Hunting Trip (Hidden Blood Book 3)

by Al K. Line

  "Yes, return Father and his friends and we can talk. I will not deal with you knowing you have them. Are they all alive?"

  "They are. They are, ah, not cooperating, so making perfect copies has been hard. So you found out? You know we have them?"

  "Are you all stupid?" I blurted. "Of course we bloody know! Why do you think we're here? You lot kidnapped them, stole my son, turned him into a boy before his time, of course we bloody know." What was with these people? Weren't they listening? Too focused on Kane, I guess.

  "We were unsure what you had been told, what you had found out," said the woman, still on her knees, still drooling over Kane. "We found the bodies, but little else. We thought maybe they had sinned and the One punished them. But we waited, went ahead with our plans, waited for you."

  "Hell, what is wrong with you people? Look, where are the others? Tell us then we'll see about the rest. But if you don't start talking I'll kill every last one of you."

  The woman stood, and I swear she wiggled her hips as she sashayed back to the others then cast a sexy glance over her shoulder. I watched Kane but he seemed completely unfazed, didn't react in the slightest.

  They spoke quietly for a moment then she turned and said, "We will give them to you. We just wanted to make the future perfect for the One. You would never have known it wasn't your father, we promise."

  "Yet you would have killed my mother." It wasn't a question, it was a statement of fact. "And you would have killed my father, impersonated him. Tricked me." Kane's anger was rising so I hastily put a hand to his shoulder to calm him.

  "Later, okay? For now let's just get them back. These people are obsessed, and the obsessed, the indoctrinated, they do crazy things."

  "You can find them—"

  The door smashed open, and I mean smashed into tiny pieces, and Oskari's aide stood at the top of the stairs. He surveyed the scene below with cold detachment, then walked slowly down, followed by vampire after vampire.

  Nobody moved, nobody said a word.

  More and more vampires filed down, and they kept on coming, backing up the stairs.

  "Kill them all, apart from the boy," snarled the aide.

  A Bit Crowded

  Brewster Bunker, wherever he was, would not be happy about this. He put up with a certain amount of damage as part of running his business, but strictly forbade full out war in his club for obvious reasons. Like he didn't want the building destroyed for starters.

  The doppels moved forward and I readied to blast any that got too close, but then as they formed a barrier in front of us and turned to face the vampires I understood they weren't trying to do anything apart from protect us.

  I should have told them it was a lost cause, that they didn't stand a chance, but that's not the kind of pep talk you want before you go into battle.

  Actually, they kind of surprised me with their ferocity and refusal to be intimidated. The vampires amassed at one end of the room, the doppels and us at the other, just the tables between us.

  Then they did something smart. They each morphed into a perfect replica of the aide, damn Sigma, and then rushed forward before anyone had a chance to react. They grouped close around him and then the fighting started.

  Sigma was a blur of vampire ferocity as he bit and slashed and snapped bone, more than a match for what were basically Hidden with no special magical abilities. They rallied and they fought back, attacking him in force to overpower him, but it was futile at best, a suicide mission. The vampires didn't know who to attack at first, but once they zoned in on the only Sigma able to move fast and who was the center of attention, they sprang into action.

  "If they kill all the doppels we won't get to find out where Faz is," I shouted to Kane. "He clearly isn't here."

  "And the vampires need to be punished," said Kane, nodding in agreement.

  He was right, of course, same as I was. The vampires wanted Kane just as much as the doppels, more so, and were in a much better position to make it happen. Oskari was hell-bent on having Kane, was scared of my son and what lay ahead if he wasn't under his care, and had the power to obtain him.

  Unless we taught him a lesson he'd never forget.

  I don't know which of us moved first, maybe we did it together, but next thing I knew mother and son were attacking the vampires, our own kind, with a wild ferocity born of anger, maybe even hatred for what they'd done to me, what they wished to do to Kane, and for their very nature. That we were like them, but a thing apart, made the emotions more intense, for we refused to become as they were, yet did unspeakable acts to protect ourselves from becoming as cold and uncaring.

