Running from the night, p.7
Running From the Night, page 7
part #1 of Hunter's Moon Series
“I’m so glad to hear your voice!” Jelani said, trying to keep his own voice down. “How the hell did you survive that fall?”
“Let’s not get into it on the phone. Where are you?”
“No place specific. Are you near the mall?”
“Not too far.”
Jelani started to suggest they meet there, then thought better of it, wanting to be as far in the opposite direction as possible. “On second thought, meet me at the SkyTrain station in Yaletown. You got money?”
“Yeah. I have some. I’ll see you there in fifteen?”
“That should be enough time for me to get there. Text me when you’re close.” He ended the call and stood. After a long stretch, he turned and jogged toward Yaletown.
O O O
When Jelani had first seen the SkyTrain on his initial visit to Vancouver, his mind had immediately gone to the monorail at Disneyland. Several cars connected to each other on an electric track that went sometimes below ground, and sometimes thirty or forty feet above. It was a relatively quick way to get around town, and quite efficient. The location he was now nearing was called the Yaletown Roundhouse Station, named after the locomotive roundhouse that was on display on the other side of Davie Street.
The SkyTrain station was underground, so he went down the steps and waited for Daniel’s text. It came a few minutes later telling him he was on the train that was coming up on the next stop. When the train arrived, Jelani saw his roommate step out of one of the cars farther down. When he spotted Jelani, he trotted toward him. They clasped hands and shared a relieved, heartfelt hug before Jelani indicated they get back on the train. Since it was just past five o’clock in the morning, not many people were out, so they had a car to themselves.
“So you wanna tell me how you survived being thrown through the window and to the ground, ten floors down?”
Daniel huffed, shaking his head. His hair was disheveled, but he looked otherwise unharmed. “Only through a stroke of good luck that our friend hurled me a little too far. I cleared the walkways and flew right into the water. I’m not going to lie and say the impact didn’t hurt like a bitch, because it did. But other than that, I made out okay. When I finally made it back and climbed out, you and that guy were already gone.”
He leaned his elbows on his knees and ran a hand through his black hair. “Some of the neighbors were standing in the hallway, wondering what happened. Apparently they heard the glass break and then they heard a man hollering, so they called the police, who showed up about ten minutes later.” He took a deep breath and blew it out, his cheeks puffing. “Imagine what it was like trying to come up with a good lie to the police.”
“I’d like to know how you explained being dripping wet from your night swim with all your clothes on.”
Daniel grinned and reached inside his shirt, holding up a silver chain with a piece of smooth, carved jade dangling. “My great-grandmother gave me this for good luck,” he said. “There is no way I wouldn’t dive into the water to get it, so it was only half a lie, which is why I think they didn’t call me a liar outright. Whether they believed me is your guess or mine, but they wrote it down and let it go at that. All I had to do was pretend that I was surprised to see the shattered window and what was obviously a struggle that went on.”
The computerized female voice announced that they had reached Marine Drive. “Where exactly are we going?” Daniel asked. “When you said to jump on the SkyTrain and where you’d meet me, I figured you wanted to get someplace far away, so I bought a three-zone ticket.”
“Smart man,” Jelani said, nodding. It was then that he noticed Daniel was wearing his backpack. “Looks like you came prepared.”
Daniel slipped out of the straps and unzipped the back. Jelani peeked inside and felt some relief. His knife was in there, as well as a change of clothes.
“I searched everywhere for your wallet but couldn’t find it.”
“I’ve got it right here,” Jelani said, patting his thigh. “You really took a risk grabbing my knife and a change of clothes for both of us. It would have looked more than suspicious to the cops, don’t you think?”
“Hey, I was willing to risk it. I’m sorry I ever doubted you. That little flight through the glass and into the ocean made a quick believer out of me. I still can’t believe I’m alive. And speaking of alive, I’m ready to hear your side of what happened.”
