Day Killer

by Clara Coulson

  As I step out of my bathroom, dressed in loose jeans and a simple T-shirt I dug up from my closet, I scan the hall wall to wall to ensure I didn’t miss any red marks. I don’t find any, but I scrunch my nose anyway. The air is clogged by the cloying smell of too much “ocean breeze” air freshener. I may have been a little overzealous in its application.

  Satisfied my apartment doesn’t look like the scene of a massacre, I tiptoe into my bedroom and locate my pack where I left it earlier. The unconscious vampire on the bed, whose blood has utterly destroyed my sheets like it did my clothes, doesn’t stir, even when I unzip the bag and remove my gun. I straighten up, flicking the safety off the gun, and turn on the small lamp on the nightstand, casting the room in a bright yellow glow. Still, the vampire doesn’t respond.

  He’s surrounded by a bunch of empty blood bags, which he poured out of his own backpack after I tossed him onto my bed and started demanding answers from him. Instead of replying to anything I said, the guy drained the blood bags one by one, sucking the stuff down like it was the nectar of the gods. (I guess for a vampire, it is.) After he drained the bags, he sat up for a couple minutes, and to my disgust—I might’ve run to the bathroom and vomited once or twice—he very carefully tucked his intestines back into his abdominal cavity.

  Then he fell back onto the mattress and went to sleep, as if he owned the place.

  I lean closer to the guy, trying to ignore the stench of copper wafting off him. I take a long, hard look at his face. I’ve definitely never seen him before, not in person or in a picture. He looks about my age, maybe a few years older, though that means little when you’re dealing with vampires. He’s got a curly shock of brown hair that looks like it was caught in a windstorm. His eyes, I remember from our earlier “conversation,” are red, which marks him as a born vampire. Something I’ve never seen waltzing around Aurora. The bulk of them live in Europe, with about a fifth in Asia. Strange that this guy jumped the pond to walk up to my doorstep.

  He was looking for me specifically, I think, a nervous pit in my stomach. Somebody sent him here?

  I can’t imagine why anyone would designate Calvin Kinsey as a safe person to fall in with after being gutted by an adversary. I don’t have any magic powers, or any special skills, or any political or financial clout that could protect someone in a situation like this. I just have a boatload of dumb luck—most of it bad—and have survived my first year as a DSI agent by the skin of my teeth. Hell, I even lost a few teeth in the process.

  So why the hell is this guy here?

  Hesitant, I reach forward with my gun and poke him with the tip of the barrel. He grunts but otherwise doesn’t respond. My gaze travels down to his stomach, and though I really don’t want to throw up again, I pinch the hem of his shirt and lift it up to reveal his abdomen. The gut wound isn’t completely healed yet, but it looks a hell of a lot better than it did when he first arrived.

  I pick up a discarded blood bag. The words on the bag aren’t written in English; I think it might be Romanian, though I’m not sure. That suggests this guy stocked up on blood before he left for the States, like he knew he’d need “proper sustenance” on hand. But what event, or danger, could spur a noble vampire to leave home in a hurry and run thousands of miles around the world to find me? That makes no sense at all.

  And what the heck happened when he blew into town? Did he get jumped by other vampires? An extremely talented practitioner? Something even more powerful? It’s not easy to seriously injure a vampire. They’re too fast and strong.

  I pull away from the unknown vampire and pace around my carpet. If whatever attacked this guy shows up at my place, I’m done for. I can barely fire a gun, and doing so causes me pain if I try to use my dominant hand for the trigger. But with my left hand holding the thing, I can’t aim straight. If only I was ambidextrous, that would solve so many problems.

  A loud truck rumbles by on the street outside, unnerving me, and I head to the window and peek out around the blinds. No monsters standing in the street. No mysterious shadows in the alleys. No haunting shapes creeping along the rooftops. Seems like a calm night in Aurora. But I know all too well how quickly that can change, and—

  A sudden buzzing noise behind me nearly makes me jump out of my skin. I swing around and train my gun on the strange vampire. Of course, he’s still asleep. The sound is my phone, set to vibrate, ringing as a call comes in.

