Vampire, Hunter. Maria Arnt
name 'Walker.' Now get off me." Clearly he wasn't used to people resisting his charms.
"Sure, just a sec." She slammed the knife down between his ribs, severing his aorta and piercing the heart. He screamed as she jerked it sideways a few times, making sure the hole was big enough that he would bleed out before he could heal. The old stake myth was a bit of an exaggeration, just about anything through the heart was enough to kill a vampire. It was a messy business, though, and his blood gushed over her hands and pooled beneath them.
"Why?" he rasped, blood rattling in his lungs as she stood up. "You said..."
Tanya smiled, triumphant. "I lied."
Etienne shook his head weakly. “But… he said…” Then he lost consciousness.
Tanya frowned. He said what? Who said what? But it was clear that Etienne would forever hold his peace.
Shrugging, she wrapped up the rest of his body, head and all. By now the pain in her side had almost stopped registering, which was probably a bad sign. The vampire let out a last groan, muffled by the plastic. Sadly, the plastic suffocating him wouldn’t be enough to kill him, so she waited until the rush of blood had slowed to a trickle before she pulled out the knife and wrapped the plastic back down over the wound. A wave of nausea hit and her hands shook a little, but it wasn’t from the sight of the blood. How was she going to get his body into the nearby dumpster with a broken rib? Even whole and healthy it would have been a challenge. It's not like I have super powers. She huffed, blowing the hair out of her face.
Wrestling with the plastic-wrap mummy, she managed to prop him up against the side of the dumpster. The blood under the wrapping and on her hands was starting to make him slippery. Just a little bit more, Tanya. She grunted with the effort. One last push. She crouched down, put his legs over her shoulder, and stood up. The body lifted, teetered on the edge of the dumpster, and then crashed into it, knocking the lid shut.
She stood there a moment, wiping her hands on her shirt and trying to breathe. The pain had returned with a vengeance so she would need to make a stop at the hospital.
First things first, though. She surveyed the blood on the gravel. It wasn't much, considering—the plastic wrap had turned out to be a good idea—but still, it would need to be cleaned up. She kicked her shoes off and threw them in a different dumpster, swapping them out for a pair of cheap flip-flops she had stashed in the trunk. When she returned to the metal door, she was pleased to find it had been left ajar. When a Master vampire died, all of his dependent minions died too. With no one at home to answer, it would have been difficult to get back in.
She locked herself inside the silent building. Quiet as a tomb, she thought, and suppressed a fit of hysterical giggles. All the adrenaline from the fight was making her goofy. The guy who had answered the door lay on a ratty old couch, looking like he was taking a nap, except his chest no longer moved. Contrary to popular belief, vampires did breathe, and this one definitely wasn't.
The warehouse had been converted into living quarters for the vampires, but only barely. Brick walls and cement floors still showed, and the rooms were divided with hastily-erected drywall. A quick survey of the place revealed terrible interior decorating, a la 1980s flea market, and a few more deceased vamps. A more thorough inspection would have to wait until she was clean.
Tanya found the bathroom. The shower was—thankfully—clean. She stepped in and turned on the hot water, letting it rinse the blood down the drain. Stripping, she let her clothes fall to the bottom of the tub where the water pounded on them.
As the adrenaline began to drain from her system, Etienne’s last words started to bother her. But… he said… Who had the vampire been talking about? And honestly, if she thought about it, it had been almost too easy to kill Etienne, despite the good hit he’d gotten in on her ribs. It was like he wasn’t trying to fight back, like he didn’t think she was really a threat.
But then, that wasn’t terribly unusual. A human wouldn’t expect a cheeseburger to suddenly attack them, so why should a lowly human like her be worth worrying about? She tried to shrug it off. Maybe “he” was something totally unrelated. Maybe Etienne had gone to a fortune teller who said he’d have a really great week. Who knew.
When everything was clean, she stepped out, looking for a towel. A whole stack of big, fluffy, hotel-style ones was ready nearby, and she smiled. Score. Tanya had learned along the way to leave nothing at a nest that could tie her to their deaths, but it was amazing what a person could cart off and no one ever missed it. The owners were all dead, and who else would know? Selecting one, she dried herself off quickly. A glance in the half-fogged mirror showed a colorful bruise forming below and to the side of her left breast. She scowled and poked it a little, hissing at the spike of pain.
In the adjoining bedroom, she found one dead female vampire and a well-stocked closet. At this point, she was more interested in the latter, and she picked out a few pieces that fit her decently; a button-down shirt and a baggy pair of pants that gave her plenty of room to move.
The full inspection of the nest revealed twenty-six dead vampires—none of them the one she was looking for—and all the supplies necessary to make it like she was never there. It would have been far easier to burn the place, but arson drew a lot more attention than she wanted. Better to let the cops discover the bodies, long after she was gone. Tanya kept spare supplies in the car to make sure, but it was usually better to use what was on-site. Bleach for the gravel in the alley, foaming drain cleaner for the shower, and a sealable plastic bag for her discarded clothes. Later she would burn them, but she would find somewhere across town to do that. She cleaned up after herself, put the bottles back in their places, and grabbed another couple towels.
Lastly, she went to what she assumed was Etienne’s room, since it was the nicest, and looked for her keepsake. It had to be something special, something that made her think of him. Vampires liked to keep little trinkets from their own time periods, and she usually tried to find one of them. At last, she found it. Hung on the bedpost by its chain, it was a silver filigree pendant, spherical and about the size of a ping-pong ball. She had no idea why a guy would have such a flashy necklace, but it was pretty and smelled faintly of some kind of perfume. On closer inspection, she realized it opened like a locket. Shrugging, she stuffed it deep into the pocket of her purloined slacks and headed back out to the car.
Digging her phone out of her bag, she texted the address to a number she had memorized, and then deleted it. Tanya knew the message could still be retrieved, but it was a disposable phone anyway. As she started the car and pulled out of the alley, she breathed a sigh of relief--as deep as her aching side would allow. She had succeeded again, and if she hadn’t found her attacker yet, at least she had another name to pursue. Life is good.
From atop the building, a man watched the car pull away and slowly grinned.
"Magnificent," he murmured, and turned to leave. He had been preparing for this for a very long time, and soon, very soon, the wait would finally be over....
Three
Detective Tom Bradley glanced down at his phone and opened the text message. It was an address in St. Louis, nothing more, from a number he didn't recognize. With a slight smile, he turned to his desk and excavated the mouse and keyboard from a pile of paperwork, fast food bags, and used napkins. He jiggled the mouse to wake up the computer, pulled up the records database, and started looking.
Sure enough, there was a string of disappearances and drug busts surrounding the area. Nothing reported in the last twenty-four hours, though, so he would have to keep his eyes and ears open. Still, it was enough to know that Tanya had managed to bring down another nest, and had made it out alive. He worried about her sometimes. Glancing over at the photo of his daughter, he picked it up. Lexie had been about the same age as Tanya when she disappeared, he realized. So young.
But Tanya was tough, and she certainly made his job easier. There had been no new suspected nests in the last six months. Maybe the message had finally gotten out: St. Louis was not a friendly place for vampires.
There was a knock at the door and his