Chapter 20: The Hunt

  Twenty-five minutes is a long time when Eva knew she wouldn't be able to fulfill Dinner’s demands. All Eva could do was pace near Dustin’s lightly battered SUV parked behind a building. As soon as they tried to leave the area they found cops blocking all of the major roads with enough patrol cars to form an army.

  The building storm had begun drizzling in a thin, light sheet, making the alley smell of damp asphalt and musty dirt. Sirens wailed in the distance, but not for them. Eva didn't know what to do, Dustin didn't know what to do, and I was quiet. Just waiting to see their plan.

  Dustin sat in the driver’s seat of his SUV, door ajar while the news talked about the area around South Encinar’s coliseum being in military lockdown. Citizens were advised to evacuate the area, because of a natural gas leak posing a hazard to mortals and vampires. Of course vampires would have daytime accommodations provided for them should the ‘leak’ take too long to fix.

  The radio went on about how there was a repair team being flown in to fix it.

  Eva knew they were fucked. They couldn't produce my body because they left it on a rooftop for the sun to deal with. The half-elf listened to her cell phone ringing in her ear as she called Isabella’s number.

  She glanced up toward one of the taller buildings shielding them from the police. All they really had to do was approach a roadblock on foot and play dumb. Unless the cops knew what they looked like. Then Eva was truly well and gone.

  Our sire answered the phone with, “Make it quick, fledgling. I’m busy.” Her voice was unusually tense. I didn't know the phone could even carry her voice or Eva’s. Mine failed to carry mine when I tried it the one time.

  Eva stepped out of the rain underneath an overhang and said, “We have a problem, sire. Her retainer is a Horizon Ranger Commander. A dropship is due to arrive in less than a half-hour.”

  “And Lady C?”

  “Ash.”

  There was a long, long pause from Isabella. Long enough that I wasn’t sure if she even believed the news. I wanted to imagine the woman held at least some compassion for me. Let’s face it. She sent her own fledgling after me. Yes, they did succeed because I trusted them and her, but I was blinded by her blood much like Jean said. It still pains me to think of those words. I think even Eva felt my thoughts, because she held her empty stomach that had managed to twist itself in a knot.

  Eva bit her lip, using her free hand to pull the wool cap from her head and shook it from side to side, allowing her fading hair to flow free and breathe once again. The drizzle created a sort of soothing noise that should calm us down, yet the rain only made my worry worse. Isabella was never quiet for this long when receiving news. So for her to be silent for nearly a minute and a half was most unusual.

  All sound had stopped from Isabella’s end. It likely stemmed from her hitting the mute button. Probably to yell about something, maybe. A few more seconds passed before her voice returned with a soft sniffle.

  “I see,” Isabella began. She sniffled once more. “Congratulations on a job… well done, fledgling. Taking down an elder is no small feat, much less Lady C. I can only wish it never came to this, but this is why I warned you two about drinking from vampires. She was a monster who would steal your soul without a care. I digress, and am sorry, but you said there is a Horizon Ranger dropship inbound? Why?”

  “Cassandra’s retainer is demanding her return or she’ll flatten the city.”

  “Well, it looks like I need to call some privateers to pound the pirates into the ground. But first, I need to fire whoever signed off on the drop. You shall have your support soon. Keep stalling the negotiations until they show up.”

  What negotiations? I wanted to ask. Luckily both Eva and I had the same thought, so she didn't notice.

  Eva blinked at the reply and cocked her head, saying, “Sire? We need help now, not whenever someone accepts the contract! We’re fucked. The cops blocked off all the streets and there’s a dropship inbound to our location.”

  “I do not give a shit, Eva! Use the elven half of your brain and realize you can take the sewers. Now, let go of my teat and put some pants on.”

  The line went dead, so Eva turned her screen off and looked at Dustin, frowning deeply. “She says to keep stalling until help shows up.”

  “When will that be?” Dustin folded his arms across his chest.

  Eva tossed her hands to her sides in a haphazard manner, looking a bit like a bird.

  *** ***

  Whomever designed Encinar's sewers was clearly thinking about walkability, but not about the smell. Oh God, the smell was horrible even for vampires! I don't know what the mortals ate in the modern day, but what came out their backsides smelled rancid.

