Running From the Night (8 page)

“I have to give you two credit. You’re fighters. I hadn’t expected to get such a fight out of you. But still, you are just human, aren’t you?”

He bent over Jelani and grabbed the front of his shirt. Before he could lift him from the ground, however, Daniel turned and drove his blade into the vampire’s neck, quickly retracting it and flipping it to his other hand. When the vampire opened his mouth and cried out in pain, he drove the knife into his mouth and let go.

The vampire let out a gurgling sound that was ended by the horizontal flash of silver across his neck, and his head falling to the ground. Horrified, Daniel kicked his feet on the ground, scooting back from the grisly object.

Still dazed, Jelani was barely able to register what had happened. He shook his head and squinted to see who their savior was.

“I give you my thanks. You made my job a little easier than I would have thought.” The black clad figure looked down at the rapidly decaying body. “He must have been a skilled coward before his re-making, as adept as he was at hiding from me.” He looked back to Jelani and Daniel, not a trace of emotion in his face.

Daniel’s eyes went down to the katana that glimmered in the streetlight, the well-crafted blade marred by the crimson smear across the lower end. The Hunter glanced down at the upward curving sword in his hand and looked back at him.

“It is a necessary thing, you see.” He squatted next to the empty clothes of the almost completely decayed vampire and wiped the blade clean. “Guns make too much noise, even with silencers. This,” he showed them the flat of the blade, “makes almost no sound. Only the whisper of it slicing through the air. It enters the flesh with just as much silence, and passes through bone easily enough.”

Jelani’s head had finally cleared, but his lower back was sore from where he’d landed. He glanced at Daniel and saw the hopelessness in his friend’s eyes. He looked back at the Hunter, standing only a half dozen feet away.

“Sir, I can understand why you would want to put an end to us, but we have nothing to say to anyone about this.”

The Hunter stared at him without expression. “You call me ‘sir.’ Humans are always more polite when they need something crucial, such as their life to be spared.”

Jelani shook his head. “No, sir. I was raised to respect people, no matter their age or station in life. That you’re standing there with a sword and ready to kill us makes no difference on that.” This time, the vampire actually laughed. It was silent and ominous. The Hunter narrowed his dark eyes at him.

“You would make a good Hunter; both of you, actually. You fought better than that.…” he pointed the tip of his sword at the clothes lying on the ground; the only remains of what had been the vampire, Jacob. “Though he was disgracefully craven, he still should have been able to dispatch you easily enough.”

He considered them for several terrifying moments. “The council might value your abilities, once they were enhanced.” He seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Jelani and Daniel. “I will offer you something few humans are given. I can re-make you both. You will gain strength, speed, clarity of thought, countless enhancements that will make you so much more than you are now. You would also be free from the promise of death, unless you meet your end in battle, or the light of the sun finds you.”

Jelani and Daniel shared horrified looks, and the Hunter smirked knowingly. “You have made your choice. I respect that.” And in that instant, the Hunter’s sword was at Jelani’s neck, trembling. It had happened so fast he never registered the other’s movement. He wondered why the Hunter had stopped.

Jelani looked into the dark brown eyes of the Hunter to see his equally surprised expression. The black clad vampire was clearly struggling with every ounce of strength in his body to continue the movement and drive the sword through his neck, but something was holding him back.

The Hunter growled in a language that Jelani guessed must have been in the vampire tongue and was clearly a curse, and then a tall, cloaked figure appeared and stood behind the struggling Hunter. A few seconds later, the familiar, swaying hips of Saaya flowed toward the trio. She bent over the Hunter, her face only inches from his own.

“Now we must be fair about this, mustn’t we?”

The vampire responded in a hurried jumble of words that were unintelligible to the two humans.

“Now that is just rude. We must speak in a language that everyone can understand.”

“Who are you?” the Hunter demanded.

“It was quite unfair to force two humans to do your work for you, was it not?” Saaya asked, ignoring the question. “To have survived this long, doing your work for you, only for you to kill them. There is no honor in that, now is there? Have they not earned a measure of respect? At least a chance to survive?”

Eyeing the trembling blade, Jelani slowly moved away from it, standing. Daniel, who had been a few feet away, came to his feet as well. They looked from one to the other as the dialogue ensued. The towering figure of her guardian brother stood statuesque behind the immobilized Hunter.

“Where does your blood derive its power?” the black-clad vampire growled. Jelani and Daniel looked expectantly at Kafeel, but the tall man remained silent.

