First Kill: A Dave Carver Novella (6 page)

It splintered like a melon. Black
blood flew everywhere, along with chips of bone and splashes of
gray matter. Coal black eyes blinked once, then he collapsed,
dead.

I straightened up, panting, and looked
over my shoulder.

Nate nodded. “Not bad, kid.” I smiled,
but I felt weak and nauseated. Still, the compliment felt good. He
turned to Maria. “Find a pay phone and call the fire department.
Hector, Dave, we’re gonna burn this mother down.”

The four of us stood a few blocks away
and watched as firefighters put out the blaze. It was necessary,
according to Nate, to burn the bodies. Vampire remains are
fragile—they wither and turn to dust when exposed to fire or
sunlight, as well as a few other substances, so there'd be no sign
of them inside the cellar. No one would ever look into the murders
of three skinny young men in the basement of the old boarding
house.

What was more, Nate said, the fire
would be spectacular. Word would spread, and the vampires that
still lived in the city would know that we were coming for
them.

A crowd gathered—a small crowd, but
that wasn’t surprising. There weren’t many people left in the
neighborhood to rubberneck. After a while, Hector and Maria drifted
off, heading back to the subway platform. Nate and I stood for a
few minutes more, watching as flames licked out of the broken
basement door. The FDNY had it under control. It wasn’t going to
spread to other buildings. It wouldn’t hurt anyone else. Finally,
Nate turned away without a word and began to walk down the block. I
stayed still for a moment, watching the building burn.

“Hey,” Nate called.
“Aren’t you coming?”

Was I coming? Of course I was. It
wasn’t like I had anyplace else to go. I hurried to catch
up.

As we headed back towards the subway
platform for a good day’s sleep, Nate put an arm around my
shoulder. “Congratulations, kid,” he said. “Welcome to the
Family.”

Chapter 8: Safe at Home

Three hours later, in the station, I
sat next to a small, portable grill and watched hamburgers sizzle.
I don’t know where Luisa had found the chopped meat, but she’d
procured it from somewhere. Hector and Maria sat nearby, huddled
together and whispering in each other’s ears. I didn’t really see
any of this. The memory of the way the vampire’s eyes had blinked
stupidly would be with me forever. There was a chance I would never
really see anything else again.

I was hungry, and the smell of the
burgers was mouthwatering. I was tired, too, but I knew I’d never
sleep today. My body was keyed up, adrenaline pumping in my veins
like liquid jackhammers.

“Dave?”

Nate stood behind me, still dressed in
his battle clothes. His machete was still sheathed at his
hip.

“Yeah?”

“Come with me for a
minute.”

I followed Nate into the section of
the platform that functioned as his office, separated by a large
piece of plywood and on old shower curtain. Nate pulled the curtain
closed, cutting us from the rest of the Family. That older,
gray-bearded man that I’d first seen weeks ago was sitting back
there.

His name, I knew, was Squirrel. The
nickname came from his beard—gray and coarse—not from his size. He
was huge, with bulging muscles under his denim work-shirt. His
forearms, neck, and hands were covered with old tattoos. He was
wearing rubber gloves and holding a small machine in his hands. It
looked like an Industrial-Revolution-mating of a ballpoint pen and
a handgun, with lots of little moving pieces and a pointed needle.
It was hooked up to a car battery. The machine made a high-pitched
sound somewhere between a buzz and a whine. A tray was set up on a
nearby stool, full of caps of colored inks.

“Is this what I think it
is?” I whispered.

“You’ve made your first
kill, kid,” Nate said. “You’re one of us.”

“Sit down.” Squirrel’s
voice was gruff and hoarse, as if from long years of whiskey and
cigarettes. He pointed at the hard-backed plastic chair next to
his.

I stripped off my T-shirt and
sat.

“You ever have a tattoo,
son?”

I shook my head.

“ ‘
Kay,
well it’s gonna hurt. Not too bad, though.” His narrow dark eyes
focused on the slash-marks on my chest, the ones from the vampire’s
claws. “Not too bad. I expect you’ll have felt
worse.”

