Into the Shadows Read online

  "Whoa, hold on. Are you saying all of them, even that walking anus Evan, can do all that?"

  "No, no, not at all; I think it mostly depends on the faction."

  I stared at her with an annoyed scowl until she realized that she was handing me tiny bits of information without explanation, and it was pissing me off. She was my tutor? She sucked at it. Only when I asked very specific questions did I get any decent answers, but I didn't have much to work with. I quickly learned not to let her elaborate on an answer. What a twit.

  MINION

  I soon gathered that there were three factions: the Adepts, the Outsiders, and the Deviants. The Adepts pulled strings in business, finance, culture, and the arts - white collar and highbrow shit. Lady Le Meur was an Adept. Sarah didn't know much about the other two factions other than to describe Outsiders as low middle class, and Deviants as even lower middle class - yeah, big help.

  Each faction had what was called emissaries; kind of like ambassadors, I think. The leader over all the factions was called the Doyenne (or Doyen if it was a guy). So I directly served the lead hemo of the city. Not a bad gig. Adepts were described to be pretty strong in mental Gifts - senses, power of suggestion, that sort of stuff. They were also fast and tough; crude strength was left to the lower factions.

  What I found most surprising was, even among monsters, there was a loose organization, a hierarchy. Go figure. From there, it got a little tricky. Okay, age was a factor to their power, I got that. Then there's a matter of genealogy. The whole vampirism thing obviously had an origin, but Sarah had no idea when or with who that was - no surprise. The main thing was, the power got weaker as it was passed along. So, any hemoholic further up the chain was stronger and had greater potential. Then, as progeny - or scions - passed the curse along, the blood got weaker and hemos couldn't do as much with their Gifts.

  Sarah used Evan the douche and the Doyenne as examples. Evan was a distant scion, meaning his blood was fairly thin and he was turned, or 'brought to the night', only like four years ago. She didn't know what level of descending progeny he was, but guessed it as somewhere in the teens. Like if my granddad started the whole hemo thing, my asshole dad would have been a second scion and I would have been a third. As for the Doyenne, Sarah made a wild guess that she was an eighth or ninth scion. The kicker was that Lady Le Meur was somewhere between four hundred to six hundred years old, so there was lots of time to strengthen her Gifts. It took me a while to fully grasp that. Six hundred years - holy shit.

  All of that made me wonder how many hemos were running around out there. I was told that any city or town with enough population probably had some. Sarah didn't know the total numbers for Kansas City, but had seen at least five Adepts that lived in town. That didn't mean there weren't more, and that was only one of three factions. Midwest vampires . . . it sounds kind of stupid, doesn't it? Well, except Chicago. But by that reasoning, a town like Davenport, Iowa potentially had a handful of hemos lurking around in corn fields; it sounded ridiculous to me. No offense to Davenport.

  Long after the night shift of guards was on duty, I asked where I stood in this new, dark world. I was what they called a minion. Sarah was a minion, as was Dominique Rondeau, most of the Realm guards, and a number of others. Sarah had been one for only a few years, but Ms. Rondeau had been a minion for nearly a century. She was just like any regular person who goes shopping or gets a tan or takes a crap, except she'd been doing it for 92 years and didn't look a day over 35.

  I was made a minion by two bottles of the Le Meur wine, which had my Lady's blood in it, and a third taste from the source. Being a minion made me healthier, stronger, and I was told I wouldn't age; all as long as I was given my Lady's blood once in a while. There wasn't any of that scion shit to worry about, either, not really. Using Evan and my Lady again, I'd only have to have a drink of her stronger blood once every few weeks or so; with Evan's weaker blood, it'd have to be about once a week.

  Even with Sarah's half-assed explanations, there was still a lot to take in. I wandered off by myself for the rest of the night and roamed the huge, empty place while I tried to believe everything I was told. I'd seen a few fantastic things with my own eyes, but there was apparently a lot more I hadn't. The trouble of me accepting it was that I hadn't had personal experience; I hadn't seen things for myself.

