Ravenous

Chapter 4

Holly had lost track of time since the de-oozing of the hell house. Perhaps an hour had passed. Perhaps two. She couldn't tell.

She slumped on the curb in front of the house and watched as emergency vehicles jammed the street, adding a light show and a wailing chorus of sirens to the commotion. Police stood in a huddle on the lawn, taking possession of what was now considered a crime scene. A few car lengths to the right of where Holly sat, paramedics loaded the last of the unconscious victims into an ambulance.

She was alone. Ben was with the paramedics. The police were interviewing Raglan, who had called 911. She wasn't sure where Alessandro had gone. She needed to talk to all three men—for one thing, she wanted the rest of her fee from Raglan—but everywhere Holly went she was underfoot. It was better just to sit on the curb like an unwanted couch and wait for a break in the action.

Painkillers sang happy songs in her blood, blurring the edges of adrenaline aftermath. The ambulance guys had looked her over, but what could they do for a metaphysical injury? Medical science hadn't caught up to the needs of supernatural patients. The paramedics' solution had been two little green gelcaps—the same kind she used for migraines—and a bottle of water. At least the bistro down the street had brought hot coffee. When this was all over, she'd come back and put a blessing on the night staff.

Holly tried to run her hand through her hair, but it was stiff with dried slime and sweat. She smelled like ooze. If she were a sock, she'd throw herself out.

"Ms. Carver?"

She started at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. "What? Sorry. Yes?"

"Detective Macmillan." The man thrust a clipboard toward her. "I need you to sign this."

"Paperwork?" she said in a tone that made her sound as if she were dying. The police had already asked her ten thousand questions. Something about being discovered in a house full of dead bodies made them curious.

"Yes, ma'am." He gave a quick, rueful smile. Detective Macmillan was handsome, with dark, wavy hair and a slight scruff of beard probably due more to long hours than a bad-boy fashion statement. "The law moves in triplicate ways."

She gingerly took the clipboard. Staring at the form was useless. Between the pills and fatigue, the words were doing the can-can across the page.

Then the fire brigade arrived, big motors huffing. They maneuvered slowly, the long trucks navigating the narrow, overparked street with the skill of long practice. Bystanders thronging the road were forced to scamper out of the way.

"Where did all these people come from?" Holly wondered aloud.

"Murder brings its own audience. Supernatural murder is a chart topper." Macmillan shrugged. "If you sign the form, you get another cup of coffee. We practice only the finest in behavior modification theory."

He gave a microgrin that came and went in seconds, somehow all the more charming for its brevity. She couldn't help noticing the man knew how to dress, though his suit had the rumpled look of a long, hard day.

Holly sighed at the clipboard. "What am I signing here?"

"A burn order on the house. I understand you were the certified investigator on the scene. After this many deaths, we can't let it stand."

Holly nodded. The Corporeal Entity Law stated that only beings adhering to a recognized definition of physical life were entitled to a trial. Sentient houses, along with ghosts, wraiths, and some demon forms, were deemed nonadherent and could be exterminated without a court order. All it took was her signature and the big, bad house would go up in smoke.

After that evening's fun and games, Holly was happy to sign. She scribbled something approximating her name and handed the clipboard back to Macmillan, awarding him a smile of her own.

With a flicker of relief, Holly realized that her job at the Flanders house was officially over. Burn, baby, burn.

Alessandro stalked through the house alone. The paramedics had come and gone, leaving only the dead and the Undead. It was a welcome respite from the growing chaos outside.

He had demanded that the ambulance attendants treat Holly first. When he had lifted her from the floor of the bedroom she had fainted. In a moment of panic, Alessandro's heart had begun to beat for the first time in a century.

It was the equivalent of a vampire heart attack Only the strongest emotions could revive and Undead heart. In this case fear for the woman he held in his arms.

Something was wrong with Holly. After heavy exertion—whether it was running a marathon or wielding magic—exhaustion was normal. The yelps of pain were not. There was a flaw in Holly's powers, an important weakness.

