Hell on Heels - A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Novella

by John G. Hartness

  “Fair enough. I’ll stay here and run point on the investigation into these dead vamps’ clothes. I’ll find out everything I can about who they were and what brought them here. If it’s your friend Augustus, maybe they can give us some insight into his plans.”

  “Sounds like a deal. Now I’m gonna jog over to Matt’s Chicago Dog and take care of a little vermin problem in their parking garage.”

  Chapter 4

  As always, The Girl from Ipanema was playing in the elevator as I rode down to the bottom of the parking garage. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a different song in an elevator. I don’t know if it’s just the song that elevator people use, or if I notice that song because it’s so annoying, and other songs don’t bug me, so I ignore them. Either way, I stepped out into the garage humming Ooh…but I watch her so sadly, and almost missed the sound of shoe leather on concrete that told me my target was somewhere off to my left.

  I took a handful of marbles out of my jacket pocket and gripped them tightly in my right hand. I brought my fist up to my mouth and whispered “Lumos” into my closed hand. I cracked my grip just enough to let the light stream through my fingers for a second, then closed my fist again.

  I walked down the ramp, trying to look innocuous and vapid, like any other yuppie trying to find his SUV or mini-van, or crossover, or whatever it is yuppies drive. I’m not a car guy. I have a shitty Honda Accord and an old Harley that I keep at Luke’s. I heard the scuff of shoes poised for a leap as I turned the corner into the lowest level of the garage. I tensed, then dove forward into a roll as my attacker sprung for me.

  I was rewarded with a surprised gasp, then a heavy thud as the vampire crashed into the side of a parked car. I spun around and flung my fistful of glowing marbles out in front of me. Immediately half a dozen little balls of sunlight flew into the air and hovered a little over head height, banishing all the shadows in the garage and leveling the playing field pretty quickly. I saw the vampire, a man turned in his thirties or forties, dressed in contemporary clothes, spin back toward me and launch himself at me again.

  He was fast, but I was expecting his leap. I dove under him, staying low to the ground to avoid his claws and fangs, then popped up to my feet five yards away from the pissed-off vampire.

  “I’m going to drink you dry and burn your carcass, human,” the vampire hissed.

  I grinned at him and said, “Human? Somebody’s been feeding you bad information, friend.” He came at me again, staying on his feet this time, just using his speed to close the distance between us in half a second. He slashed at my throat with his razor-sharp claws, but my throat wasn’t there. I dropped straight down to one knee and let his hand pass harmlessly over my head. Then I stood up, throwing my entire body weight behind an uppercut that should have taken his head off and ended our little encounter right then.

  Except it didn’t. I heard a loud crack as his jaw broke, and he staggered back a few steps, but then he cracked his head from side to side and grinned at me. He grinned and my blood ran cold because that was the smile of a man who knew he had the upper hand and was just there to toy with me.

  “This is going to be fun,” he said, and while I disagreed pretty vehemently, I didn’t argue because I was too busy drawing my Glock and emptying the magazine into the vampire’s center mass. I put sixteen silver-tipped rounds through that bastard and he didn’t go down.

  “Silver?” he asked. “I like silver. He ripped open the top three buttons on his shirt to show me the silver crucifix hanging around his neck.

  Fuck. I’d seen vampires that weren’t bothered by holy symbols. Hell, Luke kept crucifixes hanging all around his place, but I’d never seen one able to touch silver with his bare hands. Either this guy was super old, or somebody’d figured out how to build a better bloodsucker. Either way, I was not a fan.

  I barely got my nose out of the way of his next punch, and I snapped out of my reverie pretty damn quickly. He came at me with punches, kicks, roundhouses, jabs, and some wild-ass chops that I couldn’t tell came from watching too much Kung-Fu Theatre or too much Ric Flair. Either way, I knew he’d cave my ribcage in if I let him connect.

