The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy

by Richard Parry

  Maksimillian Kotlyarov liked to be violent.

  We are the Night.

  • • •

  The trick with not being obvious wasn’t to go at things head-on. Volk would have gone head-on, and would have died too soon. Maksimillian Kotlyarov would die at just the right time. So: no using any of the usual entrances. Stick with other routes.

  The air was thick with the stench of too many people. Too many people living too close to too little water. The Hudson River was home to the occasional dead body, a liquid that wasn’t pure enough to be called water flowing along it. Maksimillian spent a few moments looking out over it, then up at the sky. This was to be his last day above ground, alive, in the blazing light of the sun. An hour from now, everything would be different.

  He turned around, jogged across the road to the sound of horns, and faced the fence surrounding Hudson Yards. It stood above his head, but height was the only obstacle. There was no razor wire, no guards patrolling. There would be cameras, because the Amerikantsy loved their surveillance. Cameras were not a problem. They might call police, or they might call heavily armed police. They might alert the vampiry, and that might mean vampiry to kill. It wasn’t a problem. Kulake vse pal'tsy ravny, as they said in Mother Russia.

  Yes. Many teeth await us where the sunlight fears to go.

  Maksimillian crouched down, then jumped the fence into Hudson Yards in one bound. There was no fence made by tiny humans that could cage the mighty Maksimillian Kotlyarov.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE

  Adalia ate the last of the yellow M&Ms, still feeling sick but also feeling unable to help herself. They were there, and they wanted to be eaten. It’s what M&Ms were for, right? Mary would have agreed, if she were here and not a figment of Adalia’s imagination. Mary probably would have eaten the bowl herself. They would have had a good-natured squabble about who would have the last one.

  Uncle John cleared his throat. “Any chance you could get the door open? Chains off? Something?” He looked down. “I’m feeling a little constricted here, and I’ll admit to feeling confused.”

  “About what?” she said.

  “Why’d they chain me up and not you?” He shook the chains at her. “Look, it’s just us, so I’ve got no problem admitting this. I think if something comes through that door with fangs and a real attitude problem you’re better equipped to deal with it.”

  The door made a clank, the interior handle rotating. John took a step back. Adalia would have as well, except she was already on the bed, and there wasn’t anywhere else she could go. A tall, thin woman stepped through. “It is because,” said the woman, “you are a hostage.”

  “Oh,” said Uncle John. “She’s not?” He jerked a thumb at Adalia.

  “You are a hostage,” said the woman, “against her good behavior.”

  “Right, right,” said Uncle John. “I’m stuck here, she can’t get away?”

  The woman gave a crooked smile. “Something like that.” She looked back to Adalia. “Anatolie awaits.”

  “Who’s Anatolie?” said Adalia, feeling fear touch her. It was an almost familiar feeling now.

  “Anatolie,” she said, “is the husband of Constanta.”

  “Who’s … look, I don’t want to spend a lot of time working through this,” said Adalia. “Who’s Constanta?”

  “I’m Constanta,” said the woman.

  Adalia blinked. “You don’t … you don’t talk to a lot of other people, do you?”

  “No,” said Constanta, with a smile. It wasn’t a nice smile, like her face had forgotten how to be kind, and had read a book on expressions that it didn’t really understand. “They are food.”

  “I’ll just, uh, hang here, I guess,” said Uncle John.

  “You do that,” said Constanta. “We’ll come get you when we’re hungry.”

  Adalia pushed herself off the bed, squaring her shoulders. She’d read somewhere that if you adopted the pose of someone brave, like a Wonder Woman hands-on-hips posture, you would actually feel braver.

  It wasn’t working.

  Uncle John smiled at her. Now that was how you smiled, all warm, and full of the way you loved someone. “I’ll be okay,” he said.

  “Oh,” said Adalia. “I know.” She shrugged. “This isn’t how it ends for you.”

  “It’s not?” said Uncle John. “Wait. How does it end?”

