The scrape and scrabble of the creature’s pursuit kept a steady pace behind them. Johnathan didn’t dare look back. That would only slow him down, a fatal mistake.
Johnathan put his head down and plowed on. They needed to get out of the open space of the street, find somewhere to hide or barricade themselves, though there were few options this far from the central point of town.
Adrenaline surged through his veins, the details of the surrounding trees and buildings blurring as his other senses sharpened. He could hear the dull crunch of the graveled road beneath his boots, the haphazard skitter of loose stones spitting out in his wake. The night air heaved through his chest and chilled the sweat that streaked along his scalp.
The closest building to the morgue was one of the town’s mills, empty now but for the scent of stale sweat, grease, and sawdust. There would be plenty of nooks to conceal themselves, and more than one blade left in the building. It was as good a place as any, and Johnathan needed to make the decision. He could feel his momentum flagging
“Head for the mill!” he called to his companion, pushing through the stitch in his side. The scuff of claws through gravel spurred him to pull on his reserves.
Several paces ahead of Johnathan, Vic glanced over his shoulder and blanched. Johnathan’s nerves sparked with awareness as a huff of heated breath steamed against the back of his neck. Time constricted, a drip of seconds through the physical vise of a mortal moment.
Vic spun around and launched himself back toward Johnathan. Blurred, sporadic movements, like trying to follow a hummingbird with the naked eye. Too fast, the thought stole into his adrenaline-saturated thoughts with the finesse of an ice pick. Vic caught Johnathan around the waist and somehow shifted their momentum sideways.
The creature’s wicked claws missed Johnathan by a hair’s breadth, but a spray of blood still painted the night.
Vic screamed and dropped to his knees, clutching his thigh. Blood ran over and through his fingers from a deep and vicious slash. Johnathan’s mind went blank.
Something like fury blazed to life inside him, and years of brutal training took over. As the beast lunged toward them again, Johnathan grabbed Vic in a bear hug and rolled away, all while snapping his foot into the air.
His heel smashed the creature’s jaw, the placement more luck than skill when his opponent was like nothing he’d ever faced before. The beast stumbled backward and tumbled over a rut in the road with a snarl. Given the second of reprieve, Johnathan lurched to his feet and plucked Vic off the ground.
“Go, or we both die,” Vic hissed. He clung to Johnathan’s arm, his face a mask of pain.
“Do shut up,” said Johnathan, and he threw Vic over his shoulder with all the ceremony of tossing a potato sack.
He ignored the man’s cussing and grunts of pain. Johnathan might not have Vic’s unusual, if not downright deceptive speed, but he had stamina and a plan.
“Oh god, run!” Vic barked the order.
Johnathan launched himself toward the mill. His steps tore up the ground in clumps of dirt and sawdust. He picked up speed as he barreled for the closest entrance and leveled his free shoulder to hit the weakest spot.
The door, thankfully, splintered, but shattered his momentum. He stumbled through the entrance. Vic yelped, spilling off Johnathan’s shoulder in a clumsy roll.
The muscles of Johnathan’s shoulder hurt like the blazes; he suspected he’d torn them. He gritted his teeth and dragged Vic further into the mill.
Sweat stung his eyes as he maneuvered both of them behind a stack of freshly cut lumber waiting for rail transport. He placed Vic down and tore off his jacket, tying it tightly around the man’s mangled thigh before he could bleed to death. He needed to stop the bleeding, but their foe was too close.
Johnathan peeked around the corner, hoping to locate the creature before it found them. He froze. The beast was right there, but it stalled at the doorway where it paced back and forth with snorts and huffs.
“It’s wary,” he whispered. “But of what? We’re trapped unless we find weapons.”
Vic sighed and craned his neck to see the beast. “We aren’t trapped. There are multiple exits, if we can reach them before that bastard reaches us.”
It still didn’t make sense. The creature had to smell Vic’s blood, had to know his prey was wounded.
Johnathan focused. His thoughts sank into the cool inner space where his Prospective training resided.
