“So, you think you’ve already won then, Hunter?”
Eyes of endless black met his as pale lips stretched impossibly wide into a parody of a smile. Tiny flashes of light winked in the depths of those queer eyes as a long, bony finger was raised towards him. His hands flexed along the handle of the katana that was an extension of his very being, but that Cheshire grin kept growing wider.
The memory decided his action and the whisper of steel was almost deafening as he slid the katana back into its sheath. Crimson eyes widened before they faded back to a rich brown. Fangs retracted. Normal hands appeared as the vampire blinked slowly and smiled.
“You put the sword away? So we can just go on with our evening like this didn’t happen, right?” She glanced down at the body by her feet. “He’s still alive, so no harm, no foul.” She shrugged and flashed a wide smile.
Shiro flexed his hand and felt traces of fire lance across his back, bubbling up within him, impossibly hot. “Harm has been done, and you will do it again and again until you are stopped.”
“What if I promise to change my ways? Hell, I’ll become such a moral pillar that I’ll make Law Unto Herself look like Elizabeth Bathroy.”
Shiro nodded once and turned away from the vampire, a tiny smile crooking at the corner of his mouth.
Laughter bubbled up from behind him as he felt a wind and impossibly strong arms wrapped around him. Something delightfully cool pressed into the searing heat of his back and his smile grew.
The vampire sneered, “Wow, you really are a dumbass, aren’t you, you fucking chink? I mean, I would have thought that the dhampire detective would have been easier to deal with than the Ninja Boy, but I guess you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.” The vampire bared her fangs. “Shouldn’t have put that sword away.”
“Where did you hear that I needed a sword to slay you?” Shiro smiled grimly as he gave into the heat boiling within his body and the memory that seared his mind.
Shiro pivoted slightly, adjusting his weight to change his stance. Absurdly long fingers with blackened claws danced along alabaster skin and grayish lips as those eerie eyes continued to look at him. She tilted her head, her long, smoked colored hair spilling around her slim body as she studied him. “I was like you once,” she said in her silvery, bell-like voice.
“That doesn’t matter any longer,” he replied before swinging his blade forward and rushing to meet her head on. His blade met with air just before his head snapped back from her strike. The sweetly metallic taste of blood was heavy upon his tongue, and Shiro tilted his head to spit a significant amount of it out. His hand was clamped over his right side where her claws had dug into him, ripping his flesh open. Under other circumstances he would have admired her skill, but he knew that this creature had only been toying with him.
She stood before him on bare feet, her simple dress swaying around her willowy form. A hiss escaped his lips as she leaned forward and that smoke colored hair surrounded them both as her endless eyes met his. He held her gaze as he forced his free hand up to make his fingers move in familiar patterns. Moonlight glinted off the mirrored surface of his lowered sword as he felt the fire spring to life in his fingertips. He still thought he could win.
A hand like ice suddenly enveloped his, the meeting of cold death to cleansing fire causing steam to rise forth between them. Her skin was so cold that it burned him and he cried out as he tried to summon the fire again. That Cheshire grin split across her gaunt features as she whispered, “Your sword is just for show. This is your true nature, and I will force you to give into it each time you follow your calling.”
She grabbed his shoulders and forced him belly first onto the ground. His shirt was ripped away, his naked back bare to her. He could not help the screams that were torn from his lips as she dug her icy curse into his back again and again…
Fire gathered inside of him like a coiled spring and Shiro whispered, “I take it that all Asians look the same to a creature such as you. However, I am Japanese, not Chinese.”
He let the searing heat explode from him, as if someone had traced intricate patterns along Shiro’s back with napalm. Sweat began to trickle down his skin and steam rolled out of his mouth and nostrils with each breath. He flexed his hand again as he felt the burn intensify more and more, but he held onto it, riding it, mastering it.
When growing ashes finally crumpled around his boots, he forced the flames to vanish as quickly as they had come. Shiro smiled raggedly as the burning in his back dulled to a gentle throb. His heart was pounding. He could hear his blood rushing.