  I pulled a blanket over my head just past dawn, missing my mom, and eventually drifted off into an uneasy sleep. First I dreamed of Madame Le Meur; it was warm and comforting. But then I had flickering images of Dan and Craig, followed by the disturbing vision of my squad members Bill and Rodney; Bill with his face blown off, Rodney with his guts hanging out. The last dream, though, was somehow the most disturbing. It was of the picture of my brother, the only one I had since my dad destroyed the others after Al died. I saw that framed photo crashing to the floor, over and over.

  ORDERS

  I woke up late on Sunday, nearly at dusk. Then again, there weren't too many hours of daylight in early February. I got up, did a short regimen of exercises, and had a couple stiff drinks before I went to clean up. Since the only shower in the place was missing fixtures, I'd been taking short baths in an old claw tub. I planned on taking a longer one that night, all because I wanted to spend less and less time with Sarah. She was still sleazy-cute and had a nice ass, but I was tired of her teen-style flirting and giggling. More importantly, she was a shitty tutor, and I wanted to be prepared for Lady Le Meur.

  I was wearing only a towel and flip-flops and on my way to the tub when I heard Sarah's echoed call from down on the first floor. I met her at the grand staircase, where she told me that she'd just gotten a call; two Adepts were arriving any minute to check my progress. They also had some "mandates to alter my lifestyle", given to them by the Doyenne. That rubbed me wrong. If Lady Le Meur asked anything of me personally, I'd do it in an instant. But two other hemos giving me orders, supposedly from her? There wasn't any proof of that, and I didn't know those guys, so fuck 'em.

  It was a short while later, as I was soaking in a warm tub, when the bathroom door opened without a knock. Evan stood there, looking pissy and arrogant. His stove-top burns looked better, though. I had Evan's number, so I didn't bother getting up. He moved deferentially out of the way when another guy stepped into the doorway. The new guy wore a shiny suit, no tie, rectangular orange sunglasses, and had a cheesy soul patch on his chin; a challenger for Evan's douche title.

  "You were told we were coming," the new guy said. "So what are you doing in a bath tub?"

  "Uh, bathing?"

  He snarled his upper lip. "You have orders from your Doyenne. Get out of that tub."

  "Actually," I said conversationally, "the orders came from you, and I don't work for you. And my bath water just got to the perfect temp, so I'm going to enjoy it. Unless I hear from my Lady to do as you say, I'm going to keep doing what she told me to do."

  Mr. Soul Patch snarled again - I guess that was his thing. "Mr. Dean," he said low and menacing to Evan but still staring at me, "get the minion out of that tub. I'll be waiting downstairs." He spun and left.

  I couldn't help but grin. "Yeah, Mr. Dean, get me out of the tub." I could tell by his scowl and how his skin got paler than usual that he was about to lose his short and fairly impotent temper. I almost felt bad for him. "Alright, man, don't get worked up," I said with a sigh. I started to get up, but paused when I saw he was still standing there. "Uh, hey, I don't know what you like sucking on besides middle-aged women, and I'd rather not find out. So if you don't mind . . ."

  Because Evan was a hemo, maybe I should have been more respectful . . . not that he'd earned it. He was probably one of a very few hemos I could screw with, and he did earn that. He was glaring at me when I came out of the bathroom a minute later. I ignored him and went to my room where one of the guards had gotten me some extra clothes from goodwill. They didn't smell, so I couldn't complain.

  I was pulling up a pair of sweatpants when I heard a window break. Evan, w
ho was standing near the entryway to my room, looked off to his left. The soul patch guy was up there in a flash, almost literally, and stopped next to Evan. As one of the guards was coming up the stairs, soul patch was asking what had happened. Before he could finish his question, shit hit the fan.

  LIBERATION

  Someone outside of my room and to the right yelled, "Dominic!" with a booming, scratchy voice. The guy with the soul patch turned his head. I saw a speeding glint of metal, and suddenly there was a hatchet stuck in the guy's face. Evan dove into my room. The soul patch guy - Dominic, I assumed - stood there with an ax blade driven in up to the handle; starting at his nostril, it cut down through his lips, gums and teeth, and into his chin. He wobbled for a second and then dropped backward like lumber.

