A gun was fired.
A man fell.
It just wasn’t me or Gerald. Instead, William Packard hit the ground, face first, collapsing on his pistol. He’d been shot in the back of the head and a part of me was disappointed that I wasn’t the one to put him down. Instead, Nancy was stepping out of the doorway to the living room with Charles Devinshire’s gun in hand.
Standing beside Nancy and holding the severed head of the late Esteban, which had an ice skate buried in his skull, was Carrie. She was covered in blinking Christmas lights and had a broad grin on her face. I had to wonder where the electricity was coming from since the lights weren’t attached to anything. Cujo was at her feet, barking happily before spotting Gerald. That was when he assumed a hostile and aggressive stance.
“Bark-bark-bark!” Cujo snarled at Gerald.
Nancy put her gun into her skort’s pocket then looked at me, looking genuinely concerned. She walked up and touched the sleeve of my suit, running her fingers down to the bullet hole there. “Are you okay?”
“Eh, I was shot. It’s not a big deal,” I said. “My big problem is that this is my only suit.”
I’d have to find some thread and a sewing needle to get it looking normal again or just steal another one. It was at that moment that I also became aware of Nancy’s closeness and how she’d come to check on me personally. It made me feel a variety of senses and emotions that I was unfamiliar with, but most of all a desire to be close to her.
Intimately.
Nancy’s face had something about it that made me just want to look at it for a very long time but there was more than that. She’d saved my life twice and I admired her fierceness. Her sense of purpose was something that also drew me in: being willing to take on a small army of thugs to go after her family and friends.
“Yeah, we should get you another one,” Nancy said, looking into my eyes. “I’m glad you’re alright, though.”
“Thank you,” I said, fumbling for the words. “I’m glad you’re alright too. Listen, would you care to—”
“Look at this cool severed head!” Carrie said, presenting it to Gerald.
Gerald screamed like a little girl. He was back on the ground, sitting on his ass, and scooting away from Carrie like she was a tiger.
“Oh for...” I started to say, watching Nancy’s attention move to our vampiric guest.
Nancy looked to Carrie. “I think you might be scaring him.”
“He’s a vampire!” Carrie said. “This should be as awesome to him as it was to me. I was down there when the guy came down and went, ‘Two young chicklings. Perfect sport. Growl.’ Then Nancy and I beat the crap out of him, only for him to drink a vial of vampire blood and go all ‘grrr, arr’! Except, that was when I saw a pair of ice skates and I’m like, ‘I am the goddamn Winter Princess’ and attacked with them. Bam! Whoomp! Zowie! Which is apparently a Batman thing according to Nancy. That was when Cujo warned me that our vampire was escaping so I tossed Nancy a machete—”
“You had a machete?” I asked.
“That’s the part you’re worried about?” Gerald asked.
“I’m not worried at all,” I replied. “Carrie is my sister.”
“The big burly guy, Esteban Vasquez, had one,” Carrie said. “Nancy used it to hack off his head as he started coming back as a zombie. Apparently, if you die with vampire blood in your system then you come back as one of the Hungry Dead!”
“Really,” I said, annoyed at this possibility.
That was when there was a moaning at the top of the stairs. James, four pens sticking out of his eyes and neck, was back from the dead. He was moaning with his arms stretched out in the air blood covering both the front as well as back of his shirt. Before I could react, Nancy drew her pistol again and fired a perfect shot that sailed into the center of his forehead. James proceeded to roll down the stairs, face first, forming into a little ball before landing at our feet. The body continued to twitch, only for Nancy to shoot it twice more in the head. It stopped moving but I wasn’t sure if it was dead-dead or just paralyzed.
“I’ll go get the machete,” Carrie said, handing me the head of Esteban. “By the way, they have battery operated Christmas lights down there. That is so cool! I’m thinking of making a sweater that says CHRISTMAS SLAY on it. You know, because it’s a pun on sleigh.”
“Yes, I get it. Dad would have loved that joke,” I said, holding the head of Esteban. “Are you sure you want to keep this?”
“Oh hell no,” Carrie said. “I just wanted to share my cool zombie head with you. You can throw it away, I guess. Death by ice skate!”
I shrugged and tossed it away, not worrying about where it landed. It wasn’t like we were going to be staying here much longer. The Spirit of the Hunt was right, our home was compromised and there was no point in unpacking. We needed to ditch a good chunk of what we’d brought with us and learn to travel light. A stable home didn’t appear to be in the cards for my sister and me.
“Who are you people?” Gerald asked, staring at us both like we were the weird ones.
“Nancy Loomis,” Nancy said, continuing to her use her alias. “I’m a monster hunter.”
Gerald didn’t look reassured. Then again, hunters were a thing even when they weren’t Artemises. They were a hardy breed of people who mostly lived off the grid and behaved a lot like our father, except focused their attention on the nonhuman residents of the world. They barely made a dent in the population of nonhumans unless they had the support of the government or other supernaturals, but that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. After all, if you were (mostly) immortal, anything that could kill you was something to be taken seriously. Ironically, the few hunters who had come after Billy were the kind of people who would have considered Nancy a monster, too, due to her powers.
