Primacy of Darkness (22 page)

“It has to be this way, Marvin. I did those things. It’s all I have to offer her.”

She doesn’t disarm the bomb, but she does take my sword. I drop to my knees, hold my head parallel to the floor, and present the back of my neck. She raises the sword over her head.

“Trinh,” Carol says, her voice gentle, “he’s changed. He’s not the man he was back then.”

“He’s not a man at all. He’s a monster!”

“Not anymore.”

“Would you forgive him? If this was the one who killed your parents, would you forgive him?” She tilts her head toward the kitchen area. “All those drugs you have to take just to keep from falling apart is because of creatures like him!”

“Knowing that I’m doing the right thing and protecting people is what keeps me from falling apart, Trinh. Knowing that I have you and together we make the world safer is what keeps me going. He makes the world safer too, now. Yes, I would forgive him. I will always hate what he did, maybe even always hate him, but I would forgive him, because it’s the right thing to do.”

Trinh’s knuckles are white and her hand shakes. She raises my blade over her head. I can hear it cutting the air for a fraction of a second before she buries the tip deep into the wood floor. She kneels beside me and we lock eyes.

“I will never forgive you. I will never pardon you. But I will grant you parole. We will kill the monster that’s terrorizing the city together. After that, we will return to the question of your fate.”

“I will accept your judgment then, as I have now.”

She stands, reaches in her coat, and turns off her suicide vest. “So, how do we kill this sonofabitch?”

“We have to find him first,” I reply, “and in a city with this many people, it ain’t gonna be easy.”

“Tell me about it. I knew your name and it took me thirty years to find you.”

“Only thirty?”

Trinh shrugs. “I was busy for the first decade or so. I also knew that if I sought you out before I was ready I would fail. Even now I almost did.”

“Not to get technical, but you did.”

Her shoulders slump but her face tightens. “I guess I did. What did you do after…after what you did? You are not at all the same. How does one reclaim some semblance of humanity after becoming a monster?”

My mind flashes back to that night. I sag into a chair, and it is a physical and emotional effort not to collapse onto the floor as I stare into the face of my victim.

My voice trembles. “I don’t know what happened. One moment, I was lost in the savagery, the carnage fulfilling this insatiable lust, then it was as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on me. What I had been doing felt like a dream, a nightmare, and then I woke up. I ran for days without stopping, as if I could leave behind what I had done. I couldn’t, of course. It followed me. You followed me.

“I stowed away on a ship, hiding inside a cargo container, which was a pretty stupid thing to do. It took weeks to reach New York. If I hadn’t been so…full, I probably would have lost it again and killed everyone on that ship. I was a miserable wretch when I finally got back home. I needed to feed, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Part of me was disgusted at the thought of it. A bigger part of me was terrified that if I did I would lose control again, so I huddled in an abandoned building, slowly starving to death.

“A vampire sheriff named Wyatt found me. He should have put me down then and there, but he chose to tell Vincent, the head of the New York enclave. I don’t know why, but Vincent thought he could save me, thought I was worth saving.”

“Do you think you were worth saving,” Trinh asks, her face devoid of emotion.

“I still don’t know. Everything I have done since then has been to prevent vampires from becoming what I was or end them if they had. In that regard, I suppose it was worth it. Does it balance with what I did?” I shake my head. “Only you can answer that, you and everyone I have hurt. Each of you have the right to judge me and deliver your verdict. It isn’t for me or anyone else to decide.”

“Like I said, I’ll delay my judgement and work with you to kill the imminent threat.”

“I won’t stop you when you decide.”

“I won’t give you the chance to change your mind when I do.”

We establish a truce, but we are nowhere near anything resembling peace. We are America and Russia in World War II fighting a common enemy, but no one is foolish enough to think we are anything close to being friends.

I cock my head toward Carol. “How did you and her team up?”

“I was hunting a particularly nasty vampire in California about seven years ago. He liked to target wealthy people. Cops thought it was a team of violent, brazen thieves because he always cleaned out their jewelry and safes. I caught up to him at Carol’s house. I was too late to save her parents, but I killed him before he killed her. She fought back in a way that reminded me of me when you attacked my village.

“I knew none of the psychiatrists she was seeing would believe her story about her parents being killed by a vampire. She knew what he was despite how impossible it sounded, but they would never clear her while she tried to convince them of the truth. I faked some credentials as a psychologist specializing in traumatic events and became her primary therapist. I got her to tell the doctors what they wanted to hear in exchange for my help. Once I got her out of the institution, I began training her in using weapons and self-defense so she could reclaim her life.”

“Like you did.”

Trinh nodded. “Like I did. I’ve kind of felt like a surrogate mother to her ever since.”

Carol snorted. “More like grandmother.”

“I will still put you over my knee!”

“Then what, bore me with the details of how excited you were with the invention of the color television?”

I chuckle. “And now here we are. It’s like Batman and Lex Luther teaming up to take out the Green Goblin.”

“What the fuck?” Marvin exclaims.

“What?”

“I don’t even know where to begin to explain everything wrong with that statement!”

Carol comes to Marvin’s aid. “All three of those characters are from completely different sagas. It’s Superman and Lex Luther who are mortal enemies. Batman has the Joker, Penguin, and a host of other enemies. The Green Goblin is Spiderman’s nemesis and has never had a crossover story with either Batman or Superman.”

