The Devil's Mouth (Alex Rains, Vampire Hunter Book 1)

by Matt Kincade

  The caller ID told him it was Jen. “Hey, darlin’,” he said. “Oh, sure. Come on up.”

  Minutes later, Jen’s van pulled into the driveway. She got out of the van and walked toward the garage just as Alex pulled himself out from under the truck. He stood up and wiped his hands on a red shop cloth.

  “New ride?” asked Jen.

  “Just a little somethin’ I’m workin’ on. How are you?”

  “I’m peachy,” said Jen. “It’s you I’m worried about. I heard a kinda crazy rumor.”

  He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “Yeah? What’d you hear?”

  “I heard Carmen’s a vampire, and you’re still with her.”

  Alex picked up a wrench and leaned over the open hood of the Ford.

  “Is that true?” Jen pressed.

  “Maybe it is,” said Alex.

  Jen leaned against the truck fender. “Alex, I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry ’bout what?”

  “I’m sorry they got her. I know she meant—she means a lot to you. Is she here?”

  “Naw. She took off.”

  “Is she coming back?”

  Alex didn’t answer for a long time. Finally he said, “I don’t know.”

  Jen took a step forward. “Do you want her to come back?”

  He hesitated again then repeated, “I don’t know.” He turned away from Jen and the truck, looked out toward the trees. “I just don’t know. I’m…” He didn’t finish.

  “So you two have…a relationship?”

  “Guess you could say that.”

  “You know this is never going to work, right, Alex?”

  Alex frowned. He looked at the ground and scuffed the gravel with his boot. “Shit, I know. I just can’t…It was so good, you know? It was all right. Everything was good. She was my girl. I ain’t felt that good since I met Maggie. And then bam. It all went to shit. But it’s still her, you know? She’s dead, but it ain’t like she’s dead dead. How can I just walk away? What kinda man would I be? I know it ain’t easy for her neither. She needs somebody. And goddamn it all, I still love her.”

  Jen placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know, Alex. I know.”

  He let out a long sigh. “I shoulda killed her before she ever woke up. If it was me, it’s what I’d have wanted her to do for me. But I couldn’t. I was too weak. Too scared. And now she’s still here, and it’s my fault.”

  “It isn’t your fault. It’s their fault.”

  Alex sighed again and put the wrench down. He picked up a shop towel. “It ain’t workin’. I know it ain’t. Wish I could say it was. I love her so much it hurts. But I can’t trust her no more. Goddamn it, I’m afraid of her. And she’s afraid of me. We go tip-toein’ around each other like cats ‘n’ dogs. It’s like living with a hungry tiger.”

  “You know, you wouldn’t be the first vampire hunter to let one go,” said Jen. “Sometimes…well, sometimes it’s complicated.”

  “You can say that again.”

  ***

  Carmen walked down the dark alley, her high heels echoing off the stucco walls. She passed by lightless stoops and occupied cardboard boxes, wearing a scandalously short skirt, a low-cut blouse, and a jacket nearly as long as the skirt. She held tightly to her purse and tried her best to look scared and helplesss, just like she had done the last two fruitless nights. Her stomach growled. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered under her breath. “How hard can it be for a girl to get sexually assaulted?”

  A bum called out to her from the darkness. “Hey, lady.”

  She turned. “Yeah?”

  “You shouldn’t be wandering around back here. You never know what might happen. Is everything all right? I’ve got a phone; can I call someone for you?”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ.” She stormed away, leaving a confused Good Samaritan.

  She exited into a half-full parking lot, lit by dirty orange light, enclosed on three sides by the back walls of businesses. One of those businesses was a bar, and occasionally a drunk would stumble out of the back door, a blast of music escaping with him until the door swung shut. Carmen entered the bar.

  It was a dive, with no attempt made at interior decorating. The walls were still painted with whatever color the last tenant had wanted. The pool table was so badly off level that the balls barely held still. The place reeked of cigarettes and spilled beer. Hard country blared at an uncomfortable volume. The bare concrete floor was sticky under Carmen’s shoes.

