Scarlet Dusk

by Megan J. Parker

  Zane sighed and shook his head. “Alright, Ben, I suppose it’s only fair that I tell you everything…”

  Ben listened while Zane told him the story of Maledictus and Gregori and, finally, of Serena. As he let the words flow, Zane was startled by how easy the rest of them followed; surprised that, despite their relationship and mutually abrasive personalities, he somehow felt comfortable opening up and being himself with his informant.

  Venting to Ben just felt right.

  And, when it was all over, the arrogant informant offered an understanding nod.

  “Guess I’m not the only asshole on the block who found himself an angel who gets him, huh?”

  Zane smirked and shrugged, “That’s one way to put it, I suppose.”

  “Bullshit! Chick puts up with you—all of you; even that… that fucking psycho-thing, Mega-dick-fist—”

  “Maledictus,” Zane corrected him.

  Ben shrugged, “Whatever. Him. This point is you got something special—a real angel!—if this girl of yours put up with all that and hasn’t run for the hills yet; though if she’s anything like her mother she’d sooner just smear the streets with your insides and laugh at how it looked like Jackson Pollock painting.”

  “You knew Serena’s…” Zane shook his head, “Nevermind. Forgot who I was talking to for a moment; Mister Ben: holder of secrets and lord of the assholes.”

  Ben smirked at that, nodding. “Long as you know who you’re answering to, asshole.”

  “Watch it!” Zane smirked, “Or I’ll roll your ass into traffic.”

  Celine gasped at that, but both Zane and Ben burst into laughter.

  “Oh, fuck, man! I needed that!” Ben lifted his glasses and wiped a laughter-born tear from his eye, “You know that most of these punks treat me like a damn cripple; fucking pussies think that just ‘cause I’m half the vamp I once was that I’m not still twice the ass-kicker they’ll ever be.” He navigated his chair over to a nearby filing cabinet.

  Zane snickered, “Just means you ain’t gonna feel anything after somebody breaks their foot off in your ass.”

  Ben nodded, punching a code into one of the cabinet drawers and yanking it open after a low tone buzzed. “Damn straight! And while they’re wearing me like a shoe I’m going full Chuck Norris on their nutsack.” He ran his fingers through the stacks of papers before drawing a file and flipping through it, nodding. “This might help with your kidnapped angel, bud.” He used his left hand to spin the chair towards Zane and tossed the file onto his lap. “Few nights ago some therions came in; real nondescript crew, y’know, rocking the goth gear and whatnot, but nothing that screamed trouble. They were all pretty jittery—buying drinks like they’d just come out of the damn Sahara!—and telling Mira about how they’d been hearing all this crazy shit lately, right? So Mira, knowing to keep this kids talking—keep ‘em buying—keeps asking all the right questions, and they start in with this crazy talk about—get this—the devil!” He shook his head, laughing. “Now those in their right minds like you and I know that if the real devil was coming to visit, he’d probably be setting a goat-foot somewhere a bit more exciting, right; somewhere that didn’t already have Mondo-big-tits—”

  “Maledictus,” Zane corrected him again. “And you do know I’m an atheist, right?”

  “Whatever,” Ben pointed to the file, “So Mira’s got these therions rambling—got ‘em good and drunk—and the stories keep rolling: humans talking about ghosts and demons and whatnot strolling around here, even told a story of some horny punks looking to score some tail at the cemetery down on Railway Street even seeing a body come tearing up through the ground.”

  “What,” Zane cocked an eyebrow, “like a zombie?”

  “Who the fuck knows! It’s probably bullshit, anyway,” Ben pointed to the file again, “but after I did a little sleuthing I found that there was a body that had been dug up over there?”

  Zane frowned, finally opening the file. “So—what?—on top of Maledictus being out-and-about in a new ykali body we’ve also got zombies roaming around?”