  Boy, this world is messed up, and so full of contradictions, but we killed to save ourselves, to retain our humanity, and that's one tough set of statements to get your head around.

  We didn't fight to protect the doppels because of any kindness, we did it to get answers and to find those we cared about. These were dangerous individuals, probably the most dangerous there were, and I was well aware how much trouble even a single doppel could cause to our world if they impersonated someone important, and they obviously had no compunction about doing exactly that, yet we had to protect at least one.

  The ruse to impersonate Sigma had failed, so they reverted back to their own features.

  Kane and I joined the fray in earnest, Kane focusing on protecting me while I went to town on the vampires. Most were easy to eliminate, the vampire confidence and belief they were superior to everyone else playing against them as it always did. They were so full of their own bullshit it always came as a total surprise when they looked down to discover their heart had been ripped out or a limb or two had been yanked off.

  I became death incarnate. My ink swirled and engorged my system with magic and my hands let forth mighty blasts of destruction that chewed holes through flesh and obliterated heads, melted skin, and crumbled bone. There was no stopping me once I was in the zone, almost a flow state where each movement was precise, no energy wasted, nothing on my mind. I acted on instinct, knowing Kane had my back and was more than capable of looking after mummy.

  The bodies piled up, the number of doppels outnumbering the vampires. Several doppels were practitioners and they blasted as best they could but it was clear they were no adepts, that whoever had made the veil back where all this began and Kane turned were not part of this group. Vampires dodged magic and appeared next to the users, clamping down hard and deadly on their necks and gaining power as they destroyed the doppels for their treachery, for not handing over Kane when they had the chance. For betraying Oskari.

  I managed to get close to Sigma and without taking the time to let him see who was ending his life, I gripped his head in my hands as he bit down on the neck of a doppel and I squeezed, shunted all my strength into my hands. The ink on my forearms strained against my jacket as terrible forces boosted flesh and bone. His head popped, brains and splinters of bone erupting in all directions.

  Someone screamed behind me. I whirled in time to witness Kane punch out at a charging vampire. The guy just kept on coming until Kane's arm was straight through his rib cage. Kane pushed him off with a foot then scanned for trouble.

  "Grab the girl. Let's get out of here," I shouted to him.

  He nodded and darted to the seductress. He threw her over his shoulder and sped to my side. I surged forward, cleared a path to the stairs, which was easy as nearly everyone was dead, and took them three at a time, Kane right behind me.

  The cool air hit, fortifying me. More vampires were coming down the street, and I knew there would be scores, maybe hundreds more on the way. The word was out.

  Wasting no time, we sped through the night, away from this place, from the death. From my husband.

  Doing a Solid

  We found ourselves at the castle in the heart of the city, not far from the Millennium Stadium, across the road from the museum and opposite some great pubs. Everything was closed, locked up until morning, but when you're being chased by vampire hordes, p
eople think your son is the chosen one, and you have no way of knowing who, if anyone, you can trust, then a fortified castle with high walls, open spaces, and plenty of vantage points, plus no people, is quite a good idea.

  I made short work of the lock and slammed the massive wood and iron door shut after we entered, did a little boosting of the entry to stop it being easily destroyed, then we hightailed it into the grounds.

  Dotted around the grassed interior, protected by crumbling walls, were random stones and low walls, markers for rooms long ago fallen. Shapes large and small loomed out of the darkness, but one in particular seemed more menacing than the others.

  In a panic, and not wanting any more surprises, I sprinted toward it, leaving the others by the front walls, and skidded to a halt, mistimed, so slammed into a very large, very human-shaped lump of rock.

  "Brewster?" I asked, stepping back and looking up at the owner of the Hidden Club. The troll remained motionless, stood immobile as I waved my hand in front of his eyes. He was like a statue, one the artist had given up on halfway through, deciding the rough, uneven look would soon be in vogue.

