by D. M. Nash
I was drawn to a time, very much like this, when I’d been tied up in Florida, only that time it had been actual chains and not just a long strip of cloth and there wasn’t much hope for my dad coming to save me since he was knocked out on the floor in front of me.
Have I ever mentioned that I think Victoria’s a pretty cool chick?
This time, though, I thought my odds were even better since I had my dad and a vampire on my side.
Richard. His face popped into my head with force.
It was hard to believe I’d only met him a couple weeks ago. If I had to be tied up and helpless—not my first choice, believe me—at least it was somebody like Richard who’d be coming to save my sorry rear.
It didn’t actually take as long as I’d thought it would for my dad and Richard to show up, but unfortunately it happened in about the worst possible way. The lady who’d just about killed me a few days ago turned the corner right behind them, seconds after they came into view. Their hands were in the air, and she had a twelve-gauge trained on them.
“Good,” she said. “Everyone’s here.”
XXV
“What do you want?” Dad asked the woman in his best negotiator voice. Which, honestly, is pretty good, but loses some of its luster when he has his arms up.
Her voice was silky. More so than when she’d been talking to me. Maybe she used different tones for different demographics. “We simply want to do what we were made to do.”
“Ask a bunch of questions and then wipe the whole town from the world’s memory?”
“That is the form of our mission at present, yes.”
He turned to look at her, but kept his arms up. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but that is extremely weird. Why do you do it?”
Her eyes narrowed, and I kind of thought she was going to give him the old I ask the questions around here, bub thing she’d said to me at the house, but she actually answered him. I know it sounds like a bad movie cliché, but a lot of the time the bad guys really do want to gloat about what they’re doing, how strong they are, how horrible, etc. It’s not like they have a lot of outside socializing to look forward to.
She said, “We prepare the way for the new order.”
Oh boy, I thought and the half-roll of Dad’s eyes told me he was thinking the same thing.
I should have guessed already that this was some cult-based deal, but I didn’t because she really was some kind of weird creature. Thankfully, Dad was catching on, too.
He smiled openly, and I could tell that rattled her a bit.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked him in that semi-mystical way of hers that was so difficult to resist. Dad didn’t even try.
“Because I just figured out that you’re human, and that’s amusing.”
Sometimes creatures are like that. Like vampires. Every vampire used to be human. Werewolves, too. These “black suits” probably hated the fact that they used to be scum like us. I remembered what a big deal her “boys” had made about me being human when they’d first brought me here.
“This body,” she said, “used to be human. But I am not the woman I once was.”
Richard had a real fire in his eyes, and I was pretty sure the woman was underestimating him. Maybe because he was a sunner, so he wasn’t quite as strong as a typical vamp. For whatever reason, though, she was barely paying any attention to him at all. Which, judging by how angry he looked, was probably a huge mistake.
That said, a loaded twelve-gauge is no joke. Even the strongest vampire wouldn’t want to get hit from a couple feet away with one of those. I strongly doubted Richard would survive a direct hit.
“You got some black magic prophet or something?”
This was all starting to make a lot more sense. The picture Dad was painting didn’t really make them less dangerous, I guess, but it made them a lot less scary. These three weren’t some crazy new creature after all; these black suits were just a part of a cult that had gotten their hands on a little transformation magic and had developed a whole wacko belief system around it.
If that sounds kind of harsh, it’s because I don’t usually give people who are trying to kill me a lot of slack. I’m not saying all beliefs are wacko—though for me personally the whole “is there a God?” question is really up in the air—but when a belief system stems from the fact that somebody at some point down the line stumbled into some powers like it did with these creatures, I find it all a bit hard to swallow.
Speaking of which, my throat felt like it was still in a vice-grip even though he’d let go almost an hour ago. I really hoped that guy hadn’t messed me up for good.
When she didn’t say anything for a moment, Dad tried again, “Or maybe you don’t even need a prophet, eh? Maybe you’ve got a direct line to whatever god you think you serve.”
“Our prophet is our direct line.”
The gag hid my smile. I knew what Dad was going to ask next probably even before he did. He wanted to get a good bounty on these suckers, and that sometimes clouded his judgment.
“One thing before you do whatever you want with us and kill us. I just want to know one thing,” he said. “Think of it as a final request.” He looked over at the black suits who had risen from the fire and were standing on the opposite side of him from the woman, like he was trying to win some of their sympathy.
“What is it?” she asked.
“What’s your, uh, group called? Or your god? If I’m going to die, I want to at least know whose glory it’s for.” He was thinking this would be one of the key things the Association would want to know about them, I’m sure.
She thought about whether or not to answer him and tipped her head to one side. The fact that she couldn’t see through everything he was doing proved to me that she was a rookie. We weren’t out of the woods—I mean, I was still tied up for one thing—but I was starting to think Dad had this one in the bag.
I felt even more confident of that when she actually told him. She lifted her face a little more toward the sky, as if dealing with a clumsy waiter and said, “We are the Order of the New Beginning.”
