The Chronicles of a Vampire Hunter (Book 1): Red Ashes

by Justin A. Moore

  I finished my burger and went to the bathroom to freshen up, then threw on some fresh clothes and my jacket. I made sure to carry my .45 in my holster, just in case. I also tucked a long double-edged fighting knife into my belt; the sheath was designed to be flipped so the knife could be carried inside of the pant leg, so I tucked it away. Never know when you might need a holdout. I felt completely fresh, and my body was no longer stiff. My skin had even reacquired a lot of the fullness that it had lost. It felt like a great time to get back to work. I went out into the living room and grabbed one of the bags of burgers, tearing into it as I stood there.

  “Ready when you are.” I mumbled with my mouth full, accidentally spraying a few crumbs onto the carpet. Lily favored me with a smile and jumped up.

  “John, about yesterday… It was wrong of me—” She began as her smile faded somewhat and she stepped closer to me.

  “Let’s forget about it. Let’s just put everything that happened yesterday behind us. I don’t think I can talk about any of it right now.” I said, almost choking on my burger as I struggled to get the words out. I really didn’t want to think of her as some kind of ravenous murdering monster—even though, to be fair, what she’d done had saved my life. It was already hard to put my trust in this young-looking yet ancient woman without having to worry that she was the only help I had, and that she could potentially rip my throat out at the drop of a hat.

  She seemed to understand and nodded. We stood there looking at each other for a few seconds, and I found myself fighting the urge to chew so that I wouldn’t look like an idiot. She suddenly smiled at me and dangled my uncle’s set of keys in front of my face for an instant before snatching them back into her pocket and grinning at me.

  “Let’s get a move on then, piggy.” She said, and walked a little too fast out of the suite. I couldn’t help but feel like her cheerful demeanor was a bit forced, but there was nothing I could do about it right now. We could sort out our problems once we rescued my uncle.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Lily drove while I stuffed my face. I lost count of the cheeseburgers I’d eaten, and once I’d finished eating my jaw was a little sore and my stomach distended almost cartoonishly. Still, though, I was satisfied. I lost track of where we were going, but the neighborhood we eventually made our way to wasn’t exactly friendly looking. Eventually she pulled into the driveway of a bright green single story house with a thick and very nearly overgrown lawn. Flowers of various shapes and sizes bloomed along the chain link fence that surrounded the property, and as we got out of the Charger I saw through a gap in the fence that the obtrusively green scenario was the same in the back yard. The whole place seemed incandescent in the dim glow of night-time city lights which reflected starkly off of the yellow brick path that lead up to the front door.

  “Emerald city, huh? Cute, just missing a scarecrow.” I said, and Lily giggled and put her arm through mine and marched me up to the front door, knocking sharply three times. A female voice shouted from within the house.

  “Just a second!” The voice had a strangely commanding yet hurried quality to it. I expected to see a disheveled round-faced woman wearing an apron and smelling of baked goods to open the door and pushing eager children back behind her to keep them from rushing out the door in classic motherly fashion—I couldn’t have been further off.

  A tall woman who appeared to be in her early thirties opened the door and beamed brightly first at Lily, then at me, showing perfectly straight teeth that were just a touch on the large side. Her hair hung in a gigantic coiled braid down to her waist, and had the color and sheen of hammered silver. I was struck by this dramatic contrast as I took in the other details of her appearance. She was wearing a low cut black tank-top that showed a generous portion of lithe stomach and not-quite-sharp hips, as well as exposing a similar portion of cleavage from breasts that were neither too big nor small, within which I guiltily glimpsed a small, gleaming, silver locket. She also wore what looked like loosely fitting army surplus camouflage pants, and was barefoot. Her finger and toenails were painted alternatingly black and red, in stark contrast with her light caramel colored skin which grew starkly cream-pale as tan lines exposed themselves when she moved. Her eyes were the vibrant and healthy dark green color of an evergreen forest, and were full of apparent joy. All in all, a beautiful yet strange, otherworldly looking woman. I stress otherworldly because there was definitely something off about her—the light seemed to bend ever so slightly to land on her rather than fall into its normal place, and for a moment I sensed the strange pressure of concentrated supernatural energy that I normally felt when Lily used her compulsion or my uncle turned up his own brand of power.