Damn right.
I was a conquering hero. I’d killed a vampire. My
body bore the bloody gashes from its unholy claws—I wasn’t afraid
of a needle.

The buzzing increased until it sounded
like a ‘roided-up bumblebee. Squirrel leaned in, taking my left arm
hard in his hands. I grinned, feeling about as cocky as I ever have
in my life. The big man touched the humming needed into the upper
part of my bicep.

I yelped. I was ready for
it too hurt, but I was expecting a sharpness, like being cut.
Instead, it felt like Squirrel was rubbing my skin with sandpaper.
It hurt more than I expected, a dull, scraping ache. Nate leaned
against the filthy wall, an amused smile on his face. I gritted my
teeth and let out a single breath.
Okay. I
can do this.

“You know,” Nate said,
“you did good back there, kid. Real good. Most of us lost it a
little bit the first time. But you…you’re like a
natural.”

I shrugged, causing Squirrel to curse
and tighten his grip on my arm. I could smell the cigarette on his
breath. “Hold still, son.”

“Sorry.”

The tattooer grumbled something
unintelligible and looked at Nate. “You got ‘em? All
four?”

Nate’s eyes flashed. “There were only
three.”

“That’s not what I
heard.”

Nate looked at me. “Was there a fourth
vamp?”

I shook my head, making sure to keep
my arm from moving, and thought for a moment. “I was there almost
four hours before we went in. No one left the cellar and no one
entered. There was no one else there.”

“Maybe he had a fight with
the nest and got kicked out,” Squirrel said.

“Maybe.” But Nate didn’t
sound convinced.

“Anyway,” Squirrel said,
“I got another tip.”

“Already? That was
fast.”

“Yeah. There’s an old
rectory across from Pelham Park, near the Sound. About six miles
east of here.”

“How many?” Nate was all
business now. The amusement was gone from his face, and his voice
was as hard as a soldier’s. I noticed his right hand was dangling,
almost subconsciously near the handle of his machete.

“As many as six. Supposed
to be hunkered down pretty good in the basement.”

I gulped, loud enough to be heard. The
others looked at me. “Sorry,” I said. “I think I’m just a little
dehydrated.”

Squirrel shook his head. He shut off
the tattoo gun and pulled it from my arm. I sucked in a breath I
hadn’t even realized I’d been holding. The break from the pain was
a blessed relief.

“That’s a lot of
vampires,” Squirrel said. “Don’t rush into it. Scout it out first,
make sure you can handle it.”

Nate’s eyes narrowed and I suddenly
wanted to be someplace else. “Don’t tell me how to do my job,
Squirrel.”

“I’m not—all I’m saying is
watch your back. Don’t get these kids killed.”

They glared at each for a long moment,
their eyes locked like a pair of rival lions. Nate finally nodded,
as if accepting an unspoken apology that I hadn’t
detected.

“You’re right, man. Of
course we’ll be careful. You know me—I’m always
careful.”

Squirrel frowned, but he went back to
work on my tattoo without further comment.

Nate smiled faintly. “Seriously, Dave,
good work today. When you’re done here get some sleep.” He shot a
glance at Squirrel, but the man’s face was steadfast on his work.
“It looks like we’re gonna have another busy night
tonight.”

I tried to sleep, beneath a stolen
comforter in a spot near the stairs. I kept closing my eyes, but I
couldn’t make them stay closed. They kept opening so I could stare
at my tattoo.

By any objective measure,
it should have been horrifying: a human-shaped skull with its jaws
hideously distended, its mouth full of razor teeth. The business
end of an ax was buried between the empty eye sockets, and droplets
of blood blood ran down the front. The tattoo stood stark against
the pale skin of my upper arm, the colors bright and vibrant.
Blood—real blood,
my
blood—was smeared, soaking the sleeve of my shirt, reminding
me, in a strange way, that I was no longer alone. For the first
time since my mom had died, I had a real family. I had a place
where I belonged.

And now I had proof, and no one could
take it from me.

