Hunter of the Dead (2 page)

“Ooh,” Scav said, as though smarting, as he twirled Inessa’s lifeless body in a surprisingly elegant pose, “this might be worse than we thought, Connor.”

“Well,” MacVicar said, continuing to feed the eager ghoul, “the lepress thought Cashley was bringing immortals across without permission. This Inessa here is proof positive of that. You there, lassie. How many other immortals has master brought across?”

“You mean how many others has he granted The Long Gift?”

MacVicar scowled, apparently not liking the fact she knew that term.

“Aye, The Long Gift.”

“Six. That I know of.”

“Fuck me in the arse.”

MacVicar turned and tossed Inessa’s head through the window with a smash. Scav dropped Inessa’s corpse to the ground and Snuggles descended on it, ripping apart tendon, muscle, and sinew. There wasn’t a drop of blood in her whole body. Scav walked over and placed a hand on MacVicar’s shoulder.

“This is bad,” Scav whispered, though since Miranda could still hear him he probably wasn’t trying very hard to hide his thoughts, “I always knew Cashley was loony tunes, but to form his own splinter House? With six other immortals? Maybe we should call for backup.”

“Backup? No, I amnae letting anyone else share in this bounty. This one was still eating flesh. For all we know the other six are newborns, too. You there, Miranda?”

Miranda felt her heart race and the blood swished into her ear.

“Yes?”

“Those other immortals. Did they eat meat the way Inessa did or did they drink blood?”

Would lying help? She couldn’t say for sure.

“They still eat…living people…the way Inessa did.”

MacVicar thumped Scav on his chest.

“There, you see? He’s gone mad and gone on a siring spree, but only just recently. Six newborns. We can take them, and Cashley, too. You finish this with me, my young get, and I’ll give you my blessing. That’s a promise.”

Scav placed a hand on MacVicar’s cheek.

“You’re too good to me, Connor.”

“Right. Well, let’s kill this mortal and go hunt down the others.”

“Wait! I can take you to the master!”

MacVicar smiled and snapped his fingers.

“Clever girl. Right-o, lead the way, then.”

Scav gave Miranda what was probably supposed to be a playful shove, but turned out to be so hard her shoulder nearly popped out of its socket. Rubbing her shoulder, she led the way out of Inessa’s private chambers, only risking a single glance back to see how Snuggles was doing. The ghoul was busy tearing into its double-sized meal for the evening. In a way, she mourned, knowing she’d never see Snuggles again whatever tonight’s outcome, but in another way she knew the dumb brute would never miss her so it hardly mattered.

They stepped out into the chilly Nevada night. The moon was full and she felt terribly exposed as she pattered across the compound. She knew every inch of it by heart, but was terrified that one of her sister wives in the guard towers would spot her. If they guessed her intentions, and the intentions of the men trailing her, would they hesitate to shoot her? She suspected not.

Each step roiled her churning stomach, but much to her relief they finally reached the small, unobtrusive chapel where the master spent his days and most nights. Scav gave her a not-very-gentle shove toward the entrance. Taking a deep breath, she raised her hand and rapped on the door.

“I’m fine, thank you,” the master’s voice intoned from within.

She looked back at the two men. MacVicar nodded to her.

“Master,” she whispered hoarsely, then cleared her throat and repeated it, “master, it’s Miranda.”

There was a prolonged pause. Miranda was terrified of what would happen next, but then realized she had no idea what it might be. When next the master spoke, it sounded like he was closer to the door.

“You know you’re not to be here, child. Anything you need to say you should report to Inessa, and she will decide whether to inform me or not.”

Miranda paused and straightened out her grubby gray jumpsuit.

“Th…th…” she bit her lip and forced herself not to stutter, “that’s why I’m here, master. It’s about I…Inessa.”

That was certain to get his attention.

“Go back to your bunk,” the master said sharply. “I’ll check on my beloved. And consider an appropriate punishment for you.”

Miranda turned to look at her captors, her jaws wordlessly opening and clenching. Scav gently pushed Miranda aside while, much to her surprise, MacVicar began singing. At first he sang at a light, almost conspiratorial volume, but by the final word he was belting it out.

“‘The sergeant, when he enlisted me, winked his eye and then says he, ‘A man like you so stout and tall, can ne’er be killed by a cannonball!’”

There was a pause.