His senses ignited. He absorbed the details of their surroundings in a cursory glance, from the smears of machine oil and rotting sawdust that littered the floor, to the muted roar of the nearby river that powered the mill. The heavy scents of burnt metal, grease, and raw wood filtered through his lungs in deep, heaving breaths.
He didn’t hear Vic breathing.
Johnathan turned to him. Vic was still half-twisted to look at the door. He paid no mind to his leg wound, which should have bled through his slap dash tourniquet by now with no accompanying pressure.
Johnathan reached out and peeled back the bloodied fabric of his coat.
Vic snatched at his wrist with a low hiss, but not before Johnathan saw the damning, smooth skin.
The wound was gone.
Neither of them moved. Johnathan met Vic’s silver-gray gaze, the cool calculation so very reminiscent of Sir Harry.
“Shit,” the vampire muttered.
“You son of a bitch,” Johnathan snarled. “That monster is wary of you.”
Vic’s grip on his wrist shifted, and Johnathan found himself airborne until he came down hard, pinned against a wood stack with Vic’s hand locked around his throat. He strained upward, but Vic, the little bird, held him in place with ease.
“This is not how I wanted to do this,” said Vic.
The vampire’s gaze shifted from his furious companion to the doorway, attention divided, but Johnathan knew he had no advantage here.
How had he not noticed? Because the bastard did nothing to give himself away. Despite all of Johnathan’s training, despite his intimate knowledge, he hadn’t a clue.
“John, I need you to calm down,” said Vic.
Johnathan thrashed. “You’re the bloody vampire!”
“I’m aware of that,” said Vic, with infuriating composure, “but we have more pressing matters.”
As if to emphasize his statement, the beast chuffed and took a tentative step forward. Claws screeched over stone.
Vic searched Johnathan’s face. “A truce until we survive this?”
Johnathan’s throat worked. Vic held him firmly in place, but the grip on his neck wasn’t painful. He longed to do violence, but it occurred to him that Vic could have killed him at any point during the past couple days. He could have snapped Johnathan’s neck and left his body for the beast while he fled, but he hadn’t, and those actions piqued Johnathan’s grudging interest.
“Truce,” he finally gritted through his teeth.
Vic released him and stepped back, hands lax and ready.
Johnathan stifled the fresh urge to throttle him. There was the beast to deal with, and its reluctance to enter the mill gave Johnathan an unconventional idea.
“If it’s wary of you, do you think you could scare it off?”
“It’s not that wary of me,” snapped Vic.
“Then it won’t stay hesitant forever,” Johnathan retorted. “We have to do something.”
The mill didn’t offer much in the way of weapons. The best offerings were the heavy iron picks used to steer the logs. He seized one, unwieldy and awkward in his grip as he dragged it through the sawdust.
“What are you doing?” Vic’s tone was high and tense.
“We need to go on the offense. On the count of three, I’ll drive the creature back and you snap its neck or something,” said Johnathan.
“That’s your grand plan,” Vic hissed. “We are both going to die.”
Johnathan shrugged. “We’ll die either way when it decides you’re not a threat.” He dug h
is heels into the floor, the vampire muttering beside him. “One—”
That was the moment the beast overcame its hesitation. It lunged forward, its slavering jaws filling Johnathan’s vision. Scared out of his wits, Johnathan swung the log pick with all his strength, shoulders burning from the effort. The iron-shod end slammed against the beast’s snout.
The creature yipped and fell back. Its smoldering gaze locked on Johnathan before it bowed its head with a plaintive whine that scraped his ragged nerves raw. Cracks, backlit by fire, split the soot-black flank before the beast erupted in a cloud of embers and ash.
“Blazes,” muttered Vic.
Johnathan stared in shock, the log hook still clutched in his hands. He turned the hook. Oil and wood alone couldn’t have done such damage, could they? What was that creature? Why did it react so to such an innocuous weapon? Why did it stare at him like that? As if he’d done something wrong. What detail was he missing? Had he actually vanquished the creature, or had it simply retreated? He feared the latter.
