BY R. M. RIDLEY
There was something about the way she moved that made Jonathan sit up and take notice, and it wasn’t the sway of her hips. She had a lithe economy of motion that made his fight-or-flight response vibrate more than a spider’s web in fish-fly season. Perhaps it was that which made him get up, or maybe it was just good manners. Either way, Jonathan was on his feet for his new client.
She introduced herself as Philomena Serkan, and then settled into the chair he offered. She was tense: he could see it in the tightness of her bright red lips, and read it in the depths of those dark eyes, but she waited for him to make the next move all the same.
Jonathan pulled out his silver cigarette case and, flipping it open, extended it towards her. She demurred, so he slid out one for himself. It was tiny and controlled, but the flinch had been there and he’d been expecting it
Forsaking politeness now, Jonathan walked to the window, giving her a view of his back, and him a view of her reflection in the smooth surface of the case—or it would have, if she’d had one.
“I can’t say as I’ve ever had a Strigoi for a client before,” Jonathan said as he turned back to face her.
Unflinching, she held his gaze.
“Is that a problem for you?”
Strigoi feed on the emotions carried in the fluids of humans, fear pulsing through pounding blood being the mainstay, and the addiction to that feast, he understood, was hard to forsake.
“No. I don’t abide killers to live but I’m not speciesist. I can’t afford to be.” Jonathan thought about how much of his own body had been mutated over the decades because of his addition to magic. “It would, in fact, be almost hypocritical of me by this juncture in my life.”
She tilted her head slightly, and Jonathan thought of the cat that hunted the back alley
“Yes, I see your point.” For a heartbeat, the tension in her face was eased by a slight smile.
“Besides,” Jonathan expounded, “you came to me, which means you know who I am, and what I do. If you were the type that took lives to live your own, you won’t have come to me—there are others in New Hades.”
“I’m glad we have an understanding.”
“So, then Mrs. Serkan, why are you here?”
“My—husband—has been taken, Mr. Alvey.”
Jonathan had heard the pause but wasn’t sure what it implied.
“Is he . . . ?”
Her slim chin descended a fraction.
A mated pair: Jonathan was intrigued. It was rare for two abstaining Strigoi to keep company, as they often obtained their sustenance through tears. Though not as bountiful, tears could hold the hunger at bay, which is why they found human partners to spend their time with.
Jonathan thought of the old saying, that the eyes were the windows to the soul. If they were, then wouldn’t tears be the soul’s blood? And how heady a drink would that be?
She was watching him and he couldn’t help but feel like a mouse under paw.
He wondered how her desire for the blood, her addiction, compared to his own. Her addiction fed her. His fed off him, slowly changing him, atom by atom, into something—else. It didn’t matter; what mattered was why she was here.
“Tell me how it happened.”
***
Jonathan moved quickly once his client had left. The story she had told was not one he had enjoyed. It wasn’t the tale itself but what it implied: four men, a van, and a net made of silver chain—all this meant they weren’t amateurs. They had done this before, knew what their targets were, and how to immobilize them.
He made sure that his doctor’s bag was properly stocked, then took his shoulder holster off the closet door and strapped it on. Checking the magazine to be sure it was loaded, Jonathan shrugged on his jacket and headed down to the street.
Strigoi were a type of vampyre (one of many—though none were much like the western icons—which made them predators; quick, strong, and agile. It had been this that had tipped him off when she’d first entered his office, the way she moved.
They lived long lives, and he knew the one who that had just been in his office wasn’t as young as she looked—he doubted her mate was either. That he had been caught was just another sign the men who took him were not amateurs.
***
His Lincoln took a few tries to start, but it was early summer and that made it easier to convince the old girl to turn over. He pulled into traffic and headed north.
If Philomena’s husband had been taken—and not just killed, as she said—then there were few reasons to do so, the primary one being, ironically enough, to harvest its blood.
Strigoi had the ability to manipulate emotions in humans, to enrich the food on which they fed. This had lead to a revolting habit, developed by some human vermin, of injecting Strigoi blood to gain the ability to control, or force, emotion in others. It was used primarily as a date rape facilitator and the feeling of power gained by its effects made it addictive, like a psychopath gets addicted to killing.
Like anything else that was addictive, if there was a demand, there was someone supplying. Jonathan had dealt with a group dealing the stuff, many years back; apparently the lesson he had made of them had been forgotten. If anyone was trafficking Strigoi blood in the city of New Hades again, there was only one place they would be doing it: Blacklight. And that’s where Jonathan was headed.
Blacklight was no-man’s land. It was the worst neighborhood in New Hades; a city notorious for its seediness. New Hades city council had done all it could to eradicate the place—short of bulldozing it. In the end, they had turned off the area: stopped the flow of water and power, leaving it a dark blight.