“Oh not you,” Nancy said, grinning.
James moaned, apparently still animate.
“You shut up!” Nancy said. She then pointed at me. “That’s William Englund. He’s kind of a serial killer-killer. You’ve already met his sister. She’s like an evil Alyson Hannigan.”
“Differently moral not evil!” Carrie called from the kitchen before I heard her heading downstairs.
Gerald just stared at us.
“You could introduce yourself now,” I said, unhappy my romantic moment had been interrupted. Well, what felt like a romantic moment, at least.
“Oh, right,” Gerald said. “Gerald Pasteur. I’m a doctor.”
“And a vampire,” I said, wondering how that worked. Wouldn’t a doctor be forced to feed on his own patients or was he able to operate on patients if he kept himself fed? Was it just a method to feed?
Gerald looked over at Karl’s body. “Yeah, you must be so horrified at the things I’ve done.”
Wow, he did not know us at all.
“Have you killed anyone innocent?” Nancy said.
“Not willingly,” Gerald replied.
“That’s not a no,” Nancy said, looking at him with intense eyes.
Gerald looked down, ashamed. “Vampires aren’t entirely in control of themselves. I was created by a woman who loved me, but she was killed for it. Vampires are very particular about who gets made and for what reason. Then I was given as a slave to another vampire. I had my free will stripped from me and I fed on who they wanted, when they wanted. That’s assuming I can control the Need at all. You have to feed regularly, or it takes over.”
I felt a surge of sympathy as Gerald’s description of being a vampire was not so different from my own experience as a slasher. On the other hand, I didn’t know how dangerous the man was. Hypocritical as it was, I didn’t want to risk a dangerous killer among our ranks right before we were about to mount a rescue operation.
“That’s not really a good reason to spare you,” Nancy said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself.
Gerald didn’t look like he cared much. “No, it’s not.”
“How did you get here anyway?” I asked.
“I was sold to the Fraternity,” Gerald said, saying perhaps the one thing that might have spared him. “My previous master made a deal with them and they staked me to serve as a keg for their parties.”
“They seem like more of a wine and cheese bunch,” Nancy said, coming to the defense of beer. “They were the meth dealers’ customers?”
Well, one of them at least since they’d said the Irishman rather than Fraternity.
Gerald nodded. “The Cassidy brothers maintain their immortality by feeding on vampire blood. They have their own sources, though, and the Vampire Nation trades them valueless members that they milk for blood. You’d be surprised at how many rich people are downing vampire blood like college girls do Jell-O shots. The stuff is dangerous and increases your bloodlust like a thousand percent.”
“Given we know the Fraternity is a literal murder cult, I would, in fact, not be surprised,” I replied.
“The Cassidy brothers? Seriously?” Nancy asked, clutching her chest as if she’d been punched in the gut.
“What’s shocking about that?” I asked.
I’d been locked away for a decade but even I knew who the Cassidy brothers were. They were the most famous brothers in business history (with the possible exception of Parker brothers and the Warner brothers). Gamen and Aiden Cassidy were the founders of Pantheon Corp, the world’s largest makers of everything. They were massive donors to the reactionary elements of both political parties and were known associates of various dictators. I’d seen a framed picture of the director of H.P. Memorial Hospital shaking hands with Aiden alongside Jeffrey Epstein and O.J. Simpson. The sort of people who might enjoy their hunts.
“A lot,” Nancy said. “My friend Cassie is Gamen’s daughter.”
I didn’t have a chance to respond because the zombie form of James rose off the ground despite the double headshots as well as pens in its head. The creature was not permanently dead and looked ready to try to avenge itself. That was when its head fell clean off, its neck split in two by the stroke of a machete.
Carrie was standing there, holding the weapon with both hands. She then looked up at Nancy. “Wait, your best friend’s name is Cassie Cassidy?”
“Cassandra,” Nancy said, watching the zombie fall over again. She then stomped on its severed head a few times to make sure it stayed dead. “Cassie is just a nickname.”
Gerald, meanwhile, was scooting on the floor to the door. Apparently, he was disturbed by the latest display of ultraviolence. You’d think a vampire would be less squeamish.
“So, you’re best friends with a billionaire’s daughter,” I said, remembering she’d described Cassie as an heiress. “A billionaire’s daughter who was getting married, only to take you out into the middle of the woods for her bachelorette party. A party that turned out to be a front for gathering young women to kill in The Most Dangerous Game. This forms a pattern.”
Nancy blinked. “Maybe Cassie was been betrayed by her evil family?”
I looked at her skeptically. “Err, not really where I was going with that. However, you know her best.”
Nancy frowned, clearly not buying what I was selling.
That had to be a real blow to the ego. Not only had this entire thing been a set up but it had been done at the behest of a false friend who’d led them like lambs to the slaughter.
