Gates of Eden: Starter Library

by Theophilus Monroe

  Nick was to me as Captain Kirk was to William Shatner. A character. Not particularly well played, but no less unforgettable.

  Pursuing Devin didn’t make sense on any level. There wasn’t a single rational reason why pursuing him was a good idea.

  But it wasn’t about what my head was telling me. I suppose the heart wants what the heart wants. If my heart had anything to do with it. I mean, what else would it be?

  Don’t answer that question.

  I try not to even think about that part of me… much less with it.

  When I pulled into the church parking lot, Devin was already waiting, his passenger-side door wide open. I parked my bike, grabbed my duffel, and almost tripped over my own feet—not used to those damned man-boots—as I turned and climbed into his car.

  “You ready for this?” Devin was speaking more quickly than before. The eagerness in his eyes was endearing, if not downright cute.

  I grinned a little. “Of course! Another daytime stake and bake?”

  Devin raised a single eyebrow and cocked his head. “A stake and bake?”

  I snorted. “Sorry, I guess we don’t do the baking part. That’s the job of the inner circle. But it’s what I call a quick kill. Stake the vampire, burn his heart. Stake and bake.”

  Devin laughed out loud. “That’s good. I’ll have to remember that one. But the answer to the question is yes and no.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked, buckling my seat belt.

  “It should be quick, but I don’t believe there will be any staking going on. Today’s mission is about intelligence gathering.” Devin shifted his car into drive and eased on the gas.

  “Intelligence on what?”

  “A vampire we’ve been after a while. Not to worry, they won’t send us after her. I mean, I hope they won’t. Surely not, since my dad is a part of the inner circle.”

  I scratched my head. Could I really be so lucky that they’d already gotten us involved in the hunt for Alice? “What can you tell me about this vampire we’re hoping to find?”

  “Turned by another equally notorious vampire. This vampire used to be a nightwalker.”

  “A nightwalker?” I asked, feigning ignorance. If he knew that I knew what nightwalkers were, well… it might give away that my familiarity with the Order of the Morning Dawn was more than it should have been.

  “Nightwalkers are vampires the Order turned to have them hunt other vampires,” Devin said. “Kind of fucked up, if you ask me. But the Order has always believed that the ends were more important than the means.”

  I nodded. “I can see why that might be a controversial project for the Order to be involved in.”

  “It is,” Devin said. “I mean, it was. Technically the nightwalkers were disbanded four or five years ago. Shit went south with one of the originals. It’s a long story, but she’s the one we’re trying to get information about.”

  “So the Order doesn’t know where she is?”

  Devin shrugged. “They know exactly where she is. And now, so do we.”

  “We do?”

  Devin tossed me his phone. The order from the handler, who I knew was Mina, was open on his screen. “So this vampire is still in Kansas City?” I asked.

  Devin nodded. “Well, she’s back, anyway. She comes and goes. She apparently has some business here that keeps bringing her back. Convenient for us.”

  “So if we know where she’s at, why are we being sent for intelligence gathering only?” I asked. “Why not send us in for the kill?”

  “Because we’re not ready,” Devin said. “But I think what you’re really asking is what information we’re trying to get so that someone can go after her later.”

  “Of course,” I said. “That’s what I intended to say.”

  Devin nodded. “We need to figure out her patterns. See if we can observe her using any newfound abilities. She’s managed to acquire some kind of shapeshifting ability which, I should say, has made tracking her a thousand times harder than I’m told it used to be.”

  I shook my head. “I can imagine.”

  Little did Devin know, of course, I didn’t have to imagine very hard. Since she could change her shape, she could appear as anyone. I mean, I’d smell her. And every vampire has their own sort of stink. I’d never forget hers. But still, asking around for information when you don’t have a firm grip on her appearance is pretty much pointless.

  It’s not enough to know where a vampire might be found,” Devin continued. “If you’re going to make an attempt to eliminate her, especially one as powerful as she is, you need to know everything.”

  “I concur,” I said. “But vampires have exceptional hearing. All their senses are heightened. Won’t she realize we’re on her tail?”

  “Probably why we were chosen for this,” Devin said. “I’ve never been involved in anything to do with Alice before.”

  “Alice?” I asked. “This order on your phone refers to her as Night’s Bane.”

  “A code for her,” Devin explained. “Or more like a nickname. She insisted, when she was a part of the Order, that she not be called by her human name. Alice was dead, she’d said. She was no longer that girl.”

  “And when did she die, exactly?” I knew the answer to that question, but it seemed like a question that someone who’d never heard of Alice should be asking. So I did.

  “Early eighteen-hundreds,” Devin said. “The story goes she barely survived a case of consumption. Her roommate at the sanitarium didn’t. Not exactly. Her roommate was a witch, and her coven had arranged for her to be turned into a vampire to spare her life. Alice just happened to be in the room when it happened. And, so the story goes, Alice tried to eliminate her. As a member of the Order, she saw it as her solemn duty. But she failed. Twice, actually.”

  “Twice?”

  “First they caught her. Cut out her heart. But again, the vampire witch’s coven found a way to revive her. When Alice went after her again to finish the job, she got bit.”