  She hiked herself up onto a barstool, flashing a long thigh at the room. Someone was offering to buy her a drink before she even had her purse down. She asked for a gin and tonic and thanked the man who bought it for her.

  He looked out of place in the bar. The crowd was mostly angry-looking young men in jeans and black hoodies, standing around the pool table, watching motocross on the bar TV, unsubtly glancing at Carmen’s legs. By contrast, this guy was clean-shaven, with neatly combed hair, and wore a button-down shirt and tan slacks.

  “So,” he said, with a smile that seemed almost apologetic, “you come here often?”

  Carmen smiled back. “First time.”

  “Yeah, this place is a dive. I don’t know why I decided to come in here. But now I’m glad I did. I’m Brian.”

  “C…Cathy,” said Carmen.

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  Brian made small talk with Carmen while she sipped her drink. His intentions were painfully obvious, but he seemed sincere enough. Carmen was beginning to lose hope. She finished her drink and stood up from the stool. “Thanks for the drink, Brian,” she said.

  “Wait, you’re just leaving?” A flash of anger crossed his face, and disappeared just as quickly.

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Oh come on. Can I at least get your number?”

  “I wouldn’t bother if I were you.” She turned and headed toward the back door.

  After the din of the bar, the back parking lot was blessedly quiet. Carmen stood next to the dumpster and looked around. The dark shadows around the mouth of an alley a little farther on looked promising. She followed the wall, detouring around a stack of pallets and a cluster of trash cans. She heard the bar door open behind her, another snippet of music escaping into the night.

  Someone approached her at a run. Before she knew it, two strong hands slammed into her back, knocking the wind out of her. She stumbled forward and fell onto the gritty pavement of the alley.

  Chapter Nineteen

  He was on her before she could recover. Carmen rolled over and Brian straddled her. He clamped one hand around her throat. The other held a knife in front of her face. “Don’t make a fucking sound, bitch.” The hand left her throat and wormed down her shirt. His knee forced her legs apart.

  Carmen smiled, which seemed to make Brian angrier. “You little tease. You like this, don’t you?”

  “Probably not in the way you think.”

  She grabbed the knife hand and twisted. The bones in his wrist splintered. He would have screamed but for the hand clamped around his throat. Carmen leaned in close and growled, “Don’t make a fucking sound, bitch.”

  He struggled, for all the good it did him. Carmen held his throat in an iron grip while she got her legs under her. She stood up, taking him with her. She squinted to protect her eyes as his fists beat at her face, but otherwise his blows had no effect. “What was it about me?” she said, as she slammed him up against a wall. “Do I just look like a victim? Can you smell it on me? How do you just pick me out of a room and say, there, she’s the one?”

  Brian tried to answer, but all that came out was a strangled squawk. His feet skittered on the pavement.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m genuinely curious. I’d love to know what goes on in the mind of a guy like you. But then again, it doesn’t really matter. Not anymore. I’m done being the victim.”

  Carmen pulled him close and sank her teeth in. They sliced effortlessly through layers of tissue and fat, found his carotid, and laid it wide
open. Blood exploded from the torn artery and into her mouth.

  She drank like a frat boy chugging a beer. His lifeblood pumped out from the gash in his neck. In seconds it was all over. His one good hand, which had been battering at her like a moth on a window, fell away. His entire body spasmed one last time then went limp.

  The body fell at her feet. Carmen stood, panting, catching her breath. Already the warmth, the heady rush, spread from her stomach, racing up her spine, making her arms and legs tingle. She laughed giddily as she kicked the body at her feet. “Fuck you, asshole.”

  A voice came from behind her. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  Carmen turned. A man stood silhouetted by the lights beyond the alley. He held a machete in his hand.

  “Who the fuck are you?” asked Carmen. She smelled him. Smelled the absence of him. No residue of food. No heat. A vampire.

  “I’m asking the questions. I said, ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’”

  “He attacked me,” Carmen said casually. “And I was hungry.”

