The deadliest weapon of any predator is patience, and Jun Ts’ao was very patient.
Even in a city as densely populated as Hong Kong, a vampire did not simply vanish. Nomads were expected to present themselves to the local elders if they stayed more than a single night. In the past three weeks, at least four vampires had gone missing. That could only mean one of two things: a power play by one of the local covens… or a hunter.
Jun spent two weeks tracking her prey. She started with the victims. The first to fall belonged to the Kowloon coven. One of the Islanders had vanished next. From there, a nomadic visiting the Sha Tin District had left without paying his respects to the local elder. Then another Islander was lost.
Like a bird of prey, she chose the best perch to find her target. The Narrows was well-known among the vampires of Hong Kong as a place to meet. Any hunter worthy of the title would find this place. The cramped café had earned a reputation as a popular night-time snack stop for travelers filled with an ever-changing assortment of scents that at one time would have made her mouth water but only offended her immortal stomach. Mandarin and English in yellow and pink chalk dust covered the blackboard on the left wall. The menu promised soups, dumplings, and various items appropriate for the tourist eager to try authentic late night Siu Yeh, but the true delicacies of the Narrows were standing in the line, foreigners no one would miss.
She watched the customers from the second floor of the restaurant. Her table was set directly above the front door and in front of a window overlooking the street. On her instructions, the staff had placed a burned bulb in the light fixture above her table. In favor of the true clientele, the management kept the restaurant dimly lighted, and the added darkness made it easier for her to see inside and out.
A heater with a fan was placed on the floor in front of the counter and set at a 45-degree angle. The scent of each customer floated up to her for inspection. For four nights, she’d sifted through the mortal filth of more than a hundred different nations, but even before the man in the black pea coat and silk lavender scarf stepped in front of the fan, he aroused her suspicions. The nail in the coffin was the black, slender tube he carried by a shoulder strap. Little doubt as to what he kept in there, and it wasn’t rolled canvas or blueprints.
She took him for a westerner, because of his white skin. He was alone. His attention was drawn not to the chalkboard menu but to the front and back of the slender restaurant. She pulled deeper into the shadows as he studied each customer and assessed his possible escape routes. A man with a gaze that hard did not seek companionship, only blood.
He stepped up to the counter. Jun’s lips twisted in disgust as she caught his scent. Cologne like brandy and the tang of body odor were bad enough, but they could not mask the stale scent of dead blood on his coat. Only the red ichor of a vampire could produce that odor, a foulness that reminded her of rotted citrus fruit, but this man’s stiff movements marked him for a mortal.
The server at the counter asked for his order in English, but the man in the pea coat waved off the mistake. His tongue slaughtered the Mandarin language as he ordered one of the spicier dim sum items. His accent suggested he was French. Yet another sign he was a hunter, trying too hard to fit in, an effort for which most French tourists were not known.
Jun opened her Jin Yong novel and read as the hunter chose a table near the back. Much to her irritation, he devoured his meal in the manner of one who eats to live. She could hardly criticize, having made quick work of a young man earlier this evening. Part of her payment from the local coven was a guaranteed meal when she demanded it. Hunger was a distraction that drove so many of her kind to foolish, impatient, and often final mistakes.
Within minutes, the Frenchman had finished his meal. He covered his mouth with a closed fist to muffle a burp. Her lips curled with amusement and a touch of envy. She remembered attending a Rangers football game with her friends when she was mortal. The Rangers had kicked three goals, and for each score, Jun and her friends had chugged their sodas and issued boisterous belches to celebrate. Since becoming a vampire, she’d been unable to make that sound, nor had she observed another vampire do so. She knew that was an odd thing to miss from her mortal life, but that was it.
The Frenchman strode out of the café. He had not even had the decency to wait long enough for her to finish the chapter she was reading. She shut the book and slipped it into her small shoulder bag.
She pulled on her grey coat and darted down the spiral staircase. The hunter had disappeared before she could see which way he went, but it didn’t matter. Even in this urban jungle, choked with the stink of exhaust fumes, uncollected trash, and piss, her heightened senses picked up the trail of that bloodied pea coat. No doubt, he’d made every effort to clean it, but vampire blood was just too distinctive.
