Darkness of day, p.11
Darkness of Day, page 11
She slowly reached up and grabbed his hand and urged him to release his grip. “That’s it, isn’t it? Did you kill the people you love when you awoke to that hellfire burning in your veins, demanding you sate it?”
“No.”
He released her, and she took a step toward him and pointed down the litter-strewn alley at the man who sat on the ground, transfixed with fear. “We have no choice but to feed on them.” She tilted her head and looked up at Jelani. “If it’s any consolation to you, they would overpopulate and ruin the world in no time. We’re just like any other predator. We maintain balance.”
Jelani’s eyes lit with rage and she retreated a step. “Don’t blame me for your anger. Find a way to kill the one who brought you to the night.”
“What if I see vampires like you as predators who kill out of preference instead of need?”
“You have no idea what it’s like, fledgling. You are how old? Two months? Three? Given time, you’ll understand why many of us prefer a fresh neck to a cheap brown bag.”
He would have laughed at the liquor store ‘brown bag’ reference if he wasn’t still on the edge of uncontrolled rage.
“I’ll offer you a trade,” Jelani said. She tilted her head at him. “You tell me where I can either find a coven or a place where vampires congregate, and I’ll let you walk out of here.”
She laughed. “You want what? A lone crazy fledgling, you are. You want me to send you to a coven of not only older vampires, but purebloods at that? You know most covens have either an Elder or a very old pureblood at their head, right?”
“Let me worry about that.”
She gave him a doubtful look. “You’re good, but you’ll die as soon as you step foot in a coven.”
“What do you care? Trade other lives for your own.”
She shrugged. “There is a dark rock going on, actually. It’s at the outdoor theater in Stanley Park. It’s mostly vampires, but some humans who don’t know what’s good for them tend to show up as well. Plenty for you to kill before they kill you. And before you ask, I would prefer you not to attack a coven because they would find out who sent you, and I don’t want that on my head.”
“Dark rock?” Jelani asked.
The female vampire shook her head at him. “As strong as you are, I still can’t believe you’re so new. A dark rock is our version of a concert. Elders and most purebloods have nothing to do with them, but shaquora enjoy them. Think of it as a wild party.” She grinned.
“Fine.” Jelani stepped back. She looked hungrily down the alley, then back at him. “Take one step toward him,” Jelani warned, “and I’ll kill you.”
“He knows about us, now. If we leave him, the Hunters will find out and we’re dead. Trust me, you do not want one of them on your trail.”
Jelani smirked. If she only knew. “Let me worry about that.”
She mistook his smirk for arrogance. “You think a little too highly of yourself. Fine. It’s on your head.”
“Don’t let me find out you’ve attacked someone else tonight.”
“I will not guarantee you the future, but I will promise you this night. I will go home like a good girl and have one of those repulsive TV dinners. She turned away. “I’ll think of you with every disgusting sip.”
She disappeared around the corner and Jelani went to the sitting man.
He looked up in fear. “Please don’t kill me. I won’t say nothing. I promise.”
“I know,” Jelani said, circling him.
“Don’t kill me, man,” he pleaded. “Please, just don’t kill me.”
Jelani studied him. A blow to the head at the right spot with the right amount of force could create amnesia. “Sure you won’t say anything?” he said.
“I promise on my life,” the man said, and Jelani heard the desperation in his tone. He didn’t trust that it was the truth, but it was certainly sincere at the moment.
“Stand up.”
The man rose hesitantly, keeping his eyes on Jelani. “I promise. I swear I won’t—”
Jelani was suddenly behind him and struck him in the back of the head. When the man crumpled to the ground, he stood over him and watched his chest rise and fall. Satisfied, he turned and exited the alley.
After Jelani had gone, a figure dropped down at the other end of the alley and approached the unconscious man. He drew a long knife as he knelt and lifted the man’s head. His eyes began to glow pale red and his fangs extended. He snarled and bit into the man’s neck.