“MacVicar?” the master asked.

MacVicar put his boot to the entrance. The doors to the temple exploded inward right off their hinges, creating an unholy noise and knocking the master flat on his back. Though Miranda hung back, she had still never been this close to the master before, and in a way the chance to see him up close – even laid low and humbled – was too much to pass up.

Scav quickly passed through the archway and stuck a boot on the master’s chest. The master smiled, displaying two deadly fangs. His teeth were still sticky with plasma, and the vital fluid dribbled out of his mouth, leaving a mark around his lips and chin like a clown’s goatee of circus makeup. He wore a jumpsuit identical to Miranda’s, though his was red instead of gray, not to mention clean and freshly ironed. Square plastic sunglasses obscured almost the entire top half of his face, leaving him unreadable despite his rictus grin. His skin sparkled in the low neon lights overhead. It made Miranda want to reach out and touch him.

“Well, well, well,” Scav said, “if it isn’t the Profane Prophet of Provo. How’s tricks, Cashley?”

Miranda looked to the master for some clue what was going on or what to do. His nostrils were flaring, but otherwise he made no move.

“I’m afraid I haven’t any change for you, Scavatelli. My House makes do without the pettiness of money.”

“You hear that, Connor? ‘My House’ he says. You’re House Signari, shit-eater,” Scavatelli gestured at the white stripe down his face, “at least, you were until the lepress declared you
persona non grata
.”

MacVicar reached behind a pew and pulled one of the sacred texts out of the slot. Miranda lowered her eyes at the sight of the familiar black book, with its depiction of two arms coming together to hold a red apple. MacVicar tossed the book carelessly and it landed on the ground by the master’s head. Miranda stifled a gasp at the display of blasphemy. MacVicar bent over and ran a pair of fingers across the master’s skin. He rubbed the two fingers across his thumb and held it up for Scav to see.

“Glitter,” Scav said with a laugh.

MacVicar stuck his hand into the master’s mouth, and though he instantly bit down, severing several of MacVicar’s fingers, MacVicar struggled with him until finally wrenching his fangs out of his face and revealing them to be prosthetics.

“Fake teeth. Fake blood. All this shit is a whole lot of smoke and mirrors for the mortals. I always knew you were into some funny business with your circle, Cashley, but I never thought you’d take it to the level of treason.”

“I have every right to establish my own House. I have been in the American West since before Brigham Young…”

MacVicar stamped down on the master’s face, squishing his head like a soggy pumpkin. Miranda gasped, but then watched in wonder as the shattered chunks of skull and pulverized brain knitted themselves back together and his entire head reformed, like a balloon reinflating. Only his thick plastic goggles didn’t mend. The pallid, white, pupilless orbs housed in his eye sockets and the wretched landscape of scars connecting them told the tale of why he always kept that half of his face hidden.

“Pull the other one,” MacVicar spat at him.

“Please, Mac, Scav,” the master whimpered, finally sounding as though he understood how precarious his position was, “you don’t understand the danger. There’s something hunting our kind.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard this fairy tale. There’s a,” Scav made quotation marks with his fingers, “‘serial killer’ taking out immortals.”

“Aye, I heard about that, too,” MacVicar agreed, “Probably just some Inquisitors getting too big for their britches.”

The master shook his head wildly.

“No. You don’t understand. It’s far worse than you can possibly imagine. I need other immortals to help protect me, and Father Otto won’t grant me permission to turn even a single get.”

“Knowing you, Cash,” MacVicar said, “I wouldnae either.”

Suddenly the brass bell at the lone entrance to the compound began ringing. Miranda looked up to one of the guard towers. A spotlight shone on Inessa’s chambers, illuninating the carnage within. An instant later the spotlight turned its attention to Miranda.

Dodging two poorly aimed rounds, she scurried into the chapel.

“Well, that’ll be the alarm,” MacVicar said, “I’d been hoping we might get a decent scrap out of this shit job.”

The master took advantage of the distraction to reach up and twist Scav’s leg, yanking it and wrenching it from its socket. Scav tumbled to the ground and the master popped up to his feet with a single flex of his back muscles. He stood now in the center of the aisle, backing away from the intruders and towards the altar, brandishing Scav’s severed leg like a cudgel to ward them off.