Jun checked the time on her phone, which was 1:07. Plenty of night to go. She strolled in the direction of her prey. Let him walk and tire himself another hour or two. For that matter, nothing required her to kill him tonight, no matter how eager the local covens were to have this finished. Her pay was no more or less, if she waited another night or another week. Hong Kong’s elders were impatient, and that made them poor negotiators when it came to her contract. She could follow this Frenchman to his lair. Only the shadows knew what treasures of information she might uncover within his home.
She tracked his scent down crowded streets bathed in bright neon and through alleys so dark that even daylight must rarely touch the ground. She didn’t fear being interrupted by any of Hong Kong’s thieves. Most girls of her diminutive height and size would attract an attacker, but she rarely did. Predators recognized their kind and kept a respectful distance. This was not something she gained from becoming a vampire. The one who brought her into the long night against her will swore Jun must have been born with a vampire’s eyes, the kind that said to “Fuck off or die.” She proved him right by cutting off his head a year later. She was made for the hunt, and she didn’t care how long she took to set her traps.
Even without seeing the Frenchman again, she knew she was still close. The fool made it all too easy, only affirming her desire to track him to his home. She could let him go out to hunt tomorrow night and plunder his sanctuary, perhaps kill him at the end of his patrols when he’d be most tired or maybe set a trap inspired by some useful bit of information she might discover in his home. The possibilities made her giddy.
Her mind had traveled so far into the next night that she almost missed the spike in the Frenchman’s scent. She stopped in the middle of an alley with the distant, flashing lights of a sleepless city for her only source of light.
The Frenchman burst from the shadows of a dumpster with his sword drawn. Jun retreated to avoid his swing. If she’d gone any slower, her head would have been rolling along the ground in a puddle of rainwater and her own blood.
He pressed his advantage, forcing her back and keeping her off-balance. The killer in her yearned to launch at him, risk the blade and bury her fangs in his throat. That’s why she’d fed earlier, to better suppress the thirst that drives her kind. Instead, she ran.
The Frenchman cursed after her. He’d not expected this. He was used to hunger-driven fools drunk on their power. There was a reason the vampires of this world would pay her handsomely to rid them of their troubles. She did what they could not.
He chased her up the alley. His longer legs allowed him to keep up, but she had the advantage here. The dark blessing in her blood prevented her from tiring, and he’d already spent half the night on his feet to set this trap. He wouldn’t gain on her, and within a minute, she would be in the stragglers at Hong Kong’s Temple Street Night Market.
Red pennant banners strung from building to building across the street marked her imaginary finish line. Even the most diehard shops had closed up by now, but enough people were here to deter the hunter.
She stopped in the middle of the street and turned to see the hunter standing at the edge of the alley. His chest heaved with the effort to catch his breath. He’d abandoned the black tube he used to conceal his sword and hid its long blade behind his back.
“Oh, poor, Frenchie. What’s wrong?”
She smiled and flashed her fangs. His glare warmed her heart. She strolled back towards him, leaving only twenty feet between them.
“It has been a long time since a hunter surprised me.” She was pleased to see his surprise as she spoke in flawless French. She’d spent a year hiding in the Paris catacombs after slaughtering her original coven. Odds favored none of the pedestrians passing between them would understand a word of what they said, allowing them to speak without innuendo.
“Come back into the alley, and I’ll show you a few more surprises, beast.”
She admonished him with a “tsk tsk” as she shook her head. “I now hold the advantage. Why would I sacrifice that?”
“What advantage? You can no more attack me here than I can you.”
“Neutral ground.” She studied him more intently now that she could. In the Narrows, she’d been limited to brief glances. He was easily twice her size. She couldn’t match him for strength. The way he held himself and assessed his surroundings displayed a well-trained intellect. A direct confrontation could go either way, and he must have sensed it.
“My advantage,” she said, “is time.” She reached into her coat and pulled out her cell phone and opened the app for her camera. To him, it probably looked as if she was making a show of checking the time. “The sun will not rise for another four hours.”
“I can stay awake past sunrise. Feel free to stay up with me, little girl.”
She loved mortal arrogance, especially when he didn’t understand the real game being played. She snapped five shots of him with her phone, then flipped to the clearest one and zoomed in on his face.
“Four hours to sunrise, but I need only one minute to send your picture to every vampire in Hong Kong.” She held up the phone for him to see himself. The only difference in the picture and the man was the sudden blanching of his skin and the intake of breath that exposed his panic.
“Even if you survive this night, you will never again walk these streets in safety.”
He looked up and down the street, likely trying to gauge his chances of daring an attack here and getting away.
“Do not be foolish.” She wagged a finger at him. “I am not without mercy, though.”
