Breed: Slayer Read online

  The music is gone. I am back in the present, panic rising in my throat, before I open my eyes. I’m supposed to be reading him, not the other way around. I don’t want someone else in my head. That’s the main reason I hesitate to stick my nose into the minds of others.

  Dillon’s eyes narrow and his nostrils dip as his lips tighten to a thin line. His eyebrows, thick and black, knit together, the monobrow divided only by deep creases down the centre of his forehead. He’s angry, but he shakes it off. Maybe it’s just the shock of being disconnected.

  “Try again.”

  He closes his eyes. The crease in his forehead relaxes, and the fullness returns to his lips, which turn down at the corners. His face loses all tension and the fine lines around his eyes and mouth smooth out. I resist the sudden urge to reach out and touch his face. He looks peaceful and serene, much younger than he usually does, which is a hell of a lot younger than he really is. He looks to be in his late thirties in human terms. I know he’s at least three hundred.

  I close my eyes and concentrate on Dillon again. The picture of him standing in front of me forms easily enough, but I still can’t connect with his thoughts. I start fixing on individual details, making the image as clear and crisp as I can. When I think about his eyes, noticing for the first time the silver flecks in the deep gunmetal grey irises, my head fills with white mist.

  I’m confused. I must be doing something wrong. But then the mist swirls and clears. I see cerulean sky. An eagle soars in a wide arc, then the image pans down, and I’m looking at mountains from above. Snowy peaks jut into the sky, surrounded by wisps of white cloud. Beneath the snow are ragged grey rocks, giving way to dense forest. The eagle swerves close, then flies away at speed, recognizing the presence of a more dangerous predator.

  ‘Where is it?’

  I try to aim the thought at Dillon, but I’m not sure how. I think about his image as I frame the words, and hope for the best.

  ‘Home.’

  It’s an odd, disembodied voice, but it’s progress. This must be how his thoughts sound in his own head. I wonder how different my thoughts sound to my voice.

  ‘They sound thinner, but still musical.’

  Damn, I’m going to have to figure out how to distinguish between thoughts I want people to hear, and those I don’t.

  ‘What was your home like?’

  ‘Beautiful, and unspoiled, before the settlers came and drove us out. We hunted and fished, and lived by the rhythm of the land, until they claimed it. My people were proud warriors, but they were broken and forced to disperse.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Some of the tribe moved to join others, some even settled with those who had been their enemies for generations. My mother took me to a reservation, where I watched her spirit fade and the life drain out of her. When she and all the others I had loved passed, I drifted around, wondering why I was cursed to remain unchanged, until my brother found me. He showed me what I was, and offered me a new life, a new family.’

  I think of Libby despite myself, and bury the thought quickly, hoping Dillon hasn’t picked up on it.

  ‘But you chose Sam and The Breed instead?’

  ‘I chose to say in the world and fight for it, hoping one day to bring an end to their insatiable appetite for blood.’

  ‘That was two hundred years ago. You think it’ll ever happen?’

  ‘I can dream, just as you dream of playing in the orchestra.’

  We can all dream. It seems a shame though, to have such beautiful dreams and such a violent reality.

  “Do you think the others dream?” I ask aloud this time, opening my eyes again and rubbing the now pounding vein in my temple with the heel of my hand. Even with Dillon doing most of the work, the short connection has left me exhausted. Talking is easier. Great. I can kill a vampire with my bare hands, but I still get headaches.

  “Sure.” Dillon says. “Vinnie dreams about playing rugby for England, Jax about being a stand-up comedian, and Nell dreams about giving Sam the child he wants. Oh, and don’t worry, it gets easier with practice, just like the humans and the vamps.”

  I can see Vinnie as a rugby player, and even Jax as a comedian, albeit an angry one, but I’m distracted by thoughts about how disappointed Nell is going to be, then ask, “And Sam?”

  The corner of his mouth turns up in a crooked smile, but there is no humour in his answer.

  “Sam? Oh, that’s easy. He dreams about world domination.”