Jelani related everything that happened after Daniel had been thrown from the window. His roommate listened quietly through the entire story until, finally, Jelani finished. They had ridden the train all the way to Richmond.
“Wow! That’s quite a story. Pretty smart with the mirror thing.”
“Yeah, thanks. It was all I could come up with. I still can’t believe I’m alive. I can’t believe we’re both alive.”
Daniel nodded. “Well, I wouldn’t mind keeping it that way. And is this in some way related to why we just rode the SkyTrain to Hongcouver?”
Jelani laughed. The city of Vancouver had a large Asian population, particularly Chinese. After China had taken back Hong Kong from the British, many wealthy Chinese had immigrated to western Canada and settled in Richmond. The generation who were born in Canada, often referred to Richmond as “Hongcouver.”
“It was the first and farthest place I could think of to go on short notice.”
“Well, I had a little more time to think,” Daniel said, “so when I contacted the landlord, I told her that someone had broken into our apartment and apparently shattered the window for some reason.” He shrugged. “It was the best I could come up with on short notice. By some morbid way, it was actually good luck that he hurled me as far as he did. No one would believe I was actually thrown that far, so the cops didn’t really question that I wasn’t in the apartment when all this happened.”
“I thought you were dead, man,” Jelani said. “The whole night I didn’t have barely a second to think about it, but I thought I’d gotten you killed.”
Daniel waved the thought away. “Don’t worry about it, I’m not. Besides, I know you, you wouldn’t have come home if you’d have thought you were being followed.”
“I’d sure like to know how he got into our apartment,” Jelani said. “How the hell did he get inside the building?”
“People in the building are really good about not letting just anybody in. I can’t even guess how he pulled it off.”
Jelani shrugged. “Well, it’s not important right now. At this point we have to assume that we are both targets. I’m sorry you got pulled into this, and I’m not taking any more chances.…” he trailed off.
“What?” Daniel asked.
“He thinks you’re dead,” Jelani said, lighting up. “He hurled you through the glass and out the window ten stories up. He’ll think you’re dead, so if you get away from me till all this is done, he won’t think to come after you.”
Daniel was shaking his head before Jelani had finished. “I appreciate the logic, but it has a gaping hole. That vampire, and yes, I do believe you after my little flight, will be thorough. He will most likely have come back to our building in case you’re stupid enough to go back. He won’t see any of the remains of my apparent splatter on the ground either.”
“Dammit,” Jelani muttered. “And I doubt any of this has escaped that Hunter’s attention. Not for long, anyway.”
The train pulled into the last stop in Richmond, and they stepped out and made their way to the street. As in Vancouver, Richmond was gray and cloudy, the temperature a cold thirty degrees.
“I can’t lie,” Daniel said as they looked around. “That plane to the Caribbean is starting to sound more enticing by the second.”
The text alert sounded on Jelani’s phone. After reading it, he let out another sigh. He seemed to be doing a lot of sighing lately. “It’s Alisha.”
Daniel’s eyebrows rose. “A little early, isn’t it? What does she want?”
“Nothing. Just saying hello.”
“Best not answer it until we get all this sorted out.”
“I think you’re probably right,” Jelani agreed. “According to your account to the police, you don’t know what happened to me, which means nobody does. If I keep quiet for now, it’ll buy us some time.”
“Until they start canvassing the city and asking if anyone has seen you, or put it on the news.”
Jelani laughed. “It’s not that serious yet, dude. Nobody’s dead.”
“Except that guy from Stanley Park, the day before this happened,” Daniel countered. “Two incidents in less than twenty-four hours.”
“Alright, we need to focus.” Jelani pulled out his phone.
“What’re you doing?”
“Looking for a library,” he said absently. After a moment, he said, “There’s one not far from here. We’re at Richmond Brighouse Station. It shouldn’t take more than ten or fifteen minutes to get there.”
They started walking. “Is the library going to be our hideout?” Daniel asked.