The human’s eyes popped open and he tried to struggle, but only for a few seconds before blood began to dribble from his lips. After the death spasms ceased, the black clad Hunter rose and stared down the other end of the alley. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the blood from around his mouth and chin. Remy would be interested in this.
17
A vampire concert, or dark rock, as that female vampire had called it. Jelani sprinted across the rooftops alongside Georgia street till he came to the street-level bridge that passed over the bike path below. He jumped over the railing and glided toward a towering redwood tree. He caught a low-hanging branch and easily hoisted himself up. He heard a gasp and figured a pedestrian must have spotted him. Jelani didn’t care. Let their sense of reasoning tell them it was just a large bird or an animal.
Jelani wondered how many of the outdoor concerts held in Stanley Park were in fact, vampire parties. He wondered if they were monitored. That thought brought him up short and he stopped just as he was about to leap to another tree. He looked around, scanning the woods for signs of Hunters. He saw nothing, but his instincts warned him otherwise.
Jelani closed his eyes and went still. He could feel the wariness of the woods. The small animals and birds that lived in the area were on alert, but whether it was because of him or the giant mass of vampires concentrated in one area, he couldn’t say.
He was still trying to get a feel for the surroundings when he heard someone speaking softly.
“I saw him come this way and head in that direction.”
“He was moving fast,” a second voice said. “She said he was abnormally strong and fast for a fledgling, but I don’t believe it. We couldn’t keep pace with him.”
“You think she lied to us,” the first voice said.
“Possibly.”
“Why would she? Why would a shaquora seek us out, only to lie to us about being attacked?”
“I don’t think he is a fledgling, and I’m doubting if he’s a shaquora as well. He moves too well to have once been human.”
“Yet he’s heading in the direction of the dark rock.”
Jelani’s narrowing eyes smoldered in hot, purple anger. That woman betrayed him to a pair of Hunters after he’d let her go. Apparently, mercy was a weakness. Very well. He was new and learning, and he would remember this mistake. The voices drew closer.
Silent as the night, Jelani leaped straight up from his position, grabbing hold of a branch ten feet above. He made his way through the treetops, circling around where he judged his pursuers to be.
Jelani made his circuitous route to position himself behind the voices, then quietly and slowly made his way forward, hopping from branch to branch. In seconds, he saw them. Both were of average height and held semiautomatic handguns with silencers attached. Jelani remembered being told that no firearms were permitted, because even the muffled whistle of a silencer could be heard. Only bare hands and bladed weapons were supposed to be allowed. Maybe the rules were different in an area such as this, surrounded by trees and foliage.
Jelani drew his silver daggers as the Hunter on the right spoke. “Go a little in front and I’ll be close behind and to the right.”
Mistake.
The other Hunter had not gone more than five feet when Jelani dropped onto the branch next to the one who had spoken. Seven stabs from lower back to neck left the Hunter descending to death and Jelani leaping past. Before the rapidly decomposing body hit the ground, Jelani was gliding at the back of the Hunter ahead. While airborne Jelani tucked away one of his daggers and upon impact, wrapped his legs around the Hunter’s body as they were knocked from the tree.
They turned a complete forward flip and as he came back around, Jelani placed the silver blade at the vampire’s throat, reached out with his free hand, and grabbed a nearby branch. The Hunter tried to raise his gun, but Jelani pressed the blade further into his throat. There was a sizzling sound, followed by a coughing gurgle.
“Drop it,” Jelani ordered, and the Hunter complied.
For a few moments, they hung suspended nearly forty feet above the ground, held aloft only by Jelani’s inhumanly strong grip on the branch. Never in his wildest dreams did Jelani believe he could be capable of such feats.
He looked down at the Hunter. “You were looking for me?”
“We … were monitoring you,” the other man grunted.
“Why?”
“It’s our business to do so.”
“To monitor newly turned vampires like me? Or to monitor turned vampires in general?”
“Argh!” The knife cut a little deeper, and the sound of sizzling flesh intensified.
