by L. J. Smith
“Everybody ready? Then let’s go,” Vicky said, and Steve and Nyala got up. Elliot showed them to the door.
“Good luck,” he said.
Outside, Vicky led the way to a dark blue car with mud strategically caked on the license plates.
“We’ll drive to the warehouse area,” she said.
Rashel was relieved. She was used to walking the city streets at night without being seen—important when you were carrying a rather unconcealable sword—but she wasn’t sure that these other three could manage. It took practice.
The drive was silent except for the murmur of Steve’s voice occasionally helping Vicky with directions. They passed through respectable neighborhoods and venerable areas with handsome old buildings until they got to a street where everything changed suddenly. All at once, as if they had crossed some invisible dividing line, the gutters were full of soggy trash and the fences were topped with razor wire. The buildings were government housing projects, dark warehouses, or rowdy bars.
Vicky pulled into a parking lot and stopped the car away from the security lights. Then she led them through the knee-high dead weeds of a vacant lot to a street that was poorly lighted and utterly silent.
“This is the observation post,” Vicky whispered, as they reached a squat brick building, a part of the housing project that had been abandoned. Following her, they zigzagged through debris and scrap metal to get to a side door, and then they climbed a dark staircase covered with graffiti to the third floor. Their flashlights provided the only illumination.
“Nice place,” Nyala whispered, looking around. She had obviously never seen anything like it before. “Don’t you think—there may be other people here besides vampires?”
Steve gave her a reassuring pat. “No, it’s okay.”
“Yeah, it looks like even the junkies have abandoned it,” Rashel said, grimly amused.
“You can see the whole street from the window,” Vicky put in shortly. “Elliot and I were here yesterday watching those warehouses across the street. And last night we saw a guy at the end of the street who looked a lot like a vampire. You know the signs.”
Nyala opened her mouth as if to say she didn’t know the signs, but Rashel was already speaking. “Did you test him?”
“We didn’t want to get that close. We’ll do it tonight if he shows up again.”
“How do you test them?” Nyala asked.
Vicky didn’t answer. She and Steve had pushed aside a couple of rat-chewed mattresses and were unloading the bags and backpacks they’d brought.
Rashel said, “One way is to shine a flashlight in their eyes. Usually you get eyeshine back—like an animal’s.”
“There are other ways, too,” Vicky said, setting the things she was unloading on the bare boards of the floor. There were ski masks, knives made of both metal and wood, a number of stakes of various sizes, and a mallet. Steve added two clubs made of white oak to the pile.
“Wood hurts them more than metal,” Vicky said to Nyala. “If you cut them with a steel knife they heal right before your eyes—but cut them with wood and they keep bleeding.”
Rashel didn’t quite like the way she said it. And she didn’t like the last thing Vicky was pulling out of her backpack. It was a wooden device that looked a bit like a miniature stock. Two hinged blocks of wood that fit snugly around a person’s wrists and closed with a lock.
“Vampire handcuffs,” Vicky said proudly, seeing her look. “Made of white oak. Guaranteed to hold any parasite. I brought them from down south.”
“But hold them for what? And what do you need all those little knives and stakes for? It would take hours to kill a vampire with those.”
Vicky smiled fiercely. “I know.”
Oh. Rashel’s heart seemed to thump and then sink, and she looked away to control her reaction. She understood what Vicky had in mind now.
Torture.
“A quick death’s too good for them,” Vicky said, still smiling. “They deserve to suffer—the way they make our people suffer. Besides, we might get some information. We need to know where they’re keeping the girls they kidnap, and what they’re doing with them.”
“Vicky.” Rashel spoke earnestly. “It’s practically impossible to make vampires talk. They’re stubborn. When they’re hurt they just get angry—like animals.”
Vicky smirked. “I’ve made some talk. It just depends on what you do, and how long you make it last. Anyway, there’s no harm in trying.”
“Does Elliot know about this?”
