by C. T. Phipps
Unless, of course, he gets to his car and drives off into the night, the Spirit of the Hunt said. Let’s not overestimate your chances here.
I’m sure that Wilbur has the car keys, I said. But you’re right, I should have removed a spark plug or two first.
The Hunt is 90% preparation, 9% perspiration, and 1% occult supernatural power, the Spirit of the Hunt said.
The pain in my arm was considerable even as I descended the staircase to see that Karl had tripped on the final set of stairs, landing face first on the ground. He’d injured his forehead and was bleeding profusely as he crawled to his feet to open the door. He managed to fling it open right before a desiccated figure came out of the kitchen to tackle Karl to the ground. Karl screamed at the top of his lungs, only to have the figure rip open his throat before soaking up the arterial spray like a man placing his mouth over a particular geyser-like water fountain.
“No, wait, stop,” I said, barely raising my voice as I finished descending the stairs. Karl was already dead so there was no point objecting really. Still, I felt the need to make a half-hearted request to do so.
Unsurprisingly, the vampire ignored me and managed to probably drink a good half of the man’s blood in a few seconds. I’d read that blood travelled like three feet in a second and it was honestly a miracle (or magic) vampires didn’t kill every single one of their victims. Then again, it seemed the vampire in the basement wasn’t overly concerned about such things.
I tried to get a read on the creature, but he was like an empty void to my powers. Not only couldn’t I see whether he’d spilled blood (though he obviously had in both senses of the word) but his heart didn’t beat so he might as well have been invisible to me. It confirmed that slashers, at least slashers like me, didn’t have any inclination to kill fellow supernatural beings. I’d suspected that fighting my father’s zombie but wasn’t sure how fighting something slightly more alive would trigger my powers—even if vampires were also undead.
Before my eyes I saw the vampire’s skin leak an ugly black ooze that made him look like he’d jumped in a tar pit. The substance wasn’t sticky, though, and he started wiping it off himself after letting go of Karl’s now empty artery. Much to my surprise, I saw the vampire underneath the ooze no longer looked like a long-dead corpse. Instead, it revealed a pale marble-skinned Adonis with brown hair that wouldn’t have difficulty getting himself a job modeling or starring in a TV show. He was, as Carrie had hoped, a “pretty vampire.”
Most vampires are transformed by the blood of demons that runs through their veins into beautiful creatures, the Spirit of the Hunt said. It makes luring prey to their doom so much easier.
Prey like my sister or Nancy perhaps? I asked, thinking that this newcomer must have somehow gotten past them.
I sincerely doubt either of them were ever in any danger from this one, the Spirit of the Hunt said, as if this particular vampire was beneath contempt. But maybe?
“Where are they?” I asked, taking a step forward. “The two women in the basement?”
I tried to reach out with my powers to contact my sister or sense the other meth dealers, if any were left, but got the mental equivalent of static. Something about the creature before me interfered with my newly acquired supernatural senses.
“Stay back!” the vampire said, holding out his hand. “You don’t want to come closer! I’m terribly dangerous! My foul curse could result in me attacking you at any moment! Please, run for your life!”
I blinked. “Uh huh.”
Is he serious? I asked the Spirit of the Hunt.
Unfortunately, the Spirit of the Hunt said. Gerald Pasteur is what’s called a self-hating vampire. One of the ones who attempts to deny what they are and brood over what a terrible affliction immortality is.
“Oh dear god, Carrie is going to be all over him,” I muttered.
That was when the bullet shot into my arm popped out of the hole it had made and landed on the ground. The injury fully healed up and I was once again in top form. I hadn’t healed as fast as I had been brought back to life, but I was still operating at a level far above most slashers.
While it was encouraging, it left me aware I had severe limitations. If he’d shot me multiple times, I would have gone down. It meant I probably needed to invest in a bullet proof vest or, you know, avoid getting shot. Killers like Mike Miner or the Camp Killer might be able to shrug off any attack but I was far from that level.
