Vampires save the night, p.9
Vampires Save the Night, page 9
Lorelei didn’t speak at all during the ride to her condominium, a far nicer building than a self-sacrificing environmentalist ought to be able to afford. Yet, she didn’t resist when Jordan followed her inside and began kissing her in the elevator. Indeed, she sucked at his lips as though trying to capture any lingering drops of rum and coke. Her exposed skin felt pleasantly cool against his rapidly overheating body, and it felt even better once Lorelei led him into a unit just off the elevator and began stripping off her dress in the doorway of her bedroom. For a chick who spent so much time thinking about the future, she had no problems taking advantage of the moment!
Lorelei’s fingers hesitated on the button of his pants. “It’s okay,” Jordan chuckled. “Vasectomy, remember?”
The space between her eyes wrinkled slightly. “That’s right. No grandchildren.” Lorelei leaned forward so that her tumbling hair filled his nostrils, an unidentifiable sweetness filling his head. Her husky voice purred directly into his ear. “Self-interested bastard ….”
Her lips dropped past his earlobe to his throat, and as her legs locked around his waist, cuffing him in place, Jordan felt a blaze of pain stab his throat.
“Uuhnh!” He tried to shove her away, but the agony in his neck ate its way down his arms, leaving them numb, trembling, weak. Jordan convulsed and his legs flowed out from under him like running water. He fell, dimly aware of the mattress against his back. Everything felt muffled now, save the ache around his carotid that deepened with every pulse. He couldn’t even feel the rest of his body. A buzz filled his ears. His vision blurred and Jordan blinked, the only bit of control he still possessed.
When his eyes focused, they latched onto Lorelei’s eyes shining out of her white face — white, but for the stream of his blood darkening her lower lip like the lipstick he’d smeared mauling her in the elevator. Those eyes were as cold as endangered icebergs turning blue under a six-month-old night sky. Death’s chill advanced from her gaze and across his limbs, yet Jordan couldn’t look away. His eyes were fixed as though an invisible pin held them in place. An electric current — or something even more powerful — flowed between them, illuminating Lorelei and making her every beautiful, terrible feature stand out while the rest of the world went dark.
When she spoke, her voice filled his head, booming over the white noise dulling his ears.
“I can be self-interested too, Jordan, so I suppose I shouldn’t judge you too harshly. You’re no different than the rest of your kind. Your lives are so short; I don’t think you can even conceptualize the future beyond next week, or maybe the next decade. Never mind the descendants you’ll never know who won’t even look like you or like any human that’s ever walked the earth. Threescore and ten years placed end to end a thousand times …. Because you’re blind to tomorrow, you focus on today. On fulfilling your whims of the moment. Never mind the consequences! So what if you hunt down all the Hawaiian geese? Or the passenger pigeons? There are other birds in the sky. If you accidentally exterminate the salmon, well, you can eat tuna instead.”
The mattress depressed, absorbing Lorelei’s shape as she sat beside him, staying in his sight, her red mouth still moving
“I used to think like you. I thought I was the master of this world and entitled to its riches. I could take as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted. Tikal, Roanoke, Detroit …. There would always be plenty more. Humans are amazingly fecund. And so adaptable! You figure they’ll be around forever.
“They’re so ubiquitous you don’t bother to give them much thought. You don’t realize how fast they reproduce. You neglect to really see just how adaptive they’ve become. How fast they’re spreading.
“Then one day, after decades spent roaming, you find humans aren’t living in wattle-and-daub cottages anymore; they’ve arranged themselves in tall wooden structures clustered near the river. And they’re not plowing fields; instead, they congregate day and night beneath towers that perpetually smolder and fill the sky with smoke and the river with sludge. You say to yourself, ‘Egad! That’s interesting. What will they think of next?’
“But because they’re mere humans, you don’t concern yourself with their business, so you fail to notice how the river gradually contains more shit than water and the fish now swim belly-up. Until the people who live near that river start dying by the score. Because you have perfect vision, night or day, it doesn’t register that the air is so clogged with ashes and coal dust that pedestrians carry lanterns, whatever the hour, and walk into walls or stumble in front of carriages nevertheless. You don’t have to breathe, so it doesn’t occur to you that the smut staining the walls of the buildings is choking the life out of your prime livestock. Besides, the humans are adaptable. They adjust to the situation and keep right on multiplying.
“And keep polluting.
“Time passes faster than you would think, even when you’ve plenty of time at your disposal. Then, it’s centuries later, and things aren’t like they used to be, and you know it isn’t just nostalgia because when you talk to others who remember, they know something is wrong, too. You’re not imagining that the rains fall less often, or that the winds pound harder, longer, more frequently. You needn’t bother with the farce of a heavy coat in winter anymore because no one else is wearing one either.
“There really are fewer birds in the sky. Fewer fish in the sea. Fewer bees to pollinate the flowers.
“When you take a closer look, you realize those irresponsible children who cover every crevice of the planet and never live long enough to acquire insight or wisdom have fouled everything up!