Blacklight—By the gods, he hated that place.
Jonathan didn’t relish going into an area where all you had to do to commit suicide was stop your car but, as it was still daylight, he thought he would be able get in and get what he needed before the residents could gather in force.
He had a reluctant contact there: a dealer who was his source for what happened in that part of the city. Most of the residents wanted to kill him: they didn’t appreciate magic much in Blacklight, and so hated him simply for what he was. They certainly didn’t like people poking their noses in—a habit Jonathan seemed quite unable to quit.
In New Hades, as in most cities, there was a market for illegal goods and there were people to cater to it. But if you were looking for something that was not only illegal, but also unconscionable, then you had to risk going into Blacklight.
The things that were sold on those dark streets, a rotting maggot wouldn’t deign to crawl over. Unfortunately for Jonathan, to find who was supplying those types of goods, you had to go to the ones who were trafficking in them.
Daryl Zadok, his less-than-eager associate in Blacklight, was on the high-end side of what got traded in the area, and although Jonathan knew he wouldn’t stoop to selling Strigoi blood, he would know who was. If Jonathan was really lucky, Zadok might even be able to cut out the middleman and tell him who was supplying.
***
Zadok lived in what had once been a post office. The only way that Jonathan knew of getting into the small building was through the back door. The alley that lead there was choked with discarded wrappers, old cigarette butts, and small bones mostly stripped clean of their flesh. Rot and mould lay heavy in the air, like an abandoned slaughterhouse.
After too many unwanted visits from Jonathan, Zadok had gotten clever: the metal door to his place no longer had a handle—just the key slot—and it now opened out, making kicking it in a futile exercise.
Jonathan wondered at just how clever the bastard had become and scrutinized the door for wards. He was actually shocked to find one scratched a bit down from the lock.
Like most protection wards, it was scratched partly on the door and partly on the frame, so that if the door opened, it would break the ward and cause a nasty side effect—in this case, a bolt of energy equivalent to licking a defibrillator.
There was a small gap between the frame and the door, not much use for a pry-bar but enough that it had need to be filled in with a bit of putty for the ward to connect frame to door.
Zadok’s upkeep of his protective measures left something to be desired however. The putty linking door to frame was cracked, causing the ward to flicker like a light bulb with faulty wiring.
Jonathan knelt down and opened up his doctor’s bag of tricks. He took out a piece of chewing gum and popped it into his mouth, enjoying the spearmint flavour as he ripped a sheet of paper from his small notebook.
He opened a jar of petroleum jelly that was infused with silver dust, and dipped the tip of his finger in. Onto the scrap of paper, Jonathan carefully traced the part of the ward that connected to the door. Satisfied that it was a match, he stuck the gum on the back of the paper and stood up again.
With infinite care, he brought the paper perpendicularly towards the ward on the frame. Slowly, he brought the two together and sighed when he felt the ward on the door connect with the stronger half he had just drawn on the paper. Making sure he kept contact, Jonathan lowered the paper until he was able to stick it to the frame with the gum.
“That’s the ward. Now how the hell am I going to open this damn door?”
Jonathan hated standing out there. He felt exposed and knew that it wasn’t just his paranoia that made him think he was being watched. He was running through spells in his head when the door flew open, almost cracking him in the face.
A man darted out the door and ran full speed down the alley: he hadn’t even noticed Jonathan, partially obscured by the door as he was. Jonathan hadn’t gotten a good look at the man who had dashed away but it was good enough for Jonathan to know it wasn’t Zadok. Daryl Zadok didn’t have the flat faced, bulging eyes, and thin lips most Blacklight denizens seemed to possess.
Jonathan drew his gun as he stepped inside, easing the door shut with his fingers. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but finding Zadok tied to a toppled chair wasn’t really it.
Zadok looked up, his face set in a snarl, but his eyes betrayed the fear he felt.
“Oh, it’s you.” Zadok slumped. “Never thought I’d say it, but thank the gods.”
“Seem to have caught you at a bad time.” Jonathan didn’t bother to smother his laughter.
“Don’t suppose you stopped the guy?” Zadok growled.
“And get the neighbourhood to hate me even more? Why would I want to do that?”
“He stole, four pounds of—” Zadok snapped his mouth shut. “You going to help here?”
“What’s that famous line . . . quid pro quo, Claris?”
“For hell’s sake, Alvey, at least prop me back up.”
Jonathan ignored his request and started snooping around, giving Zadok time to appreciate his current predicament.
“Fine. What is it you want?”
“Someone’s dealing Strigoi blood.”
“That’s awful news.” He almost sounded sincere.
Jonathan crossed the room and pointed the gun towards the floor. “Yeah, Zadok, it is.”
“What makes you think I know, anything?”