  It was bad enough Eva dry heaved the instant she climbed down. Both her and Dustin made it a point to focus on not breathing, but poor, poor Eva. The half-elf had me riding along with her.

  Which meant that as we were creeping along the walkway next to the ‘river’, I made Eva take a deep breath. She regretted it instantly, coughing and heaving again, only speaking once it stopped, “I’m going to flay that Ranger when we get out of here. I don't care if she can just come back, I’m going to hunt her down and keep doing it.”

  “That sounds fucked up, even from you.”

  Eva took another deep breath and coughed again.

  Dustin looked over at her latest coughing fit. His submachine gun was held low so the attached torch didn't blind Eva. “Stop being so dramatic. It's not that bad down here!”

  “The fuck is wrong with your nose?!” she yelled back. Curiously, while Dustin’s voice echoed slightly, Eva’s was more like mine. It barely reached the man. He had to tell her to speak up the first time they entered the sewers together.

  So whatever was going on with the half-elf was affecting her quickly. Eva had already drunk three cans of blood in the last ten minutes and wanted more. I nudged her thoughts toward biting into Dustin’s neck, showing her a vision of drinking him dry and enjoying the tasty vampire blood. Her eyes lingered on his neck for just long enough that I thought she was actually going to entertain the idea.

  No, I can’t!

  She tore her gaze from the man, looking across the river at the other walkway where a rat just stared at them. It squeaked softly and took off the way they'd come from. Eva tracked it with her rifle, red laser dot aiming just ahead of the creature. Dustin’s touch on her shoulder drew her attention to his face.

  He shook his head. “They already know we’re down here.”

  “Why haven't they shown themselves?” Her eyes, again, went to his neck. Unprompted this time!

  “Eva… don’t look at me like that.” Dustin glared a bit at her.

  She slapped herself, the noise audible and echoing around them. “Sorry. It’s just. I’m fucking starving.”

  “Let's get out of here and find you a mortal then.”

  The two of them resumed their trek in the dark with weapons at the ready and heads on a swivel for any vampires lurking in the fark. I don't know what vampire wanted to live in the sewers, but Eva’s memories dredged up a whole clan of the blood suckers. Some were repulsive to look at in her memories while others were far more normal.

  They passed over the river at one junction and followed signs telling people where the nearest ladder was. It was stupid to do, because it could be a trap, but the two of them seemed like they knew it was safe to follow. Possibly because it was leading them away from the sewer dweller’s territory. A good thing to lead people to safety, but a bad thing because they were blindly following the signs with no true sense of where they came from.

  Cell phone signals were so poor it was barely updating the locations on their navigation apps and they couldn't make a call out to anyone. They tried to call Isabella. And a few different vampires they knew. All calls went nowhere fast. Each time Eva would hear a woman’s voice saying, “We’re sorry, but your call cannot be connected. Please check the number and try again.”

  The two fledglings realized too late what I realized earlier, because they came to another junction and followed it to the right. It turned into a narrow tunnel about ten feet wide. The tunnel ended at a grate overlooking a waterfall of brown sludge.

  “So where’s the ladder?” Eva asked. She leaned toward the bars and was about to grab one when Dustin snatched her wrist in the nick of time.

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  “Don’t!” he shouted, pulling her hand back.

  Eva blinked at the response and nodded firmly to the man. “Right. Don't touch anything in the sewers. Any ideas, dear fearless leader?”

  “We go back the way we came and see if we missed anything.”

  They didn't. The two of them backtracked through the disgusting sewer until they came across another crossroads. Dustin shined his torch on the sign so they could read it.

  Eva glanced the way they had just come from. “So why is it leading us down a dead end?”

  To wear the person out. Make them suffer even more in the truly horrible stench of whatever ran through the murky ‘river’. It was almost as bad as the Hudson in the summer of ‘15.

  Eva coughed a few times, turning her head to the side. “I can't stand it anymore!” she yelled. The half-elf turned toward the darkness and darn near screamed, “What are you waiting for?! Show yourselves!”

  Nothing.

  *** ***

  Time was up. Eva’s phone clanged with alarm bells as the timer went off. That noise did echo throughout the sewer, however. She turned the alarm off and kept walking forward.