  “Fantastic. Just what the world needs right now, a despotic vampire slayer.”

  Dillon raises his eyebrows. “I don’t think it could take another one.”

  I frown. “Another one?”

  He won’t meet my gaze, and something tells me he’s done sharing for the day. He’s said more than he meant to, and I don’t want to push the point. We continue in silence for a while until it’s time for Dillon to go. We slayers are not big on niceties. Sentimentality leads to death in our line of work, but Dillon brushes my arm as he says goodbye.

  I watch him walk off with the strange gait some slayers have when moving quickly through the human world. It looks like a normal walk when I watch him, and his surroundings seem to melt away, but he covers so much more ground than any human ever could in the same time, even at a fast sprint. When I watch the surrounding environment, he seems to fade to a shadow. It is impossible to focus on the speed of his movement, as if he exists in a different space to the rest of the world. It is a skill I have yet to perfect, so when I want to move at speed, I take to the rooftops, like the vampires and the younger slayers, to not attract attention.

  I’m going to be late. Libby will play holy hell, and Howard needs my help. I turn to head home, and freeze with shock when Dillon’s voice rings clear in my head.

  ‘You need to be careful with that, Max. I’m not always going to be the only one who can hear your thoughts.’

  I choke down anger at the unwanted invasion, then panic. If Dillon knows about Howard and Libby, we’re finished. Not much scares me except my own capacity for violence. Other slayers are right at the top of a very short list, especially in large numbers. The fear is paralyzing.

  I’m considering not going home, when the voice comes again, faint now and projected over a long distance, ‘Watch your back, Max.’

  I ponder what this means as I dawdle around the city, moving between the rooftops, and hopping from gable to gable, going nowhere in particular. The fear subsides and first relief replaces it, then dread. Dillon knows, but he’s not angry or condemning. He doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to expose me to Sam and the others. Confused, I head home in a circuitous route, just in case.

  My Father, the Vampire

  “BOOTS!” LIBBY YELLS, as I slam the front door a little too hard in my haste to be rid of the day’s business.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I shrug and kick off first one boot then the other. It goes skittering across her lovingly polished mahogany floor and into the pristine white paintwork of the stairs, leaving a thick black trail in its wake. Damn.

  Libby’s face appears at the kitchen door. She purses her lips and her brow crumples in a brief frown, before she disappears into the connected garage. She returns, rag in hand. She has a stockpile of old clothes, bedding, and other scraps of material amassed for jobs like this.

  “And you can clean that up, Maxi.”

  The disgust is evident in her voice as she throws the rag at me and heads back to the kitchen. She turns her head, speaking over her shoulder as she goes.

  “I don’t know why you can’t just come in the garage, anyway. It’s not like you’d wake him, the way he sleeps.”

  I stifle a silent laugh. Typical Libby, as if the worst thing for a human about living with a vampire was the sleeping arrangements. I set to scrubbing the sickly black tar, working quickly, and holding my breath to avoid getting the scent up my nose.

  I finish wiping the last of the gunk and follow Libby through to the kitchen. I head out the back to du
mp the rag in the rubbish bin before returning to wash my hands. I watch her piling food on a plate with short controlled motions, and putting the plate on a tray with cutlery.

  Her shoulder length, wavy brown hair is peppered with grey. The downy hair on her cheeks is thickening, giving her dark olive complexion a silky white bloom. The stiletto heels, which I remember were her pride and joy, have not long since given way to lower wedged heels, but they are still elegant and immaculate. The simple navy trousers and powder-blue pullover she wears show she still has a figure a woman half her age would be proud of. And she’s human. A rush of pride and love washess over me.

  She moves with the grace of a dancer, which she was in her youth. Well, of a sort, anyway. That’s how she met Howard, doing three shows a night and an afternoon matinée in a seedy joint. Although she looks every inch the respectable middle-class housewife now, she has never made any secret of the way she made a living as a single young woman in Soho in the sixties.

