Shutter

by Courtney Alameda

  “I’d be more inclined to listen to your ‘reason’ if it didn’t include contempt with a side of backfist to the face,” I said, talking straight over him.

  Silence stretched between us, wide as an ocean.

  No I’m sorry.

  No I shouldn’t have hit you.

  No I love you.

  Just, “You are in more danger than you realize. Paul—Dr. Stoker—analyzed the contents of Oliver’s bag and his notes, and we found the Draconists’ insignia in his notebooks—”

  “Draconists?”

  “An organization of assassins responsible for murdering a number of Helsings and corps members on both sides of the Atlantic,” Dad said. “We haven’t seen evidence of their organization in decades, not since Damian’s people destroyed their American cells. They are descended from a medieval military organization known as the Order of the Dragon, which was a chivalric order of the Holy Roman Empire. You may recognize the name of their most infamous member, Vlad Tepes the Third.”

  “Dracula,” I said, a shiver snickering down my spine.

  “Correct. Their modern goal has been to dismantle the Helsing Corps in the United States and devastate Britain’s Knights of the Cross. They are madmen who want to watch the world burn,” Dad said. “Damian suspects they are responsible for the entity’s release and your soulchaining. We took both Thomas Morley and Reynold Fielding into custody—the former committed suicide with a cyanide capsule secreted in his molar, and the latter’s utterly incoherent. He’s under surveillance in a psychiatric ward. All he will say is eye for an eye, over and over again.”

  Gemma’s face flashed through my mind, and I shuddered. “And Oliver? Gemma? How are they?”

  “Both stable, sedated, and strapped down to their beds,” Dad said. “Dr. Stone is distraught, his wife murdered, his daughter disfigured. He and Dr. Stoker deserve to know what happened to their families, Micheline.”

  Here goes. When I finished the telling, Dad didn’t speak for several moments.

  “Good God, you are under siege from all sides,” Dad said. In the background, Father Marlowe insisted my father return his phone. I caught something about passing on and a litany, but not the gist.

  “I want to speak to Marlowe,” I said.

  “You can speak to him when you return home,” Dad said. “You are to report to Pier Fifty immediately and, yes, that’s an order.”

  “Oh, sure, I’ll come home because I love being on house arrest, and I love wearing an ankle bracelet,” I said, pacing back and forth. “I’ll bet your crews haven’t figured out how to track the entity yet, have they?”

  A pause. I swear I could hear my father’s pride squirming on the other end of the line.

  “And you have?” he finally asked.

  “I need one more night,” I said. “One more hunt.”

  “No, the danger is too great. You are to come home now, we can fight this thing to—”

  I killed the call, my thoughts in loops and tangles, my emotions in a snarl. These days, I missed Mom more than ever; I wished we could sit down at the kitchen table and talk. Unlike Dad, she’d always known just the right things to say, and her words felt like bandages or spurs or even ledges, instead of Dad’s bullets and knives and nooses.

  Still, I couldn’t imagine what she’d say about the body count my entity left in its wake.

  I stalked into the family room, shoving my headphones back in my ears and letting Kurt Cobain’s gritty voice meld itself to my frustration. I lifted my gaze to the family portrait hanging over the mantel. Somehow, Dad managed to look stoic even when smiling, and everything in him—his bearing; his thrown-back, broad shoulders; even the thunderous gray color of his irises—reminded me of the painting of Van Helsing at Seward Memorial.

  The pale-haired girl on his right hand wore my face, but she and I were different as twilight and dawn. Different hopes. Different dreams. Different fears. She believed her father could protect her from anything. Nowadays, I knew a girl couldn’t wait for salvation; she had to make her own.

  Something moved outside. The foliage at the tree line rippled, and a man-shaped shadow disappeared back into its depths. I tensed. The family room windows overlooked the thick eucalyptus trees separating the house from the compound wall, and beyond that, the Pacific Ocean. I watched the trees, willing whoever—or whatever—I’d seen to reappear. The forest around the house grew so dense, a tracker or assassin could easily hide himself among the trees.

