Authors: Seth Skorkowsky
Luiza brushed a lock of black hair from her eyes and gave a hard smile.
Her full lips were painted burgundy. “So you’re the famous gunslinger?”
“
That’s me.”
She nodded as if to herself.
“Welcome.”
“
Finally, we have Doctor Malcolm Romero protector of Hounacier.” A horn-handled blade hung from the man’s belt, its short, wide scabbard of carved wood. It appeared more like a machete than sword.
“
Good to meet you,” Matt said, extending his hand.
The man stepped closer, his hand out to meet Matt
’s, then stopped. Rolling his arm over, he looked to a cobalt beetle tattooed on the back of his wrist. The image moved, seeming to crawl up his arm. Dropping his hand to the weapon at his side, Malcolm stepped back. “This man is possessed.”
Matt
’s gut tightened. Three hunters in the room, four counting Allan. Anya, the blonde, was behind him. He caught her reflection in a mirrored case along the wall. She still sat fifteen feet away, but her posture had straightened. Tense. Luiza inched back, her expression calm, but cautious. Her hand rested on the golden saber hilt. Matt’s fingers itched for Dämoren’s ivory grip.
“
He’s all right,” Allan said, his hand out between them. “Master Schmidt is aware of Matt’s condition. It’s okay.”
“
The fuck it’s okay!” Malcolm took another step back, his dark eyes locked on Matt, sizing him up. “He’s corrupted.”
“
He’s safe, Mal,” Allan said, his tone steady. “He’s passed every test, even the masks. I’ve watched him kill two demons. He saved my life. I trust him.
Schmidt
trusts him.”
“
Tat doesn’t lie. He’s demon-marked.”
“
The masks don’t lie either. A holy weapon has bonded to him. None of us can argue when a weapon has made its choice.”
Matt wondered what would have happened if he had mentioned how unsettled the masks had made him.
Still watching the three hunters, including Anya in the mirror, he opened his hands out to his sides. If anyone made a move it wouldn’t be him. If they did, he could draw Dämoren from the rig and fire in under half a second.
Malcolm
’s jaw tensed.
“
Don’t trust me?” Allan asked. “Think the old man and I are his familiars? Give me the test then. Make sure he isn’t controlling us.”
The hunter gave a moment
’s glance to Luiza, then Anya. With his right hand still on his weapon, Mal opened his left hand wide, revealing a heavy-lidded eye tattooed in red on his palm. He thrust the open palm toward Matt and Allan.
Matt stood frozen, wondering what was supposed to happen.
Allan gave a dramatic shrug. “Well?”
Malcolm stepped forward, his arm extended straight, tattoo firmly before him.
Nothing happened.
“
We’re not your enemies, Mal,” Allan said.
Malcolm
’s lips tightened. He lowered his hand. “You’re demon-bound,” he said to Matt. “I know it. You so much as give me half a reason and I’ll end you.”
Matt
’s lips curled into a small half-smile. At least he knew where the scruffy hunter stood. “Noted.”
“
Come on,” Allan said motioning him to follow.
Matt looked to the two women and gave a short nod.
“It was good to meet you.” Then he followed the Englishman up a staircase and into a long room filled with cases and old books.
“
The hell was that about?” he asked, closing the door behind him.
Allan shook his head.
“Sorry. Kinda hoped that would have gone better.”
“
What was up with those tattoos?”
“
Mal spent several years down in Jamaica, Haiti, that area. Received his Doctorate of Anthropology studying Voodoo and mysticism. Said he got the first one from a witchdoctor. Won’t say where the others came from. He just picks them up here and there somehow. I understand his predecessor was the same way.”
“
What about the others?”
“
Luiza’s Brazilian. Sword of hers came over with the Conquistadores.” Allan led him past the shelves of leather-bound tomes and cases of dusty relics. “Been in her family forever. She’s a third generation Valducan. Tough as shit.” He bent at a small cabinet and opened a squeaky door. He removed a green bottle of Scotch and a pair of glasses. “Anya’s Romanian. Schooled in Florence. Good artist and outstanding programmer. We found her hunting in Rome. We’d thought Baroovda lost for the last two-hundred years, but it evidently had made it into her family.” Allan unstoppered the bottle and poured a healthy shot into each glass. “She’s been helping me scan, translate, and organize all the old books. She’s been wonderful. Practically lives in here.” He offered a glass, which Matt took.