  “Lily! I’m so glad you called!” The woman said, rushing forward and picking Lily up off the ground in a wild embrace that took me by surprise. Lily giggled girlishly as the woman planted kisses on her cheeks and I fidgeted uncomfortably next to them, wondering if I should clear my throat. After a few seconds the woman set Lily down and turned to me.

  “John, meet Hazel Oakwood.” Lily said with a sweeping gesture. I held out my hand.

  “Nice to m—” I began before Hazel wrapped her arms around me and squeezed the air from my lungs in a ferociously strong embrace and planted firm kisses on my cheeks in similar fashion, though she didn’t quite lift me off my feet. After a moment she released me, and I was pretty sure my face was flushed with the blood that had been squeezed up into it.

  “John! I’ve heard so much about you!” She exclaimed with an odd amount of enthusiasm. “Won’t you both please come in?”

  I made the chauvinistic “after you” gesture to Lily and watched as she followed Hazel back into the house. I followed them in, escaping the cool night air and finding myself almost smothered by the warm and strangely sweet smelling home as I closed the door behind me. The living room was conspicuously spacious, almost seeming too large to fit in the house. Every stick of furniture in the living room looked to be hand-crafted and polished. Oddly braided wood made up most of the framing, as if it had grown in that form, and each couch and chair was adorned with lush cushions of every color. Pentacles decorated every table, and on closer inspection were even carved into the furniture along with various twisting and strange looking runes. Bundles of feathers and dried herbs hung around the walls, and little cloth sachets rested in each corner of the room. Everything else was colored in varying shades of green, from the carpet to the paint used on the walls. Really, it didn’t take a huge mental leap for me to realize that I was standing in a witch’s house.

  “Please sit! I’ll get you some tea.” Hazel said, rushing out of the room. I sat on a couch and sank deep into the lush cushions, and the woven wood flexed gently under my weight. Lily sat next to me, and pressed against me as she kicked her feet in giddy excitement. I was somewhat put off by the overwhelming strangeness of the house in combination with the apparent glee pouring off of Lily.

  “Oh, you’re just going to love Hazel. She’s so much fun.” Lily said, grinning widely.

  “I didn’t figure we’d be making a social call to a witch.” I said, trying my best to sound dour even though the energy infusing the place made it impossible to actually be grumpy. I found myself smiling after a few seconds, and Hazel rushed back into the room carrying two delicate cups of steaming tea. Lily accepted hers gratefully and I followed suit.

  “How did you know?” Lily asked.

  “Hanging herbs, pentacles on every surface—doesn’t take a genius.” I said and then looked at Hazel. “This isn’t going to turn me into a toad, is it?”

  “Oh, you’ve already guessed, I see. No, my dear, but you may feel jittery if you have too much.” Hazel said with a knowing smile. I shrugged and took her word for it after the briefest hesitation—not because I thought it might be poisoned or anything like that, but because it was hot in the extreme. The tea had a heady aroma to it; heavy with the scent of mint and other more pungent tones. I blew on it and then carefully took a sip, and
it was unlike any tea I’d ever had. I could tell there was no sugar in it, but it tasted sweet and spicy, and it somehow made me want to giggle.

  “Wow, this is really good.” I said, genuinely impressed.

  “Thank you so much, we grow all of the herbs here in our garden, out back. Oh! That reminds me.” Hazel turned her head and shouted into the hallway. “We have company!”

  After that she pulled a chair across from Lily and me and pushed the coffee table closer to us. I noticed that the coffee table was made of the same woven wood with a brass pentacle somehow embedded into the glass tabletop that the wood was tangled around. As she finished, I heard the sound of a door shut in another room and a second woman came walking in with a sour look on her face that immediately brightened when she saw Lily.