“Better hurry up,” Jelani said. “I know this has to hurt. Answer my questions fast, and I’ll release you.”
“Shaquora in general are to be monitored, but you looked suspicious—”
“Noble of you to protect the woman who told you to find me,” Jelani interrupted. He looked ahead in the direction of the faint sounds of music. He looked back down at the struggling Hunter. “How many are there?”
“What the hell are you? How can you be this strong?”
Jelani tightened his legs around the other’s torso, and heard the resulting gasp. “You already know what I am. As far as my strength. I dunno. Now, an answer for an answer. How many are there?”
“How many what?”
“Hunters,” Jelani said impatiently. “Are there any Hunters monitoring the dark rock, and if so, how many?”
The Hunter hesitated till Jelani tightened his grip further and dug the silver blade into his neck a little more. “Ah! Six. There’s six of them, okay? One on each side of the stage, one on each side of the front of the crowd, and one on each side of the back.”
“Are they visible.”
The Hunter hesitated again, and Jelani drew the dagger from his neck and stabbed it into his shoulder and held it there. The pain was sufficient and the Hunter babbled out all the details.
“No. They aren’t visible but everyone knows they’re around. They’ll be in the trees. You don’t cause trouble, you won’t have any trouble.”
“Six, you say?”
“Yeah, yeah. Ah! Yeah, six!”
“Alright.” In one motion, Jelani yanked the blade out of his shoulder and slashed it across the Hunter’s throat. He let go and the corpse fell decaying to the ground. “You are released.” He lifted himself onto the branch and continued toward the sound of the music.
Jelani followed the sound of the music, continuing in the direction it grew louder. He stayed hidden in the trees, searching. Soon he found the first Hunter standing in a tree. Jelani closed the distance swiftly, clamped his hand around the vampire’s mouth and buried his dagger in his neck. One down, five to go.
He hid behind the trunk of the tree and peeked out at the mass of dancing, hopping, flailing bodies in front of an open stage. There had to be at least a two hundred down there. Jelani would never have guessed there were so many vampires in the city. He wished he could kill them all but he would take as many as he could.
He looked down toward the stage where five band members practically mutilated tone and melody in a symphony of noise and loudness. The sound screeching out of the eight foot tall black speakers surrounding the crowd and on stage only made Jelani angrier. From his position, he was to the left of the stage, so he went right, making a wide arc and coming behind another sentry. Just as before, he took the watching Hunter quietly and continued on. In ten minutes, he’d circled the area and killed all but one. He crept up and, on instinct, clamped his hand around the other’s mouth and pushed the tip of a dagger into his back.
The Hunter stiffened, but kept still. “How many of you are there?” Jelani asked. “Are there any more?”
“Just me,” came the muffled reply.
“Really?” Jelani replied. “I’m assuming you Hunters are skilled, yet I just got the drop on you. Do you really think I’m stupid, or are you just stupid? Oh, and by the way. Five of your friends aren’t feeling so well.” The Hunter was silent. Jelani let the moment linger for a few more seconds then said, “you care to come a little cleaner with me?”
“We’re all there is,” he finally said.
Jelani started to speak, but stopped. A burning feeling crept into the area behind his sternum, then spread upward and downward. The burning crept through his arms, his fingers, his legs, up his throat and behind his eyes. The thirst was upon him. Jelani looked around, desperate. He didn’t know if he was ready to feed on anyone. Then again, he had already killed eight people, though he wasn’t sure if they could be called people, since they were vampires and two of them he was sure would have killed him.
Thinking about that dimmed his anger for a heartbeat, then rage replaced it. Rage at what he had become; what Remy had made him into. His eyes burned, and the rage inside him danced and coiled with the thirst, creating an uncontrollable bloodlust. His fangs extended, and he buried them into the Hunter’s neck.