  “Zombies? Maybe,” Ben rolled forward and pulled one of the pages from the file and planted it on top of the others, pointing to the police file of the event; a grainy black-and-white picture showing the response team circled around a dug-up grave and, next to it, the corpse. “But if the dead are coming back, they don’t seem to be getting too far. This particular corpse,” he turned the page around to read from it, “one, ‘Mister Stephen Dravus, was found five feet from his desecrated grave site.’” Ben shrugged, “Now I’m going to be the first to say this is just some random grave-robbing that’s gotten mixed in with the chaos of everything else, but, since it was in there with all the shit those kids were rambling, I figured I’d include what I found in the file.”

  Zane flipped through the pages. On their own, the set of police records, newspaper articles, and hand-written accounts seemed like nothing more than a bunch of random happenings and claims.

  Still, there was something to them…

  Celine, who’d been peering over Zane’s shoulder and had finally abandoned her chair to hang over the back of his, shook her head. “Why did you make this file if you don’t believe any of the stories?”

  Ben motioned to Zane, “Because this guy keeps coming back here to peek at my sweet ass, but after the foreplay he always demands information about anything-slash-everything that’s happened around here. If I didn’t keep shit like that”—he motioned to the file on Zane’s lap—“then I’d have to put up with a lot more of that”—he pointed back towards his destroyed desk.

  “I see…” Celine paused. Then, “What do you think, Zane?”

  “I think I can feel your breath on the back of my ear and I don’t like it,” Zane offered absently, still sorting through the papers. “And I think that—”

  Zaney-boy.

  Looking over his shoulder, Zane could only see Celine—still too damn close—and the rest of the empty room. But then…

  He slapped the file shut and pushed it into Celine’s hands. “Hold that. Keep it safe,” he ordered, quickly raising to his feet and starting for the door.

  Ben frowned, “Hey! What’s up, man? Aren’t you going to stay for a drink? On the house!”

  Zane shook his head, “I can’t; I mean, not now. Give me a rain check or something. There’s…” He felt it again; a nauseating wave. It was something in the air, like a vibration or a scent; something that made his muscles ache and his head throb.

  Something familiar.

  “He’s here!” Zane growled, starting for the door.

  Just before jumping into overdrive, he heard Celine calling out to him.

  Zane sprinted through the club in overdrive, plowing through the time-frozen dancers and partiers as he made his way through. Reaching the stairs, he started up them two at a time and shoved past another seemingly-frozen patron who’d just entered before he crashed through the still-slightly ajar door. There was no sound as the door ripped free from the hinges and catapulted into the street before getting snagged by physics and slowing to a stop in midair; Zane leaving the club further and further behind him as he sprinted after the familiar energy.

  Though he wasn’t an auric and had no way discerning one aura from another, he knew Maledictus, and he couldn’t forget that feeling!

  A feeling that was just as suddenly gone.

  What the fuck… he stopped, letting his body fall out of overdrive.

  Behind him, the patron he’d plowed past started cursing up a storm and the sound of the airborne door sounded against the opposite building as it shattered into splinters and bits of glass against the concrete siding.

  “Where the hell did you go, you bastard?” Zane demanded to nobody in particular as he swung his head around, trying to pinpoint the source. “Come on! Don’t do this to me; don’t let the trail go cold. Don’t force me to—” The energy spiked again—coming from behind him—and he turned in time to see a shadowy figure dart around th
e building and disappear down the next street at the end of the block.

  “Got you!”

  The patron he’d pushed, a still cursing sang, appeared in the street as he dropped out of overdrive—obviously eager to offer some payback to Zane for slamming him against the wall—and glared at him.

  “You owe me an apology, asshole!” the pudgy, balding vampire demanded.

  “Sure thing, pal,” Zane offered, starting towards him solely to get to the end of the street and follow the figure, “I got a really heartfelt ‘sorry’ written down for ya. Buried it pretty deep in my ass, though; hope you don’t find fishing it out with your teeth!”

  The vampire’s eyes widened. “You arrogant little punk!” he growled, turning to a nearby motorcycle and quickly mounting it.