  Grabbing my Colt off the coffee table, I headed out the front door, tiptoeing across the porch and avoiding the creaky boards. Morning fog came with the sun, rolling off the Pacific and seeping through the trees. It would swallow the city in minutes, so thick it formed droplets of dew on the house windows. It killed visibility, but I knew the terrain around the house better than any intruder, tracker or no.

  At least dawn meant my target wasn’t dead.

  With the Colt pointed at the ground, I rounded the house and slipped into the trees. I’d seen the figure along the property’s western edge, so I took a half-moon-shaped path toward the far end of the clearing. Sneaking from tree to tree, I scanned the negative spaces between their trunks, ducking, dodging, and twisting through the underbrush.

  Nothing moved, save for a few crows rustling in the treetops. The fog filled the lawns, making it nearly impossible to see the trees on the other side of the clearing.

  I found tracks at the most western point of the lawn’s edge. A man’s boot prints pressed into the earth, their tread familiar and possibly Helsing issue. From the tracks, he was alone. He might’ve traveled over the west wall, paused to watch the house on the cusp of the trees, then moved north. I couldn’t let him get word back to Helsing that we were hiding here at the Presidio. I had to find him.

  Taking off the Colt’s safety, finger on the trigger, I followed the tracks through the trees. As I neared the house again, I saw a flicker of movement up ahead—a black-clad form stepped behind a tree.

  Did he see me? I pressed my shoulder into the rough bark of a eucalyptus tree, focusing on the target. My pulse pounded and broke my concentration, so I slipped into my routine breathing pattern and waited. If he’d seen me, we’d engage in a predator-versus-predator game, and the first one to crack became prey. If he hadn’t seen me, well, I’d play a game of cat and mouse.

  The reaper moved from one tree to another, a blur of black.

  Cat and mouse.

  I crept forward, keeping low, following him. I’d gotten within three yards when a fan of branches gripped my shirt. Their soft creak and hiss cracked the silence like thunder.

  He spun, gun hot in his hand. I trained mine on his chest before our eyes met, before I recognized him, before his eyes went wide and I gasped.

  Chris Kennedy.

  Captain of the Harker Elite.

  My ex-bodyguard.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, grasping my gun so tight, the grip chewed into my palm.

  “Looking for you.” Kennedy pointed his weapon at the ground. He wasn’t wearing his hunting blacks, but navy cargo pants, a black holster shirt, and a leather jacket lined in sheepskin. His chestnut hair fell over one eye, and a five o’clock shadow roughed up his jaw. I don’t see a comm on him.… Is he on official business? Or are they trying to confuse me? When he started toward me, I pulled the slide back on my gun. Warning him.

  He froze.

  “What are you wearing, comm or wire?” I took a step back to increase the distance between us.

  “Neither,” he said. “Helsing doesn’t know I’m here.”

  I laughed. “And my father’s freaking Kris Kringle. Where’s your wire?”

  “Helsing doesn’t know you’re here, either,” he said softly. “Your father laughed when I mentioned the Presidio, said you’d never come back or be able to get in. But I knew you’d need a darkroom, and that you might be scared enough and desperate enough to hide here. And I figured if Oliver knew about the tunnels, he’d be clever enough to
you get into the Presidio—”

  “Stop, Captain. Drop your weapon.” He was trying to talk down my gun and my guard. Kennedy was no fool, but neither was I. For all I knew, Dad sent him to gain my trust and trap me.

  “I swore to protect you, Micheline,” he said, sinking to one knee. He placed his gun on the ground and rose. “I’m supposed to head up your detail in six months, be your most loyal companion and friend. I came to help you.”

  He lifted his empty hands and took another step forward, knowing or hoping I wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man. I prayed he didn’t notice how I aimed to the right of his chest. If I fired, the slug would end up in the tree behind him and bring the boys running.

  “Not another step,” I said, putting a little pressure on the trigger.

  “I can help you hunt this monster,” he said.

  “I already have a crew, thanks.”

  “You have a crew of cadets—”

  “Ryder McCoy’s every bit as good of a reaper as you.” I wished I could say those words to Dad, too. Bloodlines and last names didn’t make a man extraordinary—the extraordinary existed in what we did in life, not in who we were. If Dad loved Kennedy’s connections to the Harker family so much, then he could marry him.

