by Declan Finn
Merle’s face was buried in folded arms, down on the table in the center of the main room. A cup of coffee was clutched in one hand, and it had long ago been mostly drained, and completely cooled.
Merle looked up and glared. “Do you have something interesting to say, or should I just kill you now for even joking about that?”
Marco grunted a laugh. He grabbed a chair and sat across from Merle. “So, what’s up exactly? You look like hell.”
Blink. “No kidding.” Blink. “I’ve been trying to keep up with the various and sundry disasters of my life. My job is to find the terminally weird and run a stake through its heart…”
Catalano grinned. “Metaphorically, of course.”
“Or at least until lately. Most of my cases tend to end with some kind of cult, or some kind of strange and wondrous insanity that is, thankfully, mostly human. Now, it’s just… ” Merle blinked again. “Don’t you have classes to go to?”
He shook his head. “You think I would be able to organize an effective resistance against the vampires of Brooklyn and handle my training without being smart enough to generally write off the whole educational experience?”
Damn, I’m useless this morning. “What do you mean?”
Marco gave him a look. “I mean I have an eidetic memory, and an IQ somewhere around a hundred and sixty-plus. I bore really easily.”
Merle shook his head. “So, go out and find, oh, I don’t know, friends, leave the rest of us alone. Get a social life.”
Marco smiled. “You think I’d fit in well in San Francisco? I’m a somewhat Conservative, ultramontane Catholic who thinks that if Haight Ashbury burnt down, it wouldn’t be that bad an idea... except that the smoke would make the rest of the city high for the next week.”
The government agent had to smile. “Well, you’re at least right about that last part. But, no, seriously, can’t you waste time talking on the phone to friends in New York or something?”
“Friends? What is this concept you speak of?” He grinned and shook his head. “Most of my friends moved out of New York a while ago. Trust me, if they hadn’t, I probably would have recruited them into my own personal vampire killing army. But keep in mind, they were far more tolerant and tolerable people. Then I met Amanda and the vampire problem and… well, meeting new, other, friends wouldn’t have fit very well.”
Merle cocked a brow. “With the vampires, or with Amanda?”
Marco, for once, didn’t come up with a smart retort.
Merle smiled a little. “Are you in love with her?”
Marco merely stared a moment. “What the heck are you talking about? Me? Amanda? She has… a few years on me, at least.”
Wow, for a smart guy, he doesn’t lie very well. He couldn’t even come up with a better reason than that? “I’m sure after the first few hundred years, a fifty-year age difference isn’t going to matter much to her.” Merle took a sip of coffee. It wasn’t even lukewarm, but caffeine was caffeine. “So, are you telling me, basically, that you spent all of your time either with school, or killing vampires with Amanda?”
“Well, I didn’t spend all that time killing vampires,” he said defensively.
Merle smiled. “Sure. So, are you in?”
He nodded. “Aye, I’m in. I’m going on a hunt tonight.”
“Wonderful.” He raised the mug to him and said, “Mazel tov.”
There was something about Yiddish coming out of a face like Merle’s that threw people. “By the way, what exactly do you want I should do?”
Merle shrugged. “Be yourself.”
“I thought you said that you wanted me to integrate myself with them, not tempt them to kill me.”
Merle rolled his eyes. “Here’s the short version: I won’t be there.”
Marco arched a blond eyebrow. “Oh? Really?”
“The sole purpose of this endeavor was to see how they cope without me. And, more importantly, how they handle you. Yes, Yana invited you in, but having a member join is already going to feel like a replacement.”
“And while I’m out doing this, what party will you be throwing?”
“A slumber party, so I can get some damn sleep.”
* * * *
New York City
The creature that had called itself Mister Day had studied Marco Catalano’s brownstone from the shadows ever since it had escaped. It was quiet as the grave. No one resembling Marco came in or out.
Day was patient.
