Dave Carver (Book 1): Thicker Than Blood

by Dudek, Andrew

  I drew the target’s sword from inside his coat and tossed it aside. It landed on the ground with a metallic clunk.

  “Hey,” I said. “Fuck you, you traitorous asshole.”

  His eyelids started working overtime, struggling even harder to open. No surprise. My voice was probably the last thing he’d expected to hear.

  Bill Foster’s voice was a pained gasp. “Dave? That you?”

  “Yeah, Bill,” I said. “It’s me.”

  And I slammed the brick into the back of his head.

  Here’s what happened:

  After I’d left the office that morning, Bill had returned. He’d gone down into the basement alone and he’d spoken to Craig. If Craig helped him find the Gauntlet of Greckhite, Bill would release him from the prison cell. He hadn’t known what my mentor had been talking about, but Craig had jumped at the offer.

  As soon as he was loose, the vampire spy reported to his boss. Flavian, of course, knew exactly what the Gauntlet was, and what it could mean for the war, so he headed out in the sun to find me. Believing that I’d eventually find my way to the one person in New York who might know about ancient goblin weapons, he went to wait for me at the apartment of Abelard Taylor.

  What I didn’t know:

  Why was Bill after the damn thing? What was so important that he was willing to murder an old man in his bed? And what was he planning on doing with it?

  I didn’t have answers to those questions. But I was going to get them. Before I did whatever I was going to do—and I wasn’t sure what that would be—he was going to tell me why. He was going to explain, in that damned fatherly voice, why he betrayed the Round Table.

  Why he betrayed me.

  It had been a little over an hour since Craig had helped me drag the heavy, unconscious weight of Bill Foster into the basement of the office. He’d be waking up soon. I stood in the darkened bullpen and adjusted my weapon belt so both hilts were within easy reach. And I headed down into the basement, to interrogate the closest thing I could remember having to a father.

  Bill was where I’d left him: ass on the floor inside the pyramid trap, back against the wall, legs splayed like a teddy bear’s. His head was slumped so the wool of his beard touched his chest.

  “Open your eyes,” I whispered.

  No response.

  I slowly and deliberately turned my back to him and headed to the work bench in one the basement’s dark corners. It was full of rusty tools: saws, hammers, screwdrivers. And an old coffee can full of nails. I pulled a nail from the can, careful to avoid pricking myself with the tetanus-y end, and turned to face Bill. His eyes were still closed and his chest moved with slow breath.

  “Come on, Bill. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  Still nothing.

  I sighed, shook my head. And I flicked the nail at the fence.

  If you want to know about the paranormal mechanics of a pyramid trap, you’ll have to talk to Dallas or May. All I know is this: It had a lot of power, and it doesn’t like when someone tries to cross.

  The rusty nail his aluminum gate. A roar erupted from deep in the earth and washed over me like choppy surf. It was loud enough to make an entire cemetery sit up and yell to turn down the noise—they were trying to sleep. The nail bounced off the gate. Before it touched the ground it disappeared in a puff of acrid smoke. The symbols carved on the sandstone block and on the gate glowed with a hot orange light. There was no other physical sign that anything unusual had happened, and even those lights were fading fast.

  But Bill’s eyes were open now. He smiled lazily and climbed like a cat, unfurling itself, to his feet.

  “Well, that thing sure as hell beats an alarm clock, don’t it?”

  “That’s how you want to start this?” As hard as I tried, I couldn’t keep the anger from making my voice quiver. “With a joke?”

  “Start what, kid? I’m the one locked in your little dog cage. If anybody oughta be startin’ somethin’, it’s you.”

  “You betrayed the Round Table, Bill,” I said quietly. “I want to know why.”

  “Somebody been puttin’ funny ideas in your head, Dave.”

  “Funny ideas.” To my own ears, my voice was a broken growl, weak and fragile as a glass sculpture of a gladiator. “Is it a funny ides that you let a vampire out of this dog cage? That you made a deal with him for some old weapon?”

  “I don’t know what in the lord’s name you’re talkin’ ‘bout.”

  “Spare me. I talked to Craig. He told me the story.”

  “And you believe him? Just ‘cause some vamp piece of hog-feed tells you?” Bill shook his head. “I dunno, Dave. Sounds to me like you’re the one not huntin’ with a full clip. Or maybe you ain’t as pure as you’re makin’ out. I’m startin’ to think you weren’t really a prisoner in that garage.”

  My hand dropped to my sword. “No. You don’t get to sit there and call me traitor.”

  Bill eyed me for a moment, his eyes cold, his lips pursed. “You’re a real big man, ain’t ya? Standin’ there with your sword. Let me out and we can see who the bigger man is.”

  I laughed. “Nice try. But you’re not getting out of that cell till I figure out what to do with you.”

  “And what’s that gonna be?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I’ll turn you over to the Commanders and let the council deal with you.”

  “Or?”

  “Or maybe I’ll kill you myself.”

  He laughed, a sound I’d heard a thousand times and never associated with anything but warmth and home and family. Now it was a dark sound, the mocking howl of an animal that cared nothing for me.

  “Then I guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens, huh, Dave?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess we both will.”