Vicky lifted a shoulder defensively. “Elliot lets me do things my way. I don’t have to tell him every little detail. I was a leader myself, you know.”
Helplessly, Rashel looked at Nyala and Steve. And saw that for the first time Nyala’s eyes had lost their sleepwalking expression. Now she looked awake—and savagely glad.
“Yes,” she said. “We should try to make the vampire talk. And if he suffers—well, my sister suffered. When I found her, she was almost dead but she could still talk. She told me what it felt like, having all the blood drained out of her body while she was still conscious. She said it hurt. She said…” Nyala stopped, swallowed, and looked at Vicky. “I want to help do it,” she said thickly.
Steve didn’t say anything, but then from what Rashel knew of him, that was typical. He was a guy of few words. Anyway, he didn’t protest.
Rashel felt odd, as if she were seeing the very worst of herself reflected in a mirror. It made her… ashamed. It left her shaken.
But who am I to judge? she thought, turning away. It’s true that the parasites are evil, all of them. The whole race needs to be wiped out. And Vicky’s right, why should they have a clean death, when they usually don’t give their victims one? Nyala deserves to avenge her sister.
“Unless you object or something,” Vicky said heavily, and Rashel could feel those pale blue eyes on her. “Unless you’re some kind of vampire sympathizer.”
Rashel might have laughed at that, but she wasn’t in a laughing mood. She took a breath, then said without turning around, “It’s your show. I agreed that you were in charge.”
“Good,” Vicky said, and returned to her work.
But the sick feeling in the pit of Rashel’s stomach didn’t go away. She almost hoped that the vampire wouldn’t come.
CHAPTER 4
Quinn was cold.
Not physically, of course. That was impossible. The icy March air had no effect on him; his body was impervious to little things like weather. No, this cold was inside him.
He stood looking at the bay and the thriving city across it. Boston by starlight. It had taken him a long time to come back to Boston after… the change.
He’d lived there once, when he’d been human. But in those days Boston was nothing but three hills, one beacon, and a handful of houses with thatched roofs. The place where he was standing now had been clean beach surrounded by salt meadows and dense forest.
The year had been 1639.
Boston had grown since then, but Quinn hadn’t. He was still eighteen, still the young man who’d loved the sunny pastures and the clear blue water of the wilderness. Who had lived simply, feeling grateful when there was enough food for supper on his mother’s table, and who had dreamed of someday having his own fishing schooner and marrying pretty Dove Redfern.
That was how it had all started, with Dove. Pretty Dove and her soft brown hair… sweet Dove, who had a secret a simple boy like Quinn could never have imagined.
Well. Quinn felt his lip curl. That was all in the past. Dove had been dead for centuries, and if her screams still haunted him every night, no one knew but himself.
Because he might not be any older than he had been in the days of the colonies, but he had learned a few tricks. Like how to wrap ice around his heart so that nothing in the world could hurt him. And how to put ice in his gaze, so that whoever looked into his black eyes saw only an endless glacial dark. He’d gotten very good at that. Some people actually went pale and bac
ked away when he turned his eyes on them.
The tricks had worked for years, allowing him not just to survive as a vampire, but to be brilliantly successful at it. He was Quinn, pitiless as a snake, whose blood ran like ice water, whose soft voice pronounced doom on anybody who got in his way. Quinn, the essence of darkness, who struck fear into the hearts of humans and Night People alike.
And just at the moment, he was tired.
Tired and cold. There was a kind of bleakness inside him, like a winter that would never change into spring.
He had no idea what to do about it—although it had occurred to him that if he were to jump into the bay and let those dark waters close over his head, and then stay down there for a few days without feeding… well, all his problems would be solved, wouldn’t they?
But that was ridiculous. He was Quinn. Nothing could touch him. The bleak feeling would go away eventually.
He pulled himself out of his reverie, turning away from the shimmering blackness of the bay. Maybe he should go to the warehouse in Mission Hill, check on its inhabitants. He needed something to do, to keep him from thinking.
