DarkWalker (30 page)

A rat sat atop one of the shelves, staring, twitching its nose.

The imp had climbed walls, too. It could cling to the ceiling. He looked up and around, walking slowly.

It was in here, waiting, ready to spring. Jack never lowered his weapon, never faltered. He listened for the clicking of the imp’s claws on concrete. He checked behind a mattress propped against the wall. Under a table. The shelves of an old, shoddy bookshelf.

A sound to his right, toward the basement’s center. Jack swung the gun. There was a dark spot where one of the lights had burned out or broken. One step closer, Jack narrowed his eyes. He saw well in the dark, well enough to see shapes and a few details. A lampshade on a table. An open magazine. A chair for someone to read or do crossword puzzles.

A shadow shifted.

Jack aimed. Almost fired. A snake slithered under the chair, deeper into the dark.

The imp sprung from his left. Together, they crashed into a support beam. The gun slid away as they fell, imp on top. Tiny claws on four limbs (one rather limp, not fully re-attached). Teeth gnashed. It tore a deep rut down Jack’s chest.

Jack kicked it off him and scrambled for the gun. By the time he reached it, the imp was gone.

It couldn’t be far.

A shape in the shadows. Jack fired. The bullet ripped through a pile of magazines.

Jack stepped forward, saw the imp running toward the windows. He fired twice, missing both times. The imp ducked behind a couch standing on end. Jack fired into the couch. The imp screeched.

Jack ran forward, pushing a coat rack out of his way, knocking over a pile of boxes. He came around one side of the couch, gun poised. The imp dropped on him from above.

Jack fell forward, into the couch. It tilted, slamming the wall, and slid out. Jack flipped over the side of it. The imp landed next to him. It bled from a scratch in its side—the bullet had grazed him.

Jack pointed and shot again. The imp was pure muscle, despite its small size, and fast. It jumped up, away from the bullet. Jack fired again, hitting the imp in midair. It flopped and landed with a loud slap. Jack put two bullets in its head.

He stood a moment and waited.

If anything changed, Jack didn’t feel it. He hadn’t felt the loss of his immunity, either. He toed the side of the imp; it didn’t respond.

8.

“It’s dead,” Jack said, approaching Nick and Lisa at the stairs.

Lisa rushed forward, kissed him with quickly dying fervor and desperate urgency, then collapsed in his arms. Her jacket slipped open enough to show Jack the self-inflicted knife-wound in her chest. She said, “I waited.”

Jack dropped to his knees, holding Lisa, rocking her in his arms. “You can’t die on me, you can’t,” he kept saying. “I love you. I can’t live without you. I want to show you things, give you things. I want to live for you. With you. C’mon, Lisa, don’t die on me.
Don’t
.” But she’d already been dead, since the field, since the demon had taken her; she’d held on only by force of will.

Until that moment, he had never really known fear. When the were-bat attacked, when he woke in the vampire’s office, when creatures came at him from water and sky and earth, Jack had thought he was scared. He truly believed it. He’d trembled and sweat and tensed. But now, as Lisa slipped slowly away from him, his stomach wrenched and his chest tightened. No pain had ever been so piercing. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t see past Lisa’s eyes. They’d rolled back, never closing, and were just white now. Through the hole in her chest, he saw her heartbeat slowing, slowing, until it stopped.

9.

Nick helped Jack carry Lisa to her apartment. It was too late to take her to a hospital; the damage was too extensive, too thorough. The hole in her chest showed her ragged heart.

Nick didn’t know what else to do. He opened Lisa’s door, helped lay her on the bed, and even put a hand on Jack’s shoulder as he cried. Nick felt tears welling up in his own eyes. He hadn’t shed any since Diane and didn’t want to now. He really didn’t want to.

But he did.

And then he left.

10.

Calmly as possible, Nick walked away from the elevator and out the front door. He heard sirens; he’d made himself conspicuous, and was armed if they caught him. He couldn’t afford to linger, but he wanted to. He wanted to go back upstairs and share Jack’s grief.

