Hell's Warrior

by Jaye Roycraft

  “Ursa Minor,” she said. “And below that, Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Callisto was changed into a bear by one of the Gods. Some say it was Artemis, but personally I think Zeus did it.”

  He smiled. Not many, man or woman, knew the constellations. “Bravo, madam. You know your stars.”

  She gave him a Mona Lisa smile in return. “I come here often. The stars give me comfort. Their grandeur renders my problems trivial. Is that how it is with you?”

  She was as bold as he in inviting further conversation. “For me it’s the constancy of the stars. They remind me that there is strength in steadiness, if one can only be patient.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I never thought about it that way.”

  “Pardon my saying so, madam, but it’s not safe for a woman alone to be out this late.”

  Her smile grew, and the jet beads on the yoke of her bodice sparkled in the moonlight, a match for the glint in her eyes. “I carry no money, and I’m beyond caring about reputation or what the wags say. I have a carriage waiting just outside the park. And, I might add, you’re the only man who’s ever been brazen enough to engage me.”

  “Then perhaps you should fear me.”

  “Perhaps I should.”

  He inclined his head to her. “Allow me to introduce myself. Che Kincade.”

  Her gaze studied his face. “What an unusual name. Mrs. Malebisse.” She held out a gloved hand.

  Married, of course. “My great pleasure, madam.” He took her hand and brushed his lips over the fabric. “And far too brief. I’ll take my leave. No doubt your husband awaits your company.” It wouldn’t serve him to trifle with the wife of an obviously wealthy man.

  “You needn’t leave. I’m a widow.”

  “I’m sorry.” He had to suppress a smile to mouth the words of condolence.

  “Thank you,” she replied.

  He reached his mind to hers and felt the same proper lie in her words as had been in his. Her truth was close to the surface, though. With just a little encouragement, he was willing to bet she’d show him her true feelings. “Shall we stroll a while?” he asked.

  “Yes, let’s. I declare Honest Abe is staring right at me.”

  That made two of them. He suspected she was a rare beauty beneath the cocoon of fabric covering her.

  They ambled up the path side by side, but not touching. “So, Mr. Kincade, are you a visitor to Chicago? Here for the exposition?”

  He could hear the curiosity just behind the casual questions. He smiled. Curiosity directed his way from strangers was nothing new. Everyone always wanted to know what he was and where he was from. All that ever differed was the veil behind which the interest stared.

  “No, I’ve lived in Chicago a very long time,” he replied, knowing his answer wouldn’t appease her inquisitiveness about his origins. It seemed humans always wanted to put a label to his face. Over the years mortals had guessed him to be from Mexico, South America, India, and even Egypt. It was one of his amusements to either satisfy the party’s thirst for knowledge or leave them dangling in the air of uncertainty. It all depended on his mood and whether or not he felt any liking for his inquisitor.

  “I see,” she said, and he knew she didn’t see at all. She was silent for a moment, and he could almost hear her curious mind grinding away beneath her huge hat, trying to find another veil of civility to cloak her itch. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “It was wrong of me to assume you’re foreign-born. I’m sure you get very tired of people asking you where you’re from.”

  That surprised him. People seldom apologized for their prying. “Not at all. I’m amused by the never-ending curiosity of the human race.” He could feel the heat of her flushed skin from three feet away. Her heat made him hard, but he’d only made her uncomfortable, and this time he was not amused. This one he did not want uncomfortable. “Curiosity is not an evil, madam. Without it we would not have our glorious exposition.” The World’s Columbian Exposition, a city within the city with thousands of exhibits of industrial and artistic wonders, was a testament to the unabashed virility and brazenness of his city. “Am I not right?”

  She smiled, and he felt her embarrassment cool. “You are. Chicagoans do love to gawk. Or be gawked at.”

  He suddenly wanted very much to satisfy her, in every respect. “I was born ninety miles west of here. My mother was a full-blooded Indian.” He seldom revealed his true origins to anyone, mortal or undead, but he sensed such an overpowering honesty behind her mask of decorum that it seemed his only response.