In less than a couple minutes, he had completely drained the vampire in front of him, and the skin of the corpse began to flake and float away in the night breeze. Energized and angered, Jelani looked down at the mass of vampires writhing in an intoxicated cesspit. Seeing the erratic dancing and flailing bodies, Jelani better understood purebloods’ general distaste for shaquora.
“Fine,” he said under his breath. “I’ll send them to wait for your pureblooded asses in hell.”
He dropped out of the tree and stalked into the crowd. One vampire dancing at the edge turned and looked at him. His red eyes glowed wildly and Jelani wondered if a vampire could be influenced by drugs.
“Late to the party—”
Jelani cut him short with a roundhouse slash across the neck. He continued the motion and spun around the dying vampire as he fell to his knees.
Jelani milled through the bouncing and swaying crowd, dispatching all in his path. So discrete were his movements, that at first, no one took note of him. It really is like they’re high or something, he thought.
Once he’d made his way nearly to the middle of the crowd, the dancers began to slow with the music in what felt like a buildup. At first Jelani thought he’d been discovered, but then all eyes lifted to the sky. Jelani glanced around, wondering what the hell was going on. Slowly, arms started rising, and every vampire on the grounds was reaching toward the sky with clawed hands and curled fingers.
Still looking around, Jelani followed their gazes and saw a patch of clouds drifting across the sky until a gap revealed a bright full moon, tinged with orange. Jelani’s mouth fell open. What the hell is that?
The music built to a fever pitch and all the vampires around him hissed, mouths opening wide to reveal elongated fangs. Jelani felt something stir within himself as well. His blood felt like it was lighting on fire, not from the thirst, but a different kind of feeling. The base in the music deepened until the thump could be felt on the grass-covered ground. Arms and bodies swayed, and glowing eyes were fixed on the moon.
What the fuck is this? Am I surrounded by vampires or werewolves? He felt the heat rising inside him as surely as the revelers were. The music made a sound that made Jelani think of wind passing in every direction across a turntable, blowing, scratching, spinning. The crowd stopped swaying and stood in place, shaking. All around him was the sound of sighing, hissing, and moaning. Jelani’s eyes were still fixed on the moon. Then the clouds drifted away and the moon was revealed in its full splendor. It was the most frightening, alien, and empowering sight he had ever laid eyes on. Beautiful, he thought.
The music finally exploded in a cacophonous burst, and the reveling crowd was swept in the energy. Bodies swayed and flailed anew, swinging arms and bouncing to the fast beat of the loud music. They scratched and bit, shoved and hissed in a monstrous celebration. What they celebrated, Jelani didn’t know or care. The power of this strange moon had taken him as well.
His fangs extended, the nails on his fingers elongated, and he felt within him a primal bloodlust that pushed his rational sensibilities aside. He drew his second blade and, in the midst of the whirling mass of violently dancing bodies, went to work.
His hands were a blur of silver. Low and high, left and right, straight and diagonal. Wherever there was a vampire within reach, they died. Tirelessly he worked through the crowd, dispatching all in his path, sometimes as many as three at a time. The situation was a perfect storm of death, and Jelani its messenger.
One vampire noticed his actions and turned toward him, bearing his fangs. Before he had taken a step, Jelani dealt a right-to-left slash across his throat, and a left-to-right slash across his chest. He came back again for another right-to-left slash across his abdomen, then followed the motion around, spinning his body. He hopped straight up in the midst of the turn, reversed his grip on the dagger, and drove it into the side of the vampire’s head.
His snapped up his left leg and wrapped it around the other vampire’s throat and bore him to the ground. He was up again before his unfortunate victim had begun to decay, and two more vampires had noticed him. They tapped others to their sides, and more took notice.
No thoughts came to Jelani’s mind as he faced the seven vampires converging on him. A circle had opened up, and many of the dancers had stopped to watch the spectacle. Jelani would give them one.
One of the vampires thought to take Jelani down by himself and rushed in with quick, slashing claws. He was fast but Jelani paced his movements, half studying half teasing. It seemed that most vampires, while lethal to humans, were relatively unskilled, unless they were Hunters. This guy attacked in the same manner as that woman in the alley. Mostly punching, slashing, or grabbing actions.