  I tossed my gun at his face and used the momentary distraction to draw my silver stakes. Even if silver didn’t hurt him, getting a pointy thing in the chest will ruin pretty much anything’s day. He batted my pistol out of the air, and I slashed out at him with one stake. He blocked my cut, and it felt like I’d just wrapped my arm around a lamppost, backward. The stake clattered out of my now-numb left hand, and he grabbed the front of my shirt.

  The vampire drew me to him, his fangs extending as he leaned in to bite me and drain my life force. I flailed a little, battering uselessly at his face and shoulders, then I slumped in his grasp, awaiting my fate. His face got to within inches of mine, and I could smell the stench of the grave on his breath.

  Just before his fangs broke my skin, I held up my last marble and whispered through my abused vocal chords, “Solis Ortus!”

  Several things happened at once. The grip on my throat loosened as the vampire gave me a strange look. The marble floated between us and burst into light like a miniature sun, and the UV rays burned part of my assailant’s face off. He jerked back, smoking like the crowd at a Dave Matthews concert, and turned to run. I left the marble-sized sun floating and took off after him. He was fast, but he ran like I’d melted an eye, which I found out was true when I caught up with him.

  I yanked him around, and he used his momentum to follow through with a punch that knocked me back a good ten feet. If I hadn’t let myself roll with it, he probably would have broken my jaw. As it was, he just turned to run again. I stood halfway up the ramp and watched his feet as he turned the corner and started up the next level. I focused myself, drew in my will and murmured, “Constringo.” I sent my will out with a gesture, and the fleeing vampire’s ankles snapped together as if tied by a rope. I found him struggling to stand halfway up the Level 2 parking ramp, one eye turned to black goop, half his face a charred mass of smoking flesh, and part of his mouth burned away revealing one fang.

  “What are you?” he asked as I stepped up beside him.

  “I’m your worst fucking nightmare, asshole,” I said, dropping to one knee with all my weight on the stake in my hand. I crunched through his ribcage and pulverized his heart with the silver point. Then I reached behind my back and drew a silver-plated kukri. I used the big curved knife to decapitate the vampire, then I dragged his corpse out of sight. I put his head on his stomach and turned to find his victim, hopefully before it was too late.

  I quickly scanned the area where we fought and found nothing. So I started the laborious car-to-car search, walking every inch of the parking garage. As I walked, my mind flashed back to another parking garage and another search that ended a lot worse than I hoped this one would. I was chasing a newborn vamp through downtown and it had just been spotted in the Seventh Street Station garage near a nightclub called Mythos. It was the hottest thing downtown at the time with people lined up out the front entrance trying to get in and lined up around the back entrance grabbing a quick smoke, ducking out to puke when the night got too heavy, or slipping off into the shadows for a little illicit activity.

  I remembered the thump of the music driving my footsteps as I heard the gurgle of a life passing through a shredded throat. I turned a corner and the vamp looked up from its meal. That blood-smeared face has stayed with me for years—the blank, animal look, all humanity gone, nothing inhabiting the creature but hunger like a living thing. The beast dropped its prey and came at me, but a baby vamp hasn’t been a match for me in decades. I dropped it with two silver throwing knives then took its head with a ridiculously long sword I carried because it was the 90s and I wanted to be the third MacLeod on Highlander.

  I was too late for the victim, though. I remember running to him, but his throat was nothing more than a mess of flesh and blood. He pressed something into my hand, and I saw it was a school picture of a l
ittle girl, a little brown-haired girl who would end up a central character in my own story. I knelt beside him, then turned myself around and sat with his head in my lap. He stared up at me, brown eyes full of fear. Not for himself, but for his daughter, left alone in a world that didn’t take care of little girls without fathers. I promised him that I’d look after her, wiped the sweat and blood from his face, and held him while he died.

  When the light had left his eyes, I reached down into my lap and snapped his neck to make sure he wouldn’t come back. The last thing that little girl needed was her father knocking on her door in a few days asking to come in for a snack.

  All these things rolled through my mind as I searched the parking garage for this vampire’s victim. I felt Flynn behind my eyes as I peered into cars, trucks, vans, stairwells and elevators.