She had never told Alessandro about the condition. Like many others, she was friendly toward him, but that did not make him her friend. Not really.

You would be a fool to expect anything else.

Still, something clenched under his breastbone, a dull, forlorn ache. Alessandro was not prone to brooding over his lost humanity—after six centuries he either staked himself or got over it—but Undeath had its limitations.

It branded him a killer. That led to social disappointments.

Fortunately they said Holly would be fine. Fortunately the house—one of the worst he had seen—was a distraction from his uncomfortable thoughts.

Instinct drove him through the rooms that he had not yet explored, making him open every closet and cupboard to make sure the house was dead. He would not be satisfied until he walked its boundaries inside and out. Such was the nature of his kind.

But Holly had done her work well. Now the main floor of the house felt empty, like the carapace of a beetle long dead. Even the dust seemed dryer, limply coating the walls with streamers of filmy gray. He searched the crawl space and the main floor until all that remained was one last corner of the upstairs.

There was not much to see. He walked down the hall, opening doors. The rooms were empty, mirrors of the ones he had already visited. He thought he was finished.

Until he noticed that one of the paneled bedroom doors hovered behind a haze. Another look-away spell. It was a simple piece of magic meant to keep things hidden from the curious, like the police, or a real estate agent, or even Raglan and his workmen. Alessandro had found traces of similar enchantments here and there, including the room where they had fought the ooze. The charm on this door was the only one still active.

Such spells didn't work on vampires, at least not ones as old as Alessandro. Or, if they did, not for long.

The presence of the spell meant that there was more going on than just a house gone rogue. He turned the handle, shattering the magic.

More indeed.

A body sprawled on the bare wooden floor. Alessandro stood frozen, his hand on the doorknob. The figure had collapsed on her stomach, her head turned toward him, eyes open, but unequivocally dead.

Slowly he stepped inside the room. Death did not shock him, but he was surprised. Usually the smell of a corpse was obvious to a vampire. Either the spell had hidden the stench, or it had blended in among all the other death in the house.

He switched on the overhead light. He didn't need it, but felt marginally comforted.

Sprawled just inches from his feet, the still, silent body told its story. She had been a student, judging by the Fairview U hoodie. Blond. Slim. Bare feet in bright white canvas shoes that were laced in a soft pink. She had probably been pretty, but a morbid hue stole her beauty. Alessandro guessed she had been about nineteen.

The police need to know about this. But the visuals held him; he was too affronted to move.

Her feet were lashed with yellow nylon rope, a wad of cloth stuffed in her mouth. Shallow slashes scored her flesh, signs of obvious cruelty. The last—so unnecessary—stiffened Alessandro's shoulders. There was a difference between a hunter and a brute.

Bending closer, he gave an experimental sniff. Cold. Dead a day, at least. No drugs that he could detect, just the sour residue of terror. Alessandro tasted the air again, letting his senses do their work. No more than a lick of blood remained in her veins, but there was only a spatter on the floor and her clothes. She had been sucked dry, her throat chewed open.

A news report, half heard, half forgotten, tugged at Alessandro's memory. Murders on campus. He had assumed it was a human affair. There had been no mention of neck wounds, but perhaps the police had held that information back.

No human did this. Behind the smell of death and fear was the stink of something other. A magic user.

But was it a vampire? No one he knew would do this, and Alessandro was the vampire queen's representative in Fairview. A newcomer to town would have paid his respects as soon as he or she arrived. No such overture had been made.

Besides, the injury was wrong. A vampire bite was sharp but neat, the corner fangs large on top, less pronounced on the bottom. The wounds on the girl were obscured, more suggestive of gnawing than a clean bite.

Werewolf? No. A beast wouldn't stop with the neck. They went for the viscera.

A ghoul? There again, it would make more mess. Lots more. It would eat the flesh.

A demon? There were a lot of subspecies, each with its own dining habits, each more appalling than the last.

Alessandro shuddered, his flesh crawling under the wool and leather layers of his clothes. There was no power on earth, above or below, that could induce him to tolerate a demon in his town. It could lay waste to the campus. To Fairview. He'd seen them in action before. The stuff of nightmares, even for a vampire.