  “That’s all well and good, but…” The vampire leaned the machete blade against his shoulder as he strolled closer. The light caught his face, and she saw that he was in his thirties, with black hair that came down to his narrow chin. He wore blue jeans and a brown leather jacket. He smiled dangerously. “The thing is, honey, this is my turf.”

  Carmen shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know.”

  “That’s right. I didn’t know. I apologize. You’ll never see me again.”

  “And what about”—the vampire nodded in the direction of the corpse—“your friend there?”

  “What about him?”

  “What were you planning on doing with the body? You must be a newbie, because this is some shoddy fucking work. This guy gets found, I’ll have every hunter in the four corners down on my head. You see, I run a tight little ship here, and I don’t like amateurs like you fucking things up.”

  “How many times can I say I’m sorry?”

  “Not enough.” He leaned against the stucco wall of the alley. “See, nobody feeds in this city unless I say so. Now, if you want to stay around, we could arrange that. Just swear fealty to me, and”—he looked her up and down—“maybe we could get to know each other better.”

  Carmen rolled her eyes. “Yeah, probably not going to happen.”

  He cocked his head. “So that’s how it is?”

  She nodded, matter-of-factly. “That’s how it is.”

  “Have it your way.” With feigned casualness, the vampire pushed off the wall. “So who made you anyway?” He walked in a slow circle around her.

  Her short sword, given to her by Alex, hung from its shoulder holster under her jacket, the end of the handle just below her left armpit. Although she was reassured by the weight of it, she resisted the urge to grasp its handle.

  “Don Carlos,” she said.

  That got his attention. She saw fear in his eyes, and he stumbled a step before he recovered. He stopped in his tracks. The machete still rested on his shoulder. He squinted. “Bullshit,” he said. “The Don doesn’t make women. And he doesn’t make people with your…complexion.”

  “And yet, here I am.”

  “So you’re a mistake.” He shook his head. “The Don doesn’t make a lot of mistakes.” He resumed his casual circling. “Which means he won’t be upset if I—” He cut the sentence short as he swung.

  The stroke was clumsy but blindingly fast. He lifted the machete blade off his shoulder and whipped it around one handed. It gleamed in the streetlight and flickered toward Carmen’s neck.

  Carmen had her sword’s grip in her hand. She shrugged her jacket back. As fast as her opponent was, his blade seemed to crawl. His face was a rictus of rage, teeth bared, eyes wild. The blade came at her neck. Carmen pulled her own blade straight up and out of the scabbard. Her steel intercepted the machete and she parried, redirecting the blade’s energy. The machete’s thick, brutal blade whispered above her head. The Japanese steel followed, maintaining contact with the machete, guiding it away. In the same liquid motion, Carmen turned, halving the circle, twisting with her legs and hips as she drove the blade back sideways.

  Carmen’s blade didn’t even find enough resistance to slow down. A slight tremble coursed through the handle, and the vampire’s head popped into the air, as if it had decided to jump up and dance a jig.

  The head hit pavement with a solid, bony crack. Blood hosed from the fresh stump and spattered along the alleyway like the first heavy drops of a summer rainstorm. The body slumped to the ground, still clutching the machete.

  Panting, Carmen stood in a broad stance. She held the sword down and to the side. Blood ran down the fuller and dripped from the sword point. She looked down at the head. There was still life in those eyes. They blinked and focused on her, shocked, the mouth forming words with no lungs to push them out. She tried to think of something to say, some witty parting shot, but nothing came to mind. She simply watched. Soon enough, the life left his eyes, and he stared at nothing.

  Carmen walked back to the corpse of her would-be rapist. His throat was a gaping horror. Already a few flies had found him. They crawled up his nose, across his eyeball. He didn’t seem to mind. Carmen held the sword down low like a golf club and swung sideways, neatly severing the head. This time there was no blood left to flow.

