Slayer: Black Miracles

by Karen Koehler

  For one thing, Jay was his biggest stabled author.

  For another, Jay was the biggest fucking author in the country.

  Jay smiled and made that annoying little snorting sound that passed for an embarrassed laugh in his book. Brett wanted to call him Mr. Piggy.

  Mr. Piggy Bank, to be exact, which was what he was.

  “You think it’s a stupid idea?” Jay asked with upraised eyebrows.

  Brett waved the waiter over and pushed his coffee cup to the edge of the table. “Not at all, but try and explain it to me again, in more detail,” he said to cover his ass. Truthfully, ever since they had sat down, Brett had been off in dreamland. It wasn’t a good place to be, especially when he needed to be on his toes to cut this deal, but he couldn’t help himself. Since the incident at the warehouse last night, Brett had been unable to think about much more than the two slayers. He slept, he ate, he fucked, he cut contracts, and he thought about the two slayers dueling to the death in the bowels of a warehouse on River Drive

  . That had become his life now. The slayers and what they did had become an integral part of who he was. He knew they were important—he had not been shown this thing for nothing, after all, that was not how the cosmos worked—but he had yet to discover how it all fit together. He had no real fears of the surviving slayer hunting him down. Hell, the slayer couldn’t know the face of some publisher—even as big as he was—at first glance, and he had not been close enough to see Brett’s license plate, nor even the make of his car, so Brett had convinced himself there was no real danger in his newfound knowledge. Brett wasn’t afraid, not at all, not anymore. He just wished he knew how to make this knowledge work for him.

  “I take that vacation I’ve been promising Maggie,” Jay said now, and Brett made an effort to pay attention this time. “See, I have a contact in Bermuda who specializes in forging identities. While I’m there, I have him make me over. Meanwhile, you and Maggie announce to the world that J. Stephan Paul has passed on.” Jay shrugged. “I make you a shitload of money on the new release—the last release—and it gives me a break from all the Baron Blood bullshit.”

  “Stage your own death,” Brett said. It wasn’t a bad idea, just full of holes. “Isn’t that a little tricky?”

  Paul waved it away. “Naw. My pal in Bermuda can get me a new Social Security number, tax number, everything. And I’ll slide everything we make under your tax shelters. If it’s one thing I’ve learned from twenty years of writing, it’s that nothing is as hard as everyone makes it out to be. The only tricky part is, I have to stay out of sight from now on while I’m working on the new series.”

  Brett lit up his fifth cigarette of the hour. He couldn’t understand it; Baron Blood had made Jay the fortune he had today. Hell, it was the biggest erotic horror series in the fucking country. Yes, it was stupid and redundant and slathered with sex and blood, but that’s what people wanted. And so far, after fifteen novels, no one looked to be losing interest. It was easy money, and Brett was getting pissed that Jay was thinking of killing off the series. It wasn’t Jay’s place to create art; he was a fucking author. His place was to produce units that would move on the open market. His place was to listen to his publisher before his publisher kicked his pink pig ass out of the industry. “And what’s wrong with Baron Blood?”

  “Christ, Brett,” Jay whispered, staring down at his shiny plate. Jay even cleaned his plate like a pig. “Fifteen fucking books is enough already. I’m sick to shit of Baron Blood. I wrote it on a dare way back when. It wasn’t supposed to be serious, you know.”

  “The audience takes it seriously, that’s all that matters.”

  “You’re telling me. The last time I went to Dragon Con there were fools there dressed like the Baron pretending to seduce everyone in sight. I mean, that kid had his dick chewed off by his idiot lover because of the fucking books. The asshole thought he was Baron Blood. I’m tired of the slack and the lawsuits. I ain’t Socrates trying to corrupt everyone. I’m just a fucking author, for chrissakes.”

  As always, Jay made a big dramatic mountain out of a molehill. Yeah, some kid got mutilated by his lover because of Jay’s books. Whatever. Stephan King got the same slack. Hell, so did Robert Block, way back when. It just went with the industry.