“No.”
He released her, and she took a step toward him and pointed down the litter-strewn alley at the man who sat on the ground, transfixed with fear. “We have no choice but to feed on them.” She tilted her head and looked up at Jelani. “If it’s any consolation to you, they would overpopulate and ruin the world in no time. We’re just like any other predator. We maintain balance.”
Jelani’s eyes lit with rage and she retreated a step. “Don’t blame me for your anger. Find a way to kill the one who brought you to the night.”
“What if I see vampires like you as predators who kill out of preference instead of need?”
“You have no idea what it’s like, fledgling. You are how old? Two months? Three? Given time, you’ll understand why many of us prefer a fresh neck to a cheap brown bag.”
He would have laughed at the liquor store ‘brown bag’ reference if he wasn’t still on the edge of uncontrolled rage.
“I’ll offer you a trade,” Jelani said. She tilted her head at him. “You tell me where I can either find a coven or a place where vampires congregate, and I’ll let you walk out of here.”
She laughed. “You want what? A lone crazy fledgling, you are. You want me to send you to a coven of not only older vampires, but purebloods at that? You know most covens have either an Elder or a very old pureblood at their head, right?”
“Let me worry about that.”
She gave him a doubtful look. “You’re good, but you’ll die as soon as you step foot in a coven.”
“What do you care? Trade other lives for your own.”
She shrugged. “There is a dark rock going on, actually. It’s at the outdoor theater in Stanley Park. It’s mostly vampires, but some humans who don’t know what’s good for them tend to show up as well. Plenty for you to kill before they kill you. And before you ask, I would prefer you not to attack a coven because they would find out who sent you, and I don’t want that on my head.”
“Dark rock?” Jelani asked.
The female vampire shook her head at him. “As strong as you are, I still can’t believe you’re so new. A dark rock is our version of a concert. Elders and most purebloods have nothing to do with them, but shaquora enjoy them. Think of it as a wild party.” She grinned.
“Fine.” Jelani stepped back. She looked hungrily down the alley, then back at him. “Take one step toward him,” Jelani warned, “and I’ll kill you.”
“He knows about us, now. If we leave him, the Hunters will find out and we’re dead. Trust me, you do not want one of them on your trail.”
Jelani smirked. If she only knew. “Let me worry about that.”
She mistook his smirk for arrogance. “You think a little too highly of yourself. Fine. It’s on your head.”
“Don’t let me find out you’ve attacked someone else tonight.”
“I will not guarantee you the future, but I will promise you this night. I will go home like a good girl and have one of those repulsive TV dinners. She turned away. “I’ll think of you with every disgusting sip.”
She disappeared around the corner and Jelani went to the sitting man.
He looked up in fear. “Please don’t kill me. I won’t say nothing. I promise.”
“I know,” Jelani said, circling him.
“Don’t kill me, man,” he pleaded. “Please, just don’t kill me.”
Jelani studied him. A blow to the head at the right spot with the right amount of force could create amnesia. “Sure you won’t say anything?” he said.
“I promise on my life,” the man said, and Jelani heard the desperation in his tone. He didn’t trust that it was the truth, but it was certainly sincere at the moment.
“Stand up.”
The man rose hesitantly, keeping his eyes on Jelani. “I promise. I swear I won’t—”
Jelani was suddenly behind him and struck him in the back of the head. When the man crumpled to the ground, he stood over him and watched his chest rise and fall. Satisfied, he turned and exited the alley.
After Jelani had gone, a figure dropped down at the other end of the alley and approached the unconscious man. He drew a long knife as he knelt and lifted the man’s head. His eyes began to glow pale red and his fangs extended. He snarled and bit into the man’s neck.
The human’s eyes popped open and he tried to struggle, but only for a few seconds before blood began to dribble from his lips. After the death spasms ceased, the black clad Hunter rose and stared down the other end of the alley. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the blood from around his mouth and chin. Remy would be interested in this.