The smooth whiskey tingled as it went down, warming Matt
’s throat. He looked around at the narrow room, resembling both a museum and a library and smelling that mixture of dust and age found in both. Paintings of men, presumably members long passed, covered the walls. Turning around, a picture on the wall caught his eye. A man dressed in a flat hat and a long, tan coat stood, his hand resting on a wide-bladed sword before him. Tiny red stones ran down the blade. Its white pommel capped with a pair of bronze wolf’s heads shone beneath his gloved fingers.
“
Holy God,” Matt uttered. “Dämoren.”
“
That’s right.” The Englishman sipped his drink.
Matt suddenly realized several of the other portraits on the wall also featured the same sword, each from a different time and in other men
’s hands. Other men who’d loved the weapon as he did. “I’d never seen what she looked like before. She’s bigger than I’d imagined.”
“
Look there, then.” Allan pointed to a narrow case below the paintings. Framed sketches on brown paper, featuring various angles and cutaways of the holy revolver covered the back of the top shelf. Little scribbles and numbers noting measurements and notes surrounded the drawings. “That’s the original designs from after she was broken.”
Matt peered at the old drawings, then to the modest collection of mushroomed silver slugs circled before it.
Little yellowed tabs with hand written dates indicated the year each bullet was fired. A tiny circle, absent of dust, denoted where the shell Schmidt had given him had once sat.
“
Dämoren’s the only holy weapon to be rebuilt after being broken,” Allan said. “None of the others could be saved.”
“
My baby’s got a will to live,” Matt said, stooping to see the photos on the lower shelf. One showed a man with slick-parted hair and a hideous striped sweater holding the revolver beside a younger man with curly hair and sideburns. He grinned, recognizing Clay before seeing the little name card verifying his old mentors identity. Beside it stood another picture, this one showing Clay older, maybe mid-thirties. Two men stood posing proudly beside him, one with a broadsword, the other with a mace. Matt peered at the slender man with the sword. “Is that Schmidt?”
“
They were once close.”
“
I had no idea,” Matt said, staring at the younger, clean-faced Austrian smiling beside Clay.
He blames me for taking his friend away.
“Dämoren’s been with the Valducans since the Fourteenth Century.” Allan took another sip. “That makes her more of a senior member than any of us and most of the surviving weapons.”
“
So what does that make me?”
The Englishman grunted.
“It makes you alive. As long as she remains yours, the Order has no choice but to honor her decision.”
Matt chuckled.
“I can live with that.”
“
If you’re interested,” he said, almost shyly. “I can show the records we have on Dämoren’s exploits.”
Standing, Matt gazed back up at the painted images of Dämoren
’s former owners. Her lovers. He couldn’t help but feel a kinship with them. “I’d love to.”
From the journal of Sir Ernest Burrows, 1873
19 April
- It has now been three weeks since Dämoren, my sacred charge, was broken, smashed by a vampire’s axe. I have wished the fiend’s blow had struck me dead in her place, saving me the torment and humiliation of failure.
I would be a liar to say that I have not considered taking my own life. Surely damnation awaits me for my sin, and I accept it. I have held my pistol to my head and prayed for the courage to end it, but in that, too, I have failed. The sword is broken.
I have gathered her shards, unsure what t
o do with them. I may be mad—no sacred blade has ever survived such destruction—but I still feel my maiden’s life within her. If Dämoren still lives, I must protect her. I must atone for what I have done. I must find a way to mend her.
23 April
- I have just experienced a marvelous and most curious dream. In it, I stood again on that stone wall, the vampire charging me. I raised Dämoren to defend myself, but instead of a sword, Dämoren had assumed the form of a pistol. I shot, unleashing the fiend’s Hellfire in a blast of smoke. I know this was no dream, but a vision, a message from my maiden telling me what I must do.
