A vampire jumped on the swordsman’s back, bearing him to his knees. The Hunter’s left hand came up, and he stabbed the vamp in the face with his main gauche. The vampire fell off, and the Hunter leaped to his feet in time to meet another attacker with the point of his blade.
“Well, you’re probably going to get your wish,” I said. “The Hunter is shielded, and they really can’t touch him.”
“Shielded?” my new companion asked. “You mean, like he’s a mage or a witch or something?”
“A mage. All Hunters are mages.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that. You’re a mage, right? Friend of Eileen’s?”
“Yeah, I am. You mean Eileen Montgomery?”
“Uh-huh. I’ve seen you in Necropolis. I wait tables there.”
Two of the vampires ran into each other trying to dodge the Hunter’s blade, and one of them lost his head.
“He’s just playing with them,” I said. “Practicing.”
“Good riddance. Young and stupid. Rude, too. No respect, and think they’re invincible.”
I had to laugh. “How old are you?”
She also laughed, showing an impressive set of teeth. “I was twenty-one when I was turned. That was in 1969. I tell girls, be careful of one-night stands. I was just hitch-hiking to San Francisco and looking for a place to crash for the night. But I was never that stupid, even back then. Those guys are less than a year old, orphaned when Barclay’s mansion burned down. I’m Shawna, by the way.”
“Erin.”
The remaining vamps finally figured out that they weren’t going to win and began slipping away into the shadows. The Hunter stood alone among thirteen bodies. Shawna and I watched as he walked around and cut off the heads of those who still had them.
“You hunt around here?” I asked.
“I don’t hunt the way you mean. I cruise the bars. The scene here isn’t as sleazy as Necropolis, at least to my mind,” she said. “I just take a lover for the night, feed a little bit, but I don’t get greedy. If someone’s a good lover, I want them to smile and be happy to see me when I run into them again.”
“Well, I don’t swing that way, but you take care. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“Wouldn’t matter. Drugs got me dead once, so I’m not interested in getting hooked on mage blood.”
She slipped away as silently as she came. I waited, watching the Hunter.
He finished cutting off the heads of the vampires he had vanquished, then took off in the direction away from me. I slid out of the bushes and followed. I wasn’t an illusionist but knew that twisting ley line energy in a certain way tended to blur my image, especially at night. It wasn’t a perfect disguise, but unless a person was looking right at me, or knew what they were looking for, it helped to make me less visible.
The fact that he was out in full uniform at night told me he was hunting. I had known a lot of Hunters who hated vampires and hunted them for sport. Evidently, he had heard of the vampire predations in the university area, and the size of the group that attacked him told me that Blair’s team hadn’t made as much of a dent in the problem as Cindy hoped.
After casting about for a few minutes, I saw a black-cloaked figure probably a hundred yards ahead of me on a long, straight sidewalk. I couldn’t run in the two-inch strappy heels I was wearing, so I slipped them off, stuck them in my purse, and shielded myself, including my feet. That taken care of, I took off running to close the distance between us.
My bare feet made little sound, and I didn’t slow down until I had closed to within about twenty yards. Flitting from shadow to shadow, I continued to follow him. I wasn’t dressed to dance the swords, but I did have one main gauche in a sheath inside my coat, and the Sword of Uriel was always at my call. But confronting him wasn’t my objective. I hoped he would lead me to where he was staying.
To my surprise, he went to a building on campus, one of the old buildings from the early days of the university. Two stories and built with quarried stone instead of brick, it was tucked into a copse of trees near two four-story modern brick-and-glass buildings. The Hunter went to a side door—a narrow, sheltered space near the back of the building—and let himself in. There was a brief flash of light from the inside as the door opened, then darkness again.
I waited for ten minutes, then crept close and examined the door, which had no signs or any distinguishing characteristics except a keypad. Circling around the building, I found a plaque by the front door alongside another keypad. ‘Harland Hall, Faculty Offices’.