“Back, please!” Gerald said, crying tears of blood. “You have no idea what kind of monster I am!”
I was tempted to kill him just out of pure distaste. I, myself, had issues with what kind of being fate had made me, but you didn’t hear me whining about it.
“I’ll take my chances,” I said, reaching down to rip up a floorboard of the stairs before breaking off a piece to form a crude stake. It wasn’t a particularly good weapon, but I’d already used up most of the available ones. “Now, we need to talk.”
“You’re right, we do,” a third voice spoke. It was Wilbur Packard.
“Ah hell,” I said, turning my head.
Wilbur looked like a man in his thirties but was far older. I gathered his youth was preserved by vampire blood, since I could sense he was a cool practiced killer compared to the others. Wilbur’s guilt radiated out even over the vampire’s interference. He was dressed in a dirty flannel shirt, grease-covered jeans, and baseball cap but these were just camouflage for the real monster underneath. He was slouching and wearing clothes a size too big, but that didn’t disguise how toned his body was as well as the precision he held himself. He was also holding a M16 that was a considerably more advanced weapon than what the other meth dealers had been using.
I hadn’t paid much attention to Wilbur when he’d been surrounded by his fellow goons but now I could and his heartbeat glowing through the static generated by Gerald’s presence. He was almost completely red, his body bathed in blood and I could see hundreds of victims’ names floating around him. There were the inhabitants of destroyed villages in Vietnam, targets throughout Central America and South America, plus dozens of people he’d murdered in the United States for his masters. This included the many men, women, and children provided to them for their games. Wilbur was an agent of the Fraternity. Dealing with the meth dealers had been like handling a gang of Hamburglars only to find Rambo among them.
“I hate the Fraternity’s goddamn games,” Wilbur said, growling. “If they wanted me to sacrifice the blood harvesters to one of them then they should have just told me. Where are the cameras, though? You look like one of the rich pretty boys but you’re the deal, aren’t ya? A true slasher? Now all I want to know is where Charles is? Did you kill him? Are they bumping us off now? No witnesses and shit?”
I should have anticipated that Charles not reporting in after being sent to dispose of Nancy would have consequences. Indeed, the thought had occurred to me, but I’d thought we’d have more time since the mechanic’s shop next to the Last Stop Diner had a junkyard with a car crusher in it. She’d promised to take care of it in exchange for those offal ribs (pun intended).
“Who are you?” Gerald asked not just Wilbur but me.
I ignored him. Instead, I focused on Wilbur. “Charles is dead. I killed him.”
Wilbur frowned then nodded. “Well, I hear decapitation is good for both slashers and vampires. I wonder if that includes if I blow your head clean off.”
That was when I noticed his M16 had a grenade launcher attached at the bottom of the barrel.
Ah hell indeed.
Chapter Twelve
A gun was fired.
A man fell.
It just wasn’t me or Gerald. Instead, William Packard hit the ground, face first, collapsing on his pistol. He’d been shot in the back of the head and a part of me was disappointed that I wasn’t the one to put him down. Instead, Nancy was stepping out of the doorway to the living room with Charles Devinshire’s gun in hand.
Standing beside Nancy and hol
ding the severed head of the late Esteban, which had an ice skate buried in his skull, was Carrie. She was covered in blinking Christmas lights and had a broad grin on her face. I had to wonder where the electricity was coming from since the lights weren’t attached to anything. Cujo was at her feet, barking happily before spotting Gerald. That was when he assumed a hostile and aggressive stance.
“Bark-bark-bark!” Cujo snarled at Gerald.
Nancy put her gun into her skort’s pocket then looked at me, looking genuinely concerned. She walked up and touched the sleeve of my suit, running her fingers down to the bullet hole there. “Are you okay?”
“Eh, I was shot. It’s not a big deal,” I said. “My big problem is that this is my only suit.”
I’d have to find some thread and a sewing needle to get it looking normal again or just steal another one. It was at that moment that I also became aware of Nancy’s closeness and how she’d come to check on me personally. It made me feel a variety of senses and emotions that I was unfamiliar with, but most of all a desire to be close to her.