  Constanta closed the door behind them, shutting off Uncle John’s voice. He sounded nervous, but not nervous for himself. He was never nervous for himself. He sounded nervous for Adalia, which was fine, because in that room he wouldn’t die. As long as he stayed in that room, she was pretty sure he would be fine.

  The woman — Mary would call her a giraffe, and they’d laugh — led the way down a corridor. The place was underground, carved out of the rock and stone of Manhattan. It felt cold, and a little damp, and Adalia didn’t like it very much. They passed doors opening as they walked by, curious eyes set in pale faces watching them. There, two women kissing. There, a man and a woman bit at each other, drawing black blood, licking it clean. There, two men giggled as she walked past, and were drawn back into their room by a third.

  “Every day’s a party day, huh?” said Adalia. It’s what Mary would have wanted her to say.

  “It is that or ennui,” said Constanta, not turning. She was graceful, in the way you’d expect someone to be if they’d had a thousand years to practice walking. She led the way to a huge room, or vault, or cave, or something. Adalia wasn’t quite sure what to call it. It had hanging chandeliers, as if to make it nobler, although it didn’t help because it still smelled like a dank locker room. There were twenty or thirty vampires lounging on couches, on chairs, or in small groups. Adalia knew they were vampires in the same way she knew water was wet without touching it. There was a dead person chained to a table, blood puddling on the wood under him, a little more blood dripping down from the gashes on his wrists to stain the stone floor. Adalia saw the floor was also stained in many other places, dark blotches of brown or black, like a spreading fungus, and she thought, how many people have died here? That wasn’t the worst of it though. The worst was a today’s-theme-is-silver thing going on. Silver knives on the tables. Silver swords hung on the wall. Other more creative weapons — like a bat with silver nails hammered through it, which was an interesting touch — were scattered around. Leaning on tables. Held in the hands of vampires. That kind of thing.

  She could look into the Other Place to see how the blood got there, or how the dead person had become dead, or how the silver weapons had been used, but she didn’t want to know. Not really. Sure, she could guess, and her imagination was doing a good job — just great, thanks brain! — of suggesting things. But seeing it for real? There should be a limit on the number of horrible things you got to know in your life, and she was pretty sure she was over that limit. Mary would have nodded, and agreed.

  The focus point of the room was a huge chair — no, that’s a throne — and a man was lounging in it. His skin was white, like it hadn’t seen the sun for thousands of years, and his eyes were blood red. He looked up as Adalia entered, first looking at her, then to Constanta. When he spoke, his voice was rich, like honeyed oak, like a lover Adalia wanted to have at some stage, if she made it out of this. Except this guy was a vampire, and she didn’t want to have a lover that was a corpse, so maybe that voted him off the island. “She’s awake.”

  “She’s awake,” said Constanta, her perfect walk taking her to the man’s side. She kissed him, long and slow, then turned a lazy look towards Adalia. “She’s been awake for a little while.”

  “Good,” said the man. He stood. “I’m Anatolie.”

  “Uh, hi,” said Adalia. “I’m Adalia. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but … I’m not sure that’s true.”

  Anatolie laughed. “No. For you, it doesn’t seem like it. But it could be.” His accent was strange, like a hundred different accents on top of each other.

  “Is
this,” said Adalia, “where you offer me some kind of deal? I,” and here she wiggled her fingers, “do something for you, and you let us go?”

  Those blood-red eyes watched her across the room. She hadn’t noticed it, but the rest of the vampires had cleared away, like water seeping down a crack, leaving the room vacant, Adalia in the middle. That wasn’t uncomfortable at all, was it? Not the part where they were silent, not the part where they put her in the middle, and not the part where she had just lost sight of thirty vampires, because thirty was a lot, but it was a horrible number to not know where they were. Like a spider in the corner of your room: if you could see it, everything was cool, but if you couldn’t, it’d be in your hair in ten seconds.

  “No,” said Anatolie. He blinked those blood red eyes at her.

  “Oh,” said Adalia, feeling a little surprised. “That seemed like where this was going.”