I melted back into the trees and pulled out my phone. A search gave me Harland Hall, and drilling down I found a list of the faculty with offices there. Two of them were on the list I had for members of the Columbia Club.
On my way to the train station, I called Blair. The call went to his voice mail, so I assumed he was asleep.
“Lieutenant, there’s been another massacre. One of our Hunters left thirteen headless vamps on Willard’s Green at the University.”
Chapter 16
When I woke up in the morning, I called Frankie. “Have you heard about Willard’s Green?” I asked when she answered. When she said yes, I continued. “Tell me about James Winter and Thomas Feldman.”
“Well, they’re both tenured professors at the university. Winter is a chemist, and Feldman is a microbiologist.”
“And both are members of the Columbia Club, right? Were either of them involved with Constance Gardner in her bounty scheme?”
There was a moment of hesitation. “Maybe we should get together to talk about this.”
“I’m working the next four nights,” I said. “Drop by. This has to do with Willard’s Green.”
I then called Michaela and told her what I’d witnessed the previous night.
“That’s…disturbing,” she said when I finished.
I agreed on so many levels. A Hunter out hunting on the university campus. A gang of vampires that large out hunting together. The fact that the Hunter had so blatantly left thirteen corpses out for humans to find. Earlier that fall, the entire paranormal and supernatural communities were in a tizzy when one hunter had left a few corpses scattered around town. The recent carnage was far more extensive than that had been, and it almost seemed as though the Hunters wanted humans to notice.
“Michaela, one question I have is, where are that many vampires—young vampires, recently turned—spending their days? I know there are abandoned buildings in some parts of town, but not up there by the university. And they can’t have any money to buy or rent anything.”
“Well, there are caves in the cliffs all along the coastline. Most of them are what’re called sea caves, full of water at high tide, but there are caves above the high-water mark, too. It’s because of air holes left in ancient lava flows when the volcanoes were more active. A lot of them are difficult to get to, but a vampire would have no problem scaling those cliffs. Other than that, some orphaned vampires find places like basements where no one ever goes. A lot of people don’t ever go to their basements, especially older people, you know?”
I switched gears. “Do you know of a young-looking vamp named Shawna? She said she works for Eileen.”
There was a trace of amusement in Michaela’s voice when she answered. “Sweet little Shawna. Yeah, I know her. She’s an odd one. Showed up in Westport ten or twelve years ago. Truly an independent. Bought a basement condo near the university and paid cash, then went to work waiting tables and tending bars at Necropolis. She’s a loner with her own set of morals. Other vampires leave her alone. Where did you run across her?”
“Last night, when the Hunter was slaughtering those young vamps. She all but brought popcorn.”
“There’s a story—whether it’s true or not, I don’t know—that she stumbled across a young vampire raping a girl. They say that Shawna tore his head off.”
“And she seemed like such a nice girl,” I said.
Michaela laughed. “Yeah, you two remind me of each other.”
&nb
sp; The feel of different kinds of paranormals and supernaturals was different when they came through Sam’s ward on the door at Rosie’s. Most of the clientele were mages and witches, but the dhampir felt different, as did Blair.
I was talking to Lizzy at the bar on Thursday night when I felt a vampire walk in. I looked up and saw Shawna. She smiled as she approached me and crawled up on the barstool next to Lizzy.
“Hi,” Shawna said. “A double Bloody Mary, please. Hold the vegetables and tomato juice. Best vodka you’ve got.”
Lizzy’s eyes shifted toward the vampire, then did a double take. Shawna winked at her.
I poured the vodka and set it down in front of her, then pointed at the Rosie’s Rules posted on the wall. She gave me a tight-lipped smile, dug in the pocket of her jeans, and pulled out a wad of bills.
“Twenty,” I said. She handed me twenty-five. I knocked my knuckle on the bar and gave her a smile.