That didn’t actually sound that dismal, but I guessed in their book that meant getting rid of the old before starting anew.
“So you guys want to start a new society? Do it better this time around?”
“Exactly.” It was clear she was enjoying the chance to get down to the brass tacks of what they were doing. It did cross my mind that she might not be a complete moron though; spelling it out this way was probably good for the morale of her two underlings. “You see?” she said. “Even you know that such a thing must be done. It’s too bad that you stood in our way.”
“Is that why you ask questions? You ask people about all the aspects of their lives and all that? So you don’t make the same mistakes next time around?”
“Hardly,” she said. “It isn’t anything so mundane.”
“Well, sure, you also need their life-force to—”
Before Dad could go any further with that, a scrape and a thump from around the corner interrupted him. We all turned reflexively to see what it was. Well, all of us except the one with super-enhanced reflexes. Richard took the chance to spring at the woman like, well… okay, forgive me, like a bat out of Hell.
In my metaphor, it’s a vampire bat, of course.
She gasped and the shotgun went off in her hand, peppering one of the sandstone walls. The report was deafening in that tiny space, reverberating like a migraine given unholy life.
The sound that had taken our attention was my very own Becca Wilcox, tripping over a sandy stone she hadn’t noticed. Becca! I couldn’t believe it. She was still stalking me, even after our talk!
In a flash, the woman changed, much faster than the time before. The black suits behind me, however, did not, and I thought that was pretty weird. They just stayed human. Then I thought maybe it was because they couldn’t change. Maybe that’s why the woman was on the rung above them on the crazy-cult ladder of success. My dad and
Richard must have had a plan of attack, because Dad didn’t even bother with her. She and Richard instantly locked into the same morbid dance they’d been in at the house, only this time with more room to move and more urgent fury.
Dad rushed the men, who were fumbling at their belts for pistols.
Now, there’s something about my dad not many people know until they see it for themselves. Even in the hunting community, people don’t really think he’s that fast—even though they’ve sure heard about it—because he’s pretty big. And yeah, most of the time he moves like a big brawny guy—methodically, almost carefully—but he’s fast when his adrenaline is pumping. It’s almost kind of unsettling.
And none of this gets into the fact that my dad is almost-kinda-sorta bulletproof. I guess that’s not quite the right word for it. It’s more like it’s really hard to hit him. How that all came about is a story for another day, though, and it doesn’t really work with shotguns.
They didn’t know that, of course, and thought their pistols would save them.
Two rookies against Ray Briar. I almost felt sorry for them.
XXVI
I squirmed in my restraints, so frustrated that I couldn’t help that I almost felt like crying. Or screaming. Or both. I wanted to be part of the fight. I’m never scared when I’m side-by-side with my dad and we both have our hands and legs free.
My dad shouldered the first guy and sent him staggering right back into the flames. If I had any doubt left about whether or not they could transform, it was gone as soon as he landed in the middle of their biggish fire. The flames were crawling up his suit jacket like it was made of dryer lint. If he could have changed then, he would have.
The second guy had his gun out and was about the take a shot, but he didn’t have a chance. I met a hunter once who used to be on the Houston PD, and he told me about this training video they made where they tried to prepare people for “active shooter situations,” basically any time somebody decides to have some live-ammo target practice on a bunch of students or something. The video was for police officers and civilians alike, and a big part of the message was, “Your action is faster than their reaction,” because there’s always a delay between processing an event and doing something about it.
I think the black suit expected Dad to back up when the gun was leveled at him, but instead Dad threw a fist downward into the tip of the barrel, pointing the gun toward the ground. When the guy pulled the trigger the round went screaming into the dust. Even if the bullet had been able to hit Dad, the guy would have been out of luck. Dad was just too fast.
Now, some hunters aren’t quite like Ray Briar in one important way: When fighting a “creature” who’s actually a human, most hunters will go out of their way to keep from killing it once they get the upper hand in the fight. They’ll capture the offender and bring him or her back to the Association. The Association will actually hold trials for these non-natural people, which—while not held to the same standard of transparency and fairness as a governmental trial—is preferable to death-by hunter. After these trials, the Association will sometimes exchange leniency for information or other forms of cooperation.
But Dad isn’t really into that kind of thing if the creature has already proven it’s willing to kill. Sometimes, I think he should maybe rethink this approach, and we’ve had plenty of “discussions” on the subject. And not just because I have a “soft spot” for letting things live when possible. I mean, we could interrogate this guy—or, more accurately, the Association could—and learn all sorts of stuff. But to Dad it’s way too big of a risk.
I looked away and heard the sickening crack! that meant the guy’s neck bones were no longer connected. His “brother” was still roasting, rolling in the dirt and trying to take his jacket off the whole time. I only keyed into his screams then, even though they’d been the lovely soundtrack to this whole ordeal since he first fell in. Dad grabbed his partner’s snub-nosed pistol and shot him three times before he flumped over, not moving. Dad’s not always the best shot, so I was proud of him for doing it in so few bullets.