  “No comment, Detective?” I asked the air. I knew she could hear me if I just thought my questions, but this felt better to me somehow.

  I don’t know what to say. You told me you were there when he died. You told me he asked about me right before he went, but the whole thing about breaking his neck…I never knew that.

  “I didn’t think it important until now, but I figured it might come up, so I decided to go ahead and tell you.”

  I’m glad of that, and I’m glad you did what you did, it’s just…I don’t know, Harker, what am I supposed to feel?

  “Love, if I had any idea what a woman was supposed to feel about anything, I’d have a fucking lot more second dates!” I laughed and then froze. Something wasn’t right about the echo. Something else was—there! “Found you!”

  I ran over to a dark blue Prius with its driver door open. A young woman was lying in a pool of blood by the car’s front wheel, her neck shredded and her purse and keys lying on the ground next to her. She was trying to breathe, but there wasn’t enough of her throat left to hold the air in.

  “Goddammit,” I muttered, flashing back again to that other parking garage so many years ago. I knelt beside the woman and pulled her into my lap. She didn’t have the strength to resist; she just lay there staring up at me with terrified eyes.

  “Don’t worry, miss, it’ll be fine. I’m with the police, and help is on the way.” I said all the reassuring things, all the lies that I hoped would make her feel a little better, but she just stared at me, a frightened woman who no longer had the vocal chords to speak with while she drew her last few breaths.

  Her purse caught my eye, and I reached into it, pulling out her wallet. “I’m not going to rob you, darling, I just want—there it is, here we go.” I opened her wallet and pulled out her driver’s license. “Alright, Suzanne Jonas, you can relax. We’ll be able to get in touch with your parents and tell them what happened.” She relaxed visibly at my words.

  “Do you have a husband?” She shook her head. “A boyfriend?” Another head shake. “A dog?” A weak nod. She was fading faster. “I’ll take care of the puppy, Suzanne Jonas. I’ll make sure it’s cared for and that your parents know that you loved them very much.” A tear rolled down her face, then she let out one long, ragged breath, and was still.

  I knelt there, holding her body as it slowly went cold, thinking about all the people I’d watched die over the years, and the ones that I’d killed myself. The count was a lot higher than I liked in both categories, and every face flickered across my memory as I knelt in Suzanne Jonas’ blood in the parking garage. Then I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and snapped her neck to make sure she stayed dead.

  Do you just do that to everybody you watch die? Flynn’s voice was snotty inside my head, but I let it go. I knew where she was coming from, and I didn’t have the energy to fight anyway.

  “She was drained. I had to make sure she didn’t come back. She was a nice lady. I didn’t want to have to kill her tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry, monster,” came a woman’s voice behind me. “You won’t be around tomorrow to kill anything.”

  Chapter 5

  I turned to see a petite woman in her twenties pointing a crossbow at me. A crossbow, of all things? I had just about enough time to wonder if this was an Arrow rerun before she pulled the trigger, and the bolt leapt at my chest. I dropped the corpse and sprang out of the way, letting the broadhead bolt sink into the Prius’s tire instead of my ribcage.

  “What the hell, lady? Didn’t your parents teach you not to shoot at strangers?” I said. My mystery assailant was nowhere to be seen. I guessed she was off somewhere reloading. That’s the worst thing about crossbows—nobody’s made a semi-auto version of them yet.

  “They taught me not to take candy from strangers and not to let vampires live to see another sunset.” The girl’s voice came from near where she’d been standing. I hopped over the roof of the BMW she was hiding behind and tapped her on the shoulder. She spun around and nearly buried a knife in my leg, but I was a little too quick for her. Which meant she was ridiculously fast for a human. I’d better watch out for this one.

  She darted away again, but I got a little better look at her this time. Black tights with leather chaps, good for flexibility and protecting the knees. Black hoodie with what looked like a bulletproof vest under it, and if she really knew anything about hunting vampires, I’d bet she had a chainmail choker or something of the like under that hoodie, too.

