Chance in Hell Page 4

  I had nothing to lose, so I told her. “I can just tell. I get this feeling when I’m close to one—it feels cold, like a chill. Just like I feel something when I’m around her.” I pointed at Lacey. “I don’t know what she is, but I don’t think she’s human.”

  “Gee, thanks,” said Lacey.

  “She is—she’s just a witch.” Megan put an emphasis on the last word, making it clear she meant it both literally and metaphorically.

  “Hey, I’m not the one acting all soppy over some guy you just met. Who, by the way, seems to be a lot of trouble,” Lacey said, scraping the bottom of the carton with her spoon. “I thought only girls were supposed to be high maintenance.”

  “I’m not acting soppy, I’m just trying to figure out who he is, and why he had a troll trying to kill him.”

  “Why do we care? No offense.” Lacey looked at me, then down at her empty carton disappointedly.

  “None taken.” Then I digested what Megan had said. “That was a troll? And I’m not high maintenance.” She just looked at me skeptically.

  “It was a troll,” she said.

  “Funny, he didn’t look like a troll.” I had seen plenty of trolls in video games and this guy didn’t look like any of them. He looked more like a football player stuffed into a business suit a couple of sizes too small.

  “He wouldn’t get very far wandering around looking like a troll, except for maybe on Halloween. The fae folk are magical creatures, and they use the magic to mask their appearance. What you see is not always what you get with them. Trolls are particularly nasty. Almost impossible to kill. Fortunately, they’re rare. Not many of the fae folk left at all, really.”

  “Well, that’s good, I guess. So, are you going to kill me?” It was out before I could stop it. I couldn’t help it; the suspense was, for lack of a better word, killing me.

  “No,” said Megan.

  “We’re not?” Lacey sighed, and then winked at me.

  “No,” said Megan. “Well, probably not.”

  “I guess we don’t have to. Megan can just take another drink from you, make you forget who we are, then dump you somewhere to deal with the troll. He can kill you.”

  My mind focused on the drinking part of the threat. “Wait—you drank from me?”

  “Don’t be such a wuss,” said Lacey. “It was just a little sip.” She held her fingers a couple of inches apart. “And, after all, it was your fault she needed it.”

  “My fault?” I looked from Lacey to Megan, who actually looked embarrassed.

  “Yeah. She took most of the damage that troll meant for you.”

  “What?”

  “How do you think we stopped that thing from killing you? Before he finished kicking your ass, Megan kicked his.”

  “Actually,” said Megan, “I think we just got lucky and surprised it. If it hadn’t run off, I’m not so sure that it wouldn’t have killed us all.”

  My hand went instinctively to my neck. I didn’t feel anything. I tried to focus on where the bite marks could be, but there were so many parts that hurt right now I just couldn’t be sure.

  “Oh, relax,” said Lacey.

  “I didn’t bite you,” said Megan.

  “She didn’t have to. You were leaking enough already. She could just lap it up.”

  “So, how can you tell?” asked Megan, shooting Lacey another look.

  “Huh?”

  “That I’m a vampire, and Lacey is a witch? How can you tell?”

  Right; topic change. “No idea,” I answered truthfully. “I just can. It’s why Robert—” I stopped myself.

  “Why Robert what?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Just make him tell you,” said Lacey.

  I decided it was in my own best interest to omit the part about the vamp mind control thing not working on me.

  “I’d rather ask nicely.” Megan looked down at me. “So, who is Robert, how can you tell we’re supernatural, and why is there a troll trying to kill you?”

  Chapter 6

  I was trapped, unarmed, and without a plan. I figured telling them couldn’t hurt my situation all that much. So I closed my eyes, took a breath, let it out, and then proceeded to tell them what had happened to me over the past six months.

  “So, things had actually been going well for a while. I was in the middle of my third year of college, though with a major of physical education, my job prospects were looking a little grim. But I really liked my current job as assistant manager at Game Shack.”

