That concern was why my predator mind, usually a low, Sumerian chant in the back of my brain, had started speaking up: They’re not your kind. Do not enter their home.
I didn’t mention it to Jackson, because, really, who wants to be working with someone who hears voices? Our predator minds, I’d theorized, were an adaptation, meant to guard our existence. Even if they were based in magic or a satanic rite, what worked got passed on, and what didn’t died. Just like evolution. So while my lifeless heart didn’t beat faster at my predator mind’s warning, I still felt fear—my muscles tightened, my mouth dried, the blood in my stomach seeming to curdle.
If not for Jackson, I would never have come here. But he wanted to meet other vampire types, to get some intel, he’d said.
I’d spent a couple of weeks trolling Nightfallen forums on the Deep Web, the stuff that’s invisible to Google, everyone masked by proxies and other anonymizing software. There hadn’t been much activity on the Stoker forums. There weren’t that many Stokers in the first place, and of those, few bothered with something as nouveau as the Internet. I was surprised to find one had posted about a job right here in Echo Valley.
“That’s our in,” Jackson had said when I’d told him. Two nights later, here we were.
Attached to the left side of his belt was a tactical tomahawk—black steel to match its telescoping, carbon fiber handle. On his right was his gun. He checked his 1911 and then re-holstered it. His black coat was long enough to conceal both.
“A .45 round is going to be useless against a Stoker,” I said. “Nathan used to say that they were less corporeal than us. I don’t know if they even have bones for a bullet to break.”
He pulled on a black baseball cap, ARMY emblazoned in gold on it. “I can’t think of any time in my life when I regretted having the option to shoot something. Shall we?” he said, getting out of the jeep.
Pushing open rusting doors that squealed like children being tortured, we entered the foundry. Its ceiling soared above us like a cathedral, moonlight pouring through the high windows.
A series of gangways ringed the walls like a rib cage. The gangways led to offices that jutted here and there from the walls. It wasn’t hard to imagine managers and foremen surveying the floor from those offices’ now-dark windows.
Whoever had owned the foundry had removed everything of value when the place shut down. Aside from dust and bits of crumbling ceiling, the floor yawned before us. There was nowhere for the man standing at the floor’s center to hide.
“See him?” Jackson whispered, but the building’s emptiness managed to amplify his words.
“Of course,” I said. The young man standing there was as obvious to me as lit match in a darkened room. He held a shuttered lantern and wore a suit, though not one from this century. More like something Napoleon’s butler might wear.
Wearing antiquated clothing wasn’t unheard of among Nightfallen—how many had I met that hadn’t been able to let go of the time of their death?—but this man was clearly alive.
Although, it wasn’t clear for how much longer. In the healthy human, energy radiates off the body in licking waves, like flares from the sun. This man’s energy was weaker, sluggishly limping from him. He didn’t shine brightly like a healthy man would, but seemed more like an incandescent bulb during a brownout. He’d clearly been drained, slowly and over an extended period of time, making him markedly less appetizing.
“He’s a Renfield,” I said to Jackson. “One of the living that serves the damned.”
“That’s a good description of my relationship with her,” the man said. He opened his lantern, casting a soft, golden light that competed with the moon’s silver rays on his face. “Though she’s damned, as all the undead are, she is nothing like you.”
“Not sure I like your tone,” Jackson said, his steel-toe boots echoing like distant thunder as he crossed the cement floor. I followed.
“I’m not here to make you happy,” the man said. His eyes never blinked, never paused to shield the outside world from the insane fire that gleamed in them. “Whether you like my tone or not is irrelevant, Sergeant Wheel.”
The man was probably in his twenties, but his gauntness made him look older. With his long, brown hair and the holes in his ears where he’d once worn earrings, I guessed he had recently been a Ramsgate student—until something had found and warped him.
His frock coat hid most of it, but I could see the bruising peeking above his high collar—puncture wounds on the neck. Evidently Stoker saliva didn’t heal, a difference I hadn’t known about.
“How do you know my name?” Jackson asked.
“Your reputation precedes you. Killing someone’s sire is one of the damned’s few cardinal sins. You and Miss Weston are becoming known among all Nightfallen,” the Renfield said.
“If we’re willing to kill a sire, then you probably know we won’t have that big a problem killing a bootlicker like you,” Jackson said. “Where’s your mistress, or whatever freak pet name you have for her? The one that wanted to hire us.”
“Don’t mock her,” the Renfield said.
“I’m not here to talk to a puppet.”
“You’re not worthy to speak to her. You will address her through me!”
Jackson punched him in the stomach, and the Renfield collapsed instantly, the lantern falling to the ground with a hard metal clank. The lantern didn’t go out, though, shined on the man’s writhing face.
Normally, that would have made me smile, but I didn’t like the idea of what a Stoker might do if she found us damaging her property. “Jackson, don’t.”
He ignored me, and began shouting into the emptiness: “We’re here for business. And when we do business, we do it face-to-face. I want to talk to you, not your intern here.”
He waited a moment, listening for a response. There was nothing except the whimpering of the Renfield.
“Huh. Maybe no one else is home,” Jackson said.
