The Hunger Page 7

  Lucinda closed a hand onto the jacket of the man to the right, jerking up with all of her strength and lifting the thug from the floor. She twisted and flung him through the air with the strength of ten women, sending him toward the far wall. The vampire turned her attention toward the other thug who was bringing his pistol down on her head as she heard the meaty thunk of the first man hit the wall. Her sensitive hearing could make out the crack of breaking bones just before the heavy automatic hit her in the temple.

  Her head rocked just a bit from the strike, as she grabbed the man’s lapels and jerked his face down. She brought her knee up and into the downward moving face, feeling the shock radiating through her thigh as the facial bones of the man broke up under the hard strike. She released his lapels and let the limp body fall to the floor, leaping the man and landing lightly on her feet in the hallway.

  A burst of rounds flew through her, each one causing a slight jerk of her body as they passed through her as if she were made of cobwebs. Lucinda looked up with a snarl as she turned toward the source of the rounds. Carlos stood at the end of the hall with a small machine pistol in his hand, bucking as it sent rounds down the hall.

  “What the hell are you?” he screamed as the weapon clicked on the empty chamber. He reached frantically into his jacket, trying to fumble another magazine, then tried to ram it home. But as his hands shook the new magazine refused to go where the old one still resided.

  Lucinda took off in a sprint toward the man, moving faster than humanly possible, faster than the swiftest sprinter. She lowered her shoulder and took Carlos in the ribs, feeling the bones crack as she lifted him into the air. The man struck his right shoulder and arm against the wall, grunting out his breath. Lucinda was past him and into the living room as he slid down the wall to the floor, the machine pistol falling from nerveless fingers as consciousness fled.

  Lucinda pivoted on her right foot, turning toward the family room, as more bullets whizzed past her, the sound of cracking plaster and breaking porcelain sounding to her sensitive ears. One large man, with the mass of a football player, came straight at her from the glass doors, lowering his shoulders and reaching his arms out into a classic tackle. Lucinda leapt into the air and brushed the ceiling as she flew over his form, which was falling to the floor after not meeting the resistance it had been preparing itself for. The vampire did a turn in the air, as she thanked herself for the gymnastics lessons her mom had insisted that she take, and landed lightly on her feet.

  She could sense that the door before her was locked, and she didn’t have the key. So going into a crouch and out again she sprung toward the double doors and crashed through the glass, leaving jagged hanging splinters behind her. Women screamed as she propelled her naked form across the flagstones. One man dropped his drink and made a grab for her, but a strong backhand lifted him from his feet and into the pool. By the time he hit the water with a splash Lucinda was speeding across the grass lawn, reveling in the cool passage of the night air over her bare skin.

  From ten feet out she went into a quick crouch and sprung into the air, her feet clearing the ten-foot privacy fence as more rounds cracked past her. Dogs barked at her as they struggled to catch her and were thwarted by the fence. Her feet hit lightly onto the grass of another lawn and she sprang ahead, swerving to avoid another large dog that was coming at her across the lawn.

  Lucinda leapt into the air again, spreading her arms as she arched up to twenty feet. She willed the transformation again, feeling her limbs shorten and the fur thrust out through her skin. She gave a screech to the night as she flapped her wings and disappeared into the darkness.

  * * *

  Monsignor John O’Connor could smell the telltale odor of the lair from down the tunnel. He had been walking through the miles of accessible storm drains for many hours, starting before the sun had disappeared. The priest had some trepidation at going underground in search of a creature that made the night her home. But, as he put his hand on the large, ornate cross hanging from his neck, the cross that had been personally blessed by the Pope, he felt armored in his faith. The vampire that touched him would be a creature of Satan struck down by the power of the almighty.

