Lost Falls_Short Story_Blood Money Read online

  Table of Contents

  Front Matter

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Also in the Lost Falls Series

  About the Author

  BLOOD MONEY

  A Lost Falls Short Story

  by Chris Underwood

  Copyright © 2018 Chris Underwood

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, and locales are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons is entirely coincidental.

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  1

  We found the woman’s car a few miles outside Lost Falls. It lay overturned on a stony riverbank about thirty feet down a steep slope studded with brush.

  I couldn’t be sure how many hours it had been there. To anyone driving along this winding, lonely road, there was no sign that a car had gone over the side. If it hadn’t been for my tracking spell, we never would’ve found it.

  We stood at the roadside in the waning afternoon light, staring down at the overturned car. Behind us, on the other side of the road, the hills rose up and away from us, thick with trees. And in front of us, at the bottom of the gorge, the river gurgled and rushed. Birdsong filled the air. Nothing else made a sound.

  “Well,” I grunted, breaking the silence, “that’s not an encouraging sign.”

  “No,” Early agreed. “No, it isn’t.”

  We stood there a couple more seconds, not speaking. Then we began to clamber down the bank toward the river.

  Early was pretty sprightly for a man of his years. He made it down to the bottom without snapping any of his brittle old bones. ’Course, I beat him there. Mainly because I slipped onto my ass halfway down and slid the rest of the way. Groaning, I picked myself up and dusted myself off.

  “You all right, Ozzy?” Early asked as he scrambled down beside me.

  “Having a great old time.” I rubbed my aching tailbone. “Who said working for vampires couldn’t be fun? You’ve got leaves in your beard, by the way.”

  “Hmm? Oh.” The old man combed his fingers through his long wizardly beard, shaking loose the detritus he’d collected on the way down.

  I looked around, found a safe place to put my feet, and carefully made my way to the riverbank. The ground crunched behind me as Early followed.

  It had been a nice car before it took a tumble off the road. A black sedan, tinted windows, not more than two years old. More a limousine than a personal run-around. As I approached, I could smell the faint scent of oil and rubber and leaking gasoline. It sat balanced on its roof at the edge of the river, water lapping at the stones a few feet away.

  The driver’s side door was no longer attached. It lay a couple of car lengths further along the riverbank, the window shattered and the metal twisted and buckled. Taking a deep breath, I crouched down and peered inside the car.

  She wasn’t there. The air bags had gone off, making the interior of the car look like a deflated bouncy castle. The driver’s seat belt was torn out and hanging loose. There was some blood on the seat and the steering wheel—the only sign that anyone had been inside when the car had gone over.

  As I backed up, my shoe nudged something caught in the rocks beside the car. I crouched and picked it up. A pair of thick-rimmed glasses. The frame was bent and one of the lenses was cracked.

  “Well?” Early asked as he came up behind me.

  I turned and showed him the glasses. “She’s gone. Trail ends here.”

  He nodded, casting his gray eyes about. They settled on the driver’s side door lying beside the river. His mouth twitched behind his beard and he went to examine it more closely.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Looks like something tore it off. See here, these dents? They look almost like a hand print.”

  He didn’t need to speak the obvious: that would have to be a hell of a big hand.

  I grimaced, glancing around. Anything that could do that to a car door…well, let’s just say I wasn’t keen to stick around and find out what it was. I’d had plenty of experience with the things that lurked in the woods outside Lost Falls. I wondered how quickly we could scramble back up the bank and get the hell out of here. I wondered if it was already too late.

  This job kept getting better and better.

  I should’ve known it would go like this. Vampires usually dealt with their problems themselves. I didn’t know what it meant that one of them had hired us, but it couldn’t be anything good.

  Early had gotten the call this morning. An hour later, the two of us had been standing outside a hideous brick McMansion on the outskirts of one of Lost Falls’ more ostentatious suburbs. We both looked wildly out of place. Big, scruffy guys like me and old vagabonds like Early didn’t really belong next to topiary and Greek statues. But there we were, just the same.

  The door had opened before we knocked. A young, blond man without a scrap of a beard was standing there, eying the two of us up.

  “Good morning, cunning man,” he said to Early, before glancing at me. “And…?”

  “Also a cunning man,” I said. “Early asked me to tag along. Name’s Osric.”

  I held out my hand. Blondy didn’t take it.

  “Yes, well, Miss Kinfe is awaiting you in the parlor. Please follow me.”

  He led us along tiled floors and through wide hallways dotted with vases and artwork. Our footsteps echoed in the empty space. I admit, I was a little nervous being there. On general principal I try to avoid going voluntarily into a vampire’s lair. Gives me that spider and fly feeling.

  Logically, I knew we weren’t likely to be attacked here. It would be a major breach of the unwritten laws that kept Lost Falls’ underworld hidden and safe. The supernatural community that lived here under the noses of the Unaware was diverse and fractured, but everyone knew that open hostility would only lead to the whole community being exposed. Vampires could be dangerous, but they weren’t stupid enough to risk drawing attention to themselves. So we were safe here.

  Probably.

