Hunter of the Dead (28 page)

Idi Han took a few steps with confidence, but when she found herself over the yawning chasm, began to worry, and almost to falter. Even Cicatrice feared that hole, and she could see why. It practically called to her, whispering in her ear, saying, “Fall, fall, drop into me, let me swallow you up.” It was far more powerful than any vertigo she had ever felt in mortal life. She wondered if there weren’t really dark powers at the bottom of the pit.

She felt Cicatrice place an arm on her shoulder, and she began to walk again with confidence, past the sleeping forms of the remaining twelve Damned. They reached what amounted to a treestump, carved or naturally occurring in the rock, or perhaps the result of a circumcised stalactite. She leaned down to examine it.

A few feet away, like a scar in the rock face, a great crack had appeared in the ceiling. She walked over and ran her hands along it. It was massive, easily fat enough for one of the lamprey-like creatures to burrow into and escape.

“He burrowed through solid rock,” she said. “It must be hundreds of meters to the surface.”

“Easily,” Cicatrice agreed. “It’s troubling. I’m not pleased that he has been destroyed, in fact I find it a great insult, and a great question. Who could defeat one of The Damned?”

“Do you think that the Inquisitor did it and hides his guilt from you?”

“Carter Price is a child in all but age. He could do this the day Otto Signari kisses me on the lips and calls me his brother again.”

“Well, there is much to consider. But if you’ll forgive my weak stomach, Father Cicatrice, I am still only a few days old and being here makes me queasy.”

“I’m much older than that and I would still prefer the safety of that outcropping. Leave The Damned to this…strange nest.”

They made their exeunt far quicker than their entrance. Once back in the safe glow of the dismembered infant, a thought struck Idi Han.

“Is there anything unusual about that particular member of The Damned?”

Cicatrice put his hand to his chin and thought.

“She was called The Seer. She knew things before they happened, supposedly. Was very sensitive to changes in the weather or even in political winds.”

“Then she knew things before they happened. Like that The Hunter of the Dead is here?”

“I’m still not certain that would be enough to wake even The Seer. The only thing I can think of that would awaken her would be that if she sensed The Damned were about to be awakened.”

Cicatrice clutched the golden key around his chest.

“How could that happen?” she asked.

“Only if something happened to me and I wasn’t here to grant them their sacrifice each day.”

“Then there may be something to Signari’s threats?”

Cicatrice shook his head.

“It’s an idle exercise at best to attempt to predict the future. And it’s complete masturbation to attempt to stop it. Nevertheless, it’s a fool who doesn’t take precautions. Why don’t you take this?”

He pressed the golden key into her hand. She shook her head and shrunk back.

“No, Father Cicatrice, I am not ready for that responsibility.”

He patted her hand in a manner which could have been comforting in any other person.

“As I said, it’s not your responsibility. Just a precaution. If anything does happen to me, then The Damned will still not awaken.”

And what if something happens to me?

***

Tap-tap-tap.

Nico moaned lightly and rolled over. Price’s floor might not have been the most comfortable place on the planet, but he felt safer there than most places in the city.

Tap-tap-tap.

“
¿Qué coño?
” he muttered, looking up.

He almost gasped, but stopped himself. Instantly he was awake.

Idi Han was at the window.

He rose, wishing he was wearing more than boxer shorts polka-dotted with red hearts. It was too late, now. She had seen him sleeping in what he was wearing. He snuck over to the window and tried to jimmy it open. It began to creak. He glanced over at Price, but he was stupendously drunk and had passed out in his chair. She reached and helped him raise it from the outside, keeping it absolutely silent.

“What are you doing here?” he whispered.

“Can we talk?”

He glanced down at the street.

“We’re on the eighth floor. How are you…?”

Her feet clung to the wall as though she were wearing suction cup shoes. As he considered it, at a certain point strength would seem to defy physics. If you could cling to the side of a speeding train with just your pinky, you would seem to be a magical creature.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” she said, “it’s just that I have no one to talk to. At least, no one who doesn’t want to use me or train me or sell me or…”

He nodded.