Too late, his ears prickled at a shuffling sound and he frowned as he reached for the katana. Dark blue eyes met his as he took in the all too familiar face just before a fist met his face with staggering force. Shiro went skidding back and moved to pick himself up, but somehow Detective Quinn Frost moved faster, and then everything faded into darkness.
“So, you’re awake.”
Shiro’s eyes opened and he attempted to move, but his arms and his legs had been rendered completely immobile. His shoulders tugged with the effort and something cold was scraping across his wrists. A small beam of white light illuminated sparse concrete walls and the man sitting before him, sitting backward in a chair, his arms rested along its back. Eyes like dark sapphires stared at Shiro, too gorgeous to be real, but with the same pitiless gaze of a shark.
Detective Quinn Frost’s blue eyes narrowed, “I told you that if you kept up this fire-starter shit, I was going to take you out.”
“There were no witnesses,” Shiro said as he watched the other man reach for the silver cross around his neck and start to slide it back and forth along its chain.
Frost shrugged and said, “You don’t know that. You completely lost control and have no idea who saw you. What about the vic? Honestly, if it wasn’t for Regan, I just would have shot your ass.”
Shiro’s eyes widened at the mention of the vampire’s victim, but he quickly bristled at the mention of his girlfriend and local morgue clerk Regan Clarke. The detective had been part of the reason they had gone from mere friends to lovers. He glared at Frost, “Leave her out of this.”
“No. Not when she called me because you started acting all weird, and not in the usual Monster Hunter sort of way,” Frost just shook his head.
Shiro looked down. “She called you?”
“Yeah. Look, I know for a fact that a guy doesn’t stop fucking his girlfriend cold-turkey like you did unless something’s really wrong. And not just in a I-got-my-ass-handed-to-me sort of way…”
“That is none of your concern,” Shiro said as he felt heat fill his cheeks at Frost’s callous words.
Frost shrugged and said, “Honestly, I don’t care if you get killed or not. We both know we have short expiration dates, but I kind of have a soft spot for Regan and it would fucking murder her if something happened to you. And it did, didn’t it?”
“I appreciate your concern, but this is not a matter I need your assistance in,” Shiro warned between clinched teeth as he jerked his hands in their binding.
Frost met his eyes and replied, “Someone needs to get through your fucking head so you can get your shit straight.”
“You have no idea what you are talking about,” Shiro said before snorting and shaking his head.
“Sure I do. That curse riding your back making you want to pyro anything you hunt? The one that the bitch carved into you? By the way, you handled yourself like shit in that fight.”
Shiro’s eyes widened, but he did not say anything. Frost had this odd habit of just knowing things, as if he was picking up signals that were left behind from previous events. Regan thought that the crude detective might have some physic power due to the fact the man was obviously not wholly human.
Shiro tried to shrug it off, “You were not there. You could not have been prepared for her.”
“Some undead witch? Beheading works for everything, but you fucked it up. You got sloppy.”
Shiro
glared and asked, “And I suppose you would have done better?”
“I’ve done a lot of retarded shit, but I do have enough of a fucking clue to back away,” Frost smiled slowly, “And I’ve seen a few things. Enough to know that it’s always the hunters that think they can tackle the world that get drilled in the ass.”
Shiro sighed, “Must you use such coarse language all the time?”
“Yes, I fucking do. Makes me feel better. Anyway, I’ve seen hunters depend too much on magic that wasn’t theirs to begin with, and it never turns out well.” He smirked, “But I’ve got to hand it to you—you’re burning out in record fucking time.”
“Yeah, they’re all over his back. Moon runes. I just sent you the photo.” The detective frowned, “Yes, I know, but asking Fore isn’t always possible”. He tried not to let his monotone waver.
Shiro was silent, listening to Frost’s conversation. Frost had used his phone to take many pictures of the curse that the unknown fiend had carved into his back and then the detective had made the call.