“My apologies for interfering with your business, Hunter,” Saaya replied. “But your actions tonight seemed unfair to me. These humans made your job easier, and it seems to me that they deserve a chance at survival. It’s only fair. So please don’t be angry at me for letting them leave, right now, while we remain here to keep you company.”

The words weren’t lost on them, and Jelani and Daniel collected their weapons and ran. Once, Jelani glanced over his shoulder, but the three hadn’t moved. He and Daniel rounded the corner and increased their pace, sprinting in the direction of the nearest SkyTrain station. Neither of them spoke as they ran, conserving all their energy to just get away. Whether through stamina or adrenaline they ran until they finally reached the SkyTrain station and were safely aboard.

***

Chapter Ten

For a time, they rode in silence on the train back into Vancouver. Jelani checked the time on his phone. Twelve eighteen in the morning. The train was mostly empty except for a few drowsy late night commuters sagging in the seats in the middle of the car. Jelani and Daniel went to the end of the car so they could speak freely.

“That, was a pretty close brush with death, my friend,” Daniel said, resting his head in his hands.

“You’re telling me this?” Jelani almost laughed. “I can still feel the coldness coming off that steel that was less than a millimeter from my neck.”

“I thought Saaya wasn’t going to help us.”

“Well, she did. In her own offhanded way, that is.”

“I really don’t understand her.” Daniel squeezed his temples. “Dude, would she have let us die if that Hunter had come after us and Jacob was out of the equation altogether?”

“I don’t know if I want to think about the answer to that. It seems like she cares about us on some level.”

“If you ask me, it’s more like she’s watching the nature channel, waiting to see if the gazelle will get away from the lion.”

“Yeah,” Jelani replied. “I don’t think we’re all that important to her outside of entertainment. Maybe we should stay away from her.”

Daniel looked at him and laughed. “Last time I checked, she found us. And you said she found you on the street the other day. You think we have a choice whether or not we see her again? In fact, if she does show up again, you think you’ve got the stones to tell her to leave us alone?”

“What the hell are we gonna do with all this?” Jelani asked, holding out his hands. “I have no idea how we’re going to survive this shit.” He ran a hand over his smooth scalp and down his face. “Okay, so the Jacob guy is out of our hair. Great. But personally, I think we stood a better chance with him than this other guy. So now we have a …” he glanced at the dozing couple sitting farther down the car and lowered his voice.

“So now we have a Hunter after us who, in my humble opinion, is very good at what he does. I would like to think that Saaya’s brother put an end to him, but I’m not puttin’ much stock in her help. When that guy comes after us again, we can’t count on her, and I don’t think we’ve got a chance against him. Whatever he is, he’s a professional, and a hell of a lot faster and stronger than we are.”

The text alert on Jelani’s phone sounded. “Alisha, again.”

“What are you going to do about her?”

Jelani pressed his palms together and rested his chin in the space between his thumbs and forefingers. “I wish I could spare the energy to think about her right now, but I’m more concerned with not dying.”

“Just text her back and tell her you’ve got some things to sort out and that you’ll get in touch when you can. You wouldn’t want to make it out the other side of all this with her pissed at you for blowing her off.”

Jelani did as Daniel suggested. When he was done, he shoved the phone in his pocket and leaned back in his seat. “You think there’s a way to convince Saaya to help us?”

“You know her better than I do,” Daniel replied.

“By less than a day!” Jelani said. “I didn’t know much more than you did before today.”

“I think we should depend on ourselves,” Daniel decided, “but if we can get her to help us, all the better.”

Jelani perked up a bit. “One thing she seems ready to provide is information! The next time we see her, maybe we can pump her for info. The more we can learn about this guy, the better our chances.”

Daniel shrugged. “So in the meantime, what?” The train stopped underneath Granville Street and they exited. “It’s become pretty obvious this guy can find us no matter where we go, and we’ve still got a way to go before daylight.”

Jelani yawned. “I can’t think straight until I get some sleep, man. I haven’t slept since the night before last. I’m crashing. Come to think of it, you haven’t slept either.”

“Yeah, terror will do that to you,” Daniel replied. “I was supposed to go to Wen’s house tonight, but there’s no way I’m getting her wrapped up in this.”

They walked up the steps and came out to street level. It was a little warmer than in Richmond, but not much. Here and there, people walked the streets or waited at bus stops. Jelani and Daniel glanced at each other. How many of these people were vampires? How many of them were just humans, going about their business oblivious to the presence of death that could be standing next to them, or walking by on the sidewalk?