“You’re a lowlife who deals to lowlifes. I’ll enjoy shooting you, Zadok, but if I’m wrong, and you don’t know anything, I’ll be the bigger guy and dial nine-one-one for you. If you’re lucky, maybe you can drag yourself, and that chair, far enough out of here that the ambulance will actually pick you up.”
“You’re a heartless bastard.”
“That’s what the prosecution said at my murder trial, so I guess it must be true.”He answered, knowing Zadok would catch the reminder that if Jonathan were willing to kill his own father, he wouldn’t have any qualms over a snitch.
“I tell you anything about the operation, and they’ll know it was me.”
Jonathan gritted his teeth. Until now he had tired to ignore his gut instinct as to why Serkan’s husband had been kidnapped, hoping he was wrong about the blood harvesting, Zadok’s reference to an ‘operation’ made it clear his guts had, regrettably, been right.
“It isn’t like you’re subtle about shaking me down, Alvey. You know a little discretion would really help me out.”
“Yeah, making sure I’m not hampering your ability to perform transactions is what keeps me up at night.”
“Hey, it would help you too, you know. I mean people didn’t know I talked to you, I would be able to tell you more.”
There was a sound logic behind Zadok’s argument, but Jonathan frankly didn’t care. Zadok would keep his ear to the ground no matter what because it was who, and what, he was. Jonathan didn’t have to make it easy for him.
“I’ll make this simple: you tell me who’s dealing the stuff, and I won’t shoot you in the knee and then do my Sammy Davis Jr. impression on it.”
“What if I don’t know, huh? Ever thought of that?”
“What if I paint you with grave mould and virgin blood and call up a revenant to tear the flesh from your bones? Ever thought of that?”
“You’re not well, you know that? How can you even threaten that?”
“We’re talking about sick freaks harvesting Strigoi blood for a date rape drug. In comparison to that, I think I can live with just about anything I can imaging doing to you.”
***
Zadok talked. In the end, Zadok always talked, and he knew more than just who was dealing—he knew where they were holding the Strigoi. A short drive to one of the old warehouses that made up the borderlands between Blacklight and the city proper, and he was there.
The people who had taken the Strigoi were not as good as Zadok about keeping people out. The door not only had a handle, it had no wards or alarms—it also opened in.
Not knowing what he was facing in there, he couldn’t ready a spell, so Jonathan drew his weapon, clasped it two-handed, and took a deep breath.
A well-placed kick and the door cracked open, with Jonathan moving through it a second later. He quickly scanned the room: two men were sitting to his right at a dilapidated kitchen table, one was standing by the back wall by a half open door, and a fourth was crouched in the grim beside the Strigoi, who was restrained in a heavy wooden chair.
The man by the back started to move towards him, even as the two rose from their seats, revealing the small vials they were filling with blood from a larger container.
“I wouldn’t try it. I can shoot a fly off dog shit. Think what I can do when I’m aiming for the shit.”
The men paused and Jonathan had time to notice more details; the way one of the men working at the table hands shook—withdrawal but not from blood use, that the other had latex gloves on, afraid of getting the blood on him—of experiencing what he supplied. He also saw that the room behind the half closed door was a filthy washroom. Jonathan checked that man’s bare arms and saw the scars.
He didn’t hesitate in shooting the man.
The man went down with a scream. Jonathan had pegged him high on the left side, avoiding anything critical, but making sure he didn’t have the concentration to use the foreign blood now coursing through his veins.
“Get up.”
The glared at him and Jonathan felt the tug in his head but it was faint and only lasted a second.
“Try that again the next one is through your skull. Now get up. ”
Once the man had managed to get to his feet, leaving a smear of blood on the doorframe, Jonathan motioned, with the gun, for the man to join his two friends. When the two had become three, he nodded at the one on the floor.
“Your turn. Back up three paces, then get up and join your partners.”
The man shuffled back, revealing the gallon bottle on the floor that was slowly filling with blood from a tube in the vampyre’s arm.
The Strigoi himself sat taunt with pain. The hallow dark splotches under his eyes and the way his lips were drawn tight made his face looked cadaverous. The ends of the chair arms were grooved and bloody from were he had clawed at them.
Jonathan approached the Strigoi as the fourth man backed up. When he was close enough, Jonathan took one hand from the gun and began to unwrap the chain from around the creature’s wrists.
The Strigoi gave a hiss of pain and Jonathan stopped what he was doing.
It took him a second to remember that he still had the petroleum with its magically charged silver on his finger, which was now smeared lightly over his entire hand.
Apparently, even with sliver wrapped around his wrists, the charged stuff bit a little deeper. Jonathan stored that piece of information in the back of his mind as he wiped his hand on his pants as thoroughly as he could.