It stretched its muscles again, rolling its shoulders. Spending months encased in concrete had made the joints stiff. Day had just barely managed to hold his breath before the concrete landed, and was seriously lucky. There were drawbacks to being what he was, but the perks certainly outweighed them.
Day slid a cigarette into his mouth, and lit it casually. It would have been odd to be murdered after walking the Earth for as long as I’ve been around.
Day sucked down half the cigarette in a single pull, then flicked the ashes away, careful not to get any on his latest suit. This one was Gucci, and the shoes were Manolo. He wasn’t going to let this one get ruined like the last one.
Day chuckled to himself, a sound that made the roaches scurry in terror. Taken out by luck. The worst luck he had ever faced. To be kicked into a tiger trap at a construction site. Had it been any other place, or any other trap made for a vampire,Day could have killed Marco and have been feasting in midtown in an hour.
But no. Marco really does have the luck of the Devil. Heh. I guess I should know, shouldn’t I?
Bit then, fortune favors the prepared mind, and whatever I can say about Marco, he is prepared. A lot. Heh. Just wait until he gets a load of me.
Day let out a stream of smoke. I guess Marco has moved on in the past few months. It’s time for me to get Marco’s attention.
Day grinned. It was time to change outfits. He needed different clothing for what he had in mind. It might take a while to find the right matching suit.
* * * *
San Francisco
That evening, Marco walked out of his dorm room, wearing a rosary around his neck. While it was not supposed to be worn as an article of clothing or as a necklace, he didn’t think anyone would mind if it used it to ward off vampires. Since it came down to his chest, it meant the beads would protect his neck from being bitten, and the crucifix would prevent his heart from being torn out.
It wasn’t much, but it couldn’t hurt.
According to the “patrols”, many of the vampires in the area were former Goths, so they imitated being a vampire from the only source they knew—media.
It’s sort of like the Mafia using the Godfather films as their guidelines on culture.
Merle Kraft wasn’t with them that evening in order to see how they would be without him—more specifically, how they would handle Marco.
Marco stopped in mid-step at the sound of a scream, then shot off towards the source. He tacked to the right, and twisted around a large stone angel. He sighed and dropped his crossbow, walking up to the couple.
The woman’s blouse had been forcibly torn open, and the man smiled as he held her wrists.
Marco’s eyes narrowed, and his blood went cool.
Her screams covered Marco’s advance. He casually punched the rapist’s kidney, making his back cringe, then kicked sideways into his kneecap, making him twist. Marco grabbed him by the hair, tossing him backwards.
“Go,” Marco snapped. She ran.
Marco turned to the assailant, and ground a heel into his crotch. The rapist screamed louder than his intended victim, and an octave higher.
Marco continued to grind his heel, like he was putting out a cigarette. “Listen to me, pal–” The rapist simply kept whimpering. Marco lifted his foot long enough to bring it up and stomp down again. “I said listen!”
The rapist curled up into a fetal position. Marco lowered himself to one knee, patted down the rapist, and pulled out his wallet. Marco pocketed the cash, because why not, and pulled out the d
river’s license.
He grabbed the rapist’s hair, and yanked it back. “Are. You. Listening?”
The rapist, his face clenched shut with pain, nodded slightly.
“Good. You will not come back here. You will be a good little boy, and you will turn yourself in to the local police station. You will confess every last crime you’ve ever committed—and don’t tell me this is your only crime ever—and you will go to jail for as long as they’ll send you away. Otherwise, Mister—” he glanced at the driver’s license card “—Otto Evert, I will find you. And your balls will never hurt you ever again, because I will remove them, and everything else down there. Am I understood?”
Otto muttered and whimpered and nodded.
Marco slammed his head against a rock, and left him there, unconscious.
Marco turned on his heel and walked back to the gang, running into them as they sought the source of the screams.
“What happened?” Yana said immediately.
A shrug right before he scooped up his crossbow. “No big deal. Would-be rapist. Broke his knee and procreation tool. We were heading that way, weren’t we?”
