The
blades of grass were a vivid shade of green against the darkness of the grave
before her. The bright sun reflected off
the glossy finish of the coffin, bringing tears to her eyes. But her eyesight be
damned, she wasn’t going to look away from her father until the coffin was in
the ground and covered by dirt.
Cori was a warm weight in her arms and they were both sweating in the
summer heat. Risa was sobbing silently,
her lips trembling with pain. Her
sister’s soft cheek was pressed against her own as she babbled and twisted in Risa’s hold. Cori was not able to talk yet, and was not able to
understand what was happening. For the
infant, today was just another day to play.
The
mourners around them cried loudly. Risa
felt a hand on her shoulder and, startled, her gaze shifted from her father’s
coffin as she looked behind her. But
there was no one there. Glancing around,
she saw that there wasn’t anyone with her any more. She was alone with her baby sister in the
cemetery. When she looked back at her
father’s grave, it was already covered with grass and flowers. How much time had passed?
Better
get home. Risa adjusted her hold on Cori and began to walk towards the entrance of the
graveyard. A strong, cold wind blew and
a thick layer of gray clouds swept overhead, blocking out the sun. Shivering in the darkness, she started to run
with Cori crying in her arms.
Just
as she was about to reach the entrance, a heavy iron gate slammed shut. She pulled on the bars, but the gate wouldn’t
budge. She stepped away and ran her hand
along the stone wall surrounding the cemetery.
Risa knew that she couldn’t climb over it while carrying Cori and she couldn’t leave her sister alone here, in the
dark.
There was the sound of footsteps
crushing the grass behind her.
Close. She was being followed.
Reaching
into her pocket, Risa grasped her father’s police badge, a cold weight in her
fingers. She propped Cori
on her hip and, with one hand, clutched her sister protectively. Whipping around, Risa looked for the stalker
as she held out the badge with her other hand, like a talisman.
There
was a dark, rolling laugh over her shoulder.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She turned, heaving the police badge as hard
as she could. But it disappeared in midair
and she was left with nothing for protection.
And
the stalker was still there. Watching her. Laughing at her.
Cori screamed shrilly as Risa felt her sister being ripped out of her arms
by an invisible force. She tried to pull
back, grabbing Cori’s chubby legs, but it was no use.
Then
the baby was just gone.
Risa
cried her sister’s name, running against the fierce wind in the cemetery,
trying to find Cori.
She tripped over a rock and fell forward into an empty grave that
suddenly appeared before her. She
tumbled down for so long, feeling weightless and alone. Her cries echoed. When she landed, Risa saw that she was in a
pit, hundreds of feet underground.
She
heard Cori shrieking above her and she desperately
tried to claw her way out. But there was
nothing to grab on to. The walls of the
grave were wet with mud and she slipped back down, over and over again.
The
dark laugh surrounded her and wisps of dirt fell on her head. Risa tried to brush it off, the grains
feeling like insects crawling on her skin.
But the dirt began to pile on top of her, mounds at a time, so cold and
heavy. Cori
was still screaming for her, but Risa couldn’t move under the weight of the
dirt. She tried to cry out, but the
earth spilled into her open mouth, choking her.
And Cori was still screaming…
Risa opened her eyes and realized that she was sitting up in her bed, screaming and coughing simultaneously. It took an immense effort to make herself stop and catch her breath. She wiped her sweaty face and peeled the blanket from her damp skin. The cool air felt good, even as she shivered.
A dream, just a dream. It was a recurring nightmare that had plagued her long before she’d been changed into a vampire. It was nothing. No, nothing.
Brushing back her tangled hair, Risa stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face, to chase away the last of the fog that clouded her mind.
Everything was fine.
After throwing on some clothes, she checked the time and dismally looked at the light spilling through her window. Darkness was falling later as spring approached and it made Risa restless. She usually woke up late in the afternoon. In the dead of winter, when the days were so short, she could roll out of bed and immediately leave for the city. But now, as the sun was setting later and later, there was a growing lag time before she could go and Risa simply didn’t know what to do with herself.
People were out there now, in daylight, committing acts of violence that she didn’t want to imagine. But Risa couldn’t hunt before dark. It was too dangerous for her. The streets were too crowded and there were fewer places for her to hide. Her height and her looks tended to draw attention, and that was the very last thing she needed. Anonymity kept her alive so that she could kill another day.
So Risa waited, striving to keep her patience. The days were only going to get longer for the next few months. She had to get used to it. But somehow she found it harder each year.