  “At least this way,” Jay went on, eyes downcast, “I can get serious for a change. Write something that will make a difference. Something deep. Not just sucking and fucking all the time.”

  Inwardly, Brett rolled his eyes. People didn’t want deep. They wanted to get their rocks off. And Jay had better shape up or something would have to be done about him. Brett only wished Mr. Piggy Bank was as easy to discipline as Laura and his kids were.

  Suddenly Jay brightened, the way he always did when he had an idea. “I already have notes. Maggie thinks it’s really something.” Jay took a deep breath, his face flushed red. “Still has vampires in it—hell, Baron Blood can even make a cameo appearance—but get this, the book—the whole fucking series—is gong to be about the dhampiri.”

  “What the hell are dhampiri?”

  Jay grinned. “It’s an old Balkan legend I fell across while researching the last Baron Blood book. Dhampiri are beings sired from one human woman and one vampiric father. They’re immortal, sensual, yet tortured creatures. They crave blood, they crave human affection. They want to be human. And”—again that excited grin—“it’s believed they made the most talented vampire hunters of all.” Again, Jay shifted around his chair. “Imagine it… Baron Blood is being hunted, not by humans this time or by other vampires, but by his own goddamn son, a half-breed vampire hunter. I can run with the idea under a new name, a whole series about the dhampir that killed Baron Blood, his struggles to be human, his lost loves… ”

  “It will never work,” Brett said, crushing out his cigarette and lighting a new one. “Who the hell is going to want to read about a half-breed? It won’t sell. And you can’t kill Baron Blood. It says so in your contract.”

  “Change the contract.”

  Brett narrowed his eyes. The bile in his throat—the sudden venomous hate he had for this fool—was enough to make the cigarette taste like shit in his mouth. “Write another Baron Blood, Jay. Don’t fuck with perfection.”

  “I can’t,” Jay said petulantly. “I want to do this.”

  Brett sighed and crushed out the stinking coffin nail. But the thought of that term—coffin nail—made him think of vampires. Not Jay’s inane kind of vampires, those fags he wrote about who ran around in outdated formal wear with cheap European accents, but the real kind. The kind he had seen killing each other a week ago. The kind that were animals in human skins. Those kinds.

  And then it all came together, just like that, in one silent thunderclap, and Brett had a fully formed plan sitting in a nest in his head. The nest where all his best ideas originated. But could he do… that?

  Jay looked at him hopefully, like a child begging his parent for a treat or a day off school. And Brett’s hatred for the man overwhelmed him. Yeah, he could go ahead with the plan. He sure as hell could do… that.

  “Okay,” Brett said, continuing to crush out the coffin nail. Jay’s coffin nail, he mused. “Give me a week to work out a plan on my side of things, and we’ll go ahead with everything the way you planned it.”

  Jay brightened and turned a deeper shade of pink, if that was possible. “You won’t regret it, Brett. I promise,” he said. He actually rubbed his palms together like a character in one of his books.

  “No,” Brett responded with a smile, “I certainly won’t.”

  10

  When Alek opened the door to find the girl with the hair like old rusted gold standing there he thought he must be dreaming. The pounding on the door which had drawn him away from the dojo had left him wracked with the certainty that Michael had arrived and was calling a duel. Now he saw he was wrong. Wonderfully wrong.

  He recognized the girl at once from the club. A dancer. Her name was… he couldn’t remember her
name. But he knew her. She danced with her hair down so it moved like russet leaves caught on a thick bush. Her face was white, catlike, fierce, her eyes a somber amber brown to reflect her hair. She wasn’t beautiful; she was horsey, her face all derisive bones and shadow, like a young Meryl Streep. He was caught in her spell. Then the girl fell into his arms. He couldn’t be certain if she was conscious, but it seemed not. He picked her up. She weighed absolutely nothing. A little thing in a ratty coat held closed by a piece of hemp, all long hair and bones and little else. He took her upstairs, took off her coat, and put her into his bed. He didn’t know what else to do with her. She seemed to need looking after, at least until she gained consciousness.