He continued along, and George Berkeley—the big, burly fellow sleeping with Tiffany—stepped in front of him, and put a hand on his chest. “Hey, wait, you said rape? Shouldn’t we call the cops?”
“Nah. She’s gone, and he won’t be doing this again.”
“But how—?”
Marco grabbed the hand, straightened his arm, and stepped forward, putting a leg behind his. Marco bent sideways, then slammed his arm against George’s chest, tossing him over Marco’s hip. The maneuver took less than a second.
“As easy as that.” Marco stepped over him and continued moving onward.
So what if I lied to Amanda about not being able to take a human being.
Yana moved in front of him, almost like George did. “Later, please,” Marco murmured. He glanced at his watch. It was well past one in the morning. “Anyone really think we’re going to find anyone out here for vampires to feed on, never mind vampires to attack? At the moment, we’re the only living things out here.”
“That’s right, you are,” came a voice to the right.
Marco twisted to one knee, and brought up the crossbow in a two-handed grip. He fired, making it the last night of one vampire’s life. Three others had been with him, one on either side and one behind. Marco swept from left to right. A second one died, then the New Yorker fired for the middle one while in mid leap, nailing him through the forehead. Rory had jumped onto a mausoleum and leapt off again, landing on another one. Marco let the crossbow fall back on its strap and pulled two stakes from a holster, holding them points-up like knives in Brooklyn on a Saturday night.
The vampire with an arrow sticking out of its skull rolled to its feet in front of a tree, but Yana and Tara knocked him down. Marco leapt on him with both stakes driving into his chest. Rory held onto his vampire, head-butting him, as George jabbed a stake into its back.
Marco stood, smiling. “Is that all?” Two arms wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms to his sides.
“Don’t move, or he dies,” the thing behind him ordered.
Catalano rolled his eyes as he reversed the stakes he held. “Will someone shoot this over actor? He can’t bite me, and can’t move his arms lest I get away.” He rammed both stakes into his assailant’s legs, and vampire tightened his grip.
George looked at Marco, rubbing his back, sore from having been thrown on it. “Go ahead.”
“Ever try baked Alaska?” Marco asked as he slipped twin lighters from his sleeves into his palms, then to his fingers. He flicked the lighters at the stakes, letting the turpentine catch fire. The blaze quickly moved up the vampire’s legs and onto the shirt, traveling up its sides. He ground his jaw together, trying to bear the pain.
Marco sighed and slammed his skull back into the vampire’s nose, ramming the cartilage into his brain. He finally let go, throwing the human away as he tried to put out the fire. It was more resilient than he was, and he lit up like a candle as Marco leapt away. After that, all was quiet.
A bit of movement caught his eye, and Marco focused in on a tall, elegant man across the graveyard, shrouded in mist—which wasn’t surprising, it was always foggy in San Francisco. He was dressed in a classical magician’s costume, if Dracula were the magician.
Marco knew the man only from a single photo, and from the odd, midnight blue eyes which he could somehow see from a distance of thirty yards. He was looking directly at Catalano, with a small, amused smile on his face that made him look like he was about to start laughing, evaluating the area. The New Yorker knew the man by reputation only, and didn’t like what he’d heard. He wasn’t anything out of a horror movie. The scariest parts came in the form of a much more subtle horror of little evils and a general darkness of the soul.
Dalf Kraft had come to San Francisco, and he had taken a very strange interest in Marco.
Merle, this isn’t what I signed up for.
* * * *
“Dalf, stop scaring my people, would you?”
Dalf turned, and, for once, looked like he was startled at Merle’s appearance. It’s a nice change.
Any shock didn’t last long. His stance slid easily into his posture of stage magician meets Jack the Ripper. A lazy smile and drooping eyelids, as though he wasn’t worried about anything.
Maybe I should introduce him to Marco on a bad day. I suspected that would involve lots of fire. Then again, Dalf would probably respond with plenty of sulfur.
