IM02 - Hunters & Prey (30 page)

“Oh, hey, has Lysander called the cable company yet?” Fallon asked as she shoved her head down below a small silver and glass desk.

For the last few weeks, Fallon had taken it upon herself to bring my two-thousand year old boyfriend into the modern era.

And he wasn’t too happy about it. What was that saying, you can’t teach an old vampire new tricks? I stood against the wall laughing at the absurdity of it, remembering Lysander’s first lesson with the computer. He crushed the first mouse before he realized he didn’t have to click so hard. The keyboard barely stood a chance.

Fallon had spent many days rebuilding her desktop computer after their last lesson. Still, she hadn’t given up on him. You had to admire her persistence.

Cables snaked across the top of the desk while Fallon bumped and grumbled underneath. “Everything is plugged in. I don’t know why it isn’t working. Ah ha!”

I heard a loud
Thump.
The whole desk suddenly shifted, and then Fallon shouted, “Sonofabitch!”

“You okay over there?” I asked, half laughing and half concerned.

“You know, Lysander may be old and wise and all that, but the man’s an idiot when it comes to modern technology.”

“No one’s disputing that point. What did he do this time?”

Fallon pulled herself out from under the desk, looking extremely annoyed. She rubbed a spot on the top of her head, messing up her already wild, blond, pixie haircut. “Damn cable was plugged into the wrong hole. I don’t even want to know how he managed to make it fit.”

I giggled at her. “Well, what do you expect, the guy is ancient.”

Her deep-brown eyes narrowed as she shot me one of those
I-don’t-think-so
looks. “That’s no excuse. Living for two thousand years gives you plenty of time to learn things. You know, adapt with the times and all that jazz.”

I nodded in agreement. She was right. But it did make me wonder: if I managed to live that long, would I be so out of touch? I hoped not.

Fallon stopped rubbing the sore spot on her head and turned to the sleek new twenty-one inch, flat panel monitor sitting on the desk. She gently pressed the power button and sighed with contentment as the screen came to life. She rested her hands on the desk and absently tapped her finger on the edge of the keyboard as if she were contemplating what to do next.

“You know, it would be better if Lysander were here. I don’t want to set him up an account yet. He needs to learn how to use this computer.”

“You’re gonna have to wait then. He’s off hunting.”

A hint of fear suddenly permeated the air. A sweet smell. Human noses can’t detect the subtle scent, but I wasn’t human and the sugary fragrance teased my senses. Friend or not, I’m still a vampire ,and instincts are hard to ignore. Hunting means blood. Fresh blood. Human blood. Fallon knew this, and she also knew that far as my clan goes, we stick to hunting criminals—those deserving of our deadly kisses. Fallon was in no danger here. Not from me or any other vampire in this house. The Peregrinus clan would never harm her, especially since she had been made an unofficial member (being human and all) after helping us out with the Acta Sanctorum’s last attempt to destroy us.

“At least he will be in a good mood when he gets back,” she said, trying to sound as if it didn’t bother her. I could tell she was lying (vampires can sense feelings and emotions. It’s like a sixth sense to us) but nodded as if I accepted her words at face value. I knew she was still a bit squeamish on the whole blood thing. For what it was worth though, she was handling it well. “Guess I will just check my email while we wait.”

I spotted an open cardboard box sitting on the futon. “Hey, what’s this? More computer stuff?”

Fallon didn’t look at me as she continued tapping away at the keys. “Dunno. It was on the doorstep when I came home.”

I walked over for a closer look. Strangely, there was no address or any kind of shipping information on the box. I picked it up and looked at the bottom, hoping to find a label there. What I found instead was a strange symbol: a large circle with a sideways capital I in the center. It had been drawn in something maroon. I hoped that was just a new Sharpie color, but after a quick whiff my nose said otherwise. Blood. Old blood.

“You didn’t think it was strange?” I asked, a little annoyed that she hadn’t mentioned this sooner. No tags meant that this hadn’t been dropped off by the postal service.

