Fanghunters (5 page)

“Venom? Is that the...
stuff
?”

“Oh yeah, it’s the stuff all right, Mr.
Beauchamp. They inject it into you when they jab you. ‘Jab’ is slang for
biting... It’s kinda like a mosquito bite. They suck the blood they need to
keep themselves going, then inject this other stuff back in. Gets you high.
Feels good. Makes you come back for more. Before you know it, you’re a bonafide
fanghead and you’re brainwashed into doing whatever they want. If they spread
and get a foothold in society, we could have a real us against them situation
as venom makes people do crazy things; they’ll frickin’ die for it. If you take
their pimp away, they’ll go ape.”

Beauchamp listened attentively. “Interesting.
So, how does one allow such a thing to occur? I mean, the last thing I’d want
is for this to happen to me.”

Dom  sighed. “They put you under some kind
of spell, makes you more suggestible.”

“How?”

“They do this thing where they stare at you
with these glittery eyes, and it kind of hypnotizes you, makes this tingling
thing go on up and down your spine. You get frozen. Icing they call it. They
‘ice’ you, freeze you in place. Next thing you know, they’re jabbing you...”
Dom poked his index and middle fingers on the air. “And they’ve got their teeth
sunk into your throat.”

Beauchamp gulped. “Sounds nasty...”

Dom shrugged. “It is... They take what they
need, the venom’s injected in, and that’s how it begins. With a bite. Once you
get a hit of that crap, you’re never the same again, Mr. Beauchamp...”

“And you think that’s what happened to
Patricia?”

Dom nodded. “I’m pretty sure, yeah. From
what you’ve told me, she either OD’d on venom or he took too much blood from
her. Sometimes that happens.”

Vincent stared thoughtfully at him, biting
his bottom lip. A tear welled in his eye.

 Dom noticed it and took another sip of
juice.

“From what Max told me,” Beauchamp said, “it
happened to a few of them. He said he watched her die, which triggered off his
de-fanging. I tried to convince him to go and kill the vampire for me. But, he
wouldn’t. Which is why I put the word out. There haven’t been many takers, in fact,
you’re the only one so far... I was about to give up the chase.”

Dom nodded in understanding. “Well, I’m
committed, Mr. Beauchamp. Totally committed.”

“That’s good to hear, my boy.”

There was a brief moment of silence. The
grandfather clock took over the airwaves. Dom had more juice.

“Now, have you checked out the address I
gave you?” Vincent then asked.

Dom placed his glass down. “Only briefly.
There’s definitely a vamp there.”

“How do you know?”

“When I went by that place I got this
tingling along my spine. You get left with this sense, this kind of third eye,
that homes in on them. Must be some kind of thing the venom does to your brain
to alert you when there’s a nearby fix. Maybe you never really de-fang yourself
completely... Besides, the signs were all there: boarded-up, sun proof nest;
fangheads loitering outside, guarding the place.” Dom looked away with lament. “I
know what it’s like being them...”

“What
was
it like, my boy?”

Dom briefly looked away. “Horrible, Mr.
Beauchamp. Thankfully, most of it’s a blur. A blank. I suffered memory loss.
Reckon it’s something the venom does to you, some kind of amnesia, so you
forget who you are, makes you more loyal to the vampire. If you don’t know
where you came from, you won’t know where else to go.” He sighed. “It was just
me and some other guy in there. Don’t know who he was. After I escaped, I went
back to kill the vamp. Broke into the basement, but they were gone. I don’t
know what happened... All I do know is I lost a part of my life being a slave
to a vamp.”

“So how
are
you going to kill him?”

Dom puffed his cheeks. “I injured him
during my escape. Cut his face. I saw blood. So, I reckon they can be killed
normally, like us.
If it bleeds, it can be killed.
I heard that
somewhere but can’t remember where...” Dom shook his head as he spoke.

“A solid stake through the heart would
suffice, I would have thought,” Beauchamp ventured.