Intimately.
Nancy’s face had something about it that made me just want to look at it for a very long time but there was more than that. She’d saved my life twice and I admired her fierceness. Her sense of purpose was something that also drew me in: being willing to take on a small army of thugs to go after her family and friends.
“Yeah, we should get you another one,” Nancy said, looking into my eyes. “I’m glad you’re alright, though.”
“Thank you,” I said, fumbling for the words. “I’m glad you’re alright too. Listen, would you care to—”
“Look at this cool severed head!” Carrie said, presenting it to Gerald.
Gerald screamed like a little girl. He was back on the ground, sitting on his ass, and scooting away from Carrie like she was a tiger.
“Oh for...” I started to say, watching Nancy’s attention move to our vampiric guest.
Nancy looked to Carrie. “I think you might be scaring him.”
“He’s a vampire!” Carrie said. “This should be as awesome to him as it was to me. I was down there when the guy came down and went, ‘Two young chicklings. Perfect sport. Growl.’ Then Nancy and I beat the crap out of him, only for him to drink a vial of vampire blood and go all ‘grrr, arr’! Except, that was when I saw a pair of ice skates and I’m like, ‘I am the goddamn Winter Princess’ and attacked with them. Bam! Whoomp! Zowie! Which is apparently a Batman thing according to Nancy. That was when Cujo warned me that our vampire was escaping so I tossed Nancy a machete—”
“You had a machete?” I asked.
“That’s the part you’re worried about?” Gerald asked.
“I’m not worried at all,” I replied. “Carrie is my sister.”
“The big burly guy, Esteban Vasquez, had one,” Carrie said. “Nancy used it to hack off his head as he started coming back as a zombie. Apparently, if you die with vampire blood in your system then you come back as one of the Hungry Dead!”
“Really,” I said, annoyed at this possibility.
That was when there was a moaning at the top of the stairs. James, four pens sticking out of his eyes and neck, was back from the dead. He was moaning with his arms stretched out in the air blood covering both the front as well as back of his shirt. Before I could react, Nancy drew her pistol again and fired a perfect shot that sailed into the center of his forehead. James proceeded to roll down the stairs, face first, forming into a little ball before landing at our feet. The body continued to twitch, only for Nancy to shoot it twice more in the head. It stopped moving but I wasn’t sure if it was dead-dead or just paralyzed.
“I’ll go get the machete,” Carrie said, handing me the head of Esteban. “By the way, they have battery operated Christmas lights down there. That is so cool! I’m thinking of making a sweater that says CHRISTMAS SLAY on it. You know, because it’s a pun on sleigh.”
“Yes, I get it. Dad would have loved that joke,” I said, holding the head of Esteban. “Are you sure you want to keep this?”
“Oh hell no,” Carrie said. “I just wanted to share my cool zombie head with you. You can throw it away, I guess. Death by ice skate!”
I shrugged and tossed it away, not worrying about where it landed. It wasn’t like we were going to be staying here much longer. The Spirit of the Hunt was right, our home was compromised and there was no point in unpacking. We needed to ditch a good chunk of what we’d brought with us and learn to travel light. A stable home didn’t appear to be in the cards for my sister and me.
“Who are you people?” Gerald asked, staring at us both like we were the weird ones.
“Nancy Loomis,” Nancy said, continuing to her use her alias. “I’m a monster hunter.”
Gerald didn’t look reassured. Then again, hunters were a thing even when they weren’t Artemises. They were a hardy breed of people who mostly lived off the grid and behaved a lot like our father, except focused their attention on the nonhuman residents of the world. They barely made a dent in the population of nonhumans unless they had the support of the government or other supernaturals, but that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. After all, if you were (mostly) immortal, anything that could kill you was something to be taken seriously. Ironically, the few hunters who had come after Billy were the kind of people who would have considered Nancy a monster, too, due to her powers.