  And then he sat in a corner and waited.

  The sun set and a hunter’s moon rose.

  She came around slowly, her eyes blinking open and finding him. There was something about her… that white skin, those eyes like amber glass full of shadows. Something powerful and elemental. He felt an instant attraction to her, not sexual exactly, though there was that too. It was more primal than that. It was almost an endearment. As if he knew her blood. As if he could love her. Her mouth worked, and a moment later a word emerged: “Ssslayer.”

  He was confused. He held himself in the shadows of the room. “Who told you that?”

  “A girl. I’ve been… looking for you.” She sat up. He had divested her of the coat before putting her to bed, but not the peculiar hospital whites she was wearing, and still she clutched his sheet to her chest as if she wore nothing at all. As if she was embarrassed. And he had seen her onstage in so much less, her body almost insectlike in its slenderness. It was a body he knew many men would not find particularly appealing, but such things did not apply to him.

  Alek picked up the sword lying on the dressing table. “Really.”

  She nodded, looking at the sword. “Going to kill me now?”

  “That depends on your motivation for finding me.”

  She was afraid. He smelled it on her. She had not come here to kill him, then.

  “You’re the Slayer,” she said.

  He lowered the sword, but did not put it down. Not yet. “My name is Alek. Why are you here?”

  She shook her head. Her eyes were miserable. “To see you.”

  “So you say.”

  She doubled over. For a moment Alek thought she was weeping, but then he realized it was much worse than that. He put the sword down and went downstairs and retrieved the bottle of rabbit’s blood he kept in the refrigerator for emergencies. Then he got a crystal goblet from the cupboard and returned to the bedroom where the girl was curled up in his bed. He uncorked the bottle and watched her entire body attune itself to the scent of the substance being poured into the crystal. When he offered her the goblet she did not hesitate but swallowed the blood down like a starving animal, then proceeded to lick out the goblet. Her tongue was grey.

  He poured her another.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asked.

  The girl nodded miserably and drank down the blood. “More?”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “No,” he said. “Any more will make you sick.” He put the bottle and goblet aside and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Who are you?”

  “Irena.” She kept her face down, the wild unruly reams of hair hiding her expression from him.

  He stroked it back. She flinched and he withdrew his hand. She looked at him, impenetrably.

  As much as he didn’t need this right now, the skeletal shoulders heaving with her short breaths and the constantly twitching hands pulled at him. Seduced him. “Lie back,” he said gently.

  She did so, though her eyes were big with fear and never left him for a moment. “Don’t hurt me.”

  “I have no intention of hurting you, Irena.”

  A blood drop leaked from the corner of Irena’s eye, making a rust-colored streak against her alabaster cheek. He used his thumb to wipe it away, and this time she did not flinch at all. If anything, she seemed to welcome his touch.

  “Tell me about yourself.”

  She did. And he listened. And when she was done she looked more exhausted and older than seemed humanly possible, as if she had relived the events of the last day all over again. He thought about everything she told him. It all made sense, though he was loathed to explain it to her. At least he knew then what he was feeling. At least he knew what she was now.

  “I thought maybe you could help me,” she said at length.

  He considered that.

  “What’s happened to me?” she asked.

  She looked so earnest, so frightened by the changes going on in her body. He thought he could hear his own heart breaking. Stupid, but true. Wasn’t he so like her at her age? But he had had instruction in the years leading up to the change. He’d been part of the Coven then. He’d known what was about to happen to him. Amadeus had seen to that.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “This is only natural for us. You would not have killed that man had there been an alternative.”

  “Us.” Irena’s eyes brimmed. “I don’t want to be vampire, Alek,” she whispered.

  “You’re not. You’re much more than that. And much less.”