9 May
- I have arrived in Birmingham and booked stay in the Bemore Hotel. Despite the rain, I immediately ventured to the Gun Quarter. While I found several impressive pistols, none felt as the one in my dream. There are many smiths here, the finest in the Empire. I have but to find the right one.
11 May
- While visiting the Proof House today I examined several displays. There I beheld the most incredible of inventions, a revolving pistol with a sturdy twelve-inch cutlass blade affixed below the barrel. The eleven-inch blade section that had been Dämoren’s tip would be ideal for this. The balance itself was front-heavy, but I imagine a pommel counterweight might solve this. This pistol is so akin to the one in my vision, it must be from the same man.
I inquired as to the weapon
’s creator and was told it came from a William Watson, a most reputable smith and inventor from London.
Matt sat upright in bed, the laptop propped up on his legs, memories of past lives filling his head. Dim light peeked through the shuttered windows. The faint sounds of footsteps and voices echoed through the waking house. The time in the bottom corner of the screen read 6:32. His body however, told him it was closer to midnight. After going to bed early the day before, he had awoken at two o’clock with a stopped up nose and unable to coerce himself back to sleep.
After his cold reception from Jean and deathly warning from Malcolm, Matt figured wandering the house alone at that hour probably wasn
’t the best of ideas. He had spent the last few hours reading some of Dämoren’s exploits that Allan and Anya had transcribed. While most were dry accounts of monster attacks and methods used to track and exterminate them, one hunter, a seventeenth century swordsman named Sir Victor Kluge, was a true storyteller. Kluge’s flair for dramatic prose read more like an action novel documenting his adventures across Europe. Once finished with an especially exciting story of Kluge battling a nest of vampires in Greece, Matt closed the laptop, pulled on Dämoren’s shoulder rig, and ventured out into the house.
Outside, fiery hues of orange and red streaked the morning sky as the sun peeked over the hills, casting long shadows through the valley.
Matt stared out one of the windows overlooking the eastern vineyards when he noticed Luiza, the Brazilian huntress, jogging down a narrow road between vine rows. Some real exercise after the past few days of travel sounded like a good idea, but the pressure clogging his sinuses told him otherwise. Maybe after a hot shower and some breakfast, he’d feel up to it. First, he needed to figure out where in the hell the kitchen was.
He explored deeper into the house
, past several dark doors he assumed were more bedrooms. Paintings and old photographs decorated the walls, and Matt found himself wondering where Victor Kluge’s portrait might be. He’d have to ask Allan whenever he found him. Voices came from outside one of the tall windows, and Matt looked down into the courtyard where several people buzzed around a white van. A black woman with tight braids, and a lanky man who could double as a scarecrow in his off-time, talked to Anya and a gray-haired man with a cane. A hulking guy with the type of long blonde hair most often seen on a romance novel loaded boxes into the back of the vehicle.
“
They’re leaving for Barcelona,” said a soft voice.
Jumping,
Matt spun to see a dark-skinned man with a neatly trimmed, black beard standing beside him.
“
Sorry,” he said, hiding his surprise. “I didn’t hear you come up.”
The man grinned, revealing a mouth of white teeth.
“I get that a lot.” His voice sounded British. “I’m Behrang.” He offered his hand. “You may call me Ben.”
“
Matt Hollis.” They shook hands.
Ben turned, showing a curved sword at his hip.
A golden crescent moon formed the sword’s pommel. “This is Khirzoor.”
Matt
’s brow creased. “Khirzoor. That’s the Arabian blade from the crusades?”
“
Turkish,” he said with a smile. “But, yes.”
Matt couldn
’t help but feel a sense of wonder at seeing the ancient weapon. It was true history and also, in a way, a celebrity. “This.” He lifted his arm to show Dämoren’s ivory and bronze grip jutting from its holster. “Is Dä—”
“
Dämoren,” Ben said, finishing the sentence. “I have heard of it. And of you. Your reputation is well known.”
A tinge of apprehension slithered in Matt
’s stomach. “Well, I hope it’s a good one.”