“Your night off?” I asked after depositing the money in the cash register and tip jar. “Lizzy, this is Shawna. Shawna, Lizzy. Shawna’s the woman I was telling you about from last night.”
“Yeah,” Shawna said. “I’m off on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Thought I’d stop by and see where you worked.”
I didn’t remember telling her where I worked, but I guessed she could have asked Eileen.
Shawna swiveled her stool around and surveyed the crowd. “High octane,” she said. “No wonder you don’t get many vamps in here.” She giggled. “My, this is an eclectic crowd. I’ll bet weekends are wild in here.”
Spinning her chair back around, she picked up her drink and took a sip.
“Maybe you could help us with a mystery,” I said. “We were just wondering where a nest of vamps that large spent their days.”
Shawna laughed. “That gang calls themselves the Cavemen. I don’t know if you noticed, but there weren’t any women. They have a couple of young teeny boppers they turned to use as sex slaves, but otherwise they’re all former gang bangers turned by Rodrick Barclay’s children last year ahead of his war with Harry Gallagher. Idiots when they were alive, and they haven’t gotten any brighter since they’ve been dead.”
“So, they’re living in caves out on the cliffs?” Lizzy asked.
Shawna nodded. “And under logs and wherever they can find. If you got close to them, you’d notice a lack of modern hygiene.”
I moved off to take an order from one of the waitresses and check on my other customers. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shawna and Lizzy engage in a rather animated discussion, one full of smiles and laughter. Talk about an odd couple. I wondered what they discovered about each other.
When I got back to them, Shawna’s glass was empty.
“Another?”
“Naw, I should go. It’s dinner time. Enjoyed it, though. I’ll stop in again.”
“By the way,” I said, “you wouldn’t happen to know where that Hunter came from?”
“Oh, yeah. He has something to do with one of the laboratories on campus. Check out Harland Hall.”
We watched her leave, then I turned to Lizzy.
“You two seemed to get along well.”
“She’s funny, and she owns a Mini-Cooper like mine, only hers is baby blue.”
Frankie came in about an hour later and sat at the end of the bar, away from everyone else. I traipsed down to her, and before I could open my mouth, she fixed me with an evil glare.
“What’s this about the Columbia Club and that mess at Willard’s Green?” she asked.
“Two members of the club have offices in Harland Hall, and that’s where the Hunter went after he finished killing the vamps.”
“You were at Willard’s Green last night?”
“Yeah. I called Lieutenant Blair and left a message on his voice mail. I saw the whole thing from the bushes.”
“What time was this?”
“About midnight. Didn’t Blair tell you?”
Her expression turned sour, and she shook her head. “Jordan’s in the hospital. Someone tried to kill him yesterday evening. Ambushed him when he left the office and shot him five times.”
“Oh, no!” Although we had a rather strange relationship, I did consider Blair a friend, just as I considered Frankie and Cindy friends. For a former assassin and thief, the idea of having cops as friends still felt pretty strange.
“He was wearing a vest,” Frankie said, “but he still took one in the left arm and one in the right thigh. They had him in surgery half the night.” She sighed. “Can I get a cup of coffee? And then you can tell me about Willard’s Green.”
I poured her some coffee and told her what I had seen the night before, holding nothing back. I also told her about my conversation with Shawna earlier that evening.
When I finished, Frankie said, “Cindy will be glad to get that information. Trying to find where the university area vamps are sleeping has been driving her nuts.” She pushed her empty coffee cup toward me, and I dutifully retrieved the pot and gave her a refill.
“As to the question you asked about Constance Gardner,” Frankie resumed, “the answer is yes. Feldman and Winter were among those funding the bounty scheme. Both are rabidly anti-supernatural.”
“And both had interactions with Edmundson while he was here?” I asked.
She jerked, a look of alarm crossing her face. “Yes, they did. He stayed at Feldman’s house.”