She stood with her legs together and bent down, placing her palms flat on the floor in front of her toes. Her muscles were stiff after last night and she was still shaky from the dream.
How many times had she woken up like that, with Cori’s name on her lips as she tried to breathe through an imaginary mass of dirt? Even in the dream, Risa knew what was coming, but she went through the same motions, time after time. No matter how hard she held on, Cori was always torn away from her. She always tripped into the grave, no matter how carefully she stepped. In the end, Risa always failed.
A tear dripped on the floor by her feet and she realized that she was crying. She was still bending over in the stretch and her head hurt from the blood rushing into it. Slowly, Risa stood up, feeling the world spin. She braced herself against the wall to keep herself from falling.
“Fuck,” she whispered. With the back of her hand, she roughly scrubbed the wetness from her cheek. Damn, she really wanted to leave. Killing was the only thing that helped her shake off a dream like that.
Impatiently, she paced. She shadowboxed. Paced again. Anything to keep moving. Motion kept the past at bay.
When she couldn’t think of anything else to do, Risa went into her kitchen. Opening her fridge, she took out a blood bag, checking to make sure that it was still fresh. Often, she felt too busy to feed and by the time her body was on the verge of collapse, she would find that her blood had coagulated. Thankfully, her supply was good for another few days.
The taste of blood still shocked her every time she fed. Vaguely, Risa remembered the coppery flavor of her own human blood in her mouth after a difficult night of hunting. But now that she was a vampire, it tasted entirely different. Even after all this time, she lacked the words to describe it. The richest chocolate, the sweetest strawberry, the coldest water…it was all of these and none of these. God it was good, perfect. The only thing that would surpass this was drinking the warm blood directly from a human.
She’d never done it. She had killed more humans than she could possibly remember, but she had never allowed herself to feed from one. It was too tempting. If she ever started, even just drinking from the scourge of society that she was going to kill anyway, maybe she wouldn’t be able to stop. Maybe, one day she would sink her fangs into the throat of an innocent person. And what frightened her more than anything was that, maybe, when that day came, she wouldn’t care.
So much evil in the world. How easy it must be to fall into it. Risa didn’t delude herself into thinking that she was immune; no one was. And there were certainly times, days when she woke up with blood under her fingernails, when she wondered if she had somehow crossed over the line without realizing it.
Risa threw out the empty bag of blood and sighed. What was wrong with her?
It wasn’t quite dusk yet, but it was probably good enough. She needed to get out of here and get to work. She’d feel better once she was in the city.
She grabbed some cash and opened the large trunk of weapons in her living room. These days, she preferred to take advantage of her strength and break her victim’s neck. It was simple and clean. But sometimes the people she hunted didn’t want to go down that way. And of course, she did occasionally have to exterminate a Night Person, so she needed to be prepared for that as well. So she strapped a silver knife to one forearm and a few stakes to the other. Lastly, she wore two guns, one at each hip, in a holster that she hid under her sweatshirt.
Risa glanced in the mirror on her way out, avoiding looking at her face, to make sure that the bulges under her sweatshirt weren’t too obvious. Not bad. It was fortunate that kids tended to wear such baggy clothes.
During the long walk to the subway
station, she struggled with the same decision that she had to make every night:
where to hunt.
Carden had asked her that countless times. In her mind, it was sometimes the only thing she could remember him saying. That, perhaps, along with “I’m sorry.” But he certainly hadn’t been sorry enough.
Risa frowned. It was never a good idea to let herself think about Carden. Whatever doubts she had, whatever sadness or loneliness she carried, they only got worse when she started thinking about him. And she was already too unsteady tonight.
Besides, he never had any right to question how worthwhile her work was. Not when he worked for Circle Daybreak, a group that seemed to spend more time defending itself than helping others. Maybe when the apocalypse came, if it came, and Daybreak fulfilled all of the so-called prophecies that their witches were always stumbling upon, Risa would change her mind. But right now, Daybreak seemed as pointless as the Night World. It existed only to fight for its existence.
But Risa, she needed to fight for the existence of others. As she approached the subway station, she began to stride. The wind picked up and blew her long hair back. She lifted her arms out to her sides and let the air blow against her open palms. It reminded her of the cold wind in her dream and she felt a surge of power. She was no longer some weak, little girl who was afraid of the darkness. She was going to wreak some havoc tonight. That was for damn sure.