“Hardly. Well, for a while at least. I want to at least have an idea how to defend myself against that bastard when he comes at me next time.”
“Next time?”
“He’s not going to give up, and neither is that Hunter. You remember what I told you that Indian girl said, they’re not going to give up.”
“You think most of the stuff from the stories is true?”
“Some of it, I think. The religious stuff you can pretty much throw out. I’m putting my money on the more realistic weaknesses.”
Daniel looked at him. “Like wooden stakes, or fire?”
Jelani nodded. “I can’t pretend to be the expert, but I think some of those things might apply. The first time I got away from the blond guy, I put my thumbs in his eyes. If he had been human, he’d be blind. Still, it was enough to buy me some time to get away. The second time, I put a sharp piece of mirror through his chin, then drove a second piece in his eye. That must have done some damage, because I made it all the way to the Darkroom and he never caught me.”
They turned right on Minoru Boulevard and were soon within sight of the library. As they reached the building, a crow landed on the chain link fence to their left.
“Looks like we’ve got a buddy,” Jelani said, smiling at the crow. The bird regarded him with a dark eye.
“You and your crows,” Daniel said, eyeing the bird. “Why do you like those creepy things anyway?”
“Crows are highly intelligent and adaptable. They’re beautiful birds and highly resourceful.”
“Oh, why did I get you started?” Daniel said, rolling his eyes.
“It’s true, man! Did you know that if a crow is trying to open something with a hard shell, it will actually place it in the street where it can be run over by a car? And they have a varying and complex degree of speech.”
“Well, that’s admirable and all, but that crow seems to have a special interest in you.” The crow leaped from the fence and glided ahead, landing right beside them as they walked. It took a few steps alongside them, then took wing again, landing a few steps ahead, all the while watching.
“Yeah, I know.” Jelani chuckled. “It probably thinks I’ve got food. They do that, you know.”
“But you’re not holding anything,” Daniel pointed out.
“It might be used to being fed.”
“Do they always look you in the eye like that?”
“Actually,” Jelani said. “They do look you in the eye. Crows actually recognize faces. Twenty people could walk by that bird, but it would know the minute I walked by, if it took an interest in me for whatever reason.”
“Well, it’s interested in you now, and it’s kind of freaking me out.”
Jelani couldn’t deny that the crow did seem unusually focused on him. It was looking directly in his eyes, but it hadn’t made a sound. “I don’t have any food for you, buddy,” he said to the bird. In response, it cawed at him. Jelani stopped Daniel a few steps farther down and turned to look back at him.
“Did you see that?” Jelani said. “I could swear that crow just responded to me when I told it I didn’t have any food!”
“Looks like you’ve got a new best friend. You gonna bring your avian Rhodes Scholar buddy into the library with us? Maybe it needs you to get in because it doesn’t have the opposable thumbs to fill out an application for a library card.”
“It doesn’t need opposable thumbs. Its toes are positioned on its feet so that it could hold a pen effectively to write, if it knew how.”
“Dude, you’re starting to make me nervous.”
Jelani continued to stare at the bird. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Jelani, you’re talking to a bird!”
The crow cawed angrily at Daniel.
“I think you offended it,” Jelani said.
“I’m so sorry.”
The crow cawed at him again, spreading its wings. Despite himself, Daniel took a step back, laughing nervously. “Sorry, man, sorry.”
The crow cawed in a less harsh tone at Jelani, then leaped from the fence and climbed into the sky. In seconds it was gone.
“I wonder what all that was about,” Jelani said, staring after the diminishing bird.
“You know, you’re the only person I know that actually has stood and tried to have a conversation with a bird, and a crow, at that.”
“Crows have an undeserved bad rap.”
“They’re mean.”
“They don’t take shit.”
“Whatever.”
They walked into the library and Jelani went to an available computer. After a few minutes of searching, he found the section, and the two friends were sitting at a table with two stacks of books pertaining to vampiric lore.