“You want to stop jerking me around now?” Merle asked. “Or should I just get cranky now and save time?”
Dalf merely raised a brow. “Don’t you mean that I wouldn’t like you when you’re angry?”
“Do I look like Bill Bixby?”
“No, but you are looking rather green. Not sleeping well?”
Merle narrowed his eyes. Dalf was… Dalf, and was somewhat predictable, which was why Merle had lied to Marco about actually getting some sleep that evening. Dalf liked screwing with people just for the fun of it.
It was Merle’s turn. “I’ve been busy. Now, you can either explain yourself, or I can have someone report that your place in Boston is a base for terrorists.”
“Don’t make such idle threats, Merlin. You may regret it.”
Merle stepped closer, despite that their height discrepancies wouldn’t make Merle look at all intimidating. “I regret even being related to scum like you, Dalf, my brother. Anything else is secondary.”
Dalf simply nodded and stepped back into the fog. Merle was tempted to follow after, but he was certain Dalf would be gone. Of all the odd things he had ever had to chase down and kill, he had never, once, found one quite as odd as Dalf.
Which seriously made Merle wonder what exactly he himself was.
* * * *
New York
Amanda Colt watched over the three members of the vampire hunting crew and nodded slowly at the progress. After only two treatments of her biting them, they were already out of the intensive care unit.
She drifted back to the closet as a light fog. No one had noticed a fog rolling down the hallways, and she wasn’t at all surprised. Most of the night shift at St. Vincent’s Hospital was asleep on their feet. There had to be some way to put more life into these people.
But I’d be darned if I knew what to do.
Amanda reformed quickly and dressed just as fast. She didn’t much enjoy the sensation as floating about as mist, but it had its uses—especially since tonight the halls were filled with mousetraps. She could only assume that someone had seen her the night before and had decided to prepare for an infestation. And if someone had decided to throw something at her in rat form…well, there were too many heavy wooden objects around for her taste. One good solid wooden chair hurled at her and she would be crushed to death, or suffering from a broken back for a good long time.
Colt walked out, and this time knew exactly where to go�
��BCC Bar.
BCC for Blood Cell Count.
Amanda walked into the bar cautiously. It was obviously a dive to the outside world. The moment she stepped inside, the smell of stale beer and hints of blood hit her nose—and that wasn’t with her keen senses, just normal human ones. The entire main room looked like it had been made from the wood of a wrecked Spanish galleon. The three tables matched the floors, walls, and ceilings, made of thick wood, and the benches were haphazardly lined up with them. The mirror behind the bar had been long removed, for obvious reasons. Even if it had been there, it probably would have been covered by the alcohol in front of it.
Basically, a 19th-century Irish bar in the Village, which probably turns away scores of NYU students.
She smiled at the bartender, a bald bloodsucker who looked like he had been a retired cop or fireman before he had been turned. He merely nodded in her general direction after taking in her appearance.
Unfortunately, she could almost tell by his glance what he was thinking: An uptown vampyre who’s slumming.
She looked down at her outfit, and shrugged. It was a simple blouse and blue jeans. She never quite thought of Levi’s as upper-class snobbery.
Amanda was almost to the bar when she noticed something off. People around her started to go silent. She paused in mid-step. Had she really walked into the wrong bar?
A vampyre whose sexuality had obviously been in question—if the Eddie Izzard outfit was any indication—glared at her. “Hey, lady, don’t you want to be somewhere north of Forty-Seventh Street?”
She shrugged. “Have you met vampyres within sight of Central Park? They are so obnoxious it makes my fangs hurt. They think their blood never cools, but most of them are just mid-level vamps like everyone else. They just invested their money better. Not to mention that they seem to get their idea of vampyre life from movies and bad novels. And worse television.”
Another vampyre stepped in front of her. He was either around for the Byronic period, or was simply “emo” and read too many Anne Rice novels. He stared at her with disdain. “You stink of power. How could you think you could ever move through without us picking up on it?”
