I shook my head. I wasn’t sure what was usual. I had been in cities where vampires munching on the locals was quite common. “Is it unsafe to walk around here at night? I have to take the bus home after my shift.”
“It might be best to have an escort wait with you at the bus stop,” he said.
I caught myself biting my lower lip and stopped it. “Thank you. I’ll try and take that advice. No one told me this is a dangerous neighborhood.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. It’s normally pretty safe.” He looked around the room. “There are some interesting characters who hang out around here, though.”
“Really? Such as?” I leaned forward over the bar and craned my neck, looking back and forth over the crowd of wildly eccentric people I had been serving all evening. One guy near the dart boards was juggling three glasses full of beer. The remarkable thing was that he wasn’t using his hands, the glasses just floated around in a circle without spilling.
He turned slowly and kind of blinked at me. I tried to give him the most wide-eyed and innocent expression I could manage.
Blair stuck around for a few more minutes drinking his coffee, then put on his raincoat and ventured back out into the storm.
“What did he want?”
I jumped at Jenny’s voice right next to my shoulder.
“Dear gods. Make more noise when you sneak up on me,” I said.
She chuckled.
“Asked if I saw anything unusual last night. He said they found a body between here and the bus station this morning.”
Jenny nodded. “I heard. A vampire. I guess he ran into a meal that bit back.”
“Do you get a lot of that around here?”
“Not just around here. For the past year, it seems a lot of vamps, wolves, Fae, and other types of rogues have decided to make this city their home. Used to be they stayed pretty low key, but the past few months it seems to be getting out of hand.” She sort of pointed across the room. “The biker with the red bandanna around his head? He’s a werewolf. Works as an accountant downtown. Been coming in here for years without causing any trouble, but he told Sam there’s some new kids in town who are troublemakers. Best to be aware of your surroundings when you get off at night.”
As it turned out, I didn’t have to ride the bus. Steve Dworkin drove right by my apartment complex and dropped me off on his way home.
Chapter 5
Lieutenant Blair came in earlier the following evening. His tie was loosened, and he sat on one of the barstools instead of leaning against the bar as he had the previous night. He surprised me by ordering a beer.
“Off duty, Lieutenant?” I asked as I put it in front of him. “Would you like to see a menu? Special tonight is smoked-haddock pie with potatoes and Gubbeen cheese.” I had tried it for my own dinner and fallen even more in love with Dworkin. I found myself thinking that I shouldn’t dismiss that group marriage thing so quickly.
Blair blinked at me. “Is that an Irish dish?”
“Rosie’s is an Irish bar,” I said. “Next best thing to being there.”
“Sure, I’ll try it.”
I put in his order and gave him a place setting. As I started to walk away, he said, “There was another murder last night.”
“Oh? I caught a ride home with the cook.”
“Guy was beheaded,” Blair said.
“Is that how the other guy died?”
He shook his head. “We think he was shot. Striking similarity between them, though. They both had very strange teeth. Almost like fangs.”
I laughed. “Maybe you’ve got vampires.”
Blair didn’t laugh. “What would you know about vampires?”
“About what I know about werewolves, garden gnomes, and leprechauns. Shall I ask around and see if I can find any vampire experts for you to talk to?”
Emily signaled for my attention, and I went off to fill her drink orders. I didn’t care for the way Blair continued to watch me, though.
“Is he always like this?” I asked Emily. “Just come in and watch people?”
“He’s not watching people,” she said. “He’s watching you. I think he likes you.”
I gave her a fake shudder. “Just what I need, a cop who’s fifteen years older than I am. Why can’t I attract what I really want—a millionaire in his nineties?”
She laughed and took the drinks to her customers.
Steve came to me around midnight and said he needed to leave early. I told him that I’d catch a bus, but Blair’s warnings echoed in the back of my head.
When Jill, my replacement, came on at two o’clock, I gathered my jacket and set off for the bus stop. The rain had slacked off to a light drizzle. I stayed alert, paying special attention to the alleys and side streets.
I only had to wait for about five minutes once I reached the bus stop. When I got off at my apartment, even the drizzle had stopped. I started off across the compound for my building when I heard the scuff of a shoe behind me. Picking up my pace, I rounded the end of a shoulder-high hedge and almost ran into someone.