But it wasn’t like him to express such feelings.

Passing the outside doors, he caught the scent a moment too late: under vanilla and cinnamon, a hint of death.
Vampire
.

He swung his arm, striking if it was close enough. She blocked it.

Nick kicked, pulling a stake from his jacket, but
Jia
Li parried the kick as well and caught his arm before he could attack. “I’ve been training a lot longer than you,” she said.

Nick glared. Anger built up inside. Rage. He wanted to tear her throat out, put a stake through her heart, cut off her head, and burn her corpse.

“I thought I’d tell you,” she said, “it worked. The urge is gone. The pull. He’s no longer a magnet. Congratulations.”

“I know,” Nick said.

She smiled, sadly, and pushed Nick back. “You’re safe from me, hunter. Tonight, at least, let’s keep our truce.”

Nick sighed, the anger spilling away. “Tonight,” he agreed.

Nick looked up the side of the apartment building. Though he couldn’t see Lisa’s window, he knew she was on the fifth floor. He knew she was dying, or already dead. She might have made a good partner. Jack might become one, someday, but not tonight.

He got into his truck and drove away. Slowly. Calmly. To all the world—at least, beyond that corner—he looked like no one special. Two police cars passed him.

Nick drove toward I-4, but avoided the field.

1.

Awareness came slowly
. First, there were sounds: distant city noises, the fountain in the lake, a radio playing “Dancing With Myself.”

Jack laid on the bed, staring at Lisa’s body, lost in thoughtlessness. Sunlight streamed in through the window. It was a perfect blue sky. Her body was cold. Stiff. The demonic blood insider her had done a horrible job, burning most of her insides and leaving little more than a shell.

“Don’t cry,” she said.

Jack rubbed his eyes. “Lisa?” He smiled, reached toward her. She held up her hand, but they couldn’t touch.

“I’m gone,” she said.

He clenched his eyes shut. Nodded. “You shouldn’t be.”

“I am,” she said.

His unsteady smile widened. “I’m a
DarkWalker
. We’ll still be together.”

She shook her head; they both knew she’d never be able to leave the apartment. “I can’t stay,” she said. “I’m going away.”

He opened his eyes. The whites were raw.

“I’m going away,” she said again. “But I’ll always be with you. A little.”

“I can’t . . .”

“You can,” she said. “You don’t have to end like this. My time is over. This . . . this gift . . . Jack, I love you. I will always remember you, whatever happens next. And I will miss you.”

“I can’t,” he said again, leaving it at that. He wiped moisture from his eyes.

She touched his chest, the untended wound the imp had left. It was infected and needed medical attention. “I love you,” she said again, “and I want you to live. For both of us.”

“I’ll stay,” Jack said. “We can talk about . . . about anything. We can stay together.”

“Only a short while,” she said. “I’m . . . being pulled. I won’t be here for long.”

“For as long as we have,” Jack said.

They talked, then, about things they had loved in childhood, dreams and other silly things. They laughed. She convinced him to drink water, to eat, to wash himself. And slowly she faded. Within a day, she was gone.

Jack Harlow lingered a long while before leaving.

2.

The ghost Lisa Sparrow watched from the bedroom where she’d died. She didn’t really know what was going to happen to her next. She wasn’t going anywhere. Tricking Jack’s eyes had been easy. Her heart, however, crumbled to dust when he left. She cried real tears then, drops that left wet dots on the bed.

John
Urbancik
lived in
Orlando
, twice, and on
Long Island
, twice, as well as a few other places here and there. He started writing comic books at a young age, but those one-page scripts are mercifully lost to the ravages of time. He went to school, did a few jobs in a few places, met a few people,
learned
a few things. In his spare time, he plays with his Nikon. His business card says “Writer.
Photographer.
Adventurer.
Man.” That sums up all the vital parts. You can find him at
www.darkfluidity.com
.

Evileye
Books publishes horror, dark fiction, crime, supernatural thrillers, and science fiction. For more information please visit our website,
Evileyebooks.com
.