  “Picked the wrong night to get stupid, dipshit,” Zane rolled his eyes at the sound of the bike’s engine as it roared to life and he continued his determined pace back towards the club—positive that the angry biker thought it was for his sake that he’d turned around—and clenched his fists. “Still… I like your bike.”

  The vampire bared his fangs as he revved the engine and peeled off towards Zane, who quickly scoped the area to make sure that there weren’t any humans to see the supernatural showdown. As eager as he was to take down the hotheaded sang, he couldn’t risk exposing human witnesses to something that would only bring him more problems. Satisfied that the street was vacant, he opted to be quick and, for once, lenient. Though brash displays were one of the major ‘no-no’s in The Council’s eyes, being the foundation of more than half of the laws they’d put into effect, he didn’t think a death penalty was appropriate in this instant. Then he spotted the bits of busted door—a product of his own inhuman brashness—and a bit of his self-righteous pride deflated.

  Well, he thought to himself, at least there weren’t any witnesses.

  The roaring biker-vamp accelerated towards him, preparing to drive his motorcycle directly into Zane and still demanding an apology.

  “I’m sorry for the bruises you’re going to have by sun-up,” Zane offered, stopping in the middle of the road and squaring his stance.

  The heat of the tortured engine and the rubbery stink of overworked tires grew as the bike closed in on Zane, and, just before the front tire had a chance to clip his feet, he side-stepped to the right and reached across the width of the bike with his left hand, snagging the handle bar and squeezing the clutch. The motorcycle lurched, and the vampire, caught in a moment of panic, swerved away from Zane in an effort to reclaim control of the bike. Maintaining his grip, Zane kicked off the pavement and let the speed of the bike carry him—swinging his body in a wide arc and kicking the startled vampire off the roaring vehicle—before he fell into place on the seat.

  As proud as he was of the maneuver—and the fact that the calculated effort hadn’t, like many of his other calculations in the past, failed miserably—Zane invested little time as he threw his bodyweight into turning the motorcycle around; the tires squealing as the bike drifted a short distance further down the street before Zane got the rear end to straighten out. The motorcycle’s engine roared as Zane tortured the throttle and started down the street after the shadowy figure.

  “ZANE!”

  Tracking Zane’s movement hadn’t been hard for Celine. After offering a quick thanks to the informant, she’d tucked the file under her arm and hurried out after Zane, finding a trail of dazed and confused club-goers who’d been thrown to the ground. The floor is a mess of broken glass and spilled drinks, and as the confusion in the club gave way to outrage the patrons began to turn on one another, eager to blame their neighbor for the chaos.

  Celine cried out as she was forced to jump out of a the way to allow a pair of sangs to come crashing out of overdrive; their fangs bared and their hands wrapped tightly around each other’s throats.

  Ben, wheeling out as fast as he could, cursed as he got a look at the mayhem. “Motherfuck—goddamit, Zane! Do you have any idea how much this is going to cos—ENOUGH!” The roar of Ben’s voice sent a unified tremor through the entire club, Celine even feeling a wave of dread as the sound assaulted her ears. Ben, seeing Celine’s surprise, smirked and nodded. “Half the vamp; twice the badass,” he winked.

  “I can see that,” Celine nodded before using the calm to run after Zane, starting up the steps as Ben reclaimed his club behind her.

  Reaching the exit—hadn’t there been a door in front?—she heard the rumbling of an engine and looked down the street in time to see Zane kick a motorcyclist off his vehicle and start back towards her on it.

  “Zane!” she called out to him.

  He didn’t stop.

  He didn’t slow down.

  He didn’t even warn her.

  His vice-like grip snagged her as he past, lifting her off the ground and planting her behind him on the motorcycle. Her breath caught for a moment—awestruck by the sudden rush of movement and Zane’s ease at plucking her from the side of the road—and she reveled in the surreal moment of—

  “—got it?” Zane called behind him.

  She blinked. “Huh?”

