Dark Rain: 15 Short Tales (38 page)

’aul and I and ten traders stayed behind and planned our assault on the nearby village that was known to harbor the base of operations for the drug traffickers, one of whom was missing a finger and two other matching body parts that had shown up in War Daddy’s gut. Two parts I had neglected to mention. Two parts a man would really,
really
miss.

Soon, a much bigger party, aided by those in the village who were sick and tired of being used by the local thugs, joined our cause. Our numbers swelled to over thirty fighters, and our plan was strategic and well-thought-out. With luck, the drug traffickers and their local empire would be leveled, only to be swallowed by the desert itself and its ever-shifting sands.

Wish us luck.

Author’s Note:
Vampire Dawn
(Vampire for Hire #6) was a tough book for me to finish. I wrote, I believe, six different endings before settling on one. But one of them has always haunted me. I liked it. Except, sadly, I couldn’t make it work. I liked the set-up: Sam saving her kidnapped sister. Except, of course, I never had her sister kidnapped… or even involved in the storyline. So, to make it work, I would have had to go back and layer her sister more thoroughly throughout the story. I wasn’t sure that would work. Plus, I didn’t really like the idea of using her sister as a plot ploy. So, the idea got scrapped, and the scene cut… until now. Please note, this alternate ending was never quite finished, but I think you might still enjoy it. —J.R. Rain.

t the base of the stairway, an amorphous entity materialized before me. It soon took on the shape of a young woman—a young woman with a deep gash across her throat. She appeared to hover in midair, as ghosts are wont to do.

As I stepped forward, she blocked my path. She lifted what was supposed to be a hand, but was really just a blurred stump. I tried to step around her but she blocked my path again. Each time she moved, her mostly shapeless body lost what definition it had, until it swarmed again and reformed. She shook what was left of her head.

I paused in this lower level hallway, a level that was far colder than the floor just above. A level that smelled of death.

“I’m okay,” I whispered. “But thank you.”

She shook her head again, and kept on shaking it even as I stepped
through
her, scattering her glowing filaments like so many frightened fish.

Shivering, I moved forward again, toward a door at the far end of the hallway. Beyond it, hiding behind a pillar of some sort, was a man waiting to kill me. Of that I was sure.

And behind him, in a room filled with light, was my sister.

I was sure of that, too.

Suddenly pissed beyond control, I marched down the hall, and gave the killer what he was waiting for.

Me.

With one raised foot and a lot of rage, I kicked the door open. So hard that the whole damn thing collapsed forward, including some of the doorframe.

The sound was deafening.

I was here. They knew I was here. Enough with the charade. Besides, I wasn’t standing in the doorway. I was off to the side, just behind the mangled frame as dust billowed everywhere.

I doubted these guys were trained killers. Not like the vampire hunter I’d met last year, a man who systematically hunted down my brethren. No, these guys were punks. Sickos that deceived their victims. At least, that was the impression I’d had when I touched the walls. Women were lured in, and, in the case of Brian Meeks, those who simply worked here as well.

How they captured and killed vampires, I didn’t know, but I was beginning to get some ideas.

For now, though, I had a bastard with a crossbow to deal with.

Of course, what I should do next was still up in the air. I hadn’t really thought things through much further than kicking down the door.

Whoever he was, he was alone. Only one set of excited lungs breathed at the far end of the hall. How many more were beyond this hall, I didn’t know. How many people it took to run a blood ring, I didn’t know that either. The fewer the better. In fact, I doubted the workers I had seen in the theater were truly privy to what was going on behind these closed doors.

Whoever they were, human life meant little. Blood was all that mattered. They were nothing more than butchers.

As I peered around the frame and through the settling dust, I could see bright light issuing out from under the door, crisscrossed by the moving shadows. I had gotten someone’s attention.