“Then we’re lucky. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“What do we do with him?” Jackson said, gesturing to the Renfield.
“What do you think? Leave him,” I said.
I hadn’t known Jackson long, but I could guess what he was thinking: the guy has a family, is probably missing. Let’s bring him with us.
Jackson was a good fighter but not always a good spy. The problem, it seemed to me, was that, for all the violence he was capable of, inside Jackson Wheel was a good person. He didn’t realize it, but it held him back.
“I don’t know,” Jackson said. “Maybe we should bring him with us. As a hostage. Maybe then we’ll hear about the job.”
A voice echoed from above us: “You will do no such thing.”
We both looked up to one of the gangways and saw her.
She was tall, statuesque. She wasn’t looking at us but moving slowly along the metal gangway, more gliding than walking. She was in a white wedding dress that looked spectral in the streaming moonlight. The wedding dress, like the Renfield’s outfit, was antiquated, just simple lace and silk. A white veil obscured her face, but I could still make out her glowing eyes and red lips through it, the only bits of her that had any color.
She descended the stairs with the same deliberate, funereal pace.
“Run,” my predator mind screamed, and if Jackson hadn’t grabbed my arm, I would have.
Now she was no more than fifty feet from us. “Step away from him,” she said.
We both gave the Stoker’s servant some space.
“Caleb, get up,” she said, a queen commanding her serf.
Though the wind had been knocked out of him, I’d never seen one of the living move so quickly. He jumped up and, clearly still in pain, forced himself to stand erect.
“I will handle this,” she said to him.
Caleb began to speak, but a raised finger silenced him. Without a word, he backed away a respectful distance, awaiting another command.
Her attention shifted to us, and through h
er veil, she stared. I winced under her gaze, but Jackson kept his shoulders squared, faced her head-on.
I could see her face more clearly now. Skin so pale and smooth it could have been polished silver. Her long, blond hair was pulled back tightly against her skull, and looked as though it might be wet to the touch. She was beautiful the way models are—inhuman, artificial.
Her accent was clipped, vaguely German. “You are brave, striking my slave.”
“It seemed like the best way to get the attention of whoever was pulling his strings,” Jackson said.
“Perhaps that is to be expected. As Caleb said, you are known quantities, killing her sire.”
If I had a functional heart, it would have skipped a beat.
“Seemed like a good way to get our names out there,” Jackson said.
“Impudence is attractive in a male,” she said. “To a point. But tell me, why did you really kill her sire? So massive a taboo to break. Impressive too that someone so newly Nightfallen would survive the ordeal.”
“My reasons are my own,” Jackson said.
“Strong and few words. But I must know. Was it love for this one?” she asked, gesturing to me. “Is that why you did it?” For the first time, there was emotion in her voice. A yearning, as if for something long ago lost and now half remembered.
Jackson said nothing. I was too scared to respond, afraid that if I disappointed her romance fantasies she’d rip our heads from our bodies.
She lifted her veil and sniffed the air as though sampling a wine’s bouquet.
“I cannot smell her on you,” she said, disappointment dulling whatever had tinged her voice a moment earlier. “You have not had her. Such a pity. When I realized it was you who answered Caleb’s solicitation, I had hoped for something grander than simply sterile business partners.”
“I’m sorry me and Ginny’s relationship disappoints. But I promise you, our work ethic won’t. So let’s do business, Miss … ?” he said.
“You may call me Verena,” she said. “My proposition for you is simple. At Ramsgate, there is a building, Dey Hall. Somewhere inside is the Ferravus Glass, an artifact I desire. It is a two-sided mirror framed in blue marble. Steal it for me, and you will be rewarded.”
She snapped her finger, and Caleb came a few steps closer to us. He pulled a coin from his frock coat and flipped it to us.
I had to reach to catch the coin. It was gold, heavy in my hand. On one side was the profile of a thick-necked man, beneath which read Paul von Hindenburg. On the other, an eagle perched atop a swastika.
I showed it to Jackson. I could see the disgust in his eyes. A U.S. soldier being paid in National Socialist gold—such a wound to a man’s ego and morality. A vampire, however, would probably enjoy the perverse irony. Jackson did the best he could to stay in character by remaining silent.
“Nine more of those upon the glass’s delivery to me,” Verena said, in a way that signaled the meeting was over.
But Jackson wasn’t quite done. “That’s a lot of money to steal something from a college building. Not exactly a bank vault.”
“Your point?” Verena said.
“What is it about the job that’s keeping you or your human bootlicker from doing it?”
“You were a soldier, yes? Did you always ask your superiors such questions about your orders?”
“No, but I could always tell when they were about to drop me into a meat grinder. I’m getting that feeling now.”
“Perceptive,” she said. “But the reality is, I do not know how grinding an experience it will be. I cannot send Caleb. He once worked there and would be recognized by the building’s staff should he be seen. Besides, even before we met, he did not have the necessary physicality to handle such an assignment. At this point he is too weak for anything aside from simple errands. And I cannot enter the building myself.”
“Why not? Crosses? Is it built on an old church site or something?” Jackson asked.