Ben stood silent for a moment.
His lips tightened, as if trying to choose his words. “You are a very accomplished hunter.”
“
Thank you.” Eager to break the sudden tension, Matt nodded back toward the window. “What’s in Barcelona?”
“
There’s been reports of monsters. The older gentleman is Master Alex Turgen, one of the elders. The black woman is Natuche. She protects Krayaf and is leading the team. Anya, the blonde woman, and Ramón, the skinny man, are Librarians. Ramón isn’t the most experienced knight, but he’s the authority on demonic rites. They’re hoping he might find some clues about the murders.”
“
Does Turgen lead the Valducans?” Matt sniffed his clogged nose.
“
No. Not...officially. He’s a senior knight, and his word carries a lot of weight.”
Matt eyed the old man.
His right hand, the one without the cane, moved quick, animated, as he spoke to Natuche. “So he’s like Schmidt, a former hunter?”
“
Ah, similar. But more...diplomatic.”
Less
of an ass, you mean.
“And the Librarians, they’re the ones in charge of the archives? Like Allan?”
“
Yes, but also much more than that. They search old stories and records, finding long lost holy weapons. They also keep track of, um...independent hunters.”
Matt nodded.
“Like me.”
“
Like you.” Ben looked out at the knights loading the van and sighed, his gaze lingering on Natuche. “Have you eaten?”
“
Not yet. Haven’t found the kitchen.”
“
Well, then,” he gestured down the hallway, “let me show you.”
Matt followed him down a flight of stairs and into a
blue-plastered room with several tables, two of which stretched the length of the right side. A pitcher of milk and another of some red juice rested atop a bar on the back wall beside some fruit and various condiments. It reminded Matt of something he’d see in a hotel or bed and breakfast.
A big man in a bright orange shirt and a gray flat cap, like newsies wore in old movies, leaned his head out an open doorway.
“Mornin’, Ben.” His accent sounded like a mixture of Australian and Irish. “Whose yer friend?” It sounded like he said
freend
.
“
Tom,” Ben said. “This is Matt, protector of Dämoren.”
Tom
’s mouth opened into almost a shocked smile. “Ah, the shootah!” He extended a large hand. White scars crisscrossed part of his palm and across onto the back, like thick spider webs. His pinky finger was nothing more than a wrinkled nub.
Trying not to react to the gruesome wound, Matt shook it.
“Good to meet you.”
“
Right. You got any allergies, any of that?”
Matt gave a sniffle, then shook his head.
“Nothing food-wise.”
Tom nodded
and motioned to one of the tables. “Right. Just have a seat. Ye want coffee?”
“
Coffee sounds good.”
“
Ben?” he asked the dark-skinned hunter.
“
Please, and I’ll just have some fruit, thank you.”
The two men helped themselves to the bar.
Matt made a plate with some cheese and sliced meats, while Ben picked toast and some yogurt. A few minutes later Tom came back with a pair of coffees. Matt couldn’t help but notice a slight limp in the man’s walk. He sipped his coffee, which was really just a cup of espresso and milk, but it was the best Matt had ever tasted.
“
So tell me,” Matt said, folding a thin circle of meat onto a cheese slice. “Are all the Librarians also hunters, or are there any that are just full time?”
Ben sipped his coffee.
“They are all knights. Some are former. Sonu, my old mentor, is in India. He’s looking after some of our interests there while helping with research. Mikhail is still a student. Although,” he added, his voice regretful, “his mentor, Julius, was killed not long ago and his weapon destroyed. But soon, when Mikhail is ready, a weapon will choose him.”
“
What about you? Are you a full-time hunter?”
“
No,” Ben chuckled. “No one is what you would call a full-time hunter. We all have other duties. I, for instance, am an accountant. I handle the Order’s books for the vineyard here, as well as our other properties and income.”
“
Like what?”
Ben ran a finger across his bearded chin.
“We have different properties across the EU, some in Africa, even in the Americas. Some is used for farms, or leased to tenants. We’re planning to build a wind farm in Chile. The income from that should help us a great deal. My job is to keep the Valducans’ anonymity. Mask where the money goes. With it, we can afford this house, fuel for the autos and airplane, stock the hospital. Even a bit of pay for ourselves.”
