Beyond The Mask (The Beyond Book 1)

by Hunter, Aubrianna

  She looked at Nik, still pressed against the wall, his fangs still clear in his smile, though the look had changed somewhat. His eyes no longer looked angry, nor amused. Instead, it was something else, something... more. They were almost glowing, still blue in color, but they seemed almost electric.

  He chuckled, his voice raspier than normal. "I told you that you might not want to cut that particular piece off, darling."

  Jade squinted her eyes, glaring at him though he couldn't see it. He seemed more in tune with her emotions than he should be… so let him tune in to this...

  She sent a sword flying, spearing him directly through his chest, pinning him against the wall where he stood. She stared, watching as blood began to spread outward from the point of entry, soaking through his blue dress shirt.

  He stood there, wide eyed with shock, no sound escaping between his open lips. Those fangs growing even longer as his smug grin turned to a look of pain... and anger.

  Jade bolted, running through the house as fast as she could.

  She heard his bellow of rage following her as she flung the front doors wide, escaping into the morning light.

  Vampire.

  Nik was a vampire. Likely Alex was, too.

  How had she missed that, missed the clues? It all seemed so obvious in hindsight, but then hindsight was twenty-twenty.

  She continued running as fast as she could, the earth moving in giant stretches beneath her feet, her body doing some strange leap as she moved. She hoped that the myth of vampires and sunlight held true. She'd never truly paid much attention to paranormal myths, assuming they were just that: myth. Clearly she had been wrong about ghosts. And vampires. And probably a ton of other things, as well. She needed help, needed answers.

  She needed Gunny.

  With a goal in mind, Jade continued to run. She would search this city high and low until she found him. Now, she finally had some questions to ask him. Hopefully this time he could provide answers.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gunny had wondered for hours the night previous where he would find the one he sought. Having re-obtained his cart, and the supplies it contained, he moved to the couple’s apartment in hopes of finding her there. Sure as shit she was there… Kind of.

  Just as he rounded the corner to their block, Jade appeared, bursting through the doors of the building, seemingly in a rush to be somewhere. He never even bothered to give chase as it was impossible to keep up with a soul that was shifting planes. They could spring forward miles at a time, stepping between the planes of the living and the dead. Not ‘ole Gunny, he had to friggin’ hobble the whole fuckin’ way. Why did they get all the cool tricks and all he got was a bum leg?

  Standing at a loss on the corner, he watched as a good lookin' blonde traipsed out the door in an outfit definitely not inspired by the season. Though he was certain she would likely freeze to death, he assumed she had some sort of defect and she had to wrap it up like that to sell it.

  As she turned the opposite direction from him, she rubbed her ass in a very un-lady like manner. She sure was a looker, though. Gunny watched her ass sway down the street until she finally turned a corner.

  “If I was a ghost, where’d I be headin’ in such a hurry?”

  Looking to his leg as if it were the one who should answer the question, two ideas struck him. Most ghosts wanted to attend their own funeral. He didn’t know why, they just did. Most murdered ghosts wanted revenge, but generally wouldn’t get anywhere thinking along those lines. In either case, Gunny decided upon his course and began pushing his cart again. The funeral it was. Generally wards of the state were buried at 3pm, plain pine box, no flowers.

  Made sense to him. A body was just a container anyhow, why spend time and effort on an empty bag when the person you loved was already gone? Damned sheep didn’t think clearly most the time. They couldn’t see the truth if it was painted on their faces. Pulling up his sleeve, he noted the time, though his arm was devoid of a watch. And they call me crazy!

  With twelve hours until the funeral, he set out to get there early, knowing well that vampires sometimes hung around the places, either to feed upon the homeless, or await the birth of another of their kind.

  In the calm quiet of night, the place appeared as lifeless as the bodies that inhabited it. Here, tombstones rose from the earth like the bones of an ancient beast, randomly jutting up from the soil below. Death walked here, he could smell him.