“Actually, Batman and Spiderman meet in 1997 in an issue called Batman and Spiderman, and Superman and Spiderman meet in 1981 in Marvel Treasury Edition volume one, number 28.” Marvin slaps himself on the forehead. “Then there was Superman vs. The Amazing Spiderman in 1976!”

“Yeah, but those were horrendous abortions and all took place way outside any of the standard DC universes and were mostly considered abominations of all things holy.”

“True dat, so I think our argument is still valid.”

I raise my hands in surrender. “All right, sorry. Don’t get all Kirk and Vader on me.”

“Goddammit, now you’re just trying to piss me off!” Marvin accuses. “I don’t know what’s worse: ignorance or deliberately being an asshole.”

“Marvin.”

Marvin sits with his arms crossed and pouts. “What?”

“If you’re through blowing a nerd gasket, I need you to get on a computer and overlay Jack’s killings in London with the murders he’s committed here and see if we can match them up.”

Trinh asks, “You think he’s recreating his original murder spree?”

“There is definitely a correlation. We’ll probably have to adjust the scale a bit to get it to match up, but I bet we can create a reasonably accurate template.”

“How many are we looking at?”

“At least eleven, but Vincent hinted that there were far more that were covered up by either the police or the London enclave. I’ll give him a call and see if he can give me the location of his suspected murder sites.”

I call Vincent. “Hey, can you get me the addresses of the unofficial Ripper killings in London?”

“Ah, you have detected a pattern as well,” Vincent says. “I can email you a map I created with all known and suspected sites pinned.”

“Marvin, do I have an email account?”

“Yeah, it’s [email protected].”

“Seriously?”

Marvin raises his finger high above the keyboard and stabs down. “It is now.”

Carol giggles. “You’re so mean. Yahoo…”

“He deserves it.”

“How is Yahoo the offensive part of that statement?” I ask.

“Yahoo is for crusty geriatrics who despise change and evolution,” Marvin answers.

Carol points at the screen. “Look, you’ve already gotten seventy-three offers for Viagra.”

“And two hundred websites showing where you can put it to use,” Marvin adds.

I turn away. “Great. You get that?”

“No,” Vincent answers, “I use Gmail and a spam filter, like any civilized being.”

“I mean the address.”

“Already sent.”

“Marvin, did you get it?”

“Yeah, like always, you are way behind the digital power curve.”

“Leonard,” Vincent says, “have you taken care of your personal issue? I cannot stress the importance of avoiding distraction when you confront Montague once more.”

“It’s taken care of.”

“I hope so.”

“I’ll talk to you about it later.”

“I look forward to the discussion.”

Trinh is watching me when I hang up. “It’s not taken care of.”

“No, not quite. You have created something of a problem with your indiscriminate hunting. The enclave is now aware of your existence and your purpose in life. They are bound to take offense.”

Trinh shrugs, either unconcerned or feigning nonchalance. “I get attention wherever I go eventually. It’s why we don’t stay in one place for long. That’s another reason why it took me so long to find you. I started on the West Coast and have been working my way east ever since. I couldn’t ignore a murderer in front of me just to satisfy my own vengeance when I knew they would cause someone else the same suffering.”

“Speaking of your hunting prowess, my nose tells me you are a bloodling, but your speed and strength exceed that of any bloodling I ever heard of. Especially recently.”

Trinh shifts in her chair and looks askance. “I always study my targets before I attack. Most of them are young and I only take them after careful planning and perfectly executed ambushes. Recently, there has been a development in my abilities that has made me more…competitive.”

“You want to tell me about that?”

“No.”

I nod and rub my chin. I hate a mystery, especially one having anything to do with my kind, but I let it go. “Marvin, do you have anything yet?”

“Plotting the last few points with the information your man sent me. Got it. Come take a look.”

I walk over to where Marvin and Carol are sitting, seemingly attached at the hip, and lean over their shoulders to stare at the screen. “Did you mark the locations where he has already been?”

“Yeah, see here.” Marvin pokes the screen. “I used the New York locations as reference points to anchor the London overlay. When I stretched the overlay to fit, these four points lined up almost perfectly.”

Trinh walks over and looks past me. “That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

“It is. Far too much for the two of us.”

Carol clears her throat. “You mean three.”

“Even so.” I pull out my phone.

“Who are you calling?” Trinh asks.

“The reserves.”

The other end picks up and I’m assaulted with a blast of awful music before it’s muted to a dull roar. “Leo, what’s up?”

“I need you and your people, Nick.”

“How many?”

“All of them. As many as you can get.”

Nick hesitates. “Right now? It’s kind of the party prime time.”

“Now, and if anyone complains, tell them I will be more than happy to come over and convince them myself.”

“No need, man, no need. What do you want us to do?”

“Do you have email?”

“Leo, everyone has email. There are Taliban living in caves with active email accounts. Just asking if someone has an email account makes you sound…well, lame.”

“Just give me your damn email account,” I snap.

“Sure, man, I’m just trying to help you out. It’s [email protected].”

“Marvin, [email protected].”

“Sent.”

“Oh, man, is that really your account?” Nick asks with a chuckle a few seconds later.

“I didn’t pick it.”

“At least it isn’t AOL. What am I looking at?”

“Stakeout locations. You can ignore the ones in green. I need eyes on all the others. Can you cover it?”

“Uh, yeah, I can put a crew together to cover them. Who are we looking for?”

“I’m sure you have heard about the vamp going on a killing spree lately.”

“Is this the same one who…didn’t quite kick your ass on camera?”

“The other one, the one that took out two squads of Sheriffs in Jamaica and recently tore through a police station.”