  Lacey’s snort made me pause. I looked over at her; she quickly stared up at the ceiling and, using her spoon, motioned for me to continue.

  “Anyway, it’s the latest in a long line of part-time jobs I’ve had since high school and it beats flipping burgers. And no, the pay isn’t great, but the work is easy, the hours fit in with my school schedule, plus I get a good discount.

  “On top of the job, other things were working out for me. I had been dating a girl named Kristi.” I found myself glancing quickly into Megan’s eyes, then away. “I had bought a new stereo for my car, even got my own place. I totally scored there, by the way, ‘cause it’s only a couple of blocks from campus and I don’t have to pay one hundred and fifty bucks for a parking permit, then spend fifteen minutes every morning trying to find a—“ I stopped as I saw Lacey making “get on with it” motions out of the corner of my eye.

  “Whatever. So that’s when it all went pear-shaped. Last February, a girl was murdered on campus late one night. It was one of those huge deals. You know—all over the local news, killer still at large, et cetera. I mean, it happens occasionally at schools, and the response at ours was typical, I guess: the campus cops made themselves a lot more visible, you could get free escorts after dark across campus, that kind of stuff. Everybody was pretty afraid it was the beginning of a rash of serial killings or something.

  “And actually, it probably would have ended up like that—you know, with the serial killer—had we not found and killed the vampire responsible. Of course, no one knows we killed it, so the campus is still freaked out even though it’s been over six months since she died.”

  “Did you know her?” Megan asked.

  “Yeah, it was Kristi, my girlfriend.” I started thinking back to that night. It’s something I normally avoid doing, but since the only people besides myself who really knew what happened that night were all dead now, I discovered that I actually wanted to tell someone. “So, it was a Tuesday night and I had gotten off work and met her for a late dinner, then back to my place for a movie. After that I walked her over to her dorm. We never made it.”

  “Seriously, Chance. Phys Ed? Could you possibly think of anything less cerebral?”

  Actually, yeah—Communications, but I didn’t say it out loud. Kristi’s sister Katy was planning on majoring in Communications once she found out she couldn’t major in Cheerleading. Instead, I said, “It’s not that bad.”

  “You want to work at Game Shack for the rest of your life?” Kristi, pre-law, was ambitious enough for both of us.

  “Hey, I’m assistant manager. If I play my cards right, I could be running the entire store by the time I’m twenty-five.” I laughed. “C’mon, with the economy the way it is, no matter what I pick I’m going to be working at Game Shack. With this degree, maybe I can land myself a teaching position at a junior high or high school. They always seem to be hard up for teachers.”

  “Mmmm.”

  That was her way of saying she disapproved and we would be having an extended version of this conversation at a later date – and would continue to do so until I caved in and changed my major to something more respectable like law or particle physics.

  I was readying a snappy comeback when I felt the chill. It washed through me just before the thing attacked. It was that feeling you get the instant your body hits the water when diving into a cold pool for the first time.

  The creature came from the side, inhumanly fast and silent. Had it not been for the fee
ling I got, I would have been dead. I think it planned on landing on me and ripping out my throat, but the chill caused me to stop mid-stride. It was just enough to make the thing miss, instead landing in front of me, the nails from one of its hands raking across my shoulder.

  It looked like a regular guy, maybe early thirties, not quite six feet tall, medium build. It had dark hair and brown eyes that were so bloodshot the whites were almost entirely red. Its hands were contorted into claws, with nails that were longer and, given my bleeding shoulder, sharper and stronger than normal.

  “What the hell!” I yelled, crouching into a fighting stance. Kristi scrambled out of the way, fumbling in her purse for her cell phone. Six semesters of judo certainly didn’t make me a master, but I could usually hold my own and this guy wasn’t any bigger than me. He came at me again, faster than anyone I’d seen. On instinct I pivoted, catching him as I fell backwards, flipping him over me. He rolled, then sprang up and lunged for me again. I was able to land a kick to his jaw, but it didn’t faze him. It bought me just enough time to get back on my feet and face him again. We were both crouched low. His mouth was open and bloody spittle ran over his lips. All four of his canines were slightly larger and sharper than normal.