  Crosses and angels, saints, and even the demonic visage of gargoyles were depicted across the landscape of perfectly manicured grass and trimmed trees. Though darkness attempted to swallow it all, regularly placed lampposts provided pockets of illumination between the vast voids between.

  Gunny traversed the paths carefully. Here, in the dark, predators could find the upper hand. Too much was hidden, too much left in shadows. Between the rows of monoliths and crypts, shadows crept and nighttime creatures scurried, but these were the living type. His eyes darted from shadow to shadow.

  Elmwood Cemetery dated back to antiquity, and though it was prowled and maintained by death, there was a certain serenity to be found here. He imagined it was the silence that created the illusion. Perhaps because of the neat rows of stone fixtures dating back to ages past that spoke of something eternal. Maybe it was because it was blessed ground. No matter the reason for the uneasy calm, a cemetery was no place to be complacent.

  Finding himself a defensible position, Gunny sat upon the granite steps to a crypt adorned with the name Miller. Pressing his back to the door of the crypt, he slouched to appear less alert. To either side of him, statues of the great archangel Gabriel stood guard against the night and above him a great arch hid the heavens from view.

  Pulling the bottle of whiskey from his cart he sat it in his lap along with a rolled newspaper and leaned his head into the stone frame of the door. It would not be long now.

  Sure as shit, a moment later, straight across from him, perhaps three rows away, a shadow detached from a great monolith. Knowing it came for him, he squinted, allowing his eyes to barely remain open, appearing to doze off. It sprang into the air.

  Gunny braced for the impact. For all their speed and strength, he could not believe how often they would act without thought. Then it was upon him.

  Like a shadow itself, the creature was cloaked entirely in black. Like a beast it snarled at him as it grasped to secure his arms, but he had been ready for the monster. Bashing it in the head with the heavy glass bottle, Gunny’s blow broke the bottle, showering the creature in the blessed holy water he carried. Though it could not kill a vampire, it was like mace to all creatures forsworn by God.

  Disoriented, the creature thrashed blindly, landing a few solid blows upon the apparent victim, though Gunny ignored the injuries. Pulling his other hand from the rolled newspaper, he plunged the stake through and through the beast to exit between the ribs in its back.

  Though it was only a glancing blow to the vampire’s heart, it caused enough damage to prevent it from beating again. A close call. Pushing the corpse off of him, he let it crumple to the ground before pulling the wallet from its pants. Two minutes of work for a six hundred and three dollar score. Best paying job a homeless cripple could get. Gunny chuckled.

  * * * * *

  Jade was still running. She had been running for hours if the sun was any indication. At this point, she wasn't entirely sure if she was still running toward something or merely running from herself.

  She was still trying to find Gunny. She had been to most of Derek's known local haunts, hoping to find him. She'd seen several people that would have matched his description, usually in the seedier joints, but she had yet to find Gunny.

  She should have gotten better directions from him as to how to find him, or even where to begin looking. Yet another foolish mistake in what was becoming a long string of them.

  Jade felt dejected, hopeless. It had been a long time since she'd felt this way. Hell, she wasn't sure until this moment that
she was even capable of that kind of emotion. Not because she was dead. No, this had been wrought through years of living with her father.

  You go through every emotion under the rainbow when you are stuck in an abusive childhood. Hopelessness is merely one in a myriad of emotions. However, after awhile you simply feel nothing. Absolutely nothing. She had been surprised enough to feel anything toward Derek, certain that her ability to feel had simply died years ago.

  When she had started to feel something more than mere companionship, she had been surprised by that, too.

  The roller coaster of feeling she'd been riding for the last four days was taking its toll on her. She was drained. Oh, physically she felt fine, she could easily run another eight hundred miles if that was what she needed to do. Was that physically? Probably not since she didn't really have a body, but hey, it was close enough.