  I was back in the bullpen, sitting at an empty desk in the dark, when the front door opened. May stormed in, her windblown hair bright in the gloomy office. Her forehead was scrunched up and her eyes were narrow and hard. When she saw me, her grimace deepened, and she marched over and punched me in the shoulder.

  Not the greeting I was hoping for.

  “Ow!”

  “You idiot!” May snapped. “Where the hell have you been all day? I’ve had Earl combing the city for you.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’ve been here for about an hour.”

  “And before that? You went to the hospital and spoke to Rob. After that it’s like you disappeared.”

  “Sorry, May,” I said. “I’ve been busy—“

  “Too busy to pick up a phone. After last night. After Guyana. The vampires are after you—specifically, you—for some reason. You can’t vanish like that on us. On me.” She closed her eyes and took a slow breath. “I just…I thought I really lost you this time.”

  “Hey, May,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulders. “I’m…well, I’m not hurt. But I have some really bad news.”

  She looked up at me, tears that she refused to shed welling in those big, gray eyes. “What?”

  I told her everything. I told her about where I went when I left the office after our last conversation. About my trip to Dallas’s store and to Taylor’s apartment. I told her about killing Roberto. About meeting with Flavian.

  And I told her about Bill.

  When I finished talking, May was sitting on the floor, her knees pulled up against her chest. It made her look small and weak. It broke my heart to see her like that. For what felt like a long time, she stared at a spot on the ceiling where some black vampire blood remained. Her face turned slowly to stone.

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “I know you do,” I said. “And you will. But not right now. Loretta’s definitely planning something with that stolen ship. She’s not counting on us knowing about it. We can’t let her land.”

  “What can we do about it?”

  “Call in the Navy,” I said. “Guinevere can hold off a ship that size, no problem. Especially if they don’t know she’s comi
ng.”

  “I don’t know…” she said. “I don’t want to leave you here. Not with him in the basement.”

  I shook my head. “This is my job, May. This is my city. I have to protect it. and if it’s gonna burn…” I felt a bitter smile cross my face and I squeezed her hand.. “I guess I’ll go up with it. I want you on that ship. It’s the closest thing to being there myself.”

  I didn’t mention the other reason I wanted May in charge of the marine operation. She was less likely to be hurt onboard Guinevere. She didn’t mention it, either, but from the look she gave me, she knew what I was thinking. Of course she did. She always knew what I was thinking.

  Instead, she said, “I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I, to be honest,” I said. “But it’s what we have.”

  I wrapped my arms tight around her. She squeezed my chest to her. Just before pulling away, she kissed me. She tasted like strawberries. I kissed her and hugged her even tighter. Then she was gone, in a whirlwind of red-gold hair.

  “Good luck,” I said to the empty room.

  Look on the bright side, I thought as the sweet scent of May’s shampoo drifted away, as the taste of strawberries faded from my tongue. You may be alone, but between the two of you, you can win this war.

  You know. I hoped.

  Chapter 28

  I hadn’t felt alone since I was seventeen. Loneliness is a crushing weight on your chest. It settles on your spirit like an anchor and makes it impossible to breathe normally. It’s the smooth, black walls of a tunnel, closing in until you’re sure you’ll never see daylight again. It’s a whispery voice, deep in the recesses of your mind, telling you that no one can help you. That no cares enough to even try.

  After May left for Guinevere, I sat in the office and felt alone.

  We’re social creatures, human beings. Never underestimate the importance of connections to friends and neighbors. It’s why so many hermits and loners wind up killing themselves. Without those connections, it can start to feel like living is pointless.

  My childhood had been…average, I guess. Single mother, but that was far from unusual, especially in my neighborhood, and a deadbeat dad. Mom did her best, working various part-time jobs to supplement her income as a public school teacher in the Bronx. We hadn’t been rich and it hadn’t been glamorous, but it had been home.

  And then I returned to our apartment to find my mother with her throat torn out. The apartment was in disarray. Furniture was overturned and walls were dented. The bedroom was soaked with blood. My mom’s face was pale. Her eyes were open. She was on her back in a pool of her own life’s blood.

  I was sixteen.

  In the rubble immediately following the earthquake that was my mom’s murder, I met a man named Nate Labat. He explained to me what it was that had killed her. A vampire.

  Nate was only a few years older than me, but he was the leader of a “family” of vampire hunters. All of them—mostly kids my age—had lost their biological kin to the vampire epidemic that was sweeping the South Bronx. Like me, rather than rotting in the state’s adoption system, they’d decided to do something about it. We were a group of angry, lonely teenagers who knew firsthand that monsters were real. So we did the logical thing: We learned how to hunt and kill vampires.

  That was where I learned how to fight—how to really fight, not the awkward swinging of schoolyard brawls. I learned how to stalk a vampire without being spotted. I learned how to fight things that were bigger, faster, and stronger than me. I learned how to kill.

  My weapon of choice in those days? An old ax that a member of the Family had “liberated” from a firehouse. It was heavy and even though I was new, I was one of the strongest members of the family. Not that I minded ax duty. I liked the way tremors ran up my arms when the blade struck home. I got good. We all did.

