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  Gidion’s Hunt

  Gidion Keep, Vampire Hunter: Book One

  Bill Blume

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 2014 by Bill Blume

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

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

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition August 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-943-6

  Also by Bill Blume

  Gidion’s Blood

  The Deadlands: And Other Stories

  This book is dedicated to all the police officers and my fellow dispatchers who work the dark hours so the rest of the world can sleep a little safer.

  Chapter One

  The most important defense a vampire hunter can have is anonymity. That was the warning Grandpa Murphy gave Gidion the night he showed him vampires were real. That night had resembled this one, only the drizzle had belonged to a spring shower, not a September rain.

  Gidion was walking east on Cary Street when he saw a woman across the cobbled road. She stumbled out of the Siné Irish Pub. She was alone and slightly intoxicated, two things that might attract a hungry vampire.

  Before the lady turned the corner onto Virginia Street, Gidion committed her description to heart: white female, long black hair, dark green top visible beneath a black raincoat, black high heels. He didn’t get a good look at her face, but she seemed like a pretty lady, probably in her lower to mid-thirties. She wiped water from her eyes, and he didn’t think the clouds had anything to do with those droplets. She disappeared around the corner of the white brick pub.

  Gidion slipped his hand inside his hoodie to pat the red bat logo on his black t-shirt. Grandpa Murphy gave him the shirt, said red bats were considered good luck and warded against evil. Gidion’s friends teased him for being superstitious, but when a guy is born on a Friday the 13th, he learns to take that stuff seriously. Dad swore he’d gotten that trait from his mother.

  He jogged across Cary Street, stopping at the corner. He couldn’t let the lady get too far ahead of him. There was a parking garage on that street. If she went inside, he’d have a hard time tracking her without being noticed. Parking garages were all concrete and echoes.

  Fortunately, the lady in the raincoat walked past the parking garage. For someone who wasn’t sober and dressed in shoes ill-designed for walking, “raincoat lady” was making good time. She’d already crossed Canal Street and was approaching the Canal Walk. He wondered if she lived in the condo building on the other side of the canal. If she did, then he wouldn’t get to follow her much further, and there wouldn’t be much point. He hadn’t seen any hint of a vampire tracking her or anyone else all night.

  She crossed the bridge over the Canal Walk. The tourist attraction that fed into the James River didn’t draw many people at night, even though it was well-lit. Gidion maintained his distance, standing on the corner of Virginia and Canal. He checked his small supply of weapons, which included a small sword strapped to his back, hidden by his hoodie.

  No one else seemed to be following the lady, and it looked pretty certain she was going for the apartment building. He was already contemplating going back to his patrol of Cary and Main Streets, when she took a sharp left onto the steps leading down to the Canal Walk. “Crap,” he whispered. He walked as fast as he could without drawing attention to himself.

  He ducked behind a black SUV as he saw someone dash out of the shadows at the far end of the corner on his side of the street. Gidion didn’t get a good look, not enough to be sure it was the kind of predator he wanted. Vampires moved with more grace, but aside from fangs, which you could only see up close, they didn’t exactly wear sparkling letters on their foreheads to advertise what they were. Last week, he’d interrupted a mugger in a parking lot just east of here, realizing the man was human before he might have killed him.

  The traffic thundered overhead on the Downtown Expressway. Gidion looked down at the Canal Walk as he ran across the bridge. He didn’t see raincoat lady, but he caught a glimpse of the man stalking her as he slipped around the lamplight illuminating the walk. The way he shifted about was too smooth, smoke floating on wind. Gidion made out enough to lock in the guy’s appearance: white male, blond hair drawn back into a short ponytail, black jeans, black shirt, no jacket and no visible weapons. Most vampires didn’t bother packing guns or knives, but some felt the need to be a bit more “gangsta” than others.

  The sound of his footfalls on the wet, stone steps forced Gidion to slow his pace. He didn’t dare take his eyes from the vampire. One misstep and he’d either end up falling on his face or tip off the bad guy that he was being hunted. That the jerk hadn’t spotted him yet suggested a bit of good news-bad news. The vampire was probably so focused on his hunger, he was oblivious to everything but his dinner. That was the good news. The bad news? Hunger that fierce left a vampire in a really shitty mood, kind of like Gidion’s dad before he’d had his coffee.

  Gidion saw the vampire rush into the tunnel beneath the next bridge. That place made for a perfect ambush. Great for Gidion, but lousy for raincoat lady. No time left for caution. He sprinted and prayed the vampire’s attention stayed on his dinner.

  The vampire grabbed the woman by the hair and waist. She screamed, but only for a second. The vampire covered her mouth with his hand to muffle her cries as he dragged her behind a column.

  They were too close for anything that would allow Gidion a killing shot. He needed them separated fast. Only one thing made a vampire run from a meal: losing the blood it already had.

  An inhuman hiss echoed beneath the bridge as the vampire reared back his head and widened his jaw for the strike at her throat. Gidion lunged forward and grabbed him by the ponytail. The vampire’s hiss cut off in surprise. Before the vampire could turn, Gidion slit open the front of its throat with a boxcutter. The vampire released the woman, but Gidion didn’t let go of him. Instead, he shoved the predator’s head forward, pinning his chin against his chest. Grandpa Murphy said that forced out more blood than pulling back, kind of like squeezing juice out of an orange.