Hunt it. Kill it.

Alessandro could feel his heart beating again, a sure sign of stress. The smell in the room was cloying. He cleared his throat.

Stop and think with something besides your fangs.

Time was running out. He could hear the activity outside. Soon the police would be in the house, fouling everything with noise and human odors. He crouched, looking closely for any more clues. There it was again, that scent. He rocked back onto his heels, his head starting to ache with the effort to place that smell. It was vampire with a chaser of… what?

Who is it? Who dares to hunt in my domain?

The girl on the floor looked so vulnerable, so lonely under the dirty glare of light. She had not died well. From the position of the body, the girl seemed to have been thrown down. One hand reached up, as if she had tried to protect her face from the fall.

Vampires weren't gentle, but this level of violence was atypical. She might have even died before she was drained. Humans broke so easily.

Alessandro tilted his head, catching sight of something glinting in the girl's upflung hand. He dared not touch her. Vampires left fingerprints just like humans. He pulled out a pen and poked at her fingers, loosening the object in her grasp. Something hit the wooden floor with a clink. Alessandro pinned the object with the tip of the pen, scooting it along the floorboard until he could see what it was.

Cold dread congealed in his gut. The round, flat metal object was familiar. He had one just like it, a gift from his sire centuries ago.

The size of a quarter, the copper disk was old, rubbed thin, the edges slightly ragged. The design was worn away, but Alessandro could still make out the figure of Orpheus, the hero from Greek myth. In one hand he held a lyre; his other rested on the head of a lion.

In legend Orpheus sang so sweetly the wild beasts wept. His song was so powerful that he could walk through the Underworld in safety, for he charmed even the god of the dead.

Vampires left the Orpheus token as a blessing, a gift to ensure that the soul of their prey would travel in peace and safety. It was a ritual of respect that Alessandro hadn't seen practiced for hundreds of years. Tokens were rare. The one in the girl's hand dated from the Middle Ages.

I am searching for someone very old.

Apprehension prickled Alessandro's skin. Apprehension, and a primal need to answer the challenge. He picked up the token and slipped it into his pocket along with his pen.

Alessandro got up and looked out the small, dirty window. The night outside rustled and glittered, a breeze sending the dry leaves and branches flickering across the campus lights. Close up was the university, and a little farther away the community college that shared its grounds. He could see the clock tower and neon signs of the Student Union Building. Through it all streamed the endless glowing pinpoints that signified thousands of human lives.

Why would an old one come to my town and challenge me?

A new noise scattered his thoughts. Heavy men with heavy boots clumped up the stairs. The police had arrived. The look-away spell had been broken.

I'm a vampire standing next to an exsanguinated body. This cannot end well.

Alessandro switched off the room light and closed the door. That would buy him a little time, nothing more. He returned to the window and pulled on the old double-hung frame. It was painted shut. By the sound of the footfalls, Alessandro could tell the first of the policemen had reached the second floor.

A wave of frustration made him reckless. He shoved up the sash with a shuddering crash of splintering wood and paint. A gust of damp, cold air swirled into the room, sweet and clean after the stink of old death.

Predictably, the noise was followed by a yell from one of the cops. The window's opening was narrow, but Alessandro dived through, fragments of broken frame clawing at his clothes and hair.

The night air caught his momentum, floating him through the darkness. Speed made him a fleeting shadow against the bright sea of campus lights, a momentary tingle down the necks of the bystanders. The flight was short, but the thrill drove out the anxiety feasting on his soul.

Landing in the murky blackness of a neighboring lane, Alessandro crouched, listening. Nothing. He was safe. A slow smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

There was a hunt awaiting. A war for territory. A worthy, challenging, dangerous opponent, someone clearly spoiling for a fight.

I'll find you, Old One. The world of cell phones, credit checks, and taxation faded into insignificance. Alessandro was a creature of the rustling night, ready to protect what was his.

Ready for the chase.

He really hoped those emergency vehicles hadn't blocked in his car.