  The woman had a tangled mane of auburn dreadlocks, and the color of her skin and shape of her face told me she was of Hispanic descent, though she was even darker from time spent in the sun. Her eyes were a rich brown color, and her fingernails were cut short and unpainted, but still managed to have the tiniest bit of dirt tucked under and around them. She wore a t-shirt that had once been white, but I assumed had turned gray as the result of years of washing and regular abuse. Her jeans were torn and slightly marked by dirt, completing the image of either a competent gardener or vagrant. She was just barely taller than Lily, and had broad and powerful looking shoulders and arms. I saw that her feet were bare like Hazels, though they were dirty like her jeans.

  “Lily! When did you get back into town?” The woman asked and rushed forward, dodging the coffee table and embracing Lily and pinning her deeper into the couch next to me, causing me to, likewise, sink deeper. Now that she was close I noticed that she smelled strange, but not unpleasant. She smelt like flowers left to dry in the sun along with the fresh hint of salty sweat that hadn’t yet begun to grow offensive. There was also some kind of thick and almost greasy odor to her that made me think of wild animals. She pulled back after a moment and looked at me, and her expression turned sour again. “Who’s this?”

  “Uh…” I responded.

  Lily laughed and put her hand on my shoulder. “Cassandra, meet John Magnus.”

  Cassandra’s eyes went wide and bored into mine with vicious intensity, as if she was somehow trying to see the back of my skull through the sheer force of her stare. “Magnus? As in Ignatius Magnus? As in Clan Magnus, notorious monster hunters?” Her voice was a bit deeper than I’d expected, but still quite feminine—and dangerously so. She sounded surprised and skeptical—actually she sounded borderline furious, to be honest.

  “That’s the one, I guess.” I said, feeling somewhat exposed and uncomfortable.

  Cassandra smirked and then pressed me into the couch in an embrace similar to the one she had just given Lily, nearly knocking my teacup from my hands. She buried her face in my neck and breathed deeply, and I felt extremely awkward until her scent overwhelmed me and I found myself almost mimicking her. There was something alluring and earthy about it that I just couldn’t place. After a moment she pulled back and smiled brightly at me, and I noticed that her teeth seemed unusually but not dramatically sharp and were very brightly white.

  “Nice to meet you, John. Call me Cassie.” She said, and hauled a chair over next to Hazel, who was silently laughing into her hand.

  I grinned, feeling not so much uncomfortable as silly, as if these three women were privy to a lot more information about me than I about them. “Nice to meet you too, Cassie.”

  “John,” Lily said, with a wicked note. “Hazel and Cassie are married.”

  “What?” I said before I could stop myself. I knew immediately that Lily had said it to evoke that exact reaction. She grinned devilishly at me, her tiny razor fangs glinting brightly. Hazel laughed, and Cassie crossed her arms and cocked her head at me.

  “Oh, we know it’s unconventional, but we couldn’t help ourselves.” Hazel said and grabbed one of Cassie’s hands.

  “W…what’s unconventional about it?” I stammered, and had the sinking feeling in my stomach as if I was somehow falling into an inescapable pit of quicksand.

  “Well, it’s not every day you see a witch hand-fasted to a werewolf.” Hazel said, her eyes twinkling. I gulped noticeably and looked back and forth between Cassie and Hazel. All the pieces fell into place like a ton of bricks falling around me, and suddenly I felt very foolish as if these were facts I should have known at a glance.

  “That’s not what I meant, I mean, it’s not… aw hell.” I said as Cassie leaned forward and the smile faded from Hazel’s lips.

  “Is it because we’re both women, then?” Cassie said with a growl in her voice.

  “How could you, John?!” Lily asked, her expression one of shock bordering on outrage.

  “Young man,” Hazel said, her voice even and frighteningly calm. “Do you have a problem with two women loving each other?” She asked as her eyes focused on me like twin lasers.

  “No! Not at all! I just, jeez, I mean… Damnit, can’t we just start over?” I said, flabbergasted and feeling deeply embarrassed. I felt my face begin to burn.

  All three women stared at me in silence for a few seconds longer, and then burst into simultaneous bouts of tinkling—or boisterous, in Cassie’s case—laughter that dragged on for what seemed like minutes. I waited for a moment and breathed a sigh of relief, risking a smile when I was sure another joke at my expense was just a moment away.

  “Just like his uncle.” Cassie said when she’d finished laughing.

  “Mm, not quite. Ignatius wasn’t nearly as abashed. What were his exact words?” Hazel asked.