“I…I understand. Let me just grab something to wear.”

As he pulled on his crunchy, days-old work uniform (with nameplate still attached) he silently cursed himself for not buying some new clothes or at least throwing this set in the wash. He pointed down, indicating the ground floor.

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” he mouthed.

She opened her arms.

“I could save you the trip,” she said.

He eyed her up and down.

“Maybe when we trust each other a little more.”

She shrugged and disappeared from the window. He stuck his head out and saw her, already on the ground, pacing, and waiting for him. He eased the window shut and hurried out into the hallway as fast as he could without making any noise. In Price’s flophouse the elevator only occasionally reported for duty to the proper floor, and this was not one of those times, so he found himself hurrying down the stairs.

He burst out onto the street and was greeted by a wave of cool, exuberant air. Even in long pants and a hat he was chilly, but Idi Han in her short dress seemed unaffected by the weather. She seemed as pleased to see him as he was to see her.

“So,” he said, “what, ah, what’s up?”

“Can we take a walk?” she asked.

He glanced up at the roofs and night sky.

“Is Cicatrice here?”

“He doesn’t know I’m here,” she said. “He said he had some business to attend to alone so I snuck out.”

“Quite the rebel!”

“Nico. Please.”

“I’m sorry. I know this can’t be easy for you. All…this.”

He made an expansive, circular gesture. He didn’t even really know what he meant by it, but Idi Han apparently did.

“You have no idea how strange it is to be told you’re special, you’re important, you’re the most important person on the planet.”

“Wish I had that problem.”

“You laugh, but where I come from no one ever tells you that. They tell you how unimportant you are. How you’re only as good as what you can do for others. You Americans are used to being told you’re the prettiest and the richest and the smartest.”

Nico snorted. He gestured for her to take his arm and they started to walk down the street.

“You think I’m an American?”

“Well, aren’t you?”

“Sort of. It’s complicated.”

“What isn’t?”

“Yeah. I’m American enough for all the bad things but not American enough for all the good things.”

“Stuck between two worlds?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

They walked along in silence for a moment.

“Cicatrice said you two lived up to your end of the bargain.”

“Don’t I know it. I’ve been in the sewers since dawn this morning. Bonaparte – there’s this lady, Bonaparte. I don’t know her real name. Anyway, she has all these gangs of people and it’s all like marching in step- like little automatons. Kind of like what you were saying about China. And they dropped all this tear gas and smoke and all these humans, just regular humans came running out of the tunnels.”

“Disciples,” she said.

“Cultists,” he agreed, “Coffin guards. Price calls them ‘renfields.’ But in the end they’re just ordinary people. Sad, but ordinary people. And they all come flooding out and we tell them to surrender and some of them do but…”

He trailed off.

“In war there are casualties,” she said.

He shook his head.

“This didn’t feel like a war. It felt like a slaughter. My wrists are, ah, chafing.” He waggled the wrist of his free hand to show what he meant. “Because I spent all morning pounding stakes into inert bodies. Chopping heads off of…corpses. How many people did I kill?”

“None. We’re not people.”

He stopped and turned to look at her.

“I don’t believe that.”

She stared into his eyes.

“I’ve seen things…done things…you would find unforgiveable.”

“You and my sainted grandmother both. Sometimes I wonder if being unforgiveable is the only real human condition.”

She placed her hand on his shoulder.

“You really mean that?”

Two

Price’s eyes snapped open. Nothing in particular had awakened him. No special noise or sound of the night had disturbed his slumber. He woke often, a dozen times a night sometimes.

Bad dreams.

“Kid?” he whispered.

No response. He heard a click and instantly he was on his feet, machete in hand. A tiny flame illuminated his dump of an apartment. It belonged to a match, which belonged to a hand, which belonged to a person, facing away from him in the lone folding chair which decorated his digs.

The shadow figure brought the match up to an unfiltered cigarette nestled in a bone holder. Then with a casual flick the flame disappeared and the blackened match dropped to the floor. The shadow took a long drag from its cigarette, and then puffed out a cloud to fog up the apartment.