  “Of course he is,” Kennedy said gently, then switched tactics. “You know I won’t hurt you, Micheline. Don’t you remember what happened on your brother’s birthday?”

  “Fletcher’s birthday,” I said, clinging to my resolve—the trigger. Of course I remembered that night; the sky cracked open and hemorrhaged rain. Dad left me in Kennedy’s care for the weekend and took his executive staff on a training retreat, maybe so he didn’t have to look at me and remember what happened to his little boy.

  I couldn’t escape my memories so easily. We’d been at the safe house on the mainland then, so I’d snuck out, bought some Matchbox cars at the grocery store, and walked five miles in the rain to my brothers’ graves. Kennedy found me, of course—he’d tracked the cell phone in my pocket. I barely noticed him, even when the rain stopped pounding my shoulders because he held an umbrella over my head. He could shield my body from the deluge, but not my heart.

  “Do you remember what I said then?” he asked.

  I recalled every bent blade of grass, every raindrop soaking through my hair and sliding down my scalp, every breath and word from that conversation. “You said they found fresh contusions on my knuckles and Mom’s skin under my nails; bruises on her face, a split lip, and broken rib. You said you didn’t believe my father when he said I cracked under pressure.”

  To this day, the scenes after the panic room door opened were cut from my memory, a big color block screen with FOOTAGE MISSING stamped on top.

  “You fought back,” he said, easing forward. “I don’t know how many of our guys could’ve survived what you did at fifteen, only to pick themselves up and keep fighting.”

  My aim wavered. “It’s all I know how to do.”

  “You’re a Helsing, surviving and fighting is what you do,” he said, his features softening. He’d halved the distance between us. “Put the gun down.”

  He took another step toward me—

  I backed up.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.

  I checked my sights. “Only because I won’t let you.”

  And I pulled the trigger.

  The shot exploded in the morning stillness, blowing chunks of bark off the eucalyptus tree behind him. The tree’s leaves shivered with the force of the impact, a mournful, rainy sound. The silence left in the wake echoed in my bones. My hands shook. Pulling the trigger had been oh so easy. Scary easy.

  Kennedy opened his eyes once he realized I hadn’t shot him. I expected rage to color his face; but to find wells of sorrow in his eyes instead, now, that confused me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “But you can’t help me, Captain. Nobody can.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “The next shot’s a flesh wound. Hands behind your head.”

  He did as told, threading his fingers together at the base of his skull. I marched him forward, grabbed his handgun off the ground, and kept a good berth of space between us. I thought of all the demerits I’d racked up since Thursday night—disobeying orders, leaving the island without clearance, breaking into a decommissioned compound—and now pulling a gun on a captain. Discharging a weapon at a captain. I’d busted up all the rules and broken all kinds of laws. But as far as I saw things, the ethics of survival weren’t workaday ones. The riskier our situation became, the more I had to gamble to get us all out alive. Desperate times, desperate measures, right?

  How many more rules will you break?

  How many lines will you cross?

  How intense will you be?

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answers anymore.

  We were halfway across the lawns when Ryder and Jude banged out of the back door, armed, barefoot, and dressed in pajama pants and undershirts. They jogged toward us.

  “So the white knight did show up,” Jude said, grinning at Kennedy. “Classic.”

  “Play nice, Jude,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he replied.

  Ryder grabbed Kennedy’s wrists and secured them at the back of his head. “Sorry, sir.” Kennedy was two inches shorter than Ryder, but broader. More seasoned. Dangerous. “We heard a shot. Anybody hurt?”

  “It was just a warning,” I said. Ryder looked me up and down, a hint of a smile turning up the corner of his mouth.

  Jude frisked Kennedy, rooting out a nine millimeter strapped to his left calf and a hunting knife concealed under his jacket.

  “You were packing some heat, Captain,” Jude said.

  “Wasn’t sure what I’d find out here,” Kennedy replied. “This place has been decommissioned for over a year.”