“Sorry, Mr. Serkan” he apologized, “Had to do a bit of spell work earlier.”
A moment later, the first chain fell to the floor. It wasn’t thick chain, it didn’t have to be, it was the silver that had kept him there. When both arms were free, the Strigoi tore the tube from his arm. The wound healed too fast for Jonathan to even see.
“Can you get up?”
“I can walk, as long as it’s out that door.”
“Then do so. Once you’re out, wait for me. I’ll bring you to Philomena.”
The Strigoi rose unsteadily but, after resting a hand on the chair for balance, kicked out his foot, sending the gallon jar into the air momentarily before crashing into a jagged puddle of dark red.
After looking at each of the four men as though to burn their images into his brain one last time, the Strigoi nodded and headed for the door.
Jonathan stood between the door and the men, his gun raised and sighted. They each, all four of them, twitched, caught between action and inaction, fear and courage. And that was what inspired him: them being caught by fear.
These men, who captured the things that had spawned stories of terror, and used their blood to do terrible things, they spawned fear, and he would use their own fears to undo them.
“Now each of you drink one of those vials.” the effects weren’t as strong, or fast, ingesting the stuff but it worked, and Jonathan wanted that.
The man he had shot looked suspicious but grabbed the nearest one and drank. Reluctantly, the other did as well, but the man with the latex gloves looked at the vial before him like it was Ebola.
“Drink up or I’ll put a hole through your gut and pour it in myself.”
With a trembling hand the man brought the container to his lips and squeezing his eyes shut, emptied it into his mouth.
Jonathan switched his grip and held the gun one handed in his left. He wasn’t as good left-handed, but he’d be able to drop the first one who moved.
He raised his right hand in front of him and brought his ring and middle finger together. Slowly, he began to rub them against each other, his summoning gesture, and before he even began to speak, the power seared through his bones.
Adrenaline- ecstasy born of fire – pumped through his arteries, and his drug that was magic spiked his veins, blooming in his brain like a wild rose, petals of blood red.
In ancient Greek, he summoned Deimos – bringer of dread – and smoke wreathed around his fingers. He moved his digits faster and black lightning speared through the cloud of smoke that now engulfed his hand.
The men swallowed hard. Stared with eyes wide and glassy. They were unable to look away from the energy Jonathan was summoning. Fear—primal and raw—flooded their minds, driving out the ability to think.
Jonathan came to the end of the curse and the smoke whipped out in four separate tendrils to wrap around each man’s head. One scream, voiced by four throats, filled the warehouse. The sound tore at the walls, scratched at the windows, and rent the air.
Jonathan turned away, and flinging open the door, strode into the night. Serkan stood only a few steps away, his eyes looked beyond Jonathan, to catch a glimpse inside his prison before the door swung shut again.
“What did you do?”
The Strigoi’s tone was controlled, emotionless, and Jonathan knew he was fighting the urge to rush in there, and feed off the emotions surging out of the men.
With a gentle hand on the back, Jonathan turned him and they both walked to the car.
itself but what may be hiding in it. It is not the creatures which scare man the deepest, but his own fears of them. I gave them that. I fed them your blood, showed them their fears, and magnified them a hundred fold. They are prisoners now to their own minds—and thanks to your blood—each others.”
Behind them, the door open and they both swung around to look. The man at the door suddenly clung to the frame as a drowning man would to a buoy. He slowly began to sink to the ground, eyes wide, his whimpers audible in the still night air. Slowly, inch-by-inch, the man pushed himself back into the warehouse, until he couldn’t be seen any more.
“What was that?”
Jonathan opened the car door for his guest and as he crossed to his side of the vehicle replied, “I believe that was agoraphobia.”
He got in and started the car. “Time for you to go home, Mr. Serkan.”
As he hit the gas, the magic was already fading—blooms withering while the thorns grew. The need to call up the power, the irresistible pull to use, throbbed deep within his bones. He grabbed at a pack of smokes on his dashboard and fished out a flattened cigarette.
The first inhalation calmed his nerves just enough that he could push back; temporarily burying one addiction under an other. It wouldn’t last long but it covered the immediate pain.
Jonathan looked at the Strigoi sitting beside him and wondered about the cravings hidden there.
“Are you alright to drive?” Serkan asked, turning his head only after the words were spoken.
“Yeah.” Jonathan looked away, “Yeah, I’m a functioning addict, don’t worry.”
“Aren’t we all.”
For now. Jonathan thought. For now.
The End
R. M. Ridley lives with his wife on a farm in Ontario, Canada. The X gladly announces their contract with Ridley to bring his whole series of Jonathan Alvey works to print, the first volume of the series to appear later in 2014.
Ridley’s first short story, “A Case for Custody,” appeared in Shades and Shadows: a Paranormal Anthology, released in October, 2013.