  “THE FILE!” he roared, though she could tell it had nothing to do with the loudness of the stolen motorcycle’s engine. “DO YOU STILL HAVE IT?”

  Celine blushed and nodded, pulling the bundle of papers from under her arm to show him.

  Zane’s face relaxed at the sight and nodded, turning back to face forward as he navigated the streets, weaving in and out of traffic.

  “Why… u-uh, wh-why did you s-steal this motorcycle?” Celine asked, blushing as she realized that the machine’s vibrations and her closeness to Zane were having some serious impacts on her anatomy.

  “Because I needed it,” Zane’s voice was flat. “I’m hunting somebody.”

  Celine frowned, “Hu-hunting some—Why w-wouldn’t y-you just chase them in over… ah! Er, overdrive?”

  “Are you going to be alright back there?” Zane growled.

  “Yea…” Celine blushed, realizing her increasing arousal wasn’t going unnoticed.

  Zane sighed, taking a sharp turn and forcing Celine to grip his sides to keep from falling over the side. “If who it is turns out to be who I think it is, then I can’t risk burning up all my energy in overdrive.”

  “Who you think it is…” Celine’s nerves seized and her arousal fizzled away into nothingness, “You don’t mean him, do you? You don’t mean M-Mal-Maledictus, do you? Do you? I-is that who you’re after; is that who took Serena.”

  “Yea, Celine, it is, and I’m not sure if what I’m sensing his him,” Zane confessed, cutting across an intersection. “But it sure as hell feels like him.”

  MALEDICTUS WAS OUT THERE SOMEWHERE, AND, SOMEHOW, Zane was able to track him; to feel his presence and chase after it. Celine’s head darted about, oscillating to-and-fro in response to anything that her growing paranoia screamed to her might be the creature she’d encountered so many years ago.

  When Zane had brought back the curse from his mission with the taroe tribe…

  She felt a whimper scuttle free from her throat and she forced away the memory of the looming creature that had literally burst from Zane’s body. It hadn’t taken much—a bit of confusion and a stubbed toe, if she remembered correctly—and he’d doubled over, crying and cackling all at once; the new tattoos that littered his body burning like hot coals. He was no more than a turned sang, she knew that better than anybody, and when his body began to shift and warp like a therion’s she’d known that she didn’t want to stick around. Unlike all the dumb bimbos in the horror movies, when her man started screaming in pain and monstrous extremities began sprouting across his glowing body, she did what a sane woman should do:

  She ran.

  Maledictus, as its name—or title or classification or whatever—turned out to be, hadn’t been too thrilled to see its first victim making a run for it, and he’d ripped the house apart in trying to chase after her; the sound of his vulgar rampage
beckoning their neighbor to come knocking…

  While it was tragic to a degree, Celine had never been too close with the old man. So when he went and called attention to himself, drawing the homicidal creature’s attention away from her long enough to jump out the bedroom window, she didn’t bother to go back to help him.

  An old man dies; a young vampire lives. Probably not the fairest trade in the world, but she’d already come to grips with the idea of living off the death of others.

  It was, after all, what made them what they were.

  She could only imagine in hindsight what it must have been like for Zane when he’d come to after all that. Dazed. Confused. Covered in blood. Alone. It made sense that he’d come to the conclusion that the monster he’d brought back inside of him had killed her, and, in many ways, it was better that he thought that.

  The Maledictus-monster thrived on the fear it crippled him with, so if it had gone through the arduous chore of tracking her down it would’ve had to sacrifice the ruse that it had killed her. Knowing that truth might have offered Zane some sort of hope then; a hope that he might overcome what had happened to him. Obviously this was not something Maledictus had been willing to risk, so it allowed Celine to live—a small sacrifice in its campaign of keeping Zane tortured by the belief that it—and, in essence, he—had killed her.

  But now that Maledictus had his own body and Zane was aware that Celine’s death had all been a lie, there was no safety net for her.

  No safety net but Zane.