“This stuff is all really interesting,” Daniel said, thumbing through a particularly thick tome. “I would probably be able to enjoy this more if I wasn’t looking for something to help me survive.” He looked out the window at the cloudy day. “Funny thing. If ever there was a perfect environment for a vampire, it would be here. From October to April we get more gray and rain than sun.”
“Good point,” Jelani said, thumbing through a black book with a set of fangs protruding from the cover. “I wonder if the bastards are numerous in Alaska during the winter.”
“I doubt it. If they were, Alaska’s population would’ve long ago plummeted.” He flipped a few pages and stopped. “Hey, Jelani. Check this out.” He turned the book around and pointed at a page filled with diagrams and text. “Looks like a lot of the info is right here.”
Jelani looked the page over. There was a chart with attributes and weaknesses, and the next page had numerous diagrams. “I had no idea there were stories about vampires all over the world. I thought it was just from European lore. Here is Native American, North American,” he pointed further down the page. “We’ve got South American here. What’s making this a little less straightforward is that the traits and weaknesses vary depending on the origin.”
“Maybe vampires differ depending on the region.”
Jelani thought about it. “I do remember that freak telling me that their weaknesses and traits were largely dependent on the individual. All have enhanced abilities that carry over from when they were human.”
Daniel tapped a thumb on the page. “The most common is the holy water and the cross, sunlight and garlic.”
Jelani shook his head. “Our little conversation didn’t cover garlic, but he had a good laugh when I mentioned water and the cross. We walked right out in the rain, and he claimed that holy water would just yield an annoyed vampire instead of a burned one.”
“You think he would tell you the truth?”
“I don’t think he was lying about that. My gut tells me to ignore the religious side of this and go for what seems the most logical.”
“That makes sense,” Daniel agreed. “So, crosses and holy water are out. Sunlight is most likely in.”
Jelani nodded. “And I can’t imagine anyone surviving a stake to the heart, or decapitation, so I’m going to put my money on those.”
“That leaves drowning, fire, silver, and garlic.”
Jelani snorted. “I can’t really imagine them being deathly vulnerable to a vegetable. Unless we find out otherwise, I’m not going to risk throwing a piece of garlic at him; though he might be too distracted from laughing so hard we might get the drop on him.”
“Okay, garlic is out. Silver?”
Jelani thought a moment. “It’s plausible. Lead is poisonous to us. Maybe silver is poisonous to them. I always associated the silver weakness with werewolves.”
“Must depend on who you talk to.”
“Yeah right,” Jelani said. “Like we’re really going to go talk to somebody about this.”
“Okay. Drowning and fire?”
“Fire makes sense. I think we can go with that. Drowning all depends on a person’s need to breathe. I’m pretty sure a dead person doesn’t need to breathe.…” he trailed off, looking out the window.
Daniel, who had been focused on the page, noted the silence and looked up. “What is it? What are you …” he followed Jelani’s gaze out the window to see a very feminine, very attractive—and very underdressed for the weather—woman walking so smoothly she practically glided by the window. He glanced at Jelani and saw his friend fixed in his seat, staring without blinking.
“Wipe your chin or you’ll drool all over …” Daniel glanced back out the window and the woman caught his gaze, and instantly he was entranced. Those light brown eyes may as well have been his entire world, the way they drew him in.
“What was that about wiping my chin?” Jelani said, breaking the trance. Daniel blinked, and the woman continued on her way. The two friends looked at each other, then hurriedly rose from the table and made for the door.
Once outside, they looked around, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“I could have thought that was a hallucination if not for the fact that you saw her, too,” Daniel said. “I’m guessing that was the extremely gorgeous Indian woman you told me about?”
“Aw, how sweet of you, Jelani.” They turned to the left to see the woman standing a few yards away smiling at them. She glided toward them and gave Daniel a once over. “You’re pretty cute yourself.”