  Over the next few months, vampire attacks and mysterious disappearances in the Bronx decreased. Not a lot, not dramatically, but enough that we thought we were making a difference. We were unstoppable. We were like gods.

  I never found the vamp that killed my mom. We searched and made contacts in the fringes of the supernatural community, but it was to no avail. The monster never showed himself.

  I have a tattoo high on my left bicep that I got during this time. A vampire skull, fanged and snarling, with an ax blade buried between the black eyeholes. Every member of the Family had their own tattoo inked somewhere on their bodies. Like all gang tattoos, they bound us together in a physical, visible way.

  My first bout with loneliness was long forgotten at this point. I was almost happy. I know it sounds strange, considering the squalor in which we lived, but there’s something about not being alone that makes it impossible to be less than happy. Sure, we had more impromptu funerals than most people our age, but we all agreed: better a short life with the Family than a long one on our own. I was no longer a tiny, insignificant speck of dust in the universe of New York.

  I wasn’t so cynical then. I was actually surprised when it ended.

  A few weeks shy of my first anniversary with the Family, we hit a vampire nest on East 165th Street. Somehow, though, they followed us and found our hideout on the abandoned subway platform. They attacked at sundown.

  I’d never seen so many vampires at once. Everyone died. Everyone but me.

  I ran away. I was seventeen, and despite my adolescent bravado, I was afraid to die. So I ran and let the Family die underground.

  Just a kid and, for the second time, truly alone. Loneliness swirled with the shame of cowardice, and I decided to avenge the Family. Every fiber in my body pulsed with a burning desire for revenge. I didn’t mean it before, not really, but I did now: I didn’t care if I lived or died as long as I took those undead sons of bitches with me.

  I found the vampires in a house on 165th Street, near the site of the last vampire nest. The exterior was dark brick. The windows were boarded up and the place was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. It loomed over the neighborhood like the castle of a feudal lord.

  I stood on the sidewalk for a long time, shivering under a shabby flannel jacket. My ax was in my hand. Nate Labat’s silver switchblade was in my pocket. It was go time. I knew it was likely to be a one-way trip, but I didn’t care. I needed revenge. I needed to not be alone.

  As I took my first step towards my vengeful doom, a strong hand closed on my shoulder. I spun around to see a huge man with a shaved head and a wooly beard. I didn’t know it, but his name was Bill Foster, and he had a story to tell me.

  I was amazed to hear about the secret, globe-spanning society of monster hunters, but I was floored when he told me who my father was. Dad, Bill told, hadn’t been a deadbeat. He’d just been dead. My father was a knight of the Round Table, Bill’s best friend, and—you guessed it—killed by a vampire. My mother had told me that my dad had abandoned me, fearing that if I knew the truth I’d throw my life away in some stupid quest for revenge. Life’s funny.

  Bill had been looking for me since he heard about my mom’s death. He told me that there was another option. I didn’t have to choose between death and loneliness. He told me there was more to life than revenge.

  “You wanna die right now, and I get that, but that...that’s the coward’s way out, boy. You know things, Dave, things that would make the hardest bootleggers wet their bunks. When you know stuff like you know, you basically got three choices. And you know what ain’t one of ‘em? Dyin’ for no reason.

  “One: you can forget about it, put it out of your mind and go ‘bout your business. I reckon that ain’t an option for you right now. Two: you can spend the rest of your life cryin’ yourself to sleep at night like a baby scared of shadows. And three: you can get off your ass and do somethin’ ‘bout it. You can help make sure that nothin’ like what happened to you happens to other kids.”

  That was the day I joined the Round Table.

  Ever since then I’d never felt that crushing weight of loneliness. Even in the darkest days during t
he time in Guyana I never felt alone, because I knew I had friends and that I was doing the right thing. If I died, my death would have meaning.

  That was the biggest loss, I realized, as I sat alone in the office—the sense that I had a purpose. As far as I could see, everything that I had done had been washed away. All of the good Bill had done was erased. And since he had introduced me to this life, so was all of the good I had done.

  A short life, full of meaning, was better than one that dragged on and one and meant nothing. I still believed that. That wasn’t changed by any betrayal. Neither was this: I wasn’t the type of person who would lie down and let the world end around him. I was going to fight.

  Chapter 29

  I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have, because I remember waking up. There was a titanic roar from the basement and the building rocked on its foundation. My ears rang from the force of the blast and I leaped to my feet. Earl stood staring at the closed basement door, holding his sword.

  “What was that?” I shouted. My ears were buzzing.

  “I don’t know, sir.” Earl looked at me for a moment to face the source of the danger—the basement door. “Krissy’s down there.”

  I slammed my palm on the nearest desk and drew my sword. I ran towards the door. I was too late. I knew that I was too late, but I ran anyway. A second before I would have grabbed the knob, the door flew—literally flew—off its hinges. It smashed the front window of the office and landed on the sidewalk in a sparkling shower of glass.

  Bill stood on the top of the stairs, free of the pyramid trap. He looked at me for a moment and said, “Hey, Dave.”

  Oh, god. Oh, god.