I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) (6 page)

Which is how he now found himself sitting in
the presence of that vile and cursed creature, the Albanian
Kreshnik, and its minions.

The room was dank and cavernous and echoed
with the unseen drip of water from some pipe. Rainford sat in the
center of the room in a garish chair, a stage theater throne stolen
from who knew where. In his days, Rainford had dined with kings and
royalty. He had eaten off the crème plates designed for Catherine
by Wedgewood and sat on jewel-encrusted, golden thrones. For all
this, he was not a thing that craved the trappings of ceremony or
affluence. In fact, his years had instilled a disdain for those who
looked contemptuously upon themselves as social betters. Yet he
wondered if those that had provided this seat for him had done so
to belittle him, providing a mere theater prop for a creature of
his years and experience.

“Please don’t kill me,” the woman on the
floor begged.

She had been young and comely once, even
strikingly so. Rainford’s grey-blue eyes told him such. In his
times he had had many like her. Service to his kind had drained her
of her youth and her beauty, leaving her ashen and anemic. That was
another aspect he detested about this younger generations. They did
not care for their
things
.

There was terror in the woman’s eyes, above
the fresh slice in her cheek.

She groveled at the feet of the Albanian, who
stood there in his rain coat and hat.
That
hat
,
thought Rainford, who did not consider himself overly snobbish,
what
poor
taste
.

In the shadows around them dozens of eyes
watched the unfolding. Few of these were known well to Rainford.
Over three centuries he had embraced a near perfect isolationism.
Then these had appeared in his city. They served the Albanian and
when Kreshnik had sought out Rainford they had been with him. In
the strictest hierarchical sense that was supposed to govern their
kind, the Albanian served Rainford, so those turned by the Albanian
and his slaves were also in the service of the dark Lord.

But Rainford did not trust the Albanian.
Again, part of it was the lack of a sense of history. Kreshnik was
vicious and cruel and even, Rainford would grant him, cunning, but
his overall intelligence was questionable and his allegiance was
perhaps better left unquestioned. In centuries past, Rainford had
served
; he had served even when he’d had his own doubts. Now
that he was a standing master, the expectation should have been
that the youngers would serve and abet his own existence until the
end of his days. But this younger generation…Rainford found himself
looking upon them much as he looked upon human beings, as a
separate species.

“Please don’t kill me,” the woman begged
again. Rainford was surprised and pleased that she was addressing
him and not the Albanian, her master.

“My dear child, who did this to you?”
Rainford asked her. His tone was soothing. He meant this woman no
harm. Her fate had been sealed the moment silver had polluted her
bloodstream, for all intents and purposes poisoning her for all
others.

“Th-they were men,” she stammered, looking
down at the ground. “Many men.”

She spoke about them as if, like Rainford or
Kreshnik or any of the other children of the night gathered in the
gloom, she did not share their humanity. Human men and women often
willingly gave themselves to Rainford’s kind, their blood slaking
his hunger, their dreams and aspirations to share his existence.
But this one in front of him, groveling at the knees of Kreshnik,
she was all too human.

There were humans, Rainford had known many,
who lived the lives of vampires, abjuring the day, imbibing blood,
though they themselves never bore the mark. Like Kreshnik’s
wives.

“Did these men have names?” the Lord Rainford
inquired.

“B-Bowie,” she stammered, “and
Boo-Boone.”

There was a low murmur among those gathered
in the gloom. The latter name was not unknown to their kind.

“Boone,” mulled the dark Lord.

“We found one of their vehicles a few blocks
away,” a voice spoke from the dark and a vampire stepped forward
into the light. The creature was extremely thin and gaunt. It
looked like it had not fed in some time. Rainford stared at the
thing. Its name was Lein and it served Kreshnik. Yet it often
sought to curry favor with Rainford, which reassured the
centuries-old creature that not all of the younger generations
followed the Albanian and his kind blindly; that some recognized
and respected true power in its mighty and dark incarnations.

Lein held up a plastic bag in which a shotgun
shell nested.