“A vampire knows nothing of mercy.” The way he barked out the words drew the attention of the human cattle passing between them; even if they couldn’t understand his words, they recognized his barely-restrained anger. A few looked from him to Jun, but none stopped to interfere.
“I make you an offer, Frenchie. Give up the chase tonight, and I will wait until tomorrow night to send this. That will give you until sunset to leave Hong Kong forever.”
She turned her back to him and walked away. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw him still standing within the mouth of the alley. She could read the curse on his lips before he stalked back into the darkness.
Jun sprinted for the next corner and ran as fast as she could to make it around the block. This was not the moment for patience.
She ran back into the alley from the end opposite of the hunter. The shadows concealed her as she stayed close to the wall. The fool was walking, taking time he did not have and allowing her to return to where he’d originally ambushed her. His empty tube rested on the ground, waiting for him.
A dumpster different from the one he’d used provided cover for her. The black tube he used to conceal his sword was on the ground on the other side of the alley. Footsteps let her ears measure his approach as she reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out her dart gun. Frenchie leaned down for the tube. He cursed as he grabbed it by the shoulder strap.
Her eyes saw much more easily in the dark than his could, and that gave her the time she needed to aim her dart gun. She would only get one shot. Even though the weapon wasn’t as loud as firing a bullet, the loud snap made enough noise to expose her. She wouldn’t have time to reload.
The dart buried into the side of his throat. She held in a bark of delight for the lucky shot, because while the weapon was quite effective, its accuracy wasn’t as reliable as a sniper rifle. He ripped the dart out of his neck less than a second after it struck, but it was too late. He tossed the dart aside and screamed as he lunged at her with his sword. She dodged his attack. Once more she ran from him, but this time, she only did so enough to avoid his swings.
In less than a minute, his attack became sloppy and slow. She only needed to step to the side to avoid his weak attempts. Then the swings stopped as his battle turned from killing her to simply breathing. His sword clattered from his hand to the asphalt. Eyes bulged, staring at her as he dropped to one knee and then collapsed until his breaths stopped altogether.
She picked up his weapon, savoring the feel of it. The blade of the katana was a thing of beauty, but the hilt was ugly, wrapped with the same kind of black tape used for the grip of tennis rackets. This sword was custom-made for practical use, not for display on a mantle.
“Curare.” She knelt beside him. “The dose in that dart will paralyze you for several minutes, strong enough to stop your lungs. What I love most about curare is how it leaves you completely alert as I kill you.”
She lifted his sword, preparing for the killing blow.
“For the record, I do know mercy. I just choose to ignore it.”
She slammed the sword down. The blade slit through the flesh and bone, making a sucking sound as the Frenchman’s head popped free of his body. It rolled away, stopped only by his large nose.
The task of killing him complete, she rifled through his pockets. Odds favored she wouldn’t find anything all that useful. This man was trained. All she found was a thin wallet with no pictures or identification—only cash. His lair might have provided a hint to where he’d received that training, assuming his passport wasn’t a fake. She might have auctioned off that information to any coven eager enough to start a war with the hunters.
Even a few short years into immortality, she had learned knowledge was much more than power.
Knowledge meant money, which a vampire without a coven needed to survive.
She used Frenchie’s pea coat to wipe the blood off the sword. She returned the weapon to its carry tube and slung it over her shoulder along with her bag.
Before she left, she snapped a shot of the beheaded Frenchman and sent it to the head elder in a text with a simple message, ‘Contract complete. Make final payment.’
She didn’t worry about the coven failing to send the money. The second contract she’d ever taken was in Madrid. She was shorted on the final payment. She only sent one reminder a month later. During the next six months, she moved onto other contracts, but then she went back to Madrid and killed the coven’s elder. After that, she sent another letter demanding payment from the coven’s new elder. The successor proved wiser than the predecessor.
As Jun walked back to her hotel room, she used her phone to check her email. She had three job offers, but the one that caught her attention was one from an American. Strangest of all, the request was from a man. Almost all coven elders were women, but this wasn’t a request from a coven. This was from a nomadic vampire about an entire city’s coven that had been wiped out. The job offered the least money, but she’d never heard of a hunter wiping out an entire city’s coven. She wanted to look into that hunter’s eyes and take his measure.
By the time Jun had shut the door to her room and drawn the curtain to block the rising sun, she’d already decided she was going to Richmond, Virginia.