Quinn smiled, knowing it was a smile to frighten children. He set off for Boston.
Rashel sat by the window, but not the way ordinary people sit. She was kneeling in a sort of crouch, weight resting on her left leg, right leg bent and pointing forward. It was a position that allowed for swift and unrestricted movement in any direction. Her bokken was beside her; she could spring and draw at a second’s notice.
The abandoned building was quiet. Steve and Vicky were outside, scouting the street. Nyala seemed lost in her own thoughts.
Suddenly Nyala reached out and touched the bokken’s sheath. “What’s this?”
“Hm? Oh, it’s a kind of Japanese sword. They use wooden swords for fencing practice because steel would be too dangerous. But it can actually be lethal even to humans. It’s weighted and balanced just like a steel sword.” She pulled the sword out of the sheath and turned the flashlight on it so Nyala could see the satiny green-black wood.
Nyala drew in her breath and touched the graceful curve lightly. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s made of lignum vitae: the Wood of Life. That’s the hardest and heaviest wood there is—it’s as dense as iron. I had it carved specially, just for me.”
“And you use it to kill vampires.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve killed a lot.”
“Yes.” Rashel slid the sword back into its sheath.
“Good,” Nyala said with a throb in her voice. She turned to stare at the street. She had a small queenly head, with hair piled on the back like Nefertiti’s crown. When she turned back to Rashel, her voice was quiet. “How did you get into all this in the first place? I mean, you seem to know so much. How did you learn it all?”
Rashel laughed. “Bit by bit,” she said briefly. She didn’t like to talk about it. “But I started like you. I saw one of them kill my mom when I was five. After that, I tried to learn everything I could about vampires, so I could fight them. And I told the story at every foster home I lived in, and finally I found some people who believed me. They were vampire hunters. They taught me a lot.”
Nyala looked ashamed and disgusted. “I’m so stupid—I haven’t done anything like that. I wouldn’t even have known about the Lancers if Elliot hadn’t called me. He saw the article in the paper about my sister and guessed it might have been a vampire killing. But I’d never have found them on my own.”
“You just didn’t have enough time.”
“No. I think it takes a special kind of person. But now that I know how to fight them, I’m going to do it.” Her voice was tight and shaky, and Rashel glanced at her quickly. There was something unstable just under the surface of this girl. “Nobody knows which of them killed my sister, so I just figure I’ll get as many of them as I can. I want to—”
“Quiet!” Rashel hissed the word and put a hand over Nyala’s mouth at the same instant. Nyala froze.
Rashel sat tensely, listening, then got up like a spring uncoiling and put her head out the window. She listened for another moment, then caught up her scarf and veiled her face with practiced movements. “Grab your ski mask and come on.”
“What is it?”
“You’re going to get your wish—right now. There’s a fight down there. Stay behind me… and don’t forget your mask.”
Nyala didn’t need to ask about that, she noticed. It was the first thing any vampire hunter learned. If you were recognized and the vampire got away… well; it was all over. The Night People would search until they found you, then strike when you least expected it.
With Nyala behind her, Rashel ran lightly down the stairs and around to the street.
The sounds were coming from a pool of darkness beside one of the warehouses, far from the nearest streetlight. As Rashel reached the place, she could make out the forms of Steve and Vicky, their faces masked, their clubs in their hands. They were struggling with another form.
Oh, for God’s sake, Rashel thought, stopping dead.
One other form. The two of them, armed with wood and lying in ambush, couldn’t handle one little vampire by themselves? From the racket, she’d thought they must have been surprised by a whole army.
But this vampire seemed to be putting up quite a fight—in fact, he was clearly winning. Throwing his attackers around with supernatural strength, just as if they were ordinary humans and not fearless vampire slayers. He seemed to be enjoying it.
“We’ve got to help them!” Nyala hissed in Rashel’s ear.