  I lower the gun and hang my head in shame. Idiot.

  Maneuvering back around the bed, I take a knee in front of my backpack and dig around in the front pocket until I find my phone. I hold it up to view the name of the caller, hoping it’s somebody from my team asking after me. Ella often has this sixth sense for when I end up in a dangerous situation. Then again, I end up in dangerous situations so often you could make a killing by betting on the date of my next near-death experience. So maybe it’s just her, or Riker, calling to bug me about why I didn’t stop by the new office and say hello.

  I read the contact name. I read it again. And again.

  Sadly, the name doesn’t change as a result of my disbelief.

  The caller is Lucian Ardelean. I have his phone number in my contacts because he left it for me to use in case of an emergency relating to the Methuselah Group, when he was recalled to Europe after the whole Delos conspiracy got blown wide open. As far as I know, he has yet to return stateside. What are the odds that I get a call from Lucian on the same night a random vampire shows up at my door, and those two things aren’t in any way related?

  Stupid question.

  The odds are zero.

  I swipe the answer button and press the phone to my ear. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Nice to hear from you too, kid,” Lucian says in his usual cheery, mocking tone. But there’s something hiding underneath it tonight, a noticeable strain. And his breaths are coming across the line in quick, uneven pants, like he’s been running. Except running doesn’t wind vampires unless they run really, really fast. “Given the way you answered, I’m guessing you got my package?”

  “Can I return to sender?” I answer.

  “No, you cannot.” There’s a screech on his end, like shoes skidding on tile. “I need you to protect that with your life.”

  “Excuse me?” I glance at the sleeping vampire on my bed. “I’m not your grunt, Lucian. You can’t order me around. And what makes you think I’d give up my life for some vampire I don’t even know?”

  “Because he’s the heir to House Tepes, and every other member of his family was murdered four hours ago.”

  My breath catches. “What?”

  A burst of interference fills the speaker before cutting out abruptly. Lucian must’ve sprinted somewhere at top vampire speed. No wonder he’s breathing heavily, if he’s been doing that for any prolonged period of time. He swallows audibly and picks up with the explanation. “Shit’s going down, kid. The Parliament was betrayed. The Knights had inside men. It’s a mess.”

  “What happened?” I rap my fingers on my nightstand, eyes darting from the vampire to my window to my front door, visible straight down the hall. Sweat gathers on the back of my neck. I’m expecting an ambush any second, vampires swarming the place and killing me just as bloodily as they tried to kill this “heir.”

  Lucian drops all pretense of levity and speaks in a dark, bitter voice. “The Parliament met earlier tonight to discuss the recent altercations we’ve had with the Black Knights in Prague and Rome. It was the biggest gathering of house elders in over three years, and key political representatives from all the noble houses were there in force. We were supposed to plan the bones of a major counteroffensive and consider the merits of a semipermanent joint taskforce with the ICM.”

  He pauses for another quick sprint. “But it turned out the whole thing was a setup. The Knights had been using their public attacks as a distraction to move in on us from behind. They had agents recruited from every house, at all levels, heirs to servants. I don’t know how they wormed
their propaganda into so many well-trained ears—maybe they took a cue from Delos, who knows?—but whatever they did, it worked. It worked so damn well. They sprung the trap right in the middle of the session. Attacks from every direction. Doors bolted. No way out. It was a fucking massacre. Hundreds dead.”

  “Are…” My words stick in my throat, and it suddenly feels as if the world has tilted sideways. I nearly stumble. “Are you saying the Black Knights instigated a successful coup against the Vampire Federation?”

  “Partially successful,” he admits. “They had a viable heir from each house on their payroll, and they went for the necks of all other heirs and the current house elders. They successfully killed, as far as I know, the elders and heirs from four of the eight houses, leaving only their chosen heir to inherit control of those houses. Under vampiric law, you can’t stop the designated heir from taking the elder seat without a blocking vote from the Parliament, and now…”

  “Now the Parliament is practically destroyed,” I say. “So the Knights’ mooks have gained control of half the vampire houses, giving them access to vast resources in numerous countries. And the other house members are bound to obey the elder, right?”