  O’Connor was dressed in his normal short-sleeved black shirt and white collar, but wore a thick set of black denim jeans and black high top athletic shoes. The better to work his way through the close confined of the tunnels. A holstered PPK was attached to his belt, his untucked shirt over the top of the pistol. The concealed weapon’s license the Papal legate had arranged for him sat in his wallet. He took comfort in the pistol, and in the seven bullets that sat in the magazine. Each round was tipped with an inlaid silver cross, and the leads had soaked overnight in holy water and then blessed by O’Connor himself.

  His other weapons and equipment were in the common student’s backpack he carried over his right shoulder. O’Connor knew that he was as well-equipped as a man could be to hunt the undead. Whether that was equipped enough remained to be seen, but the Monsignor was sure that the Papal Authority would not have sent him into a situation where his soul would be imperiled beyond his ability to protect it.

  O’Connor switched off the powerful police flashlight as he pulled the night vision goggles from where they sat on his brow to back over his eyes. A flip of a switch powered up the Starlight lenses. A slightly grainy image appeared to his view, as the glasses amplified the tiny amount of ambient light in the tunnel ten thousand times. The flashlight would have given a clearer picture, but also would have given him away to anyone waiting in the tunnel.

  The sickly sweet smell hit his nostrils again. He had smelled it many times before. It had permeated the lairs of the dozen vampires who had fallen to him. And it had lain like a miasma of death over the lairs he had reached too late, after its occupant had already moved on.

  O’Connor stopped and listened for a moment at the small entrance to the service chamber that led off of the tunnel. He pulled the PPK from the holster and made sure the safety was on, then hunched over and shuffled the couple of feet into the chamber. As he made it through the entrance he stood and raised the pistol in front of him, sweeping it back and forth to cover the chamber.

  When nothing moved he let out the breath he had been holding, taking in a deep breath that almost gagged him on the odor. He walked slowly to the coffin, and breathed another sigh as he saw that it was empty. He reached his left hand into the box and felt the thin layer of soil within. He scanned the room one more time, feeling a bit of disappointment come over him, even though he had known that she would be out and about her evil tasks.

  With his left hand O’Connor pushed the Starlight glasses up to his forehead and turned them off, then pulled the flashlight from his belt and flipped it on. He swept it around the chamber, wondering yet again why there were never any bodies in her lair. Every other vampire home he had been in had at least a body or two hanging from the ceiling or lying in a corner. But her lairs were always well ordered, clean even, with none of the detritus normally found among the undead.

  If she’s out then she is going for another victim, thought the priest. He said a quick prayer for the soul of the man she was going to kill tonight, wondering how much good it would do. Unlike other vampires this one didn’t allow her victims to rise. And the people she killed tended to be the ones that were on their way to hell in the first place. Which didn’t make her any less the evil spawn of Satan, and his sworn enemy.

  O’Connor pulled the backpack off of his shoulder and placed it against the coffin, unzipping it open. After digging around for a second he pulled a small flat metal container from the bag and twisted it open, revealing a number of small discs of unleavened bread. The hosts he had blessed himself after an all-night vigil mass he had said for no one.

  He took a couple of the wafers out of the container and twisted it shut, placing it carefully back into the pack. Standing back over the coffin, O’Connor began to break one of the wafers into small pieces and place them on top of t
he soil in the box. When one was gone he started to break the other one, until both wafers were spread among the soil, sterilizing it against the undead and making it useless as a resting place.

  Next O’Connor pulled a spray bottle from the backpack and walked over to the large chest that sat against the wall. The priest opened the chest, cringing for a moment as the hinges squealed. He looked around the chamber, which was still empty, then turned his attention back to the chest, which was filled with women’s clothing. He pulled some of the clothing from the chest and aimed the spray bottle at the remaining clothes, squirting liquid over the clothes. The fabric absorbed the holy water quickly. O’Connor then put some of the clothing on the floor back into the chest and sprayed it, repeating the procedure until it had all been treated. When the vampire returned she would find nothing in the chamber of use to her.