Matt ate another bite of cheese and meat, visualizing the Valducan
’s web. Money in his profession was a rarity. His only real job had been antiques. Clay had taught him the tricks. How to find them, what to look for, how to buy and sell. It wasn’t much. Not for his expenses. The rest of his income had come from demons or their victims. Jewelry, petty cash, anything he could move quickly. He didn’t see it as stealing. Not really, anyway.
‘
Think of it as a service charge,’ Clay had told him. ‘You freed their souls. Avenged ‘em.’
Tom stepped out of the kitchen and set a plate down before Matt.
“Ere ya go.”
Matt stared at the golden, triangular omelet steaming before him.
He’d expected something more like scrambled eggs and soggy bacon. “Wow. Thank you.”
“
Try it.”
Even th
rough his stuffed nose, Matt could smell the buttery aroma. He cut off a corner and slipped into his mouth. “Delicious.”
The burly cook gave a proud nod.
“Right. You just let me know if you need anything.” He sauntered back through the kitchen door. The cuff of his pant leg lifted slightly with each limped step, revealing a dull silver rod jutting from Tom’s shoe.
Ben peeled the foil lid off his yogurt and began to eat.
“Tom,” Matt said, his voice low. “What happened to him?”
The hunter
’s dark eyes darted back toward the kitchen. “He was a knight. Two years ago, he was mauled by an itwan.” He seemed to read Matt’s blank face. “They have a corrosive venom, like acid. He managed to kill the beast, but...”
“
Jesus.”
“
Yes. So now he stays here. His sword, Eslarin, is now bonded with Yev, another knight.”
Matt sighed.
The man’s injuries were tragic enough but imagining how it must feel for him to see his sword, his holy weapon in another man’s hands, that it had chosen another over him because he was no longer capable, that was somehow worse. “I couldn’t do it.”
“Nor I.”
After
a few minutes, Malcolm walked into the dining room, accompanied by a man with short, coppery hair. A thick-bladed sword hung on his hip. Malcolm glanced at Matt then away. “Good morning, Ben.”
“
Good morning,” Ben replied. “And to you as well, Colin.”
Colin only grunted.
Matt finished his omelet, as the two men talked to Tom. “You said you have a hospital?”
Ben gave a little shrug.
“More of a clinic, really. Colin oversees it. No big surgeries or operations. Mostly stitching wounds, removing spines, or claws, or the occasional bullet. You can probably understand that we avoid hospitals as much as we can. It leads to...questions.”
“
I understand,” Matt said through a grin. “Would there be any allergy medicine there.”
“
There should be. Would you like me to take you?”
“
Please.”
#
Two hours later, Matt found his way to the library. Anya sat at a desk nestled in an alcove of wooden bookshelves typing at a little gray laptop. A blue coil of smoke rose from her ashtray and out the narrow window before her desk. A dark-haired teen poked his head out from behind a shelf. He regarded Matt with a short, curious glance, then tucked back out of site. Across the room, Allan sat at a computer clicking his mouse with hard, rapid taps.
“
Hell with this bollocksed piece of shit!” He jabbed his finger hard into the mouse button.
“
Everything all right?” Matt asked.
Allan threw his hand up in frustration.
“This damned system. It’s old and buggy. We’ve asked for new equipment but Turgen keeps insisting we don’t need it.” He let out a long breath. “Week’s worth of work lost. Have to start again.”
“
That’s why they pay you the big bucks,” Matt said.
“
Yeah,” Allan forcefully laughed. “So, how’s your morning?”
“
Fine. Been reading about Victor Kluge, one of the old hunters. Good stuff.”
“
Kluge,” Allan mumbled, his eyes moving upward. “The one who killed two vampires in one blow?”
“
That’s him.”
The Englishman gave a half-grimace.
“I’ll tell you, Matt, Kluge’s stories, while fun, don’t always coincide with reports of those with him. It seems he was prone to a bit of exaggeration.”