Johnathan dropped his arms so that the iron hook hit the floor with a dull thud. The odd wound on his palm throbbed. He had too many damn questions, and he was too damn exhausted to sort through them.
He turned to look at the stunned vampire. “We need to talk.”
Chapter Ten
Johnathan’s shoulders were so stiff he suspected someone could use him to lever open a stuck door. It was impossible to relax with Vic at his side. Their uneasy truce remained in play as they headed back for the vampire’s carriage. Johnathan ground his teeth, his fingers tightened around the log hook. He refused to leave the bloody thing behind when he had no other weapon. Now he carried his makeshift club in front of him, his fluid mood swinging between exhaustion and righteous rage.
Vic flowed through the dark beside him, his features lit by pale moonlight. The revelation forced Johnathan to catalog all the little details he had to have arbitrarily dismissed once he’d decided Vic wasn’t a suspect. The man did possess a near preternatural grace, the absence of regular breaths, and such stillness. Humans fidgeted constantly. Even when they attempted to be still, some part of their body twitched or rippled, a body ready for fight or flight. Vampires lacked that impulse.
Johnathan clenched his jaw hard. Except Vic had fidgeted in the presence of Alyse, and he could have sworn he even saw Vic breathe. That he didn’t see those small actions now meant the fiend no longer possessed the need to pretend.
His eye twitched as irritation filled him.
“You’re very good,” he said to Vic. It was the first words he’d spoken since they departed the sawmill.
Vic’s shoulders hunched. “I feel that is not a compliment to my character.”
Johnathan stopped in the middle of the road, the log hook clasped so tight it bit into his palms. “You’ve been playing me this whole time—”
Vic stepped into his space. A hand reached up to silence him but Johnathan jerked back, his expression murderous.
Vic’s hand stopped in midair. “Not here, damn you.” He appeared apprehensive.
Johnathan scoffed. “Worried about your reputation with the gentle townsfolk?”
Anger flashed mirror-bright in Vic’s eyes. He shoved at Johnathan’s chest. Not a hard blow, but enough to make him stagger back a step.
“You have no idea how hard I’ve worked for their trust, you pig-headed, overgrown lout!”
Johnathan rubbed his chest, thoroughly confused. Vic could have laid him out with a flick of his fingers. Why hold back now? And the idea of a vampire concerned with trust issues of the ignorant citizens? He could practically hear Sir Harry cackling in his rotted grave.
“They’re your food.”
“They’re my people,” Vic snapped.
Johnathan’s frown deepened. Nothing about Vic fit what he knew of fiends. They didn’t possess a reverence for life. Humans were prey, or tools at best, a distinction Johnathan intimately understood. And yet…
He sighed. “Where then?”
Vic squinted up at him. “Will you accept a truce in my home?”
Johnathan’s nostrils flared. The vampire didn’t seem to have a high opinion of him either. “The truce stands until you give me a reason to break it.”
Vic stepped back and straightened his long coat, effectively covering his torn, bloodied trousers. “Then we have an accord.”
It was Johnathan’s turn to invade Vic’s space, towering over the vampire. “I fully expect you to give me a reason.”
Vic had the gall to roll his eyes. “Brute.” He slid around Johnathan before he could sputter a response. “Come along, you big idiot.”
Johnathan vibrated from the urge to do violence. He inhaled a deep breath. He would see this truce through if for no other reason than to solve the puzzle that was Vic.
The ride back was marked by pregnant silence. Johnathan sat ramrod straight, so tense every bump in the road shot straight up his backside. Between that and the protest in his shoulder, he was one big bruise by the time they settled across from one another at Vic’s dining table.
Johnathan set the log hook down with a muted clatter and traced the wood grain. His anger and confusion continued to tangle in his gut. He didn’t know where to look, how to act, and no training prepared him for this situation. Vampires were to be eliminated. They were tricksters who killed without remorse or guilt and certainly were not open to negotiations.