“Got any suggestions on where we should go?” Daniel asked, scanning the surroundings and noting every person that so much as glanced at them.

Jelani shrugged. “I’ve got nothing. We go back home, we may as well put up a Batman signal over the building. We’ve just experienced that renting a hotel room is useless, and we don’t dare try to stay with any friends.” He looked at his roommate. “Dude, we really have nowhere to go.” He rubbed his hands over his eyes, yawning. “I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake.”

Daniel’s phone made the bubbling sound signaling an incoming text message. “Well,” he said, reading the screen. “We may have a temporary relief to the problem.” He smiled. “Wen just texted me. Some friends of hers have been planning a trip to Whistler to go skiing. I’ve been so busy working on the physics engine for the new title at EA, that it slipped my mind. She wants to know if I can get the time off. It’s for three days.”

“Go,” Jelani said, “might as well get the hell out of here—”

“Will you shut up, already?” Daniel gave him a friendly shove. “You know I’m not going up there and leave you here in the middle of all this.”

Jelani chewed on his bottom lip. “I would love to go with you, but don’t you think that would be endangering everyone else? I know you got pulled into this, and I’m still upset with myself about that, but what about your girl, and her friends?”

They started walking. “Look,” Daniel said, “I’ve already told you, there was no way you could have known any of this was going to happen the way it did. It’s done, I’m here with you, and we need to figure this out together. You stay here alone, you’ll probably end up dead, and then I’d have that on my conscience.” He frowned at Jelani. “And do you really think I would leave and go on a snowboarding trip with you here running for your life?”

“Alright, I hear you.” Jelani’s mood brightened a bit. “There will be plenty of people in Whistler, so he may not try to come after us up there. It’ll give us some time to think about all this.”

Daniel typed on his phone, and a minute later received another message. “Well, this is getting interesting. She says it’s good that you’re coming because Alisha is going, too.”

That woke Jelani up. “Alisha’s going?”

Daniel looked at him. “You gonna start dancing circles about it? Gonna start screaming?”

Jelani glared at him. “Funny. When do we leave?”

Daniel sent another message, and a couple minutes later the reply came. “This keeps getting better. Apparently, the group has been itching to go for a month, so they want to get a really early start and hit the snow as soon as we get there. They want to leave at four in the morning. In three hours!”

“Damn. They don’t want to waste any time, do they?”

“You don’t know Wen’s friends. They’re snow fanatics. When we get there, we go to the hotel, drop off our clothes, change, and hit the snow immediately and all day. These people live to ski and board.”

“Well, then, let’s hurry up and get home. It hasn’t been that long, so we might be able to sneak in and grab some clothes.”

Daniel’s phone bubbled again. He read the screen and snickered. “Apparently Alisha is pleased that you’re going.”

O O O

Despite their trepidation, Jelani and Daniel snuck back to their apartment and managed to pack several days’ worth of clothing, not daring to turn the lights on for fear they were being watched. They’d found a note from the landlord saying someone would be in later that day to fix the window, which worked out perfectly.

“I’m glad at least something is going right for us,” Jelani said, as they waited outside Wen Tseng’s apartment. Daniel’s girlfriend was an up and coming interior designer, and she had a taste for modern style buildings. After having a prominent role in the interior design of the Shangri-La Hotel in downtown Vancouver, her reputation, as well as her income, had grown exponentially. They stood outside her downtown condo until finally they heard the click of the lock on the front door.

The lobby was immaculate, with polished granite tiles and a thick, soft woven throw rug in front of a large gas fireplace. A couch and several lounge chairs huddled around the flames that licked at the artificial logs. Though they had only just entered the lobby of the new building, the effect was immediately cozy.

“Nice,” Jelani said, looking around.

“Wait till you see her place,” Daniel replied, grinning.

They stepped into the elevator and Daniel pressed the number twenty-six. Jelani’s eyes widened. “She lives on the twenty-sixth floor? Why so high?”

“It’s an amazing view.” Daniel glanced at him. “You’re not about to tell me you’re afraid of heights, with us living on the tenth floor of our building.”

“Ten floors isn’t that high, well not really. Twenty-six floors is a really long way up. I don’t feel safe anywhere higher than ten. Not to live in, anyway.”

“You really are strange, you know that?”

