Page 2 of Tattered Huntress
Jimmy, a large, muscled human whose face was etched with a criss-cross of ugly, shiny scars, held out a small, sealed bag as I approached. I took it from him and counted: ten little white pills, each one marked with a crude S. I tried not to let my relief show, though I didn’t have the patience or the willpower to wait. As soon as I turned my back on him, I fumbled inside the bag for a pill and threw it into my mouth, holding it on my tongue until I felt the familiar bitter fizz. Then I swallowed. Everything would be okay now.Iwould be okay now.
I waited for the spider’s silk to take effect. It was manufactured in a grotty lab somewhere and had nothing to do with actual arachnids – not as far as I was aware. It was only called spider’s silk because once you were caught in its web there was almost no chance of escape, no matter how hard you struggled to free yourself.
Withdrawal symptoms started with shaking and nausea before moving on to hallucinations, hysteria and palpitations. They usually ended up in total insanity followed by cardiac arrest. I’d come dangerously close a few times in the past and I had no desire to experience them again, regardless of the long-term risks of taking the drug.
I held my breath as the night sky slowly sharpened and my blood started to tingle. That was when the high-pitched scream ripped through the chill air.
I whipped around, my gaze snagging with Jimmy’s. Heblinked at me slowly and raised his massive shoulders in a shrug. ‘Didn’t hear nothing,’ he said.
I hissed in irritation then sprinted in the scream’s direction.
I saw the woman as soon as I left Fleshmarket Close. She’d been backed into a corner, her spine pressed against a doorway as her hands, still clutching her handbag, flailed in front of her face. One of her shoes had come off, a high-heeled black-lacquered thing whose design would do no-one other than the wealthy designer any favours. It lay uselessly on the cobbles, the only obstacle between her and the snarling vampire who was on all fours in front of her.
Cumbubbling bollocks. I watched the vampire advance on her for a single frozen second, then I rolled my eyes and launched myself at him.
What most people don’t realise is that vampires are stupid. The general public focus on the idea that vamps are extraordinary predators with terrifying skills instead of the fact that once they’ve latched onto a target they don’t notice anything else – even when they’re about to be attacked themselves. Even when I’d leapt onto the vampire’s back, wrapped my arm around his neck and begun to squeeze, the undead creature still only had eyes for its intended victim.
The woman, whose terror had enveloped her like a shroud, squeaked. Unfortunately, that sound only increased the vampire’s bloodlust. I grunted, doing my best to hold back his foul, rotting body as his dirt-caked hands scrabbled towards her.
I tightened my grip on his neck but it obviously wasn’t enough, so I gritted my teeth and smashed the elbow of my other arm into the side of his head. I heard the crunch of bone as his cheekbone shattered. Needless to say, the injury didn’t slow him down – I wasn’t sure that he’d even noticed.
I dropped my legs on either side of his body until I wasstraddling him, then dug my heels into the ground to ensure that he couldn’t advance any further.
The woman began chanting a trembling litany, her words running into each other until they were barely intelligible. ‘I don’t want to die, Idontwanttodie, Idonwanodie.’
I could feel the vampire’s sinewy muscles straining against me. My hold on him was slipping and he jerked forward an inch. Then another.
‘Idonwanodie.’
‘Lady,’ I muttered, ‘you need to be quiet.’
‘Idonwanodie.’
Confronted with her own mortality, she was beyond hearing me. I yanked harder on the vamp’s neck and was rewarded with a brief moan, but my hold wasn’t enough. I ran my tongue over my lips and focused. It had rained recently and there was a helpful trail of puddles to my right. I half-closed my eyes.
‘Idonwan—’
The dirty water from the largest puddle flew through the air and smacked the woman in the face. She gasped, stopping her chant in favour of blinking rapidly in my direction as the water dribbled down her cheeks and merged with her tears. Good. That was what I’d been aiming for.
‘You’re panicking,’ I said, raising my voice so she could hear me above the vampire’s guttural snarl. ‘I need you to grab your shoe and pass it to me.’ The woman stared at me through her mascara-streaked tears. I tried again. ‘Pick up your shoe and give it to me.’
I waved my free hand in the air but that was a mistake because it relaxed my grip on the vampire’s neck. He lurched forward, his fangs snapping.
I half-expected the woman to lose her brief return to sanity once again, but the vamp’s lunge had the opposite effect. Shedarted forward, scooped up her fallen shoe and threw it to me. Thankfully, I caught it.
Immediately I clutched the toe, twisted my wrist and slammed the pointed heel into the vampire’s ear. Three inches of designer steel embedded itself in his head with a loud crunch followed by a soggy squelch. Damn, that was satisfying. That silly stiletto had its uses after all.
I let go of the vamp’s neck and he crashed forward, his skull thudding onto the damp cobbles. As I stood up and brushed myself off, the woman rushed forward to give me a grateful hug. I frowned and quickly held up my hand, indicating that she needed to stay back. ‘Don’t get too close,’ I warned. ‘He’s not dead.’ Not yet.
She squeaked again and jumped into the doorway as the vamp’s legs twitched. I circled around his body and considered, then dug my hand into one of my back pockets and retrieved an old receipt that was scrunched up inside it. It wasn’t ideal kindling but it would do in a pinch.
Concentrating hard, I tossed the little piece of paper towards the vampire and it began to smoke and curl at the edges. I concentrated harder until it finally caught fire as it landed on the nub of the vampire’s bony spine.
I nipped around, grabbed the woman by the shoulders and hauled her away.
‘Wh-what?’
‘We need to get to a safe distance,’ I explained.