  We circled, and I waited for him to make the next move. I leaned forward, and my shirt billowed out. I felt blood run down my chest in narrow streams from where he had clawed me. He lunged and I sidestepped, trying a deflective throw. Normally it would have worked, but he wasn’t normal. I got my hand on his shoulder and used his momentum to throw him. As he sailed past, he reached back to catch my arm with his nails. I felt them rip down from my elbow to my wrist. Adrenaline limited the pain, but I knew he had dug through flesh. I turned toward him as he tumbled and then got to his feet. I took a quick look at my arm and immediately wished I hadn’t. The doc was going to need a sewing machine for all of the stitches it needed.

  I was slowly backing up when he came at me again. I threw him down this time, following as he went, trying to get him in a chokehold. He was not only fast, but inhumanly strong. We got tangled up and I felt his teeth sink into my thigh. I screamed as he tore away a strip of my flesh with his teeth. I worked on getting leverage as he latched onto my wound and started half eating it and half sucking on it. The sound he made was revolting.

  Kristi had dialed 911 and was frantically yelling at the dispatcher. The creature looked up at the sound and into her eyes. Kristi stood for a long second looking into its bloodied face and then bolted. Some predatory instinct in the vampire caused it to abandon me and give chase, otherwise I think it would have just finished killing me, fed, and maybe ignored her.

  I tried my best to follow, but I was hobbled. I crawled after them, but was helpless to do anything as I saw it overtake Kristi. I could only call her name as it pulled her down from behind, both of them falling on the lawn in a jumble. The thing ended up on top, tearing her throat out with its teeth. It bent over her and began to half eat and half drink from her neck.

  I kept moving toward it, desperately screaming, trying to get its attention so it would stop. It ignored me, intent on its feast. I was maybe fifteen feet away when it seemed to be sated. It looked at me. Its eyes having lost a lot of their pink hue, they almost looked normal. I howled in rage and rushed toward it as best I could. A strange look passed over its face, almost like regret, and then it ran off. I finally made it to her body, staring down at Kristi in shock. I called 911 and then sat there, numb with disbelief, waiting for the campus police.

  “That shouldn’t have happened.” Megan’s voice brought me back to the bedroom.

  “Huh? Well, yeah, no shit; it was pretty fucked up.”

  “No, I mean the vampire—it sounded like he was newly turned.” Then she thought about what she said, and apparently not wanting to sound insensitive, added, “I mean, I’m sorry about your girlfriend, too; what happened to her was horrible. A new vampire shouldn’t have been let out alone like that. That’s wrong. They can’t control themselves.”

  I looked up at her. Yeah, it was wrong. My whole life the past six months was wrong. In fact, lying here with a vampire sitting next to me while I told this story was pretty wrong, but I continued anyway.

  “So that’s where I met Robert, at Kristi’s funeral. He was her uncle. It must have been one of those typical Irish wakes you hear about, because everyone was pretty plowed within a couple of hours. Robert and I were no exception. We found ourselves sitting together out on the back porch of her family’s home, hanging out and drinking beer. That’s when he asked me what happened. I think it was the booze that made me tell him the truth; I mean, it was pretty nuts even to me, and I was there. But he just nodded as I told him the story; he seemed to believe me. Then he told me what had killed her: a vampire.”

  I shook my head, “If I hadn’t been a firsthand witness, I would have thought Robert was crazy. Heck, I had seen the thing firsthand and I still thought he might be. But I was sad and drunk, so we talked for a long time that night. He told me about Vietnam, where he learned all about monsters, human and otherwise. About how he came back and couldn’t cope, so he sought them out, hunting them for the adrenaline rush. How he stopped when he met someone, and all at once decided he didn’t want to die. That was Kristi’s Aunt Carole, who died three years ago of cancer. And the way he said it, I just kind of started to believe him. It sort of made sense at the time, you know? Of course, I was pretty drunk…

  “He asked me about the feeling I had before the vampire attacked, and I described it to him. I wanted to know if that was normal, but he told me it was the first he had heard of it. Most people can’t tell, at least not until it’s too late.”