We lived in the middle of a quiet suburban neighborhood, hiding in plain sight from the humans surrounding us. Maintaining our secrecy was rule number one in our clan, and we did our best to remain inconspicuous.

That meant whoever stopped by to drop this off must have known who and potentially what we were.

“Sorry, Lyssa, I had my hands full with the new monitor when I came in. Honestly, I had forgotten it was here until you mentioned it.”

I hadn’t been a vampire long enough to know all of the ins and outs of our culture. Maybe this was a way new vampires announced their presence in our territory. Maybe our recent defeat of Quentin and the local branch of the Acta Sanctorum operation had earned us some respect. Maybe it was a parting gift from Santino, our old nemesis turned ally.

What’s the old saying, ‘curiosity killed the cat’?
But
,
does it kill the vampire
, I wondered.

Absently tapping my fingers on the box top, I debated how bad it might be just to take a peak. No strange odors emanated from the box. No ticking to indicate a bomb—not that I thought bombs ticked anymore, but I did feel safer that there was no sound coming from the box. I picked it up and shook it. If felt light as air, and the contents didn’t shuffle around much. Only a muffled thump indicated anything solid was inside, and whatever it was, it was packed to not break.

Curiosity got the best of me. I had to see what it was. I used my fingernail to open the tape across the top. A puff of dry air greeted me as I pulled back the flaps. Instead of packing peanuts, the box had been filled with some straw-like material, resembling the grass in children’s Easter baskets. “Come check this out,” I called out to Fallon while pushing aside the grassy packing material.

She tore herself away from the computer and joined me. The moment was a bit anticlimactic. For all the mystery and ominous writing on the outside, the contents were a bit boring. An ornately carved wooden box sat in the middle of the packing material; tied tight with a red silk ribbon. It was pretty, but not all that exciting.

I reached in, taking hold of the box with one hand, and lifted it out. It felt strangely weightless to hold, as if the wood were hollow or perhaps not wood at all, but some kind of Styrofoam. I gave it a squeeze, gently though; I didn’t want to accidentally crush it. It had no give. It was solid as a rock. I squeezed it a bit harder, expecting the wood to crack or groan under the pressure of my vampire strength, but it too had no effect.

Maybe it’s not so plain after all.

I shook it and held it to my ear to hear if there might be anything inside. Nothing.

“Let me see,” Fallon said taking it from me. She traced the patterns that looked like ancient writing covering the small box. “It’s really pretty. Should we unwrap it and see what’s inside?”

“Sure, no harm in that,” I said with a bit too much enthusiasm, still hoping for something exciting to match the mystery surrounding its arrival. “I mean, it wasn’t addressed to anyone, so it was probably meant for all of us, right?”

“All of us” meant the other vampires that lived in the house, the Peregrinus clan: Rozaline, Nicholas, Crystal, Drew, and Lysander.

“Hmm, good point,” she said, pulling the box just out of my reach. “We’re not opening up someone’s birthday present, right? Should we wait for the others to get here to open it?”

I laughed. “I don’t think vampires celebrate birthdays.”

“Maybe they celebrate deathdays,” she quipped.

“We’re not dead.” I shook my head at her. “Beating hearts… remember?”

“I know, Lyssa. I’m just joking.” She playfully tapped me on the shoulder. “Okay, let’s take a quick peek.”

“This was probably for Lysander,” I said. “An antique for display or something. I doubt he would mind me opening it.” I could imagine it looking nice on his bookshelves. He was, after all, a historian and collected lots of old things.

Fallon started to untie the silk wrapper. As I thought, the carved words (at least, I thought they were words) were haphazardly etched into the wood all over the box. There appeared no rhyme or reason to their patterns. They were written in every direction. Up, down, sideways, backwards, and staggered like a stair case. I had a feeling if I could read the writing, it would all make sense, but even not knowing exactly what it said, I could appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the design.