  “True enough,” Jude said, patting down his arms. “I can’t find any Helsing tech on him, not even a phone. Playing vigilante, sir?”

  Kennedy clenched his jaw. If he didn’t show up for work tonight and couldn’t be found, Helsing would declare him a missing person. And if anyone remembered Kennedy spouting off about the Presidio …

  “Let’s get him underground, just in case,” I said.

  The boys took him down to the basement. Jude grabbed a chair from the kitchen and sent Bianca to get zip ties from his truck. Kennedy, for his part, submitted to having his hands and legs bound to the chair, but his gaze never strayed from mine through the whole ordeal. I wanted to say I’m sorry, but I didn’t trust Kennedy’s loyalties. In the process of “helping” me, he’d no doubt betray my location to my father.

  Once the boys were satisfied with Kennedy’s bonds, they headed upstairs. When I hesitated at the foot of the stairs, Ryder paused and squeezed my hand. I pulled away fast; the last thing I needed was Kennedy to see. “You coming?” Ryder asked.

  “In a minute,” I said. He nodded and turned up the spiral stairs. I walked over to Kennedy, who sat square in the middle of the room, surrounded by antimirrors. The panes reflected dead blackness. I could only hope Luca would leave Kennedy alone.

  “May I ask what’s going on between you and McCoy?” Kennedy asked. He saw my lips part, my double blink, my attempt to recover my cool and come up with a reasonable lie.

  He had his answer before I even spoke.

  “Nothing,” I said, sewing my reaction up tight, though I couldn’t help the heat flushing my cheeks. “We’ve always been friends.”

  “McCoy doesn’t cozy up to people like that,” Kennedy said. He shook his head. “Your father hasn’t spoken to you, then?”

  I didn’t like the way Kennedy’s voice pitched in a question, and I shifted my weight to make up for the way he made me feel like I might fall through the floor.

  “Dad and I don’t talk.” I thought I knew what Kennedy meant. I didn’t care about how attractive or talented he was, or how he’d watched out for me after Mom died—I refused to spend my life with someone my father chose for
me. “Is that why you came? Because … because he thinks we’re…” My lips dismissed the words, because no was the only one they wanted to form.

  “Forget it,” Kennedy said, turning his face away.

  “Gladly.” I turned on my heel, stomped up the stairs, slammed the basement door behind me.

  I found Ryder in the kitchen, alone, munching on toast.

  “I’m telling every-bloody-body you took the piss out of Captain Kennedy,” he said, laughing. Despite all the terrible things we’d seen, all the pain and ugliness and violence, his laugh still sounded like summertime. Like days spent running through the woods in Tahoe, or nights on the beach in Carmel. The mirth in it was infectious, seeping into my skin like sunlight. I soaked up the feeling, letting it expand and illuminate my mood.

  He leaned down and kissed me hard. I balled my fists in his shirt, absorbing him. I craved the ability to choose; and when I beat the entity, when I broke our soulchains, I was going to tell my father to shove his stupid plans and arranged marriages up his ass.

  Ryder was every bit as good a reaper as Kennedy. Every bit.

  The kiss broke, but Ryder didn’t pull away. “We’re going to end this tonight, I can feel it,” he said, leaning his forehead on mine.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” He gave me something precious in the saying of it, an emotion I hadn’t dared bank on: hope. Confidence we’d survive and live and fight on. Together.

  My soulchain slithered down my right arm, curling around my right wrist.

  We’d end this tonight,

  Or we’d die trying.

  SUNDAY, 5:17 P.M.

  SUNSET SLID DOWN THE sky, coating the windows with fire. It woke a familiar prickle under my skin, a consciousness of the shift from day to night.

  Time to hunt.

  I walked into Dad’s study and ran my fingers over the map of San Francisco, staring at all the city’s cracks and secret places. The Ouija planchette glowed bone white in the dying light of day. Upstairs, I heard Ryder’s and Jude’s voices burbling through the floor. Water hissed through the old pipes. We did such human things before we reaped—showered, read the newspaper, kissed our families good-bye—always with the expectation of returning with the dawn. Optimistic by default.