  O’Connor flipped the flashlight off and pulled the Starlight glasses back over his eyes, engaging their power. He moved to the far side of the chamber and sat down against the wall, placing the flashlight on his lap. The priest moved his lips silently as he said a series of prayers and prepared to maintain a vigil through the night, waiting for the return of the vampire.

  * * *

  Lucinda could feel a presence over her lair as she spiraled out of the night toward the asphalt in the alley floor. She couldn’t tell what the presence was. It didn’t feel like one of her kind. There wasn’t the foul taint to the presence. It could have been the FBI man, or even the priest, or just some random person who had stumbled across the lair by accident. But whoever it was, they had found her secret resting place, so it was not a secret any longer.

  As she transformed back to human form and landed on her feet she thought about her options. Other vampires would have stormed back into their lairs, using their powers to surprise and then terrify the intruder. Other vampires would kill whoever had the gall to encroach on their resting place. But Lucinda was not like other vampires. She would not kill what she had not identified as an enemy of the society she no longer belonged to. She might still sneak into the lair and get a feel for who was there, and then make a decision on what to do.

  As she made up her mind to do just that, to convert to a smaller size that could slip through an opening in the manhole cover, she felt the tingle of warning. She could feel that the area was off limits to her now, and that she would be destroyed if she tried to use anything she had left in the chamber. It was a serene message that entered her mind, not the angry hate filled messages that many vampires tapped into from their ultimate lord and master. The message did not have an evil taint to it. It had the feel of the divine, protecting her from that which would harm her.

  Time to make use of another bolt hole, she thought. She remembered back to her Junior ROTC class in high school, when Gunny Ramirez told the class about his experiences as a private in the Nam. How the Gunny told them that a smart guerrilla fighter would have escape routes planned from any hide out they might inhabit. And how they would always have alternate refuges to go to whenever the enemy discovered where they were hidden.

  Lucinda transformed back to her bat form and flew back into the night, heading toward the southern part of the city and the house she had rented near MacDill.

  * * *

  Detective Lieutenant Jamal Smith was getting tired of driving to murder scenes every night. He could barely get through processing the information he already had without getting yet another scene every night.

  The gate guard of the community had looked at his badge carefully, even though a dozen emergency vehicles had already gone through the entrance. He didn’t have to ask directions. The multitude of flashing lights pointed the way. A uniformed officer waved the crowd back and motioned for the detective to drive onto the grass.

  Smith pulled up into the yard of the large house set among other large houses on the curving street. A trio of ambulances sat on the yard close to the door, almost blocking the path of the forensics van and coroner’s vehicle. Smith opened the door as a uniformed officer approached.

  “Lieutenant,” said the female patrolman. “It’s a madhouse in there. Nothing seems to make sense.”

  “Story of my life,” said Smith as he walked past the ambulances, stopping for a second as a gurney was wheeled out of the house with a filled body bag on it.

  Smith looked around as he entered the house. A Latino man was sitting on the couch, a paramedic wrapping his ribs with tape, as a plain clothes officer stood over him writing on a pad of paper on a clipboard.

  “Detective Frazier,” said Smith as he approached the other man. “What is vice doing here at this hour?”

  “You kidding me,” said the tall white man in a southern drawl that was not heard much in the Bay Area. “We’ve been trying to get something on Giovani for years. I was almost ready to get a warrant for his arrest from the D.A. when someone else took care of the matter for me.”

  “So what’s with him?” asked Smith with a nod toward the Latino on the couch.

  “His name’s Carlos Suarez. Head of Giovani’s security detail. Looks like the boss didn’t have the best protection money could buy after all.”

  “Fuck you,” yelled Carlos, grimacing as the medic tightened the tape around his ribs. “An army couldn’t have stopped her.”

  “Her?” asked Smith. “It was a woman?”

  “I don’t know if the bitch was human or not,” said the man, shaking his head. “We couldn’t stop her with bullets or brawn. She killed the boss, then went through us like a dose of salts. She was a demon, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Smith saw one of his men closing a pad as he turned from a crying woman. Jamal waved him over as he walked away from the couch.