“She could be innocent,” Nancy said. “After all, you’re both people who know something about having an evil father.”
“Yes,” Carrie replied, nodding. “It’s also possible that Young Earth Creationism is true and that dinosaur bones are all a plot of Satan. I wouldn’t count on it, though.”
“Carrie—” I said, not wanting her to pick a fight.
“If hell has dinosaurs, I’m all on Team Satan,” Carrie said. “Especially T-Rexes. Love those things.”
“Bark-bark!” Cujo said.
Gerald finally got up off the ground and looked at the various corpses before sucking in an unnecessary breath. “I want to help you against the Fraternity.”
Nancy and I exchanged a look, still not certain we could trust the undead horror—who was apparently terrified of us both.
Carrie, however, was ecstatic. “Awesome! I never had a pet before and now I have two.”
Gerald blinked. “Uh—”
“Bark?” Cujo asked.
Carrie put her bloody machete over one shoulder and narrowed her eyes. “Any objections?”
Cujo put his paw over its face. “Grrr.”
“No,” Gerald said, clearly regretting his choice. “Not at all. Sounds great!”
“I’ll go see if we can get you a collar!” Carrie said, far too excited.
“People pay money for that in certain states,” Nancy said.
“Can you be of help during this?” I asked Gerald, trying to avoid thinking about where this conversation had gone. “How can we trust you?”
Gerald gave me a look skeptical look, as if he thought he wasn’t the person whose trust should be in question. “You saved my life. In vampire society, that means I owe you a blood debt. That’s something my kind takes very seriously. What they do there at the compound is evil and I’ll do what I can to stop it. I may have just been a blood source, but they moved me around in it constantly. I know every inch of that place. Also, I am a vampire and I’ve been one since the Eighties. That’s not as old as some but it’s stronger than most humans.”
“We’re not most humans,” Nancy said, walking over and picking up Wilbur’s M16.
“Also, it’s almost daytime,” I said.
Our plans were to hit the compound during the afternoon. I didn’t know much about vampires, but I did know that sunlight killed the weakest of their kind. Even the stronger couldn’t do anything but stagger around when Helios was high in the air.
Gerald grimaced. “Yeah, I’m not good during that.”
Nancy looked ready to tell him to take a hike, or gun him down. I wasn’t sure which. “I’m also not going to let you snack on my friends.”
“He can snack on me!” Carrie said, cheerfully. “Assuming vampire bites are sexy and erotic versus a horrifying violation. Well, actually, maybe then. I am very messed up.”
All of us looked at Gerald. Gerald looked down at Karl’s body. “Yeah, I’m good for a while actually. I can also turn invisible and control people’s minds—well, mortals at least. Older vampires can control anyone, but if they’re regular humans, I can order them to do anything I want.”
“Maybe you should have led with that,” I said. It wouldn’t change my plans, but it meant we had more options, if he could be trusted.
“If you could do that, why didn’t you just walk out?” Nancy asked, skeptically.
Gerald stared with cold, unblinking eyes. “Aiden Cassidy has a control ring for me. It allows him to act as my master.”
“And we’re back to killing you,” I said. “Do you want decapitation, sunlight, or fire?”
“No!” Carrie said, standing in front of him with her arms spread. “You are not killing my pet!”
“I am not...” Gerald started to speak. “Actually, no, sure, let’s go with that.”
“We can’t trust you,” I said, firmly.
“We can bind him with the Necronomicon!” Carrie said. “Controlling the undead is like half of what it does?”
“Wait, what?” I asked.
“Yes. Repeat that, please?” Gerald asked.
Nancy looked at me. “He’s spilled innocent blood but never voluntarily. I think we should allow him to try to redeem himself.”
I gave her a ‘you have got to be kidding me’ look. “We’re just forming a little menagerie of monsters, aren’t we?”
That was when I saw a blue-silver fire start to burn from the living room. Esteban’s head lifted off the ground, illuminated by Saint Elmo’s fire. It had one good eye burning with the same substance and I could see more magical fire burning inside its mouth. A shrill inhuman voice escaped its lips that sounded vaguely Gaelic. It was a will-o-wisp, a magically created monster used by old school wizards to communicate. I knew that because my grandfather used to create them. “You will all die, thieves of the sacrifice! The tithe to hell will be completed! We know you, son and daughter of the Undying! You cannot escape our—”
Nancy proceeded to shoot it in the face with Wilbur’s M16, sending it flying and landing on the ground with a thud. All the magic had fled from the will-o-wisp, leaving it nothing more than a severed head with an ice skate in its side. “Boring conversation anyway. It’s a good bet the Empire knows we’re here.”
“Huh?” Carrie asked, confused.
I smirked.
“That was Aiden,” Gerald muttered. “He’s the wizard of the brothers. I don’t know what sacrifice he’s referring to or why.”
“I do,” I said, frowning. “This isn’t just rich people hunting women for sport. They’re carrying out a Wild Hunt.”