  She looked lost. She sat up and put her arms around his neck. He was surprised but did not pull away. Her grip tightened about him and she buried her face against his shoulder. And then she did weep, all the misery pouring out of her at once in her trembling bird-boned body and heaving sobs. He held her, scarcely able to believe he still had the heart to do so. To feel this. To feel her misery pouring into him like blood into crystal. He put his face into her hair—it smelled so like the night—and waited until she had cried herself out.

  Then she lay back on his pillow, swallowing tears, and simply stared up at him. The image was heartbreakingly sweet—innocence tinged with the raw, unlearned sensuality all his kind seemed to possess. Despite himself, he found himself leaning down to kiss the corner of her mouth. She tasted like blood and like hunger. The angry, racking hunger that never left, that never let go. How she must be suffering.

  He smoothed her hair and then the sheet over her, folding it down for her like they did on TV. Then he gave her another goblet of the rabbit’s blood. But this time she was so wearied from her crying he had to help her to drink it. But drink it all, she did. Then he used a handkerchief to wipe her mouth clean and smudge the bloody tears on her cheeks.

  “I’m afraid,” she said.

  “Shh. No reason to be.” He stroked her cheek until her body was still. Then he got ready to leave.

  She grabbed his arm. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I’m not going very far.”

  “Please. It’s dark. I’m so afraid of the dark.”

  So am I, Alek thought.

  And so, instead of leaving her, he lay down on the bed beside her and she cleaved to him. He was silent, feeling the night and the flush of cool autumn air on his face from the open window. Cars and cabs ran up and down the street. The noise and stink was distinctly New York—busy, bothered, angry, unattached. Irena nestled close against him and sighed like a cat.

  How odd, he thought, stroking her hair. He had thought to bring someone into his home. Someone who might train his thinking away from the craving, someone to occupy him and run his tasks, but he had never dreamed they would be delivered like this into his hands. A girl. He had not wanted a girl. Females always died at his hands. Always. And there were other concerns with that, as well. He shifted slightly so she wasn’t pressed quite so closely against him. Irena was enlivening feelings in him he didn’t want to content with. Not now. Not ever.

  11

  So this was the House on Castle Hill. It was old and stony and simple and extravagant, with gables along the front side and turrets capped by cupolas and an imposing black iron fence that completely surrounded the house, making it seem about as hospitable and homey as a medieval castle. There was even a coach house out front. And althoug
h it had probably been converted into a maid’s quarters or garage at some point, it still gave Brett the uneasy feeling that somehow or other he had sidestepped out of the century he lived in and into some older, half-forgotten one. The whole house looked like it belonged in the Welsh countryside, not smack dab in the center of one of the busiest boroughs in New York City.

  An old house, he thought, for an old soul. As the Porsche ambled by the house-traffic was always so bad this early in the morning—he recalled all the things he had heard about the house. Some were probably true. Some had to be patently false.

  Most of it he had heard from Nadine. She said the house was full of time. Brett had thought that meant it was just a very old house. Hell, it dated back to the fucking Pilgrims, didn’t it? But now, seeing it in the flesh, so to speak, he realized how much more she had meant with those words. The house is powerful. The house is a power unto itself. Yes, it did indeed seem to keep itself. In fact, it seemed to smirk at Brett as he studied it, to study him back like an old sage full of secrets. Or an old predator. Could a house be predatory? He didn’t know, but maybe…

  The Slayer emerged from it, taking the steps down the stoop.

  Brett hadn’t expected that and panicked. He didn’t know vampires could walk around during the day. He had had no idea. And now he was going much too slow. The Slayer would spot him and recognize him from the warehouse two nights ago. He was three cars away from the house with no hope in sight but to trundle along with the rest of humanity. He checked, but there were no side streets or escape routes to take. So he did the only thing left to him and put his sunglasses on, hoping it was enough. Then he wondered why he was so frightened, considering why he had come here. Except that somehow or other, he had envisioned this confrontation differently, and now he was off his game plan completely.