“No, I’m not going anywhere, Ash. We’ll be right here when you figure out what I need to do to lift this fucking curse. Alright, and thanks. Bye, Ash.” Frost grunted before pressing the button on top of the phone and sliding it into his pocket. Fathomless dark blue eyes bored into Shiro’s and Shiro swallowed but met Frost’s gaze and held it.
“Who where you talking to?” Shiro asked as Frost sat back down in his chair.
Frost rested his chin on his arms and answered, “You might know her as the Iron Maiden.”
Shiro blinked and asked, “You know Ashlynn O’Rourke?”
The name was almost as infamous as Law Unto Herself. The Iron Maiden had been a courtesan during the Renaissance period, had caught the eye of a vampire, and was turned. However, there apparently had been something in her bloodline that triggered a berserker like rage from the newly made vampire when she awoke for the first time. Her sire could not control her and she had binged on blood and destruction until subdued by none other than Law Unto Herself.
Legend had it that the two were still close, and that Law Unto Herself had taught the Iron Maiden how to control her rage. Ashlynn O’Rourke still openly hunted humans while Law Unto Herself was an oddity who hunted only her own kind or other supernatural forces, but Ashlynn made certain that her prey were always the worst of human society. She generally left her victims in compromising or defiled states due to their crimes.
It was also well known that only those with a death wish parlayed with the Iron Maiden, and those who needed desperate aid sought out Law Unto Herself.
Frost’s lips curved upward and he answered, “She’s a friend. She’ll find a way to lift this curse.”
Shiro bowed his head, sighed, and said, “I apologize for my rashness.”
“Sometimes your blood calls to you in ways that makes you do things you wouldn’t or don’t want to do,” Frost said in a low voice as he began to play with his cross.
“What do you mean?” Shiro asked as he tilted his head.
Again Frost’s eyes met his and he asked, “Do you know what I am, rookie?”
Shiro remembered what the vampire had said before he had turned it to ash.
“Dhampire. The offspring of a male vampire and human woman, quite rare indeed.”
Frost sighed, “Yeah, and we don’t have that long of a shelf life.”
“So, she saved you?” Shiro asked as he tilted his head and studied the detective.
Frost nodded and answered, “Ash? Hell no, she doesn’t do heroics. Forest… yeah, she saved me. And if you’re lucky, she’ll be able to do the same for you.”
Shiro felt his eyes widen as he asked, “Law Unto Herself saved you?”
Frost clutched his cross, closed his eyes, and looked away, but only for a moment before his phone went off again.
The .357 Smith and Wesson Magnum revolver had six chambers, each of which was loaded with a gleaming bullet. Frost spun the cylinder before clicking it back into place. Leather creaked as the impressive gun was slid into its shoulder holster.
Quinn Frost wasn’t a fan of revolvers. He saw them as signs of over-compensation or people who clung to a by-gone era. However it was a lot easier to make custom bullets with a die press for a .357 revolver than his choice Glock 17, and for what he was going after, he needed special bullets. So he willingly traded quantity for potency and admittedly greater accuracy.
He had spent the last few hours making silver hollow points filled with iron shavings. It was a difficult process, spin casting the silver and letting it cool just enough before stirring in the iron, then carefully molding the bullet. Tonight would also be difficult, but he had to kill the witch that carved the curse into Shiro’s back.
Ash had gotten back to him and said simply, “Put iron in the bint, then take her head. All of the curses she has placed will be no more.”
His target was a strega, an undead that had once been human, but was transformed by magic. In most cases, they were quite nasty due to the fact that it required impressive magic to transform them at all. And I fucking hate magic, Frost thought as he checked the weight of the revolver one last time.
Ash told him that the strega would still be in town, watching Shiro, delighting in the fact that she had cursed the ninja kid with something that would make his own fire-magic consume him.
Frost had already made the choice to save Shiro. He was fond of the rookie; the kid had style. But that choice was cemented when Shiro hadn’t looked at Frost like a freak or an enemy when they talked about his secret heritage. If anything, Shiro took it in stride and thanked Frost for confiding in him. Because of that Frost made a promise, and he didn’t make promises often, but when he did he kept them.