Vic set his hands flat on the table across from Johnathan, a movement that accented his finely manicured nails. Johnathan gnawed on his inner cheek.
The hands bothered him worst of all.
“Where to begin?” Vic kept his tone light.
Johnathan finally glanced up and saw the vampire was completely at a loss. The tension didn’t abate, but he felt a notch better at the knowledge Vic wasn’t prepared for this situation either.
“In the mill, you said ‘this isn’t how I wanted to do this.’” Johnathan drummed his fingers on the table. “What, exactly, did you mean by that?”
Vic fidgeted. His hands came off the table, fingers tapping together in a tell-tale sign of nerves. Johnathan blinked at him, startled by the apparent unconscious action. A vampire who fidgeted. This made no ruddy sense!
“Approaching a member of the Society is a complicated task for someone like me.”
Johnathan tensed. Several revelations ticked over in his mind. Vic had known who and what he was the second he stepped foot in Cress Haven.
What an utter disaster. If their situation hadn’t taken such a wretched turn, the Society would never pass him for his utter failure to recognize a vampire two feet from him. Had Dr. Evans known what Johnathan was walking into? Possibly. He must have known Vic was here if nothing else. If Vic was the summation of his test, Johnathan spectacularly failed.
“Damn.” Johnathan flopped back hard against the high-backed chair. He glared at Vic. “You set a trap.”
“No.” Vic looked up, his expression oddly earnest. “I sent the letter that brought you here.”
Johnathan's jaw dropped. “Why would you—how could you? What was your intent?”
Vic swallowed and smoothed his hands over the table, the gesture so benignly human it distracted Johnathan until the vampire spoke. “You saw the girl. What happened to her. She’s not the first. And I don’t think these incidents are isolated to Cress Haven.” He met Johnathan’s gaze. “I don’t know what to look for, how to track another predator like this. I wouldn’t have spotted that claw in the gore. Or that symbol burned into her body. I would never think to look.”
“You want…a Hunter’s help?”
Vic huffed a self-deprecative chuckle at the incredulity in Johnathan’s voice. “A measure of desperation and insanity, I assure you.”
“They would never have listened to you,” said Johnathan. His superiors would have killed Vic on the spot, whether they had a beast to contend with or not.
So why hadn’t they?
Vic shrugged. “You’re
listening.”
A pit of dread flooded Johnathan’s gut. He’d hesitated to kill a vampire, again. The Society wouldn’t stop at failing him. They would cast him out, if he was lucky. There was always the Judas Choice, a lethal concoction of poison and dead man’s blood, to weaken them, in case a Prospective was in the process of transition. It was a less-than-honorable death for those the Society deemed as traitors to their cause and traitors to humanity. His anger waned in the face of such a resolution.
He rubbed his jaw. “A failing I can’t seem to correct.”
Vic went twitchy. Johnathan was beginning to recognize the tell. The vampire was about to say something he feared would set off Johnathan’s temper.
“I thought it was because you were a rookie,” said Vic. “Not what I hoped to contend with, but you showed so much promise at the scene I thought it would work.”
“How did you know I was a rookie?”
Vic’s features scrunched up in a very juvenile expression, like a child caught with their hand in the sweet bin. “About that.” He fished something from the pocket of his coat and set it down on the table with precise movements.
Johnathan’s wallet, which contained his money and identity papers. Vic tapped a finger on the leather and pushed up the coin concealed inside the inner pocket. The symbolic cast coin given to all Society Prospectives in their first year of service to identify them to other members throughout the country. Dr. Evans always pressed them to keep it on their person.
Another detail of this assignment he’d half-assed. The sinking sensation of absolute failure weighed in his gut.
Johnathan looked up at Vic. The vampire. The one responsible for this madness. The one who brought him to this godforsaken backwater town. Who dragged him into this supernatural mess of murdered girls and beasts who burst into ash. The one who’d played him from the moment he set foot into Cress Haven.
A Bargain of Blood and Gold Page 7