  The two fledglings had seen neither hide nor hair of any vampires or their familiars, or servants. Or even a ladder beyond the one they had initially climbed down. Backtracking didn't work because when they reached the spot they had come from, there was no ladder out.

  Eva reached for the spot where it should be, her hand passing through the void. Above them was solid brickwork where the manhole cover should be.

  Perhaps that is why people never return from Encinar's sewers. It might be because whoever lives down there is hiding the entrances, and not because of any shark swimming through the muck like the rumors. Which were because a vampire dwelled beneath the streets. I knew this, my sire knew this, everyone that was a vampire knew this, because that foul smelling vampire would come to the council meetings once in a blue moon. Just to remind us that it existed.

  It might even be in the sewers stalking behind Eva and Dustin as they fail to find their way through. The vampire, who never gave us its name, only said that the sewers was its domain. That if we wanted to go in there or do anything in the sewers, we were to contact it first. Doing so otherwise was death.

  Likely, Isabella didn't bother contacting the vampire and that is why it was toying with the fledglings. I never heard of it going after fledglings or vampires, but then again. The sewer vampire kept to its own devices and the council had a policy of not entering the sewers.

  Eva and Dustin clearly didn't know what they had signed up for when they agreed to murder me. I didn't think Dinner was being serious when they told Isabella they could ‘hotdrop a mech battalion’ on Encinar. I thought they were just a boastful half-elf! And Isabella likely did, too. It made me wonder who Caleb was, but it didn't matter thanks to my current situation.

  The two fledglings resigned to marking the wall as they trekked through the underbelly. They made a left at one junction, a right, then another right and found the sewers looping back on itself even though they were following where they should go according to the signs.

  The layout was ludicrous! If I knew the sewers were a maze I never would have signed off on them, but let's face it. I probably did just because I never had to go inside them. That was now a mistake.

  A mistake for which I regret building. I didn't know any better at the time and now I see my folly. Call it… Cassandra’s Folly. I made so many mistakes in the early days. Enough so that they were still feeling them two hundred years later; from the Inquisition being a part of the police force to the maze of sewers trapping people forever. I was a failure of a Mayor. Not at all fit for duty.

  Perhaps being murdered and sucked into Eva’s body was a good reset for me. I could use her name to build upon the failure of a legacy I built, but that required me to actually get out of the sewers first. And that meant working with Eva and Dustin rather than just torturing Eva by making her breathe or thinking something is there in the dark. That was fun, because I could manipulate the shadows and make them dance to my tune while Eva only grew hungrier.

  Dustin was looking more and more like a midnight snack for the poor fledgling. Eva was the youngest of the three by far. What with Isabella embracing me in 1765 and Dustin a hundred years after my disappearance. At least that is what I found through reading Eva’s memories. She had been embraced only ten years ago and was under Dustin’s care, because sire clearly didn't like fledglings anymore and wanted nothing to do with Eva.

  Otherwise she wouldn't have sent Eva and Dustin to murder me! Which, she is right, it was an incredible feat that such a young fledgling killed me! For a vampire younger than Caleb to beat someone of my power shouldn't be possible. And yet she did, because they surprised me in the SUV. They lured me in with the promise of safety. They used my trust to murder me!

  It was diabolical! The perfect plan. I applaud them for it. And once we got out of the sewer, I will return the favor. Starting with Dustin.

  Eventually, Eva and Dustin came back to the dead end from before. They shined their weapon mounted torches up at the ceiling where the ladder should be and again, only saw brickwork. Eva’s stomach churned with one singular thought, the same thought slicing through her aching fangs. She'd been ignoring it all night, but she couldn't ignore it any longer.

  She had to feed. The half-elf looked at Dustin, instincts taking over as she walked toward him. “I… I… need food,” she stuttered.

  He backed away from her. “Eva… don't do this. It’s only been thirty minutes.”

  “But I’m hungry.”

  “Snap out of it!”

  I sent her a reminder of how lovely the taste would be. How if she had his blood in her she could punch through the ceiling and have no problems getting out. She just needed a ‘sip’.

  Eva dropped her rifle and lunged toward Dustin, fangs bared.