  The guard had just reached the top of the stairs when another hatchet flew by. I couldn't see the guard from my angle, but I heard him moan; hopefully not hit in the face like Dominic. I heard Sarah scream downstairs, followed by a grunt. Evan was getting up, and, holy shit, so was Dominic.

  A man hurried past the entryway, stepping over Dominic; all I noticed was a bald head and a thick beard.

  I heard someone laugh downstairs, and a muted conversation. I started running toward the entryway. Just then, the attacker stepped back into view with a bloody hatchet in his hand. Dominic had just sat up, looking dazed with an entire ax blade lodged in his face. The bald attacker swung; I wasn't going to get there in time.

  Right as the bloody ax blade bit into the top of Dominic's head with a 'chunk', I leaped and caught the bald guy in the chest with a flying kick. My hope was to send him back and over the banister, falling to the marble stairs below. That didn't happen. He stumbled back with good momentum and hit the sturdy banister, but he reached out a hand, grabbed the rail, and just stopped. I was in a crouch and watched as the bald guy straightened up and smiled at me.

  There was a moment where nobody moved, and I got a good look at him: scuffed hiking boots, faded black jeans, and something like a long leather pullover, only made out of deer hide. Over the pelt, from his chin halfway down his torso, was a thick brown beard with bands of gray in it. That's where the relatively mundane stopped. Like I said, he was bald, and there was a thin, ropey scar that ran from the top of his head down to his left eye, ending on his cheek. The eye that should have been blind and milky was bulged and completely blood red. All of his skin was a mottled light gray. And, like I also said, he was smiling at me with a mouthful of narrow, white teeth. I was in deep, creepy shit.

  "Damn, boy," he announced loudly, "that was a good kick!"

  I backed into my room; I didn't have as much space in the walkway. The guard who was holding his right shoulder was off to the left out there, and Dominic with two axes jammed in his skull laid in front of the entryway. I glanced back to my left and saw Evan dialing his phone in a panic, the worthless prick.

  "You'd be Beck, I'd wager" the bald guy said, and then stepped forward and pulled the hatchet out of Dominic's face. It was a wrenching tug. The sound of metal grating against bone was grisly.

  "You'd be right," I said as I backed into the middle of my room. "So who the fuck are you?"

  "I'm Barnabus Merritt, at your service." He smiled again, and I hoped he'd stop doing that. That big red eye, the scar, and the dead skin were disturbing enough.

  "Yeah, I've just seen the services you're offering. No thanks."

  His smile faded. "You don't understand, boy; we're here to liberate you from your unjustified captivity. You weren't allowed a choice. You weren't given the freedom to refuse. The Adepts would treat you like an oppressed servant - a slave. We've come to unfetter that chain of blood."

  "You talk pretty fancy for a nightmare mountain man. Look, I work for the Doyenne. I choose to work for the Doyenne. So thanks for stopping by, but I'm not buying."

  More figures came up the stairs. Shit, I was probably already outmanned, and then I was outnumbered. And the hits just kept on coming.

  "You only -" Barnabus began to say, but then looked over to my left. "Put the knife down, Evan."

  Two people came up behind Barnabus; he paid them no mind. Crap, it was Pedro and one of his thugs. I thought there was some sort of weird conspiracy going on before. I just became sure of it. Fuck.

  "Hey, long time, no see, man," Pedro said to me with a wide grin. "How you doin'? You catch that cab?"

  "There are more on the way," Evan said to Barnabus. "Leave right now and you might make it."

  "I said drop the knife, Evan. Or would you like me to cook the right side of your face like I did the left? If you hold still, I think I can make it match."

  "You'd enjoy that, wouldn't you?" Evan yelled; I could hear the fear in his voice. "You're nothing but a sadist and a hypocrite, Barnabus! You speak of freedom, yet you locked me in a room and tortured me!"

  "And you almost lifted the veil in your attempt to attack Mr. Beck in a nightclub," Barnabus retorted. "Without intervention, you surely would have. As the current emissary of my faction, I had every right to punish you before sending you to the Doyenne. My people accused me of being lenient with you."

  "You were," Pedro interjected. Behind him, his thug began kicking Dominic.

