Page 61 of Stalk the Dark
“What is that?”
“Mullo,” Padma said, eyes wide, hand on her heart.
“I have no idea what that is.”
“Spectral suckers,” Edwin provided. He twisted the wheel, turning the van with a screech and taking us away from the mist back toward the main road.
We hit the residential street, and Padma relaxed in her seat.
“Mullo…” Merry frowned. “Did we ever…”
“No!” Padma and Edwin said in unison.
I’d never heard of this kind of vampire before. “Is it a new breed?”
“No,” Edwin said, eyes on the road. “It’s…old, and honestly nothing to worry about as long as we avoid their mist. They’re a Sangualex problem anyway.”
We hit traffic again, and I glanced at the dashboardclock. “Fuck. It’s almost six. The Exciatio starts at nine.”
Edwin flipped on the radio, and a nasal pitched voice informed us of an accident that was causing disruption.
“We need to find an alternate route,” he muttered.
“Oooh, what about Fiscome Way,” Merry said, “then down Filo Road? It should bring us close to Stable Road. We could park there and walk the rest of the way.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Edwin said.
Ten minutes later, we parked up on a side street and grabbed our gear for the twenty-minute walk to the carriage stable.
A shadow swooped overhead and landed on a nearby lamppost. A Raven, smaller than Pollux, sat staring at us.
“They’re everywhere,” Merry said. “Ignore them.”
We walked fast down a couple of residential streets, then across an industrial estate with boarded-up warehouses. Empty food packets rolled across the ground.
“I remember this area being much nicer,” Merry said.
“We’re almost there,” Edwin said. “Stable Road is just on the other side of the estate.”
My scalp tightened, and I scanned the shadows around us. “I don’t think we’re alone.”
“I think you’re right,” Padma said. “Just keep walking.”
“Three o’clock,” Edwin said, jaw tight.
“Nine,” Merry said.
And then a figure appeared right in front of us—wiry, gaunt, with deep-set eyes and sporting a tattered suit jacket, black pants, and suspiciously shiny shoes.
Back in the Fringe, I’d dealt with what we called sucker rats, vampires that lived underground and carried a disease that allowed them to turn humans with the saliva in their bite. They’d been the only kind of vampire the Order had allowed us to exterminate, and I’d since learned it was because the purebloods wanted them gone.
According to the dossier the Order provided, these suckers and several more breeds were mistakes—vampires made by the pureborn that went wrong—something altering in the blood to spawn an infection. There was treatment available now for humans who got bitten, but it only worked if taken within the first few hours of being infected, because even though Dracul law forbade turning a human without the proper authority and against their will, thesemistakesdidn’t care. Collectively, they were called scavengers, spreading vampirism to many undesirables.
But just like the born vamps, these suckers had hierarchies too. Above the sucker rats were the sewer suckers, slightly more intelligent, and despite their name, they didn’t live in sewers, choosing instead tohole up in abandoned buildings, buildings like the warehouse across from us.
And that’s the breed I was certain we were now surrounded by.
“Hello there, fair traveler,” the sewer rat said. “You seem to have stumbled into our territory, and you may not be aware that there is a toll to pay if you wish to pass.”