  “And the Order healed her?”

  Devin nodded. “Which turned her into a vampire. Mercy, the vampire who’d bitten her and technically sired her, was unstoppable. The Order thought it would take another vampire to eliminate her. And that’s how the nightwalkers were born—pardon the pun. I mean, since they were technically dead. Or undead, anyway.”

  “I knew what you meant,” I said, nodding along to his story. I knew most of the details, and a few others. Though I’d first learned the story from Mercy’s perspective. The way she told it was a bit more emotional, of course. I mean, Mercy’s father was a part of the Order, too. And it was he who saw to it that her heart was cut out. Mercy and her sire ended up killing him. I think it haunted her still. I mean, no one really gets over killing their own parents. Even if her father was a bit of a dick, from the way it sounded, he was still her father.

  Of course, I never really knew my parents. Elementals don’t rear their own young like humans do. But I could imagine, having spent enough time around humans, that the memory of that must’ve haunted her for the better part of two centuries.

  Devin, of course, didn’t have any empathy for Mercy’s side of the story. I didn’t blame him, exactly. The first time I met Mercy in the asylum I tried to stake her with my stiletto heel.

  Since she didn’t have a heart, and thankfully since she had more patience than I did, the conflict became an odd pretense for the beginning of our friendship. It was a short-lived friendship, and not one we would have likely entered into if we didn’t have mutually beneficial interests. But it was a friendship no less.

  At first I was eager for the mission. But then I started thinking about something Devin had said. We were probably chosen for this because Alice wouldn’t recognize us. We hadn’t been on her case before.

  Well, considering that I was still in the form she desired most, that she’d made me this way, she’d recognize me in a heartbeat. I mean, insofar as her heart beats at all. Vampire hearts beat incredibly slowly. I
have good hearing, but not good enough. And from what I understand, the beats slow down the longer one has been a vampire. I don’t think it ever stops completely. In the end, perhaps, beats might be separated by hours, even days. But the heart would still beat a little. Not necessarily because their bodies require it, but because some semblances of humanity remain, even after centuries.

  It was one reason why Mercy was convinced she was pure evil. No heart meant nothing left to bind her to her human existence. But the heart is just an organ. It didn’t take a genius to see that despite her rough exterior and her badass persona, she had more of a heart than most living humans. Sure, she did some bad, bad things. All vamps do. But when push came to shove, at least in my brief experience knowing her, she made tough decisions not out of selfishness, or out of her vampiric cravings, but for the betterment of others.

  A part of me wanted to go find her again. See if she could help me track down Alice. But Mercy had worked for centuries to get Alice off her tail. Now that she finally had, it wasn’t right for me to ask Mercy to get involved again. This was my battle, now. I wanted to see Alice eliminated for my own reasons.

  19

  MY STOMACH WAS tied in knots. On the one hand, I was thrilled to be involved in the Alice chase. And on my second “contract” with the Order, no less. On the other hand, there was no chance in hell she wouldn’t recognize me.

  I was supposed to let Wolfgang know when the Order assigned me Alice. So he could come help, claim credit, whatever. At first, he’d made it sound like I’d have notice on my contracts and there’d be ample time to come up with a plan and apprise him of it. That way, he could come along and do his part.

  But so far, I’d been given two contracts and both of them had me and Devin instantaneously on the job.

  Maybe the Order had changed things since Wolfgang was a nightwalker. And maybe they handled contracts with human—or perceived human—hunters differently.

  “I still don’t get it,” I said. “I mean, why us? You’re not exactly at the top of the totem pole with the Order. And I’m about as green as they come.”

  “Like I said,” Devin explained, “they couldn’t pick anyone Alice might recognize. And since it hasn’t been all that long since she was tied to the Order, it has to be hunters she doesn’t know.”

  “And you’ve never met her before?”

  Devin shook his head. “I’ve only been hunting for the Order for about a year.”

  “Only a year?” I asked. “You’re a legacy. I figured you’d started a long time ago.”

  Devin shook his head. “I tried my hand at college first. A Christian university, of course. My father wouldn’t pay for anything else.”

  I nodded. “And I take it college didn’t work out?”

  Devin shrugged. “It was great for a while. I wasn’t interested in any of their religious courses of study. But they had a decent business program.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Devin took a deep breath. “If I tell you, you promise you won’t tell anyone?”

  “Cross my fingers, hope to die.” I said, using a revised version of “cross my heart” that I’d developed over time. You know, on account of not having a heart. Sort of forgot that it was something of an original phrase. I extended my hand with my fingers crossed to prove my point—only now realizing that I hadn’t thought to remove my nail polish from the night before.

  Devin looked, but didn’t say anything. Didn’t seem to faze him at all, in truth. Which made me grateful he’d intercepted me in the church parking lot. I wasn’t sure the quilters would have been quite as understanding.

  “I got into a relationship,” Devin said.

  “With another guy?”

  Devin bit his lip. “Yeah…”

  “And someone caught you with him?”

  Devin shook his head. “Michael told the dean.”

