Tales of the Slayer, Vol. II by Various

Author:Various
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse

The New Watcher

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

ATLANTA, 1864

Deep beneath the half-dismantled Atlanta roundhouse, in tunnels designed and later abandoned by men fleeing the Union Army, Frankie Massey staked her fifteenth vampire of the night.

The foul-smelling dust blew over her, caking onto her face and coating her hair. She kicked sideways—the Chinese kick that Reed had taught her—and slammed another vampire into the stone wall.

She’d found the nest, and she was getting tired after hours of killing all alone.

Another vampire snuck up on her. She could smell it, that stench of blood mixing with rotted teeth and clothing that hadn’t been changed since the grave. She whirled, stabbed the vampire’s unbeating heart, and whirled again before the dust fell to the tunnel’s wooden floor.

Another vampire and another, her arm stabbing, staking, dusting while her leg kicked and her other arm blocked. She wore her collar up, guarding her neck, and still she could feel the pointed teeth grazing her skin, the cold hands against her collarbone, hands so cold they felt like they’d been dipped in snow on a frozen Illinois day.

She whirled faster, staked harder, surrounded by dust and dirt and death. She fought in a frenzy, until she was the only one left.

* * *

Frankie climbed out of the remains of the roundhouse as the first tendrils of dawn pinkened the night sky. She sat on the steps—once indoor steps—and wiped her face, feeling the granules left by people who had died days, weeks, maybe years ago.

Her body hurt, her arm ached, and her boots were stained black from all the filth below.

She had never felt so all alone.

Six months ago Reed would have been sitting beside her, offering her water from his canteen, his own face coated with vampire dust. He’d guided her. She was the weapon, he used to say, and he was the historian. He provided the information, and she chose whether or not to use it.

Sometimes she helped with the information.

Sometimes he helped with the weapon.

They had been partners, even at the end.

The real end, not the one she tried to forget, the one that occurred a few nights later, when he had crawled off a Georgia battlefield to hunt her down personally, as if his mission had changed overnight from that of protector to destroyer.

She supposed it had. Viewed coldly, his determination to slay her, to make her one of them, made complete sense.

Except that he had smiled when his new mission failed, as if a part of Reed remained in the undead thing he had become.

“Cheeky girl,” he had said, admiration in his voice as her stake pierced his sternum. “Cheeky bloody girl . . .”

Frankie wiped her face again and felt dampness on her skin, probably from the heavy morning dew.

Then she stood, headed back to camp for a quick cleanup and a pretend shave, and maybe, just maybe, one precious hour of sleep.

* * *

She got two.

Two restless hours with vampires and long-past conversations haunting her dreams. Reed, following her on her way to enlist, whispering his objections, his fears: They’ll know you’re a woman.

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