“Yeah,” Rashel said joylessly. She sighed. “Wait here; I’m going to bonk him on the head.”
It wasn’t quite that easy. Rashel got behind the vampire without trouble; he was preoccupied with the other two and arrogant enough to be careless. But then she had a problem.
Her bokken, the honorable sword of a warrior, had one purpose: to deliver a clean blow capable of killing instantly. She couldn’t bring herself to whack somebody unconscious with it.
It wasn’t that she didn’t have other weapons. She had plenty—back at home in Marblehead. All the tools of a ninja, and some the ninja had never heard of. And she knew some extremely dirty methods of fighting. She could break bones and crush tendons; she could peel an enemy’s trachea out of his neck with her bare hands or drive his ribs into his lungs with her feet.
But those were desperate measures, to be used as a last resort when her own life was at stake and the opposition was overwhelming. She simply couldn’t do that to a single enemy when she had the jump on him.
Just then the single enemy threw Steve into a wall, where he landed with a muffled “oof.” Rashel felt sorry for him, but it solved her dilemma. She grabbed the oak club Steve had been holding as it rolled across the concrete. Then she circled nimbly as the vampire turned, trying to face her. At that instant Nyala threw herself into the fight, creating a distraction, and Rashel did what she’d said she would. She bonked the vampire on the head, driving the club like a home runner’s swing with the force of her hips.
The vampire cried out and fell down motionless.
Rashel raised the club again, watching him. Then she lowered it, looking at Steve and Vicky. “You guys okay?”
Vicky nodded stiffly. She was trying to get her breath. “He surprised us,” she said.
Rashel didn’t answer. She was very unhappy, and her feeling of being in top form tonight had completely evaporated. This had been the most undignified fight she’d seen in a long while, and…
… and it bothered her, the way the vampire had cried out as he fell. She couldn’t explain why, but it had.
Steve picked himself up. “He shouldn’t have been able to surprise us,” he said. “That was our fault.”
Rashel glanced at him. It was true. In this business, you were either ready all the time, expecting the unexpected at any moment, or you were dead.
“He was just good,” Vicky said shortly. “Come o
n, let’s get him out of here before somebody sees us. There’s a cellar in the other building.”
Rashel took hold of the vampire’s feet while Steve grabbed his shoulders. He wasn’t very big, about Rashel’s height and compact. He looked young, about Rashel’s age.
Which meant nothing, she reminded herself. A parasite could be a thousand and still look young. They gained eternal life from other people’s blood.
She and Steve carried their burden down the stairs into a large dank room that smelled of damp rot and mildew. They dropped him on the cold concrete floor and Rashel straightened to ease her back.
“Okay. Now let’s see what he looks like,” Vicky said, and turned her flashlight on him.
The vampire was pale, and his black hair looked even blacker against his white skin. His eyelashes were dark on his cheek. A little blood matted his hair in the back.
“I don’t think he’s the same one Elliot and I saw last night. That one looked bigger,” Vicky said.
Nyala pressed forward, staring at her very first captive vampire. “What difference does it make? He’s one of them, right? Nobody human could have thrown Steve like that. He might even be the one who killed my sister. And he’s ours now.” She smiled down, looking almost like someone in love. “You’re ours,” she said to the unconscious boy on the floor. “Just you wait.”
Steve rubbed his shoulder where it had hit the wall. All he said was “Yeah,” but his smile wasn’t nice.
“I only hope he doesn’t die soon,” Vicky said, examining the pale face critically. “You hit him pretty hard.”
“He’s not going to die,” Rashel said. “In fact, he’ll probably wake up in a few minutes. And we’d better hope he’s not one of the really powerful telepaths.”
Nyala looked up sharply. “What?”
“Oh—all vampires are telepathic,” Rashel said absently. “But there’s a big range as to how powerful they are. Most of them can only communicate over a short distance—like within the same house, say. But a few are a lot stronger.”