  She turned her head to appraise him anew, and he saw the glints of light in her eyes shift, proof she was studying him up and down. “Truly?”

  No doubt her image of Indians had been formed, like everyone else’s, from news stories of the recent plights of Indians in the west—those who’d forged the glamorous and tragic frontier history. His own Illinois people were forgotten, and their descendants, now in Oklahoma, were nothing more than spectators in the drama of the American west. And he himself was just as far removed from the progeny of his people as they were from the public consciousness. Could she or anyone ever understand that? He doubted it.

  “Truly,” he answered. It wasn’t a lie, but it would feed her misconceptions. For that he was sorry, but he didn’t know how else to answer her. The real truth could not be spoken.

  “Ah. The legend of the Little Dipper and the Indians. I failed to make the connection.”

  He shook his head. “The story was not a puzzle to be unlocked, madam, and neither am I. Ask whatever questions you wish of me, and do not fear of giving offense.” He halted, and in doing so, she did the same, looking to him for direction. He took the opportunity to touch her mind with the lightest of force and compelled her to speak the truth he knew she wanted to give.

  “Were you educated here?” she asked as they resumed their stroll.

  “Not formally. Many have contributed to my education, including those forces greater than man.”

  She turned her head and cocked her hat away from him, giving him a moonlit view of her cheek and neck, held slender and straight above the high collar of her suit. The scent and sight of her flesh stirred his quite painfully. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have women. He had his pick of the Levee whores. Chicago had thousands of hookers, and Cade had found them to be more than just an energetic bunch—they were accommodating and creative to a fault. He’d found that any act the mind could imagine, the body could, and would, do—for a price. Men could have men, women, both at once, or men impersonating women—any race, creed or color—and even the addition of animals to the act was not rare. It was a gladiatorial circus second only to Rome, and he and his kind made sure that blood was not lacking in Chicago’s coliseum.

  White slavers populated the woodwork of Chicago’s seamier districts, and Cade knew all of them. He often had first pick of the new imports, teen-aged girls plucked ripe from cities around the world. If such girls disappeared or were found floating in the river, no one cared. As long as there was an unobstructed flow of money, there was a flow of new flesh. But as hard and frequently as he violated the flesh of such women, dawn found him sated but not satisfied. He’d long wanted more, but he didn’t know what until now.

  It wasn’t that this Mrs. Malebisse was wealthy or cultured or beyond his place in the social stratum. She was in no way untouchable, for he could have her any time he wanted her. It was simply that he wanted her to want him. Not like the whores wanted him. They saw his exotic looks and his money and little else. No, he wanted Mrs. Malebisse to know him and want him.

  “Nature. The heavens. The land and all its wild inhabitants. These things have taught me as much as man has.”

  “And what have they taught you?”

  “Harsh lessons. Rules of survival. To be patient. Cautious. Strong. To take nothing for granted.”
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br />   “For one so young you describe a hard life.”

  “Life is sweet, madam. It is living that is hard. And I’m not so young as you think.”

  Her smile told him she digested his last sentence with quite a few grains of salt. “And what do you do, Mr. Kincade?”

  “I own a number of businesses.”

  “What kind of businesses?”

  He hesitated in answering, for there were few euphemisms for what he did that would not offend a lady. “Gentlemen’s clubs.”

  “Ah.”

  The one word was sufficient to convey that she was no innocent debutante and that she knew that, at best, his clubs were gaming halls and at worst, opium dens or whore houses.

  “Do I affront your sensibilities, madam?”

  She stopped and turned to face him. “The wind has grown chilly. I think it time we turned back.”

  He inclined his head. “As you wish.” The breeze was no cooler, but she was. Still, he bided his time, saying nothing more. Fallen leaves swirled around their feet, and those still clinging to the branches above rustled faintly in the wind. In the light of the moon he could see the gold in the changing colors, pale strokes against the park’s dark canvas.

