Immortal (14 page)

Guess my big makeover wasn’t as thorough as I thought. “Cops just hand out information like that?”

“I’m FBI.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Show me.”

I let him pull out his wallet. He handed it over. It looked real enough to me, but then what do I know? I pocketed it.

“Thought you said you weren’t law enforcement,” I said.

“I said I wasn’t police. And I’m not acting in an official capacity at this particular moment in time.”

“The ID says you’re based in San Antonio. They let you drive off whenever you feel like it?”

“Technically I’m on suspension.”

I smiled. “You’re a bit dirty, aren’t you Stan?”

He didn’t respond.

“Okay, you can stand up,” I said.

Stan pulled himself to his feet with help from the wall, while I checked both ends of the alley. Didn’t look like anybody had noticed us.

“Thanks,” he said. “Now what?”

“Now we have a problem,” I admitted.

“Yeah?”

“Look at it from my perspective, Stan. You’re a killer. You know how I know that? Because you were willing to accept the consequences of your little injection without blinking. Now I can’t let you go because you’ll just try and find me again, and next time you probably won’t give me a chance to disarm you. And I’m not at all fond of the whole being-turned-in-on-a-bounty thing in general. I’m more of a free spirit in that way.”

“I could just walk away,” he said, his voice rising somewhat. “Forget we ever met.”

“I don’t think you’d do that. Plus, you know what I look like. You could put that information to pretty good use. Maybe make a little money out of it.”

“I wouldn’t,” he insisted.

“Stan, Stan, Stan. I’m not stupid. I didn’t get to live this long by being stupid. I’m sorry, but when you think about it none of this was my idea.”

“But . . .”

I pressed the gun up to his chest and fired, once.

It made a little pop like a cork. Just like he said.

Today I saw him watching me as I walked to the lab. He’s got a nice big office on the other side of the compound, with a nice big picture window to look down on his subjects. I’m sure all he sees when he looks at me is dollar signs, but that doesn’t mean he’s not enjoying the fact that he beat me. Although I suppose I could just be projecting, because it sure as hell bugs the crap out of me that I let someone like that put me in this position.

   
The encounter—if you call staring at a hundred paces an encounter—brought home the idea that my escape plan is going to have to involve killing him.

But an escape plan would be good first. I definitely need to start with one of those.

*
 
*
 
*

“You did what?” Brenda asked. This was much later. After taking poor, foolish Stan off the list of things I have to worry about, I strip-searched his car for items of interest—which I found—and then took the most circuitous route imaginable to return to Brenda’s, on the off-chance there were any others like him following me.

“I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?”

“You could’a hit him over the head or, or turned him in to the cops, or . . .”

I was busy checking out the contents of Stan’s car, which I’d dumped out on the bed.

“You’re not thinking straight,” I said. “You’re a vampire, you should know about this. Think in terms of predator/prey.”

“What?” Brenda was freaking out, which resulted in her voice getting louder. Almost too loud. Among the many things that are amplified by the vampiric transformation are the vocal chords. I remember Eloise used to hunt rabbits by shrieking at them, which either stunned or killed them outright.

“I’ve never killed anybody!” she nearly shouted, and I swear the walls quivered. Apparently she’d rethought her whole “being a killer is sorta sexy” thing.

“For Baal’s sake, keep it down,” I said, clapping my hands over my ears.

“I haven’t,” she repeated, much quieter.

“I know,” I said, lingering near the things on the bed that I very much wanted to delve into. But I was going to have to calm down my hyperventilating vampire friend first. (Ironic, as vampires don’t need to breathe.) I stood up and stepped toward her.

“Don’t touch me!” she exclaimed, and I bet they heard that downstairs.

“I won’t,” I said. “Look, just . . . calm down a minute, okay? Yes, I could have clubbed him over the head and run off, but what would that have gotten me? He’d already found me once, and he wasn’t going to be as careless about it the second time. If I had just wounded him, I couldn’t guarantee he’d never tell somebody else where I was and what I currently look like. I couldn’t go to the police, because who do you think they would believe? The word of the FBI agent, or the word of the guy with no legitimate identification who’s already a suspect in another murder?”

She glared at me. “You didn’t have to kill him,” she insisted.

“If he had to, he would have done the same to me.”

Blood tears started to well up in her eyes. I’d clearly overestimated the prowess of the modern vampire. The ones I’d known over the centuries were fundamentally aware that they were killing machines and were largely okay with that.

“I didn’t think of you as someone who could really do something like that,” she added quietly.

“Neither did Stan,” I pointed out. “But I didn’t live this long by being polite.”