  He brought his submachine gun around, striking the poor fledgling in the face with enough force to break her jaw and send her flying back against the sewer wall. She slammed into it and slid to the ground.

  The human lowered his weapon, drawing a stake from his pocket. As Eva gasped, Dustin lunged and shoved the stake straight through her heart, plunging the poor half-elf into darkness.

  *** ***

  “Hello?” Eva called out as she walked through the front door of a fairly nice house. It was, of course, a bright mint green on the outside. Two stories tall with a huge peaked roof and a basement beneath a basement. Her eyes drifted from the large open foyer into the main room where a fire crackled away in the fireplace.

  Bright wood flooring echoed with the heavy thumps of her heels striking first, followed by the ball of her feet. A strange portrait of two people hung above the fireplace, but the half-elf couldn't clearly see what it was. A nice bear rug carpet lay sprawled out in front of the fireplace with hunting trophies mounted to the wall.

  They were, of course, wolves, deer, and mountain lions. A few Amelia and I hunted around the property to clear it of any annoying animals. And to sometimes use their blood for rituals.

  Three chairs sat facing the warm fire with me sitting in one. I had a fancy white evening gown on and comfortable shoes. Eva failed to cross the threshold into the room, her fearful eyes right on the blaze. I knew her fear, because I had a similar fear when I was a fledgling; Fire hurts even more when you're dead.

  “It will not hurt you, fledgling,” I said, my voice carrying softly to her in an attempt to reassure the fledgling that it would be okay.

  She gulped and looked at me, eyes wide. “Y-you're not dead?”

  “I thought I was, too.” I waved for her to come over. “Come, sit. Let us converse. I have a drink of the finest blood you can imagine.”

  “What… are you?” she replied, gulping.

  “A vampire.”

  “No, you're not… Vampires don’t do what you do, they don’t survive being killed. How did you survive?” Eva took a few steps back into the hallway.

  I shrugged, because I had no answer for the half-elf. She knew as much as I did about the subject. I do not know if she had access to my memories or not. Which, if she did then maybe she could access them. At which point speaking would not be needed.

  “I am not here to kill you, fledgling.” I sipped from the glass of blood in my hand, keeping my eyes on the vampire.

  She looked behind her as she took a few more steps into the hallway. I smiled softly to myself, because the poor fledgling was rapidly breathing in and out like a panicked mortal.

  “Is it the fire?” I asked her.

  She gulped once more, nodding firmly. “Y-yes…” The woman tucked her hair behind her ears and gently tugged on her hair before twirling a finger through it. “I, um, I can't go near it.”

  I slowly got up from the chair and walked toward her, glass in hand. The glass never emptied even when I took a long sip from it. Eva looked at the floor much in the way a servant would.

  “Calm down, fledgling.” My soft words reached the fledgling, but it was up to her to follow through. The faint scent of charred wood drifted through the room as the fire crackled and popped softly behind me. “There is nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I don't want to die…” she stammered, shaking her head from side to side.

  “Nobody does.” I held the glass out for her to take.

  Her eyes went from the floor to the glass. It took Eva a few long moments before she grabbed it and took a sniff. The pale half-elf’s eyes closed as she allowed the moment to stretch on. She wanted to throw it in my face, but she knew that I was the stronger vampire. That no matter where she ran or how hard she fought, she would lose any struggle against me.

  “Eva,” I began quietly as I stepped back to give her room. “Take as long as you need. I only want to know why our sire wanted me dead. And why she sent you and Dustin.”

  Eva sniffled softly, rubbing her nose for a moment. “I… she said you were a monster. That if you were to roam free then you would plunge Encinar into an archaic rule of chaos. That you were collecting mortal souls as an offering to the Moon Goddess. And once you had enough, Encinar would be plunged into Eternal Night.”

  That sounded like a great idea to be honest.

  “And do you know what she told me about you and Dustin?” I slowly folded my arms across my chest. Eva glanced up from the glass as I continued, “Absolutely nothing, Eva. I had no idea our sire even had other fledglings until the moment you killed me. She and I spent a whole night together and she did not utter your names even once.”

  “She spent time with you?” Eva blinked at that. She glanced down the hallway over her shoulder before looking at me again. “What did you two do?”