  “I suppose I should take offense at what you do. By ‘club’ I assume you mean a saloon or bordello. But in truth, if the late Mr. Malebisse would have frequented such establishments perhaps I should have had some peace.”

  Such talk of one’s dearly departed spouse to a stranger smacked of impropriety, if not scandal, and Cade wondered if she would be quite so loose-tongued without the encouragement of his compelling eyes. But the true scandal was that any man would be such a fool as to leave a woman like this so unsatisfied as to wish him in another woman’s arms.

  “And is that what you seek, madam? Peace?”

  They returned to the Standing Lincoln statute, and she gazed at him for a long moment, as if he were the stars above and could send her heavenly comfort.

  “I have my peace now, most days. I wonder if it’s enough. I think not.”

  “And what more would you have?” he whispered.

  “Things that frighten me. That makes no sense, does it?”

  He understood all too well. His entire existence had been one of embracing that which would have terrified most men. She wanted him. She just didn’t realize it yet.

  Chapter Eighteen

  CADE PULLED ONTO their street at midnight, but instead of parking in front of the safe house, he parked at the end of the block. If someone did spot the car, they wouldn’t know which house was theirs.

  The night air had congealed into a chilled mass of humidity that made it hard to breathe and harder to see, and though he hadn’t seen lazy-eye after leaving the university parking lot, he felt the tail out there, and not far away.

  “Are we safe?” asked Red, jogging to the front door as fast as the wet sidewalk would allow.

  “For now,” he answered, opening the door and pulling her inside. He checked the house quickly, but there was no vampire or mortal scent save their own. He found Red in the kitchen making a sandwich.

  “Stay here. I’m going to make sure the block is clear.”

  She dropped the bread and grabbed his sleeve. “No, Cade, don’t leave me here. Let me come with you.”

  “I can’t. You’ll be safe here, I promise. Whoever is out there wants me, not you.”

  She bounced up and down, gripping his arm like a life preserver. “No, please . . .”

  He shook his head and detached her clinging fingers. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Have something to eat and relax.” He pulled his phone from its clip and placed it on the counter. “If something should happen, call Thor. He’ll take care of you.”

  She huffed and stomped a booted foot like an angry child. She could protest all she wanted as long as she didn’t try to do something stupid like follow him. He was still dressed in black and still wore Gravedigger, so there was nothing more to do but put on his black duster and slip out the back door, shutting it quietly behind him. He drew deeply of the saturated air, closing his eyes and letting his senses feed him the sounds and smells of the city night. A dog barked a block away. A second answered with a melancholy howl. Farther off, a siren wailed.

  He opened his eyes and trotted toward the alley. The outdoors was his turf. He’d lived and hunted in the wilderness for more than a hundred years, and in weather far worse than this. He knew the art of blood sport better than anyone in this city. This was no exception. The only difference was that this blood was to be spilt, not swallowed.

  He crept along the alley, still stretching out his senses. The alley was clean and free of refuse, yet the air had a putrid smell. Instead of having a cleansing effect, the heavy rain had oiled the city. A glaze covered everything, and with it came the stench of rotting garbage and human waste. Most likely a sewer had overflowed somewhere, but the odor was pervasive.

  The scent of a vampire, on the other hand, was a subtle one, like that of an abandoned house or dried bones—any place from which life had long fled. Yet it wasn’t merely the odor of disuse or abandonment, and it wasn’t the smell of death. It was a coppery smell, inorganic and organic at the same time, life and death and neither.

  Nothing yet . . . At the end of the alley he slipped Gravedigger from its sheath, and the long blade glinted in the diffuse light of the street lamps. Cade dropped his arm so that the blade pointed downward, and he carried the weapon so that it was hidden in the folds of his long coat. He crossed to the odd-numbered side of the street and entered the mouth of the alley behind those houses. He wormed his way among the shadows and listened. Errant pellets of rainwater fell from electrical wires and hit the concrete with a soft plash, and the sound was like an animal lapping at water.