“Our people are scouring the databases for
the prints, my Lord.”

“Very well. Needless to say, if there is a
match I want to be informed immediately.”

“Of course, my Lord.”

Sycophant
, Rainford mentally dismissed
Lein. The dark Lord knew that if this emaciated thing thought the
Albanian could once and for all usurp his own power, it would not
be as deferential.

“And you,” Rainford spoke up and those in the
dark stepped back slightly, which pleased him. “Was it this Bowie
or Boone who sullied your flesh?”

A shadow detached itself from Kreshnik,
stepping forward hesitantly. It mumbled something.

“These ears have heard centuries, child. You
must speak up.”

“Boone,” the burnt thing spat out the name.
“The one called Boone.”

“And you allowed him to do this to you?”
Rainford almost couldn’t conceive it. When he was a child and then
a younger, people spoke of the children of the night in horrific
awe. Their anger was legendary and their wraith was feared.

The wounded vampire looked from Rainford to
Kreshnik and then down at the floor.

Rainford almost couldn’t conceive that this
child of the night had allowed a human being to disfigure it in
such a manner.
Almost
. This younger generation struck
Rainford as effete and louche, as degenerate.

The dark Lord shook his head in disdain.
“What do they call you, child?”

The appellation was meant to belittle and
demean this time, and it did, adding further embarrassment to the
pain and misery caused the creature by a human being.

“Shane, my Lord…”

“Speak up!”

“My name is Shane, my Lord.”

“Your wounds will heal, Shane. But the
humiliation this human caused you will never completely fade. There
is only one way of addressing it. Do you know what that is?”

“Revenge, my Lord?” Shane’s voice trembled
between fear of Rainford and hatred for the human, Boone.

“Revenge? No, child.
Justice
. Revenge
is subsumed in the domain of justice. What is justice, if it is not
an exchange? This man, Boone, who took from you…you long to take
from him, do you not?”

The insanity in Shane’s eyes intensified.
“Yes, my Lord.”

“And you,” Rainford turned his gaze from the
burnt Shane to Kreshnik, who was already looking at him from under
his hat. “You stood by and allowed this to transpire?”

The Albanian. What monstrosity was this thing
Rainford’s Eastern European brethren had created in their
laboratories? Genetic manipulation that allowed vampires to walk in
the light of day? The twenty-first century meeting the dark ages,
science wed to myth.

Kreshnik whispered something in reply. It
spoke in a lisp Rainford associated with the aristocracy of the
Ancien Regime. Where those men and women and their courtiers had
been weak and their elocution affected, this thing facing him was
monstrous and too young to have witnessed pre-revolutionary
France.

Rainford had been a formidable opponent in
his day, but he was old now and rapidly weakening. He was a
creature who had long ago ceased to know fear, yet he wondered, if
push came to shove, did he have what it took to end an abomination
such as this thing before him? Rainford spoke over a dozen
languages but he rarely understood what Kreshnik said. The
Albanian, however, seemed to comprehend Rainford. And, what was
more, it still obeyed, however grudgingly.

“Boone.” Kreshnik whispered the name and
Rainford understood.

“Yes, a name I am hearing too much of these
days.” Rainford shook his head in annoyance. “You understand,” he
addressed the kneeling woman, “that the moment this man Boone
touched you with that silver you were rendered useless to us,
yes?”

He didn’t wait for her to answer.

“As we speak there is silver coursing through
your bloodstream, in and out of your arteries and veins. A
miniscule amount, yes. A negligible amount to one of your kind,
yes. But not to ours. You do understand this?”

“Please, just let me go—I’ll never tell
anyone—”

“I am not concerned that you will ‘tell
anyone’.” Rainford smiled. “After all, who would believe you?”

She looked up at him and there were tears in
her eyes, streaking down her face.

“You entered service willingly, did you
not?”

The dark Lord thought again how she had been
fetching once, this one, beautiful.

“Please—”

“Did you not?” The dark Lord’s voice remained
calm.