  “Yeah.” He sighs. “If any house member betrays the elder, regardless of the elder’s commands, it’s grounds for execution, unless you go through official arbitration with the Federation courts. But many of the court judges were also in attendance at the meeting, and were duly slaughtered with the rest of the schmucks. So that’s out as an option for recourse. The corrupted heirs now have full control of their houses, and anyone who disobeys can be summarily removed from the picture.”

  “Christ, what a clusterfuck.” I tap my gun against my thigh. “And you didn’t see this coming?”

  “We knew they were planning another major offensive. We just didn’t know their target. We were trying to get ahead of them and strike first…”

  “And in so doing, played right into their hands.” My legs feel weak, and I have to prop myself up against the nightstand. “This is bad. This is really, really bad.”

  “No shit. Imagine how I feel.” He beats his fist against something, maybe a wall. It cracks. “I’m an intelligence officer, a spy, and this whole plot went right over my head. I watched dozens of people I’ve known for the better part of a century get killed like cows at a slaughterhouse. There were so many betrayals in the span of five minutes that most people were too shocked to even fight back. Those who did got swarmed by the Knights’ numbers. They must’ve brought in the bulk of their organization for this one attack. We killed a bunch of them in the fray, but not enough.”

  I take a second to collect my thoughts—most of which amount to internal screaming—and blow air through my teeth. “Okay, so, what exactly is it I’m supposed to be doing here?” I look to the snoozing vampire again. “With this guy. What’s the idea? He’s a house heir, and…?”

  “His name is Foley Banks. His house, House Tepes, my employer, is the largest and strongest of the vampire houses,” Lucian says. “That kid’s father, uncles, aunts, and four first cousins were all wiped off the face of the Earth in the massacre. His older sister, Eliza, was the traitor to the house, and since every other contender is dead, save one, she’s now in control of the house. Every employee, from the high-level spies, like me, to the meager house servants, are now at her beck and call.”

  He drops his volume suddenly, as if thinking someone might overhear him. “There’s a loophole though. Since Lizzie took control of the house by force, she forfeited a fair claim right, which means that Foley now has a better claim to the title than she does and can mount a challenge against her. Assuming he stays alive long enough to make one.”

  A frigid cold that has nothing to do with the weather seeps into my bones. “So you sent him away, a whole ocean away, to my apartment, in order to…?”

  “Hide him while I mount a counterstrike against Lizzie and her Black Knight cohorts,” Lucian says, like nothing has ever made more sense than this batshit crazy idea. “I know it’s a lot to drop on you, Kinsey, but I needed to get that kid out of Europe and somewhere nobody would think to look for him. Remember, my entire intelligence network is now compromised. Lizzie has access to all my reports, my safe house locations, everything. You were the only person I never made any mention of in those reports. I never got the chance to incorporate you into my schemes in Aurora in a way that would require me to name you in official documents. You were my only option, next to sending that kid out into the world with no help at all.”

  I wet my dry lips with my equally dry tongue. “You refer to him as a ‘kid.’ Why is that?”

  “Because he is one,” Lucian says sharply. “Noble vampires don’t have children on a whim. They don’t want their numbers to get too large. Most noble couples have one kid. That’s it. If they do have more, then the children are never closer than fifty years in age. Lizzie was the late Lord Tepes’ first child, born at the tail end of the nineteenth century. She’s a hundred nineteen years old. Foley, on the other hand…Well, he was born in 1991.”

  “So he’s actually in my age group?” I run my gaze over the sleeping vampire’s face, picking at the details. The echoes of round, youthful cheeks. The soft eyes. No hard lines anywhere, not even deep dimples. He really does look that young, but I thought it was just my brain’s assumptions about age and appearance playing tricks on me.