  I glanced at Early to try to gauge his feelings on the matter. His face was neutral, his eyes looking straight ahead. But I’d spent enough time around Early to recognize the tightness in his jaw. The old man had a certain amount of bad history with vampires.

  I realized then that he wasn’t just looking straight ahead—he was staring at the young man we were following. More specifically, he was staring at the kid’s neck.

  Blondy wore a high-collared shirt, but Early and I both knew what lay beneath that collar. Scars. Puncture wounds that would never fully heal.

  The guy was a bloodslave. A human swain dedicated to the service of his vampire mistress. She would feed from him, drain his blood, and in exchange he would receive the kind of euphoric rush most people could only get with the aid of illegal narcotics. It was that rush that kept him addicted, kept him in thrall to the vampire he served.

  A real nice, wholesome, symbiotic relationship.

  Blondy led us down a set of carpeted stairs. Technically, we were entering the basement, but it wasn’t like any basement I’d ever seen. The high ceiling was dotted with inset lights that bathed the room in a soft, warm glow. No windows, of course—no sunlight would be allowed to penetrate here. The carpet underfoot was thick enough to get lost in. Beyond an L-shaped set of couches and a pair of towering bookshelves sat a grand piano that probably got polished more regularly than I brushed my teeth.
>
  It would’ve been a calm, relaxing place to curl up and read a book, if not for the vampire pacing the floor.

  She was a handsome woman. She appeared to be in her mid-forties, but of course that meant little. Her smooth dark skin looked like the result of good clean living, rather than any kind of cosmetic interventions. Her tightly curled black hair was cropped short, and she wore a cream-colored night robe that fit her so well it seemed like the tailor had sewn her into it.

  But neither her clothes nor the pleasant surroundings could disguise her true nature. Not here, with her emotions bared.

  She was a predator.

  Golden brown eyes flicked toward us as we came down the stairs. They reminded me of a lioness I once saw at a zoo. She stopped her pacing, and for a moment I could’ve sworn her nostrils flared. Almost like she could smell our blood.

  “Cunning men,” Blondy said, “may I introduce my mistress, Hana Kinfe. Miss Kinfe, this is—”

  The vampire twitched a finger and Blondy fell silent. He hesitated, a flicker of jealousy crossing his face. Then he bowed his head and retreated back up the stairs.

  Kinfe studied us a moment longer. Then, with a swirl of her robe, she turned and glided over to a large coffee table that sat in front of the couches. She opened a drawer, reached in, and pulled out a stack of cash thicker than a telephone book.

  She slapped it down on the table. There was an audible thud. Although that could’ve been the sound of my jaw hitting the floor.

  That was the start and end of the negotiations.

  “Mistress Lockhart holds you in a certain amount of regard,” she said to Early. Her voice was as soft as a blade cutting through the air. Sonja Lockhart was the leader of the brood of greater vampires that called Lost Falls their home. I’d never met her, and I wasn’t in any hurry to change that.

  “As I do her,” Early replied.

  The vampire offered a tight-lipped smile. I found myself reaching to my side, where I usually kept my truncheon. It was a good, solid weapon. Wooden, with an iron core and a silver coating at the tip. And best of all, the pommel concealed a sharpened wooden point that made for a pretty decent stake.

  Only my truncheon wasn’t at my side. Early had insisted I leave it behind. Good faith, shouldn’t go in armed, blah blah blah. Sometimes I wondered why I listened to the old man at all.

  “You cunning folk,” she said, “you find things, is that right? You find people?”

  Early gestured to me. “Osric here is the best tracker I know.”

  Predatory eyes met mine. My mouth felt suddenly dry. I caught myself before I could go reaching for my imaginary truncheon again.

  She made a noise that suggested she was unimpressed. No surprise there. Vampires, on the whole, are an arrogant bunch.

  “My favorite swain went missing last night,” Kinfe said to me. “Do you think you can find her?”

  “I can find anyone,” I said.

  I never said vampires had a monopoly on arrogance.

  The vampire gave us the details—such as they were. The swain’s name was Christina Liu. Kinfe found us a picture of her. Mid-twenties, straight dark hair cut into a bob. A soft, round face and bright, slender eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses. She looked awfully full of life for someone whose job it was to be a vampire’s juice box.

  Last night had marked the start of a big three-day shindig outside town, where all the local vampires and their swains got together to revel and drink and play laser tag or whatever the hell it is vampires do at parties. Kinfe had sent Christina home around three in the morning, with orders to return before dawn. Only she’d never come back.

  The job was simple. Find the swain. Bring her back. Standard cunning man work. And the pay she was offering, well, that was the real kicker. I’d be eating steak dinners until my 50th birthday.

  I don’t think vampires really understand how human currency works. I wasn’t about to correct her.

  I told Kinfe what I’d need to create the tracking spell. Some part of Christina—hair, fingernails, blood. I half-expected the vampire to bring out a bottle of the finest human blood, aged in an oak barrel to really get that woody aftertaste. Instead, she called for Blondy and had him fetch Christina’s hairbrush. It’d do the trick.