“Yes, but—”

“Circumstances do not allow for
buts
or
whatfors
,” he declared. “Circumstances allow for what
is
. For what has been done, has been done. And what has been
promised, has been promised. And what has been promised must be
delivered. Surely, you understand all this?”

She lowered her gaze and her shoulders shook
as she sobbed uncontrollably.

“Look to me, girl.” She ignored the dark
Lord.

He repeated the request, and again, she wept
but did not look upon him.

“Finish this then,” Rainford bade the
Albanian.

Kreshnik pulled the glove off one hand a
finger at a time, revealing a cadaverous, vascular-blue hand. There
were whispers of anticipation from those gathered. Its fingers were
long and slender, almost feminine, each ending in sharpened claws
an inch and half long.

“Look to me…” Rainford’s voice had trailed
off to a whisper. She would not comply. There was nothing to be
done for her.

The crowd gathered in the dark was silent in
anticipation. Somewhere in the gloom, water dripped.

Rainford looked away as the Albanian reached
down and, with his remaining gloved hand, pulled the woman’s head
back by her hair—

“No, please, ple—”

—and slashed his other hand across her
exposed neck, her throat opening up and blood spilling in thin
rivulets and then a flood down her chest and shoulders. The woman
shuddered and grabbed at the hand that held her hair but Kreshnik
snarled and held her out away from him.

She shook and bled out and was dead a minute
later.

Kreshnik held his hand up to the light and
contemplated the blood under his nails.

One of the human women who served him as a
wife emerged from the dark and knelt before him, drawing the hand
down to her mouth. She was dressed partially in the habit of a
sister of Christ, her head covered in a white coif and wimple, the
black veil and white underveil pulled up to reveal her lean, pallid
face. She wore garters and stockings and, aside from this and the
head garb, was otherwise nude.

Rainford watched as she suckled first one and
then another of the Albanian’s bloodied fingers.
Disgusting
.
As a second and then a third similarly-dressed concubine joined the
first, Rainford rose from his sham throne and walked off into the
gloom.

As he departed, those cloaked in the dark
came forward, shedding clothing and inhibitions.

This
younger
generation
…Rainford shook his head, caring less if anyone
saw him do so. Decadent. Given to the pleasures and perversities of
the flesh. After three hundred and twenty six years of existence,
sex didn’t mean what it once had to the dark Lord. The steady drip
of water was lost amid moans of ecstasy.

“Should we wake him up?”

Boone made low, plaintive, broken sounds in
his sleep, caught in the grip of some nightmare. Santa Anna watched
the big kid shudder.

“Should we wake him up?” Jay repeated his
question.

“Who, Boone?” asked Bowie. “Nah, let the pup
sleep…”

The back of the panel truck was packed with
the four men and the cases of blood and cash.

“Looks like he’s having another nightmare,”
noted Jay.

“Sounds like,” agreed Santa Anna. The Ithaca
12-gauge rested across his legs.

“That’s no nightmare,” wagered Bowie. “What
you’re witnessing here gentlemen is a nocturnal emission. Boone’s
dreaming of all his steroids and his bench press.”

“I go away for almost ten years,” said Santa
Anna, “and shit still don’t change.”

“How’s that?”

“You still ain’t funny. And by the way, what
the fuck is this shit we’re listening to?”

Light FM was piping into the back of the
panel truck.

“This is none other than Sir Elton John,”
noted Bowie, “commemorating the lovely Princess Diana herself.”

“Oh shit,” said Santa Anna. “You’ve got to be
kidding me. This song was fucking bad enough when it was about
Marilyn Monroe.”

“Are you kidding me?” asked Bowie. “The
original was a classic.”

“No, Santa Anna’s right,” said Jay. “Marilyn
was trash. The Kennedy brothers used to run a train on her—”

“When DaMaggio wasn’t,” added Santa Anna,
“but I don’t think that makes her a whore. Woman enjoyed her body,
that’s all.”

“Let me guess,” offered Jay, “you got
daughters, right?”

“Why you be askin’?”

“Because only a dad with a little girl at
home is gonna come up with some bullshit justification like
that.”