“If you remember,” I said, “the Hunter earlier this year started the chaos in motion by killing Guy Carleton, then he took out several members of the Columbia Club. Now they’ve murdered more members of the club and made a play to eliminate Gabriel Laurent. This is all part of a long-term plan. It’s not random violence.”
Frankie stared off into space for a while, and I left her to think while I attended to the rest of my customers. I saw her pull out her phone and make several calls. Then she got up and left. When I went to clear her dishes, I saw that she’d left a ten-dollar bill on the counter. Coffee at Rosie’s was a buck and a half, with free refills.
Jill, the bartender who relieved me at two o’clock in the morning, was also a student at the university. She came in at one o’clock and ordered her dinner. While she was waiting for her meal, I walked over.
“Did you hear about Willard’s Green?” I asked.
“Oh, hell, yeah. It was all over campus this morning. Students discovered it before the campus cops did, and by the time I got up, the rumor mill was in high gear. What a mess. The cops and administration are trying to downplay it as a gang fight. They’re saying three dead, but the rumors are that the body count was a lot higher.”
She pulled out her phone and turned it so I could see a picture of the Green with bodies and heads lying around.
“This and a couple of other pictures have been making the rounds.”
“Thirteen vamps lost their heads,” I told her. “But before this, was the university telling students to be careful at night?”
“Big time, starting about three months ago. Don’t go out at night, and if you do, travel in groups. There was even talk about imposing a curfew on dorm residents. You can imagine how well that went over.”
“Did you pay any attention to it?”
She shrugged. “I’m a witch. I make sure I have a couple of spells loaded and always shield myself before I go out at night. My mom always insisted I be safe, so I’ve been doing that since I was sixteen years old. I had a vamp try to lure me before Samhain, and I set his crotch on fire. I haven’t had any trouble since.”
I laughed. “They can smell magic users’ blood. The word probably got around that we aren’t the safest meals.”
Chapter 17
The phone rang while I was brewing my first cup of tea. Since the caller had the decency to wait until one minute after ten in the morning, I decided to answer it.
“Erin, what have you got going today?” Cindy Mackle asked.
“Good morning to you, too. I was hoping to eat breakfast, but I haven’t planned anythin
g past that.”
“Night owl,” she accused and laughed. “Frankie approved a consulting fee for you. I’m going to try and find where the caves are that those vamps are using.”
“Money is always good, but I don’t know what good I’ll be. Cliff climbing is not in my skill set, and to be honest, not something I’m anxious to try.”
Cindy laughed again. “Me neither. No, I’ve got a better idea. You don’t get seasick, do you?”
I took a look at a city map and discovered that public transportation wouldn’t take me anywhere near the dock where Cindy wanted to meet. I called Lizzy and begged for a ride. To my surprise, she asked if she could go along.
So, after a quick breakfast, and bundled up like Eskimos going seal hunting, Lizzy and I met Cindy and three other cops at the dock of a Westport Police harbor patrol boat. The captain made sure we all put on our life vests properly, then took us out of the inner harbor area and out toward the islands. After we made it out past the breakwater, the captain turned the boat parallel to the shore and headed north.
If given a choice, I would have preferred making my first sight-seeing voyage on a sunny day with temperatures significantly above freezing, but it was still pretty and exciting.
“I love boats,” Lizzy told me, hanging over the side as we watched the shoreline recede. “My dad used to have a sailboat, but he sold it. Said that it was too much work to keep it floating. But I don’t care. I’m going to get my own boat someday. Don’t you think it would be awesome to live on a boat? We could sail around the world and break a heart in every port.”
Cindy passed each of us a large set of binoculars. “The idea is to cruise slowly by the cliffs and try to spot anything that’s out of the ordinary. Then we can have some of the SWAT team guys rappel down to check things out. I thought it would be a lot more efficient to narrow our search rather than try and scour miles and miles of cliff.”
Dark Dancer (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill Book 3) Page 12