As I waited, knowing that a man at the far end of the hallway was holding the one weapon that could actually kill me, the same ghost girl materialized before me. But this time, she didn’t look so
staticky
. This time, I suspected, anyone could see her. Anyone, as in the guy at the far end of the hallway. She turned her head and looked at me sadly, her eyes round and dark, the gash in her neck somehow deepened, revealing the ghostly hint of her mortally damaged neck. And as she continued to stare at me, I saw what she was doing.

Acting as a decoy.

In that instant, a shiny-tipped arrow swept through her, to
thunk
deep into the wall behind her. She never took her eyes off me. Instead, she smiled and dematerialized.

I yanked the bolt out of the wall—and moved.

I swept low over the ground, moving impossibly fast. I doubted the shooter had another bolt cocked and ready to fire.

I was right, he hadn’t. Instead, he had something else.

Another crossbow.

Already armed with a silver-tipped arrow. He raised it now as I hurled down the black hallway. I’d had some experience with silver. It wasn’t fun. It was hell, in fact.

Rarely have I moved so fast. I was surprised to see I clawed the ground with my hands like a wild animal, hurling myself forward, covering the long hallway in a blink of an eye.

He had just raised the crossbow, had just started squeezing the trigger when one moment he was alive, and the next he was twitching at my feet, the crossbow bolt lodged deep in his chest. As his legs kicked and he fought for breath that would not come, I looked away and pressed an ear against the door. Voices. Movement. Water dripping.

I looked again at the man at my feet. He’d mercifully quit twitching.

I considered my options, and realized I didn’t have many.

Now would have been a good time to cast my mind out, to search what lay beyond this door, to search for enemies and, most importantly, my sister.

Good plan, except for one problem.

I couldn’t calm down. I couldn’t focus. My mind raced too fast. Blood pumped too hard.

As I listened to the sounds of distant water dripping, I took deep breaths. Until a thought of my sister somewhere behind this door sent my mind off into a fit of rage. I nearly threw the door open and charged inside.

To do that would have been the death of me… and of my sister.

I told myself to relax, to calm my mind.

Finally, finally, I was able to clear it. Enough to cast my thoughts out in an ever-widening gyre. It was my ace in the hole. My edge. Without it, I was walking into a death trap.

Except I wasn’t as calm as I would have liked. The images that were returned to me were fuzzy and incomplete. Still, good enough. There were three of them in the massive room beyond. Three living, that is. Three moving. There were others. Many others… hanging. Dripping blood.

The dripping sounds I’d been hearing.

Sweet Jesus.

Calm down, Sam. Relax. You can do this. Your sister needs you. Hell,
you
need you.

I breathed deeply, filling my useless lungs with useless air. It was a technique that still worked to help me focus.

From somewhere far down the hallway to my right, a distant sound fought for my attention. It could have been anything. Rats. Earth shifting. Or someone approaching. Hard to tell. Either way, whatever or whoever it was, was still far away. So, I concentrated on the issue at hand.

These new enemies behind the door I couldn’t recognize, although I suspected the tall one near the door was Robert Cash. He held something, assumingly a crossbow. The other was smaller, thinner. Stood straight. Unarmed, as far as I could tell. Impossible to know who they were. At least, for the time being.

I would know soon enough.

I continued my remote search. The massive room was set lower than this hallway. Down some steps. Earth everywhere. It appeared to be a cavern… but an unnatural one, dug out long ago. By whom and for what reason, I didn’t know. Maybe it had always been used to kill and drain and feed the local vampires.

I continued mentally scanning the big room—the room of horror—until I saw what appeared to be more doors. No surprise there. There had to be many ways into this underground chamber beneath the theater.

A balcony high above. Accessed by a door to my right.

Another door? Oh?

My eyes shot open. Indeed, behind more junk and behind where the dead man now lay at my feet, was a barely discernible door.

I quietly moved toward it. It was locked. A quick flick of my wrist took care of that.

It opened quietly enough. I slipped inside and headed up.