  “What’s the story, Sanchez?”

  “Sounds like something out of a movie, Lieutenant,” said the detective sergeant, combing his fingers through his dark hair. “We’re gonna be trying to sort this one out for days. Three dead, all bad people. Giovani’s head was off and there was almost no blood in his body, same as the others.”

  “Taken off with a knife? I would guess the security was a little lax tonight, huh?”

  “No knife, Lieutenant. Doc said from the tearing of the skin it looked as if someone twisted his head off.”

  “You know what kind of strength it would take to do that?” said Smith. “It had to be a big man to do that.”

  “All of the witnesses say it was a petite redhead,” said Sanchez. “A real looker. Giovani took her into his room to dip his wick and she took his head off. Then she threw a two hundred pound man across the room. Shattered his skull and neck when he hit. And drove her knee through the face of another man, killing him instantly as his neck snapped.”

  “And what’s the story with Carlos there?” asked Smith, waving at the man on the couch.

  “He says that the killer lifted him into the air with a shoulder as she ran into him. Broke his ribs, and slammed him into the wall.”

  “She must have been on something pretty strong to do that,” said Smith. “PCP?”

  “She was a fucking demon, man,” said Carlos, shrugging off the arm of the medic as he came off of the couch and walked up to the detectives, grimacing with each step. “I hosed her down with a fucking machine gun, and she kept coming at me like I threw spitballs at her.”

  “We have the gun he’s talking about,” said Sanchez. “A real sweat number, licensed to Giovani. It had been fired, and we found a bunch of 9mm casings in the hall.”

  “Body armor?” asked Smith. “She must have had body armor.”

  “She was fucking naked man,” yelled Carlos as his face went red. “Titties flapping and everything.”

  “There were six pistols fired in the house and the yard,” said Sanchez, looking over his pad. “Witnesses said she went through the glass door, busted right through, and then jumped clear over the ten foot security fence. While all kinds of people were putting lead in the air.”

  “OK,” said Smith, shaking his head. “So
she got some holes put in her and got cut up. Still doesn’t rule out that she was on something. We’ll probably find her dead out on the street in the morning.”

  “She didn’t have a mark on her according to the witnesses,” said Sanchez. “Everyone remembers her pale, flawless skin. And no one saw any kind of wound.”

  “So you saying that she was a fucking ghost?” said Smith, looking around the room.

  “Not a fucking ghost,” said DeFalco as he walked through the front door. “A fucking vampire.”

  Smith shook his head at the sight of the FBI Agent and felt the heartburn rise in his chest. It’s gonna be a long fucking night, he thought, before we get this one figured out.

  * * *

  Marcus stood in the gathering crowd of onlookers outside of the house. Listening to the people out on this late night or early morning something very strange had happened here tonight. More than just a normal gangland murder. Listening in on the police and medics gathered around the front of the house confirmed his worst fears.

  The whelp has gone wild this night, he thought. Showing too many of her abilities, before too many witnesses. She is giving the game away, and too many eyebrows had been raised. This will not just fade into the background as yet another set of ramblings of the lunatic fringe.

  And again she had taken to the air after fleeing the house. He had reconned the perimeter, keeping to the shadows, smelling her scent, the strong scent of a vampire fully aroused and at her most powerful. As well as a sexual scent that aroused the undead master’s mind, if not his body. He had lost the trail as soon as she became airborne.

  I must know where she is going to strike ahead of time, thought Marcus. His mind went back to his past, when he was a Tribune of a Legion of Rome, tracking the Gauls through the wooded terrain of their demesne. Always a step behind the barbarians. He could feel the frustration in the Legionnaires. It was his frustration too. And then the turncoat had come into his camp.

  “For five hundred pieces of silver, Lord, I will show you where the Gauls will encamp on the morrow,” said the fur clad peasant.