  “Work quickly,” the vampire said. “I’m rather fond of Christina. If any harm comes to her…”

  “We’ll do everything we can,” Early said. He nodded toward the stairs. “Ozzy?”

  We both turned to go, but I paused and glanced back at the vampire.

  “Is there a problem?” Kinfe said.

  “If she ran away—”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Christina did not run away.”

  “If she did—”

  “Ozzy,” Early snapped. “Let’s go.”

  It had been a long time since he’d used that tone with me. It was a tone that brooked no argument. He fixed me with stony eyes. I shut my mouth.

  “Just find her,” Kinfe said. “Find her, and bring her home.”

  Blondy met us at the top of the stairs and escorted us back to the front door. Early and I didn’t speak until we were outside and back in my van.

  “We’re really going to go along with this?” I asked as soon as I slammed the door.

  “The girl’s missing. No one else is going to be looking for her.”

  “The girl? The swain, you mean. Hell, Early, you of all people should know why this is a bad idea. Maybe this Christina doesn’t want to be found. Maybe she’s tired of being bled every day to satisfy the hunger of that…of that.” I jerked my head toward the vampire’s house.

  “Miss Kinfe is right. The girl didn’t run away.”

  “How do you know?”

  He checked his watch. “It’s been, what eight hours since she was last seen? Eight hours without being bled. You ever see a heroin addict who hasn’t had a hit in a couple of days? She would’ve crawled home across a field of broken glass if she could.”

  I crossed my arms and scowled. “I don’t like this, Early. We’re not looking for a person. Not really. We’re looking for the vampire’s dinner. Her property. Her slave. That feels…”

  “I know.”

  “You’re always the moral one. You’re always trying to teach me right and wrong.” I shrugged. “This is your job, not mine. I’m just tagging along. So I’ll follow your lead. But seriously, Early. You think this is the right thing to do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He hesitated, just for a moment. Then he turned the key in the ignition.

  “Let’s go.”

  It had taken a few hours to brew the tracking potion and let it mature. I didn’t argue with Early again, and he didn’t bring the matter up either. We fell back into old rhythms. Early was the one who’d taught me how to be a cunning man. And what that really meant. These days I mostly did my own jobs, but it felt comfortable working with the old man again.

  Once the tracking spell was ready, we got back in the van and headed out again.

  And here we were. Standing on the riverbank next to Christina Liu’s crashed car, praying that whatever monster had torn the door off and ripped her out of the car wasn’t coming back anytime soon.

  Then again, maybe Early was wrong. Maybe there was no monster. Maybe that wasn’t a hand print on the car door. Maybe the door had just been knocked off in the crash. Maybe Christina Liu had crawled out of the car and stumbled off down the road. Maybe she was suffering from amnesia, and that was why she hadn’t gone home. Maybe she’d been swept downriver and drowned.

  Nice thoughts. Trouble was, in Lost Falls, the monster theory was a hell of a lot more likely.

  The trail ended here. Wherever Christina was now, she had to have crossed the river, or at least spent a little time in it. Running water played havoc on my tracking spells. It was even worse than rain.

  There was a slim chance I’d be able to use the blood in the car to brew up a fresh tracking potion—blood spilled in trauma had an extra
power, and blood spilled in violence was even better. If it was fresh enough, I might be able to pick up the trail again.

  But I wouldn’t know until I brewed the new potion. That would take hours. Assuming she was still alive, I kind of doubted she had hours to spare.

  “Ozzy,” Early said, interrupting my train of thought. He nodded toward the river. “Look.”

  I followed his gaze. On the opposite side of the river was a mossy tree trunk that’d half fallen over, sending branches out to dangle above the gurgling river. Something was hanging from one of those branches.

  I moved to Early’s side to get a closer look. It was a woman’s satchel bag. Dark brown, so it blended in with the bark of the tree. It twisted slowly in the breeze.

  I got out my wallet and fished around for some change. “Heads or tails?”

  “Heads,” Early said.

  I flipped the coin, caught it, and slapped it down on the back of my hand. I had a peek.

  “Well?” Early asked.

  Scowling, I shoved my wallet into my bag and started rolling up my jeans.

  The river here looked pretty shallow—no more than knee height—but it was fast-moving. A couple of boulders further upstream had turned the water into a swirling torrent of white froth. Still, I thought I’d be able to manage it. I left my bag with Early and grabbed a broken tree branch to help me steady my feet.

  “Watch the stones,” Early said. “They get slippery.”

  “Yeah, thanks for the advice, old man. Just watch my stuff, huh?”

  I stepped into the water. In an instant my shoes and socks were soaked. My toes just about curled up and fell off. Hell, it was cold.

  I waded in, the current tugging at me. Early was right—the rocks underfoot were pretty damn slick. I used my broken branch to test the ground before each step. I wasn’t going to fall into any goddamn sink holes in front of the old man. He’d never let me hear the end of it.

  The satchel bag was dangling down about halfway across the river. The water was soaking the bottom of my jeans by then, even though I’d rolled them up past my knees. The water was deeper here than I’d thought. I’m a pretty tall guy, but when I stretched up I could only brush the bottom of the satchel with my fingertips.