  “He means,” said a woman’s voice, horribly familiar, “that you will do something for me.”

  Adalia turned. There, walking into the chandelier’s light, was a woman. Raven hair, dark eyes. Angry, angry, angry face. Adalia felt herself take a step back. “But … but we … but Melissa shot you.”

  Kaylan Gleicher stepped into the light. “Oh, child,” she said. “You can’t kill Death.” And then she was on Adalia, a hand like iron around her throat, a thousand times quicker than Adalia could have made it to the Other Place. Her face pressed close to Adalia’s, her breath smelling of lilies. “But you can kill a person.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY

  Danny was standing in the back of the M113, something Ginger had called an APC and something Jessie had called conspicuous, bracing her hands against the roof. The sound of sirens was never far off. The inside of the van smelled like sweat and tension and gun oil and death. She looked at Jeremy. “I have no idea how I got stuck with you.”

  “It’s because I’m so much fun,” said the vampire, eyes mirrored in the gloom of the van. “Also, driving a van into The Garden is an easier way to get me inside in broad daylight without—” and here he paused as the van swerved around a corner “—me looking like a Pop Tart you’ve left in the toaster for an hour.” He frowned. “The fillings are like spill-off from a reactor, you know? That shit’ll melt your skin. Especially raspberry. It’s like no earthly berry.”

  “Impact in five,” said Ginger. He was looking at a tablet device, tracking their progress. Mallory was at the wheel — do these things even have wheels? — the man having said he wanted to see death coming. The sound of sirens got closer for a second, then they blasted through an intersection in a churning crunch of metal and the roar of the APC’s engine. Ginger looked up. “Barricade,” he said. “Police are onto us.”

  “That’s the idea,” said Danny. “They look at us, they won’t be looking at—”

  Pack mate.

  “—my Valentine.” She was balanced light on her feet, the APC shuddering around her like a thing alive, the machine’s engine roaring as it chewed through the streets of Manhattan. There was a bang, loud, loud, loud and the APC bucked, but she kept her feet.

  Ginger looked up again. “Mallory?”

  “Rammed us,” came Mallory’s voice. “It’s fine.”

  “Fine?”

  “Just a car,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll have much that can get in our way before — wait.”

  “Sitrep, Mallory,” said Ginger.

  There was a massive crunch, and the APC lurched into the air for a moment, crashing back down on its treads. Danny could imagine the rent tarmac under the machine as it plowed on.

  “We’re good,” said Mallory. “Bigger barricade. Helicopter.”

  “There was a helicopter on the road?” Ginger’s face and voice were tense. “Unusual.”

  “No, no, in the air,” said Mallory. “Get someone on the gun.”

  “Got it,” said Danny. She put a hand on the hatch, then looked at Jeremy. “Cover your eyes or whatever.”

  The vampire looked at her, sucking air through his teeth. “They’re just cops.”

  “I know,” said Danny. “They’re—”

  They interfere with the Hunt.

  “—in our way.” She saw the vampire pull a tarp over itself, and she dogged the latches leading to the roof. Hauled herself out, the wind blasting past her like the shout of freedom. She looking around, seeing everything at once, the streets rushing past in a blur. A person with a phone, recording them, passed in an instant. Two squad cars pulling around a corner, smashing into each other, gone too like they’d never been, their only memory the sound they left, falling away fast behind them. Danny looked up, saw the helicopter. Police, rotors thud-thudding against the sky. The APC had a big gun, and she crouched on the roof next to it. Grabbed it, put her back into it. Felt the metal bend—

  By rock and stone. It will yield.

  —and give in her hand, and then she was holding the gun, APC running wild underneath her like a mustang, and she pointed the gun into the sky, laughing. She lined up the helicopter — they’re just cops, they’re just cops — and pulled the trigger. The gun roared, angry and loud and full of the rage of men, lines of tracer fire climbing into the sky. Dancing, like a hundred fairies rising to the light, ready to fight the sun. The helicopter sheared through the air, the tracer fire cutting around it, always around—

  They will run like the Prey they are.