*
 
*
 
*

I committed my first murder when I was twelve. I wasn’t even aware of my immortality at the time. I was just trying to get by. It happened when our little band of nomads happened upon the hunting grounds of someone else’s little band of nomads, and one thing led to another. This was almost literally at the dawn of man, so “us good, them bad” was just about the only thing that figured prominently in our philosophical outlook.

Using a heavy stone—very much in vogue at the time—I crushed the skull of an enemy warrior who couldn’t have been much more than ten years old, feeling no particular remorse about it, because again, they were “them.” We won the fight and rewarded ourselves by raping several of their women. It’s what one did. Don’t ask me to feel bad about it if you weren’t there.

Violence continued to be the norm for the vast majority of my life, peaceful existence the exception. It may have seemed like things quieted down a bit once we all figured out how to farm, because farming begets society and society develops laws, and laws enforce peace in the interest of the greater good. But society is just another kind of tribe and it eventually bumps into a larger one, and there’s more violence, only then it’s called war.

In those early days, I must have been directly responsible for hundreds of deaths and indirectly responsible for possibly thousands. Sometimes it’s just what you have to do.

The advent of civilization—an overly optimistic word—didn’t change things as much as one might think, because no matter how large a city or empire became there was always another “them” to go out and kill. And when organized religion really got going . . . well, there’s a fantastic excuse to murder people in bunches.

My point is that despite the patina of civility coating most of modern society, underneath it is a thick layer of savagery. Many people go their entire lives without even realizing it’s there. I’ve never had that luxury.

*
 
*
 
*

I returned to my immediate concern, which was the stuff I’d been able to carry from Stan’s Escalade. I would have just driven the car someplace where I could search it thoroughly, but that struck me as a dangerous thing to try. There was too much I didn’t know, such as whether his car could be tracked or whether he would be found and connected to the car soon enough for the police to consider looking for it. I had taken what I could, tossed his keys into the sewer, and left the scene.

I found only two things worth keeping—a large square suitcase and an oversized manila folder. I slid the contents of the folder onto the bed and examined them by candlelight. There wasn’t much, just the phone Stan had talked about and a two-page info sheet.

Page one had a bad black-and-white photograph of me. It was recent. Within the last six months recent. I couldn’t fathom how anyone had managed such a photo, as I take great precautions in that regard.

The rest of the page was notable for its lack of information.

Name: Various

Age: looks early thirties

Sex: Male

Race: Various

Height: 5’ 11’’

Weight: 180 (Approx.)

Hair: Various

Eyes: Brown

Scars, other identifying marks: None

Clearly, whoever had sent Stan knew enough to list race as various, which is not the sort of thing one customarily sees in a tally of vital statistics. I flipped to page two.

Target is an immortal man, but in all appearances and mannerisms a normal human being. He is immune to all diseases but can be physically harmed with ordinary weaponry. He typically travels alone but has been known to befriend humans at times, and also various underspecies. He prefers to use cash when he travels. (Source of cash is unknown.) He will rarely stay in one place for an extended period. He was last spotted in Cleveland.

Target is not usually armed. However, he is extremely cunning and is not to be taken lightly. His greatest weakness is his penchant for alcohol, which makes him sloppy and overly reliant on strangers.

Goal: Target is to be taken
ALIVE
. Use of lethal force—or damage caused leading to his subsequent demise—will result in nonpayment or forfeiture of payment. Once you have safely secured and positively tested target, contact is to be made via the enclosed phone. N
O
OTHER
FORM
OF
CONTACT
IS
ACCEPTABLE
. Transfer of target and the necessary payment arrangements will be negotiated at that time.

“What does it say?” Brenda asked quietly, not yet willing to approach the bed, or me.

“It says somebody out there knows more about me than they should,” I said. “Strengths, weaknesses . . . everything except who wants me and why.”

“Oh. Has this ever happened before?”

“No. This is new.”

I popped open the black case.

“Oh my,” I said.

Brenda came around to the bed to take a look herself.

“Is that real?” she asked, looking at what appeared to be a disassembled sniper’s rifle.

I pulled out the barrel. “Looks to be. Can’t say I’m surprised.”

The gun only took up the top half of the suitcase, so I pulled on the little flap in the front and checked underneath. Cash. Lots of it.

“Can’t say I’m surprised at that either,” I added.

“How much is that?”

“About fifty grand. Bounty hunting wasn’t the only thing Stan was into.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think he did a little contract killing in his spare time. Looks like the FBI had a good reason to suspend him.”

Brenda cocked her head, much in the way a dog does when he hears a distant whistle. “Your pixie’s back.”

“Good timing.” I started pulling cash out of the suitcase and stuffing it into my own bag. “I’ve got to get going.”

“Go? Why?” she asked. “Where are you going?”

“What would you do if you just killed an FBI agent in broad daylight?” I asked. “I’m getting the hell out of town.”