“Weird. It doesn’t appear to have an opening. Looks like a solid piece of wood.” There was no visible clasp to it to indicate a lid. No hinges either. After staring at it for a few minutes, I spotted a hairline seam. It was barely visible, hidden within the patterns. I grabbed the box from Fallon and ran my finger around the edges of the box. “Must be like an ancient shoe box.” I chuckled. “Look. The top just fits over the bottom.”

“Well, let’s see what treasures are inside.” Fallon grabbed the box from me and pulled the top off.

A cloud of dust
poofed
out, spewing dry chalky ash into my face.

I coughed as it choked out the air around me. My eyes began to water and a tear spilled over my cheek.

Fallon let out a violent sneeze that knocked her backwards into the wall. Her newly-hung painting fell with a crash. Fallon and dropped the box, spilling its contents, a gray pile of ash, all over the splintered canvas.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” she said, bending over to clean up the mess.

I felt a strange prickling sensation at my neck. The air around me felt as if it were growing colder, like someone had set the thermostat to zero. A shiver danced its way up my spine, and a sudden feeling of dread surrounded me like wet blanket. Gooseflesh erupted, quickly spreading down my arm. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

Vampires can always feel another vampire’s presence. This eerily cold hair-raising sensation felt very similar, yet amplified by ten.

I turned to find Nicholas looking over my shoulder. It was if he had appeared out of nowhere. I jumped in place, startled by his sudden appearance, and bit back a curse. His scruffy face was mere inches from my neck, though his blue-gray eyes, a trademark of the vampire race, were locked on the box in Fallon’s hand.

“What have we here?” he asked. “Been ordering junk from those websites again, little human?” He folded his arms in front of his chest. Nicholas wasn’t a tall man, but he was muscular and looked very formidable and menacing when he wanted too.

Fallon finished sweeping the ash back into the box and replaced the lid. “No, the human has not been ordering junk.” She shot him a taunting glare.

Human or not, Fallon didn’t take Nicholas’ crap. Once she learned he wasn’t going to kill her, it became almost a game between these two: an ongoing battle to see who could annoy whom the most. It was fun to watch the two of them go at it sometimes.

“Someone dropped this on our doorstep.” Fallon set the wooden box on the futon and picked up the corner of the cardboard box it came in, showing Nicholas the big red symbol on the bottom. “You’re older than dirt, right? Maybe you can read this.”

He opened his mouth as if to make another snarky comment and then closed it immediately. His eyes narrowed and his brows pulled together in deep consternation.

That startled me more than the odd chill in the air. Nicholas was always quick with an answer or some kind of quip. For him to be silent meant that this, whatever it was, was not the innocuous present I had assumed it would be.

“Thanatos?” Nicholas whispered under his breath, as if asking a question rather than making a statement.

Both Fallon and I gave each other confused looks. I shrugged my shoulders at her and after a moment of awkward silence, decided to ask the obvious question. “Who is Thanatos?”

“When did you receive this?” Nicholas asked curtly.

“It was on the doorstep when I got home from the store,” Fallon replied. “I dunno, probably about seven o’clock or so.”

“What were the contents of the package?”

“Just this box.” Fallon dropped the cardboard box and handed the wooden box to Nicholas.

He took it gingerly as if he feared to touch the ancient-looking thing.

“Who is Thanatos?” I asked a bit louder this time.

“Death personified,” Nicholas said, his tone hinting worry.

A cold breeze blew through the den making the curtains dance in front of the window. I looked up to see if the fan had been turned on, but it remained still and unmoving.

“You mean Death, like the Grim Reaper?” I asked, my voice cracking as the eerie feeling of dread intensified to an overwhelming sensation that told me we should have never opened that box.

“Exactly,” Nicholas said. He too watched the curtains dancing at the window. “Though I doubt the person who sent this is the actual Thanatos of legend. But perhaps he is closer to the literal truth; something like we are, a vampire, a bringer of death.”