May the wicked beware. Risa was going to send them all to hell.
“She’s moving,” he heard Hollis say. Ian glanced at his watch and saw that it had been two minutes since the last time she had spoken. It was a new record. He really must be taking a toll on her. Thank the Goddess. It only took ten days for the girl to learn.
Ian was stretched out on his hotel bed, resting his head on his arm as he listlessly flipped through the TV stations. His back was killing him. The king-size bed was too soft and the couch was too hard. He spent the majority of his time in the room going from one to the other, trying in vain to get comfortable.
It wasn’t the worst hotel room that he’d ever had. He’d spent more than his share of time in seedy travel lodges that didn’t change the bedding between guests. The place they were in now was clean, had room service, and was only a block away from the subject’s apartment.
But still, Ian was restless. So far, this was the most boring assignment he’d ever been dealt. He’d been an assassin for Circle Daybreak since its inception. It was a passive group, striving to make all of the races on the planet get along, but even Daybreak recognized when certain opponents could not be reasoned with. Despite all of their efforts, there were still those in the Night World, and even a few hunters in the human world, who believed that the other races should be put down. Crazy, yes. But some of these people were charismatic and, with promises of a glorious new world, they drew followers, organizing small armies. They attacked their enemies on all sides, not caring how many of their own soldiers were lost. As long as the leader was alive, there would always be more followers to replace them.
That was when people like Ian were needed. Circle Daybreak would give him every scrap of information on the target and a fair sum of money. Ian would spend time shadowing the subject, getting to know his movements and planning the best way to strike. Within days, the target would be dead and, as long as Daybreak got to the leader early enough, the makeshift armies would crumble. Peace could once again be possible.
Though he might argue it in front of others, Ian didn’t care all that much about the money he was given. He actually believed in the importance of his work. He’d seen the kind of damage a single madman could do and sometimes the only way to prevent it was to kill. And the truth was that Ian was damn good at killing.
Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have the patience for reconnaissance. In the past year, Circle Daybreak had changed its policies. Instead of having a team investigate the target and then hand the information off to someone else for the kill, the assassin was now required to be a part of the investigation team. It was felt that the assassin should know the target more intimately, perhaps to make killing the person a more difficult decision. It was easy enough sometimes to condemn someone to die, but if you were the one who was required to pull the trigger, it might make you think twice about the death sentence. Daybreak wanted to spare as many lives as it could.
But for Ian, being stuck in a hotel room with Hollis Pasquale while she constantly nagged him was only making him think more seriously about putting his gun in his own mouth. Or maybe hers.
“Ian!” his partner shouted.
He was tempted to ignore her again, just to rile her up. Even though it was ridiculously easy, there was something so entertaining about making this girl mad. Ian never got tired of it. Just as she was about to shout his name again, he asked, “What can I do for you, princess?”
Hollis shut her mouth and seemed to be grinding her teeth. “I said: the subject is moving,” she replied tightly.
Ian flipped through a few more channels, not looking at her. “So? She moves around this time every night.”
“Well I think it’s obvious by now that she’s not going to bring any evidence back to her apartment. We’re going to have to follow her. If we don’t have the proof we need…”
Ian zoned out while his partner droned on about the assignment. Again. She’d been lecturing him about it incessantly for the past ten days, as if he was incapable of retaining a thought. Did she really think he was that dense or was it that she had no life beyond work to talk about? Probably a bit of both.
From what he’d read in her file, Hollis was a textbook example of an overachiever. She graduated from high school two years early with a long list of honors and extracurricular activities. In college, she double majored in political science and computer science, graduating with a 4.0 GPA. She was president of the school’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity, the Red Cross, the Honors Council, Alpha Phi Omega…blah, blah, blah.
Frankly, her record made Ian sick. On paper, she seemed like the kind of person who worked hard and took part in a thousand activities just so that it would look good on her resume. Did she ever stop to really learn? Did she ever stop to care? Or were the people she helped and the grades she earned just stepping stones to get her into some cushy corner office?
Did she ever actually live? Or was she saving that for later? Didn’t she know that there might never be a later?
Ian stared at the TV screen for a long moment before turning to Hollis. She was looking at him expectantly. He was torn between wanting to aggravate her or jumping on the chance to leave the room and actually do something. He’d been stuck here for so long. And he’d told Hollis days ago that they weren’t going to get any evidence on the subject by sitting and watching her apartment. She had refused to listen to him.