  Evan shook with rage, the poor douche. "I will not -" That's as far as he got. Barnabus had taken two quick steps into the room and threw a punch with his whole body behind it. The sound was like a baseball bat hitting a homer. Evan was sent flying the length of my room and slammed into the wall. A large dent and crumbled plaster could be seen after he slumped like a broken toy down to the dusty hardwood floor. Yeah, I guess he should've put the knife down.

  Before I could fully turn back to face Barnabus, Pedro was on my back. I tried to throw him off, but his grip was like iron. He freed a hand and clamped a rag over the lower half of my face. I immediately felt dizzy and my brain began to swim, but I tried to pull him off me again. I saw his face out of the corner of my eye. That wasn't Pedro who was locked onto me; it was some sort of demon that vaguely resembled Pedro. If I had the chance, I would have fucking freaked out. Fortunately, that's when it all went black.

  RITZ

  An odd mix of smells hit my nose when I woke up, or maybe they were the reason I did. Air freshener and the dank smell of mold made my nostrils burn. As my senses cleared, I heard the distant wails of a police car fading away. Pain thrummed in the back of my head, and my stomach felt queasy. My first coherent thought was of my Lady Le Meur.

  The bed I was on had sheets and a pillow, unlike the one at the museum. I sat up slowly so I wouldn't piss off my headache. I was at one end of a large rectangular room. There was a small lamp near me on a bedside table, and a lit wall lamp next to a metal fire door at the other end. Sitting in a cheap lawn chair near the door, that gruesome guy named Barnabus was reading a thick hardback. He looked fairly absorbed with his book, so I took a minute to look around the room and get my bearings.

  In a near corner was a compact shower stall that had rusty pipes and a dingy curtain. Next to it was a filthy pink toilet. Next to the toilet was a dirty sink with a cracked mirror above it. Between that and the bed was a dented space heater. There were a couple plastic bath mats tossed nearby on the cement floor; I was positive that greenish brown was not their original color. Shower curtain aside, the set-up didn't offer any privacy, although it made up for it by being disgusting.

  The walls of the room were all concrete block with water stains at the top. Most of the high ceiling looked bruised and swollen. There were two windows to my left; they were lined with thick metal bars buried into the mortar. In the middle of the dank, dim room was an old couch with foam sticking out of its rips. Acting as a coffee table was one of those giant cable spools turned on its side. Against the wall to my right was an archaic-looking TV, complete with rabbit-ear antennas. What, no cable?

  Next to where Barnabus sat were a few rolls of cut carpet. On top of those sat a handful of shopping bags. Without looking up, Barnabus said, "Your headache and naus
ea will pass soon. We unfortunately had to give you a sedative to keep you immobilized."

  "How thoughtful," I said while rubbing the back of my head. I gently swung my legs off the side of the bed, noticing that I still only had sweats on. It was cold enough in the room to see my breath. "Since we're staying at the Ritz," I said bitterly, "how about we call room service and order lobster tails, some champagne, and maybe some FUCKING BLANKETS."

  "There's one on the couch, Mr. Beck," he replied mildly, still looking down at his book.

  "Motherfucker," I muttered while I walked barefoot across the cold floor. I flapped the folds out of the threadbare blanket, flopped on the couch, pulled it over me, and glared at Barnabus with his biker beard and bloated red eye and irritating calmness. "What the fuck do you want from me?" I barked.

  Barnabus slowly and deliberately put a coin in his book to mark the page, set it to the side, and looked at me. "It's what we want for you, Mr. Beck. Now, if you can form any rational questions, I've been asked to answer a few of them before I have to go."

  I continued to glare at him, but finally took a deep breath and tried to keep my temper. "Alright, fine; where am I?"

  "Somewhere safe," he answered without any elaboration.

  "Where is the Doyenne?"

  Barnabus shrugged. "I imagine she's in some elegant and serene setting, reclining on soft pillows while being fed blood-injected grapes."

  My eyes closed; that should have been me feeding her those grapes. Barnabus was teasing me. "She'll come for me, you know. My Lady personally chose me."

  "You might have admirable skills, Mr. Beck, but you're not unique. Le Meur will obtain other slaves to replace you. She will not come to reclaim you, partly for the fact that she knows less about where you are than you do. It has been arranged."