  Kane appeared at my side, his hand gripping the woman's bare upper arm tightly but not in a cruel way, just enough to ensure she couldn't yank free. "What's wrong with him? Why is he here?"

  "No idea." Trolls were slow, but this was ridiculous. Why had the doppels put him here? Or had they?

  "He escaped, crushed several of us and simply wandered off," said the woman.

  I turned to her. "How long ago?"

  "Many hours."

  This was worrying, worrying in a way I didn't understand, just knew was bad. But we didn't have time to hang around to figure it out. The doppels, the few who still survived, had Faz somewhere, meaning that soon the vampires would find him. There was no good end to this, not unless we did something, and fast.

  "We have to go back." I could see no other way. "I'm sorry, but I can't think of anything else to do." I grabbed the woman's beautiful face, her lush hair tangling around my fingers, and turned her eyes from Kane to me. "Where were they? Were they really in the club?"

  She nodded.

  "Where?" I hissed, my frustration and sense of impending doom crushing the air out of me until I felt like screaming and hitting something really, really hard.

  "Mother!" warned Kane, a sense of panic in his voice.

  I turned from Kane back to the woman, only to find I was squeezing her so tight she was turning blue. Her skin writhed beneath my fingers, malleable like semi-molten plastic, reconfiguring into face after face. Flashing by many times a second as if trying to find a configuration that would ease the pressure.

  I loosened my grip but I didn't let go, and she returned to her beautiful features. She gasped for air, opened her mouth a little, straining against my grip, and said, "I won't run, my people are all dead now. I will follow the One, and the Mother. Be yours. You have no reason to fear me."

  Staring into her deep, dark eyes, I sensed the truth of it, that she was awed and besotted by my son, that she believed there were none of her own kind left. That they were dead and she had somehow managed to position herself to be of use to the person she believed was her true leader. "Ugh, with eyes like yours, plus the body, you're always going to be dangerous."

  My hand dropped loose to my side and I tried to relax my tense shoulders but I was wound tighter than a dwarf's braid. "Fine, but you run you die. Understood?"

  The woman nodded. "Beaut, I'm Beaut."

  "Of course you are," I sighed, stress levels rising as she stared at Kane with adoration tinged with lust. I noted Kane's very adult reaction as his neck flushed and his pupils dilated. Great, this was all I needed. A randy teenager on top of everything else going on.

  "Beaut," whispered Kane, and I swear he smiled at this woman, this person who would have seen me dead and him locked in an enforced role as imprisoned leader-cum-mascot for a bunch of deranged doppels. Guess that's kids and hormones for you, makes them stupid no matter how smart they are.

  "Where are they?" I asked again, so close to ripping her throat out I had to grab my own arm to stop it finding blood like a heat-seeking missile.

  "We had them under the stage, the platform at the end of the room. The club is not what it seems. It's a most unusual place."

  I pictured it in my mind, the small stage where the Chemist performed his stand-up and other acts risked life and limb out of an extreme masochistic desire to be ridiculed by powerful, drunk magical beings. There was no way they could be there, there wasn't room.

  "You're lying to me," I growled, ready to rip her head clean off now.

  "She's not," said Kane, as I shifted forward.

  "I swear it's the truth. There's a whole other world underneath. One of us had heard of it, a tale from decades ago, and it was true. A warren of rooms beneath the club, used to hide in."

  Guess it did make sense. After all, the trapdoor in the dressing room hid a series of tunnels and catacombs that led directly to the cemetery. This was probably part of that underground system but had been separated at some point.

  "Let's go," I ordered, giving Brewster one more glance.

  We began to walk off but I turned at the sound of rock grinding on rock.

  Brewster was striding toward us and he didn't look happy. In fact, he looked exceedingly angry. Before I could say a word, he grabbed Beaut's head in his hand and squeezed. Bone and brain squirted between his fingers as he released her and she slumped to the grass.