He guessed that was the reason why, in the end, he just couldn’t help himself. “Do you know what time Jeopardy comes on?” he asked her mildly.
Hollis’s pale skin turned a deep shade of red. It happened whenever she was angry or embarrassed. Ian wondered if she flushed like that when she laughed. Did she even know how to laugh? He had yet to see her even crack a smile.
“You are such an incredible jerk,” she hissed.
Just when he thought that she was about to launch into another fit of shouting about his laziness, Hollis quietly stood up and walked through the door adjoining their hotel rooms, slamming it behind her.
Ian let out his breath, feeling a little guilty. He had been pretty hard on her since they’d been paired together. But it ran both ways. He heard all of the derogatory remarks that went through her mind. From the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, Hollis had looked at him like he was a bug that she wanted to neatly crush with a tissue and flush down the toilet. Goddess forbid she got her fingers dirty.
How could she blame him now when he was simply acting as she had expected him to? It was her fault, really.
There were no sounds coming from her side of the door. She must not be calling up their supervisor to have Ian removed from her sight. Not that he expected her to do it. She cared too much about her reputation as a nice girl who got along with everyone. But what the hell was she doing in there, then? This wasn’t the typical response that Ian elicited from her.
After a few more minutes passed by, curiosity got the better of him. Ian slid off the bed and knocked on their adjoining door.
“Hollis?” There was no answer. “Come on, princess. Open up.”
When she still didn’t answer him, Ian reached out to read her thoughts, but he only hit a brick wall. Great, now she remembered to shield herself.
Fine. She’d left him no choice. Ian opened the door slightly and prayed that he wasn’t about to walk in on her half-naked again. His eardrums were still bleeding from the last time. When he didn’t hear a scream, he pushed the door open a little further and looked around her room.
Hollis wasn’t there.
Her bed was perfectly made, even though they had requested that housekeeping not tend to their rooms until they checked out. Ian snorted. She probably slept on top of the bed, just to keep from messing up the blankets.
“Hello?” he called, walking towards the bathroom. But the door was open and the light was off.
Ian looked over at the closet and saw that her coat was missing. So were her shoes. Maybe she had just gone for a walk to cool off.
But he had a sinking feeling in his stomach. He went back into his own room and walked around to look at her computer screen. Hollis was right: the subject’s apartment was empty. Risa Sinclair was, indeed, on the move.
Ian opened his mind and concentrated on the thoughts of the humans nearby, scanning for his partner. He finally got a glimpse of Hollis’s yellow coat in the eyes of someone on the street. And not fifty feet in front of her was Risa Sinclair.
“Oh no,” he whispered. “You idiot!”
Hollis had gone to follow the subject by herself. She was not trained for that kind of work. Her job was to be the tech nerd and Ian was supposed to do the field work. What was she thinking?
He didn’t have time to figure it out. Ian thrust his feet into his boots and grabbed his keycard off the dresser. He ran down to the end of the hall and burst into the stairwell. After making sure that it was empty, Ian leapt over the railing and landed gracefully on the ground floor, thankful that it had only been a three-story jump.
Dashing out into the lobby and then onto the street, Ian headed for the subway station. He was sure that the subject was going into the city for some slaughtering, as she usually did. Her work would be found all over the police reports the next day.
He kept searching for Hollis in the eyes of others, to be sure that his partner was still alive. She was walking too closely to the subject and was embarrassingly conspicuous in her puffy, yellow coat. It was hard for him to run and focus on telepathy at the same time, but he wouldn’t take the chance of calling out to her with his mind. He might be able to bore through Hollis’s mental shields, but Risa Sinclair was too close. If the subject heard him, the entire mission would be screwed.
Ian turned a corner and then descended down the first flight of stairs into the subway station. There was a train coming in now; he could hear it and was relieved. Hollis had already paid the fare and gone through the turnstiles, but the train would still leave before she got to it. She would be stuck on the platform, waiting for the next one. Then Ian could grab her and shake the daylights out of her.
But the images that he began to see showed that she was running. There must have been a delay, because the train hadn’t pulled out yet. Risa Sinclair was hurrying to catch it, and of course, Hollis was following suit.
Ian used his supernatural speed, not caring who saw him, to try to catch up to his partner. He was a blur as he jumped over the turnstiles and sprinted down the next flight of stairs onto the platform. But he got there just in time to watch the train speed through the tunnel as it headed toward the city.
Part 2
Part 4
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