  “Michael was the boy you were with?” I asked, raising one eyebrow in surprise.

  Devin nodded. “Guilty conscience. He was afraid if he didn’t repent, if he didn’t confess, he’d go to hell.”

  I shook my head. “So he threw you under the bus.”

  “Basically,” Devin said. “And I had to beg and plead with the dean not to tell my father. I mean, if my dad knew, he’d kill me. And I don’t think that’s even an exaggeration.”

  “How’d you convince the dean to keep his mouth shut?”

  “I went through the motions,” Devin said. “The policy was that if someone confessed a sin in confidence, it had to remain that way.”

  “So you confessed?” I asked. “As if it were a sin?”

  Devin nodded. “I went through the motions. I’m not saying I agreed that it was a sin, but I didn’t have much choice. Fake it to the dean or have to deal with my dad.”

  “Understandable,” I said. “So why does your dad think you quit school?”

  I shrugged. “They didn’t let me finish the semester, so as a result I failed my classes. I used that as an excuse. For some reason I’d just lost my motivation to study. I had to beg my dad to let me back home. But there was one condition.”

  “Going to work for the Order?”

  Devin nodded. “Which is where we are now. Staked three vamps in the past year, albeit with some under-the-table help from my dad. He’s been pretty intent on seeing me rise through the ranks.”

  “So he helped you on some of your hunts?”

  “He was my mentor,” Devin said. “Like I’m supposed to be to you. Only now, this is my real test. To see if I can lead a pair of hunters and eventually take out a tier one.”

  “Like this Alice vampire?”

  “Like her,” Devin said. “Sort of. She’s technically a tier one, but she’s only classified that way because the Order never invented a more advanced tier than that. There are tier ones, and then there are Tier Ones. Alice is in a tier of her own. Her, the vampire who turned her, and one other.”

  By “one other,” I was pretty sure Devin meant Wolfgang. It made sense. “So is the Order trying to eliminate the other two?”

  “Well, two of them were nightwalkers,” Devin explained. “The one who turned Alice—the one I told you about before…”

  I nodded. “I remember.”

  “She’s something else, entirely. I don’t think the Order will ever nab her, if you want my honest opinion. But the other two, the Order has told each of them that if they eliminate the other one, then the survivor will be allowed to exist provided they only feed on approved populations.”

  “Like the LGBT community?”

  Devin nodded. “Any so-called community of sinners qualifies.”

  I shook my head. “That must be hard for you. I mean, I’ve heard of people living double lives before. But this is on a whole other level.”

  “I’m not really involved in the LGBT community, Nick. No one knows that I’m…”

  “That you’re gay?” I asked. “You can say it. I won’t judge you.”

  “Thing is,” Devin said, “I don’t know what I am. I’m just confused. Yes, I enjoy men. But it isn’t like I’m repulsed by women or anything, either. I mean, maybe I was just experimenting before. With Michael. Trying to figure things out, you know?”

  “Were you experimenting when you flirted with me yesterday?”

  “I wasn’t flirting.”

  “Yes you were,” I shot back. “You were pretty clear about it.”

  “Maybe I was,” Devin said. “Maybe I wasn’t. I don’t even know what I’m doing half the time.”

  “It’s normal to be confused,” I said. “Especially when you’re raised with a worldview that tells you there are certain things you can never be. Or should never be.”

  Devin nodded. “If I was flirting, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… You’re just different somehow.”

  “Different?” I asked. “How so?”

  “Well, how do you explain those nails you have?”

  “I’m a performer,” I said. “On the stage. And lately I’ve b
een putting on an act.”

  “I see,” Devin said. It was clear he didn’t believe me. But it was the truth. What I didn’t admit, though, was that “Nick” was the act. When I was on stage, I wasn’t acting. I wasn’t putting on a show. I was just being me. I was Nicky. But every second I’d been around Devin had been a show.

  “I didn’t even think to clean them before I came. Probably should have. I don’t know how Mina and the ladies would react.”

  Devin shook his head. “Best they not find out. They may seem harmless, but those ladies are ruthless. They’ve sent more than one hunter whom they believed had been compromised by sin into unfortunate situations. Hunts they were unlikely to win, if you know what I’m saying.”

  I grunted. Was that what was happening now? Did they suspect me? Did they suspect Devin, too? Were they sending us to Alice so she could kill us?

  If my stomach was in knots before…

  And to think that my involvement might have put Devin in danger, too.

  I still had Devin’s phone, so I scrolled through the contract a little more. “They want us to actually speak to her?”

  Devin nodded. “Alice doesn’t feed often. We need to play it coy. And now that I think about it… show off those nails as much as you can. The less we look like Order lackeys, the better.”

  I shook my head. “If they already know her whereabouts during daylight, what do they need us to find out?”

  “Keep reading,” Devin said. “It’s all in there.”

  I cocked my head. “A funeral home?”

  “That’s where she’s working during the day,” Devin said. “Nice cover, if you think about it. Plenty of coffins all around. You know, in case she needs a place to rest.”

  I snorted. “You realize vamps don’t actually sleep in coffins, right?”