  “I always kept my clothes on,” She used to tell me when I was a child. Then she would give a deep, throaty laugh, and add, “of course, there were never so many to begin with.”

  She carries the tray into the dining room and transfers the plate and cutlery to the table. She waits for me to sit, then leaves to return the tray to the kitchen. She has already eaten. Family meals do not feature in our lifestyle. Although she would never say it, I know it’s one of the things my mother misses.

  I eat, then head to my room to practice the cello. Libby organizes the household accounts that include deliveries for blood, dozens of white mice, and endless chemicals. She’s such a neat freak. It gives her some sense of control, I guess.

  BEFORE SETTLING INTO my practice, I shower, turning the water up to maximum heat to feel the warmth on my skin. I’m careful to return the dial to its original position when I’m done, aware Libby may be the next to use it. I wrap a towel around me and head to my room. Grabbing a fresh pair of jeans from the top of a stack and a plain green t-shirt from another pile, I shrug them on over plain white underwear. The shirt accentuates the colour of my eyes, which are somewhere between green and hazel, and otherwise just look like murky sludge. I brush the curls out of my auburn hair and tie it back above the nape of my neck.

  Putting the brush down, I plonk my elbows on the small dressing table in my room and rest my chin on my hands. I stare in the mirror balanced against the wall. As usual, I don’t take in the details, trying to ignore the generous, lopsided mouth and the smattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose. Instead, I just focus on the ghostly reflection. It’s one of the things that separates me from both vampires and humans. I will never be fully feeling, not a whole person, never human. I will also never belong in the realm of the spectres. I guess all slayers, being half-breeds like me, are natural outsiders. I don’t even feel like I belong when I’m with them.

  Pushing my self-pity to the back of my mind, I pore over the music department page of the local college prospectus, imagining giving my life over to study. The page is well thumbed, my own secret entrance to my private fantasy world. One where I have friends who babble about boys and make-up, wasting their short lives in the pages of fashion magazines. I try to envision a time when that might even be possible.

  Of course, that would have to be a world where The Coven and The Breed either didn’t exist, or were no longer at war. Since I can’t imagine a world with no vampires, or one where we just allow them to feed freely, I doubt I’ll be living my dream any time soon.

  Putting these depressing thoughts aside, I practice Hindemith’s Opus 25 Cello Solo Sonata for a few hours. At first, I focus on the restless first and last movements, sawing at the lower register until my frustration subsides. Then I move onto the languid melody of the central movement, and manage to find peace, until my head fills with images, which swim unbidden in my mind.

  A MAN IS lying face down in a puddle, blood oozing from the jagged edge of a deep slash in his neck. His arms sprawl away from his body as if in sleep, but his legs are broken and bent in too many places. The bone of his left shin protrudes from the skin. His jeans are ripped and soaked with blood - the bright crimson blood of a human.

  He is in the warehouse we have just raided, surrounded by black patches on the floor. There are no other signs of the recent violence. The human clean-up crew have done a good job. I don’t know what they do with the bodies; it’s not my concern. We don’t return to the scene of an extermination unless there’s a recurring problem.

  I recognize the black satin-like sheen of the lightweight jacket the man wears, the pock-marked skin and close-cropped mousey hair. I’ve seen him hanging around the slayers. He was a snake, his eyes always darting around, and he was forever licking his lips. I guess we made him nervous, but then, humans trespassing in our world usually are.

  I can’t say I feel any concern or sorrow at his demise. I’m sure, even though I’ve never experienced anything like this before, that what I’m seeing is happening right now. He is dead. I remember him whispering in Sam’s ear, and passing him information. It wasn’t a relationship I understood; the guy was a reporter, and should have been pumping Sam for information, not offering it.

  I have no idea what he was getting out of the deal, but something tells me he must have outlived his usefulness. Or, knowing Sam’s unpredictable temper, the guy may just have brought something to his attention that enraged him. It wouldn’t be the first time Sam turned on a human who got in his way.

  If Sam had done this, though, there would have been little left of the body to identify. Someone else must have been responsible for this man’s death. That’s what the guy was getting out of it: protection. But who would have killed anyone linked to The Breed?