  Mentally and emotionally though, she was done. After her various displays this morning, she wasn't entirely sure she could so much as turn a magazine page. She had run the gamut today: jealousy, understanding, sympathy, desire, satisfaction, anger, rage, humor, desire again, a little more rage, followed by a pressing guilt. It was the guilt that was eating at her.

  It had been bad enough to betray Derek when she had been caught in the throes of physical desire, but to still be attracted to the man that had killed her... that was beyond unforgivable, landing squarely in the category of suicidal and stupid.

  Not that Derek was any prince among men. Clearly he was human, having behaved in a manner that most would describe as morally bankrupt. Jade understood, she honestly did. She would most likely have done the same thing. Alcohol, sleep, alcohol, fuck, alcohol, sleep. She could already see the beginnings of a terrible pattern forming, though she had no idea what to do about it.

  She had no idea what to do about anything, and right now she didn't really have the strength to care.

  She popped inside the local bar, right around the corner from their apartment. She guessed it was probably just Derek's apartment now. She moved quickly through the haunt, still unable to find him. Though, she would hazard a guess that the man hiding in the corner booth could see her.

  Yet another question to ask Gunny. Why could some people see her and some couldn't? Why could the vampire... sense her, for lack of a better description. Had she possibly killed him this afternoon?

  She sighed, hoping it would ease a tightness she somehow “felt” in her chest. Why did she feel... sad, at that prospect?

  Maybe she should just ask Gunny what the hell was wrong with her.

  A glance at the clock showed her it was already after two.

  She had to hurry. She had no idea what the draw was, but she felt almost compelled to go to her own funeral. She needed to see her body. Maybe then this would all seem more real. And if it were just a nightmare, maybe she would wake up.

  She would also get to see Derek again.

  Why wasn't she sure exactly how she should feel about that?

  * * * * *

  Having stashed the body, corpse, dead empty carcass thing, whatever it was a vampire had, Gunny had returned to his station beneath the twin Gabriels, watching the day grow brighter. The fang head had been cutting it close. It must have had a hideout here near the cemetery, perhaps in it.

  To attack someone so close to daylight spoke of desperation, though he could not fathom why. Last he checked the city was not growing scarce on people. Jobs, clean streets, cops, people not on welfare or unemployment, now that was another story, but people in general were rather abundant.

  He clamored back to his feet. The vampire had been young. Hell the damned thing had dressed like a ninja. What kind of fucking moron dressed like a ninja to hunt in a cemetery? His best guess was the turn had been an accidental one, or perhaps one that had not been approved by the governing factions of the vampires. If that was the case, the vampire might have been abandoned to learn the ropes on its own. That would explain a lot, like why the idiot dressed like a ninja. Idiot. How the fuck do you blend if you're dressed like a ninja?

  Gunny lumbered across the grass another fifty yards and suddenly knew he was on the right path. The cold breeze of the morning washed across the cemetery, carrying with it the stench of death and decay. If Gunny was not mistaken, the bodies here were supposed to be covered in soil, not left to rot.

  Turning into the wind he followed his nose all the way to a crypt on the fringe of the cemetery. Though it was an old thing, all of its sharp edges polished away by the wind and rain, the crypt looked pretty much as it would have a few hundred years ago when it had been built. Even the door appeared in good condition, and doors upon crypts usually created a fairly decent seal to keep rodents out and foul scents in. Today however, the door stood ajar.

  Approaching the door with caution, he pulled a stake from his belt before pulling the door open quickly. With the sun already rising at his back, light flooded into the crypt, revealing a sight that made even his gut turn. More than two dozen bodies lay haphazardly strewn about the inside of the crypt. In some places they were three deep, a pile of tangled limbs and maggots. Fucking ninjas.

  Putting his sleeve to his nose, Gunny strode into the crypt for a better view. He couldn’t find one, every angle sucked as bad as the first. He would never, ever look at a ninja the same. Oh how he despised them.