“The issue is more … particular. My kind cannot cross rivers unless being transported in a coffin containing earth from our native land, a weakness your sort lacks. When I approached the building, I was blocked. There must be an underground river running beneath it.”
Jackson nodded. “I imagine mailing yourself there in a dirt-filled crate wouldn’t be ideal.”
In the time it took me to blink, Verena had crossed the distance between her and Jackson. The back of her hand crashed into the side of his face, and the force knocked him across the floor.
“Do not mock me, lower-caste.”
I raced to Jackson, but he pushed me away. He wiped the blood from his mouth, then pulled his 1911.
“You don’t want to do that again,” he said.
She laughed. “Bullets would pass through me, as harmless as daylight through lace.”
“They’d still put holes in your wedding dress. I’m guessing it means a lot to you,” Jackson said, then turned the gun toward Caleb. “Maybe he does too. Housebreaking new pets can be a real pain in the ass.”
She regarded him a moment. Then the faintest hint of a smile showed at the corners of her mouth. “So bold. A pity you are not my kind. At least I have no doubt you are the right man for the job.”
2
The Eyes in the Fog
The next evening, we sat in Café Trios war-gaming the job.
Trios was our usual meeting point, Jackson still not trusting enough to let me know where he lived. Whenever we linked up, our mugs of black coffee, undrinkable to both of us, would sit untouched. We always got a table away from the windows, not wanting anyone to notice our absent reflections.
I found the fact that Jackson didn’t cast a reflection interesting. It meant that whatever the government had done to him, it had been more than merely genetic. Like me, the only way he could see his reflection was in a still pool of blood.
“I was casing Dey Hall,” Jackson said in a low voice. “There is something different about it. Most campus buildings get locked up at eleven, but Dey was closed tight when I tried all the doors.”
“Wouldn’t be hard for us to just smash them in,” I said.
“If there’s something inside so valuable that a vampire with large amounts of Nazi gold wants it stolen, it’s safe to assume that the doors are alarmed. All the windows too.”
“Can your handler help?” I asked.
“I’m meeting with McBride later tonight to update him. I can guess the answer if I ask him. This is a black-book operation, meaning we’re on our own.”
“I don’t suppose the military taught you anything about disarming alarms.”
“No, just how to blow shit up. We should also assume they’ve got motion detectors.”
“We’ll be okay on those. I think they work, at least in part, by sensing heat. As long as we’re room temperature or less, we’ll be fine.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“I’ve stalked victims from backyards with motion-detector floor lights. Haven’t set one off yet,” I said.
His mouth twisted into a disgusted sneer. Despite myself, I was about to apologize to him when a girl stumbled up to our table.
She was sorority pretty, with brown, highlighted hair and sun-kissed skin, even though it was the dead of winter. Her eyes looked vacant, and her motions were slow and drunken.
“Are you high? Watch it,” Jackson said.
The girl said nothing to him but turned slowly, seeing an empty seat. After pulling it jerkily to our table, she collapsed into it.
Her head lolled back and forth.
“I don’t care if you are a girl, I’m going to drag you out of here by your hair if you don’t get out of here,” Jackson said.
“The eyes,” the girl said languidly. “The eyes told me to come in here.”
“That’s it,” he said, about to stand and make good on his threat.
“Jackson, she’s not on anything,” I whispered, grabbing him by the arm. “She’s in some kind of trance.”
“
The eyes,” the girl continued, “want you to go outside. They want to speak to you. About the glass.”
The girl suddenly closed her eyes and shook her head, as if trying to break loose a bad memory. When her eyes opened again, they weren’t vacant anymore, but scared, not knowing how she’d gotten there. She pushed away from our table and rushed out the door, as hipsters gave her annoyed looks.
“Well … that was weird,” Jackson said. “Think it’s Verena?”
“She’d have sent Caleb. What do you want to do?”
The crowd had stopped looking at the door and turned to us, probably wondering if our three-way relationship had just ended abruptly or if it’d been a failed attempt to roofie her drink.
“Well, we’re burnt here anyway. Let’s go see who is so interested in chatting with us,” Jackson said.
“Or what,” I said, as we headed for the door.
Dominion Street was Echo Valley’s main road, lined with shops and bars and restaurants on one side and the Ramsgate campus on the other. It was still early evening, the moon not yet risen. The street was mostly empty, with few people venturing out into the Pennsylvania cold on a Sunday night.
“So where are they?” Jackson asked, looking around.
From the corner of my eye, I saw fog spilling out from an alley. That’s what it looked like in the visible spectrum. Viewed as energy, the fog was black, the yawning absence of life.
“Oh Hell,” I said, as the fog moved relentlessly over the street, reducing even the street lamps to the wan light of distant stars. My predator mind wanted me to run, but I forced myself to stand with Jackson.
“What is it?” Jackson said, pulling his 1911. No fear of anyone from the coffee shop seeing his gun—the fog had already blotted out the light of its windows.
“Kings,” I said.
Three dark shapes began to take shape in the fog. Eventually, they congealed enough to make out of their features. Two males, one female. They looked like they’d all been college students at one time. Recently too, judging by their clothing. This was all a ruse. Kings didn’t retain any part of their human selves once they nightfell.
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