17
A vampire concert, or dark rock, as that female vampire had called it. Jelani sprinted across the rooftops alongside Georgia street till he came to the street-level bridge that passed over the bike path below. He jumped over the railing and glided toward a towering redwood tree. He caught a low-hanging branch and easily hoisted himself up. He heard a gasp and figured a pedestrian must have spotted him. Jelani didn’t care. Let their sense of reasoning tell them it was just a large bird or an animal.
Jelani wondered how many of the outdoor concerts held in Stanley Park were in fact, vampire parties. He wondered if they were monitored. That thought brought him up short and he stopped just as he was about to leap to another tree. He looked around, scanning the woods for signs of Hunters. He saw nothing, but his instincts warned him otherwise.
Jelani closed his eyes and went still. He could feel the wariness of the woods. The small animals and birds that lived in the area were on alert, but whether it was because of him or the giant mass of vampires concentrated in one area, he couldn’t say.
He was still trying to get a feel for the surroundings when he heard someone speaking softly.
“I saw him come this way and head in that direction.”
“He was moving fast,” a second voice said. “She said he was abnormally strong and fast for a fledgling, but I don’t believe it. We couldn’t keep pace with him.”
“You think she lied to us,” the first voice said.
“Possibly.”
“Why would she? Why would a shaquora seek us out, only to lie to us about being attacked?”
“I don’t think he is a fledgling, and I’m doubting if he’s a shaquora as well. He moves too well to have once been human.”
“Yet he’s heading in the direction of the dark rock.”
Jelani’s narrowing eyes smoldered in hot, purple anger. That woman betrayed him to a pair of Hunters after he’d let her go. Apparently, mercy was a weakness. Very well. He was new and learning, and he would remember this mistake. The voices drew closer.
Silent as the night, Jelani leaped straight up from his position, grabbing hold of a branch ten feet above. He made his way through the treetops, circling around where he judged his pursuers to be.
Jelani made his circuitous route to position himself behind the voices, then quietly and slowly made his way forward, hopping from branch to branch. In seconds, he saw them. Both were of average height and held semiautomatic handguns with silencers attached. Jelani remembered being told that no firearms were permitted, because even the muffled whistle of a silencer could be heard. Only bare hands and bladed weapons were supposed to be allowed. Maybe the rules were different in an area such as this, surrounded by trees and foliage.
Jelani drew his silver daggers as the Hunter on the right spoke. “Go a little in front and I’ll be close behind and to the right.”
Mistake.
The other Hunter had not gone more than five feet when Jelani dropped onto the branch next to the one who had spoken. Seven stabs from lower back to neck left the Hunter descending to death and Jelani leaping past. Before the rapidly decomposing body hit the ground, Jelani was gliding at the back of the Hunter ahead. While airborne Jelani tucked away one of his daggers and upon impact, wrapped his legs around the Hunter’s body as they were knocked from the tree.
They turned a complete forward flip and as he came back around, Jelani placed the silver blade at the vampire’s throat, reached out with his free hand, and grabbed a nearby branch. The Hunter tried to raise his gun, but Jelani pressed the blade further into his throat. There was a sizzling sound, followed by a coughing gurgle.
“Drop it,” Jelani ordered, and the Hunter complied.
For a few moments, they hung suspended nearly forty feet above the ground, held aloft only by Jelani’s inhumanly strong grip on the branch. Never in his wildest dreams did Jelani believe he could be capable of such feats.
He looked down at the Hunter. “You were looking for me?”
“We … were monitoring you,” the other man grunted.
“Why?”
“It’s our business to do so.”
“To monitor newly turned vampires like me? Or to monitor turned vampires in general?”
“Argh!” The knife cut a little deeper, and the sound of sizzling flesh intensified.
“Better hurry up,” Jelani said. “I know this has to hurt. Answer my questions fast, and I’ll release you.”