  I revised my earlier guess at her age downward after I looked at her for more than half a second, deciding she was probably in her early twenties. Auburn hair snaked out from under the hood, and her features were Western European, speaking to maybe Germanic or French heritage. She had a big damn knife and a crossbow, and I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to see what else she was packing, weapons-wise, but I also wasn’t just going to run away and let a psycho with a fetish for pointy things run around my city.

  I stopped at the end of the car, focusing to hear her movements. She was smart enough to stay still when I was trying to track her, but she wasn’t enough of a pro to control her breathing. I could hear the little panting of her breath a couple of cars over, so I crept backward the length of the car and then crab-walked sideways. She was kneeling behind the tire of an SUV, listening hard for me. Hate to disappoint you, kid, but I’ve been skulking around places I wasn’t welcome since long before there was such a thing as a parking garage.

  “You want to tell me why you want to shoot me, or should I just go ahead and get that paternity test?” I said. The girl whirled around, but her reflexes were far better than I expected. She fired a new bolt dead at my chest, forcing me to throw myself backwards to keep from getting skewered. Then instead of running again, she leapt at me, knife drawn. I scurried backward to keep her from slicing off anything I really value with the knife, but she just kept on coming.

  I finally landed a solid kick to her face that left her on hands and knees for a moment, shaking her head like a bulldog that finally caught a car. I took the opportunity to scramble to my feet and draw my ASP extendable baton. I left my Glock holstered. I didn’t want to kill the kid; I just wanted her to stop trying to kill me.

  “Hey honey, can we talk?” I asked, keeping the baton low in front of me.

  The girl tossed her crossbow away behind her and slid her knife into a sheath on her hip. I stood up a little straighter, relaxing as the hostilities seemed to be lessening. Until she reached behind her back and pulled out a pair of escrima sticks and came at me in a whirling dervish of metal-tipped wooden pain and suffering.

  Escrima sticks are those two-foot long wooden sticks that you see Filipinos use in martial arts movies. They’re used in arnis, the national martial at of the Philippines, and they’re absolutely lethal in the hands of an expert. This girl was an expert because once she got moving, nothing in the world was getting through the spinning barricade of pain she was wielding. I blocked a couple of strikes with my ASP, took a couple of brutal shots to the forearm and thighs, and managed not to collapse whens she scored a solid hit on my left knee.

  “Ow, goddammit!” I yelled. “Would
you fucking quit that?”

  To my complete shock, she did. She froze for a minute and stared at me, then came at me again. I backed away, blocking and parrying as well as I could with one bum knee, but finally got frustrated and flung my ASP at her head to try and gain a little space. She ducked, and I hopped over the back of a Mercedes, setting off the car alarm and adding even more noise to our little scrap.

  I took advantage of the momentary confusion to focus my will and draw a deep breath. When my attacker came around the end of the car and started at me again, I flung a handful of dust at her and said, “Somnos.” She took in a face full of dust, sneezed once, and fell face-first onto the concrete floor, dead asleep. Her escrima sticks clattered to the floor beside her and rolled under a nearby pickup.

  “Nighty-night,” I said under my breath. A face full of sleep spell was enough to keep a full-grown man out for eight hours. It should have been enough to keep this little slip of a girl knocked cold for twelve or so. So imagine my surprise when I rolled her over and she kicked me square in the family jewels. I toppled over, pinning her beneath me, and just wrapped my arms around her thrashing form. I’m not the biggest guy, but I had at least a hundred pounds on her, and even with my agonized balls, I had enough presence of mind to bear hug the little assassin and not let her go.

  She fought like a wildcat, kicking and flailing and biting at me, until I head-butted her in the nose one good time. I heard a wet crunch, and blood started to pour from her nose. Then she shifted gears from trying to get loose to kill me, to just trying to get away.

  “Hold still, dammit, I don’t want to hurt you!” I said once I got my breath back a little.

  “Go fuck yourself, vampire!”

  “I’m not a vampire, jackass! I killed the vampire. It’s the next floor down.”