“There was a time,” a voice, syrupy with malevolence intoned, “when my kind was not relegated to the shadows. And there will be again.”

Price glanced around the room, wondering what to do. He’d never been caught so naked…literally and figuratively…before. He held the blade level and perpendicular with the ground, in Cicatrice’s general direction.

“Where’s the kid, Cicatrice?”

“The people of this land tell a story. Once upon a time a fox was bathing in a river. In some versions it’s a fox, in others it’s a frog, the end result is really the same so it doesn’t really matter. We’ll call it a fox. A scorpion approached the riverbank. The fox was a wily hunter but even he feared the scorpion’s deadly sting, so he started to swim out into the river, knowing scorpions can’t swim.

“And the scorpion called out, ‘Please don’t run from me, Brother Fox. I’m not here to harm you. I just need to get to the other side of the river. Will you take me on your back?’

“Now the fox was intrigued but he wasn’t stupid, so he replied, ‘If I carry you on my back you will sting me and I will drown.’

“And the scorpion replied, ‘That would be foolish. If I sting you we would both drown. There, you see? Our mutual safety is assured and if you aid me, you will have my gratitude, and my gratitude is worth much.’

“The fox thought and thought but he couldn’t figure out any trick. If one drowned, both would drown. So, albeit reluctantly, he let the scorpion on his back and started to swim. When they were no more than halfway across the river,
snap
! The scorpion stung the fox.

“As the fox began to drown he said, ‘Why did you sting me? Now we will both drown.’

“‘I had to,’ the scorpion replied, ‘I’m a scorpion.’”

Cicatrice turned to look over his shoulder at Price. His face was silhouetted in the moonlight, and looked cold, alien, and whiter than the moon.

“Where’s my apprentice?” Price asked, hoping the machete wasn’t quivering in his hand.

“No one was here when I arrived. He must’ve realized the futility of what you do and fled.”

Price glanced around the room.

Did he abandon me? Why would Cicatrice lie? If he wants to hurt me, he’d taunt me about having Nico somewhere. Did someone else snatch him up? Bonaparte? The Signaris?

“Get out, Scar. Get out now.”

Cicatrice stood, and pressed lightly on the chair, sending it flying backwards towards Price. Price dove out of the way, cursing his nakedness as his balls slapped against either thigh. The chair flew past Price and smashed into a mangled wreck against the wall.

“It’s not so easy to exorcise a demon, Price. You invited me into your life. Invited me onto your back. When the fox agreed to help the scorpion they both momentarily forgot who they were.”

The point of the story dawned on him.

“But they never stopped being what they were.”

Cicatrice grinned. Price was certain he had never seen the immortal smile before, wasn’t even certain if he had ever smiled before. The effect was cadaverous, and chilling.

“Now you understand.”

Price roared and rushed at Cicatrice, bringing the machete across his front in a long arc aimed at the vampire’s neck. Cicatrice easily ducked out of the way and caught the machete between his index finger and thumb, arresting Price’s charge completely and making his teeth chatter. Cicatrice snapped the blade out of his hand with a motion that almost shattered Price’s wrist and tossed it out a window, sending pulverized glass exploding outward into the night and tinkling down against the backdrop of the full moon almost like fairy dust.

Cicatrice stood between Price and his cache of weapons in the closet. His mind raced. There was only one weapon on this side of the apartment. He scrabbled with his sore wrist at the wall, reaching for the ceremonial stake with his name carved into it. With his fingertips he fumbled with it, forgetting whether it was glued to the plaque or merely hanging there, but before he could even wrap his hand around the wooden shaft, it didn’t matter anymore. Cicatrice had grabbed his wrist.

Whipping him around like a ragdoll or an unwilling dance partner, Cicatrice easily held Price a few feet off the ground by only his wrist. Then he let him drop to the floor, where he promptly crumpled into a pile like week-old laundry. Price grimaced, rubbing his forearm, and wishing he hadn’t landed on his tailbone. White-hot pain radiated out through him from his coccyx.