain in his eyes. I made to go after him but stopped when the sword suddenly pointed at my throat. He whimpered from his place on the floor. I knew he was hurt, but right now, I had something else to worry about. The vampire leaned back on his leg and twirled the end of his blade in a slow circle.
Chapter Twelve
“A fair distraction, but ultimately useless,” the vampire slithered, his voice now sliding away from the authority and poshness and into a more rage-filled tone. He was upset he hadn’t seen Dog coming and that I broke his spell, and knowing what I knew now, I avoided looking in his eyes. His tone let me know he was quite unhappy with that development.
“All right, but now it’s time for a real fight.” I dove, tucking and rolling until I reached another shelf, where an open box of tools lay.
It had to have something I could use. I crashed into it and tools spilled out of the top and my hand grabbed for the first metal thing I could put my fingers around. I spun to face him while waving it.
It was a wrench.
“En garde.” He thrust his sword.
I rolled my eyes and batted it away as I stepped away from the shelf. I didn’t know a lot about sword fighting, but I knew having your back to something while fencing probably wasn’t the best strategic move. He thrust again and I jumped to avoid it, and he pierced a box of what appeared to be sidewalk salt. It spilled on the floor in what began as a trickle and quickly became an avalanche
of white. If nothing else, I wouldn’t slip on that part of the floor any time soon.
I circled him slowly while waiting for him to try again and tried to figure out what I could do to fight him off. He was obviously quite strong, and his sword thrust seemed impossibly fast, but there had to be something I could do. I glanced back at the knocked-over box of tools and saw another wrench, a hammer and a screwdriver. My choices were limited to blunt force trauma and stabbing with a Phillips head. I could probably put together any table in the world, though.
I moved before my eyes registered what was happening, and brought the wrench up to my heart, barely catching the tip of the blade and knocking it away. It sliced into my arm and spilled blood down it. I spun into him, brought the wrench down in a hard arc, and smacked him in the jaw. That seemed enough to hurt him, and I brought it up again. Before I knew what was going on, his hand wrapped around my throat and he shoved me back into the boxes of tools. I flew ten feet across the room like it was nothing, and I marveled at his strength.
Suddenly, he was in the air and diving at me. I rolled barely in time and grabbed the hammer as I did so. He landed beside me and I swung hard, smashing it into his kneecap. I felt it crack and crumble under the shot and a ray of hope filled me. If I could hurt him, I could beat him. He might be super strong, and super-fast, but nobody could fight that well with no knees.
I pulled back again as he screamed in pain and tried to take another swing, but he kicked me and connected with my nose. I heard him fall to the ground and pull away, but I was too busy with stars exploding in my vision and the sudden warmth of blood running down my face to go after him. I tried to shake it off, and when I looked back up, he was attempting to stand again.
I pulled my blade. It might not kill him, but it could certainly help. I rolled and grabbed the blade in one movement and flung it in an arc. It flew straight through the air and pierced the assassin’s hand. He dropped the sword in surprise and yanked the blade from his hand as he knelt in pain and tossed it aside.