  The vampire shoved Gidion back against the concrete column. Thank God these things didn’t really possess superhuman strength, or that might have been enough for the vampire to finish him off. Gidion lost his grip on him as his entire back was flattened against the concrete. The vampire ran out the far side of the tunnel. Gidion saw the lady go for her cell phone. He swatted it from her hand into the canal and ran after his incomplete kill.

  “What are you doing?” She thrust her hand towards the water without any real chance of retrieving the phone. Bad enough she’d screamed as loud as she had. Hopefully, no one had heard and called the police for her. It never failed. People always called 911 when they shouldn’t. At least that’s what Gidion’s dad said.

  The cut to the throat had started the job, but Gidion needed to finish this fast. The vampire ran down the sidewalk with a hand to his throat, trying to contain what was left of his false life. Gidion tackled him, forcing him to the right and onto the grass. He drove a knee into his kill’s back, right on the spine with a loud crack of bone. That would make Grandpa Murphy proud.

  He grabbed that short pony tail and yanked. “Where’s the rest of your coven?” Gidion asked. “Where do they hide?”
/>   “I don’t have—” The vampire rasped, as if he might save some of the blood he was losing. “—a coven. Don’t.”

  “Crap.”

  Gidion drew the short, wakizashi sword he carried on his back, beneath his hoodie. He delivered another knee strike to the back to make sure the vampire didn’t get back up. Moving to the side, he slammed the sword’s blade through the back of the vampire’s throat, a clean decapitation.

  He climbed off the grass and back onto the sidewalk. His hand shook as he wiped the sweat from his brow. Dammit, his heart was pounding worse than after a three-mile run. He used the back of the dead man’s black shirt to wipe the blood from the sword and then slid the blade back into its wooden scabbard.

  He crawled back from the grassy embankment and back onto the sidewalk. Christ, he was a mess. The entire bottom half of his black jeans was covered in mud. At least he’d avoided getting a lot of blood on his clothes this time. When he turned back towards the bridge, he was startled by the lady in the raincoat.

  She stared at him, looking too horrified to speak. Her eyes met his and her face alighted with recognition. “Gidion Keep?”

  “Oh, crap.” He’d just saved his world history teacher, Ms. Aldgate.

  So much for anonymity.

  Chapter Two

  Gidion hadn’t recognized Ms. Aldgate outside of the classroom. He’d never seen her without her hair pulled back, and she sure as hell didn’t dress like that for school.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  She stepped back as Gidion pulled out a black shopping bag he’d brought with him. “I saved your life.” He displayed the vampire’s fangs for her before he shoved the head in the bag.

  “Don’t call the police. Go home and don’t waste any time getting to your car. Vampires sometimes hunt in packs, so he might not be alone.” She stared at the bag. “Just get out of here.”

  He didn’t know if she bought that lie about vampires hunting in packs; this guy had definitely been alone. If he hadn’t, then the others would have moved in for the kill with him.

  Gidion didn’t stick around to find out what she thought. He pulled his hood up and ran east out of the Canal Walk. He’d parked in the lot near Bottom’s Up Pizza. If he was lucky, Ms. Aldgate wouldn’t call the cops, and he could retrieve the rest of the body before anyone else found it. Of course, if he was really lucky, maybe he could use this to score some extra credit in her class.

  When he looked over his shoulder, he saw her running back the way they’d come. He kissed his fingertips and planted it on his shirt’s red bat. He hoped his good luck charm worked better this time.

  The red bat earned its keep long enough for Gidion to retrieve the rest of the vampire’s body. He’d been extra careful gathering the body and loading it into the back of his grey Kia Soul. A black tarp hid the body bag. On top of that, he piled a baseball bat, football, helmet, running shoes, gym bag and a few other things that would leave anyone convinced the rest of the pile contained nothing but more sports gear.

  Once he’d pulled onto the expressway, he pulled out his cell phone. “Grandpa, fire up the cremator,” he said once he answered. “I’ve got one.”

  “You okay, boy? Seem pretty shook up.” His voice sounded rougher than usual. Must have caught him in the middle of a smoke.

  “Yeah, I’m good.” He considered telling him about Ms. Aldgate, but he figured he didn’t need to until he knew what she was gonna do. The fact he’d been able to get the body seemed like a good sign. He’d taken the head in case he hadn’t been able to, just to make sure the body couldn’t be “rezzed” by any of the vampire’s friends. Not much danger of that, if his claim he didn’t have a coven was true.

  “I’ll get things ready,” Grandpa said. “Proud of ya, boy!”

  “Thanks.” Gidion heard his nerves rattle in his own voice and hung up before he did anything more to incriminate himself. The old sailor would interrogate him for certain when he reached the funeral home.

  He tossed his phone onto the passenger seat and cranked up the stereo, blasting the White Rabbits’ “Percussion Gun” after he cleared the toll booths. In less than ten minutes, he’d left downtown behind and was passing the train yards as he merged onto I-64. Traffic was almost non-existent after he took the ramp onto Staples Mill Road.