“Untie me!” I said, but he ignored me, which actually was probably the right thing to do.
Becca’s pupils looked about three inches wide as she watched Richard and the lady-beast’s fight to the death. Dad still had the gun, but he realized pretty quickly they were moving way too fast for him to try to get the creature. That was all he needed, to put Richard out of commission and then have to face the woman himself. And who even said that bullets would do anything to her when she was like this? Some transformation magic is pretty hardcore.
He hesitated for just a moment, and then turned back toward the fire.
“No!” I said. “Richard’s a vampire!”
He looked at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to do it anyway: just take his chances and put Richard’s life at stake. Vampires and fire really don’t get along well, and I was guessing he was even more vulnerable to it than she was.
Finally he thought of another way to tip the scales in his favor. I definitely wouldn’t have recommended the course of action he chose then, but I had to admire his bravery: my dad joined the fight, wrapping his arms around the creature’s neck, while Richard—bloody and battered—repositioned himself for a better angle to bite down on her neck. Dad got a huge gash on his head for his trouble, but since he was still struggling—and not, you know, stumbling to the ground—I guessed it looked worse than it was.
“Becca!” I yelled, trying to break her from her stupor. “Hey, Becca Wilcox!” She looked at me like I was the weirdest bug she’d ever seen. “Yeah, you! Come untie me!”
Even though the look of confusion didn’t go anywhere from her face, her body responded and carried her around the battle and to where they’d sat me down on.
“These are really knotted up,” she said, her voice flat and lifeless.
“Look for a knife or something.”
But she didn’t need to; somehow she got me free a couple seconds later.
I rushed over to the fight, getting perhaps dangerously close, and I yelled, “Hey, lady! I can convince them to spare your life!”
I knew I couldn’t really, but it was the only thing I could think of that would maybe, just maybe, get her to look up. Or at least make her feel like, I don’t know, like from the outside looking in it looked like she was losing the fight.
And hey, it actually worked. She glanced up, and in that moment Richard put all the power of his frenzy into biting and just about split her head from her body with a series of pretty gross chops to the throat. I felt queasy, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t also kind of cool. I just… vampires, man. They’re so strong and fast…
And Richard was…
Anyway… I forced myself out of that train of thought.
And then everything was quiet.
The weird paradigm shift that comes after these kinds of situations settled in, and soon we were all just kind of looking at each other like: I guess it’s over.
XXVII
After a beat, Richard looked at Becca and asked my dad, “Hey, Ray? Do you have any more of those auroras on you?”
“Why?” Dad asked. “You can’t hypnotize her without that?”
Richard looked embarrassed. “I’m new, Ray. You forget that. I’m not Dracula, okay? If she fell asleep, like right now,” he pointed to the ground for emphasis, “I might be able to work with that, but the way things are now? She just saw some freaky stuff, some very weird stuff. I don’t think I can make her forget from here without that. Even if I was really good I probably couldn’t get this out of her head.”
“No,” Dad said. “Those spell-charms are expensive. That was my last one. I was hoping to get more after my next assessment, but—” He sighed. “Can you at least try?”
“I can, but it’s not going to work and honestly it could mess her up.”
“Hey, hello?” Becca said, stepping up to them as if she were trying to hand in an assignment late. �
��Um, you guys are talking about me, right? I don’t want to forget anything. I’m not going to expose this, uh, well whatever all this is.”
“She already had suspicions, Dad. I think she could be an insider.” I wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure that was a good idea, but I couldn’t really think of anything else we could do. And a completely self-serving part of me thought it might be cool.
Dad looked at me like he’d just now noticed I wasn’t a baby anymore. It was kind of weird, the mixture of pride and nostalgia in his eyes. “Your first insider, huh? You sure she can be trusted with that? You sure she wants that burden?”
I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but… I said, “Yeah, I guess. And anyway, I don’t really see what other choice there is, unless the Association has found out how to safely wipe memories since last I checked.”
“They haven’t.”
My dad had a few insiders, of course, mostly from some people he saved, and I knew them, but I’d never had one of my own.
“What do you guys mean? ‘First insider?’” Becca asked.
“Oh, you’ll learn all about it,” Dad told her, looking at her like he’d just gotten a new daughter. Becca couldn’t understand the significance of it all, of course, and she looked a little weirded-out.
Serves her right, the little stalker.
I said, “Just keep in mind that you’re going to be in a lot of danger if you let anyone know about any of this before you go through the process. That’s not a threat, it’s a warning.”
“I understand,” she said, though of course she didn’t really. She understood the plain meaning of the words, but I didn’t think she really got just how dangerous things could get for her if she didn’t keep her trap shut.
“You two can get out of here,” Dad said and turned to Richard. “We can take care of the cleanup.”
I was glad to hear it. There was nothing more tedious—not to mention disgusting—then systematically destroying the evidence of a fright like this. Dad and Richard would do their best to make it appear like nobody had been here. They’d deal with the black suits’ car and pack up part or all of the female creature’s body so Dad could take it to his next assessment.