Dom turned his mouth downward. “Maybe...
Maybe
.”

Beauchamp then leant forward in his seat. “Hear
this, my boy. You slay this foul creature and I’ll pay you handsomely.”

“Sounds just the ticket, Mr. Beauchamp.”

“Could even be a new line of work for you,”
Beauchamp said, a glint in his eye.

A serious look emerged on Dom’s face. “If
killing these things pays, Mr. Beauchamp, then I’m all in. Hey, I’ll do it for
free...”

“Discretion is paramount, my boy,”
Beauchamp then told him, an equally serious expression on his face. “If word of
this gets out, I
will
know. And there will be trouble.”

Dom gulped. “That’s no problem, Mr.
Beauchamp.” He grinned a toothy grin. “I’m a consummate professional.”

Vincent interlocked his fingers. “Well
let’s hope so. Now, I’m going to need proof you’ve killed him, of course.”

Dom polished off his juice. “I’ll bring you
his body,” he said, staring at his empty glass. “Will that be good enough?”

Vincent Beauchamp began nodding his head, a
wry grin now on his face. “That’ll be perfect, my boy,” he said. “Simply
perfect.”

Trixie located another sucker.

That familiar tingle tickled down her
spine; the nasty sensation set off whenever she got near to one of those
blood-drinking bastards. She could virtually smell it lurking in the shadows of
the destitute house she was currently eyeing from across the street. Blocked-up
windows, run down locality. The usual fare. A fanghead was sitting on the
crumbling wall encircling the front yard. Another was lounging on the porch.
Being lookouts, protectors, waiting for the sanctuary of nightfall so they
could finally get their venom. To the untrained eye, they were just dregs
hanging out around a derelict building, shooting the shit, wasting their lives.
In that respect, they’d be right. But, what Joe Six Pack could never imagine
was what they were really up to.

She licked her lower lip that tingling
swiftly evolving into a slight burn; a sliver of desire. She swiped her mouth
with the back of her hand, her eyes narrowing. She allowed those other
emotions—the ones she had better control over—hate, anger, rage to wipe them
away, to erase those dark desires in an instant. She got in the groove once
more, focusing in on the fangheads loitering by that house. They were busy
guarding, protecting their master from people like her. Those that intended to
put an end to their suffering. Those that wanted to end the madness stem the
tide before it became an unstoppable wave. She counted two on the outside,
maybe more on the inside. She’d come back at night, see if any more arrived,
assess the situation, then come up with a plan to shut this particular drug
factory down for good.

She watched a fanghead idly swing a stumpy
tree branch. To a casual observer, he was just messing with a stick he’d picked
up off the ground, but Trixie knew better. If she dared to go near that house,
and he viewed her as a threat to his venom fix, he’d be more than ready to
swing that stick, hoping to smack her upside the head. He’d most likely try and
smash her brains into a pulp, then stamp his boot all over the remains, just to
make double sure the threat was neutralized. Nothing could get in the way of
their addiction. Nothing.

She watched the other one; his leg twitched
nervously while he gnawed on his nails. She glanced up to see the hot orange sun
lowering into the roofline beyond the house she was staring at. Nightfall was
coming on swift. The vamp inside that boarded-up house would rise, and then the
party would begin.

Trixie sighed. Even though she was
well-versed in this shit, watching this kinda stuff still hurt. Now she just
used it as motivation, as another way of overriding the tingling, the burns,
the desires.

She watched the fanghead biting his nails
look up to the gradually darkening sky, saw the sick grin that spread across
his face as his eyeballs rolled left and right, the realization night was on
its way setting in. She couldn’t take any more. She turned and fled back into
the concrete jungle of Chicago, back into its shadows.

But, she’d be back; just when they least
expected.