“By now, there are more of them, far more than there ever were of you. They are so very fecund and adaptable. And all of them are hedonistic, reckless, and thoughtless of how their actions have consequences they’ll never live to see, but that will haunt you for the rest of your existence. You can’t stop them by force, though. At best, you might persuade them to change their ways.
“But you’ve got to be careful because they’ve developed new technologies that will capture your image indefinitely and recognize it even if you go about in disguise.” Her bloodstained lips briefly quirked up into a rueful smile. “Those crafty humans …. what will they think of next? So, you can’t afford to be too public or hold the spotlight for too long even if you’re good at turning the tide. We in the SFPOT are all very smart and persuasive. But we can’t do as much as we need without risking exposure. You can’t imagine how frustrating it is. We have the will to fight, but not the numbers! We need to tip the balance and we must do it now! You see … we’re running out of time.”
Lorelei’s laughter was hollow, a tin can bouncing down a chute before scraping rock bottom. “Can you believe that? We, who have always had all the time in the world, are now restricted to the space of a few years, a critical period within which we must effect major changes or all will be lost!”
Her hopeless eyes peered through Jordan into the far future of failure. “You will have gone too far. You’re poisoning this planet. Poisoning yourselves! The animals! The plants! You’re drowning in your mistakes! You may have nothing to worry about, but future generations will. They won’t be able to adapt any further. They’ll dwindle and die until nothing is left. Nothing but us … with nothing to eat ….”
Fire burst through the icy sheen of Lorelei’s eyes and her reddened lips peeled back from perfect, pointed teeth.
“I don’t intend to spend the rest of my long life slowly starving in a swamp!”
The chill of her fingernail caressing Jordan’s cheek pierced the insensate blanket engulfing him. Her brilliant eyes and teeth grew brighter, closer. Their dazzle stung his eyes.
“We need to amp up our efforts if we’re to solve our problem, so we’ve begun to recruit others: the brightest, the most motivated, the greediest, to take action and lead your people to do what’s really in your — and our — best interest.”
Jordan’s world went red. The pain in his neck drained every bit of warmth from his extremities, from his skin and organs. From his blood.
Then a new warmth flooded his mouth. A rush of sweetness that tasted the way Lorelei’s hair had smelled. Fear curdled his stomach and Jordan tried to spit, but he was no longer in control of his throat muscles. His body clamored for her blood. As Jordan drank, Lorelei’s sharp smile filled his sight again. Her eyes glowed with soft satisfaction.
“Now it’s your problem, too. And you’d better start working on a solution quickly, because a hundred, or even two hundred, years will be up before you know it ….”
Huntress
A 2000 CE Adventure
by Blaze Ward
The Professor had taken a sample of the cold, thin serum that passed for blood in Xenia’s veins. Had tested it. Had confirmed to her the thing that a century and a half of her own medical and scientific research had hinted at.
The disease was unnatural. Designed and built by someone using a technology that no human could replicate, even as the Atomic Age had dawned on humanity. Unleashed as a terrible plague on the species, but nobody could answer why.
More importantly, if one so infected bit a human, they could either feed on them, or choose to infect them in turn. To make disciples. Children, of a sort, that they could control.
At least as long as the elder continued to live. Or whatever the correct term was. After three and a half centuries, Xenia wasn’t sure. She had lived in darkness through every stretch of it.
Tonight was no different. Hunter’s moon. Appropriate, as she was a huntress.
On her right hip, a quiver of crossbow bolts with a variety of custom tips for various tasks. Crossdraw, her bearded axes. Useful for killing her kind.
Left hand held her Gaussbow. Like the original superhero Bolt’s crossbow, but using a magnetic coil and science to launch metal-banded bolts in near silence.
Her spare frame was poured into a costume with American patriotic themes. Almost pornographic, at least to a young woman who had been born in 1611 in a village in Brittany. But necessary to fit in today. Someday soon, they would even add her to the roster of characters in the comic books, but very little of the truth would come out.
At least for now.
Her kind already did not approve of her lifestyle. But that was her hunting her own kind down and killing them.
Like tonight.
Hunter’s moon. Enough light to read by. Normally only mildly painful to her kind, but the costume she had been given insulated her. A fair price to live with a mask that covered her face, though she could pull it up enough to bite someone, if she ever found the need.
The Professor had also supplied her with his own serum. A sourdough starter, Harley had called it. Add water and sugar and drink it to supply the amino acids her own diseased body could not provide.
Xenia no longer had to feed on living creatures to survive.
But the disease remained. Kept her healthy. Eternally young. Powerful.
The disease also cost.
It was imbecilic to kill an elder of her kind, because they controlled all their disciples, and doing so freed that mob of any control.
As had happened to her when Aurian Guillot had been dragged into sunlight by French revolutionaries, intending the guillotine and settling for burning him alive. Or undead.
Whatever term achieved adequacy to describe her kind.
Xenia had already killed many disciples of Gaspar Llewellyn. Enough to weaken the man socially. If she killed him too soon, all of the others would be free. Would likely vanish into the darkness and the whole task would reset.
Worse, the mansion she watched now had a roughly even mix of her kind and merely human, guarding the grounds and the inhabitants.