“Uh huh, say whatever you want, but if there’s an emergency, you can make ten floors down in a hurry.”

“I can’t believe you don’t like heights. You know we’re going to the mountains, right?”

“Nature made those. They’re sturdy.”

“Avalanches?”

“Don’t disturb the mountain and stay out of the back country.”

Daniel laughed aloud and shook his head. “Are all black people this paranoid?”

“Yup,” Jelani said without hesitation. “We’re not walking around afraid of everything, but you generally won’t find us tempting fate.” He looked up at as his friend. “I’m probably a little more expeditious than most.”

“What?”

“I’m serious, man. You remember when we all went swimming up at the lake last summer?”

Daniel nodded. “Yeah, that was fun. You had fun!”

A soft
ding
indicated they’d reached the twenty-sixth floor. The doors opened and they exited. “I’m not saying I didn’t, and I’d like to go again. But one thing you should know is that in general, not many black folks swim. Second, you won’t find many of us who can swim, doing it in a lake.”

“Get the hell outta here! Are you serious?”

“Did you see any other black folks up there other than me?”

Daniel thought for a moment. “Now that you mention it, no, I don’t think I did.”

They walked down the hall until they reached Wen’s apartment. The door was already ajar, so they walked in. “Hey babe!” Daniel said as they took off their shoes.

“Hey! I’ll be there in a minute. Make yourselves at home!”

“Remember when I told you about all the times my family used to go camping?”

“I remember when you told me you all went to campsites in RVs. That’s not camping.”

Jelani gave an exaggerated nod. “To black folks, that’s camping.” Daniel laughed, and after a moment, Jelani joined in.

“What’s the joke? I wanna hear!”

Wen came smiling from the bedroom. “Hey Jelani!” she said, giving him a hug.

“Hey, I don’t get a hug first?” Daniel said, feigning shock.

“Aww, baybeeee!” she said, turning and giving him a crushing hug. “I’m so sorry, my love! Forgive meee!”

“Alright, alright!” Jelani said, holding his stomach. “You two are going to make me hurl all over these nice hardwood floors.”

She leaned back from Daniel’s arms and winked at him. “And you and Alisha won’t be just as nauseating?”

“I didn’t know we had it like that,” Jelani said. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“I’m pretty sure you know that she’s available now.”

“That just happened, didn’t it? What would I look like trying to slide in right now after her fresh breakup?”

“It’s not that fresh, Jelani.” She kissed Daniel and went into the kitchen. “She broke up with him almost four months ago.”

Jelani was caught off guard. “That long? I thought it just happened!”

“Would you like something to drink? I’ve got juice, red or white wine, or Sprite.”

“I’ll just take a glass of water, thanks.”

They sat down on the couch and Wen handed Jelani a beaker style glass filled near the top with water. She handed Daniel a glass of orange juice and sat down next to him.

“You really need to stop being so out of touch, you know. She went through the whole breakup process with just me to console her. It might have gotten you a few points if you’d have been there to pick up the pieces.”

“I told you!” Daniel said, raising his glass and pointing a finger at Jelani. “What did I tell you? If you sleep on this, you’ll miss the opportunity. I told you!”

“Everything happens when and if it’s supposed to,” Jelani responded, taking a long draw from his glass.

“Only when you are taking action and in a position to receive what life has for you,” Wen countered, tipping her head to him. She had half-moon shaped brown eyes that held love and compassion, but also the ability to see to the heart of a matter. Her long black hair was spun in spring-like curls that took away at least five years from her age, and she had a round face and a dimpled smile that could disarm a military. She and Daniel were perfect for each other. If they ever had kids, the children would undoubtedly be stalked by every model and acting agency in town.

“Fair enough,” Jelani conceded. “Can’t deny that.”

“Then why have you been missing for so long? Do you know she’s asked about you several times in the past month?” She gave him a disapproving look. “Maybe you don’t know, so I’ll tell you. That girl has more suitors than you care to think about, Jelani. I’ve seen her shoot down guys that just about any other girl would fall to pieces over. I don’t have to tell you how gorgeous she is, because I’ve seen you ogling her.” She held out her palm toward him.

“No, don’t try to deny it. I’ve seen you admiring her, and it’s okay.” She took a sip of her juice and sat it on a coaster on the table, then leaned back in the crook of Daniel’s shoulder. “She’s a very down-to-earth girl, Jelani. She’s not impressed by money or material things or smooth talk.”