As he waited for his quarry, his mind wandered. He knew the dangers of the hunt all too well, and had heard of too many where the failures had been epic and cost good lives.
He made a decision then, that after this hunt was over he would tell Shiro horror stories like the ones that his mentor had told him; cautionary tales that warned of things that went wrong and how to avoid them or make things right when things got out of control or were beyond one’s power. He knew many stories about the dangers of power that was taken without enough thinking, and that all that could go wrong if you listened too closely to your instincts. The Ninja Boy had put a great deal together on his own, but he was going to killed or worse if Frost didn’t take him in and show him the ropes. Just as he himself had once been…
He caught smoke colored hair out of the corner of his eye, and all of the lose thoughts in his head vanished. He smirked as he left his rooftop perch, jumping down to a fire escape, and within moments, he had nimbly climbed down the rusted steel to have his sneakers hit the wet pavement below. There was no movement made to silence his footsteps as the revolver was freed from its holster. He closed the distance with the feminine figure with smoke colored hair until she stopped and spun around to face him.
Frost pulled the hammer back, lined up the sights, and squeezed the trigger. A deafening bang filled the alley, fire erupted from the muzzle, and a scream rang out as the fiend’s pale right knee shattered in an explosion of dark gore. Queer, inhumanly long and clawed fingers flew out as a shrill screech erupted from the woman as she crumbled. Her right leg hung by only a few strings of gristle and flesh as Frost approached.
Large, endless black eyes looked up to meet his. He absently studied her face, eyes and pouting lips before pulling back the hammer again. Blackish blood spurted out of the ruined mess of bone and flesh that was formerly the strega’s knee. She glared at him as she placed her hands defensively over her ruined limb. “I will make you pay,” she said in a low, lyrical voice.
Frost aimed at her left shoulder and fired.
Her body slammed into the brick wall behind her, leaving a bloody smear in her wake. Dark tears streamed down her pale face as she wailed and sputtered while her body lost more and more of what passed for blood through her veins. A
stench like mud and rust filled his nose as he pressed his foot against her chest and smiled at her.
“Your blood reeks, bitch,” he said as he tilted his head and watched her bleed. Then he pressed the still smoking gun barrel into the ruins of her right knee, eliciting another scream from the fallen monster.
She glared up at him and growled, “What do you want?”
He smiled and lifted the gun to her face, “I think you can do the math.”
Those endless black eyes widened like saucers as she shook her head and stammered, “I can help you! Your bloodlust? It can be bound…or do you have a love that does not return your favor? I can make all of them fall at your feet.”
Frost pressed the gun barrel against her forehead as he held her thrashing body in place with his foot. His eyes narrowed as he let the revolver finish his thoughts on the matter. Each bullet that had been previously chambered was emptied into a quivering body until there was only a bloody mass of pulpy meat left.
A quick shake flung bits of meat and gristle from a white sneaker before Frost holstered the smoking gun. He stood to his full height and began to walk out of the alley, leaving only the smell of sulfur, rancid water, and metal behind. The detective dug for his phone, he dialed the now familiar number, and once the line picked up he said simply, “Shiro, it’s time to come into the fucking 21st Century. Tomorrow, sundown, you’re going to learn how to use a gun.”
He hung up before the rookie could reply and walked out into the night.
Jennifer L. Barnes was raised with wolves by an eccentric Shawnee Medicine Man father and patient bibliophile mother. Growing up in an usual household gave her a fascination with things that go bump in the night from a young age and it was either write about it or go insane. Today she lives with her patient yet geeky husband, the world’s clumsiest cat, and a flesh-eating puppy in Southern Indiana. If you would like to read more about the adventures of Law Unto Herself, you can find her on Jukepop Serials at www.jukepopserials.com/home/read/.
Use Enough Gun (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 3) Page 3