  Megan harrumphed and Lacey said, “That’s true, though. I’ve never heard of a human who could just sense them; some could tell by the pointy teeth or other stuff, but not just sense. Mostly they don’t even realize it until they’re sucked dry.”

  “Lacey!”

  Lacey shrugged and glanced back down at her container of ice cream, frowning at its contents. “Pints are getting smaller.”

  I continued quickly, “Robert said it must be some sort of gift. Not much of a gift, though, huh? I mean if it was, then it should have been enough to save Kristi.”

  That was when Kristi’s younger sister walked up. Katy had been out back the whole time, sitting on the tire swing and listening to Robert and me talk about what really happened that night. She stood on the grass right in front of us, as sober as could be, and told us how she wanted to help kill the thing that did this to Kristi.

  I’m pretty sure that’s what made our decision, I think. Before she walked up, we were just two drunk guys telling stories. We were both willing to just let the police handle it, at least until we saw her face staring up at us in the porch light.

  “So anyway, that’s how I hooked up with Robert Lawson and started hunting monsters.”

  Megan cleared her throat, her brows furrowing. “I mean, started hunting vampires,” I corrected. I wasn’t sure that term was any better, considering, but her brows went up and she looked ready for me to continue.

  “So, like I was saying, with Robert’s help we were able to track down and kill our first vampire, the one that had killed Kristi. It was easy. The thing was half mad; I guess it was recently made, like you said, and couldn’t control itself. It was more like an animal. I knew what it looked like, and Robert knew what to look for. We ended up finding its nest in an unused area of the tunnels that run everywhere below campus.

  “We attacked while it slept huddled behind a couple of big pipes. Robert shot it with a crossbow bolt and then cut off its head. Then the thing just decomposed in fast forward. There wasn’t even a body left for the police. We just swept up the evidence and flushed it down a toilet.” Okay, so I probably could have skipped mentioning that last part, but it was too late, so I kept on going, hoping they didn’t get offended.

  “Well, we had taken down one vampire and I admit it was sort of a rush. Robert was
definitely a little hooked, but again, it was Katy who pushed us. She still wasn’t satisfied, you know? Even though we killed the thing that had murdered her sister, she said she wouldn’t rest until they were all destroyed. And so we looked for more. Like I said, Robert had done it before and knew what to look for in the news stories and on the police scanners we monitored.

  “Soon we killed another one, then another, and on it went. But it was always one at a time, and always mad, feral things—”

  Megan cut me off. “It sounds like they were all new. Are you telling me someone was making vampires and just leaving them there to fend for themselves?” The way she said it, it sounded like they were the victims.

  “Well, that makes sense, ‘cause it sure looks like someone was leaving us a trail of breadcrumbs to follow and we were blindly eating them up.

  “As our success grew, so did our numbers. We picked up a kid named Gabe in San Antonio. The police called that one another ‘brutal gangland slaying,’ but something in the news caught Robert’s eye and we went down to take a look. Gabe was the best friend of the latest victim. He was an eighteen-year-old gang-banger just kind of drifting through life. He and Katy hit it off, believe it or not. Killing vampires seemed to give them a purpose. I think the two of them really liked it.

  “Our next recruit was John. He was a homeless air force vet. That guy was little bit off, if you know what I mean. There was this string of attacks on junkies, and he hung out with one of the victims. He got to witness the vampire attack on his friend firsthand, and I think he went a little bit crazy. Er. Crazier.

  “So it was about then that Robert started getting really concerned. It was the same thing you just told me—he said that normally when a vampire makes another one, they would stay with them, and that what was happening here was unusual.” I looked at Megan and she nodded in agreement.