She wondered what stories the help were told about those who never ventured into the light of day. Or ate only bluest of steak.
Did they ever wonder?
She had known enough humanity in her long darkness to understand that some might worship such creatures of the night. Or hope to be taken themselves, that they might live forever.
Xenia could not recommend such a thing with gusto, but that was the weight of the centuries preying on her spirits tonight.
Stoker and others had once suggested all manner of interesting powers that her kind supposedly possessed. Being able to turn into a swarm of bats and fly onto the roof right now would be lovely.
She was stuck doing it the old-fashioned way.
With patience.
The outer wall surrendered easily enough. Brick tall enough for privacy and little more. Ivy for handholds and silence.
The inner grounds contained no dogs. Like her kind, canines could smell so well that they saw her as the monster she was.
She loaded her Gaussbow with a bolt designed to rupture hearts. Humans would die almost instantly. Her kind would be disabled for minutes until they could extract it from their flesh. Harley had told her that the extra barbs inside would make that even more difficult, but he understood her need and her mission.
And herself.
And still treated her like a daughter or favored niece. It carried her forward.
Xenia sniffed the faint breeze, counting bodies and placing some of them. Not a party tonight. Gaspar was too worried to invite the mundane. He did have many of his people. Possibly all that remained, for Xenia had been as patient as she was ruthless.
Another nest of predators on the verge of extinction.
She could never get them all. She would never stop trying.
As the Professor had warned her, a storm was coming.
Movement, though the mover might not realize they had been detected.
She had centuries at this hunt.
The scent said vampire, so she thumbed the switch on her Gaussbow to the highest setting and paused, as if listening.
The man moved. Man, because Gaspar took men to guard him and women as toys. Such as she had once been.
Xenia rotated in place and fired. Faster than human eyes could track. Faster than her target could react.
The click and faint whistle as the bolt launched. That meaty thump as the bolt hit bones and ruptured them. This design got inside and opened like a flower kissing the morning dew, shredding all in its path.
The man took another step and collapsed face first without any greater sound, disabled before he could speak.
Xenia exploded into motion, drawing the ax with the silver alloy blade and driving the edge through his neck like killing a chicken in one, practiced motion.
Practiced?
Perhaps, as she had killed enough of her kind over the decades. Centuries.
He was not dead, even yet. The head could be pressed to the body for as long as an hour, perhaps, and their unnatural vitality would save him.
Burning both halves was her preferred method. She settled for kicking his skull a distance that would require searching, even as she reloaded and began to move towards the manor house.
They had to know she was coming, if one waited here. The longer she took to get to Gaspar, the more trouble he could create, and her heroic identity as the niece of The Bolt and an associate member of the famous Freedom Alliance might actually cause her more trouble than normal.
Heroes weren’t supposed to kill. No less than Captain Sapphire had said as much to her.
Adequate, against criminals and thieves.
Not against vampires.
There. Side door. Access to the servant’s quarters, perhaps. A small paved path to a door with little to recommend it. Not the grand entrance that looked out over the vast back patio and grounds.
Xenia smelled the woman before she got there, but did not relent her pace, moving faster than a human could as well. A servant, hiding in the brush. Human, even, and not night-touched.
Xenia let her unnatural muscles propel her over the small hedge obscuring the woman in a single bound, landing beside her and using the reinforced butt of the Gaussbow as a striking tool.
Thump. Crash. Unconscious. Automatic after so many decades of unlife.
Definitely human. Hiding outside. Afraid of what lurked within?
Xenia had been tempted to rig a bomb to set fire to the building at noon. Drive them into sunlight, because their flesh burned under heat just as easily as ultraviolet radiation if they stayed inside.
But too many humans lived within, and she could not justify killing the ones that might be innocent.
If there were any here. But Captain Sapphire insisted. She had chosen direct action instead.
A quick, short length of nylon rope and the woman was bound. Gagged with her shirt to keep her from crying out. Harmless, for now.
Xenia sat perfectly still and listened to the night. Smelled it. Tasted it. Late summer waning in the leaves. Brownness coming, when the region would turn to autumn glory.
Nobody else nearby, but several others hiding outside the building. All hunting the huntress.
She paused and considered Harley Jackson, the original superhero known as The Bolt a generation ago. English huntsman theme with a crossbow and a dead eye.
And a wicked sense of humor under that rough and hardy exterior.
How would he do it?
She smiled under her mask and located the bolt she wanted from the quiver. A thumb to dial power down on the Gaussbow as she loaded.
Rise, aim, fire, all as one perfectly smooth, silent motion, dropping to cover again.
Whomp.
A smoke bolt detonated politely on the patio, some seven meters from the door to the interior. Thick enough to blind humans, and tweaked by the Professor’s people to blind her kind as well.
Reload and Xenia moved to the side door, touching the handle and turning enough to note that it was unlocked.
Noise in the distance as other hunters poured out of the darkness and building as though she had opened the bottom of a bathtub. Xenia surged into the building from the side and closed the door behind her, locking it behind her with the automatic habit of centuries.