“Shaquora in general are to be monitored, but you looked suspicious—”
“Noble of you to protect the woman who told you to find me,” Jelani interrupted. He looked ahead in the direction of the faint sounds of music. He looked back down at the struggling Hunter. “How many are there?”
“What the hell are you? How can you be this strong?”
Jelani tightened his legs around the other’s torso, and heard the resulting gasp. “You already know what I am. As far as my strength. I dunno. Now, an answer for an answer. How many are there?”
“How many what?”
“Hunters,” Jelani said impatiently. “Are there any Hunters monitoring the dark rock, and if so, how many?”
The Hunter hesitated till Jelani tightened his grip further and dug the silver blade into his neck a little more. “Ah! Six. There’s six of them, okay? One on each side of the stage, one on each side of the front of the crowd, and one on each side of the back.”
“Are they visible.”
The Hunter hesitated again, and Jelani drew the dagger from his neck and stabbed it into his shoulder and held it there. The pain was sufficient and the Hunter babbled out all the details.
“No. They aren’t visible but everyone knows they’re around. They’ll be in the trees. You don’t cause trouble, you won’t have any trouble.”
“Six, you say?”
“Yeah, yeah. Ah! Yeah, six!”
“Alright.” In one motion, Jelani yanked the blade out of his shoulder and slashed it across the Hunter’s throat. He let go and the corpse fell decaying to the ground. “You are released.” He lifted himself onto the branch and continued toward the sound of the music.
Jelani followed the sound of the music, continuing in the direction it grew louder. He stayed hidden in the trees, searching. Soon he found the first Hunter standing in a tree. Jelani closed the distance swiftly, clamped his hand around the vampire’s mouth and buried his dagger in his neck. One down, five to go.
He hid behind the trunk of the tree and peeked out at the mass of dancing, hopping, flailing bodies in front of an open stage. There had to be at least a two hundred down there. Jelani would never have guessed there were so many vampires in the city. He wished he could kill them all but he would take as many as he could.
He looked down toward the stage where five band members practically mutilated tone and melody in a symphony of noise and loudness. The sound screeching out of the eight foot tall black speakers surrounding the crowd and on stage only made Jelani angrier. From his position, he was to the left of the stage, so he went right, making a wide arc and coming behind another sentry. Just as before, he took the watching Hunter quietly and continued on. In ten minutes, he’d circled the area and killed all but one. He crept up and, on instinct, clamped his hand around the other’s mouth and pushed the tip of a dagger into his back.
The Hunter stiffened, but kept still. “How many of you are there?” Jelani asked. “Are there any more?”
“Just me,” came the muffled reply.
“Really?” Jelani replied. “I’m assuming you Hunters are skilled, yet I just got the drop on you. Do you really think I’m stupid, or are you just stupid? Oh, and by the way. Five of your friends aren’t feeling so well.” The Hunter was silent. Jelani let the moment linger for a few more seconds then said, “you care to come a little cleaner with me?”
“We’re all there is,” he finally said.
Jelani started to speak, but stopped. A burning feeling crept into the area behind his sternum, then spread upward and downward. The burning crept through his arms, his fingers, his legs, up his throat and behind his eyes. The thirst was upon him. Jelani looked around, desperate. He didn’t know if he was ready to feed on anyone. Then again, he had already killed eight people, though he wasn’t sure if they could be called people, since they were vampires and two of them he was sure would have killed him.
Thinking about that dimmed his anger for a heartbeat, then rage replaced it. Rage at what he had become; what Remy had made him into. His eyes burned, and the rage inside him danced and coiled with the thirst, creating an uncontrollable bloodlust. His fangs extended, and he buried them into the Hunter’s neck.
In less than a couple minutes, he had completely drained the vampire in front of him, and the skin of the corpse began to flake and float away in the night breeze. Energized and angered, Jelani looked down at the mass of vampires writhing in an intoxicated cesspit. Seeing the erratic dancing and flailing bodies, Jelani better understood purebloods’ general distaste for shaquora.