  Then his nostrils caught it—the scent of a vampire, sharpened by the rain to a tang reminiscent of rust and blood. His prey was within a block, probably in this very alley, but the scent could tell him no more. It couldn’t tell him age, beyond the fact that his quarry was a master, and it couldn’t convey intent, skill, or what kind of weapon his prey carried. The undead in general disdained guns and Claws, seeing them as mortal weapons and therefore beneath them, and the Claws also carried the stigma of the Brothers of the Sun. But professionals by nature felt no stigmata, and at that thought sweat trickled down Cade’s spine, as oily as the stench that bathed the city. If his prey was Clawed, he’d have little chance of success, for his own scent precluded any element of surprise on his part.

  Yet there was nothing to do but press on. He was doyen, not some suckling on his virgin hunt, and he would not show fear. He abandoned his shadow creeping and strode down the center of the alley. His fingers gripped the coffin handle of Gravedigger with practiced ease, and he embraced his destiny without fear. The alley was a T-alley, and as he approached the intersection, he knew his prey waited. He took a deep breath and made the plunge, rounding the blind corner with an undiminished stride.

  A figure stood before him, average in height, wearing a knee-length leather coat and boots with toes as narrow and pointed as stilettos. The man’s dark hair was tied back behind his head, his eyes were dark against the pallor of his skin, and his legs were spread wide in a stance of challenge. Cade halted, and the vampire slowly reached behind his shoulders and drew twin daggers from a back sheath. They were elegant weapons, not as heavy as his Bowie, but narrow and sharpened on both sides of the blades. He would not underestimate their deadliness or the skill of their master.

  “Kincade,” acknowledged the vampire.

  Cade nodded. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,” he answered.

  “Ryder.”

  “Was it you who tailed me tonight?”

  Ryder nodded.

  “My compliments.”

  “Thank you.”

  �
��Whose bitch are you?”

  Ryder raised one dagger and flicked the tip back and forth, as one would waggle a finger at a child to say “no.”

  But Cade was no child. He’d had a knife in his hands since before he could walk.

  It didn’t matter. This would be no drawn-out duel, but who could deal a killing blow first. Cade bladed his body, leading with his right foot and Gravedigger in his right hand, at the same time protecting his left side and his heart. He waited for Ryder to make the first move.

  It came quickly in a flurry of slashes so intricate and rapid as to appear choreographed for a fight scene in a movie. Cade instinctively danced out of harm’s way, still protecting his left side, parrying what blows he could with Gravedigger, but his right arm warded off as many of the thrusts as his weapon did. His sleeve was in shreds, and blood ran down the tatters of shorn cloth to drip and disappear into the rain puddles. He felt no pain, though he assumed some, if not all, of the cuts were deep. It wasn’t that vampires were impervious to pain, but as was the case with mortals, stress had a way of triggering all sorts of marvelous defense mechanisms in the body to allow it to continue the fight. Whatever God of Darkness was responsible for creating undead flesh had done an especially fine job of ensuring survival of the race. Still, Cade wished this particular vampire well and truly dead.

  “Why are you here?” Cade expected no answer, but perhaps the question would distract his opponent enough to make a difference.

  “Isn’t it obvious? Someone wants you dead.” Ryder spoke very slowly, and the daggers flashed in the air as he addressed Cade. One dagger pointed at Cade’s chest at the word “you,” and the other made a slashing motion across Ryder’s neck at “dead.” It was as if he were spelling out his words in a macabre sign language to a deaf foe.

  Cade understood killing. He understood killing for survival, killing for revenge, even for mere lust. He knew the cloak of power and how killing was an integral part of the cloth, so much so that without it, dominance unravels into defeat. But Cade didn’t understand this. This was the lowest kind of prostitution, the selling of death for money, without regard for the consequence of the outcome.