First Kill: A Dave Carver Novella by Andrew Dudek

Author:Andrew Dudek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: vampire, urban fantasy, horror, action

Chapter 11: Back to the Past

For a few weeks, Nate flatly refused to go see Felix Guinness. When he finally changed his mind, it was on a warm September day after a long, quiet stretch. It didn’t make sense to me, but the fact that we hadn’t seen a vampire in weeks made Nate think they were getting better at avoiding us. He decided we needed to learn how to hunt them.

Waiting to meet Guinness felt a lot like waiting to ambush a vampire nest. Nate and I, alone, crouched in an alley across the street from a four-story residential building in Harlem. My palms were sweaty and my stomach churned, just like before a raid. There were differences, of course.

It was the middle of the day, and the sunshine felt good on my skin if uncomfortably warm after a few minutes. The vampires hadn’t crossed the Harlem River, yet—there were people everywhere: enjoying the late summer sun and walking in small groups, chatting, laughing. A few people gave Nate and me strange looks, but most seemed to take no notice. I knew the feeling: There are homeless people on every corner in New York—you can’t live guilt-free without learning to ignore them. They just thought that Nate and I were bums.

That struck me as funny, but I didn’t mention it to Nate. His lips were set, exactly the way they got before a raid. I couldn’t understand why he was so upset about this expedition. It had been a chore convincing him to go—and even harder to convince him to let me come. But rule number one of the Family was that no one went anywhere alone, not if they can help it. Even during the day, you never knew when you’d run into an agent of a vampire.

We were getting paranoid.

Nate needed cheering up, I decided. It wasn’t like this mission required total stealth. I said, “So this guy was a friend of your mom. Did you know him?”

“No.” Nate was brusque, but then a pain appeared behind his eyes and he softened. “I don’t think so. My mom had a lot of friends—coworkers and apprentices and customers and fellow practitioners. I was pretty young when we moved up here and only a few years older when she died. It’s possible I knew him back home.”

“What happened after that?” I asked. “I mean after your mom died. That was, what, five, six years ago? You were on your own that whole time?”

“I stayed with Squirrel until I was eighteen, then I got a place of my own. I was working at a bookstore in Brooklyn when I heard about the disappearances. It sounded like vampires to me. I found Maria just after her family got killed and you know the rest.”

I guessed I could understand Nate’s troubles. Going to see a friend of his mother’s must have been difficult, like going back to a time he thought was done. He’d built a life for himself, and asking for help from someone who might remember him as a child made him feel like a child.

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