Scrabbling to grab hold of a pew, Scav pulled himself upright, balancing on his remaining foot. Miranda stared at Scav’s stump, wondering briefly if his leg would regenerate like a lizard’s, but it didn’t. It seemed that immortals were capable of healing almost any damaged flesh, but could not regrow lost parts. No wonder, then, that their clashes descended into bouts of dismemberment.

“Toss me the lad’s leg, Cashley,” MacVicar growled.

“You have no idea what’s coming, fixer. You’re going to wish you’d listened to me. I’ve seen things. Dreadful things hiding in the shadows. Otto Signari won’t be able to stand against him. Not even Cicatrice will be able to stand against him.”

Suddenly a hole exploded in the wall behind the altar. Perhaps sensing his distress, the master’s six remaining immortal brides had eschewed the door entirely and simply punched their way in. The chosen few wore scintillating white jumpsuits to signal their elevated status in the compound.

“Ah,” the master said with a grin, “the cavalry’s arrived. Seems I have a leg up at last.”

He tossed the full grown man’s leg as effortlessly as if he were passing a Frisbee. Scav snatched it out of the air.

“Newborns, Cashley?” MacVicar said with a snort. “Have you even weaned them off flesh yet?”

“All that should matter to you, fixer, is how hard they’ll fight for me. I don’t intend to go gentle into the abyss.”

MacVicar clapped his hands together.

“I do so love my job. Nothing like putting down a traitor as well as his Houseless bastards. How you feeling, Scav?”

Scav had reattached his leg to his stump, but the area where it had been torn away still seemed soft and scabrous. Suddenly his eyes alighted on Miranda, and flashed with a bestial hunger.

“Actually, I’m feeling a bit peckish. Maybe I’ll have a quick bite before this imbroglio.”

The pseudo-punk, with half his pantleg pooled around his ankle, lunged at Miranda.

“Wait!” Miranda shouted, pulling down her right sleeve and showing her wrist.

Scav paused, his head bobbing in the air like a bird’s. “What’s that?”

“Just a bit of cosmetics,” she said.

She pulled her wrist across her jumpsuit, rubbing away the foundation. Underneath the makeup was a tattoo of a green double cross, with an olive branch to the left of it and a sword to the right of it.

“Inquisitor!” Scavatelli hissed.

“That’s right. I spent the last three weeks infiltrating this cult for a shot at that sorry son of a bitch.” Her finger shot out in Cashley’s direction. “After all the shit I’ve had to take from him and Inessa, there’s no way I’m letting two low-rent fixers eat my lunch.”

She plunged her hand into her front cargo pocket, slipping her fingers between the pages of her hollowed-out copy of “the sacred text,” and pulled out the Colt .45 hand cannon she kept hidden there. With her other hand she ripped open the seam of her pantleg and pulled a long, wicked blade from the scabbard that ran practically the whole length of her thigh. Thank God for Cashley’s modesty rules. She’d managed to keep it taped there for her whole tenure in the compound.

Scav roared and charged at the vampire hunter, even as she filled the air with bullets. Their stopping power wouldn’t do much to harm a vampire, but if she was lucky and destroyed his eyes it would buy her the precious seconds she needed to sever his head.

She managed to catch one eye, but not the other, and then when she took her stroke it went astray. It was enough to move him out of her guard, but the vital moment of surprise was lost. Now she would need all of her skill – and luck – to survive.

“Bury that glog quick, Scav,” MacVicar shouted, bracing himself for the onslaught of Cashley and his six brides, “We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Scav hissed and leapt at her. As though she had been struck by a bolt of lightning, she was suddenly on her back, both hands pinned to the floor and her weapons clattering away out of reach. The blow had knocked the wind out of her and as she fought the panic of being unable to draw in oxygen, she struggled, but she wasn’t even a rag doll in his grasp. She was like a butterfly, already pinned to a board.

Then, like a tiny miracle, oxygen flooded into her lungs and she took a deep gasp. It had seemed an eternity, though she knew it had really only been a few seconds, and her wits finally returned to her. Looking up she wondered why the killing blow hadn’t come. But Scav wasn’t even paying attention to her.

The vampire was staring at the door. She glanced back down the aisle and saw MacVicar, Cashley, and the six newborns all staring at the doorway, too, paused in mid-movement like a VHS tape. That, more than anything, brought a sinking feeling to Miranda’s stomach.