  The image in my mind shifts. I have been looking at the body through the someone else’s eyes, someone who is now included in my vision. He’s a tall, thin man, dressed head-to-toe in black, from the soft-soled leather shoes and the slim-legged trousers, to the loose tunic. He turns and looks over his shoulder, as if sensing my presence. I notice the white collar and drawn face; Father Patrick Elizondo, praying over the body.

  Father Patrick is the Catholic priest who visits Libby since her refusal to attend church. He shows up around once a month, and talks with her about God and sin. He is a quiet and kind man, though I don’t know him too well; I usually leave when he arrives.

  His anthracite grey eyes are red-rimmed and his shoulders sag. He carries a bible in his left hand, and holds a large, ornatly carved, wooden crucifix in his right. It’s attached to a thick, silver chain, which is draped around his neck. His lips move in silent prayer, as he makes the sign of the cross over the body, and bends to touch the man’s head. He stays in this crouched position for some time before standing and allowing the crucifix to dangle against his chest. He moves his free hand over the one holding the bible. Then he takes a small blood-stained dagger from between his thumb and the bible. He wipes it on his tunic as he walks from the warehouse.

  I have my answer, why the man had only a single wound to the neck. I also have more questions. Why would Father Patrick have killed anyone, let alone a reporter with close links to The Breed? How had he come to be at the vampire nest?

  All thoughts of music gone, I toss the cello and bow aside. Too many aspects of my life seem to be in danger of colliding, and I don’t like the prospect.

  I head downstairs, through the kitchen, into the garage, and down into the basement. I need to talk to the one person who might be able to give me some answers.

  I OPEN THE door and enter the lab that takes up the back half of the basement, careful not to make a sound. It’s not sunset yet, and Howard sleeps on a cot in a small room at the back of the lab. I need not have bothered. Howard is leaning over a cage full of mice. He’s wearing a white lab coat, with a light smattering of blood, open over his brown corduroy trousers and beige wool cardigan. He’s making notes in a black, leather-bound notebook.

  “Ah, Maxi,” he looks o
ver the top of the notebook without raising his head, his pale blond hair flopping over his porcelain face, a smile softening the plump features. “Back from the war I see. How goes it? All the nasty vampires vanquished, are they?”

  “Shut up,” I throw him a sullen smile and lean over to kiss his forehead. “You know damned well how much I hate it. You were the one who said I had to go, remember?”

  Howard insisted, when The Breed discovered me, that they would never leave me alive if I didn’t join them and train as a slayer. They could not afford to allow a half-breed to fall into the clutches of The Coven. They also tend to believe you are either one of them or dead, and enforce that belief with passion.

  “Yes, and I was right.”

  He puts the notebook down and turns on his seat to face me, his face serious.

  “Their training has helped you develop your skills in a way Libby and I never could. It has helped you control the rage, too. Moreover, you have been able to see for yourself what monsters the vampires have become. I believe you hate them, Maxi. You must try to remember, they are no more responsible for their nature than you, or I.”

  “It’s not them as much as what they do. I still feel the rage, Howard, I just handle it better. You are still in real danger from me and we both know it. I could turn on you any time.”

  He smiles. “You and I have something they do not, though. We have love, and real human contact. It is the one thing both Breed and Coven are designed to weed out. No, my dear, I am confident you will never harm me. This is more, unfortunately, than I can say to you in return.”

  “You need more blood?”

  I hold out my arm, and he nods with an apologetic shrug. He’s wrong about harming me, of course. As different as he is from them, he still doesn’t have the strength. I have to open the skin and vein myself. When I was a child, he used needles. Even before I reached puberty in my mid-twenties, they broke against my skin. His nails were tough enough for a while, but they haven’t been for years now. Not much is. My own nails do the trick, though. It doesn’t hurt much, and it heals quickly. Too quickly, with a single vial of blood draining from the cut before it seals. I have to do it three or four times so he can get what he needs.