  “Yes. He is. And that means he’s vulnerable. Born vampires get exponentially stronger with age, and Lizzie is a talented magic practitioner—as if this situation wasn’t bad enough already.”

  “Hold on.” I raise my index finger, then remember he can’t see me. “If the Knights don’t know Foley’s here, how did he get gutted?”

  “I was getting to that,” Lucian snaps. “He was injured during the massacre. I sent him to you through a special mode of travel, one I’m not actually supposed to use, per se, but it was an emergency, so…” He coughs, in a not-fake way, and an image of a bloody, gutted Lucian pops into my head, his spilled organs held in his hand as he limps along in the shadows of some old European cobblestone street. If Foley nearly died, dozens of old, powerful vampires did die, and the Knights came away largely victorious, then it stands to reason Lucian did not escape the battle unscathed. He sounds winded because he’s been constantly running for the past several hours while severely injured. Christ.

  “Special mode of travel?” I say, ignoring the budding guilt in my chest. Lucian, though a complete asshole, has helped me fight the MG over the past year. I shouldn’t be acting like a dick to him while he’s in such a precarious situation.

  Plus, the stuff that’s gone down tonight with the Vampire Federation will have far-reaching effects on every other group involved with the supernatural underworld, including Methuselah, the ICM, and DSI. Including me. A world-shifting event like this could even have dangerous ripples in the human world, depending on how the Knights use their newfound power.

  “It’s called an Eververse Bridge,” Lucian answers after a long pause. “It’s a kind of pathway cut into the fabric of the Eververse that joins two points on Earth through a significantly shorter distance than you’d have to cover in this dimension. The Bridges were built a long time ago by the fae, when faeries were a lot more active on Earth than they are today. Most of them were abandoned by the courts decades ago. So, uh, some people with knowledge of these pathways, like me and a select few other vampires, took to utilizing them on occasion. But we only use them as a last resort. Because you never know when the faeries might notice. And when you upset the faeries, well…you get the idea.”

  I do get the idea. Learned all about the vindictiveness of the fae at the DSI academy. We had two classes on that, simply because there were so many examples to cover. Don’t fuck with the faeries. That’s like the number one rule of every faerie-related story in history.

  “Okay, cool,” I say. Though I am not cool with any of this. Nada. Zip. None. No. “Eververse Bridge. I’m guessing that
’s why his blood trail started at the stairwell landing?”

  “Correct.” A door creaks open on his end, then thuds shut. “But—”

  “Wait!” I interrupt as a revelation drops onto my head like an anvil. “If there’s a Bridge that opens up on the stairwell landing for my floor of the building…That’s how you always put sticky notes on my door and ran off without being seen by anyone. You went to the stairwell and hopped into the Eververse. Poof.”

  He chuckles, though it reeks of exhaustion. “You got me. I bet that drove you crazy, huh?”

  “You have no idea. I looked at all the security cams for the entrances and exits, spoke to my neighbors, spoke to the night manager. I couldn’t believe no one ever saw you, even if you were moving like a blur. But they never even had a chance to see you.”

  “Nope.”

  There’s one mystery solved. Now for the main course. “Okay, back on topic. What exactly am I supposed to do with the Tepes heir?”

  “Your job, Kinsey, is to protect him for a day or so.” He makes a loud sound to preempt my next question. “Stop being so impatient. I’m going to explain everything. Just give me a second.” Another door opens and shuts, and Lucian treads across a warped wooden floor, boards squeaking, then drops heavily onto what I assume is a chair. He rifles around in some kind of container, and a few seconds later, the sound of somebody drinking through a straw comes over the line.

  I grimace. He’s drinking blood to accelerate his healing. Like Foley did earlier.

  There’s an irony there. Vampire blood gives humans temporarily heightened healing, but if vampires run too low on their own blood, their healing factor will slow down, and in order to restore it, they need to drink human blood. I’ve always thought that an odd exchange.

  When he finishes his “snack,” he tosses what sounds like a bottle aside, plastic bouncing off the floor in his hideaway, and he comes back to the phone. “Right. So, here’s the part you’re not going to like.”