  As was his oath, to not involve anyone else in his battle, at least unwillingly, it was his job to conceal the mess to keep people from poking around and getting hurt. He could easily close the door, find a way to seal it closed, and likely no one would find the bodies, but that was disrespectful.

  Instead, for the next six hours, he labored to lift each of the maggot infested rotting corpses into shafts built into the walls for such storage. Some were so far gone the flesh slid off the bones as he lifted them and appendages popped off at the slightest provocation. Eventually, however, he finished, looking and smelling a bit worse for wear, and strode back out into the day.

  Across the cemetery and down the hill, a plot that had been previously dug was being prepared for a body to be interred. From here he could see a pair of men rolling out a piece of outdoor carpet that spanned either side of the hole. Beyond them, perhaps another twenty yards, she stood watching the process. Today she would be buried, and Gunny knew she might need some comfort and beyond that some answers. It was a good thing disembodied sheep couldn’t smell.

  They watched together as her casket arrived, a plain pine box with naught but a serial number stenciled upon it. The pair of cemetery hands helped the funeral home employees to lift the casket into place before the funeral home hearse drove away, not having been paid to provide anything further. Gunny watched as Jade looked on in silence, ethereal tears spilling from her eyes.

  The casket had been propped open, assumingly for Gunny, but he had no interest in seeing any more bodies this day and so kept his distance as Jade approached the box and began to weep with one hand to her mouth.

  Minutes turned into an hour and eventually the employees as well as Gunny and Jade realized that no one was coming to see the body. They closed the casket as Jade looked about the grounds for the thousandth time. One of the cemetery men joked about necrophilia, but Jade hadn’t noticed. She was expecting Derek.

  He didn’t show.

  Slowly the pair of men in coveralls began to crank the casket into the ground as a knot formed in Gunny’s stomach. He looked around uneasily but found nothing out of the ordinary besides Jade. A good warrior always followed his gut. Or was it a good warrior always followed his orders? In either case, he felt uneasy.

  As the casket rested into the bottom of the hole, the men released its straps and pulling them free they rolled up the carpet and drug it off to one side. One man returned to tear down the cranking mechanism as the other left, only to return with a tractor. Within minutes the hole was filled, and Jade cried again, he assumed more or less from disappointment, as the tractor drove away, its job completed.

  “Why didn
’t he come?”

  “Could be a lot of reasons.” Gunny answered honestly. “Maybe he couldn’t bear it, perhaps he's drunk, maybe he's battling a ninja, you never really know. Ninja’s are thoughtless assholes you know.”

  She looked at him with a mixed look of disgust and amusement on her face. Gunny chuckled, a raspy sound escaping his throat. She smiled in return, her tears having seemingly dried up. If they were wet to begin with, he wasn’t sure.

  “Why is it a few days ago I couldn’t touch shit, yet now I can’t seem to keep from knocking things over?”

  “Now that I can answer. Consider it a time of adjustment, though really it is your soul passing between realms. These things take time. At first only your consciousness and memories are really here and as time progresses the rest of your energy follows. Now that you have it all, you need to learn to control it. That will come in time, and really what else do you have?”

  “Derek,” she replied, the sadness creeping in once more.

  “About him... I need you to look after him.”

  “I don’t know if that's such a good idea,” she said honestly.

  “Why?”

  “I tried that last night, got angry and destroyed the apartment. Then if that wasn't enough I think I killed someone today.”

  “You plannin’ to explain all that or shall I just imagine my own details?”

  “He cheated on me, though not really ‘cause I’m dead, but it still hurt.”

  "OK, that I get, but what about the killing part? You know you really shouldn’t do that, well maybe….nah even if it’s a ninja, don’t kill, it will just make matters worse for you.”

  “I don’t even know if I killed him, though it would only be fair because he killed me, but I think he's… different?”

  “Killed you, huh?” Gunny asked, already realizing what she meant but needing her to actually say it. “Different how?”