The man in front of me reached out, and the footsteps behind me picked up speed. I felt a hand on my wrist, but I pulled away before he could grab me. Dropping into a crouch, I pulled energy from the nearest ley line, then leaped straight up, my balled fists shooting out and catching my attacker under the chin. As he fell away from me, I smelled the alcohol on his breath. Not a vampire, just a common drunken mugger.
I dropped back into a crouch and spun around with one leg extended, catching the other guy at the knees and sweeping him off his feet. A couple of kicks to the heads of both muggers, and it was over. I surveyed the unconscious men on the ground, conflicted over whether I should call anyone.
“I’ll call the police,” Eleanor said, her voice from the darkness causing me to jump.
“Will I have to talk to them?” I asked, thinking about Lieutenant Blair.
“No, I’ll just tell them I have a couple of homeless guys trespassing and want them gone. My tenants need to feel safe.”
“Thanks.”
Standing in the shower a few minutes later, I wondered how much Eleanor had seen and whether she would mention the incident to Sam. I was quite aware that most young women couldn’t have subdued two large men so easily. When I walked away from my previous life, I thought I had walked away from violence. Yet, I found myself repeatedly having to defend myself. Did everyone live that way? Was the world really that violent?
The following day, when I got to work, Jenny and Sam were standing at the end of the bar talking. They looked up when I came through the door and continued to watch me as I hung up my coat and put on an apron.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Another beheading,” Jenny said. “A vampire was found this morning near your apartment complex.”
“Oh. I had a run-in with a couple of muggers last night, but neither of them was a vampire. Eleanor said she was going to call the police, but I didn’t talk to her this morning.”
“Jenny told me that Blair has been around,” Sam said. “We thought you should be forewarned if he came in again.”
I nodded. “Thanks. He acts like I’m somehow connected to these vamps, but Jenny said the problem started a long time ago.”
“That’s true,” Sam said, “but the bloodsuckers getting killed is new. The beheadings are definitely new. Makes me wonder if there’s a Hunter in town.”
Jenny shrugged. “Tales me gran used to tell. Leprechauns and banshees and Hunters. Not that I’m skeptical about things I ain’t never seen, but I’m believing more in some kind of gang war between different vampire gangs.”
I couldn’t stop thinking about Sam’s comments as I went about my work. Beheading a creature wasn’t easy, and who carried a sword capable of beheading a human or vampire? No one carried a sword around in public. Except a Hunter, with a spelled blade no one could see.
And if there was a Hunter in the city, would it be one who knew me? As the Illuminator’s Hunter, I never worked with other Hunters, and except for those who trained me, no one knew me well. And while there were Illuminati strongholds scattered around the globe, I had never visited any of them.
Almost everyone in the Order I had ever met was based in the City of the Illuminati, and everyone in the City was dead—almost five thousand people incinerated when the Illuminator destroyed Strickland’s truth crystal. The entire Council, all the Masters, and the Commanders of the Hunters’ Guild. The heads of the regional headquarters in Germany, England, Russia, and Ecuador weren’t Masters, and never would be. All of the Masters had risen through the Hunters’ Guild, and only Masters were elevated to the Council.
My first impulse was to pack up and run, but there was a problem with that. All the money I had was a couple of nights’ tips, and I was eating all my meals at work. I didn’t know how far a bus would take me on the money I had, but it would be a hungry trip.
Even if I did run, the chances of me running into a Hunter at my next stop were still greater than zero. I couldn’t run forever, unless I wanted to run forever. But would I survive an encounter with a Hunter? I had thrown all my weapons away. Sure, I had my magic, but all Hunters were mages. Had I run all that way to Westport only to find myself cornered and out of options? I felt really young, all of a sudden. Young, and clueless, and wishing someone older and wiser could tell me what I should do.
“Are you all right?” Sam’s voice startled me out of my reverie.
“Sure. I’m fine.”
He seemed to be studying me, and I felt my face grow a little warm.
“You don’t know anything about these vamps, do you?”
His voice rang in my head, Never lie to me.
“The beheadings?” I asked.
Sam nodded.
“No.” I took a deep breath. “I’ve heard of Hunters, and that would certainly fit. I mean, who carries a big-ass sword around beheading people? But I always considered meeting a Hunter to be as likely as meeting an Elf.”