  —the engine of it taking on an urgent note, and it pulled away, lost against the tall fingers of buildings around her. She released the trigger, the weapon feeling light, hungry for more. Another squad car rounded a corner ahead, she didn’t even notice the sirens but saw the lights. Hauled the big gun around, pulling the trigger, feeling it buck and wrench against her like a living thing. The rounds tore up the road, lances of bright destruction that found the engine of the police car, the machine dying in a bright spray of metal and fire.

  Another car was closing behind them, she hadn’t even seen it, the lights off, but she felt the sting of a bullet hit her in the shoulder. She turned—

  They challenge us.

  —to see an officer leaning out the passenger window, firing at her. She ducked, moved, the APC under her shifting like water, then tossed the machine gun down through the hatch. She took two strides, launching herself through the air—

  Bite the neck of the beast.

  —to land on the hood of the police car. Saw the eyes of the driver, so wide with surprise or fear, it didn’t matter. Danny punched a hand through the windscreen, grabbed the wheel, and—

  By rock and stone.

  —pulled. Pulled, felt the hood bend under her, felt the muscles in her arm strain, and then the wheel was free, and she tossed it aside, tumbling away into the streets. She spun, leapt, snared the side of the APC, and watched the police car spin out of control to crash, and then it was gone into the distance like it had never been.

  Danny pulled herself back onto the roof, stuck her head through the hatch. “We good?”

  “Two minutes,” said Ginger. “What’s going on out there?”

  Danny grinned. “Nothing important,” she said. She stood, breathing deep as the APC roared under her, still feeling alive. So alive.

  They were running hot and fast and loud the wrong way down 8th, somehow here through swerves and dodges, the peals of horns and tires and screams and—

  We are the Night.

  —panic looking like a wave they were cresting as they sped along. Ahead, she saw The Garden, ugly, full of death, and smiled. They would bring death of their own. These crawling insects had killed and killed and killed her brothers and sisters and—

  Our Pack.

  —mothers and fathers for thousands of years, and today they would fall. Today she would taste blood. She reached down into the hatch, grabbed the machine gun.

  The APC wasn’t slowing, and Danny dropped to a crouched as the wall of The Garden grew larger and larger, faster and faster. A half a second before they hit, she leapt, tuckin
g herself into a ball, flying through the rain of glass and metal as the APC entered. She landed on her feet, slowing her run to a standing position. There, the door the vampires had boiled out of when John was here. It was opening, but her finger had already found the trigger, and the gun roared long and loud, pulling with each bullet against her grip. The door dissolved into pieces of wood and metal, and she kept firing, firing, until the weapon clicked, stopped, the barrel glowing in the gloom.

  The lights had died when they hit, and smoke and dust curled around her feet. She tossed the weapon to the ground, stalking towards the fractured hole where the door had been. A red mist still hung in the air. She looked into the darkness beyond and smiled. They were—

  All will fall who stand against us.

  —gone, nothing larger than a Quarter Pounder left inside the entrance. Danny turned, saw Ginger and his team climbing out of the APC, the vampire slinking around the side of the machine, avoiding the light.

  Ginger looked at the machine gun on the ground, looked at the torn mount on the top of the APC, and then at Danny. “You’re not really a half-measures kind of person, are you?”

  “Not really,” she agreed. She smiled wider. “Now we hunt.”

  Mallory joined Ginger at the front. “She’s scary,” he said. “She can go first.”

  We are the Night.

  • • •

  The doorway had led to a hallway, that had led to a stairway, that had led down, down, down into the earth. The walls had shifted from drywall to wood to brick to stone, layers of a tree showing the age of each level as they went. The vampires had been here for a long, long time, right in the heart of Manhattan. Their prey all around them. Danny strode forward, not halting. They entered a larger chamber, about twice the height of a person, a dark tunnel leading forward. Always forward, down, into the dark.