  A few blocks from dropping off his night’s catch, blue lights flashed in his rearview mirror.

  “Oh, crap.”

  His stomach took a swan dive and his heart beat faster than the music in his car. Against every desire to plant the accelerator to the floor and make a run for it, he pulled his car into the lot of a near-empty shopping center and parked it. The cop’s lights continued to flash. No red lights on the police car. That meant it must be Henrico County Police. Gidion looked down at the “good luck” bat on his shirt. “You know, now would be a great time to start working, because you’ve been doing a lousy job of it so far tonight.”

  He turned his music off and dug around in the glove compartment for that DMV card thingee. At least his driver’s license, the car’s inspection and tags were all current.

  A flashlight shone through the rear window of the car. Gidion hoped the officer didn’t see anything suspicious about all that crap piled back there. Jesus, he wasn’t even speeding! Had Ms. Aldgate called the police after all? Surely, they couldn’t have put out an all car bulletin on him this fast.

  Just act normal, he told himself. Of course, wouldn’t being a nervous wreck be normal for any teenager pulled over by a cop?

  The officer tapped at the driver side window. He’d forgotten to roll it down. Great. He needed to calm down. He offered his best smile as the window slid down and then handed over his driver’s license and registration without the officer having to ask.

  “Thanks.” The officer paused to glance at both and grunted as he looked back at Gidion. “You know why I pulled you over, Mr. Keep?”

  I really hope it doesn’t have jack to do with the decapitated corpse in my trunk, he thought to himself. “Um, not really.”

  “Well, you were going a little fast. You were doing 51 in a 45-mile-per-hour zone.”

  Okay, so he was speeding just a little. “Oh, uh, sorry. Didn’t realize I was going that fast.”

  “Uh-huh.” The officer looked at the driver’s license again with this indifferent grunt. “You know the other reason I pulled you?”

  “Um…” Please don’t let it be about the corpse in the trunk.

  The officer pointed the flashlight at the dashboard. “Here’s a tip. Why don’t you tell me what time it is?”

  “It’s, uh, one-thirteen. Oh.”

  “Yeah.” The officer grunted. He sounded like he practiced his grunts a lot. He was quite good at them. “Do you realize that Henrico County has an eleven o’clock curfew for anyone seventeen and under? That means you either better be coming home from work or riding with an adult.”

  Technically, Gidion was on his way from work, but he couldn’t exactly explain he was a vampire hunter to a police officer.

  “Seems you live in Chesterfield County, so you’re not heading in the right direction to be going home, kid.” The officer flashed his light across the passenger seats. “And I don’t see any adults in this car either.” Gidion realized he actually did have an adult passenger, but since he was dead…still not helpful.

  Just then the radio on the officer’s belt crackled. “Radio to Car 161, switch to tac for a secure transmission.”

  Gidion groaned, because he knew that voice on the radio.

  The officer arched an eyebrow at Gidion. He reached over to the transmitter clipped to his jacket. “10-4, Radio.” He pointed at Gidion. “Sit tight.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sitting tight was simple enough. His butt was so tight right now, he’d probably whistle if he farted. He fought the urge to look behind him at the trunk. He didn’t want to give the officer any reason to look back there.

  A grunt to his left let him know the officer was back.

>   “Well, Mr. Keep, I’m gonna let you go without a ticket. You wanna know why?”

  Gidion just nodded. He already knew why.

  “For starters, you weren’t going that fast, but judging from the sound of your dad’s voice just now, I think you’re already in for it as it is.” Just then, Gidion’s phone beeped in his passenger seat to let him know he had a text message. “I’m guessing that’s him right now.”

  Gidion picked up the cell phone. Yeah, that was Dad.

  The officer transmitted over his radio. “Car 161 to Radio, show me clear with advice.”

  Dad answered the officer on the radio. “10-4, Car 161. He’ll be getting a lot more advice in a few minutes. One-eighteen hours.” Having a dad who worked as a police dispatcher just sucked sometimes.

  “Sorry, kid.” The officer laughed as he walked back to his patrol car.

  Gidion opened his cell phone to read Dad’s text. ‘Get your ass here. NOW.’

  “I really need a new good luck shirt.”

  Chapter Three

  Milligan’s Funeral Home looked about as dead as one would expect at 1:30 in the morning. The building blended into the night with its grey brick exterior. The liveliest thing was Gidion’s car turning into the parking lot and zipping around to the back. Gidion clicked the garage door opener clipped to his visor. Dim light spilled out as a large, metal door lifted.

  Gidion threw his car into reverse and burrowed into the drop-off. The red glow of the taillights made Grandpa Murphy look like one of the permanent residents as he limped into the garage. Of course, Grandpa was a permanent resident since he owned the place.

  “You drive worse than your dad.”

  Gidion left the car door open as he jumped out. Beneath the smell of his car’s gas fumes, he smelled that blend of mint and tobacco he’d always associated with Grandpa. One day, he was going to tell him that gum only took the pipe smell from his breath, and it didn’t even really do that.