  She cleaned the sword with her unfortunate attacker’s shirttail before re-sheathing the weapon. Then she reached down and took one body under the armpits, stumbling the way someone might when expecting to lift a heavy box and finding it to be empty. She held the body over her head one handed, with ease. Laughing, she tossed him twenty feet into a Dumpster, where he landed with a thud. She did the same with the other body and the two heads.

  The blood was fully in her system now. She felt warm and silly, a heady rush like the first glass of wine. She whistled the melody to “Heartbreak Hotel” and did a clumsy little dance as she left the alley and walked under the streetlights back to the Hyatt.

  ***

  Later that same night, with daylight threatening, Carmen pulled into the gravel driveway in front of Alex’s house. She used her key to unlock the front door and slipped inside. Alex stood in the bedroom doorway, barefoot and wearing only sweat pants. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned. “Hey,” he said.

  “Sorry if I woke you.”

  “It’s all right. I was just gettin’ up.” He looked out the window. “You’re cuttin’ it pretty close. If you’d had a flat tire, you’d be ashes before too long.”

  Carmen rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing I didn’t. Good to see you too.”

  “Sorry,” said Alex. He stepped forward and kissed her. “How was your trip?”

  “It was good. Sort of. But it’s a long story, and I’m tired, so I’m going to go to bed. I’ll tell you about it in the evening.”

  “Okay,” said Alex. He headed toward the backyard.

  ***

  When Carmen woke up twelve hours later, Alex was dressed in blue jeans and a black T-shirt. He sat at the little round breakfast table in the kitchen and read on his laptop. This time it was Carmen rubbing sleep from her eyes as she stumbled toward the coffee maker..

  “Guess y’all had a pretty good time in Albuquerque,” said Alex.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Carmen dropped in a new filter and spooned coffee in.

  Alex turned the laptop around so she could see the screen. “Double Decapitation Horror,” read the headline. “Tell me that wasn’t you.”

  Carmen set a mug on the counter, harder than was necessary. She shrugged. “What do you want me to say? Yeah, that was me.”

  “Two? I guess you was extra thirsty?”

  “One of them was a vampire. He tried to kill me.”

  Alex paused for a second. “Oh,” he said. “Well, good on you for that. But still, this is pretty much exactly the kind of shit I was
tellin’ you not to do. Toss ’em in a Dumpster? I mean, shit, this is gonna bring every hunter ’tween here and Saskatchewan.”

  Carmen let out a wordless growl of frustration. “I know,” she snapped. “Okay? I know. It was sloppy. It was risky. It was bad form—it breaks the rules. I’m a terrible vampire. What the fuck am I supposed to do with two bodies? Put them in my pocket? I walked away. When I came back with the car, the police were already there. There’s a lot of things I could have done differently, but that’s what I did, and I seem to have gotten away with it.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m just sayin’—”

  “You’re just saying that I did it all wrong,” she crossed her arms. “I get that. What are you, my dad?”

  Alex sighed. “I just feel like you ain’t taking it seriously.”

  “Seriously? Could you be more condescending? I’m the one he tried to decapitate with a machete. Believe me, I take it seriously.”

  “I’m just tryin’ to look out for you is all.”

  “Oh, and you’re so great at looking out for me. As I recall, I got turned into a vampire under your watch.”

  Alex stared at her for a span of heartbeats. He stood and turned away. “Fuck you. That ain’t fair.”

  Carmen sighed. She reached out to him. “Alex…”

  He pulled away. “No, you knew the risks. Right from the get-go. It coulda just as easily been me. Wish to hell it had been. Wish I could trade you places.”

  Carmen rubbed the bridge of her nose with two fingers and sighed. “I’m sorry. That was over the line. But you’re treating me like a little kid. All you do is tell me what I’m doing wrong. I’m just trying to get a cup of coffee here, and you’re jumping all over me.”

  “I just worry. I’m just…just tryin’ to look out for you.”

  “Maybe I can look out for myself now,” she said somberly. “I mean, look, when I met you I had a lot to learn. You helped me out. But maybe I have to make my own mistakes now.”