  He turned to us, raised a hand, and I swear his usually dead looking eyes glowed with an inner fire more freaky than any Hidden's I'd seen before.

  Like the night wasn't bad enough already.

  Ending

  I stepped in front of Kane and readied myself, but Brewster lowered his arm and his deep, rumbling voice like a mountain with vocal chords said, "Woman barred."

  The fire died in his eyes, back to his usual stoic self, but I swear I caught a flicker of a lip twitch. Was he making a joke?

  "She was helping us." Kane moved to my side, stared at the body, and tensed.

  What kind of world was this where my son was witness to grotesquery after grotesquery? This was so messed up I didn't even know where to begin. What kind of person was I when such a sight became the norm, didn't turn my stomach and make me puke? It's easy to talk about this stuff but it doesn't give the visceral, true sense of how gruesome it is to witness such things. I'm so far gone there's no hope for me. This wasn't right, none of it was. Squashed heads and death after death; utter madness.

  I calmed Kane with a look and the anger subsided. He understood, not only that Brewster had to have his revenge, but that the troll had been right, justified in his course of action.

  "What happened to you?" I asked.

  "Doppels took over bar. Brewster knew had to leave, that time has come."

  "Time? Time for what?"

  As this immortal creature of the very earth itself opened his mouth to speak, my phone rang, right on cue. I fished it out and wasn't surprised to see that it was Oskari, his personal number calling. What an honor. Not.

  "Don't tell me, you have them and you want to trade?"

  "How very astute of you, Kate. Do we have a deal?"

  "Of course we don't have a deal. Are you out of your sick mind? I guess you killed all the doppels, got your revenge, but do you think Faz or the others would want you to have Kane? No, I love them all, and this breaks my heart, which I have, unlike you, but the answer is no. No deal."

  "You disappoint me, Kate. Very well, so be it. There is plenty of time for Kane to come to me. But your husband, your friends, the wizard child, the Head, they will pay in your stead for your treachery."

  "Oskari, let me tell you something right now, and you better listen good. Whatever you do, whether they survive or not, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you and take everything away from you. You hear me?"

  "Many have tried, my dear. Yet I'm still here. You betrayed your own kind, y
ou're a disgrace to your House. My House."

  "Maybe it's time to clean house," I said softly, but he'd already hung up.

  Back Again

  "Mother, what did he say?" asked Kane.

  "Wait, I'm trying to think." Brewster seemed happy enough to stand immobile and let me have a moment, but Kane was antsy so I told him the truth, although he'd heard my side of the conversation so there wasn't much left to say. "Now, let me think."

  The problem with many magic users is that they rely on their magic, same as all Hidden rely on their nature to lead their actions, rather than taking the time to think things through and use their wits. I may not be the smartest, but I'm no dummy either, and I knew Oskari certainly wasn't. I pushed the fear over Faz down and away, looked at this as an outsider, trying to think things through logically to consider my next move without emotion.

  Oskari knew we'd come for our friends and family, knew others would be incensed by what had happened and that now he risked outright war and an attack on his fortified home. The vampires had been attacked many times over the years, Faz even led an assault that saw a massive shift in the dynamic of vampire politics, and the last thing he'd do was sit there and wait for every wizard and enemy in the city, then the country, to come deal with him for what he'd done.

  I convinced myself that he'd be on the move, taking the vampires with him until this got resolved. This was crunch time, no turning back now his plans were revealed. Maybe he thought I'd keep quiet, maybe he thought I'd hand Kane over, or maybe he had his own plans and was one step ahead of me. He was smart, had hundreds of years more experience than me, and knew his actions were way more than Hidden would stand for.

  No, he'd leave, maybe keep his captives alive in case he could use them, but he would not sit still and wait for the backlash. He would seek power, a way to put the odds further in his favor, and above all else he would be putting into action a way to get Kane.

  Then I understood, and I turned to Brewster, knowing even before I asked that my hunch was right, that this was bigger than I'd imagined and a lot more scary.