“Fine,” he said under his breath. “I’ll send them to wait for your pureblooded asses in hell.”
He dropped out of the tree and stalked into the crowd. One vampire dancing at the edge turned and looked at him. His red eyes glowed wildly and Jelani wondered if a vampire could be influenced by drugs.
“Late to the party—”
Jelani cut him short with a roundhouse slash across the neck. He continued the motion and spun around the dying vampire as he fell to his knees.
Jelani milled through the bouncing and swaying crowd, dispatching all in his path. So discrete were his movements, that at first, no one took note of him. It really is like they’re high or something, he thought.
Once he’d made his way nearly to the middle of the crowd, the dancers began to slow with the music in what felt like a buildup. At first Jelani thought he’d been discovered, but then all eyes lifted to the sky. Jelani glanced around, wondering what the hell was going on. Slowly, arms started rising, and every vampire on the grounds was reaching toward the sky with clawed hands and curled fingers.
Still looking around, Jelani followed their gazes and saw a patch of clouds drifting across the sky until a gap revealed a bright full moon, tinged with orange. Jelani’s mouth fell open. What the hell is that?
The music built to a fever pitch and all the vampires around him hissed, mouths opening wide to reveal elongated fangs. Jelani felt something stir within himself as well. His blood felt like it was lighting on fire, not from the thirst, but a different kind of feeling. The base in the music deepened until the thump could be felt on the grass-covered ground. Arms and bodies swayed, and glowing eyes were fixed on the moon.
What the fuck is this? Am I surrounded by vampires or werewolves? He felt the heat rising inside him as surely as the revelers were. The music made a sound that made Jelani think of wind passing in every direction across a turntable, blowing, scratching, spinning. The crowd stopped swaying and stood in place, shaking. All around him was the sound of sighing, hissing, and moaning. Jelani’s eyes were still fixed on the moon. Then the clouds drifted away and the moon was revealed in its full splendor. It was the most frightening, alien, and empowering sight he had ever laid eyes on. Beautiful, he thought.
The music finally exploded in a cacophonous burst, and the reveling crowd was swept in the energy. Bodies swayed and flailed anew, swinging arms and bouncing to the fast beat of the loud music. They scratched and bit, shoved and hissed in a monstrous celebration. What they celebrated, Jelani didn’t know or care. The power of this strange moon had taken him as well.
His fangs extended, the nails on his fingers elongated, and he felt within him a primal bloodlust that pushed his rational sensibilities aside. He drew his second blade and, in the midst of the whirling mass of violently dancing bodies, went to work.
His hands were a blur of silver. Low and high, left and right, straight and diagonal. Wherever there was a vampire within reach, they died. Tirelessly he worked through the crowd, dispatching all in his path, sometimes as many as three at a time. The situation was a perfect storm of death, and Jelani its messenger.
One vampire noticed his actions and turned toward him, bearing his fangs. Before he had taken a step, Jelani dealt a right-to-left slash across his throat, and a left-to-right slash across his chest. He came back again for another right-to-left slash across his abdomen, then followed the motion around, spinning his body. He hopped straight up in the midst of the turn, reversed his grip on the dagger, and drove it into the side of the vampire’s head.
His snapped up his left leg and wrapped it around the other vampire’s throat and bore him to the ground. He was up again before his unfortunate victim had begun to decay, and two more vampires had noticed him. They tapped others to their sides, and more took notice.
No thoughts came to Jelani’s mind as he faced the seven vampires converging on him. A circle had opened up, and many of the dancers had stopped to watch the spectacle. Jelani would give them one.
One of the vampires thought to take Jelani down by himself and rushed in with quick, slashing claws. He was fast but Jelani paced his movements, half studying half teasing. It seemed that most vampires, while lethal to humans, were relatively unskilled, unless they were Hunters. This guy attacked in the same manner as that woman in the alley. Mostly punching, slashing, or grabbing actions.