“Oh not you,” Nancy said, grinning.
James moaned, apparently still animate.
“You shut up!” Nancy said. She then pointed at me. “That’s William Englund. He’s kind of a serial killer-killer. You’ve already met his sister. She’s like an evil Alyson Hannigan.”
“Differently moral not evil!” Carrie called from the kitchen before I heard her heading downstairs.
Gerald just stared at us.
“You could introduce yourself now,” I said, unhappy my romantic moment had been interrupted. Well, what felt like a romantic moment, at least.
“Oh, right,” Gerald said. “Gerald Pasteur. I’m a doctor.”
“And a vampire,” I said, wondering how that worked. Wouldn’t a doctor be forced to feed on his own patients or was he able to operate on patients if he kept himself fed? Was it just a method to feed?
Gerald looked over at Karl’s body. “Yeah, you must be so horrified at the things I’ve done.”
Wow, he did not know us at all.
“Have you killed anyone innocent?” Nancy said.
“Not willingly,” Gerald replied.
“That’s not a no,” Nancy said, looking at him with intense eyes.
Gerald looked down, ashamed. “Vampires aren’t entirely in control of themselves. I was created by a woman who loved me, but she was killed for it. Vampires are very particular about who gets made and for what reason. Then I was given as a slave to another vampire. I had my free will stripped from me and I fed on who they wanted, when they wanted. That’s assuming I can control the Need at all. You have to feed regularly, or it takes over.”
I felt a surge of sympathy as Gerald’s description of being a vampire was not so different from my own experience as a slasher. On the other hand, I didn’t know how dangerous the man was. Hypocritical as it was, I didn’t want to risk a dangerous killer among our ranks right before we were about to mount a rescue operation.
“That’s not really a good reason to spare you,” Nancy said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself.
Gerald didn’t look like he cared much. “No, it’s not.”
“How did you get here anyway?” I asked.
“I was sold to the Fraternity,” Gerald said, saying perhaps the one thing that might have spared him. “My previous master made a deal with them and they staked me to serve as a keg for their parties.”
“They seem like more of a wine and cheese bunch,” Nancy said, coming to the defense of beer. “They were the meth dealers’ customers?”
Well, one of them at least since they’d said the Irish
man rather than Fraternity.
Gerald nodded. “The Cassidy brothers maintain their immortality by feeding on vampire blood. They have their own sources, though, and the Vampire Nation trades them valueless members that they milk for blood. You’d be surprised at how many rich people are downing vampire blood like college girls do Jell-O shots. The stuff is dangerous and increases your bloodlust like a thousand percent.”
“Given we know the Fraternity is a literal murder cult, I would, in fact, not be surprised,” I replied.
“The Cassidy brothers? Seriously?” Nancy asked, clutching her chest as if she’d been punched in the gut.
“What’s shocking about that?” I asked.
I’d been locked away for a decade but even I knew who the Cassidy brothers were. They were the most famous brothers in business history (with the possible exception of Parker brothers and the Warner brothers). Gamen and Aiden Cassidy were the founders of Pantheon Corp, the world’s largest makers of everything. They were massive donors to the reactionary elements of both political parties and were known associates of various dictators. I’d seen a framed picture of the director of H.P. Memorial Hospital shaking hands with Aiden alongside Jeffrey Epstein and O.J. Simpson. The sort of people who might enjoy their hunts.
“A lot,” Nancy said. “My friend Cassie is Gamen’s daughter.”
I didn’t have a chance to respond because the zombie form of James rose off the ground despite the double headshots as well as pens in its head. The creature was not permanently dead and looked ready to try to avenge itself. That was when its head fell clean off, its neck split in two by the stroke of a machete.
Carrie was standing there, holding the weapon with both hands. She then looked up at Nancy. “Wait, your best friend’s name is Cassie Cassidy?”
“Cassandra,” Nancy said, watching the zombie fall over again. She then stomped on its severed head a few times to make sure it stayed dead. “Cassie is just a nickname.”