  “Isabella bought me a scooter, gave me the cell phone, showed me how to ride and it felt... Amazing.”

  “She said she had business that night. That she had to deal with a problem.”

  “Come, fledgling.” I motioned for her to follow after me as I walked toward the stairs to the basement.

  The two of us made our way into the brightly colored foyer where I turned left toward the kitchen. I slowly waved a hand across the hallway as we passed by the stairs leading to the second floor. There were many portraits of different people running the length of the hallway. From mortals to vampires in every skin tone and gender imaginable. All had one thing in common with each other.

  Eva’s eyes followed my gesture as she took in each portrait. “Is this… everyone you've killed?”

  “Everyone I have killed while feeding. I remember what they looked like in their last moments as the spark left their eyes. They are here in my mind when I close my eyes. When the last light creeps through the darkness, they will be there waiting to kill me for what I did to them.” I placed my hands behind my back and continued walking toward the kitchen. There was a door about halfway down the hallway that led to the basement. I wanted to show Eva where I slept and see what she thought of it.

  The door failed to creak as it was pushed open, since it was a dream world and everything was perfect. The manor was just waiting for someone to live in it. I do not know why it even appeared in my dreams the way it did. It just showed up the moment Eva had been staked and I found myself in the living room.

  My shoes lightly thumped into the wood with each step on the descent, but notably. Eva did not follow. The pale half-elf stood at the top of the stairs, drink in hand, as she bit her lip. Her very much not my hazel eyes looked at me with an odd expression. Maybe she wanted to run, but again, she knew better.

  “I can hear your thoughts,” she said, cocking her head noticeably. “Why do you want to show me where you sleep?”

  “Because I want your opinion. If I am going to take over your body then I want to know how you normally sleep.”

  “In a bed, naked,” she replied, pulling the glass close. “She talked fondly of you. How you and she sailed the Caribbean together despite your ship always having a slight list to port from a leak that could never be found.”

  I scoffed, shaking my head from side to side, a small half-smile on my lips. “Whomever retrofitted the torpedo tubes did a poor job of matching the copper plating. I tried to tell Isabella the leak was coming from the forward tube, but she would not hear it. She insisted it was the arcane engine leaking where the driveshaft met the hull. We had it in drydock three times and still, she did not believe me.

  “Even our sorcerer could not convince her it was not the driveshaft, so we sailed on with a leaky ship.” I nodded firmly and looked back toward the basement. “It is one reason why I wanted to drop anchor in Encinar in the first place. The other is because one of the crew had put a baby in Amelia, at our request, and our sire was rightly worried about the woman giving birth on a ship. She gave birth before we landed.

  “Amelia and I raised Alejandro as our own. We taught him many things over the years and he left us before I had a chance to breathe. So to hear people say I was a monster who just wanted to collect souls is wrong. I left my humanity behind and became one with the void, yes.” I leaned against the stairwell and looked up at the ceiling, frowning deeply. “I will admit that, but at the end of the day, like I told Dustin; a happy city makes for a well greased blood farm. Even if I wanted to bring about eternal night, the citizens of Encinar would starve. And my family would starve. I cannot have that, Eva.”

  I pushed away from the wall and smoothed my dress over even though I did not need to do it in a dream. The dress looked perfect either way with no wrinkles showing, despite having sat down earlier. “I realize this world is not fit for me. That I am a woman out of time. The world I speak of transpired less than two weeks ago. Well, Amelia giving birth happened decades ago and her descendants are still watching over me… and yet, nobody could awaken me. Not Amelia, not my sire, not even me. I was tired. And I still am.

  “There was a time when I wanted to sleep the centuries away. When I wanted to walk into the sun, but this world of yours is….” I turned to look up the stairs at Eva, but both she and the drinking glass were gone. It was not on the floor and the door was still open.

  “Eva?”

  I slowly blinked and listened. She was just there interacting with me. It did not feel like the body was awake yet and when I searched for her with my mind, I could feel only her memories. No waking thoughts.

  I dredged through our shared memories, looking for the most recent one and found it. Eva had drunk the glass while listening to my tale. She closed her eyes, picturing what I was saying, which led her to disappearing, because she was me and I was her.

  We are one.