Dom checked the time on his watch once
the two guys got back to the house: 2:15. He made a note of it and then
compared it to the two other times he’d already noted down under the heading
‘ARRIVE’: 2:17 pm, 2:19 pm. He flipped back a page on his notepad and compared
them against the three other times he’d already jotted down under the heading
‘LEAVE’: 1:30 pm, 1:29 pm, 1:29 pm.

He rubbed his stubbled chin and looked back
at the two fangheads. He watched them take their usual seats in the two
deckchairs they’d set up on the overgrown grass of the front yard. The guy on
the right placed a pair of shades on his nose and then crossed his arms over
his chest. Soon after, he joined his buddy in staring cagily out onto the
empty, rundown street. 

So, according to the info Dom had gathered
on these two, they usually left their posts at some time around 1:30 pm for
approximately twenty-five minutes. Most probably to go get a Big Mac or
something. All that watching the street must make you hungry. And Dom knew all
about that. He’d been scoping this place for three days now and
their
hunger pains were his. The info from Vincent’s contact, Max, led him here: a
derelict house on a rundown street over on the West Side. Levin Street. Number
1428. A far cry from Beauchamp’s plush mansion on the outskirts of town. There
was an abandoned garage across and a little to the left from 1428 where Dom had
parked while he scoped the place out. From there, he could comfortably see
them, and was pretty sure
they
couldn’t see him. He was taking his time,
getting their routine down. He didn’t want to rush in and get his head blown
off, he wanted to know exactly who was gonna be in there and at what times.

All the while that weird tingling sensation
was firing up and down his spine. That nag for the venom. Somehow, his senses
knew a vamp was nearby, and he was getting the tingles. It was annoying, like a
nagging kid brother. There was only so long he could stand it, and as a result,
he couldn’t scope things for long periods. That didn’t matter; he’d have to
strike during the day when the bastard slept, so there was no need to scope the
place after sunset. He sighed, watching the two bodyguards in their deckchairs.
What he’d realized over the last few days was that they didn’t move. At all.
They sat there and watched until their break time came along. Dom never saw
anyone else come during daylight hours and never saw anyone else leave. He was
around ninety percent sure that the house contained only a sleeping vamp and
nothing more in the daytime. It meant that he had to strike during that
25-minute window they’d give him once they left.

Get in, kill the vamp, and get out before
those two fangheads came back for their afternoon shift.

Think you can handle that, buddy?

He puffed his cheeks. He was pretty
satisfied that he had the routine of the two goons locked down. Three days
scoping should be plenty enough. And he couldn’t waste more time in case
Beauchamp got cagey and hired some other desperado to get the hit done for him.
After all, that eviction notice was looming like the Grim Reaper.

Dom nodded his head. He’d staked this joint
out long enough; he was confident he had a good handle on their routine. So,
now it just came down to doing the deed... He huffed, the thought causing
nerves to swell in his stomach. But, the counter thought of being thrown out of
his apartment was enough to get him geed up for the job. Tomorrow’s job. Yeah,
it had to be done tomorrow. To delay it any longer would just cause more doubt
in his mind.

He tapped his steering wheel in a frantic
rhythm and checked the roads. The plan was to park up where he currently was
wait for them to go away, then make his move. Most of the houses were boarded-up
anyway, only a few here and there were still habituated, and the street was
clear most of the time apart from the odd straggler. He was pretty sure he
could get in and out unheard and unseen. It just came down to how good he was
at vampire slaying...

The fanghead on the left yawned and
stretched his arms out high above his head. Dom got the distinct impression
that these two weren’t a hundred percent switched on with what they were
supposed to be doing. He guessed the last thing they’d be expecting was a crazy
ass guy on a revenge mission to come and murder their venom dealer.
But,
that’s exactly what’s gonna go down, boys, so get ready...

Dom started up the car and pulled out onto
the road. He shot past the boarded-up house he was targeting, taking a final
look at the two bodyguards on the way. They still sat there like a couple of
lazy dogs, watching the world go by. Soon they were out of his sight, but he
promised them he’d be back.

And they wouldn’t know what hit them.