The handle of the ax
rested near my head, where I could grab it in a hurry if I needed.
I was already adopting the sleeping practices of the Family: always
be prepared. As I closed my eyes and drifted off, though, I knew I
wouldn’t need the ax. The subway platform may not have been a
traditional home, or the kind I’d have chosen for myself, but
it
was
a home.
And there was one thing I knew for sure: Home meant
safety.

Chapter 9: Victories and Losses

We marched across the Bronx to Pelham
Park. There was an old rectory across a street, next to a mostly
abandoned church. People weren’t using this place to worship
anymore—they weren’t using it for anything. The vampires were
spreading.

According to Squirrel, there were six
in the rectory. According to Nate, we’d need more soldiers. So
there were eight of us marching.

We did it all over again, a repeat of
the day before: the sheer boredom of the waiting, followed by
sudden terror as we sprang into action. Again I led the way to the
battlefield. I broke the door with three swings of the ax this time
and charged down the dusty stairs into a closed-up
cellar.

A vampire stood at the bottom of the
stairs, gazing up in shock. I swung the ax in a horizontal slash
which sheared through his neck like I was felling a sapling. His
head rolled away and his body dropped like a puppet.

Nate landed on the stone floor a
moment behind me, in time to put himself in front of a lunging
vamp. He caught the first blow on the sleeve of his canvas jacket,
and struck with his machete. The vampire’s head rocked back and
away. Black blood spurted like a geyser.

Hector came next with his
bat, followed by Maria and her knife. They spread out into the
gloomy basement, heading to the right. Luisa and Grady went to the
left. Two more—Travis and Corey stayed outside, just to be sure no
vamps slipped past us to return to their previously scheduled
marauding. I heard wet
thumps
as Hector pounded a vampire. I heard a wordless
battle-cry from Maria. Luisa and Grady shouted and grunted. A
vampire hissed in pain.

A huge black shape flew from the murky
shadows under the stairs. The vampire’s claws were outstretched and
his mouth hung open in a gaping parody of a laugh. He moved so fast
that I didn’t have time to get my ax in front of me. He hit like a
linebacker and knocked me on my back. His claws raked into my
forearms. He laughed as he savaged me like a dog with a
chew-toy.

The ax fell from my grip. I couldn’t
get my hand around it.

The vampire howled in triumph. His
eyes were wide and black, his jaws slavering. Thick, clear liquid
dripped from his fangs. A drop landed on my neck, and the skin
tingled for a moment, then went numb.

An idle thought, something
from an old nature documentary, drifted weirdly in my mind:
Vampire bats have a numbing agent in their
saliva.

I didn’t have time to worry about
though, before a small bucket’s worth of cool, black blood dropped
on my face. I coughed, choking, and looked up.

Nate stood with the machete in his
hand. The vampire that had been about to turn me into breakfast lay
on his side, his head resting on its right ear a few feet
away.

The sounds of the battle had faded.
Family members were emerging into the light from the shattered
door. Some bore fresh scratches or cuts, but everyone looked more
or less whole. Everyone held a bloody weapon.

Nate breathed heavily for a moment.
His eyes were every bit as vicious as a vampire’s. He closed them.
When he looked at me again, his breath had slowed down and he
looked like himself. He offered me a hand.

“You saved me,” I said as
he pulled me to my feet.

He smiled, an actual broad grin.
“We’re a Family, kid. It’s what we do.”

The next few months were a loop of
raids, flanked by long stretches of boredom. Vampires are sneaky,
when they choose to be, hard to find. Never again did we do two
raids in as many days. Rarely did we do more than two or three a
month.

Still, I learned an awful lot of
things that never would have occurred to me in a “normal” life.
Like the ways to kill a vampire: Decapitation is the easiest and
most efficient, but fire works well, and if you can catch one on
the ground a stake through the heart is effective. (It’s hard to
get the stake past the ribs, so I don’t recommend this approach.) I
learned how to move silently on the paved jungle of the Bronx, and
how to cover my scent with stale garbage and musty clothes. In a
few weeks I knew how to time sunrise to the second and I could spot
a vampire from three blocks away. I don’t mean to polish my own
medals, but I was starting to think Nate was right—maybe I was born
for this.