  “Oh, right!” Cassie said. “Holy shit, women are getting married now? Damn, times are changin’ fast. I feel old.” She made her voice deep and gravelly, with a highly exaggerated country twang.

  “He didn’t mean it ‘like that’ either, John. His ears went very nearly as red as yours.” Hazel said, grinning widely. “That was almost fifty years ago, I believe. The sixties were such wonderful years.”

  Lily poked me playfully in the ribs, and I couldn’t help but chuckle as the tension left me. A joke played on me by some women I’d just met? Sure, I could take it.

  “Now then, Lily told me over the phone your uncle is in a bit of a predicament.” Hazel said, leaning back and tucking a long leg up to her chest and clasping her hands around it. “How can we help?”

  “Thanatos snatched him up when he was taking John on a raid. John’s spent the last two days recovering.” Lily said. I was grateful that she was deliberately vague on the details of the last two days.

  “Holy shit, big daddy himself huh?” Cassie said and then whistled, tilting her chair back. “How did it happen?”

  “We’d caught a vampire a couple days before and he gave us the location of a nest before we staked him. Turns out it was a trap, and my uncle stayed behind to hold them off while I ran.”

  Hazel pursed her lips and looked me over slowly. “Must not have caught them all, you look quite torn up.”

  “What? I feel fine.” I said, looking myself over.

  “Oh, physically you’re in near-perfect health, but you must have abused your power when you fought your way home. Am I correct?”

  I furrowed my brow. “Yeah, how can you tell?”

  “Your aura is scarred, torn in the same way an overworked muscle would be—it takes time to recover from such exertion. But your uncle, he’s been captive for two days? We have more time than one would guess, but still not much.” She said gravely, her gaze going distant as she thought. I nodded and the stared off into a corner of the room as well for a moment. “I think we’ll be able to help, but it won’t be easy.” Hazel said after a few seconds. “We can try to find him. If Thanatos himself isn’t running interference, then it should be a snap.” She smiled at me and I felt a knot that had worked itself into my chest over the last two days gradually loosen with the good news.

  “What do we have to do?” I asked.

  “Oh,
we’ll perform a little ritual here to track him down. All four of us will need to participate and form the circle, since neither of you are witches. It would have been handy if you’d spent a year or so here under my tutelage, Lily. There would be no need for this ritual.”

  Lily turned up her nose. “I’m a wanderer,” She said, feigning contempt. “I’ll never settle in one place just so I can learn a few tricks.”

  “Oh, but that’s just the start.” Hazel said. “Once you get the tricks down, I could teach you to turn people into toads! Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  Cassie rolled her eyes as Hazel and Lily shared a laugh, privy to some kind of private joke. I resisted the urge to mirror Cassie’s sentiment.

  “Hazel, why don’t you just come with us?” I asked, breaking up the giggle party.

  “I’m afraid it wouldn’t be my place, sweetheart.” Hazel said, giving me a friendly but somewhat unhappy look. “If I went with you to fight those vampires, their retaliation would be much heavier against me than it would against you. I am not a hunter, John, but at least I can help you this much in finding your uncle.”

  “Right, sorry.” I said.

  “Not that I wouldn’t love to get my hands on some vampires and rip ‘em up.” Cassie said with a throaty snarl that made Lily’s eyes widen. Cassie gave Lily a toothy grin and a wink. “Not you, honey.” That made me chuckle as Hazel stood and stretched, yawning widely. I was reminded that these ladies were probably up past their bedtime to see us. My sleep schedule was thoroughly ruined.

  “Cassie, will you take Lily and prepare the room for the ritual? John and I are going to go pick the herbs from the garden.” Hazel said, volunteering my help as assumed. Not that I’d complain, of course.

  “Sure thing babe, just don’t step on those aconite seedlings I just planted.” Cassie said. I got up and followed Hazel as Cassie and Lily got up and began clearing the center of the living room. Hazel led me through the kitchen, which looked much the same as a normal kitchen except for the bundles of herbs hung from various places along the walls and ceiling. We continued outside through a sliding glass door, and the back yard and I beamed in awe at the beauty of the place.